Despite the current world situation, Patrick Chappatte has not stopped laughing.Bild: Keystone
Interview
The most famous Swiss cartoonist explains in an interview why Donald Trump makes him unemployed, why he feels sorry for Karin Keller-Sutter – and why, despite everything, he believes in the “power of laughter”.
25.01.2026, 22:2925.01.2026, 22:29
Florence Vuichard / ch media
Mr. Chappatte, Donald Trump must be a feast for cartoonists. You have to cheer inside.
Patrick Chappatte: No, on the contrary. I’m stopping.
Are you not serious now?
I’m desperate, I don’t know what to do anymore. I was just at the WEF event on the “Board of Peace”, the so-called Peace Council. And I don’t know whether I was witnessing a farce or something completely unreal. I’ve never seen anything like it. They are currently in the process of making me unemployed.
Many cartoonists fear it is artificial intelligence that will steal their jobs…
No, it’s reality. Reality as Trump sees it. He introduced us to the post-Trump United Nations this week. Just look at the logo: a kind of cheap copy of the UN logo.
But gold plated.
Gold plated, always. And the USA is at the center. The good news is that he even dropped Greenland in the end – you can only see a tiny piece of it. And a small part of the South American continent. If you zoomed in a little closer, you would only see Trump’s belly button. And that would be completely enough. Just his big belly button.
The USA at the center: The logo of Trump’s so-called “Peace Council”.Image: CH Media
But other nations have joined Trump’s “Board for Peace”?
But Trump is at the center. The Davos show was a kind of submission to Trump. The heads of government and state had to sit on stage in a humiliating position in front of the audience and listen to Trump congratulate himself. That’s pretty unprecedented. And then we are presented with PowerPoint slides about Gaza with AI-generated images of high-rise buildings. So it’s no longer about history, no longer about international law or international institutions. It’s just a real estate business.
Trump didn’t hide it either and explicitly said that it all starts with real estate. Also peace.
He is very transparent, unfiltered. This reminded me of a caricature of mine: I showed him standing in front of the rubble of Gaza, saying: “Great real estate development potential!” That was in January 2025, before Trump was even in office. A year later, official US policy is to turn Gaza into a major real estate project. Reality has completely overtaken the caricature. You don’t know what to do anymore. Laugh or cry – or both at the same time.
Nevertheless, every year you come to Davos to meet the rich and powerful at the WEF.
Yes, for me it is always an interesting insight, a journey into another world. But this year Davos was hijacked by Trump. You saw it in his big speech: It’s like the old uncle at the table who doesn’t let anyone speak anymore and then gets caught up in his obsessions. And we’re all sitting there as hostages to this old uncle. Except he has the greatest power in the world. By the way, Al Gore stood in front of closed doors. It was a journalist from an Arab country who asked the staff to let in the former vice president of the United States. Only then did they open the door.
At the WEF, the powerful sometimes have to stand in line.
For me this time one of the stars in Davos was Gavin Newsom, the governor of California. Everywhere he appeared there were crowds of journalists. I tried to talk to him briefly for two days. It ended up working out and I thanked him for all the Trump drawing ideas he gave me. He compared it to everything under the sun – even a tyrannosaurus.
In an interview with CH Media he spoke of a “wrecking ball”.
Now he’s copying me. I’ve already drawn that. I say: you can no longer differentiate. I’m stopping.
Did you also draw Trump’s appearances this week?
I made a cartoon that appeared on the front page of Canard Enchaîné on the day of Trump’s speech. He then shows the entire Davos audience the middle finger, and the audience applauds. In a way, this is also a summary of his speech. In these times, newspapers should actually hire cartoonists again in large numbers – especially those who no longer have any.
“Trump in Davos”: Cartoon published in “Le Canard enchaîné” on January 21, 2026.Image: Patrick Chappatte
Why is the number of cartoons in newspapers decreasing?
Several things are coming together: the economic pressure to which the media is exposed and, associated with it, the declining appetite of editors for controversy. Publishers get nervous when there are polemics and people threaten to cancel their subscriptions. There is simply less resilience to scandals in a weakened economy.
Has Trump or his entourage ever complained about your cartoons?
No. I still work for the Boston Globe. But there are fewer and fewer US newspapers that publish critical Trump drawings. The great cartoonist Ann Telnaes has resigned from the Washington Post after one of her cartoons about Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and Trump was rejected. And the Los Angeles Times belongs to a Trump fan.
You personally never had censorship?
In the recent past, some drawings about Gaza have not appeared. There were reactions after the Hamas attack and in the weeks and months afterward. This was a very difficult topic – especially in the German-speaking press. There was an extremely high sensitivity to criticism of the Israeli war, which was brutal and would have required strong drawings – not timid ones. This led to discussions with editors-in-chief.
Is the topic still sensitive?
Fewer. Everything is fine now – thanks to Trump. He made peace. He creates a grotesque UN. A humorous UN. With Putin on the “Board of Peace”. This is the ultimate joke. Middle finger or joke – I don’t know.
