Country: United States

Climate Crisis Demands a More Humane Alternative to Mass Deportation  

Kelsey Coolidge (she/her) is the Director of the War Prevention Initiative of the Jubitz Family Foundation. Her work focuses on the intersection of peace and security, climate change, and the environment.   

Mass deportations, the terrorizing of immigrant communities, and the illegal detention of immigrants—whether documented or not—are a defining feature of the second Trump Administration. It was a campaign promise delivered at stunning (and illegal) speed, and one now set to be bolstered by $170 billion in the “Big, Beautiful Bill”. These deportations are underpinned by erroneous claims of disproportionate migrant crime rates1, white supremacist and nationalist narratives, and the scapegoating immigrants as the driver of social ills.  

The national security infrastructure in the U.S. appears uncomfortably primed to engage in mass violence against civilians on its own soil (putting aside, for this paper, the gross violations of civilian rights as part of military operations beyond our borders). Astronomical sums of money are proposed to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense to thoroughly militarize U.S. immigration policy, while humanitarian and aid programs are totally gutted. The “Big, Beautiful Bill” is ugly for immigrants—Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) is now the largest federal law enforcement agency (with a budget larger than most of the world’s militaries2) with $45 billion for new “detention centers” to “double immigrant detention capacity” with extremely limited Congressional oversight, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.3 How has the country of “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” come to embrace such an anti-immigrant stance?  

Use humanizing language about migrants, to ground this work on shared values of human rights and dignity Reinstate previous funding levels to the U.S. State Department and USAID, offering a policy and programmatic approach that supports the human security of migrants to the U.S. while addressing the conditions that drive migrants to flee in the first place. Reduce military spending by closing unnecessary global military bases and reducing the military’s global footprint.

There is an unexplored driver of a militarized approach to immigration. Mass deportations and border militarization is a national security priority not only because of President Trump’s racist claims—but also because our country’s national security leaders have deemed it a consequence of a warming world. Climate change, and specifically the Pentagon’s strategic planning for climate change, has justified mass deportations as a national security issue. By securitizing climate change, we have (perhaps unintentionally) securitized migrants, naming people as a security threat of climate change, and thereby undermining their human rights and dignity. 

Academics write about securitization theory as a framework to explain how policy issues become urgent, necessitating extraordinary action beyond what is considered normal. 4 A policy becomes securitized in part by how political elites frame and understand the issue. Immigration has been securitized by military and political elites’ narrative framing of mass immigration as key national security threat of climate change. Rather than pursue strategies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions or increasing collaboration among regional partners, the U.S. has set itself on a crash course of violent, costly, and inefficient responses to both immigration and climate change. An alternative approach is available, grounded in our common humanity with immigrants and a belief that global warming can proactively address through meaningful reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  

SECURITIZING CLIMATE CHANGE 

Climate change has been effectively framed as a security threat by epistemic and national security communities. There were good intentions behind this effort—elevating the risks of climate change as “hard” security was thought to facilitate more urgent action. However, this approach fails to account for the role of militarism in U.S. national security and foreign policy, and the massive environmental toll of military operations. Militarism elevates military solutions as the means to attain safety and security; and with it, an adherence to the use of force, domination, and lethal violence. Climate change cannot be bombed away. 

The very system that produces bombs, ships them, and drops them around the globe is wildly exacerbating the climate crisis through its massive consumption of fossil fuels and GHG emissions. According to the Conflict and Environment Observatory, military GHG emissions are estimated to be around 5.5% of the world’s total emissions making it the fourth largest “country” in terms of total carbon emissions.5 As the largest military spender in the world, the U.S. military emits an extraordinary amount of GHG. According to new estimates by Neta Crawford, “from 1979 to 2023, the Pentagon generated almost 4,000 [metric tons of] CO2e – about the same as the entire 2023 emissions reported by India, a country of 1.4 billion people.”6 The U.S. military is also reported as the world’s largest institutional consumer of oil (and correspondingly the highest institutional emitter of GHG).7   

The unintended consequence of this security framing has diverted away from actions that meaningfully mitigate GHG emissions, increase resilience against climate-related natural disasters, or invest in the necessary green economic transition. Ironically, a security framing of climate change has reaffirmed the centrality of fossil fuels to our national security policy by situating the military as an actor to protect the country against the effects of climate change instead of addressing how military activities themselves contribute to the crisis.  

THE PENTAGON’S APPROACH TO CLIMATE CHANGE AND MIGRATION 

For decades, the Pentagon has advanced the idea of climate change as a national security threat and detailed plans for an anticipated military response. Corey Payne and Ori Swed conducted a review of Pentagon strategy documents finding that overall, “the military does not see saving the planet from a climate catastrophe as a goal that falls within its mandate,”8 and, “views its job [as] to ensure that the United States will be among the “winners” of the unfolding climate catastrophe.”9  While the majority of these strategy documents detail the ways in which the effects of climate change effect operational readiness and scenario-planning, it is impossible to ignore the frequency of dehumanizing, anti-immigrant language that directly names migrants as a security threat.  

Climate migrants are to be, “approached as a security issue and [met] with a militarized response.”10  In his book All Hell Breaking Loose, Michael T. Klare provides a deeply uncritical but comprehensive review of the Pentagon’s approach to climate change, detailing to extent to which migration has been named and blamed as the security threat stemming from climate change.11 It is almost comical how badly migrants are portrayed in this book, writing about the likelihood of, “massive waves of human migration and help spread infectious disease, producing disarray across the planet,”12 or how, “more privileged states [will be] besieged by waves of desperate “climate refugees.”13    

Throughout the book, Klare references the security threat of migration as a persistent concern emanating from the Pentagon’s plan to address climate change. “Whenever U.S security analysts have considered the risks of climate change, a perpetual concern has been that extreme events and prolonged droughts could trigger a massive flight of desperate people seeking refuge in other locales, provoking chaos and hostility wherever they travel…and it has remained a major theme to the present day.”14  Some references include:  

  • A 2007 CNA Corporation report warned that climate change, “can fuel migrations in less develop countries, and these migrations can lead to international political conflict.”15 Klare writes that the CNA report suggests “the primary security threats to the U.S. arise from the potential demand for humanitarian aid and a likely increase in immigration from neighbor states.”16  

