After Eliminating USAID, Trump Is Exploiting Need To Steal Africa’s Resources

From Ghana to South Africa, the Trump administration maliciously leverages human suffering to continue the centuries-long exploitation and systematic theft of Africa’s resources.


The Nchanga copper mine is seen near Chingola, Zambia.
(Photo by BlueSalo/ Wikipedia/ CC BY-SA 3.0)

Jordan Liz
May 13, 2026

Common Dreams

On May 4, Zambian Foreign Minister Mulambo Haimbe announced that negotiations with the US regarding critical health services and minerals have been suspended due to the Trump administration’s “unacceptable” terms.

For Haimbe, this includes: first, the Trump administration’s proposed health memorandum of understanding (MOU) requires that Zambia turn over health data to the US “in violation of our citizen’s right to privacy.”

Second, the US demands “preferential treatment of US companies over Zambia’s critical minerals.” Haimbe rejects this. He contends, “the Zambian government rightfully takes the view, first and foremost, that Zambians must have a say on how her critical minerals are used, and second that no one strategic partner is to be treated preferentially to others.”

Third, and perhaps most crucially, is “the coupling of the two agreements and frameworks to one another such that the conclusion of the minerals agreement is made conditional to the conclusion of the Health MOU.” The US is effectively demanding privileged access to Zambia’s abundant supply of copper, lithium, and cobalt—all critical for the development of AI and modern technologies—in exchange for health funding.

The only ones who benefit from forcing Zambia to trade raw minerals and data for health services are tech companies and the Trump family businesses.

This is not an isolated incident. As of March 2026, at least 24 African countries have agreed to similarly controversial health agreements with the US. Zambia, Ghana, and Zimbabwe are the only African nations thus far to reject the Trump administration’s coercive demands.

In those cases, concerns about data management and control similarly derailed negotiations. Arnold Kavaarpuo, executive director of Ghana’s Data Protection Commission, explained, “The proposed data sharing agreement looked at access not only to health data sets, but also to metadata, dashboards, reporting tools, data models, and data dictionaries.” It would have allowed up to 10 US entities access to this data without any prior approval from the Ghanese government.

Similarly, the US was demanding that Zimbabwe turn over any data it collects about pathogens causing outbreaks. Zimbabwe would not, however, be guaranteed access to any vaccines, treatments, diagnostics, or medical innovations that might result from this shared data. As Ndabaningi Nick Mangwana, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity, and Broadcasting Services, remarked: “In essence, our nation would provide the raw materials for scientific discovery without any assurance that the end products would be accessible to our people should a future health crisis emerge. The United States, meanwhile, was not offering reciprocal sharing of its own epidemiological data with our health authorities.”

These kinds of take-it-or-leave-it proposals represent the Trump administration’s strong-arm approach to global health funding. Instead of foreign aid, President Donald Trump offers two options: a crooked deal or death.

This has been their goal from the start. Throughout his second term, President Donald Trump has taken several measures aimed at weakening foreign aid and humanitarian programs. This includes: dismantling the US Agency for International Development (USAID); withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO) and 66 international organizations, including the United Nations Population Fund, which addresses sexual and reproductive health; as well as diverting funds away from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which supports HIV prevention, care, and treatment worldwide. Each of these actions deliberately endangers the lives of millions of people around the world—the cruelty really is the point.

From Ghana to South Africa, the Trump administration maliciously leverages human suffering to continue the centuries-long exploitation and systematic theft of Africa’s resources. Here, foreign aid has only one value: an exchange value.

Indeed, on April 27, at an event hosted at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and attended by major corporations including Google, Goldman Sachs, and Palantir, US Ambassador to the UN Michael Waltz formally announced the launch of the “Trade Over Aid” initiative. This is a self-described “international economic development vision built on free markets.” It is premised on the idea that, unlike capitalism, humanitarianism and providing direct aid only create “dependency, inefficiency, and corruption.” As Waltz remarked, “free market principles remain the best proven path to lasting prosperity with better and more permanent results than any of the alternatives.”

On April 30, outgoing US Ambassador to Zambia, Michael Gonzalez, echoed these remarks. He accused the Zambian government of widespread corruption and “nationwide theft of US provided medicines.” He contended that, “For decades, the US relationship with Zambia was one centered around aid.” This “unrequited relationship” is no longer tenable—“going forward, the benefits of our relationship must be mutual.” Gonzalez continued, “We know that while you pursue a Zambia First agenda and we pursue America First, we are still able together to achieve something notably better for our countries.”

