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    Trump’s tariff and land grab threats signal U.S. expansionist ambitions

    When U.S. President Donald Trump first suggested Canada should become the 51st American state, the federal government dismissed it as just a joke. Finance Minister Dominic Leblanc insisted it was “in no way a serious comment.”

    Similar skepticism was expressed by political leaders across the world when Trump talked about seizing Greenland and the Panama Canal in early January, by military force if necessary, to buttress U.S. national security. He also floated the idea of taking over Gaza to transform it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

    Now that Trump has carried through on his aggressive economic threats — launching a trade war with China and raising the possibility of similar conflicts with Canada, Mexico and the European Union — his imperialist expansionism is in plain sight.

    Canadian leaders have come to realize that Trump’s actions may not be a temporary or minor irritant, but rather an attack on Canadian sovereignty itself.

    The failure to take Trump’s words seriously is reminiscent of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s skepticism in 1938 that Hitler would actually risk world war despite the latter’s aggressive rhetoric, annexation of Austria and threats to Czechoslovakia and Poland.

    What, then, have been the signs of Trump’s expansionist tendencies? American economic and military might, albeit declining relative to emerging powers like China and India, still provides a solid basis for the projection of U.S. supremacy. But there are also two new key elements at play.

    A billionaire-corporate administration

    The Trump administration appears to operate with a distinctly corporate mindset, treating the nation like a business empire. Trump has stacked his administration with private sector leaders and corporate billionaires such as Elon Musk, Doug Burgum and Howard Lutnick.

    Like other billionaires, their immense business success has been founded not on mainstay competitive market practices like productivity or cost-cutting, but on predatory and cannibalistic ones.

    President Donald Trump speaks with reporters as Elon Musk listens in the Oval Office at the White House on Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
    (Photo/Alex Brandon)

    These include controlling resources like oil, gold, diamonds and coltan to secure production inputs; buying out competitors to monopolize markets and patents; and deliberately breaking up and destroying companies through mergers and acquisitions with little regard for the resulting job losses.

    It is within this framework that Trump’s allegations about buying Greenland and Gaza, annexing Canada through “economic force” and capturing the Panama Canal need to be seen.

    Read more:
    Billionaires and loyalists will provide Trump with muscle during his second term

    Under the guise of national security, the idea is not simply to safeguard borders, but to engage in economic expansionism and real estate development, aided by the U.S. military when needed. Taking control of land, waterways and mineral wealth is critical to building “America’s Golden Age” of corporate capitalism.

    This approach seems to be a mainly business one, with little concern for the social costs (recession, unemployment, violence) produced by such imperialistic ventures. In line with his infamous book, The Art of the Deal, Trump appears to view foreign nations and domestic opponents alike as obstacles to be callously bullied, degraded, manipulated, exploited and finally vanquished.

    American nationalist populism

    The Trump administration’s imperial ambitions lie in the nationalist populism that propelled Trump and his allies into power for the second time.

    Trump’s populism has successfully tapped into widespread anxieties among Americans — job insecurity, food prices, the housing crisis — by promising to soothe their worries through the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) agenda.

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    Trump’s view of the world is becoming clear: America’s allies come second to its own interests

    Like other right-wing populist movements around the globe — Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s in Turkey, Viktor Orbán’s in Hungary and the Brexit campaign in the U.K. — the MAGA movement has sought to unify the U.S. by identifying and targeting perceived national enemies. These include so-called “illegal” migrants, transgender people and the country’s largest trading rivals: Mexico, Canada and China.

    By blaming these groups, especially those seen as contributing to America’s economic decline, MAGA whips up nationalist sentiment in the form of suspicion, aggression and vengeance. The result is a deeply polarized nationalist discourse in which one is either a loyal supporter or an enemy; a believer or a “woke” liberal.

    A lethal imperial set-up

    The combination of U.S. global power, nationalist populism and the Trump administration’s corporate-driven, predatory approach makes for a dangerous dynamic.

    This mix is fuelling a form of economic expansionism that is now beginning to manifest itself. The impending trade wars, potential dismantling of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (which Trump initiated in 2018 to avoid unilateral trade moves by its signatories) and the brazen disregard for the socioeconomic consequences of foreign territorial control, such as the forced displacement of Palestinians, are all signs of this.

    Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivers a statement as he stands with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, left, and European Council President Antonio Costa, right, as they arrive to the EU-Canada leaders meeting at the European Council building in Brussels on Feb. 12, 2025.
    THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

    While many assumed Trump’s administration would be protectionist and isolationist, a more troubling and nefarious reality is emerging. His administration appears to be intent on securing America’s industrial dominance through trade wars while expanding it through hawkish economic imperialism.

    There is a clear ruthlessness to this approach, with a willingness to pressure not only America’s perceived enemies but also its allies. “America First” is starting to looks like “America Above All Others” as Trump attempts to bully U.S. rivals into subordination, with disturbing echoes of past authoritarians.

    Unravelling American imperial designs

    Many obstacles could prevent Trump’s aggressive expansionism from fully taking shape. While the key ingredients may already be there, and some have begun to be deployed, that doesn’t mean they will come to fruition.

    The Trump administration’s policymaking process is often chaotic and theatrical, prioritizing short-term political gains over long-term strategy. This instability undermines any consistent efforts at expansion.

