A joint statement of ILPS-US, International Migrants Alliance, International Women’s Alliance
Fascism and the Second Trump Regime
On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump officially assumed the presidency of the US, putting the most dangerous faction of the ruling class and those most open about their anti-people intentions, at the helm of US imperialism. Trump’s first week of “shock and awe” policy directives shows how that faction plans to further its supremacy by not only neglecting the people but actively attacking the people.
The mere fact that Trump is a convicted felon sitting as President and acts as though he is above the law and U.S. Constitution exposes the corrupt rottenness of the system. His Cabinet picks and their selection being based on allegiance versus actual expertise continue this trend towards consolidating the power of the most repressive faction of the ruling class. Trump’s inaugural speech and Executive Orders during his first week in office show the intensification of outrightly attacking the majority of the people and expose that any “rights” from before were just temporary legal protections dependent on the whims of what faction of the ruling class is in power.
In his inauguration speech Trump spoke of unleashing the “golden age of America.” Just after that he made clear what he meant by this. The golden age of America is one of all-out fascism, of more war and militarization around the world affecting each of our homelands; where migrant communities – displaced from their home countries by the US’ own policies – are further displaced, militarized, and attacked; where women and LGBTQ people are subject to heightened violence, both through the normalization of sexual violence and at the hands of the state through state repression and the removal of reproductive rights, gender-affirming care, workplace protections, and more; where workers continue to be pushed into further suffering as the big business class flourishes off their exploitation; and where the resources of the land will continue to be plundered as environmental crises ravage the world.
Trump promises to fix the problems of society, but make no mistake – he is a liar. Trump and the Republican Party are the enemy of the people. Since his election, Trump has made clear whose interests he really serves from his cabinet picks to the policies he declares. He intends to be a president that will make the people of the US and the world more easily exploited and oppressed in the interests of the big businesses whom he serves and of which he is a part. We must remember, fascism is not an abstract evil or moral failing but a response of the ruling class to the most dire expression of their own self-made crisis. For decades, the US has staved off fascism at home by propping up fascism in the semi-colonies and colonies of the world to keep profits growing, but Trump’s rise to the Presidency is a signal of how deep the crisis in the imperialist system has become as the ruling class pulls the trigger on all-out fascism in the belly of the beast. This is a result of the sharpening of the continually worsening economic and political crisis of the capitalist system caused by efforts of the monopoly corporations to drive for non-stop expansion and control of the world’s markets, people, and the environment. As the US’ longstanding position as the top imperialist power economically, politically, and militarily declines, it becomes increasingly aggressive and bellicose, unleashing higher forms of repression against the people and exporting this repression around the world instigating war, violence, and further instability. The empire is dying and desperate, the people must unite to fight!
What Fascism Really Means
Despite denial along the campaign trail, Trump and his cabinet are carrying out the Project 2025 agenda which threatens to eliminate state regulatory agencies from education, health, and labor to consolidate their protectionist and conservative ideologies.
What Fascism means for Workers
From Trump’s financial backers to his cabinet picks, it is clear where Trump stands on the issues of workers. During Trump’s candidacy billionaires like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos donated millions to the Trump campaign and initiated meetings in efforts to get close to Trump and ensure good favor for their corporations.
Already, working class people suffer under the economic crisis with declining wages, attacks on unionization efforts, high rent and high cost of living and low quality housing, lack of access to health care, and intense working conditions where they face long working hours, understaffing, and frequent harassment in the workplace. It is no surprise that it is some of the top billionaires in the world who are throwing their weight behind Trump. Despite his rhetorical calls decrying the dire economic crisis and feigning concern about the conditions of workers, Trump himself is a member of the ruling class which exploits and oppresses working people all around the world. His presidency will enact policies and actions which only make these conditions worse and give full play to the monopoly capitalists to further exploit and attack the working class by removing safeguards for wages and safety that have been won through hard-fought labor struggles. Two cases in point: Trump’s Executive Order “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review,” which prevents any government executive department or agency from proposing or issuing regulations until they are reviewed by a hand-picked Presidential appointee; and his EO “Ending Illegal Discrimination And Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” which terminates current government and government-funded DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs in employment, education, loans and other areas and which “encourages” the private sector to follow suit, under threat of potential “civil compliance investigations.”
What Fascism means for Migrants
A main target of Trump’s shock and awe campaign are migrants both in the U.S. and outside. Within hours of his inauguration, he issued ten executive orders on immigration to immediately attempt to undo historic norms and even constitutional rights such as birthright citizenship, as well as attack more recent protections for migrant youth and students like DACA. His executive order on “Protecting the American People from Invasion,” better facilitates his mass deportation plan by rolling back Biden-era policies.
He immediately closed down access to the asylum process, leaving thousands stranded at the border. In the interior, Trump started to unleash mass enforcement and deportation raids on migrant communities and workplaces, resulting in the arrest of at least 500 migrants and deportation of hundreds more. One of the ten executive orders on immigration declares a state of emergency at the U.S. / Mexico border and authorizes massively increased US military troop presence to “protect” the American people from “invasion.” Trump’s border czar Tom Homan even bragged about US military aircraft being used during Trump’s first week in office to fly hundreds of migrants back to their home countries for the first time ever, claiming that these deportation flights would become a daily operation despite the exorbitant cost estimates in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually to be shouldered by the American people.
