What Now? with Trevor Noah
Prime Minister Mia Mottley: Climate, Immigration, and the Power of Small Nations
20 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What unique insights does Prime Minister Mia Mottley share about Barbados?
I've always noticed it, but I've never thought to myself, it seems so obvious now, but I've never thought to myself, oh yeah, you can't tell Rihanna's story without talking about Barbados. Exactly. The music, the way she sees the world, the way she interacts with the world, the fact that she's still, you know, a citizen of Barbados, like all of these things inform how she goes.
And that she still has a Bajan accent.
Yeah.
That's true. Yeah. So if I said that phrase to her, she'd know what it means? Of course. Wait, how do I say it? You still have a... No, the fair. How do you say the phrase? Oh, dying fair. Dying fair. You've got to treat people fairly. But you said dying fair.
Dying fair.
Dying fair.
I'm going to work on... But you have a good Beijing accent already. I'm working with yours.
Dying fair. I'm going to learn it. I'm just going to say it to people. Dying fair. And I'm going to get there. Rihanna, you didn't invite me to your party. Dying fair.
Exactly.
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Chapter 2: How does Mia Mottley define the relationship between Rihanna and Barbados?
The music, the way she sees the world, the way she interacts with the world, the fact that she's still, you know, a citizen of Barbados, like all of these things inform how she goes. And that she still has a Beijing accent. That's true. Yeah. So if I said that phrase to her, she'd know what it means? Of course. Wait, how do I say it? You still have a... No, the fair. How do you say the phrase?
Oh, dying fair. Dying fair. You've got to treat people fairly. But you said dying fair. Dying fair. Dying fair. I'm going to work on it.
But you have a good Beijing accent already. I'm working with yours.
Dying fair. I'm going to learn it. I'm just going to say it to people. Dying fair. And I'm going to get there. Rihanna, you didn't invite me to your party. Dying fair.
Exactly.
Yeah. Now we're on. Now we're on. Until the next time. You see, when you invite me, then I can eventually say we is we. We is we? We is we. We is we. I like this. That's the most powerful three words. That's the most powerful. Okay. We is we. Dying fair. I almost feel like that's a perfect place to start a conversation because...
If we think of Rihanna as a concept and as an idea, you have a single human who has had an outsized impact on the world. They came from a place that many would have considered insignificant. They started in a place that many people would have considered unremarkable. And yet there's no denying that music, fashion, beauty has now been shaped by this person. Absolutely.
I feel like your journey and the journey of Barbados has been very similar. Truth is that the journey of Barbados before has been there for good and bad reasons. And let's start with the bad. Yeah. Barbados was settled. In fact, this is 400 years this year that the British first landed.
But then history was written that they were the first, although we now know that people were probably there who came from Europe. But the story that nobody told was the Amerindians who lived there for centuries and who at the time when the British came, there was evidence of settlements and life, but nobody had been living on the island at the time.
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Chapter 3: What pressing issues does Mottley discuss regarding climate change?
So after... King Charles took back over from Cromwell, ironically King Charles. He gave some of the planters in Barbados land in the Carolinas. And therefore there is a huge impact of Bajans and Bajan slaves moving into the Carolinas. And the linkages between Charleston and Spite Stone in the north of Barbados go back 370, 375 years. That's fascinating. Yeah.
And there is also a belief that we need to do more research with the Gullah people and to really see the linkages between the Carolinas and Barbados. In addition, prior to that, when the Royalists tried to fight against Cromwell, they had the Charter of Barbados in 1651.
which they say 125 years before independence, the Declaration of Independence in the USA, really spoke to a lot of the same things in terms of no taxation without representation. And a lot of the same things that came to be discussed here. So that you see Barbados popping up. in a supersized way throughout history.
