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gulf of america
Trump-Appointed Judge Rules White House Can't Retaliate Against AP Over Gulf of Mexico Dispute
A spokesperson for the news agency said the ruling "affirms the fundamental right of the press and public to speak freely without government retaliation."
Apr 08, 2025
A federal judge appointed by U.S. President Donald Trump during his first term ruled Tuesday that the White House cannot cut off The Associated Press' access to the Republican leader because of the news agency's refusal to use his preferred name for the Gulf of Mexico.
"About two months ago, President Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. The Associated Press did not follow suit. For that editorial choice, the White House sharply curtailed the AP's access to coveted, tightly controlled media events with the president," wrote Judge Trevor N. McFadden, who is based in Washington, D.C.
Specifically, according to the news outlet, "the AP has been blocked since February 11 from being among the small group of journalists to cover Trump in the Oval Office or aboard Air Force One, with sporadic ability to cover him at events in the East Room."
The AP responded to the restrictions by suing White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, "seeking a preliminary injunction enjoining the government from excluding it because of its viewpoint," McFadden noted in his 41-page order. "Today, the court grants that relief."
The judge explained that "this injunction does not limit the various permissible reasons the government may have for excluding journalists from limited-access events. It does not mandate that all eligible journalists, or indeed any journalists at all, be given access to the president or nonpublic government spaces. It does not prohibit government officials from freely choosing which journalists to sit down with for interviews or which ones' questions they answer. And it certainly does not prevent senior officials from publicly expressing their own views."
"The court simply holds that under the First Amendment, if the government opens its doors to some journalists—be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere—it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints," he stressed. "The Constitution requires no less."
McFadden blocked his own order from taking effect before next week, giving the Trump administration time to respond or appeal. Still, AP spokesperson Lauren Easton said Tuesday that "we are gratified by the court's decision."
"Today’s ruling affirms the fundamental right of the press and public to speak freely without government retaliation," Easton added. "This is a freedom guaranteed for all Americans in the U.S. Constitution."
NPR reported that "an AP reporter and photographer were turned back from joining a reporting pool on a presidential motorcade early Tuesday evening, almost two hours after the decision came down."
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In Latest Attack on Media, Trump White House Takes Control of Press Pool
"This move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States," said the head of the White House Correspondents' Association. "In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps."
Feb 25, 2025
As part of U.S. President Donald Trump's long-running war with the news media, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Tuesday that the administration will now decide which outlets get to participate in the presidential press pool.
The widely condemned announcement came just a day after U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden, a Trump appointee, declined to lift the White House's ban on Associated Press reporters attending press briefings and Air Force One flights because the outlet refuses to call the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America" in line with the president's January executive order.
The White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) has managed the press pool since the 1950s. While the group has faced its share of criticism, journalists and others also weren't buying Leavitt's attempt to frame the Trump takeover of the responsibility as an effort to include reporters previously denied the significant access to the president that pool members have.
"This move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States. It suggests the government will choose the journalists who cover the president. In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps," WHCA president Eugene Daniels said in a Tuesday statement.
As Daniels detailed:
For generations, the working journalists elected to lead the White House Correspondents' Association board have consistently expanded the WHCA's membership and its pool rotations to facilitate the inclusion of new and emerging outlets.
Since its founding in 1914, the WHCA has sought to ensure that the reporters, photographers, producers, and technicians who actually do the work—365 days of every year—decide amongst themselves how these rotations are operated, so as to ensure consistent professional standards and fairness in access on behalf of all readers, viewers and listeners.
To be clear, the White House did not give the WHCA board a heads-up or have any discussions about today's announcements. But the WHCA will never stop advocating for comprehensive access, full transparency, and the right of the American public to read, listen to and watch reports from the White House, delivered without fear or favor.
His remarks followed reporting that the WHCA was trying to quietly resolve the dispute with the AP. CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter said on social media last week: "So why aren't more reporters and media outlets speaking out more vehemently to help the AP? In part, I'm told, it's because the WH Correspondents' Association is trying to work out a solution behind the scenes."