      • A 2015 National Security Implications of Climate-Related Risks and Changing Climate report17 which pulled insights from the military’s six geographic combatant commend centers (Northern, Southern, European, Africa, Central, and IndoPacific) and found “the threat of mass migrations arising from extreme drought, coastal flooding, food scarcity, and state collapse was a recurring theme in several of these reports.”18  

      • In a 2014 report to the Senate Armed Services Committee, General John F. Kelly, “emphasized the importance of taking steps to prevent future climate refugees from entering the United States,” detailing how SouthCom’s exercises modeling the military’s response to a mass migration event used, “Guantanamo Bay to oversee a mock crisis-response mission.”19  

    The underlying logic of the Pentagon’s approach to climate change is based off an assumption that climate change will create clear and predictable “winners” and “losers” on a global scale.20 An early commissioned report from 2003 suggests that “the United State could likely survive shortened growing cycles and harsh weather conditions without catastrophic losses. Borders will be strengthened around the country to hold back unwanted starving immigrants from the Caribbean islands (an especially severe problem), Mexico, and South America.”21 While it is not egregious to suggest that wealthier countries are best suited to withstand the shocks of climate change, it is also naïve to underplay the fundamental ways in which the U.S economy is reliant on imported food and migrant labor.22 Further, the defining feature of climate change is unpredictability. “Unchecked global climate change will disrupt a dynamic ecological equilibrium in ways that are difficult to predict. The new ecosystem is likely to be unstable and in continual flux for decades of longer. Today’s “winner” could be tomorrow’s big-time loser.”23 To create a response based on an assumed, predictable outcome on continued dominance is short-sighted, at best, and at worst wholly underestimates the possible severity of catastrophic outcomes.  

    POLICY PROPOSALS 

    We have, during the second Trump administration, watched Pentagon hypotheticals and training exercises move into actual practice. There was no guarantee that the Pentagon’s preparations for a “mass migration event”, meant enacting such a response at Guantanamo Bay, yet now the base is holding site for mass deportations.24 As the War on Terror transformed the imperial spoils from naval base to infamous extralegal prison, the militarized response to immigration is expanding it yet again into the front line of an undeclared war on refugees. Even if the military’s assistance in Trump’s mass deportation scheme is not directly linked to its views on climate change, it is certainly the vision of the future that the Pentagon is preparing for as climate change accelerates. If anything, the Pentagon is actively refining its approach in front of our eyes.     

    Personally, I cannot subscribe to that vision as the only path forward. Ever the optimist, I believe that we can still mitigate the effects of climate change, bring an end to the era of fossil fuels, and orient our national security, foreign, and immigration policies on shared values of human rights and dignity.  A 2007 joint report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center for a New American Security summed on the national security implications of climate change summarized it nicely: “In order to emerge form a period of severe climate change as a civilization with hopes for a better future and with prospects for further human development, the very model of what constitutes happiness must change. Globalization will have to be redirected…This can occur either as the result of the collapse of the present system, or by its purposeful reconfiguration.”25  

    Let us detail what a “purposeful reconfiguration” may look like.  

    A 2021 White House report on climate migration offers a few useful starting points.26 It outlines a dual strategy of supporting the human security of migrants to the U.S. while supporting would-be migrants to “who desire to stay as long and safely as possible in their home areas” through investments in U.S. foreign assistance, humanitarian aid, and legal support services. It states, “the foreign assistance infrastructure brings together a powerful combination of tools [and] partnerships to address many elements of the complex issues of climate change and migration. However, current funding levels, structure, and coordination of U.S. foreign assistance is inadequate to meet the challenge…”27 It is safe to say that current funding levels in 2025 are even more inadequate to address the challenge of climate migrants. The hollowing out of USAID and the State Department is a heavy-handed gut-punch to the possibility of a more humane and dignified migration policy. An easy policy recommendation is to reinstate USAID and State funding at least to the previous level and absolutely oppose a reconciliation package that would revoke $8.3 billion in foreign aid from fiscal years 2024 and 2025.  

    That budget, likely inadequate, is several orders of magnitude smaller than the Pentagon’s outrageous budget of $1 trillion.28 When considering the climate impact of military emissions, we simply cannot expect to mitigate climate change while increasing the military’s budget. Instead of building up the war machine to fight people fleeing drought, starvation, and unlivable heat, the United States could scale down its military, in turn reducing production of greenhouse gases. There are available policy proposals that reduce Pentagon spending and lower the climate impact of the military, actually making the world a much safer place for people and the natural environment.  

    It is possible to create compassionate immigration policies29 paired with robust humanitarian and peacebuilding programs that aim to prevent the disasters that drive people to flee their homes in the first place. These kinds of proposals are inherently less climate-intensive and more dignified than a militarized response to immigration. A starting point is a complete abolition on dehumanizing language about migrants. They are not unwanted “hordes” spreading “disease” and “conflict” wherever they go—they are humans. Centering their humanity should compel us to consider our own complicity in exaggerating the climate crisis and funneling exorbitant amounts of money into a military industrial complex that harms people and the planet. There are a range of policy responses that limit the military’s GHG emissions and reduce harm, namely through military spending cuts and reducing the military’s global footprint. Closing unnecessary global military bases reduces the fossil fuels needed to support such infrastructure while offering the bonus of making it more difficult to carry-out clandestine, climate-intensive, and offensive military activities.30   

    We are not alone. All these efforts are amplified and improved through global cooperation and diplomacy, especially with neighboring states and international governance organizations. The investment in the military has eroded diplomatic channels that cultivated a peaceful world—we must claw back and reaffirm global relationships to see a sustainable, peaceful future.     

    End Notes

      1. Brianna Seid, Rosemary Nidiry, and Ram Subramanian, “Debunking the Myth of the ‘Migrant Crime Wave,’” Brennan Center for Justice, September 26, 2024, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/debunking-myth-migrant-crime-wave.

      1. “ICE Budget Now Bigger than Most of the World’s Militaries,” Newsweek, July 2, 2025, https://www.newsweek.com/immigration-ice-bill-trump-2093456.

      1. Lauren-Brooke Eisen, “Budget Bill Massively Increases Funding for Immigration Detention,” Brennan Center for Justice, March 12, 2025, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/budget-bill-massively-increases-funding-immigration-detention. 

