Against the backdrop of the 36-day government shutdown and Americans’ growing concerns about their economic future, President Donald Trump told several thousand people at the American Business Forum on Nov. 5 not to worry. The “Golden Age of America” is reality, he said. The American Dream has been restored, and if Americans don’t see it, it’s only because that truth hasn’t yet been communicated to them.
Much of his one-hour speech at Miami’s Kaseya Center, held on the first anniversary of his 2024 election victory, was dedicated to reporting on claimed economic successes, most of which bore little connection to the reality of the U.S. economy today or to the hardships Americans are suffering. He cited “trillions of dollars in new investments, hundreds of thousands of new jobs,” especially in AI, higher wages, the financial benefits of his tariff policy, and generally of having “the greatest economy in the world.” Other successes included turning the U.S. into a “bitcoin superpower” and the “crypto capital of the world.”
None of these would have resonated with the average citizen, but most of the audience at this glitzy, star-studded affair, financed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, didn’t include the average, MAGA hat-wearing American. Present, rather, were global business leaders and Fortune 500 CEOs, famous athletes, and prominent international bankers—JPMorgan-Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon among them. Special star status was given to Venezuelan Maria Corina Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who used her manic video address to defend Trump’s naval regime-change offensive against the “illegitimate” President Nicolás Maduro, charging that he had turned Venezuela into “a hub for America’s adversaries—Iran, Russia, and China.” To cheers, she said that Venezuela is just steps away from finally achieving freedom, “which means freedom for Nicaragua and Cuba as well.”
