May Day Demonstrations Worldwide Condemn US-Israeli War on Iran, Champion Workers

“Working people refuse to pay the price for Donald Trump’s war in the Middle East,” said the European Trade Confederation.


Demonstrators join a demonstration for International Workers’ Day on May 1 2026, in Madrid, Spain.
(Photo by Fernando Sanchez/Europa Press via Getty Images)

Brad Reed
May 01, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

May Day demonstrations across the world on Friday denounced the US-Israeli war against Iran, which has caused a global energy crisis that is disproportionately harming working-class people.

Among the earliest May Day demonstrations took place in the Philippines, and a video published by The Associated Press shows protesters clashing with police near the US Embassy in the capital city of Manila.

While many demonstrators held signs that referenced local issues, American foreign policy was also a major focus of the protesters, as marchers in Manila carried a large banner that read, “Down With US Imperialism.”

Josua Mata, leader of the SENTRO umbrella group of labor federations, told The Associated Press that the war with Iran was a central focus of protests because of the impact it’s had on energy costs.

“Every Filipino worker now is aware that the situation here is deeply connected to the global crisis,” Mata explained.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto attended a May Day rally held in the capital of Jakarta, where Jakarta Globe reported that he announced a host of worker-friendly policies including plans “to build daycare facilities for workers’ children and accelerate the construction of at least 1 million homes.”

France 24 reported that hundreds of demonstrators in Istanbul, Turkey were arrested after attempting to march to the city’s iconic Taksim Square, which police had sealed off.

The Turkish Contemporary Lawyers’ Association (ÇHD) said on Friday afternoon that at least 350 demonstrators in Istanbul have been detained as a result of the protests, with hundreds more potentially in custody.



May Day demonstrations are also taking place across Europe, with many demonstrators blaming US President Donald Trump’s war for the deterioration of workers’ living standards.

The European Trade Union Confederation, which represents 93 trade union organizations in 41 European countries, released a statement declaring that “working people refuse to pay the price for Donald Trump’s war in the Middle East,” adding that “today’s rallies show working people will not stand by and see their jobs and living standards destroyed.”

Trump is also facing protests at home, with more than 4,000 “May Day Strong” events planned across the United States.

Daniel Bertossa, general secretary for Public Services International, said this year’s May Day demonstrations are providing a desperately needed backlash to power grabs being made by the global billionaire class.

Bertossa pointed to the US-Israel attack on Iran, as well as Trump’s repeated threats to invade Greenland, as key turning points that have pushed workers to organize and fight back.

“Rising living costs caused by the war are now driving anger among working-class people and producing a rare and powerful moment to connect and educate,” said Bertossa. “Fascists don’t have the answers to the economic pain they exploited to get elected—international affairs impact us all—and international working-class solidarity matters.”

Bertossa added that “May Day is a vivid reminder that working-class politics is not a spectator sport,” and “we have never won by watching, waiting, or relying on great power leaders to gift us our future.”

May Day - International solidarity

Friday 1 May 2026

Oleksandr Kryselov and Leila Al-Shami “Internationalism Is Not a Luxury, but a Survival Mechanism”, practical solidarity “Swedish Dockworkers Against Russia’s and Israel’s Wars”, solidarity from below “Against defeatism disguised as radicalism”. The Palestinians’ long struggle by Roland Rance “Marking the 50th Land Day”, Mohammed Harbi on the Algerian fight for independence ““In Algeria, what is fundamental is the state” ”, Badrul Alam on “The Role of CPB-ML Since August 5, 2024: A Marxist-Leninist Analysis”. Alex De Jong reviews “Searching for international solidarity”, a Filipino Maoist’s memoir.

‘A Moment of Reckoning’: 4,000+ May Day Demonstrations Across US

“During the ‘No Kings’ demonstrations, we showed what we’re against. May Day is the day we’re making clear what we are fighting for,” 

Demonstrators attend a May Day rally marking International Workers' Day in New York, on May 1, 2026.
(Photo by Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images)

id one organizer.


Stephen Prager
May 01, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


In thousands of locations across the United States, workers and students are taking off from work and school and swearing off shopping on Friday as part of a national May Day protest.

May Day Strong, a coalition of activist groups and unions organizing the events, said more than 4,000 actions, from marches to pickets to displays of peaceful civil disobedience, were underway.






It is yet another nationwide display of coordinated resistance to the Trump administration’s agenda, including its war in Iran and its use of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to attack immigrant communities, issues that were at the forefront of March’s “No Kings” protests.

Six young protesters with the Sunrise Movement were taken into custody after blocking a bridge in Minneapolis in what they said was an act of “nonviolent noncooperation” to “stand up to the war in Iran and against ICE terrorizing our neighbors and our cities.”

Dozens more Sunrise protesters in Portland held a sit-in in the lobby of a Hilton hotel that was housing top officials with the Department of Homeland Security, leading to eight arrests.

“It’s May 1st, it’s workers’ day,” one of the protesters was recorded saying while being led away by police. “Don’t forget that you have power.”

In New York, over 100 activists lined up outside every entrance to the New York Stock Exchange in downtown Manhattan, banging drums and chanting “No ICE, no war!” where they were met by a flood of cops.



In the spirit of May Day, a global day of solidarity among workers, Sulma Arias, the executive director of the social justice organization People’s Action, said Friday’s “Workers Over Billionaires” protests are just as much about confronting injustices as about building an alternative.

“During the ‘No Kings’ demonstrations, we showed what we’re against. May Day is the day we’re making clear what we are fighting for,” Arias said. “We are for affordable housing for low-income people. We are for free healthcare for all. We are for utility laws that ensure every home stays warm in the winter and cool in the summer at costs that a person on a fixed income can afford. We are for the right to a fair and equal vote for Americans from every race and in every state. May Day is our day to assert and defend our rights.”

“They want us afraid. They want us divided. But on May 1, we refuse.”

Despite claims by President Donald Trump that the US is entering an economic “golden age” under his leadership, a Gallup poll released this week found that 55% of Americans said their finances were getting worse, the highest number ever recorded in more than 20 years of polling, and even higher than in the doldrums of the Great Recession.



A coalition of labor unions across several major cities, including Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles, has coordinated what has been called an “economic blackout,” which includes avoiding buying from private sector retailers.

“When we say ‘workers over billionaires,’ ‘billionaires’ is not just this amorphous figure, right? They’re real people,” said Jana Korn, the chief of staff for the Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO, in an interview with The Real News Network. “In Philadelphia, we’re kind of a poor city. We don’t have that many billionaires, but we have one. The CEO of Comcast is the only billionaire that lives in the city.”

“So why should we, as a city, accept that they take and take from us? And then with that money, what do they do? They donate to Trump’s ballroom project,” she continued. “People in Philadelphia are struggling... Our transportation system barely works. We’re at risk of having 17 schools close down this year.”

Some labor organizers have described economic boycotts, undertaken as part of prior mass protest movements against the second Trump administration, as an act of building strength for something larger, such as a future general strike.

“I think really for us in the labor movement,” Korn said, “[the boycott is] about how do we build the capacity to really disrupt, to strike when necessary, to shut things down when we have to. And that’s something that we have not been called to do as a labor movement in a very long time.”



Other unions have used May Day to confront their own employers directly. In New Orleans, hundreds of nurses at University Medical Center announced that they were beginning a five-day strike after attempting to negotiate a contract for more than two years.

In New York City, Amazon workers unionized with the Teamsters assembled on the steps of the public library before marching to Amazon’s corporate offices to demand the company cut its contracts with ICE, which has used its cloud computing services to target immigrants, including some Amazon workers and contractors.

Matt Multari, who has worked as an Amazon driver for a year and a half, told Mother Jones that he joined the protest to “demand the one thing that’s worth fighting for in this life: respect.”

Masih Fouladi, executive director of the California Immigrant Policy Center, said, “May Day is a moment of reckoning.”

“Immigrant communities—from farmworkers in our fields to nurses in our hospitals, from refugees fleeing war to families who have built their lives here for generations—are under siege,” she said. “They want us afraid. They want us divided. But on May 1, we refuse.”

“Workers and immigrants—documented and undocumented, native-born and newly arrived,” she said, “will stand together in the streets because we know the truth: there is no workers’ rights without immigrant rights, and there is no justice for working people here while our tax dollars fund devastation abroad.”

