Secretary Rubio’s proposed plan, announced in May, would drastically downsize the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), which is responsible for documenting and responding to press freedom violations and providing assistance to journalists at risk around the world. In addition, the reorganization plan would significantly cut staff working on human rights policy, including those supporting journalists and press freedom. These changes would significantly degrade the U.S. government’s capacity to address press freedom violations of press freedom and support journalists at risk globally.

“The U.S. government’s diplomatic capacity, built over decades of bipartisan collaboration and sustained by dedicated expert staff, is instrumental in defending fundamental freedoms and democratic values worldwide, including press freedom. Its strength is critical for America’s national security and global standing, and provides a consequential lifeline for journalists and media outlets who find themselves in the crosshairs for their reporting,” said CPJ’s U.S. Advocacy Representative Loghman Fattahi in a joint press release.

CPJ therefore urges Congress to reject this proposed reorganization and ensure the continued strength of U.S. efforts to protect fundamental freedoms, including press freedom and journalists globally.

Read the letter here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Secretary Rubio’s proposed plan, announced in May, would drastically downsize the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), which is responsible for documenting and responding to press freedom violations and providing assistance to journalists at risk around the world. In addition, the reorganization plan would significantly cut staff working on human rights policy, including those supporting journalists and press freedom. These changes would significantly degrade the U.S. government’s capacity to address press freedom violations of press freedom and support journalists at risk globally.

“The U.S. government’s diplomatic capacity, built over decades of bipartisan collaboration and sustained by dedicated expert staff, is instrumental in defending fundamental freedoms and democratic values worldwide, including press freedom. Its strength is critical for America’s national security and global standing, and provides a consequential lifeline for journalists and media outlets who find themselves in the crosshairs for their reporting,” said CPJ’s U.S. Advocacy Representative Loghman Fattahi in a joint press release.

CPJ therefore urges Congress to reject this proposed reorganization and ensure the continued strength of U.S. efforts to protect fundamental freedoms, including press freedom and journalists globally.

Read the letter here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Misión Milagro is despised by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Washington has imposed sanctions on officials in countries using this and other Cuban medical missions. Supposedly aimed at stopping the “trafficking” of medical staff, the real intent is to destroy services that have proved immensely popular for their free, high-quality treatment, often in remote areas with few health facilities. The US falsely demonizes Cuba’s aid as “forced labor,” which is also a source of income for the besieged country.

Successes of Rubio’s “enemies of humanity”

Rubio’s attack on medical brigades is only the most recent example of the hybrid warfare conducted by successive US administrations against Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Already designated as “strategic threats” to US security, according to Rubio, these countries are now also labelled “enemies of humanity.” In reality, all three countries have made major advances in human development, albeit constrained (most heavily in Cuba’s case) by Washington’s attacks.

Cuba’s medical brigades derive from its community-based health system, whose success is recognized in medical journals and affords Cubans a three-year greater life expectancy than people in the US. Health services in Venezuela and Nicaragua have learnt from this model. For example, Nicaragua’s 180 casas maternas, assisting women in the late stages of pregnancy, have drastically reduced maternal deaths.

Venezuela leads Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) in building affordable housing; its Great Housing Mission, launched in 2011, handed over its five millionth home a year ago. Nicaragua is building more than 7,000 “social interest” homes annually.

Cuba, sadly, has an ongoing housing crisis, primarily caused by the US embargo, which has produced a severe shortage of building materials. One-third of homes are unfit, while its 13,500 annual building program inevitably falls short.

However, Cuba invested in its education system during the most prosperous years of the revolution, when it benefited from the international solidarity of the Soviet Union. Cuba’s schools serve the most remote communities, and attendance is close to 100%. ELAM, its medical school for internationals, has trained an astonishing 31,180 doctors from 122 countries.

Venezuela invested heavily in education as a means of empowering the populace, building thousands of new schools in underserved barrios and rural areas. By 2005, illiteracy was eradicated using Cuban-developed methods. By 2008, four out of five young adults were enrolled in higher education, the highest rate in the region.

All three countries guarantee free education at all levels, including university. Nicaragua, for example, has created new technical colleges training some 46,000 students.

Cuba and Nicaragua are two of LAC’s safest countries. A common factor is that their police forces were completely reformed, post-revolution, and they have been able to limit drug trafficking and keep at bay the violent gangs that bedevil other countries.

The Venezuelan revolution inherited chronically high crime levels, but in recent years has achieved a significant decrease in homicides, which has been publicized not only by Caracas but by the US president. However, Trump deceitfully claims Venezuela has achieved this by deliberately exporting its criminals to the US.

In terms of national security, Nicaragua and Venezuela have among the lowest military spending levels in the LAC region; Cuba, subject to constant US threat, is among the highest. Nevertheless, its spending of around $130 million annually pales in comparison with that of over a trillion by the US.

Socially conscious foreign policy

Perhaps most challenging to the US has been the independent foreign policy and the championing of regional integration by the three countries striving for socialism.

Back in 2004, Venezuela and Cuba successfully founded ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America), scuttling Washington’s neoliberal free trade FTAA initiative. Venezuela followed with PetroCaribe, supplying oil to Caribbean nations on favorable terms. The founding of CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) in 2010, again spearheaded by Venezuela, provides an alternative to the US-dominated OAS (Organization of American States) as a region-wide political forum, which explicitly excludes the US and Canada.

The three leftist states have also been international leaders in support of Palestine. Cuba was the first country in the LAC region to formally sever diplomatic relations with Israel in 1973. Nicaragua severed relations in 1982. These were temporarily reinstated by the neoliberal government in 1993, only to be again severed in 2010 after the Sandinistas returned to power. Venezuela severed relations with the Zionist state in 2009. Also in 2009, fellow ALBA nation Bolivia severed relations with Israel. These were temporarily reinstated in 2019 by the Áňez coup regime but again severed by the current Bolivian President, Luis Arce, in 2023. Last year, Nicaragua filed a case against Germany at the International Court of Justice over its military and political support of the genocide by Israel.

Human rights weaponized

Washington disregards the achievements in these three countries that former Trump functionary John Bolton called the “troika of tyranny,” instead weaponizing “human rights” to characterize them as authoritarian dictatorships. This is hypocritical in two senses.

One is that their human rights records, by any standards, are no worse than those of many other countries in the region, and in most respects, they are better than those of the US itself.

The other is that the US has been the primary cause of tightened security in these countries. The alleged limits on political expression are a response to constant interference – military interventions, coup efforts, and assassination attempts. Biden, for instance, upped the bounty on the head of Venezuela’s president to $25 million.

Washington leads the chorus of complaints when a demonstration in Cuba is suppressed or a political party in Venezuela or Nicaragua is banned. The US tries to act as if it were an impartial observer, rather than – as is invariably the case – the funder or supporter of whatever opposition group is being “victimized.”

Washington’s concern about “human rights” is a charade, which disappears if the government in question is a US client state, e.g., El Salvador.

If countries pose a “strategic threat” to US interests, it is because of their record in improving the most important human rights, which, according to the United Nations, are “the right to life, food, education, work, health, and liberty.” In respect of these wider rights, Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua show that huge progress can be made by progressive, revolutionary governments that have rejected the neoliberalism pursued in LAC countries favored by Washington.

Sanctions on Venezuela have led to the deaths of over 100,000 Venezuelans by 2020. The blockade of Cuba, costing the country $13.8 million daily, is so destructive that nearly one in ten Cubans has left the country in the last three years. Nicaragua is losing $500 million in development funding annually because the US is blocking loans from the World Bank and other institutions.

It could hardly be more obvious that Washington’s aim is to destroy each country’s social achievements and impoverish their people so that those who do not die, fall sick, or migrate eventually will rise up against their governments. And then the likes of Rubio make inane statements such as offering “unwavering support and solidarity for the Cuban people.”

Washington’s endgame

What do successive US administrations and the opposition groups that they support actually want to achieve in the targeted countries?

Over 30 years ago, prominent Cuban exiles were calling for “a sudden, dramatic and, if necessary, convulsive shift to free-wheeling capitalism.” Twenty years ago, the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, established by President George Bush, outlined a broad neoliberal vision for the country. A trawl of recent statements by exile groups reveals many vague demands for “democracy,” “transparent institutions,” “support for youth,” and so on, with some limited, specific proposals such as “restitution of property rights” (for Cubans in Miami looking to cash in on potentially valuable property their families abandoned 60 years ago).

The Nicaraguan opposition is profoundly divided between the left and the right, with the right seeking to exclude the left from power, while the marginal “left” opposition has never garnered significant political support (the Sandinistas successfully mobilized the progressive vote in elections). The UNAMOS party, some of whose members were formerly Sandinista officials in the 1980s, offers a program focused on restructuring the government with only vague objectives for social development.

The far-right opposition in Venezuela, led by Washington’s darling Maria Corina Machado, promises a bloodbath with no amnesty for the Chavistas. Machado’s surrogate, Edmundo González Urrutia, ran for the presidency in 2024 on a platform calling for extreme neoliberal privatization of education, health care, housing, food assistance, and the national oil agency.

Regardless of the expressed aims of opposition groups, the likely outcome if one or more of the three governments were to lose power is evident. The coup attempt in Nicaragua in 2018 was a foretaste: murders of police and of Sandinista sympathizers, uncontrolled availability of firearms, empowerment of local criminals, importing violent gang members from El Salvador, destruction of public buildings, and much more.

The kind of anarchic chaos that exists in Haiti is a very possible outcome, possibly leading to a repressive, authoritarian regime – but Washington-friendly – like that in Bukele’s El Salvador.

The often-overlooked accomplishments of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have been made despite enduring aggressive US interventions. Washington continues to hypocritically weaponize human rights, using hybrid warfare to erode these achievements and justify regime change as a democratic project.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John Perry and Roger D. Harris.

On Monday President Donald Trump telephoned President Vladimir Putin and they talked for two hours before Trump put lunch in his mouth and Putin his dinner.

On the White House schedule, there was no advance notice of the call and no record afterwards. The White House log is blank for Trump’s entire morning while the press were told he was at lunch between 11:30 and 12:30.

Putin went public first, making a statement to the press which the Kremlin posted at 19:55 Moscow time; it was then 12:55 in Washington. Click to read.

Trump and his staff read the transcript and then composed Trump’s statement in a tweet posted at 13:33 Washington time, 20:33 Moscow time. Click to read.

If Secretary of State Marco Rubio and General Keith Kellogg, the president’s negotiator with the Ukraine and FUGUP (France, United Kingdom, Germany, Ukraine, Poland), were consulted during Trump’s prepping, sat in on the call with the President,  or were informed immediately after the call, they have remained silent.

The day before, May 18, Rubio announced that the Istanbul-II meeting had produced agreement “to exchange paper on ideas to get to a ceasefire. If those papers have ideas on them that are realistic and rational, then I think we know we’ve made progress. If those papers, on the other hand, have requirements in them that we know are unrealistic, then we’ll have a different assessment.” Rubio was hinting that the Russian formula in Istanbul, negotiations-then-ceasefire, has been accepted by the US. What the US would do after its “assessment”, Rubio didn’t say – neither walk-away nor threat of new sanctions.

Vice President JD Vance wasn’t present at the call because he was flying home from Rome where he attended Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural mass. “We’re more than open to walking away,” Vance told reporters in his aeroplane. “The United States is not going to spin its wheels here. We want to see outcomes.” Vance prompted Trump to mention the Pope as a mediator for a new round of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations, first to Putin and then in public.

Kellogg is refusing to go along. He tweeted on Sunday: “In Istanbul @SecRubio  made it clear that we have presented ‘a strong peace plan’. Coming out of the London meetings we (US) came up with a comprehensive 22 point plan that is a framework for peace. The first point is a comprehensive cease fire that stops the killing now.”

FUGUP issued their own statement after Trump’s call. “The US President and the European partners have agreed on the next steps. They agreed to closely coordinate the negotiation process and to seek another technical meeting. All sides reaffirmed their willingness to closely accompany Ukraine on the path to a ceasefire. The European participants announced that they would increase pressure on the Russian side through sanctions.”

This signalled acceptance with Trump of the Russian formula, negotiations-then-ceasefire, and time to continue negotiating at the “technical” level. The sanction threat was added. But this statement was no longer FUGUP. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was omitted; so too Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The Italian, the Finn and the European Commission President were substituted. They make FUGIFEC.

