Version imprimableTrump’s foreign policy, breaking with an older model of imperial domination through the NATO alliance with European nations, is based on the notion of great powers—the United States, China, and Russia—with their regional spheres of influence. We are back to a cruder nineteenth century imperialism and colonialism with Trump claiming Greenland and Panama—and Gaza for himself. While claiming to be a peace-maker, he is supporting Russia’s war on Ukraine and Israel’s war on Palestine, encouraging the aggressors, destabilizing the world and increasing the risks of future wars.
The world’s health is also in danger. Trump has withdrawn the United States from the World Health Organization, weakening both the American and the global capacity to respond to new diseases and to pandemics. Trump’s hatchet man, Elon Musk, is dramatically cutting the staff of the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health. Trump’s Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is an anti-vaxxer who has canceled expert advisory meetings to prepare this year’s flu vaccinations. He takes control just as the U.S. had its first measles death in ten years and as bird flu is evolving and affecting more animals and humans. All of these developments increase the likelihood of a catastrophic global pandemic.
Global warming, which is caused largely by the burning of fossil fuels, is an increasing threat to people around the world. The last ten years, 2015-24 were the hottest on record and has caused a variety of natural disasters, from floods and wildfires to droughts and hurricanes. He has withdrawn the United States from the Paris climate agreement, and he shut down the U.S. Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gas. Implementing his slogan “Drill, baby, drill,” he declared a national energy emergency to justify increased petroleum production and is opening more federal lands to exploration and oil drilling. He is also ending federal programs that encourage electric vehicles. Given the size of the U.S. economy all of these will mean more global warming worldwide.
Trump’s attack on the working class and the poor is also affecting both the United States and the world. Trump and Musk have shut down or cut staff and programs that provide health, education, and housing to low-income people, particularly affecting the elderly and children. The Republicans have prepared a federal budget proposal that would reduce Medicaid, a program that benefits millions of low-income and disabled people. And Musk has shut down USAID, the development and assistance program that provided food and health care to millions around the world. Americans will face hunger, people in other countries will face starvation.
Then there are the issues of racism, sexism, and authoritarianism. Trump’s ended diversity, equity, and inclusion programs intended to promote fairness for racial minorities. This reverses 60 years of progress on fighting racism. He has also worked to take away women’s abortion rights and has attacked trans people. His team is full of sexual abusers—Trump himself, Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth, Robert Kennedy, and Musk. Trump and vice-president J.D. Vance are also working to strengthen rightwing forces around the world, from Vladimir Putin of Russia, to Victor Orban in Hungary, to the Alternative for Germany Party (AfD). We. need a global movement to stop Trump and those like him.