The WHCA did file a motion on Sunday seeking to submit an amicus brief in the AP case before McFadden. The document states that "the government should never interfere with the operation of an independent press, nor should it demand that reporters adopt the government's messaging, framing, and, indeed, ideological worldview. Such conduct is wholly at odds with the Constitution and cannot be permitted to persist."
boy i'll tell you, it does not seem like the white house correspondents' association read this well at all
[image or embed]
— Alex Kirshner ( @alexkirshner.com) February 25, 2025 at 1:56 PM
Daniels was far from alone in blasting the Trump administration's decision on Tuesday. The AP reported that the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press called it "a drastic change in how the public obtains information about its government."
Bruce D. Brown, the group's president, said that "the White House press pool exists to serve the public, not the presidency."
The Committee to Protect Journalists said on social media that it "is alarmed by the White House's decision to pick who can be part of the press pool. Given the White House's decision to ban the AP from pool activities in retaliation for an editorial choice, it is concerning that the administration will now exert yet more control over which outlets are able to access the president and events he attends."
Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, said that "the president does not get to handpick his news coverage, and he cannot condition access to the White House on an outlet's speech alone. The First Amendment protects the rights of outlets to make their own editorial decisions, but this decision opens the door for government punishment of outlets that don't comply with the White House's editorial demands. This is not just about silencing reporters but about dodging accountability and keeping the American people in the dark about important news that impacts each and every one of them."
Some journalists pointed to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Susan Glasser, a staff writer at The New Yorker, warned that the Trump White House is "on the way to establishing its own version of a Kremlin press pool, approved media only."
Glasser co-authored the book Kremlin Rising with her husband, New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker. He said Tuesday that "having served as a Moscow correspondent in the early days of Putin's reign, this reminds me of how the Kremlin took over its own press pool and made sure that only compliant journalists were given access."
"The message is clear," Baker continued. "Given that the White House has already kicked one news organization out of the pool because of coverage it does not like, it is making certain everyone else knows that the rest of us can be barred too if the president does not like our questions or stories."
MSNBC host Symone Sanders Townsend—who served as chief spokesperson for former Vice President Kamala Harris—suggested that "the reporters should refuse to comply and should continue the precedent of deciding the pool themselves."
"Do I wish I could have picked the reporters in the press pool who were covering the VP when I worked at the White House? Some days… yes," she said. "But that is not how this works."
This article has been updated with comment from the ACLU.
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Judge Denies AP's Emergency Request to Lift Trump Ban Over Gulf of Mexico Spat
However, the Trump-appointed federal judge said he would expedite the case due to its importance.
Feb 24, 2025
A U.S. federal judge on Monday rejected an emergency request by The Associated Press to lift the White House's ban on its reporters for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America"—but said he would fast-track the important case.
U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden—an appointee of President Donald Trump—said that the AP is not facing "the type of dire situation" that would warrant issuance of the temporary restraining order sought by the wire service, according to The New York Times.
However, Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney said that McFadden "has ordered expedited consideration of the matter given the weighty issues at the heart of it."
Earlier this month, Trump indefinitely banned AP reporters from White House press briefings and Air Force One flights over its refusal to fully adopt the president's new name for the Gulf of Mexico. The news agency responded by suing three Trump administration officials over the blocked access: White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
"The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government," the AP said in its lawsuit. The AP has explained that because the gulf is an international body of water, it will continue to call it the Gulf of Mexico, while referencing Trump's name change, because Mexico and other countries do not recognize the new appellation.
The White House welcomed the ruling with video screens reading "Victory" and "Gulf of America" in the James S. Brady Briefing Room, where press conferences are held.
"As we have said from the beginning, asking the president of the United States questions in the Oval Office and aboard Air Force One is a privilege granted to journalists, not a legal right," the White House said in response to McFadden's ruling.
"We stand by our decision to hold the Fake News accountable for their lies, and President Trump will continue to grant an unprecedented level of access to the press," the White House statement added. "This is the most transparent administration in history."
Dozens of media organizations—including pro-Trump outlets like Fox News and Newsmax—urged the White House to lift its ban on the AP.
In an extraordinary move earlier Monday, interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin used his official account on X, Elon Musk's social media site, to erroneously describe federal prosecutors as "President Trump's lawyers."
