US President Donald Trump used part of his speech addressing the crowd at the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Wednesday to discuss the motivations behind his crypto policies, saying China’s regulatory landscape was a factor.
In a Wednesday speech at the WEF’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Trump said he supported the signing of the payment stablecoin-focused legislation, the GENIUS Act, in July because it was “politically good” and “China wanted that market, too.”
“[I]t is politically popular,” said Trump on crypto. “But it’s, much more importantly, we have to make it so that China doesn’t get the hold of it. And once they have that hold, we’re not going to be able to get it back.”
Trump’s speech in Davos marked the second time the US president addressed the WEF since taking office in January 2025. Speaking virtually from Washington, D.C. at the WEF’s 2025 meeting, Trump pledged to make the US the “world capital of artificial intelligence and crypto.”
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Trump’s Davos speech began with speculation that he could sign a digital asset market structure bill under consideration in the Senate “very soon.” The legislation, called the CLARITY Act, was delayed for a markup earlier this month after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said he could not support the bill “as written.”
Armstrong and other crypto industry leaders will be attending events in Davos this week as part of the WEF.
Will China’s digital yuan present a challenge to US dollar-pegged stablecoins?
Although Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law in July, the text of the bill requires implementation 120 days after US agencies approve regulations or 18 months after enactment. Some experts have said that the CLARITY Act may also put US dollar-pegged stablecoins at a disadvantage to China’s digital yuan without clarification on rewards.
The People’s Bank of China started allowing commercial banks in the country to pay interest on digital yuan deposits in January. Many US banking groups, in contrast, continue to fight for language in the CLARITY Act to ban third‑party platforms and issuers from paying stablecoin yields.
As of Wednesday, the US Senate Banking Committee had not scheduled another markup on the CLARITY Act, and some lawmakers and industry leaders have signaled it could be weeks before the bill returns.
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