Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

[blindpig]

Was This 'Leak' Accidental Or Is It Pro-War Psyops?

There are several curious aspects of this 'leak' of internal communication of high ranking members of the Trump administration:

Top national security officials for President Donald Trump, including his defense secretary, texted war plans for upcoming military strikes in Yemen to a group chat in a secure messaging app that included the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic, the magazine reported in a story posted online Monday.
The National Security Council said the text chain “appears to be authentic.”
...
The material in the text chain “contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Iran-backed Houthi-rebels in Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported.

The Atlantic is the worst magazine in America. Its editor in chief, ..

.. Jeffrey Goldberg, dropped out of an Ivy League University to volunteer to be an IDF prison guard during the first Palestinian Intifada. In his memoirs, Goldberg revealed that he helped cover up serious prisoner abuse.

Goldberg is a neo-conservative who has yet to see a U.S. instigated war he dislikes. To trust his reporting is dangerous.

Here is how he tells the story:

On Tuesday, March 11, I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz. Signal is an open-source encrypted messaging service popular with journalists and others who seek more privacy than other text-messaging services are capable of delivering. I assumed that the Michael Waltz in question was President Donald Trump’s national security adviser.
...
I accepted the connection request, hoping that this was the actual national security adviser, and that he wanted to chat about Ukraine, or Iran, or some other important matter.
Two days later—Thursday—at 4:28 p.m., I received a notice that I was to be included in a Signal chat group. It was called the “Houthi PC small group.”
...
At 8:05 a.m. on Friday, March 14, “Michael Waltz” texted the group: “Team, you should have a statement of conclusions with taskings per the Presidents guidance this morning in your high side inboxes.” (High side, in government parlance, refers to classified computer and communications systems.)
...
At this point, a fascinating policy discussion commenced. The account labeled “JD Vance” responded at 8:16: “Team, I am out for the day doing an economic event in Michigan. But I think we are making a mistake.” (Vance was indeed in Michigan that day.) The Vance account goes on to state, “3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.”

During the discussion CIA head John Ratcliff, Secretary of Defense Hegseth and the deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller join in. Despite the reluctance of Vance the bombing campaign in Yemen is ready to go:

At 11:44 a.m., the account labeled “Pete Hegseth” posted in Signal a “TEAM UPDATE.” I will not quote from this update, or from certain other subsequent texts. The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility. What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.
...
According to the lengthy Hegseth text, the first detonations in Yemen would be felt two hours hence, at 1:45 p.m. eastern time. So I waited in my car in a supermarket parking lot. If this Signal chat was real, I reasoned, Houthi targets would soon be bombed. At about 1:55, I checked X and searched Yemen. Explosions were then being heard across Sanaa, the capital city.
I went back to the Signal channel. At 1:48, “Michael Waltz” had provided the group an update. Again, I won’t quote from this text, except to note that he described the operation as an “amazing job.” A few minutes later, “John Ratcliffe” wrote, “A good start.” Not long after, Waltz responded with three emoji: a fist, an American flag, and fire. Others soon joined in, including “MAR,” who wrote, “Good Job Pete and your team!!,” and “Susie Wiles,” who texted, “Kudos to all – most particularly those in theater and CENTCOM! Really great. God bless.” “Steve Witkoff” responded with five emoji: two hands-praying, a flexed bicep, and two American flags. “TG” responded, “Great work and effects!” The after-action discussion included assessments of damage done, including the likely death of a specific individual. The Houthi-run Yemeni health ministry reported that at least 53 people were killed in the strikes, a number that has not been independently verified.

The juvenile behavior of the participants all but confirms that the characters are genuine.

It however leaves many questions:

Why did Michael Waltz, a former advisor to Dick Cheney, seek to add war-pimp and anti-Trumper Jeffrey Goldberg to his contact list? What did he plan to leak to him?

Signal is an encrypted chat application which, until recently, was financed by the U.S. government. That is in itself a good reason to not trust it. There have also been reports that several foreign entities are trying to crack it. Why would high administration officials, who have access to more secure communication systems, use Signal to chat with each other?

Why are Vance and others implying that 'freedom of navigation' in the Red Sea is for the good of Europe and that it should pay for it? That framing does not fit.

The reason for the Houthi blockade of the Red Sea is the Zionist genocide in Gaza. Israel is the country most hurt by the stop of sea traffic to its harbors. The closure of the Red Sea has increased ocean transport cost for a container from $2,000 to $8,000 for everyone, including the U.S., because the transport around Africa takes longer and has led to a shortage of container ships.

This lambasting of Europe to press it for money is part of Trump's general program. To 'leak' this as part of a chat, which hardly mentions Israel or Gaza, is reinforcing that message. This is the main reason why I find this 'leak' suspicious.

The use of Signal and the sending of confidential war plans over it of course a breach of several laws and regulations.

There are rumors that national security advisor Waltz will be punished for this. But I do not expect any firing or other consequences from it.

Posted by b on March 25, 2025 at 13:54 UTC | Permalink

Never attribute to cunning what is probably incompetence from the amateurs of Team Trump.

*****

Max Blumenthal: Jeffrey Goldberg’s ‘War Chat’
March 25, 2025

Summoned to move the neocon message on Trump’s illegal war on Yemen, the Atlantic Magazine editor in chief wound up with more access than he could handle.


U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, center, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, left, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth meeting on Jan. 25. (The White House / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain)

By Max Blumenthal
The Grayzone

Atlantic Magazine editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg has won the admiration of his Beltway peers for the conduct he displayed after being accidentally invited into a smoke-filled “bomb Yemen” chat on the Signal messaging service with Trump’s national security honchos and top advisors.

“Props to Jeffrey Goldberg for his high standards as a professional journalist,” declared Ian Bremmer, the trans-Atlanticist foreign policy pundit on his Bank of America-sponsored GZero podcast. “When he realized the conversation was authentic he immediately left, informed the relevant senior official, and made the public aware without disclosing intelligence that could damage the United States.”

But what exactly did Goldberg do to deserve such high praise?

With a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view and report on high level discussions on the U.S. launching an illegal war on Yemen, Goldberg chose to avert his gaze and leave the scene as soon as he could, apparently because maintaining such unparalleled access would have compelled him to report on discussions that might have complicated a war being waged on behalf of the Israeli apartheid state to which he emigrated as a young man.


Goldberg in September 2015. (Center for Strategic & International Studies/Flickr/
CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Instead of exploiting his front row seat to the Trump admin’s war planning – a vantage point that would have yielded countless scoops and a bestselling book for any adversarial journalist – Goldberg bolted and dutifully informed the White House about the unfortunate situation.

From there, the story became a palace intrigue over an embarrassing failure of “opsec,” or operational security, and not one about the policy itself, which entails a gargantuan empire bombarding a poor, besieged country because it is controlled by a popular movement that is currently the only force on the planet taking up arms to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

In the fourth paragraph of Goldberg’s Atlantic article about the principals’ Signal group, he strongly implied that he supports the war’s objectives, describing Ansar Allah, or the Houthis, as an “Iran-backed terrorist organization” which upholds a belief system that is (what else?) antisemitic.

Given Goldberg’s admission that Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, first reached out to him at least two days prior to mistakenly adding him to the Signal group, it appears the NSC director had been leaking to the Atlantic editor on behalf of the neocon faction in the Trump White House. And it seems clear why Waltz would have sought to cultivate Goldberg.

During the run-up to the Iraq war, then-Vice President Dick Cheney cited Goldberg’s bunk reporting alleging deep ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda during multiple media appearances hyping up the coming invasion.

Under Obama, Goldberg served as Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu’s errand boy, churning out tall tales about Tel Aviv’s imminent plan to attack Iran’s nuclear sites — unless the U.S., did it first.


Goldberg interviewing Obama in the Oval Office in 2014. (Pete Souza//Wikimedia Commons/Public domain)

Since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, the once-failing Atlantic has suddenly turned a profit, as Goldberg unleashed a firehose of propaganda against the keffiyeh-clad enemies of the magazine’s Upper East Side donor base. This month, with momentum for a strike on Iran building within the Trump White House, Goldberg was summoned once again to move the neocon message, and wound up with more access than he bargained for.

When asked in an interview Tuesday with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins why he left the Trump principals’ Signal group voluntarily, Goldberg ducked the question.

But as Bremmer suggested, he did so out of deference to power and an abiding belief in a U.S. empire hellbent on protecting Israel. And in the culture of Beltway access journalism, that’s considered a laudable trait.

https://consortiumnews.com/2025/03/25/m ... -war-chat/

******

Trump’s Desire to ‘Un-Unite’ Russia and China Is Unlikely to Work – In Fact, It Could Well Backfire
Posted on March 25, 2025 by Yves Smith

Yves here. As of this hour, there is still no joint statement from Russia and the US on their long day of talks in Saudi Arabia yesterday. But in a bit of serendipity, the post below discusses a useful background issue to the talks, which is the openly expressed US desire to pry Russia away from China. With characteristic US hubris, it’s dumb to think this can readily be accomplished (modern Russia and China’s economies have significant complementarities, plus Putin and Xi are tight friends, with Putin even making pancakes for Xi on Xi’s birthday) and even dumber to talk about it.

This piece usefully gives a perspective of this US clever scheme from the Chinese side. One might criticize this discussion as a tad simplistic, but the US ploy is so shallow, a more serious treatment might wind up attributing a level of design to it that simply is not there.

By Linggong Kong, Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, Auburn University. Originally published at The Conversation

Is the U.S. angling for a repeat of the Sino-Russian split?

In an Oct. 31, 2024, interview with right-wing pundit Tucker Carlson, President Donald Trump argued that the United States under Joe Biden had, in his mind erroneously, pushed China and Russia together. Separating the two powers would be a priority of his administration. “I’m going to have to un-unite them, and I think I can do that, too,” Trump said.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has been eager to negotiate with Russia, hoping to quickly bring an end to the war in Ukraine. One interpretation of this Ukraine policy is that it serves what Trump was getting at in his comments to Carlson. Pulling the U.S. out of the European conflict and repairing ties with Russia, even if it means throwing Ukraine under the bus, can be seen within the context of a shift of America’s attention to containing Chinese power.

Indeed, after a recent call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump told Fox News: “As a student of history, which I am – and I’ve watched it all – the first thing you learn is you don’t want Russia and China to get together.”

The history Trump alludes to is the strategy of the Nixon era, in which the U.S. sought to align with China as a counterbalance to the Soviet Union, encouraging a split between the two communist entities in the process.

Yet if creating a fissure between Moscow and Beijing is indeed the ultimate aim, Trump’s vision is, I believe, both naive and shortsighted. Not only is Russia unlikely to abandon its relationship with China, but many in Beijing view Trump’s handling of the Russia-Ukraine war –- and his foreign policy more broadly – as a projection of weakness, not strength.

A Growing Challenge

Although Russia and China have at various times in the past been adversaries when it suited their interests, today’s geopolitical landscape is different from the Cold War era in which the Sino-Soviet split occurred. The two countries, whose relationship has grown steadily close since the fall of the Soviet Union，have increasingly shared major strategic goals – chief among them, challenging the Western liberal order led by the U.S.

Both China and Russia have, in recent years, adopted an increasingly assertive stance in projecting military strength: China in the South China Sea and around Taiwan, and Russia in former Soviet satellite states, including Ukraine.

In response, a unified stance formed by Western governments to counter China and Russia’s challenge has merely pushed the two countries closer together.

Besties Forever?

In February 2022, just as Russia was preparing its invasion of Ukraine, Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping announced a “friendship without limits” – in a show of unified intent against the West.

China has since become an indispensable partner for Russia, serving as its top trading partner for both imports and exports. In 2024, bilateral trade between China and Russia reached a record high of US$237 billion, and Russia now relies heavily on China as a key buyer of its oil and gas. This growing economic interdependence gives China considerable leverage over Russia and makes any U.S. attempt to pull Moscow away from Beijing economically unrealistic.

That doesn’t mean the Russian-Chinese relationship is inviolable; areas of disagreement and divergent policy remain.

Indeed, there are areas that Trump could exploit if he were to succeed in driving a wedge between the two countries. For example, it could serve Russia’s interests to support U.S. efforts to contain China and discourage any expansionist tendencies in Beijing – such as through Moscow’s strategic ties with India, which China views with some alarm – especially given that there are still disputed territories along the Chinese-Russian border.

Putin Knows Who His Real Friends Are

Putin isn’t naive. He knows that with Trump in office, the deep-seated Western consensus against Russia – including a robust, if leaky, economic sanctions regime – isn’t going away anytime soon. In Trump’s first term, the U.S. president likewise appeared to be cozying up to Putin, but there is an argument that he was even tougher on Russia, in terms of sanctions, than the administrations of Barack Obama or Joe Biden.

So, while Putin would likely gladly accept a Trump-brokered peace deal that sacrifices Ukraine’s interests in favor of Russia, that doesn’t mean he would be rushing to embrace some kind of broader call to unite against China. Putin will know the extent to which Russia is now reliant economically on China, and subservient to it militarily. In the words of one Russian analyst, Moscow is now a “vassal” or, at best, a junior partner to Beijing.

Transactional Weakness

China for its part views Trump’s peace talks with Russia and Ukraine as a sign of weakness that potentially undermines U.S. hawkishness toward China.

While some members of the U.S. administration are undoubtedly hawkish on China – Secretary of State Marco Rubio views the country as the “most potent and dangerous” threat to American prosperity – Trump himself has been more ambivalent. He may have slapped new tariffs on China as part of a renewed trade war, but he has also mulled a meeting with President Xi Jinping in an apparent overture.

Beijing recognizes Trump’s transactional mindset, which prioritizes short-term, tangible benefits over more predictable long-term strategic interests requiring sustained investment.

This changes the calculation over whether the U.S. may be unwilling to bear the high costs of defending Taiwan. Trump, in a deviation from his predecessor, has failed to commit the country to defending Taiwan, the self-governing island claimed by Beijing.

Rather, Trump had indicated that if the Chinese government were to launch a military campaign to “reunify” Taiwan, he would opt instead for economic measures like tariffs and sanctions. His apparent openness to trade Ukraine territory for peace now has made some in Taiwan concerned over Washington’s commitment to long-established international norms.

Insulating the Economy

China has taken another key lesson from Russia’s experience in Ukraine: The U.S.-led economic sanctions regime has serious limits.

Even under sweeping Western sanctions, Russia was able to stay afloat through subterfuge and with support from allies like China and North Korea. Moreover, China remains far more economically intertwined with the West than Russia, and its relatively dominant global economic position means that it has significant leverage to combat any U.S.-led efforts to isolate the country economically.

Indeed, as geopolitical tensions have driven the West to gradually decouple from China in recent years, Beijing has adapted to the resulting economic slowdown by prioritizing domestic consumption and making the economy more self-reliant in key sectors.

That in part also reflects China’s significant global economic and cultural strength. Coupled with this has been a domestic push to win countries in the Global South around to China’s position. Beijing has secured endorsements from 70 countries officially recognizing Taiwan as part of China.

China’s Turn to Exploit a Split?

As such, Trump’s plan to end the Russia-Ukraine war by favoring Russia in the hope of drawing it into an anti-China coalition is, I believe, likely to backfire.

While Russia may itself harbor concerns about China’s growing power, the two country’s shared strategic goal of challenging the Western-led international order — and Russia’s deep economic dependence on China — make any U.S. attempt to pull Moscow away from Beijing unrealistic.

Moreover, Trump’s approach exposes vulnerabilities that China could exploit. His transactional and isolationist foreign policy, along with his encouragement of right-wing parties in Europe, may strain relations with European Union allies and weaken trust in American security commitments. Beijing, in turn, may view this as a sign of declining U.S. influence, giving China more room to maneuver, noticeably in regard to Taiwan.

Rather than increasing the chances of a Sino-Russia split, such a shift could instead divide an already fragile Western coalition.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/03 ... kfire.html


Russia is NOT subservient to China militarily, rather the opposite given relative nuke arsenals and Russia's military being honed to a fine edge by the peer combat.

[blindpig]

Trump deals his first blow to the Venezuelan economy
March 27, 2025 , 3:05 pm .


The US president's latest action has created negative expectations for the economy (Photo: Zach Gibson / Getty Images)

The Trump administration's latest executive order, threatening to impose tariffs on buyers of Venezuelan oil, is having its first repercussions, specifically on the national exchange system.

Following the repeal of General License 41 , which was favorable to Chevron's activities in Venezuela, and now with the implementation of this new pressure mechanism, there has been a clear disturbance in the value of the bolivar against the dollar in the parallel exchange rate.

At the close of business on March 26, the parallel, or unofficial, exchange rate closed at 102.9 bolivars per dollar, while the reference rate released by the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) reflected 69.0 dollars per bolivar.

By March 26, the exchange rate differential, or exchange rate gap—as it is also known—reached 40%.

These data break the prevailing trends of balance and stability in the January-December period of 2023 and 2024, as the difference between the two indicators was minimal, ranging from 5% to 9% and from 7% to 12%, respectively.

This new situation in the Venezuelan economy offers a range of political and economic aspects.

Exchange rate dynamics
The parallel exchange rate has taken on new names in recent months. A parallel or unofficial exchange rate, called the "average," has emerged.

This intermediate indicator between the BCV exchange rate and the traditional parallel exchange rate is incorporated into the construction of prices for goods and services denominated in dollars in the real economy. Individuals often use the "average" dollar as an alternative to the BCV and the traditional parallel exchange rate.

Recall that the latter, usually called "Monitor," serves as a reference value for Colombian currency exchanges, replicating the pattern used by the Dólar Today website years ago.

In theory, there has been additional demand for dollars in exchange offices and the informal market as a whole in recent days. However, the level or proportion of the increase in this new demand for US dollars from these exchange groups is unknown, as their pricing parameters are not transparent.

This apparent "stampede" was caused by bolivar holders, who are basing their expectations on a shortage of foreign currency in the coming months due to the pressure measures and financial siege implemented by the Trump administration.

It could be argued that, theoretically, there is a component of nervousness or panic due to fears of a deterioration in the economy caused by a sharp decline in oil activity.

The "Monitor" exchange rate generates significant disruptions in the real economy, given that the true levels of demand driving the price of the US currency are unknown. It is unclear how many bolivar holders are willing to pay the extremely high price of the parallel dollar.

Speaking of retail cash buyers—individuals who trade using unofficial markers—most transactions are conducted based on the "average" value or another amount close to the "Monitor" dollar.

In light of this, the high probability that the parallel price construction is influenced by decisions made by individual actors inside and outside Venezuela must be considered.

Another phenomenon has likely taken place in recent weeks: the rise of the parallel exchange rate in anticipation of the payment of Income Tax (ISLR), which will be collected by the National Integrated Service of Customs and Tax Administration (SENIAT) until March 31.

In this scenario, fueled by large commercial sectors holding dollars, an exceptional placement of foreign currency into unofficial systems would occur in order to obtain bolivars to comply with the tax.

In any case, the evolution of this monetary situation remains to be seen, and it could worsen or subside in the coming months.

Real derivations of the disturbance
The current exchange rate situation deepens the distortions and asymmetries between exchange rates, with increased devaluation and inflation.

This increases the pressure from suppliers on merchants, who demand payment rates higher than the BCV reference rate.

If the payment system in supply chains is disrupted through the use of this indicator, it will be the consumer, first and foremost, who will have to pay a higher price for products, which means that Trump's policies will directly affect the population's pockets.

But the excessive rise in the price of goods and services will also translate into a decline in consumption and a linear loss of income for retailers, distributors, producers, and importers. Therefore, the collateral effect of Washington's measures will have a direct impact on Venezuelan private companies.

The US government has implemented measures that could further curtail the country's oil activities and, consequently, national and state revenues. But beyond the government, the achievements of the Venezuelan economic recovery over these years are being affected. The damage could be far-reaching.

Various economic agents assume a repeat of "maximum pressure" and could act in a stampede, preparing for new scenarios , buying foreign currency regardless of the fact that its price has risen.

This is a sign of uncertainty and nervousness, phenomena that, in the current context, seek to undermine confidence in investing in the country and create a recession scenario.

Open ending
For their part, the Venezuelan government and other economic stakeholders must implement what they have learned in previous years and address the new context from two premises, easy to name but difficult to implement: sustaining the flow of oil activities and maintaining oxygen in the exchange rate system with an adequate flow of foreign currency, much of which could come from new investments.

The first will require exceptional mechanisms to develop and increase blockade-evading practices, albeit at high costs.

The latter requires state monetary governance, which must be replicated by business groups as a safeguard for the official exchange rate in order to avoid a disruption in the exchange rate system, which should mitigate the consequences for the economy as a whole.

The business sector understands the risks involved, considering that in recent years they have made significant investments that they do not want to lose.

Meanwhile, on the domestic political front, the extremist faction represented by María Corina Machado and Edmundo González has called for and welcomed these measures against Venezuelan oil activities, contrary to the prevailing national opinion.

According to pollster Luis Vicente León of the firm Datanálisis, only 11% of the population approves of the new actions against PDVSA. In January of this year, a survey conducted by the business association Fedecámaras (Fedecámaras) among its members found that 81% of business leaders said they were negatively affected by the sanctions.

Although the general population and economic stakeholders in Venezuela reject foreign coercive actions, the U.S. government relies on the positions of increasingly weakened Venezuelan political actors who request them, creating a false consensus of support and manufacturing false consent.

Regarding the measures taken by Washington, the publication of License 41B , which extended Chevron's presence in Venezuela until the end of May, combined with Trump's other announcements about isolating Venezuelan crude from other markets, suggests a clear exercise of pressure.

To estimate this coercion in the context of a possible backroom negotiation would be to speculate based on the US president's transactional and oscillating logic, but if the White House's policy has demonstrated anything in recent months, it's that shifts and changes of position are a constant.

Everything remains to be seen, but the Trump administration has clearly taken the first step toward "maximum pressure" 2.0 against Venezuela.

https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/trum ... venezolana

Imperial egoisms
Randy Alonso Falcón

March 26, 2025 , 3:51 pm .


Selfishness and poverty in today's world (Photo: AI-generated image)

"Imperialist rent benefits all of society to one degree or another, which does not exclude the precariousness of work, unemployment, and other equally serious social problems. It provides the basis for the denial of internationalism, because it is the basis for a selfish position. We could speak of racism, although it is not exactly racist, but rather selfishness, nationalist selfishness on the part of the peoples of the center and anti-nationalist selfishness on the part of the peoples of the periphery."

Samir Amín. Interview with El Viejo Topo, 2010

While the Trump-Zelensky show steals the headlines, stirring political and media hype, and European leaders agree to billions of dollars more to support the Ukrainian government, other important news is slipping through the net, leaving deep scars on much of humanity, without causing as much shock or reflection.

Imperial decline, the collapse of the international system built after the end of World War II, and the end of Washington's absolute hegemony proclaimed after the fall of the Berlin Wall are leading the world adrift in selfishness, growing inequality, and the accelerated rise of military spending in an attempt to maintain, at least, dominance over the rest of the suffocated and exploited planet.

As the Earth boils over with rising temperatures, which set records year after year, and the most lucid scientists call for a change in consumption patterns and practices that accelerate climate change and global warming, the new presidency of the US empire, financed in part by that nation's big oil companies, throws down the drain the environmental policies of the State that has left the deepest environmental imprint of the last hundred years, ignores the science established on climate change and proclaims "drill, baby, drill."

One of the president's first actions was to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. This is not just a political decision; it also means withdrawing the funds the U.S. provided for climate projects that partially benefited developing nations.

The Biden administration passed laws that injected hundreds of billions of dollars into the energy transition, according to Bloomberg. All of this is going down the drain. However, in fact, China allocated more resources to this transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources in 2024 than the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union combined.

Trump's anti-environmental rhetoric has been echoed by major financial companies that until now had been trying to greenwash the value of their brands and services. Faced with political pressure from the White House and emerging legal obstacles, several have rapidly withdrawn from so-called environmental funds, almost at the same time as the World Meteorological Organization confirmed that 2024 was the hottest year in history, exceeding pre-industrial levels by 1.55 degrees Celsius.



Last December, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Bank of America withdrew from the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), a United Nations-backed initiative that seeks to align global financial activities with the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

Meanwhile, JP Morgan, BlackRock, State Street, ScotiaBank, and Pimco, major US financial firms, have just withdrawn from Climate Action 100+, an international coalition of money managers promoting environmental plans and corporate environmental responsibility, citing flimsy justifications. Canadian financial institutions have also joined them.

"It was always cosmetic," says Shivaram Rajgopal, a professor at Columbia Business School. "If signing a paper was giving these companies a hard time, it's no wonder they've pulled out." Meanwhile, Helen Clarkson, executive director of the Climate Group, believes that "American companies are much more afraid of the spotlight; they simply don't want to put their heads above the parapet."


Selfishness and poverty in the time of Trump (Photo: AI-generated image)

The "America First" Trump proclaimed in 2016 is the philosophy that guides the plutocratic government he presides over. An "America First" for billionaires. Their interests prevail. In times of an empire drowning in debt, inflation, threats to its energy security, challenged in its global power, and facing serious internal fractures, they couldn't care less if the world is going astray. Their fortunes are what must be saved, empire by empire.

Not only will there be no more money for climate action—forgetting that our world is a giant Titanic where we will all sink—but funding for foreign aid programs across the board will be cut.

Under accusations of misuse and corruption—of which there are plenty—the Trump-Musk duo cut off USAID not only as a political vendetta —bringing to light much of the imperial plans of subversion around the world—but also buried most of the foreign aid programs supported by the United States government.

"Does everyone know what a condom is?" Trump asked an audience in Miami a few days ago, before blatantly lying that wasteful schemes like the one that spent $100 million on condoms for Hamas had to be stopped.



In addition to leaving a few undercover CIA agents acting as USAID officers in numerous countries unemployed, the White House decision eliminated some 5,800 programs, including vaccination and health education campaigns, HIV treatments, malaria control efforts in African countries, drug deliveries to prevent and treat neglected tropical diseases in West Africa, food supplies to populations suffering from severe and acute malnutrition, and other programs that launder blame and whitewash the empire, but which left their benefits to millions of people around the world.

"This award is being terminated for the convenience and interest of the U.S. government," read the introduction to the State Department statement sent to organizations receiving USAID funding for these humanitarian programs.

"People will die," said Catherine Kyobutungi, executive director of the African Centre for Population and Health Research, "but we will never know because even programs to count the dead have been cut."


British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the entrance to the official residence (Photo: Jordand Pettit/PA WIRE/DPA)

Washington is shedding its weight downwards and to the side. From the outset, Trump has warned Europe that the days of the United States acting as a military guarantor for that region, assuming multi-billion-dollar expenditures, are over. "Increase your military spending!" the US president urges, and the governments of the Old Continent are tearing their hair out.

With welfare programs largely erased by the brutal crushing of neoliberalism, their economies stagnant, and battered by the energy crisis as a result of their losing bid in the conflict in Ukraine, European governments are raising "the Russian ghost"—as the Soviet ghost did before it—to convince their societies that they need to spend more on weapons.

With little left to cut in the diminished state budgets, the chainsaw has turned to international aid. Last week, the British government announced that its country will comply with Trump's demands and increase military spending to 2.5% of Gross Domestic Product by 2027. This is the largest increase in that allocation since the end of World War II.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the increase, amounting to tens of billions of dollars, would be financed by a steep cut in international humanitarian aid. The decision, he said, is necessary to provide support in the midst of a "new era."



Gone is the promise by the Prime Minister's Labour Party to increase foreign aid from 0.5% to 0.7% as soon as "fiscal conditions permit."

The enthusiastic applause from the British military command and the White House is leading to cuts or elimination of programs for health care, education, food, disaster prevention, environmental conservation, agriculture, and economic development in more than 100 countries.

"It's short-sighted and a strategic and moral mistake," said Representative Monica Harding, reflecting on the fact that "it will give more influence to Russia and China." And that's what counts in the political thinking of the imperial centers: who divides the pie, no matter that billions will be left out.



In the world of capital, selfishness is the law. While 3.6 billion people remain below the poverty line, the combined wealth of the world's billionaires grew by $2 trillion during 2024, according to a report by Oxfam International.

The inequality that exists today bears "the mark of the brutal colonial past," the report emphasizes. The current system continues to extract wealth from the Global South at a rate of $30 million per hour, benefiting the richest 1% of the population, who reside mainly in the Global North. At the same time, most countries are experiencing negative trends in policies to combat inequality, according to the Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index, developed by Oxfam and Development Finance International. It would take 230 years to eradicate poverty at current rates of reduction.


(Photo: OXFAM Report)

And while the gap and plundering grow, development aid from rich countries suffers sharp, shameless cuts. "The problem is not how many of us there are in the world, but what kind of world we are building," said Pope Francis. "It is not children, but selfishness, that creates injustices and structures of sin."

[img]https://misionverdad.com/sites/default/files/foto5.jpg

In the Oxfam report, US Senator Bernie Sanders summarized the harsh reality the world faces in just five points:

Never before in human history has such a small group of people possessed so much wealth.
Never before in human history has income and wealth inequality existed on this scale.
Never before in human history has there been such an extreme concentration of property.
Never before in human history have the billionaire elite enjoyed so much political power.
And never before in human history have we witnessed this unprecedented level of greed, arrogance, and irresponsibility on the part of the ruling class.

The dark times we live in are marked by selfishness. Will we idly allow the power of the few to prevail over the well-being of so many?



Randy Alonso Falcón is a prominent Cuban journalist and Director of Ideas Multimedios, which brings together renowned media outlets such as Cubadebate and Mesa Redonda, where he also serves as the main moderator. He has directed important Cuban publications such as Somos Jóvenes, Alma Mater, and Juventud Técnica, and received the Juan Gualberto Gómez National Journalism Award for Television in 2018.

This article was originally published on Cubadebate on March 4, 2025.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/eg ... imperiales

[blindpig]

Trump’s Rule by Fiat a Bipartisan Legacy
March 28, 2025

Democratic norms have been eroded for years, writes Vinnie Rotondaro, with the cooperation of the same liberal establishment that now acts scandalized by Trump’s every defiance.


Protest sign in Washington, D.C., during Donald Trump’s second inauguration on Jan. 20. (Diane Krauthamer, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

By Vinnie Rotondaro
Common Dreams

U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest defiance of the courts — this time refusing to follow an appellate judge’s order to halt migrant deportations — has triggered another round of liberal outrage. Critics are calling it an authoritarian move, a blatant assault on the rule of law, and a warning sign that American democracy is on its last legs.

But if this is the end of democracy, it’s been ending for a long time. And not just at Trump’s hands.

The central truth we keep missing — especially on the left — is that Trump is not an aberration. He’s a grotesque continuation. The playbook he uses was written by both parties over decades of eroding democratic norms, consolidating executive power, and circumventing meaningful checks on authority. Trump didn’t invent the impulse to rule by fiat; he just brings it out into the open.

If we want to stop the next Trump, or the next expansion of executive lawlessness, we can’t keep pretending he came out of nowhere.

Consider the legal justification Trump has floated for ignoring the courts: The United States is “at war.” Therefore, he claims, wartime powers apply — even domestically, even over immigration courts. To many, this sounds like a dystopian twist. But it’s eerily familiar. Because the same logic has been used, repeatedly, by both Republican and Democratic administrations since 9/11.

Congress Granted War Powers

After the attacks on the Twin Towers, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which gave the executive branch sweeping powers to pursue terrorism around the world. That one document has served as the legal scaffolding for 20-plus years of undeclared wars and covert operations in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere.

No further congressional approval was needed. The public never had a say. The war powers clause of the Constitution became symbolic — if not obsolete.

Former President Barack Obama inherited that framework and expanded it. His administration developed the now-infamous drone kill list, justified targeted assassinations (including of U.S. citizens) and defended the government’s right to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects without trial.

Obama didn’t officially suspend habeas corpus, but in practice, he upheld a system that made the writ meaningless for hundreds of detainees held at Bagram and Guantánamo. The position of his Department of Justice was clear: The executive has the authority to detain and kill, beyond judicial oversight, because we are at war.


Protesting Guantanamo in Washington, D.C., on 13th anniversary of the opening of the prison camp, Jan. 11, 2015. (Debra Sweet, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

This is the true bipartisan legacy that paved the way for Trump. The removal of checks and balances didn’t happen overnight. It was built incrementally, piece by piece, under the banner of national security — with the cooperation and silence of the same liberal establishment that now acts scandalized by Trump’s every defiance.

In Yemen, Trump Resumes Forever-War Posture

It’s worth asking: Why wasn’t there more pearl clutching when the executive branch was unilaterally deciding who lived or died abroad, without congressional debate or judicial process? Why didn’t more alarm bells ring when Democrats joined Republicans in handing over war-making powers and then refused to take them back? Why was it acceptable to rule by emergency decree when the emergency was foreign — but suddenly unacceptable when the same logic is turned inward?

Trump is now openly talking about “eradicating” the Houthis in Yemen — an aggressive military escalation that directly contradicts the MAGA-era promise of no new foreign wars. So much for populist anti-interventionism. In lockstep with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel, Trump appears eager to resume the forever war posture. And once again, no one’s talking about congressional approval.