"We are proud to fight to protect his leadership as our president and we are vigilant in standing against entities like the AP that refuse to put America first," Martin wrote.
Martin's post drew a sharp rebuke from Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who retorted that "the U.S. attorney for D.C. is not 'President Trump's lawyer' and its job is not to 'protect his leadership' nor prosecute people who 'refuse to put America first.'"
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AP Sues Trump Officials for Retaliatory Blocking of Reporters
The news outlet has been barred from presidential events for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico by the president's chosen name, "the Gulf of America."
Feb 21, 2025
Accusing the White House of a "targeted attack" on editorial independence that "strikes at the very core of the First Amendment," The Associated Press on Friday filed a lawsuit against three Trump administration officials over its blocked access to all presidential events.
The administration announced earlier this month that AP reporters would not be permitted to cover press events at the White House, Mar-a-Lago, or on Air Force One due to its editorial decision to continue referring to the Gulf of Mexico by the name that has been internationally recognized for more than 400 years.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order in January stating that the Gulf of Mexico would be renamed the Gulf of America. Trump has the authority to change a body of water's name for official government purposes, and some bodies of water are called by different names in different countries—for example, the Gulf of California is known as the Sea of Cortez in Mexico.
The AP said it would acknowledge Trump's chosen name for the body of water, but continue officially referring to it as the Gulf of Mexico.
"The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government."
As Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said this month as she threatened to sue Google for changing the Gulf of Mexico's names in its maps feature, the U.S. does not have sovereignty over the body of water, and Trump cannot unilaterally order other entities to call it by his chosen name.
The AP on Friday said in its lawsuit that "the press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government."
The suit names White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who has said in briefings that it is "a fact" that the body of water off the western coast of Florida and the southern coasts of several other states is called the Gulf of America.
The news outlet called on the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. to stop the White House from blocking its journalists from gathering news at presidential events.
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Defending the Gulf of Mexico From Trump's Totalitarianism
How serious is Trump’s Orwellian effort? Can it really succeed in reshaping public discourse? We can hope not. But can we be sure?
Feb 17, 2025
“If we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable. And it is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America. I’m not sure why news outlets don’t want to call it that, but that is what it is. The Secretary of the Interior has made that designation . . . and Apple has recognized that, Google has recognized that, pretty much every other outlet in this room has recognized that body of water as the Gulf of America, and its very important to this administration that we get that right.” —White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, speaking at her February 12 daily press briefing.
Back in 1997, in the dim pre-history of American Greatness, David King published a book entitled The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin’s Russia. In almost two hundred pages of photos, it demonstrated the ways that Stalin’s Soviet regime literally erased historical events and persons no longer considered to be consistent with the dictat of The Leader.
Such efforts involved extensive censorship and coercion, typically requiring the removal not simply of images and documents but the people to whom they were attached, who often wound up in a Gulag if they were lucky or in a ditch if they were not. At the same time, as the book shows, even more insidious than the coercion was the regime’s wholly cynical attitude towards truth—an attitude so well analyzed by George Orwell’s 1984 that it has come to be described by the colloquialism “Orwellian.” The regime and its Leader regarded themselves as literally authorized to dictate what is and what is not. It was not enough to denounce or disappear an opponent or to censor an image. It was considered necessary, and legitimate, to figuratively and literally erase the opponent and to produce an appropriately revised image or document in which that opponent did not appear, and thus did not exist, and indeed perhaps had never existed.
For Stalin—and, in different ways, for Hitler and Mussolini too—the essential principle of rule was simply stated: “what is, is what I declare it to be.”
On January 20, 2025, within minutes of his inauguration as President of the United States, Donald J. Trump declared, via Executive Order 14172, that heretofore the U.S. government would rename “the area formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico” as “the Gulf of America.”
Trump’s “Restoring [of] Names That Honor American Greatness” generated enthusiasm among his supporters, criticism among his opponents, and incredulity among most people, including most journalists. For the designation “Gulf of Mexico” has been in use for centuries, since before there was a United States. It has long been the internationally recognized designation for the body of water in question. And, until a few weeks ago, it was the designation employed by every American and especially by every American travel agent and resort owner.
