Skip to content

Donald Trump

Trump’s Tariffs Hurt The United States Much More Than China

Why has US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on countries all around the world? And in particular, why is Trump waging a trade war on China? What are his real goals? Well, to try to answer these questions, I spoke with the economist Michael Hudson, who is the author of many books, and who just published the new report “Return of the robber barons: Trump’s distorted view of US tariff history“. Michael Hudson outlined the history of the use of tariffs in the United States and in other countries, and he explained how Trump is using tariffs as a weapon of class war, to benefit the rich at the expense of the vast majority of the population, and also how Trump is trying to reshape the global financial system, in order to benefit the United States at the expense of everyone else.

Michigan And Neighbouring States Should Stand Up For Canada

For more than 100 years, the United States and Canada have benefitted from a peaceful 5,500-mile (or 8,900-kilometre) border and co-operation on many issues of common concern. Michigan has benefitted from this relationship and without Canada, restoration efforts in the Great Lakes would not have begun in the 1970s to transform the region’s Rust Belt legacy of industrial pollution. Michigan officials, and those of the seven other Great Lakes states, are fully aware of this history, so it is puzzling that they’ve been silent in the wake of a stream of suggestions by President Donald Trump that Canada should become the 51st state.

Latin America Three Months Into Trump

Nobody is complaining anymore about Latin America and the Caribbean being neglected by the hegemon to the north. The Trump administration is contending with it on multiple fronts: prioritizing “massive deportations,” halting the “flood of drugs,” combatting “threats to US security,” and stopping other countries from “ripping us off” in trade. The over 200-year-old Monroe Doctrine is alive and on steroids. But has Washington taken a sharp right turn, qualitatively departing from past practices, or simply intensified an already manifest imperial trajectory? And, from a south-of-the-border perspective, to what extent are the perceived problems “made in the USA”?

Western Nations Join The United States In Repressing Dissent

It is easy to see that authoritarian governance has accelerated in the United States recently. Donald Trump entered office with a flurry of Executive Orders and dubious agreements with major universities and law firms which in effect put them under his control. On April 10 the Supreme Court of the United States ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, one of 200 men sent to an El Salvador prison under circumstances of very questionable legality. Abrego Garcia differs from the others in that the Trump administration originally admitted that he was deported in error and that they did not have grounds to send him to his home country, El Salvador.

Harvard Refuses To Comply With Trump Administration

After Columbia University fully capitulated to the Trump administration’s demands of disciplinary measures against pro-Palestine students and censorship against academic departments, the Trump administration set its sights on other institutions of higher education, one of these being Harvard University. On April 11, Trump officials sent Harvard a similar demand letter to the one Columbia received on March 13. But Harvard’s response to Trump’s demands has been markedly different to Columbia’s – on April 14, Harvard’s President Alan M. Garber issued a bold response: Harvard would “not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”

European Decoupling From US Imperialism Is A Matter Of Global Security

At the end of a four-year term, the Blinken-Sullivan-Austin trio, showcase of the Biden administration, will have distinguished itself by multiplying hotbeds of tension all around China, a NATO-Russia hybrid war, two genocidal wars, one televised in Gaza, the other covert, in Eastern Congo, a bloody conflict in Sudan, with millions of refugees, and the umpteenth attempt to kill Haiti – all topped off by mass mutilation in Lebanon and the devastating fall of Syria. As for extraterritorial sanctions and regime-change operations, from Georgia to Venezuela, via Iran, Pakistan and Bangladesh, they have either been maintained or intensified.

The New McCarthyism Was Started By Liberals

The censorship of radical voices is an old story that’s become much more dire—and current—with the detention by immigration agents on March 8 of Mahmoud Khalil, a former student activist and permanent resident of the United States who has been at the forefront of protests at Columbia University against the Israeli onslaught in Gaza. In a statement to The Free Press about the case, a Trump administration official said, “The allegation here is not that he was breaking the law.” Rather, the official continued, Khalil’s activism was “mobilizing support for Hamas” in addition to being antisemitic and “hence, contrary to the interests of the U.S.”

How Timothy McVeigh’s Oklahoma City Bombing Birthed The Trump Era

Before settling on a hospital, Timothy Wilson considered myriad targets for a terrorist attack, including a mosque, a synagogue, and an elementary school attended mostly by Black children. As he narrowed down his choices in the spring of 2021, however, and his plan began to take shape, the 36-year-old white supremacist texted a question to another plotter: “How did McVeigh do it?” Thirty years ago this week, Timothy McVeigh rented a Ryder truck, loaded it with a 7,000-pound fertilizer bomb, drove to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, parked, lit the fuse and escaped to a waiting getaway car.

