inequalityI’m ten years burnin’ down the road
Nowhere to run, ain’t got nowhere to go 

 

 

Seemingly undeterred by the weekends “No King” demonstrations, President Trump to continues to ramp-up the pressure who anyone that opposes him

 

 

Yesterday, (17-06) Brad Lander, New York City’s comptroller and a mayoral candidate, was arrested by masked federal agents at 26 Federal Plaza whilst “accompanying” some immigrants who had been marked for potential deportation out of the building. This was Lander’s third trip to an immigration court in the last month. 

Tricia McLaughlin from the Department of Homeland Security said Lander “was arrested for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer”. 

Upon his release, Lander said he “certainly did not” assault an officer. 

New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, called the arrest “bullshit” on social media and to reporters. She later said in a news conference: “To my knowledge, there are no charges. The charges have been dropped. He walked out of there a free man.” 

With his domestic policy reduced to stirring-up racial hate, the president then out in a brief appearance at  this week’s G7 conference.  

On arrival, delegates were treated to an opening salvo of his self-professed greatness, when he told reporters that it was a mistake to throw Russia out of G8 after their 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. 

The G7 used to be the G8. Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn’t want to have Russia in. And I would say that was a mistake, because I think you wouldn’t have a war right now if you had Russia in and you wouldn’t have a war right now if Trump were president four years ago.” 

As we have seen Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine have only made it worse, with an emboldened Russia sensing US weakness, and is persecuting the war with renewed vigour. 

Before flying back to make the situation with Iran worse, Trump did find time to sign-off a UK-US trade deal. 

 

‘Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine have only made it worse’

 

 

Details released by the Department for Business and Trade, confirm that the UK aerospace sector will face no tariffs at all from the US, while the auto industry will have 10% tariffs, down from 25%. 

The steel industry still faces 25% tariffs for now, although this is less than the US’s global rate of 50% on steel and aluminium. The UK business department said the two leaders had pledged to “make progress towards 0% tariffs on core steel products as agreed”. 

Whilst PM Starmer couldn’t be described as a political soulmate of the president, he did say that “We’re very longtime partners and allies and friends, and we’ve become friends in a short period of time. He’s slightly more liberal than I am” Trump added that “The UK is very well protected. You know why? Because I like them – that’s their ultimate protection.” 

Now this is where the PM needs to be scoring, Trump : “The prime minister has done a great job. I want to just tell that to the people of the United Kingdom. He’s done a very, very good job. He’s done what other people, they’ve been talking about this deal for six years, and he’s done what they haven’t been able to do. So he’s done really a very good job.” 

There it is, confirmation, Labour and Starmer succeeded where others didn’t. Big it up, PM. Farage would be shouting this to all and sundry, that’s what you need to do. Fight fire with fire! 

If there is a negative, being liked by Trump is a transient condition, as are his deals. Trade deals with both Canada and China agreed during Trump’s first term which were subsequentially discarded.  

 

‘We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now’

 

 

Having hurried back to deal with the Iranian situation, Trump fired off a typically ill-considered post: “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin.” 

This was swiftly followed by a blunt demand for “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER”. 

Israel needs US help as they don’t have the requisite military power to end Iran’s nuclear  aspiration.  

From the US perspective there seems to be debate as to whether the GBU-57 “bunker buster” has the capability of penetrate deep enough underground to destroy the Fordow facility. 

The solution appears to be a tactical nuclear device, which, mercifully, seems off the agenda. 

Trump seems set to ignore his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who told Congress in March: the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and supreme leader Khomeini [sic] has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003”. 

In response to the assessment from the official that he handpicked to deliver him information from 18 US intelligence agencies, Trump said: “I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having one.” 

Clearly this is music to the Israeli PM Netanyahu, who has warned that Iran’s “imminent” plans to produce nuclear weapons required a pre-emptive strike from Israel – and, he hopes, from the US – in order to shut down the Iranian uranium enrichment program for good. 

