Trump, no Limit (2026) Movie Script
April 2025,
Donald Trump called the press
to announce a new trade policy.
My fellow Americans,
this is Liberation Day.
We've been waiting for a long time.
To replenish state coffers,
he declared economic war
on the world,
imposing a brutal
and simultaneous increase
in tariffs on all trading partners.
Trump thinks that somehow
the United States can return
to that kind of golden era
of post-World War II industrial
hegemony, that he himself
is the answer to all the woes
that globalisation has inflicted
on American workers.
It's a completely new playbook that
the Trump administration is using.
So, it's adding to an intense amount
of uncertainty
in the global economy.
Some characterise our trade policy
and tariffs as a bold bet.
I think not.
We're simply levelling
the playing field.
Made up of radical economists,
powerful lobbyists
and ultraconservative advisers,
the architects of this blitzkrieg
have a common enemy in their sights
vying for the top world
power spot: China.
China has the means
to impose a balance of power
in its favour.
It's a second Cold War,
but with intense trade
between the two countries.
A dive into a violent
and chaotic economic doctrine,
between inflation risk
for the poorest
and insane profits for the richest.
A new Western,
directed by
Donald Trump himself.
Isabella DeLuca is 25.
She's one of the country's
most prominent
conservative influencers.
A Trump America icon,
she was even pardoned
by the president
after being charged
for the Capitol assault,
which she took part in
in January 2021.
Today, she hosts a news show
on His Glory TV, a Christian channel
very popular in the United States,
watched by five million people.
Five... four...
On the agenda:
conspiracy theories and fake news.
Foreign investment in China has
collapsed by 99% in three years.
That's billions slipping
out of Beijing's hands
and going straight
into the US economy.
This is exactly what I voted for.
Continuing on...
Show after show,
Isabella praises
President Trump's merits.
A new version of the president
who, according to her,
restores the pride of a weakened
America after the Biden years.
When you have a president
that doesn't talk,
can't communicate well,
doesn't know
where he's at half the time,
looks lost on stage,
falls up the stairs,
people look at that and they look
and they see weakness
when they see that.
I think, that's why a lot of people
resonate with Donald Trump
because he's a businessman, he knows
how to make deals, and I feel like,
maybe being a businessman is the
best strategy for being a president
and not being a politician,
because clearly having decades
worth of political experience
doesn't get you anywhere.
If Isabella praises
Donald Trump's business sense,
it's mainly because he claims
to want to use it
for Americans' benefit.
WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES
A few weeks after his inauguration,
the re-elected president
addressed his fellow citizens.
His goal: repair the damage
caused by decades of trade deals
he considers unfair,
and thus,
liberate the United States.
Thank you very much.
My fellow Americans,
this is Liberation Day,
waiting for a long time.
April 2nd, 2025, we'll forever
be remembered as the day
American industry was reborn,
the day America's destiny
was reclaimed,
and the day that we began
to make America wealthy again.
To protect American interests,
Donald Trump takes on
the rest of the world head-on.
Before a supportive crowd,
he launched
into a trade war
and announced tariff increases
country by country.
This is our great secretary
of Commerce, Howard Lutnick.
Thanks.
So, if you look at that,
China first row,
China, 67%
that's tariffs charged to the USA.
So, we're going to be charging a
discounted reciprocal tariff of 34%.
I think, in other words,
they charge us, we charge them,
we charge them less:
how can anybody be upset?
They will be because we never
charged anybody anything,
but now we're going to charge.
Besides China,
over 180 countries are affected
by these new tariffs.
Cambodia, 97%...
In minutes,
Donald Trump
shook up globalisation
and declared the end of free trade.
A political gamble
that shocked the markets,
as well as media worldwide.
Donald Trump has a very radical
approach on the economy.
It is backtracking
on decades of globalisation,
this push to be sort of
an inclusive economy.
And all of a sudden, we're seeing
a very nationalistic approach.
I think, you know, Donald Trump
won on the economy in many ways.
People were very upset
here in America
about the state of the economy.
And that has been his launch pad
to the presidency.
It's sort of been the lens
from which he has approached
a lot of the policies,
both domestically
and internationally.
And I think in terms of tariffs,
yes, absolutely.
I think it's a punishment
that you can, you know,
sort of dangle to say, "Hey,
we're in charge, do this or else..."
One way that the administration
has put America first is definitely
by imposing tariffs
on other countries.
I say it's really gotten
other countries to listen.
What kind of country wants to spend
90% more on tariffs
for importing goods? They don't.
So when you have countries
that are not wanting
to take back illegal immigrants
that entered this country and have
committed crimes against Americans,
and they're saying, "Well, no,
we're not gonna take them back",
well, then you impose a new tariff,
and guess what?
Guess who wants
to take back their people?
And that's why they work.
A career diplomat,
Gerard Araud
was France's ambassador to the US
during President Trump's first term.
Never did this expert
on American politics
imagine such a break
from the American economic model,
both in substance and form.
To simply decide,
when facing countries
or blocs like the European Union:
"It's 15% tariffs,
and we won't pay a cent."
I've never seen anything like it.
Trump has many qualities.
He understands power dynamics.
And he has no decency, no restraint,
in wielding them
as brutally as possible.
My mother would say,
"He's not well-raised."
He does this, betting
that other countries want access
to the US market so badly
they won't retaliate.
I would say this about Trump,
though, on trade.
His bark is worse than his bite.
So he threatens countries
with tariffs
and he threatens that he is
going to hit them hard,
and he does that in large part
to try to bring them
to the bargaining table
to get a better deal for the US.
I think a lot of American voters
and a lot of American workers
really appreciate that.
You can love or hate Trump.
Americans are all over the map
about how they feel about him,
but he does have
an amazing connection
and an amazing kind
of political skill
to kind of feel the temperature
of the American voter.
With this power move,
Donald Trump returned
to a 19th-century economic model.
Before income tax existed,
the government was funded
almost entirely through tariffs.
It was the era of a forgotten
president, William McKinley,
a model for Donald Trump
and the symbol of an America
that was becoming,
for the first time in its history,
a major industrial power.
20 JANUARY 2025
President McKinley
made our country very rich
through tariffs and through talent -
he was a natural businessman -
and gave Teddy Roosevelt the money
for many of the great things
he did, including the Panama Canal.
Trump is not wrong
to invoke McKinley's name
when it comes to tariffs.
There is no American politician,
there is no American president
more associated with tariffs
than McKinley.
Famously, McKinley,
as a member of Congress in 1890,
passes at the time
the highest tariffs
in American history.
That was before
Donald Trump's second term.
And the average rate got up to 50%
under the McKinley tariff.
And so Donald Trump fixated on that.
He, as an economic nationalist,
really believes he can recuperate
these basic industries that
went to China,
Southeast Asia, Latin America
a long time ago.
I'm not convinced it'll work,
but it's brilliant, it's genius,
because it appeals again
to many, many Americans,
I think legitimate resentment
towards globalisation
or the effects of globalisation.
