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Trump Officials' Gaza Tour Slammed as 'Blatant Theatrical Display'
"The goal is clear—to erase the truth, discredit thousands of recorded videos, and wash away the blood," said one Palestinian photojournalist.
Aug 01, 2025
Palestinians and international humanitarian groups were among those who denounced Friday's highly orchestrated tour of a Gaza aid distribution center run by a U.S.-backed group condemned for its role in Israeli forces' massacres of desperate people seeking food and other lifesaving aid.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and special Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff visited one of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's (GHF) distribution sites near Rafah in southern Gaza, where Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials presented a sanitized version of a reality normally characterized by near-daily massacres of desperate, starving Palestinians clamoring for food and other aid.
"The purpose of the visit was to give [President Donald Trump] a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza," Witkoff wrote on the social media site X.
In recent days, both Trump and Vice President JD Vance have acknowledged that Palestinians are starving, with Vance lamenting that "little kids... are clearly starving to death"—a direct contradiction of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's lie that "there is no starvation in Gaza."
However, unconditional U.S. support for Israel continues unabated and practically unchallenged, save for another failed bid led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to suspend some arms transfers.
Palestinian photojournalist Osama Abu Rabee described Friday's visit as "a blatant theatrical display."
"Everything appears organized and civilized: no repression, no pepper spray, no gunfire or casualties, not even crowd stampedes," Abu Rabee wrote on social media. "The goal is clear—to erase the truth, discredit thousands of recorded videos, and wash away the blood of nearly 1,000 starving martyrs and hundreds of wounded victims trapped in humiliation."
"To perfect the staged scene, aid distribution was restricted to the families of mercenaries loyal to Yasser Abu Shabab's forces," he added, referring to the Israel-backed anti-Hamas alleged drug trafficker known for looting humanitarian shipments. "Snipers and tanks were withdrawn, and the deception ceremony was prepared—one that Trump's envoy arrived to witness and rubber-stamp as 'reality.'"
Huckabee—who during his ill-fated 2008 presidential campaign denied the very existence of the Palestinian people—claimed on social media that GHF has served more than 100 million meals in two months, a dubious assertion emblazoned on banners around the site he visited.
"Gaza has 2 million people. If that number were true, every person in Gaza should have received 50 meals by now," Gaza teacher and activist Alaa Radwan wrote on the social media site X. "But I know for a fact that my family didn't get a single one. Neither did my friends."
"One hundred million meals. And yet famine is tearing through people's bodies," Radwan continued. "One hundred million meals. And my mother, my father, and my siblings have lost nearly half their body weight. What kind of lie is this? What kind of cruelty does it take to put out a number so outrageous, so disconnected from reality, while the world watches children collapse from hunger?"
"If they insist on lying, they could at least try to make it believable," she added. "But even that seems too much to ask."
Shortly after Huckabee and Witkoff left Gaza, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that the IDF killings of aid-seekers at GHF sites are "war crimes" and urged the abandonment of the "U.S.-backed death trap scheme."
"U.S.-backed Israeli forces and private contractors have put in place a flawed, militarized aid distribution system that has turned aid distributions into regular bloodbaths," HRW noted.
1,373 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food, most by the Israeli military, between May 27 and July 21 in Gaza.Israeli forces routinely opening fire on starving Palestinians amount to war crimes.Learn more: bit.ly/46yFXlj
[image or embed]
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw.org) August 1, 2025 at 6:50 AM
According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "since 27 May, at least 1,373 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food; 859 in the vicinity of GHF sites and 514 along the routes of food convoys."
IDF whistleblowers including officers and soldiers have said they were ordered to open fire on civilians seeking aid at GHF sites with live bullets and artillery shells.
Anthony Aguilar, a retired U.S. special forces colonel who worked as a security subcontractor at GHF sites before resigning, described Israeli troops and American mercenaries indiscriminately shooting at starving Palestinian aid-seekers.
"What I saw on the sites, around the sites, to and from the sites, can be described as nothing but war crimes, crimes against humanity, violations of international law," Aguilar told Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman earlier this week. "This is not hyperbole. This is not platitudes or drama. This is the truth... The sites were designed to lure, bait aid, and kill."
HRW added that "the dire humanitarian situation is a direct result of Israel's use of starvation of civilians as a weapon of war—a war crime—as well as Israel's continued intentional deprivation of aid and basic services, which amounts to the crime against humanity of extermination, and acts of genocide."
