At 3.07 pm, on September 25, 2027, the 81-year-old president shuffled out awkwardly on to the White House balcony.
‘Joe Biden would have fallen by now,’ he joked to his audience on the South Lawn below. ‘People say I’m getting too old. But I feel great. I could do another term, you know, four more years, how about that?’ The crowd hollered, loyally. ‘I’m just kidding. Wouldn’t that be great, though?’
Donald Trump then rambled for 20 minutes. It was the same speech he had given 100 times. He spoke of how his second administration had made America rich again, safe again, great again.
‘The globalists and the radical Left tried to destroy the great American economy,’ he said. ‘But we stayed strong and put America First. And this morning, I just saw the latest jobs report: we are stronger than ever. Isn’t that nice?’
As his audience lost interest, Trump suddenly changed tone: ‘It’s time to take America to even bigger heights. And that’s why I’m going to be endorsing a very special lady who will continue my legacy.
‘My Vice-President isn’t happy, but that’s OK. Please welcome my daughter-in-law, the next and 48th President of the United States, Mrs Lara Lea Trump.’
Large black speakers began thudding out the baseline to Lara Trump’s new hit single, Woman Time, released in partnership with the 57-year-old rapper Kid Rock.
Seconds later, Lara T, as she has become known, materialised on the balcony and awkwardly air-kissed the Commander-in-Chief. ‘I want to thank the greatest leader America has ever had, my father-in-law, Donald J Trump,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Sir, for making America Great Again.’
She promised to revive the Trump administration’s ‘Make America Greater Project’ to absorb Canada into the United States. The idea had been sidelined following the economic turmoil of 2025 and 2026. ‘But, under my administration,’ promised Mrs Trump. ‘We will have a 51st state and it will be Canada.’
Thirty minutes after the speech, J D Vance, the Vice-President, who hadn’t been seen in public for several days, put out a statement on his social media: ‘I welcome Lara Trump’s candidacy and look forward to beating her in the primaries next year.’ Rumours quickly spread that the Vance 2028 campaign would line up Don Junior, Trump’s eldest son, as its vice-presidential nominee.
Three days later, a poll of Republican voters showed Vance holding a slight advantage over Mrs Trump. However, Elon Musk, still the world’s richest man, announced he would be backing Lara T in 2028. ‘With Mrs T in the White House,’ he posted on his social media platform X. ‘We’re colonising Mars!’
Meanwhile – 4,100 miles away in Berlin – German, EU and Chinese flags fluttered all down the Unter den Linden Boulevard to celebrate the arrival of the 74-year-old General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping. ‘I come with a message to Europe,’ declared Xi in a rare unscripted moment after he stepped off the plane at Berlin Brandenburg Airport: ‘China is your friend. The America of the Trump family is not.’
That afternoon, Xi, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen all shook hands over a new Euro-China Partnership to, as the press release put it, ‘harmonise economic relations’. China agreed to subsidise a new trillion euro ‘Green Energy Acceleration Programme’ to ensure EU powers hit their new Net Zero carbon emission targets by 2045.
In other European capitals, statesmen asked why the summit had been held in Berlin not Brussels. Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, called the Euro-China pact ‘a betrayal of European principles and the enlightenment.’
But the new French leader Marine Le Pen, who had narrowly won the French presidential elections in April, surprised many by announcing that she too would meet Xi in the coming days. ‘To protect France, it is in our interests to co-operate,’ she said.
For his part, Sir Keir Starmer, the deeply unpopular British prime minister, stood outside Downing Street and proclaimed: ‘This government doesn’t stand for America or for China, though we are happy to work with both. We stand for Britain.’
At the same time his new Chancellor, Pat McFadden, announced that Beijing would be investing a further £25million into the Great British Energy scheme.
Earlier, in April, China had completed its annexation of Taiwan as part of its Programme of National Rejuvenation and Expansion. For several months, the Taiwan army resisted. But its ‘porcupine’ defence strategy could not hold out against the vastly superior forces of the People’s Liberation Army.
The previous year, in December, from his mansion in Mar-a-Lago, Florida — now officially renamed ‘The Winter White House’ — President Trump shocked the world by saying: ‘I don’t care about Taiwan. China can have it.’
Later, in a statement, the White House press office accused the media of ‘twisting the President’s words’. But, at 10am on January 10, the Chinese Navy began its blockade of Taipei and the air and land assault began that afternoon. World leaders condemned the illegal invasion. But no Western ally offered Taiwan substantial economic or military support.
Europe had been dealing that year with a string of major terrorist attacks carried out by ‘Isis 3.0’, a new Islamist network operating out of Syria.
In Antwerp, Belgium, a group of heavily armed militants took over the Crowne Plaza hotel and killed 84 guests before armed police arrived. The re-constructed Notre Dame cathedral in Paris was badly damaged by a ‘swarm attack’ of explosive drones. In England, two trucks drove into a long line of children queuing up for a concert at the Birmingham Arena.
The West also faced a new terror threat — from Ukrainian ultra-nationalist paramilitary groups, furious over what they saw as ‘the great betrayal’ of their country.
The war between Russia and Ukraine had ended in an uneasy truce in July 2025. Under intense pressure from the Trump administration, Ukraine accepted the partition of its eastern lands on the condition that it would hold a referendum on joining the European Union in the year 2030. Russia gave back less than 25 kilometres of the territory its forces had taken in the Donbas in return for Ukrainian ‘neutrality’ and a guarantee from western powers that Ukraine would never join Nato.
From the White House, Trump said: ‘I’ve always wanted to be known as a peacemaker.’
