DAVOS, Switzerland — President Trump is the biggest no-show at this year’s meeting of the World Economic Forum. But Brazil’s new leader, Jair Bolsonaro, a man whose nickname back home is the “Trump of the Tropics,” stepped in to take up the populist mantle on Tuesday.

Like Mr. Trump did when he came to Davos last year, Mr. Bolsonaro tried to smooth the edges of the insurgent message that vaulted him into the presidency last fall. He pitched Brazil to the well-heeled audience gathered in this Alpine ski resort as a good place to do business — a country committed to rooting out rampant corruption and rolling back regulations.

But Mr. Bolsonaro also said Brazil would purge left-wing ideology from its politics and society, and he made no apologies for emphasizing economic growth, something his critics say will come at the cost of protecting Brazil’s environment.

“We represent a turning point in the eyes of the Brazilian people — a turning point in which ideological bias will no longer take place,” Mr. Bolsonaro said in a brief address to a packed room, which was greeted with perfunctory applause. “Our motto is ‘God above all things.’ ”