Declassified JFK Assassination Files Expose Covert CIA Operations From The Vatican To Latin America

By Peter Kornbluh, Amy Goodman

March 22, 2025

Source: Democracy Now!

The U.S. government this week released thousands more records on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, long a source of fascination and intrigue. This is the final batch of JFK files after the federal government began declassifying documents in the early 1990s. While these latest files contain no major revelations about the assassination, they do include many previously redacted details about “the CIA global effort to influence elections, sabotage economies, overthrow governments,” says Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst with the National Security Archive, a government transparency organization and research institution. “Now at least we know what was being done in our name but without our knowledge.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

We end today’s show looking at the federal government’s release of around 80,000 pages of documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. While the documents have revealed few new revelations on the assassination, the unredacted files are filled with details about covert CIA operations around the world, from the Vatican to Latin America.

One document revealed 47% of political officers working in overseas U.S. embassies in 1961 were actually intelligence agents working under diplomatic cover. At the U.S. Embassy in France, the CIA had 123 undercover agents acting as diplomats. The documents also shed new light on CIA activity across Latin America, including in Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Bolivia.

Those are just some of the revelations highlighted by the National Security Archive, an independent organization that’s been reviewing the documents.

We’re joined now by Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst for Latin America at the National Security Archive. He’s researched CIA operations for decades with a focus on Latin America. His books include Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana and Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba. He’s joining us from Wellfleet, Massachusetts.

Peter, welcome back to Democracy Now! What’s in these tens of thousands of pages of documents that you’re continuing to plow through?

PETER KORNBLUH: Well, we don’t have enough time to talk about all the details of the early 1960s history of the CIA kind of global effort to influence elections, sabotage economies, overthrow governments. But we’ve learned a lot more of the minutiae, the granular kind of side of these covert operations — names, places, shell companies, expenditures — so many little details that really complete, I think, in many ways, our sense of the universe of covert operations and what they targeted, how they happened, how they, you know, were organized. I mean, it’s fascinating from a historical point of view.

You know, the U.S. taxpayer, Amy, has shelled out a lot of money, for decades now, to have these documents kept secure and clean in the vaults of the national security agencies of the U.S. government. And now, finally, we are accessing this history that we paid for, that we’ve paid to — we’ve paid for it to happen. We financed the CIA with our money way back when. And now at least we know what was being done in our name but without our knowledge.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you write that on the day, President Kennedy’s inauguration in January ’61, nearly half of the political officers serving in the U.S. embassies were CAS, C-A-S, intelligence officers working under diplomatic cover known as “controlled American sources.” What’s the significance of this, Peter?

PETER KORNBLUH: Simply, the significance is that, whereas most people thought these were actually State Department officials in U.S. embassies around the world, almost half of them, almost half the people in these embassies, particularly using the office that was called political officer, were CIA undercover agents. It’s pretty incredible. As Arthur Schlesinger pointed out in this extraordinary memo, that’s been completely declassified now, to John F. Kennedy on June 10th, 1961, 3,700 officers around the world were CIA officials under diplomatic cover, in comparison to 3,900 of actual diplomats around the world. So it was almost 50%. And that’s quite an extraordinary number. And I think a number of countries will be surprised at the kind of level to which the U.S. embassies were being used as cover for the CIA.

Again, this is all in the past. It’s old history. We’ve known for many years that political officers were often used to kind of disguise CIA operations. And there were other parts of the embassies, too — the labor attachés, commercial attachés, etc. And then there were the CIA officers that were operating in countries like Chile and Bolivia and Brazil and elsewhere who weren’t in the embassies at all. But it’s a tidbit of covert operations history that certainly is dramatic and reminds us of what the United States was doing around the world and is capable of doing in the future.

AMY GOODMAN: In light of the U.S. cracking down even more on Cuba right now, especially young people may not know how many assassination attempts there were against Fidel Castro. Is it in the range of 600? And then I want to follow that up with a question about one of the JFK assassination documents being released about the inspector general’s report of the ’61 successful, if you call it that, assassination of Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, revealing the names of CIA officers and others who assisted in the plot. Can you talk about this?

PETER KORNBLUH: Well, the 600 or so figure about assassination attempts on Fidel Castro comes more from Cuban intelligence than from U.S. intelligence. Every attempt by any exile group that Cuban intelligence intercepted or learned about was added up, and those were quite a few. The CIA itself counts about 16 earnest CIA-sponsored attempts, which now have become folklore of covert operations history — exploding sea shells, poison cigars, sniper rifles, etc. So, you know, we’ve known about those assassination plots for a long time.

