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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 Executive Order on Defense Sales

The actions outlined Executive Order “Reforming Defense Sales to Improve Speed and Accountability,” issued April 9, 2025, will further obscure a vast portion of the arms trade from public and congressional oversight, undermine Congress’ legally mandated authority over arms sales, and increase the flow of U.S. weapons to actors in armed conflicts and criminal groups without adequate end-use monitoring measures.

Obscuring the arms trade from Congress by raising thresholds for notification:

Section 3(a)(iii) of the Executive Order dictates that the Executive “submit a joint letter to the Congress proposing an update to statutory congressional certification (also known as congressional notification) thresholds of proposed sales under the FMS and Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) programs in the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2751 et seq.).”

At present, under the Arms Export Control Act, arms sales that reach a certain financial value require congressional notification and review. The transaction value triggering notification and the duration of the review period vary depending on the proposed recipient and weapons system in question.
These notifications provide lawmakers an opportunity to weigh in on arms transfers and act as de facto transparency mechanisms in an otherwise opaque enterprise, facilitating public engagement and inter-branch negotiation on security assistance decisions which have massive impact on U.S. grand strategy and public image, as well as human rights and civilian protection.
Already, an enormous number of arms sales pass below this notification threshold. Between 2017 and 2020, the Department of State’s Office of the Inspector General found that more than 4,211 below-threshold arms transfers, worth roughly $11 billion, were made to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as they bombed Yemen. Raising notification thresholds would increase the number of arms transfers that proceed without congressional review, warping the political risk calculus for sales and incentivizing even more permissive and less restrained practices.

Undermining congressional authority regarding arms sales:

Section 3(a)(iii) of the Executive Order further dictates that “The Secretary of State shall also work with the Congress to review congressional notification processes to ensure the timely adjudication of notified FMS and DCS cases.”

This is likely a reference to eliminating the “tiered review process,” one of the few tools Congress has to exert authority over the transfer of defense articles and services.
As the State Department Office of the Inspector General explains “the Department has by longstanding practice submitted a preliminary or informal notification of prospective major arms transfers in advance of their formal notification to the congressional committees of jurisdiction.” This process allows for Congress to ask questions or raise concerns prior to formal notification confidentially with the administration.
Because Congress has never successfully passed Joint Resolution of Disapproval to entirely block an arms sale, this is de facto the only opportunity for Congress to exercise its Constitutional oversight role in matters of foreign relations. Since 95% of arms sales are approved by the State Department within 48 hours, this tiered review process only impacts transfers which pose a significant risk to U.S. national security or violations of international law.

Increasing the flow of arms to conflict zones, while risking U.S. proprietary information:

Section 3(c)(ii) orders “The Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense shall review and update the list of defense items that can only be purchased through the FMS process (the FMS-Only List).”

The United States restricts the sale of some items, including those with advanced capabilities and proprietary defense information, to the FMS (Foreign Military Sales) government-to-government process. Among these defense articles are autonomous weapons systems, intelligence libraries, and select electronic warfare items. Allowing these sensitive weapons to be sold through the Direct Commercial Sales process cuts public oversight, while raising the risk of unauthorized transfer or diversion.

Section 3(a)(ii) similarly orders the Executive to “Reevaluate restrictions imposed by the Missile Technology Control Regime on Category I items and consider supplying certain partners with specific Category I items, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce.”

The Missile Technology Control Regime is an international agreement which seeks to limit the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and limit the risk of related items reaching violent or destabilizing groups.
Undermining the MTCR not only risks the greater proliferation of the equipment that enables the use of weapons of mass destruction, but means other parties to the MCTR, including Russia, Turkey, and India, may follow suit and make the transfer of these risky technologies to U.S. adversaries more likely.

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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

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.

Trump Resurrects Old Nuclear Nightmares, Destroying Agreements that Protect America

Joe Cirincione is the vice-chair of the Center for International Policy’s board of directors and the author of Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late.

Donald Trump is tearing down the barriers that for decades have blocked the global spread of nuclear weapons. In pursuit of an alliance with Russia, he is recreating the nightmare nuclear scenarios that haunted America in the 1950s and 1960s, and that decades of bipartisan American policy prevented from coming to life.

