Mallen Baker: Faultlines

President Trump had already told us that he wanted to take over Greenland. Then we got the sense that it was a live project when it was revealed that spies had been sent to the island on a 'covert influence' operation. Now, Trump has announced a "special envoy" for Greenland, placing it at the top of a priority list, and alarming Greenland and Denmark over what this means might be coming next. Mea...

In its recent National Security Strategy, the Trump Administration lay claim to Central and South America as being 'its neighbourhood', where it would exert more control and expect to be able to shape events to its satisfaction. And it specifically said it would seek to push out third party countries, and it was clear that this meant China. But China just released its own strategy, and it's making...

In this news round-up of the week for Friday December 19th, 2025. President Trump addresses the nation, and it's fascinating for what it says about the pressure the administration is under. President Putin addresses the nation, and apart from the stark contrast, it's worth noting what it says about the end game for Ukraine. And the Epstein Files release day is today - and the administration will f...

President Trump's trusted and loyal chief of staff, Susie Wiles, always known as the quiet person who got everything done, has hit the news big time with a series of interviews she did with Vanity Fair, where she gave strikingly honest assessments of her colleagues, some of Trump's recent actions and his motivations. It made a big impact - some of it wasn't news, or at least shouldn't have been. B...

By all accounts, the MAGA faithful are starting to despair at the disconnect between what candidate Donald Trump promised during his election campaign, and what President Trump is actually delivering. Whether it comes to affordability, the Epstein Files, Artificial Intelligence and more - Trump is seen as aligning with billionaires and tech oligarchs, not the ordinary people. And, according to a s...

In an interview a few days ago, Elon Musk - normally the purveyor of hubris and inflated promises - said that DOGE had been "a little bit" successful. This was clearly the closest to reality he could bring himself to admit in public, but the fact he went on to say that he wouldn't do it if he had his time again really tells the story. So that moment of self-reflection is worth noting. But then you...

In this news round-up of the week for Friday December 12th 2025: President Trump's Navy seizes an oil tanker carrying Venezuelan crude which highlights what may be the real reason why he won't stop until Maduro is gone; A leaked briefing paints in vivid colours the reality that if the US ends up in a shooting war with China, America itself expects to lose, in spite of all its expensive weapons; An...

One of the big stories of 2025 has been the plummeting rates of foreign tourists entering the United States. Whether because President Trump has insulted their countries, or because they just don't fancy visiting the country the US has become - people are staying away in droves. Now, as though that isn't nearly bad enough, the Trump administration seems determined to impose even more onerous and i...

European leaders and Ukraine's President Zelensky have been meeting yet again to agree a way forward in the face of Trump's pressure for Ukraine to sign a variation on its one-sided deal with Putin's Russia. And STILL, after Trump's dismissive insults towards them all has been codified as official US security policy - they are keeping up the pretence that the US is still Europe's biggest ally. Why...

The new Prime Minister of Japan, Sanae Takaichi, established a great rapport with President Trump right from the start - or so it seemed. But when she immediately lined up with Trump to draw a hard line with Xi Jinping's China, she turned around and discovered he wasn't there. Trump's America is interested, according to it's recent National Security Strategy (and its observed behaviour) in money....

In this news round-up of the week for Friday December 5th 2025 - The US launches its new security strategy, and it doesn't mince words in laying out the real thinking behind Trump's bizarre foreign policy. The question is - will Europeans actually do anything about the admission that Trump aims to replace them all with far-right parties, that he aims to hand Ukraine to Russia, or any of the rest o...

President Trump assumed that waving a big stick in front of Venzuela's Nicolas Maduro would result in him agreeing to step down, since the US has all of its economic and military might to bring to bear. But Maduro has called his bluff, and suddenly Trump is finding that the ground is disappearing under his feet. The attacks against boats are attracting talk of war crimes. Congress is starting to g...