      1. Mikkel Flohr, “Key Concept: Securitization (Copenhagen School),” Critical Legal Thinking (blog), March 31, 2025, https://criticallegalthinking.com/2025/03/31/key-concept-securitization-copenhagen-school/. 

      1. “New Estimate: Global Military Is Responsible for More Emissions than Russia,” CEOBS (blog), November 10, 2022, https://ceobs.org/new-estimate-global-military-is-responsible-for-more-emissions-than-russia/.

      1. Nina Lakhani, “How the US Became the Biggest Military Emitter and Stopped Everyone Finding Out,” The Guardian, May 30, 2025, sec. Environment, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/30/donald-trump-geopolitics-could-deepen-planetary-catastrophe-expert-warns. 

      1. Crawford, Neta C., “Pentagon Fuel Use, Climate Change, and the Costs of War” (Costs of War, November 13, 2019), https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/Pentagon%20Fuel%20Use%2C%20Climate%20Change%20and%20the%20Costs%20of%20War%20Revised%20November%202019%20Crawford.pdf. 

      1. Corey R. Payne and Ori Swed, “Disentangling the US Military’s Climate Change Paradox: An Institutional Approach,” Sociology Compass 18, no. 1 (2024): 3, https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.13127. 

      1. Payne and Swed, 7.

      1. Paul J. Smith, “Climate Change, Mass Migration and the Military Response,” Orbis 51, no. 4 (January 1, 2007): 617–33, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orbis.2007.08.006.

      1. Michael T. Klare, All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2019).

      1. Klare, 33. Emphasis added.  

      1. Klare, 34. Emphasis added. 

      1. Klare, 112. Emphasis added.  

      1. “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change” (CNA Corporation, 2007), 18, https://www.cna.org/archive/CNA_Files/pdf/national%20security%20and%20the%20threat%20of%20climate%20change.pdf.

      1. Klare, All Hell Breaking Loose, 115.

      1. “Findings from Select Federal Reports: The National Security Implications of a Changing Climate” (The White House, May 2015), https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/docs/National_Security_Implications_of_Changing_Climate_Final_051915.pdf.

      1. Klare, All Hell Breaking Loose, 27.

      1. Klare, 115–16. Emphasis added. 

      1. Payne and Swed, “Disentangling the US Military’s Climate Change Paradox.”

      1. Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security,” n.d. Emphasis added.  

      1. “Mass Deportation,” American Immigration Council (blog), accessed June 24, 2025, https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/report/mass-deportation/.

      1. Kurt M Campbell et al., “The Age of Consequences: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Global Climate Change,” n.d., 8. 

      1. “Trump Preparing to Send Thousands of Immigrants Including Europeans to Guantanamo Military Prison: Reports | The Independent,” accessed June 26, 2025, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-immigrants-guantanamo-bay-prison-b2767628.html.

      1. Campbell et al., “The Age of Consequences: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Global Climate Change,” 78. 

      1. “Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration” (The White House, October 2021), https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Report-on-the-Impact-of-Climate-Change-on-Migration.pdf.

      1. “Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration” (The White House, October 2021), https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Report-on-the-Impact-of-Climate-Change-on-Migration.pdf.

      1. Valerie Insinna, “Trump Administration to Request $1T Defense Budget Using Reconciliation Funds,” Breaking Defense (blog), May 2, 2025, https://breakingdefense.com/2025/05/trump-administration-to-request-1t-defense-budget-using-reconciliation-funds/.

      1. “Compassionate Migration Policies Are Also the Right Call Politically,” CIP (blog), April 12, 2022, https://internationalpolicy.org/publications/compassionate-migration-policies-are-also-the-right-call-politically/.

      1. “Drawdown: Improving U.S. and Global Security Through Military Base Closures Abroad,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft (blog), September 20, 2021, https://quincyinst.org/research/drawdown-improving-u-s-and-global-security-through-military-base-closures-abroad/. 

Trump and Netanyahu aim to remake the Middle East with bombs. Iran shows why that will always fail

Senior Non-Resident Fellow Sina Toossi new opinion piece explains why U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran will not end its nuclear program or trigger regime change, and may instead deepen regional instability

Following joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, the narrative has centered on strength and deterrence. But as Toossi argues, this approach reflects a deeper strategic failure.

“Iran is not a problem that can be bombed into submission.”

Despite significant damage, Iran’s nuclear infrastructure remains intact, its leadership unified, and public sentiment increasingly shaped by a “rally-around-the-flag” effect. Rather than forcing collapse, military escalation risks accelerating nuclear ambitions and entrenching resistance.

Toossi makes the case that decades of coercion have failed—and that without a shift toward diplomacy, the cycle of escalation will only continue.

Click here to read the FULL ARTICLE

State Needs Reorganization, Rubio’s Plan Isn’t It

Cole Donovan is an associate director at the Federation of American Scientists. He previously had international S&T roles in the Biden White House, State Department, and Office of Space Commerce.

On May 29, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a Congressional Notification to Congress outlining his proposed changes to the U.S. Department of State as part of President Trump’s chaotic redesign of the U.S. government. This planned reorganization of state alienates foreign diplomats, further undermines foreign assistance, and leaves the State less capable.

There are major issues with the Secretary’s proposal. To foreign partners, the redesign looks like a manifestation of the United States’ worst instincts, focused primarily on telling others how to run their countries while emphasizing our supreme military and economic power. Humanitarians are justifiably shocked at the wholesale demolition of foreign assistance mechanisms, whose remnants are being shifted to regional offices with neither the manpower nor contracting experience to responsibly manage those funds. Anyone familiar with the work necessary to effectively manage the myriad issues State has to tackle is likely to notice the demolition of coordinating mechanisms throughout the Department, which served bureau leadership by sorting through the multitude of disparate and disconnected issues that they might encounter in a single meeting with a foreign principal.

To match the service terms of other foreign ministries, State can slow the tempo and increase the depth of Foreign Service deployments. State’s humanitarian functions are best supported by reinstating USAID, which had in-house technical and development skill that’s harder to develop within State. While Rubio’s reorganization is likely aimed at producing splashy headlines for Trump, a thoughtful reorganization would take diplomacy seriously – as well as the actual value that State can bring to the table.