    There is also the risk that Trump’s trade wars will backfire. They could end up causing hardship to U.S. companies and consumers through higher food and energy prices, job losses in key industries like agriculture and auto manufacturing, and increased stock market instability. Such consequences could negatively affect Trump’s corporate allies.

    Meanwhile, Trump’s economic and military rivals could forge new alliances to challenge his attempts at global supremacy. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for instance, recently met with the head of NATO and other European allies to strengthen trade and security ties.

    The first step to any countermoves by Trump’s foreign adversaries will be seeing his regime’s designs for what they are: chaotic, perhaps, but serious expansionist ones. More

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    Chain, chain, chain: political theatre confirms Elon Musk’s Maga hero status at jubilant CPAC

    What do you give the man who has everything? A ballroom full of cheering conservative activists found out this week when Elon Musk was presented with a chainsaw by Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, who has used the power tool as a symbol of his push to impose fiscal discipline.Wearing sunglasses, a black Maga baseball cap and a gold necklace, Musk giddily wielded the chainsaw up and down the stage. “This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy!” he declared. Members of the audience shouted: “We love you!” Musk replied: “I love you guys, too!” And he quipped: “I am become meme.”It was a wild political theatre that confirmed Musk’s status as a new hero of the Maga movement. The head of Tesla and SpaceX had been fully embraced by the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), long a window on the soul of the Republican party and, in recent years, a purity test among Donald Trump’s support base.This year’s conference at National Harbor in Maryland was a four-day celebration not only of Trump’s return to the White House but the rise of global rightwing populism. Emboldened, exultant and convinced that their momentum is unstoppable, speakers put less emphasis than usual on baiting liberals and more on spreading the Maga gospel around the world.Attendees were united in praise for the shock-and-awe approach of Trump’s first month in office, which JD Vance described as “a hell of a lot of fun”. Brett Hawkes, 69, from Rockville, Maryland, hailed the “blitzkrieg”; Christopher Cultraro, 19, from Easton, Pennsylvania, called it “phenomenal”; Adelbert Walker, 72, from Petersburg, Virginia, said: “He’s keeping his promises. He’s going about his agenda at warp speed.”View image in fullscreenThe enthusiasm extended to Musk and his so-called “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, which has slashed the federal government and fired thousands of workers in ways that have been challenged in the courts.Musk, the world’s richest man, who has blocked food and medicine for the world’s poorest people by gutting the agency responsible for delivering US aid, told CPAC: “We’re trying to get good things done, but also, like, you know, have a good time doing it and, you know, and have, like, a sense of humour.”Republicans including Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary; Pam Bondi, the attorney general; Mike Johnson, the House of Representatives speaker; Rick Scott, the Florida senator; and Eric Schmitt, the Missouri senator all took the stage to heap praise on Musk and Doge.Rightwing figures from overseas got in on the act. Britain’s Nigel Farage called Musk a “hero of free speech” and lauded the “amazing Doge project” a month after the tech billionaire suggested that Farage should stand down as leader of the Reform UK party.Liz Truss, the former British prime minister, indicated that Musk is now part of the Maga brand when she declared: “We want a Trump revolution in Britain. We want to flood the zone. We want Elon and his nerd-army of Musk rats examining the British deep state.”View image in fullscreenBut across America, there are already stirrings of a backlash against Musk’s “nerd army” of mostly young male engineers with no government experience. Members of Congress were this week confronted by raucous town halls in which citizens complained about Doge’s chaotic, indiscriminate and illegal tactics.Some 71% of people agree that the very wealthy have too much influence on the White House, according to a Reuters/ Ipsos survey, while 58% are concerned that programmes such as social security retirement payments and student aid could be delayed by Musk’s campaign.CPAC attendee Ashlie Hightower, who lives in northern Virginia, acknowledged that workers there are suffering the consequences of Musk’s cuts. She said: “Many people have been affected because it’s a huge area that mostly works for government or has some connection to government. I understand that and it might be painful at first.”Even so, Hightower approves of Doge’s actions, saying: “What they have discovered is that we can actually get out of debt if we rein in some of this nonsense spending. Right now they’ve found it’s equal to about 20 or 30% of our GDP. It incredible. I feel rejuvenated.”Others joined in the plaudits for Musk. Matthew Kochman, 76, a property broker from New York, said: “He’s a genius. What’s wrong with that? He could put people on Mars and the federal government is so effed up it’s not funny. He can do nothing but help. If you find $1 of waste, you’re doing a good thing. If you find $500bn, how can anybody possibly find fault with that unless you’re a moron?”Kochman, who drives a vehicle that