NATO is realising that the hybrid warfare being waged against it by Russia, via sabotage, airspace incursions, disinformation and hacking attacks, are too serious to continue to be shrugged off. So today one of NATO's top military leaders put it out there that NATO should be taking more aggressive and proactive action, and that such action would count as a defensive measure in the current situatio...

According to the Washington Post, President Trump's defence secretary Pete Hegseth ordered specifically that there should be no survivors from the first of the US military strikes against boats in waters close to Venezuela. This meant that when two people survived the initial strike, the US navy carried out a second strike specifically just to eliminate those survivors - an act that would be consi...

In this news round-up of the week for Friday, November 28th 2025. President Trump faces a major legal backlash as analysis shows hundreds of judges have ruled his latest actions on deportations to be illegal - and now a class action is coming that may force a change in policy. Taiwan shows how it is coming to terms with the unreliability of its greatest ally. Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff shows the...

This week, we saw the Trump Administration trying to blackmail the EU with steel and aluminium tariffs to get it to dismantle its regulations on big tech. We saw scandal in Switzerland over the donations to Trump of a Rolex clock and a gold bar to get tariffs reduced there. And we saw Trump declare that, as the host of the next G20 meeting in 2026, he is going to bar South Africa from attending be...

A couple of weeks ago, Michelle Obama said that America wasn't ready to vote for a woman as President. Today, in the UK - which has had three women Prime Ministers and counting - another woman in a top position - Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer, got to hold the centre of attention of the country for a couple of days having complained about misogyny and 'mansplaining' that she has to dea...

We've talked before about the two sides of MAGA - the personality cult / ideological part, which is noisy and enthusiastic at times, and perpetually confused with Trump's frequent inconsistencies - and the tech billionaire part, with their views on the post-democracy AI future they think they should be left to bring about. Earlier predictions that these two might not be the best of room-mates are...

As expected, European and Ukrainian leaders have been locked in urgent talks with the US as they try to negotiate down the Trump Ukraine Surrender Plan to something more acceptable. As they do so, Trump is plumbing new depths in his public expression of contempt for Ukraine, saying that it's leaders have not been sufficiently appreciative of everything he has done for them. For some reason, he fai...

In this news round-up of the week for Friday, November 21st, 2025, we examine the text of Trump's Ukraine surrender plan and the attempt to force Ukraine to sign it, with the threat of letting Putin win the war if it doesn't. We also look at Japan's new Prime Minister facing a massive confrontation with China over Taiwan, and the UK's detailed COVID-19 inquiry report.

It's just been revealed that Putin's Russia has been working in secret with the Trump administration to agree what is described as a 28-point plan, based on the Gaza peace plan. One thing is clear - if such a plan is taking shape, it is doing so very much according to Putin's desires which, by definition, means an extremely rough deal for Ukraine. It seems that President Trump retains the belief t...

With one abrupt and astonishing U-turn, President Trump has removed all doubt that he's prematurely entering the lame duck phase of his presidency. Faced with a massive revolt by Republican lawmakers to vote for the Epstein files to be released, he used the masterful arts of a confused toddler in seeking to persuade them that, contrary to everything said and done so far, he really wants them to vo...

Lots of questions for this video to celebrate my long-delayed YouTube silver button! Lots on the United States and democracy, what the Trump administration end game is, whether the US will be able to recover its democracy after Trump's term is over and more. Also, what did Putin hope to get out of threatening to give Venezuela weapons to use against the US? And then a few questions about me. Let's...

In this news round-up of the week for Friday November 14th 2025 - An announcement by Trump's War Secretary Pete Hegseth seems to signal a completely new focus for how America uses its military power in the future, and it's not great news for Latin America. Trump is mired once again in the Epstein files - but what is at the heart of the weird contradiction we're seeing play out before our eyes? And...

Boycotts rarely work, and even the ones that do, rarely stick. But Canadians are making themselves the exception. Ten months in, they are still avoiding travelling to the US in significant numbers. They are still shunning American brands in the stores in significant numbers. And while they're doing that, they're looking with new eyes to many of the potential other partners - including Trump's bigg...