_This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on_ _Mar. 30, 2026_ _._ _It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license._ President Donald Trump said Sunday that his administration would let a Russia-owned tanker carrying an estimated 730,000 barrels of oil to reach Cuba, loosening the illegal fuel blockade that has intensified the island’s already-grave humanitarian crisis. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said that “if a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem,” backing off his previous threat to tariff any nation that supplied the besieged island with fuel. Cuba has not received any oil imports since January 9, sparking nationwide blackouts and food shortages and leaving hospitals without critical supplies—with deadly consequences for patients. Trump insisted that the oil on the Russian tanker—which experts say is enough to buy Cuba at least several weeks of energy—is “not going to have an impact,” declaring, “Cuba is finished.” “They have a bad regime, and they have very bad and corrupt leadership,” added Trump, who presides over what analysts have deemed the most corrupt administration in US history. “Whether or not they get a boat of oil is not going to matter.” > Reporter: There's a report that the US is going to let a Russian oil tanker go to Cuba? > > Trump: If a country wants to send some oil into Cuba, I have no problem with that. > > Reporter: Do you worry that that helps Putin? > > Trump: It doesn’t help him. He loses one boatload of oil.… pic.twitter.com/8Vh6gHwaxs > > — Acyn (@Acyn) March 30, 2026 Trump’s comments came after The New York Times reported that, “barring orders instructing it otherwise,” the US Coast Guard would not intercept the Russian tanker as it approached Cuba. **GET FEARLESS, AD-FREE, UNCOMPROMISING REAL NEWS IN YOUR INBOX** Sign up The Russian vessel, known as the Anatoly Kolodkin, is expected to reach the island by Monday night, providing some reprieve to a nation whose economy has been strangled by unlawful US economic warfare for decades. In recent days, an international convoy of activists has delivered tons of food, medicine, and other aid to the island, but the shipments are a Band-Aid on a gaping wound. Michael Gallant, a member of the Progressive International Secretariat, welcomed news that the US is allowing the Russian tanker to reach Cuba as “very good news”—but said Trump’s decision is hardly deserving of praise. > Very good news. “The US will allow,” of course, means “will not illegally intercept and seize the entirely legal and legitimate sovereign trade in oil” https://t.co/YF2RRIXC2S > > — Michael Galant (@michael_galant) March 29, 2026 Trump imposed the fuel blockade in January, absurdly characterizing Cuba as an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security. Earlier this month, Trump threatened to “take” Cuba by force, calling it a “very weakened nation.” Trump’s remarks prompted Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, to vow “impregnable resistance” to any US attempt to seize the island. The Trump administration is reportedly seeking Díaz-Canel’s removal as a necessary condition in talks with the Cuban government. Trump’s threats led Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) to introduce legislation last week that would prohibit the administration from using federal funds for any attack on Cuba without congressional authorization. “Trump has started illegal regime change conflicts in Venezuela and Iran and is now threatening Cuba,” Jayapal said in a statement. “These military attacks put our troops in danger, endanger innocent civilians, waste billions of taxpayer dollars, and are not what the American people want.” “Trump promised to end forever wars—he lied,” Jayapal added. “Congress alone has the power to declare war, something Trump clearly does not respect. He has no plan to improve conditions for the Cuban people or promote democracy, and we must pass this legislation to block him from acting on a whim.” ### _Related_ Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. Close window ## Republish this article This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. We encourage republication of our original content. Please copy the HTML code in the textbox below, preserving the attribution and link to the article's original location, and only make minor cosmetic edits to the content on your site. # Trump declares ‘Cuba is finished’ while letting Russian oil tanker break illegal US blockade by Jake Johnson, The Real News Network March 30, 2026 <h1>Trump declares ‘Cuba is finished’ while letting Russian oil tanker break illegal US blockade</h1> <p class="byline">by Jake Johnson, The Real News Network <br />March 30, 2026</p> <div class="wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:33% auto"> <figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img src="https://therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png" alt="Common Dreams Logo" class="wp-image-268291 size-full" /></figure> <div class="wp-block-media-text__content"> <p><em>This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on </em><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-russian-oil-tanker-cuba" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Mar. 30, 2026</em></a><em>.</em> <em>It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.</em></p> </p></div> </div> <p class="has-drop-cap">President <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Donald Trump</a> said Sunday that his administration would let a Russia-owned tanker carrying an estimated 730,000 barrels of <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/oil" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">oil</a> to reach <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/cuba" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cuba</a>, loosening the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/02/un-experts-condemn-us-executive-order-imposing-fuel-blockade-cuba" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">illegal</a> fuel blockade that has intensified the island’s already-grave humanitarian crisis.</p> <p>Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said that “if a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem,” backing off his previous threat to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74vyr44xn3o" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tariff any nation</a> that supplied the besieged island with fuel. Cuba has not received any oil imports since January 9, sparking nationwide blackouts and food shortages and leaving hospitals without critical supplies—with <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-blockade-kills-cubans" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">deadly consequences for patients</a>.</p> <p>Trump insisted that the oil on the Russian tanker—which experts say is enough to buy Cuba at least several weeks of energy—is “not going to have an impact,” declaring, “Cuba is finished.”</p> <p>“They have a bad regime, and they have very bad and corrupt leadership,” added Trump, who presides over what <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-corruption-uae-bribes/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">analysts have deemed</a> the most corrupt administration in US history. “Whether or not they get a boat of oil is not going to matter.”</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"> <div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/2038429641212400076?s=20 </div> </figure> <p>Trump’s comments came after <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/29/world/americas/cuba-russian-oil-tanlker.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The New York Times</a> reported that, “barring orders instructing it otherwise,” the US Coast Guard would not intercept the Russian tanker as it approached Cuba.</p> <p>The Russian vessel, known as the Anatoly Kolodkin, is expected to reach the island by Monday night, providing some reprieve to a nation whose economy has been strangled by <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/cuba-blockade" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">unlawful US economic warfare</a> for decades. In recent days, an international convoy of activists has <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/international-aid-convoys-deliver-aid-to-cuba-as-russian-tanker-makes-way-to-bust-us-oil-blockade" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">delivered</a> tons of food, medicine, and other aid to the island, but the shipments are a <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/cuba-convoy-humanitarian-aid-us-sanctions-blockade-crisis/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Band-Aid on a gaping wound</a>.</p> <p>Michael Gallant, a member of the Progressive International Secretariat, welcomed news that the US is allowing the Russian tanker to reach Cuba as “very good news”—but said Trump’s decision is hardly deserving of praise.</p> <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"> <div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/michael_galant/status/2038390779652059250?s=20 </div> </figure> <p>Trump imposed the fuel blockade in January, absurdly <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/01/addressing-threats-to-the-united-states-by-the-government-of-cuba/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">characterizing</a> Cuba as an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security.</p> <p>Earlier this month, Trump <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-take-cuba" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">threatened</a> to “take” Cuba by force, calling it a “very weakened nation.” Trump’s remarks <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/cuban-president-resistance" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">prompted</a> Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, to vow “impregnable resistance” to any US attempt to seize the island. The <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/trump-administration" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Trump administration</a> is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/16/world/americas/trump-cuba-president-diaz-canel.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reportedly</a> seeking Díaz-Canel’s removal as a necessary condition in talks with the Cuban government.</p> <p>Trump’s threats led Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/pramila-jayapal" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Pramila Jayapal</a> (D-Wash.) to <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/cuba-and-us-war" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">introduce legislation</a> last week that would prohibit the administration from using federal funds for any attack on Cuba without congressional authorization.</p> <p>“Trump has started illegal regime change conflicts in <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/venezuela" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Venezuela</a> and Iran and is now threatening Cuba,” Jayapal said in a statement. “These military attacks put our troops in danger, endanger innocent civilians, waste billions of taxpayer dollars, and are not what the American people want.”</p> <p>“Trump promised to end forever wars—he lied,” Jayapal added. “Congress alone has the power to declare war, something Trump clearly does not respect. He has no plan to improve conditions for the Cuban people or promote <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/democracy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">democracy</a>, and we must pass this legislation to block him from acting on a whim.”</p> <p>This <a target="_blank" href="https://therealnews.com/trump-cuba-russian-oil-tanker-illegal-us-blockade">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://therealnews.com">The Real News Network</a> and is republished here under a <a target="_blank" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/cropped-TRNN-2021-logomark-square.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;"></p> <img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="https://therealnews.com/?republication-pixel=true&post=342347&amp;ga4=G-7LYS8R7V51" style="width:1px;height:1px;"><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: "https://therealnews.com/trump-cuba-russian-oil-tanker-illegal-us-blockade", urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id="parsely-cfg" src="//cdn.parsely.com/keys/therealnews.com/p.js"></script> Copy to Clipboard 1

Trump declares ‘Cuba is finished’ while letting Russian oil tanker break illegal US blockade

