U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday lavished praise on his country's "economic boom" in the Swiss resort of Davos, in a bid observers say to deflect attention from the ongoing impeachment trial against him in Washington.

"The United States is in the midst of an economic boom the likes of which the world has never seen before," Trump said at the World Economic Forum, in remarks that resemble a stump speech at a domestic campaign rally.

He referred to high job creation numbers, low unemployment rates, growing workers' wages and other factors to show that "America is winning again like never before."

Trump's trip to Davos came as the impeachment case against him was moving on in the U.S. Senate, where the impeachment trial formally kicked off on Tuesday, with the chamber beginning to debate rules guiding the process.

On a separate occasion in Davos, the U.S. president once again lashed out at the impeachment process, saying "that whole thing is a total hoax."

In the eyes of many analysts, Trump's emphasis on the economy was aimed at taking the focus off the impeachment trial.

"Trump's best card in the United States and around the world is the strong economy," Darrell West, a senior fellow with Brookings Institution, a think tank, told Xinhua.

"He argues that his stewardship has been strong and delivered great economic news," West said, adding that Trump sees this as a "way to make the argument that none of the other controversies matter much."

Experts overwhelmingly predict that the Republican-dominated Senate will acquit the president, with many believing that the trial will cause no major impact on the November elections.

"My guess is that it fades into the background and just becomes one more Trump scandal," Christopher Galdieri, an assistant professor at Saint Anselm College, told Xinhua, noting "that doesn't mean zero impact."

The accumulation of controversies has kept Trump's approval ratings in mediocre territory, Galdieri said, adding that any other president, amid an economy this strong, would be "cruising to re-election."

Meanwhile, others painted a not-so-rosy picture of the U.S. economy. After the central bank's policy meeting in December, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell noted that although household spending has been strong, supported by a healthy job market, rising incomes and solid consumer confidence, "business investment and exports remain weak, and manufacturing output has declined over the past year."

A panel of professional forecasters recently surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics estimated that the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) growth would slow from 2.9 percent in 2018 to 2.3 percent in 2019.