May Day 2026: What Kind of Nation Will This Be?

This year’s May Day rallies go beyond workers’ rights.


People take part in May Day rally and march in New York City to protest the Trump administration, New York, U.S., May 1, 2025.
(Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Peter Dreier
May 01, 2026

Common Dreams

Unlike the rest of the world’s democracies, the United States doesn’t use the metric system, doesn’t require employers to provide workers with paid vacations, hasn’t abolished the death penalty, and doesn’t celebrate May Day as an official national holiday.

Outside the US, May 1 is international workers’ day, observed with speeches, rallies and demonstrations. This year, millions of workers in Europe, Asia and Latin America will take to the streets to demand higher wages, better benefits and improved working conditions.

Ironically, this celebration of working-class solidarity was started by the US labor movement and soon spread around the world, but it never earned official recognition in this country.

This year, on the heels of the three massive nationwide “No Kings” marches and rallies, millions of Americans will join forces, in thousands of cities and towns, in May Day Strong events.

The May Day Strong organizers hoping to bring Americans together to challenge the billionaires, big corporations, and the Trump administration, who have manipulated the rules to lower living standards, attack immigrants, undermine democracy, and direct tax dollars for wars rather than meeting human needs. It will be a day of rallies, marches, teach-ins, labor actions, and a refusal to participate in business as usual—because, as the organizers say, “when those at the top rig the system, collective action is how we set it right.”

Organizers expect over several thousand nonviolent actions across the country. The broad coalition behind the protests include major unions, civil rights, reproductive justice, environmental, immigrant rights, and faith groups, and tenant and community organizations, as well as Indivisible and Democratic Socialists of America.

The protest is inspired by the large day of action on January 23 that shut down much of Minneapolis by asking people not to work, shop, or attend school that day to challenge ICE’s occupation and its illegal actions (including murder) against immigrants and activists.

But the May Day Strong leaders are not calling for a general strike to shut down the economy. That tactic—allowing unions to strike in solidarity with other unions’ strikes—was banned in 1946 when Congress passed the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act over President Harry Truman’s veto. Even so, organizers view this year’s May Day events as a dress rehearsal something close to a general strike in 2028, in anticipation of the presidential and mid-term elections, but that would require the participation of many large unions who may not believe they and their members are prepared for such a militant action or the possible political backlash by the Trump administration and by voters if employers threaten to fire workers for engaging in an illegal strike. In addition, as Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch noted, “How many people would need to stop shopping to make a noticeable dent in the nearly $3 billion per day Americans spend?”“

But another massive national day of protest this May Day could help inspire voters to oust more Trump Republicans in November, give Democrats a majority of seats in both the House and Senate, and lay the groundwork for a more progressive policy agenda if the Democrats take back the White House in two years.

In doing so, they will be honoring the original May Day, which was born of the movement for an eight-hour workday. After the Civil War, unregulated capitalism ran rampant in America. It was the Gilded Age, a time of merger mania, increasing concentration of wealth and growing political influence by corporate power brokers known as Robber Barons. New technologies made possible new industries, which generated great riches for the fortunate few, but at the expense of workers, many of them immigrants, who worked long hours, under dangerous conditions, for little pay.

As the gap between the rich and other Americans widened dramatically, workers began to resist in a variety of ways. The first major wave of labor unions pushed employers to limit the workday to ten hours and then later down to eight hours. The 1877 strike by tens of thousands of railroad, factory and mine workers—which shut down the nation’s major industries and was brutally suppressed by the corporations and their friends in government—was the first of many mass actions to demand living wages and humane working conditions. By 1884, the campaign had gained enough momentum that the predecessor to the American Federation of Labor adopted a resolution at its annual meeting, “that eight hours shall constitute legal day’s labor from and after May 1, 1886.”

On the appointed date, unions and radical groups orchestrated strikes and large-scale demonstrations in cities across the country. More than 500,000 workers went on strike or marched in solidarity and many more people protested in the streets. In Chicago, a labor stronghold, at least 30,000 workers struck. Rallies and parades across the city more than doubled that number, and the May 1 demonstrations continued for several days. The protests were mostly nonviolent, but they included skirmishes with strikebreakers, company-hired thugs and police.

On May 3, at a rally outside the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company factory, police fired on the crowd, killing at least two workers. The next day, at a rally at Haymarket Square to protest the shootings, police moved in to clear the crowd. Someone threw a bomb at the police, killing at least one officer. Another seven policemen were killed during the ensuing riot, and police gunfire killed at least four protesters and injured many others.

After a controversial investigation, seven anarchists were sentenced to death for murder, while another was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The anarchists won global notoriety, being seen as martyrs by many radicals and reformers, who viewed the trial and executions as politically motivated.

Within a few years, unions and radical groups around the world had established May Day as an international holiday to commemorate the Haymarket martyrs and continue the struggle for the eight-hour day, workers’ rights, and social justice.

In the United States, however, the burgeoning Knights of Labor, uneasy with May Day’s connection to anarchists and other radicals, adopted another day to celebrate workers’ rights. In 1887, Oregon was the first state to make Labor Day an official holiday, celebrated in September. Other states soon followed. Unions sponsored parades to celebrate Labor Day, but such one-day festivities didn’t make corporations any more willing to grant workers decent conditions. To make their voices heard, workers had to resort to massive strikes, typically put down with brutal violence by government troops.

In 1894, the American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs, went on strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company to demand lower rents (Pullman was a company town that owned its employees’ homes) and higher pay following huge layoffs and wage cuts. In solidarity with the Pullman workers, railroad workers across the country boycotted the trains with Pullman cars, paralyzing the nation’s economy as well as its mail service. President Grover Cleveland declared the strike a federal crime and called out 12,000 soldiers to break the strike. They crushed the walkout and killed at least two protesters. Six days later, Cleveland—facing worker protests for his repression of the Pullman strikers—signed a bill creating Labor Day as an official national holiday in September. He hoped that giving the working class a day off to celebrate one Monday a year might pacify them.

For most of the 20th century, Labor Day was reserved for festive parades, picnics and speeches sponsored by unions in major cities. But contrary to what President Cleveland had hoped, American workers, their families and allies, found other occasions to mobilize for better working conditions and a more humane society. America witnessed massive strike waves throughout the century, including militant general strikes and occupations. These included a general strike in Seattle in 1919, the 1934 San Francisco general strike, led by the longshoremen’s union; a strike of about 400,000 textile workers that same year; militant sit-down strikes in 1937 by autoworkers in Flint, Michigan, women workers at Woolworth’s department stores in New York, aviation workers in Los Angeles, and others, and the largest strike wave in US history in 1946, triggered by pent-up demands following World War Two.

May 1 faded away as a day of protest. From the 1920s through the 1950s, radical groups sought to keep the tradition alive with parades and other events, but the mainstream labor movement and most liberal organizations kept their distance, making May Day an increasingly marginal affair. In 1958, in the midst of the cold war, President Dwight Eisenhower proclaimed May 1 as Loyalty Day. Each subsequent president has issued a similar proclamation, although few Americans know about or celebrate the day.

Since 2001, American unions and immigrant rights activists have resurrected May 1 as a day of protest around both workers’ rights and immigrant rights. That year, millions of people in over 100 cities—including more than a million in Los Angeles, 200,000 in New York and 300,000 in Chicago—participated in May Day demonstrations.

The huge turnout was catalyzed by a bill, sponsored by Representative James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) and passed by the House the previous December, that would have classified as a felon anyone who helped undocumented immigrants enter or remain in the United States. Since then, immigrant workers and their allies have adopted May Day as an occasion for protest.

In 2006, organized launched a protest they called “A Day Without Immigrants,” which was also termed the “Great American Boycott.” In many cities, workers refused to go to work, high school students walked out of their classrooms and into the street, while consumers shut down businesses that depended on immigrant workers.

In 2017, activists organized another “Day Without Immigrants” protest to dramatize the importance of immigrants to the American economy and protest Trump’s plans to build a border wall and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. The organizers called for immigrants and allies not to go to work, to avoid spending money, and keep children home from school.

