President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, May 23, 2025, in Washington. [AP Photo/Evan Vucci]
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump issued a presidential proclamation re-instituting the travel ban from his first presidential administration, expanded to include more countries. Trump said the attack last weekend at a march supporting Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, “underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas,” concluding “We don’t want them.”
The proclamation fully restricts and limits the entry of nationals from 12 countries: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen, and partially restricts and limits the entry of nationals from an additional seven countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela. Under the restrictions, residents of the countries listed under the partial ban will be unable to apply for six of the major visa categories, including business, tourism and visas for students.
The travel ban would impact over 400 million people, including the hundreds of thousands of refugees who will now be denied asylum. American imperialism bears responsibility for the devastation of the countries affected by the travel ban.
At the start of his meeting Thursday with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office, Trump was asked why the list of banned countries does not include Egypt. Egypt is the country of origin of the suspect in the attack in Boulder Colorado, which Trump cited in justifying this travel ban. Trump replied that Egypt “has things under control,” adding that the ban applies only to countries that “don’t have things under control.” By “have things under control” Trump means that Egypt’s authoritarian government maintains political surveillance of its population and is subservient to the interests of American imperialism.
The statement from Trump that his administration is excluding immigration from countries that “don’t have things under control” echoes the statement made before the travel ban placed during his first administration: “Why do we want all these people from Africa here? Why do we want all these people from shithole countries?”
A significant difference between Trump’s first administration and the current one, is that Trump’s openly racist statements produced declarations of shock in the media and denunciations from Democratic party politicians. This most recent announcement of a travel ban produced a fraction of the posturing from the media and political establishment. At the time, the problem for the ruling class and Democratic party was that Trump was saying openly that which the members of the oligarchy the state apparatus think and say in private.
In the first Trump presidency, the Supreme Court ruled to uphold the ban and upholding the president’s power to seal the country’s borders. Trump, articulating the policies of American imperialism in blunt language, dispensed with the longstanding art of American imperialist politics: hiding the criminal activities of the US imperialism with the verbiage of humanitarianism and democratic rights.
Legal scholars have warned that this current iteration of the Trump travel ban is likely to be upheld if challenged in the far-right dominated Supreme Court, with University of Michigan Law School professor Barbara McQuade saying in a BBC Newshour interview, “This time I think there has been more thought given into this... this time we see a mix of countries, not just Muslim-majority countries... It seems to me very likely that it will ultimately be upheld by the Supreme Court.”
The Supreme Court ruled in the five-to-four decision on the 2017 travel ban, that the president and the military have the power to take drastic measures in a “national emergency” or “during a time of crisis,” including “if the United States were on the brink of war.” In the current administration, the “state of exception,” the pseudo-legal framework under which the crimes of the Nazis were carried out, is the operating principle.
The American “state of exception” found early expression in this Supreme Court ruling, and major rulings on the basis of “national security” arguments following the launching of the War on Terror in 2001.
Brazil's ex-president Jair Bolsonaro speaking to the press after being indicted for January 8, 2023 coup attempt [Photo: Lula Marques/Agência Brasil]
The last few weeks have been marked by important developments in the case against former President Jair Bolsonaro and those accused of leading the coup attempt that culminated in the invasion of government buildings in Brasília on January 8, 2023.
The Supreme Federal Court (STF) concluded on Tuesday the questioning of witness for the prosecution and defense, including former ministers as well as military, police and intelligence officials. Next week, it will begin questioning the defendants in the “core group” of the case, which includes the former president and seven allies, almost all high-ranking military officers.
The recent testimony of former Army commander Gen. Marco Antônio Freire Gomes and Air Force commander Lt. Brig. Carlos de Almeida Baptista Júnior had deep repercussions for the crisis of the entire Brazilian political system.
Before the court, General Freire Gomes attempted to downplay the significance of the preparatory meetings for a coup d’état in which he participated alongside other military commanders. The meetings were called by then-Defense Minister Gen. Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira after Bolsonaro’s electoral defeat in 2022. The focus of the discussion was the document that became known as the “coup draft,” a decree to prevent the president-elect from taking office and establish a dictatorship.
Justifying the presentation of such a document by General Oliveira – his immediate predecessor in command of the Army – General Freire Gomes claimed: “Perhaps he presented it to us out of consideration... He was letting us know that he was going to begin these studies.” He added that all of the “considerations” raised were “based on legal aspects, on the Constitution, which is why it did not catch our attention.”