Driven by radical economists
like Stephen Miran or Peter Navarro,
one of the president's
most influential advisers,
this tariff increase,
struck down by the Supreme Court,
is fully embraced
by the current administration.
Just about 250 years ago,
to protect our manufacturing base,
our national defence,
our industries,
we relied on a system of tariffs,
and that was the primary way
that we funded
the American Republic until 1913.
We need to get back to that future.
We raise a lot of revenues
from the tariffs,
and we will continue to do that
at least until
we have the investment come here
rather than there,
and we produce more here,
which is the purpose
of our policy.
Six months after
the new president's inauguration,
tariffs have already brought in
over 150 billion dollars
to the United States.
Nearly double
what was collected in all of 2024.
Yet this policy isn't unanimous...
If the Supreme Court
deems it illegal,
most economists predict
it will also have
a significant impact
on American purchasing power.
Tariffs drive up inflation
because costs are inevitably passed
on to the consumers.
It's a consumption tax,
similar to a VAT for the US,
but with that touch of nationalism
and defence of American industry
that Donald Trump loves.
Will it really protect
American production,
reduce the trade deficit
and boost industrial jobs?
Unlikely, because
to reindustrialise
or bring back well-paid jobs
to parts of the country
that suffered massive job losses,
you'd need to invest
in infrastructure, training...
You'd need a policy
that looks more like
reducing social inequality
and reinvesting in the most
neglected areas,
which isn't Trump's plan at all.
So far, companies have absorbed
a lot of those costs.
They are still relying on
earlier stockpiles of inventory,
but it is very clear that as
these goods come into the country,
somebody in the United States
is paying more for them.
We are starting to see some sort
of trickle in the economy though,
and one example
that I really like is toys.
About 80% of toys sold in
the United States come from China.
In the first month after
the tariffs were enacted, in May,
toy prices went up
by the highest level on record.
What will be the consequences
of such risky economic policy
for the United States?
Tariffs, Trump's flagship policy,
aren't the only controversial
measure of this early term.
Mass layoffs, massive budget cuts...
Trump's major moves
often stir up chaos.
Yet behind these decisions,
a precise plan emerges.
Working behind the scenes is
the most powerful think tank
in the US:
the Heritage Foundation,
517 employees
and an annual budget
of over 100 million dollars.
As opaque as it is conservative,
this foundation's influence
is unprecedented
in American political history.
Well, thank you very much everybody.
We're going to have a quick session
with Steve Moore.
Everybody knows Steve Moore
with the Heritage Foundation.
One of the most
highly respected economists.
Thank you, Mr President.
So, I called the president
because I have some good news.
Stephen Moore knows perfectly
how the Heritage Foundation works.
He started working there in 1983
and left only a few months ago.
It provided a game plan
for the incoming president,
in this case, Donald Trump.
Now, Heritage Foundation has done
this all the way back to 1980,
when Ronald Reagan became president
and had this kind of game plan.
How to hit the ground running,
what are you gonna change, how
are you going to move the country
in a more conservative direction.
With respect to the economic policy,
which I focused on,
it was cut taxes,
reduced regulation,
get government spending
under control.
DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONVENTION
22 AUGUST 2024
Hello!
Outlined in a 900-page document
called Project 2025...
This is "Project 2025."
This Heritage Foundation roadmap
was initially scoffed at
by Democrats.
Ever seen a document
that can kill a small animal
and democracy at the same time?
Here it is!
But very quickly,
amusement gave way to alarm.
Because Project 2025
doesn't just focus on economics.
It targets all of society,
which it envisions
as ultraconservative,
climate-sceptic, and anti-minority.
"Project 2025"
calls for ending Head Start.
It also cuts benefits
for current disabled veterans.
It calls for every abortion,
miscarriage, stillbirth,
and pregnancy loss
from medical treatments
such as chemo
to be reported
to the federal government.
WASHINGTON
26 MARCH 2025
A large group of protesters
gathered outside the headquarters
of the Heritage Foundation
near the Capitol, Sunday afternoon,
to protest Project 2025.
Project 2025 is a controversial
political initiative
run by the foundation.
Amid the controversy,
Trump tried to distance himself
from Heritage Foundation,
but the facts
tell a different story.
In the first week of his term,
two-thirds of the executive orders
signed by the president
came directly from Project 2025.
I am familiar with Project 2025.
There was a lot of,
I guess, false information coming
out from the left and the media,
kind of labelling it as, you know,
a hateful project
that they were working on,
and it was anti-trans and anti-gay.
And it's just... It's not true.
I think with Donald Trump's
second presidency,
he realises that,
"I have to be tougher
and I have to be bolder and I think
following in step with Project 2025
is a step in that direction."
Project 2025 is a thousand pages
containing
highly detailed directives.
Economically,
it is deeply libertarian.
It seeks to end state intervention
in the economy,
including the healthcare system.
All regulations must be removed.
But in politics, we must get rid
of anyone who isn't
a Trump loyalist.
To accomplish this task,
the Heritage Foundation
doesn't just provide ideas,
it provides an army of foot soldiers
recruited to fill
administrative positions.
When he took office
in January 2017,
he was completely surprised
by his win
and had no team or connections.
For months, offices were empty
because they didn't know
who to appoint.
It was shocking
to have an administration
so dysfunctional.
This time, they decided,
"We'll appoint people, not just
conservatives, but Trumpists."
So, to recruit officials,
the Heritage Foundation
had prepared lists,
even auditioned candidates
to ensure these people wouldn't
fall back into traditional
conservative patterns,
but would be true Trumpists.
Nearly 10,000 Trump missionaries
were reportedly trained
by the think tank.
With this administrative network,
the president tackled
increasingly radical reforms.
Like the abrupt shutdown of USAID,
the US government agency
that provided 42%
of global humanitarian aid.
It was long the flagship
of American influence worldwide.
I think Donald Trump
has a strong belief,
and I happen
to totally agree with him,
that the USAID
and the whole foreign aid structure
is completely corrupt,
and that it has not advanced
the interests of people
in Africa and other countries.
We've given
billions and billions of dollars
of USAID to these countries,
and they're no better off
than they were 30 or 40 years ago.
So whatever we're doing
is not working.
USAID, it's like,
if you look at how
they spend their money
and who they are, it's a cesspool.
It's like Americans, hardworking
Americans, don't want their money
spent in a lot of the ways
that the USAID began doing that.
So I'm not shedding any tears
for reforming,
dealing with the USAID.
Officially,
dismantling USAID is part
of the financial recovery
initiated by the new administration,
and benefits the American economy.
Yet the impact of this decision
is minimal:
the agency's budget
represents less than 1%
of the US government budget.
Behind the pretext of efficiency,
another truth emerges.
A profit-driven policy
that mainly benefits
the president's inner circle.
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
Emily Stewart works
for Global Witness,
an international organisation
specialising in investigations
into corruption and
money laundering.
Her report on the profits
made by lobbying firms
owned by Trump's associates
caused a stir.
"Firms with ties to Trump
and his inner circle are cashing in.