And in a sense, therefore, I don't try to claim it for Rihanna or myself or others today as the country, because it really has always had that tradition. Yesterday on my social media, a picture came up of the father of independence, Errol Barrow, and his wife meeting President Lyndon Johnson here in D.C. And the story goes at that time that President Johnson said to
this prime minister of a newly independent country, the Organization of American States, the U.S. will pay your Jews to join. And Mr. Barrow said, sir, with all due respect, where I come from, if you can't afford the Jews, you don't join the club. I give you that story as well as in his first speech to the United Nations, he declared that we would be friends of all, satellites of none.
So there's a strong sense of dignity, a strong sense of we have a responsibility to do things and to give, especially because of what we went through. And that does not mean that we are more powerful than we are, because at the end of the day, size still does matter. But on things of thought, leadership and dignity count us.
Because when you talk about size, I think it is important to understand the size of Barbados. What's the current population? It's probably about 270,000. Okay, yeah. 300,000 was what I thought. Just under 300,000. We actually regrettably have declined and we're right now going through a whole conversation about building back up the population. Is that because people have been leaving?
Part of it is that, but part of it is that we've done a damn good job at family planning. Family planning has been strong in the country from the 1950s. You know, this is one of the things that, like, feels like one of the greatest conundrums that the world is facing, right? Is... Actually, I was having a conversation with my mom about this. Okay.
So my mom was asking me what I think about marriage, when I'm going to get married, you know, all of these questions. But not pressing, but pressing. And... As moms do. As moms do. Yeah, as moms do. And then... I said to her, one of the things I've been pondering is how much of our advancement has limited the natural progression of what it is to be human.
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Chapter 4: How does Mottley address the challenges of immigration and managed migration?
It's like the size of a table tennis board, but it's played on the road. And that's it. So it's the most perfect sport for inner city areas and ghettos. Where there's no cars. Yeah. Well, even when there are cars, no.
How are we playing road tennis? So you stop, you pull up the net, the car passes, and you move. Swear to God.
When you come to Bahamas, you'll see. I'm actually going to come and see. You know, so it's funny.
In South Africa, we used to, I mean, most places in the world, you know, friends of mine who grew up in like Harlem have the same stories that I have growing up in South Africa in the townships where you would just close the road, you'd play the game, and then when a car needed to come through, it would come through.
But I think as a, if I'm pitching this as like an Olympic sport, it's going to be tough to pitch this idea that we're closing Maine. But okay, we'll get it. I'll come to Barbados and we'll... For the Olympics, we'll get it. For the Olympics, we'll leave out the cars. I think that's what will make it interesting. If you want to get viewers, you leave the cars. That's a real gold medal.
We could do that too. If you finish the match, you get a medal.
Like, I love that you bring up the idea of thinking of new ways to think, because that's probably what inspires me most about you is whenever I see you speak, and whenever I've even, I've been lucky enough to have like two conversations, I think, with you. Every time I've left our conversation thinking, oh, wow, nothing is fixed.
There's new ideas in and around everything, you know, like immigration. Yeah. We all think of immigration as this fixed idea. It was people going somewhere and then that was it. Do you think there's ever a world where, like you say with money, do you think there's ever a world where we find a way for people to go work and then go back to their countries? We need to.
People used to do that in a more structured way. But... Because the world hasn't created, governments haven't created the opportunities. We create movement, we create treaties that allow for movement of money. We create opportunities for people to invest. But we just don't see people and feel that it's important enough for us to create opportunities
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Chapter 5: What historical context does Mottley provide about Barbados's colonial past?
In Dominica, you have the Caribs. So you still have a few remaining. And I like to believe that the Caribbean, because of our history, has a story to tell to the rest of the world and an example to share with the rest of the world. We've not been perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
But for the most part, we have been able to bring about development to our people in the post-colonial environment that sees people, that feels people, that hears people, that recognizes that, look, okay, we need to provide education, shelter, housing, et cetera. We haven't done it for all yet. but we're on that pathway. Not everybody's gotten on the train yet, but a lot have.