This is the cycle we’re caught in. Trump exposes the tools others helped create. He strips them of their moral veneer, revealing the ugly core. And rather than confront the system itself, liberals point at Trump as a singular villain — as if everything was working just fine before he came along.

The truth is harder to face: If we want to stop the next Trump, or the next expansion of executive lawlessness, we can’t keep pretending he came out of nowhere. We need to reckon with the fact that our democracy has been undermined from within — by both parties, for years. We need to challenge not just the man, but the machine.

And that’s something the Democratic Party, in its current corporate and security-state-aligned form, seems unwilling — or unable — to do. It would require renouncing its own legacy, from the Clinton-era crime bill to Obama-era surveillance and drone wars. It would require fundamentally rethinking how power is distributed in this country, and how easily it can be abused.

Until that happens, we shouldn’t be surprised when the next Trump defies the next court order. We shouldn’t act shocked when the language of war is used to suspend due process. We shouldn’t cling to the fantasy that our institutions will save us, when those institutions have been hollowed out by decades of bipartisan compromise.

Trump didn’t break democracy. He just took the mask off.

https://consortiumnews.com/2025/03/28/t ... an-legacy/

******

ICE Is Kidnapping Immigrant and Labor Rights Activists
March 28, 2025


Hundreds rally outside the Aurora GEO ICE detention center to demand release of Jeanette Vizguerra (Photo: Party for Socialism and Liberation.

By Natalia Marques – Mar 26, 2025

Jeanette Vizguerra and Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez are the latest to be swept up in Trump’s ongoing crackdown against migrants involved in political activism

Rallies have been held following the sudden ICE abductions of immigrant activists Jeanette Vizguerra in Colorado and Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez in Washington State.

Longtime immigrant rights activist Jeannette Vizguerra was detained by immigration authorities while working at her retail job at Target on March 17, chained at the waist by federal agents while on a work break.

Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino is a union organizer who has been organizing fellow farmworkers since he began picking berries at 14 years old. According to the organization Community to Community Development, where Zeferino volunteers, the labor organizer was detained “violently” by ICE on the morning of Tuesday, March 25.

Over 100 demonstrators gathered outside an ICE facility in Ferndale, Washington on Tuesday, holding signs reading “Free Lelo now,” “Not one more,” and “Lelo is a political detainee”.

“He was on his way to drop off his partner at her work place, and ICE agents broke his car window when he tried to exercise his rights,” the organization wrote on social media. “We feel this is a targeted attack on Farmworker leadership, and we must not allow this to continue.”

“We must not allow any more attack on workers. As Unions, community organizations, student groups, and people who have decency, We Demand That ICE stays out of Washington and let workers be at peace. Immigrants are not the enemy, we are part of the worker movement towards justice which includes fair wages, healthcare,education, housing, and solidarity.”

On the night of March 24, hundreds gathered outside of the Aurora GEO ICE detention center where Jeanette Vizguerra is currently being held, marking seven days since her abduction by ICE agents. Demonstrators held signs with slogans such as “Free Jeanette” and “ICE are the invaders—not immigrants!”

“Jeanette’s lawyers have stated that she was NOT issued orders of removal and her detention is unlawful,” wrote the Denver branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which has been active in immigrant rights organizing in the wider Denver area. “The people of Colorado know Jeanette was targeted because of her activism, and we will continue to fight for her and all others who have been unjustly detained.”

GEO Group, the for-profit corporation which runs the Aurora ICE facility where Vizguerra is being held, had invested USD 70 million into the detention center in order to “meet the anticipated requirements of the federal government’s immigration law enforcement priorities” under Trump.

The Aurora ICE facility has been the subject of numerous lawsuits, including a class action lawsuit in 2014, filed by immigrant detainees who alleged that GEO Group staff threatened them with solitary confinement if they did not work for free. In fact, the Aurora facility has a documented history of using solitary confinement, an internationally-recognized form of torture, as a disciplinary measure against detainees who refused to clean common areas for free.

https://orinocotribune.com/ice-is-kidna ... activists/

******

Danish foreign minister scolds Trump administration for its criticism of Denmark and Greenland
By Associated Press

Published 9:18 AM EDT, Sat March 29, 2025

The Danish foreign minister on Saturday scolded the Trump administration for its “tone” in criticizing Denmark and Greenland, saying his country is already investing more into Arctic security and remains open to more cooperation with the United States.

Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen made the remarks in a video posted to social media after US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to the strategic island.

“Many accusations and many allegations have been made. And of course we are open to criticism,” Rasmussen said speaking in English. “But let me be completely honest: we do not appreciate the tone in which it is being delivered. This is not how you speak to your close allies. And I still consider Denmark and the United States to be close allies.”

Vance on Friday said Denmark had “underinvested” in Greenland’s security and demanded that Denmark change its approach as President Donald Trump pushes to take over the Danish territory.

Vance visited US troops on Pituffik Space Base on mineral-rich Greenland alongside his wife and other senior US officials for a trip that was ultimately scaled back after an uproar among Greenlanders and Danes who were not consulted about the original itinerary.

“Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance said Friday. “You have underinvested in the people of Greenland, and you have underinvested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful landmass filled with incredible people. That has to change.”

Vance said the US had “no option” but to take a significant positio to ensure the security of Greenland as he encouraged a push in Greenland for independence from Denmark.

“I think that they ultimately will partner with the United States,” Vance said. “We could make them much more secure. We could do a lot more protection. And I think they’d fare a lot better economically as well.”


Vice President JD Vance (second on the right) and Second Lady Usha Vance (on the right) tour the US military's Pituffik Space Base in Greenland on March 28, 2025. Jim Watson/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

The reaction by members of Greenland’s parliament and residents has rendered that unlikely, with anger erupting over the Trump administration’s attempts to annex the vast Arctic island. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen pushed back on Vance’s claim that Denmark isn’t doing enough for defense in the Arctic, calling her country “a good and strong ally.”

And Greenlandic lawmakers on Thursday agreed to form a new government, banding together to resist Trump’s overtures. Four of the five parties elected to Greenland’s parliament earlier this month have agreed to form a coalition that will have 23 of 31 seats in the legislature.

Løkke Rasmussen, in his video, reminded viewers of the 1951 defense agreement between Denmark and the United States. Since 1945, the American military presence in Greenland has decreased from thousands of soldiers over 17 bases and installations on the island, he said, to the remote Pituffik Space Base in the northwest with some 200 soldiers today.

The 1951 agreement “offers ample opportunity for the United States to have a much stronger military presence in Greenland,” the foreign minister said. “If that is what you wish, then let us discuss it.”

Løkke Rasmussen added that Denmark had increased its own investment into Arctic defense. In January, Denmark announced 14.6 billion Danish kroner ($2.1 billion) in financial commitments for Arctic security covering three new naval vessels, long-range drones and satellites.

https://us.cnn.com/2025/03/29/europe/de ... index.html

******

The best response to U.S. tariffs is for developing countries to sell U.S. debt

Ian Proud

March 28, 2025

In the art of the deal, threatening to crash the U.S. economy would bring Trump to the table far quicker than a tariff war.

As President Trump threatens the world with sweeping tariffs, he is trying to change the fundamental laws of economics through force of will. He won’t succeed. Rather than fighting back with reciprocal tariffs, developing countries should sell off U.S. debt.

The Austrian American economist Ludwig von Mises once said that ‘the balance of payments theory forgets that the volume of trade is completely dependent on prices.’

The United States has such a gigantic trade deficit, at over $1 trillion each year, because it can buy foreign goods more cheaply than it can produce them domestically. Some countries may subsidise production to lower prices, others might export goods that are further down the value chain compared to what American producers will make.

But, stepping back, the U.S. dollar is so powerful, that it renders American exports more expensive, irrespective of any distortions created by its trading partners. This is part of the exorbitant privilege in which the U.S. dollar acts the world’s leading reserve currency, amounting to 58% of total reserves.

Foreign countries put their capital into the U.S. because it is a stable and safe, increasing the price of the dollar on foreign exchange markets because demand is always high. A strong exchange rate makes foreign imports cheaper and that helps to manage inflation in America.

President Trump clearly wants to boost his support in the blue collar heartlands of America, driving job creation in traditional American industry that has been undercut by foreign imports over many years. But he can’t have two cakes and eat them both. He can’t simultaneously slash the huge U.S. balance of payments deficit – helping blue collar workers – while at the same time maintaining the U.S. as the destination of choice for foreign capital.

That would be to defy the logic of economics.

To oversimplify slightly, America has built its bloated Federal apparatus on the back of cheap imports. The huge current account surpluses that exporting powerhouses like China, India, European and ASEAN countries have built up has produced a torrent of easy capital to prop up the U.S. state.

The U.S. has a debt mountain of around $35 trillion which is roughly the equivalent sum of debt held by foreign investors. Of that debt, around $8.5 trillion is in the form of U.S. Treasuries, literally loans to the U.S. government, with a similar amount invested in corporate debt and the rest largely in equity.

That’s why Trump is going in so hard with Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative. He’s desperate to reduce the size of the U.S. state apparatus because he knows that the Federal house of cards is built on fiscal quicksand. He also probably figures that there’s a greater propensity among federal workers – who are facing massive job cuts – to lean democrat, than among factory workers.

That’s why the idea of a BRICS currency is so terrifying to Trump, because BRICS now accounts for 41% of the global economy by purchasing power parity. A BRICS currency poses a longer-term risk of making the dollar less appealing and, therefore, weaker, driving up inflation.

Because the real challenge to the U.S. is not the federal debt itself but its ability to service its debt. The exorbitant privilege, coupled with the massively disinflationary tidal wave of the global financial crisis, ushered in a period of historically low inflation and low interest rates.

That era has ended, as ratings agency Moody’s pointed out this week. U.S. interest rates are now higher, at 4.25-4.5% driving up the costs of servicing the country’s enormous debt mountain. The threat to the U.S. right now is inflation and what that means for its debt servicing bill, if interest rates are held or, even, forced higher.

There are parallels here for the 1970s, when rampant inflation, triggered by a number of factors including the oil crisis and America’s move to a fiat currency, led U.S. interest rates to soar at one point to 20%. During this period, foreign countries withdrew their investments, and the dollar slumped to 45% of total global foreign exchange reserves.

And herein Trump’s challenge. He can’t export more without a weak dollar, and a weak dollar will make U.S. debt harder to services.

Tariffs are simply his attempt to bully less developed economies for America’s political and economic advantage. They impose a cost on foreign exporters that is unrelated to the price of the goods, as determined by the rate of exchange at any time. And there is little value for an individual country in responding with reciprocal tariffs, precisely because they export more to the U.S. than they import. On the escalation ladder of tariffs, they will only ever lose out.

But developing countries have more power than they realise. Countries that export more than they import, build up stocks of foreign exchange that they invest overseas. If you look at the size of countries’ trade surpluses with the U.S. it is insightful. China has a deficit of around $300 billion each year, with the EU it’s over $220 billion and with India $37 billion. These countries/blocs all park significant volumes of their capital in the U.S. because of the dollar’s prominence.

Rather than fighting tariffs with tariffs, developing countries should look to divest their long-term debt holdings in U.S. treasuries and corporate debt on a wholescale basis. As they sold off their American debt and reinvested it in developing countries, or retrenched, to manage the impact of reduced exports to the U.S., the dollar would fall in value.

U.S. exports may rise. However, and as happened in the 1970s, inflation would become a major systemic risk to the U.S. economy over a period of years, as the price of foreign imports rose in the face of a weakening dollar. That would force up interest rates, as the U.S. government sought to shore up demand for the dollar to reduce inflationary pressure. And that would raise the cost of servicing America’s debt mountain.

In the art of the deal, threatening to crash the U.S. economy would bring Trump to the table far quicker than a tariff war. As the U.S. President himself might say, ‘sell, baby, sell'.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... l-us-debt/

*****

The Next American Constitution
Posted on March 28, 2025 by Yves Smith

Yves here. Tom Neuburger discusses how the US is in the midst of a regime change, which has precedents in US history. The most obvious manifestation is how Trump is trying to cut back Constitutional and legal protections. Where might this go? He acknowledges that one possibility is a popular revolt, but despite the US being full of guns, both the atomization of what once were communities and the fact that many of the opponents are professional in blue city islands dependent of the red heartlands for supplies does not bode well for organized resistance. Then again, one of the newly downtrodden groups is vets, and they do know a thing or two about taking terrain.

By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published at God’s Spies

Before we get started…

The following represents notes toward something much larger. Where are we headed? That’s not certain, though there aren’t many choices, given what’s happened and what we know of the players.

Though there’s so much more going on in the world, what we’re seeing here is a massive paradigm shift in how Americans are governed and what they’ll do about it. As do others, I have thoughts. Stay tuned.

The Next American Constitution

I once began work on a book with the working title, The Fourth American Constitution. The San Francisco Chronicle published an introduction to the idea in their Fourth of July issue. The main point is this:

Each year on this day, Americans celebrate our founding principles and the birth of our nation, but in these chaotic and polarized days, it is also important to remember that the United States was born from a crisis of unity and has experienced two more at roughly 70-year intervals — the Civil War and the Great Depression.

Both nearly tore us apart, yet each sparked a civic rebirth. After each great rupture, the government was restructured; each took the nation closer to its founding ideals; each brought greater liberty, justice and opportunity to expanding groups of Americans; each changed forever and for the better the relationship between government and the people.

We’re now in the midst of a fourth crisis, from which will emerge the next agreement about how and for whom our government operates. Will it produce a constitution that once again advances our founding principles and expands opportunities, or will this be the first American crisis that institutionalizes a stripping of rights, freedom and wealth?

Though much work was done, the book was never completed, since each new month seemed to offer a new direction — light from a different dawn — none of which seemed reliable.

The years since then have been iffy, to say the least. Where were we going? Who knew? Then the Trump-Musk regime arrived and things clarified.

What If the Right Wins Absolutely?

One of the puzzles I wanted to solve in the book was this: What if the Right wins absolutely? What would we be as a country under full right-wing rule?

That’s been hard to determine, though there were clear indications. I decided the Right was factious, and a lot depended on which group would end up on top. If the Christian Nationalists, the God-bothering absolutists, or groups of that stripe should win out, we’d have one kind of place. God before gold, God with list of demands.

Or what if Charles Koch won out? America would be slightly different — a terrible place, but not the same hell hole as the New Apostolic Reform people would create. God as a cover story, gold calling the shots.

A Techno-Fascist Takeover

So who actually won? That’s been answered. Thanks to Trump’s love of revenge — if you try to remove the king, it’s best to succeed — and his bromance with a man he’s decided swings admirable pipe, the group on the Right we can safely call techno-fascists has come out ahead.

They’ve captured a man who thinks like a mafia boss, and that man has captured the crown — meaning, both houses of Congress, the Court (for now), and the throne, something we once called a Presidency, then inflated to king.

Where Are We Headed?

Where are we headed? There aren’t many alternatives. In 2028, Trump may step down or not. In 2028, the country elects a Democrat or it doesn’t. In 2028, the Musk revolution is ended or it’s not.

1. Trump Doesn’t Leave in 2028

I originally thought that of course Trump would leave office when his term expires.

Can you really see Trump wanting to be president forever? That’s work. His goals today are revenge, glory and golf. And money. Maybe still sex. I sure don’t see him signing for any job he’s stuck in forever. We wants to murder his enemies, bask and get out. At least as I see it.

But consider the people behind him, who feed on his fury: Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and their ilk; Russ Vought, a primary author of Project 2025; the whole of the Heritage crowd; the people who created John Roberts to be who he is, who financed his Court. Crazed billionaires, bankers and moguls of every stripe. They have transformational dreams that don’t end with Trump. Why not press on?

They may need Trump to remain, but he can step back, play golf, be a figurehead president while his friends carry on.

Think of it from their standpoint, these Friends of Trump. Once Social Security is gone, it won’t be rebuilt. The same with the rest of the changes. What remains won’t be America in the modern sense. Why not stay and write the new rules, our Fourth Constitution?

2. A Democrat Wins in 2028

What if Trump leaves and a Democrat’s elected? The result is anyone’s guess, but I don’t see the national party defying its donors. The donors are key. I don’t see state parties, good as a few may become, having national clout. And I fear the surrender I saw from Sanders last time will be reenacted by others. Seems they all back down when they have to, even Dennis Kucinich.

3. A Popular Revolt

That leaves a popular revolt. If the people rebel — what does that even look like? A million marched against the Bush-Cheney Middle East War. What good did it do? What good did the George Floyd protests do, after all’s said and done? Raise consciousness? Keep a single person safe from murdering cops? Are cops really less deadly these days?

It will take a Mario Savio “shut it down” fight, one where

you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop.

It would have to last until Trump was forced to resign. It would have to persist in the face of murdering cops. It would have to last through endless media opposition (because real revolution is a threat to everyone’s order). It would have to have critical mass.

The revolt would have to persist despite everything lined up against it. If it wins, rejoice, though the nation would tear apart (I’ll expand on that later). If it fails, our next Constitution is the Trumpian one.

For Now Trump Has All the Power

We can hope for good things, and maybe we’ll get them. Who knows? But the fact is, right now Trump has all the power.

If he wants to defy the courts, what then? If he wants to use NatSec force to attack opposition, what then? If he punishes states’ defiance, what then? He’s defying the court today. He’s already used goons to hand people to foreign torturers. He’s successfully blackmailed Maine into compliance. Which state is next? There’s nothing Trump has to fear if wants to press on.



Avenues Out

As to avenues out of this mess, I see three:

• Trump’s loss of reputation is a possible lever. Would he want to die hated? Not sure.

• The security apparatus may tire of him, or tire of those behind him. By “tire” I mean see them as threats to their own sense of order. In that case, good-bye Trump. But what would remain?

• At some point, Trump and his friends may say “we’ve done enough.” That would stop the assault … for a while. But if those wins include destroying the whole New Deal, I’m not sure that counts as “out” for the rest of us.

What to Watch Next

Three things to watch for, ways to judge your next move:

• What will the Roberts Court do as cases come up? Acquiesce, split the baby, or pull the king off of his throne? If the third, what will Trump do? Ignore them or change course?

• If his friends wants to break Social Security — make sure checks don’t go out — they’re well on their way. If they do that, how will they deal with the fury that follows? They can respond “So what?” — invoke the No one can stop meAmendment — but will they?

• Finally, will they treat citizens like alien others? Remember, Obama set precedent on that. Will Trump go that far: use AI to find his enemies, then “deal with” the ones he thinks he can safely destroy? Or will he stop short of that?

The answers will tell you what’s coming. The Roberts Court; Social Security; stripping citizens of rights. We’ll soon see how this plays out.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/03 ... ution.html

The Roberts court will try to split the baby and if that don't work will block Trump because Roberts is a ruling class consensus kind of guy. Which is why the Dems gave him a pass.

[blindpig]

Trump and Musk Are Making It Harder for the IRS to Catch Wealthy Tax Cheats
Posted on March 30, 2025 by Conor Gallagher

Conor here: We can add another 50 IT staffers to the layoffs listed in the piece below. Fedscoop reported the following yesterday:

The decision to cut the [50] IT staffers was made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, according to one of the sources, and was carried out by acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krause…The 50 people were at the senior executive service level, two sources said, and most were associate chief information officers. One of the sources, an IT executive who left the IRS earlier this month, said the 50 staffers include experts working on cybersecurity, modernization, applications, development, contracts, networks, mainframe and data center operations, among other IT-related areas.

Some more context on what that means. First from a ProPublica piece earlier in March:

The result, employees and experts said, will mean corporations and wealthy individuals face far less scrutiny when they file their tax returns, leading to more risk-taking and less money flowing into the U.S. treasury.

“Large businesses and higher-wealth individuals are where you have the most sophisticated taxpayers and the most sophisticated tax preparers and lawyers who are attuned to pushing the envelope as much as they can,” said Koskinen, the former IRS commissioner. “When those audits stop because there isn’t anybody to do them, people will say, ‘Hey, I did that last year, I’ll do it again this year.’”

“When you hamstring the IRS,” Koskinen added. “it’s just a tax cut for tax cheats.”

And the second from the Washington Post from February:

Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service is seeking access to a heavily guarded Internal Revenue Service system that includes detailed financial information about every taxpayer, business and nonprofit in the country, according to three people familiar with the activities, sparking alarm within the tax agency.

Under pressure from the White House, the IRS is considering a memorandum of understanding that would give officials from DOGE — which stands for Department of Government Efficiency — broad access to tax-agency systems, property and datasets. Among them is the Integrated Data Retrieval System, or IDRS, which enables tax agency employees to access IRS accounts — including personal identification numbers — and bank information. It also lets them enter and adjust transaction data and automatically generate notices, collection documents and other records.

According to a draft of the memorandum obtained by The Washington Post, DOGE software engineer Gavin Kliger is set to work at the IRS for 120 days, though the tax agency and the White House can renew his deployment for the same duration. His primary goal at the IRS is to provide engineering assistance and IT modernization consulting.

Maybe the Democrats will get on this once they’re done using SignalGate to cheerlead for more war.

By Chuck Collins, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies where he co-edits Inequality.org. Cross posted from Common Dreams.

The Trump administration and Elon Musk’s DOGE have begun dismantling the Internal Revenue Service, or IRS, beginning with 6,700 layoffs. Their stated plan is to cut half of the agency’s workforce.

Their biggest cuts appear to be in the Large Business and International division, which audits wealthy individuals and companies with more than $10 million in assets. These are essentially the workers that make sure billionaires and corporations pay their taxes.

Musk and President Donald Trump claim to be sage businessmen, but it would be hard to find a business owner in America that would dismantle their accounts receivable department when their wealthiest clients still owe them money.

So make no mistake: These cuts will cost taxpayers a lot more than they save.

Gutting the IRS will hurt the middle class by reducing the taxes billionaires and corporations pay for our public services. It passes the bill to working class taxpayers to cover veteran’s services, infrastructure, national parks, and defense.

When it comes to taxes, the wealthy aren’t like you or me. Most wage earners have our state and federal taxes withheld from our monthly paychecks. Ninety percent of taxpayers use the simple standard deduction filing and hope we get a refund.

But billionaires and multimillionaires are different. Their income comes mostly from investments and assets—which they can hide. They hire experts from the “wealth defense industry”—an armada of tax lawyers, accountants, and wealth managers—to minimize their taxes and maximize inheritances for their fortunate children.

They deploy anonymous shell companies, complex trusts, and bank accounts in tax havens like Bermuda, Cayman Islands, and South Dakota to aid their clients in minimizing taxes—tools not available to ordinary taxpayers. According to the Tax Justice Network, over $21 trillion is now hidden in tax havens like these.

A 2021 exposé by ProPublica found that more than half of the 100 wealthiest U.S. billionaires use a complex trust system to avoid estate taxes, which at the current level only kicks in for people with wealth over $13.99 million.

This aggressive tax dodging by the superrich has resulted in an enormous “tax gap” between what they owe and what’s collected. For the last few years, this gap is estimated at $700 billion a year—almost the size of the Pentagon budget.

Working and middle class taxpayers will pick up the slack, or see their services cut. Most likely some of this gap will be added to the $36 trillion national debt, requiring us to pay on an installment plan.

In previous decades, the IRS had the expertise to keep up with the schemes that billionaires and transnational corporations use to dodge their taxes. But over the last two decades, their capacity to catch wealthy crooks and grifters has been decimated by cuts.

Things started to turn around again in 2021, when Congress voted to invest in enforcement. And already, the investment was starting to pay off. A year ago, the IRS announced they’d recovered $482 million from millionaires who hadn’t paid their debts.

Trump and Musk are now reversing these modest gains.

As the agency people love to hate, the IRS was an easy target for Trump’s anti-government attacks. But the real beneficiaries of a weak IRS are billionaires and large global corporations. With an understaffed IRS, their tax shell games can operate without scrutiny—something seven previous IRS commissioners from both parties recently spoke out against.

We may not agree about everything in the federal budget, but most people agree the wealthy should pay their fair share of whatever expenses we share. And it’s hard to catch the criminals if you remove all the cops on the beat.

The billionaires will be popping their champagne bottles. Even with the higher tariffs on European bubbly, they can afford the best.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/03 ... heats.html

******



The “President Of Peace” Just Bombed Yemen 65 Times In 24 Hours

The US launched 65 airstrikes in 24 hours in Yemen, and then Trump’s intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard tweeted, “President Trump IS the President of Peace. He is ending bloodshed across the world and will deliver lasting peace in the Middle East.”

Caitlin Johnstone
March 30, 2025

❖

The US launched 65 airstrikes in 24 hours in Yemen, and then Trump’s intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard tweeted, “President Trump IS the President of Peace. He is ending bloodshed across the world and will deliver lasting peace in the Middle East.”

These freaks have no connection with reality.

❖

I saw a video the other day of a father cradling the decapitated head of his son from an airstrike in Gaza, and I’m told I’m a terrorist supporter if I criticize the people who decapitated him.

❖

The word “terrorist” is a meaningless tool of imperial narrative control.

Want to bomb some people? Designate them as terrorists.

Want to silence protesters and dissidents? Say they’re supporting terrorists.

Want sweeping surveillance powers? Say you need them to fight terrorism.

❖

The list of people the Trump administration is working to deport for speech crimes against Israel is getting longer and longer, and includes a doctoral student whose sole offense was writing an op-ed critical of the Gaza holocaust.

Republicans spent years whining that government is too big and free speech is dying and everyone’s too weak and sensitive, only to turn around and applaud the government for stomping out free speech to protect their delicate little ears from hearing wrongthink about Israel.

❖

Two recent headlines:

“Israel admits firing at ambulances in Gaza,” from The Guardian,

and

“Israeli soldier tells CBS News he was ordered to use Palestinians as human shields in Gaza.”

The western press are only allowed to report on Israeli crimes when the Israelis admit to it themselves.

Half of the evidence of Israeli atrocities in Gaza comes from Palestinians filming their own genocide. The other half comes from Israelis telling the press what they’ve been up to.

❖

The Democrats committed genocide. Now the Republicans are committing genocide. There you have it. Neither party is acceptable. Case closed. End of debate.

❖

Trump is as evil as Biden. Biden was as evil as Trump. If you can’t see this by looking at the raw data of the behavior of their administrations, it’s either because you’re looking at incomplete data or because you’re letting your political biases do your thinking for you.

Both presidents are guilty of extreme evils, and you can’t separate the evils of one from the evils of the other. Biden spent the latter part of his term incinerating Gaza, and then Trump began working to clear it of Palestinians. Trump managed to secure the Gaza ceasefire that Biden spent 15 months avoiding, but then he immediately began sabotaging that very ceasefire as soon as he took office. Biden has been waging a dangerous proxy war in Ukraine that Trump helped provoke in his first term, and now that he’s back in office Trump is tasked with winding that war down to focus on new wars.

The crimes of the Republican and Democratic parties are inseparably intertwined with each other. It’s not that they’re the same — there are some differences — it’s that they work in conjunction to advance the same evil agendas. Saying the Democrats are better than Republicans or vice versa is like saying the top teeth of the shark are nicer than the bottom teeth; they might look and function a bit differently, but they’re used toward the same deadly end.

❖

There are no anti-war Trump supporters. If you’re still supporting Trump after all his insane warmongering, you’re not anti-war.

❖

Trump supporters get so mad at me for listing facts about what a warmongering Israel cuck their president is. That big uncomfortable feeling you’re experiencing is called cognitive dissonance, fellas. It’s what being wrong feels like.

❖

Funny how the linguistic gymnastics of the mass media sometimes turns them into poets. They'll go their whole dreary lives without making any art and then write a headline like "A blast disturbs the cool morning air. The smell of burnt flesh. A universe full of question marks."


❖

The single most bat shit insane conspiracy theory I’ve ever encountered on the internet is that all the death and destruction we’re seeing in the live-streamed genocide in Gaza is actually an extremely high-budget film studio hoax known as “Pallywood”. Flat earthers make more sense.

❖

If Israel doesn’t want westerners voicing their opinions about it then maybe it should stop making itself such a central character in the story of 21st century western imperial warmongering.

❖

Democrats pretended to support justice and oppose racism, then Biden exposed them all as frauds in Gaza. Republicans pretended to support free speech and oppose war, then Trump exposed them as frauds with his Israel policy. US politics is just empty noise draped over an empire.

That’s all it is. The pundits and politicians could all be speaking in baby talk gibberish and it wouldn’t matter. Presidential candidates could have their debates speaking Esperanto and it wouldn’t change anything. The only reason they bother using coherent English words at all is so people don’t get suspicious and start noticing that the politics of the United States are just empty noises fed to the public to let them feel like they’ve got some control while the tank treads of the empire roll onward.

It’s like this in all western “democracies”. The public is split into two equal factions who are then pitted against each other on issues that are guaranteed not to inconvenience the powerful in any way, and then the state just does what’s in the interests of the empire without regard for any of the noises being made in the political sphere. And the brainwashed masses just keep babbling on about their politics, completely unaffected by the fact that the things their government is doing run squarely counter to the values they purport to hold. There’s no real connection between the two.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/03 ... -24-hours/

******

US builds up naval force near Greenland
March 30, 14:09



After the political visits of Vance and Co. to Granland, the US is also upping the military pressure by assembling a naval group for operations off the coast of Greenland.
Trump once again emphasized that he is going to incorporate Greenland into the US, preferably peacefully, but if necessary, there are other options.
Rattling weapons off the coast of Greenland is also a response to Europe and Denmark, which are broadcasting that they will defend Greenland from the US.
Of course, if the US wants, they can easily occupy the island and occupy the few populated areas and objects of Greenland.
Without external interference, one AUG + several battalions of Marines will be enough to ensure the operation.
But for now, Trump wants to get Greenland without any effort at all. In order for the island to return to its native harbor, we must try harder.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9754689.html

Google Translator

[blindpig]

No time for love when Trump’s thugs come in the morning

Declan Hayes

March 31, 2025

Trump’s policy of kidnapping, detaining and deporting foreign nationals primarily serves the interests of Israel and America’s own prison-industrial complex.

Donald Trump’s policy of kidnapping, detaining and deporting foreign nationals primarily serves the interests of Israel and America’s own prison-industrial complex which, since the demise of Detroit’s car industry, is America’s biggest and most lucrative legal enterprise.

Let’s start with Israel and, specifically, with the kidnapping of Turkish citizen, PhD student and Fulbright scholar, Rumeysa Ozturk, who was snatched by half a dozen armed goons after she emerged from her digs at sunset. The overarching charge against Ozturk is that she is a Hamas supporter and the specific one is that she co-authored that innocuous op ed in The Tufts Gazette, a student paper at Tufts where she was completing her PhD and teaching a couple of low level courses on child development.

Let’s first of all note that American universities depend on exploiting PhD students like her to fulfill their teaching commitments and their chemistry labs could not function without the thousands of underpaid Chinese PhD students who run the labs and the other intensive jobs chemistry courses demand. Controversial though it may sound, being Chinese or Turkish is not in and of itself a crime and all peoples should be treated with respect, even in America, unless there are specific reasons to treat them otherwise.

In Ozturk’s case, there are not. Her only crime seems to be that she co-authored that innocuous article on the Gazan genocide and, for that, she is accused of being a Hamas supporter, a charge that cannot be leveled at me because I remember and will never forgive or forget their treachery in Syria and their ongoing allegiance to the Muslim Brotherhood, which my previous articles show I thoroughly despise.

The relevance of that to cases like Ozturk’s is that, like most Turks or others of goodwill, the fact that she opposes the wholesale slaughter by the Israeli Wehrmacht of Gazan civilians does not make her a Muslim Brotherhood or Sultan Erdoğan stooge. It simply makes her human. To get a flavour of the obvious nuances here, cast your mind back to Mexico’s Cristero revolt and, specifically to arch Catholic Graham Green‘s The Power and the Glory, where atheists are as often as not the heroes who literally put their necks on the line to hide the fugitive priest, not because they are Catholics but because they are decent human beings with the moral compass the book’s antagonist lacks as much as do Trump’s enforcers.

Thus, although the Muslim Brotherhood are exploiting the Gazans, Ozturk and her tens of thousands of fellow students are decidedly on the side of righteousness when they oppose, however innocuously, that genocide. And, as regards the very many Born in the USA students who protested on her behalf, they must be praised as much as Betar and Canary Mission, the Zionist j’accuse hate groups that grass her and those like her should be roundly condemned for the snakes in the grass that they are.

Although the above two links give a flavour of the pungent stench those Zionist groups emit, because those who have followed the Zionist turkey shoot in Gaza will be familiar with the calls of American and British-based Jews to have female proponents of the Gazans’ right to life gang raped, there is no need for me to dwell on the moral short comings of Ozturk’s oppressors. They are despicable people, who have far too much power and influence in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Ozturk’s is not the only clear cut case of the persecution of foreign students and, though our Trotskyist friends comment here on the overall trends her case typifies, CBS reports that Alireza Doroudi, an Iranian citizen and doctoral student in mechanical engineering, whose case was first flagged here by the Crimson White, the student paper of the University of Alabama, where Doroudi was studying before he was kidnapped and refers us to the disturbing home page of ICE for further details. Although Doroudi’s only crime seems to have been a minor traffic violation, the obvious elephant in his drawing room is that he is Iranian and the United States, together with its Israeli partner in crime, is prepared to break any law or civilised norms to bring that country, their end destination on the road to Persia, to heel.