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**Get fearless, uncompromising truth in your inbox. Subscribe to The Real News.** Sign up _This story originally appeared inNACLA on Mar. 27, 2026. It is reprinted here with permission._ When Ecuador’s government announced on March 11 that the FBI would open a permanent office in the country, officials presented the move as a necessary response to escalating transnational crime. Interior Minister John Reimberg and U.S. chargé d’affaires Lawrence Petroni framed the initiative as a milestone in bilateral cooperation, aimed at combating drug trafficking, arms flows, money laundering, and terrorism financing. Yet there is little that is new about this announcement. Rather than marking a break with the past, the FBI’s expanded presence in Ecuador represents the continuation—and normalization—of a much longer history of U.S. intervention in the country’s internal affairs. That history, largely forgotten in official narratives, reveals patterns of surveillance, political policing, and collaboration with local security forces that complicate contemporary claims about security cooperation. > Rather than marking a break with the past, the FBI’s expanded presence in Ecuador represents the continuation—and normalization—of a much longer history of U.S. intervention in the country’s internal affairs. The timing of this announcement is significant within Ecuador’s domestic political landscape. Since taking office in 2023, Daniel Noboa has embraced a hardline security agenda in response to escalating violence linked to organized crime. Declaring an “internal armed conflict,” his government has militarized public security, expanded executive powers, and strengthened ties with foreign security agencies. Noboa has justified these measures as necessary to restore order in the face of rising homicide rates and prison violence. Critics have raised concerns about the erosion of civil liberties, the militarization of public security, and the potential for abuses against marginalized communities. As seen with Nayib Bukele’s mass incarceration policies in El Salvador, these policies represent a broader regional turn toward punitive, militarized responses that produce limited long-term results while increasing the risk of human rights abuses. In this light, the establishment of a permanent FBI office appears less as an isolated policy decision than as part of a converging logic between U.S. security priorities and Ecuador’s internal political strategy—one that recalls earlier Cold War–era collaborations in which anti-crime and counter-subversion efforts served as overlapping justifications for expanding state surveillance and repression. To understand what is at stake in the FBI’s return, it is necessary to look beyond the present moment and recover this longer history. ## Emboldening Repressive Forces U.S.-backed security initiatives directly shaped domestic political struggles in Ecuador. One of the clearest examples of this dynamic was the FBI’s relationship with Héctor Salgado, the head of Ecuador’s militarized police known as the carabineros. After receiving training in the United States, Salgado returned to Ecuador and implemented policing practices that targeted labor organizers and political activists. These efforts contributed to attempts to block the formation of the Confederation of Ecuadorian Workers (CTE) in 1943. The FBI’s close collaboration with the carabineros reveals the extent to which U.S. intelligence agencies embedded themselves within Ecuador’s coercive apparatus. Agents maintained intimate relationships with police leadership and relied on these connections to conduct surveillance and gather information. Even after a May 1944 revolution, known as the Gloriosa, overthrew the existing regime and dismantled the carabineros, FBI agents quickly established ties with the new security forces and continued their activities without interruption. This continuity underscores a key point: U.S. intervention was not tied to specific governments or political configurations but rather to a broader project of maintaining influence over internal political developments. Whether under the guise of anti-fascism or anti-communism, the underlying objective remained the same: to monitor and shape the trajectory of political change in Ecuador. > Whether under the guise of anti-fascism or anti-communism, the underlying objective remained the same: to monitor and shape the trajectory of political change in Ecuador. The end of World War II and the creation of the CIA in 1947 did not represent a significant turning point in U.S. intelligence operations. Formally, responsibility for foreign intelligence shifted from the FBI to the newly established CIA, while the FBI was theoretically confined to domestic security in the United States. In practice, this division was never absolute. The FBI maintained an international presence through its legal attaché offices—so-called _legats_ —that continued to operate in U.S. embassies around the world. Today, Ecuador falls under the jurisdiction of the FBI’s Bogotá office, in Colombia, one of several regional hubs in Latin America. This structure reflects a longstanding pattern in which U.S. intelligence agencies maintain overlapping and sometimes competing roles that blur the distinction between domestic and foreign operations. The recent announcement of a permanent FBI office in Ecuador represents less a departure than an institutionalization of an already existing presence. It formalizes relationships and practices that have deep historical roots, even as it reframes them in the language of contemporary security threats. ## Dubious Justifications As in the 1940s, the justification for this expanded presence deserves careful scrutiny. Then, the FBI invoked the specter of Nazi infiltration to legitimize its activities. Now, it points to drug trafficking, organized crime, and terrorism. While these threats are real, the framing of U.S. intervention as a necessary response obscures the extent to which such policies have historically served broader geopolitical objectives. Moreover, there is a striking continuity in the mismatch between stated goals and actual practices. During World War II, FBI agents devoted significant resources to monitoring leftist movements despite the absence of a meaningful fascist threat. Today, similar questions arise about whether expanded law enforcement cooperation will primarily target transnational criminal networks or once again be directed toward political actors and social movements. A broader political context reinforces this skepticism. The return of the FBI to Ecuador comes at a time when U.S. policy in Latin America continues to prioritize security cooperation at the expense of addressing underlying social and economic conditions. It reflects a long-standing tendency to externalize the causes of transnational problems, treating them as issues to be managed abroad rather than confronting their roots within the United States itself. > The return of the FBI to Ecuador comes at a time when U.S. policy in Latin America continues to prioritize security cooperation at the expense of addressing underlying social and economic conditions. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of drug trafficking. Decades of research have demonstrated that the global drug trade is driven primarily by consumer demand rather than supply. Efforts to disrupt production and distribution networks in Latin America have repeatedly failed to reduce overall consumption, while generating significant social and political costs in the region. If the goal were truly to combat drug trafficking, more effective strategies would focus on reducing demand through treatment and public health interventions in the United States and Europe. A similar dynamic applies to the flow of firearms. A significant proportion of the weapons used by criminal organizations in Latin America originate in the United States, where they are legally purchased before being trafficked south. Efforts to curb violence in countries like Ecuador cannot succeed without addressing this upstream source of supply. Yet U.S. policy has largely avoided meaningful restrictions on domestic gun sales, instead emphasizing enforcement measures abroad. These contradictions highlight the limitations of a security-centered approach to transnational crime. By focusing on policing and surveillance, such strategies risk reproducing the very dynamics they seek to address, while reinforcing asymmetrical power relations between the United States and Latin American countries. ### _Related_ Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. Close window ## Republish this article This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. We encourage republication of our original content. Please copy the HTML code in the textbox below, preserving the attribution and link to the article's original location, and only make minor cosmetic edits to the content on your site. # The FBI’s return to Ecuador is nothing new by Marc Becker, The Real News Network March 30, 2026 <h1>The FBI’s return to Ecuador is nothing new</h1> <p class="byline">by Marc Becker, The Real News Network <br />March 30, 2026</p> <div class="wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:33% auto"> <figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img src="https://therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Screen-Shot-2023-04-05-at-2.03.23-PM.png" alt="" class="wp-image-296784 size-full" /></figure> <div class="wp-block-media-text__content"> <p><em>This story originally appeared in <a href="https://nacla.org/fbi-return-to-ecuador-is-nothing-new/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NACLA</a> on Mar. 27, 2026. It is reprinted here with permission.</em></p> </p></div> </div> <p class="has-drop-cap">When Ecuador’s government announced on March 11 that the FBI would open a permanent office in the country, officials presented the move as a necessary response to escalating transnational crime. Interior Minister John Reimberg and U.S. chargé d’affaires Lawrence Petroni framed the initiative as a milestone in bilateral cooperation, aimed at combating drug trafficking, arms flows, money laundering, and terrorism financing.</p> <p>Yet there is little that is new about this announcement.</p> <p>Rather than marking a break with the past, the FBI’s expanded presence in Ecuador represents the continuation—and normalization—of a much longer history of U.S. intervention in the country’s internal affairs. That history, largely forgotten in official narratives, reveals patterns of surveillance, political policing, and collaboration with local security forces that complicate contemporary claims about security cooperation.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignright"> <blockquote> <p>Rather than marking a break with the past, the FBI’s expanded presence in Ecuador represents the continuation—and normalization—of a much longer history of U.S. intervention in the country’s internal affairs.</p> </blockquote> </figure> <p>The timing of this announcement is significant within Ecuador’s domestic political landscape. Since taking office in 2023, Daniel Noboa has embraced a hardline security agenda in response to escalating violence linked to organized crime. Declaring an “internal armed conflict,” his government has militarized public security, expanded executive powers, and strengthened ties with foreign security agencies. Noboa has justified these measures as necessary to restore order in the face of rising homicide rates and prison violence. </p> <p>Critics have raised concerns about the erosion of civil liberties, the militarization of public security, and the potential for abuses against marginalized communities. As seen with Nayib Bukele’s mass incarceration policies in El Salvador, these policies represent a broader regional turn toward punitive, militarized responses that produce limited long-term results while increasing the risk of human rights abuses.</p> <p>In this light, the establishment of a permanent FBI office appears less as an isolated policy decision than as part of a converging logic between U.S. security priorities and Ecuador’s internal political strategy—one that recalls earlier Cold War–era collaborations in which anti-crime and counter-subversion efforts served as overlapping justifications for expanding state surveillance and repression.</p> <p>To understand what is at stake in the FBI’s return, it is necessary to look beyond the present moment and recover this longer history.</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-emboldening-repressive-forces">Emboldening Repressive Forces</h2> <p>U.S.-backed security initiatives directly shaped domestic political struggles in Ecuador. One of the clearest examples of this dynamic was the FBI’s relationship with Héctor Salgado, the head of Ecuador’s militarized police known as the carabineros. After receiving training in the United States, Salgado returned to Ecuador and implemented policing practices that targeted labor organizers and political activists. These efforts contributed to attempts to block the formation of the Confederation of Ecuadorian Workers (CTE) in 1943.</p> <p>The FBI’s close collaboration with the carabineros reveals the extent to which U.S. intelligence agencies embedded themselves within Ecuador’s coercive apparatus. Agents maintained intimate relationships with police leadership and relied on these connections to conduct surveillance and gather information. Even after a May 1944 revolution, known as the Gloriosa, overthrew the existing regime and dismantled the carabineros, FBI agents quickly established ties with the new security forces and continued their activities without interruption.</p> <p>This continuity underscores a key point: U.S. intervention was not tied to specific governments or political configurations but rather to a broader project of maintaining influence over internal political developments. Whether under the guise of anti-fascism or anti-communism, the underlying objective remained the same: to monitor and shape the trajectory of political change in Ecuador.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-right"> <blockquote> <p>Whether under the guise of anti-fascism or anti-communism, the underlying objective remained the same: to monitor and shape the trajectory of political change in Ecuador.</p> </blockquote> </figure> <p>The end of World War II and the creation of the CIA in 1947 did not represent a significant turning point in U.S. intelligence operations. Formally, responsibility for foreign intelligence shifted from the FBI to the newly established CIA, while the FBI was theoretically confined to domestic security in the United States. In practice, this division was never absolute. The FBI maintained an international presence through its legal attaché offices—so-called <em>legats</em>—that continued to operate in U.S. embassies around the world.</p> <p>Today, Ecuador falls under the jurisdiction of the FBI’s Bogotá office, in Colombia, one of several regional hubs in Latin America. This structure reflects a longstanding pattern in which U.S. intelligence agencies maintain overlapping and sometimes competing roles that blur the distinction between domestic and foreign operations.</p> <p>The recent announcement of a permanent FBI office in Ecuador represents less a departure than an institutionalization of an already existing presence. It formalizes relationships and practices that have deep historical roots, even as it reframes them in the language of contemporary security threats.</p> <h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-dubious-justifications">Dubious Justifications</h2> <p>As in the 1940s, the justification for this expanded presence deserves careful scrutiny. Then, the FBI invoked the specter of Nazi infiltration to legitimize its activities. Now, it points to drug trafficking, organized crime, and terrorism. While these threats are real, the framing of U.S. intervention as a necessary response obscures the extent to which such policies have historically served broader geopolitical objectives.</p> <p>Moreover, there is a striking continuity in the mismatch between stated goals and actual practices. During World War II, FBI agents devoted significant resources to monitoring leftist movements despite the absence of a meaningful fascist threat. Today, similar questions arise about whether expanded law enforcement cooperation will primarily target transnational criminal networks or once again be directed toward political actors and social movements.</p> <p>A broader political context reinforces this skepticism. The return of the FBI to Ecuador comes at a time when U.S. policy in Latin America continues to prioritize security cooperation at the expense of addressing underlying social and economic conditions. It reflects a long-standing tendency to externalize the causes of transnational problems, treating them as issues to be managed abroad rather than confronting their roots within the United States itself.</p> <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignright"> <blockquote> <p>The return of the FBI to Ecuador comes at a time when U.S. policy in Latin America continues to prioritize security cooperation at the expense of addressing underlying social and economic conditions.</p> </blockquote> </figure> <p>Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of drug trafficking. Decades of research have demonstrated that the global drug trade is driven primarily by consumer demand rather than supply. Efforts to disrupt production and distribution networks in Latin America have repeatedly failed to reduce overall consumption, while generating significant social and political costs in the region. If the goal were truly to combat drug trafficking, more effective strategies would focus on reducing demand through treatment and public health interventions in the United States and Europe.</p> <p>A similar dynamic applies to the flow of firearms. A significant proportion of the weapons used by criminal organizations in Latin America originate in the United States, where they are legally purchased before being trafficked south. Efforts to curb violence in countries like Ecuador cannot succeed without addressing this upstream source of supply. Yet U.S. policy has largely avoided meaningful restrictions on domestic gun sales, instead emphasizing enforcement measures abroad.</p> <p>These contradictions highlight the limitations of a security-centered approach to transnational crime. By focusing on policing and surveillance, such strategies risk reproducing the very dynamics they seek to address, while reinforcing asymmetrical power relations between the United States and Latin American countries.</p> <p>This <a target="_blank" href="https://therealnews.com/fbi-return-to-ecuador">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://therealnews.com">The Real News Network</a> and is republished here under a <a target="_blank" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/cropped-TRNN-2021-logomark-square.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;"></p> <img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="https://therealnews.com/?republication-pixel=true&post=342319&amp;ga4=G-7LYS8R7V51" style="width:1px;height:1px;"><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: "https://therealnews.com/fbi-return-to-ecuador", urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id="parsely-cfg" src="//cdn.parsely.com/keys/therealnews.com/p.js"></script> Copy to Clipboard 1