“It was mostly immigrants who led the first May Day movement for the eight-hour day. Now a new generation of immigrant workers have revitalized and brought May Day back to life,” observed California State Senator María Elena Durazo, the former head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

Although the labor movement fell on hard times starting in the 1950s, it nevertheless helped guarantee that more Americans would share in the nation’s post-war prosperity and join the middle class. Moreover, the civil rights, feminist, environmental and gay rights movements, and the more recent immigrant rights movement, drew important lessons from labor movement tactics and built coalitions with organized labor to advance their goals.

America is now in the midst of a new Gilded Age with a new group of corporate Robber Barons, many of them operating on a global scale. The top of the income scale has the biggest concentration of income and wealth since 1928. Several decades of corporate-backed assaults on unions have left only six percent of private sector employees with union cards, down from about one-third of all workers in the 1950s. More than half of America’s 15 million union members now work for government (representing 33 percent of all government employees), so business groups and conservative politicians, including Trump, have targeted public sector unions for destruction.

Despite this, we’ve seen a recent resurgence of activism among rank-and-file workers at fast-food chains, Starbucks, Amazon, Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, Volkswagen, Boeing, Trader Joe’s, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Chipotle, Disneyland, Kaiser Permanente, UPS, Uber and LYFT, REI, film companies and TV studios, meatpacking companies, major hospitals and universities, school districts, and other employers. They have waged strikes, walkouts and union recognition campaigns to win better pay and working conditions.

Public opinion in solidly behind these demands. The decline of union membership is not due to Americans’ opposition to unions. A recent Gallup poll found that 68% of Americans support unions. Support is particularly high among Americans between 18 and 34 years old, 72% of whom embrace unions as a vehicle to address economic inequality and workplace problems. About two-thirds (64%) of Americans think the federal minimum wage—which has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009—should be increased to $17.

The biggest obstacle to a union resurgence is federal labor law. American workers understand that employers resort to a variety of antiunion tactics—including firing employees illegally—to thwart unionization efforts. And there’s the rub. Americans have far fewer rights at work than employees in other democratic societies. Current federal laws are an impediment to union organizing rather than a protector of workers’ rights. The rules are stacked against workers, making it extremely difficult for even the most talented organizers to win union elections. Under current law, and with Trump stacking the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union members, any employer with a clever attorney can stall union elections, giving management time to scare the living daylights out of potential recruits.

This year’s May Day rallies go beyond workers’ rights. They will focus on issues like stopping the billionaire takeover and rampant corruption of the Trump administration, protecting Medicaid, Social Security, and other programs working people rely on, fully funding public schools, healthcare, and housing for all, and stopping the attacks on communities, including policies that target immigrants and people of color. It will also build momentum for a large-scale voter mobilization effort to elect liberals and progressives in the November mid-terms.

“It isn’t just about immigrant rights. It isn’t just about workers’ rights on the job or even about raising the standard of living for all workers,” said Durazo. “It’s about what kind of country we want to be.”

Peter Dreier
Peter Dreier is the E.P. Clapp distinguished professor of politics at Occidental College. He joined the Occidental faculty in January 1993 after serving for nine years as Director of Housing at the Boston Redevelopment Authority and senior policy advisor to Boston Mayor Ray Flynn. He is the author of "The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame" (2012) and an editor (with Kate Aronoff and Michael Kazin) of "We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism, American Style" and co-author of "Baseball Rebels: The Players, People and Social Movements That Shook Up the Game and Changed America" (2022).
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May Day: Day One of a Mass Youth Uprising

This system is not made for everyday working people, and the only way we can change things is if we start disrupting the status quo.

Students at George Washington University and three other schools in Washington, DC walked out on September 9, 2025 to protest the federal takeover of the district and the deployment of National Guard troops.
(Photo by the Sunrise Movement)

Shradha Bista
May 01, 2026

Common Dreams

Today, for May Day, millions of students, educators, and workers are striking for our education, lives, and futures. This isn’t just a rally or march: Whether it’s shutting down corporate offices or leaving classrooms empty, we’re disrupting business as usual. And, young people are taking the lead.

Today isn’t a one-day strike. It’s day one of a mass youth uprising. Throughout history, we’ve seen students and workers on the front lines of anti-authoritarian movements, catalyzing mass societal action.

In the days leading up to May Day, we’ve seen that we’re already having an impact. In Durham, North Carolina, the Durham Public Schools announced last week that school was cancelled on May 1 because over 1,000 students and staff were projected to walk out of school that day. In Madison, Wisconsin, schools shut down after 70% of staff committed to this national day of action. A dozen more school districts have followed suit.

So when pundits ask, “Where are the young people?” The answer is, May Day. Across the country, people are growing increasingly frustrated with political and institutional leadership that are serving billionaires, not us. While the Trump administration commits war crimes in the Middle East, millions are stripped of their healthcare. While billionaires get handouts to build data centers, they claim we can’t solve our housing crisis. While college football coaches are paid million-dollar salaries, tuition to attend school continues to rise.

This May 1, we will strike in hundreds of thousands. In every corner of this country, you will see students walking out of class and workers striking from their jobs.

It’s extremely clear to young people like me: This system is not made for everyday working people, and the only way we can change things is if we start disrupting the status quo. If we’ve learned anything over the past few months, it’s that when people come together in masses, we are more powerful than the people in power, and we win. Specifically, when people practice mass noncooperation in their schools and cities, they win.

Mass noncooperation is the act of not giving in to their “business as usual.” We hold the power because we make the system run, and we have the power to make it crumble. It means recognizing that the system only functions because of us, and choosing to withdraw that labor, that time, that participation is power we hold. It is not enough to protest on our days off, or repost a social media post. We need workers to stop going to work so billionaires lose money. We need students and educators to stop attending classes to show the power of those empty seats. We need to stop working for a system that is failing us, to show them that we can turn it all around if they keep ignoring our needs.

We’ve seen mass noncooperation work in the past. Earlier this year, after tens of thousands of people went on strike in Minneapolis following the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) commander in the city was removed from his role, and he himself said that the level of noncooperation from Minnesotans was stopping ICE from carrying out its goals. Now, we’re taking that action nationwide.

This May 1, we will strike in hundreds of thousands. In every corner of this country, you will see students walking out of class and workers striking from their jobs. You’ll hear chants and cheers for one another; you’ll feel hope and resilience. And when we do, we’ll show President Donald Trump and his billionaire friends that if they keep going with their agenda, we will stop their regime from operating. If they keep abducting our neighbors, if they keep choosing Wall Street over working people, if they keep starting wars instead of giving us healthcare—the kind of disruption they are seeing today will be a drop in the bucket.

We’re also sending a message to people across this country: We, working people, have the power. We run the economy, we fill the classrooms. If we stop cooperating, the billionaires can’t profit, and the oligarchs can’t rule. We have the power to win what we deserve: a world where we earn a livable wage, breathe clean air, and can afford necessities like education.

Today, on May 1, we say: No work. No school. No spending.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Shradha Bista
Shradha Bista is a first-year honors student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has been a student organizer since high school and organizes with her campus’ Sunrise Movement hub, winning demands like UNC-CH rejecting the Trump Loyalty Oath Compact last fall. Shradha studies Public Policy and Peace, War, and Defense on campus, and she’s excited to see the success of students and workers this May Day and beyond!
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‘May Day Strong’ Shows How Trumpism Changed the Game of Political Action

Action isn’t only about pressuring institutions anymore. It’s increasingly about jamming the system, slowing it down, or breaking its rhythm. In plain terms, we’ve shifted from representative politics toward something more like direct pressure.


Protesters hold signs during the Nationwide May Day Strong Rally, “Workers Stand Up to Billionaires,” on May 1, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
(Photo by Lisa Lake/Getty Images for May Day Strong)

Brian Hudson
May 01, 2026

Common Dreams


For decades, American politics rested on one big, mostly unquestioned idea: Real change happens through the system. You vote, you lobby, you go to court, you work the parties. Even the biggest protest movements eventually tried to plug themselves back into those official channels. But lately—especially since Donald Trump burst onto the scene—that old assumption has been crumbling fast.

What we’re seeing now, in things like the “May Day Strong” actions, isn’t just more people protesting. It’s a deeper change in how politics actually works. Action isn’t only about pressuring institutions anymore. It’s increasingly about jamming the system, slowing it down, or breaking its rhythm. In plain terms, we’ve shifted from representative politics toward something more like direct pressure.