They have negotiated contracts
worth more than 17 million dollars
in fees
in the six months
since Trump was elected."
Problem:
these lobbying firms' profits
are largely made
at the expense of countries
that used to receive
US humanitarian aid
and now have to pay
for access
to the Trump administration.
Some of the world's
poorest countries.
What we're seeing here is that
aid has effectively become trade.
What we've seen as a trend emerging
since USAID was withdrawn
is that some of the world's
poorest countries are
in an absolute rush
to secure lobbying deals
with those who are closest to Trump
in his inner circle,
to ensure that they
can perhaps claw back
some of the money
that was helping them in many ways.
The lobbying that happens
in Washington,
first of all we have to say
that this is nothing new.
This kind of thing has happened
for decades.
But what we are seeing now
is that these poor countries
are having to approach firms
which are really linked with
Trump's inner circle.
And that is something different.
So instead of people who have been
working in these spheres
and are maybe uniquely
and intensely qualified
to work with these various cultures,
in fact now proximity to Trump seems
to be the most important thing.
Brody Mullins is an American
investigative journalist,
who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2023.
He investigated for several months
the unprecedented profits
of these lobbies
close to the president.
Among them, Javelin Advisors,
co-founded after Donald
Trump's re-election,
by his former bodyguard,
Keith Schiller,
or Ballard Partners,
whose leader is a major donor
to both of the
president's campaigns.
Since Trump won the 2024 election,
Brian Ballard has seen a huge
increase in the number of clients.
So he is by far the biggest winner
of the Trump presidency
in terms of lobbyists,
and also probably at this point
in America,
the most powerful non-elected person
in Washington,
because he has Trump's ear.
According to tax documents
provided to Congress,
Ballard Partners reportedly earned
in the first third of 2025,
14 million dollars in profits
across all contracts.
Triple the previous year's figure.
Ballard Partners is basically
stuffed full of Trump's friends.
Brian Ballard, who's the founder,
has donated somewhere in the region
of 30 million dollars to
the Trump campaign.
An alumni of Ballard Partners
includes Susie Wiles,
who's currently
the chief of staff to Trump,
and Pam Bondi, who is the
attorney general and, in fact,
gave up her partnership at Ballard
Partners to become Attorney General.
What Donald Trump has done
is return lobbying
to the pre-Watergate era.
During that time,
because so few people controlled
power in Washington,
there was only a handful
of lobbyists.
And those handful of lobbies
were incredibly successful because
they knew the president,
they knew President Truman,
or President Roosevelt,
or they knew LBJ
or Dwight Eisenhower.
You didn't need to know
hundreds of people.
You needed five or four or three.
So the lobbies
who had those relationships
were incredibly influential,
made a ton of money
and very powerful.
His office is like
a permanent happening.
The doors are open
and everyone comes in.
Everyone,
meaning mostly his friends.
And they're all businessmen.
Like a shop during construction,
it's "business as usual."
"During the presidency,
it's business as usual."
More surprising than the sums
paid to Trump's associates
to open doors to his administration,
is the nature of the concessions
demanded
from former aid recipients
to recover US assistance.
In this letter
drafted by a lobbying firm
representing the interests
of the DRC
with the Trump administration,
it specifies that the country,
which received 70%
of its aid from the US,
is now ready to negotiate
the exploitation
of its natural resources.
The document reads:
"The Democratic Republic of Congo
possesses over 24 trillion dollars
in untapped reserves,
including cobalt, copper,
lithium, tantalum
and uranium,
all essential to US manufacturing,
technology and defence industries."
Further down,
the country offers to "provide
American businesses
exclusive access
to the world's most valuable
mineral reserves."
Weakened by civil wars for 30 years
and attacks
from its Rwandan neighbour,
Congo seeks American protection
by any means necessary.
Basically, you have a country
which has a conflict,
has an aggressor which they've
really found quite hard to remove.
And the US has been able to come in
and force a deal on them
for their mineral resources.
So with the massive
removal of USAID,
they've been looking to the US
to potentially form
some kind of similar security pact
to what we've seen in Ukraine,
where US forces are brought in
in exchange
for being able to exploit
DRC's minerals.
And the Democratic Republic of Congo
isn't the only one
in this situation.
Pakistan, Somalia or Haiti...
In total,
11 of the world's poorest countries
have signed
mineral extraction contracts
with Trump-linked lobbying firms,
in exchange for humanitarian
or military aid.
A reflection
of the president's new obsession
with natural resources.
So natural resources
are a critical part
of building a strong
defence industrial base
and manufacturing base,
it all feeds in...
but because of
environmental regulations
and other considerations,
we haven't been able
to develop that in a way,
which in turn has allowed us
to become overly dependent
on the Chinese model.
We've learned
with the rare earth magnet
crisis that we cannot
let any nation,
particularly China,
gain control over key choke points
in our economy.
If Peter Navarro
mentions rare earths,
it's because the mineral
is a major friction point
between the two leading
economic powers.
So rare earths,
after they are mined and processed,
provide magnets, which are
linchpins in virtually
every modern technology.
That phone you have in your hand
has very tiny magnets in it.
The car that you came in
has magnets in it.
The missiles that we use
to defend ourselves
have magnets in them.
We, here in America, allowed China
back in, I think it was the 1990s,
to shut down the one mine we had
doing rare earths by dumping magnets
into this country,
so they put that out of business.
And China had a conscious strategy
to destroy
not just our magnet industry,
but the world's magnet industry
so that they could do precisely
what they're doing now,
which is to use it as
a tool of coercion to promote
their authoritarian model
and quest for world domination.
I mean, that's real.
Let me look at the camera here.
That's real, folks.
That's facts.
With over 70% produced in China,
rare earths are
a powerful bargaining chip
against Donald Trump's trade war.
To threats of tariff increases,
China responds with restrictions
on rare earth exports.
BEIJING, CHINA
Liu Ming Fu
is the unofficial spokesman
for the Chinese government.
Former colonel
in the People's Liberation Army,
ultra-nationalist,
close to Xi Jinping, he's hardly
impressed
by President Trump's threats.
Since the founding
of the People's Republic of China
over 70 years ago,
the United States and China
have clashed militarily,
economically, diplomatically
and in various fields.
We have never been defeated.
The US spends its days
studying how to sanction us,
isolate us
and suppress us.
China has its own assets,
like rare earth elements.
The US depends heavily on them,
and without them,
development is hard.
The US sees our rare earths
as a nuclear weapon in resources.
A nuclear weapon
the US cannot fight.
After months of verbal escalation,
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping
sat at the same table
in late October 2025,
in South Korea.
Thank you very much. It's a great
honour to be with a friend of mine,
really for a long time now
if you think about it,
the very very distinguished
and respected President of China.
We will be having some discussions,
I think we've already agreed
to a lot of things
and we'll agree to
some more right now.
But President Xi is a great leader
of a great country,
and I think we're going to have
a fantastic relationship for
a long period of time.
And it's an honour to have you
with us. Thank you very much.
Despite Trump's declarations,
the meeting resulted in an agreement
that sounded like
an admission of defeat.