The International Court of Justice, where Israel is facing an ongoing genocide case brought by South Africa and supported by dozens of nations, has repeatedly ordered Israel to avoid genocidal acts in Gaza and allow humanitarian aid into the strip, where more than 60,200 Palestinians have been killed and over 146,800 others wounded since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
However, Israel has ignored these orders. Last year, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—who ordered the "complete siege" of Gaza that has fueled deadly mass starvation and disease—for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including mass starvation and murder.
Responding to Huckabee and Witkoff's visit, Oxfam America director of peace and security Scott Paul called on the U.S. government "to use its full influence to put an end to this catastrophe before we pass the point of no return."
"We do not have time for symbolic measures—a few more trucks, airdrops, and humanitarian pauses may be better than nothing—but in reality, they are far more effective in grabbing headlines than they are at saving lives," he said.
"Without urgent, meaningful action, these numbers are going to spiral out of control in the coming days," Paul added, "and the growing death toll will be an indelible stain on this administration."
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Trump Cuts to Foreign Aid Leave Food Destined for Desperate Millions Rotting in Storage
"The dismantling of USAID and cuts to humanitarian aid has been devastating and unacceptable," said one international aid group.
May 16, 2025
More than a million people in some of the world's most impoverished countries could be fed for three months and hundreds of thousands of children's lives could be saved if $98 million in ready-made meals and other rations were able to leave four warehouses run by the U.S. foreign aid agency dismantled by the Trump administration.
But instead, there is no end in sight to the food languishing in the facilities—or to the starvation of millions of people in Gaza, Sudan, South Sudan, and other parts of the Global South facing high levels of hunger and malnutrition.
Some of the 66,000 tonnes of food, including grains, high-energy biscuits, and vegetable oil, are slated to expire as soon as July, when they will likely be turned into animal feed, incinerated, or otherwise destroyed, Reuters reported Thursday.
The warehouses are located in Houston, South Africa, Djibouti, and Dubai, and are run by the U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. Many of the staff who help run the warehouses are scheduled to be fired on July 1 in the first of two rounds of cuts that will effect nearly all of USAID.
Contracts with suppliers, shipping companies, and contractors have been canceled since USAID was taken over by the Trump administration's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, with the White House saying the agency—with a relatively small budget of just $40 billion—was responsible for "significant waste."
Since DOGE, run by tech billionaire Elon Musk, targeted USAID in one of its first full-scale attacks on a federal entity, the agency is being run by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The State Department's Office of Foreign Assistance has not yet approved a proposal to give the stranded food stocks to aid organizations for distribution, two former USAID staffers told Reuters.
That office is being led by Jeremy Lewin, a 28-year-old former DOGE employee who is overseeing the complete decommissioning of USAID, which has provided humanitarian assistance in conflict zones and the Global South for more than six decades.
Max Hoffman, a foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said the massive waste of life-saving food rations was the result of President Donald Trump and Musk deploying "some idiot 20 year old staggering around USAID turning things off without the faintest idea of the consequences."
Some of the rations were intended for Gaza, where half a million Palestinians are currently facing starvation and the rest of the population of 2.3 million people are suffering from acute levels of food insecurity due to Israel's total blockade on humanitarian aid which was reimposed in March after a brief cease-fire. Thousands of children have been hospitalized with acute malnutrition since the beginning of the year, but Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza has left health providers with extremely limited means to treat them.
The entire population of Gaza could be fed for a month and a half with the food rations that are on the verge of rotting in the four warehouses, Reuters reported.
Nearly 500 tonnes of high-energy biscuits in Dubai are among the stocks that will expire in July, a former USAID official told the outlet. They could feed at least 27,000 acutely malnourished children for a month.
The food aid was also scheduled to go to Sudan, where famine has been confirmed in at least 10 areas as the country faces the third year of a civil war.
Action Against Hunger is one of many aid groups that have had to scale back operations after losing significant funding due to U.S. cuts; the group said last month that its suspension of work in the Democratic Republic of Congo had already directly led to the deaths of at least six children.
In addition to USAID's warehouses full of soon-to-be-expired food, the U.S.-based company Edesia, which makes the peanut-based Plumpy'Nut, told Reuters that USAID's cuts to transportation contracts had forced the company to open an additional warehouse. A $13 million stockpile of 5,000 tonnes of Plumpy'Nut, which is used to prevent severe malnutrition in children, is in the warehouse now—but could be used to feed more than 484,000 children.
"The dismantling of USAID and cuts to humanitarian aid has been devastating and unacceptable," said Oxfam America.