This emphasis on market solutions overlooks that capitalist exchanges always produce winners and losers. Competition, not cooperation, is the ethos of the proverbial free market. There is no “together” when “America First” is pitted against “Zambia First.” Instead of “lasting prosperity,” the only “permanent results” are widening inequalities between the haves and the have-nots.

And to be clear, the winners here are neither Americans nor Africans. Americans will be forced to bear the social, economic, and environmental costs of more data centers, AI-driven layoffs, and AI-powered surveillance. Zambia and other African nations will see their natural resources stolen and the bodies of their citizens exploited.

No, the only ones who benefit from forcing Zambia to trade raw minerals and data for health services are tech companies and the Trump family businesses. It is worth noting that Trump and his children have raked in billions from their investments in cryptocurrency, AI, and data centers.

What the Trump administration is offering is no more than colonialism dressed as humanitarianism. Foreign aid should never be manipulated for profit or political power. We must reject capitalist schemes like “Trade Over Aid.”

Instead, we must focus on building institutions that guarantee the right to healthcare for all. This is not simply an act of charity. As every pandemic makes patently clear, ensuring that everyone has access to health services benefits everyone. In the end, we must recognize that healthcare is a human right and a collective good. Ignoring this puts us all at risk.


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


Jordan Liz
Jordan Liz is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at San José State University. He specializes in issues of race, immigration and the politics of belonging.
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The US Supreme Court’s War on the Voting Rights Act Sends America Backwards

60 YRS IN THE MAKING

By Dedrick Asante-Muhammed

May 11, 2026

Source: Counterpunch

Image by Joe Ravi/Wikimediacommons, licensed via CC BY 3.0

The United States took a decisive step toward democracy with the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. At the time, Black political representation was not just limited — it was nearly nonexistent. African Americans made up more than 10 percent of the population but held less than 2 percent of seats in Congress and none in the Senate.

By dismantling formal barriers to voting, the Voting Rights Act opened the door for Black political participation — and over time, representation. That progress was neither immediate nor inevitable, but it was real.

It was in this context that the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the organization I lead, was founded in 1970. Our mission is to support the growth of Black political leadership and ensure that increased representation translates into meaningful policy outcomes.

More than five decades later, that mission remains urgent.

Black representation in the House has grown from fewer than 10 members in 1965 to more than 60 today, reaching roughly 14 percent of members — finally approaching parity with the Black share of the U.S. population. But it took nearly 60 years to reach this point.

That underscores a critical truth: representation requires sustained protection and intentional policy.

Even now, the progress is incomplete. Even with a record high five Black senators — just 5 percent of the total — Black representation in the Senate remains far below the Black population share.

Today, even these gains are under threat. Recent Supreme Court decisions have weakened the Voting Rights Act, reducing federal oversight and making it more difficult to challenge discriminatory voting practices.

The Court’s most recent ruling gutted regulation designed to ensure Black representation, permitting what amounts to racial gerrymandering under the guise of partisan gerrymandering — a practice which itself badly undermines democracy for Americans of all races.

The result is a system increasingly driven by political advantage rather than fair representation. And Black representation is likely to suffer because of it.

Gerrymandering is often discussed as a partisan tactic, but it has broader structural consequences. When districts are drawn to maximize political control, they can dilute the voting power of communities of color — even without explicitly referencing race. For Black communities, whose political gains have often depended on fair districting, the erosion of these protections is particularly consequential.

This is not simply about who wins elections. It is about how policy is shaped and whose interests are represented in decisions that affect economic opportunity, education, healthcare, and wealth. Representation alone does not guarantee equity — but without it, inequity is almost certain.

The current moment demands clarity. The expansion of Black political representation over the past half-century was the result of deliberate policy choices, sustained advocacy, and legal enforcement. As those protections are weakened, the risk is not just stagnation — it is regression.

At the Joint Center, our goal is clear: to ensure that the gains of the past are protected and that the path toward equitable representation remains open.

Nearly 60 years after the Voting Rights Act, Black Americans have come closer than ever to achieving representation in Congress that reflects their share of the population. But progress at this level is not self-sustaining. Without strong protections and continued commitment, it can be reversed.

The work of building a representative democracy is ongoing. And at this moment, it is clear that the work must continue.

