“If you look at the list, there’s an awful lot of world leaders, there’s an awful lot of finance chairs, there’s an awful lot of business people,” Mr. Mnuchin said. “This is an important economic agenda.”

The World Economic Forum is not just any economic conference. The cost of a basic membership and ticket is more than $70,000, and attendees tend to incur heavy expenses on luxury cars or helicopters to get from the airport in Zurich to the resort in Davos, where panel discussions on subjects like global income inequality and the threat of climate change are held.

Those attending include top executives like Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, Bill Gates of Microsoft and Ginni Rometty of IBM, along with Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, and scores of other executives, economists and academics. Celebrities are also a mainstay, and last year’s forum included interviews with Matt Damon, Shakira and Forest Whitaker.

The parties surrounding the conference also feature celebrities such as Bono and Leonardo DiCaprio. As for more interactive entertainment, one popular event is a simulation of a refugee’s experience, where attendees crawl on their hands and knees to better understand what it is like to evade an advancing army.

The World Economic Forum has in the past drawn scorn from anti-globalization groups as a symbol of lavishness and elitism, and at times attendees have tried to be less conspicuous. In the wake of the financial crisis in 2009, Gary D. Cohn, who is the director of Mr. Trump’s National Economic Council and was then chief operating officer at Goldman Sachs, was among the banking executives who opted to fly commercial to get to the forum.