In the 21st century American Presidents have largely viewed the problem of new nuclear weapons as a “rogue state” problem. During the War on Terror, US policy worked to prevent terrorists or countries seen by the US as sympathetic to terror groups, specifically Iraq, Libya, Iran, and North Korea, from getting the Bomb.

Now, Trump’s efforts to please Putin by betraying Ukraine and undercutting America’s commitment to defend Europe threaten to drag the world back to the dangerous nuclear anarchy of the 1950s and 1960s when dozens of countries considered getting the most powerful weapons humankind has ever invented.

Keeping Americans in, Russians out, Proliferation managed

The NATO treaty signed in Washington 76 years ago this April 4th, was, in part, a treaty to stop the spread of these weapons. The United States was then the only country in the world with atomic bombs. President Harry Truman assured the European allies that he would use all of America’s military might to protect them from any attack from the Soviet Union. They did not have to get their own atomic bombs.

This extended deterrence was not, by itself, convincing enough for all NATO members. The United Kingdom got its own nuclear arsenal in 1952 as did France in 1960 despite the security assurances. Another framework was needed: the arms control and disarmament commitments embodied in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), negotiated in 1968 and ratified by the Senate under Richard Nixon in 1970.

That treaty and the associated mechanisms provided the diplomatic and legal framework that assured countries that if they choose not to get nuclear weapons, they would be part of the international norm. The nuclear-armed states promised to negotiate their reduction and elimination; the non-nuclear states promised never to get them. This gave countries the assurance that if they did not get nuclear weapons, their neighbors would not either. This was enough to convince Sweden, the last European country with a weapons program, to end its efforts in 1968.

Those two basic frameworks are now at risk. NATO allies believe that they can no longer depend on the United States to honor its treaty commitments to come to their aid if Russia attacks. Emergency meetings throughout Europe now focus on developing new, independent security arrangements. Leaders in Germany and Poland openly speak of acquiring nuclear arsenals. If they leave the NPT to develop their own weapons, the non-proliferation regime will collapse. There will no longer be the global political, diplomatic and legal restraints that we have taken for granted. There could be a dozen new nuclear-armed states, not just the “rogues” but our closest allies.

Germany’s likely next Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said that “My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.” The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, says “the Free World needs a new leader.” French President Emmanuel Macron has offered to discuss having his nation’s arsenal of 290 nuclear weapons serve as a Euro deterrent force — and Poland, Germany and Denmark say they are open to the idea.

But could a French or British nuclear umbrella open to replace the one Trump is closing?

Collapsing the Nuclear Umbrella

Consider Europe’s new dilemma. If Putin prevails in Ukraine — and Trump is doing his best to help him win his war — he will certainly pursue his territorial ambitions with Moldova, Romania, the Baltic States and Poland. He will certainly make new demands on all of Europe, backed by veiled or direct nuclear threats. Yale historian Tim Snyder writes that should Russia prevail, should Ukraine be defeated, then “nuclear weapons will spread around the world, both to those who wish to bluff with them” – the way Putin has done in his war on Ukraine – “and those who will need them to resist these bluffs.”

These nations might be able to rely on a French nuclear umbrella with Macron in power, but what if far-right leader Marine Le Pen becomes president? She has already said that “French defense must remain French defense.”

Could Germany step into the breach? It certainly has the ability to build nuclear weapons. But if the pro-Putin, far-right AfD party, already the second largest party in Germany, takes control, Germany’s weapons would certainly not protect other nations from Putin. Worse, if America walks away from NATO while bolstering these anti-American parties, “it will lead to a Germany once again led by fascists and willing to arm itself with nuclear weapons,” warns New York Times columnist Bret Stephens.

Poland could reasonably conclude that it must develop its own arsenal. Polish President Donald Tusk is already preparing for a post-NATO future, pledging to increase military spending, have every man undergo military training and adding, “We must be aware that Poland must reach for the most modern capabilities also related to nuclear weapons and modern unconventional weapons.” Sweden, Norway and others might feel the same.