But the escalating conflict – and America’s possible role in it – has already led to a schism among Trump’s most powerful allies. 

MAGA/America-First stalwarts, seemingly represented by VP Vance, have called for the US to restrain itself from sending its troops to fight wars overseas.  

Whereas the militant financial powerbrokers of the Hedge Fund/Tech faction of Trumpism see this as the moment for the US to demonstrate the power and reach through short, sharp, brutal military efficiency. 

 

‘the moment for the US to demonstrate the power and reach through short, sharp, brutal military efficiency’

 

 

In recent days, the situation with Iran has overshadowed the long-running debacle in Gaza. 

Yesterday (17-06) morning, witnesses described Israeli forces firing towards a crowd waiting for trucks loaded with flour, leaving more than 50 dead. These were not stray bullets. 

As Médecins Sans Frontières declared this week, what is unfolding in Gaza is “the calculated evisceration of the very systems that sustain life”. Last week, a UN commission found that more than 90% of the Gaza Strip’s schools and universities have been damaged or destroyed by Israeli forces using airstrikes, burning, shelling and controlled demolitions. This goes beyond the right to defend oneself, and is akin to a programme of civic annihilation. 

At this point, western governments need to decide between words and actions, they cannot continue to decry war crimes and genocide while supplying the arms that cause them elsewhere. International law is valueless unless governments act to uphold it. As the occupying power in Gaza, Israel has a clear duty under the fourth Geneva convention to ensure the population’s access to food, water and medical care. 

Israel is doing as it wishes because no one opposes them. They accused UN aid workers of being infiltrated by Hamas, and replaced them with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private aid scheme coordinated with its military and guarded by US mercenaries. In a few weeks, around 300 Palestinians have reportedly died trying to access these food sites. 

The US-based Center for Constitutional Rights has also warned that the GHF may be prosecuted for aiding “war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide”. Yet Donald Trump’s state department is mulling a $500m grant. 

 

‘Israel is doing as it wishes because no one opposes them’

 

At home the government is hiding behind there is no genocide until it is proven in court. This is just obfuscation designed to serve self-interest, and allow for arms sales. 

Sitting-on-the-fence always has a price. Currently, by their inaction western governments are becoming complicit in the destruction of Gaza and its population. They, we, are falling into line with Trump’s attempts to undermine the very institutions that were created to hold countries and leaders accountable. Even war has rules. 

What is clear that America’s engagements with other G7 members, who would have previously acted unilaterally, is now little more than a passing acquaintance.  

There has always been a degree of arrogant unilateralism in US foreign policy, but now it appears to be sympathy for dictators who recognise no legitimate brake on their actions, who have folded the national interest into a personality cult, are preferred to leaders who operate in deference to law and independent institutions. 

The G7 is becoming the G1, driven by “America First.” 

His agenda appears to include a new order, especially in the west, where America’s former allies are reacting to the situation, and realising that Pax Americana is dead and needs to be replaced by Pax Europa.  

‘he must cast jealous glances at leaders such as Putin who rule without fear of contradiction’

 

 

Here, the UK treads a fine line, as servicing the “special” transatlantic relationship has been the axiomatic priority for decades. Whilst there is a need to be closer to our continental allies, Brexit makes this more difficult. 

When you look at how state governors and the courts are trying to restrain Trump’s excesses he must cast jealous glances at leaders such as Putin who rule without fear of contradiction. 

Trump clearly wants to rule like a dictator, he already inhabits an imaginary world fashioned around his own narcissistic delusions, surrounded by corrupt sycophants and far-right ideologues. The end-goal of the project is to hollow out US democracy, replacing it with totalitarianism masquerading as freedom. 

Whilst Trump’s Maga movement is indigenous it acts as the “ideological mothership supporting a flotilla of extreme nationalist parties, campaigns and digital influencers in the EU and the UK. Nigel Farage sails in that slipstream.” 