As well as his revamped Gleichschaltung — Hitler’s official subordination of intellectual and cultural life to Nazi ideology — not only is Trump bankrupting America’s leading universities into compliance with the war aims of Uncle Sam and Israel, but they are trying to boost the bottom line of their donors and sponsors in all other ways as well.

Witness the cases of Jeanette Vizguerra and Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez, who are the latest righteous heroes to be swept up in Trump’s ongoing xenophobic crackdown. The Peoples Dispatch report that their crime, a hanging offence if Trump’s core cronies had their way, was to be union organisers for Latino fruit pickers, a crime so heinous that they ended up with a felon’s ball and chain for simply standing up for the rights of America’s transient agricultural workers, one of the noblest causes there has ever been since Steinbeck wrote his The Grapes of Wrath masterpiece in the late 1930s.

The Catholic Church, which is pinioned between the twin sirens of the Oval Office and the Grapes of Wrath, has found itself deeply entwined in all of this. Not only are Marco Rubio and some of other Trump’s most venomous goons from Latino Catholic backgrounds but the Catholic Herald reports that law abiding, Church going Venezuelans are being renditioned en masse to El Slavador and, because Trump’s puppet regime in San Salvador does not recognise Venezuela, no more is heard of or from them, once they are chain ganged there.

None of the foregoing is to deny that the United States has a major problem with domestic and foreign crime cartels, just as Ireland has major issues with Nigeria’s Black Axe gang, the Muslim Brotherhood murder gang and Mexico’s Sinaloa crime cartel. But, on the flip side of that, there are the Congolese expatriates marching in Ireland’s major cities on behalf of their compatriots back home, who are being slaughtered on a Biblical scale and who should and must be supported as much as any other humanitarians battling against the almost impossible odds Uncle Sam and his flunkeys pit against them.

When it comes to trampling on human rights, Trump is only continuing a long and ignoble tradition stretching far back into the bowels of America’s history, even well before July 28, 1932 when American national heroes like MacArthur and Patton ordered their troops to fire on their own Great War veterans. We have already mentioned The Grapes of Wrath and we could throw in Detroit’s auto bosses hiring mafia muscle to crack the skulls of trade union organisers. We could mention the union busting tactics of Walmart, McDonalds and other staples of the minimum wage American dream but we would drift too far off into the emasculating abstract. Far better, perhaps for people of my generation to listen to No Time for love if they come in the morning and to again breathe in its wonderful lyrics, which are based on Pastor Martin Niemöller‘s famous commentary on the Nazis’ own ICE project and whose chorus goes like this:

No time for love if they come in the morning,

No time to show tears or for fears in the morning,

No time for goodbye, no time to ask why,

And the sound of the siren’s the cry of the morning.

And, though many of those who once were with us have long ago sold their souls to Trump and his fellow devils, that makes not a whit of difference when we look at the overall moral arc, which demands we stand not only with long-dead murdered martyrs like Martin Luther King Junior and the Kent State martyrs, but with today’s anonymous American students, who still fly the flag of freedom, equality and true fraternity in the face of these latest despotic and Satanic manifestations of the ongoing American nightmare.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... n-morning/

Refreshing to see Declan Hayes wake up sane in the morning, it don't happen often. And it is continually amusing to see commentators who but a few months ago thought Trump heralded a new age of sanity and American imperialism standing down. They could have asked me...

*****

Well, Too Bad.

I can sense the frustration, but Trump needs to understand the game--warfare, real one, not some BS from Afghanistan and Iraq.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he was “very angry” and “pissed off” when Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized the credibility of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s leadership, adding that the comments were “not going in the right location.” Agence France-Presse reported that Putin on Friday called for a transitional government to be put in place in Ukraine, which could effectively push out Zelenskyy. “If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault — which it might not be — but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,” Trump said in an early-morning phone call with NBC News on Sunday.

Well, I get his frustration, but he seems to not understand the reality still, despite obviously better (sort of) intel he begins to get. Nobody in Russia cares who Trump assigns the blame to--Russians have a very good understanding of the workings of American politics and military. That is why most of the comments in Russian social media as a reaction to NYT piece about US involvement in 404 was met with laughter and even mockery. Trump's time on SMO is running out--he, the US that is, in no position to dictate conditions, Russians are.

Trump now begins to come across as this "tough guy" who never fought in real war with real enemies.



He rages inside, because Russia stood against combined West and defeated it. He also doesn't understand the real war, because his "experiences" simply do not fit into the 21st century warfare but he cannot accept reality--this is precisely why the US loses its wars and then champions pseudo-military "excuses" for not winning those. Trump still has some lucid moments, but it seems his nature takes over him, despite the fact that on personal level I applaud some of his actions on the domestic front.
Speaking of history. 211 years ago, Russian Army entered Paris:



Napoleon abdicated.

http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2025/03 ... o-bad.html

******

What Is Trump’s Grand Plan?
Posted on March 31, 2025 by Yves Smith

Yves here. Richard Murphy below works out the implications of his hypothesis, that Trump’s grand visions is rule by broligarch. The wee problem is it fails to explain big parts of Trump’s agenda, such as his lawless approach to deportation, his aggressive suppression of anti-Zionist speech, climate change denialism, his destruction of an already weak public health system, his love of tariffs even as their implementation damages US companies and with that, his naive approach to restoring manufacturing in the US. And let’s not get started on annexing Greenland.

I would argue that the broligarchs are big force multipliers for implementing an extreme libertarian agenda, and with it, asset grabs as prices crash. The wee problem is that between climate change, resource scarcity, and distress in other countries if Trump policies are not reversed, many of those bargains will prove to have been correctly priced. Many viable enterprises that Trump reduces to junk will remain junk. It’s not as if this crowd is good at dealing with complicated real world problems like turning businesses around.

There’s a sour note in Murphy’s discussion of Ukraine. The US is pulling out because Ukraine has lost and there is nothing, ex a nuclear war, that the US can do to turn that around. Yes, Trump may separately relish kicking the Europeans after they repeatedly snubbed and attacked him during Trump 1.0.

But the question of NATO remains. The US was willing to carry most of the costs to assure that Europeans would remain good vassals and to contain the USSR. The US is overextended militarily given its bizarre fixation on mess with what had been a very long-term Chinese plan to reintegrate Taiwan. US war games have repeatedly shown we can’t win in a hot conflict. Nevertheless, the US feels the need to project power against China, and normalizing relations with Russia reduces US deployment needs. Former US ambassador Chas Freeman has said Europe needs to “grow up” and stop operating under US policy domination (which is stumbling towards now). Part of that is controlling its own defense, which means paying for it. Amusingly, Boris Johnson has just come out in the Daily Mail (paywalled) defending Trump in his intent to make NATO members eat most of their military costs:

BORIS JOHNSON: Our freeloading can't go on for ever
There's something that has been bugging me over the last few days. We are here in Texas - somewhere up in the hills not far from San Antonio and it's just stunning.

By Richard Murphy, Professor of Accounting Practice at Sheffield University Management School and a director of the Corporate Accountability Network. Originally published at Funding the Future

Trump appears random, haphazard and out of control. But that’s not true. The Tech Bros who stand behind him have a plan – and that is to preserve their wealth by destroying the power of the governments that might oppose them.



This is the transcript:

What is Trump’s grand plan?

I’ve been trying to work this out ever since Trump got into office in January because there must be a reason for the mayhem that he is creating. I simply do not believe that he arrived in the Oval Office without some sort of meta-narrative or explanation of what it is that he’s trying to achieve. But, he certainly didn’t lay that out in advance of becoming President, and he hasn’t even now made it very clear since being in the White House.

So, I’ve had to stand back and have a think about this, and I’ve come up with one explanation, which to me seems to tie together all the disparate themes that we are seeing with regard to his administration.

It’s my opinion that Donald Trump is the willing agent for or representative of the ‘Tech Bros’, as we will call them.

That’s Musk with X, or Twitter. That’s Zuckerberg with Facebook.

And that’s Jeff Bezos with Amazon – and, of course, he’s also now a media mogul as well.

These people are terrified of one thing. That is having their power clipped.

Their power comes from their control of data – the data that they can collect from you and from me as a result of us using their services.

They know more about us in some ways than we know about ourselves.

They can predict our preferences.

They can direct advertising at us.

They can decide what our political preferences probably are.

They can decide when and where we might wish to go on holiday based on what we’ve looked at in terms of advertising.

And on and on, and on.

As a result, they believe they can help others to maximize their profit by exploiting us. And, let’s be blunt, that’s what I think they do, because I think that advertising is manipulative, and as a result, they want to maximize their power over that data because it is the source of their wealth.

This is why we saw those people lined up at the inauguration in the White House in a way that was unprecedented. Business had not previously been seen at such an event in that way before, and that was the signal that this is the administration of Big Tech. And Big Tech is really frightened of two things, both of which were represented by Joe Biden and both of which are represented by the European Union.

Those two things are the power to bust monopolies and the power to control data. The state has both those powers, and remember that if we go back into US history at around the turn of the 19th century into the 20th century, we had a not dissimilar situation of there being some oligarchs who basically controlled a great deal of the US economy.

They were, at the time, the railroad chiefs, and they were the chiefs of the iron and steel industries, plus some bankers, and between them, they pretty much had America sewn up and in their pockets until they came across President Teddy Roosevelt, who was in office in the first decade of the 20th century – in other words, just after 1900. And he used something called antitrust legislation to smash their power.

He brought 43 legal actions against these banks and railroads and iron and steel companies to require that they split up their operations so that the power of competition was restored, because these people had removed that power of competition by creating monopolies, which were extracting supernormal profits from the people of the USA in a way that was deeply manipulative and was going to continue to let them exploit those people forever unless action was taken.

And Teddy Roosevelt was the man who said, this is not the American way, and he succeeded using the antitrust legislation that he created then, plus legislation that was created in the 1930s after the Wall Street Crash, which provided a framework which ensured that America was at least an approximately competitive economy for nearly another century.

But now it isn’t.

Nobody anticipated the power of the internet.

Nobody anticipated the ability of the tech world to collect data from us in the way that it has.

Nobody realised that when we went shopping, we might pass over our Club Card, or whatever it might be called in your supermarket, that will let that store know precisely what your shopping preferences are and so on.

And this is what the basis of valuation of the companies that the Tech Bros own really is, but which Biden was threatening using antitrust legislation. And, he was trying to control the power of data. They didn’t want that. They saw that their immense wealth running to trillions could be challenged by this.

And there is one thing that the wealthy want above all else, and that is to remain wealthy. Nothing frightens them more than moving from being a trillionaire to only being a billionaire again. This is the sort of thing that gives them sleepless nights because status is everything to them. When you have enough money to do anything you want, and these people very clearly have that way beyond any requirement that they will ever have, then status is king and they want the status of being the rulers of the world, and Donald Trump has provided them with that opportunity.

So, what has happened is this. Musk as agent for Trump, or Trump as agent for Musk – with Musk also acting on behalf of the other Tech Bros, in effect – is trying to do a power grab. Everything that he’s doing is trying to claim for the DOGE, as he calls it – the Department of Government Efficiency – the control of the data of the US government.

He is trying to get his hands on social security data, IRS data, the data that is available with regard to veterans and armed services, and, of course, medicine, which is an immensely powerful source of information to the big pharma companies. And he and his colleagues no doubt want to claim this data, whether legally or illegally – and I don’t think that really matters to them any more because as we can see, Trump is basically suspending the rule of law in the USA. He is trying to claim that data in a way that either he or he and the other big tech companies can licence in the future to those who want to use it, whether they be big pharma or even government itself.

And let’s be clear what they think about government. They do not want to see the perpetuation of the federal government. To them, the federal government is the enemy because it was the federal government that brought the antitrust legislation. It was the federal government that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris wanted to use to stop their power. They want to devolve power from the federal government to the states of the USA, and we’re seeing this with regard to education, where the Department of Education is being abolished.

We’re seeing it with regard to the undermining of those things that are clearly federal responsibilities, like USAID, and even to some degree in foreign policy.

We are seeing it with regard to the devolution of Social Security powers to the states.

So we are seeing a destruction of the federal government because it is the power that could challenge their prosperity, and this also drives the foreign policy that Trump is doing.

Why is Trump pulling out of Ukraine? Because if he does, the EU is in a mess, in the opinion of those people who are heading the administration. We’ve seen this. We’ve seen JD Vance saying he hates the ‘pathetic’ Europeans and others, including the Secretary of State, appear to agree with him.

They are actually opposed to Europe, viscerally. They hate it. And what they’re trying to do is create an imbalance inside Europe so that Europe has to turn to an internal focus so that it does not look at how it will control the operation of US tech companies in Europe, which is the goal that the Tech Bros have, and therefore they’re willing to sacrifice Ukraine to Putin if necessary to achieve this goal of destabilising the power that is in Europe, which is the European Commission, which is the one agency that can threaten them outside the USA. This, I believe, is what explains what is going on.

There is a grand plan to Trump, after all, in my opinion. It’s taken me weeks and a couple of months even to try to work out what it might be. But as a political economist, what I look at is how relationships of power are used to reallocate resources within society.

What these tech people know is that data gives them power.

Their challenge is to preserve that power against the authorities that might have had the ability to challenge it – the federal government and the EU, and to claim more of the data that they can in the process so that they will actually reinforce their ability to earn in the future because they will licence information previously held by the federal government back to the states and to big pharma and to medicine and everyone else.

This, I think, is what they’re about.

Always follow the money is the golden rule in political economy. These people believe they can make money by destroying the US federal government, and that’s why they’re trying to do it.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/03 ... -plan.html

Trump has no grand plan other than self-aggrandizement, monetary, ego-wise. Those 'broligarchs' who a few months ago were bosum buddies with the Dem are on a smash-and-grab spree(you always knew they were snakes...) Musk has an agenda, to be the John Galt of our times, but how long before Trump falls out with him? It seems Trump wants to be king, eventually even his fair weather friends(all of them are) are going to have to distance themselves. Oligarchies hate tyrants, which is what they'll consider Trump for usurping their power.

******

Latest twist in the ceasefire talks: Trump says he is “pissed off with Putin”

Perhaps it would be good for Donald Trump to just shut up for several days. His loud daily declarations of dire threats, military or financial, against every country the U.S. seeks to bully into submission has reached the point where he has overplayed his hand, if we may apply to him the card players’ terms Trump seems to favor.

A week ago, in connection with the U.S. bombing raids against the Houthis in Yemen, he intimated that the U.S. is ready to attack Iran for backing the Houthis in their actions against Israel-related shipping through the Suez Canal and Red Sea, and against the U.S. warships now in the region supposedly to protect that shipping.

American B2s stealth bombers were flown to the Indian Ocean base on Diego Garcia to practice bombing runs against Tehran. This was on top of previous threats of secondary sanctions against buyers of Iranian oil, with intent to fully choke off Iranian exports. The objective for that was not only to close down Iran’s nuclear industry but also to halt their production of missiles and to cancel their sponsorship of the Axis of Resistance countries generally. The response from the Supreme Leader in Tehran was a resounding ‘no’ and ‘hell no.’ In short, the threats have lost their impact there.

Now today we read that Trump has said he is ‘pissed off’ with Vladimir Putin for foot dragging over implementation of the talks on a ceasefire with Ukraine. He says he will impose secondary sanctions on Russian oil exports as punishment, so that any country buying Russian oil would be barred from selling anything to the United States.

Sounds tough? Yes, indeed, till you consider who is buying Russian oil. The largest buyers are China and India. Does Trump really believe either country will humiliate themselves by bending the knee and kissing his ring? Does he really believe that he can shut down all Chinese exports to the USA without bringing the American economy to collapse? This is as delusional as anything we heard a few months ago from Blinken and Sullivan in the Biden administration.

In the Financial Times article this evening, they say that ‘Trump’s outburst at Moscow’ relates also to Putin’s ‘attacking Zelensky’s legitimacy as Kyiv’s leader.’ This is striking in that Trump himself in a public address called Zelensky a dictator who has not held elections.

I conclude from this that Team Trump has indeed read closely Vladimir Putin’s remarks to the crew of the submarine Arkhangelsk in Murmansk on 27 March and understood that the Russian president has prepared an alternative scenario for ending the war when Trump’s initiatives fail. And they are headed for failure unless Trump can beat down Macron, Starmer, von der Leyen and the other European leaders who are working against his peace plans and plotting in every way to keep the war going.

Judging by what this same FT article says about the 7 hours that Trump spent in Mar a Lago with the visiting Finnish premier Stubb, who is one of the most active plotters against the lifting of sanctions on Russia, it appears that Trump has decided against challenging the Europeans and is instead challenging Putin.

Needless to say, Trump has no cards to play against Putin. The secondary sanctions are nonsense, as I say above. And military pressure is equally nonsensical, given that NATO has done its best to defeat Russia till now, staying just short of actions that would precipitate WWIII.

My conclusion is that Trump is now throwing away his chances of achieving anything on the Ukraine-Russia war, and with that, throwing away his hopes for participating in the making of the New World Order that BRICS now are directing.

Of course, Trump being Trump, he may well have a 180-degree reversal of his position on all these matters tomorrow. But as I say, he would do much better just to shut up.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

******

He has known for a long time that Ukraine cannot join NATO.
March 31, 10:46



It looks like President Zelensky is not going to sign the minerals deal. If he doesn't, he's in big, big, big trouble.
He even said he wants NATO as a condition. He's known for a long time that Ukraine can't join NATO. If he wants to renegotiate the terms, it's going to be a big problem for him. (c) Trump

Attempts to jump off the minerals deal have not met with understanding in Washington.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9755954.html

Google Translator

[blindpig]

Will Trump Deliver on His Threat of Taking Military Action Against Iran?
Posted on March 31, 2025 by Yves Smith

Three weeks ago, Trump sent a letter through intermediaries to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Kahmeni, which was a prettied up “Agree to a more draconian version of the JCPOA or else” and demanded that Iran negotiate within two months. Middle-East conflict watchers have speculated that the US having moved roughly half of its operation-ready fleet of B2 stealth bombers to Diego Garcia, believed to be just out of range of both the Houthi’s and Iran’s longest range missiles, may be pre-positioning an operation against Iran, as opposed to the Houthis.

Nevertheless, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi had previewed the answer on March 27: that Iran would not negotiate under threat and it would also not engage in direct negotiation with the US. That response became official on Sunday:

Iran REJECTS direct talks with Trump

Prez Pezeshkian says response to Trump’s letter already delivered

'We do not avoid negotiations; rather, it’s breaches of promises that have caused problems'

Some top Iranians were not so polite:

#Iran Parliament Speaker: #Trump’s letter contains no serious words about lifting sanctions. US behavior in the letter is that of a bully. US President treats even its allies with “demeaning” behavior, speaking from a “master-servant” position. Iran cannot be deceived or coerced. https://t.co/IFc09fHShL pic.twitter.com/6EhE3jV1eG

— Iran Nuances (@IranNuances) March 28, 2025

The Iranians politely offered indirect negotiations….which is the current footing for engaging with the US.

As we’ll discuss, the prospects for a war with Iran look all too high, due to the same reasons as for our disastrous Project Ukraine: a great over-estimation of the effectiveness of our tech heavy and otherwise flabby military to take on a serious power on the other side of the world, plus an abject failure to take a good measure of Iran and its capabilities, amped up by Israel’s and Trump’s sense of urgency.

But first, the immediate backstory. On March 7, Trump told the press he had sent a letter1 to the Supreme Leader of Iran, with the pretext being to negotiate an end to Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon. As most readers know well, it was Trump that took the US out of the JCPOA, whose inspection regime was designed to do just that, and Biden refused to rejoin the JCPOA. But the press write-ups skip over those pesky details. From Reuters:

U.S. President Donald Trump said he wants to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran and sent a letter to its leadership this week suggesting talks with the Islamic Republic, which the West fears is rapidly nearing the capability to make atomic weapons.

“I said I hope you’re going to negotiate, because it’s going to be a lot better for Iran,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business Network broadcast on Friday…

“We have a situation with Iran that something’s going to happen very soon… Hopefully we can have a peace deal. You know, I’m not speaking out of strength or weakness. I’m just saying I’d rather see a peace deal than the other, but the other will solve the problem.”….

“There are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal,” Trump told Fox Business. “I would prefer to make a deal, because I’m not looking to hurt Iran. They’re great people.”

The following week,, after a much-ballyhooed ceasefire in Gaza when Trump took office, Ansar Allah (aka “the Houthis”) said it would resume attacks on Israel-related shipping in the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Bab al-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden if Israel did not resume food supplies to Gaza.1 As most readers know, the earlier Houthi attacks, which started in November 2023, resulted in most commercial shippers rerouting their cargoes to avoid the Red Sea area, through which about 15% of sea traffic had formerly passed.

Trump made hyperbolic claims that Biden had not acted forcefully enough against the Houthis and authorized new air strikes. Key sections of the BBC write-up:

The US has launched a “decisive and powerful” wave of air strikes on Houthi rebels…

“Funded by Iran, the Houthi thugs have fired missiles at US aircraft, and targeted our Troops and Allies,” Trump said on social media, adding that their “piracy, violence, and terrorism” had cost “billions” and put lives at risk….

He added: “We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective.”…

Trump said that it had been more than a year since a US-flagged ship had sailed safely through the Suez Canal – which the Red Sea leads to – and four months since a US warship had been through the body of water between east Africa and the Arabian peninsula.

The Suez Canal is the quickest sea route between Asia and Europe, and is particularly important in the transportation of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Addressing the Houthis directly, Trump wrote that if they did not stop, “HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE”….

Trump urged Iran to cease its support for the Houthis, warning that Washington would hold Tehran “fully accountable and, we won’t be nice about it”.

He also accused the previous White House administration, under Joe Biden, of being “pathetically weak” and allowing the “unrestrained Houthis” to keep going.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the US government had “no authority, or business, dictating Iranian foreign policy”.

So far, as the Signal leak indicated, the US seems mainly to be killing civilians in the dozens or so per day, mainly in the Saana area where the Houthis hang out. The logic seems to be to attempt decapitation strikes. By all accounts, that was not effective against Hamas or Hezbollah; what appears to have gotten Hezbollah to dial down its campaign was Israel engaging in what looked set to be Gaza-level destruction of Beirut (and perhaps secondarily, increased difficulty of getting supplies from Syria, although experts claim that the level of disorder and need in the area means workarounds are not that hard).

After Trump sent his missive, the just-released National Threat Assessment, reconfirmed that Iran is not developing a nuclear bomb:

We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so. In the past year, there has been an erosion of a decades-long taboo on discussing nuclear weapons in public that has emboldened nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decisionmaking apparatus. Khamenei remains the final decisionmaker over Iran’s nuclear program, to include any decision to develop nuclear weapons.

Over the past weekend, before the official accounts that Iran was rejecting the Trump call for direct negotiations, Trump added Iranian drones to his list of beefs:

Q: Iranian drones are killing Ukrainians every day. Why aren’t you doing something about that?

Trump: Iran makes a lot of drones. Very effective drones.

I sent them a letter: Talk—or face bad, bad things. 1/

The segment below from PressTV makes clear why even if US would agree to the cumbersome mechanism of “indirect negotiations,” talks would go nowhere. The US does not merely want a supposedly better JCPOA inspection regime; it does not merely want Iran to stop supporting other members of what has come to be called the Axis of Resistance, such as the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Kata’ib Hezbollah in Iraq; it wants Iran to prostrate itself and give up its missiles (see the slide at 1:46, admittedly not apparently based on the demands in the early March letter but in the text of the February 4 Executive Order restoring “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran from Trump 1.0 after he exited the JCPOA).

As Alastair Crooke said in a talk with Larry Johnson, which we have embedded below, Iran might as well join a monastery.

US Bad Assumptions About Iran

Trump is exhibiting his signature sense of urgency, which when he runs into real world impediments, produces, as we have seen with his attempts to negotiate a Ukraine ceasefire with Russia, results in shifting deadlines with more “hurry up” bluster.

We pointed out that Trump got himself into his Ukraine time pickle all on his own. He could have dumped Project Ukraine as Project Biden as soon as he took office, announced he’d send all of the remaining goodies committed by Congress as soon as possible, and added that Ukraine was on its own.3 But Trump was caught up in his self-image as a negotiator extraordinaire and his loud and repeated promises that he could talk his way to ending the conflict.

But what is the basis for giving Iran a two-month deadline in early March, before Israelis re-upped their genocide campaign via blocking food supplies, leading the Houthis to resume strikes?

Misguided opportunism about Iran’s economy. The US believes Iran is particularly weak now. The Iran economy has been suffering due to the long duration of Western sanctions; Trump likely believes that the resumption of his “maximum pressure” sanctions will create more pain.

The US and Israel may also believe that the execution of so-called “snapback” sanctions provisions in the JCOPA, which can be triggered only through October 2025, hence the need to Do Something. The West seems to regard them as a major source of economic leverage over Iran. The Iran-hawkish Washington Institute disagreed in a 2022 article. Key sections:

Threatening to reimpose old UN sanctions would likely have little practical effect on Tehran’s ability to trade oil and export drones, while the plethora of other potential complications suggest that it should be treated as a tool of last resort….

The snapback process is designed to avoid the need for consensus among the five permanent members of the Security Council (the United States, Britain, China, France, and Russia). Once the measure is triggered—namely, by one or more JCPOA participants lodging a formal complaint regarding alleged violations—Iran’s relief from UN sanctions would expire within thirty days unless the council passes a resolution to continue it. And any permanent member can veto said relief resolution, making snapback difficult to halt except by the parties that triggered it (though as will be discussed below, the U.S. decision to withdraw from the JCPOA complicates its potential role in this process). The snapback mechanism itself expires in October 2025…

Western governments may hope to use the mere threat of snapback as negotiating leverage. For example, the E3 could trigger the thirty-day snapback process and demand that Iran back off of its hardline negotiating position before that deadline arrives. But this is unlikely to be effective given that the economic consequences of snapback are not very significant (see below), while the threat itself would probably extinguish any remaining Iranian interest in a deal.

Underestimating Iran’s military. The US dismissal of Iran’s capabilities has the same feel as the Western take on Russia in the runup to the Special Military Operation.

The US and its allies also see Iran as diminished. from the March 7 Reuters article quoted earlier:

Trump may be seeking a diplomatic opening to take advantage of what U.S. officials see as weakened Iran. Iran-backed groups in the Middle East – Palestinian Hamas militants in Gaza and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon – have been heavily degraded by Israeli forces and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, who was closely aligned with Tehran, was overthrown by rebels.

Even if Iran’s allies in its neighborhood seem to be on their back feet, this line of thinking takes an unduly blinkered view of Iran’s capabilities. First, even though the press has spun hard otherwise and the Administration seems blinded by its own PR, Iran has demonstrated, using its own forces, that it has escalatory dominance over Israel and the West. To make a long story short, Iran and the West negotiated a time and targets for Iran to retaliate against Israel for the assassinations of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas political leader/negotiator Ismail Haniyeh. Even with being given advanced warning textbook perfect conditions for Israel to parry the strikes, Iran hit its targets with pinpoint precision3 Western media also, later, ‘fessed up that the cost to the West to try to defend against these attacks, across Israel, the US, the UK, and France, was over $2.2 billion, while the cost to Iran was about $90 million.

Israel then retaliated against Iran…or tried to. It reportedly intended to send in three waves of air strikes. But the first apparently only got within range of Iran and detected it was being caught on Iran air defenses (one assumes these planes were at least somewhat stealthy for this to have been a surprise; forgive me for not running down this detail). So they fired their missiles from afar and turned back. Israel nevertheless, with no corroborating satellite photo evidence, claimed to have done great damage to Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, which already seems like a howler (it’s believed to be so deeply bunkered as to be able to withstand even a nuclear attack). Later reports indicating the damage done to Iran was comparatively minor got little traction.

Ignoring the implications of Iran’s recent pact with Russia. The US and Israel appear not to have digested the implications of the Iranian–Russian Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, signed on January 17, 2025. It is primarily an economic alliance and so will offset the impact of any intensification of sanctions. It is also believed to have at least two significant military aspects: to increase Iran’s use of and integration into Russia’s air defenses (both detection and the provision of more weaponry, particularly S-400 systems) and to include provisions that Russia will back Iran if attacked.

Israel internal dynamics. Without belaboring details, schisms within Israel keep growing. Many of the settlers who hoped to return to the Lebanon border have retreated, regarding the area as unsafe. Protests confirm that many Israelis are unhappy with the continuation of the campaign in Gaza, now adding starvation into the mix, since that increases the odds that the remaining hostages will not survive. Netanyahu has gone into full rogue mode with his persistence in trying to remove the head of the domestic spy agency, Shin Bet. Netanyahu tried firing its leader last week, only to have the Israel Supreme Court block the move. From the Guardian:

Benjamin Netanyahu is locked in a fierce battle with Israel’s judicial system after the supreme court blocked his attempt to fire the head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency.

Amid protests against ministers’ vote to sack Ronen Bar, the top court on Friday froze the decision, with the order remaining in place until the court can hear petitions filed by the opposition and an NGO against the dismissal of the chief of the Shin Bet…

The Shin Bet has been investigating Netanyahu’s close aides for alleged breaches of national security, including leaking classified documents to foreign media, and allegedly taking money from Qatar, which is known to have given significant financial aid to Hamas.

In the last few hours, Netanuyahu has doubled down on his defiance by appointing a replacement for Ronan
Bar, despite the fact that the appeal of the court order do not start until April 8. From Jerusalem Post in Netanyahu stuns Shin Bet, appoints ex-Navy chief Sharvit as new head:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stunned the Shin Bet and the country early Monday morning appointing former naval chief Vice-Admiral (res.) Eli Sharvit as the new head of the agency…

In initial reactions from Shin Bet sources, V.-Adm. Sharvit was so unknown that most of them had little to say, despite a clear sense of shock that Netanyahu had not only not appointed a deputy Shin Bet chief to the role (which has been customary in recent decades), but took someone outside of the agency and even outside of IDF ground forces….

Netanyahu can name Sharvit, but Sharvit cannot take office before the April 8 High Court hearing.

The High Court may allow Sharvit to take office, may block his appointment due to Qatargate, or may seek a compromise allowing Bar to conclude the Qatargate probe, while allowing Sharvit to move into office as quickly as possible.

Needless to say, wars rally citizens around the flag, as in the incumbent government, so a hotter conflict would be very much in Netanyahu’s interest right now. But bolstering the wily and constitutionally intransigent Netanyahu is of questionable benefit to the US.

Timing Issues

Events are often more path dependent than deterministic. On the one hand, despite the afore-mentioned strategic agreement between Iran and Russia, Trump may have such faith in his negotiation prowess that he fancied he could get Russia to minimize its support of Iran in the event of an Israel attack because it would be reluctant to jeopardize a thaw with the US. Putin’s recent sharp (for him) statements that Russia is prepared to finish the job in Ukraine by force confirms that Russia has concluded the Ukraine negotiations are an empty exercise. That does not mean they won’t go though the motions to indulge Trump, but they’ve otherwise written them.

In other words, the US may have to recalibrate their plans in light of the high odds of Russia supporting Iran militarily. But that could merely amount to timing them to coincide with the now-widely expected big Russian offensive in May. Note, however, for Israel to get a break, Russia would need to commit substantial air assets. Russia has pretty much wiped out Ukraine’s air defenses. The differences in the type of material used in each operation would be so different that it’s a mistake to assume Russia can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. And Russia could simply grind harder rather than launch the big punch that the impatient would like to see (if we can see that Israel and the US are gunning for a fight with Iran, so too can the Russians).

Alternatively, there have been some hopes that this threat display might lead to Russia acting as a mediator with Iran. Aside from the fact that the strategic pact with Iran means Russia is not a neutral party, Alastair Crooke dismisses the idea flatly below in his talk with Larry Johnson, saying that Iran would reject it.



Yet another complicating factor for the US is that it still regards China its big military priority. It may admittedly think Iran is an appetizer it can finish off before turning to the main course. A leaked Pentagon memo reaffirmed the status of China as prime baddie. From the Washington Post yesterday:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reoriented the U.S. military to prioritize deterring China’s seizure of Taiwan and shoring up homeland defense by “assuming risk” in Europe and other parts of the world…

The document, known as the Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance and marked “secret/no foreign national” in most passages, was distributed throughout the Defense Department in mid-March and signed by Hegseth…

Hegseth’s guidance is extraordinary in its description of the potential invasion of Taiwan as the exclusive animating scenario that must be prioritized over other potential dangers — reorienting the vast U.S. military architecture toward the Indo-Pacific region beyond its homeland defense mission.

