Greetings, Earthlings. It is I, Xylb’tok, your ever-observant Martian correspondent, reporting once more from the lofty, dust-swirled heights of Olympus Mons. The haggis are currently engaged in a mildly chaotic relay race involving a kettle, a map of Greenland and what we strongly suspect is a stolen traffic cone. Although from the sounds of it things have gone rather awry. It is, I regret to inform you, still more organised than your geopolitics this week.
Week 57 arrived not so much with a bang as with a prolonged, echoing series of diplomatic facepalms. There were pleas for help followed by threats, threats followed by denials, phantom conversations with former presidents, and a sudden cultural critique from an actor who appears to have declared war on the performing arts.
Let us begin, as ever, with the man who continues to treat international relations like a group chat he keeps leaving and rejoining.
The Strait of Hormuz hokey cokey
This week, Agent Orange, also known as Emperor Tangerine, Supreme Misleader and Part-Time Diplomatic Arsonist, turned his attention to the Strait of Hormuz. For context, Earthlings, this is not just any stretch of water. It is one of the most critical shipping routes on your planet, a narrow artery through which a significant portion of the world’s oil supply flows. In short, not something one casually destabilises for sport.
And yet.
Following a series of escalatory actions and threats, the Strait has now effectively been closed, sending shockwaves through global markets and diplomacy alike. The remarkable part is not that this happened. Numerous experts, analysts and, frankly, anyone with access to a map and basic pattern recognition warned that this was a likely outcome.
The remarkable part is that the only person who appears genuinely surprised is the one who not only caused its closure but was repeatedly told it would happen.
Having realised that he had got to the “find out stage” of what you Earthlings apparently call FAFO, naturally Agent Orange defaulted to his usual status quo.
First, he asked for support.
Then, when that support was not immediately forthcoming, he threatened NATO.
Then, when NATO allies collectively raised an eyebrow and declined to be emotionally blackmailed into a potential escalation, he announced he did not need their support anyway.
From Mars, this sequence is known as the Hokey Cokey of Foreign Policy.
You put your allies in,
You take your allies out,
In, Out, In, Out
You shake them all about,
And then wonder why nobody answers your calls.
It turns out that repeatedly insulting, undermining and tariffing your allies is not the strongest foundation upon which to build emergency cooperation. Who knew?
Diplomacy, Earthlings, is a long game. It involves trust, consistency and the radical concept of not threatening your friends five minutes before asking them for help.
By the end of the week, the United States appeared to be conducting a solo performance of “We Don’t Need Anyone”, while simultaneously discovering that actions have consequences and shipping lanes do, in fact, close. A bold strategy. History suggests it may not end well.
Cuba: now accepting unsolicited interest
Not content with stirring tensions in one region, Captain Chaos turned his gaze towards Cuba, which was experiencing a significant blackout.
Naturally, the response was not humanitarian concern or offers of support.
It was a threat.
Yes, Earthlings, Trump suggested he might “take” Cuba.
From Mars, we must once again gently remind you that countries are not decorative items. They cannot be picked up, claimed and added to a collection like novelty golf trophies.
The optics were, to use a technical Martian term, spectacularly colonial.
At a moment when people were dealing with infrastructure failure and uncertainty, the idea of external takeover being floated was less reassuring than one might hope.
Cuba, for its part, did not appear especially keen on the proposal. A shocking development.
One begins to suspect that “Have you tried not threatening to annex things?” may need to be included in future diplomatic training manuals.
Fake news and the War on reality
Meanwhile, back in the land of the First Amendment, the Supreme Misleader turned his attention to the press. Specifically, he complained that journalists were not reporting things the way he liked. In response, he threatened their licences.
Now, from Mars, where our journalists are occasionally pelted with fermented asteroid dust but are otherwise allowed to report facts without fear of government retaliation, this raised several eyebrows.
The term “fake news” has, at this point, undergone a fascinating semantic evolution. It no longer appears to mean “incorrect information”. It appears to mean “information that is inconvenient”. Coverage that reflects poorly on the administration? Fake news. Investigative reporting? Fake news. Verifiable facts that do not align with preferred narratives? Extremely fake news.
The threat to revoke licences is particularly concerning, as it suggests a desire not merely to criticise the press but to control it.
This looks less like media critique and more like narrative management with extra steps. Freedom of the press is not designed to make leaders comfortable. It is designed to make them accountable. If your primary issue with journalism is that it keeps reporting reality, the problem may not lie with the journalists.
