Miami Mayor Francis Suarez gave Trump a key to city; gave us the finger

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The American Business Forum seemed more like an audition for him

This past week, while millions of Americans faced lost food aid, shuttered programs and threats to their health coverage, downtown Miami staged a spectacle. You know the kind — velvet ropes, orchestral beats, VIP tickets, and a gilded ceremony that screams celebration even when large swaths of the public feel anything but triumphant.

At the America Business Forum, held for the first time in the U.S. at the Kaseya Center in Miami Wednesday and Thursday, carefully curated privilege and business‐glamour took center stage. Headline speaker: Donald Trump, fresh off electoral bruises in New Jersey and Virginia, though you wouldn’t know it.

And perhaps the coup de grace: Miami Mayor Francis Suárez thought it was a good idea to hand Trump the symbolic “key to the city.” What he really deserves is a padlock.

In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, when even middle-class families are choosing between groceries and gas, our selfie-mayor decided to throw a red-carpet party for the rich and famous. Suarez boasted about importing the two-day corporate pep rally from Uruguay after attending last year’s edition in Punta del Este — where, no doubt, he saw how well the fog machines worked.

Because yes, there were fog machines at the Kaseya Center, home of the Miami Heat, which was decked out like a Super Bowl halftime show. Speakers came out through a tunnel of lights to a thundering orchestral beat while men holding glowing batons parted like the Red Sea. Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, called it “a little embarrassing.” Ya think? And that was before the mayor pulled out the city’s golden key for his buddy Trump, who he probably wants a job from.

Come to think of it, the whole thing did seem a little like a girl at a high school dance thinking, “Pick me! Pick me!”

And remember, Baby X was once a presidential hopeful who admitted he did not vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020. At one point he said,“If Donald Trump should be the Republican candidate, in my opinion it would be the biggest disaster for the Republican Party since the Republicans turned against the civil-rights movement in the 1960s.”

Are all the workouts affecting his memory?

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Let’s be honest: The key to the city was a slap to our face. While people drive up to food distribution sites and scramble to figure out what to do when their Medicaid runs out, Suárez decided this was the perfect time to honor a billionaire who lost Miami-Dade by 7 points last year. While many in Miami and Florida wonder how to keep a roof over their head or what to do when their health coverage evaporates, or if they’re going to be awakened in the middle of the night by an armed, masked goon squad, the mayor gives the key to a nearly-ubiquitous national figure whose brand is power, wealth, and global spectacle.

Suarez even joked that Trump could use the key to unlock some “really nice presidential library real estate,” referring to the multi-million public land next to the Freedom Tower that the state just gave away to the Trump library foundation for free to turn into a library and hotel — and maybe a casino. Because nothing says “public service” like making light of political corruption and backroom deals.

Maybe that’s the kind of “leadership culture” they were talking about at this so-called business forum.

And because one dictator is not enough, Suarez also was “honored” to welcome Argentine President Javier Milei, an authoritarian masquerading as a libertarian, a guy who screams about freedom while cozying up to police crackdowns, a showman who governs by spectacle and insult. Milei is anti-press, anti-workers, and anti-social-safety-net. So, basically Trump with a tango accent.

Talk about a disconnect.

Food stamp benefits (SNAP) cuts hit tens of millions across the state as the government shutdown dragged on. Inflation and affordability remain everyday crises for many Floridians — housing costs, insurance rates, everyday staples. Job growth is slowing, leaving the “business forum” chatter about unicorns, A.I., leadership culture and global conferences sounding like background music in a luxury elevator, not a grassroots town hall.

Yet the forum played it as if all is well: skyrocketing trade, booming Miami, global business. Trump credited tariffs for “hundreds of billions” flowing in. Never mind that those same tariffs raised prices for American consumers. Never mind that food prices, rent, and insurance premiums are all still rising in Florida. And never mind that thousands of Miami families are struggling right now. Because the language of crisis — of real people losing benefits, losing insurance, losing stability — couldn’t crack the surface of this gilded bubble.

Handing a key to the city is, of course, only a symbolic gesture. But the timing here feels so wrong. It reads like a photo-op for global capital while the ground crumbles for the non-elite. The tune was: “Look how far we’ve come,” when many are still wondering “How far will it drop?”

Read related: We’re No. 1! Real estate experts say Miami’s housing bubble is about to pop

Meanwhile, the real story was in the contrasts: humongous corporate suites, $1,000+ VIP tickets, orchestral lights, business mega-talks — while local families face cutbacks in food aid, insurance limbo, rising rents.

Who is this city for? The elite handing keys to each other — or the workers juggling bills, or the immigrants who built the city? If you’re flaunting a “key to the city,” what door does it open? And for who?

That key wasn’t just symbolic of access. It felt like an accessory for the scene.

Miami, at its best, is meant to be a city of diverse culture, of resilient hustle, of inclusion — so antipathetic to everything the POTUS represents. But this moment? It looked like Miami as backdrop for spectacle. A show of “business as usual” — for the 1%. Oh, and sponsored by the likes of American Airlines — which cancelled more than 700 flights because of the shutdown, but had money for this dog and pony show — Royal Caribbean and Chewy, the subscription pet supply service that must have forgotten the “they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating ting the cats” line. (Note to self: Cancel Chewy subscription).

Early bird tickets started at $100, but the real players — the ones who matter — paid almost $2,000 for VIP seats. Meanwhile, the upper deck was curtained off because even with all that star power — Trump, Jamie Dimon, Jeff Bezos, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt — the place was half empty.

Half full of what, though? Ego, mostly.

Schmidt even read a “Shakespearean sonnet” about Suárez — written by artificial intelligence. “Through tempest rage and plagues most grievous tests, he stood as a bulwark against adversity’s tide,” he read. Cue the applause. Cue the irony.

Read related: Miami Mayor Francis Suarez is all over the place — except leading the city

Because if there’s one thing Miami doesn’t need right now, it’s another AI-generated love poem to a postalita lame duck mayor who loves mirrors more than policy.

Outside the Kaseya Center, there’s another kind of production going on — people working two jobs to pay rent, seniors skipping meals to afford their prescriptions, parents losing benefits that helped feed their kids.

They don’t get fog machines or orchestral intros. They don’t get keys to the city.

But they’re the ones who make this city what it is. The ones who keep it running. The ones who deserve a mayor who’s not so busy courting the global elite that he forgets the local reality. Thank goodness this one is on his way out.

Handing Trump the key to Miami this week wasn’t just tone-deaf — it was symbolic of everything that’s broken in the city’s leadership. When regular people are losing everything else, our mayor gives us the only thing he’s got left to offer: a shiny distraction.

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  Donald Trump, Francis Suarez