Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday during the World Economic Forum conference in Davos, Switzerland, the White House confirmed Tuesday.
Trump, the first U.S. president to attend Davos in 20 years, will have a full day of meetings in Davos on Thursday and then deliver a keynote address to the forum on Friday before returning to the United States later that day.
White House senior economic adviser Gary Cohn said Trump will use his speech to encourage global companies to invest in the United States and take advantage of Trump's corporate tax cuts.
He will also stress his "America First" policies and seek more reciprocal trade policies from U.S. allies, Cohn said, in keeping with Trump's belief that international trade deals are tilted against the United States. In addition to meetings with world leaders, Trump will also host a small dinner for European business executives on Thursday night.
Netanyahu, who just returned from a state visit to India, has already left for the Davos conference, which he attends almost every year. In addition to Trump, Netanyahu is scheduled to hold meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Swiss Federal Council President Alain Berset, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, as well as with a number of heads of major corporations.
"I will advance the standing of Israel, which has already taken shape as a global technological power," Netanyahu said ahead of his departure to Switzerland.
Netanyahu is slated to address not only economic issues at Davos, but also speak with European leaders about their opposition to changes to the Iran nuclear deal, which Netanyahu wants altered or canceled, a demand that the U.S. supports.
The 2015 Iran agreement is one of the issues Trump is slated to discuss with British Prime Minister Theresa May, along with North Korea and the Syrian war.
"The coming weeks … are the last opportunity to try and introduce real – not cosmetic – changes in the dangerous nuclear agreement with Iran," Netanyahu said.
"Our policy is to prevent the terrorist regime in Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons, which would endanger us, the Middle East, and the entire world," the prime minister said.