Faced with the mineral weapon,
the US must reduce by 10%
their tariffs on China.
A setback that symbolises a flaw
and explains the extractivism
of the new Trump administration.
Well, just as Trump has said
"drill baby drill",
now there is a new
kind of consensus that
we have to "mine baby mine"
precisely because we need copper,
lithium, uranium,
all these important minerals
that are critical
to the technology age.
That's not just an economic issue.
That's a national security issue.
China has played a very canny game,
and they've been playing
the long game
for a long time now, decades
literally, making these investments
potentially in risky places,
in difficult supply chains,
and making them to make sure that
they were securing their big chunk
of the pie of these supply chains.
People have realised that China
has this kind of bottleneck,
and when it squeezes that
bottleneck, they're able to cut off
homegrown industries
in the US, in the EU.
To reduce its dependence on China,
the US is seeking a new eldorado.
Among the most
promising territories,
an island four times larger
than France:
Greenland,
an autonomous territory
north of Canada, part of Denmark.
NUUK, GREENLAND
Beneath these ice mountains
lie the world's largest deposits
of rare earth elements.
A priceless treasure for the future.
Coveted by China and Russia
for security
and strategic reasons,
access to Greenland
is one of President
Trump's priorities.
To intimidate its leaders,
he even threatens
to annex the country.
We need Greenland
for national security,
and even international security.
And I think we're going to get it,
one way or another
we're going to get it.
We will keep you safe,
we will make you rich, and together,
we will take Greenland
to heights like
you have never thought
possible before.
Behind these security claims
and wishful thinking,
lies another reality:
a return of American imperialism
and its hunt
for resource-rich nations.
On the ground,
one man represents
the president's interests.
Jrgen Boassen
is the president
of the Trumpist movement
MAGA in Greenland.
Close to conservative figures
like Charlie Kirk...
- Hi, Charlie.
- Yeah.
How are you, Jrgen?
Good to see you.
Can't wait for Greenland
to be part of the US!
He organised Donald Trump Jr's visit
to the country.
6 JANUARY 2025
For Jrgen, Greenland's future
lies in exploiting
local natural resources
with the Americans.
Confident, this agent
of Trump influence
is already prospecting.
I'm talking with the American
mining company's owners
and they have to come here
and see the possibilities.
You know,
we have tungsten and uranium,
zinc, gold, silver, iron,
everything the US needs.
We have lots of
rare-earth minerals in Greenland.
And many places
haven't been explored.
We're only 56,000 people.
Who'd be best
to take over a country?
China is not, and Denmark?
Denmark cannot handle that,
you know, American know-how
and experience for mining
is better for
the Greenlandic people.
If we do that like in Alaska,
where people get money
from mining companies
or oil companies,
right now we get nothing
from mining companies
here in Greenland.
They close it and start it up again,
they close it and start up again.
We have seen that in 100 years.
Jrgen is optimistic,
but the battle
for Greenland's rare earths
is far from won.
The polls are clear.
The latest one
shows that 85% of residents
oppose annexation of the island.
After the US attack
aimed at removing
President Maduro in Venezuela,
Donald Trump's annexation threats
triggered a massive demonstration
in the capital's streets.
We are not interested
in being Americans.
USA, get out!
I think we made it quite clear
at the time.
Greenland wants
to be in our own right.
We don't want to either
be Americans or Danes.
So what I really see Greenland is,
is an alternative to the trade
that is going on
from the rest of the world
with China at the moment.
Yeah, we can be the ones
who will diversify their supply
chains and making sure
that some of their supply
comes from another
country like ours.
That is a stable democracy,
that has high guardrail,
when it comes to environment
and treating
the workers right and so on.
So I think,
this realisation is coming now.
A problem it has created
is that China has just been
rolling away in all of this.
Race for natural resources,
tariffs, protectionism...
The economic policy
implemented by the United States
reflects an awareness
of Chinese power,
but also a deeper realisation:
a sense of its own decline.
The country is now burdened
by the highest public debt
in the world.
I think Trump's aggressiveness
actually looks
much more like an
admission of weakness
than a sign of strength.
We're facing a country,
or rather,
a group of Republican leaders,
who realise the US
is losing control of the planet.
After World War II,
the United States represented
up to 40% of global GDP alone.
They had 40%
of IMF voting rights
at its creation.
Today, they've fallen below 20%.
They'll drop below 5%
by the end of the 21st century.
Donald Trump can jump up and down
all he wants,
it won't change anything.
The US share of the global economy
has already been cut in half
since the 1950s
and will be halved again
during the 21st century.
Will the United States,
a colossus with feet of clay,
bring down the global economy?
In 2026, the OECD forecasts
global growth falling below 3%.
Faced with these upheavals,
Europe must find its place
in this geopolitical shift.
President Trump pursues
an "America First" policy.
Our response must be:
"Europe United".
Chinese leadership under Xi Jinping
pursues an ambitious goal
that China will be
the leading world power by 2049.
That's why it's important
we pursue an ambitious trade policy
agenda and implement it,
to reduce dependence
on American and Chinese markets
through diversification.
This means the EU-Mexico agreement
must finally be finalised.
And negotiations with
India, Indonesia,
other Asian states, Australia -
must be pushed forward quickly.
I see trade policy
as a huge opportunity
for the European Union
to better position itself
in an increasingly complex
global market.
Trump has been elected twice
now, 2016 and 2024,
and Trump was the real first
candidate to be out there,
very aggressively hostile to China.
And so I think everybody
has to recognise
China as the enemy. And that's why
the reason Europe is so important
in this whole equation
is because we need to decouple.
That's a word Trump would say.
Decouple the world economy
from China.
Whether Trump can pull that
off or not, we will see.
But we don't want to
continue to empower our enemy.
Europe has to defend itself much,
much better
because China has been
relentlessly attacking
European markets.
Prior to the coming of Donald Trump.
I mean,
Europe has lost a lot of jobs
to China and Asia
because of unfair trade practices,
China is now dumping products
in Europe
because they've lost the US markets.
And then Europe is slow to respond
because you've got,
I don't know, 27 nations
I think in the EU,
and half of them
are compromised by China.
The world is at a crossroads.
On one side, China is
manoeuvring for position.
On the other,
the US is preparing a power play.
This way of bullying all countries
by imposing tariffs arbitrarily
can only lead
to pushing many countries,
especially in the South,
closer to China,
Russia, the BRICS...
China has already started
developing parallel
international institutions
with a bank in Shanghai,
to compete with the World Bank
in Washington.
I think it's a huge mistake
to push all these countries
into China's arms.
Trump's bet is that
many Southern countries
don't necessarily want
to replace American hegemonic power
with Chinese hegemonic power.
Will we still be able to speak
of a global economy
in the next decade,
or has the era of blocs begun?
While US trade
slowed in 2025,
elsewhere,
particularly in Southeast Asia,
it accelerated.
One thing is certain,
with Donald Trump's return,
national interest
now takes precedence
over any collective ambition.