he calls a “Trumpmobile”, is equally impressed by the president, saying: “He’s going Trump speed, as they say, and he’s not going to waste any time. He’s doing everything that he promised to do and he’s following the agenda to try and bring the country back from chaos and failure.”One big beast of CPAC is more ambivalent about South African-born Musk, however. Steve Bannon, a rightwing populist and former Trump adviser, regards Musk’s oligarch status and pro-immigration views with deep suspicion. He told the conservative website UnHerd: “Musk is a parasitic illegal immigrant. He wants to impose his freak experiment and play-act as God without any respect for the country’s history, tradition or values.”But in his CPAC speech, Bannon welcomed Doge’s assault on the administrative state and even dubbed Musk “Superman”. And on Friday, a long queue of people waiting to take selfies with Bannon included plenty of Musk admirers content to square that circle.Michael Stearns, 30, who works at a golf course near Nashville, Tennessee, was wearing a Nasa sweater and said: “I’m a big Steve Bannon fan. I love that guy. One of my heroes. I support Elon Musk and I Iove Doge. He’s doing the right thing cutting out all the waste and abuse. I support both guys.”Bannon, meanwhile, became embroiled in controversy of his own. As he called on the audience to “fight, fight, fight”, he briefly held out a stiff arm in what appeared to be a fascist salute reminiscent of one made by Musk on inauguration day. In response, France’s far-right leader, Jordan Bardella, cancelled his CPAC appearance because “one of the speakers out of provocation allowed himself a gesture alluding to Nazi ideology”.View image in fullscreenBannon also used his typically fiery speech to float the idea of a constitutional change that would allow Trump to run for a third term as president, saying: “We want Trump in 28.”The case was also put at CPAC by Third Term Project, a thinktank exploring the case for reconsidering presidential term limits. Wearing a “Trump 2028” sticker, Amber Harris of Third Term Project said: “You need more than four years to enact some of the things he wants to do.”However, most CPAC attendees interviewed by the Guardian opposed the idea. Nina Golden, 47, from Raleigh, North Carolina, believes Trump is exceeding her expectations and is “100%” supportive of Musk but said: “I believe in the constitution as it is and it should stay that way.”Bannon, who served four months in prison last year for defying a subpoena in the congressional investigation into the January 6 insurrection, hosted his influential War Room podcast from CPAC. He interviewed a group who had been imprisoned for attacking the US Capitol only to be pardoned by Trump on his first day in office.The “J6ers” received a heroes’ welcome at CPAC. Richard Barnett, who had put his feet on the House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk and was sentenced to more than four years in prison, revelled in his newfound celebrity by showing off his “certificate of pardon” from Trump.The 64-year-old retired firefighter, wearing a sweater emblazoned with “J6” and “political prisoner”, said of the president’s first month in office: “Awesome, baby. Keep it coming.”Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the far-right Oath Keepers, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy but had his 18-year sentence commuted, denied that his group had acted violently on behalf of Trump.Sporting a Trump tattoo on his arm, Rhodes, 59, from Granbury, Texas, said he was “very happy” with Trump, adding: “I got no complaints. His cabinet is fantastic from what I’ve seen so far. I love Doge. Let the sunlight come in and show all the corruption.”View image in fullscreenIn past years, CPAC has thrived on opposition to the status quo and targeted Democrats such as Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden with crude insults. But with Trump installed in the White House, and Democrats weak and leaderless, targets were less obvious or conspicuous.Kari Lake, Trump’s nominee to be director of the Voice of America media outlet, observed: “For the past four years, we have been in a fight-fight-fight mode and now we are in a win-win-win mode.” Sebastian Gorka, a White House adviser, said he had expected anti-Trump protests and “pink pussy hat insanity” but “where are they? We crushed them.”Instead, energy was channeled into Trump worship. People sported Maga caps and other regalia; some even wore giant Trump face masks. Sparkly jackets were on sale with slogans such as “Make fries great again” and “Gulf of America”.The swagger also fuelled CPAC’s expansionist ambitions. The conference was addressed by far-right figures from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Hungary, Japan, North Macedonia, Poland, Slovakia and South Korea. Many saw Trump as a blueprint for nationalist populism in their own countries; some adopted the slogan “Make Europe great again”.Vance criticised Germany’s free-speech laws, accused European leaders of failing to control immigration and defended Trump’s negotiations with Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine.As for Musk, he waved around the chainsaw – which had the words “Long live freedom, damn it” written along its blade – after an interview in which he pushed falsehoods about Europe jailing people for memes, astronauts being left in space for political reasons and Democrats having an electoral incentive “to maximise the number of illegals in the country”.Finally, he was asked to paint a picture of the inside of the mind a genius. “My mind is a storm,” Musk replied. “It’s a storm.” More