Late in the Paris evening of Sunday French President Emmanuel Macron attempted to keep Starmer in Trump’s good books and preserve the ceasefire-first formula. “I spoke tonight,” Macron tweeted, “with @POTUS @Keir_Starmer @Bundeskanzler  and @GiorgiaMeloni  after our talks in Kyiv and Tirana. Tomorrow, President Putin must show he wants peace by accepting the 30-day unconditional ceasefire proposed by President Trump and backed by Ukraine and Europe.” By the time on Monday that Macron realized he had been trumped, the Elysée had nothing to say.

By contrast, Italian Prime Minister Meloni signalled she was happy to line up with Trump and accept Putin’s negotiations-then-ceasefire. “Efforts are being made,” Meloni’s office announced, “for an immediate start to negotiations between the parties that can lead as soon as possible to a ceasefire and create the conditions for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.”  Meloni claimed she would assure that Pope Leo XIV would fall into line. “In this regard, the willingness of the Holy Father to host the talks in the Vatican was welcomed. Italy is ready to do its part to facilitate contacts and work for peace.”

For the time being, Putin’s and Trump’s statements have put Rubio, Kellogg and the Europeans offside. Decoding the two president’s statements shows how and why.

President Putin’s Statement

Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/76953 

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good evening.

Our colleagues asked me to briefly comment on the outcome of my telephone conversation with the President of the United States.This conversation has effectively taken place and lasted more than two hours. I would like to emphasise that it was both substantive and quite candid. Overall, [1] I believe it was a very productive exchange.

First and foremost [2], I expressed my gratitude to the President of the United States for the support provided by the United States in facilitating the resumption of direct talks between Russia and Ukraine aimed at potentially reaching a peace agreement and resuming the talks which, as we know, were thwarted by the Ukrainian side in 2022 [3].

The President of the United States shared his position [4] on the cessation of hostilities and the prospects for a ceasefire. For my part, I noted that Russia also supports a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine crisis as well. What we need now is to identify the most effective [5] ways towards achieving peace.

We agreed with the President of the United States that Russia would propose and is ready to engage with the Ukrainian side on drafting a memorandum [6] regarding a potential future peace agreement. This would include outlining a range of provisions, such as the principles for settlement, the timeframe for a possible peace deal, and other matters, including a potential temporary ceasefire, should the necessary agreements [7] be reached.

Contacts among participants of the Istanbul meeting and talks have resumed, which gives reason to believe that we are on the right track overall [8].

I would like to reiterate that the conversation was highly constructive, and I assess it positively. The key issue, of course, is now for the Russian side and the Ukrainian side to show their firm commitment to peace and to forge a compromise that would be acceptable to all parties.

Notably, Russia’s position is clear. Eliminating the root causes [9] of this crisis is what matters most to us.

Should any clarifications be necessary, Press Secretary [Dmitry] Peskov and my aide, Mr Ushakov [10], will provide further details on today’s telephone talks with President Trump.

Keys to Decode

1. This is a qualifier, meaning there are serious differences on the details — Putin asked Trump to pause, halt or cease all arms deliveries to the Ukraine, including US arms shipped through Israel, Germany, and Poland. This is a bullet Trump hasn’t bitten, yet.

2. Putin has made a firm decision to give Trump the “peace deal” he has asked for and wishes to announce at a summit meeting. In their call Putin was mollifying Trump’s disappointment at the failure of their plan to meet when Trump was in the Middle East. A Russian source comments: “Whatever concessions have to be made will be made only by Putin and only to Trump. The Europeans are trying to hog the headlines and turn their defeat into some sort of victory – Trump won’t let them have it and Putin won’t either.”

3. Putin does not publicly admit the mistakes he made with Roman Abramovich and Vladimir Medinsky in March 2022 at Istanbul-I. They have now been corrected at the  consensus decision-making session with the military and intelligence chiefs (May 14 Kremlin session) and then on May 16 in Istanbul with Admiral Igor Kostyukov of the GRU seated on Medinsky’s right with General Alexander Fomin, Deputy Minister of Defence. For more details, click to listen.

Source: https://ria.ru/20250516/peregovory-2017151081.html
At top left, 2nd from left, Fomin, then Kostyukov (obscured) and then Medinsky.

4. Soft qualifier. This means Putin did not agree with several of Trump’s points relating to intelligence sharing, arms deliveries, Ukrainian elections.

5. Future tense. Putin suggested to  Trump that he stop Kellogg and FUGUP encouraging Zelensky. Putin made an especially negative remark about the role played by Prime Minister Starmer.

6. This is a Russian lesson in escalation control. By putting the memorandum of understanding in Russian hands to initiate, Putin returns to the key parts of the December 17, 2021, draft treaty which President Joseph Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken summarily dismissed. Placing agreement on these terms first, before a temporary ceasefire, and making that ceasefire conditional on ceaseforce (halt to battlefield intelligence sharing and arms re-supply), Putin has invited Trump to choose between the US and FUGUP; between Zelensky and an elected successor;  and between his personal negotiator advisors, Steven Witkoff and General Kellogg.

7. Reiteration of the formula, negotiations first, then ceasefire.

8. Qualifier repeated – see Key 1.

9. This phrase refers to the European security architecture and mutual security pact of December 2021, as well as to the two declared objectives of the Special Military Operation — demilitarization and denazification.

10. Following Putin’s statement, Ushakov added: “other details of the telephone conversation. Among other things, Putin and Trump touched upon the exchange of prisoners of citizens of the two countries: the format of ‘nine nine’ is being worked out. The leaders also discussed their possible meeting and agreed that it should be productive, so the teams of the presidents will work out the content of the summit between Russia and the United States.”

President Trump’s Statement

Tweet source: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114535693441367601

Trump followed in a stumbling speech in the Rose Garden in which, referring to the morning telephone call, he said “they [Putin] like Melania better.”

Just completed my two hour call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. I believe it went very well. Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire [1] and, more importantly, an END to the War. The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of. [2] The tone and spirit of the conversation were excellent. If it wasn’t, I would say so now, rather than later. Russia wants to do largescale TRADE with the United States when this catastrophic “bloodbath” is over, and I agree [3]. There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is UNLIMITED. Likewise, Ukraine can be a great beneficiary on Trade, in the process of rebuilding its Country.

Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will begin immediately. I have so informed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, President Emmanuel Macron, of France, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, of Italy, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, of Germany, and President Alexander Stubb, of Finland, during a call with me,[4]  immediately after the call with President Putin. The Vatican, as represented by the Pope [5] has stated that it would be very interested in hosting the negotiations. Let the process begin! [6]

Keys to Decode

1. Trump accepts that negotiations should come before ceasefire.

2. This amounts to rejection of Kellogg’s 22-point term paper first decided with Zelensky and FUGUP in London on April 23 and repeated by Macron the night before Trump’s telephone call; as well as rejection of Witkoff’s term paper discussed at the Kremlin on April 25.

Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/76797
From left to right: Witkoff’s interpreter, Witkoff, Putin, Ushakov, Russian interpreter, Kirill Dmitriev. For analysis of the term sheets, read this.

3. Agreement with the business deal-making which Witkoff has been discussing with Kirill Dmitriev. For the deal beneficiaries on both sides, read this.

4. This list includes two Germans, both Russia haters — Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Ursula von der Leyen, former German defense minister and supporter of the German rearmament plan to continue the war with Russia into the future. The British Prime Minister has been dropped by Trump, and also Polish Prime Minister Tusk. Included for the first time in this context are the Italian and Finnish representatives with whom Trump has demonstrated personal rapport. Research by Manos Tzafalias indicates that there is a substantial money interest in Finland for Trump’s associate, Elon Musk.

5. Prompt from the Catholic convert, Vice President Vance.

Vance and Rubio meeting with Pope Leo XIV on May 18. They invited the Pope to make an official visit to Washington. The last papal visit to the White House was in September 2015 on the invitation of President Obama and Vice President Biden.

6. Trump has covered his disappointment at failing to hold a summit meeting with Putin in Istanbul on the afternoon of May 16 by dismissing the negotiations which occurred without him. For details of Trump’s abortive summit plan, read this.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John Helmer.

The scene says it all: a meeting lasting 37 minutes in Riyadh with a US President holding hands in communal machismo with a bearded Jihadi warrior who once had a $10 million bounty on his head. Present was the delighted Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joining by telephone.

It proved most rewarding for al-Sharaa, who has become a salesman for the new Syria, scrubbing up for appearances. His main message: remove crushing sanctions barring access to investment and finance. It also proved rewarding for the efforts made by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in convincing the Trump administration that a new approach towards Damascus was warranted. “The sanctions,” reflected Trump, “were brutal and crippling and served as an important, really, an important function nevertheless at the time, but now it’s their time to shine.” But lifting sanctions would offer Syria “a chance at greatness”. This signalled a striking volte face from the stance taken in December 2024, when Trump expressed the view that Syria was “a mess”, not a friend of the United States and not deserving of any intervention from Washington.

In remarks made by Trump to journalists keeping him company, the US President expressed admiration for the strongman, the brute, the resilient survivor. “Tough guy, very strong past.” And what a past, one marked by links to al-Qaeda via the affiliate Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that were only severed in 2017. HTS’s predecessor, Jabhat al-Nusra, was commanded by al-Sharaa, then known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. In January 2017, HTS was born as a collective of Salafi jihadists comprising Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zinki, Liwa al-Haq, Jaysh al-Sunna and Jabhat Ansar al-Din.

Even at present, a shadow lingers over al-Sharaa’s interim government. In March, over 100 people were butchered in the coastal city of Banias. These atrocities were directed against the Alawite minority and instigated by militias affiliated with the new regime, ostensibly as part of a response to attacks in Latakia and Tartous from armed groups affiliated with the deposed Assad regime. According to Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard, “the authorities failed to intervene to stop the killings. Once again, Syrian civilians have found themselves bearing the heaviest cost as parties to the conflict seek to settle scores.”

The announcement by Trump on lifting US sanctions sent officials scurrying. While the plan to bring Syria out of the cold had been on the books for some months, the timing, as with all things with the US president, was fickle. Presidential waivers on sanctions do, after all, only go so far and the more technically minded will have to pour over the details of repeal.

The Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a dose of clarification some 24 hours after the announcement. “If we make enough progress, we’d like to see the law repealed, because you’re going to struggle to find people to [invest] in a country when [at any point] in six months, sanctions could come back. We’re not there yet. That’s premature.”

Progress is in the works, with Rubio meeting his Syrian counterpart, Foreign Minister Asad Hassan al-Shaibani in Antalya on May 15. In comments from State Department spokesman, Tammy Bruce, the Secretary “welcomed the Syrian government’s calls for peace with Israel, efforts to end Iran’s influence in Syria, commitment to ascertaining the fate of US citizens missing or killed in Syria, and elimination of all chemical weapons.”

In answers to a press gathering, Rubio revealed how much of a success al-Sharaa has been in wooing Washington. “We have governing authorities there now who have expressed, not openly and repeatedly, that they do – that this is a nationalistic movement designed to building their country in a pluralistic society in which all the different elements of Syrian society are able to live together.” There had also been an interest in normalising ties with Israel and “driving out foreign fighters and terrorists and others that would destabilize the country and are enemies of this transitional authority.”

While no mention is made of al-Sharaa’s own colourful, bloodied past, the previous ruler, Assad, comes in for scathing mention. His rule was “brutal”, one characterised by gassing and murdering “his own people”. It was Assad who sowed the seeds that would allow foreign fighters to take root in Syria’s soil. How curious that HTS would have attracted those very same fighters.

Things have come full circle. The Assad dynasts, who kept a watchful eye on fundamentalist Islamists, are gone. The Islamists, with their various backers, Turkey and Saudi Arabia being most prominent, are now nominally in charge. The rest is a confidence trick that might, given al-Sharaa’s recent performance, just work.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

The context: Russia has made its conditions very clear. (1) Ukraine must not join NATO. (2) Ukraine must give up the four oblasts and Crimea. 3) Ukraine must be demilitarized and not pose a military threat to Russia.

Although to this point Trump been unwilling or unable to do so, he must accept these nonnegotiable conditions and do it against the opposition of European leaders. Or conceivably, he could simply walk away.

British political analyst Alexander Mercouris reports that European leaders are meeting in Paris to, in their words, achieve a “fair and lasting peace in Ukraine” and for them, this means a “Ukrainian victory.” Even as they voice this objective, reliable reports indicate that Russian recruitment is running at 1,000 per day, which is more than enough to replace lost soldiers. Ukrainian forces are steadily getting smaller and for the first time, external military analysts can foresee the fall of Kiev as a real possibility. Russian forces are making significant gains and Ukrainians are retreating in several areas. Finally, there is no question that Europe lacks the resources to achieve anything in Ukraine.