*From “Development of nuclear capabilities by fourth countries: likelihood and consequence”, a July 1958 assessment*

We have seen this dynamic before. The first comprehensive national intelligence assessment of the risk of nuclear proliferation was in the Eisenhower administration in 1958. It assessed that 16 nations had the ability to produce nuclear weapons. Twelve were in Europe, including West Germany and Poland.

That is why President John F. Kennedy asked us to consider “what it would mean to have nuclear weapons in so many hands, in the hands of countries large and small, stable and unstable, responsible and irresponsible, scattered throughout the world. There would be no rest for anyone then, no stability, no real security, and no chance of effective disarmament.”

In nonproliferation’s twilight, disarmament’s dawn?

Kennedy understood that non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament are two sides of the same coin. He tried to limit both existing arsenals (most dramatically with the 1962 Limited Test Ban Treaty) and prevent new ones. Reducing existing nuclear arsenals helps convince other nations not to get them; stopping new programs gives states the confidence to reduce their stockpiles. You cannot do one without the other.

This core truth must guide the three steps we must take to avert the nuclear nightmares Trump has unleashed. First, future presidents will have to recommit to the collective defense of Europe. Second, to prove we mean it this time, America must have an urgent action plan for reducing the global nuclear arsenals, launching negotiations with Russia and China that can eventually bring in as many of the other six nuclear-armed states as possible. Finally, the next administration must rebuild the interlocking system of treaties, controls and security agreements that Trump and Putin are tearing down.

To kill the nuclear nightmares now rising from the grave, Democrats will need their own Project 2029 plan, and be willing to implement it as rapidly as Trump has implemented his.

This post also appears on the IPJ Substack, read and subscribe here.

Might Makes Right: Matt Duss on Trump’s Foreign Policy Doctrine, from Ukraine to Gaza

Watch the Full Interview with Democracy Now

Transcript:

Matt, welcome back to Democracy Now! Talk about what you understand at this point. At the time of this broadcast, the meeting between Zelensky and Trump has not taken place at the White House yet.

MATT DUSS: Right. Well, what we understand — what I understand right now is that a few weeks ago this deal on rare earth minerals actually originated with the Ukrainians in the hopes that this would be a way to entice Donald Trump into offering U.S. security guarantees. They understand, I think quite rightly, that Donald Trump is always interested in how he can profit, how he can — how he can cut deals. And the hope was that an exchange for some claim to Ukraine’s rare earth mineral wealth, this would translate into real military security guarantees from the United States to Ukraine’s security.

Donald Trump responded to that by saying, “I love this idea. I’m not going to give you any real security guarantees.” However, he does seem to imply that by giving the United States a stake in the future — in future profits in Ukraine, this, in itself, could translate into a form of security guarantee. He has talked about U.S. workers being present doing this work in Ukraine as a form of a guarantee, but believing that would also mean that Donald Trump, the United States would respond militarily to an attack by Russia that endangered those Americans. So, this is still unclear, as are the actual details of this minerals deal.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I mean, it’s very interesting, because you’d think the person who’s most concerned about this — I mean, Zelensky, for reasons of just how much of the rare earth minerals they would be promising to the U.S. — but the person who would be most concerned about this is the president of Russia, is Putin.

MATT DUSS: I mean, I think that’s right. You know, he obviously does not want the United States and Ukraine to be drawing into a closer relationship. So, again, this is why I say we really do need to wait and see the actual details of this deal. As of right now, it has Ukraine promising to invest some portion of their mineral wealth into a shared fund between Ukraine and the United States, and which would also be reinvested in Ukraine, although U.S. companies would be the ones developing this. Donald Trump sees this as a way of getting the United States, quote, “paid back” for its support for Ukraine’s defense. But you’re right: Anything that draws the U.S. and Ukraine closer is something that can’t make Vladimir Putin very happy.

AMY GOODMAN: During his first Cabinet meeting this week, President Trump was asked by reporters about tariffs on the European Union. And I’m asking you this as Trump just met, of course, with the British Prime Minister Starmer. They also talked about Ukraine. But this is particularly interesting, what he said, what Trump said about the European Union.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I mean, look, let’s be honest: The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States. That’s the purpose of it. And they’ve done a good job of it. But now I’m president.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the history and what Trump is talking about?