Dedrick Asante-Muhammad is host of the Race and Wealth Podcast and Director of the Racial Wealth Divide Initiative at the Corporation for Economic Development.

This article was originally published by Counterpunch; please consider supporting the original publication, and read the original version at the link above.

Revolutionary Social Change That Lasts

'21st Century Common Sense' installment #10 and Conclusion

By Ted Glick

May 9, 2026

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

Image: José Iván Bernardo Vázquez, Creative Commons

“It is not enough to be against Donald Trump and MAGA, or against the control of both major parties in the USA by destructive corporate power, or even to be committed to hard work for the next eight and a half [now 6] months here in the USA to defeat the billionaire-supporting, would-be dictator Donald Trump. Our problems are too deep to accept this essential next step as the ultimate goal. Short-term, essential goal yes, but looking at things historically, it can only be the first major step in a fundamental, revolutionary process that over time not just saves the planet and its people but, at long last, matches our desires as a species with the way that we organize ourselves, economically, politically, culturally and socially.” 

21^st Century Common Sense, Part 1, February 2026

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I believe, I really do believe, that it is (still) possible that this world can be turned upside down, in the way Jesus of Nazareth meant in the Sermon on the Mount when he said, among other things, in Luke 20-21: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. . . Woe to you who are rich. . . for you will mourn and weep.”

Why do I believe this?

My reading of history, in all its positive and negative aspects, inclines me toward feeling hopeful, just as I am fully aware that we have many rivers to cross and mountains to climb and descend until human society becomes, worldwide, finally, what it can become.

Orban in Hungary being defeated is hopeful. The changes brought about in US society because of the Black Freedom movement of the 50s, 60s and beyond make me hopeful. The changes brought about by the women’s movement in so many ways in so many places in the world make me hopeful. The MAGA Republicans being overwhelmingly defeated in various local and state and special elections all over the country since Trump was elected in 2024: this is very important for us to remember and internalize.

I am encouraged when I read in the April, 2026 issue of Scientific American an article based on research entitled, “The Kids Are All Right,” that “youth are more empathetic and less narcissistic than in the past, as well as more open-minded and inclusive. Drug use is down, youth violence has dropped and teen pregnancies have declined. IQs have gone up, and kids exhibit more self-restraint and patience than they did 50 years ago.” And then there are youth organizations like the Sunrise Movement which have shown real staying power and organizing ability over the last 10 years.

There are the tens of millions of people of all colors and cultures in thousands of localities who took to the streets in 2020 after George Floyd was murdered by local police in Minneapolis. There are the successive wave of nationally coordinated actions of resistance to Trumpfascism beginning the day before he took office and continuing ever since up to the latest No Kings action on March 28, with over 8 million people coming out in 3300 localities.

But the ultimate reason why I believe that we have a fighting chance to truly bring into being a very different, much more just and democratic world is the fact that, for the first time ever, our earth, this wonderful third planet from this solar system’s sun, is facing a common enemy that can only be defeated by our peoples joining together: the worldwide climate crisis, caused primarily by the coal, oil and gas industries and their blind supporters in government, like Trump.

Most people get it on the existential seriousness of this crisis. According to a public opinion survey conducted in 2024: “Four out of five people around the world (80 percent) want more climate action from their country. They also seek global unity in responding to the crisis, with 86 percent agreeing that their countries should set aside geopolitical differences, such as those regarding trade and security, and work together on climate change. There is a clear expectation that governments need to lead and strengthen their commitments to address climate change, with a resounding 89 percent of people wanting to see more climate action from their governments.”

These opinions, combined with the many positive reasons to get off fossil fuels and onto renewables—like saving money, reducing air, water and land pollution, job creation—have been translating into worldwide action for many years. Here’s what the International Energy Agency reports:

“Global energy investment in 2025 is set to reach a record $3.3 trillion, with over $2.2 trillion directed toward clean energy—including renewables, grids, storage, and efficiency—which is double the $1.1 trillion invested in fossil fuels. Solar photovoltaics (PV) lead all energy sources in investment, while total energy transition investment reached a record $2.3 trillion.”

And check this out, from an AI Overview: “The 2026 war in the Middle East, leading to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, has severely disrupted global energy markets and catalyzed an urgent shift to renewable energy, transforming energy security into a, if not the, top policy priority. With nearly 20 million barrels of oil stalled daily, countries are moving beyond short-term energy rationing to accelerate long-term investments in solar, wind, and battery storage to gain independence from volatile chokepoints.”