Presumably, the US will explain to the Europeans that they’re engaged in a dangerous fantasy and that peace will occur only by accepting the Russian demands (see above). However, the British, French and Danish are considering sending troops to Ukraine via Romania. This will be absolutely unacceptable to Russians but will come as no surprise to them. The few thousand (probably French) soldiers entering Odessa will be annihilated. Here one wonders how long French citizens would tolerate the war if coffins began returning home. (Note: Some of you may recall my earlier post about European and US intervention in the Russian Civil War and how they were expelled. Russian citizens will be reminded once again of Western intentions).

Given the above, one is forced to wonder why European leaders are doing everything possible to undermine and sabotage any meaningful peace talks? Why are they pursing a doomed policy that’s bankrupting their economies? Why alienate the US and Trump? I don’t have a definitive answer but I suspect that Mercouris is close to one when he speculates that European leaders hate Russia and have come to loathe Donald Trump. They cannot accept that they’ve lost the war and Trump was actually correct. I’ll leave for another day to speculate about what this means for the Democrats and unprincipled “progressives” (think AOC and Bernie Sanders) who gave left cover to US imperialism in its proxy was in Ukraine. In my opinion, they have much to answer for.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Gary Olson.

These attacks come as the Trump administration target students who’ve spoken out against the genocide in Gaza. Secretary Rubio and President Trump are extrajudicially revoking student visas and attempting to deport any student they wish, without any due process. Their crime? Disagreeing with the U.S. government’s support for genocide. Students are being kidnapped by masked officers in broad daylight – that should sound the alarm for every American who might openly disagree with President Trump.

These gestapo-like tactics and McCarthyist smears of peace organizations are leading the country down a dark path of unchecked fascism and dictatorship. Between the intimidation of peace groups and blatant attacks on students,every person in the U.S. should stand against this repression – or prepare to face it themselves down the line. Individuals may not like CODEPINK or our messaging around Palestine or China, but that doesn’t exclude them from repression if they let the Trump Administration set this precedent. If they disagree with him on anything at all, they may face the same smears and repression we have. After the groundwork is laid, it’s only a matter of time.

To be clear: CODEPINK is not funded by any foreign government. Protesting war and genocide is not supporting terrorism. Not only are they lying, they are defying the U.S. Constitution to muzzle the burgeoning student movement.

The slanderous statements made by elected officials can have immediate and dangerous consequences for those being lied about, as well as their friends and family. It appears that the United States government is not only committed to waging war abroad, but it is also intent on waging war domestically against U.S. citizens and non-citizens, both of which are also protected by the Constitution.

It is not a coincidence that both Senator Cotton and Secretary Rubio referred to peace activists and students as “lunatics” – they have clearly received their talking points. However, what is actual lunacy is how those elected to serve the American people are ignoring the fact that a majority of Americans do now want wars or war crimes being carried out in our name.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Codepink.

Trump’s recent threats against Panama, Canada, and Greenland, on top of his clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, take the spotlight off the “real enemies,” as usually defined by Washington. In that sense, Trump’s foreign policy actions in the first two months of his second administration are a far cry from his first, when regime change was the unmistakable goal.

In sharp contrast to the rhetoric of his first administration, in his March 4 address to the Joint Session of Congress Trump made no reference to Nicolás Maduro, Miguel Díaz-Canel, or Daniel Ortega. It’s even unclear whether Trump will pursue the use of international sanctions, which he ratcheted up against Venezuela and Cuba in his first government. So far, Trump has indicated that his use of “tariffs as punishment” may be preferable to international sanctions, which, as one insider stated, the president “worries are causing countries to move away from the U.S. dollar.”

Unlike Trump’s policies on immigration, trans rights, and taxation, his Latin American policy is plagued by vacillations and uncertainties, a sign of his deepening reliance on a transactional approach to foreign policy. The anti-communist hardliners in and outside of the Republican party are not pleased.

The Venezuelan Pendulum

Take Venezuela as an example. The Venezuelan opposition led by María Corina Machado had all the reason to be upbeat when Trump won in November and then chose Latin America hawk Marco Rubio as Secretary of State.

“Sadly, Venezuela is governed by a narco-trafficking organization,” Rubio declared at his confirmation hearing, in which his appointment was unanimously ratified. He then said that “the Biden administration got played” when it negotiated with Maduro in late- 2022 and issued a license to Chevron, which is “providing billions of dollars into the regimes’ coffers.” With regard to Cuba, Rubio issued an ominous warning: “The moment of truth is arriving, Cuba is literally collapsing.”

Events in Syria added to the euphoria on the right. Just days before Trump’s inauguration, Machado told the Financial Times, “Don’t you think [the generals supporting Maduro] look in the mirror and see the generals which Assad left behind?”

But then came the friendly encounter between Trump’s envoy for special missions Richard Grenell and Maduro in Caracas in late January, when Maduro agreed to turn over six U.S. prisoners in Venezuela and facilitate the return of Venezuelan immigrants from the United States. Days later, the Biden-approved license with Chevron for exploiting Venezuelan oil, constituting a quarter of the nation’s total oil production, was allowed to roll over. At the same time, Grenell declared that Trump “does not want to make changes to the [Maduro] regime.”

To complicate matters further, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it would cancel Biden’s extension of Temporary Protected Status for over 300,000 Venezuelan immigrants, on grounds that “there are notable improvements in several areas such as the economy, public health, and crime that allow for these nationals to be safely returned to their home country.”

These developments did not sit well with the Miami hawks and the Venezuelan opposition. Notorious Miami Herald journalist Andres Oppenheimer put it forcefully: “The handshake of Grenell and Maduro fell like a bucket of cold water on many sectors of the Venezuelan opposition… and was like a legitimation of the Maduro government.” Oppenheimer went on to point out that although the Trump government denied it had cut a deal with Maduro, “many suspicions have been raised and will not dissipate until Trump clarifies the matter.”

After Grenell’s trip to Venezuela, the issue of the renewal of Chevron’s license took surprising twists and turns. In a video conversation on February 26, Donald Trump Jr. told María Corina Machado that just an hour before, his father had tweeted that Chevron’s license would be discontinued. Following a burst of laughter, a delighted Machado directed remarks at Trump Sr.: “Look, Mr. President, Venezuela is the biggest opportunity in this continent, for you, for the American people, and for all the people in our continent.” Machado appeared to be attempting to replicate the deal between Zelensky and Trump involving Ukraine’s mineral resources.

But simultaneously, Mauricio Claver-Carone, the State’s Department’s Special Envoy for Latin America, told Oppenheimer that the license granted Chevron was “permanent” and automatically renewed every six months. Then, just one week later, Trump reversed his position again. Axios reported that the latest decision was due to pressure from three Florida GOP House members who threatened to withhold votes for Trump’s budget deal. Trump allegedly acknowledged this privately, telling insiders: “They’re going crazy and I need their votes.”

Trumpism’s Internal Strains

Trump’s threats against world leaders come straight out of his 1987 book The Art of the Deal. For some loyalists, the strategy is working like magic. Trump’s approach can be summarized as “attack and negotiate.” “My style of deal-making is quite simple,” he states in the book. “I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing… to get what I’m after.”

This is precisely what happened when Trump announced plans to “reclaim” the Panama Canal, prompting a Hong Kong-based firm to reveal plans to sell the operation of two Panamanian ports to a consortium that includes BlackRock. Not surprisingly, Trump took credit for the deal.

A similar scenario played out in the case of Colombia, in which President Gustavo Petro yielded on U.S. deportation flights to avert trade retaliations. For the same reasons, Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum began sending 10,000 troops to the northern border to combat irregular crossings and then, on March 6, asked Trump by phone: “’How can we continue to collaborate if the U.S. is doing something that hurts the Mexican people?” In response, Trump temporarily suspended the implementation of 25 percent tariffs on Mexican goods.

In The Art of the Deal, Trump boasts about this strategy of bluffing, such as when he told the New Jersey Licensing Commission that he was “more than willing to walk away from Atlantic City if the regulatory process proved to be too difficult or too time-consuming.” Similarly, Trump has repeatedly stated that the United States does not need Venezuelan oil. In fact, global oil volatility and the possibility that other nations will gain access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves are matters of great concern to Washington.

The “Art of the Deal” approach to foreign policy exemplifies Trump’s pragmatic tendency. The Maduro government and some on the left welcome the pragmatism because it leaves open the possibility of concessions by Venezuela in return for the lifting of sanctions. Venezuelan government spokespeople, at least publicly, give Trump the benefit of the doubt by attributing his annulment of Chevron’s license and other adverse decisions to pressure from Miami’s far right. The Wall Street Journal reported that several U.S. businesspeople who traveled to Caracas and “met with Maduro and his inner circle say the Venezuelans were convinced that Trump would… engage with Maduro much like he had with the leaders of North Korea and Russia.”

But this optimism overlooks the contrasting currents within Trumpism. Although the convergences are currently greater than the differences, priorities within the MAGA movement sometimes clash. On the one hand, right-wing populism spotlights the issue of immigration, anti-“wokism,” and opposition to foreign aid, all designed to appeal beyond the Republican Party’s traditional upper and upper-middle class base of support. On the other hand, the conventional far right calls for nothing short of regime change and destabilization actions against Venezuela and Cuba. While progressives have sharply different views on Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, the far-right hawks currently define all three governments as “leftist” and, in the recent words of Rubio, “enemies of humanity.”

Maduro’s agreement to collaborate on the repatriation of immigrants in return for the renewal of the Chevron license exemplifies the conflicting priorities within Trumpism. For the anti-left far right, the alleged deal was a “betrayal” of principles by Washington, while for the right-wing populists it was a victory for Trump, especially given the enormity of Venezuela’s immigrant population.

Another example of clashing priorities upheld by the two currents is the Trump administration’s decision to cut foreign aid programs to a bare minimum. In his recent address to Congress, Trump denounced an $8 million allotment to an LGBTQ+ program in an African nation “nobody has heard of,” and other alleged woke programs. Even Florida’s hawk senator Rick Scott has questioned the effectiveness of foreign aid, saying: “Let’s see: the Castro regime still controls Cuba, Venezuela just stole another election, Ortega is getting stronger in Nicaragua.” Scott’s statement reflects Trump’s transactional thinking regarding the Venezuelan opposition: too many dollars for regime-change attempts that turned out to be fiascos.

In contrast, hawk champion Oppenheimer published an opinion piece in the Miami Herald titled “Trump’s Foreign Aid Cuts are a Boon for Dictators in China, Venezuela and Cuba.”

The issue of U.S. aid has also produced infighting from an unexpected source: within the Venezuelan right-wing opposition. Miami-based investigative journalist Patricia Poleo, a long-time opponent of Hugo Chávez and Maduro, has accused Juan Guaidó and his interim government of pocketing millions, if not billions, granted them by the U.S. government. Poleo, now a U.S. citizen, claims that the FBI is investigating Guaidó for mishandling the money.

The influence of the anti-leftist component of Trumpism can’t be overstated. Trump has become the leading inspiration of what has been called the new “Reactionary International,” which is committed to combatting the Left around the world. Furthermore, the hawks who have expressed interest in toppling the Maduro government (which the populist current is not at all opposed to either)—including Rubio, Elon Musk, Claver-Carone, and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz—populate Trump’s circle of advisors.

It is not surprising that during the honeymoon phase of Trump’s presidency, a populist wish list would receive considerable attention. But the annexation of the Panama Canal, Canada, and Greenland is unrealizable, as is the conversion of Gaza into a Riviera of the Middle East. His tariff scheme is not far behind. Furthermore, while his use of intimidation has helped him gain concessions, the effectiveness of this bargaining tactic is limited—threats lose power when endlessly repeated. Finally, Trump’s unfulfilled promises to lower food prices and achieve other economic feats will inevitably add to the disillusionment of his supporters.

Trump loathes losing and, in the face of declining popularity, he is likely to turn to more realistic goals that can count on bipartisan support in addition to endorsement from the commercial media. In this scenario, the three governments in the hemisphere perceived to be U.S. adversaries are likely targets. Short of U.S. boots on the ground—which would not garner popular support—military or non-military action cannot be discarded against Venezuela, Cuba, or Nicaragua, or, perhaps, Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Steve Ellner.