The key driver here is the collapse of trust in institutions. One of the most striking things about Trumpism isn’t any single policy—it’s the relentless way it attacked the legitimacy of the middlemen: the media as “the enemy of the people,” judges as biased, elections as rigged. These weren’t just throwaway lines. Over time, they sank in and reshaped how a lot of people view the system’s ability to actually deliver.

When folks stop believing the formal channels can handle their grievances, they start looking for other levers. That’s when direct action, civil disobedience, and economic disruption stop looking fringe and start feeling logical.

“May Day Strong” feels like a live experiment. It’s testing how well networked groups can mobilize and whether hitting the economy where it hurts can deliver lasting political leverage. The answers will matter a lot for where democracy goes next.

“May Day Strong” sits right at that crossroads. The call for “No Work, No Shopping” isn’t subtle. It says: If real power flows through the economy, then choking those flows becomes a form of politics. On the surface it seems straightforward, but it quietly rewrites the textbook definition of power.

In the old model, power lived in government buildings and political offices. You tried to influence them. In the emerging one, power is scattered across economic networks and social connections. So the game moves from representation to targeted disruption—from institutional politics to what you might call infrastructural politics.

This isn’t purely ideological. It also grows out of how people actually experience daily life now: gig work, shaky jobs, disappearing benefits, and costs that keep climbing. When the ground under your feet feels unstable, waiting for institutions to fix things starts to feel naive.

So where does Trumpism fit? It didn’t invent this distrust, but it poured gasoline on it. By hammering institutional norms, torching media credibility, and sharpening polarization, it helped create an environment where formal mechanisms look increasingly broken. In that kind of atmosphere, taking it to the streets—or to the supply chains—doesn’t feel radical. It feels like common sense.

Still, there’s real tension. Disrupting people’s everyday lives is a double-edged sword. If folks see it as standing up for justice, it can build wide support. If it just looks like chaos that hurts regular people trying to get by, it can spark a strong backlash.

That tension defines politics in this post-trust era. Legitimacy no longer comes neatly from institutions. It gets fought over in public opinion—and more and more, the street has become the arena where that fight happens.

In that light, “May Day Strong” feels like a live experiment. It’s testing how well networked groups can mobilize and whether hitting the economy where it hurts can deliver lasting political leverage. The answers will matter a lot for where democracy goes next.

If direct disruption keeps replacing traditional institutional routes, the line between protest and actual governance starts to blur. Suddenly, the power to halt things becomes its own kind of authority. That opens doors for groups that felt shut out—but it also raises the odds of deeper instability.

At the end of the day, this isn’t simply politics getting more extreme. It’s politics changing its fundamental shape. It’s no longer just a contest to control the institutions. It’s becoming a struggle to control the flows—of information, money, goods, and attention.

Trumpism didn’t create this shift, but it accelerated it. By eroding trust and heating up divisions, it helped make direct action feel less like an outlier and more like a normal part of how politics gets done.

The big question now isn’t how institutions can manage protest. It’s whether institutions can hold onto their central role at all.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Brian Hudson
Brian Hudson is a political science graduate from Bates College with a keen interest in international relations and global affairs. As a freelance commentator, he provides analysis on geopolitics, international security, and counter-terrorism. His work has been featured on news analysis platforms such as Modern Diplomacy, Eurasia Review, and others.
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Why I’m Answering the May Day Call to Action By Running for Congress

The workers of Uptown and The Bronx have been making the demand for a better life for over a century but Washington has ignored their demands for too long. I’m running to make sure it finally has an answer.


Bronx VA Medical Center nurses hold a demonstration and join other nationwide May Day actions demanding increased Covid-19 protections for nurses and health care workers on May 01, 2020 in New York City.
IPhoto by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Darializa Avila Chevalier
May 01, 2026

Common Dreams

Uptown wakes up before the rest of New York even opens its eyes. Walk Broadway from 125th to 168th, up through Dyckman, as I have, and you’ll see it: The bodega coffee grabbed on the run, the crosstown bus packed before dawn, people clocking into work while downtown is still asleep. These are the people who built our city. Not the CEOs, real estate developers, or the politicians who show up every two to four years with fliers and false promises. The movement fighting for their dignity has always lived here—on these buses and these street corners.

Every May 1, we honor them. May Day, or International Workers’ Day, was created from needless state violence. In 1884, American workers went on strike to win an eight-hour workday. As the deadline approached, a protest in Chicago turned deadly, with police firing into the crowd and arresting seven workers who, after a sham trial, were executed. The bosses thought that would be the end of it. They were wrong. Workers fought for and won the right to an eight-hour workday.

Here in Harlem, Washington Heights, and Kingsbridge, May Day isn’t an abstract history lesson, it’s a mirror. This is a day to honor the transit workers, nurses, teachers, laborers, and caregivers who have always refused to accept less than they deserve and risked everything to fight for a better future for the next generation. They show us what’s possible when working people come together, across generations, race, gender, and culture, and demand a dignified life.

May Day reminds us of something simple and profound: Uptown is a union town. It always has been.

I want to build power for the people on that crosstown bus before dawn who never get thanked for keeping our city running and are told to be grateful for what little they have.

New York, and Uptown especially, has become a stronghold of union power. It was in Harlem, during the Harlem Renaissance, that A. Philip Randolph founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters—the first Black-led labor union in American history. It was in Washington Heights and Spanish Harlem where Dominican and Puerto Rican immigrant women transformed the garment industry, becoming so essential to the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union that by the 1950s, the union published its paper, Justicia, entirely in Spanish. And it was in the Bronx that Ella Baker and Marvel Cooke exposed the Bronx Slave Market, where domestic workers, most of them Black women, were paid as little as 15 cents an hour and subjected to workplace harassment and abuse. Their conditions were so appalling that it sparked city-wide organizing to protect domestic workers. This is my community’s inheritance.

That tradition is still alive in our streets today. In January 2026, 70 years after 1199 Service Employees International Union's historic 46-day strike at Uptown hospitals, hundreds of unionized NY State Nurses Association (NYSNA) nurses walked off the job at NewYork-Presbyterian on 168th Street and at hospitals across our community. They stood on their picket lines from dawn to dusk, through a brutally cold January, fighting starvation wages and conditions so unsafe that patients were being put at risk. After 41 days of striking and organizing, they won. That’s the Uptown way.

From the factory floor to the hospital room to the living room, Uptown is still at the center of the labor movement. I think about this legacy when people ask me why I’m running for Congress. The honest answer is: I’m not sure I had a choice.

When you grow up as the daughter of Dominican immigrants and watch your parents work multiple jobs and come home exhausted, see your neighbors get pushed out, watch politicians blame the vulnerable instead of the corporations robbing them blind, all while sending their tax dollars to drop bombs on babies, you organize and fight back. And eventually, the question stops being why run and starts being how could I not?

Congress was not built for us. It was built to manage us. It was built to keep our labor, our rent checks, and our votes flowing to people who have never had to choose between rent and groceries, all while allowing the people who are the foundation of our city to fall through the cracks. But here’s what the establishment never understood about Uptown and The Bronx: We don’t wait for permission.

That’s the legacy I am fighting to protect in Congress. I am a proud card-carrying United Auto Workers member. I’ve picketed alongside NYSNA nurses on 168th Street and Mount Sinai Morningside. I’ve fought with Student Workers of Columbia to protect their peers from harassment by the university and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In Congress, I will fight to pass the PRO Act so every worker can organize without fear. I will push to fund public housing, cancel medical debt, and end the forever wars that drain our communities to pad the pockets of defense contractors. I want to build power for the people on that crosstown bus before dawn who never get thanked for keeping our city running and are told to be grateful for what little they have. They built New York and deserve everything it has to offer.