The Pentagon will “assume risk in other theaters” given personnel and resource constraints, and pressure allies in Europe, the Middle East and East Asia to spend more on defense to take on the bulk of the deterrence role against threats from Russia, North Korea and Iran, according to the guidance.

Despite this directive, it is inconceivable that the US would not run to Israel’s defense if attacked. That suggests that if Israel cannot use the expiration of the snapback provisions (mentioned by Crooke as a timing factor above) to bring the Iran to heel before the US repositions its forces in a big way, Israel would be highly motivated to state a false flag….potentially in the US.

Again, the Crooke talk is close to fatalistic about the odds of an attack relatively soon. Other experts see signs of a hotting up, including the afore-mentioned B-2 redeployment:



Why I think an American attack on Iran is virtually a done deal:

1. Israel has been pushing for this with all its power and influence in Washington for 30 years. Every meeting of every senior Zionist figure includes pressure on Iran. Netanyahu mentioned it a million times: Show more

Having said that, Trump also engaged some fierce-looking threats against North Korea, only for that in the end not to translate into action. So as Hegseth’s memo suggests, the US might be recognizing that its forces aren’t as dominant as they were decades ago, and it will need to avoid overextension.
We’ll see in due course.

_____

1 On Sunday, Iranian media reported that Sky News Iran had published the text of the letter. I have no idea whether this tweet is a translation of that or not, but it does seem to hew pretty well to the general description PressTV provided, so this would seem to be at least in the ballpark:



2 Ansar Allah had set a four day deadline.

3 In this scenario, I assume the US would have continued supplying intel, if nothing else to extract some intel back about Russia actions and capabilities, but would have made a big show of ceasing all activities that required more money from the US. Not that Trump would evah go to Congress for more commitments; the point would be to formalize where things stood and make it unambiguous that Trump was out of the Ukraine game.

4 The Western press misled audiences by focusing on Iran leading its salvo with 300 slow moving drones, which were intended to draw fire, provide information about air defense operations, and deplete weapons. They weren’t expected to get through and if any did, that would have been gravy. The heavy, fast missiles followed.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/03 ... -iran.html

******

Tandem-2028
March 31, 23:00



J.D. Vance and Donald Trump could run on the same ticket in 2028, with Vance serving as president and Trump as vice president, with plans to switch roles after winning. Trump called the idea a "possibility"

Even the "tandem" is copied.
And then the Democratic Party will dream of a split in the "tandem" and that Vance will betray Trump, and Vance will not betray Trump and Trump will run for a third term.

P.S., By the way, in the last week in the US there really was a lively discussion of the possibility of Trump running for a third term in 2028, since the law prohibits being president of the US more than two times in a row. And Trump had a break, so supporters of a third term suggest counting consecutively from 2024, not taking into account the first Trump administration. Democrats will naturally be against it and intend to torpedo these attempts through the courts.

However, there is still a lot of time until 2028. It is unclear how Trump's health will be and what he will do before the next elections. The 2026 midterm elections, on which Democrats and globalists are counting, will show a lot about the prospects of Trump and Vance in the long term.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9757519.html

Google Translator

Boris need read up on US constitution, '2 terms, period'. Although the 'tandem' gambit could possibly work if the other branches cooperate.

*****

Fake ‘Populism’: How Trump’s Billionaire Admin Exclusively Serves the Wealthy Elites
Posted by Internationalist 360° on March 31, 2025
Ben Norton

Trump class war help rich hurt poor

Donald Trump is portrayed as a “populist” committed to average working-class people, but his policies benefit wealthy elites at the expense of everyone else. His administration includes 13 billionaires — including Elon Musk, the world’s richest oligarch — and he is cutting taxes on the rich and corporations while imposing a consumption tax on the poor through tariffs.

When Donald Trump campaigned to be US president in 2024, he promised he would help working-class Americans. He even did a photo op at a McDonald’s, pretending to be a fast food worker.

When he returned to the White House, however, Trump made it clear that his policies would be serving a small handful of billionaire oligarchs, not the majority of the country.

Trump appointed 13 billionaires as top officials in his administration. As Public Citizen reported, this means that the Trump administration represents not just the 1% richest Americans, but the 0.0001%.

The billionaires in the Trump administration — including Elon Musk, the world’s richest person — had a combined wealth of more than $460 billion as of January 2025.



Trump invited the world’s most powerful oligarchs to his inauguration. The billionaire CEOs of Silicon Valley Big Tech corporations symbolically sat with his cabinet members.

Then, just a few hours after he took office, Trump invited three more billionaire oligarchs to the White House, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, to do a press conference about artificial intelligence.

As president, Trump has held regular meetings and phone calls with his billionaire supporters, including Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager. Fink personally called Trump to ask the White House to help BlackRock buy the ports on both sides of the Panama Canal.

Corruption: greenlighting money laundering, bribery, and crypto scams

As US president, Donald Trump has passed a series of executive orders that have essentially promoted corruption, on behalf of wealthy elites. He gutted an anti-money laundering law, and ended the enforcement of a law that banned bribery.

In an executive order, Trump boasted that allowing bribery will help “America and its companies gaining strategic commercial advantages around the world”. He likewise told reporters that by permitting corruption, “It’s going to mean a lot more business for America”.

Just a few days before Trump returned to the White House, he launched a meme coin named after himself. Reuters reported that the people behind the $TRUMP coin made roughly $100 million in trading fees in just two weeks.

Trump launched the meme coin on the 17th of January, just three days before his inauguration. The value quickly rose, before falling by two-thirds, in what looked a lot like a pump-and-dump scheme.

What was so cynical about this meme coin scandal is that Trump was exploiting his own supporters. 810,000 people who had invested in Trump’s crypto scheme lost money, totaling $2 billion.

Cutting taxes on the rich, while increasing taxes on everyone else

These pro-rich and anti-poor policies are based on the same playbook that Donald Trump pursued in his first term.

In 2017, Trump cut taxes on the rich and corporations. As of 2018, the wealthiest 400 billionaire families in the US paid a lower effective tax rate than the bottom half of poor and working-class Americans.

When he campaigned for president in 2024, Trump vowed to continue reducing taxes on wealthy elites.

Economists at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimated that the people in the US who will see the highest increase in taxes during Trump’s second term are the poor and the working class, whereas the rich will have their taxes cut.

They calculated that the richest 5% of the US population will have their taxes reduced by around 1.2%, whereas the poorest 20% will see their taxes increased by 4.8% on average.



This is because Trump is massively expanding tariffs, which will disproportionately impact poor and working-class Americans.

Tariffs are a tax on imported goods, which is essentially a tax on consumption, because the US imports many consumer goods from China, Mexico, Canada, and other countries.

Poor and working-class people spend a much higher percentage of their paycheck than rich people do on consumer goods, food, and basic necessities.

If a rich person has millions of dollars of wealth, and they get another million, they’re not going to buy much more food and consumer goods. Their marginal propensity to consume is low.

If a working-class person who is barely making ends meet gets a pay raise, they likely will spend more on food and consumer goods. Their marginal propensity to consume is high.

This means that the burden of the tariffs will be felt much more by poor and working-class Americans.

In other words, Trump is essentially increasing taxes on the working class and cutting taxes on the rich. His administration is overseeing a wealth transfer from the majority of working-class people to the minority of the rich.



The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimated that the average rich person in the 1% of elite Americans will see their taxes reduced by $36,320, whereas the bottom 95% of Americans will have their taxes increase. The middle class will bear the largest burden.

That study was a projection of what the impact of Trump’s tax policy will be in the future. Analyses of Trump’s policies during his first term as president, from January 2017 to January 2021, came to similar conclusions.

A report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities looked at the impact of Trump’s 2017 tax law. They found that the richest 1% of Americans had their taxes reduced by $61,090, while the poorest 20% of Americans saw their taxes cut by just $70.



Trump has said that when he was president the first time he cut taxes on all Americans, including poor and working-class Americans. This claim is not technically wrong, but it is very misleading. Wealthy elites enjoyed much, much higher tax breaks than the majority of the population.

This is true not just in terms of the dollar amount, but also the percentage change.

The after-tax income of the richest 5% of Americans increased by around 3%, thanks to Trump’s 2017 tax law, whereas the poorest 20% of Americans saw their after-tax income grow by just 0.4%. The middle class had its after-tax income increase by about 1.4%.

In short, Trump’s policies primarily benefited rich elites.



The anti-poverty organization Oxfam reported in 2025:

Billionaires in the U.S. pay a smaller tax rate than most teachers and retail workers. Thanks to a tax code that favors income from wealth over income from work—and a slew of tax-avoidance strategies—the richest among us end up paying a smaller percentage of their income to the federal government than most working families.

Here’s what we know:

In 2024, billionaire wealth increased by $1.4 trillion OR $3.9 billion per day. There were 74 new billionaires.
According to a 2021 White House study, the wealthiest 400 billionaire families in the U.S. paid an average federal individual tax rate of just 8.2 percent. For comparison, the average American taxpayer in the same year paid 13 percent.
According to leaked tax returns highlighted in a ProPublica investigation, the 25 richest Americans paid $13.6 billion in taxes from 2014-2018—a “true” tax rate of just 3.4 percent on $401 billion of income.

Historical US tax rates on the rich and corporations

Trump and his billionaire allies frequently complain that taxes are supposedly too high, but this is simply not true historically.

The top marginal income tax throughout most of US history was much higher.

In 1944 and 1945, during World War II, the highest marginal income tax rate was 94%.

The richest Americans paid an income tax rate of 91% throughout the 1950s and into the early ’60s, in the so-called “golden era” of US capitalism, which was praised for fostering a strong middle class.

Even into the 1970s, the income of the richest Americans was still taxed around 70%.

It was Ronald Reagan in the 1980s who massively slashed taxes on the rich, from 70% to 28%.

Trump continued Reagan’s pro-elite policies and reduced the highest marginal income tax rate to 37% in 2018.

(These income taxes, however, do not account for the fact that much of the wealth of the rich comes from capital gains on assets they own, not ordinary income.)



It is not just US taxes on rich individuals that have been slashed, but also taxes on corporations.

In the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s the corporate income tax rate ranged from 48% to 53%. Again, this was the “golden era” of US capitalism.

Reagan reduced this to 34%, and Trump cut it to 21% during his first term.

Now in his second term, Trump wants to reduce it even further.



In terms of the revenue that the US government has received from corporate taxes, it has steadily fallen as a percentage of GDP.

In the 1950s, corporate income tax revenue represented approximately 5% of GDP.

In the 1960s, it fell to around 3.5%. By the 1970s, it decreased to roughly 2.7%. Under Reagan, it reached a low of 1%. Today, it’s 1.6% of GDP.



https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/03/ ... hy-elites/

Income, income, income, but what about wealth?

******

Trump’s Latest Sanctions Threat Against Russia Suggests That He’s Getting Impatient For A Deal
Andrew Korybko
Apr 01, 2025



This moment of truth could even arrive earlier than expected and thus force Putin to compromise or escalate before he’s fully made up his mind either way.

Trump said in an interview with NBC News that “If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault — which it might not be — but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia. That would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States. There will be a 25% tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil.”

NBC News interpreted this as alluding to what he earlier threatened on social media regarding the imposition of secondary sanctions on those that purchase oil from Venezuela. He wrote that “any Country that purchases Oil and/or Gas from Venezuela will be forced to pay a Tariff of 25% to the United States on any Trade they do with our Country.” As it relates to Russia, this would spike tariffs on China and India, the first of which is already in a trade war with the US while the second wants to avoid one.

This is precisely the former US Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg insinuated in an interview with the New York Post in early February that was analyzed here at the time. The takeaway was that such threats might suffice for getting them to nudge Russia into a deal over Ukraine despite whatever apprehensions Putin might have. The consequences of not doing so could be their compliance with the US’ secondary sanctions and all that could entail for the Russian economy if it’s deprived of this revenue.

India is more susceptible to this form of American pressure while China might resist for the reasons explained here, in which case Russia could become disproportionately dependent on China, thus leading to the fait accompli of de facto junior partnership status that Putin has tried his utmost to avoid. Accordingly, it might only be India that tries nudging Russia into a deal over Ukraine while China might not do what Trump expects, instead openly defying his secondary sanctions if they’re then imposed.

This analysis here briefly touches upon the five reasons why Russia might accept or reject a ceasefire in Ukraine, with it becoming increasingly likely that Trump might soon ramp up the pressure on Putin to decide, especially after he also just said that there’s a “psychological deadline” for this. In his words, which followed right after his interview with NBC News, “It’s a psychological deadline. If I think they're tapping us along, I will not be happy about it.”

The day before, Trump spent a sizeable amount of the day golfing with Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who shared his impression of his counterpart’s approach to Russia with the media. As he phrased it, “When you spend seven hours with someone, you at least get an intuition of the direction in which we’re going…The half-ceasefire has been broken by Russia, and I think America, and my sense is also the President of the United States, is running out of patience with Russia.”

This assessment aligns with what Trump told NBC News the next day and his later quip about a “psychological deadline” for concluding talks with Putin. The American leader’s preference for wielding sanctions as a foreign policy tool might therefore come into play against Russia exactly as was foreseen in early February after Kellogg’s cited interview. This moment of truth could even arrive earlier than expected and thus force Putin to compromise or escalate before he’s fully made up his mind either way.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/trumps-l ... at-against

Let him yell and hollar and scream and snort, it is icing on the cake.

Andy is more afraid of China than Putin, wonder why?

******

Nearly 2,000 U.S. Scientists Sound Alarm Over Trump’s Assault on Research


X/ @patport55377808

April 1, 2025 Hour: 7:26 am

The Republican president has laid off thousands of employees from scientific agencies.
On Monday, nearly 2,000 top scientists issued an urgent warning about what they call the Trump administration’s “wholesale assault on U.S. science,” saying the actions threaten America’s health, economy and global leadership in research.

The scientists, all elected members of the prestigious National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, released an open letter claiming that the Trump administration had moved with “unprecedented speed” since taking office in January, laying off thousands of employees at U.S. science agencies and announcing reforms to research-grant standards that could drastically reduce federal financial support for science.

In this “SOS” to the public, the signatories included Nobel Prize winners who “call on the administration to cease its wholesale assault on U.S. science.”

The letter emphasized that the signatories are speaking as individuals — not representing the National Academies or their home institutions. This distinction is important as the National Academies organization has remained silent on the Trump administration’s science policies. The signatories represent about 23 percent of the National Academies’ full membership.

According to the letter, the Trump administration is “destabilizing this enterprise by gutting funding for research, firing thousands of scientists, removing public access to scientific data, and pressuring researchers to alter or abandon their work on ideological grounds.”

One of the most controversial moves came on Feb. 7, when the Trump administration announced a National Institutes of Health policy that would slash billions of dollars of funding annually for U.S. universities, hospitals and other research institutions.


The policy would reduce research overhead costs from an average of about 40 percent to a flat 15 percent rate for research grants. The policy is currently on hold, pending the outcome of lawsuits contending that it is illegal. However, the situation has created growing anxiety in the scientific community.

One academic physicist described the situation as “chaos,” noting that many scientists remained in limbo at thousands of academic institutions and nongovernmental agencies that rely on federal research grants.

The scientists also warned in the open letter that “the administration’s current investigations of more than 50 universities send a chilling message,” noting that Columbia University was recently notified that its federal funding would be withheld unless it adopted disciplinary policies and disabled an academic department targeted by the administration.

Some lawmakers have begun opposing these measures. Representative Zoe Lofgren, the top Democrat on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, on Feb. 2 sent a series of letters to several agencies under the committee’s jurisdiction demanding answers regarding each agency’s implementation of the president’s executive orders attacking diversity, equity and inclusion efforts within the federal scientific enterprise.

The impacts extended beyond the United States. An editorial in the journal Nature described the Trump administration’s actions as “an unprecedented assault on science, on research institutions and vital international organizations and initiatives,” adding that these are “unacceptable attacks on people’s rights and on academic freedom” that “will halt, if not reverse, decades of progress in scientific research.”

As the scientists concluded in their open letter, “the quest for truth — the mission of science — requires that scientists freely explore new questions and report their findings honestly, independent of special interests."

https://www.telesurenglish.net/nearly-2 ... -research/

******

Trump wants a super bigot to be ambassador to South Africa
April 1, 2025 Stephen Millies



Stop the war on Black people!

Donald Trump has nominated L. Brent Bozell III — who defended the white supremacist apartheid system — to be U.S. envoy to South Africa, whose people overthrew apartheid in 1994. Meanwhile, the apartheid nepo baby Elon Musk — whose daddy owned an emerald mine in Northern Rhodesia (now independent Zambia) — posted on X, “The legacy media never mentions white genocide in South Africa.”

There is no genocide of any kind in South Africa right now. White landowners, who comprise 7% of South Africa’s population, still own 70% of the land.

South Africa has introduced provisions allowing for the expropriation of land without compensation. The Expropriation Act of 2025 was signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Jan. 23. To Elon Musk, South Africa’s land reforms are what he means by “white genocide.”

Trump is offering refuge to white farmland owners, mostly descendants of the Afrikaner settlers who stole the land and exploited African workers for generations, while here in the U.S., Trump is jailing immigrant farm workers and activists like Mahmoud Khalil.

These “persecuted” white landowners include Matthew Benson, who shot Tebogo Ndlovu in 2017 for allegedly stealing oranges and then threw him to crocodiles.

Bozell’s nomination came a week after South Africa’s ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool, was kicked out of the U.S. The December 12th Movement held a demonstration at the U.S mission to the United Nations on March 21 — the 65th anniversary of the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre — to protest Rasool’s expulsion.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool a “race-baiting politician who hates America.”

Brent Bozell is no diplomat, but he’s certainly a race-baiter. He told Fox News in 2011 that President Barack Obama “looked like a skinny, ghetto crackhead.”

Rasool, the representative of 60 million Africans, was declared “persona non grata” and given 72 hours to “get out of Dodge.” That’s the treatment given to a diplomat whose country has had war declared upon it.

Trump’s racist war

Donald Trump has waged war against Black people for decades. Trump and his daddy, Fred Trump — who was arrested while participating in a 1927 Ku Klux Klan riot in Queens, New York — refused to rent to Black families.

Trump took out full-page newspaper ads in 1989 demanding the return of the death penalty in New York. This was after five Black and Latinx youth were arrested and framed for committing a near-deadly assault in Central Park.

The Exonerated Five were later given $41 million in compensation for years of being unjustly incarcerated. One of the Five, Yusef Salaam, has been elected to the New York City Council. Yet Trump refuses to apologize.

During last year’s election, Trump and his sidekick J.D. Vance claimed Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating their neighbors’ cats and dogs; so bogus that even the Republican governor of Ohio denounced this claim.

Trump is now trying to take over the National Museum of African American History and Culture and censor its exhibits.

Trump has cut off medicines to combat HIV in Africa, threatening the lives of people throughout Africa.

Down with apartheid!

Trump kicked Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool out of the United States, but it wasn’t the first time Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool was expelled. When he was nine years old, Rasool and his family were evicted from their Cape Town home by the apartheid authorities.

The future ambassador joined the African National Congress, which, together with the South African unions and the South African Communist Party, overthrew the apartheid regime. People around the world demanded freedom for ANC leader Nelson Mandela, who was jailed for 27 years. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1962 in an apartheid secret police operation assisted by the CIA.

A massive anti-apartheid movement swept the United States and the world in the 1980s. The same campuses where people are today demanding an end to the U.S. / Zionist genocide in Gaza were the sites of protests against the apartheid fascist regime.

Brent Bozell III wasn’t one of these anti-apartheid protesters. As president of the National Conservative Political Action Committee, he declared his organization was “proud to become a member of the Coalition Against ANC Terrorism.”

This coalition of bigots tried unsuccessfully to prevent a 1987 meeting between Secretary of State George Shultz and ANC president Oliver Tambo. Bozell never said anything about the real terrorism of the apartheid army and police, who murdered 700 African youth in the 1976 Soweto massacre.

Racism runs in Bozell’s family. His father, L. Brent Bozell, Jr., was a co-founder of the reactionary National Review magazine along with William F. Buckley, Jr. In a 1985 newspaper column, Buckley wrote that Nelson Mandela should remain in jail.

Bozell’s son, L. Brent Bozell IV, was one of the fascists arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to overturn the 2024 election.

South Africa is also a target of Trump because the country courageously brought charges of genocide against Benjamin Netanyahu and other Zionist leaders before the International Criminal Court.

Trump and his fellow billionaires want to turn back the clock in Africa and around the world. Trump’s nomination of the bigot Bozell is an insult to working and oppressed people everywhere.

U.S. hands off Africa!

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2025/ ... th-africa/

******



Trump’s State Department Would Support Literally Any Israeli Atrocity

Netanyahu could live stream himself kicking a baby Palestinian off a cliff and telling the camera he did it because he wants to commit genocide, and the next day Tammy Bruce would respond to all questions about the incident by yelling the word “Hamas!” with her fingers in her ears.

Caitlin Johnstone
April 1, 2025

It’s clear that Trump’s State Department spokeswoman has been instructed to respond to any and all questions about Israeli atrocities in Gaza by blaming everything on Hamas, without even pretending to care whether the allegations are true.

For some background, Israel has just been caught perpetrating an atrocity so monstrous and so abundantly well-evidenced that even the mainstream western press have felt obligated to report on it. Outlets like the Guardian and the BBC are covering the story of how 15 medical workers for the Red Cross, Civil Defense, and the UN were apparently handcuffed and executed one by one by Israeli forces in Rafah before being buried in a mass grave. According to Palestinian Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal, they were each shot more than 20 times.

(As an aside, the fact that Israeli forces have been known to bury the victims of their atrocities in order to hide the evidence is one of the many reasons why the official death toll from the Israeli onslaught in Gaza is definitely a massive undercount.)

Asked by the BBC’s Tom Bateman about these reports during a Monday press briefing, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce responded by babbling about how evil Hamas is and how they are to blame for everything bad that happens in Gaza.


Here’s a transcript of the exchange:

Bateman: On Gaza, the UN’s Humanitarian Affairs Office has said that 15 paramedics, Civil Defense, and a UN worker were killed — in their words, one by one — by the IDF. They have dug bodies up, they said, in a shallow grave that have been gathered up, and also vehicles in the sand. Have you got any assessment of what might have happened? And given the potential use of American weapons, is there any assessment of whether or not this complied with international law?

Bruce: Well, I can tell you that for too long Hamas has abused civilian infrastructure, cynically using it to shield themselves. Hamas’s actions have caused humanitarians to be caught in the crossfire. The use of civilians or civilian objects to shield or impede military operations is itself a violation of international humanitarian law, and of course we expect all parties on the ground to comply with international humanitarian law.

Bateman: But there’s specifically a question on any — it’s a question about accounting and accountability given there may have been the use of U.S. weapons, so it’s a question about the State Department rather than Hamas. Is there any actions — 

Bruce: Well, every single thing that is happening in Gaza is happening because of Hamas — every single dynamic. I’ll say again — I’ve said it, I think, in every briefing — all of this could stop in a moment if Hamas returned all the hostages and the hostage bodies they are still holding and put down its weapons. There is one — one entity that could stop it for everyone in a moment, and that is Hamas. This is — all loss of life is regrettable — it’s key, obviously — whoever it is, wherever they live. And this has been the nature of what fuels Secretary Rubio and President Trump in their willingness to expend this kind of capital early on in this term to make a difference and to change the situation. So I think that’s — that is the one thing that remains clear in all of this.

At no time does Bruce attempt to deny that the atrocity happened or cast doubt on the veracity of the claims, only justifying Israel’s actions by blaming Hamas. Again, this is a story about medical workers being handcuffed and then executed by gunfire.


Tammy Bruce does this constantly; she did it in response to two separate questions at a press conference last week. When asked about Israel’s assassination of Palestinian journalists Hossam Shabat and Mohammad Mansour, Bruce responded by babbling about October 7 and saying “every single thing that’s happening is a result of Hamas and its choices to drag that region down into a level of suffering that has been excruciating and has caused innumerable deaths.” When asked about the fact that people in Gaza have been unable to access clean drinking water under the Israeli siege, Bruce said, “Hamas did not perform to make sure that the ceasefire could continue, that they did not do what they said they would do. So we know, of course, when it comes to the ground water, of course, this is — it’s a crisis. It’s exacerbated by the fact that you have a terrorist group that just doesn’t care.”

She did it again at a press conference the week before when asked by journalist Said Arikat if the State Department considers Israel’s use of siege warfare on a civilian population a war crime, saying “For the horrible suffering of the Gazan people, we know where that sits: it sits with Hamas,” adding that the people of Gaza “have been suffering because of the choices that Hamas has made throughout the years.”

Arikat, by the way, has just tweeted that on Monday he was not called on to ask a question for the first time in nearly 25 years of attending State Department press briefings. He is one of the very few reporters at the State Department who regularly asks challenging questions about US foreign policy.


So it’s plain as day that there’s absolutely no crime Israel could possibly commit that Trump’s State Department wouldn’t defend. Netanyahu could live stream himself kicking a baby Palestinian off a cliff and telling the camera he did it because he wants to commit genocide, and the next day Tammy Bruce would respond to all questions about the incident by yelling the word “Hamas!” with her fingers in her ears.

Bruce has a much easier job than her predecessor Matthew Miller, who under Biden was obligated to facilitate the Democratic Party’s role as the nice guy face of the US empire. When the press would ask Miller about Israeli atrocities, he’d have to put on a whole show about how the Biden administration is in conversation with Israel and waiting for more information about these very serious allegations, all while fighting to keep his notorious smirk off his face.

To be clear, these two positions are not meaningfully different from one another. Pretending to care about very serious atrocity allegations while continuing to sponsor those atrocities is exactly the same as not pretending to care about very serious atrocity allegations while continuing to sponsor those atrocities. One is a pile of dead children with a smiley face sticker on it, the other is a pile of dead children with a frowny face sticker on it. The children are just as dead either way.

And you really couldn’t ask for a better illustration of the difference between Democrats and Republicans than this. The Democrats are just the polite, photogenic face of the bloodthirsty US empire, while the Republicans are the empire unmasked. The Democrats commit genocide and ethnic cleansing while denying they’re committing genocide and ethnic cleansing, while Republicans commit genocide and ethnic cleansing without bothering to disguise what they’re doing as something else. One’s prettier, one’s uglier. That’s the only difference.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/04 ... -atrocity/

[blindpig]

March 31, 2025 by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
Trump-Putin parley is a bit under the weather


US president Donald Trump (L) with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth in attendance, Oval Office, White House, March 21, 2025 (File photo)

The Kremlin apparently came to the conclusion last week that it was about time to do some plain-speaking that US president Donald Trump’s quest for a 30-day ceasefire in the Ukraine war was a non-starter. Over the weekend, in a series of remarks, Trump reacted sharply that he’s “very angry” with President Vladimir Putin over his approach to the proposed ceasefire and threatened to levy tariffs on Moscow’s oil exports if the Russian leader does not agree to a truce within a month.

Trump is either incapable or unwilling to accept that neither Russians nor Ukrainians have their heart in the ceasefire deal (for different reasons, though) even while paying lip service to it, as each wants to have Trump on its side.

Unlike Ukrainians who are blasé about their desire to continue to wage the war until Russian forces vacate their territories in the east (knowing that may never happen), Russians are savvy operators who prioritise the unfinished business of the war while playing their part in the diplomatic circuit.

Actually, Russians are in two minds whether the war could end once their military gains total control over Donbass, or, should they also take control of Odessa, Nikolaev, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkov, etc. to create a security zone roughly, along the Dniepr River, and, let the UN figure out the future of the rump state of Ukraine. (See my blog A Third Way to end the war in Ukraine, Indian Punchline, March 29, 2025.)

Such is the backlog of the West’s betrayals and repudiation of agreements, including during Trump’s first term, that Russia may come to estimate that its best security guarantee for durable peace lies in creating solid, immutable facts on the ground.

Trump will do well to read the extraordinary report featured in the New York Times dated March 29, 2025 titled The Partnership: The Secret History of the War in Ukraine. It is a doctored version of the untold story of America’s hidden role in Ukrainian military operations against Russia but the main thing is that it confirms the Russian allegation that this has been a proxy war kick-started by the US with great deliberateness.

Suffice to say, Trump’s claim to be a good Samaritan with a bleeding heart who wants the war to end, et al, won’t fly. On the other hand, Putin is nonetheless keen on establishing a good personal rapport with Trump and anchor a meaningful US-Russia partnership on it, realistic enough to accept that Trump is as good an American president as Russia would ever get.

That said, Putin is also unwavering that in order for peace to be durable, conditions must be created first where he needs Trump’s understanding, although Russian people are deeply sceptical about any US mediation.

Trump refused to say if there was any deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine, but he told reporters on board Air Force One yesterday, “It’s a psychological deadline. If I think they’re [Russians] tapping us along, I will not be happy about it.”

On the contrary, Russians have been as transparent as they could in the prevailing climate of deep distrust — and no real effort has yet begun to address the root causes of the conflict.

The Russian negotiator Grigory Karasin, an accomplished career diplomat and deputy foreign minister and currently a senator heading the foreign affairs committee of the upper-house Federation Council, who was the negotiator at the expert group negotiations at Riyadh last Monday, said over the weekend with great candour on Russia’s national television that the 12-hour talks “haven’t led to any radical breakthrough yet, but the opportunities are there. It would have been naive to expect any breakthroughs.”

Karasin claimed that the US negotiators, including senior National Security Council director Andrew Peek and State Department policy planning chief Michael Anton, initially presented “proposals that are unacceptable to Russia.”

“But then, in my opinion… they realised that a team of civilised, reasoned interlocutors was sitting in front of them,” he said, describing the talks as having had a “good atmosphere” despite the lack of progress.

Importantly, Karasin said he expects US-Russian negotiations on Ukraine to continue at least until the end of 2025 or beyond.

We will never know how accurate was the feedback Trump received from the inconclusive negotiations in Riyadh. Clearly, the US has since resiled from the understanding given to the Russian side in regard of waiving the sanctions for the export of Russian food and fertilisers to the world market, facilitate the payments system and provide other underpinnings needed.

Karasin’s glasnost was apparently not music to Trump’s ears. Nonetheless, good sense prevailed finally, as Trump signalled his intentions to talk to Putin.

Will that help? Putin said as recently as last week that Russia’s interests will not be bartered away. Even if Trump were to now decide to join hands with the UK and France to lead the “coalition of the willing” to continue the Ukraine war, it is unlikely Putin will budge on Russia’s core interests.

However, Trump’s real predicament is something else. He had a choice to decouple the US from the war. But then, he was also swayed by the Wall Street’s obsessive interest in Ukraine being a honeypot, which of course is incompatible with his known aversion to assuming the obligations and responsibilities of a de facto colonial power in a faraway land 10,000 kms away.

The result is, Ukrainians have lost respect for him. Zelensky hit out on Friday, saying, “Ukraine has received the new draft agreement (on such harsh terms) from the US, which is totally different from the previous framework agreement on natural resources. Ukraine will not recognise the United States military aid as a debt. We are grateful for support but it’s not a loan.”

Wall Street Journal reported Saturday on the new revised draft document sent to Kiev from Washington, which insists on Zelensky signing an agreement giving the American companies control over key economic projects. In particular, the US seeks the right to be the first to participate in Ukraine’s infrastructure projects and mining programs, including rare-earth metals and construction of ports.

The fund, managed primarily by US representatives, will channel the profits to pay off the cost of military aid provided by Washington to Kiev. If the agreement is signed, Ukraine will have 45 days to submit a list of projects for consideration by the fund.

Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported that under the latest version of the deal, the US would control half of Ukraine’s oil and gas reserves, its metals and much of its infrastructure, including railways, ports, pipelines and refineries, through a joint investment fund. The US plans to receive all profits until Ukraine pays it at least $100 billion in compensation for military aid, with a 4% surcharge. Kiev will start receiving 50% of the profits only after the debt is repaid.

The newspaper added that the new fund will be registered in the state of Delaware but will operate under the jurisdiction of New York. And the US will have the right to veto the sale of Ukrainian resources to third countries and the prerogative to check the accounts of any Ukrainian agency involved.

Trump has fallen between two stools. Ukraine is highly unlikely to accept the deal with the US. Also, trust Russian ingenuity to make a counter offer of business relationship to Trump that he can’t refuse. In sum, Trump’s attempt to enhance trust with Putin was indeed the right approach. And Putin had reciprocated in earnestness.

Indeed, their parley made some headway until it came under weather, thanks to the mercantile considerations regarding Ukraine’s resources, which require that the war must be put to sudden death. Whereas, such wars have their own dynamics too.

https://www.indianpunchline.com/trump-p ... e-weather/

******

Trump’s Latest Sanctions Threat Against Russia Suggests That He’s Getting Impatient For A Deal
Andrew Korybko
Apr 01, 2025



This moment of truth could even arrive earlier than expected and thus force Putin to compromise or escalate before he’s fully made up his mind either way.

Trump said in an interview with NBC News that “If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault — which it might not be — but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia. That would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States. There will be a 25% tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil.”