And when you start to compare it to other countries and other regions in the world, you begin to see that. The difficulty has come in that in many instances, small states have had rules imposed on them that don't make any sense. I mean, for years, the last 30 years, we've been arguing to the WTO that we need special and differential treatment as small states.
And that my percentage share of global trade in goods is 0.000%. And my percentage share of global trade in services is 0.001%. So we have no capacity to distort global trade, but If you treat me as if I am equal to a large nation, then you will kill me before I can even start. You destroy anything that I can do to keep my population alive in terms of manufacturing or in terms of whatever.
So that there is the old Aristotelian principle equality for equals and proportionality for unequals. And if we were simply to use that and to recognize that you can't have the same one size fits all prescription, you can't do it in a family, far less a country, far less a global community. And if we can get that, so many things that we've been trying to solve will find themselves in place.
And part of the difficulty is, is that the new world post-1945 was still remade in an imperial order. So that all the talk about sovereignty and independent countries, you're independent so long as you do as I say. Not even as I do, because when they told us don't do quantitative easing and don't print money, the truth is when COVID hit, what did the developed world do? Oh, they printed money.
The GCM printed and printed and printed and quantitative easing. So we have to find a way of letting some air, some oxygen, some transparency, some light, and to begin to see that the one size fits all rule will not work and that you have to be able to give a little elbow room.
Not a lot, but a little elbow room for us to do the things that we need to do to keep our people alive, to keep our people prospering, to not cause our people to want to get into the things that you complain about globally in terms of migration or crime or other things. Yeah, I've always been...
I've always been fascinated by, like sometimes what I think is very short-term thinking from some of the bigger nations in that they'll often think about mass migration, but they don't seem to wonder why people are leaving the place that they're in. The first part of me goes like, maybe it's just an arrogance. I'll give you an example. Yeah.
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Chapter 6: How does Mottley propose to improve global financial systems for small nations?
And let's take climate. Okay, they say that there's no climate crisis. I think this weekend you guys are going to have 90 degree weather in the end of September when you really should be looking at moving to fall. The reality is that whether we say it or not, the temperatures and the climate is not changing.
There's a clear difference of opinion between those now who say there's no crisis and those who are frightened as hell that this is the greatest existential crisis that the planet will face. So how do you bridge this moment in time? You've got to find a common love language. What do I mean? Methane. is 80 times more dangerous than carbon. We talk about carbon all the time.
But carbon stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Methane stays in the atmosphere for 12 to 15 years. But it's 80 times more dangerous. Methane is generated from gas leaks. And the flaring of gas is generated from how we raise our livestock and farm rice. It's generated from landfills.
If we were simply to fix the pipes that are leaking and stop flaring the gas, because when you flare gas, you can't make money from it.
Hmm.
If you were to capture the gas and if you were to fix the leaks, what would happen to the oil and gas companies? They'd make more money. That's their love language. What would happen to the planet? It would stop the destruction of it. That's our love language.
And the scientists actually tell me that if we get this right in the next 15 years, we can actually reverse the temperature by half a degree. So what does that also do for the oil and gas companies? Oil and gas companies are not the villains. The emissions are. So if they can invest at scale for decarbonizing technology, then they can continue to have a longer route to run.
And the controlling of the methane gives them the time To do the research. To get to the decarbonization. And to do what President Trump did with the COVID vaccines. Remember the warp speed? Operation warp speed. Yeah, we've talked about that. You need operation warp speed for methane. And that's what, I mean, I'd love to tell President Trump that. Because he gets what he wants.
And the world gets what it needs. How is this, I mean, you're saying this to me now. I've said it a few times publicly because I think the world needs... It's logical. What you're saying to me doesn't... I'm trying to think of it in my head and I'm going, I don't understand why this... It's common sense. So what's falling where? Is it companies that are trying to cut costs? I've been trying.
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Chapter 7: What is the Bridgetown Initiative and its significance?
