Trump cannot show consistent results on the main problem that afflicts his voters and the majority of Americans: the economy. The campaign promises to eliminate inflation and improve salaries are not seen on the shelves, the prices of gasoline, or in the checks that workers receive at the end of the month.
Trying to get through the nonsense of the press conference, which was broadcast as if it were a national network last week, in which Trump feigned insanity about these problems and said the economy was going from strength to strengththe president of the United States he focuses more strongly on what he considers two of his successes. The first is the mass expulsion of migrants to reach as quickly as possible the million deportations promised in the campaign, and the other is regain American control in the regionunder the excuse of ending drug trafficking and the entry of fentanyl (which has become an epidemic throughout the country, particularly among the working class), starting by attacking Venezuela as it has been doing for three months.
However, These two policies also face questions. First of all the unbridled raid of ICE parapolice forceswhich detain any migrant and in any circumstance, has unleashed a wave of solidarity which included neighborhood organizations confronting immigration police in the streets, warning systems or even boycotts and sabotage of ICE units. Secondly, heto “gunboat diplomacy” and in particular a direct attack on Venezuela (not to mention the start of a war) has high disapproval in pollseven within the Republicans faced not only between the MAGA and non-MAGA base, but also between several of the Make America Great Again leaders who are against an interventionist policy of the United States.
This, however, doesn’t stop Trump to advance their threats, but quite the opposite. The more he finds himself cornered internally with issues such as the economy, the “civil war” on his MAGA basis and the gruesome details of the Epstein case, the more he seeks to chaotic the public agenda to show himself strengthened.and that includes an openly interventionist policy on what it considers its backyard, today also extended to Greenland, which would include the entire hemisphere from the extreme north to Tierra del Fuego.
This is found made explicit in the recent National Security Strategy document under Trump’s second term that includes containment over China, resentment towards Europe and total control of the American continent.
To the attacks on Venezuelawhich already included more than 100 deaths from summary murders in bombings on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and were extended in recent weeks with the announcement of the closure of Venezuelan airspace (which in any other circumstance would be immediately considered an act of war), are now joined by the outright theft of at least three oil tankers that sailed with Venezuelan fuel and about which Trump had no problem declaring that both oil and ships became his property.
In the Venezuelan case it was clear that The initial speech of the anti-drug crusade was a farce to keep not only the oil but all of Venezuela, when he declared that the country had stolen the oil and lands from the United States (there is no punch line or explanation here, it is pure and simple post-truth).
After this sincericide, It is then up to Trump to be openly honest in his threats. Control of the continent seeks not just expel China from a region in which it advanced during the last decades while the United States focused on the Middle East, but plunder our countries stealing natural commons and consolidating military control as widespread as possible.
So, in recent weeks Trump closed military agreements with Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru and Trinidad and Tobago. In the case of Trinidad and Tobago, it signed an agreement to use its airports for rapid deployment to the Caribbean; in Paraguay, it agreed to deploy US troops for “joint operations against drug trafficking.” For its part, in Ecuador there will be a deployment of US air force troops and in Peru they have just authorized the operation of armed US military and intelligence personnel within the country.
to this Added to the previous interferences in domestic politics in Latin America which includes the threats against Mexico and recently against Petro in Colombia, the application of tariffs to Brazil when they announced the sentence against Bolsonaro, the rescue of Milei prior to the elections, which came with pressure towards the voters, the release of the former Honduran president accused of drug trafficking Juan Orlando Hernández in the midst of meddling in the country’s elections, or the support for Nobóa in Ecuador prior to the plebiscite in which he was defeated.
But the threats and imperialist plunder are not limited to the southbut Trump insisted again this week with his claims about Greenlandabout which he had already said when he assumed that it should be part of the United States. The minerals and rare earths on the island are an asset that the United States needs in its competition with China. This is why this Monday Trump reiterated that the US “needs” Greenland for reasons of “national security.” He did so a day after naming Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as “special envoy” to the island. A statement that infuriated Denmark, which has colonial control over the island and that also generated rejection among European governments, creating a new chapter of rispideses.
But Greenland does not only have minerals, but something equally or more valuable: a strategic location in the arctic to control a navigation and surveillance zone in which China and Russia have been growing stronger at the same time that the United States was declining in its naval capacity.
That naval decline is what Trump tried to hide this Monday with the pompous announcement of the construction of new “Trump class” warships. This “golden fleet” for the Navy “will help maintain American military supremacy, revitalize the shipbuilding industry and inspire fear in America’s enemies around the world,” Trump said alongside images made with Artificial Intelligence of the supposed new ships.
But in the real world, China already surpassed the naval capacity of the United States in 2020 with 350 ships against 296 for the US navy. Besides The destruction of shipyards in the United States and the deterioration of its industrial base wreaked havoc that cannot be reversed overnight. and less with artificial intelligence. Last year China had already surpassed the naval production capacity of the United States by 232 times.. According to a leaked US Navy report, Chinese shipyards can produce approximately 23,250,000 tons, while American ones barely reach 100,000 tons.
These data show the hegemonic decline of the United States, but that cannot be confused with weakness. Trump is in charge of permanently crossing red lines and advance interventionist and interventionist policies that must be denounced and defeated.
Las threats against Venezuela They are the advance of a generalized aggressive policy on our continent that must be responded to with the creation of a strong anti-imperialist movement throughout the region to defeat the plans of Trump and his Latin American allies.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