While many of these changes are set to diminish how State functions, there is positive potential in a reorganization designed with the long-term prospects of US diplomacy, rather than the short-term whims of an administration, in mind. The status quo, as well as the general operating model of the Department for the last several decades, is not ideal. The desire for improvement is such that some of Rubio’s changes may well be welcomed, including by officers serving in offices whose responsibilities are being merged or consolidated. 

Over time, the Government has added numerous offices and functions to State with the intent to signal that specific issues are important to the sitting government. Consider State’s technical offices. In addition to an Office of Science and Technology Cooperation (which dates back to the Cold War), you also had an Office of the Science and Technology Advisor to the Secretary of State (established in the early 2000s), a Special Envoy for Critical and Emerging Technology, and a Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy (established under Secretary Blinken). 

Which of these offices manages the International Science and Technology Center? That would be the Office of Cooperative Threat Reduction in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation (created in 2005 out of the merger of two other offices). If I were to ask a foreign service officer from one of those four organizations about the Center, I’d likely receive a blank stare (inevitably followed by a flurry of activity as that officer attempts to make sure they are as involved in the Center as they can possibly be). They wouldn’t need to worry for long, though. Soon that officer will rotate to their next assignment and the cycle can begin anew.

Retooling diplomacy for the long haul

That rotational churn creates other issues for American diplomacy. Foreign Service Officers rotate through two-year assignments, making frequent moves and retraining a constant part of their careers. A foreign service officer spends their first six months of a rotation learning how to do their new job and an additional four to five months trying to do the best job that they can. The next five are devoted to finding their next assignment, and the next few are spent trying to maximize their performance reviews before they begin preparations for their next job. One of my deputy directors on the EU desk once told me that he didn’t realize when he joined the government that he would spend the rest of his life searching for a job. This incentivizes managers to wait for foreign service rotations to avoid challenging performance management conversations, creating the risk that poor performers or toxic managers may be able to survive the next promotion cycle. 

Increasing the assignment term to five years (so that American diplomats can demonstrate a similar level of competence in a particular job as their counterparts in other foreign ministries and focus on delivering longer-term results) would be a good place to start. This is particularly important for officers working on issues that have inherently long lead times, like managing U.S. interests related to the EU or China’s seven- and five-year legislative program cycles, respectively. At the very least, it would help the Department spend its language training and relocation dollars more effectively. 

Politicizing the workforce, as this Administration is doing, through actions like Schedule Policy/Career and its free response questions as part of the hiring process, inherently cuts against this capability. If this administration fires its experienced workforce, particularly those performing newly-relocated statutory responsibilities, the Administration will deprive consolidated offices of the experience and expertise necessary to maximize their productivity. The real value lost through consolidating isn’t the name of the office, but pushing out the people who deeply understand the history, context, and nuance of diplomatic interactions. These are not skills that can be easily or responsibly replicated by AI tools. As interesting as a large language model might be, it is less likely to proactively identify key points that might be missing from a foreign partner’s remarks or isolate bloviating on behalf of one’s own government from that person’s in-private, in-person ability to get things done.

Long Timelines Versus Short Headlines

The biggest problem that any reorganization of State needs to address is the fundamental misalignment between what the Department is good at doing with the jobs that it is assigned by its political leadership. As the government’s foreign ministry, State works best when assisting other agencies in accomplishing their objectives overseas or advocating on behalf of U.S. interests in particular domains, like intellectual property or agricultural regulations. Some bureaucratic tension between offices with similar missions is even helpful, allowing the Department to predict tension between promoting and protecting American interests.

Not all offices are as successful, like the recently-formed Special Envoy for Critical and Emerging Technology. The intent of this office was to address the increasing relevance of emerging technology issues in global competition. Among the many activities that the office proposed included the creation of an alliance of like-minded countries on quantum science and technology. There was just one problem: another office at the State Department already organized such a partnership with the White House National Quantum Coordination Office. That group held their first meeting almost a year before the Special Envoy had even been named, leading to an extended back and forth between the White House and competing offices at State on how to manage a new political demand signal that had just been answered

Such follies are a likely predictor of what will happen with Secretary Rubio’s new Bureau of Emerging Threats. It’s not clear exactly what value-add this bureau will provide the U.S. government, especially given the numerous offices throughout the government dealing with dangerous critical and emerging technologies, especially within the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community (let alone those that already exist within the Department). This can cause problems. 

In 2011, Secretary Clinton created the Bureau of Energy and Natural Resources (ENR) given a broad recognition of energy policy’s relevance to international stability and achieving the United State’s broader international objectives. A 2016 OIG Inspection found that the Bureau had great relationships with the rest of the Government–just not the Department of Energy (DOE) with which it most needed to work. The OIG reported numerous problems in ENR reported by foreign service officers in Embassies as well as their DOE colleagues, including competing missions, inadequate communication and coordination, and difficulty promulgating a single U.S. energy message to foreign governments. Similar dynamics are captured in the 2015 documentary “The Diplomat”, which described the struggles between the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan with other parts of the U.S. government, each of which thought itself primarily responsible for Afghan and Pakistan Policy.

Invariably, if new offices struggle to identify opportunities in their defined mission space, they begin to move into areas long-occupied by others (or they discover that other offices have already been working in their assumed domains all along and may even have statutory responsibilities in that space), including in other government agencies. Knowing the lay of the land should be essential before starting any reorganization of State aimed at the long-term viability of the diplomatic apparatus of the United States. 

Any future attempt to reorganize the Department should ask itself the following questions before creating any new body, including the appointment of a new special representative:

  1. Does another government agency or office have the legislative mandate and capability to do this work?
  2. Is this work distributed across many agencies who are in tension with one another, where the Department could negotiate a consolidated U.S. position on the subject (and perhaps in doing so help expedite the resolution of domestic policy disputes)?
  3. Is it better if a foreign policy expert speaks to this subject, or should the face that the United States presents to the world be a recognized expert speaking from a position of authority elsewhere in the government? ie; should negotiations on nuclear enrichment be carried out primarily through State or the Department of Energy?
  4. Is there another coordinating body on the subject in the U.S. government?
  5. What are people in this bureau or office going to do when they show up on the job? Who are they likely to clash with?
  6. Can this body follow through with any promises that it might make to foreign governments?
  7. Are the people who State expects to share their resources willing to provide them to this new body, and for what purposes?
  8. What will the organization’s primary leverage be in achieving whatever goals it sets out to accomplish on behalf of a given administration?