The FBI’s return to Ecuador is nothing new

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Avi Lewis Is the New Leader of Canada’s NDP ### Avi Lewis will lead an NDP in dire straits — but also one with a strategic opening to the left of the Liberals, whose posture against Donald Trump has reshaped the political terrain. * * * The scale of the challenge that new NDP leader Avi Lewis faces in rebuilding the party is considerable. (Dominik Magdziak Photography / WireImage) Over the weekend, Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP) held its leadership election, with members voting via ranked ballots. Avi Lewis won a conclusive victory, capturing 56 percent support. A new direction will be set for Canada’s social democratic party, which has been in decline since 2015 and recently hit rock bottom in the 2025 federal election. There is no doubt that Lewis’s campaign tapped into the desire for change among party membership party and his first ballot victory is a clear sign of where the party’s base wants it to go. His rallies were often jam-packed, with lines outside the venue, and he kept up a robust media schedule and strong social media game. The CAD$1.2 million his campaign raised is the most ever in a NDP leadership contest. The grandson of a federal NDP leader and the son of an Ontario NDP leader, Lewis comes from a family that has profoundly shaped the Canadian left — both for good and ill — for nearly a century. At times, figures within his family were central to pushing back against radical currents, helping to marginalize the left flank of the party from within. Aware of this legacy, Lewis seeks to rebuild the NDP into an unabashedly democratic socialist force in Canadian politics. But now the hard part begins. A commanding victory gives Lewis plenty of room to maneuver within the party he leads, but it does not transcend the structure and constraints of Canadian politics, which have brought the NDP to its current nadir — worse than previous electoral wipeouts in 1958 and 1993. In the electoral debacle of 2025, the NDP was seen as propping up an increasingly unpopular Justin Trudeau in order to secure gains on dental care for lower-income Canadians, sick days for federally regulated workers, $10 per day childcare, and labor reforms such as anti-scab legislation. As Trudeau was tanking the Liberals in the polls and the Conservatives were surging, the NDP was only making modest gains. Now, with Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Liberals polling far ahead — and amid mounting global uncertainty and crises — the scale of the challenge that Lewis faces in rebuilding the NDP will quickly become apparent. # A New Left Populism? The Lewis campaign has consciously adopted elements of twenty-first-century left electoral politics from around the world. It’s an approach that, with the exception of Québec solidaire, has mostly bypassed Canada. Lewis has told _Jacobin_ , “We have the ability to build a left-populist majority.” His plan for party renewal, titled “A Political Instrument of the People,” is a nod to the MAS in Bolivia and the wider Latin American left, which uses the same term. In many ways what Lewis is trying to do has few analogues in the left-populist era. The NDP is a major party in Canada. It has governed seven of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada at least once. It currently governs two provinces, including Manitoba, where Wab Kinew is the most popular premier in Canada. At the federal level, however, it has always been a third or even fourth party, with the exception of its stint as the official opposition from 2011 to 2015. While it is seen as Canada’s party of labor and was formed with the support of the Canadian Labour Congress, the NDP has never been as hegemonic among the working class as the Labour Party in Britain or the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Germany were in their heydays. It has never won a majority of the union vote, despite the leadership of most major private sector unions endorsing it. The NDP thus occupies a unique middle ground among social democratic and labor parties worldwide. Post-2008 left populism has generally taken two forms: the creation of new parties — like France Insoumise and Podemos — or insurgent attempts to transform an established center-left parties, as with Bernie Sanders in the United States or Jeremy Corbyn in the UK. Syriza, for its part, was a marginal force in Greece until PASOK melted down, but even in its leaner years, the NDP has exercised more influence on the Canadian political scene than Syriza did before the eurozone crisis. The NDP played a major role in the creation of universal health care and the Canada Pension Plan by holding the balance of power during Liberal minority governments in the 1960s. This is a very different institutional history from that of the left-populist parties and leaders of the 2010s. "Lewis comes from a family that has profoundly shaped the Canadian left for nearly a century." Other elements of Lewis’s campaign are more familiar. Lewis wants the NDP to be more connected to social movements, echoing strategies pursued by MAS, Podemos, and Syriza. He has amassed a sizable number of endorsements from activists who would not normally publicly endorse the NDP. This attempt to link the NDP to social movements is not new. The NDP’s predecessor, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), saw itself as a broad movement that combined farmers, labor, socialists, and progressive Christians. At the 2001 NDP convention, the New Politics Initiative similarly sought to refound the NDP as a more movement-oriented organization, but the proposal failed, losing 37 to 63 percent. The ambition to unite electoral politics with movements beyond labor is a long-standing aim of the Left, especially since the heyday of Eurocommunism. And it comes with its own challenges. Opening a highly electoralist party to social movements is likely to generate internal dissension. It is equally likely that Lewis will, at some point, have to make political compromises that will anger some social movements. Both the NDP’s own history and a broader pattern among social democratic parties suggest that when such parties are seen to betrays their base, the backlash can be intense — and damaging over the long term. # On Policy This leadership contest has revealed one major thing. The NDP has moved, probably irreversibly, toward the Palestinian side of the war in Gaza and the broader Israel-Palestine conflict. This has been a point of contention for many party activists, and even some electeds, for years. The party traditionally supported the standard two-state framework on Israel-Palestine. There have always been dissenting voices in the party — such as former MPs Libby Davies and Svend Robinson — both of whom endorsed Lewis — but at times they were sidelined for speaking out on Palestine. As public sympathy for the Palestinians slowly increased throughout the 2010s, the NDP was slow to adjust — even excluding prospective candidates who had made pro-Palestine statements in the past. In this leadership race, Lewis’s main competition, Heather McPherson, served as the NDP foreign affairs critic during the October 7 attacks and the Gaza genocide. She demanded that the Liberal Party stop supporting Israel and criticized the government’s inadequate response to the war’s devastation. It will be hard for the party to retreat from this position, even if a more party establishment–friendly MP takes over the foreign affairs critic portfolio. Lewis himself has long been an outspoken supporter of Palestinian rights. He has visited Gaza during the blockade and was a member of the Jewish Faculty Network, which published a report on genocide denial and anti-Palestinian racism at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. But while Lewis’s views on Palestine has drawn considerable support, his broader platform invites both praise and scrutiny. Brining the state back into the economy is a major part of the Lewis campaign. He has proposed a public option for groceries, clearly echoing Zohran Mamdani in New York City, along with similar public option proposals for banking, telecoms, housing construction, and pharmaceutical production. Another major plank is a Canadian Green New Deal, framed as both a way to create jobs for workers currently employed in fossil fuel industries and as a pathway to achieve decarbonization. His proposal to promote worker ownership and democratize the workplace is remarkable, marking a social democratic ambition that has not been seen in a Canadian political leadership campaign in a long time. More controversial is his vow to stop any new fossil fuel infrastructure — this is where many questions about Lewis’s policies begin. # What’s Missing There are gaps in Lewis’s policy platform that both his supporters and detractors will seize on. First is the question of nuclear power and the green transition. Nowhere in Lewis’s policies is nuclear mentioned. It was not mentioned in the Leap Manifesto either. With Ontario refurbishing its nuclear plants and contemplating building new ones, it is a live issue in Canadian politics. After years of opposition, the Ontario NDP endorsed nuclear power at its convention this past September, bringing it in line with the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Canadian Labour Congress. Lewis will have to take a position — and rejecting nuclear outright could harm his electoral prospects among unionized blue-collar workers. "The ambition to unite electoral politics with movements beyond labor is a long-standing aim of the Left, especially since the heyday of Eurocommunism." While Lewis has been a strident voice for Palestine and quickly condemned Carney’s contradictory statements on the American-Israeli attack on Iran, there are still foreign policy positions that remain undefined. Carney has been aggressive in selling Canada to the world by resetting relations with China and India and signing several trade deals. Lewis, who cut his political teeth in the anti-globalization movement of the 1990s, is going to be skeptical of deals that privilege investors over democracy. Some recent agreements — like the deal with the United Arab Emirates — raise question about rewarding destabilizing behavior abroad. Canada is attracting increased foreign investment: 2025 saw the highest inward foreign direct investment (FDI) into Canada since 2007. Ongoing instability generated by Donald Trump will likely make Canada an even more attractive destination for investment. Lewis has yet to articulate his vision for how Canada fits into the global economy. There is, however, an opening for him: a growing number of countries are moving to limit or replace the controversial investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism in trade deals. Lewis would do well to stake out a democratic alternative. Lewis will also have to tackle the AI question. His current platform calls for restricting its use in public service: no generative AI in government publications and a guarantee of humans serving those looking to access government services. There is also a call for a moratorium on new data centers. These policies would probably find supporters across the political spectrum and are perfectly reasonable within the context of public services. Canadians themselves are growing increasingly skeptical about AI’s benefits and about the impacts of data centers in their communities. However, Lewis’s AI policy is too reactive. While some proposed data centers in Alberta are located in water-stressed areas, most of Canada has abundant water resources, and colder temperatures can reduce cooling demands. Canada is too small a country to meaningfully slow the global expansion of AI — particularly given its proximity to its southern neighbor. A forward-looking approach would not leave Canada reliant on major American AI companies who are beholden to the Trump administration. Lewis will have to respond to the sector’s changes quickly and his current positions may prove insufficient. Given that labor and the Left have historically had difficulty in successfully challenging new technologies that disrupt workplaces and labor markets, a more proactive approach is needed. Canada would be better served pursuing the approach outlined by economists Daron Acemoğlu, David Autor, and Simon Johnson: developing and promoting AI that is labor-enhancing instead of labor-displacing. Finally, there is the question of funding. Taxing the ultrawealthy is a worthwhile goal — to both reduce inequality and curb concentrated power — but sustaining an extensive welfare state requires taxing the middle class too. Given that taxophobia is alive in well in Canada — Carney cut middle-class and capital gains taxes upon taking office — Lewis has so far missed out on shifting the conversation on taxation beyond targeting the rich. # The Challenges Ahead Out of the gate, Lewis will no doubt be portrayed by his opponents as antagonistic to blue-collar workers. Some of this will be unfair and some will carry a germ of truth. Lewis has emphasized that no worker should be left behind in the green transition. And with increasing automation in the oil and sector destroying jobs, he has an opening to argue that it is not environmentalists threatening livelihoods but fossil fuels companies themselves. Lewis does not reject critical mineral development but envisions a greater role for public ownership in the sector and wants to support affected First Nations communities in developing sovereign wealth funds from resource revenues. The key here will be for Lewis to define himself as friendly to all workers before opponents do the opposite. To do that, Lewis will need to quickly build bridges with private sector unions. While Lewis was not devoid of union endorsements, only a few public sector unions or locals endorsed him — the bulk of the union endorsements went to rival leadership candidate Rob Ashton. Ashton finished fourth in the race, showing that labor’s power in the NDP isn’t what it once was. However, Lewis was quick to reach out to labor leaders in his victory speech, signaling a desire to keep Ashton’s constituency on board. Then there is the relationship with the provincial NDP sections. This became a point of attack during the campaign, though he has since taken the time to meet with provincial leaders. Again, this is something Lewis will probably have to navigate in his first months as leader. "A cautious approach has yet to yield meaningful gains, and, in our volatile geopolitical moment, it is even less likely to do so." In British Columbia (BC), Premier David Eby is preparing to make changes to provincial legislation that enshrined the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in to BC law. Previously, the BC NDP government won global plaudits for its approach to reconciliation, but recent court rulings have stoked fears of conflicts with private property rights. Lewis and his supporters will oppose these changes, and as a resident of BC, he cannot avoid the issue. In Quebec, the entire party came under scrutiny during the leadership race for a French-language debate that featured very little French. Lewis, to his credit, has been steadily improving his French and understands that the party needs to rebuild the foothold it briefly held in Quebec fifteen years ago. At the same time, the ongoing legal battle over the controversial Bill 21 — which seeks to ban civil servants, including teachers, from wearing religious symbols at work — will pose a political test. Then there is the broader question of strategy. Carney’s Liberal government is at historic levels of popularity, polling at nearly 50 percent, with the prime minister’s approval rating around 68 percent nearly a year after being elected. While Lewis has criticized Carney’s promise to boost military spending to 5 percent of GDP, the policy is generally popular among Canadians. The government has also been clever in framing many of these investments as “dual-use,” including the long-awaited Mackenzie Valley Highway in the Northwest Territories. How Lewis can craft a popular narrative that rejects military spending despite the threats coming from the White House will be one of his biggest challenges. # Into the Fray The Liberal’s continued hold on power, despite Trudeau’s dismal polling at the end of his time as prime minister, has everything to do with Trump. When Trump threatens to annex Canada, the public coalesces around the Liberals: the Conservatives are seen as too MAGA-friendly and the NDP are viewed as having no chance to win. That Lewis must take on both Carney and Trump recalls a previous moment in NDP history. In 1988, the NDP looked like it had a chance to send the Liberals to third place — and the party even topped the polls at one point in 1987. The 1988 federal election is known as the “free-trade election,” with the governing Tories advancing free trade with the United States and the Liberals and NDP opposed. Then-leader Ed Broadbent made a major campaign error: he played down the free-trade issue. The NDP ultimately won a then-record of 43 seats, but it was nevertheless in third place, prompting a backlash from labor and Broadbent’s resignation. "Lewis must learn from the successes and failures of past insurgent left candidates." Canadians largely despise Trump, and while Lewis has not spared the American president from criticism, Carney has been his main target. In ordinary parliamentary politics, opposition parties aim their fire on the government. But under these unusual circumstances, it is entirely possible for Lewis to get bogged down opposing Carney and not going hard enough on Trump. The only way for the NDP to make headway is to convince Canadians it will fight Trump more forcefully than the Liberals. Lewis must learn from the successes and failures of past insurgent left candidates: message discipline in the mold of Bernie Sanders, refuse to back down like France’s left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and, unlike Jeremy Corbyn, be willing to take action against those in the party that would maliciously undermine his leadership. The dire straits the NDP finds itself in cannot be overstated. At the same time, even commentators in the legacy media — often dismissive of the party — recognize that Carney’s budget cuts, increased military spending, and tighter immigration policy has opened up space to the left of the Liberals. Under Trudeau, that space was often occupied by a left-liberal politics that was sometimes used to outflank the NDP rhetorically while falling far short of a social democratic agenda. That space is clearly up for grabs if Lewis and the NDP can overcome strategic hesitations and claim it. With groups like NDP Renewal and Reclaim Canada’s NDP actively organizing to revitalize the party and give the membership more power, Lewis’s victory now looks like it was always inevitable. Still, the obstacles to overcome are considerable. Another global crisis could easily send frightened Canadians flocking back to the Liberals. Lewis may struggle to connect with the kind of voters the NDP needs to win. Even so, there is a strong case for taking on risk. A cautious approach has yet to yield meaningful gains, and, in our volatile geopolitical moment, it is even less likely to do so. There is no good reason not to take a chance and move the NDP to the left. If the party fails, at least it will go out swinging. * * *