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Trump's New Plan for Deep Foreign Aid Cuts 'Will Plunge Millions' Into Hunger, Disease
"The Trump administration cannot legally enact these changes on its own—Congress must take a stand against these dangerous cuts to foreign aid and reject this proposal," said the president of Oxfam America.
Apr 15, 2025
A newly reported Trump administration plan to cut U.S. State Department funding in half next fiscal year and axe foreign assistance by nearly 75% drew dire warnings from humanitarian organizations that have seen firsthand the chaos sown by the administration's dismantling of life-saving aid operations.
"The administration's cuts, along with the proposed withdrawal of funding from key institutions like the United Nations, will plunge millions into hunger, disease, and increase other threats, making the world more dangerous and unstable for us all," Abby Maxman, the president and CEO of Oxfam America, said in a statement issued after multiple news outlets reported the details of the Trump administration's plan.
According to Reuters, the Trump administration is aiming to slash foreign assistance distributed by the State Department and USAID from $38.3 billion to $16.9 billion at a time of intensifying hunger, health, and climate crises worldwide.
The administration is also considering a proposal to shutter more than two dozen embassies and consulates—including some in Africa and Europe—and eliminate "almost all" funding for the United Nations.
An internal memo obtained by The New York Times proposes "cutting funding for humanitarian assistance and global health programs by more than 50% despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s pledges that lifesaving assistance would be preserved."
"There should be global moral outrage that the decisions made by powerful people in other countries have led to child deaths in just a matter of weeks."
Maxman said Monday that the administration's push for aggressive funding cuts—which, by law, must be approved by the Republican-controlled Congress—would "cause further suffering and have life-or-death consequences for millions around the world who are already living through dire humanitarian crises."
"It outlines sweeping cuts that could include programs like urgent food, water, and healthcare, education, and other support for women, children, and communities," said Maxman. "The Trump administration cannot legally enact these changes on its own—Congress must take a stand against these dangerous cuts to foreign aid and reject this proposal."
Trump's sweeping and lawless attacks on foreign aid have already had deadly consequences. The Times, citing the humanitarian group Save the Children, reported last week that "at least five children and three adults with cholera died as they went in search of treatment in South Sudan after aid cuts by the Trump administration shuttered local health clinics during the country's worst cholera outbreak in decades."
"There should be global moral outrage that the decisions made by powerful people in other countries have led to child deaths in just a matter of weeks," Chris Nyamandi, Save the Children country director in South Sudan, said in a statement.
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Trump-Musk Assault on IRS Could Let Wealthy Evade $30 Million in Taxes—Per Day
"By seeking to gut the IRS, President Trump and Elon Musk would make it harder to fight poverty but even easier for the very richest taxpayers to avoid paying what they owe."
Apr 14, 2025
The Trump administration's plan to cut the workforce of the Internal Revenue Service in half and gut enforcement efforts could enable the richest people in the United States to evade an additional $30 million in taxes per day on average, according to an analysis published Monday on the eve of the nation's tax filing deadline.
The analysis by the humanitarian group Oxfam America notes that the firing of 50,000 IRS employees—roughly half the agency's staff—would "hurt ordinary people through slower refunds and customer service, while allowing wealthy tax cheats to pocket billions of dollars."
Oxfam cites a recent study by the Yale Budget Lab estimating that the richest 1% in the U.S. are responsible for around 30% of the nation's unpaid taxes. If the IRS were to lose 50,000 employees, the Yale Budget Lab found, the agency's diminished capacity would result in $395 billion in lost federal revenue over a 10-year period—with the top 1% responsible for $30 million a day.
"While the rest of us dutifully file our taxes, ultra-wealthy tax cheats drain over a half a billion a day from the public coffers," Rebecca Riddell, Oxfam America's senior policy Lead for Economic and Racial Justice. "By seeking to gut the IRS, President Trump and Elon Musk would make it harder to fight poverty but even easier for the very richest taxpayers to avoid paying what they owe. This would undoubtedly be great for billionaire tax cheats but bad for everyone else."
"President Trump and Elon Musk's IRS cuts are part of a broader plan to further rig the tax system to favor billionaires and corporations."
Attacks on the chronically underfunded and short-staffed IRS by the Trump administration and its so-called Department of Government Efficiency are already "tempting taxpayers to cheat," according to reporting by Bloomberg last month.
The administration is also reportedly taking aim at the Justice Department's Tax Division, another possible gift to the ultra-rich.