There is one document, an internal CIA inspector general’s report, on the assassination in late May of 1961 of Rafael Trujillo, the dictator of the Dominican Republic. And it’s quite detailed. It names the names of all the CIA officers involved, including their code names that they used in their discussions with coup plotters and the assassination team in the Dominican Republic. It names all the names of the coup plotters, as well, that the CIA was working with. The name of the actual covert operation, which was called EMDEED, and the actual assassination plot, which was called EMSLEW. There are a lot of details on that history. And, you know, you get to learn not only how the CIA works with foreigners to assassinate a head of state — in this case, the dictator Rafael Trujillo — but you also learn how the CIA goes about investigating its own wrongdoing of the past, the files that it keeps, how they are reviewed, what they yield, etc.. So, it’s quite fascinating from a historical point of view.

AMY GOODMAN: We’ve done a lot on USAID and Trump’s getting — essentially shuttering the agency. You’ve covered foreign policy in Latin America for decades. Can you talk about the story of the USAID’s Office of Public Safety?

PETER KORNBLUH: You know, that’s, again, part of the folklore of covert operations. There was a famous movie made about Dan Mitrione, who was an officer in the Office of Public Safety. It was never completely proven that he was a CIA official. He was kidnapped and executed in Uruguay by the Tupamaros, became a very famous case. There is evidence in these declassified documents that the CIA did use AID as cover.

But, you know, that was a long time ago, and even if it was doing that, there’s still quite a bit more to USAID than CIA covert operations. And so, when we talk about AID being shuttered today, we’re talking about programs that were literally saving lives every day, providing food, food bought from U.S. farmers, by the way, by the federal government, and food, medicine, vaccines — quite a bit of support to many of the causes that we actually care about. So, it’s easy to look back on the older history of USAID when it was first started as a tool of the Cold War. The Cold War has been over for a long time now. So, closing it down now is simply a crime against humanity, frankly, in my opinion, because so many people will die and suffer and become ill and impoverished by this cruel act of simply closing the doors of the USAID programs.

AMY GOODMAN: Peter Kornbluh, The New York Times reports a senior official at the main USAID agency, which is being dismantled by Trump, told employees to clear safes holding classified documents and personnel files by shredding the papers or putting them into bags for burning, according to an email sent to the staff. The significance of this, you as an archivist who deeply wants to understand what is happening and has happened in the past?

PETER KORNBLUH: Well, there is a Federal Records Protection Act, a law that prevents documents from just being wantonly destroyed, erased, shredded, burned, as this email that you refer to indicated. And so, that was very alarming when that news broke and that email was shared with the kind of legal community. It also spoke to the issue of whether these documents might have been relevant in the ongoing lawsuits, the legal pushback by AID employees to save their jobs and save their institution, legal efforts that are underway right now. And those documents might have actually been relevant to those legal efforts.

You know, my organization joined in protesting that action. It was the subject of court discussion. We don’t know — we don’t have an index of what documents were actually shredded that day and burned that day, but, hopefully, at some point we will.

But that speaks to a different issue, Amy, that I hope we want to raise before we go, which is, you know, part of what’s important about the declassification of the John F. Kennedy documents is not just what’s in the documents. It is the law that mandated that declassification, which is known as the JFK Act and passed in 1992. And it was a law that’s probably the strongest law on declassification that’s ever been written. It created an independent panel outside of the national security agencies to oversee the declassification of the documents. It mandated that, with very few exceptions, the documents be released without censorship, without redactions. And this is a law that really is very important. Now that it’s been fully implemented, by, ironically, Donald Trump, you know, it’s a law that creates a new standard and a new precedence for openness and transparency. And it’s very important that, now that we have that standard, we apply that standard to the very administration that is in power today.

AMY GOODMAN: And it’s interesting that while he’s released the JFK files, the Shabazz family is asking for the release of the Malcolm X files, which he has yet to do. Peter Kornbluh, in the last 30 seconds, I wanted to get your response to President Trump basically also shuttering Voice of America and Radio Martí, particularly the news, if you could call it that, agency that was broadcasting into Cuba U.S. propaganda.

PETER KORNBLUH: Well, he has shuttered the Cuba programs. USAID had Cuba democracy programs, which were very objectionable to the Cubans. Those are gone now. Radio Martí, TV Martí gone now. That does not mean that Trump is not going to be pressuring Cuba in other ways, but at least the Cuba programs are gone.

People who look closely at the Voice of America will know that they’ve used our documents in many stories that they’ve done. They, too, are not the Cold War product that they once were, and had some value around the world for quite a bit of people.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there, but we’ll continue in a post-show at democracynow.org. Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst for Latin America at National Security Archive.