And yet, with a stroke of a pen, Donald Trump declared it was now and forever the “Gulf of America.”
Google and Apple complied with Trump’s order. So too Axios.
But Associated Press chose a more nuanced response: “The Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years. The Associated Press will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen.”
As a consequence, the White House very publicly blocked AP from Oval Office and Air Force One, making an example of the news agency for its temerity in failing to fall in line.
When questions were raised by journalists about whether such a move was consistent with either the First Amendment or long-standing White House practice, Trump doubled down, and went one step further, issuing a Proclamation declaring February 9 as “Gulf of America Day,” and calling “upon public officials and all the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.” Describing his renaming as a “momentous occasion,” he thus declared that Americans must not only change their language but celebrate him for proclaiming the change.
It was in this context that CNN reporter Kaitlin Collins pressed White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who responded as she did on February 12, by not simply defending the denunciation and punishment of AP, but by declaring AP to be lying, and misleading the public, by refusing to acknowledge what is a fact.
Her logic was impeccable. Trump declared it. His hand-picked Interior Secretary “made that designation.” And thus it simply is. And to raise any question about this is to be not simply against what Trump says, but against the simple truth. The rhetorical coup de gras is the gaslighting at the end, the seemingly straightforward claim that “pretty much everyone else” knows this to be true, which renders anyone outside this supposed consensus very peculiar, suspicious, and indeed dangerous.
This is the methodology of totalitarian and quasi-totalitarian rule.
It is playing out in the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. And in the widespread scrubbing of federal government websites, an effort recently described by CBS News as a deliberate attempt “to remove content contrary to the president’s thinking.” And in the many directives requiring the repudiation of any and all signs of “wokeness” (citing recent Trump administration guidance, the Maryland National Guard just backed out of its long-standing participation in the state’s official celebration of the birthday of Frederick Douglass. One wonders how long until it is declared that Douglass himself is a much more complicated figure than many have thought, and perhaps never really lived, and the true heroes of the Civil War were Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson).
But the most serious instance of this quasi-totalitarian approach to truth, also declared in a January 20 Executive Order, was Trump’s pardoning of all individuals convicted of or charged with crimes associated with the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Through this edict, Trump explicitly redescribed every insurrectionist as a patriot, and every government official involved in the defense of the Capitol on January 6 or the arrest or prosecution of the insurrectionists as a “deep state” oppressor. As I argued recently, in “It’s Official: Donald Trump Won the 2020 Election,” through these pardons “Trump has commenced the process of erasing the truth not simply about January 6, 2021, but about the last four years.”
How serious is Trump’s Orwellian effort? Can it really succeed in reshaping public discourse? We can hope not. But can we be sure?
I am reminded of Vaclav Havel’s famous essay “The Power of the Powerless.” Writing in 1978, at a moment that he describes as “post-totalitarian,” Havel asks whether and how it might be possible to break through the repressive Czech regime’s veneer of invulnerability. He tells the story of a greengrocer who, upon instruction from the Party, “places among the onions and carrots, the slogan ‘Workers of the World Unite,’” not because he believes the slogan but because it is the easiest way to get by in a very cynical society. As Havel writes:
We have seen that the real meaning of the greengrocer’s slogan has nothing to do with what the text of the slogan actually says. Even so, this real meaning is quite clear and generally comprehensible because the code is so familiar: the greengrocer declares his loyalty (and he can do no other if his declaration is to be accepted) in the only way the regime is capable of hearing; that is, by accepting the prescribed ritual, by accepting appearances as reality, by accepting the given rules of the game. In doing so, however, he has himself become a player in the game, thus making it possible for the game to go on, for it to exist in the first place.
The Czechoslovakia of the 1970’s was not a full-blown Stalinist regime—thus Havel’s designation “post-totalitarianism.” But both parts of the designation matter, and while the Communist regime did not practice mass terror, and allowed a sphere of civil freedom in which individuals were free to “go about their business,” the regime very much claimed the authority to decide the limits of such business, and to exercise substantial control over both political and cultural life. When the regime circulated Communist slogans, it was well understood that the slogans were to be honored, and that every “good citizen” was expected to act as if they were not simply followers of the law but sincere and enthusiastic Communists. To do otherwise was to flout the official “truth,” which was the only accepted “truth”—and thus to be a dangerous liar if not certifiably insane.
