Donald Trump became the first sitting US president to attend the Super Bowl yesterday, and managed to dominate conversations even before arriving at the event.
Onboard Air Force One, President Trump spoke to reporters about new tariffs, his plan for Gaza and his involvement in the peace process in Ukraine.
Trump said that Gaza should be thought of as “a big real estate site” that the United States will own and bring “stability” to.
He once again described the land as a “demolition site” and said it would be “reclaimed” and “levelled out”.
Senior director of news at WHSHU Public Radio Terry Sheridan told The Pat Kenny Show that it is impossible to know how real this “scheme” is.
“It’s all the way you think of Donald Trump and how Donald Trump looks at the world,” he said.
“In his mind he’s thinking that, ‘Hey, if this is basically a ‘big urban development project’, we’ll clear it out, we’ll build it better, and it’ll be great’.
“He thinks that yes, countries will take the people of Gaza into their countries, welcome them with open arms; he thinks that the Gazans will want to go.”
New steel tariffs
President Trump also announced he would be imposing 25% tariffs on imports of aluminium steel, which would impact Canada, Mexico, and Japan, among others.
Ms Sheridan said that this was Trump’s way of "showing who is boss".
“It you’re going to buy a car, that price is going to go up significantly,” he said.
“Even if you’re going to have a can of soda, the cans of soda are made of aluminium.
“That price is going to go up as well and this is something that Trump and his supporters say will not happen – but it’s basically economics 101.
“If you put a tariff on something, you are raising the price to the end consumer, and in this case the end consumer is obviously the United States.”
President Donald Trump signs an executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)Trump has said he is serious about having Canada become the 51st state of the US and that he has been involved in talks with Putin about ending the war in Ukraine.
The Kremlin has not confirmed whether any such conversations took place.
According to Mr Sheridan, both of these statements may point towards Trump’s desire to acquire more natural resources for the US.
“He said he would support more arms and more financial aid to Ukraine if they would give him or give the United States their mineral resources,” he said.
“And as we were talking about Canada, one of the reasons why perhaps he wants to make it the 51st state is because of its vast mineral resources and its access to the Arctic Ocean.”
Many of Ukraine’s valuable mineral resources lie in disputed territory still held under Russian occupation.
Main image: President Donald Trump speaks after taking the oath of office during the 60th Presidential Inauguration in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times via AP, Pool)
