June, 25 2026, 04:27pm EDT
CEPR Calls for a Full Lifting of Sanctions in Response to Venezuela Earthquakes
The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) is calling for the US and other countries to lift all sanctions against Venezuela in the wake of Wednesday’s devastating earthquakes. The ability of governments, civil society, and individuals to provide funds and humanitarian support to Venezuela will be severely hindered while these sanctions remain in place, CEPR experts warned.
“We have seen in previous instances how US sanctions have restricted and hampered earthquake relief efforts,” CEPR Director of International Policy Alex Main said. “Most immediately, the Trump administration can avoid the kinds of mistakes made by the previous administration in response to the Syria earthquake in 2023, when lives were lost due to the Biden administration’s belated and limited sanctions waivers. The Venezuelan government must be free to receive and allocate earthquake relief and to send humanitarian support to those who need it. Current US and other sanctions threaten to hobble the overall earthquake response.”
While the Trump administration has issued a series of general licenses to allow foreign businesses and banks to operate in Venezuela in spite of US sanctions, the continued existence of these sanctions significantly discourages international economic and financial actors from expanding operations there.
Research by CEPR economists and other international sanctions experts has shown that overcompliance leads to sanctions having a harsher and broader impact than policy-makers may expect, as aid groups, corporations, and other foreign actors pull back out of fear of running afoul of sanctions. Despite the changed nature of the US-Venezuela relationship following the US abduction of President Nicolás Maduro amid a military raid on Caracas, the Trump administration maintains many sanctions that could hinder foreign aid and relief efforts. Similarly, the governments of the United Kingdom and Portugal should act immediately to secure the release of billions of dollars of Venezuelan assets held by the Bank of England and Novo Banco so that these financial resources, which are the property of the Venezuelan state, can be deployed to support humanitarian and reconstruction efforts.
“We must remember that Venezuela suffered the worst depression in the history of the world, without a war, due to illegal US economic sanctions,” said Mark Weisbrot, CEPR Co-Director. “IMF data shows a loss of 74 percent of GDP in eight years. This deadly destruction was not a mistake, but an expected result that would happen to any country that was cut off by sanctions from the international financial system, and also from the vast majority of its foreign exchange earnings from exports.
“Tens of thousands, and more likely hundreds of thousands, of Venezuelans died as a result of those sanctions. The United States is therefore obligated to help prevent further loss of life in Venezuela,” he said.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) was established in 1999 to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people's lives. In order for citizens to effectively exercise their voices in a democracy, they should be informed about the problems and choices that they face. CEPR is committed to presenting issues in an accurate and understandable manner, so that the public is better prepared to choose among the various policy options.
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Congress Urged to Reject Trump's $88 Billion Request for Iran War That ‘Everyone Hates’
"This is a bitter Pentagon potion that no one should swallow."
Jun 25, 2026
The Trump administration is facing pushback after it formally asked the US Congress to approve $88 billion in supplemental funding that will primarily be used to pay for President Donald Trump's illegal war of choice with Iran.
In a letter sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought said that most of the requested funding "will address urgent needs related to Operation Epic Fury (OEF), in addition to other critical needs such as responding to the Ebola outbreak in Central Africa and supporting hardworking American farmers."
Many congressional Democrats, however, were not eager to go along with the administration's $88 billion request.
"Trump and [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth are now asking for $88 BILLION more for their illegal war in Iran," wrote Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) in a Thursday social media post. "Just as I predicted, they are pairing this money with other priorities to buy votes for this war. The American people shouldn't backfill this blunder. Not another dime!"
Van Hollen was joined in his opposition to further war funding by his colleague Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Senate Democrats' top appropriator, who said she would not "rubber-(stamp tens of billions more for this disastrous war of choice."
Murray also highlighted the opportunity cost of the president's war.
"This president is telling the American people there’s no money for healthcare, housing, or childcare," the Washington Democrat said, "but there should be endless taxpayer dollars to fund wars they don’t support."
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, similarly noted that "the tens of billions in military spending requested by the Trump administration could be used to protect Americans’ healthcare, feed hungry children, and help working families afford everyday life."
Elected officials aren't the only ones signaling opposition to the Trump administration's request.