We do not live in 1970’s Czechoslovakia.
But we do live at a moment when the democratically elected President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, seems intent on pursuing a very similar approach to public life, dictating what is and what shall be, and expecting those around him, and the citizenry at large, to follow in lockstep, and with at least feigned enthusiasm.
Havel makes clear in his 1978 essay that he understands the very real reasons why so many fellow citizens will make such accommodations with the regime, which are surely rational from the vantage point of the individuals involved. But he also holds out the hope that there are individuals who, following the example of his Charter 77 colleagues, will eventually discover that such accommodations come at too high a price, and thus will begin to raise questions, and to refuse to comply. Whether, when, and how such refusals might grow, he acknowledges, are open questions. What is important, he insists, is that there be some refusal, on the basis of which hope for the future can be sustained.
It took over a decade before Havel’s hope was vindicated (even if briefly, for the Europe of today is not the Europe of Havel’s hope).
Trump has only just begun to do the damage that he will surely do. On what basis can we sustain hope for a future beyond Trump? And how long must we wait for such hope to be vindicated?
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MAGA-Fest Destiny: Trump's Old-School (and Grotesque) Brand of Imperialism
Trump doesn’t shroud American imperialism in happy talk. He says it just like they did in 1898. It’s about resources and profits.
Feb 17, 2025
A few years ago, I came across an old book at an estate sale. Its title caught my eye: “Our New Possessions.” Its cover featured the Statue of Liberty against stylized stars and stripes. What were those “new possessions”? The cover made it quite clear: Cuba, Hawaii, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. The subtitle made it even clearer: “A graphic account, descriptive and historical, of the tropic islands of the sea which have fallen under our sway, their cities, peoples, and commerce, natural resources and the opportunities they offer to Americans.” What a mouthful! I’m still impressed with the notion that “tropical” peoples falling “under our sway” offered real Americans amazing opportunities, as did our (whoops — I meant their) lands. Consider that Manifest Destiny at its boldest, imperialism unapologetically being celebrated as a new basis for burgeoning American greatness.
The year that imperial celebration was published — 1898 — won’t surprise students of U.S. history. America had just won its splendid little imperial war with Spain, an old empire very much in the “decline and fall” stage of a rich, long, and rapacious history. And just then red-blooded Americans like “Rough Rider” Teddy Roosevelt were emerging as the inheritors of the conquistador tradition of an often murderously swashbuckling Spanish Empire.
Of course, freedom-loving Americans were supposed to know better than to follow in the tradition of “old world” imperial exploitation. Nevertheless, cheerleaders and mentors like storyteller Rudyard Kipling were then urging Americans to embrace Europe’s civilizing mission, to take up “the white man’s burden,” to spread enlightenment and civilization to the benighted darker-skinned peoples of the tropics. Yet to cite just one example, U.S. troops dispatched to the Philippines on their “civilizing” mission quickly resorted to widespread murder and torture, methods of “pacification” that might even have made Spanish inquisitors blush. That grim reality wasn’t lost on Mark Twain and other critics who spoke out against imperialism, American-style, with its murderous suppression of Filipino “guerrillas” and bottomless hypocrisy about its “civilizing” motives.
After his exposure to “enlightened” all-American empire-building, retired Major General Smedley Butler, twice awarded the Medal of Honor, would bluntly write in the 1930s of war as a “racket” and insist his long career as a Marine had been spent largely in the service of “gangster” capitalism. Now there was a plain-speaking American hero.
And speaking of plain-speaking, or perhaps plain-boasting, I suggest that we think of Donald Trump as America’s retro president from 1898. Isn’t it time, America, to reach for our destiny once again? Isn’t it time for more tropical (and Arctic) peoples to be put “under our sway”? Greenland! Canada! The Panama Canal! These and other regions of the globe offer Donald Trump’s America so many “opportunities.” And if we can’t occupy an area like the Gulf of Mexico, the least we can do is rebrand it the Gulf of America! A lexigraphic “mission accomplished” moment bought with no casualties, which sure beats the calamitous wars of George W. Bush and Barack Obama in this century!
