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Gnesotto, N. “A world turned upside down”, Blogpost. Jacques Delors Institute, April 2025

Will Donald Trump be the Terminator completing the destruction of the West? He is well on the way. Massive purges in the federal administration, censorship of universities deemed too independent, mass expulsions of migrants, threats to annex independent countries, betrayal of Ukraine, explicit support for Europe’s extreme right, protectionism at every turn, with tariffs of up to 145% against China – the list goes on and on of the cannon fire that the new President of the United States is unleashing on the whole world. Donald Trump is destroying the very pillars of the Western system, the one that has made America rich and powerful for eight decades.

It has to be said, however, that the race towards cynicism and disaster is not unique to the United States. For several years now, the world has ceased to be reasonable, and Donald Trump can be seen as both the product and the accelerator of this planetary madness. If we were to write a Prévert-style inventory to describe this delirious, implausible, unimaginable universe into which we have entered, the following list would still fall far short of the mark.

Saudi Arabia has taken Switzerland’s place as peace mediator. Because it does not recognise the International Criminal Tribunal for the Prosecution of War Crimes and Genocide, Saudi Arabia has become the hub of peace negotiations on Ukraine. Riyadh welcomes all the world’s criminals, and has a rich history of doing so. Poor Switzerland, democratic, neutral, benevolent, without oil, without cynicism, steeped in international law and the humanitarian cause!

Greenland and the Panama Canal are threatened with aggression. “We need Greenland”. Donald Trump barely conceals his threats against Denmark: “I don’t like to say it like this, but we’re going to have to take possession” of this immense Arctic territory for both “defensive and offensive” security reasons. As for Panama, the President of the United States did not beat about the bush: “the Panama Canal was built by Americans for Americans, not for others”… “We gave it to Panama and we’re going to give it to them». We gave it to Panama and we are taking it back”.

Gaza could become the Riviera of the Middle East. In the series of ethnic cleansings, Donald Trump’s Gaza-Riviera plan reaches the height of cynicism. The President insists that the Palestinians expelled will not be allowed to return home. A surreal video posted on the President’s account showed him and Benjamin Netanyahu sipping cocktails on a sunny beach in front of a “Gaza Tower”.

The United States votes with the dictators. On 23 February 2025, for the first time in post-war history, the United States voted with Russia, Belarus, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela – in short, almost every dictatorship on the planet – against a draft text tabled by the Europeans and Ukraine at the United Nations General Assembly.

Nazi salutes reappear. Sanctioned, banned and suppressed, Nazi salutes have made a public reappearance in the United States, with Elon Musk in Washington during Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremonies on 20 January 2025. A few weeks later, Steve Bannon, a former close adviser to Donald Trump, repeated the gesture.

Putin proposed a missile duel, under real conditions and in real time, over Kiev. “A sort of technological duel for the 21st century”, he said. “Let’s agree on a target, in Kiev for example, let them concentrate all their air and missile defence forces there, and we’ll strike there with the Orechnik. Let’s conduct such an experiment, such a technological duel, and see what happens. It’s interesting. I think it will be useful both for us and for the Americans.” You have to hear it to believe it.

The Asian Winter Games will be held in Saudi Arabia in 2029. At a time when the fight against global warming is supposed to be a global priority, ecological aberrations continue to flourish. These include the practice of air-conditioning open-air stadiums (Qatar 2022), flying empty planes and destroying forests to install solar panels (Landes, Southern Alps).

Feminicide is exploding worldwide: every day, 140 women or girls die as a result of the blows or actions of their partner or a close relative, which means that one woman/girl is killed every 10 minutes. A total of 85,000 women worldwide, including 2,300 in Europe, are victims of murder. 60% were killed by “their partner or other members of their family”.

Hate is proliferating on social networks: according to a study carried out in 16 countries in 2023, 67% of Internet users have been confronted with hate messages online (particularly the under-35s). Respondents suggest that hate is most prevalent on Facebook (58%), followed by TikTok (30%), X (18%), and Instagram (15%).

Conspiracy theories are gaining ground: in the United States, 12 million people believe that the earth is flat, and one in ten French people hold the same view. A study by IFOP found that 35% of French people say they believe in conspiracy theories. In the United States, around 36% of people said they believed it was certainly or probably true that the Covid-19 epidemic was a planned conspiracy.

Etc… I look forward to writing the opposite inventory of reassuring good news for the world to come.