 

Trump’s Attack on Union Card Check Looks and Smells Like Project 2025

By Hayley Brown

March 22, 2025

Source: CEPR

Photo: Rick Obst

The Trump regime has taken aim at yet another pro-worker policy, suggesting once again that it is both familiar and on board with Project 2025. Earlier this month, the US Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) ceased facilitating “card check” for union certification – a move designed to hinder workers’ ability to form a union.

Also called majority sign-up, card check is a fair and effective way to determine that workers want union representation. Workers who support a union simply sign authorization cards indicating as much, and if a majority of those eligible sign cards, the union is recognized. From there, the union can commence contract negotiations with the employer. Compared to secret ballot elections, card check reduces opportunities for employer interference, allowing more workers who want unions to form them.

The Trump regime’s actions have so far stopped short of banning card check altogether, which is what Project 2025 proposes (Project 2025’s proposal also involves Congress, but the Trump regime appears to prefer usurping Congressional authority to working with lawmakers). Nevertheless, the move at FMCS took away an important avenue that made card check certification more seamless and accessible. US employers weren’t obligated to honor card check certification before this, but removing FMCS services may further dissuade employers who might have been persuaded otherwise.

Undermining card check may seem insignificant, especially in light of news that the Trump regime is lawlessly disregarding and, in some cases, unilaterally terminating Collective Bargaining Agreements for public sector workers. But evidence suggests that card check is among the more consequential policies that make the path to unionization less fraught for workers. Contrary to claims from bosses, card check is no less democratic than a secret ballot election. The former is also better suited to the proposition because unionizing decisions are fundamentally about whether to undertake a collective endeavor rather than how to fill a pre-existing slot.

Beyond codifying card check as a valid means of union certification, a more pro-worker system would remove employers from certification proceedings altogether. Such a system would also guarantee public sector employees the same rights to form unions and bargain collectively as their peers in the private sector. Given the Trump regime’s anti-worker approach, however, state and local governments must take action to safeguard workers’ union rights. States and localities that have not already done so should pass laws to validate union certifications via card check — laws that would immediately benefit state and local government workers while acting as a potential backstop should the situation continue to unravel at the federal level.

The Trump regime is currently employing a series of bad faith arguments to justify a lawless assault on workers’ rights. The dismantling of card check certification is just one piece of a broader strategy to weaken organized labor and undermine collective bargaining. But with or without official union recognition, workers acting collectively have tremendous power. While federal policy may shift, the labor movement’s strength ultimately depends on workers themselves—and they don’t need permission from those in power to organize. As the Trump regime ramps up its attacks, workers must respond by doubling down on collective action.

The Uphill Battle To Bring Women Into Construction Jobs Could Be Lost Under Trump

Tradeswomen have spent decades fighting for their place in the skilled trades. Now they’re suing the government over its DEI policies.

By Jessica Kutz

March 22, 2025

Source: The 19th

A plumbing apprentice welds pipes at a high rise residence under construction. Photo: Teresa Crawford

For decades, women have worked diligently to carve out a space in the construction workforce, where discrimination and sexual harassment have kept the predominantly male industry, well, male. 

Across the country, they organized for recognition. First in small committees that cropped up in places like Fort Worth, Texas, where in 1953, women came together to create their own support network later called the National Association of Women in Construction. Over the years they worked with their unions and created nonprofits in places like Oregon, Wisconsin, Vermont, Florida and Chicago to advocate for issues affecting women like how to change the hostile workplace culture, and deal with the persistent lack of child care for the early hours they often work. 

The government created its own policies to ensure federal contractors were doing their due diligence to recruit and hire from a diverse workforce. But the Biden administration in particular was a boon to the movement, said Jayne Vellinga, executive director of Chicago Women in Trades (CWIT), a nonprofit aimed at bringing more women into construction jobs. 

Under Biden, the Commerce Department announced its goal to bring a million women into construction jobs, and created a requirement that recipients of large federal grants for semiconductor manufacturing include a plan for child care. The administration had also passed two laws aimed at boosting infrastructure in the country, which created a demand for skilled workers. 

It was the perfect storm of opportunity and funding to expand their programming to bring more women into the workforce. “Our placement numbers have never been higher,” Vellinga said. But when Donald Trump returned to the White House, the forward momentum collapsed almost overnight. In a fiery inauguration speech, he declared he would dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the government and create what he calls a color-blind, merit-based society. He promptly issued two executive orders calling DEI policies immoral and illegal and vowed to claw back funding. 