He thanked Sir Keir Starmer for his role in ‘helping bring the Ukrainians along’, though Russia had explicitly ruled out the Prime Minister’s idea that British Armed Forces could play a peacekeeping role.
‘The United Kingdom is no longer a serious power,’ said Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. ‘We do not take them seriously.’ Vladimir Putin declared that Trump would be awarded the Pushkin International Peace Prize, since ‘the Nobel prize committee is not serious about conflict resolution.’
‘Isn’t that nice?’ said Trump in reply. The Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelensky thanked America for its support of Ukraine. ‘It’s dirty peace,’ he said. ‘But it is peace nevertheless.’
A month later, however, Zelensky was assassinated. A low-flying drone dropped a grenade next to him and his three bodyguards as he campaigned for his re-election in Kyiv. Zelensky was rushed to the City Clinical Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
British security services blamed the Kremlin for the crime. Other intelligence agencies, including America’s CIA, pointed the finger at Patriot of Ukraine, a far-right Ukrainian militia previously thought to have been disbanded in 2004. A video of the alleged perpetrator, Oleksandr Dovbyk, circulated on social media. ‘Zelensky must die: Zionist pig, traitor,’ shouted Dovbyk into the camera. Bellingcat, the Open Source intelligence service, claimed that the clip was an AI fake.
Valerii Zaluzhny, the four-star general and former Ukrainian ambassador in London, was elected as Ukraine’s new president. He vowed to clamp down on ‘Russian infiltrators and domestic extremists’ but his government was unable to stop nationalist ultras targeting European and American cities.
In November, several bombs went off in Cleveland, Ohio. In January 2026, a massive cyberattack shut down payment systems in several European countries, as well as Germany’s stock market.
In August, Peter Szijjarto, the Hungarian minister of foreign affairs, was shot dead on a street in Budapest. In February the following year, French police thwarted a Ukraine-linked plot to blow up the Belleville Nuclear Power Plant on the Loire river.
The New York Times, in a series of sensational front-page stories, claimed to have uncovered evidence that Russia was secretly funding and providing operational support for these attacks, even though the groups appeared to be explicitly anti-Russian. ‘I promise we will look into that,’ said President Trump. The story went cold.
In March 2026, Trump met Vladimir Putin in Moscow. ‘Russia is a great country. Wouldn’t it be beautiful if America and Russia got along?’ he said. ‘I thank President Trump for his honesty,’ said Vladimir Putin.
British and EU leaders condemned Trump for ‘further rewarding Russian aggression’.
‘America is not just no longer our friend,’ said David Lammy, the British Foreign Secretary. ‘America is our enemy.’
Lammy was sacked two days later. But relations between London and Washington continued to go from bad to worse.
In late June, Trump’s long-awaited state visit to the United Kingdom turned into a diplomatic disaster. The visit started well enough: Trump met King Charles III in Scotland, praised his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, and said ‘the British monarchy holds a special relationship in my heart.’
The next day, he travelled to London to lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknown warrior. That afternoon, in a speech to Parliament, Trump began by saying: ‘America and Britain will always be two nations united by love.’
He then stunned his audience, however, by continuing: ‘Britain must decide: control your borders – or die.’ He also berated the Labour Government for ‘kowtowing to China’ and ‘locking up citizens who dare to speak freely.’
On GB News, Nigel Farage called it ‘the bravest speech ever given by a foreign leader on our shores’. Before flying back to Washington, Trump went further in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, in which he said: ‘Britain is turning into Pakistan. It’s so sad. Soon, you’ll have no country left to call your own.’
The Prime Minister’s office released a statement: ‘While the President’s language is often regrettable, we thank him for his kind words about the special bond between our two countries.’
On X, Vice President J D Vance posted: ‘Sometimes, a best friend is the friend who tells you the unvarnished truth. Britain, it’s time to wake up.’
He followed up by accusing Peter Mandelson, the British ambassador in Washington, of being ‘a communist Chinese spy.’ Two weeks later, Mandelson resigned. He returned to London to pursue his business interests. ‘I thought America was serious about standing up to Russia,’ he said. ‘I was very wrong.’
But the Trump-Putin bromance, as the papers called it, didn’t last. A month after his visit to Moscow, Trump abruptly announced that he would be imposing new sanctions on Russia, following reports of Russian naval operations near Greenland – the country Trump had offered to buy from Denmark for $50 billion.
‘I get along very well Vladimir Putin very well,’ said Trump. ‘But I’m telling him straight: don’t mess with us.’ Reports circulated that the real fallout between Trump and Putin was over the Middle East and Russia’s continued support for Iran.
On February 20, 2027, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, now 77 years old, announced that Gaza would be renamed Trump Gaza, as America pledged to contribute $750billion to rebuilding the city.
Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who had hitherto kept a low profile, was put in charge of the project. ‘It’s the real-estate opportunity of the century,’ he said in a statement. ‘They said nobody could bring peace to the Middle East. We just did.’
In August, however, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran launched a series of devastating attacks on Israel. Netanyahu immediately responded with an all-out bombing campaign on Tehran, supported by western powers. Several Republican senators urged Trump to send more US troops to the region to ‘finish the job’. But Trump prevaricated. ‘I just want people to stop dying,’ he said. ‘I’m the peace president.’
Five weeks later, back in the western hemisphere, American armed forces began a massive operation in Mexico to disrupt and destroy the drug cartels. ‘The Mexican government hasn’t dealt with these gangs,’ said Trump. ‘So we will.’
At her first campaign rally in Iowa, on January 5 2028, Lara Trump proposed that, under her administration, Mexico would become America’s 52nd state.
Beaming to dozens of supporters, she vowed: ‘Let’s make America great again – in every sense of the word.’