"When you combine this with the gutting of IRS itself, it basically means a radical diminution of tax enforcement in the United States," Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo wrote last week. "If you make more than, say, a million dollars a year, paying taxes is probably going to be voluntary going forward. It's a new feature of billionairedom."
The administration's slashing of IRS staff, as well as Republican lawmakers' efforts to yank funding from the agency, are expected to further reduce audit rates, particularly for the rich—whose returns are typically more expensive to probe.
But Oxfam America noted Monday that research shows "every $1 spent auditing the top 0.1% yields $6.29 in direct revenue, with total returns likely far higher due to greater deterrence."
"President Trump and Elon Musk's IRS cuts are part of a broader plan to further rig the tax system to favor billionaires and corporations," the group said. "Congress should not only invest in the IRS but also reject efforts to have ordinary people pay for tax handouts to the ultra-rich."
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Trump-Musk Shutdown of USAID 'Would Have Deadly Consequences for Millions'
"Dismantling USAID would be a callous, destructive political power play," warned the president of Oxfam America.
Feb 03, 2025
The unelected billionaire given free rein to tear through the federal government said early Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump agrees with the ongoing push to shutter the United States Agency for International Development, the single-largest contributor of humanitarian assistance worldwide.
Elon Musk, the head of an outside advisory commission that has trampled the law as its agents work to access and take over critical government operations, said during an event broadcast on the social media platform he owns that he has checked with Trump "a few times" about whether he wants USAID shut down. According to Musk, Trump replied, "Yes."
"So we're shutting it down," said Musk, who claimed the agency is run by "radical lunatics."
Over the weekend, as Common Dreams reported, two USAID security officials were forced out after they refused to give Musk agents access to internal systems and classified material. USAID's website has also gone dark, an ominous development for an agency that has become one of the Trump administration's top targets.
In addition to the grave political implications of Musk's maneuvers—which one observer described as a "textbook coup"—humanitarian Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America warned in a statement that "dismantling USAID would be a callous, destructive political power play that would have deadly consequences for millions of people living in dire humanitarian emergencies and extreme poverty."
"Any attempt by President Trump to dissolve or merge USAID with the State Department would be legally dubious and must be swiftly challenged in court," Maxman added.
"If this were Pakistan, Chad, or Venezuela, the headlines wouldn't hedge: A billionaire oligarch seizes control, dismantling democracy in real-time."
The Trump administration has already instituted a sweeping pause on foreign aid distributions, sparking chaos and panic around the world as charitable organizations scramble to understand the consequences for their lifesaving work.
"One had to decide whether to abide by a stop-work order or deliver lunches to schoolchildren in impoverished communities, as it has for years," TIME reported. "It decided to obey the order, wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of perishable food. Another is figuring out whether to close health clinics for pregnant mothers in Haiti, leaving them with scant alternatives for a place to give birth."
Reports indicate the Trump administration has discussed plans to "strip a slimmed-down U.S. Agency for International Development of its independence and put it under State Department control." By Saturday, according to The New York Times, "lawmakers had received word that at least some of the USAID signs at the agency's headquarters in downtown Washington had come down, and rumors were circling that mission directors around the world were being called back to the United States."
"Two USAID employees, who work in the Washington headquarters and spoke on condition of anonymity because of an order barring employees from discussing any changes to the agency, said that they were working under an atmosphere of fear and chaos, and that half of the agency's workforce had been eliminated in the last week," the Times added.
Paul O'Brien, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in a statement that "governments around the world are significantly better equipped to meet their human rights obligations because of the technical and financial resources USAID provides."
"An abrupt collapse of the agency," O'Brien warned, "would put the rights of millions of people around the world at greater risk as a result."
Progressive strategist and organizer Waleed Shahid wrote over the weekend that "if this were Pakistan, Chad, or Venezuela, the headlines wouldn't hedge: A billionaire oligarch seizes control, dismantling democracy in real time."
"Musk's loyalists, armed with executive orders instead of rifles, are gutting the civil service, locking officials out of government systems, and dictating policy from a boardroom-turned-war room," Shahid continued. "Trump, a fading strongman, is the figurehead; Musk, the junta's real leader. Treasury, national security, and federal agencies—one by one, falling under private rule. In any other country, experts would call it state capture, a textbook coup. Here, the press still asks if democracy is in danger, as if waiting for the moment history makes it undeniable."
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Biden Administration Takes 'Morally Bankrupt' Climate Position at ICJ
"This opposition to strong international law on climate justice categorically undermines the Biden administration's climate legacy," said Ashfaq Khalfan of Oxfam America.
