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A banner announces the construction of a photovoltaic solar farm in Cabaiguan, Cuba, on May 21, 2025.
HARD NUMBERS: China becomes top Cuba benefactor, Canada backs down, & More
55: China is financing 55 new solar power projects in Cuba this year, the latest sign of how it is overtaking Russia as the crisis-wracked island’s main benefactor. Some of Moscow’s recent projects in the communist country have stalled: a Russian firm pledged two years ago to revitalize a sugar mill that once employed 2,000 people, but it still sits idle.
3%: In a win for US President Donald Trump, Canada walked back on its 3% Digital Services Tax that prompted the United States to suspend trade talks on Friday. The tax, which disproportionately affected American technology firms, was set to take effect on Monday.
71: Israel’s strike last Tuesday allegedly killed 71 people at a notorious detention facility in Tehran, per Iranian State Media. The prison houses thousands of political prisoners, including opposition politicians, journalists, and activists.
4,000: More than a third of Tuvalu’s population – around 4,000 residents – have applied for a landmark ‘climate visa,’ which grants Australian residency to migrants from Pacific Island nations battling rising sea levels. NASA scientists expect that the country’s main island, home to 60% of the population, will be fully submerged by 2050.
$80,000: US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reportedly re-routed $80,000 in political donations to a newly established personal company during her time as South Dakota’s governor in 2023. Noem’s lawyer said she “fully complied with the letter and the spirit of the law.”U.S. President Donald Trump salutes as he attends the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, in Washington, D.C., U.S., on April 21, 2025.
HARD NUMBERS: Trump rolls real eggs, UAE seeks AI’s help, White House nixes safety jobs, South China Sea gets battle-tested, Gold rush, Senior US official robbed
30,000: Rising egg prices don’t seem to have hit the White House, as nearly 30,000 real eggs adorned the White House lawn Monday morning for the 147th annual Easter egg roll. Donald Trump paid tribute to Pope Francis, defended embattled US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and shared photos with the Easter bunny.
1: Hey ChatGPT, can you propose some new legislation for the United Arab Emirates? Yes, the Emirati nation plans to become the first country to harness the power of artificial intelligence to propose new legislation.
875: Out of the roughly 1,000 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health jobs, the Trump administration has cut 875 of them as part of its broader effort to slash the number of federal employees. This move could especially harm former coal miners – who often suffer from lung disease – as NIOSH has helped them find work outside the mines.
14,000: More than 14,000 American and Filipino soldiers – 9,000 from the US, 5,000 from the Philippines – are participating in a “full battle test” this year, amid mounting tensions in the South China Sea. The coordinated drill will also feature soldiers from Australia, Canada, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The exercise, which started on Monday, will run for three weeks.
$3,400: An age-gold problem: The price of gold surpassed $3,400 on Monday amid fears over the future of the global economy and concerns for the Federal Reserve’s independence. A year ago today, the price of gold was at $2,384.
$3,000: A thief swiped US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s bag while she was having dinner in Washington, DC, on Sunday night, taking her passport, makeup bag, checkbook, and $3,000 in cash. Police officers have not yet caught the thief, believed to be a white male.Trump’s Team of … Reprisals?
Trump team … Assemble!
Usually, obsession with team building is reserved for the world of sports, not politics. There are Hollywood movies about NFL draft day, and the trade deadlines in basketball, hockey, and baseball command all-day TV specials. But those seem trivial compared to the global obsession with Trump Team 2.0. Who is on it, and what does it mean for the next four years?
Cabinet-building has long been crucial for both the success of a presidency and for the direction of the United States. From the presidencies of Abraham Lincoln to Donald Trump, the team often tells the tale of power.
After narrowly winning the election of 1860, Lincoln knew the United States was lurching toward civil war. He needed a united team to take on the emerging secessionist Confederacy, but he didn’t choose loyalists. Instead, he made a radical choice to bring in his chief opponents like William Seward, Salmon Chase, and Edward Bates. In her bestselling book, Doris Kearns Goodwin called this a “Team of Rivals.”
Initially, it looked like a rookie mistake. Seward tried to sabotage Lincoln, leaking false announcements about a surrender of Fort Sumter, the place where, soon after, the first shots of the Civil War were fired.
But Lincoln asserted his leadership without alienating his team, and Seward soon became one of his closest confidants. Co-opting and including his chief opponents is roundly hailed as one of Lincoln’s finest strategies.
If Lincoln put together a team of rivals, Trump has assembled a team of reprisals. This is a group of ardent MAGA loyalists, not rivals — as Ian Bremmer pointed out in our GZERO video. Their job is to radically transform every part of government, from trade policy to foreign policy. There are three goals: reformation, reduction, and reprisal. And that last point is critical. The foundational promise Trump made to voters was to smash “the enemies within.” And that is exactly what this team is built to do.
Here is a starter menu:
- The Deep State: Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been appointed to actively find “efficiencies” and dismantle large swaths of the government. “You’re fired” will be the watchwords.
- The Military: Pete Hegseth, the veteran and Fox News commentator, is headed for the secretary of defense job, where he has long said he would fire all generals who support programs like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
- The Border: Tom Homan, the nominated “border czar,” has warned all illegal aliens to get ready for mass deportation, while South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem will be Trump’s Homeland Security chief working alongside Homan.
- The Department of Education: Trump has promised to close this down completely to stop the so-called “woke agenda.”
- The Environmental Protection Agency: Expect former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to gut EPA regulations. He has already signaled his priorities, with a social media post saying he will “restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.” The EPA might have to change its initials to the DBD, for Drill, Baby, Drill. Still, there are some signs of resistance here. Even the CEO of ExxonMobil pushed back, saying, “I don’t think the challenge or the need to address global emissions is going to go away.”
- Trade: China hawk Sen. Marco Rubio will be the secretary of state, likely overseeing a world of high tariffs that will trigger trade wars alongside the existing wars already raging.
- The Legal System: Matt Gaetz’s nomination for attorney general is taking the most incoming. Gaetz believes he and Trump are victims of Democratic “lawfare,” and he’s ready to hit back. “The hammer of Justice is coming,” declared Elon Musk on X, lest anyone think there will be no reprisals.
To Trump supporters — and that means the majority of voters — this is exactly what they wanted. Expect them to follow through on everything you heard on the campaign trail. As folks used to say, take Trump and his team both seriously and literally.
The president-elect has long claimed he is the victim of multiple attacks from the establishment because he promised to “drain the swamp” and, unlike in 2016, he’s wasting no time assembling a team to fight back. Of the many things to expect from Donald Trump, reprisals are at the top of the list.
How to cover the Trump team fairly?
Covering this transition in a meaningful, insightful way requires genuine balance and adherence to fairness. In the current climate of hyper-polarization, anything but praise for the president-elect can be cast as “woke” bias from the “lamestream” media. On the other hand, anything positive about Trump is often cast as supplicant cozying up to a kleptocracy.
Neither is helpful.
The key is not to focus on the fertilized fears on social media but on the real actions of the Trump team. What will they actually do? Who is benefiting from the radical change?
What will be the impact of their policies on the economy, rights, security, climate, and social coherence?
Each question will have a specific answer, and tracking them with facts and credibility will be key over the next four years. In an environment where distrust and disinformation are weaponized, straight talk and nonpartisan insight will become more valuable than ever.
This is just the beginning of the second Trump era, and it will be significantly more transformative than the first. Trump’s Team of Reprisals is ready to do exactly what they promised on the campaign trail, best summed up in three words: fight, fight fight.