Michael Douglas on US: ‘I’m embarrassed and I apologize’

During the opening of his masterclass at the Taormina Film Festival in Italy, Michael Douglas said Tuesday that he is “embarrassed” by the United States and apologized for the “global chaos” created under Donald Trump’s presidency. “I realize that my country bears a lot of the responsibility for the chaos that exists in the world. I apologize... I’m embarrassed for my friends, be it my neighbors in Canada, and Mexico, for all the countries in the EU and NATO. I’m embarrassed and I apologize,” the 80-year-old actor declared in front of film students and industry professionals.

Douglas, winner of two Oscars and four Golden Globes, received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Taormina at the city’s ancient Roman theater. Throughout his career, he has combined his artistic side with social commitment: since 1998 he has served as a United Nations Messenger of Peace and collaborated with the Nuclear Threat Initiative, promoting international campaigns for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

In his masterclass, the actor criticized the constant increase in military budgets, especially in the United States, and expressed his astonishment at the persistence of armed conflicts in the age of artificial intelligence: “I have a hard time understanding why, with all the AI and how intelligent we are as human beings, how we possibly can be having this many wars and conflicts as we are. It’s ridiculous,” Douglas said to applause.

At 80 years old — he was born at the end of World War II — Douglas asserted that he had never witnessed such a turbulent period as the current one. He urged replacing military investments with initiatives for dialogue and international cooperation, and appealed to diplomacy as the only way to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

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