Dec 05, 2024
The Biden administration faced backlash from scientists, advocacy groups, and vulnerable Pacific islands on Wednesday for arguing before the United Nations' highest court that the Paris agreement is sufficient and countries should not face additional legal obligations to fight the climate emergency.
The U.S. position, outlined at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) by State Department legal adviser Margaret Taylor, was deemed "morally bankrupt" by Oxfam America, which
decried the administration's insistence that "countries do not have clear legal obligations to reduce carbon pollution, especially as it prepares to turn over the executive office to a proven climate denier like President-elect [Donald] Trump."
"This opposition to strong international law on climate justice categorically undermines the Biden administration's climate legacy," Ashfaq Khalfan, Oxfam America's climate justice director, said Wednesday. "The U.S. has today denied any firm obligation to reduce carbon pollution to safer levels, phase out fossil fuel production, or provide funding to lower-income countries to help with renewable energy and protection from climate harms. Governments have failed to do what is necessary to protect humanity from the climate crisis, and it is essential that the ICJ holds them to account by pushing them towards concrete action to ensure climate justice."
Taylor argued during her presentation in The Hague on Wednesday that "the U.N. climate change regime, with the Paris agreement at its core, is the only international legal regime specifically designed by states to address climate change" and that "cooperative efforts through that regime provide the best hope for protecting the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations."
While technically a legally binding international treaty, the Paris accord has failed to arrest the rise of planet-warming carbon emissions, which have surged to an all-time high this year. The agreement—from which the U.S. is expected to withdraw for a second time under Trump—has no enforcement mechanism, and its language leaves ample room for countries to continue burning fossil fuels at levels that scientists say are incompatible with a livable future.
"The U.S. is content with its business-as-usual approach and has taken every possible measure to shirk its historical responsibility, disregard human rights, and reject climate justice."
Delta Merner, lead scientist for the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at the Union of Concerned Scientists, criticized the U.S.—the largest historical polluter—for resisting "calls for climate accountability" at Wednesday's ICJ hearing.
"Instead of taking responsibility for its contributions to the climate crisis, the United States used its 30-minute slot to downplay the role of the courts for global climate action, emphasize nonbinding national commitments under the Paris agreement, and reject the notion of historical responsibility," said Merner. "By framing climate change as a collective action challenge without clear legal obligations for individual states, the United States dismissed the potential for redress or binding accountability measures that advance justice for climate-vulnerable nations."
"In the face of stonewalling from major polluters, we applaud the leadership of Vanuatu and others for advancing this process," Merner added. "These proceedings must continue to center the voices of frontline communities."
The Pacific island of Vanuatu first launched the push for an ICJ advisory opinion on climate in 2021. Less than two years later, the U.N. General Assembly approved a resolution calling on the ICJ to issue an opinion on countries' legal obligations regarding the global fight against climate change.
Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu's special envoy for climate change and environment,
criticized the U.S. presentation at Wednesday's landmark hearing and said treaties such as the Paris agreement can't be "a veil for inaction or a substitute for legal accountability."
"These nations—some of the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters—have pointed to existing treaties and commitments that have regrettably failed to motivate substantial reductions in emissions," said Regenvanu. "There needs to be an accounting for the failure to curb emissions and the climate change impacts and human rights violations that failure has generated."
Vishal Prasad, director of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, expressed outrage at what he described as "a disheartening attempt by the U.S. to evade its responsibilities as one of the world's largest polluters."
"The U.S. is content with its business-as-usual approach and has taken every possible measure to shirk its historical responsibility, disregard human rights, and reject climate justice," Prasad added.
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House GOP Revives Bill to Let Authoritarian Trump Crush Nonprofits
"We urge the House of Representatives to reject this dangerous bill and to protect our freedom of speech and our right to dissent," said the president of Oxfam America.
Nov 18, 2024
House Republicans have revived and are looking to push through legislation this week that would hand President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration sweeping power to investigate and shut down nonprofit organizations, including news outlets and humanitarian groups.
The bill, H.R. 9495, failed to pass the House last week despite bipartisan support because the Republican leadership attempted to pass the measure using a fast-track procedure that requires a two-thirds majority vote. More than 50 Democrats, including Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and other prominent members, backed the legislation in last week's vote, along with 204 Republicans.
This time, the GOP is attempting to advance the bill through regular order, meaning it can pass with a simple majority. The Republican-controlled House Rules Committee is scheduled to hold a markup hearing for H.R. 9495 on Monday.