Avi Lewis Is the New Leader of Canada’s NDP

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The <cite>Peaky Blinders</cite> Film Ratchets Up the Gloom and Black Humor ### Cillian Murphy turns Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man into a fog‑soaked reckoning with violence, class, and the ghosts that built Tommy Shelby. * * * Cillian Murphy turns Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man into a fog‑soaked reckoning with violence, class, and the ghosts that built Tommy Shelby. (Netflix / BBC Film) The power of the Netflix movie _Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man_ , hangs off the haunted cheekbones of Cillian Murphy, so of course it’s doing very well. The hit film functions as a final send-off to Murphy’s antihero Tommy Shelby of the long-running BBC-to-Netflix series _Peaky Blinders_ , which became a global phenomenon. Tommy began the series as a World War I veteran returning home to the mean streets of Birmingham, England, imbued with violence and trauma and ready to channel it into heading up the Peaky Blinders, an Irish-Roma gang that eventually rules the streets as a formidable criminal enterprise that crosses over into powerful political status as well. By the time of _The Immortal Man_ , it’s 1940, and middle-aged, world-weary Tommy Shelby has done so many heinous things; he’s abandoned the Peaky Blinders and retreated to his decaying manor house with only his loyal aide-de-camp Johnny Dogs (Packy Lee) for company. There Tommy writes his morbid memoirs and sees the ghosts of his familial dead all over the house and grounds. The older Tommy gets, the more beautifully haggard he looks. It’s hard to think of more romantic shots than Cillian Murphy as Tommy encountering reproachful spirits in the foggy countryside. Those desponding lake-blue eyes and all. Meanwhile, Nazis are trying to conquer England, through bombing raids and other more insidious schemes via their turncoat representative in the UK, cynical Brit agent John Beckett (Tim Roth). He’s got a plan to flood the British monetary system with counterfeit currency, and he finds a willing accomplice in Tommy’s estranged son Duke Shelby (Barry Keoghan), who’s running the Peaky Blinders with nihilistic abandon. Everyone agrees that no one can bring loose cannon Duke into line but his father, the ultimate gangland tough, Tommy Shelby. Barry Keoghan costars as Duke Shelby in 2026’s Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man. (Netflix / BBC Film) But who can bring Tommy back from his ghost-ridden limbo? Tommy’s sister Ada Thorne (Sophie Rundle), now serving in his old political seat as MP for Birmingham South, gives it a go. So does Kaulo Chiriklo (Rebecca Ferguson) the Roma twin sister of Tommy’s late, lamented love Zelda Chiriklo (also Ferguson). It takes a lot of persuasive force from the living and the dead, especially the canny witchery of Kaulo, before Tommy finally puts on his fedora and goes to town looking for Duke. It’s quite an electric scene when he’s confronted in a bar by beefy Brit soldiers who don’t recognize the man they’re messing with. “Who the f-ck is Tommy Shelby?” is a recurring line in the film that must be answered here. Can thin, quiet Cillian Murphy pull it off, this scene in which he stands alone, hat pulled over his eyes, surrounded by big would-be toughs yet generating a growing shock wave of fearful tension all around him, before he takes care of business in his usual lethal fashion? He does it almost effortlessly. That’s why they pay Murphy the big bucks and give him so many awards. Barry Keoghan is excellent casting as Tommy’s wild-card son, who can pull off the same stunt of being small in stature while radiating a scary force field of unpredictable menace. And nobody looks more authentic as an old-time working-class tough in a flatcap than Keoghan. The casting and performances in _Peaky Blinders_ are uniformly excellent, and the presence of powerful women such as Ferguson’s Roma sisters finding ways to exert their authority is rare and welcome. Rebecca Ferguson costars as Kaulo Chiriklo in 2026’s Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man. (Netflix / BBC Film) It’s a shame that Paul Anderson as Arthur Shelby Jr, Tommy’s volatile brother, was killed off as a way of writing him out of the film because Anderson was busted on drug charges in 2024. Anderson seemed to take it philosophically, saying “Well, what can you do, eh? It is how it is. I thought I’d just leave them to it.” But Arthur, a rumored suicide, has an important role to play in flashbacks that explain Tommy Shelby’s almost paralyzing despair. Really, this primness about drug use is just damn silly in this day and age. The brooding atmosphere of _The Immortal Man_ continues but also intensifies the miasma of gloom shot through with black humor that enfolded the series, which is right considering the way it functions as an existential referendum on Tommy Shelby as he comes to the end of his rocky road in life. The questions posed are: Can the exhausted Tommy take control again in time to save his son, his gang, and even, ironically, the Nazi-bedeviled nation? (Of course he can.) And further: Can he ever find peace in this world? (Of course he can’t.) And though the film provides many charged moments and inventive scenes of violent action, really the essential drama is playing out in Cillian Murphy’s arresting face. It’s hard to say farewell to that face in that role. But it turns out that the movie doesn’t represent the end of _Peaky Blinders_ , just “a fitting end to the first chapter,” according to show creator Steven Knight. The two-season Netflix spin-off is already in production, focusing on the roiling power struggles in bombed-out 1950s Birmingham as the Shelby crime family fights “to own Birmingham’s massive reconstruction project” after World War II. It appears that Barry Keoghan will be back as on Duke Shelby. And who knows what ghostly appearances Tommy Shelby might make to the troubled son trying to fill Tommy’s big, blood-soaked shoes? * * *