Would a successful “urgent shift to renewable energy” mean that the USA and the world have become the much more just and democratic societies that we can become? No, it would not, but such a successful energy revolution, taking place in major part because of the demand of masses of people from below, will empower all of us, literally allow us to breathe better. It should stimulate a continuation of other world-changing actions to eliminate hunger, reverse the destruction of animal and plant species, provide adequate homes and worthwhile jobs, free and good healthcare for all and so many other positive things. A huge weight will be lifted from us, the weight of so many of us afraid to have children or afraid for the world our children and grandchildren and the seven generations after us will inherit.

I really do believe all of this is possible. I believe that we can win.

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Ted Glick

Ted Glick has devoted his life to the progressive social change movement. After a year of student activism as a sophomore at Grinnell College in Iowa, he left college in 1969 to work full time against the Vietnam War. As a Selective Service draft resister, he spent 11 months in prison. In 1973, he co-founded the National Committee to Impeach Nixon and worked as a national coordinator on grassroots street actions around the country, keeping the heat on Nixon until his August 1974 resignation. Since late 2003, Ted has played a national leadership role in the effort to stabilize our climate and for a renewable energy revolution. He was a co-founder in 2004 of the Climate Crisis Coalition and in 2005 coordinated the USA Join the World effort leading up to December actions during the United Nations Climate Change conference in Montreal. In May 2006, he began working with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and was CCAN National Campaign Coordinator until his retirement in October 2015. He is a co-founder (2014) and one of the leaders of the group Beyond Extreme Energy. He is President of the group 350NJ/Rockland, on the steering committee of the DivestNJ Coalition and on the leadership group of the Climate Reality Check network.

Cuba Joins ‘Lego Resistance Front’ With Iran-Style Video Decrying Trump Warmongering

Content creator María Teresa Felipe Sosa hailed Cubans as “a people who refuse to submit to the true regime of horror, which the United States represents, as it goes around starting wars throughout the world.”


US President Donald Trump is depicted in a Cuba-themed Lego-style video inspired by the viral pro-Iran clip series.
(Photo by screen shot/Tere Felipe/X)

Brett Wilkins
May 12, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

As the team at Tehran-based Explosive Media keeps churning out viral artificial intelligence-generated Lego-style animated videos condemning the US-Israeli war on Iran, a Cuban version of the clips reacting to President Donald Trump’s threats to attack the island appeared Monday on social media.

First posted by Havana art historian and digital content creator María Teresa Felipe Sosa, the video was shared by users including US investigative journalist Ryan Grim and Explosive Media, which added, “Welcome to the #LRF Cuba,” or Lego Resistance Front.
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‘This Is Insane’: Alarm Bells Follow New Report of Looming US Plan to Attack Cuba



“The threat that Cuba represents to the United States is the dignity and principles of a people who refuse to submit to the true regime of horror, which the United States represents, as it goes around starting wars throughout the world,” Felipe said Tuesday on social media.




According to the video’s lyrics:
They seek to stifle the lifeblood of this land with the talons of empire and the drums of war, from the north they unleash their poisonous breath seeking to seize what belongs to others. But this soil has roots of steel and a people who cannot be bought with money.

They raise walls of hatred and lies while the island, relying on its own strength, breathes amid 60 years of constant hostile siege—yet we continue to march forward with a firm step. There is no threat that can break our faith; the Cuban knows well how to stand tall.

Here dignity has neither price nor master; we are the guardians of our own dream. My people, stand tall, with fists held high against the invader and their dark assault.

There’s no surrender beneath this burning sun, for it’s known that the homeland must be defended. Resist my brother with your head held high for every victory in the battle-hardened struggle, your love is the compass of our people, for you know that the homeland must be defended.

The video comes amid more than 65 years of US-based terrorism, assassination attempts, and a tightened economic embargo targeting Cuba, as well as Trump’s threats to attack or “take” the island. Despite extreme hardship caused or exacerbated by these internationally condemned policies, the Cuban people have been resolute in their resistance to US aggression.

With no victory in sight in the US-Israeli war on Iran and the American people increasingly wary of yet another war of choice waged by the self-described “president of peace” who’s now attacked 10 countries over the course of his two terms in office, even some Republican lawmakers are warning Trump against attacking Cuba.

Asked if he would support such an attack, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) told The Hill on Tuesday, “No, I would not.”