MATT DUSS: From his perspective, he clearly sees the EU as a way to just form a larger economic bloc that could compete with and possibly, as he said it, screw the United States. But, obviously, it’s much more complicated than that. Economic competition is part of it. I mean, coming out of World War II, there was a huge security and political component of this, Europe trying to draw together to coordinate and to talk more effectively to avoid a third round. We went through two world wars, you know, driven by European economic and military competition. So it was a real effort to avoid that. But Donald Trump simply sees it as a way, as he said, to screw the United States by separate European countries drawing together into one large economic formation that could make joint economic decisions.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, now President Trump is threatening tariffs, starting Tuesday, on Mexico, on Canada, increased tariffs on China, and threatening to tariff the whole European Union.

MATT DUSS: Right. I mean, he did this in his first term. You know, he sees tariffs as yet another way to extract concessions. It’s hard to know exactly how far he’s going to go, as we saw in his comments just now about Zelensky. Last week, he was calling Zelensky a dictator; this week, he can’t believe he said that. You know, frankly, I can’t believe he said that, either. So we’ll have to wait and see what he actually does.

I think what’s interesting about all these meetings we’ve been seeing from European leaders — Macron last week and Starmer just yesterday, and I’m sure we’ll see this from Zelensky today — is that they all understand that they do not want to be in public spats with Donald Trump. They are seeking ways to flatter him. They’re seeking ways to demonstrate that he can profit from a better relationship with their countries.

AMY GOODMAN: In your recent piece for The Guardian, where you talk about “What are we to make of Trump’s Ukraine policy?” you talk about discussions between the U.S. and Moscow in deciding the future of Ukraine. You also compare this to U.S.-Israel relations as both nations plan the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. So, if you can talk about, in both cases, the first, leaving out Ukraine — though he’s meeting with Zelensky today and denying he said — of course, he did say that Zelensky is a dictator — but leaving out Ukraine and leaving out the Palestinians when it comes to their fate?

MATT DUSS: Right. I mean, I see a great deal of similarity, you know, a consistency to Trump’s approach. He sees the global order as one in which great powers, powerful countries make the decisions, and less powerful countries, less powerful communities and peoples simply have to live with the consequences. We saw that in the negotiation between the United States and Russia, hosted by Saudi Arabia, where Russia and the United States were essentially determining the future of Ukraine. We saw this in the appearance at the White House with Benjamin Netanyahu a few weeks ago, where he announced his proposal for the removal — essentially, the ethnic cleansing — of Gaza, a decision with huge consequences for the Palestinian people and for the region made without a Palestinian in sight. So, again, I think this is how Trump sees the world. The United States, by dint of its enormous economic and military power, sits with other great powers and simply determines the rules of the road, and weaker countries and other peoples who aren’t in the room have to deal with it.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, you saw this video, AI-generated video, that President Trump retweeted on his social media, on Truth Social, this horrific video about Gaza.

MATT DUSS: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: And it has Trump Gaza, a huge hotel. It has a gold statue of President Trump. It has Elon Musk walking down the streets. And it has Netanyahu and Trump sitting on beach chairs on the ocean with their cocktails. And finally, it has Trump dancing with an almost completely naked, her bottom naked, woman. What is this?

MATT DUSS: I don’t have a good answer for you. I don’t know who dropped acid and made that video. But, you know, it really —

AMY GOODMAN: The point isn’t who made it. The point is he tweeted it.

MATT DUSS: That’s right. No, that’s right. You know, clearly, that appealed to him. But, I mean, we saw this from his comments with Netanyahu, is that he sees the redevelopment, as he would say it, of Gaza as a source of potential profit, just as he sees this deal on rare earth minerals with Ukraine as a source of potential profit. In both of these cases, you always have to follow the money. You know, the thing to ask about every decision Donald Trump makes is: How does this translate into money in Donald Trump’s pocket? So, he clearly sees some advantage into this garish redevelopment of Gaza into, you know, one big Trump casino and golf course — of course, without any consideration for the people who actually live there right now.