Steve Ellis, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, noted that Trump is asking Congress for more money even though he completely bypassed the legislature when launching the war in late February.
"About six weeks ago, the Pentagon put the cost of the Iran War at $29 billion," Ellis said. "Now they want more than twice that? Either the administration wasn’t being honest about the costs then, or they aren’t being honest about the costs now."
Ellis also pointed out that the US Department of Defense is still sitting on roughly $100 billion in unobligated funds it could tap to replenish the munitions used in the illegal war.
"The need to address certain munitions shortfalls resulting from the war is real, but the Pentagon already has plenty of funds to do so," he explained, "and any future investments beyond that should happen through the regular budget process, not through a partisan reconciliation bill or a slapdash supplemental."
Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, said it appeared Trump was making this supplemental funding request because he knew Congress would not approve the unprecedented $1.5 trillion defense budget he proposed.
"Hegseth and Trump are circling back to their first deeply unpopular option for increasing the Pentagon budget—a supplemental funding bill for an illegal war on Iran that nobody asked for and everyone hates," said Weissman. "This effort, like the others, will fail."
Weissman warned members of Congress against supporting any additional funding requested by the administration, which he said Trump and Hegseth would likely take as approval for "launching more illegal and unconstitutional wars and military actions."
"And no so-called sweetener should make any difference whatsoever," he emphasized. "This is a bitter Pentagon potion that no one should swallow."
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, urged Democrats to uniformly reject Trump's request.
"No Democratic lawmaker should bow to Trump’s demand that working Americans pay even more for his disastrous war on Iran," Williams said. "Funds to replenish stockpiles can come from elsewhere in the already bloated, record-high Pentagon budget—or tax the oil and arms investors who made a killing."
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'Heartbreaking, Terrible Decision': Supreme Court Validates Trump Attack on TPS
"Hundreds of thousands of people who hold legal status... now face losing their ability to work and being torn from their families and homes."
Jun 25, 2026
The US Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for the Trump administration to deport hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian residents from the US after stripping them of their Temporary Protected Status last year.
In a 6-3 decision, the high court's conservative majority ruled that the Department of Homeland Security was able to strip status from 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians—including many who'd lived in the US for years—after they'd been given protection because DHS deemed their home countries unsafe to return to.
"Hundreds of thousands of people who hold legal status, who registered with the government, passed background checks, and paid fees to do so, now face losing their ability to work and being torn from their families and homes," explained Todd Schulte, the president of the immigration and criminal justice reform advocacy group Fwd.US.
A federal judge temporarily delayed the administration’s TPS terminations in February, blocking what advocates feared would be a flood of immigration agents to areas with many TPS recipients. The judge said DHS had not followed the legally required steps to determine whether Haiti and Syria were safe enough for people with temporary status to return.
The State Department currently advises Americans not to visit either country for any reason, as Haiti is in the midst of a brutal gang war that has displaced more than 1.4 million people, and Syria has been in an ongoing state of unrest since the civil war began in 2011.
Echoing the lower court, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan pointed out in her dissenting opinion that the only consultation within DHS on the conditions in these countries took place in a brief email exchange between a DHS aide and a State Department official, who said that there were no "foreign policy concerns" with terminating their status, but provided no evidence to declare that the two countries were safe.
The justice likewise noted that the stripping of status for Haitians was likely arbitrary and unconstitutional, based in part on "racial animus." She noted that President Donald Trump has made many statements about Haitians "so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print."
Kagan listed several of them, including Trump's nonsensical rant that Haitians were "eating the pets" of residents in Springfield, Ohio; his claim that Haitians living in the US “probably have AIDS"; and his description of Haiti as a "shithole country." She also noted his comments about immigrants more broadly, including that they are "poisoning the blood" of the nation.
"The statements fairly shout, in their racial undertones and overtones alike, that race entered into the president’s resolve to remove Haitians from this country," Kagan wrote.
In the majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito sidestepped the question of whether DHS has properly considered the conditions in Haiti and Syria, stating that the TPS statute allows "no judicial review of any determination... with respect to the... termination” of a designation. He said that meant the court could not review either the final decision to terminate status or any of the individual decisions leading up to it.
