Donald Trump says he will “reconquer the heartland” by pouring 35 billion dollars into Central Asia and grabbing Kazakh tungsten and rare earths. Michael Hudson and Richard Wolff unpack what that really means for Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and the wider region: ecocide, IMF and World Bank conditionality, rentier kleptocracies and a replay of the 19th-century Great Game.

They contrast Trump’s short-term, extractive model with China’s Belt and Road and BRICS institutions, ask whether Central Asia can pivot to Washington without blowing up its ties to Moscow and Beijing, and revisit the long arc from Persian concessions and Mossadegh’s overthrow to today’s “colour revolutions.”

In the final section, they address a different kind of extraction: AI-driven fake videos that steal their work, impersonate their faces and voices, and monetise it on YouTube.