00:00In this context, now we want to welcome back our special guest, Eduardo Meneses, political analyst.
00:07Welcome back once more here to Telesura English.
00:13I'd like to be here.
00:18What will be the political consequences of a slow economy taking into account
00:23that the U.S. president is ignoring completely the numbers that I just mentioned
00:27and therefore he is taking no action to revert this reality?
00:33Well, there is clearly in all the speech that Trump just made,
00:38there is a huge distance between what is the narrative that he wants to position in the public opinion and
00:46the facts.
00:47It's very clear that even if there could be some growth,
00:53if this growth in one side is not backing up the creation of jobs,
01:02and that is something that we are not saying just like taking the voices of political opposition
01:07or, I don't know, radical leftists who want to oppose the government.
01:12If we just take some reports made by the Goldman Sachs Bank at the end of last year,
01:21we are already seeing a dynamic which is a new dynamic in the U.S. economy,
01:26which is we are seeing some sectors of the economy maintaining some growth but not creating jobs.
01:36This is mainly linked to the development of new technologies like artificial intelligence.
01:40So we are seeing first the President Trump giving bad numbers.
01:47You already mentioned that.
01:49And we have seen how in the last quarter of 2025, the economy is slow, we're slowing.
01:58But also there's a systemic problem that the U.S. has in terms of job creation,
02:05linked to artificial intelligence, but also linked to the way in which the U.S. economy is being more and
02:11more focused
02:12into a military economy.
02:14This is something that is one of the explanations of why President Trump is trying to position this idea
02:24that they are creating peace, that they need money for building a sustainable peace,
02:30which in fact what they are doing is they are trying to strengthen the last of the places
02:36where they do have some productive economy in the U.S., which is the military industry.
02:41The industry in the U.S. has been eroding year by year in the last five decades,
02:49with all the industry going to other continents, and the military industry is becoming more and more
02:55the last pillar of the productive economy.
02:59So that's one thing.
03:00But the other very important thing that we need to understand in the economical landscape in the United States
03:06is that all these tariffs that they are taking, the unilateral sanctions they are taking to Venezuela,
03:13to Cuba, to Russia, to Iran, in fact, what they are doing is they are strengthening the creation
03:22of other transaction regions where the U.S. dollar is not being used.
03:29And this is creating a huge decreasing for the dollar, the United States dollar,
03:34which is losing more and more its value.
03:38And it is augmenting in a huge amount the inflation numbers.
03:44So we are not only having a lack of growth, we are having a lack of job creation,
03:50but also the geopolitical strategy that U.S. has been implementing,
03:55which is trying to maintain the power by the force, by the military force of the United States,
04:01and by all the economic measures like these tariffs, like the different unilateral sanctions,
04:07that are also increasing the inflation, which has been accentuated by the tariffs, as you were saying.
04:14So all of this is kind of a perfect storm that President Trump has continued to fuel day by day,
04:23measure by measure, and doesn't seem to be taking another direction.
04:27Also, migration was a key topic, and he said we have the strongest and more secure border worldwide.
04:34He even made fun of the Latino community in the U.S.
04:37He labeled migrants as criminals.
04:40However, he failed, for example, to mention that the U.S. indefinitely passed the processing of immigrant visas
04:46for 75 nations.
04:48He failed to mention the deadly actions of ICE, who were speaking earlier about it,
04:52and also the massive demonstrations that have been taking place throughout the nation
04:58against these anti-immigrant policies, which have been faced with also police brutality.
05:02How important is the role of the people in countering, in responding to these anti-immigrant policies of the U
05:12.S. president,
05:12but also how can we connect both the struggles for human rights, for migrants' rights,
05:18and also for the defense of the just causes of the world, such as the Palestinian cause,
05:22which he also mentioned slightly in his speech?
05:27Well, we can definitely see this as an example of what we were saying before,
05:32about how the strategy of President Trump is about creating polarization.
05:38And we know that one of the main axes of polarization that he has been building for decades now
05:44is the polarization around immigration.
05:48We totally know that the immigration policy in the United States is not at all creating unanimity,
05:57is not increasing the popularity of the President Trump.
06:01But nonetheless, we need to understand that this is a political maneuver where he's trying to maintain a core of
06:09its voters,
06:10which has been polarizing and becoming more and more extreme in the position around the ICE policy,
06:18the ICE police in general, and all the actions.
06:21So this is kind of an artificial dilemma that he's trying to position.
06:26On one side, he's saying human rights, and on the other side, he's saying the Americans first.
06:34One of the best examples of that was also the proposal that he made about this American Save the America
06:44Act,
06:45which is around forcing people who are voting to bring demonstrations of their nationality,
06:53which we know is going to make a risk for a lot of North Americans and a lot of U
07:05.S. citizens
07:06who have the citizenship but do not have the access to those documents to access the polls.
07:12So we know that all of this is a polarizing policy, which is not at all trying to solve problems.
07:21We totally have been saying how Trump has been building this narrative for years now,
07:27where he's trying to disguise the total inaccuracy of its economic policy,
07:35the incapacity that they have had in the previous government and the current government
07:40to solve the economic and social problems of the working class in the U.S.