May Day is a call to action. The workers of Uptown and The Bronx have been making the demand for a better life for over a century but Washington has ignored their demands for too long. I’m running to make sure it finally has an answer.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Darializa Avila Chevalier
Darializa Avila Chevalier is a working-class Afro-Latina organizer raised by Dominican immigrant parents. She has spent her life organizing for the people politicians leave behind: she fought to free Abdikadir Mohamed from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention during Trump's Muslim ban, organized Columbia's encampment in solidarity with Palestinians, and stood up for Mahmoud Khalil when ICE abducted him from his apartment. She is a card-carrying member of UAW and a public defense investigator. She doesn't just talk about the movement—she’s helped build it.
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Jailed US-Kuwaiti Journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin Acquitted on All Charges

The head of the Committee to Protect Journalists has called Shihab-Eldin’s arrest for social media posts about the Iran war part of a trend of “increasing restrictions on freedom of expression” in the Gulf states.

Ahmed Shihab‑Eldin during the Doha Film Festival 2025 on November 24, 2025, in Doha, Qatar.
(Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Doha Film Festival)

Stephen Prager
Apr 23, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


US-Kuwaiti journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin is expected to be released after more than seven weeks in jail following his acquittal by a Kuwaiti court on Thursday.

The 41-year-old Shihab-Eldin, an award-winning reporter and documentarian who has worked at HuffPost, The New York Times, and Al Jazeera English, was detained by Kuwaiti authorities on March 2, just days after the US and Israel launched the opening salvos of their aggressive war against Iran, which was met with retaliatory strikes against US military bases across the Persian Gulf, including in Kuwait.

Shihab-Eldin, a US and Kuwaiti citizen who was in Kuwait to visit family, frequently commented on his public Substack account about news related to the war. One of his recent posts included a geolocated video, which was already public, of an American F-15 Strike Eagle jet falling from the sky near a US air base.

CNN later confirmed the video’s authenticity, while the US military confirmed it was one of three American planes downed that day in what was described as a “friendly fire incident.”

But shortly after posting the video, Shihab-Eldin found himself detained by Kuwaiti authorities on charges of “spreading malicious information online” and “harming national security.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called these “vague and overly broad accusations that are routinely used to silence independent journalists.”

Legal counsel hired by Shihab-Eldin’s sisters said on Thursday that he had been declared innocent of the charges by a Kuwaiti court and was expected to be released imminently, though some details were still being finalized.

“We are relieved that Ahmed Shihab-Eldin has been found innocent after 52 days in detention,” said Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the CPJ. “Ahmed’s freedom and safety remain our topmost priority, and we will continue to closely monitor his case.”



Kuwait has come under heavy fire from Iran since the war began. In addition to attacks against American air bases, which have killed at least six US soldiers, Iran has targeted Kuwait’s main airport and facilities at the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation.

Shihab-Eldin’s arrest came as the Kuwaiti government began an aggressive clampdown on the sharing of video and other information related to Iranian attacks.

On May 2, Kuwait’s Ministry of Information warned the public “not to photograph or publish any clips or information related to missiles or relevant locations.”

Days later, the ministry announced that it was referring several “media law violators” for prosecution. It said, “Freedom of opinion and expression is guaranteed within the framework of the law and is coupled with professional responsibility, accuracy, credibility, and obtaining information from official sources.”

On March 15, Kuwait introduced a censorship law stating that companies and individuals were “obligated to preserve the supreme interests of the military authorities.” It imposed prison sentences of up to 10 years for anyone who “disseminates news, publishes statements, or spreads false rumors related to military entities” with the intent to undermine confidence in them.

The verdict in Shihab-Eldin’s case was just one of 137 handed down on Thursday by a new court meant to oversee crimes related to national security and terrorism. Those defendants have been accused of “inciting sectarian strife on social media platforms,” according to Drop Site News, which cited Jordan’s Al-Rai newspaper.

Shihab-Eldin was just one of nine defendants to be acquitted, though in 109 of the cases, no criminal punishment was handed down. Seventeen defendants received three years in prison, while another 10 received one year.



Ginsberg said Kuwait’s repressive clampdown is part of a trend of “increasing restrictions on freedom of expression” that has been observed across the wider Middle East, and particularly the autocratic Gulf states that host American military bases, since the war’s outbreak.

The governments of Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates have each arrested hundreds of people for filming or sharing content relating to Iranian strikes or other information related to the war or protests against the government, according to a report by Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN).

“This wave of repression reflects a deeper trend among Arab regimes: growing public frustration with US policy in the region and their governments’ alignment with Washington,” said Yara Bataineh, an editorial associate at DAWN’s Democracy in Exile. “This crackdown did not begin with the war on Iran. Across several Arab states, authorities had already moved to suppress pro-Palestinian activism during Israel’s genocide in Gaza—a pattern that has since intensified.”

Israel’s genocide in Gaza and expansionist military campaign into Lebanon have also proven historically deadly to journalists—including the Lebanese journalist Amal Khalid, who died under a pile of rubble on Wednesday from an attack by Israeli forces, who also attacked Red Cross workers attempting to rescue her. She is among hundreds of journalists and media workers who have been killed by Israeli attacks since 2023, according to the International Federation of Journalists.

“Almost inevitably, during a war, we see countries try to impose restrictions in the name of national security, and almost always that doesn’t just target genuine national security issues, but ends up covering a broad range of issues that are essential for us to understand what is happening,” Ginsberg told MS NOW. “That’s why we need journalists. We need journalists on the ground who can be our eyes and ears when we can’t get into these places and see for ourselves, so that we can understand what’s happening.”

She added, “It is an incredibly challenging time to be a journalist, and Ahmed’s case is emblematic of that.”

From sun to subsoil, how countries are moving away from fossil fuels


ByAFP
April 24, 2026


Plant waste is turned into briquettes of biochar, or "green coal", in Chad

 - Copyright AFP/File Joris Bolomey

Heating with geothermal energy, lighting with solar panels, cooking with biodegradable waste: how can we live with less oil and gas?

It’s a long-burning question — but one that is catching fire as energy costs soar due to the conflict in the Middle East, which has strangled exports of crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG).

With the global energy shock caused by the conflict expected to linger, AFP’s video journalists around the world have explored how countries are experimenting with the climate transition.

– Geothermal in France –

For a long time, the owners of the building where Anne Chatelain lives near Paris resisted switching from gas heating to geothermal energy.

But on January 1 they finally began heating their homes using the natural heat from the subsoil — the soil immediately beneath the surface.

As energy bills soar elsewhere in the world, “Our property manager has announced a 20 percent reduction in heating and hot water bills for 2026 and 2027,” rejoices the 69-year-old retiree.

The tech is both climate-friendly and, as a local resource, “not subject to taxation and geopolitical upheavals” such as the war with Iran, says Gregory Mascarau, a Paris director for the French multinational electric utility company ENGIE.

Shallow geothermal energy allows for heating and cooling by using the temperature of the subsoil at depths of less than 200 meters (650 feet).

Deep geothermal energy involves extracting hot water from depths of 1,000 to 2,000 metres, where its temperature ranges from 80C to 150C.

Since 2023 it has resulted in roughly 25-30 percent savings compared to the cost of heat provided by fossils fuels, says Ludovic Feron, head of the real estate infrastructure department at Gustave Eiffel University.

The catch is that a suitable subsoil is required, and that deep geothermal energy in particular can be hampered by high costs and uncertainties.

In France, this type of heating represents only about one percent of final heat consumption — for now.

– ‘Green coal’ in Chad –

It looks like charcoal, but the black briquettes are actually made from plant waste: millet and sesame stalks, palm fronds and cobs.

The residues are sorted, ground and mixed with a maceration of gum arabic to facilitate ignition, and with clay to slow combustion.

“It doesn’t smoke, it lasts, and it’s economical. And I can see that it doesn’t blacken the pot, and there aren’t even any side effects,” says Sophie Saboura, 24, a resident of the Chadian capital N’Djamena.

The briquettes last up to three times longer than traditional charcoal, according to Ousmane Alhadj Oumarou, technical director of the Raikina Association for Socio-Economic Development (Adser) factory.

“From an environmental standpoint, eco-friendly charcoal contributes to sanitation. And it also reduces the effects of climate change. It also helps combat deforestation,” says Oumarou.

Adser produces about 10 tonnes of briquettes, used for cooking, every day — but they aren’t available everywhere.

“There are limits to its use. Because even the manufacturing process takes time … it can take a week,” says Pierre Garba, a renewable energy specialist.