When a new body forms and doesn’t have a clear mission, the answer is usually to schedule as many meetings with foreign governments as possible and try to bend the arms of other government agencies to come forward with major commitments. It drains time and resources available to other government agencies, making it harder for them to accomplish their domestic missions. U.S. efforts are placed in stark relief against those of our allies and competitors, alike. 

Well-resourced offices that create value, like PEPFAR, have clearly made substantial progress in their respective domains and moved the needle on important global issues. This makes the loss of bureaus like Education and Cultural Affairs, which ran the Fulbright program and numerous visitor programs that exposed foreign audiences to the best elements of America’s people and culture, all the more tragic. When a bureau lacks resources, it is often forced to try to trip up international competitors in order to accomplish a goal, or coax foreign partners to use resources that the U.S. government does not have. Such efforts are usually transparent to foreign partners, who do not always appreciate being caught between the United States and one of its many foreign policy objectives. They may question why the richest and most powerful country in the world isn’t willing to put its own resources behind the effort.

I cannot predict what the State Department will actually look like in 10 months given the current chaos, let alone at the end of this government’s term. Other government bodies–particularly the NSC and other White House Policy Councils–would also do well to embrace these recommendations. What I can say is that future governments will need to do a much better job aligning the resources of the Department with its ability to execute its lofty goals–all of which are critical for ensuring the future of American security.

MSNBC: Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ system is an expensive way to make America less safe

At MSNBC, Chief Editor Kelsey D. Atherton walks through how Trump’s recent announcement of a “Golden Dome” missile defense system is an expensive investment in insecurity.

“If missile defense works as promised,” writes Atherton, “it creates an opportunity for the leadership of the protected country to launch nuclear strikes without fear of suffering nuclear retaliation in return. This is true even if missile defense does not actually work as a defense, because overcoming planned defenses means building a larger arsenal and possibly taking a gamble on launching a nuclear first strike, rather than forever losing that deterrent effect.”

Read Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ system is an expensive way to make America less safe at MSNBC.

Labor deserves better than Trump’s disastrous tariffs

Joe Mayall is a Denver-based labor activist and writer whose work has appeared in Jacobin, PRISM, and The Progressive Magazine. He writes the JoeWrote newsletter, and you can follow him on Blue Sky (@joemayall.bsky.social) and X(@joemayall).

During his second inaugural address, President Donald Trump stated he would enact his campaign promise to “tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.” To the surprise and horror of many, including members of Trump’s inner circle, the President has followed through with his chaotic plans. With shifting country-specific rates and conflicting statements from press briefings and Truth Social, the president’s trade policy has upturned financial markets and left everyone from world leaders to small business owners scratching their heads.

As for why these tariffs were enacted, Occam’s razor points to a mix of ignorance and corruption. The president claims they are closing trade deficits, which he misunderstands as the amount a foreign nation is “stealing” from America. Trump boasted about how much he and his friends made manipulating the market, so one can’t discount that the tariffs are a means to personal enrichment.

The absurd rationale and design of the tariffs were only outdone by their implementation. Economists quickly deduced the administration was using an incorrect formula to produce the country-specific tariff rates. However, they’re changing so rapidly that it might not matter.

Just four days after the tariffs went into effect, the White House announced a ninety-day pause. China was the lone exception, receiving a 125% tariff, which was then increased to 145% to include tariffs for fentanyl, an illegal drug rarely disclosed at ports. Predictably, this has caused a trade war, with nations pledging retaliatory tariffs ranging from 25% to 125%.

As the public’s frustration builds with every point their 401(k)s fall, many wonder what the point of tariffs is and whether they can be used for good at all. UAW President Shawn Fain and Congressman Chris Deluzio—neither a fan of Trump—have praised some tariffs as necessary to protect American workers. While oppositional politics have Democrats condemning Trump’s plan, politicians from both parties would be wise not to overcorrect into anti-tariff absolutism.

Instead, they should propose a calculated trade policy that avoids the turmoil of Trump’s tariffs while fostering a dignified life for workers within and outside the United States.

Pair Tariffs with Domestic Investment

For most of the 20th century, Democrats favored tariffs to deter offshoring production to countries with lower wages and lax labor protections.

Before the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the United States tariffed the “value-added” on products shipped abroad for assembly and then re-imported for sale. This artificial cost cut into corporations’ profit margins, motivating companies to keep production in America. 

During the 1970s, a typical American automotive assembly plant used parts from over a thousand producers. But when NAFTA removed tariffs in 1994, production was consolidated in maquiladoras, foreign-owned factories in Mexico. By the turn of the millennium, American automotive plants only used between seven and eight hundred part producers, contributing to the estimated 850,000 American manufacturing jobs lost by NAFTA.

While targeted tariffs like those implemented before NAFTA are beneficial, Trump’s decision to tariff entire countries offers no advantage for workers. As the President’s plan taxes everything from the affected country, American consumers will have to pay higher prices for imported products, even if there is no American alternative worth protecting. Coffee is the foremost example of this problem. 

As coffee grows in tropical climates, only 1% of the coffee Americans drink is domestic. The rest is imported. As our leading coffee suppliers (Brazil, Colombia, and Vietnam) are now under heavy tariffs, Americans will be forced to pay higher prices, as there is not enough non-taxed domestic-grown coffee to go around. Here, Trump’s tariffs hurt American consumers as well as domestic and foreign coffee producers, who will see demand fall.

That’s why tariffs should be surgical, implemented only when the net benefit outweighs the costs. However, the U.S. can’t rely only on discouraging the consumption of foreign-made products. Washington must pair tariffs with domestic investments to create an effective trade policy that benefits workers and consumers alike. Fortunately, this concept is not novel, so policymakers don’t need to start from scratch. 

A good example of the tariff-and-invest strategy is America’s current tariffs on Asian solar panels, which were paired with the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) $60 billion investment in green energy manufacturing. 