And the only law that matters
is might makes right.
Donald Trump called the press
to announce a new trade policy.
My fellow Americans,
this is Liberation Day.
We've been waiting for a long time.
To replenish state coffers,
he declared economic war
on the world,
imposing a brutal
and simultaneous increase
in tariffs on all trading partners.
Trump thinks that somehow
the United States can return
to that kind of golden era
of post-World War II industrial
hegemony, that he himself
is the answer to all the woes
that globalisation has inflicted
on American workers.
It's a completely new playbook that
the Trump administration is using.
So, it's adding to an intense amount
of uncertainty
in the global economy.
Some characterise our trade policy
and tariffs as a bold bet.
I think not.
We're simply levelling
the playing field.
Made up of radical economists,
powerful lobbyists
and ultraconservative advisers,
the architects of this blitzkrieg
have a common enemy in their sights
vying for the top world
power spot: China.
China has the means
to impose a balance of power
in its favour.
It's a second Cold War,
but with intense trade
between the two countries.
A dive into a violent
and chaotic economic doctrine,
between inflation risk
for the poorest
and insane profits for the richest.
A new Western,
directed by
Donald Trump himself.
Isabella DeLuca is 25.
She's one of the country's
most prominent
conservative influencers.
A Trump America icon,
she was even pardoned
by the president
after being charged
for the Capitol assault,
which she took part in
in January 2021.
Today, she hosts a news show
on His Glory TV, a Christian channel
very popular in the United States,
watched by five million people.
Five... four...
On the agenda:
conspiracy theories and fake news.
Foreign investment in China has
collapsed by 99% in three years.
That's billions slipping
out of Beijing's hands
and going straight
into the US economy.
This is exactly what I voted for.
Continuing on...
Show after show,
Isabella praises
President Trump's merits.
A new version of the president
who, according to her,
restores the pride of a weakened
America after the Biden years.
When you have a president
that doesn't talk,
can't communicate well,
doesn't know
where he's at half the time,
looks lost on stage,
falls up the stairs,
people look at that and they look
and they see weakness
when they see that.
I think, that's why a lot of people
resonate with Donald Trump
because he's a businessman, he knows
how to make deals, and I feel like,
maybe being a businessman is the
best strategy for being a president
and not being a politician,
because clearly having decades
worth of political experience
doesn't get you anywhere.
If Isabella praises
Donald Trump's business sense,
it's mainly because he claims
to want to use it
for Americans' benefit.
WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES
A few weeks after his inauguration,
the re-elected president
addressed his fellow citizens.
His goal: repair the damage
caused by decades of trade deals
he considers unfair,
and thus,
liberate the United States.
Thank you very much.
My fellow Americans,
this is Liberation Day,
waiting for a long time.
April 2nd, 2025, we'll forever
be remembered as the day
American industry was reborn,
the day America's destiny
was reclaimed,
and the day that we began
to make America wealthy again.
To protect American interests,
Donald Trump takes on
the rest of the world head-on.
Before a supportive crowd,
he launched
into a trade war
and announced tariff increases
country by country.
This is our great secretary
of Commerce, Howard Lutnick.
Thanks.
So, if you look at that,
China first row,
China, 67%
that's tariffs charged to the USA.
So, we're going to be charging a
discounted reciprocal tariff of 34%.
I think, in other words,
they charge us, we charge them,
we charge them less:
how can anybody be upset?
They will be because we never
charged anybody anything,
but now we're going to charge.
Besides China,
over 180 countries are affected
by these new tariffs.
Cambodia, 97%...
In minutes,
Donald Trump
shook up globalisation
and declared the end of free trade.
A political gamble
that shocked the markets,
as well as media worldwide.
Donald Trump has a very radical
approach on the economy.
It is backtracking
on decades of globalisation,
this push to be sort of
an inclusive economy.
And all of a sudden, we're seeing
a very nationalistic approach.
I think, you know, Donald Trump
won on the economy in many ways.
People were very upset
here in America
about the state of the economy.
And that has been his launch pad
to the presidency.
It's sort of been the lens
from which he has approached
a lot of the policies,
both domestically
and internationally.
And I think in terms of tariffs,
yes, absolutely.
I think it's a punishment
that you can, you know,
sort of dangle to say, "Hey,
we're in charge, do this or else..."
One way that the administration
has put America first is definitely
by imposing tariffs
on other countries.
I say it's really gotten
other countries to listen.
What kind of country wants to spend
90% more on tariffs
for importing goods? They don't.
So when you have countries
that are not wanting
to take back illegal immigrants
that entered this country and have
committed crimes against Americans,
and they're saying, "Well, no,
we're not gonna take them back",
well, then you impose a new tariff,
and guess what?
Guess who wants
to take back their people?
And that's why they work.
A career diplomat,
Gerard Araud
was France's ambassador to the US
during President Trump's first term.
Never did this expert
on American politics
imagine such a break
from the American economic model,
both in substance and form.
To simply decide,
when facing countries
or blocs like the European Union:
"It's 15% tariffs,
and we won't pay a cent."
I've never seen anything like it.
Trump has many qualities.
He understands power dynamics.
And he has no decency, no restraint,
in wielding them
as brutally as possible.
My mother would say,
"He's not well-raised."
He does this, betting
that other countries want access
to the US market so badly
they won't retaliate.
I would say this about Trump,
though, on trade.
His bark is worse than his bite.
So he threatens countries
with tariffs
and he threatens that he is
going to hit them hard,
and he does that in large part
to try to bring them
to the bargaining table
to get a better deal for the US.
I think a lot of American voters
and a lot of American workers
really appreciate that.
You can love or hate Trump.
Americans are all over the map
about how they feel about him,
but he does have
an amazing connection
and an amazing kind
of political skill
to kind of feel the temperature
of the American voter.
With this power move,
Donald Trump returned
to a 19th-century economic model.
Before income tax existed,
the government was funded
almost entirely through tariffs.
It was the era of a forgotten
president, William McKinley,
a model for Donald Trump
and the symbol of an America
that was becoming,
for the first time in its history,
a major industrial power.
20 JANUARY 2025
President McKinley
made our country very rich
through tariffs and through talent -
he was a natural businessman -
and gave Teddy Roosevelt the money
for many of the great things
he did, including the Panama Canal.
Trump is not wrong
to invoke McKinley's name
when it comes to tariffs.
There is no American politician,
there is no American president
more associated with tariffs
than McKinley.
Famously, McKinley,
as a member of Congress in 1890,
passes at the time
the highest tariffs
in American history.
That was before
Donald Trump's second term.
And the average rate got up to 50%
under the McKinley tariff.
And so Donald Trump fixated on that.
He, as an economic nationalist,
really believes he can recuperate
these basic industries that
went to China,
Southeast Asia, Latin America
a long time ago.
I'm not convinced it'll work,
but it's brilliant, it's genius,
because it appeals again
to many, many Americans,
I think legitimate resentment
towards globalisation
or the effects of globalisation.