You can't think in a way that's sustainable, I feel. Which brings us back to the conversation about narrow casting and echo chambers. It brings us back to there's some kids in the region that I met recently and their parents said, I make my child grow.
watch something that is an hour long every day because they are so consumed with one minute and two minute that their capacity to sustain attention and to think and to reason is compromised. Yeah. I think it's more than that as well. I always find myself bristling when people say, no one has an attention span. And I go, that's not true. I really don't believe it.
And the reason I don't believe it is because somebody can stay on TikTok for four hours. So they do have an attention span. But they just rotate it. Yeah. I think what they've done is we've created a system. We've monetized the world.
where keeping you addicted to the drip drip means that you don't realize the long-term reward of exploring, understanding, misunderstanding, rereading, digging deeper, and then getting to the end of something where you go, oh, wow, there's a moment where I knew nothing about this.
There's another moment where I thought, then I lost, and at the end of it, what a beautiful expanse of information I now have. Yeah, and it's a discipline that people had before. But I think that we need to get people to understand that you need to be able to discern and to explain and to understand.
You don't have to agree with everything you read, but you need to understand what it is you're doing and why you disagree. Don't press anything. We've got more What Now? after this. You talk a lot about global debt. And I think you've had one of the most outsized influences in helping people understand why so many countries in the world are stuck in the positions that they're stuck in.
You know, I grew up in a country where people, until this day, will say, oh, well, I mean, look at South Africa. They haven't, you know, and look at, and then I've seen them say that about African countries. Well, you know, Africa, they haven't done well for themselves. I mean, you can blame the Europeans, but Africa hasn't done well for itself.
And you talk about this global hypocrisy and inequity in a way that I think most people have never heard. And it made me wonder, what is one practice that you think is the most globally indefensible in how larger countries are treating smaller countries?
You were right in saying larger companies too, because I think it's a form of bullying and a failure to put yourself in the position of the others and to craft rules that work for you, but not for everybody. So let's look at, everybody knows the story of Greece with their economy.
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Chapter 8: How does Mottley envision the future of small nations in global conversations?
And I then learned actually only a couple of weeks ago that in Nigeria, they call it, I think, isusu or something very similar. Oh, so it's very similar in the, yeah. In Barbados, we call it either susu or a meeting turn. Yes, I love that. So that you take your turn out of the meeting money. And everybody puts in the piece. And that is how families were sustained. Exactly.
But when you look at what it's trying to do, it built the system where people realized on the smallest level, as black South Africans, they were unbanked. They couldn't get loans. They couldn't get access to any funds that would enable them to do something that required more money than they had at that moment. But if they all put in a little bit, each person every month was getting a lump sum.
And then some of it was kept aside in case there was a tragedy, like a funeral, a death that was unexpected, et cetera. And then over time, and I've seen this happen in like some parts of Africa, some intrepid business people have realized that a market exists where people told them it didn't. And they've gone in and said, hey, We will bank you even though you are unbanked.
We will connect you to the financial systems. You know, even the things you're talking about now.
Kenya is a perfect example.
Yeah, with M-Pesa. Yeah, M-Pesa. And remember all the European banks pulled out of Kenya. Yeah. And risk that the European banks would never have taken. But what is it? The Kenyan banks took. Yeah, but this is the thing I found.
Poor people pay back.
But this is what I find fascinating. They say risk, right? Mm-hmm. But Mark Zuckerberg will wake up tomorrow and tell us he's lost $100 billion on a virtual reality world that never happened. Yep. Straight-faced. He'll go, it's gone. Yep. You know, we'll talk about risk. You know, there's major companies that were invested in partially by these same countries.
They lost all the money and it's just gone. And you've just hit what the Bridgestone Initiative is about. It's about fairness. We started the conversation with Rihanna about that. It's about fairness. That's why Bridgetown's name is put to it. It's about decolonization. It's about creating opportunities and bringing light in. And we're not asking for any special favor.
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