Just two days later, CWIT received word that all of its federal grants were under review. These grants constitute 40 percent of CWIT’s budget, and the loss would jeopardize the future of the nonprofit’s work. 

“We have complete whiplash,” Vellinga said.

Additionally, the tariffs have disrupted the construction industry, leading to a potential slowdown in projects and consequentially less need for workers, she said. 

The nonprofit, whose participants overwhelmingly identify as Black and Latina women, offers pre-apprenticeship training covering topics like workplace safety and basic technical skills. It also partners with unions and industry leaders to advocate for workplaces free of discrimination and harassment, and trains employers in how to make construction sites more inclusive of women. 

It’s work that is desperately needed in an industry where one in four women say they are always or frequently harassed, and where one in five LGBTQ+ workers say the same, according to findings from the Institute for Women’s Policy and Research. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued a report in 2023, which found that discrimination was still rampant in the industry, citing several instances of employers not hiring people because of their gender or race. 

But that report has been erased from the website, and Vellinga said she feels like the reality of who is being discriminated against is being erased, too. “This narrative that women are taking jobs away from more qualified people has never been true. They are qualified and just asking companies to overcome whatever biases to give them a fair shot.” 

The efforts taken to dismantle their work might also not be legal. In February, the nonprofit filed a lawsuit against the administration and several agencies, including the Department of Labor, seeking to declare the DEI executive orders unconstitutional. They are also suing on the grounds that the clawback of federal funds is outside of the jurisdiction of the Executive Branch since they are approved by Congress, and that it’s also infringing on their First Amendment right to free speech. 

“What the Trump administration is trying to do is say that for you to receive this federal funding you have to adopt the administration’s viewpoint that DEI is impermissible, and you have to agree with our political agenda,” said Gaylynn Burroughs, a lawyer from the National Women’s Law Center, one of the organizations that is representing the CWIT in court. “The government is not allowed to do that.” 

Catherine Fisk, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said in effect the orders chill constitutionally protected speech and threaten legal action against organizations who cannot know what it is that they are prohibited from doing because it’s so vague. “That is both a First Amendment violation that is broadly prohibiting advocacy and a due process violation,” she said: “The government is threatening to punish people without being clear of what they are being punished for.”

The 19th reached out to the Department of Labor, The Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Justice, which were all named as defendants, but did not hear back by press time. 

Promoting diversity, equity and inclusion is not illegal, and these executive orders are a way to attack ideals fundamental to American society, Burroughs said. “When you peel it back, what we’re really talking about is the ability for people to not be discriminated against,” she said. “We do a disservice when we’re saying that it’s an attack on DEI. It’s an attack on civil rights, on workplace anti-discrimination.” 

She continued: “The message that is being conveyed is, if you are not a white heterosexual man, and you are in public life, or you are in a job where you are successful, that you must have gotten there because of some unfair advantage, and that is really a poisonous way of thinking.” 

In addition to endangering federal funding for DEI work, the Trump administration also rescinded an executive order that had been in place since 1965. The order prohibited federal contractors from discriminating in its hiring practices and required them to take affirmative actions to ensure that it was trying to recruit and hire women and people of color for its jobs, which are paid for with taxpayer dollars and in theory should be accessible to anyone who is qualified. Because some groups have been so effectively shut out of certain jobs, that work can look like providing opportunities for specific groups like women to learn skills and receive training to be competitive applicants in the job pool. 

To help enforce the 1965 order, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs could perform audits on job sites to also ensure the workplaces were protecting employers equal rights. Jenny Yang, the former director of the office under Biden, said in some cases an audit has uncovered that women don’t have proper fitting personal protective equipment which can pose a safety risk, or are being harassed or discriminated against in other ways. 

“Having an OFCCP investigator auditing those practices is what often catalyzes change because workers see that the federal government is there,” she said. It also offers workers an opportunity to report issues with their workplace anonymously versus having to file a complaint against their employer, which can open them up to retribution. 

The agency has also played a role in correcting pay discrimination by conducting pay audits, said Yang. From 2014 to 2024 the agency obtained $261 million for employees and job seekers who were discriminated against. That money went to over 250,000 employees and applicants. That number included about 25,000 White people and men, who were alleged to have been discriminated against. “Our anti discrimination laws protect everyone,” Yang said.  

But now that agency is being whittled down to a ghost of itself, with reports that the Department of Labor plans to lay off 90 percent of staff. The order announcing the rescindment said the work going forward would only apply to veterans and people with disabilities. 

“The rescission of the executive order will have devastating consequences for workers and especially for women in the trades, many who have said they wouldn’t have an opportunity to support their families because of the discrimination many women face in that industry,” said Yang.