Now, here’s what I appreciate about Trump: the transparent nature of his greed. He doesn’t shroud American imperialism in happy talk. He says it just like they did in 1898. It’s about resources and profits. As the dedication page to that old book from 1898 put it: “To all Americans who go a-pioneering in our new possessions and to the people who are there before them.” Oh, and pay no attention to that “before” caveat. We Americans clearly came first then and, at least to Donald Trump, come first now, and — yes! — we come to rule. The world is our possession and our beneficence will certainly serve the peoples who were there before us in Greenland or anywhere else (the “hellhole” of Gaza included), even if we have to torture or kill them in the process of winning their hearts and minds.
It’s 1900 Again in America
My point is this: Donald Trump doesn’t want to return America to the 1950s, when men were men and women were, as the awful joke then went, “barefoot, pregnant, in the kitchen.” No, he wants to return this country (and the world) to 1900, when America was unapologetically and nakedly grabbing everything it could. To put it in his brand of “locker room” language, Trump wants to grab Mother Earth by the pussy, because when you’re rich and powerful, when you’re a “star,” you can do anything.
It’s white (male) hunter all over again. Think Teddy Roosevelt and all those animals he manfully slaughtered on safari. Today, we might even add white (female) hunter, considering that Kristi Noem, the new director of homeland security, infamously shot her own dog in a gravel pit because she couldn’t train it to behave. It’s an America where men are men again, women are women, and trans people are simply defined out of existence while simultaneously being forced out of the U.S. military.
To replace the “yellow journalism” of newspaperman William Randolph Hearst in that age, think of the corporate-owned media networks of today, with billionaire owners like Jeff Bezos showing due deference to you know who. For the robber barons of that age, substitute men like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg (to name only the two most famous billionaires of our moment) along with Bezos and their billionaire tech bros. It’s a new gilded age, a new age of smash and grab, where the rich get richer and the poor poorer, where the strong do what they will and the weak suffer as they must.
Of course, it’s highly doubtful Trump can convince Canada to become the 51st state. Denmark doesn’t seem remotely interested in selling Greenland to America and the Panamanians aren’t eager to return their canal to all-American interlopers and occupiers. Even the “Gulf of America” remains the Gulf of Mexico to the other peoples of the Western Hemisphere. But perhaps Trump and Musk can team up to plant the American flag on Mars!
Yet, while Trump may fail when it comes to any of these specific imperial designs, he’s already succeeding, famously so, where it really matters. With all his imperial blather about Greenland, Gaza, and the like, what he’s really conquering and colonizing is our minds. The man and his ideas are now everywhere. Whatever else you can say about Trump, you can’t get rid of him, especially in the mainstream media which he uses so effectively to trumpet (pun intended) his expansionist agenda.
Yes, Trump is normalizing imperial conquest (again); yes, naked exploitation is unapologetically “destiny” (again). It’s “drill, baby, drill” and party like it’s 1900, since ideas about global warming due to fossil-fuel production and consumption simply didn’t exist in that age. It’s so retro chic to be chauvinistically selfish, to loot openly, even to commit or enable atrocities under the cover of humanitarian concerns. (Think of Gaza and Trump’s recent open call for cleansing the region of Palestinians to make way for their “betters,” the Israelis, to enjoy peace and a “beautiful” seaside location.)
Regression, thy name be Trump. Unabashed greed and unbridled hypocrisy are selling points once again. Protectionist tariffs are “great” again. Immigrants, black- and brown-skinned ones naturally, are depicted as endangering America’s way of life. Time to get rid of as many “illegals” as we can. Deport them! Jail them in Cuba! America is for Americans!
A Global Military Makes It All Possible
President Teddy Roosevelt was a big fan of the U.S. Navy’s Great White Fleet, the 16 battleships, painted white, that he sent around the world in 1907. He used it to intimidate recalcitrant powers and impress them with America’s growing might and reach. Though the U.S. wasn’t quite a military superpower yet, it was already an economic one, and combining military persuasion with economic prowess was an effective tactic to get other countries to toe Washington’s line.