“There’s a lot of economic pressure you can put on Cuba that makes a big difference by itself,” the hawkish senator added.

Numerous Democratic lawmakers have consistently opposed any attack on Cuba; however Democratic Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) recently helped sink a Senate war powers resolution aimed at blocking Trump from attacking the country.

More than 6 in 10 Americans surveyed by multiple pollsters in recent months said they oppose a US war on Cuba.

Responding to the renewed US menace under Trump, Felipe recently wrote that “the current threats aren’t anything new, they only confirm a dangerous insistence—that of replacing international law with the law of the strongest.”

“In the face of that, Cuba responds with an uncomfortable and persistent idea—its people does not give up,” she continued. “Cuba is not seeking confrontation. It demands respect. And history, although some prefer to ignore it, has been clear—independence is not negotiated under threat.”

“Once again,” Felipe added, “and against all imperial odds, Cuba will win.”

Cuba: “We Cannot Accept the Suffocation of an Entire People”

By Salim Lamrani, Radio Séptimo Piso Argentina 

May 11, 2026

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

Image of South African Communist Party against US sanctions by Discott/Wikimediacommons, licensed via CC BY 4.0

U.S. pressure on Cuba is entering a new phase of escalation. Economic sanctions, financial restrictions, and limits on energy supplies are worsening the situation on the island.

In this interview, Salim Lamrani, a specialist in relations between Cuba and the United States, analyzes the consequences of the blockade, Washington’s motivations, and the regional political context.

How do you assess Cuba’s current situation in the face of increasing U.S. pressure?

Cuba is going through an extremely difficult period, probably the most complex since 1959, apart from the 1962 crisis. Never before had U.S. pressure, aggression, and hostility toward the island reached such levels.

It is important to remember that Washington has imposed an economic blockade for more than six decades that affects every sector of the Cuban population. During his first term, Donald Trump significantly tightened these sanctions.

Between 2017 and 2021, he imposed 243 additional coercive measures. That amounts to a new sanction every five days for four years. These measures directly targeted Cuba’s three main sources of revenue: tourism, remittances, and international medical cooperation.

What happened afterward under the Biden administration?

The Biden administration did absolutely nothing to change this policy. It also maintained an extremely serious decision made by Trump in January 2021: Cuba’s reinstatement on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism.

This is a unilateral list created by the U.S. State Department and completely lacking in legitimacy. One need only remember that Nelson Mandela remained on that list until 2008, even after serving as president of South Africa.

The consequences for Cuba were immediate: more than one hundred international banking and financial institutions severed ties with the island. This greatly complicated foreign investment and further worsened the economic crisis.

You speak of an unprecedented escalation. Concretely, what does that mean?

The new Trump administration has pushed hostility to unprecedented levels, particularly through the oil blockade.

Between December 2025 and April 2026, only one oil tanker entered Cuba, representing the equivalent of just twelve days of national consumption. And when we talk about fuel, we must understand the concrete consequences for daily life.

Cuba’s electrical system depends on oil for 50% of its operation. This means paralyzed hospitals, suspended surgeries, insufficient transportation, difficulties accessing drinking water, closed schools, and serious problems with waste collection.

At present, around 100,000 patients are waiting for surgery, including 11,000 children. In some regions, power outages can last up to thirty hours.

These are unilateral, inhumane measures that are completely contrary to international law.

Why have the United States maintained this policy for so many decades?

Cuba represents a symbol in Latin America. Unlike other countries, Cuba’s main strategic resource is not material but symbolic. Cuba succeeded in challenging the world’s leading power in its own “backyard” and in building a different society, with free education, universal healthcare, access to culture, and sovereignty over its natural resources. That is precisely what the United States has never accepted.

Cuba demonstrated that it was possible to follow an alternative path, even as a small island with limited resources and under intense external pressure. It showed that it was possible to regain national control over resources and build a sovereign project.

This represented an extremely dangerous precedent for Washington because it could inspire other Latin American countries. Historically, the United States has always feared the “demonstration effect.”

Donald Trump recently stated that he wants regime change in Cuba. How do you interpret those remarks?

I believe Donald Trump must understand one fundamental thing: Cuba is an independent and sovereign country. Cuba’s destiny depends exclusively on the will of the Cuban people. No U.S. president has the legitimacy to decide the island’s political future.

And no Cuban worthy of the name should call for sanctions against their own people. No one can demand the economic suffocation of their own population.