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    Trump’s bullshit blitz has Europe on its knees | Stewart Lee

    Was it really only a month ago that the pole-dancer patron, fridge explorer, Brexit get-doer, model bus maker, sofa-strainer, wall-spaffer, current Daily Mail columnist and former British prime minister Boris Johnson eulogised the inauguration of Donald Trump in the Mail, recounting how, as the “invisible pulse of power surged” from the battered bible into the hand of Trump: “I saw the moment the world’s wokerati had worked so hard to prevent.”I hope Johnson is pleased with the way things have worked out. Because now the foolish wokerati have been schooled beyond Johnson’s wettest dreams. It’s the Trump-Putin-bin Salman party! An adjudicated sex offender and convicted fraudster, and a man who sanctioned a chemical warfare hit, killing a British citizen on British soil, have met at the luxury Saudia Arabian hotel of another man, who, according to the US, reportedly approved the murder and subsequent dismemberment of a journalist, to discuss the similarly brutal dismemberment of Ukraine, without consulting either Ukraine itself or the countries most directly affected by the legitimisation of Putin’s territorial anxieties. Don’t worry, Poland! Stable genius Trump has got this covered, so break out the bone saws, pop the cork on the novichok and grab the girls by the pussy! There are 1970s Italian slasher films with less gruesome plotlines. Well said, Boris Johnson! That’s certainly stuck it to the wokerati!If only Johnson, and Trump’s other cheerleaders in the rightwing press and on the right of the house, could be brave enough to call out Trump for what he is. If only Johnson had the moral courage of Ed Davey from the Liberal Democrats. In what newly warped reality does that sentence even exist? But, on balance, the whitewashing of the deaths of tens of thousands of Ukrainians is a small price to pay for the delight Trump has bought to the smiling faces of people who hate the transgender community, wild swimming enthusiasts and Guardian readers. Sniffing mineral rights in the air, like the smell of napalm in the morning, Trump has grabbed Ukraine by the pussy and he ain’t gonna let go. Trump is, unequivocally, the worst thing to happen to human civilisation since Hitler. And Ricky Gervais’s After Life.European politicians more rational and less self-serving than Johnson are trying to formulate the correct response to Trump’s rapid and reckless redrawing of the postwar world disorder in his own, and Russia’s, interests. The correct response is to shit your pants. On Tuesday, Trump even blamed Ukraine itself for being invaded, which is a bit like blaming E Jean Carroll herself for being sexually abused in a department store changing room. Couldn’t she have cut a pre-emptive deal before things escalated? Victims! Always blaming someone else. But Trump has put the idea that the invasion of Ukraine is Ukraine’s fault out there now, on the world stage, amplified by his collaborators in the tech bro media, and it will gradually calcify into one of those persistent alternative facts. By Wednesday he’d called Zelenskyy a dictator (and a mediocre comedian, which in my opinion is even worse).And it’s that kind of reshaping of reality that needs a coherent European response. Recently, the US vice-president, JD Vance, who has the exact same face-beard as the main male oppressor in the TV adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, came and told the Munich security conference that Scotland had made it illegal to pray silently in your own home. Many things are illegal in Scotland. Fruit, for example, and cushions, which are deemed too soft by the Scottish Cushion Committee. But not silent private prayer. Largely ignoring dead-in-the-water Ukraine, Vance also told Europe we had some kind of moral duty to allow unchecked, factually inaccurate bullshit to clog our infosphere via Trump’s tech bro acolytes’ social media platforms, his inflammatory comments about illegal Scottish prayer in the same speech proving exactly why such regulation is required. And I think he knows this.Predictably, Vancewas one of the three main early investors in Rumble, the social media site for all the people whose conspiratorial untruths and borderline criminality make them too toxic for other social media sites – Russell Brand, Alex Jones and Darth Vader etc – so he personally stood to profit from this sort of popularisation of inflammatory actionable crap. As did fellow Rumble original main investor Peter Thiel, the man behind Palantir, the big tech company Wriggling Wes Streeting is keen to hand all our NHS data to, revealing an interlocking and endless web of bad influence that only “cat woman” Carole Cadwalladr had the persistence of vision to apprehend, and she’s currently shunting off to a subscription Substack site, a crowdfunded Cassandra in an era busy eating its own brainstem.For a brief period around teatime on Monday, Keir Starmer, who once left his “village and went to the city of Leeds” and “discovered a whole new world of indie bands – like Orange Juice and the Wedding Present” delusionally imagined he could be some kind of go-between twixt observable reality and Trump. But did West Yorkshire jangle-pop pioneers the Wedding Present radically retool their signature sound for 1991’s Seamonsters album just so Starmer could become a Neville Chamberlain for the cover-mounted fanzine flexidisc generation?We have staved off outright fascism throughout most of Europe pretty well for 80 years now, but outright fascism in Europe was never quite so well funded and promoted as it is now, since the US government and the social media platforms that do its bidding decided backing outright fascism was a good way to smash the EU. Think what Hitler could have achieved if he’d had Twitter, currently X, and Google at his disposal. He wouldn’t have needed the V2 rocket, Lord Haw-Haw and Hugo Boss. He could have razed half of Europe with a Hulk Hogan meme, some persuasive online misinformation and a dozen jauntily askew baseball caps.

    Stewart Lee tours Stewart Lee vs the Man-Wulf this year, with a Royal Festival Hall run in July. He appears in a benefit show for Just Stop Oil at Walthamstow Trades Hall, London, on 8 April More

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    ‘Starmer’s big moment’: can PM persuade Trump not to give in to Putin?

