Hamas will have “Hell to pay” if they don’t return the hostages by the time he takes office. The Gulf of Mexico will be renamed the “Gulf of America,” control of the Panama Canal will go back to the U.S., and our neighbors to the north and south will face stiff tariffs if they keep allowing illegal immigrants and drugs to come through their countries. These were just a few of the topics at a wide-ranging press conference by incoming President Donald Trump, who came out with guns blazing as he set the stage for his new administration.
The 45th and now 47th president pitched a common-sense approach to tackling America’s problems and made it clear that the interests of his country's citizens would come first. The billionaire businessman promised a “New Golden Age” for America focusing on the economy and rebuilding the nation’s respect on the global stage, a reputation left in tatters by his predecessor.
Trump returns to the White House as the country faces a multitude of problems he says were under control during his previous term. The economy, inflation, illegal immigration, foreign wars—the issues that propelled his reelection—will be addressed, he promises, right out of the gate.
Trump started the presser with the introduction of United Arab Emirates businessman Hussain Sajwani, who pledged a $20 billion investment in the U.S. for new data centers. Trump panned the energy policies of the Democrats, stating they will not come close to powering a new economy driven by Artificial Intelligence. He suggested power plants be built alongside the electricity-gobbling data centers and pledged to streamline the approval process to get them built. Sajwani’s announcement comes on the heels of a $100 billion AI deal Trump cut with Japanese mogul
Masayoshi Son, an investment the President encouraged the SoftBank executive to double.
He introduced Steven Witkoff, his Special Presidential Envoy for Middle East Peace, and publicly tasked him to win the return of the hostages seized in the horrific raid Hamas conducted on Israel. If the captives are not released by the time he takes office on January 20, "It will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone," the President warned, staring into the camera. "All hell will break out. I don't have to say anymore, but that's what it is."
Trump left the heads of the White House press corps spinning when he announced his Gulf of Mexico rebranding. “That covers a lot of territory, the Gulf of America. What a beautiful name, and it’s appropriate,” he said, referencing everything the U.S. does on behalf of the Gulf region. While he was at it, Trump remarked that Greenland should be part of the United States, which should also take back control of the Panama Canal, a vital waterway he said is now controlled by China. He expressed the military and economic importance of both Greenland and the canal, which he pointed out was built by the United States at a great cost of money and lives.
Using the press event to lay down markers for negotiations with other nations, Trump made a case for severing ties with Canada if they don’t agree to better trade arrangements and tighten their border. Everything Canada supplies to the U.S.—cars, lumber, even milk—the country has in abundance here at home, he stressed, adding that he would rather have the cars sent from Canada, 20% of the U.S. market, made in Detroit. Trump’s tough stance on its northern neighbor and his pointing out its precarious position of relying on $200 billion in U.S. subsidies for its economic well-being has led to the resignation of its prime minister, Justin Trudeau.
Trump went on to rebuke Mexico for its cartel activities, trade deficits with the U.S., and failure to stop the flow of migrants over the southern border. “We have a massive deficit with Mexico, and we help Mexico a lot,” he noted. “They're essentially run by the cartels, and we can't let that happen. Mexico is really in trouble, a lot of trouble, a very dangerous place.”
Reminding the world that he forced European countries to pay their fair share into NATO, Trump blamed the war in Ukraine on Biden, saying his insistence that the country join the organization threatened Russian President Putin and his abrupt pull out from Afghanistan emboldened him to attack. “Russia is losing a lot of young people, and so is Ukraine, and it should have never been started. I guarantee you, if I were president, that war would have never happened,” Trump said, adding, “The cities are all blown up, the people have largely left, and the soldiers are killing each other at levels that haven't been seen since the Second World War. So, we'll have to get that one straightened out too. That's a tough one, much tougher than it would have been before it started, I can tell you that.”
To usher in a new Golden Age, Trump doubled down on his pledge to tap the country’s vast oil and gas resources. He voiced his annoyance over the outgoing administration’s recent move to restrict 625 million acres from offshore drilling and said he will overturn the decision promptly upon taking office to generate revenue and wean the nation off its dependence on other countries for fuel. He also faulted Biden’s green energy policies, arguing that windmills are too expensive, costly to dispose of, and hazardous to marine life.
“We are at the beginning of a great, beautiful golden age of business,” the President concluded. “And I think we're also at a golden age of common sense. We’re going to have a great country again.”