That’s because the opportunities afforded to women without college degrees pay much differently than those offered to men. It’s a phenomena known as occupation segregation, said Vellinga. “Our culture does not value the caretaking role, the roles that women have traditionally played, as much as they have valued the roles that men have traditionally played,” she said. 

An example she likes to use is the difference between how the country pays certified nursing assistants, of which 88 percent are women, versus carpenters. Neither job requires a college degree, and both are physically demanding. But the median wage for nurse assistants is just $40,000 compared to $61,000 for carpenters according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Carpenters are also more likely to have pensions. 

Now she fears that with a loss of protections in the workplace, and a fear from employers to even engage in DEI, those opportunities for women will just dry up. And her organization’s ability to bridge the gap in employment will be crippled. 

If their federal funds are canceled they won’t be able to offer as many trainings, they won’t be able to work with employers to create workplaces free of discrimination and harassment, and they won’t be able to do as much outreach to educate women and girls that these opportunities even exist in the first place. 

“For an organization who has spent decades trying to change a culture, we are still so far from the finish line,” Vellinga said. Nearly 96 percent of construction workers, to this day, are men. “It is really incredible that you could not acknowledge that reality.”

 

Trump’s Expulsion of South Africa’s Ambassador May Well Backfire

By Medea Benjamin

March 22, 2025

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Photo Credit: CODEPINK

The South African ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool, left Washington D.C. on March 21 after Secretary of State Marco Rubio took the extraordinary step of declaring him “persona non grata.” The United States is losing a seasoned representative who had previously served as South Africa’s ambassador under President Obama, was a member of South Africa’s National Assembly, and was active (and imprisoned) during his country’s anti-apartheid struggle. And ginning up the conflict with a country that has such tremendous international standing may prove to be a bad move for President Trump.

Secretary Rubio publicly berated Ambassador Rasool in a most undiplomatic tweet on March 14, writing: “South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States is no longer welcome in our great country. Ebrahim Rasool is a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates @POTUS. We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA.”

The Trump administration was incensed by remarks the ambassador had made earlier that week when speaking, via video, at a South Africa conference. He commented on the MAGA movement, saying that it is driven by white supremacy and is a response to the growing demographic diversity in the United States. The ambassador also expressed concern about the movement’s global reach, including support from Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa and has connections with extreme right movements overseas. The ambassador called his nation, South Africa, “the historical antidote to supremacism.”

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the decision to expel Rasool was “regrettable” and that “South Africa remains committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States.”

Rasool’s expulsion is only the latest manifestation of U.S. displeasure with South Africa. On March 17, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce listed a litany of issues the U.S. has with South Africa, including its “unjust land appropriations law”;  its growing relationship with Russia and Iran; and the fact that it accused Israel of genocide in the International Court of Justice. Bruce denounced the ambassador’s lack of decorum, which she called obscene, and painted South Africa as a country whose policies make the United States and the entire world less safe.

This is in stark contrast to the view of South Africa from the Global South, where the African nation’s foreign policy is often seen as exemplary. Since the end of apartheid in 1994, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has embraced a non-aligned foreign policy and has tried to resist pressure from Western countries. South Africa has also continued to show appreciation for nations such as Russia, Cuba and Iran that supported its anti-apartheid struggle. 

South Africa’s non-aligned stance became a bone of contention with the Biden administration after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The United States pushed the world community to condemn Russia, but South Africa, along with many African nations, refused to take sides. South Africa has long had warm relations with Russia, dating back to the days when the Soviet Union trained and supported many of the ANC freedom fighters. Instead of condemning Russia, South Africa led a group of six African nations to advocate for negotiations to end the Russia/Ukraine conflict. 

But it was Israel’s war on Gaza that placed the United States and South Africa on a collision course. Far from supporting the U.S. ally, Israel, South Africa accused Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians at the International Court of Justice. The Biden administration denounced the case as “meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever,” but the case triggered an avalanche of global support for South Africa’s principled stand. Dr. Haidar Eid, a Palestinian academic from Gaza, reflected world opinion when he said said, “By bravely standing up for what is right and taking Israel to the ICJ, South Africa showed us that another world is possible: a world where no state is above the law, most heinous crimes like genocide and apartheid are never accepted and the peoples of the world stand together shoulder to shoulder against injustice. Thank You, South Africa.”