Trump’s goals are clear: to demonize and isolate migrants as scapegoats for the deep crisis racking American society and incite hate and more violent attacks on migrants, to instill fear in migrants and disempower them politically, and to perversely line the pockets of billionaire corporations like Geo and CoreCivic that will profit immensely from building and running their inhumane private immigrant detention centers.
What Fascism means for Women and LGBT people
Trump’s executive order on “Defending Women against Gender Ideology Extremism” marks a more openly reactionary attack on LGBTQ rights, by denying the existence of trans people and revoking public funds from being spent on promoting “gender ideology,” which will have massive impacts, from access to public education on LGBTQ rights to trans women’s access to domestic violence shelters or protections in the workplace. The unscientific construct of sex and gender touted by Trump and the subsequent removal of the ‘x’ gender marker will increase profiling, intimidation and surveillance by border patrol agents, police, and other law enforcement agencies in the movement of people across borders and within the U.S. The impact of this EO will roll back federal funding for gender affirming and reproductive care, which will create worse conditions for trans and migrant women who will be further marginalized and pushed into more informal work and trafficking situations. Furthermore, this EO on “protecting women” demonizes trans women as predators and further divides the people.
Despite Trump and his misogynistic cabinet picks claims to “defend women’s rights,” it’s clear his fascist policies regarding immigration, abortion, gender-affirming care, and advancement of US-led war and military interests around the world will harm women and all oppressed people globally.
We cannot let him strip the majority of people – workers, migrants, women, LGBTQ – of their political power to fight against the system that is oppressing and exploiting them.
Global Impacts
Trump’s presidency will not only negatively impact the people in the US but all around the world – as we can anticipate the continued expansion of US war provocations and military build up which drag the people of the world closer to world war. In his inauguration speech he said that America’s “…armed forces will be free to focus on their sole mission: defeating America’s enemies. Like in 2017, we will again build the strongest military the world has ever seen.” While American foreign policy has always aimed to serve the US ruling class interests, the US under Trump will be even more aggressive in shaping all foreign policy towards advancing principally the interests of the US with executive orders like the “America First Policy Directive to the Secretary of State.” Although it may speak of protecting the interests of Americans as a whole, in actuality it is a policy of asserting the interests of the US ruling class and attempting to maintain their economic and political hegemony in the world. This also signals the Trump faction’s aspirations for further expansion, made plain with his talk of taking over Greenland to bolster US military strength in the Arctic, his “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness” Executive Order which includes renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” and the reinstatement of the name of Mount McKinley named for President McKinley under whose reign the US colonized Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines as US colonies during the Spanish-American war. Though seemingly symbolic, these declarations expose Trump’s intentions to tighten his grip on the US’ neocolonies, which the US has used for over 100 years as staging grounds for war, hosting some of its largest military bases, exercises, weapons testing and troop deployments in the world.
Furthermore, as the global climate crisis worsens, and Southern California reels from the fires, due to the ongoing plunder of the land and resources in the interests of technology and energy corporations, Trump has declared his intention to roll back whatever meager climate policies do exist in the US and called to “drill baby drill” in a drive for more oil and fossil fuel extraction.
Under Trump the people of the world will be further afflicted by the plagues of imperialist crisis, war and militarism, and environmental destruction which all pose an existential threat to our lives, sovereignty, and planet. With the rise of Trump again, fascism of the ruling class will be waging war on all fronts against the people of the US and the world, and so the people must be prepared to fight fascism on all fronts to defeat it wherever it rears its ugly face.
The Task at Hand
We must overcome the very real fear and defeatism that many are feeling now. Our enemy may appear strong but we cannot forget the lessons of history. Our peoples’ struggle here and all across the world know the grueling and painstaking years of organizing and unity building and brutal fights it takes to topple a fascist regime. From the people of Palestine, fighting to the death against the US-backed Zionist genocidal regime, to the people of Korea who have been going toe to toe against US imperialist war provocations and who recently went up against the fascist Yoon regime, to the people of the Philippines fighting for national liberation against a puppet Marcos dictatorship, the oppressed peoples of the world know what it takes to defeat fascism. Every single fascist regime in history has shown itself to be paper thin when confronted with the full weight and might of a united peoples movement! We must resist the urge to criticize without corresponding action or to frantically react to Trump’s plans. Fascism will be defeated by organized force, not by words! Let’s go far and wide in our communities and build the people power necessary for the years to come.
Let us advance campaigns led by genuine people’s organizations and alliances like the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, International Migrants Alliance, and International Women’s Alliance. As global alliances of grassroots organizations and movements fighting for the rights of migrants, women, and all oppressed peoples, it is critical that we come together to better unite the majority of the world’s people against our common enemy: US imperialism, currently led by the fascist Trump regime as the representative of the most reactionary faction of the ruling class.
Now is the time to find our unities with people’s fights whatever they may be to show we have a common enemy.
The disillusionment of the people with the corrupt US political system has never been higher. We cannot forget that the people’s aspirations expressed in the ILPS US People’s Platform and IMA USA’s Grassroots Migrants Agenda are now more popular than ever: the rights to healthcare, housing, jobs that pay liveable wages, an end to forced migration and U.S. foreign intervention.
Defeat Trump’s Fascist Agenda!
Defend Migrants!
End Violence Against Women!
End the Attacks on Trans People and Different Gender Identities!
Rise for Health, Housing, Education!
Fight Fascism! Defend Peoples’ Struggles!
Signed,
ILPS United States Country Chapter, International Women’s Alliance USA, International Migrants Alliance USA
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