    When Keir Starmer is advised on how to handle his crucial meeting with Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, he will be told by advisers from Downing Street and the Foreign Office to be very clear on his main points and, above all, to be brief.“Trump gets bored very easily,” said one well-placed Whitehall source with knowledge of the president’s attention span. “When he loses interest and thinks someone is being boring, he just tunes out. He doesn’t like [the French president, Emmanuel] Macron partly because Macron talks too much and tries to lecture him.”Starmer will also be advised to flatter Trump when he can, to say that everyone is so grateful that he has focused the world’s attention on the need for peace between Russia and Ukraine. But to flatter subtly. And not to lay it on too thick.View image in fullscreenOne – unconfirmed – story from Theresa May’s first visit to see Trump at the White House in 2017 is doing the rounds in Whitehall again before the Starmer trip, and is being used as a cautionary tale for the current prime minister.“When May first went to see Trump, she was told she had to congratulate him on lots of things,” said one source.“So she rushed over to him and congratulated him on his new cabinet appointments, saying: ‘You’ve appointed a great team, Donald.’“At which point he said: ‘Oh thank you so much, Theresa – who do you particularly like among them?’ Which left her a bit stumped, so she just said: ‘Oh, well, all of them, Donald.’”The lesson being that too much flattery can get you into trouble if you do not do your homework.Dealing with, and responding to, Trump in his self-appointed role as ultra-provocative would-be global peacemaker is requiring other leaders the world over to perform near-impossible balancing acts when framing their responses.View image in fullscreenMany of the US president’s statements on the Ukraine conflict, such as those suggesting that Ukraine was responsible for the Russian invasion and that its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is a dictator, are regarded by European governments, including the British one, as patently ludicrous.Yet at the same time, no one can say so for fear of what the man who said those things will do next and what revenge he might wreak in return.Peter Ricketts, former UK ambassador to Paris, said that Starmer should himself tune out from Trump’s rhetoric. “He should focus not on what Trump says but what he does. He needs to get into Trump’s mind that a rushed deal with [Vladimir] Putin over the heads of Ukraine/Europe is bound to be a deal that serves Putin’s interests, and that Putin would be seen as strong and Trump weak.”Another senior UK source agreed, saying that Starmer needed to convey to Trump that the only thing that would stop him earning his place in history would be by getting a great peace that was not seen as a “fair deal”. “He needs to make Trump think that his success rests on not giving in to Putin, because if he does he will himself seem weak,” said the source.While cross-continental mud-slinging has intensified, UK political leaders have had a painfully difficult few days trying to adapt to Trump’s barrage of remarks, the latest of which was to say neither Starmer nor Macron – who will meet Trump at the White House on Monday – have done anything of note to sort out the war in Ukraine.Even Nigel Farage, who prides himself on his closeness to Trump and the Republicans, has had to equivocate and throw up a cloud of deliberate confusion around his own responses, so he can claim to be both distancing himself from the US president and validating his interventions at the same time.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSpeaking to Sky News on Thursday about Trump’s statement that Zelenskyy was a dictator, Farage said: “Take everything Trump says truthfully, but not literally.”The Reform UK leader then tried to argue that Trump “doesn’t literally say Ukraine started the war”, and was instead focused on bringing peace. When, however, it was put to Farage that Trump had told Zelenskyy: “You should have never started it [the conflict],” Farage then replied: “OK, he did. If you’re happy.”With UK public opinion overwhelmingly critical of Trump’s comments on Zelenskyy and Ukraine – today’s Opinium poll for the Observer shows the Trump administration has a -40% approval rating on Ukraine compared with -2% for the previous Biden administration – the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, also felt the need to part company with Trump, tweeting on X that “President Zelenskyy is not a dictator”, though she backed him over the need for European nations to increase defence spending.About 61% of Tory voters disagree with the Trump administration on Ukraine, so for Badenoch not to express some reservations over the US president could have left her in big trouble in her own party.The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, looking for more seats and votes behind the “blue wall” have spotted an opportunity as the anti-Trump party. Calum Miller, their foreign affairs spokesman, said the Lib Dems had a duty to stand up for people in his constituency and others who flew Ukrainian flags in their villages and had taken in Ukrainian refugees.“It is our role to be their voice in parliament,” he said “to say that Trump is a narcissist who is not to be trusted.”Government sources suggested on Saturday nightthat Starmer would probably try to speak to Macron on Sunday before the French president flies to Washington, so as to agree the broad outlines of a European position.But another senior source said the last thing Starmer should do when he meets Trump is try to speak for the Europeans or represent a European position.“Trump has made clear what he thinks of European leaders [last]week. Starmer needs to be his own man, to say the UK was the first country to offer to send troops to Ukraine and do its bit.“If he does that, and succeeds in persuading Trump that it will look terrible to the world if he allows Putin just to get everything he wants, it could be a big moment for him.” More

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    Party of one: Donald Trump’s 75 minutes at CPAC talking about himself

