“This Budget’s defining ambition is to unleash the dreams of the American people,” President Trump writes in his budget proposal, released today. While cutting government assistance for poor Americans, the budget notably beefs up annual military spending to the tune of $639 billion. Trump’s dream for America is a nightmare for the working class.
![Trump arrives in Saudi Arabia in first foreign trip [AP]](https://towardfreedom.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/1bda381ed3274688a2a377113fe5a585_18-326x245.jpg)
For nearly 25 years, several US presidents tried to redefine American relations with the Middle East, but they rarely managed to stave off the palpable decline of the US role in shaping that strategic region. Now, Donald Trump believes he has a chance. History, however, teaches us that he is wrong.
The first foreign visit of the new French President Emmanuel Macron, after a now habitual trip to Berlin, was to Gao in northern Mali as head of the French military. The visit was an attempt to be seen as paying attention to the efforts of French troops in operations in northern Mali and other states of the Sahel region of Africa.
Guatemala is rapidly expanding its energy generation infrastructure with support from Washington and international banks. The construction of mega-dams has been met with a wave of resistance from communities set to be displaced by the projects. Indigenous activists are continuing their struggle in the face of the wider extractivist projects facing the region.
In the ongoing structural crisis of the modern world-system, which began in the 1970s and will probably last another 20-40 years, the issue is not the reform of capitalism, but its successor system. If the Global Left is to win that battle, it must solidly ally the anti-austerity forces with the multicultural forces.
With the Trump administration seeking to entrench its renewed base presence in the Philippines and the president commending Duterte and similarly authoritarian leaders in Bahrain and Egypt, Turkey and Thailand, human rights violations are likely to escalate, fueling unknown brutality and baseworld blowback for years to come.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019