The World Economic Forum will search for solutions to the financial crisis with some 40 world leaders — but without the top finance officials of the new US administration, occupied by the crisis or by the confirmation process at home.
They include US President Barack Obama's choice for treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, and top economic adviser Lawrence Summers, who have pulled out of the five-day event starting Wednesday, according to White House and Treasury officials.
Geithner still faces a Senate confirmation vote, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke — not an administration member but a top policy maker — also is not coming.
Steven Schrage, an analyst on international business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., said that Davos — held at a posh ski resort village with a reputation for lavish parties, multimillionaire executives and celebrity sightings — would be an awkward event for the new administration.
"It would convey a very bad signal to send a large contingent to an event that has an elite aura when there are real domestic problems," he said.
"There is expected to be a backlash against the United States, our form of capitalism and the excesses of the last few years and it might not be the best venue for the administration to launch its engagement with the world as it gets its key people in place," Schrage said.
Some in Europe have blamed less-regulated US-style capitalism for the crisis, which started over bonds based on shaky US mortgages.
The State Department has yet to decide whom it will send, but it's unlikely to be Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "I do expect that we will be represented in Davos," spokesman Robert Wood said.
The White House has confirmed that it will send top Obama adviser and confidant Valerie Jarrett.
"She really is the perfect person to have not only for this year but also in terms of cementing a good relationship going forward," said forum spokesman Mark Adams. "Given that the inauguration was just last week, given that confirmation hearings are still in some cases carrying on or only just finished, we think that this is a huge vote of confidence in what we are trying to do here."
Adams said the forum has had few cancellations this year and noted that twice as many heads of state or government are coming to Davos as in 2007. They include Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso.
Responding to the "elite" tag the forum has gained, Adams pointed to the attendance of trade unions, campaign groups, religious leaders and others. "It is the only meeting in the world that can bring together the sorts of leaders who can tackle the first real crisis of globalization," he said.
One key element of the meeting will be countering the increased threat of economic protectionism as nations try to cope with the crisis, Adams said.
A meeting of trade chiefs will take place Saturday on the sidelines of the forum. The office of the US Trade Representative said Monday that Obama's proposed trade chief Ron Kirk won't head to Davos. Acting Representative Peter Allgeier — a holdover from the Bush administration — will be present but won't speak on behalf of the new government.
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