To person
The internationally known Swiss cartoonist Patrick Chappatte writes for “NZZ am Sonntag”, “Le Temps” and the “Boston Globe” – as well as for the satirical newspaper “Le Canard Enchainé”. Patrick Chappatte, 58, also previously worked for “Spiegel” and the “New York Times”. He has been regularly visiting the WEF in Davos since 2001. He chairs the Freedom Cartoonists Foundation and lives in Geneva with his wife and three sons.
Chappatte has already received several awardsBild: keystone
Can you laugh about everything?
Laughter is perhaps the last thing we have left. Especially in dictatorships or autocracies. Even in despair. I suspect that even the people of Gaza make jokes in the worst moments. This is a remnant of dignity that remains with us: to laugh at those who harm us. Laughter demeans those in power. It also relieves the pain a little. I continue to believe in the power of laughter – and the ridiculous. To the power of press drawings, images, satire. To show the power that the king is naked. And naked he’s ridiculous. If you imagine Trump naked, it’s clear he’s ridiculous.
We don’t want to know everything. How do you actually assess Trump’s tirade against Switzerland and Karin Keller-Sutter?
I almost felt sorry for our minister. That was hard, horrible. I thought of a drawing I did when the 15 percent tariff deal with Switzerland was announced: In it, she picks up the phone and everyone rushes in to stop her from calling Trump to thank him. Trump treats others like a bully in the schoolyard, as he demonstrated to us with his humiliating manner. He acts completely unfiltered.
Then he would at least be honest?
This is a little worrying from a psychiatric perspective. It’s the autocratic model: three-hour speeches, and all subordinates and ministers have to listen. I think we’re slowly getting there with Trump. And everyone must begin their speech by praising Donald Trump. Always. Karin Keller-Sutter, as a good Swiss woman, did not do that. She believed in explaining things and sticking to reality. That was very Swiss of her.
Is she one of your favorite characters to draw?
I didn’t draw them often. But now it has taken on great importance for the press drawing.
And who else do you like to draw from the local staff? Christoph Blocher is no longer as present.
Unfortunately! Blocher is the most influential figure for the cartoonists. To a certain extent, we Swiss anticipated the rest of the world: we had our right-wing nationalist billionaire populist earlier than anyone else – but his damage was limited to Switzerland. Now we have one of a completely different caliber.
But Blocher and the SVP respect institutions and stick to the norms.
I gently compare Blocher to Trump – without really believing in it. In Switzerland there is still a level of decency and dialogue that we should cultivate. Because here too there are increasingly strong polarization tendencies. Minorities are put under greater pressure. The public service is under very worrying attack. Switzerland cannot afford polarization. For us, polarization means: the consensus is breaking. But if you transfer the power principle to Switzerland, there is no longer any Switzerland. Humor helps against this.
What do you mean?
Humor is, paradoxically, a look at oneself and at others. You laugh at yourself and others. In Switzerland we laugh at our language regions, our peculiarities, our clichés. Yes, they are clichés – but they exist in people’s minds. Maybe humor puts a little oil into the gears of coexistence.
But it can also divide.
In recent years we have taken humor very seriously. There have been countless shitstorms and dramas about what you can and can’t say. The situation has eased a little. But we have forgotten that humor doesn’t just divide. Laughing at others can help de-dramatize life together.
Trump’s humor too?
Many autocrats use humor. But humor in the mouth of the strong is an instrument of power. Paradoxically, humor is, on the one hand, the weapon of the weak against the strong – but also a lever of power. Anyone who makes others laugh has power over them. Autocrats use humor in demeaning ways. We saw that with Trump. A third of the room laughed – somewhat embarrassed. It’s uncomfortable.
But no one intervened.
We know this from working relationships: When the boss makes jokes, everyone laughs. The favorite subordinate is the one who laughs the loudest.
Did you find the cartoons from “Charlie Hebdo” after the Crans-Montana fire accident funny?
I don’t want to criticize my colleagues. For 15 years I have been defending “Charlie Hebdo” on principle, not because of good or bad taste. I found the drawing tasteless – but the editors have the freedom to make tasteless drawings. What amazed me is the number of people who have spread it around to say, look how tasteless this is.
Many were outraged.
Either you support freedom of expression – or you don’t. If you stand by that, you have to be prepared to see things that repulse you, that you find bad – and then keep turning the pages. When you feed the fire of outrage, you fuel the outrage itself. That’s absurd. It is an outrage machine with which we simultaneously communicate our superiority: “Look how tasteless – and how morally correct I am.” This is our time.
Back to WEF. How did you find it this year?
The WEF used to provide a stage for political cartoons. In 2019, for example, our foundation even organized an international exhibition on the promenade. A few years earlier, around a dozen cartoonists were invited with carte blanche to open the WEF events. It was saucy and had salt and pepper. Because the forum wanted to be a place where everything could be discussed. Times may have changed.
Dialogue is still very important in Davos – at least on paper.
But pepper is no longer fashionable. Today the solution is a real estate project. It begins in Gaza – and will end all over the world.
