The Deal Is Imaginary, But the Collapse Is Real

From baseball bans to beef delusions, Trump spins fantasy as the world burns, dries up, and sinks under his ego.

Good morning from the melting ice cube formerly known as Earth, where our aquifers are emptying, our glaciers are weeping, and Donald Trump is claiming victory in trade deals that don’t exist. Welcome to today’s edition of Everything Is Worse Than It Looks and Somehow Still Funny.

Let’s begin with the kids, because of course we’re starting with the kids. A Venezuelan Little League team that earned a rightful spot in the Senior League Baseball World Series was barred from entering the United States because Donald Trump’s travel ban doesn’t give a damn about children’s dreams. These 13- to 16-year-old athletes did everything right, won their Latin American championship, flew to Colombia to apply for U.S. visas, followed every rule the system demanded, and were still turned away at the gate. Why? Because Venezuela is on Trump’s growing list of countries whose residents are apparently just too foreign to be allowed into the land of the free, even if they’ve got a batting average of .327.

The children were stranded in Bogotá while their spot in the tournament was quietly given to a team from Mexico, the very team they beat. Because nothing says “fair play” like penalizing kids for the country they were born in. And while this humanitarian screwup simmers, the U.S. is still barreling ahead with plans to host the FIFA World Cup and the Summer Olympics. Good luck with that, folks. Maybe someone should let the State Department know that Olympic athletes also carry passports.

But if that’s not dystopian enough for your coffee, consider this: Across the U.S., parents on Medicaid are rushing to get their kids vaccinated, not because they suddenly believe in science, but because they’re afraid Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going to take that option away any day now. Since Trump appointed RFK Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services, a move akin to putting an arsonist in charge of the fire department, vaccine policy has descended into chaos. Kennedy has already purged the CDC’s vaccine advisory board and is stacking it with fellow anti-vax cranks. COVID vaccines for healthy kids? No longer recommended. Flu shots with thimerosal? Canceled. And next? Maybe measles, maybe HPV, maybe all of them.

Pediatricians are scrambling. Parents are scheduling shots with the urgency of people grabbing the last lifeboat on the Titanic. Medicaid cuts under Trump’s new budget law are compounding the panic, as families fear not only the disappearance of vaccine mandates, but the complete evaporation of coverage itself. Meanwhile, pertussis and measles are back with a vengeance, and herd immunity is looking more like a nostalgic bedtime story than a public health policy.

Speaking of things drying up: have you heard about the planet’s water? Turns out we’re not just running out, we’re actively hurling it into the ocean like it’s excess inventory at a liquidation sale. A new satellite-based study confirms that humanity’s obsession with sucking groundwater out of the Earth, especially for unsustainable agriculture or fracking, is now one of the leading causes of sea level rise. That’s right: our desperate attempt to irrigate desert crops and feed industrial cows is literally sinking our coastal cities.

Since 2014, the rate of global “continental drying” has exploded, linking once-isolated dry zones into massive “mega-drying” regions. Picture Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia all becoming one big desiccated sandbox, and you’ve got the idea. Nearly six billion people now live in countries with net freshwater loss, and cities from Phoenix to Jakarta are sinking like ships with no bilge pump. Oh, and once that groundwater hits the ocean, it’s no longer drinkable. Unless you like your water with a side of desalination and climate guilt.

You’d think the U.S. would have a plan for this, seeing as it’s a literal threat to our survival. But alas, there is no national water policy. We have no water management institutions. Instead, we have hedge funds pumping Arizona aquifers for profit and Saudi investors growing hay for export in the American desert. Truly, we are governed by goldfish with stock portfolios.

While the Earth dries out and the children are denied entry and the vaccines are under siege, Donald Trump is flying around the world pretending to be a dealmaker. His latest shtick? Declaring massive trade agreements with Japan, the UK, Australia, Vietnam, none of which exist.

Let’s break it down:
– Japan says there is no binding agreement.
– Vietnam says there is no deal at all.
– The UK is laughing in Parliament after securing better terms for their own auto industry.
– Australia? Trump claims they’re “opening up” to U.S. beef. Australians, who export $7.5 billion in their own prime beef and import next to nothing, responded by comparing Trump’s claim to selling instant coffee to Brazil.

In a deeply Freudian moment, Trump even claimed Japan gave the U.S. a “$550 billion signing bonus,” and would let America keep 90% of the profits. This was not satire. He said it with his whole chest. Japan, for the record, is pretending they didn’t hear it. And honestly, same.

As world leaders snicker behind closed doors, Trump rage-posts about windmills, immigration, Beyoncé, and Al Sharpton. He’s calling for media licenses to be revoked, making up criminal conspiracies involving France’s recognition of Palestine, and claiming the UK is still part of the EU. It’s like watching a washed-up improv actor ad-lib his way through a Model UN with no script and no grasp of geography.

And yes, while he’s at it, he’s dismantling MS-13 task forces, sending gang members back to El Salvador in secret flights to protect authoritarian allies, and continuing to hide behind the DOJ’s sweetheart immunity deal for Ghislaine Maxwell, because nothing says “law and order” like shielding a convicted sex trafficker from congressional testimony in exchange for whispers about other people’s crimes.

The rest of the world is treating Trump’s behavior like a joke, but the punchline is on us. It’s a climate catastrophe, a healthcare collapse, and a constitutional crisis all playing out under the banner of “America First.” Only now, America is first in childhood disease resurgence, aquifer depletion, and delusional press conferences.

And through it all, Trump is golfing. On the taxpayer dime. At a resort in Scotland that was picketed by locals holding signs like “Not Even Your Wife Likes You” and “Release the Epstein Files, Baby Carrot.” Honestly? It’s hard to argue with the Scots.