After learning of the hearing, advocacy organizations that mobilized against the bill redoubled their warnings about its dire implications for free expression and the right to dissent—particularly in the hands of a would-be authoritarian who has vowed to prosecute his political enemies.
"The bill we defeated days ago is back," the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights wrote on social media over the weekend. "Representatives are trying to ram through H.R. 9495, a repressive bill that could shut down nonprofits & student groups supporting Palestinian rights."
The legislation, if passed, would give the Treasury Department the authority to unilaterally strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status by designating them supporters of terrorism. As of this writing, Trump has not announced his pick to lead the Treasury Department.
While the bill provides a brief period for an accused nonprofit to defend itself, the ACLU said the provision "is a mere illusion of due process," noting that the federal government would be able to "deny organizations its reasons and evidence against them, leaving the nonprofit unable to rebut allegations."
Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, warned in a statement after Republicans revived the bill that H.R. 9495 "would grant the Trump administration, and any future administration, the ability to silence and censor its critics, curb free speech, target political opponents, and punish crucial organizations that speak truth to power and help people in the United States and around the world."
"This bill would increase the powers of the president at the expense of all of our freedoms, and could impact not only organizations like Oxfam, but other nonprofits, news outlets, or even universities who dare to dissent," said Maxman. "It could put our ability to respond to some of the worst humanitarian crises at risk and prevent us from delivering lifesaving aid to some of the world's most marginalized people."
"This bill follows the same playbook Oxfam has seen other governments around the world use to crush dissent. Now we are seeing it here at home," Maxman added. "We urge the House of Representatives to reject this dangerous bill and to protect our freedom of speech and our right to dissent."
It's not clear whether the U.S. Senate, narrowly controlled by Democrats, would bring H.R. 9495 to the floor for a vote if it passes the House this week, or whether President Joe Biden would sign it into law. But Republicans will gain full control of Congress and the White House starting in January, giving them the ability to push the legislation through at a later date.
"Their rush to reconsider this bill is solely to offer Trump more and more power, while Trump's nominees for key national security posts this week indicate how he will be using it," Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), a leading opponent of the measure, told The Intercept on Friday.
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Tax Groups Warn 'Billionaires and Big Corporations Sharpening Their Knives'
"Billionaires and big corporations are sharpening their knives in anticipation of huge tax cuts, already lobbying and donating to get the tax plan that gives them the biggest windfall."
Nov 08, 2024
Economic justice organizations are bracing for a grueling uphill battle as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress lay the groundwork to swiftly enact another massive tax cut for the wealthy and large corporations, a move that would worsen inequality and add trillions of dollars to the nation's deficit.
With Trump soon to be in the White House, a Senate majority secured, and control of the House in sight, Republicans are wasting no time preparing for a legislative push to extend soon-to-expire provisions of their deeply regressive 2017 tax law and further cut taxes for rich Americans and large corporations.
In the months leading up to Tuesday's election, GOP lawmakers have been discussing plans to use the fast-track process known as reconciliation to dodge the Senate's 60-vote filibuster and ram through another round of tax cuts. Republicans are set to hold at least 53 Senate seats in the new Congress and are currently just seven seats short of a majority in the lower chamber.
Grover Norquist, a longtime anti-tax crusader and informal economic adviser to Trump, predicted that Republicans are going to try to push through tax legislation "very early."
"The House and Senate guys have been working on this together forever," Norquist told The Washington Post on Thursday.
During his 2024 campaign, Trump pledged to cut the statutory corporate tax rate from 21% to 15%, a change that would deliver close to $50 billion in tax breaks annually to the nation's largest companies. The president-elect also floated a number of additional proposals, including eliminating taxes on tips and Social Security benefits.
David Kass, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), said Friday that "the incoming Congress faces a generational tax fight on the renewal of the disastrous Trump tax provisions that benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations."
"Make no mistake, billionaires spent record amounts of money this election cycle to buy themselves a tax cut worth trillions—and the vast majority of Americans will pay the price," said Kass. "ATF and its coalition will fight for a fair tax code where the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share. We'll hold elected officials accountable if they attempt to redirect trillions from working families to the wealthy and big corporations."
"President Trump and his extreme agenda are the embodiment of inequality, fueling the division between the ultrawealthy and the rest of us."
An analysis published ahead of the election by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) found that Trump's economic proposals would cut taxes for the richest 5% of Americans while raising them for the bottom 95%.
In a blog post on Friday, ITEP executive director Amy Hanauer wrote that a tax package that centers proposals Trump floated on the campaign trail "would be disastrous for families, communities, and the country."
