SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
A displaced Iraqi girl looks on at a camp set up to shelter civilians fleeing violence in the northern city of Mosul, on July 15, 2016 in Debaga, east of Makhmur in northern Iraq. (Photo: FADEL SENNA/AFP/Getty Images)
Dead Civilians and the Language of War
Finally it comes down to this: Some people are expendable.
In certain parts of the world -- where we and our allies are waging war -- the expendable people come in two categories: terrorists (good riddance!) and civilians, whom we only kill if and when necessary, and whose deaths often elicit official apologies (if there's no way to deny it was our fault).
Jul 20, 2017
Finally it comes down to this: Some people are expendable.
In certain parts of the world -- where we and our allies are waging war -- the expendable people come in two categories: terrorists (good riddance!) and civilians, whom we only kill if and when necessary, and whose deaths often elicit official apologies (if there's no way to deny it was our fault).
Indeed, as Secretary of Defense James Mattis said, according to the Daily Beast, "There has been no change to our continued extraordinary efforts to avoid innocent civilian casualties."
We care about civilians so much -- especially children -- that we actually inconvenience ourselves in our efforts (don't ask for details) to avoid killing them. This is true even though civilian deaths in Syria and Iraq have risen more than fourfold since Donald Trump has been in office -- according to a study for the Daily Beast conducted by the research organization Airwars -- and Trump has famously unshackled the military so that, as Mattis put it, "we can annihilate ISIS" (or as Trump put it, "bomb the shit" out of ISIS).
The only way not to notice the insanity of all this is to believe, even reluctantly, in the need for the U.S. to keep on waging war in the Middle East and eventually defeat terrorism and evil. This is how much of the media report the news of war, even when they report it critically. The need to seek victory remains unquestioned. The role of the military in "keeping us safe" remains unquestioned. And the language of war remains unchallenged, which means the death of civilians -- indeed, the death of anyone who isn't American or European -- remains, however regrettable, nothing more than a cold abstraction.
I say this in the belief that murder begins with language. Words can convey the truth, but mostly they convey, at best, part of the truth. And that's not enough.
Consider this matter-of-fact account, from a recent article in New York magazine, of the controversy over how many civilians have been killed in the Iraq-Syria war zones. Airwars put the figure, since 2014, at about 4,500, almost half of which have occurred post-Trump, while the official U.S. count is just over 600. "But," the article notes, "the official numbers also reveal a sharp uptick in civilian deaths."
And suddenly I have to scream: Stop!
Every dead person is a human being. At some point . . . at some point . . . this has to matter. An uptick in civilian deaths? When I deconstruct this language, I encounter a shrug of indifference, a detached sense of necessity: What can you do?
If the dead were Americans (white Americans), would the words be so cold and detached? On Sept. 11, 2001, there was an uptick of dead office workers in New York City . . .
Do moral issues cross political and cultural borders? Not when we call it war -- though there has been a bizarrely tepid change in consciousness even about this in the last half century, at least in the uber-armed, planet-colonizing Western world.
Last May, for instance, Samuel Oakford's article in Foreign Policy informed us:
"The United States' coalition partners in the war against the Islamic State are responsible for at least 80 confirmed civilian deaths from airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, according to U.S. military officials. Yet none of their 12 allies will publicly concede any role in those casualties.
"These dozen partner nations have launched more than 4,000 airstrikes combined, the vast majority of which were undertaken by the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Belgium, and the Netherlands. However, they have so far claimed a perfect record in avoiding civilian casualties."
Why? In today's world, killing civilians -- or publicly acknowledging these deaths, at any rate -- is somehow morally iffy.
And the Daily Beast article about civilian deaths, also by Oakford, contains this grim paragraph:
"The deadliest incident so far admitted by the Coalition in either country took place on March 17 in the al Jadida neighborhood of Mosul. According to U.S. investigators, at least 105 civilians were killed when an American jet dropped a 500-pound bomb on a building where they sheltered. The U.S. said its forces aimed for two ISIS fighters on the roof, but the entire building gave way -- a clear sign, claimed investigators, that the building had been rigged with explosives by ISIS. Survivors and Mosul civil defense officials denied the U.S. narrative, insisting they had seen no evidence of ISIS explosives."
Globally, we're still investing trillions of dollars in the means of killing civilians, including, my God, nuclear weapons, but government spokespersons are now tasked with the job of making the public believe the actual use of such weaponry takes out only certified enemies. This says to me that despite all evidence to the contrary, war -- the reality of it, if not the PR-sanitized presentation of it via the status quo media -- is obsolete in the collective human mind.