Today’s U.S. military is quite obviously a global one, an imperial one bent on total dominance of everything: land, sea, air, space, cyberspace, information, narrative. You name it and our military and its partners in what Ray McGovern calls the MICIMATT (which includes industry, Congress, intelligence, the media, academe, and think tanks) conspire to seize, occupy, control, and otherwise dominate. Small wonder that Trump and his operatives within what might be thought of as the Mondial Imperial State have continued a tradition of seeking ever greater budgets for the Pentagon, more and more weapons sales, and the unending construction of new military bases. Contraction in this highly militarized version of disaster imperialism is never an option (until, of course, it becomes one). Only growth is to be allowed, commensurate with seemingly bottomless appetites.
One example: newly appointed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and his Project 2025 supporters argue that U.S. military spending should equal 5% of America’s gross domestic product (GDP). With this country’s GDP sitting just under $29 trillion in 2024, that would drive an imperial war budget of $1.45 trillion instead of the nearly $900 billion in this year’s Pentagon budget. For Hegseth & Co., the U.S. military is all about warfighting (and wars, if nothing else, are expensive), so it must embrace and hone its warrior mystique. It matters to him and his like not at all that, since 9/11, if not before then, the U.S. military has honed its warfighting identity in disastrous wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere.
Another example. Just before I retired from the U.S. military in 2005, I learned of efforts to create a new military command with sub-Saharan Africa as its focus. At first, it seemed like a joke. How was Africa directly related to U.S. national security? Whence the threat? Of course, Africa as a threat wasn’t the issue. It was Africa as an arena for U.S. economic exploitation, just as it had been for European countries like Belgium, England, France, and Germany circa 1900, most infamously in the Congo, later exposed as the “heart of darkness” at the center of a European imperialism that would contribute to the tensions leading to the eruption of World War I in 1914. Two years after I retired, the U.S. military did indeed form Africa Command (AFRICOM) as its latest combatant command. Today, every sector of the globe has been accounted for by various commands within the Pentagon assigned to four-star generals and admirals, each in his or her own way as powerful as, once upon a time, the proconsuls of the Roman Empire.
With all of this as background, in his own mind at least, Donald Trump doth bestride the world like a colossus. What backs him up is a Republican vision (shared by most Democrats) of an imperial military (theoretically) unchallengeable in all domains. And whether the United States spends $1.45 trillion or a mere $900 billion annually on it, count on this: in the years to come, that military will be used in, most likely, the stupidest and most violent ways imaginable.
How Long Before the Next World War?
If you buy the conceit that Donald Trump is taking America back to 1900, it suggests a likely starting point for the next world war roughly 10 to 15 years in our future. Ever-increasing military spending; calls for mobilization and a return of the draft; talk of enervating national decline that could allegedly be reversed by an embrace of a new warrior mystique; viewing all competition as zero-sum games that America must win and countries like China must lose: these could act collectively to create conditions similar to 1914 — a tinderbox of tensions just waiting for the right spark to set the world aflame.
The critical difference, of course, is nuclear weapons. Though World War I wasn’t the “war to end all wars,” a World War III fought between the U.S. and its allies and China and/or Russia and their allies promises to be that “last” war. There’s nothing like a few dozen thermonuclear weapons to settle accounts — as in ending most life on Planet Earth.
In an age of weapons of mass destruction and their widespread “modernization,” jaw-jaw, as in compromise and cooperation through conversation, is the only sane choice when war-war looms. Dominance through destruction must give way to détente through dialogue. Can the Trump administration advance progress toward peace instead of letting us regress into war?
Mr. President, here’s the real art of the deal. Rather than turning the calendar back to 1900, your goal should be to turn the atomic clock back to several hours (if not days or weeks) before midnight. That clock currently sits at a perilous 89 seconds to midnight, or global nuclear war. With every fiber of your being, your goal should be to guarantee that it will never strike that ungodly hour.
For surely, even the most deluded strong man shouldn’t wish his manifest destiny to be ruling over an empire of the dead.
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As Trump Targets AP, Media Urged to Resist Moves Like 'Gulf of America' Renaming
"It's at times like these that journalists need to put down their pens and advocate for accountable leadership," asserted one campaigner.