The Peaky Blinders Film Ratchets Up the Gloom and Black Humor

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Why the Left Wins in Cities ### The Left’s urban success is often credited to progressive, homogenous populations, but that’s superficial. When budgets allow, cities make redistribution and public investment far easier to deliver and their benefits further-reaching. * * * From Paris to Munich and New York, left-wing mayors have won power. But their impact is limited by restricted control over budgets and by central governments that block policies benefiting the working class. (BG048 / Bauer-Griffin / GC Images) The last decade has seen a number of progressive municipal leaders gain victory in major cities across the West. Over the weekend, two new mayors swelled their ranks: the Socialist Party’s Emmanuel Grégoire won a clear victory in Paris, while Green Party member Dominik Krause defeated the social democratic incumbent in Munich. These victories follow New York City’s democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani taking office in January. These new mayors have seemingly bucked the trend of declining left-wing vote shares and the rise of the populist right at the national level. One reason for this trend is a backlog of political ambition: national democratic politics have become increasingly dysfunctional, with established parties often unable or unwilling to formulate programs of social transformation with wide appeal. And cities have become more socially homogenous in a way that favors such progressive reforms: the new urban electorate is increasingly well-educated and socially liberal. But the reasons are not just cultural: cities benefit from what political scientist Theo Serlin calls a “public agglomeration effect”: urban economies of scale make government provision more efficient, which shifts city residents toward preferring more of it. And both middle-class voters and the urban proletariat are particularly exposed to the social dislocations that are more pronounced in urban centers and that require active public policy interventions: higher housing and rental prices, labor market competition, and cost-of-living pressures. These developments have favored progressive rhetoric and policy ambition. But there is a clear downside. The gap between campaign promises and municipal capacity is a great source of political disaffection. The problem is systemic: the more social issues worsen and national or state politics fail to deliver, the more those running for urban office have to promise. Anne Hidalgo, who governed Paris between 2014 and 2026, was in many ways the archetype of left mayoral ambition. Her signature interventions included pedestrianizing the expressways along the banks of the river Seine, the Plan Vélo cycling revolution, removing thousands of parking spaces, and effectively banning SUVs. These measures were radical, and they were in fact delivered. And their popularity is viewed as the main reason why her colleague Grégoire won on Sunday. But what is true for Paris may not be true for other cities. The French capital happens to be both municipality (_commune_) and subregional government (_département_), meaning the mayor exercises the powers of both a city mayor and a departmental council president. Other prominent radical mayors, such as Barcelona’s Ada Colau and Madrid’s Manuela Carmena, did not have this advantage. Their jurisdictions were simply more limited. Neither have remained in office, and their legacies are mixed. One of the main reasons Colau’s yearslong effort to remunicipalize Barcelona’s water supply failed is that the relevant competencies sit not with the city but with the metropolitan water authority. Moreover, many urban decisions required negotiation with the autonomous regional government (the Generalitat de Catalunya _)_ , and Spain’s constitutional framework also subjects municipalities to strict budget stability rules (the Montoro laws) that cap expenditure growth and employment, constraints far tighter than those on French communes. Both the regional and national political incumbents were either indifferent or openly hostile to Colau. As a result, she was not able to deliver on much of her campaign program. When she lost the popular vote in the 2019 election (staying on with coalition support), she did so primarily due to abstentions in the working-class “red belt” districts that had been her core base in 2015. Not that her achievements weren’t real. Colau quadrupled the social housing budget, built over two thousand new public units, and bought up private residential blocks and converted them to social housing, pushing Barcelona’s social housing stock to over twelve thousand units by late 2023. But this reflects the extent of her competencies, which on housing were real. While the rise of left mayors across the world has similar causes, the conditions in which municipal leaders find themselves are too different to speak of a new formula of political action. But the new crop can learn lessons from their predecessors. And not just on internalizing jurisdictional limitations. While New York’s Mamdani, for instance, does not have the necessary competencies to raise local taxes or change local public transportation regulations (these decisions are made at the state level in Albany), he can use his considerable platform and strong ground organization to exert political pressure. Though it has fallen out of fashion, it used to be common for politicians to use their offices as pulpits to overcome institutional hostility or unfavorable parliamentary arithmetic. Colau’s attempts to restrict platforms such as Uber and Cabify were emboldened by the major strike of local taxi drivers in 2018. And while a European Union court ruling in 2023 eventually undermined her proposal, the political logic Colau championed has outlived her tenure: in September 2025, a broad coalition of Catalan parties tabled a new taxi law in the Catalan Parliament that, if enacted, would go even further than anything Colau ever envisaged. Ambitious progressive mayors can make a lasting impact, but the risk of failure is high. In a poignant scene in the drama series _The Wire_ , Baltimore’s improbable mayor-elect Tommy Carcetti is given a tour of the city’s homicide department. There he is chided for emptying the coffee jug without making a new one. But the jug was already mostly empty. This is emblematic of Carcetti’s tenure as mayor: he never succeeded with his ambitious plans for Baltimore because he inherited a mess and was constantly stymied by a hostile state government. The rest of the series charts his growing disillusionment and unpopularity. Municipal leaders have incentives to use a rhetoric of social transformation that has little to do with the everyday tedium, institutional wrangling, and hard distributional trade-offs involved in public policymaking. And by overpromising on matters that are structurally hard to deliver on or simply beyond their jurisdiction, they risk contributing not just to political disaffection but a decline of trust in the state. * * *

Why the Left Wins in Cities

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Chicago City Council Just Stabbed Tipped Workers in the Back After a blitz by restaurant industry lobbyists, Chicago’s city council voted last week to maintain the subminimum wage for service workers, keeping them stuck in precarity and poverty wages.

Chicago City Council Just Stabbed Tipped Workers in the Back

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Increase the Inheritance Tax For some young workers, the aging of the American population means growing care burdens, while others anticipate a life-changing windfall. Higher taxes on the ever-growing number of inheritances could meaningfully reduce inequality.

Increase the Inheritance Tax

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How Thoreau Challenged America to Live Up To Its Own Ideals A new PBS documentary, Henry David Thoreau, reveals the Thoreau often softened in high school textbooks — the abolitionist, antiwar dissident, and ecological thinker whose ideas still challenge a country failing its own revolutionary ideals.

How Thoreau Challenged America to Live Up To Its Own Ideals

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ICE vs. High Schoolers We spoke with high school students in Minneapolis about how they were affected by ICE’s occupation of the city.

ICE vs. High Schoolers

https://jacobin.com/2026/03/ice-vs-high-schoolers/

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Uber Backs Bills to Make It Harder to Sue Them for Crashes Uber is spending tens of millions on a California ballot measure that could make it harder for riders, pedestrians, and drivers to sue for damages after car crashes. It is part of a broader liability reform campaign the company is funding across the US.

Uber Backs Bills to Make It Harder to Sue Them for Crashes

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The Sordid History of State Collusion With the Far Right During the conflict in the North of Ireland, British security forces colluded with loyalist paramilitaries responsible for hundreds of sectarian murders. The record of collusion should be a cautionary tale for the contemporary US as the far right grows.

The Sordid History of State Collusion With the Far Right

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Mental Health Workers Fight for AI Protections in California ### In Northern California, 2,400 mental health providers went on strike earlier this month against medical giant Kaiser Permanente. A major point of contention is Kaiser’s efforts to replace human-provided mental health care with artificial intelligence. * * * In Northern California, 2,400 mental health care workers at Kaiser Permanente have been without a contract since last September. Kaiser’s desire to open the door to replacing therapist jobs with AI has been a big sticking point in negotiations. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) “Kaiser executives say they’re not using AI to make patient care determinations, but they won’t say what technology is underpinning the online questionnaires that automatically determine whether patients require urgent appointments and assess whether they may be a threat to themselves,” said Carolyn Staehle, a behavioral therapist in San Francisco. “Whatever Kaiser wants to call it, it’s not a human being making these potentially life-and-death decisions, and it’s not the same level of care as being assessed by a licensed therapist.” Kaiser Permanente, the nation’s largest health maintenance organization (HMO), is forcing its therapists onto the streets in the ongoing battle to win parity for mental health care workers, in relation to traditional medical providers, in its services to twelve million members — also now confronting the challenge of artificial intelligence. The 2,400 striking mental health care workers are members of the National Union of Health Care Workers (NUHW). They walked out on Wednesday, March 18, in a “practice” strike that is most likely a taste of what’s to come. In 2022, these workers struck for ten weeks, the longest mental health care workers’ strike on record. Two issues dominated negotiations from the start: workloads for Kaiser therapists and wait times for Kaiser patients. The strikers won on both, forcing concessions until then all but unheard of. They won breakthrough provisions to retain staff and reduce wait times for patients, with plans to collaborate on transforming Kaiser’s model for providing mental health care. It’s inevitable that the current contract fight will be just as tough. But the NUHW members are battle-tested; each contract fight with Kaiser so far has included a strike. And this time, the NUHW members were joined in a sympathy strike by thousands of registered nurses who shared their concerns about Kaiser’s increasing use of artificial intelligence to the detriment of patient care. The significance of this cross-union solidarity can hardly be overestimated. Since 2009, NUHW has fought alone in a workforce deeply divided. In January of that year, a long-standing dispute between SEIU’s national leader, Andy Stern, and the 150,000-strong United Healthcare Workers, based in the Bay Area, came to a head: after many hours of hearings, the SEIU-appointed former secretary of labor, Ray Marshall, ruled for the national union. The local was trusteed, no vote taken, its officers fired, offices occupied, and assets seized; it was widely seen as a travesty. Its core was left to start again as NUHW. But not so much this time (though thousands of service workers still crossed picket lines). The registered nurses are represented by National Nurses United. Stationary Engineers, represented by IUOE Local 39, also held a sympathy strike with mental health workers and walked picket lines outside Kaiser medical centers in Oakland, Sacramento, Fresno, Santa Clara, and Santa Rosa. “We’re proud to strike alongside registered nurses and engineers in the fight for human-centered care at Kaiser,” said Joshua Gibbons, a therapist for Kaiser in Sacramento. “Mental health care is about human connection, and Kaiser is recklessly forging ahead with untested artificial intelligence that it sees potentially replacing us and the care we provide our patients.” Kaiser is determined to rescind past concessions; never mind that, in 2023, it was fined $200 million by the California Department of Managed Health Care for lacking sufficient behavioral health providers. And last month, Kaiser entered into a $31 million settlement with the US Department of Labor over violations of mental health parity laws. Alas, in our new world, where “billions” have replaced “millions,” Kaiser has $67 billion in reserves. Kaiser’s CEO Greg Adams is reported to receive more than $20 million in compensation annually. Kaiser was forced to reimburse patients who had to pay out of pocket for mental health treatment they couldn’t get from Kaiser — but, millions, no problem. “Kaiser has been punished and fined so many times for mental health violations; we can’t let it get away with more,” says Kaiser therapist Emma Olsen. “Our patients need human therapists, who can work seamlessly with their doctors and have enough time to do our jobs right — and it’s clear Kaiser doesn’t want to pay for that level of care.” Yet Kaiser wants to add AI to its array of extreme proposals — it is demanding “flexibility,” meaning all but a free hand in the introduction of AI. The workers have been without a contract since September. The sides remain far apart, with Kaiser sticking to proposals that would reverse patient care safeguards previously won by therapists and open the door to replacing therapist jobs with artificial intelligence and further outsourcing care. When it comes to AI, Kaiser is setting the stage to not just replace work done by therapists but to replace therapists themselves. The behemoth was once known as union-friendly; Kaiser Permanente was initially established, in collaboration with the unions, to provide medical services at Kaiser’s shipyards, steel mills, and other facilities, due in part to Henry Kaiser’s desire to treat all patients regardless of ability to pay, in the context of President Harry Truman’s failed national health care plan. Workers supported it and were central to its origins and growth. But ultimately, “it’s a corporation,” says Sal Rosselli, president emeritus of the union. “It’s the bottom line. Profit and competition.” Kaiser is a competitor, an empire builder, but this costs money. It spends its surplus on expansion. Kaiser, which began in California and stayed there for decades, now has hospitals and clinics in Hawaii, Washington state, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. It’s comparable to General Motors in the 1950s or even Amazon today. Health care is remaking the US economy. It’s the sector that employs the most workers, surpassing manufacturing and services; the industry is the biggest employer in thirty-eight states. Manufacturing cities like Cleveland and Pittsburgh have transitioned to health care as the driver of their economies. And hospitals are often the largest employers in small towns and rural settings. The industry will continue to grow (unlike manufacturing, it can’t be offshored), despite cuts in federal health care spending. Twenty-four hundred workers is not so many, then. But they’re 2,400 in a union that fights, and the health care workforce needs fighters. Their example is incalculable. * * * Thanks to Matthew Artz.