In 2018, President Trump placed a tariff on Asian solar imports, which Biden preserved when he took office. Combined with the IRA’s benefits, the tariffs motivated the South Korean solar panel manufacturer Qcells (and its parent company Hanwha) to move production out of China and into the U.S. In 2023, Qcells expanded its plant in Dalton, GA, with another plant scheduled to open in nearby Cartersville later this year.

While the full impact of the IRA funding and solar tariffs will take time to materialize, they provide a sound foundation for a labor-friendly trade policy. To ensure future investments benefit workers as much as capitalists, Congress could require any company that receives public investments to have a unionized workforce and ban them from buying back stock. Washington could even emulate the German Codetermination Act of 1976, mandating that companies benefiting from public policy give workers a say in managerial decisions through board seats and supervisory councils. 

A Leahy Law for Labor

Whenever tariffs are suggested, many critics claim that while they may protect American workers, they harm laborers in the developing world by keeping jobs in the U.S. Even when made in good faith, this critique misunderstands that reasonable trade policy protects all workers, foreign and domestic. Once again, NAFTA serves as an adequate example. 

Prior to implementation, free trade advocates argued the deal would improve the quality of life for foreign workers, specifically Mexicans. In reality, NAFTA harmed workers on both sides of the Rio Grande. 

After two decades of free trade, Mexico’s real wages remained stagnant at 1994 levels. While discussions about NAFTA frequently center auto and manufacturing workers, they weren’t the only victims. With Mexico’s tariffs no longer in effect, American-subsidized corn flooded the country’s food markets, wiping out approximately 1.9 million Mexican agricultural jobs and driving undocumented immigration. 

As American companies are known to offshore manufacturing to take advantage of easily exploitable laborers, Congress should pass a Leahy Law for labor. Just as the Vermont Senator’s namesake legislation bars weapons sales to human rights abusers, the United States should set a standard for ethical labor and place punitive tariffs on any company that violates it. This would apply upward pressure on global labor standards and eliminate the cost-cutting benefit of offshoring manufacturing, incentivizing companies to keep production in the U.S. Again, Washington would not have to devise such a policy from scratch. 

For over a century, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has published recommended labor standards designed to help world leaders implement trade policy that respects the international working class. Recently updated in 2019, the ILO’s handbook provides guidance on everything from child labor (no dangerous work for anyone under eighteen) to appropriate wages (no company vouchers or coupons). There are even tailored recommendations for specific industries (fishers, dockworkers, etc.) and marginalized groups such as migrants, pregnant people, and indigenous communities. 

With the intent to uplift the quality of life for American and foreign workers, adopting these standards and setting substantial, punitive tariffs for companies that violate them would benefit both American workers and their foreign counterparts. With companies deterred from offshoring to employ cheap, vulnerable labor, the American working class can rest assured that exercising their collective bargaining rights won’t result in their employer shipping their jobs overseas. 

While Trump’s chaotic tariff plan warrants condemnation, politicians should avoid slipping into anti-tariff absolutism. Not only are tariffs an effective tool in the trade policy toolbox, but domestic politics demands addressing the consequences of free trade. Those willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater and expel tariffs for good would be wise to remember that Donald Trump’s opposition to NAFTA made him popular with working-class communities that were once reliable Democratic voters. Running on a full return to the lost free trade regime of the past might temporarily thwart Trump, but it will not end the social and economic frustration that birthed his reactionary movement. 

House Armed Services Committee Reconciliation Proposal a Military Contractor and Billionaire Welfare Giveaway

As the House Armed Services Committee takes up its portion of what will become President Trump’s reconciliation bill, the Center for International Policy issued the following statement:

“The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) majority’s proposal to add $150 billion to the Pentagon budget is a clear attempt to funnel public money into the pockets of military contractors and billionaires, disguised as a national security measure.

“The so-called “Golden Dome” would get $24.7 billion. Trump’s fantasy missile shield will fail to make Americans any safer from today’s threats, but succeed in steering billions of dollars in contracts to Trump’s cronies, like Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The HASC proposal also includes $360 million to prevent the retirement of the obsolete F-22 and $1.5 billion for Sentinel ICBMs, one of the more dangerous elements of the plan’s $12.9 billion nuclear weapons spending spree.

“HASC Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL) claims the arms industry is under-resourced, but the $899 billion in military spending already appropriated for this year exceeds the GDP of all but 20 countries. This proposal would balloon this year’s Pentagon budget to $1.05 trillion.

“Despite increased profits and cash flow, military contractors are spending more of their revenue on cash dividends and stock buybacks and less on R&D and capital expenditures, leaving it to taxpayers to cover those expenses. It’s fitting that this proposal is part of the same bill that will drive further inequality by cutting at least $300 billion in Medicaid funding and slashing other programs that help Americans working to make ends meet. The message of this package is clear: welfare is fine, so long as it’s for corporations and billionaires.”

Trump’s Predatory Capitalism Does Nothing for America’s Workers 

Executive Vice President Matt Duss and Senior Non Resident Fellow Trevor Sutton analyze America’s economic policy, emphasizing that Neoliberalism might have failed—but Trumpism is no alternative.

It has become accepted wisdom that U.S. President Donald Trump’s populist message has been effective because it has criticized a failed economic ideology of neoliberalism. In both administrations, Trump has rejected some long-standing bipartisan orthodoxies about the relationship between the state and markets, such as the belief that economic integration and lowering of trade barriers are unquestionably in the national interest, or that the government should exercise restraint in addressing trade imbalances and managing currency exchange rates.

It is not hard to understand why such economic heresies resonate. Globalization has been a major factor in industrial decline, loss of livelihoods, and downward pressure on wages in the United States. But we should not mistake Trump’s rejection of orthodoxies for any concern for ordinary Americans. He aspires to personal control, not economic justice.

The impacts of globalization were not hard to foresee: The multilateral trade system built during and expanded in the wake of the Cold War was designed primarily to reduce barriers to trade. Other concerns that might be significantly influenced or aggravated by economic integration—for example, inequality, labor rights, and environmental protection—were viewed as matters that national governments could address through their domestic systems or on an ad hoc basis through free trade agreements.

The belief that the deregulatory pressures and labor dislocation produced by globalization could be offset through domestic policies and free trade agreements looks naive in hindsight. In practice, the rules of the trade system constrained national governments’ ability to slow deindustrialization and offshoring of jobs and provided inadequate tools to respond to weak enforcement of labor and environmental standards by trading partners.