He did acknowledge the question of racial animus and admitted that things Trump has said "would have scandalized the public just a short time ago." But, he said that “none of the cited statements" from Trump were "overtly racial, and in substance all expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications.”
The Trump administration has declined to renew TPS for all 13 countries for which it has come up for renewal during his second term. Alito said that since the administration has declined to renew TPS for every country, not just Haiti, the evidence was "insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people.”
Thursday's ruling was yet another validation of Trump's efforts to end TPS by the Supreme Court, which last year ruled that he could similarly strip status from around 350,000 Venezuelan nationals.
But advocates have pointed out that the administration's case this time was substantially weaker.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said it was "very important for people to understand that the Trump administration did not win a decision today saying that they had lawfully ended TPS."
"Instead," he said, "what the Supreme Court held was that even if the Trump administration had openly ignored the law in making TPS decisions, courts cannot stop them."
Nicolette Glazer, a California-based immigration attorney, said the court had basically determined that "a DHS secretary can end TPS at whim and neither statutory nor constitutional theory applies to curb administrative xenophobia."
"Make no mistake about what this is," said Amina Barhumi, the executive director of the Muslim Civic Coalition. "Temporary Protected Status exists because it is not safe to send people back to war and disaster. This decision does not change those dangers—it simply turns its back on the people fleeing them."
Schulte said it was a "heartbreaking, terrible decision that defies common sense." He added that "the administration simply broke the law in the way it terminated TPS." Now, he said, the lives of "hundreds of thousands of people who have lived here for decades... are in chaos."
While the Trump administration has often portrayed immigrants and refugees as parasites, Schulte argued that the "economic damage" of the decision would be felt far beyond the families facing deportation.
"Haitian TPS holders contribute nearly $6 billion to the US economy each year, and 200,000 of them work in industries already facing labor shortages, including healthcare, agriculture, and manufacturing," he said. "An estimated 25,000 US citizen children of Haitian TPS holders will be pushed into poverty when their parents lose work authorization. Employers will lose trained, dedicated workers they cannot easily replace. The real-life impact of this ruling is profound, cruel, and heartbreaking."
Some members of Congress pledged to take action to defend TPS recipients in light of the decision.
Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) called on Congress to pass the American Dream and Promise Act, which would create pathways to permanent legal status for TPS holders, as well as holders of the similar Deferred Enforced Departure (DED), and those who were brought to the US unauthorized as children and received protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
"TPS holders followed the rules. They registered with the government, passed background checks, renewed their status, worked legally, paid taxes, and raised their families here," Garcia said. "Their reward should not be a deportation notice."
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who spoke outside the court on Thursday, said the ruling showed that "the far-right MAGA majority on the court cannot stand." He said, "We need to win back the House and the Senate and expand the court."
"This is not over," Markey added. "It is our responsibility to protect TPS holders and provide this vulnerable group with a pathway to permanent citizenship. I will not stop fighting."
Even Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), a strong supporter of Trump, said that while he "never disputed the ability" of Trump to end TPS, he "strongly disagree[d] with ending Haitian TPS at this time," saying that "the situation on the ground in Haiti is a humanitarian and political disaster and continues to warrant an extension."
Lawler noted that "roughly 1/3" of Haitian TPS holders "work in our healthcare system" and said "shutting off TPS will create a crisis" in hospitals, nursing homes, and for people with disabilities.
"I’m asking the administration to allow for an orderly process by which Haitian TPS holders can maintain their work authorization while their immigration cases are adjudicated over the next six months," he said, adding that the Senate should consider his legislation with Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY) to temporarily extend TPS protections.
He said the administration needed to "allow for a stable government to be established with a free and fair election, creating the conditions for a safe return for Haitians."
Rep. Analilia Mejia (D-NJ), a member of the House Homeland Security Committee and Border Security and Enforcement Subcommittee, said the TPS ruling, and another ruling on Thursday allowing the administration to turn back asylum seekers at legal points of entry, "should alarm every American."