General Freire Gomes dodged allegations that he had threatened to arrest Bolsonaro if the former president continued his coup attempt: “I warned him that if he strayed from legal grounds, not only would he not have our support, but he could also face legal consequences. He agreed, and that was the end of the matter.”
In addition to shielding Bolsonaro, the former Army commander exonerated former Navy chief Adm. Almir Garnier, accused of having resolutely supported the coup, placing his troops on standby. “He merely demonstrated, let’s say, respect for the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces,” said Gomes.
The former Army commander’s statements provoked a strong reaction from Minister Alexandre de Moraes. “Commander, either you misrepresented the truth to the police or you are misrepresenting the truth here,” said the judge, referring to Gomes’ previous testimony to the Federal Police. He refused to change his latest version.
The former Air Force commander, who testified before the Supreme Court subsequently, stated assertively that “the three heads of the Armed Forces and then-President Jair Bolsonaro met and discussed coup scenarios, not just possibilities for using the Armed Forces to ensure social peace until the transition.”
Brigadier Baptista Júnior also stated that the meetings between the former president and the military commanders discussed the arrest of Moraes, then president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), and that “the head of the Navy placed troops at the disposal of the plot.” Contrary to the testimony of General Freire Gomes, he attested that his colleague, “very calmly,” had threatened to arrest Bolsonaro.
Regardless of the former Air Force commander’s correction attempts, General Freire Gomes’ testimony threw a bucket of cold water on the establishment’s official narrative regarding the coup attempt, which claims that the military “saved democracy” in Brazil.
This narrative is promoted in the Federal Police report and the complaint filed by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), which forms the basis for the Supreme Court’s trial, as well as in the media and the government statements. Led by the alleged heroic action of General Freire Gomes, the Armed Forces supposedly dared to say “no” to the coup.
What the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates, and what was made clear by Freire Gomes’ testimony, is that the Armed Forces went along with the coup conspiracy and their support remained an open question.
The fraudulent narrative about the military as “saviors of democracy” is the highest expression of the hopes of Brazil’s ruling class to solve the greatest crisis in its history through bureaucratic maneuvers and by purely judicial means. These bankrupt pretensions are exploding in the face of the contradictions that led to the coup attempt in the first place.
There are signs of growing dissatisfaction within the military with the development of the case in the Supreme Court and the general political situation in the country. Describing the reaction of high-ranking Army figures to the former commander’s testimony, Veja magazine quoted an anonymous general saying: “It is not natural to see an Army commander, such a respected figure, being reprimanded by a Supreme Court minister.”
At the same time that the STF was concluding the hearing phase of the case, Brazil’s Federal Police (PF) launched an operation that revealed the existence of a paramilitary organization specializing in contract killings which called itself the “Commando to Hunt Communists, Corrupt Officials, and Criminals,” or Comando C4.
The group was made up of active and reserve military personnel and operated under the legal guise of a “private security company.” According to the PF, the group had a fixed price list for the execution of authorities, including congressmen, senators, and Supreme Court ministers. Former Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco was one of the figures monitored by the organization.
One of the leaders of Comando C4 arrested by the PF, retired Col. Etevaldo Caçadini de Vargas, was also a head of the YouTube channel “Frente Ampla Patriótica” (Broad Patriotic Front), which promoted the January 8 attempt and attacked military leaders who backed down from the coup. The colonel had already been prosecuted in military court in 2024 on the grounds that his videos “spread coup ideas that offended and defamed the Armed Forces.”
Comando C4 is a direct reference to the Communist Hunting Command (CCC), a fascist armed organization formed shortly before Brazil’s 1964 military coup. Operating along the lines of a classic fascist shock squad, the CCC carried out terrorist actions against left-wing activists and political events, especially in the early years of the military regime. With the consolidation of the dictatorship, its members—who had informal ties to the military from the beginning—were incorporated into the state apparatus of repression and torture.
The emergence of a fascist paramilitary organization such as Comando C4, directly linked to the forces that served as Bolsonaro’s constituency and remain alive in the state apparatus, exposes the grave dangers contained in the current political situation.
The intensification of the international crisis, marked by the specter of world war, is a determining factor in the explosive unfolding of the Brazilian political situation, particularly under the impact of the violent eruption of US imperialism.
In recent weeks, the US government has significantly escalated its offensive against Brazilian state institutions.