What are we to make of Trump’s Ukraine policy? | The Guardian

It’s been quite a week for US foreign policy. Following a phone call last week between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, US and Russian delegates met in Saudi Arabia to smooth relations between the two countries and discuss possible paths to ending the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine was not invited to the talks. Quite reasonably, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his country would not be bound by decisions taken without their participation. Trump responded to this by falsely claiming that Ukraine had started the war, and sought to undermine Zelenskyy’s legitimacy by claiming in a Truth Social post that he “refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls … A Dictator without Elections.”

In reality, Zelenskyy’s current approval rating is more than 50%, which is higher than Trump’s. And while it’s fair to ask whether Ukraine should have elections during the war, only a total rube would believe that Trump is bringing this up because he cares about democracy.

In terms of optics, the talks themselves are a clear victory for Putin, a validation of his well-known aspiration to restore the great power status to which he believes Russia is historically entitled. In this view, the future of Ukraine, and of Europe, is something to be determined by the United States and Russia irrespective of the populations involved.

For Trump’s part, it fits neatly with his modus operandi that Russia and the United States would get to make those decisions. Just as with the spectacle of the US president and Israeli prime minister a few weeks ago determining the future of the Palestinians who weren’t even in the room, in Trump’s jungle the powerful make decisions that the weak must simply accept, international law and human rights be damned.

You can say this for Trump: at least he’s consistent. The previous administration’s approach to two major wars – Ukraine and Gaza – was characterized by a glaring double standard in which Russia’s blatant violations of the laws of war were rightly condemned, while Israel’s commission of the same were shamefully excused and supported. The rights of the Ukrainian people to freedom and self-determination were treated as unquestionable, while those same rights for the Palestinian people were considered negotiable, if considered at all.

Trump now appears to be resolving this tension by throwing the Ukrainians under the bus along with the Palestinians. And as with his forced-displacement proposal for Gaza, he seems to see Russian talks over Ukraine as primarily a business venture, with the state department readout of the meeting highlighting possible new “investment opportunities” in warming US-Russia relations. (This shows again how wildly off the mark the Washington establishment’s “isolationist” criticisms of Trump have been. In truth, Trump is much more an old-school imperialist, always looking for new spoils to be enjoyed. The amount of time and energy devoted to the idea that Trump is a “Russian asset” obscured the more prosaic homegrown danger posed by his predatory authoritarian capitalism.)

That said, it’s important not to overreact to these talks by dismissing the notion of diplomacy to end the war, nor lose sight of the larger problem in what Trump is doing and how these foreign policy moves tie into his broader agenda. While Trump’s comments indicate a troubling direction of travel and a propaganda victory for Putin, that in and of itself is not enough reason not to avoid negotiations. We should be talking to our adversaries more, not less. The question is what we get from them. And if this initial dialogue helps lead to a durable end to the war, that’s positive. The details will matter.

As will Ukrainian buy-in. There’s some evidence that Ukrainians could support an agreement that comes short of total victory. According to a November Gallup poll, 52% of Ukrainians would like to see their country negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible. According to the same poll, more than half of this group (52%) believe that Ukraine should be open to making some territorial concessions as part of such an agreement.

But for any such agreement to be more than just a temporary halt to conflict, it will need to ensure Ukraine’s security and sovereignty. Simply imposing an agreement that returns Ukraine to Russian vassal state status is not only unjust, but it will also not work. No people would accept decisions about their fate made over their heads, nor should they be expected to. The Ukrainians won’t, just as the Palestinians won’t.

European allies have responded with understandable alarm to Trump’s abrupt policy shift, even if they have no excuse not to have seen it coming. Europeans can no more be cut out of negotiations over the future of their region than Ukraine can be excised from talks over its own fate. If this latest shock finally, at long last, spurs our European allies to take greater responsibility for their own region’s security, that would be a positive outcome. But given how quickly the urgency of past “turning points” has faded, we shouldn’t hold our breath.

