United States Politics

It’s China, stupid: Trump and US foreign policy

16th January 2017 Socialist Action 0
The following article by Jude Woodward, about Donald Trump and the current fight over US foreign policy, was first published on the New Cold War blog.

The furore in the US and Europe over Trump’s relations with Russia is not just a storm in a teacup but the manifestation of a serious fight at the heart of the US foreign policy establishment over how the US should orient strategically to Russia in the context of the chief question that the US confronts internationally – the rise of China.

Donald Trump and the states’ rights pendulum

23rd November 2016 Socialist Action 0

By Michael Wongsam

The election of Donald Trump as America’s 45th president has provoked many responses, from outright rage and protest in many urban centres through to resignation, acceptance and accommodation to the result on the part of the DNC establishment. Opponents have correctly characterised his campaign as a right wing populist call to arms aimed at mobilising rural and sub urban white communities against immigrants, Muslims, black and other minority groups around a reactionary conservative agenda. However, in order to understand this vote in its full significance it is necessary to take a longer, historic view of its place in the unfolding of US politics.

US election: Trump won, but only because Clinton lost

10th November 2016 shoreditchadmin2 0

The victory of Donald Trump has handed the most powerful office on earth into the hands of someone whose promises include a giant wall across the Mexican border, the expulsion of 11 million ‘illegal immigrants’ – roughly 6% of the US workforce – ‘extreme vetting’ for any Muslim seeking to enter the country, the repeal of Obamacare, keeping existing gun laws and punishing women who seek an abortion. He denies the existence of climate change, proposes to engage in a new era of protectionist trade policies, professes to ‘love war’, and is prone to casual racism, misogyny and bigotry towards Jews, LGBT people, Latinos and any other minority group.

A black liberation movement is being reborn in the US

15th January 2015 Socialist Action 0

By Neil Keenan

In the closing weeks of 2014 the US saw the beginnings of a nationwide movement against police repression of the black communities. A series of local struggles in the United States against a number of high profile cases of cop killings of black youths and men exploded into a national black struggle on a level not seen since the civil rights movement.

Photo: Adrian Kinloch

Occupy Wall Street – the progressive answer to the Tea Party movement

5th October 2011 Socialist Action 0

 

By Jane West

Following the mass protest on the weekend of 1st/2nd October, hundreds of primarily young people remain camped out in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park under the slogan of ‘Occupy Wall Street’, and calling for action against the banks to alleviate poverty and unemployment.

While the precise demands of the protests are vague and varied, there is no doubt about the overall character of the mobilisations – they reject that the American people should be forced to pay for an economic crisis made on Wall Street.