Driven by radical economists
like Stephen Miran or Peter Navarro,
one of the president's
most influential advisers,
this tariff increase,
struck down by the Supreme Court,
is fully embraced
by the current administration.
Just about 250 years ago,
to protect our manufacturing base,
our national defence,
our industries,
we relied on a system of tariffs,
and that was the primary way
that we funded
the American Republic until 1913.
We need to get back to that future.
We raise a lot of revenues
from the tariffs,
and we will continue to do that
at least until
we have the investment come here
rather than there,
and we produce more here,
which is the purpose
of our policy.
Six months after
the new president's inauguration,
tariffs have already brought in
over 150 billion dollars
to the United States.
Nearly double
what was collected in all of 2024.
Yet this policy isn't unanimous...
If the Supreme Court
deems it illegal,
most economists predict
it will also have
a significant impact
on American purchasing power.
Tariffs drive up inflation
because costs are inevitably passed
on to the consumers.
It's a consumption tax,
similar to a VAT for the US,
but with that touch of nationalism
and defence of American industry
that Donald Trump loves.
Will it really protect
American production,
reduce the trade deficit
and boost industrial jobs?
Unlikely, because
to reindustrialise
or bring back well-paid jobs
to parts of the country
that suffered massive job losses,
you'd need to invest
in infrastructure, training...
You'd need a policy
that looks more like
reducing social inequality
and reinvesting in the most
neglected areas,
which isn't Trump's plan at all.
So far, companies have absorbed
a lot of those costs.
They are still relying on
earlier stockpiles of inventory,
but it is very clear that as
these goods come into the country,
somebody in the United States
is paying more for them.
We are starting to see some sort
of trickle in the economy though,
and one example
that I really like is toys.
About 80% of toys sold in
the United States come from China.
In the first month after
the tariffs were enacted, in May,
toy prices went up
by the highest level on record.
What will be the consequences
of such risky economic policy
for the United States?
Tariffs, Trump's flagship policy,
aren't the only controversial
measure of this early term.
Mass layoffs, massive budget cuts...
Trump's major moves
often stir up chaos.
Yet behind these decisions,
a precise plan emerges.
Working behind the scenes is
the most powerful think tank
in the US:
the Heritage Foundation,
517 employees
and an annual budget
of over 100 million dollars.
As opaque as it is conservative,
this foundation's influence
is unprecedented
in American political history.
Well, thank you very much everybody.
We're going to have a quick session
with Steve Moore.
Everybody knows Steve Moore
with the Heritage Foundation.
One of the most
highly respected economists.
Thank you, Mr President.
So, I called the president
because I have some good news.
Stephen Moore knows perfectly
how the Heritage Foundation works.
He started working there in 1983
and left only a few months ago.
It provided a game plan
for the incoming president,
in this case, Donald Trump.
Now, Heritage Foundation has done
this all the way back to 1980,
when Ronald Reagan became president
and had this kind of game plan.
How to hit the ground running,
what are you gonna change, how
are you going to move the country
in a more conservative direction.
With respect to the economic policy,
which I focused on,
it was cut taxes,
reduced regulation,
get government spending
under control.
DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONVENTION
22 AUGUST 2024
Hello!
Outlined in a 900-page document
called Project 2025...
This is "Project 2025."
This Heritage Foundation roadmap
was initially scoffed at
by Democrats.
Ever seen a document
that can kill a small animal
and democracy at the same time?
Here it is!
But very quickly,
amusement gave way to alarm.
Because Project 2025
doesn't just focus on economics.
It targets all of society,
which it envisions
as ultraconservative,
climate-sceptic, and anti-minority.
"Project 2025"
calls for ending Head Start.
It also cuts benefits
for current disabled veterans.
It calls for every abortion,
miscarriage, stillbirth,
and pregnancy loss
from medical treatments
such as chemo
to be reported
to the federal government.
WASHINGTON
26 MARCH 2025
A large group of protesters
gathered outside the headquarters
of the Heritage Foundation
near the Capitol, Sunday afternoon,
to protest Project 2025.
Project 2025 is a controversial
political initiative
run by the foundation.
Amid the controversy,
Trump tried to distance himself
from Heritage Foundation,
but the facts
tell a different story.
In the first week of his term,
two-thirds of the executive orders
signed by the president
came directly from Project 2025.
I am familiar with Project 2025.
There was a lot of,
I guess, false information coming
out from the left and the media,
kind of labelling it as, you know,
a hateful project
that they were working on,
and it was anti-trans and anti-gay.
And it's just... It's not true.
I think with Donald Trump's
second presidency,
he realises that,
"I have to be tougher
and I have to be bolder and I think
following in step with Project 2025
is a step in that direction."
Project 2025 is a thousand pages
containing
highly detailed directives.
Economically,
it is deeply libertarian.
It seeks to end state intervention
in the economy,
including the healthcare system.
All regulations must be removed.
But in politics, we must get rid
of anyone who isn't
a Trump loyalist.
To accomplish this task,
the Heritage Foundation
doesn't just provide ideas,
it provides an army of foot soldiers
recruited to fill
administrative positions.
When he took office
in January 2017,
he was completely surprised
by his win
and had no team or connections.
For months, offices were empty
because they didn't know
who to appoint.
It was shocking
to have an administration
so dysfunctional.
This time, they decided,
"We'll appoint people, not just
conservatives, but Trumpists."
So, to recruit officials,
the Heritage Foundation
had prepared lists,
even auditioned candidates
to ensure these people wouldn't
fall back into traditional
conservative patterns,
but would be true Trumpists.
Nearly 10,000 Trump missionaries
were reportedly trained
by the think tank.
With this administrative network,
the president tackled
increasingly radical reforms.
Like the abrupt shutdown of USAID,
the US government agency
that provided 42%
of global humanitarian aid.
It was long the flagship
of American influence worldwide.
I think Donald Trump
has a strong belief,
and I happen
to totally agree with him,
that the USAID
and the whole foreign aid structure
is completely corrupt,
and that it has not advanced
the interests of people
in Africa and other countries.
We've given
billions and billions of dollars
of USAID to these countries,
and they're no better off
than they were 30 or 40 years ago.
So whatever we're doing
is not working.
USAID, it's like,
if you look at how
they spend their money
and who they are, it's a cesspool.
It's like Americans, hardworking
Americans, don't want their money
spent in a lot of the ways
that the USAID began doing that.
So I'm not shedding any tears
for reforming,
dealing with the USAID.
Officially,
dismantling USAID is part
of the financial recovery
initiated by the new administration,
and benefits the American economy.
Yet the impact of this decision
is minimal:
the agency's budget
represents less than 1%
of the US government budget.
Behind the pretext of efficiency,
another truth emerges.
A profit-driven policy
that mainly benefits
the president's inner circle.
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
Emily Stewart works
for Global Witness,
an international organisation
specialising in investigations
into corruption and
money laundering.
Her report on the profits
made by lobbying firms
owned by Trump's associates
caused a stir.
"Firms with ties to Trump
and his inner circle are cashing in.
They have negotiated contracts
worth more than 17 million dollars
in fees
in the six months
since Trump was elected."