    God save the king. Drunk on power, Donald Trump spent Saturday afternoon before adoring fans, boasting of his victories, taunting his enemies and casting himself as America’s absolute monarch, supreme leader and divine emperor rolled into one.Trump’s appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the National Harbor in Maryland began with country singer Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA and raucous cheers in a crowded ballroom that included January 6 insurrectionists.Seventy-five minutes later, it concluded with the US president standing between two stars-and-stripes flags, pumping his fists and swaying to the Village People’s anthem YMCA.What emerged in between was a man who has never felt so sure of himself, so contemptuous of his foes and so convinced of his righteous mission to make America great again, even if it means breaking china, cracking skulls and leaving global destruction in his wake.As the title of Michael Wolff’s new book puts it, last November’s election was All or Nothing. Defeat meant ruin, disgrace and prison. Victory meant what Trump’s cheerleaders like to call the greatest comeback in political history. It also meant vengeance against his perceived tormentors in the justice department, Democratic party and media. As the martyr of Mar-a-Lago put it at CPAC two years ago: “I am your retribution.”The message he took from that win over Kamala Harris was that he had broken his opponents, broken the checks and balances and broken reality itself. He was invincible.“Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world/Like a Colossus,” Cassius tells Brutus in William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, “and we petty men/Walk under his huge legs and peep about/To find ourselves dishonorable graves.”This was the 15th time Trump has addressed CPAC, the biggest annual gathering of conservative activists. When he was out of power, his freewheeling speeches could be dismissed as the ravings – or “weavings” – of a madman. Even during his first term, his extremist rhetoric came with some expectation that the democratic guardrails would hold.But as America and the world have discovered during his first month back in the White House, Trump is unbound, unhinged and looking for blood. He took the stage at CPAC brimming with confidence and basking in chants of: “USA! USA!”The 78-year-old Florida resident describes his presidency as a game of golf in which he can match Arnold Palmer all the way: “If you golf, when you sink that first four-footer at the first hole, it gives you confidence, and then the next hole you sink another and now you go on to that third hole and by the time you get to the fifth hole you feel you can’t miss.”To be here was to live in a world turned upside down. Trump said: “For years, Washington was controlled by a sinister group of radical-left Marxists, war-mongers and corrupt special interests,” which would have been news to Karl Marx.But then, on 5 November, “we stood up to all the corrupt forces that were destroying America. We took away their power. We took away their confidence … and we took back our country.”Trump should in fact have won by a bigger margin, he claimed without evidence, but Democrats “cheated like hell” only to find his victory was “too big to rig”. Later, he revisited his 2020 loss, too, assuring conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell that “now it’s OK” to say the election was “rigged”.The president bragged about pardoning hundreds convicted of crimes in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, describing them as “political prisoners” and “J6 hostages”. Some of them were in the room, chanting “J6! J6!” and shouting “Thank you!”. They have gone from prison cells to being CPAC’s newest celebrities.Trump also boasted about killing diversity, equity and inclusion programmes, denying the identity of transgender people, yanking the US out of the Paris climate agreement and sending undocumented immigrants (“monsters”) to Guantánamo Bay. He hailed Elon Musk’s evisceration of the federal government, including the international aid agency USAid.Each time, the crowd cheered.Up until then, CPAC had felt toned down this year, with few if any chants of “Lock her up!” or T-shirts portraying Joe Biden as Satan. After all, Republicans won and there is no obvious Democratic leader to target. Still, that did not prevent Trump unleashing the usual insults and lies at his opponents.View image in fullscreenView image in fullscreen“Kamala,” he said, eliciting boos. “I haven’t heard that name in a while. Nobody ever knows her last name … But think of it, I was beating Joe badly and they changed him. Think of it, I’m the only one who had to beat two people.”The Biden presidency already feels like a millennium ago but Trump did not want his audience to forget, asking whether they preferred the nickname “Crooked Joe” or “Sleepy Joe”. For the record, “Crooked Joe” won.Trump mocked Biden’s golf handicap and bathing suit and offered a baseless opinion: “He was a sleepy, crooked guy. Terrible, terrible president. He was the worst president in the history of our country … Every single thing he touched turned to shit.”Such magnanimity!He took aim at the Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren over her past claims of Native American ancestry, recycling the “Pocahontas” nickname he once gave her and jibing: “She does not like me. She’s a very angry person. You notice the way she is? She’s always screaming. She’s crazy.”And don’t get Trump started on liberal TV host Rachel Maddow: “I watch this MSNBC – which is a threat to democracy,actually – they’re stone-cold mean. But they’re stuttering. They’re all screwed up. They’re all mentally screwed up. They don’t know what – their ratings have gone down the tubes. I don’t even talk about CNN, CNN’s sort of like, I don’t know, they’re pathetic, actually.“This Rachel Maddow, what does she have? She’s got nothing. Nothing. She took a sabbatical where she worked one day a week. They paid her a lot of money. She gets no ratings. I should go against her in the ratings because, I’ll tell you, she gets no ratings. All she does is talk about Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. All different subjects: Trump this, Trump, that. But these people are really, I mean, they lie. They shouldn’t be allowed to lie every night. They are really a vehicle of the Democrat party.”Trump loves the rightwing media that populates CPAC, however. He smugly quoted conservative host Bill O’Reilly as saying that after four weeks Trump had become “the greatest president ever in the history of our country”, beating George Washington.O’Reilly was hardly alone this week in building an image of Trump as a superman who thinks sleep is for wimps. How do they love him? Let us count the ways.Dan Scavino, a Trump golf caddie turned White House deputy chief of staff, described his boss as “the greatest host in America”. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a former White House press secretary, said Trump is “maybe the most popular human on the face of the planet right now”, adding: “He doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t expect anyone to sleep either. He’s twice my age and has twice my energy.”Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, confirmed that Trump works 21 or 22 hours a day and, along with the interior secretary, Doug Burgum, confidently forecast that Trump would receive the Nobel peace prize for his capitulation to Vladimir Putin masterful negotiations with Russia and Ukraine.Border tsar Tom Homan called Trump “the greatest president of my lifetime”. Elise Stefanik, the US ambassador-designate to the United Nations, went one better by calling him “the greatest president in the history of our country”.And the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, whose home state of South Dakota includes the ripe-for-addition Mount Rushmore, topped them all by just coming out with it: “Our president wakes up every day knowing he’s the greatest president of all time.”When someone wakes up knowing that, when their self-aggrandisement is so monumental, they are like a golfer who believes they will never miss. But as Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine put it, Trump is living inside a disinformation bubble. The iron law of politics is that all bubbles burst. More

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    Enrique Tarrio follows and insults officers who defended US Capitol on January 6

    Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the far-right Proud Boys group who was convicted and then pardoned for his role in the January 6 insurrection, confronted a group of police officers who defended the Capitol during the attack, accusing one of them of being a “coward”.A video shared by Tarrio on social media on Saturday showed him following the officers, Michael Fanone, Harry Dunn and Aquilino Gonell, through the lobby of a Washington hotel that was hosting the Principles First summit, a conference where one of the officers received a “profile in courage” award.In the video, an unidentified woman with the officers tells Tarrio: “You guys are traitors, just back off.”“You were brave on Twitter,” Tarrio said to one of the officers as he continued to follow them. “You guys were brave at my sentencing when you sat there and laughed when I got 22 fucking years. Now you don’t want to look in my eyes, you fucking cowards.”Fanone, a former Capitol police officer, then turns and tells him: “You’re a traitor to this country.”In 2023, Tarrio received a sentence of 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other charges related to the January 6 attack. Donald Trump pardoned Tarrio and roughly 1,500 other insurrection participants when he took office last month, an act that prompted outcry from many lawmakers, including some Republicans.Gonell, a former Capitol police sergeant who defended the Capitol on January 6, acknowledged the confrontation with Tarrio as he accepted his “profile in courage” award from Principles First. A spokesperson for Principles First, which is considered a center-right alternative to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment on the confrontation with Tarrio.“A few moments ago, we were upstairs, and Enrique Tarrio and the Proud Boys were upstairs,” Gonell told conference attendees, prompting surprised gasps from the crowd. “How they got into the building, I don’t know, but it’s insane that we had to be subjected to their harassment now because they feel emboldened and empowered because of the pardons that they received.“We shouldn’t be harassed for doing the right thing, for telling our story, for telling the truth, for speaking against them in court and in public. They’re the traitor. They’re the one who attacked the Capitol.”The confrontation at the conference came one day after Tarrio was arrested near the Capitol for simple assault after he allegedly struck the cellphone and arm of a woman who was protesting an event he was attending with other January 6 insurrectionists.At a panel discussion held at the summit a couple of hours before the confrontation with Tarrio, four police officers who protected the Capitol on January 6 – Daniel Hodges of the Metropolitan police department and former Capitol police officers Gonell, Fanone and Dunn – expressed outrage over the pardons offered to the insurrectionists.“He pardoned them because he wants people to know that, if you commit crimes on his behalf, he’s got your back,” Fanone said.Fanone described far-right groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, who played an instrumental role in executing the January 6 attack, as “Donald Trump’s personal brownshirt militia”, referring to the German Nazi party’s paramilitary storm troopers of the 1920s and 1930s.“They are operating under the assumption that, if they commit violent criminal acts on Donald Trump’s behalf, that he will pardon them for future violence,” Fanone said. “These are insurrectionists, let’s be very clear.”A member of the audience appeared to agree with Fanone’s assessment, yelling in response to his comment: “Traitors!”Fanone replied: “Yes, fucking traitors.”He later urged conference attendees to forcefully push back against Trump’s “Make America Great Again” political movement, telling them: “That is what we are up against: the indecency, the cruelty, the inhumanity of this movement that needs to be purged – purged – from America.”Dunn, who moderated the discussion, applauded his fellow officers for keeping a spotlight on the January 6 attack, reminding the audience: “History is going to remember us for what we did or did not do.” More

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    Trump preaches to the Maga choir at CPAC in campaign-style performance

    In a campaign-style performance, Donald Trump delivered the more-than-hour-long finale at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, hitting familiar notes about his election victories, ending the war in Ukraine, US border militarization and what he characterized as the liberation of Washington from “deep-state bureaucrats”.Speaking to an auditorium filled to the brim at National Harbor in Maryland, Trump went all-in on his deployment of active-duty troops to the southern border, which he characterized as responding to an “invasion”. He also boasted that his administration had terminated temporary protected status for Haitian immigrants and attempted to ban birthright citizenship for children of non-legal permanent residents.“We’ve begun the largest deportation operation in American history,” Trump said.In one of several digressions, Trump portrayed his return to office as a victory over what he called a “sinister group of radical informers, war-mongers and corrupt special interests” whom he claimed had previously controlled Washington. The president reserved particular ire for media outlets, labeling MSNBC a “threat to democracy” and mocking Rachel Maddow, whose show is watched by more than 2 million viewers, for what he claimed were her low ratings.He also claimed Democrats had “lost their confidence” and possessed “the worst policy in history” while boasting about his administration’s first month in office.“Nobody has seen four weeks like we’ve had,” he said.Some of the other early moves he discussed included sweeping cuts to the federal workforce and regulations, baseless allegations of massive social security fraud, withdrawal from international climate agreements and the imposing of new tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico.He also addressed ongoing international conflicts, incorrectly claiming that US aid to Ukraine had exceeded European contributions, and saying the United States had sent $350bn to the war-torn country since the Russian invasion in 2022. That number isn’t close to the amount the US has allocated, with a government oversight office putting that estimate closer to $183bn. European nations have combined to contribute more.He noted the recent return of Israeli hostages while claiming that “Biden got back zero”, apparently forgetting that the US helped broker the return of 105 hostages in November 2023.The annual conference has become a key venue for Republican politicians to connect with conservative grassroots activists, though it’s clear the event has abandoned traditional GOP policies to fully embrace Trump’s Maga-centric approach.Several international conservative politicians attended the speech, including the Argentine president, Javier Milei, who is currently facing a widespread crypto scandal; the Polish president, Andrzej Duda; and the British Reform party leader, Nigel Farage, all praised by Trump during his remarks. More

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    US politics live: Donald Trump addresses Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland

    Donald Trump has wrapped up his address at CPAC, an approximately 75-minute tirade of repeated false claims ranging from voter fraud and stolen-election lies to foreign wars, among others.Opening up his speech, Trump assailed “the fraudsters, liars … globalists and deep-state bureaucrats” that he said “are being sent back”.He then went on to cite a series of polls in which he is leading. “Rasmussen just came out at 56% insider advantage, 56% RMG research … we have many polls in the mid-60s, one at 71%. We like that,” he said. However, he did not mention the latest Gallup poll, where he is six points under – 51% of Americans disapproved of his performance while 45% indicated their approval for him.Donald Trump then moved to attacking immigrants across the country, saying: “I couldn’t stand it! … We don’t have that problem any more.” On the contrary, on Friday, reports emerged of the White House reassigning the top official at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) after the agency’s level of arrests and deportations were slower than expected.He also read from a list of millions of people in the social security database that the agency has no death records for. However, that has been a known issue for more than a decade, and an inspector general report found that just 13 people over 112 years old were getting any payments as of 2013.On Israel’s war on Gaza, Trump claimed that Joe Biden got back “zero” hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. “Biden got none back, by the way, just so you understand, none, zero,” Trump claimed. In fact, 105 hostages were freed in the November 2023 ceasefire deal brokered by Biden’s administration.At one point, Trump, who has not ruled out using military action to take over Greenland and who has vowed to make Canada the 51st state, along with taking back the Panama Canal, said: “I don’t want to be a conquerer.”Despite his false claims, Trump supporters roared and cheered inside the CPAC auditorium at National Harbor, Maryland.“I have not yet begun to fight, and neither have you,” he said in his closing remarks. Before exiting the stage, Trump returned to his trademark dance, fist-pumping to Village People’s YMCA.Donald Trump has wrapped up his address at CPAC.Trump closed out his roughly 75-minute speech by dancing to YMCA in front of a cheering crowd of supporters.On Israel’s war on Gaza, Donald Trump claimed that Joe Biden got back “zero” hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.“Biden got none back, by the way, just so you understand, none, zero,” Trump claimed.In fact, 105 hostages were freed in the November 2023 ceasefire deal brokered by Biden’s administration.Donald Trump is now talking about ending the war between Ukraine and Russia, saying: “We’re getting our money back.”“The United States has given $350bn because we had a stupid, incompetent president and administration … Europe gave it in the form of a loan. They get their money back. We gave it in the form of nothing. So I want them to give us something for all of the money that we put up. And I’m going to try and get the war settled, and I’m going to try and get all that death ended. So we’re asking for rare earth and oil, anything we can get,” Trump said.From claiming Ukraine was responsible for the war to incorrect numbers about aid received from the US and Europe, Trump has in recent weeks made a number of inaccurate statements while praising the progress made in US-Russia talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.The Guardian has had a look at his claims:Donald Trump just read out from a list of millions of people in the social security database that the agency has no death records for.“Under our administration, there will be no tolerance for social security fraud. Will not allow anyone to cheat our seniors and those who will do that will be prosecuted by [attorney general] Pam Bondi and others,” he said.However, that has been a known issue for over a decade, and an inspector general report found that just 13 people over 112 years old were getting any payments as of 2013.The Guardian’s Robert Mackey contributed to this postDonald Trump is well under way with his speech at CPAC and the main room is absolutely packed.The energy in here is less political conference and more rock concert – every line gets massive applause, cheers or laughter.Trump workshopped nicknames for his predecessor Joe Biden, asking the crowd to cheer for “Crooked Joe” and then moments later to cheer for “Sleepy Joe”. He said “Crooked Joe” won.A group of rowdy, pardoned January 6 rioters created a scene near the media section in the back of the hall, shouting for Trump to acknowledge them and their cause, which still has not come up.Donald Trump is now praising his staunch ally, Elon Musk, the richest person in the world.“He’s doing a great job and he doesn’t need this … but … he’s a patriot,” Trump said.On Thursday, Musk hailed efforts by himself and Trump to cut the federal workforce by the hundreds of thousands.In a post on X today – which he owns – Musk, who leads the so-called “department of government efficiency”, said:
    All federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.
    Donald Trump has moved back to attacking immigrants across the country, saying: “I couldn’t stand it!” before adding: “Donald, don’t get angry.”“I couldn’t stand it, so I said, I’m going to run for president again, and now we don’t have that problem now. We don’t have that problem any more,” he claimed.On the contrary, on Friday, reports emerged of the White House reassigning the top official at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) after the agency’s level of arrests and deportations were slower than expected.Trump singled out in the crowd the 40-year-old son of the former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro – the country’s ex-president who tried a January 6-style insurrection and was just charged with plotting to poison his successor and the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula.“Say hello to your father. Thank you very much. Great family, great gentleman, and your great family,” Trump said to Eduardo Bolsonaro.Jair Bolsonaro could face between 38 and 43 years in jail if convicted. In addition to being accused of being involved in a coup, Jair Bolsonaro has been accused of being involved with an armed criminal association and the violent abolition of the rule of law.The Guardian’s Robert Mackey contributed to this postTrump went on to cite a series of polls in which he is leading.“Rasmussen just came out at 56% insider advantage, 56% RMG research … we have many polls in the mid-60s, one at 71%. We like that,” he said.However, he did not mention the latest Gallup poll, where he is six points under – 51% of Americans disapproved of his performance while 45% indicated their approval for him. More