The present Reform, and Farage, Trump’s UK acolytes, with a problem; Trump is deeply unpopular here, even among  Reform supporters. 

Whilst Putin represents a skeleton in Farage’s closet he had has long forgotten, his relationship with Trump is far deeper. Despite his non-stick qualities, Farage’s politics are dark, based on division and the cynical stirring of conflict, being the British franchise of a toxic brand could expose this. 

As I written before, Labour have been slow to make political capital out of their few successes, whilst their  mistakes and shortcomings are constantly highlighted. 

This week, the mother of a teenager with cerebral palsy demanded an end to the “sickening harassment” of unpaid carers after a significant legal victory against the government. 

Nicola Green, 42, was pursued by the Department for Work and Pensions (“DWP”) for more than a year after she was accused of fraudulently claiming nearly £3,000 in carer’s allowance. 

When Green insisted she was innocent, the DWP wrote to her employer without her knowledge to try to recoup the sum from her pay. 

This is the latest in a string of cases where the DWP has pursued unpaid carers despite official errors, pushing tens of thousands of vulnerable people into hardship. Data show that the government is clawing back at least £357m in carer’s allowance paid out in error over the last six years, leaving hundreds of people with criminal records and some with debts of more than £20,000. 

‘We don’t need to go to war with the US, we don’t need to fall out with the US, we just need to be independent of them’

 

The courts are helping victims; in the year to April 2025, tribunal judges struck out 42% of carer’s allowance fines, compared with 29% in 2019 and 15% in 2014. In total, the DWP has lost 898 cases at tribunal in the last six years. 

Another example of all that is wrong is Thames Water. Lenders vying to take over the mess have demanded that the struggling company and its management be granted immunity from prosecution for serious environmental crimes as a condition of acquiring it. 

Specifically, creditors want the environment secretary, Steve Reed, to grant the company extraordinary clemency even though it has been a serial offender, paying tens of millions of pounds in fines and penalties, with multiple convictions for dumping raw sewage into rivers and streams and dozens more investigations under way. 

Sources described the creditors’ list of demands as a “ransom note” that underlined their powerful negotiating position as the “last show in town”. 

For a government seeking to reassert itself, these are easy wins. Jump on the attack, stop the DWP, nationalise Thames and make shareholders suffer. Sure, they wont buy anymore privatisations, but who cares? It’s a discredited policy. 

As to the US…well, I shall repeat my previous mantra. We don’t need to go to war with the US, we don’t need to fall out with the US, we just need to be independent of them. 

 

 

“Yes, and how many deaths will it take ’til he knows
That too many people have died?” 

 

 

‘Obviously the big news this week is Iran. And, we will have to see what Trump does or doesn’t do.

It has overshadowed the continued terrors perpetrated by the IDF in Israel, which continue unchallenged. A fact that discredits our own government amongst others.

Gaza is a classic example of how the hard-right and their media seek to control the narrative. From day 1 they are quick to link the Israel, Gaza / Palestine with antisemitism.

As a result, anyone being anti-Israel was immediately seen as antisemitic.

It isn’t a secret that I don’t regard myself as religious, however I fully respect others desire to be so. Where is do take issue is with the pernicious influence of extremism, irrespective of whatever religion it might follow, which is why I was intrigued by this quote by former US presidential candidate, Senator Barry Goldwater:

“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.”

Goldwater was the Republican candidate defeated by the incumbent Democratic president Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. After leaving the senate, he went on to have a substantial impact on the American libertarian movement, supporting homosexuals serving openly in the military, environmental protection, gay rights, abortion rights, adoption rights for same-sex couples, and the legalization of marijuana.

He clearly knew some things we didn’t.

Next week we look more deeply at just how Trump is turning the US into a totalitarian state, and why people are only just waking up to this fact.

Lyrically, we open with “the boss” and “Born in the USA”, and close with Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

Much to ponder! Philip.’

 

@coldwarsteve

 

 

 

 
 

Philip Gilbert 2Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.

Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s

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