Problem:
these lobbying firms' profits
are largely made
at the expense of countries
that used to receive
US humanitarian aid
and now have to pay
for access
to the Trump administration.
Some of the world's
poorest countries.
What we're seeing here is that
aid has effectively become trade.
What we've seen as a trend emerging
since USAID was withdrawn
is that some of the world's
poorest countries are
in an absolute rush
to secure lobbying deals
with those who are closest to Trump
in his inner circle,
to ensure that they
can perhaps claw back
some of the money
that was helping them in many ways.
The lobbying that happens
in Washington,
first of all we have to say
that this is nothing new.
This kind of thing has happened
for decades.
But what we are seeing now
is that these poor countries
are having to approach firms
which are really linked with
Trump's inner circle.
And that is something different.
So instead of people who have been
working in these spheres
and are maybe uniquely
and intensely qualified
to work with these various cultures,
in fact now proximity to Trump seems
to be the most important thing.
Brody Mullins is an American
investigative journalist,
who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2023.
He investigated for several months
the unprecedented profits
of these lobbies
close to the president.
Among them, Javelin Advisors,
co-founded after Donald
Trump's re-election,
by his former bodyguard,
Keith Schiller,
or Ballard Partners,
whose leader is a major donor
to both of the
president's campaigns.
Since Trump won the 2024 election,
Brian Ballard has seen a huge
increase in the number of clients.
So he is by far the biggest winner
of the Trump presidency
in terms of lobbyists,
and also probably at this point
in America,
the most powerful non-elected person
in Washington,
because he has Trump's ear.
According to tax documents
provided to Congress,
Ballard Partners reportedly earned
in the first third of 2025,
14 million dollars in profits
across all contracts.
Triple the previous year's figure.
Ballard Partners is basically
stuffed full of Trump's friends.
Brian Ballard, who's the founder,
has donated somewhere in the region
of 30 million dollars to
the Trump campaign.
An alumni of Ballard Partners
includes Susie Wiles,
who's currently
the chief of staff to Trump,
and Pam Bondi, who is the
attorney general and, in fact,
gave up her partnership at Ballard
Partners to become Attorney General.
What Donald Trump has done
is return lobbying
to the pre-Watergate era.
During that time,
because so few people controlled
power in Washington,
there was only a handful
of lobbyists.
And those handful of lobbies
were incredibly successful because
they knew the president,
they knew President Truman,
or President Roosevelt,
or they knew LBJ
or Dwight Eisenhower.
You didn't need to know
hundreds of people.
You needed five or four or three.
So the lobbies
who had those relationships
were incredibly influential,
made a ton of money
and very powerful.
His office is like
a permanent happening.
The doors are open
and everyone comes in.
Everyone,
meaning mostly his friends.
And they're all businessmen.
Like a shop during construction,
it's "business as usual."
"During the presidency,
it's business as usual."
More surprising than the sums
paid to Trump's associates
to open doors to his administration,
is the nature of the concessions
demanded
from former aid recipients
to recover US assistance.
In this letter
drafted by a lobbying firm
representing the interests
of the DRC
with the Trump administration,
it specifies that the country,
which received 70%
of its aid from the US,
is now ready to negotiate
the exploitation
of its natural resources.
The document reads:
"The Democratic Republic of Congo
possesses over 24 trillion dollars
in untapped reserves,
including cobalt, copper,
lithium, tantalum
and uranium,
all essential to US manufacturing,
technology and defence industries."
Further down,
the country offers to "provide
American businesses
exclusive access
to the world's most valuable
mineral reserves."
Weakened by civil wars for 30 years
and attacks
from its Rwandan neighbour,
Congo seeks American protection
by any means necessary.
Basically, you have a country
which has a conflict,
has an aggressor which they've
really found quite hard to remove.
And the US has been able to come in
and force a deal on them
for their mineral resources.
So with the massive
removal of USAID,
they've been looking to the US
to potentially form
some kind of similar security pact
to what we've seen in Ukraine,
where US forces are brought in
in exchange
for being able to exploit
DRC's minerals.
And the Democratic Republic of Congo
isn't the only one
in this situation.
Pakistan, Somalia or Haiti...
In total,
11 of the world's poorest countries
have signed
mineral extraction contracts
with Trump-linked lobbying firms,
in exchange for humanitarian
or military aid.
A reflection
of the president's new obsession
with natural resources.
So natural resources
are a critical part
of building a strong
defence industrial base
and manufacturing base,
it all feeds in...
but because of
environmental regulations
and other considerations,
we haven't been able
to develop that in a way,
which in turn has allowed us
to become overly dependent
on the Chinese model.
We've learned
with the rare earth magnet
crisis that we cannot
let any nation,
particularly China,
gain control over key choke points
in our economy.
If Peter Navarro
mentions rare earths,
it's because the mineral
is a major friction point
between the two leading
economic powers.
So rare earths,
after they are mined and processed,
provide magnets, which are
linchpins in virtually
every modern technology.
That phone you have in your hand
has very tiny magnets in it.
The car that you came in
has magnets in it.
The missiles that we use
to defend ourselves
have magnets in them.
We, here in America, allowed China
back in, I think it was the 1990s,
to shut down the one mine we had
doing rare earths by dumping magnets
into this country,
so they put that out of business.
And China had a conscious strategy
to destroy
not just our magnet industry,
but the world's magnet industry
so that they could do precisely
what they're doing now,
which is to use it as
a tool of coercion to promote
their authoritarian model
and quest for world domination.
I mean, that's real.
Let me look at the camera here.
That's real, folks.
That's facts.
With over 70% produced in China,
rare earths are
a powerful bargaining chip
against Donald Trump's trade war.
To threats of tariff increases,
China responds with restrictions
on rare earth exports.
BEIJING, CHINA
Liu Ming Fu
is the unofficial spokesman
for the Chinese government.
Former colonel
in the People's Liberation Army,
ultra-nationalist,
close to Xi Jinping, he's hardly
impressed
by President Trump's threats.
Since the founding
of the People's Republic of China
over 70 years ago,
the United States and China
have clashed militarily,
economically, diplomatically
and in various fields.
We have never been defeated.
The US spends its days
studying how to sanction us,
isolate us
and suppress us.
China has its own assets,
like rare earth elements.
The US depends heavily on them,
and without them,
development is hard.
The US sees our rare earths
as a nuclear weapon in resources.
A nuclear weapon
the US cannot fight.
After months of verbal escalation,
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping
sat at the same table
in late October 2025,
in South Korea.
Thank you very much. It's a great
honour to be with a friend of mine,
really for a long time now
if you think about it,
the very very distinguished
and respected President of China.
We will be having some discussions,
I think we've already agreed
to a lot of things
and we'll agree to
some more right now.
But President Xi is a great leader
of a great country,
and I think we're going to have
a fantastic relationship for
a long period of time.
And it's an honour to have you
with us. Thank you very much.
Despite Trump's declarations,
the meeting resulted in an agreement
that sounded like
an admission of defeat.