These shortcomings enabled a shift in manufacturing activity away from advanced economies into emerging markets, which amplified the disruptive effects of automation on industrial workforces. For many workers, especially those in countries that lack a strong commitment to redistribution like the United States, the shift to a service economy has meant lower wages and increased precarity.

Trump’s fondness for tariffs and bold promises to revive manufacturing may tap into legitimate grievances about globalization but should not be mistaken for genuine economic populism. Trade liberalization has not been the only driver of inequality and insecurity in the United States. Deregulation of financial markets, regressive changes to the tax code, spiraling health care costs, and reductions in pension benefits have also played an important role in bringing Americans to their current plight.

Far from seeking to reverse these trends, Trump is accelerating them by dismantling the administrative state, privatizing or outright eliminating core state functions, pushing tax cuts that favor the rich, and attacking labor rights.

What Trump is actually doing is not fighting for ordinary Americans but asserting personalized rule over markets for political showmanship and performative retribution, producing disruption but not progress. His announcement earlier this month of massively increased tariffs, followed by a suspension of those tariffs, after which he claimed credit for a “historic” market rally after it partially recovered from the dip, is a perfect example. As Rep. Ryan Zinke, who served as secretary of the interior during Trump’s first term, observed succinctly, “Tariffs are a tool the president enjoys because it’s personal power.”

This is not a return to the regulated capitalism that drove middle-class growth, innovation, and industrial expansion in the mid-20th century. Instead, it’s a regression to a much older form of government, one in which the head of state surrounds himself with cronies and abuses his powers to tax, spend, and tariff to dole out favors. In other words, a spoils system.

Far from offering a “post-neoliberal” agenda, Trump is reproducing the worst aspects of that order and combining it with the worst aspects of an older one. We must reject and prevent a recurrence of Trump’s predatory capitalism, but the answer is not a reversion to market fundamentalism. The goal should be a system that empowers ordinary citizens and serves the common good, not the whims of one man or a handful of oligarchs and corporate overlords, and one that looks to the sustainable future rather than seeking to recreate a gilded past based on plunder.

Creating such a system will require far more comprehensive and strategic changes in policy than antagonistic and erratic tariffs. Many of the key reforms that will be needed are inward-facing, such as a more progressive and simpler tax code, an expanded welfare state, and stronger labor protections, especially those that can address the challenges we will soon face with rapid automation. But these internal measures will only succeed if we reform the external economic and geopolitical environment so markets are not insulated from democratic control and wealth cannot buy impunity.

This shift in the external environment will require a corresponding shift in U.S. foreign and international economic policy. A post-neoliberal economic agenda that works for all Americans should, at a minimum, reflect the following four goals: a fairer trade system that gives states more flexibility in balancing the interests of trading partners with national priorities; an industrial policy that emphasizes good-quality jobs and economic mobility—including in the services sector—at least as much as strategic competition and national security; international coordination to stop regulatory arbitrage and tax avoidance; and a new approach to U.S. foreign assistance and diplomacy focused on equitable distribution of global goods and building worker power.

This agenda will only succeed if Americans can relax the grip of oligarchs and their old guard allies on our institutions. This will not be an easy task and will require perseverance in achieving long overdue reforms, such as amending the federal bribery statute to better reflect commonsense understandings of corruption (which successive Supreme Court decisions have essentially defined out of existence), imposing stricter ethics rules on U.S. officials, and importantly, reforming our country’s campaign finance rules, which have created a political system that is more responsive to a small group of economic elites than to the needs of the majority.

There is no question that the old neoliberal theology that dominated U.S. economic policymaking for decades has failed American working people, steadily siphoning the fruit of their labor disproportionately upward to an elite with the power and influence to game the system. Some amount of creative destruction was long overdue. But we shouldn’t be fooled by Trump’s approach, which simply reproduces the worst aspects of the old order while doing nothing for working people. We need a new economic model that truly puts them at the center.

Read in Foreign Policy. 

 

Trump’s Predatory Capitalism Does Nothing for America’s Workers 

Global Social Media Bans Will Hurt Vulnerable Communities

In early January, Meta put out a sudden and unexpected announcement that the platform would be ending its third-party fact checking model in the US, saying that their approach to manage content on their platforms had “gone too far.” Instead, Meta will now be moving to a Community Notes model written by users of the platform, similar to X. These changes came amidst other larger changes to the platform’s hate speech and censorship rules which will be applied globally, with the announcement stating that the platform will be “getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration, gender identity and gender that are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate.”

Support Alternative Platforms - users can move to platforms like Bluesky and support the AT protocol which are decentralised and challenge the control of the major tech companies Raise the Right Questions - advocates and governments need to look beyond profits and face value and start asking big tech companies the right questions about why their profits are based on potential harm Account for Cultural Nuance - governments and international organisations should establish safety protocols and ethical regulations around

But while the announcement focused on the idea of promoting “free speech”, critics pointed out that it didn’t actually detail just how those changes would take place. News outlets like NPR reported that Meta now allows users to call gay and trans people “mentally ill” and refer to women as “household objects and property.” Those are just some of the more obvious changes in a larger shifting power dynamic that over the last year has slowly made it clear that the digital realm is increasingly unsafe. With the monopoly of digital communication and connection in the hands of a few Big Tech platforms, these US based companies like X and Meta have enough power and access across the world to not just impact everyday communication but influence social dynamics and even global politics. Facebook’s facilitation of the Rohingya genocide isn’t new news, but it is an example of how the safeguards these platforms have supposedly had in place for years haven’t been working, and these changes may seek to worsen the situation further particularly for vulnerable groups. 

Is Social Media Becoming More Dangerous?

Across the United States and the world digital spaces already unsafe for many marginalized groups  are predicted to become more exclusionary, and even dangerous in many ways. 

“When people talk about tech policies, when they talk about vulnerable communities they have a very narrow perspective of the US based minority,” says attorney Ari Cohn, who works at the intersection of speech and technology. That excludes the culturally-nuanced and global conversation that is needed to safeguard global vulnerable populations. 