“Sometimes, when there’s demand, you try calling, you wait, and wait, and wait,” confirms Saboura.

– Solar in Pakistan –

The aerial view of Islamabad is striking: solar panels stretch as far as the eye can see from the rooftops of the lush, green Pakistani capital.

Pakistan’s shift to solar power is “one of the fastest consumer-led energy transitions on record”, according to a recent study by a Pakistani think tank.

Unlike Western economies, Pakistan — whose citizens have long struggled with energy shortages, blackouts and regular loadshedding — did not impose tariffs on solar technology from neighbouring China from 2013 to 2025.

The rise in oil and gas prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has also spurred consumers to embrace solar power.

Imports have surged from one gigawatt in 2018 to 51 gigawatts this year.

In the bustling streets of the ancient Mughal city of Lahore, Pakistan’s cultural capital, 49-year-old shopkeeper Aftab Ahmed is looking for solar panels to install at his home.

“It has become so expensive that an average person can no longer afford fuel for a motorcycle or a car. Fuel prices are also affecting electricity bills, leading to further increases,” he says.

Solar power offers the possibility of “at least some savings”.

Correlating US Aggression On Cuba, Venezuela And Iran: The Oil Factor – Analysis

April 22, 2026
Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA)
By Dr. Saurabh Mishra

Venezuela and Iran, the two countries that President Trump has targeted for military operations to date, along with the US, account for about one-third of global oil reserves. The endgames of the US aggression against Venezuela, Iran, and possibly Cuba in the near future may focus on long-term deals that include oil benefits. The Trumpian economic strategy hinges on access to cheap oil.

At the beginning of 2026, United States (US) forces abducted President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela with the intention of regime change, although the stated goals were different. We also witness the US facing extreme difficulty in breaking Iran’s will to fight, and Tehran is resisting regime change despite immense losses to its top leadership, military and civilian infrastructure. Cuba, too, has a standing threat issued by President Trump, who had been projecting himself as the ‘President of Peace’ until a few months ago.

Trump threatened Cuba with a “friendly takeover”[1] in “some form”,[2] along with choking the country by blockading its oil imports and threatening its suppliers. The country has been under duress with chronic blackouts due to a fuel shortage. Cuban authorities confirmed that there was no oil shipment from January 2026 until the end of March, when a Russian oil tanker arrived with a consignment of 730,000 barrels.[3] President Trump has repeatedly indicated that he would be focusing on his next target, Cuba, once the conflict with Iran is over.[4]

Venezuela and Iran are very different in terms of their political composition, power and identity, and neither of them is/was an imminent military threat to the US. Although Trump’s military actions have been framed as preemptive responses to the threat to US citizens, its core security interests and safety of assets, one factor that Trump has downplayed or not mentioned while stating his objectives is the presence and potential of oil reserves in the two countries.


President Trump’s actions against Cuba are perplexing as to why he would threaten a tiny island nation that cannot pose any real military or economic threat in the context of contemporary global geopolitics. The return of Cuba, which has gradually been phased out of high-level geopolitical discussions since the end of the Cold War, into US grand-strategic calculations, needs explanation. This brief examines President Trump’s desire to “take over” Cuba and highlights the oil variable correlating his rhetoric and actions on Cuba with operations in Venezuela and Iran.

The Façade and the Truth in Venezuela Operation

On 3 January 2026, US forces abducted President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, along with his wife, in Operation Absolute Resolve. The couple was accused of heading a drug network impacting the youth and families in the US. President Trump, who previously had reduced US foreign military commitments, expressing a desire for peace and economic prosperity of the US, has ironically been successful in putting military pressure on Venezuela to open up for ‘reforms’ and make structural changes to its economy, especially in the oil sector, so that it could facilitate foreign (US) investments. Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves, constituting approximately 17 per cent of the global total.[5] The stated objective of eliminating the drug and refugee problems emanating from Venezuela was soon overshadowed by the real calculations and strategies of developing oil fields in the country by US companies with a planned investment of US$ 100 billion over time.[6] The military threat over Venezuela, however, lingers to the degree of the Venezuelan regime’s non-cooperation with the US.[7]

The Bogeyman of Imminent Threat in Iran

Within a couple of months of the Venezuela action, the US, along with Israel, attacked Iran on 28 February 2026 and decapitated its leadership by killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with other high-ranking politicians and military officers, in Operation Epic Fury. The stated objectives were “eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime” and to “ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon”.[8] Obliterating the Iranian missile industry, annihilating their navy and disabling their regional proxies were a few other stated objectives.[9]

It must be noted that the claims of both the US and Israel after the 12-day war in June 2025 had ranged between “obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear bomb building capability and a “setback” in “Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years”. The assessments claimed that it might take Iran many years to reconstitute the lost capability of enriching Uranium and build a weapon out of it.[10] The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office had also claimed, “The achievement can continue indefinitely if Iran does not get access to nuclear material”.[11] Moreover, Joe Kent, Director, National Counterterrorism Centre in the US, resigned, saying, “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby”.[12]


Therefore, a surprise attack on Iran only within a year, against assessments of the country not posing an immediate threat to the US, along with the targeted assassination of its highest leadership and administrators, reveals a calculated intention for regime change with strikes for which no immediate provocation by Iran was visible. President Trump called on the people of Iran to take over the regime, as this might be their chance that they have had in generations.

The range and nature of the targets selected at the beginning of the US–Israeli joint strikes were beyond what was required to eliminate Iran’s nuclear capability, which was allegedly achieved in June 2025 itself. Therefore, the US’s emphasis on the nuclear dimension as justification for the attacks seemed more like a bogeyman. At the same time, the real objectives were different and linked to the long-term Trumpian grand strategy to be achieved through regime change in Iran. President Trump, known for his transactionalism, is spending billions of dollars on military adventures in Iran. Hence, the question is what motivated him to go to this war.

Did Israel Pull Trump into the War?

It is speculated that President Trump was led into the war by Israel. Israel’s objectives and motivations for the strikes can be understood in light of its antagonistic relationship with the country. Israel had been looking for an opportunity to bring the US on board with its designs to eliminate the Iranian regime, and Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel succeeded with President Trump this time. But the question again is why Israel could convince Trump.

Given his inclinations and transactional temperament, President Trump should not join a war without concrete business incentives. His real motivations in this war, however, are less understood and quite obfuscated. Differences of opinion have also appeared within the Make America Great Again (MAGA) leadership about the ways of the movement that thrusted him to power. There is a divide within, and Trump, with his adventures in Venezuela and Iran, stands for his own faction. His war on Iran has received credible backing by the Republican Party supporters,[13] anointing his actions as the legitimate MAGA approach. Therefore, to understand his motivations and adventures, we must look into his policy and strategic outlook.

President Trump, in his address after the strikes, mentioned every long-term threat posed by Iran to the US interests in the region, but left out one aspect, i.e. oil. The US has historically had an interest in Iranian oil, but the aspirations to get hold of the source were jeopardised by the Iranian Islamist Revolution in 1979.[14] The Israeli objective of regime change or weakening Iran to a point of no return was deemed as a chance that converged with President Trump’s long-term strategic goals, hinged on an oil vision.

Trump’s approach, discernible in the National Security Strategy 2025, introduces oil as a correlating variable to be discussed in relation to his global strategic adventures, leading to military actions that began in Venezuela.[15] In 2023, Iran accounted for 12 per cent of the global oil reserves and 24 per cent of the Middle East.[16] The two countries that President Trump has targeted for military operations to date, along with the US, account for about one-third of global oil reserves. President Trump’s eagerness to end the war and expression of desire to control Kharg Island and the Iranian oil amidst the conflict alludes towards the original motive of controlling the Iranian oil with a brief blitzkrieg of air power, eliminating its leadership. No other economic factor explains President Trump’s allowing himself to be led into this expensive war.


