Trump's War Record and the Tasks for the Global Peace Movement

** This is the second of a two-part article series by the Resist US-Led War Movement on the transition between US Presidents Biden and Trump on the war record of the two and what to expect for the future

Trump has officially been inaugurated for his second term as US President. He ran on a campaign of “peace through strength” in which he played with words to appear at some times as a peace bringer and at other times as a strongman with an iron will to destroy “America’s enemies.” Trump's false promises of peace appealed to some Americans tired of Biden's aggressive and militaristic presidency. However Trump's xenophobic, chauvinist and "America First" narrative fed right into decades of War on Terror rhetoric, training many Americans to view those struggling to achieve their freedom from ages of imperialist domination around the world as "enemies." With a ceasefire signed in Palestine now that the genocidal Zionist regime has been forced to submit to the negotiating table after over a year of steadfast Palestinian resistance, many are wondering how long Trump the supposed "peace-maker" will last.

Trump's Bloody First Term
Trump’s foreign policy record of his first term is remembered mostly for its bravado.  Trump did not wage the shock and awe campaign that Bush led into Afghanistan and Iraq, instead keeping the silent drone war going that Obama kicked into high gear in West Asia and the Horn of Africa. In a seeming show of strength, Trump dropped what he offensively called the “Mother of All Bombs” in rural Afghanistan, the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the US military’s arsenal at the time. Trump upheld minimal airstrikes against Syria compared to Democrats Obama and Biden, but made sure that such strikes were massive when they came. He garnered both controversy and praise for meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and speaking for peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula, but silently increased US troop presence on bases throughout South Korea at the same time. He even made bold claims that the US would leave NATO if other NATO countries did not increase military spending to the alliance.

What should the peace-loving people of the world and the global anti-militarism movement make of these contradictions inherent in Trump’s bravado-filled record? In short, Trump’s entire image was built around “draining the swamp” of the “deep state” of Washington DC and rising on the shoulders of American voters fed up with the endless war and disempowerment of two war-torn and utterly neoliberal Democrat administrations. Trump’s Presidential tenure has always had to have a false face of peace to it in order to maintain his voter base in the US, while blaming his political opposition for the horror and wasteful spending of the wars that he himself also kept going. Trump comes from the most savage camp of monopoly capitalists, and war has always meant big business for these profiteers.

In reality, Trump holds a war record just as brutal as any former President, and he perfected the art of paying other puppets around the world to do the US’s dirty work for it. Trump led his own coup attempt in Venezuela, a brazen attack on an independent country’s sovereignty. He sent truckloads of military aid to the utterly fascist and terroristic Bolsanaro and Duque regimes in Brazil and Colombia. He tore apart families at the US-Mexico border and led a deportation campaign of terror across the US against migrants forced to flee their homelands from US-led militarization at home.

Trump’s comments against NATO succeeded in encouraging NATO members to spend more money on their militaries. Before his Presidency, only two member countries were spending over 2% of their GDP on their militaries, while today 23 members spend this amount. Trump gave fuel to the wildfire that was the Ukrainian civil war through massive military aid packages to the US-puppet Kiev regime and brought NATO training camps up to the border with Russia itself, setting the stage for Russia’s counter-defensive invasion of Ukrainian territory that has led to three years of a bloody US-NATO proxy war against Russia.

Trump brought the genocidal war on Yemen to new heights with his military aid to Saudi Arabia in exchange for lucrative real estate and development deals. He moved the US-Israeli embassy to Jerusalem in a brazen statement of continued support for the Zionist settler colonial occupation of Palestine. He started a trade war with China that increased military tensions and justified the Obama-initiated Pivot to Asia strategy of US militarization of the Pacific. This was the context for Trump’s assistance in the carpet bombing of Marawi City in the Philippines in which people living there have still not been able to return home, all while referring to the Philippines as “a prime piece of military real estate.”

Trump unleashed racist police terror and the military on anti-racist protesters in the US during the George Floyd uprisings of 2020 and even created a new terror designation of “Black Identity Extremists" with the help of his Attorney General Jeff Sessions who had ties to the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan.

Trump ended diplomatic detente with Cuba and pulled the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran’s nuclear program, steamrolling every attempt at ending some elements of the US’s inherent imperialist attitude towards other countries. In fact, he made his own utterly racist attitude on other countries well known by banning Muslims from entering the US in the first months of his Presidency while referring to countries in Africa, the Caribbean and West Asia as “shithole countries.”

Trump's Expansionist and War-Mongering Future
This is the pro-war legacy that Trump tried to hide during his 2024 campaign, but it is the legacy that the global anti-war movement must now prepare to throw everything it has against. Trump appears to speak with the same level of empty bravado in his threats to annex Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal. While many laugh away these very likely hollow threats, one only has to look at the vast mineral wealth of the Arctic and the profitable trade route across the Panamanian Isthmus to realize that Trump’s big business cabal would benefit greatly if he followed through on this rhetoric.

Trump’s comments that there would be “Hell to pay” in Gaza if a ceasefire was not signed before his inauguration is a dark reminder that he is ready to shield the Zionist regime from any of its genocidal war crimes just as any past President has been. Had it not been for the heroic resilience and militant steadfastness of the Palestinian people, Trump would still be giving Netanyahu the green light. The mass movement for peace must be ready to continue weathering the harsh repression it has faced up until now. And with West Asia being violently redrawn by the US and Zionists in Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere, the peace movement must not give up the fight.

Regarding the Palestinian solidarity movement in the US, Trump has promised to “deport Pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again,” and Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth refused to answer if he would order the US military to shoot at protesters during his Senate confirmation hearing. Trump’s party platform also includes the ominous promise to “restore safety in our neighborhoods by replenishing police departments,” and “protecting officers from frivolous lawsuits,” responding to the many just attempts to hold murderous police officers accountable to the communities they operate it.

With a rising trend of African countries declaring their intention to kick out US and French military presence, such as Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Chad, Ghana, and Ivory Coast, it is likely that Trump will double down on AFRICOM missions of US counterinsurgency across the continent and attempt US puppet coups. The people of the world must prepare to support the people of Africa in their rightful fight for sovereignty against imperialism and foreign intervention.

And no where holds more potential for the spark of a third world war than in the Pacific. Trump may have pulled the US out of the Trans Pacific Partnership, but Biden’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework provides more favorable ground for Trump-style bilateral trade wars, and Trump will wield all the military might necessary to wage them. Biden set the stage with more new Pacific military agreements than at any time since the end of World War Two, and Trump now holds this regional command structure in the palm of his hand.

The Tasks Ahead
In conclusion, the global mass movement for peace must be just as ready to combat the moves of Trump just as much as it did against Genocide Joe. The Trump-led Republican Party platform states clearly the intention to “ensure our military is the most modern, lethal and powerful forces in the world.” We must remember that it is not just rival states that the US war machine is gearing up to clash with, but it is also the ever-rising movement against US-led war and militarism that the US and its militaristic allies cannot ignore. Wars of aggression and militarization are causing extreme suffering and death of tens of thousands of people and pose an existential threat to life as we know it. We must bind together our movements to overcome Trump and all war profiteers and bring about the downfall of US imperialism in order to achieve a true just and lasting peace.