Mental Health Workers Fight for AI Protections in California

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Student Socialists Are Taking On Madison’s Real Estate Machine As part of a new wave of young socialist candidates, Madison’s Bobby Gronert is running for city council, bringing lessons learned from student organizing to city hall to challenge developers and shape what socialism looks like for a new generation.

Student Socialists Are Taking On Madison’s Real Estate Machine

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The Afroman Ruling Is a Victory for Artistic Speech Seven sheriff’s deputies sued musician Afroman for defamation after he mocked their failed raid in viral diss tracks. His victory comes at a moment when the lines of what constitutes artistic free speech are continually being redrawn.

The Afroman Ruling Is a Victory for Artistic Speech

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We Can’t Income-Tax Ultra-Elites. We Must Tax Their Wealth. To tax the richest Americans, we need to go after their wealth, not just their income. Two proposals — one in California, one in Congress — could finally do it. The alternative is an ever-more-powerful billionaire class that threatens democracy itself.

We Can’t Income-Tax Ultra-Elites. We Must Tax Their Wealth.

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Ground Troops in Iran: An Idiotic Idea for an Idiotic War ### Donald Trump is weighing whether to make the Iran War even more of a disaster by sending in ground troops. It’s a terrible idea that almost everyone agrees won’t achieve anything but kill US troops and draw the United States deeper into war. * * * Sending ground troops to Iran is the first step toward exactly the kind of quagmire every US president since George W. Bush has tried to avoid. (Kevin Carter / Getty Images) Because of a combination of gossip, outright misinformation, and genuine incompetence, it is next to impossible to know at any given time what exactly is happening with Donald Trump’s war on Iran. A slew of indicators now suggests the president is preparing to escalate US involvement any day now and send in ground troops. Then again, maybe he’s not. No matter what ends up happening, the following will still be true: deploying US ground troops to fight the war in Iran is a politically and militarily disastrous decision that will do the opposite of what Trump hopes it will do. This is such a bad idea that it has united both card-carrying members of Trump’s hated “deep state,” such as former Defense Intelligence Agency official and former NATO supreme allied commander James Stavridis, and some of Trump’s closest political allies, such as Nancy Mace and Matt Gaetz in opposition. His own just-resigned National Counterterrorism Center director, Joe Kent, a veteran and as MAGA as they come, says it would be a “disaster.” Stavridis’s explanation of the problem with ground troops being deployed to Kharg Island, where 90 percent of Iran’s oil is processed, is worth paying attention to in particular. Stavridis was not just once upon a time the highest ranking military official in NATO, in charge of both the alliance’s military operations and its war planning. He is also a hawk who just a few years ago advocated for NATO to go to war directly against Russia. In other words, this is not someone whose impulse is to avoid reckless US military force nor inclined to excessively weigh up the risks involved. And yet even he thinks that on balance, this would be a horrible idea: > The first challenge, before even contemplating boots ashore on Kharg, would be getting the [31st Marine Expeditionary Unit]’s ships through the Strait of Hormuz. . . . My guess is the [USS] _Tripoli_ and her naval escorts . . . would have to fight their way through the strait. . . . There are roughly 20,000 Iranians on the island (almost all civilian oilworkers) who would need to be contained in their homes or evacuated; the Iranians may have planted sophisticated booby traps; Iran could successfully strike one of the big amphibious ships (as the Argentines did to the British in the Falklands War in 1982). US casualties would almost certainly rise quickly from the thirteen who have so far been killed during Operation Epic Fury. Stavridis doesn’t mention that any US troops deployed to the island would be on a relatively small piece of land that’s packed with tens of millions of barrels of oil, a substance that famously bursts into flame with ease. It gets even more questionable when the mission turns to extracting Iran’s enriched uranium, all 440 kilograms (roughly 970 pounds) of it. Not only is this a massive quantity of material that is enormously difficult to access in the first place, given that it is stored in tunnels deep underground. But moving nuclear material around is an enormously logistically complicated process even at the best of times — in other words, when there’s peace and the government responsible for the material is trying to help you get rid of it — let alone in the middle of a warzone. It would almost certainly require an immense amount of time, as well as a large invasion force and a semi-permanent occupation, simply to allow the delicate process of safely extracting and transporting the uranium to take place. Even then, the US presence at these sites would still serve as one big, stationary target for any Iranian insurgency. Now think about every other aim this administration had when it first started the war and how miserably it has failed to achieve them: collapsing the Iranian state, doing Venezuela-like regime change, or encouraging a grassroots Iranian uprising. Even what progress they’ve made on destroying Iran’s missile-launching capability has stalled. Yet we’re supposed to believe things will be different with these fantastical operations. The politics of dead US service members are pretty straightforward. There is a reason why every president since George W. Bush has bent over backward to try and avoid putting American boots on the ground and instead try to wage war exclusively from the air, with the use of drones, or by using proxies: because as former commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan Stanley McChrystal recently put it, once you deploy ground troops, “you’re the same height as your potential opponent.” That means American soldiers are more likely to die, and their families and local communities are more likely to start demanding answers about what exactly their lives were just spent to achieve. The weak efforts by some hawks to treat a deployment to Kharg Island as some kind of clever loophole — that, as Rep. Pete Sessions mused on CNN, if it’s not “inside Iran in the cities,” then it doesn’t _really_ count as boots on the ground — will not magically stop this political blowback from happening. If dozens of young Americans start coming home in flag-draped coffins, it won’t matter to their loved ones that they were killed in an inferno on Kharg Island instead of the streets of Tehran. In fact, all indicators suggest Iranian leadership _wants_ Trump to send in ground troops. The Iranians’ whole aim in this war is to inflict as high a human and political cost on Trump and the United States as they can, to make US officials reluctant to launch any future unprovoked attacks on the country. They would be salivating at the prospect of having thousands of vulnerable US troops to fly drones into, wage guerrilla warfare against, or blow up with cheap, makeshift explosives like their forces did for years in Iraq during the lengthy US quagmire there. All the better if this initial deployment becomes the entrée for a full-on invasion, which would give Iran many more human targets to hit and much more time to do it in. Make no mistake: sending in ground troops is the first step toward exactly the kind of quagmire every US president since Bush has tried to avoid, and which Trump once made his political name denouncing. What’s more likely to happen if some large number of US service members end up slaughtered on Iranian soil: that a chorus of antiwar voices makes the rounds on cable news and the Sunday shows calling for this to wrap up, and Trump and his officials publicly announce they’re leaving? Or that the most unhinged chicken hawks in Washington are given monopoly of the airwaves to demand bloody revenge and Trump doubles down to make up for the perceived humiliation? If the president is finding it hard to find a face-saving way out of this mess now, he will find it magnitudes harder if and when Iranian forces kill an even bigger number of American troops. The absurd thing is, none of this has to happen. Trump could avoid these scenarios, even end the war entirely and prevent the coming economic crisis from getting worse, if he would just drop his maximalist demands and sue for peace. But in his mind, that would look weak. So refusing to face reality and trying desperately to find some nonexistent alternative exit path, he is inevitably tempted to keep escalating and getting deeper into the war, which will only make it harder and harder to get out. Instead of asking for a ladder to climb out of the hole, he keeps stubbornly digging and digging. And as he does, he drags the rest of us down deeper into the darkness with him. * * *