NBC News interpreted this as alluding to what he earlier threatened on social media regarding the imposition of secondary sanctions on those that purchase oil from Venezuela. He wrote that “any Country that purchases Oil and/or Gas from Venezuela will be forced to pay a Tariff of 25% to the United States on any Trade they do with our Country.” As it relates to Russia, this would spike tariffs on China and India, the first of which is already in a trade war with the US while the second wants to avoid one.

This is precisely the former US Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg insinuated in an interview with the New York Post in early February that was analyzed here at the time. The takeaway was that such threats might suffice for getting them to nudge Russia into a deal over Ukraine despite whatever apprehensions Putin might have. The consequences of not doing so could be their compliance with the US’ secondary sanctions and all that could entail for the Russian economy if it’s deprived of this revenue.

India is more susceptible to this form of American pressure while China might resist for the reasons explained here, in which case Russia could become disproportionately dependent on China, thus leading to the fait accompli of de facto junior partnership status that Putin has tried his utmost to avoid. Accordingly, it might only be India that tries nudging Russia into a deal over Ukraine while China might not do what Trump expects, instead openly defying his secondary sanctions if they’re then imposed.

This analysis here briefly touches upon the five reasons why Russia might accept or reject a ceasefire in Ukraine, with it becoming increasingly likely that Trump might soon ramp up the pressure on Putin to decide, especially after he also just said that there’s a “psychological deadline” for this. In his words, which followed right after his interview with NBC News, “It’s a psychological deadline. If I think they're tapping us along, I will not be happy about it.”

The day before, Trump spent a sizeable amount of the day golfing with Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who shared his impression of his counterpart’s approach to Russia with the media. As he phrased it, “When you spend seven hours with someone, you at least get an intuition of the direction in which we’re going…The half-ceasefire has been broken by Russia, and I think America, and my sense is also the President of the United States, is running out of patience with Russia.”

This assessment aligns with what Trump told NBC News the next day and his later quip about a “psychological deadline” for concluding talks with Putin. The American leader’s preference for wielding sanctions as a foreign policy tool might therefore come into play against Russia exactly as was foreseen in early February after Kellogg’s cited interview. This moment of truth could even arrive earlier than expected and thus force Putin to compromise or escalate before he’s fully made up his mind either way.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/trumps-l ... at-against

If Putin is 'forced' to compromise he may face a 'palace revolution', as I'm sure he knows.

******

Trump and his impossible return to the past

In an act of desperation, Trump is trying to stop the clock to revive the ‘golden age’ of imperialism

April 01, 2025 by Atilio Boron


President Trump and singer Kid Rock pose in the Oval Office in front of a map labeled "Gulf of America" (Photo: The White House)

The radical return to protectionism is not only possible but necessary for an empire facing an undeniable decline. It has been denounced by critical analysts but certified by leading intellectuals of the US establishment, such as Zbigniew Brzeziński in a 2012 text and, subsequently, by several documents of the Rand Corporation. Decline, or dissolution, if you prefer, came hand in hand with critical domestic factors: the slow growth of the economy, the loss of competitiveness in global markets, and the gigantic indebtedness of the federal government. If in 1980 the US federal government’s debt-to-GDP ratio was 34.54%, today it has reached an astronomical level of 122.55%. To this must be added the intractable balance of the trade deficit, which continues to grow and in 2024 amounted to 131.4 billion dollars, representing roughly 3.5% of the GDP. This is the case because the US consumes more than it produces.

To this constellation of domestic factors of imperial weakening should be added the deterioration of democratic legitimacy. The latter was highlighted by the 6 January 2021 assault on the Capitol and by the more recent widespread pardons granted by Trump in favor of some 1,500 attackers who had been convicted by the US judiciary. Instead of bipartisan consensus, today, there is a huge rift undermining the political system, of which Trumpism is but one expression.

To this already challenging picture must be added the epochal changes in the external environment of the United States, transformations that have irreversibly modified the morphology of the international system and its geopolitical imperatives. The phenomenal economic growth of China and the significant advances of other countries of the Global South, such as India and several Asian nations, became objective barriers to the pretensions of Washington. Over many decades, the US has been accustomed to imposing its conditions worldwide without stumbling against too many obstacles. However much Trump may regret it, that ‘golden era’ is gone forever; it is already part of the past because of the economic strengthening and technological advances of the countries of the Global South. This has created a planetary landscape where yesterday’s bravados no longer have the same effect. This is even less the case with commercial wars, where the aggressor ends up being the victim of its own decisions.

As if the above were not enough, the ‘world chessboard’ is further complicated by the unexpected ‘return’ of Russia as a global power contender. This took by surprise the ideologized experts of the empire, fervent believers in the exceptionalism of the United States as ‘the indispensable nation’. Because of their ideological blinders, they were led to believe that after the implosion of the Soviet Union, Russia had been condemned per secula seculorum to be a passive bystander of world affairs, without any capacity to exercise the slightest protagonist role. Add to this picture the greater military response capacity of these countries – especially Russia, as proved in the Ukrainian war – and their achievements in the diplomatic field and in the formation of broad alliances – the BRICS, for example. Then, we will understand the reasons why the world geopolitical balance has tipped in a direction contrary to US interests. Multipolarism has arrived and is here to stay.

It should come as no surprise that in the face of these threatening changes (that had been manifest since the beginning of the frustrated ‘new American century’), some scholars, pundits, and government advisors have made emphatic calls for US leadership to exercise naked power, leaving aside all conventionalities or adherence to international legality. One of them, Robert Kagan, provided this advice in a long and highly influential article published the year after the 9/11 attacks. Unlike Europe, he said, US leadership must be aware that the country exists in ‘an anarchic, Hobbesian world in which international laws and norms are insecure and uncertain. In such a scenario, true security, defense and promotion of a liberal order depend on the possession and use of military force’.

For Kagan, the world’s need for a ‘global gendarme’ – an updated version of Hobbes’s Leviathan – was indisputable, and Washington was the only one with the will and capacity to fulfill that critical role. Hence, the doctrine of ‘Preventive War’ was proclaimed by George W. Bush shortly after 9/11. This established that countries or governments that, according to White House standards, are outside the law must be neutralized or destroyed. Naturally, these were the countries that do not accept the lying ‘rules-based world order’ designed to favor the United States and its vassals.

Kagan tops off his proposal by appealing to the vicious reasoning of a senior British diplomat, Robert Cooper. The latter argued that in dealing with the world outside Europe (or the ‘Anglosphere’, or the receding West), ‘We need to revert to the rougher methods of an earlier era – force, pre-emptive attack, deception, whatever is necessary to deal with those who still live in the nineteenth century world of every state for itself. Among ourselves, we keep the law, but when we are operating in the jungle, we must also use the laws of the jungle’. The jungle is obviously all of the rest of the planet outside the North Atlantic and most especially the outlying regions of the empire. Exactly twenty years later, Josep Borrell, High Representative for Foreign Policy of the supremely immoral European Union, would be inspired by Cooper’s writing when he compared with unequalled arrogance the ‘European garden’ with the rest of the world. He characterised the rest of the world as a ‘jungle’ which must be treated with the brutal methods of the jungle.

Yet, a few years before the publication of Kagan’s and Cooper’s texts, cunning exponents of American conservatism such as Samuel P. Huntington warned about the limits of the United States as ‘lone sheriff’ and, in general, about the sustainability of the unipolarism that some thought would last throughout the 21st century. According to this author, the turbulence of the international landscape after the collapse of the Soviet Union forced Washington, now the lonely superpower, to exercise international power ruthlessly, given that in a Hobbesian world, only the strongest prevails. However, he warned that with the passage of time, this behavior was likely to precipitate the formation of a very broad anti-US coalition that would include not only Russia and China but also many other countries – what we now call the Global South. Incidentally, this was the nightmare that disturbed Brzezinski’s sleep in his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard.

Moreover, as the gendarme of world capitalism, Washington is obliged, according to Huntington, to do some nasty things such as to ‘pressure other countries to adopt American values and practices; to prevent third countries from acquiring military capabilities that could counter American military superiority;’ or to impose the outrageous and illegal extraterritoriality of all US laws; or to promote US business interests under the ‘slogans of free trade and open markets; shape World Bank and International Monetary Fund policies to serve those same corporate interests’; and also to categorize certain countries as ‘state sponsors of terrorism’ (as Trump did with Cuba in one of his first executive orders) because they refuse to bow to US wishes. As a result, he warned, it would only be a matter of time before, in reaction to these policies, a broad front opposed to the United States would be formed and the empire would be increasingly challenged by new and very powerful international actors. In the military field, the ‘lone sheriff’ was beaten in Korea, Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan; it was unable to overcome Cuba’s heroic resistance to sixty-five years of a criminal blockade, or to overthrow the government of Venezuela after more than ten years of all kind of aggressions. To make matters worse, this guardian of world capitalism is not only weaker but also has to deal with a much more complicated and intractable international scene than a quarter of a century ago.

In his desperation, Trump is trying to stop the clock and dress up as a sheriff, appealing to brute force and making bullying his main diplomatic argument (‘peace by force’, as Marco Rubio said) to revive the ‘golden age’ of imperialism: gunboat diplomacy, and, in vain, an attempt to resurrect a ‘rules-based world order’ that died a few years ago. Trump is only the gravedigger, not the executioner, of that biased world order. He withdrew from the Paris Climate Change Accords and the World Health Organization, cut the funding to the World Trade Organization created under Washington’s leadership, and threatened to abandon the United Nations and its multiple global bodies (UNESCO would be a special target of this policy shift). He also definitively scrapped a large number of international treaties that, according to his mediocre staff of advisors, prevent the United States from ‘becoming great again’. In his restoration crusade, Trump wields the weapon of the trade war by appealing to customs tariffs, whose boomerang effect has been repeatedly pointed out by economists of all walks of life.

In its belated imperial delirium, the US threatens to impose its will over any opponent, from those who say that Greenland is not for sale, or Canada will not be the 51st state of the Union, or the Panama Canal cannot be taken back by force because it is controlled by the Chinese (which is a tremendous lie). They include those who reject changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, who won’t consider the drug cartels as ‘terrorist organizations’, which according to US laws would empower him to fight them inside the Mexican territory, and, of course, those who oppose redoubling the aggressions against Cuba and Venezuela.

Trump had promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office, but two months later, his words vanished into thin air because Vladimir Putin is not willing to throw in the trash his military victory against NATO in Ukraine in exchange for nothing. And despite Trump’s supposedly pacifist pretensions, reduced to the case of Ukraine, he continues with the policy of his predecessors, both Republicans and Democrats, of financing, arming, and approving the genocide that the Israeli terrorist regime is perpetrating in Gaza and now in the West Bank. So far, Trump and his small band of oligarchs who hijacked democracy in the United States have limited its restorative pretensions to the level of gestures and words or to costless initiatives such as abandoning the World Health Organization. But on the Mars Field of international relations, where multiple and very powerful actors and interests collide, so far little or nothing has been achieved. To make matters worse, Trump has a domestic front where growing numbers of the US population already disapprove of his job at the White House – 50% according to the Economist survey of 27 March.

Nevertheless, in Latin America and the Caribbean, we must be on guard because, as Fidel and Che repeatedly warned, when things do not go well for the United States in other parts of the world, Washington retreats to its strategic rearguard – precisely Latin America and the Caribbean. It would not hesitate to unleash a political, media, intelligence, and even military offensive to erect ‘friendly governments’ in the region – if necessary, ferocious dictatorships – to scare off rival powers such as China, Russia, India, Iran, and other countries of the Global South. It happened in the past, and it could happen again today.

Atilio A. Borón is an Argentine Marxist and sociologist. He was the Secretary General of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO). He won UNESCO’s International José Martí Prize in 2009 and the Premio Libertador al Pensamiento Crítico in 2013.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/04/01/ ... -the-past/

*****

Liberation day
April 2, 2025 Michael Roberts

It’s not April Fool’s Day (1 April). But it might as well be, as later today U.S. President Donald Trump announces another barrage of tariffs on imports into the U.S. in what Trump calls ‘Liberation Day’ and what America’s voice of big business and finance, the Wall Street Journal, has called “the dumbest trade war in history.”

In this round, Trump is raising tariffs on imports from countries that have higher tariff rates on U.S. exports, ie, so-called ‘reciprocal tariffs’. These are supposed to counter what he views as unfair taxes, subsidies and regulations by other countries on U.S. exports. In parallel, the White House is looking at a whole host of levies on certain sectors, and the tariffs of 25 per cent on all imports from Canada and Mexico, which were earlier postponed, are now being reapplied.



U.S. officials have repeatedly singled out the EU’s value-added tax as an example of an unfair trade practice. Digital services taxes are also under attack from Trump officials who say they discriminate against U.S. companies. By the way, VAT is not an unfair tariff as it does not apply to international trade and is solely a domestic tax – the U.S. is one of the few countries that does not operate a federal VAT, relying instead on varying federal and state sales taxes.

Trump claims that his latest measures are going to ‘liberate’ American industry by raising the cost of importing foreign goods for American companies and households, and so reduce demand and the huge trade deficit that the U.S. currently runs with the rest of the world. He wants to reduce that deficit and force foreign companies to invest and operate within the U.S. rather than export to it.



Will this work? No, for several reasons. First, there will be retaliation by other trading nations. The EU has said it would counter U.S. steel and aluminium tariffs with its own duties affecting up to $28bn of assorted American goods. China has also put tariffs on $22bn of U.S. agricultural exports, targeting Trump’s rural base with new duties of 10 per cent on soyabeans, pork, beef, and seafood. Canada has already applied tariffs to about $21bn of U.S. goods, ranging from alcohol to peanut butter, and around $21bn on U.S. steel and aluminium products among other items.

Second, U.S. imports and exports are no longer the decisive force in world trade. U.S. trade as a share of world trade is not small, currently at 10.35%. But that is down from over 14% in 1990. In contrast, the EU share of world trade is 29% (down from 34% in 1990) while the so-called BRICS now have a 17.5% share, led by China at nearly 12%, up from just 1.8% in 1990.



That means non-U.S. trade by other nations could compensate for any reduction in exports to the U.S.. In the 21st century, U.S. trade no longer makes the biggest contribution to trade growth – China has taken a decisive lead.



Simon Evenett, professor at the IMD Business School, calculates that, even if the U.S. cut off all goods imports, 70 of its trading partners would fully make up their lost sales to the U.S. within one year, and 115 would do so within five years, assuming they maintained their current export growth rates to other markets. According to the NYU Stern School of Business, full implementation of these tariffs and retaliation by other countries against the U.S. could cut global goods trade volumes by up to 10 per cent versus baseline growth in the long run. However, even that downside scenario still implies about 5 percent more global goods trade in 2029 than in 2024.

One factor that is driving some continued growth in world trade is the rise of trade in services. Global trade hit a record $33 trillion in 2024, expanding 3.7% ($1.2 trillion), according to the latest Global Trade Update by UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Services drove growth, rising 9% for the year and adding $700 billion – nearly 60% of the total growth. Trade in goods grew 2%, contributing $500 billion. None of Trump’s measures apply to services. Indeed, the U.S. recorded the largest trade surplus for trade in services among the trading countries – some €257.5 billion in 2023 — while the UK had the 2nd largest surplus (€176.0 billion), followed by the EU (€163.9 billion) and India (€147.2 billion).



However, the caveat is that services trade still constitutes only 20% of total world trade. Moreover, world trade growth has fallen away since the end of the Great Recession, well before Trump’s tariff measures introduced in his first term in 2016, furthered under Biden from 2020, and now Trump again with Liberation Day. Globalization is over and with it the possibility of overcoming domestic economic crises through exports and capital flows abroad.

And here is the crux of the reason for the likely failure of Trump’s tariff measures in restoring the U.S. economy and ‘making America great again’: it does nothing to solve the underlying stagnation of the U.S. domestic economy – on the contrary, it makes that worse.

Trump’s case for tariffs is that cheap foreign imports have caused U.S. deindustrialization. For this reason, some Keynesian economists like Michael Pettis have supported Trump’s measures. Pettis writes that America’s “long-term massive deficits tell the story of a country that has failed to protect its own interests.” Foreign lending to the U.S. “force[s] adjustments in the U.S. economy that result in lower U.S. savings, mainly through some combination of higher unemployment, higher household debt, investment bubbles and a higher fiscal deficit,” while hollowing out the manufacturing sector.

But Pettis has this back to front. The reason that the U.S. has been running huge trade deficits is because U.S. industry cannot compete against other major traders, particularly China. U.S. manufacturing hasn’t seen any significant productivity growth in 17 years. That has made it increasingly impossible for the U.S. to compete in key areas. China’s manufacturing sector is now the dominant force in world production and trade. Its production exceeds that of the nine next largest manufacturers combined. The U.S. imports Chinese goods because they are cheaper and increasingly good quality.

Maurice Obstfeld (Peterson Institute for International Economics) has refuted Pettis’ view that the U.S. has been ‘forced’ to import more because mercantilist foreign practices. That’s the first myth propagated by Trump and Pettis. “The second is that the dollar’s status as the premier international reserve currency obliges the United States to run trade deficits to supply foreign official holders with dollars. The third is that U.S. deficits are caused entirely by foreign financial inflows, which reflect a more general demand for U.S. assets that America has no choice but to accommodate by consuming more than it produces.”

Obstfeld instead argues that it is the domestic situation of the U.S. economy that has led to trade deficits. American consumers, companies, and government have bought more than they have sold abroad and paid for it by taking in foreign capital (loans, sales of bonds, and inward FDI). This happened not because of ‘excessive saving’ by the likes of China and Germany, but because of the ‘lack of investment’ in productive assets in the U.S. (and other deficit countries like the UK). Obstfeld: “we are mostly seeing an investment collapse. The answer must depend on the rise in U.S. consumption and real estate investment, to a large degree driven by the housing bubble.” Given these underlying reasons for the U.S. trade deficit, “import tariffs will not improve the trade balance nor, consequently, will they necessarily create manufacturing jobs.” Instead, “they will raise prices to consumers and penalize export firms, which are especially dynamic and productive.”

As I have explained before, the U.S. runs a huge trade deficit in goods with China because it imports so many competitively priced Chinese goods. That was not a problem for U.S. capitalism up to the 2000s, because U.S. capital got a net transfer of surplus value (UE) from China even though the U.S. ran a trade deficit. However, as China’s ‘technology deficit’ with the U.S. began to narrow in the 21st century, these gains began to disappear. Here lies the geo-economic reason for the launching of the trade and technology war against China.

Trump’s tariffs will not be a liberation but instead only add to the likelihood of a new rise in domestic inflation and a descent into recession. Even before the announcement of the new tariffs, there were significant signs that the U.S. economy was slowing at some pace. Already, financial investors are taking stock of Trump’s ‘dumbest trade war in history’ by selling shares. America’s former ‘Magnificent Seven’ stocks are already in a bear market, ie, falling in value by over 20% since Xmas.



The economic forecasters are lowering their estimates for U.S. economic growth this year. Goldman Sachs has raised the probability of a recession this year to 35% from 20% and now expects U.S. real GDP growth to reach only 1% this year. The Atlanta Fed GDP Now economic forecast for the first quarter of this year (just ended) is for a contraction of 1.4% annualised (ie, -0.35% qoq). And Trump’s tariffs are still to come.

Tariffs have never been an effective economic policy tool that can boost a domestic economy. In the 1930s, the attempt of the U.S. to ‘protect’ its industrial base with the Smoot-Hawley tariffs only led to a further contraction in output as part of the Great Depression that enveloped North America, Europe, and Japan. The Great Depression of the 1930s was not caused by the protectionist trade war that the U.S. provoked in 1930, but the tariffs then did add force to that global contraction, as it became ‘every country for itself’. Between the years 1929 and 1934, global trade fell by approximately 66% as countries worldwide implemented retaliatory trade measures.

More and more studies argue that a tit-for-tat tariff war will only lead to a reduction in global growth, while pushing up inflation. The latest reckons that with a ‘selective decoupling’ between a (U.S.-centric) West bloc and a (China-centric) East bloc limited to more strategic products, global GDP losses relative to trend growth could hover around 6%. In a more severe scenario affecting all products traded across blocs, losses could climb to 9%. Depending on the scenario, GDP losses could range from 2% to 6% for the U.S. and 2.4% to 9.5% for the EU, while China would face much higher losses.



So no liberation there.

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2025/ ... ation-day/

*****

Trump Exposes the Elite Classes

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist 02 Apr 2025


Image of President Donald Trump and Brad Karp, Chairman of Paul Weiss. Steven Ferdman/Getty Images; Business Insider

While Trump dedicates himself to making every conservative fantasy come true, millions wonder who will save them from the onslaught of the right wing fever dream. The answer is no one but ourselves.

Institutions led by members of the ruling class theoretically have the power to oppose anyone who should dare to confront them, even if the confrontation in question is led by the president of the United States. Actions taken by Columbia University and the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison (known as Paul, Weiss), were stunning as they obsequiously met Trump administration demands to stifle protest and to provide pro bono legal services to conservative causes. Closer inspection of how these supposedly august institutions operate should end any questions about why they responded as they did.

Columbia University donors include billionaires such as Robert Kraft and Mort Zuckerman. The university’s endowment is valued at $14.8 billion . One would think that heavy hitters with resources would consider fighting back when Donald Trump threatened to withhold $400 million in federal funding from that ivy league school.

Yet there was no fight back, none whatsoever. Columbia acceded to Trump’s demands that the school give the president power to expel students who engage in protests, ban masks, adopt a definition of anti-semitism that includes prohibition of “double standards applied to Israel”, and change in the leadership of the departments of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies. The decision to go along with Trump was met with great consternation both within and outside of the school but those opinions availed little with $400 million on the line.

Columbia’s lack of fortitude should not have been surprising to anyone. Many donors were already in sync with the Trump administration’s demands. When Palestine solidarity protests began in 2024, donors such as Kraft began to question their financial commitments . Their actions went further, as many wealthy Columbia donors and other New Yorkers used a Whatapp chat group to push mayor Eric Adams to send police to the campus and arrest demonstrators. Not only did Adams do as they asked in sending the New York Police Department to end the protest, but his Deputy Mayor for Communications accused the Washington Post of promoting an “antisemitic trope ” for reporting on the story.

Recently a former Columbia graduate student named Mahmoud Kahlil was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and sent to a detention facility in Louisiana. A group calling itself Columbia Alumni for Israel has been demanding such actions for many months as they too operate in a Whatsapp messaging group. They are unsatisfied with the easy punishment of demanding the revocation of student visas and even deporting green card holders such as Khalil. They also have U.S. citizens in their sights. “If anyone can trace any of their funding to terror organizations, not a simple task, they can be arrested on grounds of providing ‘material support’ for terror organizations. That is the key to getting these U.S. citizen supporters of Hamas, etc. arrested.” The writer of this missive is a former Columbia professor.

The capitulation at Paul Weiss shocked many in the legal profession who expected their profession to be vigorously defended. Like Columbia, Paul Weiss is doing quite well, with $2.6 billion in revenue in 2024. A dubious Executive Order required Paul Weiss to provide pro bono legal services to conservatives in exchange for keeping security clearances and the ability to access federal buildings. The shakedown succeeded however, and made the possibility that other targeted firms would also comply more likely.

How shocking is it really when the ruling classes rule over the institutions they control? White shoe law firms and ivy league schools depend on money, big money, in order to operate. The individuals in question may be republicans or democrats but at the end of the day money is the determining factor in how they make decisions. It is time to end the naivete about the elites who run universities and powerful law firms. They take the path of least resistance, which is always the path of placating politicians and the rich and the powerful. Both Columbia and Paul Weiss have the resources to take on the president and both had good chances of winning their disputes with the Trump administration yet neither was prepared to take the risk.

Of course the people who could fight Trump but don’t are also the same people who fund the Democratic Party. They are the same group who provided the Kamala Harris campaign with a $1 billion war chest in her losing effort. No one should be surprised now that the Democratic Party also appears to be confused about how to fight Trump as he is determined to make every right wing fantasy come true. Like all other recipients of billionaire largesse, the democrats have run for cover.

The reality is that the ruling classes do not represent the people. They wouldn’t be the ruling classes if they did. We may be taken in by notions of prestige and elitism but that means the people and the institutions in question will behave like the proverbial cheap lawn chair and fold up without any resistance because they either fear losing their positions or happily ask, “How high?” when a president orders them to jump.

This current political moment is difficult after several decades of weak mass organizing. Students who protested the U.S. and Israeli genocide in Gaza were living up to a great tradition of young people showing the way when political action is called for. Now they are paying the price as their institutions are targeted by the threats of losing millions of dollars. In the case of Harvard University, latest on the Trump hit list, the amount of funding in question is $9 billion .

The student encampments were popular because they spoke to the outrage felt by millions of people as the bipartisan consensus demanded that war crimes be committed in the name of the people of this country. Now others must take up the charge as the Trump administration sends foreign nationals to prison camps in El Salvador and shakes down colleges and law firms as gangsters would do.

Federal judges have ordered that detainees not be moved only to watch as their rulings are ignored. Perhaps a brave jurist will find a Trump administration official in contempt and put the full weight of the law on conduct that has been found to be illegal and unconstitutional. That hope is understandable but is no more likely to happen than a school depending on the 1% to defy the authorities that keep it running.

There is no one to appeal to but ourselves. Mass movements may have been in existence years ago but unless they are revived the assaults on our civil and human rights will not just continue. They will grow ever more brazen.

https://blackagendareport.com/index.php ... te-classes

Trump’s Tariffs Won’t Reverse Globalization or Resurrect America’s Dying Industrial Base
Jon Jeter 02 Apr 2025


Throughout history, trade restrictions have reshaped economies for good or for ill. As Trump increases tariffs across industries, it is clear that this move will not revitalize the economy as he claims. Rather, it stands to create further hardship for Black and working class people.

While it was not technically a tariff, the 1808 law prohibiting the importation of enslaved people to the U.S. from Africa and the Caribbean had the same effect, protecting domestic industries—in this case the breeding of the enslaved for commercial trade—from foreign competitors. For everyone but the enslaved of course, the ban worked like a charm, raising significantly the sale price that slaveholders could demand for a bondswoman or bondsman.

In the half-century that followed the embargo on international slave trafficking, the number of enslaved in the U.S. quadrupled from one to four million by the time the first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter in 1861. The celebrated historian, Eric Foner, has attributed the phenomena to “natural increase” but aside from the predicate act that causes populations to grow, there was nothing natural about it. With so much money to be made, some planters abandoned the cultivation of agriculture and livestock altogether to transform their farms into factories solely for the breeding of slaves, the way that Detroit would churn out cars a century later.

Erecting twelve-foot-high fences topped with iron spikes to fortify the concentration camps and often forcing slave women to wear hoods during intercourse so that they could not identify their mates—who were sometimes related by blood—slaveholders industrialized the rape of Black women and girls, creating for all intents and purposes, an assembly line of sexual predation. The two largest breeding farms were in tobacco-growing regions on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, and in and around what would become the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, which at its height, exported between 10,000 and 20,000 slaves every month to points South and West, raking in windfall profits that far eclipsed that of any other crop.

Similarly, the Southern African nation of Zambia surfaced from 75 years of British misrule in 1964, inheriting a workforce with fewer than 110 college graduates and an economy dependent almost solely on mining. Copper, cobalt and zinc accounted for more than a third of the country's gross domestic product at independence and 80 percent of its export earnings. The mines employed -- in one capacity or another--almost half the workforce, and the country manufactured very few goods.

To address Zambia’s reliance on imports, Zambia’s iconic liberation hero and first President, Kenneth Kaunda, adopted a policy known as “import substitution” in which a country seeks to replace the foreign trade flowing into a country with goods that are made locally. Between roughly 1964 and 1990, Kaunda nationalized the mines, expanded exponentially the economy's manufacturing sector and walled them off from foreign competition with import tariffs, sparking a period of robust growth.

That came to an abrupt end after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the epoch of globalization began. Explaining his decision to raze tariffs against Canada and Mexico in 1988, Ronald Reagan said:

"Our peaceful trading partners are not our enemies, they are our allies. We should beware of the demagogues who are ready to declare a trade war against our friends, weakening our economy, our national security and the entire free world. All while cynically waving the American flag. The expansion of the international economy is not a foreign invasion, it is an American triumph. One we worked hard to achieve and something central to our vision of a peaceful and prosperous world of freedom. After the Second World War America led the way to dismantle trade barriers and create a world trading system that set the stage for decades of unparalleled economic growth. Yes, back in 1776 our founding fathers believed that free trade was worth fighting for. And we can celebrate their victory because today trade it's at the core of the alliance that secures peace and guarantees our freedom. It is the source of our prosperity and the path to an even brighter future for America."

In a tacit admission that Reagan got it wrong, President Donald Trump has promised to “liberate” the economy from its reliance on trade by rolling out on April 2 a wide range of tariffs on goods produced abroad, including a 25 percent tax on automobiles imported into the U.S. As was the 1808 ban on the transatlantic slave trade and import substitution policies across the global South in the postcolonial era, Trump’s tariffs are calculated to protect domestic industries from foreign competition, and repatriate the manufacturing jobs—albeit without unionization--that Reagan began to ship overseas forty years ago.

But as even a brief history of protectionism suggests, tariffs are a complicated matter and timing is everything. Economists largely agree that tariffs achieve their desired goal when they are part of a comprehensive industrial strategy such as Zambia’s program of import substitution. Trump has not articulated any such strategy and taxes on imported goods by themselves won’t reverse the broad set of trade policies that were set in motion during the Reagan White House, culminating in the North American Free Trade Act that took effect in 1994 under Bill Clinton.

Known as globalization, those trade policies were the plutocrats’ response to the stagflation crisis of the late 1970s and are intended to lower wages by offshoring the unionized manufacturing jobs that cut deeply into their profits. The strategy worked, but in reorienting an industrial economy to emphasize speculation over industrial production, financiers have depleted the economy of oxygen-- consumer buying power—that it needs to breathe.

Tariffs are likely to only worsen inflation that is higher than it has been in nearly 40 years. The owner of a suburban Washington D.C. microbrewery told reporters that his bottle caps are made in Mexico, and the bottles and base malts for all of his beers are imported from Canada.

Bill Butcher, the owner of Port City Brewing in Alexandria, Virginia, told the Associated Press that tariffs could increase his retail prices by as much as a third.

“It’s very frustrating because it’s hard enough running a small business when your supply chain is intact. But when you have these ridiculous disruptions in the supply chain, it just causes chaos.”

A customer identified as D.J. told the Associated Press:

“I just ordered a case here, so, if the prices go up, I honestly don’t know how often I’d order it again because it’s already like $15.”

Nor will tariffs alone slow China’s ascent to the pole position in the global economy. The dollar, as one example, is strong, or overvalued, which means that goods produced in the U.S. are not competitive on the international market. Navdeep Singh, a tech worker in Northern California told Black Agenda Report:

“Tariffs are a sign that the US wants to clearly reverse. . . everything that came after NAFTA. . . . The problem with Trump‘s efforts to re-industrialize the U.S. are. . (a) lack of skilled workers, very poorly developed supply chains, excessive. . .costs, no strategic industrial policy, absolute reliance on privatizations and . . .there are also. signs of industrial weakness and much lower productivity of labor. They can’t compete with Chinese cars, solar panels, or even toys. Walmart will be impacted because 80% of what it sells is made in China, but China doesn’t care about losing the Tupperware sales to Walmart. China has been de-linking from the United States economy gradually for many years now. They don’t care if they lose the opportunity to sell Tupperware at Walmart. They’re exporting huge projects, big industries to Asia and Africa instead. . .

The global economy is at an unprecedented inflection point. While all empires ultimately wane, the U.S. economy in the postwar era is the singular miracle of the Industrial Age. No country in recorded history has produced a working class that was so densely prosperous as was the U.S. for a period of 30 years beginning roughly in 1945. Consequently, the world has never witnessed the most industrialized nation in history transition to a post-industrial state. Said Singh:

“Basically we are seeing a situation where the former colonial world is going to trade with each other and bypass Europe and America.”

The slave breeding farms that raked in money hand over fist in the antebellum era ultimately failed because 13 percent of the population didn’t have enough money to contribute much of anything to the consumer economy. When Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, Black people owned about half of one percent of all assets. Today, according to the legal scholar Mehrsa Baradaran, African Americans continue to account for 13 percent of the population but own only about one percent of all assets nationwide. This increase of half one one percent over a period of 162 years is quite by design: in addition to lowering wages, Reagan began to hollow out the manufacturing sector because the shopfloor and the union halls were hubs for radical Black Power activists who led the worker’s movement that began with FDR’s New Deal administration in the 1940s.

Trump’s tariffs are woefully insufficient; to truly invigorate the U.S. economy, Americans need a raise, Black people most of all.

https://blackagendareport.com/index.php ... trial-base

Ya gotta wonder as to whether Trump understands that he's going to fuck the economy of the 90%? Of course it would come as no surprise if he really did believe his own bullshit. OTOH is this just a way to 'discipline the workforce'? Whether he intends this or if he's 'getting ideas' from his billionaire buddies doesn't really matter.