In the case of Lincoln Diaz-Balart, the former Florida congressmember who passed away on March 3, 2025, aged 70, there are two further factors at play. First, there is the fact that he died at a time in which the great majority of his obituaries, because of the power structure of the media industry and its overwhelming deference to the US’s two duopoly parties, will be long on lionizing and short on criticism. Second, there is the fact that Diaz-Balart evidently did not himself buy into this notion, at least if his reactions to the deaths of his political adversaries such as Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez are anything to go by. Indeed, he said shortly after the death of Fidel Castro: “The brain of evil, of that tyranny, and of, really, the movement throughout this hemisphere against democracy, against the rule of law, in favor of terrorism, in support of narco-trafficking… that brain and coordinator has died.” Following the death of Hugo Chavez, he said: “Hugo Chavez was a puppet of Fidel Castro.”

And so it falls to an independent journalist writing in alternative media to provide some balance and critical analysis of Diaz-Balart’s political career. But I do have some special insight into the man’s life and politics. Diaz-Balart’s family knew my mother’s family in Cuba and then in Miami after both left the island following the 1959 overthrow of Fulgencio Batista. I interned for a short time at his office in Washington, which ironically had the effect of turning me into an anti-imperialist, so disgusted I was with the hypocrisy, double-standards and shameless self-interestedness of his foreign policy stances.

It was when I asked one of his staffers why Diaz-Balart didn’t advocate for an “embargo” against Saudi Arabia, on the same grounds on which he advocates one against Cuba and with the same condition that it be lifted only when its ruler (an absolute monarch, no less) agrees to hold “free and fair” elections, that I had an epiphany that has stayed with me and influenced my political trajectory ever since. Hearing his dissembling and derisory answer (that “the alternative would be worse”) made me realize the most central truth about US foreign policy: that Washington’s sole criterion for its treatment of other countries is not their democratic credentials, their human rights record, their good governance or lack thereof, or the integrity of their institutions, but rather the extent to which they are obedient to US geostrategic and, especially, US economic interests. What else could explain Washington’s obsequious treatment of the Saudi Wahhabiist state? And how could it be a coincidence that the US had privileged access to its oil reserves and made money for its military industrial complex via lucrative arms contracts?

Following travels through Latin America, graduate studies in international affairs, immersion in the work of figures such as Saul Landau and Greg Grandin, and growing involvement in activism and writing about the region, this realization evolved into a deeper understanding of the US’s role on the world stage. Far from Diaz-Balart’s notion of a benevolent United States standing up for the “American values” of democracy, the rule of law, and so on, the so-called ‘shining city on the hill’ is, in fact, a ruthless rogue state that constantly intervenes in other countries’ affairs and constantly flouts international law. And it not only sides with and actively props up, but sometimes even installs, some of the worst governments throughout the globe. Indeed, far from supporting democracy, the US has overthrown countless democratically-elected governments not to its liking. This has been especially pronounced in the US’s so-called “backyard,” which Grandin has described in his book of the same name as “Empire’s Workshop.”

The fact that Diaz-Balart made a career out of collaborating with this rogue state in waging a decades-long economic war against his own country and, by extension, his own people will stand as the most salient thing about his political life and legacy. Shortly after the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the US administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower imposed a number of punitive measures on Cuba. These have been progressively increased by subsequent US administrations of both parties ever since. Together they have come to be known as the “embargo” against Cuba though are more accurately described as an economic blockade because they penalize third countries. Though President Barack Obama reestablished diplomatic relations with Cuba in 2016, the blockade has nonetheless remained in place. His successors to the White House, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, rolled back many of his reforms and, in the case of Trump, strengthened the blockade by enacting further coercive measures.

Diaz-Balart was elected to congress in 1989 and is best known for serving as the author of much of the legislation that codified the blockade into law. The fact that he did this while making out that it was all done for the good of the Cuban people makes it all the more despicable. After all, the Cuban-American exile brigade frequently invokes the suffering of the Cubans left in Cuba as justification for the blockade. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, another Cuban-American exile hardliner who also served as a congressmember representing a district in South Florida, spelled it out in her statement about Diaz-Balart’s death: “The oppressed people of Cuba had no greater advocate for their freedom than Lincoln [Diaz-Balart].”

Yet it is the blockade itself that has been the primary cause of their suffering. According to UN figures, it has caused over $160 billion of damage to the Cuban economy. The Center for International Policy, meanwhile, has stated that the blockade has “created a situation of scarcity and uncertainty that has affected all aspects of Cuban society.” Though no hard data exists on the number of deaths caused by the blockade, a 1997 study by the American Association for World Health concluded, as The Los Angeles Times put it, that it “has significantly increased suffering and deaths in the Caribbean nation.” Needless to say, Diaz-Balart also supported the same kind of measures against Nicaragua and Venezuela, which have imposed on those countries’ people similar levels of suffering and hardship.

Because the blockade is based on unilateral coercive measures rather than multilateral sanctions, it is illegal under international law. It also violates international law because it is a form of collective punishment that harms Cuba’s civilian population rather than ostensible targets in the government. As a result, the blockade stands in the opprobrium of the international community, with practically every country in the world other than the US and its proxy state, Israel, voting in favor of a UN resolution condemning it. The measure has passed with the vast majority of UN General Assembly members’ support every year since the vote was first held in 1992.

The blockade outlaws almost all direct trade between Cuba and the US with minor exemptions for medicine, some foodstuffs, and humanitarian goods. Diaz-Balart not only opposed these exemptions but advocated for what he termed a “secondary boycott,” which would have meant that any company that invested in Cuba would have been disallowed from doing business in the US as well. Of course, the Cuban-American exile brigade propaganda response to this is the notion that “Cuba can trade with the rest of the world.” Left unsaid is the fact that the blockade penalizes third countries for trading with Cuba. The State Department has prosecuted and fined several European banks for violating the terms of the embargo. The French bank Société Générale was fined a whopping $1.3 billion in 2018!

This practice massively disincentivizes other countries and their companies from doing any type of business with Cuba. Diaz-Balart openly stated during his time in congress that another major purpose of the blockade is to keep hard currency out of the hands of the Cuban government. This difficulty in accessing the four currencies accepted for international trade on the global market (the US dollar, the Pound sterling, the euro and the Japanese yen) also makes it very difficult for the Cuban government to trade with other nations.

If the blockade isn’t meant to alleviate the suffering of the Cuban people, then what is its purpose? For Diaz-Balart, its purpose was twofold. First, it formed part of the vendetta that he held against the revolution and its leaders. Diaz-Balart, like so many leaders of South Florida’s Cuban-American exile community, came from a family that was close to the US-backed Batista government and formed part of Cuba’s internal quisling class who served as proxies of US economic imperialism. Diaz-Balart’s father was deputy minister of the interior in Batista’s government and was later elected to the Cuban Senate in 1958 on a pro-Batista platform but was unable to take his seat due to the revolution the following year.

Though a central part of Cuban-American exile folklore is the idea that “Free Cuba” “fell” to Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement, the reality is that Batista was himself a dictator who had come to power via a coup in 1952. His fascist government operated a secret police force that tortured and murdered political opponents. The estimate of 20,000 dead is the figure often touted as the total number of his victims but even CIA documents say this is likely a massive undercount as it, according to a 1963 CIA memorandum declassified in 2005, “includes only a relatively small number killed in actual military encounters.” The document adds: “The [Batista] regime’s campaign of terror got out of control and the government in Havana probably had no clear idea of how many killings the police and army forces were committing.”

Batista also allowed the mafia to control large swaths of the economy in exchange for bribes. When the 26th of July Movement toppled his government in 1959, he was so unpopular that an opinion poll held at the time showed that 86 percent of Cubans supported the revolution. The above cited CIA memorandum likewise states that “the anti-Batista forces… by mid-1958 had the support of 80 to 90 percent of the population.” So Diaz-Balart’s support for the blockade was motivated by a wish for revenge not just against the revolutionary leaders themselves but against the people who remained in Cuba for the crime of supporting the overthrow of the US-backed dictator to which his family owed its power and privilege and their support for Fidel Castro and the revolution he led.

Support for the revolution has remained substantial throughout the decades and Castro remained a popular figure until his death in 2016. Even documents published by the State Department’s Office of the Historian have conceded that “substantial numbers still support [the revolution] with enthusiasm” and that before his death Castro retained “widespread support among the poorer classes, particularly in the countryside.” Though it is purely speculation, I suspect that Diaz-Balart knew this full well all along, as do his brother and Ros-Lehtinen.

The second reason Diaz-Balart supported the blockade was because it creates leverage for the US to impose its will on the island. In the case that the Cuban government falls, so goes the logic, the US would be able to dictate how Cuba should be organized both politically and economically. Diaz-Balart made no secret of this, stating openly that his vision of a “free” Cuba would mean both “free elections” and “free markets.” Of course, for a small Caribbean country like Cuba with a history of US domination, so-called “free markets” would translate into a surrender of its economic sovereignty to an imperial hegemon. Indeed, before the revolution Cuba’s economy had been divvied up to US corporations with much of the profit leaving the country to line the pockets of US-based shareholders. This was one of the major grievances against the Batista dictatorship held by the majority of the Cuban population at the time and articulated by the revolutionary leaders.

In terms of “free elections,” if the Cuban Communist Party or some other socialist party ran in the election and won in spite of Washington trying to rig it (as it most certainly would), does anyone seriously think that the Cuban-American exile hardliners or the US government would accept the result? And how could an election in Cuba be “free and fair” if the US continues to channel millions of dollars per year (so far over $200 million overall) into opposition groups intent on destroying the social gains of the revolution and handing Cuba’s economy back to the US and its domestic quislings? Indeed, what the Cuban-American exile brigade want is not a return to democracy but rather a return to their position of power, whether it be under a US-backed dictatorship or a US-rigged sham liberal democratic system.

Like the Diaz-Balart family, many of the South Florida-based Cuban-American exiles themselves come from this collaborationist bourgeoisie that served as the US’s proxy administrators of empire and wish to reestablish their class privilege in a “liberated,” that is to say, capitalist and US-dominated, Cuba. And though such people claim that they were persecuted and driven out of the country by the revolutionary government, the reality is that many left voluntarily because they were despised by the great majority of Cuban people for their association with the US-backed Batista and would be again if they returned.

In addition to his vindictiveness, Diaz-Balart’s support for the blockade was also deeply hypocritical. At the very same time he sanctimoniously bloviated about Cuba’s supposed deservingness of this treatment, he was not only turning a blind eye but actively working to enable some of the world’s worst human rights violators. For example, he not only never once introduced any measure condemning Israel’s occupation, displacement, denial of rights, and humiliation of the Palestinian people, but shamelessly took campaign contributions from the hardline Zionist special interest group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and staunchly supported its agenda in his congressional votes.

AIPAC posted on X shortly following his death: “We mourn the passing of former Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart who was a stalwart supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship. Rep. Diaz-Balart was a strong ally of the pro-Israel community and we extend our condolences to his family.” Diaz-Balart’s supporters would surely respond that Israel is a “democracy.” But Israel can hardly be considered a “democracy” when it is practicing ethnic apartheid not just according to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the late Jimmy Carter but even according to its former attorney-general and the former head of Mossad.

Diaz-Balart also never signed any resolution condemning human rights violations in Colombia during the presidency of Alvaro Uribe. On the contrary, in 2008 Diaz-Balart said in a statement: “The United States Congress must stand in solidarity with President Alvaro Uribe… Colombia is our strongest ally in the region.” His brother Mario Diaz-Balart, also a congress member representing a South Florida district, was present at a ceremony where Uribe was awarded with a Presidential Medal of Freedom. During Uribe’s presidency, Colombia had what many including NACLA have described as “the worst human rights record in the Western Hemisphere.”

Uribe’s so-called “counter-narcotics” campaigns, for example, saw government-allied paramilitary death squads displace rural populations and murder union activists, social leaders, or whoever else stood in the way of powerful multinational corporations and wealthy landowners. For several years during Uribe’s presidency and for some years afterwards, Colombia held the dubious distinction of being the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists. Colombia’s population of internally displaced persons, meanwhile, currently stands at about 7 million people. The number surged during Uribe’s presidency as a direct result of this paramilitary activity. Human Rights Watch stated in 2005: “In the last three years alone, nearly 5 percent of Colombia’s 43 million people has been forcibly displaced.” (Uribe’s time in office began in 2002.)

Diaz-Balart’s relationship with Uribe, in fact, perfectly demonstrates his extreme hypocrisy regarding two accusations he hurled at the Cuban government: support for narco-trafficking and terrorism. In the case of narco-trafficking, declassified US intelligence documents say that Uribe collaborated with the Medellin Cartel and that the organization financed his campaign for the Colombian Senate. In terms of terrorism, the Parapolitics scandal revealed ties between dozens of Uribe’s political allies (including his cousin Mario Uribe) and right-wing paramilitary organizations such as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), which the US government itself designates as a terrorist organization.