The language of war is what keeps it alive. This is the language of strategy and domination: words without grief, words without compassion. Speaking truth to power -- the true work of the media -- cannot be done if reporters write in the language of power, this alien tongue in which some human beings are expendable.
An Unconstitutional Rampage
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Robert C. Koehler
Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. Koehler has been the recipient of multiple awards for writing and journalism from organizations including the National Newspaper Association, Suburban Newspapers of America, and the Chicago Headline Club. He's a regular contributor to such high-profile websites as Common Dreams and the Huffington Post. Eschewing political labels, Koehler considers himself a "peace journalist. He has been an editor at Tribune Media Services and a reporter, columnist and copy desk chief at Lerner Newspapers, a chain of neighborhood and suburban newspapers in the Chicago area. Koehler launched his column in 1999. Born in Detroit and raised in suburban Dearborn, Koehler has lived in Chicago since 1976. He earned a master's degree in creative writing from Columbia College and has taught writing at both the college and high school levels. Koehler is a widower and single parent. He explores both conditions at great depth in his writing. His book, "Courage Grows Strong at the Wound" (2016). Contact him or visit his website at commonwonders.com.
Finally it comes down to this: Some people are expendable.
In certain parts of the world -- where we and our allies are waging war -- the expendable people come in two categories: terrorists (good riddance!) and civilians, whom we only kill if and when necessary, and whose deaths often elicit official apologies (if there's no way to deny it was our fault).
Indeed, as Secretary of Defense James Mattis said, according to the Daily Beast, "There has been no change to our continued extraordinary efforts to avoid innocent civilian casualties."
We care about civilians so much -- especially children -- that we actually inconvenience ourselves in our efforts (don't ask for details) to avoid killing them. This is true even though civilian deaths in Syria and Iraq have risen more than fourfold since Donald Trump has been in office -- according to a study for the Daily Beast conducted by the research organization Airwars -- and Trump has famously unshackled the military so that, as Mattis put it, "we can annihilate ISIS" (or as Trump put it, "bomb the shit" out of ISIS).
The only way not to notice the insanity of all this is to believe, even reluctantly, in the need for the U.S. to keep on waging war in the Middle East and eventually defeat terrorism and evil. This is how much of the media report the news of war, even when they report it critically. The need to seek victory remains unquestioned. The role of the military in "keeping us safe" remains unquestioned. And the language of war remains unchallenged, which means the death of civilians -- indeed, the death of anyone who isn't American or European -- remains, however regrettable, nothing more than a cold abstraction.
I say this in the belief that murder begins with language. Words can convey the truth, but mostly they convey, at best, part of the truth. And that's not enough.
Consider this matter-of-fact account, from a recent article in New York magazine, of the controversy over how many civilians have been killed in the Iraq-Syria war zones. Airwars put the figure, since 2014, at about 4,500, almost half of which have occurred post-Trump, while the official U.S. count is just over 600. "But," the article notes, "the official numbers also reveal a sharp uptick in civilian deaths."
And suddenly I have to scream: Stop!
Every dead person is a human being. At some point . . . at some point . . . this has to matter. An uptick in civilian deaths? When I deconstruct this language, I encounter a shrug of indifference, a detached sense of necessity: What can you do?
If the dead were Americans (white Americans), would the words be so cold and detached? On Sept. 11, 2001, there was an uptick of dead office workers in New York City . . .
Do moral issues cross political and cultural borders? Not when we call it war -- though there has been a bizarrely tepid change in consciousness even about this in the last half century, at least in the uber-armed, planet-colonizing Western world.
Last May, for instance, Samuel Oakford's article in Foreign Policy informed us:
"The United States' coalition partners in the war against the Islamic State are responsible for at least 80 confirmed civilian deaths from airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, according to U.S. military officials. Yet none of their 12 allies will publicly concede any role in those casualties.
"These dozen partner nations have launched more than 4,000 airstrikes combined, the vast majority of which were undertaken by the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Belgium, and the Netherlands. However, they have so far claimed a perfect record in avoiding civilian casualties."
Why? In today's world, killing civilians -- or publicly acknowledging these deaths, at any rate -- is somehow morally iffy.
And the Daily Beast article about civilian deaths, also by Oakford, contains this grim paragraph:
"The deadliest incident so far admitted by the Coalition in either country took place on March 17 in the al Jadida neighborhood of Mosul. According to U.S. investigators, at least 105 civilians were killed when an American jet dropped a 500-pound bomb on a building where they sheltered. The U.S. said its forces aimed for two ISIS fighters on the roof, but the entire building gave way -- a clear sign, claimed investigators, that the building had been rigged with explosives by ISIS. Survivors and Mosul civil defense officials denied the U.S. narrative, insisting they had seen no evidence of ISIS explosives."