[blindpig]

(There ain't no escaping this sumbitch...)

Jeffrey Sachs: Trump’s Impoverishing Tariffs
April 3, 2025

The rest of the world isn’t ripping off the U.S. The American trade deficit is the result of chronically large budget deficits resulting from tax cuts for the rich combined with trillions of dollars wasted on useless wars.


Port of Los Angeles, September 2013. (Lance Cunningham, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

By Jeffrey D. Sachs
Common Dreams

U.S. President Donald Trump is trashing the world trade system over a basic economic fallacy. He wrongly claims that America’s trade deficit is caused by the rest of the world ripping off the U.S., repeatedly stating things such as, “Over the decades, they ripped us off like no country has ever been ripped off in history…”

Trump aims to close the trade deficit by imposing tariffs, thereby impeding imports and restoring trade balance (or inducing other countries to end their rip-offs of America). Yet Trump’s tariffs will not close the trade deficit but will instead impoverish Americans and harm the rest of the world.

A country’s trade deficit (or more precisely, its current account deficit) does not indicate unfair trade practices by the surplus countries. It indicates something completely different. A current account deficit signifies that the deficit country is spending more than it is producing. Equivalently, it is saving less than it is investing.

America’s trade deficit is a measure of the profligacy of America’s corporate ruling class, more specifically the result of chronically large budget deficits resulting from tax cuts for the rich combined with trillions of dollars wasted on useless wars. The deficits are not the perfidy of Canada, Mexico, and other countries that sell more to the U.S. than the U.S. sells to them.

To close the trade deficit, the U.S. should close the budget deficit. Putting on tariffs will raise prices (such as for automobiles) but not close the trade or budget deficit, especially since Trump plans to offset tariff revenues with vastly larger tax cuts for his rich donors. Moreover, as Trump raises tariffs, the U.S. will face counter-tariffs that will directly impede U.S. exports. The result will be lose-lose for the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Let’s look at the numbers. In 2024, the U.S. exported $4.8 trillion in goods and services, and imported $5.9 trillion of goods and services, leading to a current account deficit of $1.1 trillion. That $1.1 trillion deficit is the difference between America’s total spending in 2024 ($30.1 trillion) and America’s national income ($29.0 trillion). America spends more than it earns and borrows the difference from the rest of the world.

Trump blames the rest of the world for America’s deficit, but that’s absurd. It is America that is spending more than it earns. Consider this. If you are an employee, you run a current account surplus with your employer and a deficit with the companies from which you buy goods and services. If you spend exactly what you earn, you are in current account balance. Suppose that you go on a shopping binge, spending more than your earnings by running up credit-card debt. You will now be running a current account deficit. Are the shops ripping you off, or is your profligacy driving you into debt?

“Trump blames the rest of the world for America’s deficit, but that’s absurd. It is America that is spending more than it earns.”

Tariffs will not close the trade deficit so long as the fiscal irresponsibility of the corporate raiders and tax evaders that dominate Washington continues. Suppose, for example, that Trump’s tariffs slash the imports of automobiles and other goods from abroad. Americans will then buy U.S.-produced cars and other merchandise that would have been exported. Imports will fall, but so too will exports. Moreover, new tariffs imposed by other countries in response to Trump’s tariffs will reinforce the decline in U.S. exports. The U.S. trade imbalance will remain.

While the tariffs will not eliminate the trade deficit, they will force Americans to buy high-priced U.S.-produced goods that could have been obtained at lower cost from foreign producers. The tariffs will squander what economists call the gains from trade: the ability to buy goods based on the comparative advantage of domestic and foreign producers.

The tariffs will raise prices for automobiles and wages of automotive workers, but those wage hikes will be paid by lower living standards of Americans across the economy, not by a boost of national income.

The real way to support American workers is through federal measures opposite to those favored by Trump, including universal health coverage, support for unionization and budget support for modern infrastructure, including green energy, all financed with higher, not lower, taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporate sector.

The federal government does not cover its overall spending with tax revenues because wealthy campaign donors promote tax cuts, tax avoidance (through tax havens) and tax evasion.

Remember that the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has gutted the audit capacity of the IRS. The budget deficit is currently around $2 trillion dollars, or roughly 6 percent of U.S. national income. With a chronically high budget gap, the U.S. trade balance will remain in chronic deficit.

Trump says that he will cut the budget deficit by slashing waste and abuse through DOGE. The problem is that DOGE misrepresents the real cause of the fiscal profligacy.

The budget deficit is not due to the salaries of civil servants, who are being wantonly fired, or to the government’s R&D spending, on which our future prosperity depends, but rather to the combination of tax cuts for the rich, and reckless spending on America’s perpetual wars. U.S. funding for Israel’s non-stop wars, America’s 750 overseas military bases, the bloated C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies and interest payments on the soaring federal debt.

Trump and the congressional Republicans are reportedly taking aim at Medicaid — that is, at the poorest and most vulnerable Americans — to make way for yet another tax cut for the richest Americans. They may soon go after Social Security and Medicare too.

Trump’s tariffs will fail to close the trade and budget deficits, raise prices, and make America and the world poorer by squandering the gains from trade. The U.S. will be the enemy of the world for the harm that it is causing to itself and the rest of the world.

https://consortiumnews.com/2025/04/03/j ... g-tariffs/

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White House Lacks Financial Literacy - 'Tariffs' Show

Presidential Message on National Financial Literacy Month, 2025 - The White House, Apr 1 2025

The foundation of American economic prosperity is a society empowered with the knowledge and tools to make informed financial decisions to achieve the American Dream. ...

I welcome that message.

Teaching financial literacy must start at the top. The members of the Trump administration obviously lack the knowledge and tools to make informed financial decisions.

It is the only possible explanation for how they came up with these numbers:



China does not have a 67% tariff on U.S. goods (it's 7.3%). The EU does not have a 39% tariff on U.S. goods (it's 5.2%). The numbers are bollocks.

So where do they come from? The official explanation from the U.S. Trade Representative is here. Its baloney:

James Surowiecki @JamesSurowiecki - 0:22 UTC · Apr 3, 2025
Just figured out where these fake tariff rates come from. They didn't actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did. Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country's exports to us.

So we have a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia. Its exports to us are $28 billion. $17.9/$28 = 64%, which Trump claims is the tariff rate Indonesia charges us. What extraordinary nonsense this is.
...
Even given that it's Trump, I cannot believe they said "We'll just divide the trade deficit by imports and tell people that's the tariff rate." And then they decided to set our tariffs by just cutting that totally made-up rate in half! This is so dumb and deceptive.
...
.. it's actually worse than I thought: in calculating the tariff rate, Trump's people only used the trade deficit in goods. So even though we run a trade surplus in services with the world, those exports don't count as far as Trump is concerned.

The last point is a major one, for China, but especially for the EU :

EU-US trade in goods and services reached an impressive €1.6 trillion in 2023. This means that every day, €4.4 billion worth of goods and services cross the Atlantic between the EU and the US.
...
The total bilateral trade in goods reached €851 billion in 2023. The EU exported €503 billion of goods to the US market, while importing €347 billion; this resulted in a goods trade surplus of €157 billion for the EU.
Total bilateral trade in services between the EU and the US was worth €746 billion in 2023. The EU exported €319 billion of services to the US, while importing €427 billion from the US; this resulted in a services trade deficit of €109 billion for the EU.
...
EU-US goods and services trade is balanced: the difference between EU exports to the US and US exports to the EU stood at €48 billion in 2023; the equivalent of just 3% of the total trade between the EU and the US.

Despite that Trump has decreed a 20% on all goods from the EU. The natural countermeasure from the EU will be to put a 20+% tariff on all import of U.S. services.

Trump also decreed a minimum 10% tariff on imports from every country. Products made by the penguins of the uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands in the Antarctic will now come with a 10% surcharge.



There is really no economic reasoning behind these numbers.

Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand - 4:16 AM · Apr 3, 2025
To illustrate just how nonsensically these tariffs were calculated, take the example of Lesotho, one of the poorest countries in Africa with just $2.4 billion in annual GDP, which is being struck with a 50% tariff rate under the Trump plan, the highest rate among all countries on the list.
...
As a matter of fact Lesotho, as a member of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), applies the common external tariff structure established by this regional trade bloc.
...
So since the tariffs charged by these 5 countries on U.S. products are exactly the same, they must all be struck with a 50% tariff rate by the U.S., right? Not at all: South Africa is getting 30%, Namibia 21%, Botswana 37% and Eswatini just 10%, the lowest rate possible among all countries.

Looking at Lesotho specifically, every year the U.S. imports approximately $236 million in goods from Lesotho (primarily diamonds, textiles and apparel) while exporting only about $7 million worth of goods to Lesotho (https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfi ... by-country).

Why do they export so little? Again this is an extremely poor country where 56.2% of the population lives with less than $3.65 a day (https://databankfiles.worldbank.org/public/...), i.e. $1,300 a year. They simply can't afford U.S. products, no-one is going to buy an iPhone or a Tesla on that sort of income...

The way the tariffs are ACTUALLY calculated appears to be based on a simplistic and economically senseless formula: you take the trade deficit the U.S. has with a country, divide it by that country's exports to the U.S and declare this - falsely - "the tariff they charge on the U.S."

And then as Trump did in his speech last night, you magnanimously declare that you'll only "reciprocate" by charging half that "tariff" on them.

As such, for Lesotho, the calculation goes like this: ($236M - $7M)/$235M = 97%. That's the "tariff" Lesotho is deemed to charge this U.S. and half of that, i.e. roughly 50% is what the U.S. "reciprocates" with.

It's extremely easy to see why this makes no sense at all.

Lesotho has a comparative advantage over the U.S. as it can dig up and sell diamonds. But it lacks the purchasing power to buy U.S. goods and services. The calculations by the Trump administration ignore those basic facts.

No tariffs were by the way introduced against Belarus, Russia and North Korea. This because of sanction, the U.S. has allegedly no trade relation with them. (Other than buying enriched Uranium for its nuclear power stations?)

Did the Trump administration anticipate how this nonsense will explode in its face?

It is Smoot-Hawley writ large.

Posted by b on April 3, 2025 at 8:53 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/04/w ... .html#more

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The True Face of the Gringo (Part 1)
April 2, 2025


Donald Trump next to Andrew Jackson. Photo: teleSUR.

By Omar Hassaan Fariñas – Mar 28, 2025

In 1998, in the midst of the impeachment trial of US President William Clinton, the undersigned was pursuing his first master’s degree in political science at Western University in Canada. In a Canadian government class, the professor asked us: Who is your favorite US president? (Of course, he said “American”). Beyond the slight inappropriateness of evaluating the “favorite” president of the neighboring country in a Canadian politics class, the participants—mostly Anglo-Saxon—expected this humble student (21 years old at the time) to provide a “controversial” and “questionable” answer, given that he is one of those crazy Arab terrorists and Mexican drug traffickers (all Latin Americans are Mexican in that illustrious part of the world). Most of them heaped almost romantic praise on John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton. The undersigned indicated that his “favorite” American president (using that very word) is the one on the $5 bill: Andrew Jackson (1829–1837). I indicated that Jackson is the one I have the most respect for, as he was the most sincere: he was a man of deep, visceral hatred, of intense racist contempt toward all Native Americans and Africans, and lacking any remorse or mercy. Jackson exterminated many Native Americans to steal their lands, and he did so without claiming any kind of “moral superiority,” clearly dehumanizing his victims. Jackson made clear his pride in being the architect of that genocide, and he never assumed a moral mask: the face of hatred, contempt, and death was always evident to all.

The undersigned was not very popular in his classes in Canada. I received my university degree and fled that country in 2001, and to this day, I have not returned. However, 27 years later, I still believe what I stated in that 1998 class is still valid, and now I must add Mr. Donald Trump to that “category” of presidents.

What did Mr. Jackson, the man on the $5 bill, do? In 1791, the US federal government recognized the Cherokee as a “sovereign nation” within the United States, accepting their territories as their own in the state of Georgia—a treaty was even signed to this effect. The residents of that US state resented the Native Americans for their productive lands and self-governance, so they invaded these lands and gradually exterminated their people. In 1828, a law was passed declaring all Native American laws null and void. What was the motivation for this blatantly illegal theft, which violated their own laws? These lands were excellent for African slaves of the Anglo-Saxons to plant cotton for their white masters. When they discovered that these lands also contained gold, the extermination of these tribes was guaranteed.



The United States federal government, under President Andrew Jackson, pushed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 through the Senate. The act granted the president the power to “negotiate” (i.e., force, through the use of bayonets), with the so-called “Five Civilized Nations,” the terms of their “relocation” from their territories in Georgia and other eastern North American territories, west of the Mississippi River, to what is now Oklahoma, a dumping ground that possesses neither fertile land nor natural resources of any kind (even in the year 2025).

The process of forcibly removing Native Americans from their lands generated one of the most lamentable tragedies of Anglo-Saxon expansionism: the “Trail of Tears.” More than 4,000 federal soldiers and 3,000 militiamen were tasked with imposing a death march that killed a large portion of the displaced population. Regrettably, this sad march of American genocide was never officially considered a “war crime,” much less a genocide, since these are committed only by the enemies of the US, never by the US and its allies.

More than 16,000 Cherokees were relocated to the Oklahoma dumps, forcing the women and children to march more than 1,300 kilometers, where they suffered disease, exposure, and hunger. They were also given blankets intentionally infected with smallpox by the Anglo-Saxons, and between 4,000 and 8,000 died. Jackson, as we can imagine, justified all this with the usual arguments: they are not human beings, they are a mere hindrance to “civilization,” they will soon face their own extinction, they are not civilized, etc. It is worth noting that, as of the 1890 federal census, the total population of all Native Americans in the United States was 230,000. At the beginning of Anglo-Saxon colonization in the 17th century, the number is estimated to be between 14 and 15 million. It is precisely because of this degree of “sincerity” with their visceral hatred that I continue to insist that Mr. Jackson is, without a doubt, my favorite American president.

In the second part of this article, we will continue analyzing the realities of the 19th century in the context of Our America today.

https://orinocotribune.com/the-true-fac ... go-part-1/

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Keys to Trump’s Trade War: Deadlines, Products, and Affected Countries


U.S. President Donald Trump, April 2, 2025. X/ @GUnderground_TV

April 3, 2025 Hour: 8:07 am

In 2024, the U.S. trade deficit increased by 17 percent to US$918.4 billion.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on goods and services from all countries with which the United States maintains trade relations. His “Liberation Day” has sparked a trade war that will slow global commerce and push the world toward recession.

More specifically, Trump imposed a universal tariff of 10 percent on all U.S. imports, a 20 percent tariff on all imports from the European Union (EU), and an additional tariff specific to each country, which was calculated according to the “historical harm” that a given nation has caused the United States.

This is what Trump has referred to as a “reciprocal tariff,” in response to the alleged taxes on American products in other countries, which he blames for the U.S. trade deficit.

The general minimum tariff of 10 percent will take effect on Saturday, April 5, while the additional part affecting each nation will begin to apply on April 9. The 25 percent tariffs on automobiles, light trucks, and auto parts imported into the United States took effect this Thursday.

Through these decisions, Trump seeks to improve his country’s external accounts. In 2024, the U.S. trade deficit increased by 17 percent to US$918.4 billion, making it the second most negative trade balance in history.


Main Affected Countries

The tariffs primarily impact Europe and Asia, with a 20 percent charge on the EU, 24 percent on Japan, 26 percent on India, 17 percent on Israel, and 10 percent on most Latin American nations, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, and Costa Rica.

In the case of China, the tariff is added to a previous 20 percent tariff, bringing its total levies to 54 percent. Taiwan, a vital semiconductor partner, will suffer an increase of 32 percent; South Korea, a major exporter of automobiles and electronics, will face a 25 percent tariff; and Vietnam, a key trade partner of both China and the U.S., will see tariffs rise to 46 percent.

Very high import taxes will fall on developing countries such as Cambodia (49 percent), Madagascar (47 percent), Myanmar (45 percent), and Botswana (38 percent).

Exempt Countries and Sectors

Canada and Mexico, which have a free trade agreement with the U.S., have avoided the new wave of tariffs; however, the 25 percent tariffs Trump imposed on steel and aluminum from these countries remain in place.

The U.S. president excluded Russia, Cuba, North Korea, and Belarus from his global tariff round because these countries are already subject to severe economic sanctions. A senior Trump administration official stated that these nations “already face extremely high tariffs” that “prevent any significant trade with these countries.”

Some sectors and products have been exempted from the tariffs, including copper (which benefits Chile), pharmaceuticals (to the delight of India’s pharmaceutical industry, considered the world’s pharmacy), semiconductors (which benefits Taiwan), and timber, as well as aluminum goods and vehicles and parts that are already subject to customs duties. Other untaxed products include energy resources and minerals that are not available in the United States.


And Now, the Countermeasures

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said that the EU is “prepared to respond” to the imposition of tariffs, though she added that it is never too late to negotiate.

The French government specified that Europe is ready for “this trade war” and will take action against American digital giants. The French business federation indicated that European exports of wine and spirits to the United States could decrease by 1.6 billion euros per year due to the tariffs.

China expressed its “firm opposition” to the reciprocal tariffs announced by U.S. President Donald Trump and promised retaliatory measures to “safeguard” its rights and interests.

Latin American countries have generally reacted cautiously, although the government of Brazilian President Lula da Silva stated that it is considering responding with “reciprocity” to Washington’s measures and announced that it will file a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO).

https://www.telesurenglish.net/keys-to- ... countries/

The White House is Considering How Much It Would Cost to Acquire Greenland: WP


A protest in Greenland. X/ @YourAnonCentral

April 3, 2025 Hour: 9:04 am

Meanwhile, Danish PM Frederiksen began a visit to Greenland to meet with the new autonomous government.
On Wednesday, The Washington Post (WP) reported that the White House is compiling estimates on how much it would cost to acquire and administer Greenland, in what would be yet another clear demonstration of U.S. President Donald Trump’s willingness to take control of the autonomous territory governed by Denmark.

The presidential office is analyzing the economic offer that could be presented to the Greenlanders to persuade them to become part of the United States, the cost of providing federal services in the territory, and even potential revenues from exploiting its natural resources, primarily minerals.

“The president believes that Greenland is a strategically important location and is confident that the Greenlanders would be better served if the United States protected them from modern threats in the Arctic region,” a White House spokeswoman responded when asked about the reported estimates.

Although Trump’s obsession with Greenland dates back some time, it has gained real momentum following his return to the White House. From there, he has stated that the island, key to navigation around the Arctic region, is essential for national security. He has even suggested that he does not entirely rule out the use of force to annex it.


— Civixplorer (@Civixplorer) March 29, 2025

A source from The Washington Post claims that, among the territories the president has expressed a desire to absorb—such as Canada or the Panama Canal—Greenland is the one he considers “the easiest” to annex.

Statements from Trump and Vice President JD Vance indicate that, for now, Washington’s priority is to put forward a substantial economic offer that the autonomous government in Nuuk—as well as Copenhagen, which has strongly condemned everything coming from the White House—would find difficult to reject.

In that regard, the WP article states that the Trump administration is considering presenting a funding proposal for the territory’s 58,000 inhabitants, with allocations exceeding the US$600 million that Denmark currently provides to Greenland annually.

On Wednesday, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen began a three-day visit to Greenland to meet with the new autonomous government and reinforce Copenhagen’s commitment to the territory.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/the-whit ... enland-wp/

[blindpig]

Tariffs and entertainment
Posted by @nsanzo ⋅ 04/04/2025



“Cambodia, oh, look at Cambodia! 97%. We're going to take it down to 49% and make a fortune off the United States of America,” Donald Trump boasted in true telemarketing style. “South Africa. Oh, 60%, 30%. There are some very bad things going on in South Africa. We pay them trillions of dollars a week in financing, but we're cutting them off because there are so many bad things going on in South Africa,” he continued after announcing 10% tariffs on British goods. Faced with worldwide astonishment at the attempt to make a spectacle of what could be the beginning of a trade war, the US president continued with the list of usual grievances stemming from economic nationalism and xenophobia, such as hatred of the current South African government, which is largely influenced by the racist vision of defending the white population against the false “white genocide.” In the end, without fireworks but with a whiteboard where the White House presented data on the tariffs it believes other countries impose on its products and another column where the United States reciprocally adds its own, Donald Trump called April 2nd “ America's Liberation Day . ”

In its magnanimity , US reciprocity is not such a thing. Instead, Washington halves the tariffs it imposes on the rest of the world using a deceptive formula that doesn't calculate a country's tariff level but simply the trade deficit, which Trumpism equates to tariffs. Thus, poor countries like Cambodia barely import products from the United States—virtually any product Cambodia might need will be purchased more cheaply from China, which, in addition to being closer, hasn't bombed the country to the point of littering its land with unexploded ordnance—are outstripped by their exports to the United States, products manufactured in the country due to the relocation of US industry. Although imperceptible in absolute terms, calculated using the Trump administration's formula (trade deficit with a country divided by that country's imports), the result is the 97% Trump mentioned, a figure that has nothing to do with the tariffs Cambodia imposes on products from the United States, which are not taken into account in the calculation.

American protectionism responds to the deficit in the US trade balance, which, by introducing yet another trick, takes into account trade in goods but not in services, and not necessarily the rates imposed by individual countries. Israel, for example, unsuccessfully attempted to preempt Trump's announcement on Wednesday by zeroing tariffs on US products. At the end of the night, Tel Aviv received a figure of 17% tariffs on its products based on the trade balance. The figures, and above all, the strange distribution, with which not only China but also former enemies such as Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam were disproportionately punished, while others, such as what Washington perceives as Latin America's backyard , with low levels of exports to the northern country, received lesser penalties, sparked all kinds of speculation throughout yesterday morning. Before economic experts deciphered the formula, it was also notable that US allies, such as the European Union, were faring worse than some opponents.

“Russia, Cuba, and North Korea escape the worst of Trump’s tariff wrath,” Reuters headlined yesterday in an article that included two other sworn enemies of the United States that also apparently emerged unscathed from the American liberalization : Belarus and Iran. “Trump said he would impose a 10% base tariff on all imports to the United States and higher tariffs on dozens of other countries. Russia, Cuba, and North Korea do not appear on the list of countries facing higher “reciprocal” tariffs released by the White House,” writes Reuters , adding that “in their annual threat assessment, U.S. intelligence agencies said China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea were the biggest potential nation-state threats to the United States, and Trump had threatened Moscow with new trade measures.” Only after falsely portraying favoritism toward the enemies does the article explain that the level of sanctions those countries are under makes any additional levies unfeasible.

“Asked why Russia was not on the list, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News that the United States did not trade with Russia and Belarus and that they were subject to sanctions. Trade in goods between Russia and the United States was $3.5 billion last year, according to US figures. In 2021, the year before Russia invaded Ukraine, it was $36 billion,” the article explained. The figures, $3 billion in Russian exports to the United States and $526 billion in imports, would, according to the formula applied, result in tariffs of more than 40% on Russian imports. But compared to Ukraine, an ally and proxy that has received 10% tariffs, which it has received with the resignation of someone who lacks the tools to defend itself and knows it cannot raise its voice against those who supply it with weapons and intelligence, Russia has not received additional sanctions. On the contrary, this week it was announced that the United States has temporarily lifted coercive measures against senior Russian advisor Kiril Dmitrev, who traveled to Washington to meet with the Trump administration as part of the negotiations between the two countries. “A real understanding of Russia's position opens up new possibilities for constructive cooperation, including in the economic and investment sphere,” Dmitrev commented on his Telegram channel .

The economic content of the visit, the first time a Russian representative will meet with White House officials on US soil since 2022, is particularly striking given the timing, not least because it is tariff week . Hours before Donald Trump tossed around tariffs in a televised auction, two well-known senators, both friends of Ukraine, Republican Lindsey Graham and Democrat Sidney Blumenthal, introduced a proposal in the Senate to impose draconian primary and secondary sanctions if Russia does not negotiate in good faith or reach a peace agreement with Ukraine. The senators, who obtained the signatures of 24 other representatives from each of both parties, propose 500% tariffs on imports from countries that purchase Russian products if peace efforts fail. “Sanctions against Russia require tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium, and other products. They are tough for a reason,” the senators assert. Lindsey Graham, who has made no secret of the need to continue fighting “to the last Ukrainian,” and his usual ally have not lost hope of using the war not only to seize Ukraine's mineral resources but also to severely sanction opponents like China, Russia's main economic ally. Even if this requires a measure that is difficult to implement and has more than uncertain consequences for world trade.

Uncertainty was also one of the words repeated throughout yesterday when trying to predict the short- and medium-term effects of the measures announced yesterday. Donald Trump assumed that the White House would begin receiving calls pleading for the withdrawal of tariffs or wanting to negotiate, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned countries not to respond reciprocally, which would be considered an escalation, and recommended sitting back and waiting. The main lesson from the way the United States has calculated the level of tariffs and the rhetoric accompanying the measures is the double definition of the word. In the United States, "tariff" is the most beautiful word , a way to reduce taxes for the population and to recover what other countries have stolen from the American people . Abroad, "tariff" does not equate to the tax applied to imported products, but to a trade deficit. Thus, when Donald Trump demands that different countries withdraw their tariffs if they want American tariffs to be reduced, the US president is not seeking to reduce those duties, but rather to eliminate the trade deficit. In other words, Trumpism demands that the rest of the world purchase more American products. "The European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, asserts that there are no 'winners' in trade wars. She acknowledges that the EU currently buys a lot of defense equipment from the United States," EFE wrote yesterday . It is there, in this second idea, the acquisition of more US military equipment, that European countries can achieve a reduction in the 20% tariffs imposed on EU imports. In this way, Trump would also guarantee that the European rearmament he has been demanding for years would not occur, thereby acquiring strategic autonomy from Washington.

https://slavyangrad.es/2025/04/04/aranc ... pectaculo/

Google Translator

While the supposed tariffs imposed on the US are transparent nonsense we would expect from Trump the list of nations and other locales is interesting. I doubt that Trump is aware of some of those places or where they are. Either some incompetent underling put that list together or, I suspect an incompetent 'AI'.

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China rises to the challenge
April 4, 14:46



China Responds.
China officially imposes a 34% tariff on all American goods, in response to the recently imposed American tariffs on Chinese goods.
Trump has promised to respond to those who impose retaliatory tariffs, so we expect further escalation of the US-China trade war.

In addition:

China added 11 American companies to the list of unreliable organizations

Among them:

Skydio Inc.
BRINC Drones, Inc.
Red Six Solutions
SYNEXXUS, Inc.
Firestorm Labs, Inc.
Kratos Unmanned Aerial Systems, Inc.
HavocAI
Neros Technologies
Domo Tactical Communications
Rapid Flight LLC
Insitu, Inc.

The above-mentioned companies are prohibited from engaging in import-export activities related to China and attracting new investments in the PRC.

@china3army - zinc

The world global market is facing long-term fragmentation.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9763492.html

Google Translator

******

Another Trump Big Lie: “Reciprocal Tariffs”
Posted on April 4, 2025 by Yves Smith

Yves here. Rajiv Sethi unpacks the bogus branding of and justifications for Trump’s tariffs. Don’t get me started on Liberation Losers’ Day.


Sethi mentions the omission of trade in services from the Trump computation. That not only shelters tech players like Google but also financial services firms.

I wish Sethi has not used the stock market reaction as a gauge of what a disastrous program this is (particularly since Wolf Richter points out that stocks are still up on a year to year basis); “flight to safety” asset moves, estimates of economic impact, and anecdata would have been preferable.

By Rajiv Sethi, professor of economics at Barnard College. Originally published at his website

If you thought reciprocal tariffs meant the imposition of import duties on others that match those they currently impose on us, you’re probably not alone. But the policies announced yesterday are based on something quite different.

In a nutshell, the tariff proposed for each country is based on our bilateral trade in goods as follows:



Here the numerator is our bilateral trade deficit in goods with the country, which is typically positive—with few exceptions, we buy more goods from our trading partners than we sell to them. If the calculation above results in a negative number (or any positive number below ten percent) a flat rate of ten percent is applied.

For example, our trade deficit in goods with China last year was $295bn, with goods imports at $439bn, resulting in an increase in tariff rate (after rounding) of 34% under the new policy.

Omitted from this calculation is trade in services with China, where we had a surplus of about $27bn in 2023. I’ll have more to say about services below.



The simple formula above is implied by a more complicated equation that has been posted by the White House:

Here the subscript i refers to the country, Δt is the proposed change in our bilateral tariff rate, x and m denote bilateral exports and imports respectively, φ is the pass through from tariffs to prices (a measure of the inflationary effect of tariffs), and ε is the price elasticity of imports (a measure of the sensitivity of demand to prices). The administration economists impute 0.25 and negative 4 for these two parameters respectively, which results in the expression in parentheses in the much simpler formula at the top of this post. This seems to have been multiplied by one half to get the final tariff rate increases, presumably as a gesture of magnanimity.1 The stated goal is to achieve balance in our trade deficit in goods, not just in the aggregate but with each individual trading partner.

There are lots of problems with this approach to trade policy. I’ll mention just a few.

First, consider the omission of services. Imagine a country with which we have trade balance overall, but a goods deficit and an offsetting services surplus. In this case the country will be hit with a tariff, and the size of this tariff will be increasing in the volume of total trade. That is, if our goods imports and service exports rise in tandem, while maintaining overall trade balance, the rate imposed will increase. It is hard to imagine that a country would fail to retaliate against this.

Second, consider multilateral trade flows. Suppose we have a deficit with country Aand a surplus with B such that our trade with the two countries combined is balanced. Under the proposed formula both countries will be hit with tariffs. If the total volume of trade rises while maintaining overall balance and the same pattern of transactions, the former country will face a higher rate, while the latter will continue to face the ten percent lower bound.

Third, it makes no sense to apply the same elasticity and pass through parameters to all trading partners. We import automobiles and dental equipment from Germany and cut flowers and coffee from Colombia. The substitutes available for these goods differ, as do the conditions under which they are produced. An industry with low profit margins, for example, will have higher pass through of tariffs to prices. And a product with many substitutes available will have a higher price elasticity of demand.

Fourth, and most importantly in my opinion, such ham-handed policies will have enduring effects on geopolitical alliances. We have already seen signs of increasing coordination between three Asian powers that have historically kept each other at arm’s length. Canada is trying to extricate itself from its extreme dependence on our economy. The sense of betrayal in Germany is palpable. And so on.

The justification given by the White House for this policy initiative is the following:

Large and persistent annual U.S. goods trade deficits have led to the hollowing out of our manufacturing base; inhibited our ability to scale advanced domestic manufacturing capacity; undermined critical supply chains; and rendered our defense-industrial base dependent on foreign adversaries.

These are legitimate concerns. But shielding our industries from import competition will be counterproductive. There is a case to be made for a manufacturing revival, and a carefully crafted industrial policy.2 And there are sectors in which we already enjoy global dominance, including the entertainment industries and higher education. The former will be hurt by the tariffs, while the latter is being decimated as we speak. These effects will worsen our trade balance.

The economic problems we face are serious, but this is not a serious way to address them.



Market reaction to the reciprocal tariffs.

______

1 It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the parameter values were chosen by working backwards from the desired endpoint. An earlier version of this post missed the fact that the tariffs had been halved relative to the posted formula, and I’m grateful to an alert reader for pointing this out.

2 Some very prominent economists would disagree with this claim. Larry Summers, for instance, has argued that “it is wrong to suppose that manufacturing-based economic nationalism is a route to higher incomes or better standards of living for the middle class.”

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/04 ... riffs.html

Why anyone who is not a capitalist swine(...) would believe anything that Larry Summers has to say is beyond me.

*******

Tariff Mania: The US Helps China Destroy The Western Vassals
Whilst Also Degrading US Relations With All Other Nations
Roger Boyd
Apr 04, 2025

In recent years China has moved up the value chain while also selling more and more China-brand products as it moves beyond just being a cheap manufacturer for foreign brands. This deeply threatens the industrial strength of Germany, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan as well as other European nations. These vassal nations are the buttress of US power in both Asia and Europe, so as they weaken so does regional US power. China threatens the core productive sectors of motor vehicles, heavy engineering, machine tools, and electronics that are the bedrock of these nations productive strength.

With the start of the Russo-Ukraine War (really a Western proxy war with Russia), the US weakened its vassals through the sanctions that lost them their markets in Russia and lost them their access to the cheap energy that is critical to manufacturing industries. To add insult to injury, the Nordstream pipelines were also blown up. Recent actions by Ukraine have reduced the flow of cheap hydrocarbons to Europe even more. Due to these factors, and the new Chinese competition, the vassal nations were looking at long-term stagnation or decline; with the added dimension of population decline for Japan and South Korea.

And now we have the US import tariffs added to the mix, with a 25% tariff on imported cars, steel and aluminum which will hit the German, Japanese and South Korean car companies, together with Japanese steel and aluminum exporters. These have now been added to with an across the board tariff for all other goods of 20% for the European Union (e.g. Germany, France, Italy), 24% for Japan, 25% for South Korea, and 32% for Taiwan. For Japan this is on top of the blocking of its purchase of the US steel maker US Steel. Astonishingly, China, Japan and South Korea have already agreed to respond in a coordinated fashion to the new US tariffs, and to increase trading between the three nations. There goes the buttress of US power in Asia.