This was at the very time that Diaz-Balart was one of the major advocates of the US listing Cuba as a state-sponsor of terrorism. The basis for this included dubious claims about ties to Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) along with vague allusions to Cuban cooperation with Iran, another supposed state-sponsor of terrorism. Leaving aside the credibility of these assertions, in addition to his association with Uribe, Diaz-Balart himself frequently associated with and advocated for people who easily meet the US’s own definition of the word ‘terrorist’.

Along with the aforementioned fellow Cuban-American exile hardline congressmember Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Diaz-Balart condemned efforts of the FBI to work cooperatively with Cuban authorities to bring the mastermind of the Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 bombing and the 1997 Havana hotel bombings, Luis Posada-Carriles, to justice.  In the early 2000s, they even tried to get Panama’s then-President Mireya Moscoso to release Posada-Carriles after he was captured by Cuban intelligence. Diaz-Balart also lobbied for the release of Orlando Bosch, Posada-Carriles’ co-conspirator in the airline bombing. Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen can hardly credibly present themselves as champions of the Cuban people when a total of 3,478 Cubans have been killed in US-sponsored terrorist attacks, with a further 2,099 wounded.

The duo has also had extensive links to the Nicaraguan “Contra” paramilitary organization, which waged a dirty war against the Sandinista government (that ousted the US-backed Samoza dictatorship in 1979) and perceived sympathizers. Ros-Lehtinen hosted a number of former Contra members at her Miami office in 2008. Diaz-Balart, meanwhile, led efforts to get Otto Reich appointed as the George W. Bush administration’s assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere. Reich reported to Oliver North when he was in charge of funding the Contras (later exposed in the Iran-Contra scandal) and, according to The New York Times, “was in charge of a covert program during the Reagan administration to generate public support in the United States for the anti-Sandinista rebels, known as the contras.”

Of course, Diaz-Balart’s supporters will surely claim that he had a democratic mandate to do all of the things I have enumerated above since he was elected many times to represent his constituents. But this argument has a number of problems. Leaving aside the US’s own dubious democratic credentials and status as a dollarocracy, there is the issue that the Cubans who left Cuba to live in the US are not representative of the Cuban people who remain in Cuba – that is, those who are actually affected by the blockade. For reasons enumerated above, many of the émigrés bear the same grudge against the revolutionary government and, in turn, the Cubans in Cuba who support it. And obviously, those who left the island are likely to be those who are most critical of the government.

But there is another, more subtle factor at play. Cuban exiles imported to South Florida not just their language and customs but also their clientelistic political culture. Batistaites such as Diaz-Balart hold many positions of political power in South Florida, not just in congress but even more so at the local level, as well as many positions of economic power. Failing to toe the line by pronouncing one’s fidelity to the political stances of this Batistaite political and economic elite can mean social ostracization, retaliatory repercussions, job loss, or other economic consequences.

Since I have criticized other obituaries for being too one-sided, perhaps I should add some balance to my own. Diaz-Balart admittedly did have some redeeming qualities. He appeared by all accounts to have been a dutiful public servant to his constituents, making sure that he had many staff devoted to case work from residents of his congressional district. He also declined to side with his party’s hardline nativist wing and remained a champion of immigrants after his defection from the Democratic Party in 1985 and throughout his time in congress.

Whether he would have cozied up to the xenophobic MAGA movement that currently dominates his party remains an open question. But if the actions of his brother Mario and his political protégé Marco Rubio are anything to go by, it doesn’t look good. Rubio ultimately accepted a position in Trump’s cabinet as secretary of state (where he will, no doubt, push for ever greater coercive measures against Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela). His brother, meanwhile, reportedly brushed off suggestions that a second Trump administration would lead to deportations of some of his constituents – which, needless to say, is exactly what has happened.

Either way, these mitigating factors will never be able to mask the stench of his role working with the government of a hostile foreign state to immiserate the very people whose wellbeing he claimed to be motivated by. Though I extend my condolences to his family and friends, I personally will shed more tears for the victims of the illegal economic warfare he made a career of supporting and the victims of the terrorists who he spent that career defending.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Peter Bolton.

MASAYA, NICARAGUA – Reynaldo Urbina rides his motorbike around the streets of Masaya, Nicaragua, with agility, despite having only one arm. Nearly seven years ago, at the height of a US- supported coup attempt against Nicaragua’s left-wing Sandinista government, Urbina was one of those guarding the city’s municipal warehouse when it was attacked by around 200 armed protestors. Warned of the impending attack, the guards had been ordered to hide their weapons and not resist capture, to minimize casualties.

But Urbina was suspected of knowing the whereabouts of the city’s mayor, whom the hooligans sought to assassinate, so they threw him to the ground and smashed his left arm with a rifle butt until it was practically destroyed. Urbina escaped, but his arm could not be saved, and was later amputated.

Reynaldo Urbina (left) lost his left arm after being tortured by US-backed opposition gangs

When a team was sent by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to Nicaragua to collect evidence on human rights abuses a few weeks later, Urbina was among those offered by the government as a witness. But the team refused to meet him.

The UN’s 40-page report, issued in August 2018, devotes just five paragraphs to violence by anti-government factions; the rest blames the government and its supporters for practically every other violent incident, including many (like an arson attack on a pro-Sandinista radio station) that were clearly part of the coup attempt.

Some time after the coup attempt, Nicaragua’s then vice-minister for foreign affairs, Valdrack Jaentschke, described an exchange with Paulo Abrão, who was the Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The IACHR was another of the bodies which had launched investigations of human rights abuses in 2018. Valdrack had asked Abrão why visiting investigators were not collecting evidence of the severe opposition violence which had taken place. Abrão gave two reasons: that human rights abuses can only be carried out by the state, and that violence by civil society groups is just “common criminality” and therefore not within the investigators’ mandate.

Israeli regime cutout hosts Nicaraguan regime change operative Maradiaga at UNHRC

This February 28 this year, when the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) held a session on human rights in Nicaragua, a key witness who played a leading role in the coup against Nicaragua’s elected Sandinista government appeared by video to deliver a denunciation of his enemies in Managua.

He was Felix Maradiaga, a US government-sponsored regime change operative who was one of the main organizers of the coup attempt. As The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal reported, Maradiaga’s IEEPP think tank had been funded with hundreds of thousands of dollars in support from the National Endowment for Democracy, the regime change arm of the US government.

In June 2018, the Nicaraguan police charged Maradiaga with overseeing an organized criminal network that murdered several people. Relieved of this charge in a post-coup amnesty in 2019, he was arrested again, this time for treason, in 2021. Released again – this time into exile in the United States – Maradiaga was awarded a major prize from the UNHRC in 2023 as a “human rights defender.”

Blinken is defending the hooligans & oligarchs the US pays to carry out attacks on the Nicaraguan people.

Here’s Felix Maradiaga – recipient of huge US grants – with armed goons of the Viper criminal network that terrorized Managua during the 2018 coup: pic.twitter.com/uqigHnYqTu https://t.co/DK8Y9eVX5E

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) June 10, 2021

Maradiaga’s most recent UNHRC appearance was hosted by by UN Watch, an Israeli regime cutout which maintains a constant presence in Geneva, relentlessly attacking the UN to shield Israel’s system of apartheid. But what interest would an Israel lobby outfit have in backing Nicaragua’s opposition? The motive clearly relates to the Sandinista government’s longstanding support for Palestinian self-determination, a stance which led it to sever diplomatic ties with Israel and bring legal action against Germany in 2024 for assisting Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip. (All of Nicaragua’s top opposition figures are vehemently pro-Israel).

A day before Maradiaga’s appearance, Nicaragua’s government issued a statement accusing the UNHRC of being “a platform for those who are attempting to destabilize Nicaragua and are the perpetrators of numerous murders, abductions, and violations of human rights of the Nicaraguan people.” It went on to announce its “irrevocable” withdrawal from the multilateral body.

Nicaragua’s patience had run out. Not only was the UNHRC platforming Maradiaga, but they had published a new report on alleged “human rights violations.” The report comes from the so-called “Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaraguan” (GHREN) set up by the UNHRC in 2022. It supposedly describes human rights in Nicaragua in the period from 2018 onwards, but to anyone who lives in the country (as I do) and witnessed the violent coup attempt that took place in April-July that year, it is an extraordinarily partial and biased document.

The most egregious bias is the report’s treatment of opposition figures like Maradiaga as victims, not perpetrators. It is true that there have been arrests, imprisonments and the expulsion from the country (with US agreement and facilitation) of many of those arrested. But the GHREN appears never to have asked if they might be guilty of criminal acts. The new report refers disparagingly to government statements “alleging” that 2018’s events were an attempted coup. Instead, according to the GHREN, “legitimate protests” took place and were subject to a “violent and disproportionate crackdown.”

Yet as The Grayzone reported back in 2019, the real story was very different. Of the official death toll of 253, just 31 were known supporters of the opposition, 48 were probable or actual Sandinista supporters, 22 were police and the majority (152) were members of the public, many of them attacked at armed opposition roadblocks. Simply by omitting the facts that 22 police officers were killed, some after being tortured, and that over 400 police were injured, the GHREN reveals an extraordinary bias which invalidates its report.

The GHREN members are fully aware of the real story, but they simply choose to ignore it. They quite deliberately feed Washington’s narrative, repeated by its allies and by the corporate media, that what happened in 2018 was a series of peaceful protests, not a violent coup attempt that endangered thousands of Nicaraguans and hit the livelihoods of millions.

Their first, 300-page report in March 2023 also made little reference to opposition violence, and as result it was strongly criticized in a letter to the UNHRC, organized by the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition and signed by many prominent human rights experts and by 119 organizations and 573 individuals, and accompanied by a detailed critique of the report. A separate document analyzed their error-strewn case study of Masaya, where I live, referring them to overlooked crimes such as the torture of Reynaldo Urbina. Neither the letter nor the accompanying evidence received any response, but it can be assumed that the “experts” are at least aware of that they were sent.

When the GHREN produced a second report, in March 2024, another letter of protest was submitted, again receiving no response. This was also signed by human rights experts and a large number of organizations and individuals. It was sent personally to the president of the UNHRC by Alfred de Zayas, Professor of International Law in Geneva and a former UN Independent Expert. According to de Zayas, the report was “methodologically flawed, biased and should never have been published.”

When there was again no response, a third letter was sent in September 2024, urging the UNHRC to close down the GHREN on the grounds that its reports are incompatible with UN and UNHRC resolutions, do not meet the assignment they were given, and ignored legitimate and detailed evidence submitted. Not surprisingly, there was no reply.

The intention to ignore these criticisms could hardly be more obvious, despite the GHREN’s claim to exercise “independence, impartiality, objectivity, transparency, integrity.” Or, as the letter from Nicaragua’s foreign minister puts it, the UNHRC (in publishing the GHREN’s work) “violates its own regulations.”

This is part of a well-established pattern, referred to by Cuban and Venezuelan officials at the UNHRC’s recent session as well as those from Nicaragua, in which the council listens to and records only one side of the story when investigating human rights “violations” by Washington’s enemies. In his book on “the human rights industry,” de Zayas specifically accuses the GHREN of being set up for the purpose of “naming and shaming” the Nicaraguan government, not for objective investigation.

Instead of answering criticisms, the GHREN cynically repeats an accusation made in its previous reports, that Nicaraguan authorities were given the chance to respond to its allegations but failed to do so. Had they investigated Nicaragua’s reticence, they might have uncovered the Urbina case and several others where the government tried and failed to engage with such exercises.

Notable among these was the visit in 2018 by an earlier “interdisciplinary group of independent experts” whose similarly error-strewn report, about that year’s violent “Mothers’ Day march,” also showed overwhelming partiality and anti-government bias. Soon after this visit the government made the understandable decision to refuse cooperation with future investigations by multilateral bodies, and later to deny them permission even to enter the country. Its recent withdrawal from the UNHRC itself was a logical last step.

From Washington’s viewpoint, the GHREN’s new report could hardly have been better timed. Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio had already branded Nicaragua’s government (along with those of Cuba and Venezuela) as “enemies of humanity.” Not only does the report bolster this view, but it even advocates the tightening of sanctions on Nicaragua that Rubio is known to be contemplating.

The GHREN specifically calls for Nicaragua to be penalized under the regional trade treaty, known as CAFTA, which enables Nicaragua to trade with its Central American neighbors and the US on favorable terms, and is of massive importance for the country’s economy and hence for Nicaraguan livelihoods. The GHREN’s recommendation is in direct conflict with one of the UNHRC’s own resolutions: UNHRC Resolution 48/5 in 2021 states that such sanctions (“unilateral coercive measures”) violate international law and human rights. Rubio said in Costa Rica on February 4 that the trade treaty’s purpose was to “reward democracy.” Visiting Central America’s right-wing governments to drum up support for tightened sanctions, he claimed that Nicaragua “…is not a democracy. It does not function as a democracy.”