At the end of May, the Brazilian government received an official letter from the US State Department challenging the STF’s orders directed against US-based social media networks such as Rumble. Following this, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly stated that there is a “high possibility” that the Trump administration will impose sanctions against Moraes, the judge leading the trial against Bolsonaro.
The US government’s actions have been directly coordinated with the Brazilian former president’s son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who resigned from his position as a federal deputy in Brazil to operate directly from the United States.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva described Washington’s actions as “unacceptable” interference in “the decision of another country’s Supreme Court” during a press conference on Tuesday.
At the same time, the STF reacted by opening an investigation against Eduardo Bolsonaro for obstruction and coercion of the proceedings against the former president and for “attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law.” The investigation stemmed from an accusation by PT Deputy Lindbergh Farias, who, in addition to these crimes, characterized the activities of the former president’s son as “an attack on national sovereignty” and “high treason against the homeland.”
The actions promoted by the PT and the institutions of the Brazilian bourgeoisie are fundamentally incapable of combating the rise of fascism and imperialist aggression. On the contrary, their appeals to reactionary nationalist ideals and their attempt to resolve all political conflicts in the legal sphere are only deepening the rightward turn of the entire bourgeois system.
Procter & Gamble headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio [Photo by P&G Media]
Procter & Gamble announced Thursday morning that it will cut 7,000 jobs, or around 15 percent of its global non-production workforce. The consumer products maker also said it may divest some of its brands, although it declined to elaborate.
The announcement was buried in corporate newspeak, but the need to cut costs in the face of growing trade war measures spearheaded by the Trump administration was obviously a major factor. The press release said the company would carry out “interventions in our supply chain—right-sizing and right-locating production” in order to enable “cost reduction” and a “more reliable and resilient supply.”
A related factor is likely a reduction in consumer spending. A report from McKinsey & Company found that “net sentiment” about the economy declined 32 percent in May; rising prices and tariff policies were reported as the top two reasons.
As a result of tariffs, layoffs and price increases will worsen conditions for the working class in the United States and are reaching the breaking point. According to a recent report by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP), a majority of Americans cannot afford what the institute calls a “minimal quality of life.” This figure represents a major increase since the turn of the century, with wages largely stagnating while the cost of a minimal quality of life, as measured by LISEP, almost doubled.
More than half of Americans cannot afford a $2,000 emergency, and 38 percent have put off medical care because of cost, LISEP reports. These figures are the direct result of rising inequality. To afford a minimal quality of life, the share of income going to the bottom 60 percent of Americans would have to nearly double, from 22 to 39 percent.
The cuts at Procter & Gamble are the latest in a series of mounting layoffs by US-based firms, including: 20,000 job cuts at UPS, which is also in the midst of an automation-led restructuring; 6,000 more layoffs at Microsoft, following a previous round of cuts in January; 3,500 jobs at Citigroup in its China operations, following plans announced last year to cut 20,000 jobs or 10 percent of its workforce; 1,500 jobs at big box retailer Walmart, and hundreds of employees at Disney.
In its monthly report, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas recorded a sharp year-on-year increase in announced layoffs by US firms. At least 93,816 layoffs were announced last month, up 47 percent from the same time last year. Five months into the year, 696,309 layoffs have been announced, by far the highest number since over 1.4 million layoffs by this time in 2020, during the initial peak of the coronavius pandemic.
“Tariffs, funding cuts, consumer spending, and overall economic pessimism are putting intense pressure on companies’ workforces. Companies are spending less, slowing hiring, and sending layoff notices,” the firm’s senior vice president Andrew Challenger noted.
Federal job cuts, spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which was until recently headed by Elon Musk, accounted for 284,044 layoffs, followed by “market and economic conditions,” dominated by tariffs, at 131,257.
The impact of global trade war since Trump’s “liberation day” reciprocal tariffs in April is beginning to mount across the US and world economy. On Wednesday, Trump’s doubling of his previous tariffs on steel and aluminum from 25 to 50 percent went into effect.
In a warmongering speech last Friday, Trump justified the move on “national security” grounds, making clear that it is part of preparations for world war. “You can’t make a military. What are we going to do, say ‘let’s go to China’ for the army tanks and boats and ships?” he said.
The latest government figures show that imports plummeted by more than 16 percent in April in the aftermath of the tariff announcement. While this is partly due to stockpiling in March in anticipation of the tariffs, there are growing signs that the moves are wreaking havoc on world supply chains. “U.S. factories and businesses also significantly cut their purchases of foreign machinery and other supplies,” according to the New York Times. “Imports from China, a major source of machinery and consumer goods, hit a five-year low.”