As there was no immediate provocation by Iran, the US stated objectives appeared to align with Israeli objectives at the outset. However, as the conflict unfolded and the US (especially Trump) considered ending it even without the Strait of Hormuz reopening to normal operations, this revealed the US’s eagerness to get out of the expensive quagmire it had fallen into.[17] This also exposed the difference in goals between the two partners, despite their shared means of regime change. Israel’s motivation for the attack was a shift in the regional strategic balance and long-term security through regime change and weakening of Iran, and this could provide President Trump access to Iranian oil. A Venezuela-like cooperation from the Iranian leadership post the initial strikes appears to have been expected, but the dynamics of the conflict have set back US expectations.
The Centrality of Crude Oil in Trump’s Domestic and Global Strategy

President Trump started his second term with the slogan “drill baby drill”.[18] He concluded that producing more oil would help grow the US economy faster and secure its future hegemony.[19] His pursuit of foreign oil resources is also important to study, as President Trump himself has highlighted that the US is a net energy exporter and does not need foreign oil as it did in the past.[20] It is noteworthy that within a month of the inauguration of his second stint, President Trump signed an executive order stating his administration’s policy of “making America energy dominant”.[21] To this end, the order established the National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC) under the Executive Office of the President.[22]

Now, the question is: why does the US need this Council to dominate energy if the country has a surplus, and who is supposed to be dominated? The executive order, however, did not explicitly mention any other country or region to be dominated; and instead focused on planning from a “long-term” energy perspective towards increasing production of “reliable energy”. For this, the Trump administration prioritises oil drilling over green policies favouring renewables as he has reversed policies that supported and promoted electric vehicles.[23] The Endangered Species Committee in the US has also recently cleared oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, exempting it from environmental rules, a move that could threaten a rare whale species and other marine life.[24] The Trumpian economic strategy clearly hinges on access to cheap oil.

Why the Threat to ‘Take Over’ Cuba?

After Venezuela and Iran, which are oil-rich countries, Cuba is a curious case that has not been in global news for its oil reserves. The island, home to around 10.9 million people, located only 90 miles off the southern US state of Florida, is associated with President Fidel Castro, its communist revolution, and its very close relationship with the Soviet Union (USSR) despite being a ‘non-aligned’ country during the Cold War. Cuba was governed by the Castro family under the banner of the Communist Party of Cuba, with single-party rule from 1959 to 2018. And, since then, it has been ruled by President Miguel Díaz-Canel under the same system.


Cuba is known for its famous cigars, sugar production (once among the highest globally but currently at record-low levels and negligible on a global scale), world-class rum, and pristine beaches, but not for oil. It is also recorded in modern history and international relations for the infamous Cuban Missile Crisis, which took the world to the brink of nuclear war in October 1962. The US had blockaded the country during the Crisis, and it has been under a strict US sanctions regime since then. The end of the Cold War, with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the weakening and reinvention of Russia as a successor state and polity, reduced Cuba’s strategic importance in global geopolitics. The state, however, remains a communist-run system with currently declining industrial and well-being indicators. It has ideological opposition to US policies, but cannot pose any military or political threat in the post-Cold War scenario.

Due to the historical baggage, Cuba keeps good relations with countries that oppose US hegemonic policies and its ambitions of unipolarity. Therefore, in the executive order signed on 29 January 2026, President Trump found Cuba’s “policies, practices and actions” as constituting “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to the “national security and foreign policy of the United States”. The allegations are that Cuba has relations with “numerous hostile countries”, “terrorist groups”, and “malign actors hostile to the United States” that include Russia, China, Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. Citing Cuba’s relations with these actors and blaming it for having “Russia’s largest overseas signals intelligence facility” and “deep intelligence and defence cooperation” with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the executive order links it with the US’s notion of Western Hemisphere security and dominance.[25] The country, in fact, has been doing this for decades, but still cannot pose any real threat to the US.

A situation that was considered non-threatening and manageable with sanctions has now been categorised as a “national emergency”. The reasons for this shift are President Trump’s ideological perspective and the resulting threat perception, which makes him sensitive to anything linked to China in the American neighbourhood. Trump has concluded that he needs to push back against the increasing Chinese reach and penetration into the economic and strategic sectors in Latin America, especially in countries ruled by left-leaning leaders. Venezuela and Cuba, from the US perspective, are seen as classic autocratic ideological opponents in the region. Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, too, have left-leaning leadership. Still, they are viewed as functional democracies and may be more difficult to handle due to their size, resources, political culture and international relations. Colombia is a case in which there is a left-leaning government for the first time in modern history, and the upcoming presidential elections may alter the current government. Power in these countries may change hands between the right and left, but Cuba is different. President Trump’s military threat to the country is not justified by any explicit economic reason. The reasons cited are strategic, and Cuba has also been designated as a “state sponsor of terrorism” for sheltering members of US-designated terror organisations.[26] It may be noted that Trump had similar allegations against Venezuela and Iran, which also have the common mineral resource factor of substantial oil reserves that could be turned into long-term energy and economic benefits for the US. Given the absence of a large oil industry, Cuba, at the surface, seems to be a different case altogether. But, with a further inquiry into the country’s crude oil potential, the perception changes.

Cuba as a Potential Petro Power in the Western Hemisphere

Cuba currently has only 124 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, ranking it the 67th largest reserve holder.[27] The US and Cuban geological surveys estimate recoverable oil reserves between 4.6 and 20 billion barrels, respectively.[28] Various geological assessments of Cuba, especially its northern offshore Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) blocks, identify and acknowledge its potential to catapult itself among the top 20 largest proven oil reservoirs in the world and become a significant player in the oil economy of the Latin American Region. Even if the mean potential of the reserves is realised, only Venezuela and Canada would be able to surpass Cuba in terms of per capita oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere.[29] The estimates for the Cuban offshore fields are at least half the size of the US’s Alaskan oil reserves.[30]

Since the discovery of Cuba’s oil potential in the early 21st century, the country has sought to reduce its energy dependence on Venezuela and Mexico amid the post-Cold War geopolitical landscape. Oil companies from Canada, China, Russia, Spain, Norway and India had shown interest and invested in Cuba’s offshore exploration blocks, but nothing productive has come of it. Almost 80 per cent of the exploration area lies in deep or ultra-deep waters, and oil cannot be easily extracted with old technology.[31] The state-of-the-art exploration technology is owned and controlled by the US, which has imposed sanctions and a blockade against Cuba, making it difficult to drill due to technology and investment denial, and practically choking the country from becoming energy self-reliant.[32] The development of offshore oilfields over time could boost the Cuban economy and national prosperity, making Cuba a significant player in the region’s petroindustry, although possibly at the cost of economic diversification.[33]

US companies in the agricultural and pharmaceutical sectors have been pressing, sometimes successfully, for relaxations or normalisation of relations with Cuba to gain better access to its lucrative business opportunities.[34] Similarly, US oil companies have also been, though unsuccessfully, lobbying the US Congress to permit them to bid for oil and gas exploration in Cuban Waters. With only a small fraction of the world’s proven oil reserves open to foreign involvement,[35] they do not want to be left out of the race.[36] Former US President Barack Obama took steps to ease sanctions and build a normal relationship with the country. But, his efforts were thwarted by President Trump’s reversal of his policy towards Cuba. President Trump not only reinstated stringent sanctions on Cuba but also choked its essential crude supplies responsible for more than 80 per cent of its electricity generation.[37]

Amidst the downplayed oil dimension in Venezuela and Iran adventures, President Trump’s attention on Cuba as well as the US companies’ interest in exploration of its oilfields converge at a point where the country needs to be opened up for exploration. President Obama took a few steps towards engagement, but President Trump has a different way of achieving his goals. The oil potential of Cuba fits into his long-term scheme of Making America Great Again (MAGA), for which dominating the global energy market, along with the geopolitics of the Western Hemisphere, is an important condition.

The Political Dimensions of a Cuban Energy Self-Reliance

Industry experts do not expect any global disruption due to the availability of Cuban oil in future, and the realisation of the estimated potential may not impact the global prices in general. But, Cuba shall be energy self-reliant with the realisation of even the lower end of the estimates.[38] Further, the country’s transition to being a net oil exporter will have a positive impact on its economy, leading to the failure of the long-term US sanctions policy against Cuba.[39] Hence, it is imperative from the US perspective to keep Cuba energy-starved until the geopolitical and economic positions of the two countries are aligned. The alignment is possible either with regime change in Cuba or a paradigm shift in the US policy to engage the country with its political system intact. President Obama’s efforts to engage and relax sanctions on Cuba faced tough resistance, especially by migrant Cubans who have a grudge against the Communist regime.