Washington often justifies these sanctions in the name of human rights. What is your response?

If the United States truly cared about human rights in Cuba, it would immediately lift the economic sanctions. The main obstacle to the well-being of the Cuban people is precisely this blockade.

Its concrete impact must be understood: last year alone, the cost amounted to $7.55 billion, or $20 million per day. With that same amount, Cuba could guarantee essential goods for the entire population for six years. Since their imposition in 1960, the sanctions have cost Cuba more than $170 billion, and over 80% of the Cuban population was born under this state of siege.

Moreover, the latest measures have caused a decline in the country’s three main sources of revenue: tourism fell by 60%, family remittances by 40%, and international medical cooperation by 20%.

All of this directly affects the population.

You also mentioned pressure on Cuban medical missions. What is happening?

U.S. pressure is extremely intense. For example, the U.S. ambassador to Cuba even traveled to Calabria, Italy, to ask regional authorities to terminate an agreement with Cuban doctors. These are around 300 professionals who are essential to the local healthcare system.

This illustrates the level of diplomatic interference: a U.S. ambassador traveling to another country to demand the end of a medical cooperation agreement.

What should the international community do in response to this situation?

Political courage is needed. Russia has already shown one possible path by sending oil to Cuba. Other oil-producing countries should do the same. Brazil, Colombia, and China have the necessary capacities to help the island and resist the logic of might makes right.

Historically, the Cuban people have shown solidarity with Latin America, Africa, and Asia. It is time for the world to return some of that solidarity. The Cuban people are not asking to interfere in the internal affairs of the United States. They are simply asking for the right to decide their own destiny in a sovereign manner.

Cuba only wants the right to choose how to organize its society, free from foreign interference.Email

Salim Lamrani

Salim Lamrani holds a PhD in Iberian and Latin American Studies from Sorbonne University, and is Professor of Latin American History at the Université de La Réunion, specializing in relations between Cuba and the United States.  His latest book in English is Cuba, the Media and the Challenge of Impartiality.

This Has to Stop: The Criminal U.S. Blockade of Cuba

Eve Ottenberg

 May 13, 2026

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Map of Cuba from 1639 – Public Domain

He has blockaded Cuba, and now he’s expanded the sanctions. Donald “Uber-Capitalist” Trump is relentless in his war on this tiny nation of 11 million people, whose courage, solidarity and grit has inspired all ends of the global political spectrum, from Claudia Scheinbaum’s left-leaning Mexico to Vladimir Putin’s traditional-values-championing Russia. Fortunately, some of these onlookers have even been inspired to act. Moscow already broke the blockade by dispatching one enormous oil tanker to Havana and is sending another, while other nations have donated various necessities. Beijing has been especially generous with everything from rice to thousands of solar panels. It kinda invites the comparison between Trump and Ebeneezer Scrouge. Not a good look for a man obsessed with his appearance.

On May 1, Trump’s new sanctions took aim at “officials, entities…as well as people operating in Cuba’s energy, defense, mining and financial sectors,” reported Democracy Now! “Foreign banks and companies that do business with sanctioned Cuban entities could also be cut off from U.S. markets.” Never has the planet’s need for a new, non-U.S. financial architecture glared more apparently, because Washington wages relentless, endless economic war on any nation anywhere that refuses to bow to it. Though U.S. financial assaults on Cuba are not, unlike those on BRICS countries, liable to catapult the dollar into its grave as the world’s chief reserve currency, you can be sure China and Russia have taken note. It’s one more nail in the coffin of dollar supremacy, one more argument, come the next BRICS summit – and BRICS, by the way, speaks for 45 to 55 percent of the world’s population and holds 40 to 44 percent of the world’s purchasing power parity – for expanding the yuan as a reserve currency and, even, for BRICS creating its OWN currency.

In other words, American sanctions, which have already backfired spectacularly in certain corners of the globe (think Russia), are still used as promiscuously by Mr. Trump as by his predecessors, to the fury of just about everybody, a fury that’s far from impotent. The irony here is that Trump periodically erupts with threats against anyone who harms the almighty dollar; but with his refusal to kick the sanctions habit, he’s got the same self-defeating addiction as all his predecessors. His sanctions temper-tantrums, like those of every other recent president, kill people in the global south. This is a form of warfare, leading everyone who can quite rightly to shun the dollar. So sooner rather than later, the dollar will no longer hold the world reserve currency prize, and we lucky dogs in the heart of the Empire will get smacked with eye-popping inflation.