The GHREN’s report, issued just three weeks after Rubio’s visit, suggests that penalties could be applied under CAFTA’s “democratic clause.” Yet the trade treaty does not have such a clause; it only has a passing reference, in its preamble, to “sustaining the rule of law and democracy.” An impartial group of “experts” in international law, such as the GHREN, ought to be aware of the need for precision in their recommendations, and certainly should avoid calling for actions that would be in breach of international law.

Clearly the GHREN has no such inhibitions. It has provided Rubio with a recommendation that he can use to damage Nicaragua’s economy and harm its working people. Members of Nicaragua’s elite classes, like Felix Maradiaga, will continue to have a voice at international forums; ordinary Nicaraguans whose human rights were permanently damaged in 2018, like Reynaldo Urbina, remain invisible.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John Perry.

Back in 2019, the Bolivarian Revolution, initiated by Hugo Chávez and carried forward by his successor, current Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, was teetering on collapse under Trump’s “maximum pressure” offensive. The economy had tanked, inflation was out of control, and the GDP was in freefall. Over 50 countries recognized Washington-anointed “interim president” Juan Guaidó’s parallel government.

In the interregnum between Trump administrations, Biden embraced his predecessor’s unilateral coercive economic measures, euphemistically called sanctions, but with minimal or temporary relief. He certified the incredulous charge that Venezuela posed an immediate and extraordinary threat to US national security, as Trump and Obama had before him. Biden also continued to recognize the inept and corrupt Guaidó as head-of-state, until Guaidó’s own opposition group booted him out.

Despite enormous challenges, Venezuela resisted and did so with some remarkable success, bringing us to the present.

Run-up to the second Trump administration

In the run-up to Trump’s inauguration, speculation on future US-Venezuela relations ran from cutting a peaceful-coexistence deal, to imposing even harsher sanctions, to even military intervention.

Reuters predicted that Trump’s choice of hardliner Marco Rubio at secretary of state augured an intensification of the regime-change campaign. Another right-wing Floridian of Cuban descent, Mauricio Claver-Carone was tapped as the special envoy for Latin America. He had been Trump’s senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs and credited with shaping Trump’s earlier aggressive stance toward Venezuela. Furthermore, on the campaign trail, Trump himself commented: “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over; we would have gotten to all that oil.”

At his Senate confirmation hearing on January 15, Rubio described Venezuela as a “narco-trafficking organization that has empowered itself of a nation state.” He was unanimously confirmed the very first day of the new administration.

The supposedly opposition Democrats all stampeded in his support, although Rubio severely criticized the previous Biden administration for being too soft on Venezuela. Rubio’s criticism was largely unwarranted because, except for minor tweaks, Biden had seamlessly continued the hybrid war against Venezuela.

 Grenell Trumps Rubio

 The first visit abroad by a Trump administration official was made by Ric Grenell, presidential envoy for special missions. Grenell briefly served in Trump’s first administration as acting director of national intelligence, becoming the first openly gay person in a Cabinet-level position.

Grenell flew to Caracas and posed for a photo-op, shaking hands with President Maduro on January 31. This was a noteworthy step away from hostility and towards rapprochement between two countries that have not had formal diplomatic relations since 2019.

The day after the Grenell visit, Rubio embarked on an uninspiring tour of right-wing Latin American countries. That same day, General License 41 allowing Chevron to operate in Venezuela automatically renewed, which was a development that Rubio had advocated against.

Diplomacy of dignity

Maduro entered negotiations with Grenell with a blend of strategic engagement and assertive resistance, aiming to navigate Venezuela’s economic challenges while maintaining sovereignty. The approach had win-win outcomes, although the spin in the respective countries was quite different.

Grenell claimed a “win” from the meeting with the release of six “American hostages” without giving anything in return. Venezuela, for its part, got rid of a half dozen “mercenaries.” Neither country has released the names of all the former detainees.

Grenell took a victory lap for getting Venezuela to accept back migrants who had left the country, a key Trump priority. Maduro welcomed them as part of his Misión Vuelta a la Patria (Return to the Homeland Program), which has repatriated tens of thousands since its inception in 2018.

Trump’s special envoy boasted that Venezuela picked up the migrants and flew them back home for free. Maduro was pleased that the US-sanctioned national airline Conviasa was allowed to land in the US and transport the citizens back in dignity. Congratulating the pilots and other workers, Maduro said: “The US tried to finish off Conviasa, yet here it is, strong.”

Evolution of imperialist strategy

Trump’s special representative for Venezuela in his first administration, Elliot Abrams, believes his former boss sold out the shop. He criticized Grenell’s visit as functioning to help legitimize Maduro as Venezuela’s rightful president, which it did.

In contrast, Robert O’Brien believes, “Grenell scored a significant diplomatic victory.” What is noteworthy is that O’Brien replaced John Bolton as Trump’s national security advisor in 2019 and had worked with Abrams as co-architect of the “maximum pressure” campaign against Venezuela, yet now acknowledges it is time for a shift.

Speaking from experience, O’Brien commented: “Maximum economic sanctions have not changed the regime in Venezuela.” He now advocates: “Keeping sanctions against Venezuela in place, while at the same time, granting American and partner nation companies licenses.”

 According to Grenell, Trump no longer seeks regime change in Venezuela, but wants to focus on advancing US interests, namely facilitating deportations of migrants, while halting irregular migration to the US and preventing inflation of gas prices.

Ricardo Vaz of Venezuelanalysis suggests that Trump’s strategy is to adroitly use sanctions. Rather than driving Venezuela into the arms of China and Russia, Trump wants to incrementally erode sovereignty, compel sweetheart deals with foreign corporations such as Chevron, and eventually capture control of its oil industry.

Venezuela’s successes force imperial accommodation

 Not only did “maximum pressure” fail to achieve imperial goals in the past, but the Bolivarian Revolution’s accomplishments today have necessitated a more “pragmatic” approach by the US.

Venezuela has resolutely developed resilience against sanctions, achieving an extraordinary economic turnaround with one of the highest GDP growth rates in the hemisphere. Venezuelan oil production is at its highest level since 2019. The oil export market has been diversified with China as the primary customer, although the US is still prominent in second place.

However, if Chevron operations in Venezuela get shuttered, that would take a bite out of the recovery. Trump threatened on February 26 to withdrawal the company’s license, departing from the initial engagement approach. This was seen as a short-term concession to foreign policy hardliners in exchange for domestic support. But even then, the license’s six-month wind-down period offered room for the two governments to negotiate their future oil relationship. On March 1, the Office of Foreign Assets Control automatically reissued the license for another six months. But then on March 4, the wind-down period was reduced to a short 30 days. This could mark a turn back in the direction of regime change.

The government is incrementally mitigating the economic dominance by the oil sector. It has also made major strides towards food self-sufficiency, which is an under-reported victory that no other petrostate has ever accomplished.

It has reformed the currency exchange system reducing rate volatility, although a recent devaluation is worrisome. Tax policy too has become more efficient.

Further, the collapse of the US-backed opposition leaves Washington with a less effective bench to carry its water. The opposition coalition is divided over whether to boycott or participate in the upcoming May 25 elections. The USAID debacle has now left the squabbling insurrectionists destitute. (Venezuela never received any humanitarian aid.).

Washington still officially recognizes the long defunct 2015 National Assembly as the “legitimate government” of Venezuela. At the same time, Trump inherited the baggage of González Urrutia as the “lawful president-elect” (but not as “the president”), leaving the US with two parallel faux governments to juggle along with the actual one. Lacking a popular base in Venezuela,  González Urrutia abjectly whimpered: “As I recently told Secretary of State Marco Rubio: We are counting on you to help us solve our problems.”

 Although US sanctions will undoubtedly continue, Venezuela’s adaptations blunt their effectiveness. Venezuela’s resistance, bolstered by its natural oil and other reserves, have allowed that Latin American country to force some accommodation from the US. In contrast, the imperialists are going for the jugular with resistance-strong but natural resource-poor Cuba.

 The future of détente

Shifting political forces can endanger the fragile détente. Indeed, on February 26, Trump announced that oil licenses would be revoked, supposedly because Venezuela was not accepting migrants back fast enough. The Florida Congressional delegation, it is rumored, threatened to withhold approval of his prized Reconciliation Bill, if Trump did not cancel.

Clearly there is opposition from his party, both at the official and grassroots levels, against détente with Venezuela. As for the Democrats, elements have distinguished themselves from Trump by outflanking him from the right. The empire’s newspaper of record, the New York Times, recently ran a piece calling for military intervention in Venezuela.

According to Carlos Ron, former Venezuelan deputy foreign minister, the issue of détente between Washington and Caracas goes beyond this particular historical moment and even beyond the specifics of Venezuela to a fundamental contradiction: the empire seeks domination while the majority of the world’s peoples and nations seek self-determination. Until that is resolved, the struggle continues.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Roger D. Harris.

When Donald Trump takes office on January 20, all his campaign promises to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours and almost as quickly end Israel’s war on its neighbors will be put to the test. The choices he has made for his incoming administration so far, from Marco Rubio as Secretary of State to Mike Waltz as National Security Advisor, Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense and Elise Stefanik as UN Ambassador make for a rogues gallery of saber-rattlers.

The only conflict where peace negotiations seem to be on the agenda is Ukraine. In April, both Vice President-elect JD Vance and Senator Marco Rubio voted against a $95 billion military aid bill that included $61 billion for Ukraine.

Rubio recently appeared on NBC’s Today Show saying, “I think the Ukrainians have been incredibly brave and strong when standing up to Russia. But at the end of the day, what we’re funding here is a stalemate war, and it needs to be brought to a conclusion… I think there has to be some common sense here.”

On the campaign trail, Vance made a controversial suggestion that the best way to end the war was for Ukraine to cede the land Russia has seized, for a demilitarized zone to be established, and for Ukraine to become neutral, i.e. not enter NATO. He was roundly criticized by both Republicans and Democrats who argue that backing Ukraine is vitally important to U.S. security since it weakens Russia, which is closely allied with China.

Any attempt by Trump to stop U.S. military support for Ukraine will undoubtedly face fierce opposition from the pro-war forces in his own party, particularly in Congress, as well as perhaps the entirety of the Democratic party. Two years ago, 30 progressive Democrats in Congress wrote a letter to President Biden asking him to consider promoting negotiations. The party higher ups were so incensed by their lack of party discipline that they came down on the progressives like a ton of bricks. Within 24 hours, the group had cried uncle and rescinded the letter. They have since all voted for money for Ukraine and have not uttered another word about negotiations.

So a Trump effort to cut funds to Ukraine could run up against a bipartisan congressional effort to keep the war going. And let’s not forget the efforts by European countries, and NATO, to keep the U.S. in the fight. Still, Trump could stand up to all these forces and push for a rational policy that would restart the talking and stop the killing.

The Middle East, however, is a more difficult situation. In his first term, Trump showed his pro-Israel cards when he brokered the Abraham accords between several Arab countries and Israel; moved the U.S. embassy to a location in Jerusalem that is partly on occupied land outside Israel’s internationally recognized borders; and recognized the occupied Golan Heights in Syria as part of Israel. Such unprecedented signals of unconditional U.S. support for Israel’s illegal occupation and settlements helped set the stage for the current crisis.

Trump seems as unlikely as Biden to cut U.S. weapons to Israel, despite public opinion polls favoring such a halt and a recent UN human rights report showing that 70% of the people killed by those U.S. weapons are women and children.

Meanwhile, the wily Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is already busy getting ready for a second Trump presidency. On the very day of the U.S. election, Netanyahu fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who opposed a lasting Israeli military occupation of Gaza and had at times argued for prioritizing the lives of the Israeli hostages over killing more Palestinians.

Israel Katz, the new defense minister and former foreign minister, is more hawkish than Gallant, and has led a campaign to falsely blame Iran for the smuggling of weapons from Jordan into the West Bank.

Other powerful voices, national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also a “minister in the Defense Ministry,” represent extreme Zionist parties that are publicly committed to territorial expansion, annexation and ethnic cleansing. They both live in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

So Netanyahu has deliberately surrounded himself with allies who back his ever-escalating war. They are surely developing a war plan to exploit Trump’s support for Israel, but will first use the unique opportunity of the U.S. transition of power to create facts on the ground that will limit Trump’s options when he takes office.

