By LEONARDO BOFF*
What Donald Trump has done, pompously, is a declaration of war against the Earth and against humanity.
Donald Trump’s first sentence in his inauguration speech was at 12.02:20 on January 2025, XNUMX: “At this very moment, the golden age of America has begun.” Proposing his plans to put “America first” (meaning only America) and practically make it the master of the world, everything indicates that the supposed golden age will end in the iron age.
Never before in the history of American presidents has there been such arrogance, such a spirit of exclusion, and such a clear willingness to use their enormous power, especially military power, to subordinate all countries and make every region of the planet that falls within the scope of American interests the object of appropriation, namely Greenland, the Panama Canal, and not excluding Canada. In his speech, there was no whisper from the vast majority of the world's poor who are only crying out to survive or not be killed. There, in the Capitol, the entire “elite of the world's humanistic backwardness” was present: the CEOs of Big Techs Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Jeff Bezzos (Amazon), Sundar Pichai (Google), and Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX, and X), the great fortunes, and other magnates of the global financial system.
No word or promise was heard or even mentioned, in the sense of reducing the glaring social inequality on the planet, the sinister numbers of hunger and diseases that are rampant throughout humanity. It was the triumphant proclamation of power for power’s sake, understood in its malignant form of domination and imposition. There will be no barriers that represent any obstacle to prevent, at any given moment, “America from coming first”. He explicitly states that he will impose peace by force. Narcissistic blindness makes Trump stupid by forgetting that this type of peace is not peace, but, at most, a pacification. It will generate humiliation, resentment and a desire for revenge in the pacified. It is the niche in which terrorism and the wave of attacks mature, the only force left to the dominated to express their rejection.
The forced deportation of thousands of immigrants military manual, the high taxation of imported products, especially from China and reaching 100% of the BRIC countries, the denial of customs policies that protected those of another sexual orientation and same-sex marriage, were central to his speech.
However, nothing is more serious than the withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Treaty, in which all nations committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2300 so that the Earth's climate would not exceed 1,5 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial era (1850-1900). It not only praised, but actually extolled oil and gas extraction, making the United States the unbeatable producer of this fossil fuel, knowing that, after China, the United States is the country that pollutes the atmosphere the most. It is scientifically proven that this limit has already been exceeded in a large part of the planet, reaching 1,5 and 1,6 C to 2 C. We are not heading towards the onset of global warming. We are already within it, as evidenced by extreme events such as the major floods in the south of our country, in Valencia and in many parts of the world, the severe droughts and uncontrollable fires in Florida, the Amazon and the Pantanal. Many scientists recognize that science is late. It can no longer reverse this change in the Earth, only prevent the arrival of extreme events and mitigate their damage.
What Donald Trump has done, pompously, is a declaration of war against the Earth and against humanity. If he carries out his intention of exploiting every source of oil and encouraging the return of gasoline-powered cars to the detriment of electric cars, he could greatly aggravate extreme events such as typhoons and tornadoes that are so frequent in the US and other parts of the planet.
Furthermore, with the economic isolationism that he wants to impose on the United States, he is destroying the bridges that were painfully connecting all countries within the one Common Home, in an irreversible process of globalization, as the new phase of the Earth itself and of all humanity. After thousands of years of migration across continents, people are once again meeting in a single common place: planet Earth, made the Common Home of all and their cultures. According to Donald Trump, all of this must be demolished in the name of the absolute and unquestionable supremacy of the United States over everything and everyone.
It is not unlikely that we will reach a point of no return and will move towards not the supposed golden age, exclusive to the United States and not to all humanity, but towards the Iron Age with the return to less civilized forms of coexistence among all and of care and respect for nature. It will be a resounding failure imposed on the arrogance of a white supremacist and a frustration of the dreams of many of humanity who never gave up on Teilhard de Chardin's great utopia, of building the Noosphere (united minds and hearts) or of Pope Francis, of everyone working together to achieve universal brotherhood, everyone being brothers and sisters in nature and among all human beings.
Dreams of this nature never die. Whether ridiculed or denied, they always resurface with greater vigor. For they represent the secret meaning of the process of evolution that has come down to us and that corresponds to the Creator’s designs. Let us not fall into the illusion of a golden age, which is impossible with Donald Trump’s methods. Let us try to avoid the iron age or prepare ourselves for it, which will inevitably follow the illusion of the arrogant president of the United States.
*Leonardo Boff is an ecologist, philosopher and writer. Author, among other books, of Caring for our common home: clues to delay the end of the world (Vozes). [https://amzn.to/3zR83dw]
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