Not only will these tariffs significantly damage the vassal economies, they will create much negative feelings toward the US in those nations. The US is helping China weaken the economies of its vassals while at the same time turning the populations of those vassals against the US. Even the vassal-poodle Britain gets a 10% tariff (as well as Australia and New Zealand). The EU has already stated that it will be retaliating if these tariffs stay in place.



The US has also been pushing its vassals to greatly increase defence spending, to help enrich the US Military Industrial Complex (MIC) as the vassals have become more and more dependent upon the US for the weapons of war. There are already the start of moves in Europe to rebuild their own MIC capabilities, and even Canada is looking at cancelling a major part of their F35 order in favour of purchasing from Sweden. Of course, increases in war spending will only weaken the vassal economies even more.

The new tariffs on the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries are even more astonishing; Vietnam is hit with 46% tariffs, Laos 48%, Malaysia 24%, Indonesia 32%, Thailand 36%, Cambodia 49%, Philippines 17%, Singapore 10%, Myanmar 44%. These are all medium and low income nations, excluding Singapore, in the process of climbing up the development ladder, and the US is most obviously attempting to remove that ladder. The US unstinting support for the Zionist genocide has already turned the elites of ASEAN generally against the US, and these new tariffs will escalate the move away from a US that is closing its markets and toward a China that has opened its markets to such nations and offers productive investments rather than bullying and profiteering. India gets a 26% tariff, Bangladesh 37%, Pakistan 29%, Sri Lanka 44%.

The U.S. also seems to want to arrest the development of Africa, with a 30% tariff on South Africa, 28% of Tunisia, 47% for Madagascar, 37% for Botswana and 21% for Cote d’Ivoire. This will not aid US relations with these nations, many will turn to China even more for help. Thankfully, Africa as a whole had already moved in the past decades to replace its trade with the US with trade with China. Only two African nations out of 54 now trade with the US more than they trade with China.



Latin America seems to have gotten off rather lightly, apart of course from the 25% tariffs on cars, steel and aluminum. Trump seems to have remembered that he both signed and celebrated the USMCA free trade agreement and is respecting that for both Canada and Mexico goods that fall within the USMCA (i.e. most of them). Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Trinidad & Tobago all got just a 10% tariff. It seems that Nicaragua had to be singled out for political reasons, so it got a 17% tariff, but still nothing like the levels of the Asian nations.

There will be exceptions to the tariffs for:

Pharmaceuticals

Semiconductors

Lumber

Copper and gold

Energy resources and select minerals not found in the US

The US has a very high level of import dependance, and in many cases moving production to the US will take many years, be extremely expensive and produce significantly higher costs. It was the “China Price” that allowed the majority of US citizens to maintain somewhat decent living standards (aided also by greatly increased debt levels) as the US oligarchy took all economic efficiency gains and more for itself for the past decades. Those living standards have been significantly over-stated by the extensive games played by US statisticians when it comes to the calculation of domestic inflation and what constitutes economic value added. The majority of US citizens feel the reality of their falling living standards every day. With the “China Price” now gone, and the supply chain dislocations driven by the new tariffs, inflation in the US will pick up significantly; driving down living standards for the vast majority.

Tariffs are in reality a tax on the domestic population, one that is extremely regressive. Within the highly monopolistic and oligopolistic domestic markets, dominated by corporations with profiteering leaderships, the new market power gained from the reduction in foreign competition will lead to price rises and more oligarch profits. Increases in the price of imported products will also predominantly feed through to domestic price rises. With wages not keeping up with these price rises, and the debt option very much exhausted for many Americans, the outcome will be an economic recession at the least. At the same time as his administration is firing legions of federal employees and slashing government research and other grants. With Trump planning to keep his 2017 tax cuts that mostly benefit the rich, and add even more, his “populist” message can be seen as the utterly fake front that it is. With the revenues from the tariffs being frittered away on tax cuts for the rich and yet more war spending, the Trump administration will be in no way fixing the very large US federal deficit.

This is End of Empire stuff, as the imperial centre both escalates its extraction of value from its vassals, and its oligarchs do the same to the domestic population. Weakening both power abroad and power at home rather than pull back on its military spending and make the oligarchs give back some of the gains they have made over the past few decades for the good of the country. The removal of the ability of many nations to earn the US dollars that they need to pay for imports from the US, US$ denominated raw material imports, and US$ denominated debt will also help drive nations away from the US$, undermining the reserve currency status that the US enjoys.

As Trump removes the ability of other nations to earn dollars by exporting to the US, he is also threatening anyone that acts to reduce their dependency on the US dollar as a reserve currency. This is utterly financially illiterate as a country can simply not have both the reserve currency and an unwillingness to provide the ability of other nations to get access to that currency. A reduction in a nation’s export surplus with the US will produce a reduction in its US$ export earnings, pushing it to diversify its exports and foreign currency holdings, while also driving it to deal in local currencies for other imports instead of using the US$ as an intermediary.

All the while, China will become relatively stronger as it has greatly diversified away from exports to the US (direct trade with the US represents 3% of GDP) and is driving increasing trade within the world outside the West. The now 54% US tariffs on imports from China (in addition to the 100% tariff on imports of Chinese EVs) will be much more destructive to the US, given the widespread dependency of the US economy on such imports.



That will be on top of Chinese restrictions on the export of critical minerals and other retaliatory actions. China will once again not “collapse” but weather the storm and emerge stronger. China recently stopped BYD from building a plant in Mexico due to worries about the US stealing technology secrets from it, and has placed a full moratorium on new Chinese investments in the US.



The European Union may also now be much more ready to enact a trade agreement with China, and welcome in Chinese companies. The massively sanctioned nations such as Russia, Belarus, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea are of course unaffected by these new tariffs.

President Trump is playing neither chess nor checkers, rather he is doing anything but what is needed to MAGA; cut the financiers and oligarchs down to political and economic size and tax them a hell of a lot more, reduce the incredibly wasteful war spending, slash the huge tax breaks for oil and gas and the real estate industry, aggressively attack monopolies, oligopolies and monopsonies, flush out the real extensive corruption in the organs of state, create and execute an effective industrial policy. All of these are an anathema to a president who dutifully serves the oligarchy and the Zionists. Due to the latter, combined with anti-China paranoia, he is also driving out the best and the brightest of US STEM researchers just as China is overtaking the US in so many areas of technology. While the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arm of the US state has been set loose to destroy the US tourism industry and give further reasons for foreign scholars and researchers to stay away from the country.



Quite a few US companies which have gotten used to manufacturing all of their goods abroad while they control the global supply chain through marketing, finance and intellectual property, such as Apple and Nike, will be very negatively impacted. Such companies are also rapidly losing market share in China, producing a double-whammy. US brand value abroad will also be heavily impacted by these new tariffs, which will be seen by many as simple bullying by an imperial power that no longer wants to pay for its empire.

Trump was never “Putin’s friend” but he is turning out to be a great unintended ally of China in its rise to be the primus inter pares of a truly multi-polar world. April 2nd 2025 may well be seen in the future not as “Liberation Day” but as “End of Empire” day.



Trump is now “damned if he stays the course and damned if he retreats” as any reversal will make him look very weak while also underlining the incredible volatility of US foreign policy. All the while the MAGA folks are waking up to the reality of Trump, an oligarch-serving grifter.

https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/tariff ... na-destroy

I think that Trump only serves himself but 'ya gotta go along to get along'.

*****

How Trump’s Tariff Tizzy is burning down the house

Pepe Escobar

April 3, 2025

Global Majority, rejoice! And step on the high-speed rail de-dollarization train.

Circus ringmaster Trump’s Tariff Tizzy (TTT), christened by himself as “Liberation Day”, is being largely interpreted around the world – Global North and Global South alike – as Slaughterhouse Day.

This de facto uncontrolled economic demolition gambit starts with the warped fantasy that launching a customs war on China is a bright idea. As bright as collecting a few trillion extra dollars in tariffs assuming the rest of the planet will be somewhat “encouraged” to sell to the Hegemon, while pretending that these tariffs will lead to the re-industrialization of the U.S.

The tragicomic mask of a self-appointed circus ringmaster of turbo-capitalism may be as pathetic as the European chihuahua rage boosting their “revenge” via Rearmament – with funds that they plan to steal from the savings accounts of unsuspecting citizens.

The indispensable Michael Hudson has configured the key problem. Allow me a little tweak: “Sanctions and threats are the only thing that the United States has left. It no longer can offer other countries a win-win situation, and Trump has said that America has to be the net gainer in any international deal it’s made, whether it’s a financial deal or a trade deal. And if America is saying, any deal we make, you lose, I win”, that Mafia extorsion gambit does not exactly reflect the Art of the Deal.

Prof. Hudson neatly describes Trump’s negotiation tactics: “When you don’t have very much to offer economically, all you can do is offer not to hurt other countries, not to sanction them, not to do something that will be against their interest.” Now, with TTT, Trump is actually “offering” to hurt them all. And they will certainly invest in all sorts of counter-tactics to “get away” from that “strategy” of American “diplomacy”.

A trade war on Asia

TTT attacks everyone, especially the EU (“born to hurt us”, according to the circus ringmaster. Wrong, because the EU was invented by the Americans in 1957 to actually keep Europe under control). The EU exports roughly 503 billion euros to the U.S. a year, while importing around 347 billion. Trump is fuming non-stop about this surplus.

So a counter-measure vendetta will be inevitably in store, as already advertised by the toxic Medusa von der Lugen in Brussels – incidentally the sponsor of every weapons producer in Europe.

Yet TTT is above all a trade war on Asia. “Reciprocal” tariffs – not exactly reciprocal – were imposed on China (34%),Vietnam (46%), India (26%), Indonesia (32%), Cambodia (49%), Malaysia (24%), South Korea (25%), Thailand (36%), earthquake-hit Myanmar (44%), Taiwan (32%) and Japan (24%).

Well, even before TTT, a first has been achieved: the circus ringmaster generated a once-in-a-lifetime consensus among China, Japan and South Korea that their response will be coordinated.

Japan and South Korea will import semiconductor raw materials from China, while China will be purchasing chips from Japan and South Korea. Translation: TTT will solidify “supply chain cooperation” among this triad that so far was not exactly too cooperative.

What the circus ringmaster really wants is an iron-clad mechanism – already being developed by his team – that unilaterally imposes whatever level of tariffs Trump may come up with on whatever excuse: could be to circumvent “current manipulation”, to counter a value-added tax, on “security grounds”, whatever. And to hell with international law. For all practical purposes, Trump is burying the WTO.

Even tariffed penguins in Heard island in the South Pacific know that the certified effects of TTT will include rising inflation in the U.S., serious pain on its – delocalized – corporations and most of all the complete collapse of American “credibility” as a reliable and trustworthy trading partner, adding to its certified reputation as “non-agreement capable” – as the Global South knows so well. > Ант: A rentier FIRE Empire (financialization, insurance, real estate, as masterfully analyzed by Michael Hudson), which offshored its manufacturing industries and was gobbled up by a pile of overleveraged hedge funds, Wall Street derivatives and Silicon Valley totalitarian surveillance in the end decides to strike…itself.

Poetic justice applies. Burning Down the House – from inside the house. As for the emerging, sovereign Global Majority, rejoice: and step on the high-speed rail de-dollarization train.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/ ... own-house/

I very much doubt that Trump has any strategy. Who needs that when ya got 'gut feelings'? But maybe someone else does...and the real purpose of this apparent madness is to 'discipline the workforce', which is not madness to the ruling class.

******

The Chainsaw International
Posted by Internationalist 360° on April 3, 2025
William Callison and Verónica Gago


Elon Musk holds a chainsaw gifted to him by Argentinian president Javier Milei at the Conservative Political Action Conference, February 2025. Image: Reuters

In an image shared around the world, Elon Musk is seen grunting while waving a chainsaw over his head at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington in February. Perhaps less virally circulated was the scene just before, when the far-right libertarian president of Argentina, Javier Milei, walked onstage to gift Musk the chainsaw—a replica with a blade etched with his now-famous motto, ¡Viva la libertad, carajo! (“Long live freedom, dammit!”).

Whether or not sacrifice is acknowledged, deep cuts and steep tariffs make it the order of the day.

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has been called a copycat of Milei’s assault on the Argentinian state, and for good reason. Since taking office in December 2023, Milei has destroyed more than half of Argentina’s ministries (including the Ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity), created new ones (like the Ministry of Deregulation and State Transformation), and fired around 40,000 public employees. Pursuing his own brand of MAGA, Milei has explicitly called for “sacrifice” in order to Make Argentina Great Again; Musk and Trump have been less forthright on this score, with some notable exceptions. Just before the election, Musk agreed that an “initial severe overreaction in the economy” should be expected if Trump won. “We have to reduce spending to live within our means,” he insisted. “That necessarily ​​involves some temporary hardship, but it will ensure long-term prosperity.”

Regarding tariffs, Trump made a similar acknowledgment the day after he issued an executive order targeting Mexico, Canada, and China: “Will there be some pain? Yes, maybe (and maybe not!)” he wrote in all caps. “But we will Make America Great Again, and it will all be worth the price that must be paid.” Soon thereafter, Trump even conceded the possibility of an economic recession, leading to yet another fall in the stock market. And yesterday, on what he called “Liberation Day,” Trump introduced sweeping tariffs of 10 percent on all imports, with significantly higher rates on dozens of countries—effectively a regressive tax hike for U.S. businesses and consumers. At the same press conference, Trump called for Congress to raise the debt ceiling and to lock in permanent tax cuts.

Whether or not sacrifice is acknowledged, deep cuts and steep tariffs make it the order of the day. The question is how governments justify and execute it. On this question, Milei represents a far-right vanguard of authoritarian experimentation. From the war on gender to defunding universities, from the glorification of Israel’s destruction in Gaza to rejecting an independent judiciary, new authoritarian regimes are showing how fascism can develop most rapidly and directly.

In this project, the chainsaw is not simply a metaphor. It is the logic of a new far-right wave of anarcho-authoritarian neoliberalism spreading across Latin America, North America, and Europe. As if hypnotized by a viral meme, even the center-left has been drawn in. Last month UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer floated the idea of a Milei-inspired “Project Chainsaw” that would channel the far-right attack on the public sector but “with a radical centre-left purpose.” As the chainsaw logic spreads, it strengthens the grip of an increasingly international politics of patriarchy, racism, plunder, and violence.

In 2024 the center of gravity in world politics not only moved further right; following Milei, it also shifted further south. On the anniversary of Milei’s presidency and the heels of Trump’s second victory, far-right leaders descended on Buenos Aires last December for the first Argentinian CPAC. “We could call ourselves a right-wing international,” Milei declared in his keynote address. “In the hands of Trump, Bukele and us here in Argentina, we have a historic opportunity to breathe new winds of freedom into the world.” Nayib Bukele, of course, is the president of El Salvador, who recently struck a deal with the Trump administration to hold people deported from the United States at its Terrorism Confinement Center, an infamous maximum-security prison with a capacity of 40,000.

As newly anointed members of the so-called “right-wing international,” other speakers included Spanish Vox party leader Santiago Abascal, São Paulo deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro (Jair’s Bolsonaro’s son), Chilean deputy Fernando Sánchez Ossa, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump, Arizona politician Kari Lake, as well as online pundits like Augustín Laje and Ben Shapiro. Fresh off their respective criminal indictments in the United States and Brazil, Steve Bannon and Jair Bolsonaro appeared via video stream. The speeches featured all of the far right’s favorite targets and slurs: gender ideology, the LGBTQ+ lobby, cultural Marxism, woke extremism, migrant invasions, globalist takeovers, civilizational decline. Meanwhile, on the floor of the convention, the collective buzzed to the ironic Trumpian favorite, “YMCA.”

“I am, today, one of the two most relevant politicians on planet Earth,” Milei gloats. “One is Trump, and the other is me.”

Milei already adored Trump in his days as a red-faced, foul-mouthed television pundit. But now the feeling is mutual. Trump’s “favorite president,” the Argentine was the first world leader to visit Mar-a-Lago after the U.S. election. “You’ve done a fantastic job in a very short period of time,” Trump said in his first post-election speech. “I am, today, one of the two most relevant politicians on planet Earth,” Milei gloats in turn. “One is Trump, and the other is me.” More than once, their mutual admiration has materialized into concrete policies. Most recently, Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, banned Cristina Fernández de Kirchner—Argentina’s former president and Milei’s archenemy—from entering the United States on grounds of alleged corruption.

Amid explosive post-pandemic inflation and overemployment, Milei took office on an agenda to radically cut government spending, eliminate public subsidies, reduce corporate taxes, and deregulate markets. Milei has not abolished the central bank, as he promised, but is instead using its reserves to finance the price of the dollar (which today has the lowest value since he took office). The effect of his reforms has been to heighten people’s use of debt financing for everything from food to rent, ensuring that everyone dealing with daily precarity is forced to engage in speculation. Milei’s austerity measures have led to skyrocketing poverty and indebtedness, particularly through the deregulation of price caps (on public transportation, telephone, and internet fees), service tariffs (resulting in higher prices for electricity, water, gas), and credit card interest (permitting banks to charge higher fees for missed payments). Under Milei, the poverty rate increased 10 percentage points to at least 53 percent of the population. While the government now claims the rate has dropped to 38 percent, the reality is that people are increasingly short on money, inflation is concentrated in key areas such as services and food, and 93 percent of households have some form of debt.

As the government targets a $20 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, a new cycle of sovereign debt is being linked to private debt, all of which is buttressed by the deepening financialization of collective life. Sovereign debt requires repayment in U.S. dollars, which in turn is sought through deregulated growth in areas from lithium extraction and mining to agribusiness and energy. Milei recently enabled young people, beginning at age thirteen, to open bank accounts in U.S. dollars. It’s a seductive but mostly symbolic promise since the majority of children and adolescents in Argentina are poor, according to UNICEF data. At the individual level, Milei calls his new paradigm “financial freedom,” epitomized in his embrace of cryptocurrency. Just as in the United States, the project has proved particularly appealing to boys and young men, deepening a toxic new form of politicized masculinity.

Younger leaders of the Latin American “new right” describe the broader project as a batalla cultural, appropriating Italian communist Antonio Gramsci’s notion of a war of position. But where Gramsci aimed at the hegemony of the capitalist class, their culture war targets the supposed hegemony of progressives and leftists—progres and zurdos, Milei’s favorite epithets—by demonizing feminist, queer, indigenous, and human rights movements as well as public workers. Entire government agencies—from the Ministry of National Security (led by Patricia Bullrich) to the Ministry of Human Capital (led by Sandra Pettovello) and the Ministry of Deregulation and State Transformation (led by Federico Sturzenegger)—have thus been dedicated to attacking internal enemies, criminalizing protest, and defunding scientific research, public education, human rights programs, gender violence initiatives, and soup kitchens. Milei’s libertarian “revolution” can be seen as directed inward against the state, toward and for capital.

Ruling by decree, radically and immediately, Milei has not only tested the limits of the executive. His initial flurry of orders—prelude to Trump’s “flooding the zone,” in Bannon’s words—paved the ground for a massive legislative victory in Congress, the Ley Bases, which passed half a year later. One part of the law, the Large Investment Incentive Regime (or RIGI), provides legal guarantees as well as tax, customs, and foreign exchange benefits for multimillion-dollar investments in the forestry, tourism, infrastructure, mining, technology, and steel sectors. The chainsaw strikes at any regulation intended to limit the reach of capital and the extraction of natural resources.

At Argentina’s first CPAC, speeches featured all the usual targets: gender ideology, migrant invasions, civilizational decline.

In January this year, Milei executed his first privatization. The target was IMPSA, a national energy, technology, and metallurgical company. After its stock price dropped in tandem with Milei’s reforms, he sold the firm for a cut-rate $27 million to the U.S.-based Industrial Acquisitions Fund—with a notable nod to Trump. Milei also announced that new nuclear plants will be built to support AI development, all while pushing extraction from the country’s uranium reserves for domestic use and international export.

At the same time, Milei’s government is seeking to transform Argentina’s economic system into a platform economy through Mercado Libre and Mercado Pago, both owned by Marcos Galperin, the Elon Musk of Argentina. The idea is to organize a complete platform—a system of revenues, payments, credits, pensions, social benefits—beyond the traditional banks. This happens to also be Musk’s dream for X, which recently made a deal with Visa for processing financial payments. Coincidentally, DOGE has gone after the agency that would regulate X’s new features. Much like Tesla, however, the prospects for X as an “everything app” appear less rosy these days.

Trump, like Milei, has pursued a struggle within and against the state—but one that inverts the political valence of what theorists like Nicos Poulantzas once described as socialist strategy. Though Project 2025 laid out a detailed plan for much of this weaponization of the administrative state—not so much in order to destroy it, as James Goodwin has argued in these pages, as to repurpose it for “archconservative rule”—Milei has been both an inspiration and an ally to Trump. Russell Vought, head of the powerful White House budget office and Project 2025 coauthor, said his aim is to put federal employees “in trauma.” White House budget documents suggest the administration hopes to cut some agencies and departments by as much as 60 percent. The Environmental Protection Agency recently backtracked on plans to cut 65 percent of its staff; the Department of Education announced cuts of nearly 50 percent; and Robert F Kennedy Jr. is cutting at least 25 percent at Health and Human Services.

Milei is an exemplary case of how far-right leaders maintain support through promises of greatness premised on sacrifice. While dispensing with democratic procedures, they capture the complaints about formal democracy from the daily experiences of the majorities and feed its anti-democratic radicalism. Milei’s campaign slogan—“there is no money”—must be understood not simply as an argument for balanced budgets and inflation reduction, the “achievement” that Western media glorifies at the expense of suffering populations. It is above all a justification for sacrifice. Meanwhile Milei turns the whole country into a “sacrifice zone”—to borrow a term from scholarship on extractivism—by offering up land to businesses for further plunder and environmental degradation.

In this way, individual sacrifice and national sacrifice zones are two sides of the same coin. Sacrifice is a rhetoric that seeks consent for dispossession. You are neither exploited nor dispossessed, it says; you are part of a greater sacrificial project that must be embraced to be successful. Your suffering is necessary and will ultimately do you well. While land, resources, and peoples must be sacrificed—that is, gifted—to international capital, the ethos of speculative competition is imposed on individuals as a general law, transforming subjectivities and exhausting social reproduction.

Milei’s gift to Musk was indicative not only of a policy package. It also reflected a strategy for maintaining legitimacy. The photo op with Musk came at an opportune time, days after Milei promoted the $Libra memecoin on X. Inspired by the $Trump meme coin, Libra rocketed in value and then, a few hours later, crashed and created a national scandal. More than 40,000 people were affected, with a loss of more than $4 billion, and Argentina’s main stock index fell 5.6 percent. Milei Estafador, people started calling him: Milei the Scammer.

But anytime his legitimacy takes a hit at home, Milei courts favor abroad—often with great success. Having previously labeled him a far-right extremist and danger to democracy, liberal bastions like The Economist and the Financial Times now prescribe Milei’s policies as a cure for other crisis-ridden countries—even for European economic stagnation. So too have heads of state, from Emmanuel Macron to Olaf Scholz, integrated Milei into whatever remains of the Western establishment. The far-right fringe is thus normalized, altering common sense about what is out of bounds in democratic politics and reinvigorating far-right leaders back home.

Social media shitposting, spectacular deportations: how long these wages of cruelty will substitute for real wages remains to be seen.

Mutual admiration expressed over social media serves similar purposes. Milei, Musk, and Bukele have cultivated an authoritarian love triangle—a “Pan-American Trumpism,” as historian Greg Grandin has called it. After meeting on X, Milei and Musk took first their friendship offline in a number of meetings that look more like trade negotiations between heads of state. Their plans include extensive lithium extraction for Tesla’s EV batteries as well as increasing the usage of Starlink satellites for internet access in Argentina. Milei has visited the other U.S. titans to entice them to partner with Argentina, breaking records for state spending on personal travel, despite all his talk of austerity. His focus is partnering with the finance, technology, and mining sectors. Milei’s tours of Silicon Valley have included conversations—always documented in selfies, two thumbs up—with Sundar Pichai of Google, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Tim Cook of Apple, and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, in addition to the meetings with Musk.

On the way back from a visit to Silicon Valley last year, Milei made a pit stop in El Salvador for Bukele’s second presidential inauguration, which required the Supreme Court to reinterpret the constitutional ban on consecutive terms. (Trump recently said he was “not joking” about considering a third term.) The self-proclaimed “world’s coolest dictator,” Bukele also hosted Donald Trump Jr., the Spanish King, and Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa. Like Bukele and Milei, Noboa uses social media spectacles of violence in the service of authoritarianism, and he is now striking a deal with Blackwater founder Erik Prince to pursue a war on crime through American-style militarization. Ahead of the April 13 presidential runoff in Ecuador, Noboa visited Trump in Florida to discuss a bilateral trade deal, with the hope of shoring up his electoral chances. The Trump-Milei-Bukele triangle apparently aspires to become a square.

When it comes to authoritarian media strategy, Trump’s team has also been innovating. After striking the deportation deal with Bukele, the official White House account on X posted a self-described ASMR video showing shackled men being prepared to board a deportation flight—cruelty repackaged as relaxation aid. Soon thereafter Bukele circulated a cinematic video, filmed by drones with dramatic background music, showing Venezuelan men, alleged to be gang members, being taken from the plane to Bukele’s prison complex. (The families and lawyers of several of these men vigorously contest the allegation.) The White House posted a corresponding video of a shackled Venezuelan man set to “Closing Time,” before later deleting it. To justify sending prisoners to El Salvador, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798; federal courts enjoined the deportation flights, but ICE proceeded anyway. Bukele posted “Oopsie… Too late,” prompting a retweet from Rubio. Days later Bukele claimed that “the U.S. is facing a judicial coup,” to which Musk added “1000%.” In these exchanges we glimpse the new authoritarianism in its purest form: culture war as shitposting spectacle, constitutional crisis as viral entertainment.

This is the flip side of the systemic attack on the courts, the suppression of protest, and detentions of citizens and non-citizens alike. In 2021 Bukele’s party fired five Supreme Court justices and replaced them with loyalists; this February, Milei pushed through two Supreme Court judges by decree while Congress was on summer recess. And after Trump called for the impeachment of dissident judges, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson floated the idea of completely eliminating disobedient district courts. All the while, Bukele and Noboa accelerate law-and-order authoritarianism through mass incarceration, Milei uses police repression against waves of mass protest, and Trump sics ICE on migrants and international students.

From the United States to Argentina, El Salvador to Ecuador, the wager of the resurgent right is that these spectacles of revenge—trolling the zurdos, owning the libs—can mask or even compensate for material dispossession. When citizens start balking at the sacrifices demanded of them, these governments simultaneously deflect, deepen their cuts, and demand anticipatory obedience. How long the wages of cruelty can substitute for real wages remains to be seen. But so long as they do, popular resistance will be necessary to contest the chainsaw’s right to rule.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/04/ ... rnational/

[blindpig]

US Stock Market Crash
April 5, 9:36



After the introduction of new tariffs on goods from most countries of the world, more than $7 trillion has burned in the US stock market in just over 2 days.
The stock market decline was the 4th in the entire history of observations.
Banks predict the beginning of a recession in the US already this year.
At the same time, the Trump administration says that all these are temporary fluctuations and when they bend everyone, this will bring hundreds of billions of dollars a year to the budget.
But judging by China's response, the consequences will be much more serious than Washington expects.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9764792.html

Google Translator

******

The TTT--Trump's Tariff Travesty
Karl Sanchez
Apr 03, 2025



There were many to choose from, but none from the global perspective.

Trillions of dollars in market capital was erased today globally thanks to the TTT, although it’s difficult at the moment to calculate just how many trillions. IMO, the losses will need to be tabulated globally for the first ten days in April to arrive at the severity of the hit. There’s been lots of anticipation of this day, actually yesterday when the act was signed just after the markets closed in New York at 4pm Eastern. And in the run-up, there’s been lots of talk about tariffs. Today, there were two excellent programs that talked about TTT’s severity—the chat between Judge Napolitano and Jeffry Sachs and the three-way discussion between Nima, and Drs. Hudson and Wolff. The difference is Sachs and the Judge examined the legal side of the issue while the trio looked at the wider outcomes and the philosophy driving Trump’s behavior. Combine them, and you’ll be very well informed.



This cartoon from Global Times is closer to being correct as there will be a combined global effort to boycott and divest that ought to have been an ongoing project since the Outlaw US Empire abets the Zionist Genocide. Indeed, the Zionists dropped all their tariffs aimed at their benefactor only to discover they were on the list. Australia has a trade deficit with the Empire, meaning in Trump’s lingo Aussies weren’t “ripping off” Americans, but Australia was also on the Tariff list. Those are just two of many examples of the 100% irrationality of TTT. And even if the US judicial system finally rules the TTT is unconstitutional, the damage to many is already done. If Biden ruined the financial reputation of the Outlaw US Empire by weaponizing the dollar and the financial system, Trump is now finishing the job by destroying the Empire as a reputable trading partner and supporter of business. That last point is one major point made during the trio’s chat. And what the Judge asked Sachs is also crucial for the remainder of Trump’s term—“Didn’t anyone on Team Trump try to dissuade him from his irrational pipe dream?” Sachs’s answer doesn’t lend any confidence.

One last unrelated note, International Affairs magazine did air its full interview with Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov but only in video format without a printed transcript; so, that’s why there’s no report on what fully transpired. Miffed, yes, but I used the time wisely.

https://karlof1.substack.com/p/the-ttt- ... f-travesty

******

The History Making Machine
Nate Bear
Apr 04, 2025



I’ve always wondered if people living through history knew they were living through history.

When I say history, I mean periods of time studied as central to the formation of the world future generations came to exist in.

I mean periods of global time that were contingent on events happening in a certain order in certain places.

Because everything, technically, is history. What the really important stuff is, the contingent stuff, is much harder to pin down.

In the last few years it’s been tempting to think we are living through history: Brexit, Trump 1.0, the pandemic.

But I’ve often thought this was just our egos talking, our subconscious desire to be Important People dictating how we understand the world around us. Our desire to be the ones - the special ones - truly living through history.

The reality is there have always been wars, always been madmen, always been disease, always been political crises, always been economic crises.

Picking out the important wars, madmen, disease and crises, locating history in the swirling of events, is much harder to do.

But after three months of Trump 2.0 I’m calling it: this is history.

These wars, madmen, diseases and crises are for the history books.

If there’s anyone left to study the past, in the future, they will study these times, these events.

And, critically, they will study them in their contingent order.

Trump 1.0 wasn’t history, not really. He was a first in a certain presentational sense, but that didn’t make him a man of history. For the most part he governed as a standard Republican. Rhetorically cruder, but not a great departure from what had come before.

Making him a man of history at that point was lazy.

Trump redux is a different beast.

Trump 2.0 is set to be a central, history book figure.

His will be an era-defining period of governance that will shape the world for decades.

Before we look at why, let’s look at how we got here. What created Trump 2.0? Four main things: Trump 1.0, Covid, Biden, Gaza.

Which is to say, the four-year gap between his first and second victories is absolutely critical.

We wouldn’t have got this Trump if he’d have won in 2020.

Why didn’t he win in 2020? Covid.

One of the things we’ve forgotten in our desperate rush to memory-hole the pandemic is that covid is the reason Biden won. All the polls said so. Trump was viewed as bungling the initial response. It seems unthinkable now, but Trump’s unwillingness to take covid seriously was seen as the main obstacle to a return to the normality most people craved. Biden was the safe pair of hands that could rid America of the coronavirus and get it back to business.

But, in the emergency covid period Biden presided over, attitudes hardened. People—at the elite and regular citizenry level—were radicalised. Elon Musk went from tweeting about rockets and hyping Tesla’s LGBTQ initiatives in 2019 to a self-declared obsession with defeating ‘the woke mind virus’ by 2022. So to this end he bought Twitter and pumped $100 million into getting Trump elected.

Among the citizenry the pandemic created new cultural dividing lines: lockdowns, masks and vaccine mandates. The measures introduced to combat the virus came to symbolise an anti-freedom to which the freedom-loving Donald Trump was the antidote. This was a bizarre turnaround: just a few years earlier Trump had been rejected because his own response to covid was seen as the obstacle to normal and the freedom it implied.

In both moments then, as counterintuitive as it appears, in the election of both Biden and Trump 2.0 we can see the craving for a normal that had somehow slipped out of reach.

In them both we can see the emergence of a coming apart.

Trump also had time, granted to him by defeat, to consider Trump 1.0. His main reflection was that he’d been held back and if he had his time again, he’d go all-out.