China Strengthens Economic Ties In Asia Amid Trade War With US

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Malaysia on Tuesday, April 15 for a highly anticipated state visit. With this move, Xi seeks to promote China as a reliable alternative to an escalating trade war with the United States. Xi embarked this week on a Southeast Asia tour that has already taken him to Vietnam and will also include Cambodia, with Beijing trying to position itself as a stable alternative to US President Donald Trump’s punitive tariff regime. Xi said he was “looking forward to … further deepening the traditional friendship” between China and Malaysia, CCTV, a Chinese state broadcaster, reported. He said he would “have an in-depth exchange of views” in meetings with Anwar and king Sultan Ibrahim, according to CCTV.

Protesters Denounce ICE ‘Abduction’ Of Mohsen Mahdawi

On April 14, Palestinian Columbia University student and leading pro-Palestine activist Mohsen Mahdawi was detained by immigration agents as he attended an interview as part of his application for US citizenship in Colchester, Vermont. Mahdawi is the second Palestinian Columbia University student activist to be kidnapped by immigration authorities, after Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest which has earned international attention as demands for his release grow. With Mahdawi’s detention, pro-Palestine groups have renewed calls to end Trump’s attacks on students and free speech.

Return Of The Robber Barons: Trump’s Distorted View Of US Tariff History

Donald Trump’s tariff policy has thrown markets into turmoil among his allies and enemies alike. This anarchy reflects the fact that his major aim was not really tariff policy, but simply to cut income taxes on the wealthy, by replacing them with tariffs as the main source of government revenue. Extracting economic concessions from other countries is part of his justification for this tax shift as offering a nationalistic benefit for the United States. His cover story, and perhaps even his belief, is that tariffs by themselves can revive American industry. But he has no plans to deal with the problems that caused America’s deindustrialization in the first place.

In Trade War With The US, China Holds More Cards Than Trump May Think

When Donald Trump pulled back on his plan to impose eye-watering tariffs on trading partners across the world, there was one key exception: China. While the rest of the world would be given a 90-day reprieve on additional duties beyond the new 10% tariffs on all U.S. trade partners, China would feel the squeeze even more. On April 9, 2025, Trump raised the tariff on Chinese goods to 125% – bringing the total U.S. tariff on some Chinese imports to 145%. The move, in Trump’s telling, was prompted by Beijing’s “lack of respect for global markets.” But the U.S. president may well have been smarting from Beijing’s apparent willingness to confront U.S. tariffs head on.

Trump Just Escalated His War On Coal Miners

President Donald Trump unveiled a new barrage of executive orders last week aimed at revitalizing the nation’s ​“beautiful clean coal” industry. But in reality, it’s already clear that his empty words will do no such thing. Flanked by burly white men outfitted in coal miners’ garb, the former reality TV star and failed real estate tycoon rhapsodized about his muddled plans to supercharge coal’s use and production, including scrapping environmental regulations that ​“undermine” its production and ensuring federal policy doesn’t ​“discriminate” against the fossil fuel industry. The astonishing impracticality of this plan did not appear in any way to be a factor in Trump’s decision, which was still applauded by people who should know better

Why Trump And Musk Ignore The Largest Money Laundering Scheme In Human History

President Trump and Elon Musk will tell you they’re saving money for the US government and thereby the US taxpayer. The DOGE team have claimed that they have already cut out $65 billion of waste and fraud – equaling savings for the American people. Incredible! (I’m going to invest my cut of that money in an up-and-coming fad called “fidget spinners”.) Oh, I forgot to mention – Everything Musk has said is utterly false. “…some of the biggest errors in savings [announced by DOGE] are, as CBS first reported, a USAID contract for $650 million that was listed three times, as The Intercept first reported, a Social Security contract listed as $232 million, instead of $560,000, and an ICE contract that DOGE listed as $8 billion, when, in reality, it was $8 million.”

Tariffs – Trump Blinks Again

On Thursday President Trump pulled back on tariffs because a sell-off in treasuries threatened to develop into a serious economic catastrophe. Tariffs were reduced to 10% for most countries but China. (10% is still a lot higher than they were before Trump started his tariff onslaught.) The tariffs on products from China were raised to a total of 145%. The high China tariffs would inevitably lead to a steep raise of U.S. prices for consumer electronics which, at least partially, are nowadays coming from China. For big U.S. companies, foremost Apple, this would have entailed large losses. So Trump blinked again.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.