Ground Troops in Iran: An Idiotic Idea for an Idiotic War

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<cite>Bummerland</cite> Sends Up Austin’s MAGA Tech-Bro Culture ### A new essay collection by Randolph Lewis chronicles how Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, an Apple campus, and scorched-earth MAGA capitalism killed Austin's famous weirdness — and finds unexpected glimmers of hope even in big-box America. * * * Austin used to be famously, charmingly weird. Now it's home to Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, an Apple campus, and archetypal right-leaning tech bros paying millions for ramshackle hippie cottages. (Suzanne Cordeiro / AFP via Getty Images) Review of _Bummerland: Ruin and Restoration in Trump’s New America_ by Randolph Lewis (University of Nebraska Press, 2026) MAGA may not deliver material benefits for the vast majority of its adherents, but it does provide them with a coherent worldview, demonizing dark-skinned groups (lately Somalis), snooty liberals, and anyone Donald Trump doesn’t like. Sections of the electorate can at least enjoy a flush of superiority while MAGA’s main beneficiaries — the ultrarich, particularly the tech oligarchs who gathered at the White House on Inauguration Day 2025 — wreak havoc on regions and communities that backed Trump. That’s hardly a formula for long-term sustainability, but it does befit the era of scorched-earth capitalism. Randolph Lewis’s _Bummerland: Ruin and Restoration in Trump ’s New America_ is a collection of dispatches from Austin, Texas, and beyond exploring the culture of the transformative moment. A fluid stylist with a keen eye for detail, Lewis states at the outset that his collection of thirty-five short essays aims to illustrate why the contemporary United States “often feels more like a woodchipper for the soul than a safe place to call home.” Although he is more interested in diagnosis than prescription, Lewis advocates what he calls a “soft revolution,” one that emphasizes “networks of neighborliness and compassion.” Randolph, whose previous books have profiled radical documentary filmmakers, is a professor of American studies at the University of Texas at Austin. The climate is increasingly hostile to his kind. In mid-February, the university system’s board of regents decreed that faculty should steer clear of “unnecessary controversial subjects” in their classrooms, which many interpret as an attempt to chill left-leaning instruction. In _Bummerland_ , Lewis ruminates on how Austin’s once-famed “weird” iconoclasm became a thing of the past. These days, he notes, the city is “home to super bros like Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and thousands of California transplants who have turned ramshackle hippie cottages into multimillion-dollar acquisitions.” In 2019, Trump visited the North Austin site of Apple’s second campus, which opened in 2022. "Musk has shown how an ‘ordinary human male’ can experience a ‘metamorphosis from unloved wanker to glorious tech god soaring above the multitudes.’" Apple’s billion-dollar project produces an ivory tower of a different sort. As Lewis describes it, building “surfaces are as white and perfect as a new set of dentures, and everything feels precisely engineered in a way that is overpowering.” Lewis contrasts the presence of the now-multitrillion-dollar company with the homeless encampments that have sprouted up nearby. “There’s something broken in this place’s soul!” lamented _Texas Monthly_ about its hometown not long after Apple opened its doors. In a separate entry, Lewis visits the imposing Tesla Gigafactory near Austin, which is the second largest building in the world (trailing only a Boeing factory in Everett, Washington). Musk’s enthusiasts, Lewis surmises, live vicariously through his exploits. Above all, Musk has shown how an “ordinary human male” can experience a “metamorphosis from unloved wanker to glorious tech god soaring above the multitudes.” Musk, who is the world’s richest man and on track to be its first billionaire, splits time between Austin and the Texas coast. The archetypal podcaster Joe Rogan, who has lived in Austin since 2020, is always ready to absorb and disseminate his buddy’s babbling self-aggrandizement. Lewis later journeys to Las Vegas, where he checks out Musk’s ongoing Loop project, which shuttles people around in tunnels via Teslas. “In a chauffeured electric car,” Lewis reports, passengers “ride around for a few minutes, then emerge a few blocks away, not much faster than a person can walk.” The project has not delivered anything close to metro-level throughput. In other words, Musk took over $80 million of public money to try and fail to replicate the efficiency of an ordinary urban subway. Many cities are falling under the spell of what Lewis usefully labels Muskism, “a charismatic new strain of techno-capitalism” ramming through overhyped megaprojects that advance oligarchs’ private agendas. In addition to his insightful sketches of our dystopian present, Lewis finds seeds of a more hopeful future planted in unexpected places. On a hot Sunday in Austin during the pandemic, Lewis seeks the cool air inside a Target, wryly noting that like most Texans, his motto is “no AC, no me.” In the “bright, clean” aisles, he finds “existentialist drama,” where customers graze and gather “stuff you don’t really love but are willing to accept as good enough.” It’s far from utopia, but like his fellow shoppers, he writes, “I am grateful that Target is tidy, air-conditioned and safe.” "Many cities are falling under the spell of what Lewis usefully labels Muskism, ‘a charismatic new strain of techno-capitalism’ ramming through overhyped megaprojects that advance oligarchs’ private agendas." Target’s main competitor also provides a dose of unexpected comfort. During the pandemic, Lewis and his wife traveled to a Walmart Superstore in Buda, one hour from Austin, to get vaccination shots. Instead of the long line he expected, friendly staff escorted Lewis to his appointment, and “an elegant man with an Indian name” boosted both the writer’s immune system and his spirits. Even in soulless surroundings like big-box stores, Lewis suggests, there are building blocks of community and what he refers to as our shared “emotional infrastructure.” His Target and Walmart entries make it clear that Lewis is determined not to write off big-box America as devoid of humanity or beyond hope. About two years after the 2022 mass shooting in Uvalde, Lewis visited the indelibly scarred small town eighty miles west of San Antonio. In November 2023, Uvalde’s town square unveiled twenty-one murals honoring the lives of the nineteen students and two teachers killed. The tributes provide a “powerful expression of collective mourning,” Lewis says, adding that their “homemade qualities make them even more poignant.” The author juxtaposes the murals’ “brilliant expressions of love” with Uvalde’s other tourist attractions, including a machine-gun amusement park that allows patrons to fire weapons such as a Vietnam War–era flamethrower with a range of 260 feet. It would be easy to fault Lewis for not ending his collection with a programmatic list of policy remedies to address the many ills he describes. The problems that he presents, however, are colossal in scope. Incisive and witty, _Bummerland_ instead urges readers to reflect on both the weirdness and promise of everyday experience and to make authentic contact with fellow witnesses to stay sane amid the current madness. * * *

Bummerland Sends Up Austin’s MAGA Tech-Bro Culture

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Abby Martin: The US military is ‘Earth’s greatest enemy’

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**Get fearless, uncompromising truth in your inbox. Subscribe to The Real News.** Sign up _This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on_ _Mar. 27, 2026_ _._ _It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license._ It’s been less than a month, and President Donald Trump’s war of choice in Iran has unleashed a cascade of consequences for countless human lives and the global economy that are far from resolved—but he is reportedly getting tired of the illegal war he started. MS NOW reported on Friday that White House sources believe that Trump is “getting a little bored” with the Iran war and “wants to move on” to other initiatives. MS NOW’s report on Trump’s feelings about the war was echoed by The Wall Street Journal, which on Thursday reported that the president has told associates that he wants to wrap up the war in the coming weeks and avoid a protracted conflict. The problem, sources told both MS NOW and the Journal, is that there is no simple way to wrap up the conflict given that Iran is continuing to block passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which is sending global energy costs spiking. And while Trump has shown the ability to simply lie about his achievements in the past and have his supporters believe them, one former Trump official told MS NOW that just won’t work if Americans keep paying $4 per gallon of gas. “He has learned he can tell the American people his feeling, and, with enough time, the American people will accept his lie,” the official said. “Just telling us the war is won isn’t good enough. We need to see it; we need to feel it.” In a social media post, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) called the president “beyond despicable” for feeling “bored” after starting a war that has killed thousands of people, created chaos across the Middle East, and raised prices for US consumers. “Donald Trump is now ‘a little bored’ with his ‘little excursion’ in Iran, as if war is nothing more than passing amusement to him,” said Beyer. “War is not a game. It’s not a spectacle. It’s not something you pick up and drop when it stops entertaining you.” Beyer then highlighted the human costs of Trump’s war, which he launched at 4 a.m. on a Saturday morning without any authorization from Congress. “Real people have paid the price of this war,” he wrote. “We’ve already lost 13 Americans killed in action, with many more seriously wounded. Civilians have been killed throughout the Middle East, including the US missile strike that killed more than 150 schoolchildren.” Trump and allies such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have signaled that after the US is finished with Iran, they will next attempt to topple the government of Cuba, where the White House has caused a catastrophic fuel shortage in recent weeks with its ramp-up of the blockade that’s been in place for decades. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this month that “the embargo is tied to political change on the island.” The press office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is seen as a likely Democratic contender for the presidency in 2028, also blasted the president’s reported boredom with his own war. “American soldiers are dying,” wrote Newsom’s office. “Americans are paying more at the pump. Republicans are cutting essential services to fund a war no one but Trump and MAGA wanted. And now Trump is bored. Disgusting. Truly unpresidential behavior from our supposed commander-in-chief.” ### _Related_ Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. Close window ## Republish this article This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. We encourage republication of our original content. Please copy the HTML code in the textbox below, preserving the attribution and link to the article's original location, and only make minor cosmetic edits to the content on your site. # ‘Beyond despicable,’ says Democrat after White House official says Trump ‘bored’ with Iran war by Brad Reed, The Real News Network March 27, 2026 <h1>‘Beyond despicable,’ says Democrat after White House official says Trump ‘bored’ with Iran war</h1> <p class="byline">by Brad Reed, The Real News Network <br />March 27, 2026</p> <div class="wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:33% auto"> <figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img src="https://therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/cd_stacked_white_600.png" alt="Common Dreams Logo" class="wp-image-268291 size-full" /></figure> <div class="wp-block-media-text__content"> <p><em>This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on </em><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-iran-war-bored" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Mar. 27, 2026</em></a><em>.</em> <em>It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.</em></p> </p></div> </div> <p class="has-drop-cap">It’s been less than a month, and President Donald Trump’s war of choice in Iran has unleashed a cascade of consequences for countless human lives and the <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/iran-war-global-economy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">global</a> <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/iran-war-global-hunger" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">economy</a> that are far from resolved—but he is reportedly getting tired of the illegal war he started.</p> <p>MS NOW <a href="https://www.ms.now/news/trump-iran-war-messaging-white-house-divide" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a> on Friday that <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/white-house" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">White House</a> sources believe that Trump is “getting a little bored” with the Iran war and “wants to move on” to other initiatives.</p> <p>MS NOW’s report on Trump’s feelings about the war was echoed by The <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/wall-street" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Wall Street</a> Journal, which on Thursday <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/trump-tells-aides-he-wants-speedy-end-to-iran-war-eb9f2b4b" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a> that the president has told associates that he wants to wrap up the war in the coming weeks and avoid a protracted conflict.</p> <p>The problem, sources told both MS NOW and the Journal, is that there is no simple way to wrap up the conflict given that Iran is continuing to block passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which is sending global energy costs spiking.</p> <p>And while Trump has shown the ability to simply lie about his achievements in the past and have his supporters believe them, one former Trump official told MS NOW that just won’t work if Americans keep paying $4 per gallon of gas.</p> <p>“He has learned he can tell the American people his feeling, and, with enough time, the American people will accept his lie,” the official said. “Just telling us the war is won isn’t good enough. We need to see it; we need to feel it.”</p> <p>In a <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/social-media" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">social media</a> <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/beyer.house.gov/post/3mi2g5hibxk23" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">post</a>, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) called the president “beyond despicable” for feeling “bored” after starting a war that has killed thousands of people, created chaos across the Middle East, and raised prices for US consumers.</p> <p>“<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Donald Trump</a> is now ‘a little bored’ with his ‘little excursion’ in Iran, as if war is nothing more than passing amusement to him,” said Beyer. “War is not a game. It’s not a spectacle. It’s not something you pick up and drop when it stops entertaining you.”</p> <p>Beyer then highlighted the human costs of Trump’s war, which he launched at 4 a.m. on a Saturday morning without any authorization from Congress.</p> <p>“Real people have paid the price of this war,” he <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/beyer.house.gov/post/3mi2g5i6yjk23" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">wrote</a>. “We’ve already lost 13 Americans killed in action, with many more seriously wounded. Civilians have been killed throughout the Middle East, including the US missile strike that killed more than 150 schoolchildren.”</p> <p>Trump and allies such as Sen. <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/lindsey-graham" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Lindsey Graham</a> (R-SC) have <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/cuba-and-us-war" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">signaled</a> that after the US is finished with Iran, they will next attempt to topple the government of <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/cuba" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cuba</a>, where the White House has caused a catastrophic fuel shortage in recent weeks with its ramp-up of the blockade that’s been in place for decades. Secretary of State <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/marco-rubio" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Marco Rubio</a> said this month that “the embargo is tied to political change on the island.”</p> <p>The press office of California Gov. <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/gavin-newsom" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Gavin Newsom</a>, who is seen as a likely Democratic contender for the presidency in 2028, also blasted the president’s reported boredom with his own war.</p> <p>“American soldiers are dying,” <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/govpressoffice.gov.ca.gov/post/3mi2nesfb5s2r" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">wrote</a> Newsom’s office. “Americans are paying more at the pump. <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/republicans" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Republicans</a> are cutting essential services to fund a war no one but Trump and MAGA wanted. And now Trump is bored. Disgusting. Truly unpresidential behavior from our supposed commander-in-chief.”</p> <p>This <a target="_blank" href="https://therealnews.com/trump-bored-with-iran-war">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://therealnews.com">The Real News Network</a> and is republished here under a <a target="_blank" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src="https://i0.wp.com/therealnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/cropped-TRNN-2021-logomark-square.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;"></p> <img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="https://therealnews.com/?republication-pixel=true&post=342308&amp;ga4=G-7LYS8R7V51" style="width:1px;height:1px;"><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: "https://therealnews.com/trump-bored-with-iran-war", urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id="parsely-cfg" src="//cdn.parsely.com/keys/therealnews.com/p.js"></script> Copy to Clipboard 1