President Trump, however, in the new geopolitical context of increasing influence of China and Russia in the Latin American Region, wants to decisively change the long-maintained status quo to benefit the US through regime change. His rhetoric on Cuba is explained by the convergence of his strategic visions of securing the Western Hemisphere for the US by driving China and Russia out, and of dominating the global energy market. As President Trump’s actions in Cuba are being analysed more from strategic and high-level geopolitical perspectives rather than economic ones, the correlation with oil has received little attention from analysts, who focus only on the country’s current proven reserves and production capacity.[40]

Trumpian Actions Have a Long-Term Economic Perspective on Oil

The US military actions and objectives on Venezuela and Iran are being shaped from a long-term Trumpian economic and strategic perspective, and Cuba is no exception. The exploration and development of oil fields in these countries may take around a decade or more and require heavy investment. Cuba, with its oil potential, is also among the top global producers of Cobalt and Nickel (critical metals for electric vehicle battery production) that may be important to a futuristic US foreign policy. But, President Trump has already ‘debunked’ US policy supporting and promoting electric vehicles by prioritising oil and gas over green and renewable energy sources.[41] Hence, oil has emerged as a clear priority in his calculations for engaging or targeting countries to achieve his strategic and foreign policy goals. In the context of Cuba, too, potential oil fields have to be given greater weight than renewables and critical minerals to understand the Trumpian economic and strategic calculus.

Conclusion

The oil potential of Cuba would be an unsaid benefit for the US if the stated strategic objectives are achieved through regime change. US involvement in oil exploration and production in Cuba could be a viable option for the communist Cuban government as well, but it cannot happen without the US securing guarantees to protect its stated strategic interests in the country. President Trump had already indicated the possibility of a deal between the two countries without an invasion, referring to a takeover in “some form”. Any deal, however, would depend on the Cuban government’s willingness to shed its ideological opposition to the US government. Apart from the US desire to detach Cuba from China, Russia and other unfriendly states in the region, oil exploration could be another lucrative potential benefit for the Trump Administration.

President Trump’s conflict with countries that posed no immediate or imminent military threat to the US should at least be explained by economic logic and motivation. Any conflict initiated for any reason ultimately has its economic endgame. And, as we examine here, oil fits in as the variable correlating to Trump’s aggression and military threat against Venezuela, Iran and Cuba. The presence of the correlation is further highlighted by President Trump’s statements and executive order regarding his energy policy. The US–Israel–Iran war has not yet concluded, and the outcomes may not be as the US expected, but oil could be a benefit in all the three. The endgames of the US aggression against Venezuela, Iran and Cuba may focus on long-term deals that include oil benefits.

The focus on the nuclear material issue might be more useful for legitimising the catastrophe unleashed. But, from the perspective of Trumpian MAGA priorities, the success, rationale, wisdom and the economics of these military adventures would remain highly questionable in the absence of any energy/oil deals.

Endnotes:

“Trump Threatens Cuba Again, Says Island Nation May Face ‘Friendly Takeover’”, Al Jazeera, 10 March 2026.

“Trump Says ‘Taking’ Cuba Would Be ‘Big Honor,’ That President ‘Can Do Anything I Want With It’”, USA Today Channel on YouTube, YouTube, 17 March 2026.

Will Grant, “Russian Oil Tanker Docks in Cuba Ending Near-Total Blockade”, BBC News, 31 March 2026.

“Cuba War Next? Trump Drops ‘Wait for Two Weeks’ Bombshell as Iran Conflict Explodes”, The Times of India Channel on YouTube, YouTube, 6 March 2026.

“Country Analysis Brief: Venezuela”, Energy Information Administration, United States of America, p. 5.

Lauren Aratani, “Trump Promises Oil Companies ‘Total Safety’ in Venezuela as He Urges Them To Invest Billions”, The Guardian, 9 January 2026.

Michael Scherer, “Trump Threatens Venezuela’s New Leader with A Fate Worse than Maduro’s”, The Atlantic, 4 January 2026.

“President Donald Trump’s Video Statement After the Attack on Iran”, Truth Social, 18 February 2026.
Ibid.

“Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated – And Suggestions Otherwise Are Fake News”, The White House, 25 June 2025.

“Statement by the Prime Minister’s Office on behalf of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC)”, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Israel, 25 June 2026.

“As Fire and Fury Hit MAGA Tent, Vance Walks the Tightrope for 2028”, The Hindu, 18 March 2026.

Anthony Zurcher, “Iran War Splits Older And Younger Conservatives – As Pressure Builds For Trump To Find Exit Ramp”, BBC News, 28 March 2026; “US Senate Republicans Reject Efforts to Halt Trump’s Iran War”, The Times of India, 16 April 2026.

“Statement of Policy by the National Security Council (NSC 5402)”, Office of the Historian, Washington, USA, 2 January 1954.

National Security Strategy 2025, pp. 5, 14, and 28.

“Country Analysis Brief: Venezuela”, no. 5, p. 1.

Alexander Ward and Meridith McGraw, “Trump Tells Aides He’s Willing to End War without Reopening Hormuz”, The Wall Street Journal, 31 March 2026.

“President Donald Trump’s Inaugural Address”, The White House, 25 January 2026.
National Security Strategy 2025, p. 14.

Daniel Dale, “Fact Check: Despite Claims Of Trump-Era ‘Energy Independence,’ The US Never Stopped Importing Foreign Oil”, CNN, 15 March 2022.

“Establishing the National Energy Dominance Council”, The White House, 14 February 2025.
Ibid.

Jeremy M. Michalek, “Trump Reversed Policies Supporting Electric Vehicles − It Will Affect The Road To Clean Electricity, Too”, The Conversation, 8 September 2025.

“Trump’s Endangered Species Committee Exempts Oil And Gas Drilling In The Gulf From Rules”, PBS News, 31 March 2026.

“Addressing Threats to The United States by the Government of Cuba”, The White House, 29 January 2026.

“State Sponsors of Terrorism”, U.S. Department of State.

“Cuba Oil Summary Table”, Worldometer, 15 April 2025

.
H. Michael Erisman, “Cuba as a Hemispheric Petropower: Prospects and Consequences”, International Journal of Cuban Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2019, pp. 43–44.
Ibid.

Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, “The Current Status and Future Prospects for Oil Exploration in Cuba: A Special Report for the Cuban Research Institute”, Florida International University, November 2006, p. 6.

H. Michael Erisman, “Cuba as a Hemispheric Petropower: Prospects and Consequences”, no. 28, p. 48.

Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, “The Current Status and Future Prospects for Oil Exploration in Cuba: A Special Report for the Cuban Research Institute”, no. 30, p. 4.
H. Michael Erisman, “Cuba as a Hemispheric Petropower: Prospects and Consequences”, no. 28, p. 50.
Ibid., pp. 54–55.

Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, “The Current Status and Future Prospects for Oil Exploration in Cuba: A Special Report for the Cuban Research Institute”, no. 30, p. 2.
H. Michael Erisman, “Cuba as a Hemispheric Petropower: Prospects and Consequences”, no. 28, p. 55.

“Where Does Cuba Get Its Electricity?”, International Energy Agency, 7 April 2026.
Robert Sandels, “An Oil-Rich Cuba?”, Monthly Review, Vol. 63, No. 4, 2011, pp. 40–45.
Ibid.

Arnab Chakrabarty, “Cuba – Cracks in the Red Citadel, and the US’ Unfinished Geostrategic Dream”, Indian Council of World Affairs, 7 April 2026.

Jeremy M. Michalek, “Trump Reversed Policies Supporting Electric Vehicles − It Will Affect The Road To Clean Electricity, Too”, no. 23.

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.

About the author: Dr. Saurabh Mishra is a Research Fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA), New Delhi. Prior to MP-IDSA he was an Associate Professor at the Amity Institute for Defence & Strategic Studies (AIDSS), Noida, preceded by his assignments as Research Fellow at the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA), an autonomous think-tank of the Ministry of External Affairs, India and Research Assistant at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.

Source: This article was published by Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA),

The Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA), is a non-partisan, autonomous body dedicated to objective research and policy relevant studies on all aspects of defence and security. Its mission is to promote national and international security through the generation and dissemination of knowledge on defence and security-related issues. The Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA) was formerly named The Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).