The Israelis will doubtless redouble their efforts to drive Palestinians out of as much of Gaza as possible, confronting President Trump with a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in which Gaza’s surviving population is crammed into an impossibly small area, with next to no food, no shelter for many, disease running rampant, and no access to needed medical care for tens of thousands of horribly wounded and dying people.

The Israelis will count on Trump to accept whatever final solution they propose, most likely to drive Palestinians out of Gaza, into the West Bank, Jordan, Egypt and farther afield.

Israel threatened all along to do to Lebanon the same as they have done to Gaza. Israeli forces have met fierce resistance, taken heavy casualties, and have not advanced far into Lebanon. But, as in Gaza, they are using bombing and artillery to destroy villages and towns, kill or drive people north and hope to effectively annex the part of Lebanon south of the Litani river as a so-called “buffer zone.” When Trump takes office, they may ask for greater U.S. involvement to help them “finish the job.”

The big wild card is Iran. Trump’s first term in office was marked by a policy of “maximum pressure” against Tehran. He unilaterally withdrew America from the Iran nuclear deal, imposed severe sanctions that devastated the economy, and ordered the killing of the country’s top general. Trump did not support a war on Iran in his first term, but had to be talked out of attacking Iran in his final days in office by General Mark Milley and the Pentagon.

Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, recently described to Chris Hedges just how catastrophic a war with Iran would be, based on U.S.military wargames he was involved in.

Wilkerson predicts that a U.S. war on Iran could last for ten years, cost $10 trillion and still fail to conquer Iran. Airstrikes alone would not destroy all of Iran’s civilian nuclear program and ballistic missile stockpiles. So, once unleashed, the war would very likely escalate into a regime change war involving U.S. ground forces, in a country with three or four times the territory and population of Iraq, more mountainous terrain and a thousand mile long coastline bristling with missiles that can sink U.S. warships.

But Netanyahu and his extreme Zionist allies believe that they must sooner or later fight an existential war with Iran if they are to realize their vision of a dominant Greater Israel. And they believe that the destruction they have wreaked on the Palestinians in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, including the assassination of their senior leaders, has given them a military advantage and a favorable opportunity for a showdown with Iran.

By November 10, Trump and Netanyahu had reportedly spoken on the phone three times since the election, and Netanyahu said that they see “eye to eye on the Iranian threat.” Trump has already hired Iran hawk Brian Hook, who helped him sabotage the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran in 2018, to coordinate the formation of his foreign policy team.

So far, the team that Trump and Hook have assembled seems to offer hope for peace in Ukraine, but little to none for peace in the Middle East and a rising danger of a U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

Trump’s expected National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is best known as a China hawk. He has voted against military aid to Ukraine in Congress, but he recently tweeted that Israel should bomb Iran’s nuclear and oil facilities, the most certain path to a full-scale war.

Trump’s new UN ambassador, Elise Stefanik, has led moves in Congress to equate criticism of Israel with anti-semitism, and she led the aggressive questioning of American university presidents at an anti-semitism hearing in Congress, after which the presidents of Harvard and Penn resigned.

So, while Trump will have some advisors who support his desire to end the war in Ukraine, there will be few voices in his inner circle urging caution over Netanyahu’s genocidal ambitions in Palestine and his determination to cripple Iran.

If he wanted to, President Biden could use his final two months in office to de-escalate the conflicts in the Middle East. He could impose an embargo on offensive weapons for Israel, push for serious ceasefire negotiations in both Gaza and Lebanon, and work through U.S. partners in the Gulf to de-escalate tensions with Iran.

But Biden is unlikely to do any of that. When his own administration sent a letter to Israel last month, threatening a cut in military aid if Israel did not allow a surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza in the next 30 days, Israel responded by doing just the opposite–actually cutting the number of trucks allowed in. The State Department claimed Israel was taking “steps in the right direction” and Biden refused to take any action.

We will soon see if Trump is able to make progress in moving the Ukraine war towards negotiations, potentially saving the lives of many thousands of Ukrainians and Russians. But between the catastrophe that Trump will inherit and the warhawks he is picking for his cabinet, peace in the Middle East seems more distant than ever.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies.

Not only had Donald J Trump presiding over a proto-fascist Maga mass movement been elected president of the United States, he will enjoy a comfortable Republican majority in the Senate, and he also may have a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

He obtained about the same number of votes as in 2020, 74 million, and he scored an electoral victory because the Democrat candidate, Kamala Harris, got well over 10 million votes less than Joe Biden in 2020.

If one adds the strong political identification of the US Supreme Court with Trump’s overall political views, he will enjoy few obstacles from the key institutional structures of the United States to implement his cherished aim, the establishment of a strongly authoritarian government that would endeavour to turn all existing institutions into instruments of his political movement, his ideology and his government plans.

Throughout the election campaign and since he lost the 2020 election, Trump has projected a government programme of wholesale retribution against his political opponents including what he perceives as a hostile media, which he has labelled “the enemy within.”

He also intends to expel millions of — principally Latino — immigrants, who he accuses of “poisoning the blood of the country.”

His strategic plan for the US has been systematised in a 900-page document by the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025, which, if fully implemented, will erase most of the existing mechanisms and practices that, despite its gross imperfections, broadly qualify the US as a democracy.

Many have exhaled a premature sigh of relief when Trump in his victory speech promised “no more wars” in his coming administration. However, during his 2016-20 government he conducted a mutually damaging “trade war” against China, a country he harbours a deep hostility to.

Hostility to China is likely to become the centre of his concerns on foreign policy, for which he can escalate the intense cold war and the massive military build-up around the South China Sea, including arming Taiwan, already developed by Biden.

Open US hostility to China began with president Barack Obama’s “Pivot to East Asia” in 2011, which prepared the militarisation of US policy towards the Asian giant. US military build-up 8,000 miles away from the US is stirring trouble in the region.

There ought to be little progress to be expected from the coming Trump government on the Middle East and on Palestine-Gaza. In December 2017, less than a year in office, reversing nearly seven decades of US policy on this sensitive issue, Trump formally recognised Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel and moved the US embassy to Jerusalem. There was worldwide dismay, including in substantial sections of the US Establishment, because it “shattered decades of unwavering US neutrality on Jerusalem.”

About Latin America, the 2016-20 Trump government specifically targeted what his national security adviser, John Bolton, called the “troika of tyranny” — namely, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua — which he also referred to as “a triangle of terror.”

Bolton in outlining Trump’s policy accused the three governments of being “the cause of immense suffering, the impetus of enormous regional instability and the genesis of a sordid cradle of communism.”

In 2018, Trump’s state secretary, Rex Tillerson, affirmed the Monroe Doctrine because it had asserted US “authority” in the western hemisphere, stating that the doctrine is “as relevant today as it was when it was written.” Tillerson’s was a strong message to Latin America that the US would not allow the region to entertain building links with emerging world powers such as China.

It was during Trump’s 2016-20 administration that, after several years of careful and methodical preparations, the US orchestrated and financed the 2018 coup attempt against Nicaragua. It convulsed the small Central American nation for more than six months of vicious levels of violence, leading to wanton destruction of property, massive economic losses, and nearly 200 innocent people killed. The Biden administration, under pressure from cold warriors in the US, has continued its policy of aggression against Nicaragua by applying an array of sanctions.

Trump inflicted hundreds of sanctions on Venezuela with horrible human consequences, since in 2017-18 about 40,000 vulnerable people died unnecessarily. Venezuela’s economy was blockaded to near asphyxiation. Its oil industry was crippled with the double purpose of denying the country’s main revenue earner and preventing oil supplies to Cuba. Trump repeatedly threatened Venezuela with military aggression; Venezuela (2017) was subjected to six months of opposition street violence; an assassination attempt against President Nicolas Maduro (August 2018); Juan Guaido proclaimed himself Venezuela’s “interim president” (January 2019, and he was recognised by the US); the opposition tried to force food through the Venezuela border by military means (February 2019); the State Department offered a reward of $15 million for “information leading to the arrest of President Maduro” (March 2020); a failed coup attempt (May 2019); a mercenary raid (May 2020); and in 2023 Trump publicly admitted that he wanted to overthrow Maduro to have control over Venezuela’s large oil deposits.

Although Cuba has endured the longest comprehensive blockade of a nation in peace time (over six decades, so far), under Trump the pressure was substantially ratcheted up. In 2019 Trump accused the government of Cuba of “controlling Venezuela” and demanded that, on the threat of implementing a “full and complete” blockade, the 20,000 Cuban specialists on health, sports culture, education, communications, agriculture, food, industry, science, energy and transport, who Trump falsely depicted as soldiers, leave.

Due to the tightening of the US blockade, between April 2019 and March 2020, for the first time its annual cost to the island surpassed $5 billion (a 20 per cent increase on the year before).

Furthermore, Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure” against Cuba meant, among other things, that lawsuits under Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, were allowed; increased persecution of Cuba’s financial and commercial transactions; a ban on flights from the US to all Cuban provinces (except Havana); persecution and intimidation of companies that send fuel supplies; an intense campaign to discredit Cuban medical co-operation programmes; USAid issued a $97,321 grant to a Florida-based body aimed at depicting Cuban tourism as exploitative; Trump also drastically reduced remittances to the island and severely limited the ability of US citizens to travel to Cuba, deliberately making companies and third countries think twice before doing business with Cuba; and 54 groups received $40 million in US grants to promote unrest in Cuba. Besides, Cuba has had to contend with serious unrest in July 2021 and more recently in March 2024, stoked by US-funded groups in as many cities as they could. The model of unrest is based on what has been perpetrated against Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Trump’s final act of sabotage, just days before Biden’s inauguration, was to return Cuba to the State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) list by falsely charging it with having ties to international terrorism. The consequences have been devastating: between March 2022 and February 2023, 130 companies, including 75 from Europe, stopped any dealings with Cuba, affecting transfers for the purchase of food, medicines, fuel, materials, parts and other goods.

Trump, despite being so intemperate and substantially discredited worldwide due to his rhetorical excesses, threats and vulgarities, leads a mass extremist movement, has the presidency, the Senate and counts on the Supreme Court’s explicit complicity, and is, therefore, in a particularly strong position to go wacko about the “troika of tyranny,” especially on Cuba. In short, Trump’s election as president has a historic significance in the worst possible sense of the term.

From his speeches one can surmise he would like to make history and he may entertain the idea of doing so by “finishing the job” on Cuba (but also on Venezuela and Nicaragua). If he does undertake that route, he has already a raft of aggressive policies he implemented during 2016-20. Furthermore, he will enjoy right-wing Republican control over the Senate foreign affairs committee.

Worse, pro-blockade hard-line senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are leading members of this committee and have a fixation with Cuba. Trump got stronger support in Florida, where the anti-Cuban Republicans in Florida bolstered his support and election victory. He also has a global network of communications owned by his ally, billionaire Elon Musk. Furthermore, no matter who the tenant in the White House, the “regime change” machinery is always plotting something nasty on Cuba.

So, buckle up! Turbulent times are coming to Latin America. Our solidarity work must be substantially intensified by explaining the increased threat that a second Trump term represents for all Latin America, but especially for Cuba.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Francisco Domínguez.

While it is a tragedy that Scott and Rubio were not able to learn this basic fact prior to being elected to the Senate, it is not surprising. In recent years, Florida has become a platform for Neoconservatives to practice political grandstanding rather than good politics. Instead of focusing on issues which truly matter to their constituents, imperialists like Scott and Rubio have been focused on proposing legislation like the Securing Timely Opportunities for Payment and Maximizing Awards for Detaining Unlawful Regime Officials (STOP MADURO) Act. The STOP MADURO Act proposes that the already preposterously-high fifteen-million dollar bounty for “information leading to the arrest of Nicolás Maduro” to one hundred million dollars. The bill alleges that Maduro and other government officials have been engaged in “conspiring to import cocaine” and using and conspiring to use “machine guns and destructive devices” to carry out “narco-terrorism”.

While many Neoconservatives in Washington have sought to act as judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to the conspiratorial claim that Maduro is Venezuela’s Pablo Escobar, many independent journalists have pointed out the obvious flaws in this narrative. According to The Grayzone, the myth that Venezuela is a narco-state has already been debunked by the Washington Office in Latin America (WOLA), a think tank in Washington that generally supports US regime change operations… less than 7% of total drug movement from South America transits from Venezuela”. The bill also claims that Maduro had a “narcoterrorism” partnership with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for the past twenty years. This similarly dubious accusation has also been discredited as far back as 2019, with Venezuelanalysis reporting that “…FARC was involved in the drug trade only at its lowest levels, levying taxes on coca sales. Moreover, since the 2016 peace accords and FARC demobilization, coca crops in Colombia have reached record levels year after year, confirming that the guerrillas played no major role in the illicit trade.”