Feb 14, 2025
First Amendment defenders are calling on media organizations and journalists to stand up to bullying and intimidation by U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration on Friday confirmed the indefinite exclusion of one of the world's largest news agencies from White House press briefings and Air Force One flights over its refusal to adopt the Republican leader's new name for the Gulf of Mexico.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich said that because The Associated Press "continues to ignore the lawful geographic name change" of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, it will be indefinitely banned from White House news conferences and the president's official airplane.
"The level of pettiness displayed by the White House is so incredible that it almost hides the gravity of the situation."
The New York-based AP, which provides news content to roughly 15,000 media outlets in over 100 countries, has explained that, because the gulf is an international body of water, it will continue to call it the Gulf of Mexico because Mexico—whose president on Thursday threatened to sue Google for adopting Trump's name change—and other countries do not recognize the new name.
In contrast, the AP said it will call Denali, the highest peak in North America, Mt. McKinley following a name change by Trump because the Alaska mountain is located entirely inside the United States.
Budowich said the AP's decision on the Gulf of Mexico exposes the agency's "commitment to misinformation."
"While their right to irresponsible and dishonest reporting is protected by the First Amendment, it does not ensure their privilege of unfettered access to limited spaces," he argued.
But critics said the Trump administration's behavior is about a lot more than just a spat over a name change.
"Of course, this is just more petty behavior by a president seeking to punish any news organization that doesn't follow his dictates, regardless of how ridiculous they may be," Timothy Karr, the senior director of strategy and communications at Free Press, told Common Dreams on Friday.
"It's at times like these that journalists need to put down their pens and advocate for accountable leadership," Karr stressed. "They need to advocate for themselves, their colleagues, and for journalism writ large."
"The good news is that more than a dozen of the mass market news outlets have refused to adopt Trump's name change for the Gulf of Mexico," he added. "That's a start. They now need to speak out against his First Amendment threats, despite the consequences. There is much more at stake now than just having access to the White House."
"By defying Trump, the AP has created a rallying point for other organizations and individuals to find their spines and defy him as well."
Writing for Public Notice Friday, Noah Berlatsky commended the AP for "not changing their style to suit the whims of a would-be tin-pot dictator."
"And by defying Trump, the AP has created a rallying point for other organizations and individuals to find their spines and defy him as well," Berlatsky added.
Those include the heads of the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF), as well as groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists, National Press Club, PEN America, and Society of Professional Journalists.
"The White House cannot dictate how news organizations report the news, nor should it penalize working journalists because it is unhappy with their editors' decisions," WHCA president Eugene Daniels said earlier this week.
RSF USA executive director Clayton Weimers said in a statement that "the level of pettiness displayed by the White House is so incredible that it almost hides the gravity of the situation."
"A sitting president is punishing a major news outlet for its constitutionally protected choice of words," Weimers added. "Donald Trump has been trampling over press freedom since his first day in office."
President Trump banning the Associated Press from an event over their usage of "Gulf of Mexico" instead of "Gulf of America" may seem more absurd than alarming, but Trump's attacks on the free press are no joke.
[image or embed]
— ACLU (@aclu.org) February 11, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Numerous experts highlighted what they called the unconstitutionality of banning a media outlet from press briefings for political reasons.
"The AP—a major news agency that produces and distributes reports to thousands of newspapers, radio stations, and TV broadcasters around the world—has had long-standing access to the White House," Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, wrote on Friday.
"It is now losing that access because its exercise of editorial discretion doesn't align with the administration’s preferred messaging," Terr added. "That's viewpoint discrimination, and it's unconstitutional."
Berlatsky wrote: "As ABC, Meta, the LA Times, The Washington Post, and Google demonstrate, you lose 100% of the fights you preemptively and despicably surrender. The AP has already won an important victory by refusing to change the Gulf of Mexico to some random other name at the whim of a power-mad orange gasbag."
"If any portion of Trump's agenda is to be stopped, we need people and organizations who are willing to defy him and speak truths he doesn't want to hear," he added. "Despite Trump, the
AP still calls the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of Mexico. In doing so, it's reminding us what freedom looks like. It's also demonstrating us that if you don't want to lose your freedoms, you have to use them."
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