The governor of California, Democrat Gavin Newsom, raised the political pulse against President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos, presenting himself to global elites as an alternative model to the isolation and authoritarian drift of the White House.
According to a report of EFENewsom’s presence at one of the most important economic events in the world offered him not only a platform to project a counterbalancing image, but also to build a network of influence and stability among influential personalities that transcends the national sphere.
“He is clearly preparing to run for President in 2028. While his potential Democratic opponents are addressing audiences in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, he is addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, a very advantageous platform,” he told EFE Dan Schnur, professor at the Institute of Government Studies at the University of California-Berkeley.
Donald Trump’s push for new oil and gas drilling off the West Coast is an illegal betrayal of the American people.
Trump is caving to Big Oil and opening the door to even more climate-exacerbated disasters.
— Governor Gavin Newsom (@CAgovernor) January 24, 2026
According to Schnur, the California governor was invited to the forum “as a counterpoint to Trump. So, from a purely political perspective, Newsom couldn’t ask for anything better.”
The Spanish agency considers that the leader of the main Democratic bastion gave Trump a taste of his own medicine, since “he attended Davos with a speech in which he reinforced multilateralism and in which he sold his government model in California as the true engine of the future.”
Beyond taking the lead on issues of global concern, such as the energy transition or regulation of the uses of artificial intelligence (AI), a field in which California has been at the forefront with measures such as limiting the replication of voices and images of actors, the governor presented himself as “the other America”, detached from Washington.
California, the fifth largest economy in the world
The governor of California, which would be the fifth largest economy in the world if it were a country, is not only emerging “in the race for the Presidency of the United States in 2028, but also in Europe’s image that another United States is possible, of another vision, or that not everyone in the United States thinks like Trump,” he adds.
His strategy follows in Trump’s footsteps between 2021 and 2024, when after losing re-election to Joe Biden, he maintained his own agenda to inconvenience and create alliances that would try to destabilize the new Administration.
During that time out of power, he maintained communications with figures such as the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Órban, lent his financial support to the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, and met in 2024, when he was still president, with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to mediate a ceasefire in Gaza.
Parallel diplomacy
Adopting this method of parallel diplomacy “is very clear that it irritates Trump, and the fact that he has been elevated to this level should frustrate him even more,” the analyst asserts.
While Newsom cannot exercise power above the White House, “he gives international trade the opportunity to progress, even with opposition from Washington. Since California is the largest state in the US, it has a disproportionate presence in these discussions,” he adds.
Kamala Harris drops out of California governor’s race in 2026
What he did in Davos aims to benefit not only Newsom’s image once he finishes his term this year, but also that of his party in the midterm elections, in which a resounding Democratic victory would raise a legislative wall that would stop the most radical policies, the analyst points out.
“You have already seen trump take a step back and give some of his voters in favor of tariffs very poor marks for his management of the economy, so it is very possible that the Democrats will profit,” said the California-Berkeley academic.