The US trade deficit fell chiefly due to a sharp fall in imports. Significantly, a major driver of a modest rise in exports was the movement of gold bullion out of the United States, the Times reported, reflecting growing concerns about the economic and political stability of the US, as well as the world financial system underpinned by the role of the dollar as the reserve currency.
In a recent letter to congressional Democrats, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) claimed that increased revenues due to tariffs would cut the US deficit by $2.8 trillion over 10 years. The CBO also predicts the tariffs will contribute to a shrinking of the economy and 0.4 percent in additional inflation.
The forecast increase in revenues is a drop in the bucket because annual budget deficits are also forecast to increase to $2.5 trillion by the end of the same period. It would also be offset by the impact of tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy in the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” working its way through Congress, which also includes hundreds of billions in cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and other essential social programs. The CBO estimates that the bill would add $2.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.
The CBO forecast did not take into account Trump’s doubling of his own steel and aluminum tariffs, which are expected to mean higher prices for cars, new homes, canned goods and other essentials. Even the earlier 25 percent tariffs was expected to add $10,000 to the cost of a new home.
The claims made by Trump, and parroted by the trade union bureaucracy, that tariffs will lead to a resurgence in domestic manufacturing are being rapidly exposed as a total fantasy. In the 21st century, production in any country proceeds through a complex global supply chain network.
An article in The Verge warns that production lines in the US auto industry are already shutting down due to the lack of access to rare earth magnets, the market in which 90 percent is dominated by China. According to the New York Times, “China refines over 99 percent of the world’s supply of so-called heavy rare earths, which are the least common kinds of rare earths. Heavy rare earths are essential for making magnets that can resist the high temperatures and electrical fields found in cars, semiconductors and many other technologies.”
China retaliated against Trump’s levying of tariffs against it by cutting off all access to rare earth minerals in April.
Meanwhile, trade war is having a heavy impact on Canada, the US’s largest trading partner. The country posted its worst ever trade deficit in April, and sales of Canadian-made automobiles plunged 23 percent, according to the Times.
The reality is that the overriding concern behind the tariffs is preparations by US imperialism for war. As Leon Trotsky observed of the spiraling trade wars of the 1930s, which led directly to World War II, “breeding places of nationalism also are the laboratories of terrific conflicts in the future; like a hungry tiger, imperialism has withdrawn into its own national lair to gather itself for a new leap.”
This drive to war was stated bluntly last Friday by Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, at the Reagan National Economic Forum. “We shouldn’t be stockpiling bitcoins,” the billionaire banker said during a discussion of the “national security” implications for industry. “We should be stockpiling guns, bullets, tanks, planes, drones, you know, rare earths. We know we need to do it. It’s not a mystery.”
He added: “[t]he military guys tell you that, you know, if there’s a war in the South China Sea, we have missiles for seven days … we can’t say that with a straight face and think that’s okay. So we know what to do. We just got to now go about doing it.”
With these words, the head of the largest American bank is arguing for a militarized economy to prepare for World War III against China. But he considers the most serious threat to American capitalism not China but the “enemy within.”
“What I really worry about is us,” he said. “Can we get our own act together, our own values, our own capability, our own management?
“I always get asked this question: Are we going to be the reserve currency? No. You know, if we are not the preeminent military and the preeminent economy in 40 years, we will not be the reserve currency.”
Dimon urged a return to what he called “our virtues: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise, equal opportunity, family, God, country.” This is a veiled call for massive repression and dictatorship in order to impose “unity” from above.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, left, claps as Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk prepares to depart after speaking at a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show, on Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania. [AP Photo/Alex Brandon]
The eruption of a public conflict between President Donald Trump and his former budget adviser, Elon Musk—the world’s richest man—speaks to the extraordinary level of crisis and conflict within the state apparatus, generated by an intensifying economic crisis and mounting popular opposition to the corporate-financial oligarchy.
Musk officially left the Trump administration last Friday, his final day as a “special government employee” in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has led the assault on federal workers and the shutdown of entire government agencies. At an Oval Office ceremony, Musk and Trump exchanged mutual praise and expressions of support. But within days, a bitter feud erupted between the two billionaire gangsters.
In interviews over the weekend and on Monday, Musk began voicing hostility to Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” passed by the House last week, which extends Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy set to expire at the end of the year. The centibillionaire did not oppose the tax cuts themselves, of course, but denounced what he called excessive “pork” in the bill. On Tuesday, he posted a comment on X calling the bill a “disgusting abomination” and urged senators to vote it down.