When President Trump regained the White House, he not only condemned South Africa for its ICJ case against Israel, but he became embroiled in a policy totally internal to the African nation. Most likely egged on by Elon Musk, Trump denounced South Africa’s Expropriation Act of 2025, which established a program to expropriate unused agricultural land that White owners refused to sell to Black purchasers. White South Africans (Afrikaners) controlled the oppressive apartheid government until it was overthrown in 1994, and Afrikaners continue to own the vast majority of the wealth (the typical Black household owns 5 per cent of the wealth held by the typical White household). But Trump called the White population “racially disfavored landowners” and shockingly, not only punished South Africa by cutting off U.S. aid, but also promoted “the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination.” While shutting U.S. doors to immigrants of color from around the world, Trump laid out the red carpet for the white Africaners. Little wonder Ambassador Rasool was moved to call the Trump administration a leader in white supremacy.

Trump’s decision to cut aid to South Africa coincides with the administration’s gutting of US AID, which has had a disastrous effect on South Africans suffering from HIV/AIDS. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was a U.S. program launched in 2003 by President Bush to provide life-saving HIV care and treatment. South Africa has one of the highest rates of HIV in the world, and the U.S. had contributed 17 percent of the nation’s $400 million HIV budget. This funding supported the anti-retroviral medication for HIV treatment of 5.5 million people annually. According to some estimates,  the aid freeze could cause over half a million deaths in South Africa over the next decade.

In terms of the larger South African economy and possible fallout from U.S. cuts, the United States is South Africa’s second-largest export market (China is number one), with $14.7 billion worth of goods exported to the United States in 2024. South Africa also benefits from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a preferential trade program providing duty-free access to U.S. markets. If the Trump administration removes South Africa from AGOA eligibility, its exports will surely plummet.

To make matters worse, this week the U.S. stopped the disbursement of $2.6 billion to South Africa through the World Bank’s Climate Investment Fund, monies that are supposed to help South Africa transition from coal to cleaner energy sources. 

The Trump administration’s tough stance on South Africa is certainly meant to warn other countries about the consequences of challenging the United States. But Trump’s actions may well backfire. In response to the cut-off in aid and trade, 100 Parliamentarians from around the world penned a letter calling on their own governments to support South Africa’s public health programs and to expand new avenues for international trade as a sign of “international solidarity with the South African people as they face this assault on their right to self-determination.” South Africa is also a key player in the growing alliance of  BRICs, a grouping of large countries trying to counter the economic clout of the United States. The BRICs nations now represent roughly 45 percent of the world’s populations and 35 percent of global GDP.

Trump’s expulsion and threats have also had a unifying effect inside South Africa. Ambassador Rasool, who says he has no regrets, is expected to be greeted by a massive crowd as he lands in Cape Town on Sunday. South Africa’s president is trying to tone down the reception, as he is anxious to repair relations with the U.S. But for the people of South Africa and worldwide who oppose white supremacy, Rasool is not a disgraced ambassador. He is a hero.

Protests against Trump and Musk spring to life — with a mass demonstration set for April 5

Along with rallies held by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, #TeslaTakedown and #HandsOff protests are giving people the opportunity to voice their displeasure with the administration.

David Knowles

YAHOO News Editor
 Tue, March 25, 2025 

Sen. Bernie Sanders with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Denver, a stop on their "Fighting Oligarchy Tour," March 21. (David Zalubowski/AP)

As President Trump and Elon Musk continue their plan to dramatically reshape the federal government, a growing protest movement is emerging to try to stop them.

Over the past few days, thousands of people have gathered to hear Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York castigate the current administration.

“We will not allow America to become an oligarchy,” Sanders told a crowd of 34,000 in Denver. “This nation was built by working people, and we are not going to let a handful of billionaires run the government.”

At five stops in three states — Arizona, Colorado and Nevada — Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez drew crowds that exceeded expectations.

The rallies by the two high-profile politicians have proven to be the biggest demonstrations of the first months of Trump’s second term, but numerous others have been popping up nationwide. On March 7, a “Stand Up for Science” rally drew thousands of people to Washington, D.C., and other cities to demand a restoration of federal scientific funding cut by the Trump administration.

Yet compared with the Women’s March of 2017, which drew millions of citizens to the streets the weekend after Trump’s first-term inauguration to protest what many saw as the newly elected president’s pattern of sexist rhetoric, the second-term protests have, so far, been much smaller.

#TeslaTakedown

Protesters at a downtown Manhattan Tesla dealership decry Elon Musk's powerful role in the Trump administration, March 22. (Andrea Renault/Star Max)

To hear Musk tell it, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the advisory group Trump has tasked him to lead, is playing a crucial role in addressing what Republicans see as out-of-control spending.

