As Trump spoke in Davos, Washington moved in parallel. The Supreme Court examined whether a sitting president can remove a Federal Reserve governor, a case that could upend decades of central-bank independence. A ruling in Trump’s favor would mark a historic shift, transferring monetary authority away from insulated technocrats and back toward elected leadership accountable to voters.

The impact was immediate. Markets wavered, geopolitical risk spiked, and renewed tariff threats toward Europe exposed growing fractures in the transatlantic economic order. The age of quiet deals behind closed doors is fading, replaced by open confrontation.