‘Beyond despicable,’ says Democrat after White House official says Trump ‘bored’ with Iran war

https://therealnews.com/trump-bored-with-iran-war

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ICE Is Trying to Avoid Oversight by Buying Private Prisons The Trump administration is considering purchasing a number of private immigrant detention centers across the US. Doing so may allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement to bypass state laws geared at curbing abuses in the facilities.

ICE Is Trying to Avoid Oversight by Buying Private Prisons

jacobin.com/2026/03/ice-private-dete...

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Behind MrBeast’s Cold, Dead Eyes Twenty-five years ago, someone like Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson would have had little to offer the world. His rise to global phenomenon suggests that virality is emptier than even pessimists thought possible.

Behind MrBeast’s Cold, Dead Eyes

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Donald Trump Is Unpopular. That Only Matters in a Democracy. US democracy has been degrading for years. Donald Trump has the motive, the disposition, and the political and legal infrastructure to simply circumvent it, especially with such low approval ratings and midterm elections around the corner.

Donald Trump Is Unpopular. That Only Matters in a Democracy.

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Study How Zohran Mamdani Handles This Heckler In just a few seconds, Zohran Mamdani takes a fairly sophisticated argument in political theory and translates it into a funny but substantive response to a heckler that redirects the conversation to affordability.

Study How Zohran Mamdani Handles This Heckler

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In Denmark, the Center Did Not Hold Tuesday’s Danish election punished the Social Democrats as well as their center-right government partners. The result again showed voters’ distaste for managerial coalitions spanning the neoliberal center ground.

In Denmark, the Center Did Not Hold

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Hugh Mulzac’s Journey From Black Nationalism to the New Deal Pioneering ship captain Hugh Mulzac’s remarkable life story reflects the maturation of black politics in the early 20th century. He began as a black nationalist but soon saw the singular promise of multiracial labor struggle to improve black workers’ lives.

Hugh Mulzac’s Journey From Black Nationalism to the New Deal

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A Top Pentagon AI Gatekeeper Has a Stake in Anthropic’s Rival ### One of the Pentagon’s top officials driving the decision to blacklist Anthropic for refusing to allow its algorithms to be used for mass surveillance has a multimillion-dollar stake in one of the company’s competitors. * * * Pentagon official Emil Michael has emerged as a central figure in the decision to blacklist the AI company Anthropic. (Chris Goodney / Bloomberg via Getty Images) As the Pentagon moves to sideline a leading artificial intelligence firm over its refusal to support mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, one of the top officials driving the decision has a multimillion-dollar stake in one of its direct competitors, according to financial disclosures reviewed by the _Lever._ This investment, among others, means a Pentagon decisionmaker may have a financial incentive to steer lucrative government contracts toward certain AI firms, even as concerns mount about the risks of artificial intelligence in warfare. Emil Michael, the Trump administration’s undersecretary of defense for research and engineering and the Pentagon’s chief technology officer, has emerged as a central figure in the decision to blacklist the AI company Anthropic for refusing to allow its algorithms to be used for mass surveillance and certain military objectives. Left unreported: According to a financial disclosure, Michael, a former Silicon Valley executive, holds millions in stock in an Anthropic competitor, Perplexity AI, as well as additional investments in other AI, cryptocurrency, and robotics companies with business before the Pentagon. By designating Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” the Pentagon could damage its commercial business and government contracting prospects, benefitting rivals like Perplexity AI. Michael pledged in his disclosure to not participate in any matters that have “a direct and predictable effect on my financial interests.” A one-time Uber senior vice president, Michael also recently held investments in the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, whose owner had his 2024 money-laundering conviction pardoned by President Donald Trump last October. Michael currently holds stock in the prediction market platform Kalshi, which he received as compensation for his prior consulting work there. Both companies have grown massively over the past year after receiving regulatory reprieves from the Trump administration. Prediction platforms like Kalshi collect revenue for hosting betting markets on US military actions like the Iran War and have been plagued by concerns of both White House conflicts of interest and potential insider trading. In total, Michael’s disclosure form lists an extensive array of stock holdings and other assets totaling between $121 million and $277 million, though he’s been forced to divest from some of those holdings since entering the government last May. His remaining financial positions could still pose conflicts of interest for his high-powered role at the Pentagon, despite receiving little media coverage during his confirmation process last year. “[These conflicts mean] the public will have reason to question whether your decision-making is biased toward benefiting your former employers, acquisitions, or investments rather than the public interest,” wrote Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in a letter addressed to Michael during his confirmation hearing last March, though her letter did not cite the full list of investments. The Office of Government Ethics issued Michael several certificates of divestiture for relinquishing investments in a variety of financial holdings, including the venture capital funds KQ Partners and Sequoia Capital, due to his high-level position in the government. The waivers qualify him for a major tax break. “The Department of War maintains a rigorous, multilayered ethics framework that includes financial disclosure reviews, divestitures where appropriate, and screening to prevent conflicts of interest,” said a Defense Department spokesperson in a comment to the _Lever_. “Under Secretary [_sic_] Emil Michael, as with every DOW official, are in full compliance with all ethics laws and regulations. Any claims otherwise are false.” # A Perplexing Conflict While “Department of Defense’s Chief Technology Officer” may sound like an obscure title, Michael wields immense authority over Pentagon procurement and contracting decisions, as recent developments have demonstrated. The department’s high-profile feud with Anthropic, one of the major AI firms contracted with the government, reportedly began with a contentious meeting earlier this year between Michael and Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, over the terms of the company’s $200 million contract with the Pentagon. In exchange for selling its AI models to the military, Anthropic pressed for guardrails to prohibit military use of its AI tools for fully autonomous weapons and domestic mass surveillance. Michael reportedly refused to accept those restrictions, and when Anthropic pushed back, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth blacklisted Anthropic from government contracts and labeled Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” a designation that could damage the firm’s commercial business. As Anthropic took steps to take the matter to court, the administration quietly advanced a new provision forcing AI companies to prioritize Trump directives over safety protocols and privacy protections as a condition of doing business with the government. OpenAI is reportedly taking over the Pentagon contract originally awarded to Anthropic. Michael, meanwhile, has retained between $2 million and $10 million in Perplexity AI stock, a chatbot and large language model system that directly competes for market share and government contracts with Anthropic’s Claude AI assistant. Michael formerly sat on the board of Perplexity AI, a position he resigned from at the start of last year, but he still holds millions in vested and unvested stock in the company, according to his financial disclosure. Once Michael resigned from the board, Perplexity could choose to purchase back his unvested stock at market price — but there is no filing or record indicating that the stock has since been sold. Perplexity AI, which specializes in search engine tools and AI agents, is an active player in the ongoing race to turn government contracts into a key AI revenue stream. Last year, Perplexity was approved by the General Services Administration for “multiple award schedules,” making the company’s technology available for government-wide use across departments. From his time as an investor and past consulting work, Michael holds other major investments that could pose potential conflicts. He owns between $350,000 and $750,000 in stock in Collaborative Robotics, which builds robots with reactive AI technology and recently held a Pentagon contract worth $250,000 that expired in 2025. Michael also recently held between $100,000 and $250,000 in vested common stock in the AI company Pronto, which offers a centralized autonomous transportation and logistics system. Pronto received a $1.25 million two-year contract from the Department of Defense in 2022, which was renewed in 2024 and will be up for renewal again this year. Pronto repurchased the stock in 2025, according to Michael’s disclosure. According to Michael’s ethics disclosure, he will avoid any policy decisions that could impact these investments. “I will not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter that to my knowledge has a direct and predictable effect on my financial interests in any of these entities,” the disclosure reads. # Betting on Blockchain and AI As a consultant, Michael worked for other companies in the AI and blockchain industries, several of which he continues to be invested in. That includes between $15,000 and $50,000 in both Crossroads.ai, which uses AI for data analysis and digital advertising, and 1Money Network, a blockchain company for stablecoins. Blockchain is the underlying digital infrastructure that powers the cryptocurrency sector, but it can be used for other technologies as well. The Defense Department has proposed adopting blockchain technology to support various logistics projects and could solicit bids from private companies for such work. Senator Warren has also questioned how Michael’s previous senior roles at Uber and DPCM Capital, Inc., a special-purpose acquisition company, could influence his work at the Pentagon. In 2022, DPCM acquired a quantum computing startup called D-Wave Systems, which is eligible for Defense Department contracts. “Mr. Michael’s new role may position him to help secure military contracts for companies he’s tied to, such as D-Wave as it seeks a [Defense Department] contract to provide quantum computing services, or Uber as it seeks to provide ride services from military bases,” Warren wrote in her letter to him last year. Michael does not own any stock in either Uber or D-Wave, according to his disclosure. He continues to hold between $50,000 and $100,000 in stock options in the Kalshi prediction market. He previously held between $30,000 and $100,000 in stock in the Binance cryptocurrency exchange, another company he consulted for that could be affected by federal policy decisions. According to his ethics disclosure, Michael’s vested stock holdings in the company would have expired three months after he assumed his current Defense Department position in May 2025, unless Binance chose to extend the investments. There is no indication that the company did so. In 2025, Trump’s Securities and Exchange Commission dropped a Joe Biden–era lawsuit against Binance for securities violations. Amid Trump’s broader pro-crypto agenda, the industry has boomed — boosting the value of firms tied to Michael’s investments. Trump regulators have also signaled a lax regulatory approach to prediction markets, even as questions persist about oversight, conflicts of interest, and potential insider trading. * * * This article was first published by the Lever, an award-winning independent investigative newsroom.

A Top Pentagon AI Gatekeeper Has a Stake in Anthropic’s Rival

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