With fewer fact checkers – even in just the US – and lesser controls online, these platforms are creating digital spaces that now account even less for cultural nuances and needs than they did before, which can further endanger people in the Global South. Because these decisions are made by tech company leadership in the US, many vulnerable groups across the world aren’t even factored into the conversation about safety or risk 

“With the tech landscape generally the regular terms we acknowledge or are worried about are non consensual sexual or intimate images, but the definition of intimate is something we need to work around, so for example if we see a picture of a couple is leaked from Pakistan, to Meta it’s just a picture of people holding hands but for us the context will make it different, put those people at risk”, says Wardah Iftikhar, Project Manager at SHE LEADS, which focuses on eliminating online gender based violence.

It’s these cultural nuances and the risks posed to marginalized groups that make it essential to understand just what this push for “free speech” really means. Yael Eisenstat, an American democracy activist and technology policy expert, summarizes the three changes that she says help us understand that these directives aren’t about free speech and risk contributing to more hate and extremism, pointing out that 1, the algorithm on platforms like X favors Elon Musk and the people he prioritizes, 2, previously banned users being let onto the platform, and 3, the new verification systems now prioritizing people who can pay which further skews the power into the hands of people who have money. 

“These changes combined are important because they are the opposite of actually trying to foster free open speech and tilting it towards people willing to pay, or people the owner is willing to prioritize, while at the same time making it clear that they don’t want to while at the same time making it clear that they no longer want to engage with civil society and outside experts,” Eisenstat shares, emphasizing how this disparity increases further in the global south in countries where X/formerly Twitter’s $8 verification fee could mean a significant amount for many people. 

The risk of false, and possibly dangerous information further increases with the move away from fact checking. “If there were a fair community notes system I could see that this could be a better solution than the fact checking, but you have to take it into account that all or most of the community notes in the past which countered a claim, referred mostly to these fact checker organizations and their articles which were paid by meta, and now they’re gone,” says Berlin-based writer and lecturer Michael Seeman whose work focuses on the issues of digital capitalism.

It also further silos users within their own information bubbles online, which can lead to radicalization as well, particularly as Eisenstat points out that in the case of X many of those allowed back on the platform were extremists and white supremacists. Iftikhar, says that social media platforms have the power to let us remain in our silos. 

“For people supporting Palestine they thought everyone was supporting Palestine and people supporting Israel thought everyone was supporting Israel and people in Palestine were being offensive,” she says.  

Big Tech & Global Autocracy

Of course there is the actual shadowbanning on pro-Palestinian that took place across many of Meta’s platforms, which in the larger picture also raises questions about what the future of these platforms’ relationships with global governments will look like – particularly those governments that want to exercise control over their citizens. 

Dr Courtney Radsch, a journalist, scholar and advocate focused on the intersection of technology, media, and rights points out that we’re already seeing the ripple effects of these policies globally through the de-amplification of journalists and Meta’s news ban in Canada. 

“This leads to an increase of harassment of people using these services especially people who are already marginalized, it has led to a rise in extremist and right wing populism being expressed on these platforms around the world and led to what many see as a rise of degradation on these platforms due to a rise of what many see as AI generated crap that flourishes on these platforms,” Radsch shares. 

The monopoly of these platforms over communications also means that governments only need to ban access to one or two platforms to completely silence any dissenting voices or citizen-led communication, and as is clear from Meta’s catering to Trump, they could just as easily cater to the demands of other governments as well. 

 “They no longer put a strong emphasis on filtering out the mis- and disinformation so it’s easy for autocracies to use platforms as a channel to augment their voice and send their message across the board,” says Xiaomeng Lu, director of Geo-technology at Eurasia Group. 

Decentralising Control

However Eisenstat doesn’t believe that misinformation should be made illegal.

“The questions I think are more important is not how should these companies moderate misinformation but what is it about their design and structures where misinformation and salacious content is being amplified more than fact based information,” she says.

It’s important to be raising the right questions around tech policy and cutting through the noise these platforms are creating in order to be able to come up with long term solutions that can create a more decentralized control around digital spaces. Radsch also believes that there shouldn’t be content focused regulations. 

“There will always be propaganda, there has been throughout history, and platforms monetize this, they monetize engagement. Polarization and extremism do well, and the issue is less about a piece of misinformation and more about industry operations that have risen because it’s so profitable and because algorithms designed in a way to make platform money,” she says.

Cohn also points out that too much regulation may also have its own issues. “There is room to worry about to whether there’s too much centralized power about what is fact,” he says, adding “I think the answer lies somewhere else, in decentralization, like the AT protocol that Bluesky operates on , when people have the easy ability to build a network that taps into a protocol that a lot of other people are using, it becomes a lot more difficult to tap into that or control that.” 

Radsch further believes that the domination of these platforms needs to be broken up, and also needs to be seen in line with the rise of AI dominance, which she says cannot be separated from what we’re seeing in terms of social media platforms consolidating power. 

The answers to curbing power from platforms that have grown so big, and have so much control over the globe aren’t easy – and as authoritarianism rises across the world they may only seek to get more difficult. But the first step can come from changing the way we are asking the questions in the first place, and start questioning what drives these platforms instead of only questioning the content.

Anmol Irfan is a Muslim-Pakistani freelance journalist and editor. Her work aims at exploring marginalized narratives in the Global South with a key focus on gender, climate and tech. She tweets @anmolirfan22

Trump Gives Pentagon $1 Trillion as Medicaid Cuts Loom

Senior Nonresident Fellow Stephen Semler examines the Trump administration’s budget priorities

In his latest analysis, Stephen Semler highlights the stark contrast between unprecedented Pentagon spending and proposed cuts to social welfare programs. Trump’s 2026 federal budget request includes a $1 trillion military allocation, while congressional Republican plans aim to slash $880 billion from Medicaid over the next decade. This issue raises questions about the efficiency and oversight of government spending, noting that the Pentagon has historically failed to pass audits and that much of its spending cannot be fully accounted for.

“The Pentagon has never passed an audit.”

Despite failing to account for much of its spending, the military is poised for even more funding, while Medicaid, which covers roughly 80 million Americans, faces hundreds of billions in cuts.

In Semler’s view, the problem is not efficiency – it is priorities.

Click here to read the FULL ARTICLE

The Real Scandal Is Bombing Yemen, Not the Group Chat

On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Matt Duss on the contradictions of Trump’s foreign policy.