The tone and choice of location for this week’s talks in Riyadh (itself a propaganda victory for the Saudi regime) are just one piece of a larger picture in which the United States is now aligning itself more fully with the global forces of ethnonationalism, authoritarianism and oligarchy. As the Trump administration draws closer to rightwing autocrats internationally, it is also hard at work here at home dismantling the administrative state and divvying up the spoils among its own oligarch allies.

Until Democrats are willing to look more honestly and critically at the influence that wealthy interests have on their own party and their governing choices, they won’t be able to offer a compelling and convincing alternative.

Read in The Guardian.

DOGE Access to Defense Database Increases Risks of Corruption, Oligarchic Capture

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may soon gain access to USXports, a database of US-made defense items for export, a potentially massive conflict of interest, Ari Tolany tells Zeteo News’ Spencer Ackerman:

“USX often contains sensitive business information, including technical data, contracts information, and blueprints, including [on] SpaceX and its competitors,” says Ari Tolany, who directs the Security Assistance Monitor at the Center for International Policy.

“Corporate interests too often dictate US government policy through the revolving door between government and industry. One corporation having privileged access above others is yet another example of the bald-faced corruption characterizing the intrusions of an unelected billionaire into government decision-making.”

Read the original article, Musk and DOGE Might Soon Have Access to the Most Lucrative Defense-Contract Database of All.

Biden Administration Defies Law with Israel Arms Transfers

ProPublica’s Brett Murphy reports on the Biden administration’s violation of arms transfer law:

In late May, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to stop its assault on the city, citing the Geneva Conventions. Behind the scenes, State Department lawyers scrambled to come up with a legal basis on which Israel could continue smaller attacks in Rafah. “There is room to argue that more scaled back/targeted operations, combined with better humanitarian efforts, would not meet that threshold,” the lawyers said in a May 24 email. While it’s not unreasonable for government lawyers to defend a close ally, critics say the cable illustrates the extreme deference the U.S. affords Israel.

“The State Department has a whole raft of highly paid, very good lawyers to explain, ‘Actually this is not illegal,’ when in fact it is,” said Ari Tolany, an arms trade authority and director at the Center for International Policy, a Washington-based think tank. “Rules for thee and not for me.”

Read the original article on ProPublica, A Year of Empty Threats and a “Smokescreen” Policy: How the State Department Let Israel Get Away With Horrors in Gaza.

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Security Assistance Monitor (SAM) is the first and only public resource to comprehensively collect, organize, and house all available federal data on U.S. weapons sales and transfers in one place, making it easily searchable by year or country on its website.

The Gaza ceasefire is huge news. But the costs of its delay are devastating

By Matt Duss, executive vice-president at the Center for International Policy

TEL AVIV – On Wednesday, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani announced that a framework for an exchange of prisoners and hostages, leading to a ceasefire in the war in the Gaza Strip, has been agreed to by both Israel and Hamas. The announcement comes after months of intensive, on-again, off-again negotiations by multiple countries. The end of Israel’s devastating military onslaught, the release of prisoners and hostages, and the increase in humanitarian aid into Gaza which it will enable are most welcome. But the challenges ahead are tremendous. And it should have, and could have, come much sooner.

Last May, Biden outlined the contours of a three-stage deal. In the first, there would be a six-week ceasefire, Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners would be released, Israeli forces would withdraw from populated areas of Gaza, and humanitarian aid would be vastly increased into Gaza. Israel and Hamas would use this time to negotiate the terms of a permanent ceasefire.

Based on early reports, this deal looks very similar to that one. But as I wrote shortly after Biden’s announcement last year, it lacked the essential component of necessary pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept, which Biden has steadfastly refused to apply. Incoming Trump envoy Steve Witkoff’s apparent willingness to apply that pressure seemingly forced this breakthrough. “The pressure Trump is exerting right now is not the kind that Israel expected from him,” Israeli commentator Jacob Bardugo, a Netanyahu supporter, said Monday. “The pressure is the essence of the matter.”