Rather than working on behalf of the people of Florida to address the state’s terrible healthcare system, rampant homelessness, and extreme income inequality, Sen. Scott, Sen. Rubio, and their ilk have chosen to put ideology over policy. Instead of making the American Dream an American reality, Neoconservatives in Washington have forever sought to strangle all nations who do not conform to the dogmatic doctrine of market fundamentalism with the binds of sanctions. Sanctions, such as those currently targeting Venezuela, have been shown to lead to the deaths of countless civilians; in Iraq, for example, The Transnational Institute reports that “two million Iraqis… died from sanctions, half of them children”. Similarly, in Cuba, Al Jazeera reports that “With restrictions on the import of food, it has contributed to malnutrition – especially among women and children – and water quality has suffered with chemicals and purifying equipment banned.” For the Neoconservatives, no price is too high to pay for spreading corporate oppression throughout the world.

Clearly, the foreign policy priorities of Senators Scott and Rubio are not in tune with basic morality let alone the wants and needs of their Floridian constituents. Therefore, it is not astonishing that both Rubio and Scott are diehard supporters of Israel’s murderous rampage in Gaza. Both Senators have joined together in making the Orwellian assertion that Israel is the “victim” of Palestine in the United Nations. Furthermore, Rubio has made clear his support for genocide in occupied Palestine saying “I don’t think there’s any way Israel can be expected to coexist or find some diplomatic off-ramp with these savages…. They have to be eradicated.”

In comparison to Senators Scott and Rubio, Venezuela has consistently supported Palestine in its struggle against colonialism. In fact, prior to his passing, President Chavez was one of the most popular leaders in the Arab world for his fearless support of Palestinian self-determination and his efforts to hold Israel accountable for its numerous crimes. To this day, Venezuela has continued to support Palestine in the United Nations by backing South Africa’s International Court of Justice case against Israel. In stark contrast to Scott and Rubio who have poisoned the well of discourse with their irrational and destructive support for Israel, Venezuela has constantly acted as a voice for the voiceless in occupied Palestine.

As they carry on waging legislative warfare on Venezuela’s sovereignty with dubious bills like the STOP MADURO Act, one must ask: are Scott and Rubio truly interested in representing their constituents, or merely the interests of the rich and powerful? If Senators Scott and Rubio have any self-respect, they will cease being pawns in a larger geopolitical game and will redirect their focus back on their constituents. Florida deserves leaders who are problem solvers, not ineffectual thorns in the side of foreign governments.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by J.D. Hester Hester.

The pharmaceutical industry and its Republican allies in Congress are openly signaling their plans obstruct at every turn as the Biden administration looks to begin implementing a recently passed law that will allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices for the first time in its history.

In November, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and several other Republican senators introduced legislation that would repeal the new prescription drug pricing reforms, which Congress approved earlier this year as part of the Inflation Reduction Act—a measure that Republicans unanimously opposed.

"Though chances of this repeal effort succeeding are vanishingly slim with Democrats holding the Senate and White House, conservative lawmakers and their outside allies want to impede the law's progress before its expansion becomes inevitable," Politicoreported Thursday.

Big Pharma lobbied aggressively against the Medicare drug pricing provisions, hysterically claiming the modest and extremely popular changes could send the U.S. "back into the dark ages of biomedical research."

Speaking to Politico, Rubio echoed the pharmaceutical industry's talking points.

"I want drug prices to be lower but we have to do it in a way that doesn't undermine the creation of new drugs," Rubio said. "Companies are not going to invest in developing new treatments unless they believe they have a chance to make back their money with a profit."

While the drug price reforms are far less ambitious than what progressives wanted—and the specific provision requiring Medicare to negotiate prices for a small number of drugs doesn't take full effect until 2026—the changes could still have a significant impact on costs, given that a small number of medicines make up a sizeable chunk of Medicare's prescription drug spending.

Beginning next year, the law will also require drug companies to pay Medicare a rebate if they raise their drug prices at a faster rate than inflation. Additionally, the law will limit monthly insulin cost-sharing to $35 for people with Medicare Part D starting in 2023.

Politico noted Thursday that the deep-pocketed drug industry—which boasts nearly three registered lobbyists for every member of Congress—is "gearing up to fight the law's implementation, using whatever legal and regulatory tools are available."

Sarah Ryan, a spokesperson for Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), told the outlet that the industry will "keep working to mitigate the law's harm and continue to push for real solutions that will bring financial relief for patients."'

NPRreported in September that pharma lobbyists are likely to take aim at "seemingly technical details" that "could have major implications" for the law, which advocates and Democratic lawmakers hope to build on in the coming years.

According to NPR:

One area ripe for gaming is the formula known as average manufacturer price that Medicaid uses to determine whether companies owe money for hiking prices faster than inflation. The law gives companies ample discretion in how they calculate that average, and firms have used that discretion to include or exclude certain sales to avoid triggering rebate payments. Just one loophole in that formula, which Congress closed in 2019, had cost Medicaid at least $595 million per year in lost rebates.
The Inflation Reduction Act essentially duplicates the language of Medicaid's inflation rebate law, making Medicare now vulnerable to the same loopholes.

Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who is set to be sworn in as a senator next month, told Politico that "it's going to be really hard to reverse" the drug price reforms once they take effect and begin having a material impact.

"If [negotiation] works in Medicare, it can work in the private market," said Welch, who cautioned that the drug industry is still a strong influence that must be overcome.

“All the contributions they make and all their lobbying money gives them a lot of power," Welch said. "But I think what gives them the most power is that everybody can imagine themselves in a position where someday, somebody they really love is going to need a pharmaceutical drug and won't be able to get it. They play on the fear we all have by basically saying, 'If you make us charge reasonable prices, that'll happen.'"

Welch stressed that he views such fearmongering as "bogus."

Patient advocates have similarly decried the pharmaceutical industry's scare tactics, which are often used to shield companies' power to drive up prices as they please.

"Patients like me and those who live with hemophilia need innovative medicine. But what use is there in developing groundbreaking new drugs if we can’t afford them?" Utah-based advocate Meg Jackson-Drage wrote in a letter to Deseret News earlier this month. "The drug price provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act aren't a political 'sound bite'—they are historic legislation that allow for the innovation we need at prices we can afford."

"Patients fought hard for the reforms in the Inflation Reduction Act—and we won't let Big Pharma and its allies' fearmongering scare us," Jackson-Drage added.

Politico reported Thursday that "Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said his committee will be on the lookout for any political or corporate meddling" with regard to the drug price reforms.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is set to take charge of the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, has vowed to use his position to challenge the "incredible greed in the pharmaceutical industry."

One Democratic pharmaceutical lobbyist lamented anonymously to The Washington Post last month that Sanders will "go after [the drug companies] at every turn, and they only have a couple friends left in the caucus anymore, so it's going to be tough."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jake Johnson.

The field has been shaken and reshaped by chaotic Iowa caucuses earlier this week, and Friday’s debate in New Hampshire — coming four days before the state’s primary — offers new opportunity and risk for the shrinking pool of White House hopefuls. At least one leading campaign was predicting a “forceful, fiery” performance.

Two candidates, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Midwestern mayor Pete Buttigieg, enter the night as the top targets, having emerged from Iowa essentially tied for the lead. Those trailing after the first contest — including former Vice President Joe Biden, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar — have an urgent need to demonstrate strength.

Billionaire activist Tom Steyer and New York entrepreneur Andrew Yang, meanwhile, are fighting to prove they belong in the conversation.

The rapidly evolving dynamic means that the candidates have a very real incentive to mix it up with their Democratic rivals in the 8 p.m. debate hosted by ABC. They may not get another chance.

“This is the time when voters are eager for candidates to show they can compare and contrast, but also show they’re in it to win it,” said Democratic strategist Lily Adams, who worked on California Sen. Kamala Harris’ unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign. “Expect it to get more feisty.”

Sanders previewed one line of attack at a breakfast event in New Hampshire’s largest city by slamming Buttigieg for accepting campaign cash from wealthy donors, which Sanders and Warren have refused to do.

“I like Pete Buttigieg. Nice guy,” Sanders said before reading a series of headlines about wealthy donors backing Buttigieg. “But we are in a moment where billionaires control, not only our economy but our political life.”

Channeling an old folk ballad by Woody Guthrie, Sanders added: “This campaign is about, Which side are you on?’”

Traditionally, the knives come out during this phase in the presidential primary process.

It was the pre-New Hampshire debate four years ago on the Republican side when then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie devastated Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s presidential ambitions with a well-timed take-down. Rubio never recovered, making it easier for Donald Trump to emerge as his party’s presidential nominee.

The stakes are particularly high this week for Biden, who has played front-runner in virtually every one of the previous seven debates but left Iowa in distant fourth place. While reporting irregularities have blunted the impact of the Iowa contest, Biden’s weakness rattled supporters who encouraged him to take an aggressive tack Friday night.

One of Biden’s more prominent New Hampshire backers, Democratic operative Jim Demers, said this is the time to fight.

“People want to see the fire, they want to see fight and they want to see the differences,” he said.

Lest there be any doubt about his intentions, Biden adopted a decidedly more aggressive tone with his rivals in the days leading up to Friday’s debate, having largely avoided direct attacks against other Democrats for much of the last year. But Wednesday in New Hampshire, the former vice president went after Sanders and Buttigieg by name and questioned their ability to beat Trump.

On Sanders, Biden seized on the Vermont senator’s status as a self-described democratic socialist. And on Buttigieg, he knocked the 38-year-old former mayor’s inexperience.

Biden also conceded the obvious — that his Iowa finish was underwhelming at best. He called it a “gut punch” before embracing the underdog role: “This isn’t the first time in my life I’ve been knocked down.”

Deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield highlighted Biden’s post-Iowa strategy of going more directly after his opponents, and she said it would continue on the debate stage.

“All of the candidates have progressive plans. Only one has a lifelong record of making them reality,” Bedingfield said. “You can expect in the debate tonight that Vice President Biden will make a forceful, fiery case for his candidacy and will raise some tough questions for voters to consider about who they want taking on Donald Trump.”

The seven-person field also highlights the evolution of the Democrats’ 2020 nomination fight, which began with more than two dozen candidates and has been effectively whittled down to a handful of top-tier contenders.

There are clear dividing lines based on ideology, age and gender. But just one of the candidates on stage, Yang, is an ethnic minority.

Two African Americans and the only Latino candidate were forced from the race even before voting began. The only black contender still in the running, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, did not meet the polling or fundraising thresholds to qualify for Friday’s event.

Beyond Biden’s struggles, there are several subplots to watch.

The debate is the first since a progressive feud erupted on national television between Sanders and Warren. The Massachusetts senator refused to shake her New England neighbor’s hand and accused him of calling her a liar moments after the Jan. 14 meeting in Iowa.

The pointed exchange threatened to cause a permanent fissure in the Democratic Party’s far-left flank. Warren has embraced her gender as a political strength in the weeks since, highlighting the successes of female candidates in the Trump era and her own record of defeating a male Republican to earn a seat in the Senate.

That said, she stressed unity at campaign stops in recent days: “We’ve got to pull together as a party. We cannot repeat 2016,” she said.

She even points to her sprawling campaign organization to prove her dedication to party unity, noting that aides from rival candidates no longer in the race have chosen to work for her.

“I have an open campaign,” Warren said during a rally Wednesday at a community college in Nashua. “An inclusive campaign, a campaign that invites people in.”

Yet Warren has been willing to attack before. Aside from the post-debate skirmish with Sanders, she seized on Buttigieg’s fundraising practices in past meetings.

While Warren and Sanders as presidential candidates have sworn off wealthy donors, Buttigieg and the rest of the field have continued to hold private finance events with big donors, some with connections to Wall Street. In fact, Buttigieg took the unusual step of leaving New Hampshire this week to hold three fundraisers with wealthy donors in the New York area.

Buttigieg should expect to be under attack Friday night, said Joel Benenson, a debate adviser to Buttigieg last year and a prominent Democratic pollster.

“He’s got to be prepared for incoming from the people behind him, who are going to be punching up and trying to take votes away,” Benenson said.

“He’s got to be prepared to counterpunch, as well, and push back strenuously, but drive his message even when he’s responding,” he added. “If they draw sharp contrasts, he has to, as well.”

Associated Press writers Will Weissert in Manchester, N.H., Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.