“The country is going bankrupt,” Musk said last week in an interview with Fox News in reference to the growing national debt. “If we don’t do something about it, the ship of America is going to sink.”

But in response to Musk’s efforts to slash the federal workforce and pare back popular social programs, so-called Tesla Takedown protests have entered their fifth week at Tesla dealerships across the country. On Saturday, hundreds gathered at Tesla dealerships in Arizona, New Jersey, New York, California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Texas, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and multiple other states.

Organizers are planning a “global day of action” at Tesla dealerships on March 29.

“Elon Musk is destroying our democracy, and he's using the fortune he built at Tesla to do it. We are taking action at Tesla to stop Musk's illegal coup,” reads the text on ActionNetwork.org, a website that says it “empowers individuals and groups to organize for progressive causes.”

The protests against Musk’s actions as the head of DOGE have sometimes turned violent. Over the weekend, the FBI issued an alert warning that acts of vandalism, including gunfire, have occurred at Tesla dealerships in at least nine states. The FBI warned citizens to “exercise vigilance” and to “look out for suspicious activity” on or around dealership locations. On Monday, the agency announced it was creating a task force to investigate recent attacks on the company.

"The FBI has been investigating the increase in violent activity toward Tesla, and over the last few days, we have taken additional steps to crack down and coordinate our response," FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X. "This is domestic terrorism. Those responsible will be pursued, caught, and brought to justice."

Tesla Takedown organizers, however, have distanced themselves from any acts of vandalism.

“Tesla Takedown is a peaceful protest movement. We oppose violence, vandalism and destruction of property. This protest is a lawful exercise of our First Amendment right to peaceful assembly,” Action Network said on its website.
‘Hands Off!’

Another test of the strength of the protest movement against Trump will come on April 5, when a coalition of liberal groups is planning nationwide demonstrations, including one at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

“Donald Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them. They’re taking everything they can get their hands on, and daring the world to stop them,” Indivisible, the organization running the so-called Hands Off! protests, said in a social media post.”

Will the demonstrations draw enough people to have an impact on Trump’s agenda? Not according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“Anyone who thinks protests, lawsuits, and lawfare will deter President Trump must have been sleeping under a rock for the past several years," Leavitt told USA Today last week in a statement. "President Trump will not be deterred from delivering on the promises he made to make our federal government more efficient and more accountable to the hardworking American taxpayers across the country who overwhelmingly reelected him.”

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AOC, Sanders erase Biden as progressive movement moves on

David Weigel
Mon, March 24, 2025

SEMAFOR




The Scene

DENVER, Colo. — Now we know what they really thought.

On Friday afternoon, at the biggest rally of his political career, Sen. Bernie Sanders encouraged some 32,000 people here to organize against “oligarchy,” dismantle the private campaign finance system, and maybe run for office themselves.

He never ran as a Democrat — and they wouldn’t need to, either. The party hadn’t earned it.

“For the last 30 or 40 years, Democrats have turned their backs on the working class of this country,” said Sanders.

The Vermont independent shared the stage with New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who called for “a Democratic Party that fights harder for us.” They were introduced by Jimmy Williams, the president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, who denounced Democrats for not raising the minimum wage or expanding Social Security when they held the House, Senate, and White House.

“For the Democratic Party to ever win back the majority, they have to represent the working class and not the corporate class,” said Williams.

The blunt talk barely made ripples in Washington, where Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are often covered as problems for their party. But as they reboot their movement, progressives who traded loyalty to Joe Biden for big policy victories — from the Green New Deal to clemency for Leonard Peltier — are breaking ranks with the Democratic Party and its feeble brand. Sanders is stepping up efforts to recruit Democratic and independent candidates, and Ocasio-Cortez is taking a larger role in responding to the Trump administration.

And unencumbered from their 2024 task — to make a progressive case for Biden, and then, for Kamala Harris — they are no longer selling his presidency as a success.
Know More

When he secured the 2020 Democratic nomination, Biden made a deal with Sanders and other progressives, giving them a role in drafting the party platform and incorporating their ideas into his campaign and administration. To progressives’ surprise, he often responded to their direct actions; climate activists protested with Ocasio-Cortez for a New Deal-style “climate conservation corps,” and he created one by executive order.




“When it comes to domestic policy, President Biden probably would go down as one of the most effective presidents that centered the working class,” Ocasio-Cortez told the New York Times in January.

But Biden’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza smothered progressives’ good will. In Denver, Sanders mentioned the former president just once by name, when he denounced Trump for maintaining “the horrific Biden policy of giving more money to Netanyahu to destroy the Palestinian people.”

