The US, an empire in decline

PASCUAL SERRANO
The international community is bewildered by the seemingly confusing decisions of Donald Trump and his team, but in my opinion, there is a certain consistency in all of them: the recognition of the United States' failure as a dominant global power and the retreat from its leadership.

The issue of tariffs is probably the most telling. Three decades ago, the United States considered itself the victorious economic power in a globalized world. It believed its global production, sales, and distribution capacity was superior to that of other countries, and that its market dominance was absolute. At the time, free trade agreements were the perfect tools to seize control of other countries' markets. We all remember the debate surrounding the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994.

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Expulsion is getting closer

EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON
Netanyahu confirms the division of the Gaza Strip and the creation of a new corridor called the Morag Corridor, which will cross the Strip just above the city of Rafah, close to the border with Egypt. In this way, Israel will have divided the Strip into three sectors. The first, from north to south, will reach the Netzarim Corridor. The second will be between this corridor and the Morag Corridor, and the third will be between this corridor and the Philadelphia Corridor, which separates the Gaza Strip from Egypt.

Pressure on the Palestinians continues to grow, and their expulsion from Gaza depends on a decision by Donald Trump. What the prime minister is doing now is "organizing" the Strip so that the deportation can be carried out quickly.

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The Gaza 'war' was a lie, just like the ceasefire. Trump just told you so

JONATHAN COOK
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the White House this week broke the mask of 16 months of gaslighting by Western leaders and the entire Western establishment media. US President Donald Trump has finally stopped sugar-coating Israel's genocidal destruction of Gaza. Trump has dropped Washington's sugar-coating of Israel's 15-month-long genocidal destruction of Gaza. It was always about ethnic cleansing.

It was always, he told us, a massacre made in the USA. In his words, Washington will now “take over” Gaza and develop it. And the aim of the massacre was always ethnic cleansing. The Palestinians, he said, would be “settled” in a place where they would not have to be “worried about dying every day” – that is, killed by Israel with US-supplied bombs. Gaza, meanwhile, would become the “Riviera of the Middle East”, with the “people of the world” – he meant rich whites like himself – living in luxury beachfront estates instead.

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A “new reactionary international”: how Elon Musk is spreading his fascist ideals in Europe

MARIUS THIRION ROSZYK
If Donald Trump began his second term as President of the United States on January 20, he owes it in part to his new friend Elon Musk. With little rancor, the American billionaire has offered the new Ministry of “Government Efficiency” to the man who, in 2022, considered him “too old to be President of anything, let alone the United States of America.”

It is worth remembering that Musk used his considerable influence to help the Republican candidate win, occupying the public space like never before.

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The farce of the ceasefire

CHRIS HEDGES
For decades, Israel has been playing tricks. It signs an agreement with the Palestinians that is to be implemented in phases. The first phase gives Israel what it wants – in this case, the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza – but Israel routinely fails to implement the subsequent phases that would lead to a just and equitable peace. In the end, it provokes the Palestinians with indiscriminate armed attacks to get them to retaliate, defines a Palestinian response as a provocation, and abrogates the ceasefire agreement to reignite the killing.

If this latest three-phase ceasefire agreement is ratified - and there is no certainty that it will be by Israel - it will, I hope, be little more than a pause in the bombing of the presidential inauguration. Israel has no intention of stopping its merry-go-round of death.

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Bibi and Trump beyond the agreement with Hamas

EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON
The relationship between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu is truly peculiar. One is 78 years old and the other 75. One has amassed a huge fortune while the other is reluctantly content with a more modest fortune. One is beginning his second term as president of the most powerful country in the world and the other is approaching the end of his political career with great power but licking his wounds from the war in Gaza.

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How the US and Israel destroyed Syria and called it peace

JEFFREY D SACHS
The long history of Israel’s campaign to overthrow the Syrian government is not well known, but the documentary record is clear. Israel’s war on Syria began with American and Israeli neoconservatives in 1996, who designed a “clean break” Middle East strategy for Netanyahu when he came to power.

The core of the “clean break” strategy required Israel (and the United States) to reject the idea of ​​“land for peace,” according to which Israel would withdraw from occupied Palestinian lands in exchange for peace. Instead, Israel would retain the occupied Palestinian lands, rule over the Palestinian people in an apartheid state, ethnically cleanse the state step by step, and impose so-called “peace for peace” by overthrowing neighboring governments that resisted Israel’s territorial claims.

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Trump, Gorbachev and the fatal parallels

XULIO RIOS
In 2025, when convicted US President Donald Trump takes office, it will be 40 years since Mikhail Gorbachev took over as Soviet leader. There are some interesting parallels between the situations faced by both leaders.

Although the differences between the USSR in the 1980s and the current state of the US are not minor, there are some notable similarities. If perestroika emerged to lift the USSR out of Brezhnev’s stagnation, Trump’s policies are similarly aimed at “making America great again,” admitting a certain paralysis.

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Trump's America: ecstasy or agony?

JOSEPH CAMILLERI
Trump's electoral victory is not the momentous or unexpected event that many have made it out to be. It is, however, an unmistakable sign of a society in slow decline in which frustration, anger and bewilderment are reaching epidemic proportions.

The inevitable question is: how did this man manage to be re-elected President of the United States?

This is, after all, a man who was twice impeached as president, who rejected the outcome of the previous election. He is known to have repeatedly lied to the electorate before, during and since his first presidential term. This is a man whose business dealings have long been under a cloud, and who is widely accused of deceit, abuse of power and sexual misconduct.

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Trump, Europe and the Middle East

EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON
The big puzzle is how far Trump will go with the Gaza Strip. Israel clearly wants to return to colonisation. To facilitate this, it has been keeping the bulk of its population, 2,3 million Palestinians, moving around for a year, not allowing them to stay anywhere in safety. The apparent intention is to drive them back to Egypt. To do this, he needs the green light from the White House, something Joe Biden has not been willing to grant. The question is whether Trump will allow it.

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Nasrallah and the rehabilitation of Netanyahu

EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON
The first poll since the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut has projected Benjamin Netanyahu's popularity to rise. After nearly a year of lackluster poll results and strong public hostility, the Israeli prime minister is once again moving freely and confidently, and it is difficult to know how far he is prepared to go.

Netanyahu has allowed himself to leave the Gaza Strip open pending what happens at the US polls in November. Depending on who enters the White House, it will be much clearer whether Israel can expel all or part of the Palestinian population, 2,3 million people, who since October 7, 2023 have been migrating relentlessly from one place to another in the Strip, forced by American bombs from Israeli fighter planes that pursue them everywhere.

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Philadelphia Corridor, Netanyahu's last obstacle to ending the war

EUGENIO GARCIA GASCON
The Philadelphia Corridor is a narrow belt 100 meters wide and 14 kilometers long that runs parallel to and along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. The name Philadelphia (without the letter a at the end) was chosen at random by the Israeli army, while the Palestinians and Egyptians call it the Saladin Corridor.

In recent months, this has become very important, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded that any ceasefire agreement with Hamas include the permanence of Israeli troops in that axis. In contrast, the Islamist organisation's position is that any agreement should include the complete withdrawal of soldiers from the entire Gaza Strip, including the Philadelphia corridor.

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