Globally, we're still investing trillions of dollars in the means of killing civilians, including, my God, nuclear weapons, but government spokespersons are now tasked with the job of making the public believe the actual use of such weaponry takes out only certified enemies. This says to me that despite all evidence to the contrary, war -- the reality of it, if not the PR-sanitized presentation of it via the status quo media -- is obsolete in the collective human mind.
The language of war is what keeps it alive. This is the language of strategy and domination: words without grief, words without compassion. Speaking truth to power -- the true work of the media -- cannot be done if reporters write in the language of power, this alien tongue in which some human beings are expendable.
Robert C. Koehler
Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. Koehler has been the recipient of multiple awards for writing and journalism from organizations including the National Newspaper Association, Suburban Newspapers of America, and the Chicago Headline Club. He's a regular contributor to such high-profile websites as Common Dreams and the Huffington Post. Eschewing political labels, Koehler considers himself a "peace journalist. He has been an editor at Tribune Media Services and a reporter, columnist and copy desk chief at Lerner Newspapers, a chain of neighborhood and suburban newspapers in the Chicago area. Koehler launched his column in 1999. Born in Detroit and raised in suburban Dearborn, Koehler has lived in Chicago since 1976. He earned a master's degree in creative writing from Columbia College and has taught writing at both the college and high school levels. Koehler is a widower and single parent. He explores both conditions at great depth in his writing. His book, "Courage Grows Strong at the Wound" (2016). Contact him or visit his website at commonwonders.com.
Finally it comes down to this: Some people are expendable.
In certain parts of the world -- where we and our allies are waging war -- the expendable people come in two categories: terrorists (good riddance!) and civilians, whom we only kill if and when necessary, and whose deaths often elicit official apologies (if there's no way to deny it was our fault).
Indeed, as Secretary of Defense James Mattis said, according to the Daily Beast, "There has been no change to our continued extraordinary efforts to avoid innocent civilian casualties."
We care about civilians so much -- especially children -- that we actually inconvenience ourselves in our efforts (don't ask for details) to avoid killing them. This is true even though civilian deaths in Syria and Iraq have risen more than fourfold since Donald Trump has been in office -- according to a study for the Daily Beast conducted by the research organization Airwars -- and Trump has famously unshackled the military so that, as Mattis put it, "we can annihilate ISIS" (or as Trump put it, "bomb the shit" out of ISIS).
The only way not to notice the insanity of all this is to believe, even reluctantly, in the need for the U.S. to keep on waging war in the Middle East and eventually defeat terrorism and evil. This is how much of the media report the news of war, even when they report it critically. The need to seek victory remains unquestioned. The role of the military in "keeping us safe" remains unquestioned. And the language of war remains unchallenged, which means the death of civilians -- indeed, the death of anyone who isn't American or European -- remains, however regrettable, nothing more than a cold abstraction.
I say this in the belief that murder begins with language. Words can convey the truth, but mostly they convey, at best, part of the truth. And that's not enough.
Consider this matter-of-fact account, from a recent article in New York magazine, of the controversy over how many civilians have been killed in the Iraq-Syria war zones. Airwars put the figure, since 2014, at about 4,500, almost half of which have occurred post-Trump, while the official U.S. count is just over 600. "But," the article notes, "the official numbers also reveal a sharp uptick in civilian deaths."
And suddenly I have to scream: Stop!
Every dead person is a human being. At some point . . . at some point . . . this has to matter. An uptick in civilian deaths? When I deconstruct this language, I encounter a shrug of indifference, a detached sense of necessity: What can you do?
If the dead were Americans (white Americans), would the words be so cold and detached? On Sept. 11, 2001, there was an uptick of dead office workers in New York City . . .
Do moral issues cross political and cultural borders? Not when we call it war -- though there has been a bizarrely tepid change in consciousness even about this in the last half century, at least in the uber-armed, planet-colonizing Western world.
Last May, for instance, Samuel Oakford's article in Foreign Policy informed us:
"The United States' coalition partners in the war against the Islamic State are responsible for at least 80 confirmed civilian deaths from airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, according to U.S. military officials. Yet none of their 12 allies will publicly concede any role in those casualties.
"These dozen partner nations have launched more than 4,000 airstrikes combined, the vast majority of which were undertaken by the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Belgium, and the Netherlands. However, they have so far claimed a perfect record in avoiding civilian casualties."
Why? In today's world, killing civilians -- or publicly acknowledging these deaths, at any rate -- is somehow morally iffy.