"The 14th Amendment promises due process and equal protection under the law. Those rights do not disappear because a president decides an entire community has become politically convenient to target," she said. "When the government can deny one group a hearing or strip away protections they have relied on for years, it is not just immigrants who lose. It sends a dangerous message that constitutional rights can be discarded whenever those in power find it politically useful."
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While Kicking Millions Off Healthcare, GOP Holds 'Sham Hearing' on Medicaid Fraud
"If Republicans are really interested in looking into waste, fraud, and abuse, they should look no further than the actions of Trump and his administration."
Jun 25, 2026
Congressional Democrats and healthcare justice advocates on Thursday accused Republicans of trying to divert attention away from their destructive cuts to Medicaid—and the resulting large-scale loss of insurance coverage—by convening a hearing on purportedly "rampant" fraud in the program that provides care to tens of millions of low-income Americans.
Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, noted in his scathing opening remarks at the hearing that Republicans have "repeatedly insisted" they are only interested in fighting fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars, even as their unprecedented Medicaid cuts strip healthcare from millions of people across the US, including many children.
"You cannot cut healthcare by $1 trillion and not impact millions of people’s healthcare," said Pallone, pointing to a report published earlier this week estimating that more than 5 million Americans have lost health insurance since President Donald Trump signed the GOP's massive budget package into law last summer.
"If Republicans are really interested in looking into waste, fraud, and abuse, they should look no further than the actions of Trump and his administration," Pallone continued, pointing to the illegal and costly war of choice in Iran as just one example. "Playing politics with Americans’ healthcare is cruel and dangerous. Unfortunately, that is what we are repeatedly seeing from Republicans here in Washington."
The advocacy group Protect Our Care decried the GOP's "sham hearing" and said Republicans are "pointing fingers at everyone but themselves."
“Let’s be clear about who the real fraudsters are: not the senior rationing insulin, not the mom skipping the emergency room, and not the family choosing between groceries and seeing a doctor," said Brad Woodhouse, the group's president. "It’s Republicans ripping away healthcare from millions with one hand and signing tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations with the other.”
"They’ve decided that if they simply say they’re eliminating fraud in Medicaid, then they can get away with eliminating Medicaid. They are wrong."
Thursday's hearing featured testimony from the state Medicaid directors of California, Minnesota, New York, and Ohio, each of whom said they are committed to fighting fraud in their systems. Experts say most Medicaid fraud is committed by providers, not ordinary patients bilking the program.
In recent months, the Trump administration has launched investigations into the Medicaid programs of several states, including California, Minnesota, and New York—probes that officials in those Democratic-controlled states say are politically motivated and based on exaggerated claims of fraud.
In April, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services—led by Mehmet Oz—admitted that it grossly overstated the number of New Yorkers who received personal care services under the state's Medicaid program last year.
"Oz claimed that New York's Medicaid program last year provided some 5 million people with personal care services, which assist people in need with basic activities like bathing, grooming, and meal preparation. That would add up to nearly three-fourths of the state's 6.8 million Medicaid enrollees," The Associated Press reported. "The real number of New Yorkers who used those services last year was about 450,000, or between 6% and 7% of total enrollees, CMS spokesman Chris Krepich told the AP."
Republicans have repeatedly cited "waste, fraud, and abuse" as reasons to target and slash federal Medicaid spending. But according to one analysis, just seven of the 24 Medicaid provisions in the 2025 Republican budget law specifically target waste, fraud, and abuse in the program. Overall, the GOP law will cut federal Medicaid spending by roughly $900 billion over the next decade.
In the coming months, Republicans are expected to pursue another budget reconciliation package that they say would crack down on "fraud" in Medicaid—a seeming admission that the 2025 budget law didn't accomplish the GOP's stated objective.
"As Republicans try to figure out a way to pay for President Trump’s reckless war of choice with Iran through another partisan reconciliation bill, they are reportedly considering even more cuts to Medicaid," Pallone said Thursday. "More than 70 million Americans who are disabled or chronically ill, elderly, or children rely on Medicaid for their healthcare."
"The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress continue to find ways to endanger or take away that care," Pallone added. "They’ve decided that if they simply say they’re eliminating fraud in Medicaid, then they can get away with eliminating Medicaid. They are wrong."
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