"Billionaires and big corporations are sharpening their knives in anticipation of huge tax cuts, already lobbying and donating to get the tax plan that gives them the biggest windfall," Hanauer added. "Those forces have always had tremendous influence in Washington. Now they have more."
Lobbying related to expiring provisions of the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law surged in the run-up to Tuesday's election, with corporate giants such as FedEx, Starbucks, Pfizer, and Toyota pressuring Congress to prevent parts of the law from lapsing.
In addition to further cutting corporate taxes and extending elements of the 2017 law, Trump is also weighing an attempt to cut capital gains taxes without congressional authorization.
"Toward the end of his first administration, senior White House officials and Treasury staff held extensive discussions about bypassing Congress with a unilateral $100 billion tax cut that would primarily benefit the wealthy," the Post reported Thursday. "Numerous Trump advisers have hoped to take another shot at it in his second term."
Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, pledged after Trump's victory earlier this week that "we will work to stop any extension of President Trump's tax cuts for billionaires and the ultrarich."
"President Trump and his extreme agenda are the embodiment of inequality, fueling the division between the ultrawealthy and the rest of us," said Maxman. "His policies create chaos and only serve billionaires and corporations, not working people."
Patriotic Millionaires chair Morris Pearl sounded a similarly defiant note.
"This round went to the oligarchs," Pearl said of the 2024 election. "But rest assured, Patriotic Millionaires will rise to the fight. We've only just begun."
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Rights Group Says Netanyahu Visit Puts US Complicity in Spotlight
"U.S. officials are well aware of the mounting evidence that Israeli forces have committed war crimes in Gaza," said Human Rights Watch.
Jul 23, 2024
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Washington, D.C. ahead of his planned speech to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress, a leading human rights organization said Tuesday that the visit by Israel's deeply unpopular leader shines a spotlight on the American government's complicity in atrocities committed in the Gaza Strip.
"U.S. officials are well aware of the mounting evidence that Israeli forces have committed war crimes in Gaza, including most likely with U.S. weapons," Human Rights Watch (HRW) executive director Tirana Hassan said in a statement. "U.S. lawmakers should be seriously concerned about the liability risks of continuing to provide arms and intelligence based on Israel's flimsy assurances that it's abiding by the laws of war."
The U.S. is Israel's leading ally, supplying the country with more weaponry than any other nation and frequently providing diplomatic cover on the world stage despite Israeli forces' frequent human rights violations in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.
On Monday, as Netanyahu traveled to the U.S. capital, Israeli forces killed dozens of Palestinians in a massive attack in southern Gaza.
"It is like doomsday," one Gaza resident told Reuters.
"The invitation lends legitimacy to his deadly siege and bombardment—at a time when his governing coalition continues to bombard Gaza."
A U.S. State Department report published in May said it is "reasonable to assess" that Israeli forces have used American weaponry in ways "inconsistent" with international law, but the Biden administration has continued to approve arms sales to the country—including a previously delayed shipment of 500-pound bombs—despite mounting calls for a weapons embargo.
Legal experts have warned since the start of Israel's nearly 10-month assault on Gaza that U.S. officials risk being deemed complicit in genocide if they continue arming the Israeli government. A number of U.S. officials have resigned in protest of the Biden administration's support for Israel's war on Gaza.
HRW said Tuesday that the United States and other nations "should suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel" and use their "leverage with Israel to save lives."
"Israeli forces have unlawfully attacked residential buildings, medical facilities, and aid workers, restricted medical evacuations, and used starvation as a weapon of war in the Gaza Strip, where nearly 500,000 people are experiencing a 'catastrophic' lack of food in famine-like conditions," the group said. "A staggering more than 38,600 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry."
The organization's statement came as Netanyahu arrived in the U.S. capital at the invitation of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who have helped approve billions of dollars in military aid for Israel.
A number of lawmakers are expected to boycott the Israeli leader's speech, and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris—who is expected to become the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee—will not be in attendance for Netanyahu's address due to a previously scheduled campaign event. U.S. President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the presidential race over the weekend, is expected to meet with Netanyahu at the White House on Thursday.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) announced late Monday that he will boycott Netanyahu's speech, writing in a social media post that the Israeli prime minister's "war strategy killed 12,000+ women and children, inflicted widespread starvation, and prioritized his political survival over the release of hostages."
"He should not have a platform before Congress," Merkley added.
Oxfam America president and CEO Abby Maxman echoed that message, saying in a statement Tuesday that "it is wildly inappropriate for Congress to have extended an invitation for Prime Minister Netanyahu to speak."