Here in Israel and Palestine, where I arrived last weekend, there is great anticipation among people on both sides for this deal. Yet, there is also bafflement and anger that it took so long — much of it directed at Hamas and Netanyahu, but a lot of it also directed at the U.S.

“Why is Blinken so feckless?” asked an Israeli friend who lives in one of the kibbutzim attacked Oct. 7, referring to Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s constant trips to the region that have ended with him leaving empty-handed and usually humiliated by Netanyahu. Palestinian analyst Muhammad Shehada, who is from Gaza, recently published a piece based on conversations with numerous Israeli, Palestinian and Arab officials involved in the talks. They expressed incredulity at how the Biden administration has continued to publicly blame Hamas as the obstacle to a ceasefire, when it was clear to all involved that Netanyahu was the problem. Worse still, the White House’s dissembling gave Netanyahu additional cover to continue his obstruction.

The costs of the administration’s approach have been devastating. The reconstruction alone is estimated to take decades. A United Nations assessment last May reported that the level of destruction of housing in Gaza was unprecedented in the post-World War II era, and that it would take at least until 2040 to restore the homes destroyed. The damage to critical infrastructure has been similarly severe, with damages estimated at more than $18.5 billion by the World Bank as of last April. It will be considerably more now.

The human costs are even more staggering. According to Palestinian health officials, the war has killed more than 46,000 people; many times that number have been maimed and wounded. A recent study in the Lancet medical journal estimated that the actual death count could be much higher, between 55,298 and 78,525 deaths from traumatic injuries in Gaza up to June 30 2024. More than 80% of the population has been displaced, often repeatedly, as the Israeli military has forcibly expelled populations into new “safe areas” which it then bombed. U.N. experts, along with many others, have repeatedly warned of famine in Gaza.

The toll will continue to climb long after any cease-fire. Another Lancet analysis, issued last summer, noted that “even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases.” The authors concluded that “it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict.”

Biden has repeatedly — and correctly — declared that Israel, like any country, had a right and responsibility to respond to the horrific attacks of Oct. 7 and prevent such an attack from happening again. But public statements from Israeli officials, cited in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, are a series of confessions of intent that go far beyond any remotely plausible definition of a “just war.” Deputy Knesset Speaker Nissim Vaturi from the ruling Likud party wrote that Israel’s goal was “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israeli Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu, from the far-right Jewish Power party, suggested that Israel drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza and said there were “no uninvolved civilians” there. Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon recently referred to Israel’s actions in northern Gaza as “ethnic cleansing.”

“This is in no way a lawful response, a targeted operation of ‘self-defence’ to dismantle armed groups, or warfare consistent with humanitarian law,” Norwegian Refugee Council Secretary General Jan Egeland said in November. “What Israel is doing here, with Western-supplied arms, is rendering a densely populated area uninhabitable for almost two million civilians.”

There are many ways this multiphase deal could still collapse. Netanyahu has reportedly assured his right-wing ministers that he will resume the war after phase I “until Hamas’ defeat.” Preventing that outcome will require the consistent application of the kind of pressure that Witkoff reportedly has applied. But in the longer term, if this ceasefire is to be anything more than yet another interregnum between rounds of catastrophic violence, the United States will have to get serious about supporting Palestinian liberation and self-determination. Its ability to serve as a credible broker between Palestinians and Israelis, already on life support after decades of failure, is another casualty of the U.S.-backed Gaza war. As one Palestinian activist put it to me, “You now have a whole generation of Palestinians who believe we’re not just fighting against Israel, we’re fighting the U.S.”

If, as another Israeli report claims, Trump has secretly offered support for more settlements in the West Bank in exchange for Netanyahu backing the Gaza ceasefire, a return to large-scale violence against West Bank Palestinians (as opposed to the smaller- scale violence that they endure every day) is simply a question of when, not if. So long as the Palestinian people live under occupation, and the Israeli government steadily consolidates that occupation as a single undemocratic state, neither Israelis nor Palestinians will ever know the security and peace that both peoples desire and deserve. The path toward both will require a level of vision and courage that is currently in very short supply.

Issue: Arms & Technology -- Ensuring accountability, transparency and rights protection in the use and export of arms and emerging technologies