Trump’s first administration, despite his drain-the-swamp rhetoric, was staffed largely by Washington normies and insiders. They contained his mercenary instincts and kept him on a standard issue Republican trajectory. In the Biden years Trump spoke often about learning from this and how he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. This time, America really would be great again. Again. Surrounded by absolute fealty and craven loyalists, Fox News hosts and wrestling magnates, his instincts are encouraged, not reined in.

The Biden years also gave us the Gaza genocide.

The refusal of Kamala Harris to break with Biden and his support for Israel’s genocide meant that millions couldn’t, in good conscience, vote for her. According to some polling, 30% of those who voted for Biden in 2019 didn’t vote for Harris in 2023 because of Gaza. Overall, 15 million fewer people voted for Harris than had voted for Biden. Suppressed turnout was key to Trump’s victory.

The Biden years also gave us Ukraine.

When Trump says the Ukraine war probably wouldn’t have happened if he’d been elected in 2020, because of his relationship with Putin, I believe him. And now, due to Trump’s desire to end a war that likely wouldn’t need ending in a different historical timeline, Europe is splitting from the US.

And now, sweeping tariffs. A global trade war.

This is where we have to start seriously considering the idea of history in the making.

Because, coming so soon after his shift on Ukraine, Trump’s tariffs are giving some European leaders serious reason to reconsider their reliance on, and alliance with, the US. The soft weakening of a military alliance is one thing. The hard breaking of an economic alliance is another thing altogether.

Tariffs are forcing European countries to really consider the shape of the west for the first time in a long time.

It was just announced that a delegation of European leaders including Emanuel Macron and Pedro Sanchez, Spain’s socialist party leader (who incidentally is presiding over the strongest economy in Europe right now), will soon meet with China’s Xi to discuss deepening economic cooperation.

In this we can start to see the contingencies of history.

Trump is blowing up the global neoliberal trade system that has stood unchallenged for the best part of fifty years because of China. In going global with country tariffs, the US is attempting to reassert global economic hegemony. When I wrote about the tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China a couple of months ago, I tried to understand them logically. Now, with them having gone global with the approach, I get it more clearly. They are a blunt message to the entire world: you can’t survive without us. Get in line. Do as we say. Give us cheaper access to your markets. Let us get even richer off you.

The US is betting countries can’t, or won’t, do business without them. Trump’s betting they’ll get in line.

Some might. Many won’t.

And the ones that won’t get in line won’t do so because of China.

China gives the world options that didn’t exist before. China is no longer just a place where things get made. It’s also a place where you can sell things to the biggest and fastest growing consumer economy in the world.

It’s an alternative pole.

From this point of view, America’s trade war against China is twenty years too late.

China, where, via a lab leak or a cave, a pandemic virus emerged that helped significantly to lay the ground for Trump 2.0.

Contingencies.

Of course America’s economy can’t be fully replaced by anyone. It is still the biggest economy, still the richest country. The dollar is still dominant.

And it is these tensions that will force history on us.

Empires don’t just lie down.

When America doesn’t get what it wants, when countries don’t fall into line, when it doesn’t reassert dominance, Trump isn’t going to give up.

And a world in economic crisis, which is what these tariffs will deliver, will give America, as the primary antagonist, nothing to lose.

They will lash out and chase their losses.

For this reason a US invasion and annexation of Greenland within the next couple of years is likely.

Israel, after cleansing Gaza and annexing the West Bank, will take advantage of global chaos and attack Iran with full US support and weaponry.

War, in some capacity, limited or full blown, between the US and China, shouldn’t surprise anyone.

The Gaza genocide has already put the concept of international law on life support. We stand primed for its full disintegration.

Conflict with China wouldn’t just be on Trump. Every US administration for the last thirty years has been war gaming it. Money has flowed easily to Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and the military-industrial complex by invoking the threat from a country that, unlike the US, has no track record of military invasions.

In the meantime the US will ramp up the disappearance and deportation of non-citizens who dare to criticise genocide.

With war plans in motion, they’ll then move on to American citizens and broader critics of empire.

Germany is already following America’s lead and deporting those who oppose genocide.

Others in Europe will follow.

With the loss of the US as an anchoring presence, European bifurcation will speed up. Some countries will cling to the US, others will reorientate to China.

This bifurcation will come in the context of massive rearmament on a continent that historically has seeded the world’s major wars.

All of this as our planet burns and floods.

When we read about crises in history aren’t we always left with that nagging question: how did they let it get to that?

Couldn’t they see what was going to happen?

Why didn’t someone do something?

Like we study them, they will study us.

They will ask how.

But the future should know we are already tortured by the same question.

How did we let it get to this?

https://www.donotpanic.news/p/the-histo ... ng-machine

******

Global Over-Stretch: Red Sea, Black Sea, Panama, South and East China Seas
By Dee Knight - April 4, 2025 1


[Source: youtube.com]

“Stupid, asinine, insane” was Scott Ritter’s description of President Donald J. Trump’s decision to launch massive bombing attacks on Yemen on March 15. The Ansar Allah movement (also known as the Houthis) resumed its blockade of Israel-bound ships in the Red Sea after Israel re-launched its war and siege of Gaza.

Trump chose not to tell Israel to stop in the interests of peace, attacking Yemen instead. By international law, all nations are expected to cut ties with the Israeli occupation and act to prevent genocide. So international law favors Yemen, not the U.S.

The U.S. attacks have killed more than 100 Yemeni people, including women and children. The cost in U.S. lives would be higher if the Yemenis were to sink any U.S. warships.

On March 19 Ansar Allah began a new attack on U.S. warships—their fourth attack on the carrier fleet in 72 hours.

They launched “a number of cruise missiles and drones, targeting the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and a number of enemy warships,” Ansar Allah said, according to an AFP report.

Meanwhile, a People’s Dispatch report said ِthe Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, shot a barrage of rockets at Tel Aviv on March 20, and the coastal city of Ashkelon on March 21. The rockets and missiles launched from Yemen and Gaza reportedly disrupted flights at Ben Gurion Airport. Ansar Allah announced on March 22 it targeted Ben Gurion Airport for the second time within 48 hours, as well as a number of warships affiliated with the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman.

Ansar Allah warned all airlines that “Ben Gurion Airport has become unsafe for air traffic and will remain so until the aggression against Gaza stops and the blockade is lifted.”

Both Ansar Allah and Hamas said their attacks on the cities occupied by Israel were carried out in retaliation for Israel’s renewed genocidal aggression on Gaza that has left more than 700 people dead and more than 1,000 injured since March 18.

Hamas said Thursday it is still committed to the Gaza cease-fire agreement. “Talks are under way with mediators to stop the aggression against our people and pressure the [Israeli] occupation to adhere to the cease-fire agreement,” Hamas spokesperson Abdul Latif al-Qanou said in a statement. “We are working with mediators to permanently spare our people war and to ensure the occupation’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip,” he added.

Trump used his social media platform Truth Social to condemn the Houthis’ “unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence and terrorism.” A Houthi spokesperson said “The Red Sea is not part of the United States, and Yemen has the right to defend itself,” Newsweek reported on March 21.

Trump said the Houthi attacks have disrupted shipping through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, key waterways for energy and cargo shipments between Asia and Europe through Egypt’s Suez Canal, AP reported on March 17. It said that, from November 2023 until January 2025, the Houthis had attacked more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels and killing four sailors.

The attacks on the Houthis are “a not-so-subtle signal to Iran,” the AP report said. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard chief, General Hossein Salami, said: “We have always declared—and we declare again today—that the Yemenis are an independent and free nation in their own land, with an independent national policy.”

Both Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have warned Iran of an “unrelenting response” over what they claim is its support of Ansar Allah. Professor Mohammad Marandi of Tehran University said that, if the U.S. were to carry out attacks against Iran, that could destabilize the world economy, as Iran could shut down the Persian Gulf and severely cripple the U.S.-allied oil-producing states there.


[Source: researchgate.net]

“Navigating Troubled Waters: Impact to Global Trade of Disruption of Shipping Routes in the Red Sea, Black Sea and Panama Canal” was the title of an “UNCTAD Rapid Assessment” in February 2024. “For the first time, the world faces simultaneous disruptions in two major global maritime trade waterways, with far-reaching implications for inflation and food and energy security,” the report began.

“Since November 2023, escalating attacks on ships in the Red Sea have been compounding disruptions in the Black Sea caused by the war in Ukraine and in the Panama Canal due to climate-induced droughts.”

Trump Wants the Panama Canal
After Trump declared “the Panama Canal is ours, and I’m gonna take it back,” he got what he wanted when the BlackRock private equity group agreed to buy ports at both ends of the canal for $19 billion from CK Hutchison, a conglomerate owned by Hong Kong magnate Li Ka-shing. But The New York Times reported on March 22 that “China’s leaders are now threatening to stop Mr. Li and the company he controls, CK Hutchison, from seeing the deal through, accusing the conglomerate of betraying Beijing.”

A major Hong Kong newspaper, Ta Kung Pao, published a commentary on March 21, calling to “halt the transaction,” adding that “it is common sense that any action that is seriously harmful to the country and society will be regulated and punished by law,” according to a Global Times report. Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Chief Executive John Lee said that any transaction must comply with legal and regulatory requirements, and the HKSAR government will handle the matter in accordance with the law and regulations, the report concluded.

It was Trump’s favorite former president, William McKinley (1897-1901), who first pushed for the Panama Canal. But McKinley was shot in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901 (he died eight days later), by a young Polish-American and self-proclaimed anarchist, who believed that McKinley was a symbol of oppression and the “enemy of the good people, the working people.”

The canal became the pet project of McKinley’s successor, President Theodore Roosevelt (TR). He first had to buy the rights and property for the canal from France, and then craft a treaty to lease it from Colombia, since Panama did not exist as a separate country at that time.

The treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate on March 14, 1903, “but the Senate of Colombia unanimously rejected the treaty since it had become significantly unpopular in Bogotá due to concerns over insufficient compensation, threat to sovereignty, and perpetuity,” according to Wikipedia.

So TR actively supported a separation of Panama from Colombia and, on November 2, 1903, U.S. warships blocked sea lanes against possible Colombian troop movements coming to put down a Panama rebellion. Panama declared its independence from Colombia on November 3, 1903.

The United States quickly recognized the new nation. This happened so quickly that, by the time the Colombian government in Bogotá launched a response to the Panamanian uprising, U.S. troops had already entered the rebelling province.

So, through TR’s decisive action, the United States acquired both the right to build the canal and a “loyal ally” in Panama.


[Source: en.wikipedia.org]

President Roosevelt famously stated, “I took the Isthmus, started the canal and then left Congress not to debate the canal, but to debate me.” Several parties in the United States called this an act of war on Colombia: The New York Times called it an “act of sordid conquest”; The New York Evening Post dubbed it a “vulgar and mercenary venture.”

The U.S. maneuvers are often cited as the classic example of U.S. gunboat diplomacy in Latin America. It became a hallmark of TR’s motto—“speak softly but carry a big stick.” After the revolution in 1903, the Republic of Panama became a U.S. protectorate until 1939.

In 1921, Colombia and the United States signed a treaty, in which the United States agreed to pay Colombia $25 million—$5 million upon ratification, and four $5 million annual payments—and grant Colombia special privileges in the Canal Zone. In return, Colombia recognized Panama as an independent nation, according to the Wikipedia report.

In February 1904 the U.S. established an “Isthmian Canal Commission,” which made a deal with Panama to get control of the Panama Canal Zone, over which the U.S. exercised sovereignty. But after World War II, U.S. control of the Zone became contentious, and relations between Panama and the U.S. became tense. “Demands for the United States to hand over the canal to Panama increased after the Suez Crisis in 1956, when the United States used financial and diplomatic pressure to force France and the UK to abandon their attempt to retake control of the Suez Canal, previously nationalized by the Nasser regime in Egypt. Panamanian unrest culminated in riots on Martyrs’ Day, January 9, 1964, when about 20 Panamanians and 3 to 5 U.S. soldiers were killed.” (From the Wikipedia report)

Ten years later the Panamanian nationalist leader Omar Torrijos launched negotiations for a treaty for Panama to take control of the canal. Jimmy Carter signed the deal with Torrijos in September 1977, his first year as president. The Wikipedia report says “The treaty led to full Panamanian control effective at noon on December 31, 1999, and the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) assumed command of the waterway. The Panama Canal remains one of the chief revenue sources for Panama.”

Ronald Reagan, in his campaigns in 1976 and 1980, insisted that “the United States had built, bought and paid for the Panama Canal and should keep it.” He cited the Monroe Doctrine that “the United States is the protector of the Americas.” Trump is harking back to Reagan’s themes.

On December 21, 2024, Trump claimed the rates Panama was charging American ships were “exorbitant,” and in violation of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties. He then added that the canal was “falling into the wrong hands,” referring to China. Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino responded, denying that the United States was being unfairly charged or that anyone besides Panama was in full control of the canal, and affirming that the canal was part of the country’s “inalienable patrimony.”

Three days later Panama City’s streets filled with protesters calling Trump a “public enemy” of Panama. The same day, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), made up of ten Central and South American countries, denounced Trump’s comments and affirmed its support for Panama’s “sovereignty, territorial integrity and self-determination.”

Trump, however, has not given up. In early February, according to Wikipedia, the U.S. Department of State posted on Twitter/X that the Panama Canal would no longer be charging U.S. government vessels to cross. President Mulino called this an “intolerable falsehood,” and Secretary of State Marco Rubio (who had departed Panama a few days earlier) had to correct the announcement, saying he “expects” Panama to begin doing so in return for the Torrijos-Carter Treaties’ guarantee of U.S. military protection in the event of an attack on the canal.

According to The New York Times, the Hong Kong-based Li family felt “under political pressure to exit the ports business.” Discussions with BlackRock about the Panama Canal had begun only a few weeks prior, coinciding with the beginning of the Trump administration.

Now the question is whether the Chinese government will press the Hong Kong company to back out of the deal. And what will happen next?

Defense Secretary Hegseth Heads East
U.S. Defense Secretary Hegseth headed to Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines and Japan the last week of March. It was Hegseth’s first official visit to the Indo-Pacific region. The Global Times observed that it is unusual: Such trips typically include South Korea, but Hegseth omitted South Korea and included the Philippines instead. The Global Times commented that “this arrangement demonstrates the U.S. intention to target China and is likely to encourage the Philippines to take further provocative actions against China.”

In early March 2025, Hegseth told Fox News that the United States is “prepared” to go to war with China. He did not comment about possibilities that the U.S. could lose in a fight against China. All recent Pentagon war games have concluded the U.S. cannot win such a conflict.


[Source: youtube.com]

The Global Times cited Chinese military expert Zhang Junshe that Hegseth’s decision to forgo a visit to South Korea was linked to that country’s unstable domestic political situation, but “this does not imply a diminished role for South Korea in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy, as it remains a crucial military ally for the U.S.”

Hundreds of thousands of people in South Korea have mobilized against U.S.-backed President Yoon Suk Yeol, who has been arrested and is facing impeachment for staging a fake war exercise aimed at suppressing his opponents and starting a war. The U.S. maintains operational control of the Korean military, which has 600,000 active-duty troops and double that number in reserve. The U.S. also maintains a trilateral security treaty, JAKUS, with Japan and South Korea, preparing for war against both North Korea and China.

The Global Times suggested that Hegseth’s choice of the Philippines and Japan for his first visit to the region highlights the U.S. strategic intent toward China. “Washington’s alliances with Manila and Tokyo serve as key tools for its involvement in maritime issues surrounding China, advancing its strategy of using maritime leverage against China.” By relying on these alliances, the U.S. aims to continuously contain and pressure China on issues related to the East China Sea and South China Sea.

The Global Times suggested that Hegseth would make strong diplomatic gestures during this visit to encourage both the Philippines and Japan against China.

The U.S. Commission on the National Defense Strategy issued a report last fall that said “The United States confronts the most serious and the most challenging threats since the end of World War II.

“The United States could in short order be drawn into a war across multiple theaters with peer and near-peer adversaries, and it could lose.”

Under the leadership of President Trump and his team, that seems to be a solid prediction.

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2025/0 ... hina-seas/

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Trump’s Non-Cooperative Game
Posted on April 5, 2025 by Yves Smith

Yves here. I wish this post had provided a more in-depth discussion of what game theory says about the strategy, if you can call it that, employed by Trump. Perhaps the results really are too bushy to say much. But analyses like this also presuppose that Trump is driving towards some sort of desired end state. I highly doubt that is the case, despite his love of the 1890s. For Trump, this is all about process, about repeated demonstrations of his dominance and power, such as having very big type lead stories all over the world virtually every day with his name in them, even if outcomes are bad. Chas Freeman, Larry Wilkerson, and Professor Marandi, in their latest talk with Nima, discussed how Trump’s one-note “art of the deal” negotiating strategy is just about the worst way to try to come with an agreement with Russians or Iranians.

By Sylvester Eijffinger, Emeritus Professor, Tilburg University. Originally published at VoxEU


With President Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs on 2 April, he appears to be waging an economic war against the rest of the world. This column turns to non-cooperative game theory to attempt to understand what Trump thinks the US will gain from this war. Although including Europe’s military security vulnerabilities may give Trump the upper hand in his ‘game’, it is likely that in the end there will only be losers.

President Trump is once again waging a ruthless economic battle against the rest of the world. While during his first term it remained a threat, in his second term he appears serious about initiating a global trade war. Trump is not only attacking old enemies such as China; friendly Europe will also have to pay a price in this fight (Evenett and Fritz 2025). What does he think the US will gain from this? In this column, I will try to sketch a Trumpian world view, which I will then apply to the prosaic reality of economic science.

If we try to explain the current situation on the basis of a non-cooperative game theoretical model, a lot becomes clear. The answer to the question of the purpose of the trade war can be found in this mathematical model, which was developed during the Cold War between the US and the USSR. In initiating a trade war with the US’s geopolitical allies Canada, Mexico, and now the EU, Trump is forcing a non-cooperative game on his trading partners without any negotiation or restraint. This represents a similarity between Trump’s first and second terms in office.

In the first game, however, power relations were still equal. It was a so-called Nash game, named after the mathematician and Nobel Laureate John Nash. In Nash’s model, all opponents have equal power and therefore all participants act independently of each other, without agreements with each other and also without coalitions.

This time around, a much more complex game is being played. In Trump’s first trade war, there was no clear winner and all parties eventually compromised, with some collateral economic damage into the bargain. Now the deck has been fundamentally reshuffled. This time is different and there is no question of equality. Trump has raised the stakes by also including European military security in the non-cooperative game. America is still the dominant player in the military field (Yared 2024) and in particular when it comes to military intelligence. This gives Trump the upper hand in the game. The US leads and Europe can only follow. In game theory, this is called a ‘Stackelberg game’.

Because it has become not only a trade war but also a security crisis, the predicted outcome of the game becomes a lot more complex. Who could imagine that President Macron of France would make nuclear weapons available for European defence and that, under new Chancellor Merz, Germany would let go of the so-called Schuldenbremse?

Trump appears to be carrying out Project 2025 – the plan of an ultra-conservative think tank in which he rules by decree to sideline the US Congress (e.g. Anil 2025). And he doesn’t care about constitutional boundaries, which is leading to clashes with many courts and even with Chief Justice John Roberts of the United States Supreme Court.

But where does this game end, and what will be the consequences for the US and for Europe? In America, the pendulum of power usually swings further from ‘left’ to ‘right’ than in Europe. And Trumpism is a reaction to the ‘wokeism’ that dominated under the Presidents Obama and Biden.

Trump is in a hurry because, in the midterm elections a year and a half away, the Republicans could lose massively, and then there would be a new balance with his Democratic opponents in Congress. That is how it has always been so far. So, Trump wants to achieve his ultimate goal – to take back dominance in a military, political, and economic sense – quickly. He is making no secret about that. America is trying to put pressure on the rest of the world. But because Trump is charging on all fronts at the same time, there are no more separate files. And that makes the outcome of this game incredibly complex.

In the end, Trump is not going to win, but he will have damaged relations with America’s allies. This non-cooperative game that is Trump enforcing on his trading partners will only have losers, and this time there will be another compromise with Canada, Mexico, Britain, and the EU.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/04 ... -game.html

Trump’s Tariffs Are Extremely Dumb, Just Not For The Reasons You Might Think
Posted on April 5, 2025 by Yves Smith

Yves here. Brian Berletic makes a point of saying, and documenting, how in the foreign policy arena, Trump represents continuity of agenda rather than the sort of break his backers claim he represents. This post makes a similar argument about the Trump tariffs and trade program.

By Iza Camarillo, the Research Director for Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. Before joining Public Citizen, she worked as an international arbitration and trade attorney, specializing in investment arbitration, global supply chain compliance, and WTO disputes on unfair trade practices. Originally published at Common Dreams

On April 2, Donald Trump declared a national emergency and announced sweeping tariffs on nearly all imported goods. The headlines were dramatic — tariffs on China, allies like Canada and Mexico, and everything from cars to coffee beans. His administration framed the move as a patriotic stance for “reciprocal trade” and economic sovereignty.

Don’t be fooled. This isn’t the collapse of “free trade.” It’s the continuation of corporate globalization — just with a MAGA bumper sticker slapped on it.

Trump says he’s standing up for American workers. But he’s the same president who signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and called it “the fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law.” The rebranded North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) deal — despite some improvements forced in by congressional Democrats and civil society organizations — contained much of the same structural rot that has enabled outsourcing, empowered monopolies, and tied the hands of governments trying to protect their people and environment.

For decades, “free trade” deals like NAFTA locked in rules written by and for multinational corporations: rules that made offshoring easier, gutted environmental protections, and prioritized investor rights over worker rights. Stagnant wages, emptied factory towns, and rising income inequality have caused widespread pain and frustration among working Americans — which Trump has weaponized again and again.

Tariffs can be part of the answer to these problems, but Trump’s ham-handed approach ain’t it. There’s no industrial strategy. No labor plan. No climate protections. Just a unilateral, top-down stunt that does nothing to dismantle the corporate architecture still rigging the global economy.

Pair this “concept of a plan” with the rest of his agenda: gutting investment in vital sectors such as biomedical research, support for basic science and clean and affordable energy technologies and products; slashing all efforts to combat child labor and other egregious labor rights violations around the world, providing tax cuts for billionaires and corporations; stripping away health care, food support and other vital services for the most vulnerable Americans, undermining Social Security, and decertifying and undermining the power of labor unions.

It’s clear working people will not be the winners here.

Who Wrote the Rules? U.S. Corporations, Not Foreign Adversaries

Trump loves to blame other countries, claiming global trade has “looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered” the U.S. economy in his “Liberation Day” speech. He claims that the U.S. has been victimized by other countries and has been “too nice” in response.

Nothing could be further from the truth — the rules of the neoliberal trade system were rigged in favor of large corporate interests in the Global North. While workers in the U.S. and around the world were the losers, Wall Street, Big Tech, Big Ag, Big Pharma, and other U.S. corporate giants have always been the winners.

For decades, U.S. corporate lobbyists have used their privileged access to closed-door trade negotiations to rig the rules to maximize their profits, not to serve working people, small businesses, or the environment.

They pushed for extreme intellectual property rules to entrench Big Pharma monopolies that keep the price of medicines sky high, with deadly consequences. They demanded open capital markets and deregulated financial flows for Wall Street while securing rules that let agribusiness giants flood foreign markets with subsidized U.S. commodities, displacing millions of farmers and leading to forced migration.

At the same time, they ensured that governments couldn’t support domestic industries, raise labor standards, or enforce environmental protections without being accused of “trade distortion.” The result was a race to the bottom for workers and communities — here and abroad — with record profits for corporate giants.

It matters a lot that Trump is identifying the wrong perpetrators of the failed global trade system because that sets the table for wrong solutions.

Once we identify multinational corporations as the architects of the current system, we’re directed toward the right solutions – not blanket, high tariffs based on mindless formulas, but a new trade policy and new trade rules that prioritize the interests of workers, consumers, and the environment.

NAFTA to USMCA: Same Corporate Model With Some Improvements (No Thanks to Trump)

Trump spent years railing against NAFTA as the “worst trade deal anybody in history has ever entered into,” tapping into the legitimate grievances of workers and communities harmed by its race to the bottom. He campaigned on a promise to eliminate it and replace it with a better agreement for workers.

However, once elected, he opted to renegotiate and rebrand the deal in the form of the USMCA, which he then insisted was “the best trade deal in history.” Now, in a dizzying reversal, he’s claiming the USMCA has been a disaster that only an aggressive wave of “retaliatory” tariffs on Canada and Mexico will fix.

In reality, while some improvements were forced into the negotiation, the USMCA largely preserved the core logic that made NAFTA so harmful in the first place. It expands corporate rights, limits democratic oversight, and undermines public protections in the name of increased trade.

The new labor provisions — often cited as proof of a “new era” in trade — were not original features of Trump’s deal. They were won through months of intense organizing and negotiation by House Democrats, labor unions, and civil society groups.

Congressional Democrats working in close alliance with the AFL-CIO drew a hard line. Backed by the relentless organizing of groups like Public Citizen, the Communications Workers of America, United Steelworkers, and a transnational coalition of Mexican and Canadian labor and civil society partners, they made it clear: they would block passage of any deal unless meaningful labor enforcement were included and damaging Big Pharma giveaways were removed.

Trump’s administration favored language that preserved corporate prerogatives and offered only symbolic nods to labor rights. Still, in the end, it acquiesced to congressional Democrats’ demands. It incorporated essential tools like the facility-specific Rapid Response Mechanism for labor enforcement and eliminated some of the most egregious giveaways to Big Pharma.

However, the structural rot from NAFTA remained.

While experts across the ideological spectrum lauded the drastic reduction of controversial investor privileges that allow corporations to sue governments over public interest laws through investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), Trump preserved ISDS for fossil fuel firms operating in Mexico — a carve-out aggressively pushed by Big Oil.

Agribusiness also retained its arsenal. The ongoing U.S. trade challenge to Mexico’s restrictions on genetically modified corn — measures rooted in precautionary health standards and cultural preservation — reveal the deal’s true intent. Rather than respecting national policy space over food safety, trade rules are once again being deployed to dismantle domestic protections at the behest of corporations.

Not only did Trump fail to fix NAFTA, but he made it even worse in at least one crucial way: Big Tech secured its wishlist in the form of a digital trade chapter. These new terms undermine the ability of U.S. states, Congress, and other countries’ governments to hold Big Tech accountable for gender and racial bias in AI, rampant abuse of our privacy, and monopolistic overreach.

Performative “Protectionism” and the Authoritarian Trade Playbook

Far from dismantling the corporate trade regime, Trump’s first term revealed him as a loyal steward of it — so long as he could plaster his name on it. Despite the USMCA rebrand, he left the core NAFTA structure intact and continued to stoke public anger over working people’s struggles — not by confronting the root causes but by scapegoating other nations. And he has been increasingly employing tariff threats as his weapon of choice — not in pursuit of justice but as a blunt instrument of control.

Just weeks ago, Trump threatened new tariffs unless Mexico deployed troops to militarize the border. He pressured Colombia to accept a deportation flight of asylum seekers.

Big Tech companies are awaiting their handouts, as it is widely expected that Trump will lift tariffs on countries that agree to undo tech accountability policies.

And perversely, he is using tariffs as a cudgel to pressure other countries into signing the very liberalizing trade agreements he claims to oppose.

“Liberation Day” was more of the same from this ever-more-authoritarian White House: an emergency decree bypassing Congress, escalating instability, and concentrating power in the executive. Trump hasn’t rejected the anti-democratic nature of the neoliberal trade model — he’s replicating it with a vengeance.

All Madness, No Method

While tariffs can be a useful tool, they must be transparently employed in strategic sectors for a clear purpose following careful analysis and open debate.

Trump’s tariffs, however, are based on misleading data and flawed logic. He uses exaggerated trade deficit calculations and stays silent on how the U.S. dollar’s dominance enables America to import far more than it exports, a luxury most Global South nations — burdened with debt and structural trade deficits — cannot afford.

The methodology behind these tariffs has experts scratching their heads.

Trump claimed that the “reciprocal tariffs” were derived from a detailed assessment of each country’s tariff and non-tariff barriers (more on these in a moment). In fact, the number assigned to each country seems to be based on the difference between the total value of imports the U.S. receives from a country versus the amount we export to it.

Apparently, no regard was given to why there may be a large imbalance. For example, Lesotho, which Trump dismissed as a country “nobody has ever heard of,” was hit with the highest tariff of any country at 50%. Forget the fact that the small, landlocked country’s population of 2 million may not be able to afford Made in America products, leading to a lopsided trade balance.

The crude formula used to determine each country’s “reciprocal” tariff was described by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman as something that appeared to be “thrown together by a junior staffer with only a couple of hours’ notice,” and “reads like something written by a student who hasn’t done the reading and is trying to bullshit their way through an exam.”

As some commentators have noted, this tariff breakdown is what you get if you ask ChatGPT to come up with a U.S. trade policy. This could very well be the first global economic policy written “of, by, and for” our robot overlords. What could possibly go wrong?

The Corporate Wishlist

Since the Trump administration clearly did not take on the, admittedly Herculean, task of reviewing the thousands of tariffs and trade barriers imposed by hundreds of countries, it simply used trade imbalances as a crude proxy. It’s a stand-in for the cost of that country’s tariffs and, importantly, its non-tariff barriers.

“Non-tariff barrier” is trade-speak for “any policy that’s not a tariff” but might restrict trade — from climate protections to minimum wage laws to consumer protections in the form of toxic food additives. While many non-tariff barriers serve vital public policies, corporations and trade negotiators often treat them as obstacles to profit.

According to the April 2 executive order, Trump can unilaterally decide to lower the tariffs imposed on a country if it takes “significant steps to remedy non-reciprocal trade arrangements and align sufficiently with the United States on economic and national security matters.”

What constitutes a “significant step” isn’t defined, but it certainly looks like an open invitation for governments to slash their tariffs and reverse policies to appease Trump and his billionaire buddies.

For what exactly those policies may be, just look to the report Trump waved around at the beginning of his so-called “Liberation Day” tariff announcement speech in the Rose Garden.

That document is a 400-page list of the policies that other countries have enacted — or are even considering enacting — that U.S. corporations don’t like. It’s the National Trade Estimates Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, an annual government report that has long been criticized as an inappropriate overreach to name and shame other countries’ legitimate public interest policies. It’s also a glimpse of the policies that Trump may seek to have destroyed in exchange for tariff relief.

The policies targeted in this year’s report include climate protections, including Canada’s Clean Fuel Standard, the European Union’s Deforestation-Free Supply Chain Regulation, and Japan’s renewable energy incentives — all of which are aligned with global climate commitments.

Public health regulations aimed at protecting consumers, preserving biodiversity, and preventing long-term health risks were also attacked. Employed by dozens of countries, these include bans, testing requirements, or even labeling policies on pesticides like Roundup’s glyphosate, genetically engineered food, ractopamine in beef and pork, and heavy metals in cosmetics.

Regulations that promote competition in the digital ecosystem, laws that impose digital services taxes on Big Tech firms, place conditions for cross-border data transfers, promote fairness in the digital economy, and laws that regulate emerging technologies such as AI.

Benefits for Trump’s Buddies

Countries are not the only ones who will be supplicating to avoid the full weight of Trump’s tariffs. Despite Trump’s claims that other countries foot the bill on tariffs, it is U.S. importers who must pay this fee … unless they can convince Trump to grant them a special exemption.

It is well-documented that the opaque and chaotic tariff exclusion process created in Trump’s first term quickly overwhelmed government agencies and enabled a quid pro quo spoils system that rewarded the rich and well-connected. A revolving door of lobbyists, including former and future Trump administration officials, were able to secure lucrative tariff exceptions for their CEO clients through political pressure, informal meetings, and campaign contributions.

Through this system, Trump wielded tariffs and tariff exceptions to reward his friends and punish his enemies. CEOs that donated to Republicans had a 1 in 5 chance of having their exemption request granted versus 1 in 10 for CEOs that supported Democrats, according to a January 2025 study.

If Trump’s recent attacks on law firms, universities, and the press are any indication, he’s prepared to double down on using his second term to punish enemies and enrich himself and his friends. And his dismantling of watchdog agencies and boosting of big business ties set the stage for tariff exemptions to be even more corrupt and harmful to workers, consumers, and the U.S. and global economy.

What other displays of political loyalty might companies offer to Trump for a tariff exclusion this time around? Public endorsement of his policies? Promises to monitor employees for DEI ideologies or views critical of the administration?

We Deserve Better

Trade justice requires more than poorly designed tariffs. It demands systemic reform: binding labor rights, climate protections, resilient supply chains, and democratic accountability. Trump offers none of that.

There’s no industrial plan. No support for unions. No climate-resilience vision. Just a chaotic, performative tariff regime, which in practice will surely be wielded to reward loyalty and punish dissent.

Trump’s latest stunt had nothing to do with “liberation.” You can’t fix a rigged trade system while keeping its rules and attacking people at every turn. Trump talks a big game but serves the same corporate interests that gutted labor rights in the first place. Working people deserve a system with them at the center, not one that favors corporations.

This isn’t trade justice. It’s a con.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/04 ... think.html