The conflict highlights significant divisions within the ruling class regarding how to implement extensive cuts in social programs, all at the expense of the working class—a goal that all factions of the political establishment agree on. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned of the ballooning federal deficit and a looming “crack in the bond market.”
Musk has also denounced Trump’s tariff policy, which threatens both his own business interests—heavily reliant on Chinese markets and supply chains—and the broader global interests of American capitalism. Financial commentators have specifically pointed to the surge in gold prices and the weakening position of the US dollar, developments that pose a serious threat to Wall Street and the stability of the global financial system.
The conflicts within the ruling class intersect with the corrupt personal interests of the individuals involved. Trump has threatened retaliation against Musk’s business empire, including the cancellation of “billions and billions” in federal contracts. Tesla stock plunged more than 14 percent on Thursday, wiping out $152 billion in market value and costing Musk personally $20 billion in a single day.
On Saturday, Trump withdrew the nomination of billionaire Jared Isaacman, a Musk customer and crony, to head NASA. Isaacman was Musk’s choice, viewed as a key ally of his lucrative—but technically challenged—SpaceX venture, which relies entirely on federal contracts.
Rolling Stone magazine reported that two Trump administration officials said the government could revive investigations into Musk’s business practices that were begun under the Biden administration, one of the main reasons for his pumping $275 million into the Trump campaign and joining it in person during the final months before the election.
Trump added in another Truth Social post, “Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!”
Musk, responding to Trump’s remarks, declared that it was “Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.”
This—no doubt true—statement was a reference to the criminal sex trafficking by multi-millionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in a Manhattan prison cell in August 2019, officially declared a suicide, which no one believes. Trump and Epstein had longstanding friendly relations throughout the period that Epstein made his mark as a purveyor of young women to his billionaire clients.
Musk’s post thus represents a serious threat to Trump, a dramatic escalation of the political warfare within the US oligarchy. He added in a further comment on X, “Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.”
By late Thursday, Musk was applauding X users who suggested that Trump be removed from office and replaced by Vice President JD Vance, and warning that Trump’s tariffs would “cause a recession in the second half of this year.” In response, former White House aide Steve Bannon called on Trump to seize control of SpaceX, because it carries out vital functions for the US military, and deport Musk to his native South Africa. Musk responded: “Bannon is peak retard.”
In the eruption of ferocious conflicts within the state, the feud between Trump and Musk recalls the Night of the Long Knives, the 1934 bloodbath in which Hitler consolidated his dictatorship through the slaughter of hundreds of his political opponents within the Nazi party, most importantly Ernst Röhm, head of the SA brownshirts, and Gregor Strasser.
Overall, one has the picture of an oligarchy wallowing in criminality, filth and cultural degradation. Musk is the world’s richest individual, brought to the very pinnacle of political power in the first months of the second Trump administration. The New York Times reported last week that Musk was a regular user of ketamine, Ecstasy, and psychedelic mushrooms and other drugs during the fall election campaign, and that his demeanor and conduct as head of DOGE suggested that this was continuing.
Trump’s own stability is in question as well. A tabulation by the Washington Post found that he had posted 2,262 times on Truth Social during the first 132 days of his administration, including 138 separate posts on a single day. Over the weekend, Trump retweeted a bizarre conspiracy theory claiming that Joe Biden had been executed in 2020 and replaced by a series of robots. As for corruption, his personal fortune has risen by $1.2 billion since the election, according to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal, mainly through cryptocurrency operations marketed to his supporters.
The criminality and corruption of what was the Trump-Musk administration is only the most disgusting expression of the degeneration of the American capitalist class as a whole.
The political crisis unfolding in the United States exposes not only the character of the Trump administration—a government of, by and for the oligarchy—but also the nominal opposition. The Democratic Party has done nothing to resist the relentless drive toward authoritarian rule. As one Trump outrage follows another, the Democrats offer only feigned helplessness, maintaining the pretense that Trump is all-powerful and that they are powerless to act.
Sections of the trade union apparatus, including UAW President Shawn Fain, have embraced Trump’s economic nationalism, presenting “Buy American” demagogy as a defense of workers’ interests. The nominally independent Bernie Sanders has backed Trump’s attack on immigrants, and just this week, in response to Musk’s criticism of Trump’s tax bill, Sanders replied, “Musk is right.”
