Since he returned to the White House, Donald Trump has been menacing the masses and migrants in the US and the rest of the world. The war machine is more brazen, launching new and abetting lingering wars of aggression and intervention in various parts of the world. This early into 2026 his administration has launched wars of aggression, the most high-profile and costly of which are in Venezuela and Iran. His administration has sent troops to back their preferred leaders in Haiti and Congo, among others; tightened sanctions on Cuba; pressured Panama in pushing out China in port operations; engaged in a carrot-stick back and forth with NATO allies through demands to increase their share in military spending in the region; threatened allies such as Canada, Australia and Denmark; continued their involvement in Ukraine and Israel wars, and nearer to us, continued the US-led military buildup and war exercises in the “Indo-Pacific”—all in a bid to achieve the weakening imperialist American supremacy.
More blunt and blatant
Imperialist US have been sending troops to terrorize countries for energy, minerals, trade routes, or markets, but before Trump, its leaders often used to package it in pretentious, self-appointed terms such as global policing or enforcing rules. Trump has been described as coarse and would often tell it as it is. To those accustomed to how the imperialist US operates in double-speak (ie branding its rivals and targets as terrorists when it is actually the world’s biggest terrorist), Trump is like a “wayward” president.
Yet, Trump, like his predecessors, is animated by the desire to arrest the recession in the US economy and the slipping position of imperialist America in the global stage. He only differed a bit from recent chiefs of imperialist America in being blunt when pushing for wars or arm-twisting others. Reports noted how he didn’t even give the American presidents’ usual lip service to democracy or human rights when he abducted a sitting president. Though they slapped Maduro with trumped up charges, Trump himself was more vocal about cornering Venezuela’s oil.
They are putting pressure on other sitting presidents to be more welcoming of the US while shutting out US rivals. Or else.
In his home country, Trump has increasingly resorted to more blatant authoritarianism. He has deployed paramilitaries in American states, used presidential powers to hinder criminal investigations that might implicate him or his cronies, and used the courts and media censorship to stymie critics.
Yet he covets the Nobel Peace Prize.
To those accustomed to how the
imperialist US operates in double-speak,
Trump is like a “wayward” president.
For profit and gains
Trump wants his name immortalized, and not just in his family’s corporate towers. In what Filipinos would call as epal moves, he affixes his name to proposed government services such as the so-called Trump accounts. Using public funds of $1,000 per baby born during his presidency, Trump conjures a huge bonanza for the child when he or she reaches 18. But a horde of fact-checkers has already exposed it as a salesman trick. For the fund to grow, it requires annual infusion from the child’s family themselves. His administration gladly received donations from big businesses who happen to be courting government contracts.
Despite his efforts to censor unfavorable news and intimidate critics, news still came out about Trump’s family and friends increasing their net worth with Trump in the White House. The latest is a friend of Trump successfully gaining a majority ownership in US media. Meanwhile, Trump’s family itself has been buying and selling stocks and tokens whose price Trump has influenced with his series of policy announcements.
All these self-aggrandizement seems to also describe Trump’s tack in addressing the imperialist American problem of desiring hegemony while grappling with budget constraints and bloating indebtedness. For example: forming the “Board of Peace” and requiring members a hefty registration fee; insulting the imperialist American transatlantic allies to make them foot the “defense” bill of NATO; calling on “allies” in the Gulf, in Europe, in Japan and even China whom they are negotiating with recently, to help the US as it flounders in its costly war against Iran; and nearer to us, making its “allies” such as the Philippines use their budget too in the construction, maintenance and purchase of defense articles and equipment for US military bases and interoperability with US troops.
As a politician, Trump is just starting his second reign’s second year, but his approval rating in his country is already going down. The American masses are shouting angrily at protests and demonstrations that he is misusing their taxes and resources, starting and continuing wars with questionable justifications, and fattening the military-industrial complex while cutting back budgets on health, education, and public infrastructure. In many parts of the world, people are massing up, demanding that the imperialist US put an end to their wars of aggression. # (Pinky Ang)
