By Miguel Angel Hernandez, leader of the PSL, Venezuelan section of the IWU-FI
23 January 2025. Amid an arctic cold snap, a stark manifestation of climate change denied by the far-right Donald Trump, he was sworn in as the 47th President of the United States on 20 January.
Tech giants Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Pichai, and Cook headlined the ceremony. Reflecting that, Trump will be a government of the CEOs of the big transnationals. As well as rulers and far-right leaders from other countries, such as Javier Milei, Nayib Bukele, Giorgia Meloni, and Santiago Abascal of Vox in Spain.
Arrogance, arrogance, and ultra-nationalism characterised his half-hour speech. ‘The United States will regain its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful and most respected nation on Earth, inspiring fear and admiration around the world.’ Referring to the Panama Canal, he said menacingly, ‘and we will take it back’.
He branded immigrants as criminals: ‘many of them from prisons and psychiatric institutions who have entered our country illegally from all over the world’. He threatened a trade war and a two-gender US policy. The event also closed with a speech by a Zionist rabbi.
Trump’s presidency began with decrees attacking the rights of Americans and global citizens.
Some measures being considered include the elimination of previous directives to reduce the price of medications, among other things. He also announced the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris climate agreement, for the second time, as well as from the World Health Organisation. Trump declared a ‘national energy emergency’ to expand oil and gas extraction significantly without environmental controls. He also pardoned the 1500 right-wingers who violently took over the US Capitol in 2021, among many other measures.
Trump’s return signals a US crisis rooted in capitalist decadence.
His new government will not bring any improvements for the working people, for women, for the American youth or for the immigrants. The world’s peoples, the Palestinians, the Ukrainian people, and other exploited and oppressed peoples cannot expect any benefit.
It will be a government that will rely on the big transnationals, as was already evident at the swearing-in ceremony, with the presence of the CEOs of several technology companies. Trump will continue the exploitation of the American working people and the plunder of the peoples of the world. The United States will continue to be the gendarme of the world, expressed in the euphemism of ‘peace through force’, which reflects its dangerous fascistic and aggressive character, which we cannot minimise and which we must confront, and which can also embolden other far-right leaders and rulers in the world.
The International Workers’ Unity-Fourth International (IWU-FI) urges workers, youth, women, sexual and gender nonconformity and popular sectors of the United States to mobilise for their demands. It is important to highlight the huge marches and rallies that took place across the United States the day before Trump’s inauguration. Protests in hundreds of cities demanded women’s and immigrant rights, and LGBTQ+ equality. The willingness of the American people to confront the far-right Donald Trump on the streets. As one demonstrator in the US capital said: ‘We won’t stand by while the billionaires get even richer and others go hungry in the streets.’