Faced with the mineral weapon,
the US must reduce by 10%
their tariffs on China.
A setback that symbolises a flaw
and explains the extractivism
of the new Trump administration.
Well, just as Trump has said
"drill baby drill",
now there is a new
kind of consensus that
we have to "mine baby mine"
precisely because we need copper,
lithium, uranium,
all these important minerals
that are critical
to the technology age.
That's not just an economic issue.
That's a national security issue.
China has played a very canny game,
and they've been playing
the long game
for a long time now, decades
literally, making these investments
potentially in risky places,
in difficult supply chains,
and making them to make sure that
they were securing their big chunk
of the pie of these supply chains.
People have realised that China
has this kind of bottleneck,
and when it squeezes that
bottleneck, they're able to cut off
homegrown industries
in the US, in the EU.
To reduce its dependence on China,
the US is seeking a new eldorado.
Among the most
promising territories,
an island four times larger
than France:
Greenland,
an autonomous territory
north of Canada, part of Denmark.
NUUK, GREENLAND
Beneath these ice mountains
lie the world's largest deposits
of rare earth elements.
A priceless treasure for the future.
Coveted by China and Russia
for security
and strategic reasons,
access to Greenland
is one of President
Trump's priorities.
To intimidate its leaders,
he even threatens
to annex the country.
We need Greenland
for national security,
and even international security.
And I think we're going to get it,
one way or another
we're going to get it.
We will keep you safe,
we will make you rich, and together,
we will take Greenland
to heights like
you have never thought
possible before.
Behind these security claims
and wishful thinking,
lies another reality:
a return of American imperialism
and its hunt
for resource-rich nations.
On the ground,
one man represents
the president's interests.
Jrgen Boassen
is the president
of the Trumpist movement
MAGA in Greenland.
Close to conservative figures
like Charlie Kirk...
- Hi, Charlie.
- Yeah.
How are you, Jrgen?
Good to see you.
Can't wait for Greenland
to be part of the US!
He organised Donald Trump Jr's visit
to the country.
6 JANUARY 2025
For Jrgen, Greenland's future
lies in exploiting
local natural resources
with the Americans.
Confident, this agent
of Trump influence
is already prospecting.
I'm talking with the American
mining company's owners
and they have to come here
and see the possibilities.
You know,
we have tungsten and uranium,
zinc, gold, silver, iron,
everything the US needs.
We have lots of
rare-earth minerals in Greenland.
And many places
haven't been explored.
We're only 56,000 people.
Who'd be best
to take over a country?
China is not, and Denmark?
Denmark cannot handle that,
you know, American know-how
and experience for mining
is better for
the Greenlandic people.
If we do that like in Alaska,
where people get money
from mining companies
or oil companies,
right now we get nothing
from mining companies
here in Greenland.
They close it and start it up again,
they close it and start up again.
We have seen that in 100 years.
Jrgen is optimistic,
but the battle
for Greenland's rare earths
is far from won.
The polls are clear.
The latest one
shows that 85% of residents
oppose annexation of the island.
After the US attack
aimed at removing
President Maduro in Venezuela,
Donald Trump's annexation threats
triggered a massive demonstration
in the capital's streets.
We are not interested
in being Americans.
USA, get out!
I think we made it quite clear
at the time.
Greenland wants
to be in our own right.
We don't want to either
be Americans or Danes.
So what I really see Greenland is,
is an alternative to the trade
that is going on
from the rest of the world
with China at the moment.
Yeah, we can be the ones
who will diversify their supply
chains and making sure
that some of their supply
comes from another
country like ours.
That is a stable democracy,
that has high guardrail,
when it comes to environment
and treating
the workers right and so on.
So I think,
this realisation is coming now.
A problem it has created
is that China has just been
rolling away in all of this.
Race for natural resources,
tariffs, protectionism...
The economic policy
implemented by the United States
reflects an awareness
of Chinese power,
but also a deeper realisation:
a sense of its own decline.
The country is now burdened
by the highest public debt
in the world.
I think Trump's aggressiveness
actually looks
much more like an
admission of weakness
than a sign of strength.
We're facing a country,
or rather,
a group of Republican leaders,
who realise the US
is losing control of the planet.
After World War II,
the United States represented
up to 40% of global GDP alone.
They had 40%
of IMF voting rights
at its creation.
Today, they've fallen below 20%.
They'll drop below 5%
by the end of the 21st century.
Donald Trump can jump up and down
all he wants,
it won't change anything.
The US share of the global economy
has already been cut in half
since the 1950s
and will be halved again
during the 21st century.
Will the United States,
a colossus with feet of clay,
bring down the global economy?
In 2026, the OECD forecasts
global growth falling below 3%.
Faced with these upheavals,
Europe must find its place
in this geopolitical shift.
President Trump pursues
an "America First" policy.
Our response must be:
"Europe United".
Chinese leadership under Xi Jinping
pursues an ambitious goal
that China will be
the leading world power by 2049.
That's why it's important
we pursue an ambitious trade policy
agenda and implement it,
to reduce dependence
on American and Chinese markets
through diversification.
This means the EU-Mexico agreement
must finally be finalised.
And negotiations with
India, Indonesia,
other Asian states, Australia -
must be pushed forward quickly.
I see trade policy
as a huge opportunity
for the European Union
to better position itself
in an increasingly complex
global market.
Trump has been elected twice
now, 2016 and 2024,
and Trump was the real first
candidate to be out there,
very aggressively hostile to China.
And so I think everybody
has to recognise
China as the enemy. And that's why
the reason Europe is so important
in this whole equation
is because we need to decouple.
That's a word Trump would say.
Decouple the world economy
from China.
Whether Trump can pull that
off or not, we will see.
But we don't want to
continue to empower our enemy.
Europe has to defend itself much,
much better
because China has been
relentlessly attacking
European markets.
Prior to the coming of Donald Trump.
I mean,
Europe has lost a lot of jobs
to China and Asia
because of unfair trade practices,
China is now dumping products
in Europe
because they've lost the US markets.
And then Europe is slow to respond
because you've got,
I don't know, 27 nations
I think in the EU,
and half of them
are compromised by China.
The world is at a crossroads.
On one side, China is
manoeuvring for position.
On the other,
the US is preparing a power play.
This way of bullying all countries
by imposing tariffs arbitrarily
can only lead
to pushing many countries,
especially in the South,
closer to China,
Russia, the BRICS...
China has already started
developing parallel
international institutions
with a bank in Shanghai,
to compete with the World Bank
in Washington.
I think it's a huge mistake
to push all these countries
into China's arms.
Trump's bet is that
many Southern countries
don't necessarily want
to replace American hegemonic power
with Chinese hegemonic power.
Will we still be able to speak
of a global economy
in the next decade,
or has the era of blocs begun?
While US trade
slowed in 2025,
elsewhere,
particularly in Southeast Asia,
it accelerated.
One thing is certain,
with Donald Trump's return,
national interest
now takes precedence
over any collective ambition.
And the only law that matters
is might makes right.