The World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos has come to represent all that is both good and bad in globalization. Begun in 1971 as an annual meeting place for international managers, it was morphed by brilliant marketing into its present form in which some 2,500 of the world’s great and good pay a great deal of money to meet in the security of this Swiss ski resort.

The Renault-Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn was the epitome of Davos man. Born in Brazil to Lebanese parents, Ghosn was a star student in Paris who turned around the fortunes of the French carmaker and then did much the same for an ailing Nissan, on the way picking up an also-struggling Mitsubishi. But Ghosn has now been fired by the Japanese and is embroiled in a financial scandal that has more than a hint of Japanese chauvinism behind it.

US President Donald Trump never made a secret of his disdain for Davos and its globalization agenda. And in their turn, the international Davos sophisticates hardly sought to hide their contempt for the blustering and often boorish President. Yet oddly, the Trump administration has tried to involve Davos in its campaign against the Putin Kremlin. In October, the WEF bowed to US pressure and banned three Russian oligarchs who are subject to US sanctions following Moscow’s seizure of the Crimea, the attacks in eastern Ukraine and the overseas murders of Russian dissidents.

Aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska, head of the Russian state bank Andrei Kostin and industrialist Viktor Vekselberg were all told by the WEF that their invitations to next January’s Davos gathering had been withdrawn.

It does seem odd that the Trump administration should have bothered with Davos, given how little the President thinks of it. It is perhaps even odder that the WEF eventually agreed to comply with Washington’s wishes. There were doubtless American legal threats that may have involved financial sanctions on the organization. However, even if there were no official US government presence in the Swiss ski resort, the majority of the regular US banking, technology, industrialist and manufacturing attendees would have been glad to turn up as normal in just over a month’s time. It would be their way of snubbing Trump. And European movers and shakers would have been even more eager to carry on as usual.

Yet, in a surprising turn of events, the WEF has restored its invitations to the three Russians. At the very least, this is a coup for Kremlin diplomacy. The wrath of the Trump White House is likely now to be far more considerable than when the administration was badgering the WEF for the Russians’ exclusion. Perhaps Davos managers concluded that it had been a mistake because the bans went against their overt globalization agenda. Put bluntly, anyone who could afford to be there should be made welcome, since their wealth and power automatically made them the right sort of people to be attending this unique summit to discuss the world’s problems.

Yet regardless of how Trump now reacts, this Davos Russian wobble perhaps signals the real start of a disintegrating globalization consensus. Indeed, this might have been why the President intervened in the first place.