Gavin Newsom, now apparently President
In one of the more surreal rhetorical detours of the week, Trump launched into an unhinged rant about California Governor Gavin Newsom.
During this tirade, he referred to Newsom as “President”.
We paused.
We checked.
We consulted several interplanetary constitutional databases.
No. Gavin Newsom is not, in fact, the President of the United States.
The rant reportedly also veered into mocking Newsom over dyslexia, because nothing says strong leadership like attacking learning difficulties during a political argument.
For us, this felt less like a coherent critique and more like a stream-of-consciousness exercise conducted at high volume.
There is something uniquely disorienting about watching someone misidentify their political opponents while simultaneously attempting to undermine them.
It is, one might say, a bold strategy.
The Case of the phantom former President
Now we arrive at what may be the week’s most delightfully baffling claim.
Trump stated that he had spoken to a former president who praised his actions regarding Iran. A perfectly plausible claim, one might think.
Except for one small detail. All four living former presidents’ aides denied that any such conversation had taken place. This leaves us with several possibilities:
- The conversation did not happen.
- The conversation happened with someone who is not, in fact, a former president.
- The conversation took place via unconventional means.
We are particularly intrigued by option three. Was it John Barron, the long-rumoured alter ego, making a cameo return? Was there a late-night séance involving a ouija board and a strong Wi-Fi connection? Did a portrait in a hallway nod approvingly? The possibilities are endless.
What remains consistent is the pattern: reality continues to be treated as a flexible suggestion rather than a fixed reference point.
Timothée Chalamet declares war on culture
In a development that genuinely caught us off guard, actor Timothée Chalamet reportedly took aim at opera and ballet.
Yes. Opera. And ballet.
Two art forms that have survived centuries of war, revolution and shifting cultural tides are now apparently under fire from a man best known for looking wistful in period costumes.
From Mars, where we have seven types of interpretive gravity dance and a thriving tradition of volcanic throat-singing, this felt… unnecessary.
Art, Earthlings, is not a zero-sum game. You can enjoy films and opera. You can appreciate modern storytelling and centuries-old traditions. Declaring war on entire art forms is rarely a winning strategy. Opera will survive. Ballet will continue. The tutus remain unthreatened.
Still, it was a curious cultural skirmish in a week already overflowing with them.
Pearl Harbour and the art of saying the quiet part loudly
In a moment that caused diplomats, historians and several Martian observers to simultaneously drop their beverages, Agent Orange managed to combine wartime strategy, historical trauma and stand-up comedy into one deeply uncomfortable exchange.
While seated beside Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Trump was asked a perfectly reasonable question by a reporter: why had the United States not informed its allies ahead of strikes on Iran?
A fair question. One might expect a measured answer. Perhaps something about operational security. Strategic necessity. Even a vague nod to alliance management.
Instead, he went with: a crude attempt at humour, one that fell flatter than a pancake that had already been run over.
“Who knows better about surprise than Japan? OK? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbour? OK? Right?”
We paused. We blinked. The haggis stopped their relay race. We replayed just in case we had misheard. We hadn’t.
The exchange looked less like diplomacy and more like someone attempting humour with a historical hand grenade. The reaction in the room reportedly hovered somewhere between polite laughter and visible discomfort, with the Prime Minister maintaining composure while very clearly wishing to be literally anywhere else.
The underlying message, stripped of its awkward delivery, was that the administration chose not to inform allies because surprise was deemed tactically useful. Which, while militarily arguable, becomes somewhat less persuasive when explained via a comparison to Pearl Harbour.
Diplomacy, Earthlings, is not merely about what you say. It is about when, how and crucially, in front of whom you say it.
Closing reflections from orbit
Week 57 has reinforced a pattern that is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Allies are treated as expendable until they are needed. Facts are treated as optional until they become inconvenient. Institutions are challenged when they refuse to comply. Reality itself is… negotiable.
For Martians, the concern is not any single incident. It is the accumulation. Each moment chips away at norms. Each outburst shifts expectations. Each contradiction becomes slightly easier to accept than the last.
And yet. There are still journalists reporting. Still allies holding firm. Still audiences booing, questioning and refusing to quietly accept the narrative as presented.
Earth remains, as ever, a planet of contradictions. Capable of both absurdity and resilience in equal measure.
Up here, the haggis have resumed their relay race. The kettle has been recovered. The traffic cone remains at large.
Order, of a sort, has been restored.
Until next week, Earthlings.
Try not to threaten your friends, annex your neighbours or consult imaginary presidents. And if you do find yourself reaching for a ouija board to validate your foreign policy, perhaps… put it down.
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