Bulletins and News Discussion from January 27th to February 2nd, 2025 - Tariffs in Trump's Imperium - COTW: Colombia

Image is of Colombian President Gustavo Petro giving a speech at the UN in 2022.

Trump has arrived in office with the force of an avalanche; ~~ending~~ slowing a genocide on the one hand, while simultaneously promising a total nightmare for minorities and the poor throughout and outside the United States on the other hand. [edited for clarity; I do not actually think Trump has ended the Palestinian genocide obviously, I was making a joke - but the ceasefire is a genuine improvement in conditions for millions of people right now who are on the edge of death, so it cannot be dismissed]

It's still far too early to truly compare and contrast his imperial strategy with Biden's, but initial signs show that there does appear to be somewhat of a reorientation. Biden was famous for being two-faced; ostensibly offering aid and stability, while also blowing up your pipeline to ensure you did not actually have an alternative to his idea. Trump, meanwhile, seems only really capable of aggression, threatening several "allied" nations with what may as well be sanctions because of the economic harm they'd do. I suspect we'll be debating for a long time how much of this can be attributed to the specific characteristics of Trump, or whether he merely embodies the zeitgeist of imperial decline - a wounded empire lashing out with extreme violence to try and convince everybody, including themselves, that they can still be the world imperialist hegemon.

I'll admit it: I did not believe that Trump would actually try and go ahead with putting tariffs on basically anybody who annoys him. And while the threat could still be empty in regards to countries like China and Canada, Colombia is the first indication of the potential of his strategy. Despite some fiery words from President Petro, after Trump's administration revealed the punishment if Colombia did not agree, it appears that Colombia will in fact be accepting deported migrants after all. It's funny how that works.

Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

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Update on the deportation flights situation: Perú becomes another country to accept US military deportation flights, military deportation flights continue to Honduras, México still holding out, no updates on any other nations involved.
There were two US military deportation flights that took place since the last update, and these are the 7th and 8th total. Flights RCH116 and RCH686 both flew from Harlingen, Texas, United States; to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. RCH116 then proceeded to return home to Harlingen, United States; while RCH686 continued on from San Pedro Sula, Honduras; to Lima, Perú; before returning to the United States. This (RCH686) becomes the first US military deportation flight to Perú and the first two legged flight outside of US airspace. All flights continued to avoid México's airspace.
- Let's not forget that Peru is currently under a right-wing dictatorship and that the democratically elected president has been illegally deposed and imprisoned. The US was so frightened by that the Peruvian regime would collapse, that Biden sent American troops to help the Peruvian army, since many police officers had abandoned their posts.
  The entire Peruvian Left (Communists, Socialists, Social-Democrats, Ethnocarcerists that are like Peruvian Nazbols and the Shining Path) have allied themselfs with Anti-Fujimori Conservatives and Liberals to pressure to goverment.
  
  Peruvian Left-Wing Incan Nationalists, they were created first as an attempt by the military to get closer to the native people, but got radicalized after Fujimori started genociding native people in Peru.
  They used to promote Incan racial superiority, but they mostly stopped that, theres still a lot of homophobia and racism towards Afro-Peruvians, but that's more a general problem in Peruvian society. They seem to even defend Venezuelan immigrants nowadays, and like and support presidents Evo Morales, Lula da Silva and Hugo Chavez (mostly because they are all left-wing presidents from minority groups, and because Chavez was a military leader) and Peru's Military Left-Wing Socdem Dictator Juan Velasco. They are also Anti-Chile, but the entire Peruvian Military is anti-Chile.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnocacerism

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