07:46And he's trying to bring this flag of trying to say it's the fault of immigrants.
07:51We know that this is not going to work anymore in terms of building a majority that is the same
07:59that maybe made him elected last time.
08:02But the effort he's trying to make here is trying to maintain some core voters.
08:07What is the strategy in the long term?
08:09It's still to be determined.
08:11We could say definitely that we could be afraid of how he's trying to build a war scenario
08:18that could try to bring back some of the earlier voters while maintaining these core voters
08:26through this polarizing policy.
08:28But this, in fact, is one of the big risks because, as you were mentioning,
08:33human rights, international law, all what happened with the Palestinian territories
08:38and how the U.S. is now totally just bypassing the international law
08:44and the U.N. institutions to create a so-called peace board,
08:49which is, in fact, a colonizing board,
08:53which is trying to reinforce the colonization of Palestine.
08:56All of these are the same kind of measures that apply internally and externally
09:02of the U.S. in this polarization run of President Trump,
09:08which is trying to increase this polarization in the U.S. society.
09:13Let's bring the scope to Latin America.
09:16He mentioned Venezuela.
09:17Right afterwards, he said,
09:19the U.S. rejects political violence of any kind.
09:22However, he failed to mention the politically motivated violence lived in Venezuela
09:26during the January 3rd military attack that also, as we know,
09:30led to the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro
09:34and also Congresswoman Celia Flores.
09:37But there is something even more remarkable in today's speech.
09:40There was also a changing point.
09:43In the first hours that led after the attack,
09:46Trump referred to this mission as a smooth,
09:49that had no resistance from Venezuela.
09:52However, today, almost two months after this attack,
09:55he recognized that the military forces,
09:58the U.S. military forces were received with a strong military response.
10:02In your opinion, what does this shift in narrative means?
10:08Well, I think that this is a very good example
10:11of how President Trump is able to use different kind of narratives
10:20in different moments.
10:21We knew that at the first moment
10:24where the U.S. Army kidnapped the President Maduro in Venezuela,
10:30they were trying to show this as a smooth process,
10:34something that didn't have any blood,
10:38that was spoiled,
10:39which we totally know that it was false.
10:42In Venezuela, there has been more than 100 people who were killed.
10:47We know that there were hundreds of planes
10:50who bombed the Venezuelan territory
10:53in a total violation of international law.
10:56But the intention was to show a wind,
11:00kind of a clean wind
11:03that had no blood in their hands at that moment.
11:08But now the need of narrative has totally changed.
11:11Now, as you could see in this speech,
11:17President Trump was trying to position
11:20kind of a heroic narrative
11:24where he was giving medal of honors to different people.
11:29He positioned this pilot from the helicopter
11:35who helped to kidnap Maduro,
11:37but he also gave recognition and heroic recognition
11:42to people who have been attacked by some criminals
11:46which happened to be immigrants,
11:49but it has nothing to do with their immigration status.
11:53It's basic delinquents that happens all the time in the U.S.
11:57So he's trying to build this heroic narrative.
12:03And it's very interesting to see how a same fact
12:06that was presented in a certain way
12:10less than two months ago,
12:12now it is totally changed
12:14in order to satisfy the needs in the moment.
12:18That's exactly what we were analyzing
12:19the first part just before the speech
12:22in how the strategy that has always been built
12:26in the last months and years,
12:28we could say, by President Trump
12:30is kind of the importance of the narrative
12:32beyond the facts,
12:34which is at the same time
12:36has been effective to a certain point
12:38because we know how the social networks
12:41and the propaganda works
12:43and has allowed Donald Trump
12:45to maintain some of its policies
12:49and its narratives.
12:50But at the same time,
12:51it's creating, as we were saying before,
12:53a deepening gap between reality and narrative
12:57that is going to have a huge backlash
13:00at the moment where all this economic reality,
13:04geopolitical reality,
13:05and internal reality
13:07will just join the facts again.
13:12And this is something that is going to happen.
13:14President Trump cannot remain
13:17creating fictional narratives for years.
13:20The reality of what is the economy,
13:23the reality of what is the status
13:25of the international war
13:28that is being set up
13:30against China and Russia
13:32is going also to catch up with reality.
13:36So all of this is just going...
13:38We could say that Trump
13:39is kind of building a ticking bomb
13:42that is going to explode in his hands.
13:45Thank you very much, Eduardo,
13:46for your time here in Telesur English,
13:48for helping us as well
13:50going through the main highlights
13:51of this 2026 State of the Union.
13:56Thank you for the invitation.
13:58We were speaking at this moment
13:59to Eduardo Meneses,
14:01political analyst in the context
14:02of the 2026 State of the Union
14:05address by U.S. President Donald Trump,
14:07a speech in which
14:07he taught his administration's actions
14:10and also enjoyed the applauses
14:12while ignoring the economic instability
14:15the country faces,
14:16the internal turmoil,
14:18military incursions
14:19and threats against nations worldwide,
14:21putting at risk as well
14:23peace, stability and coexistence
14:26and also failing to accept
14:28that the U.S. is an hegemony in decay.
14:30Thank you for joining us today
14:32in this special programme
14:33and also we invite you
14:35to stay tuned with Telesur English.
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