Amid one of the lengthiest government shutdown in US history, the Trump administration continues to spend taxpayer money on a trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that starts Jan. 21.
Donald Trump, eight cabinet members, and dozens of officials and aides including his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, have been planning to hobnob with some of the richest, most powerful people from around the world, including CEOs, philanthropists, heads of state, and royalty—the very globalists the president disparages. The Trump team may be significantly downsized if the shutdown continues, though.
Before the shutdown, hotel expenses alone had reached about $2.9 million, according to Quartz’s review of a partial list of federal spending records so far posted to a government database. Taxpayers remain on the hook for the growing tab, which includes accommodations at a nearby five-star spa where room rates in January start at more than $500 a night.
As the effects of the shutdown are being felt far and wide, there are growing questions about whether the administration should attend. Still, the US State Department has laid out hundreds of thousands more dollars for the jaunt to Davos since the shutdown started, as well as the tense days leading up to it, according to a US government spending database:
The new charges, which don’t specify the recipients of the payments, bring the current cost of the trip to roughly $3.6 million, not including the estimated $2.2 million for the cost of flying Air Force One, the presidential aircraft, between the US and Zurich and the Marine One helicopter from Zurich to Davos (which Trump and his team took last year). The final bill will almost certainly be higher still, because there is often a lag of weeks or months between when the US government spends money and then files spending records.
About 800,000 federal workers are either furloughed or working without pay and the shutdown is affecting everything from security lines at airports to the Coast Guard’s ability to check boats for safety equipment.
The White House and the Treasury Department are handling all questions about the Davos trip, spokesmen from other agencies said.
“There is a strong likelihood the delegation would downsize significantly if the shutdown were to continue to the Davos timeframe” a person familiar with the White House’s thinking told Quartz, and it would likely be led by treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin traveling with a “much smaller group.”
Nonetheless, US taxpayers would likely still be on the hook for all or part of the $3.6 million, because of Davos’s tight cancellation policies around the conference.
Trump, meanwhile, should brace himself for opposition while in Davos: Local authorities gave the Youth Socialist Party the right to stage a demonstration against him during the conference.
Cabinet officials originally set to attend the forum include Mnuchin, labor secretary Alexander Acosta, commerce secretary Wilbur Ross, secretary of state Mike Pompeo, Small Business Administration chief Linda McMahon, homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen (who is expected to quit after Davos), transportation secretary Elaine Chao, and US trade representative Robert Lighthizer.
For this year’s meeting, the State Department has obligated more than $600,000 for accommodations at the Bernina House, a small apartment building situated about a mile from the Davos Congress Centre where the WEF meetings are held and nearly $142,000 for miscellaneous “staffing apartments.” An additional $1.5 million bill is tagged for “Housing WEF” at unspecified locations.
There are two charges at the adults-only Das Inn right in town that total $320,000, and a charge of nearly $230,000 for “POTUS Functional Space” at the Intercontinental Hotel, where Trump stayed last year. The US Department of Transportation is spending $31,000 on apartments for this year’s conference. Planned WEF hotel expenditures also include $115,000 listed as “staffing,” $74,000 listed as “staffing mission,” and a $30,000 “USTR Lodging” charge at the Bad Ragaz, the five-star Swiss resort with a historical pedigree.
Despite mocking “global elites” on the campaign trail, Trump decided to attend the exclusive confab during his first year in office as well. He stayed overnight in Davos, and delivered a moribund speech backing off of the “fire and fury” nationalist rhetoric of his US political rallies.
Other sitting US presidents haven’t been regular attendees to Davos; all but Bill Clinton skipped it entirely, and he only attended the last year of his presidency.
The Trump administration managed to spend slightly less taxpayer money on his 2018 Davos trip. Government contracting documents reviewed by Quartz listed expenditures last year of over $1.8 million for lodging both in and around Davos, and at the Zurich airport Radisson Blu.
