(AFP) – US President Donald Trump on Thursday launched a bid to stage the World Expo 2035 in Florida, entering what is expected to be a crowded race for the prestigious international showcase. The 79-year-old Republican leader said Miami had expressed interest, and named Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a native of the city, to oversee the bid for an event he framed as an economic boon and another marker of US resurgence. “Miami Expo 2035 can be the next big milestone in our new Golden Age of America,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
World Expos, held in recent decades every five years, typically require years of international lobbying and multibillion-dollar commitments from host governments — and Rubio already has a burgeoning portfolio. As well as heading up the State Department, Rubio has been named chief of the now-defunct US Agency for International Development, acting archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration, and acting national security advisor.
World Expos funnel vast crowds into a designated host city, a tradition that traces its origins to London’s 1851 Great Exhibition staged beneath the Crystal Palace. That showcase — featuring some 14,000 exhibitors representing 40 nations — gave birth to the Expo tradition, which over time unveiled innovations ranging from ketchup and the telephone to x-ray technology.
Since 1928, stewardship of the Expos has rested with the Paris-headquartered International Exhibitions Bureau, whose more than 180 member states select host cities through a vote. Roughly 160 countries and regions presented their technological prowess and cultural heritage at last year’s six-month Expo in Osaka, Japan, which drew upwards of 27 million visitors.
The United States was once a regular host of what it calls World’s Fairs, bequeathing enduring symbols like Seattle’s Space Needle and New York’s Unisphere, but the world’s largest economy has not staged one since 1984. Although World Expos continue to highlight visions of future technology, skeptics contend that the rise of the internet, global media, and affordable international travel has eroded their relevance.
At the same time, a turbulent global backdrop of wars and trade disputes has prompted critics to challenge the lofty ideals of unity and progress that the events traditionally promote. But Trump called a potential Miami 2035 an “exciting opportunity to convene the World” that would create thousands of jobs and “add Billions of Dollars in GROWTH, to our Economy.”
© 2024 AFP