Also on May Day came the Cuban government’s International Worker’s Day celebration. “With a severe energy crisis that has sent food prices soaring, morale plummeting and transportation halting,” reported the New York Times that day, over half a million Cuban Communist Party supporters attended the celebration. Meanwhile Trump’s executive order, issued that day, claims that Cuba “constitute[s] an unusual and extraordinary threat…to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” As Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canal riposted: “One has to ask: What is the threat? What is extraordinary about that threat? What is unusual about that threat, when Cuba is a country of peace?”

Then, according to an X summary May 2, “at a dinner in West Palm Beach on Friday, Trump joked about using the USS Abraham Lincoln to force Cuba’s quick capitulation.” Two days later X added that Diaz-Canal “called the U.S. a ‘fascist government’…amid the island’s deepening crisis of food shortages, blackouts and inflation.” Again, who is aiding the grotesquely bullied Cubans? Front and center stand the Russians. Moscow’s first tanker arrived in the port of Matanzas March 31, with roughly 730,000 barrels of oil. Meanwhile, by May 5, a second Russian tanker got about 1000 miles from the Cuban coast, with 270,000 barrels of diesel. But according to Bloomberg May 5, that second tanker has stalled.

“For the last two weeks,” wrote the Guardian May 3, “U.S. surveillance aircraft have been circling the island in an echo of what happened in Venezuela before the January 3 abduction of Nicolas Maduro.” Clearly Trump wants to drive Diaz-Canal from office, because just as clearly, the Trump who posed as an anti-interventionist candidate and bragged that as president he had started no new wars, is in fact all-in with the neoconservative putsch fanboy agenda. He failed spectacularly in Iran; assaults on China are on hold; Russia is beating the crap out of the NATO army in Ukraine; so what does the U.S. power elite have left? Not much. Kidnapping socialist presidents and lording it over tiny communist islands 90 miles from Key West. Simultaneously, however, as reporter Richard Medhurst has written copiously on X for weeks and in a stunning substack investigation May 1, under Trump the U.S. has pursued global energy supremacy and largely achieved it. Venezuela – check. Gaza/Syrian gas fields – check. Kettling Arctic transit of oil to China – check. What remains? I’ll tell you: a tiny country called Russia, which Washington had hoped to balkanize but failed, so instead, its Ukrainian puppet flies hundreds of drones at Russian energy installations, rashly risking a nuclear war with NATO.

Which is to say that while the U.S. military can’t beat anyone else’s military, and hasn’t been able to since the Korean War, the U.S. is very good at “stealing the oil.” That’s because here in the USA, we have the smartest, most ruthless, most experienced, most cohesive, most amoral capitalists in the world. They may not be able to defeat Iran in a fair fight, but they can make it darn difficult for Tehran’s oil to get to market. And while Iranian oil is largely blockaded, Washington price-gouges the world for its ridiculously expensive LNG. So the oil companies make bank, the white house plays and rigs the stock market, and Wall Street smiles, while the rest of us go flat broke. As Trump said on television just recently about the barrel price of oil, “even if it’s $200, it’s worth it.” Worth it to whom? I mean, it’s easy for him to say. He’s a billionaire – not a farmer paying $300 to fill the tank of his work vehicle.

So now Trump evidently thinks toppling Diaz-Canal would be a glittering anti-communist feather in his cap. He has all but told the Cuban president to get out or else. Diaz-Canal hasn’t budged. So what next? A repeat of the Venezuelan acrobatics? Or have U.S. spooks not as thoroughly infested the Cuban military as they did the Venezuelan one? That’s probably no concern for the white house, which doubtless has plenty of other dirty tricks up its sleeve and fiendishly commie-hating advisors – the alarming and shadowy Elliott Abrams comes to mind though he is not officially in this iteration of Trump’s rule – quite capable of implementing them.

In short, we have the clever bandits in Washington pillaging the globe and apparently winning at that hands down via market manipulation, other financial skullduggery and, when needed, deploying the military as its paramount “gangster for capitalism.” That gangster is possibly headed for Cuba, though why and why now are the wildly ostentatious questions of the hour. Well, there’s a reality TV star in the white house, and the Trump show must go on.

Eve Ottenberg is a novelist and journalist. Her latest novel is Old Man Alone. She can be reached at her website.