'Global economic outlook': World Economic Forum wraps up in Davos

[00:00:00] Steve: Andrew Ross Sorkin joining us now from Davos. Andrew, great coverage this week. [00:00:05] Andrew Ross Sorkin: Thank you, Steve. Great to see you. We've been here, as you know, all week, the World Economic Forum gathering here in Davos. Now, officially complete, literally, as of just about an hour ago now, I moderated what was the closing panel. It was focused on the global economic outlook. And as you'd expect, we talked about global trade, the impact of AI. And one particular moment, though, I want to show you stood out from ECB President Christine Lagarde. At the very end of the session, when we got into a philosophical conversation about trust and about what we've seen here at the World Economic Forum this week, about relationships and allies and loyalty, and this idea of maybe becoming a little bit more transactional and what that means. Take a look at what you said. [00:00:50] Christine Lagarde: Trust and truth go well together. And what I take away from this week is that we have a duty of truth. We as institutions that provide numbers, that provide analysis of what is happening, hence my signals versus the noise. And this is how we can maintain trust. Second observation, it takes time to build trust. It doesn't take much time to erode it. I think trust has been eroded a little bit, maybe a lot. But our duty in the spirit of dialogue is definitely to rebuild what could have [00:01:29] Andrew Ross Sorkin: been eroded. You know, in many ways, she captured what has been a remarkable split screen of this week. You know, there was a remarkable sort of whiplash throughout the week. As we started the week, just so many sort of, so much hand-wringing about the potential for military action over trying to gain Greenland. Real questions about what the relationship between the U.S. and Europe and the rest of the world looked like. You had Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, speak quite openly about changing relationships and possibly even trying to establish a relationship with China. And then, of course, the president came, had this meeting with the head of NATO, has now set up a framework for Greenland so that the military action and all of that came off the table as if all those conversations were moot. And yet, underneath it is really still this issue of trust and just what ultimately happens between the United States and, I would argue, large parts of the rest of the world, because you can feel it. And I would say it's not—I say that apolitically, because there were so many U.S. CEOs who have actually talked about that, even still in the last 24 hours, and how they think it could potentially even impact their business over time. You know, we've seen the market continue to do relatively well and be remarkably resilient despite all of the back and forth. But it has been perhaps one of the most news-making weeks here in Davos, Switzerland, in years, with President Trump and so many members of the administration here, of course, including the Treasury Secretary and Howard Lutnick and Marco Rubio and so many others. And I imagine this will be—we may see them again and again in the future. The president, I think, liked it here in Davos. I'm just looking at the rest of the crew. And it's been pretty interesting to watch throughout. I've got a quick programming note, because coming up in the 7 a.m. hour, we're going to show you an interview that I had with Google's DeepMind CEO, Demis Hassibis. And then you're not going to want to miss this one. And I got to tell you, it was unbelievable. At 8:30 this morning, I have an exclusive interview sitting down with the founder of Binance, CZ. He's speaking out about his time in prison, being pardoned by President Trump. Take just a little look at that right now. [00:03:45] CZ: Much more freedom, much more liberated. So yeah, I think it's just psychologically, it's like a burden that's just lifted. So I feel much more—I was a free man before, but with a felon status. But now I'm a real free man. [00:04:00] Andrew Ross Sorkin: We get into everything that happened in his life and what's happening now in the world of crypto. If you'd indulge me, Steve, I just want to thank the entire crew here at CNBC who's put together just a remarkable situation here throughout the week. On behalf of Becky and Joe and I, Joe and Becky are on their way back to the United States. I'm headed there tomorrow. Hopefully—I don't know what you guys think the weather in New York is going to be like before the snow hits on Sunday. The snow hits on Sunday and hope to see you all live on Monday. [00:04:33] Steve: No indulgement necessary, Andrew. I know what it's like. You go and do a shoot for an hour. It takes 30 people, and you guys did three days with three anchors. I want to ask you this question, Andrew. Bottom line it for us, there's a Grateful Dead song with the following line. It's the future's here. We are it. We're on our own. Is this the Davos where the rest of the world came to the realization that it could not rely on America? [00:05:03] Andrew Ross Sorkin: You're asking the question directly, so I'll answer it directly. I think the answer is yes. I think that a lot of the European countries and others now believe that they do need to invest in their own economies, in their own defense. And there's an argument, by the way, including by members in the EU and elsewhere that think that that, to some degree, can be a good thing. But, of course, there's also concerns about what that means on the other end. And we will see where the tariff story goes and everything else. But the remarkable part actually is how resilient the economy thus far has been. And despite all of this, how how optimistic folks are across the world right now about the economy. Now, last point, Davos can oftentimes be a contraindicator. So many years we've had a sort of the mood music, the vibes have come off either super positive or super negative. And if you looked at the rest of the year, it's turned out to be the opposite. So take it all for what you will.