"The invitation lends legitimacy to his deadly siege and bombardment—at a time when his governing coalition continues to bombard Gaza, international condemnation is growing, Israelis are demanding that hostages be brought home, and, under his leadership, the Israeli military is bombing aid workers, schools and hospitals," said Maxman.
"Instead of granting Prime Minister Netanyahu the platform to advance his government's deadly policies before Congress," she added, "U.S. leaders must cut off the supply of bombs that are being used to kill civilians, destroy infrastructure, and undermine any hope for peace."
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UN Tax Convention Presents Historic 'Opportunity to Create Well-Being for All'
"At the U.N., low- and middle-income countries are in the majority, and they want a fair system where their voices are heard."
Apr 30, 2024
Tax justice advocates this week are expressing hope that delegates at a United Nations summit aimed at drafting an international tax convention will take the "once-in-a-century opportunity," as one campaigner and researcher said, to place the common good at the center of the global tax system instead of individual and corporate greed.
Representatives of U.N. member states are meeting for the Ad Hoc Committee to Draft Terms of Reference for a United Nations Framework on International Tax Cooperation, following decades of campaigning by countries in the Global South.
"It's happening," said Rebecca Riddell, policy lead for Oxfam America. "The start of historic negotiations for a fairer global tax system. We're here because of the leadership of African countries. Because of the 125 states that voted yes. And because of tireless civil society efforts."
The U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution last November calling for the meeting, with the committee required to submit "terms of reference to the General Assembly by August and a final vote on a tax convention framework expected by the end of 2025.
At the Tax Justice Network (TJN), Sergio Chaparro-Hernandez wrote last week that the negotiations are taking place with an "unprecedented level of transparency," with civil society groups able to account for the positions adopted by each state.
Another "noteworthy development" as the meeting gets underway, said Chaparro-Hernandez, is that "several of the 48 countries that had voted against Resolution 78/230 last year are now actively participating in the process."
"The European Union, for example, which voted as a bloc against the resolution last year, accepted the path set out by the resolution by stating in its initial statement at the organizational session that, 'the UN framework convention on tax cooperation can and should serve to further promote tax transparency and fair taxation,'" he added.
Along with TJN, other civil society groups including the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), Eurodad, and Greenpeace are participating in the committee meeting and lobbying for a far-reaching convention framework that will "redefine the pillars of the international tax system and to make it fully inclusive, just, and effective."
"At the U.N., low- and middle-income countries are in the majority, and they want a fair system where their voices are heard," said Maria Ron Balsera, a researcher at CESR.
Under current global tax rules, the wealthiest individuals and corporations pocket $480 billion each year through the use of tax havens and other forms of tax evasion, said Greenpeace on Tuesday, "most countries just can't cover people's basic needs, nor meet their climate and biodiversity targets and commitments."
"The U.N. Tax Convention is a historical opportunity to create well-being for all, by moving decision-making power from a few rich [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] countries to the U.N. where every country has a vote," said the group.
Chenai Mukumba, executive director of Tax Justice Network Africa, spoke to attendees of the committee meeting about prioritizing mechanisms to crack down on tax evasion.
"While we flag the importance of this work to developing countries, we cannot overemphasize that inclusive and effective tax cooperation is important that has benefits for our global community," said Mukumba. "The international community as a whole is better off when we have more countries that have resources and capacity to provide their citizens with essential services."
On Monday, Greenpeace Africa's pan-African political strategist Fred Njehu wrote to Ramy Mohamed Youssef, chair of the U.N. Tax Convention Committee, and addressed him not only as an advocate but as "a dad, a concerned citizen, and a taxpayer."
Changing global tax rules and ensuring the wealthy pay their fair share, said Njehu would unlock "the money for everyone’s basic needs and the recovery of climate and nature."
"We both know that this is mostly because multinational corporations have been exploiting the majority of the world for way too long, and governments in some rich countries have facilitated it," said Njehu. "They're making billions on the destruction of the world and our suffering. And then, they hide their profits in tax havens. A downward spiral where wealth and power have become so concentrated as to threaten democracy, civilization, and the living world we're part of."
"Mr. Youssef, you have a big responsibility and a unique opportunity to turn things around this year," he added. "Civil society, academics, and countries that represent 80% of the world’s population are backing you and your colleagues at the U.N. Tax Convention Committee to change the global tax rules, which are critical for how the global economy works... Now we need equality, transparency and accountability. Polluters must pay and the wealthy must be taxed fairly."
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