Gavin Newsom's message to world leaders in Munich was clear: it's time to start thinking about the next president of the United States.
“Donald Trump is fleeting,” the California governor and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said yesterday during a panel on climate change at the Munich Security Conference. “In three years, he will be gone.”
Newsom has been positioning California for years as a permanent counterweight to Trumpism, especially on climate policy, which the state has been promoting as the White House retreats. Politico recalls that Newsom sent a similar message at an international climate conference in Brazil last year, presenting California as the leader of American climate policy in the absence of federal leadership.
While it is not unusual for California governors to use the state's economic power to influence the global climate agenda, Newsom's international activity is also a personal political platform - an opportunity to test his diplomatic skills, strengthen relationships with heads of state, and profile himself as a foreign policy advocate in the post-Trump era.
He is one of several potential Democratic presidential candidates offering a different tone to Vice President J.D. Vance, who is considered the frontrunner for the Republican nomination and whose harsh criticism of Europe at the same forum last year sparked a backlash.
On Friday, some world leaders suggested they themselves expect political change in Washington, although it remains uncertain whether the next administration will be more prepared to respond to climate challenges.
Newsom stressed last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos that US climate policy is not a matter of one administration's decisions. He also criticized some European leaders for what he said was excessive condescension towards Trump.
He called on Europe to act more confidently and, instead of adapting to every change in Washington, to build a long-term and consistent policy - with the message that the United States, after the change of government, will "return to full engagement" on the climate and international scene.
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