Now Biden, who’s made just two public appearances since leaving Washington, is a non-factor in his party. His achievements, including trillions of dollars of infrastructure, health care and climate spending, are being pulled down by his successor. Democrats rarely talk about Biden’s role in those programs as they fight (and sue) to save them.

The erasure started before Biden left office, with Sanders crediting Trump’s victory to “Democratic leadership” that defended the “status quo” and lost working class votes.Sanders and other progressives had taken another tone during the campaign, defending Biden and his record. (So had Williams: IAPUT endorsed Biden, then Harris, in the 2024 election, and he praised “Union Joe” as the best president for labor in generations.)

“We came out of that economic downturn a lot faster than anyone dream we would have, and you can thank President Biden for that,” Sanders told a crowd in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on June 28 — the day after the disastrous CNN debate with Trump that unraveled Biden’s campaign and damaged Democrats’ argument that voters could overlook his age. “Biden’s policies, by and large, are for the working class of this country, and we’ve got to appreciate that.”

In conversations on Monday, progressive strategists said that there was no upside to mentioning Biden at all, even when defending programs he funded or created. In Denver, Ocasio-Cortez spoke more positively of the Democrats than Sanders did, praising the state’s senators and Democratic members of Congress by name for opposing the GOP’s spending packages.

“I want you to look at every level of office around you, and support Democrats who actually fight, because those are the ones that can win against Republicans,” she said.

David’s view

Why does it matter if Democrats and progressives wrap up Biden’s presidency into a story of Democratic failure? It explains the Sanders/Ocasio-Cortez project, which in part is about disentangling their politics from a toxic brand and turning it into an anti-establishment cause.

“Trump basically said the system is broken, and I’m going to fix it,” Sanders told me before his “Fight Oligarchy” tour began last month. “Democrats more or less said: You know, the status quo is not perfect, but we’re gonna tinker with it around the edges.”

The senator’s new electoral project is recruiting progressives to run against Republicans and beat them, whether they want to run as Democrats or independents.

“There are a whole lot of people, who voted Republican, who are not crazy about the Republican Party,” Sanders told me in Greeley. “Working-class Republicans don’t want tax breaks for billionaires and cuts to veterans programs.” In the story he’s telling, those voters did not have an ally in the White House who did the right thing for four years; neither party has answered those voters’ concerns.

But Republicans have not forgotten about Biden. During his address to Congress last month, Trump mentioned Biden, “the worst president in American history,” 14 times. In remarks to reporters, the president frequently blames Bidens for problems he didn’t leave him, like a stock market correction. The story Trump and the GOP are telling is that their party is delivering for the working class, rescuing it from the costs and failures inflicted by their last president and the Democratic Party.

Defeated parties have been here before. George W. Bush vanished from Republican politics after leaving the presidency in 2009; apart from a few “Miss Me Yet?” memes and Dick Cheney’s criticism of the Obama presidency’s anti-terrorism strategy, that team played no role in the Tea Party-era GOP rebrand. Republicans built space to attack their former president’s legacy, with conservative candidates taking down incumbents who had supported Bush’s Wall Street bailout. The party won the presidency again with Trump, who has mocked Bush as a failure.

Parties have also swung hard in the other direction. In 2021, when Trump was beaten but able to run again, his party retconned his presidency into a success. They were boom years, with no new foreign wars, undermined only by a deranged anti-Trump deep state and the COVID-19 pandemic. The few Republicans who criticized Trump over his handling of that pandemic, like Florida’s Ron DeSantis, lost to him and endorsed him.

This was never going to happen for Biden, who left office when voters held a far darker view of the economy than they did in 2020. But it’s significant that the progressives are skipping right past it. Democrats’ argument about how they can win back working class voters might start with Biden, who implemented some big progressive ideas and watched more of those voters walk away.

Room for Disagreement

As Biden left office, The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel called him a “remarkably consequential one-term president” who “orchestrated the best recovery in the industrial world” and “consolidated the break with the failed market fundamentalism of the conservative era that Trump began.” It’s the sort of analysis many progressives had of Biden — Gaza record aside — until the results came in from Pennsylvania on Election Night.

Notable

In an interview with Jonathan Karl of ABC News, Sanders said that Biden “should have done much better” to control the U.S.-Mexico border, and that “when the Democrats had control of the Senate, they did virtually nothing for working people.”

The best story on Biden’s first attempts to get back into the conversation and defend his legacy is this NBC News three-hander, which covers a meeting between Biden and the new DNC chair (inconclusive) and the ex-president’s brooding about how the party lost even after forcing him to give up the nomination.