And the Daily Beast article about civilian deaths, also by Oakford, contains this grim paragraph:
"The deadliest incident so far admitted by the Coalition in either country took place on March 17 in the al Jadida neighborhood of Mosul. According to U.S. investigators, at least 105 civilians were killed when an American jet dropped a 500-pound bomb on a building where they sheltered. The U.S. said its forces aimed for two ISIS fighters on the roof, but the entire building gave way -- a clear sign, claimed investigators, that the building had been rigged with explosives by ISIS. Survivors and Mosul civil defense officials denied the U.S. narrative, insisting they had seen no evidence of ISIS explosives."
Globally, we're still investing trillions of dollars in the means of killing civilians, including, my God, nuclear weapons, but government spokespersons are now tasked with the job of making the public believe the actual use of such weaponry takes out only certified enemies. This says to me that despite all evidence to the contrary, war -- the reality of it, if not the PR-sanitized presentation of it via the status quo media -- is obsolete in the collective human mind.
The language of war is what keeps it alive. This is the language of strategy and domination: words without grief, words without compassion. Speaking truth to power -- the true work of the media -- cannot be done if reporters write in the language of power, this alien tongue in which some human beings are expendable.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.
LATEST NEWS
Israel Preparing to Seize Ethnically Cleansed City of Rafah as Part of Permanent Buffer Zone
"The entire city of Rafah is being swallowed up," warned one Israeli human rights group. "The massive death zone... continues to grow by the day."
Apr 09, 2025
The Israel Defense Forces is preparing to permanently seize the largely depopulated Palestinian city of Rafah—comprising about 20% of Gaza's land area—and incorporate what was once the embattled enclave's third-largest city into a borderland buffer that IDF troops have described as a "kill zone" rife with alleged war crimes.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Wednesday that "defense sources" said an area from the so-called Philadelphi corridor along Gaza's border with Egypt and the Morag corridor—the name of a Jewish colony that once stood between Rafah and Khan Younis—will be incorporated into the buffer zone that runs along the entire length of the Israeli border.
The affected area includes the entire city of Rafah—which is thousands of years old—and surrounding neighborhoods, which were home to more than 250,000 people before Israeli launched what United Nations experts have called a genocidal assault on Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023.
As Haaretz's Yaniv Kubovitch reported:
Expanding the buffer zone to this extent carries significant implications. Not only does it cover a vast area—approximately 75 square kilometers (about 29 square miles), or roughly one-fifth of the Gaza Strip—but severing it would effectively turn Gaza into an enclave within Israeli-controlled territory, cutting it off from the Egyptian border. According to defense sources, this consideration played a central role in the decision to focus on Rafah...
It has yet to be decided whether the entire area will simply be designated a buffer zone that is off-limits to civilians—as has been done in other parts of the border area—or whether the area will be fully cleared and all buildings demolished, effectively wiping out the city of Rafah.
In recent weeks and for the second time during the war, IDF troops forcibly expelled hundreds of thousands residents from Rafah and other areas of southern Gaza in an ethnic cleansing campaign reminiscent of the 1948 Nakba, or "catastrophe" in Arabic, through which the modern state of Israel was founded. Most Gaza residents today are Nakba survivors or descendants of Palestinians who fled or were expelled from other parts of Palestine in 1948.
Earlier this month, Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—a fugitive from the International Criminal Court wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza—and Defense Minister Israel Katz announced plans to seize "large areas" of southern Gaza to be added to what Katz called "security zones" and "settlements."
Jewish recolonization of Gaza is a major objective of many right-wing Israelis. Last month, Katz announced the creation of a new IDF directorate tasked with ethnically cleansing northern Gaza, which Israeli leaders euphemistically call "voluntary emigration." Katz said the agency would be run "in accordance with the vision of U.S. President Donald Trump," who in February said that the United States would "take over" Gaza after emptying the strip of its over 2 million Palestinians, and then transform the enclave into the "Riviera of the Middle East." Trump subsequently attempted to walk back some of his comments.
Earlier this week, the Israeli human rights group Breaking the Silence published testimonies of IDF officers, soldiers, and veterans who took part in the creation of the buffer zone. Soldiers recounted orders to "deliberately, methodically, and systematically annihilate whatever was within the designated perimeter, including entire residential neighborhoods, public buildings, educational institutions, mosques, and cemeteries, with very few exceptions."
Palestinians who dared enter the perimeter, even accidentally were targeted, including civilian men, women, children, and elders. One officer featured in the report told The Guardian: "We're killing [men], we're killing their wives, their children, their cats, their dogs. We're destroying their houses and pissing on their graves."
Most of Gaza's more than 2 million residents have been forcibly displaced at least once since Israel launched the war, which has left more than 180,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Widespread starvation and disease have been fueled by a "complete siege" which, among other Israeli policies and actions, has been cited in the ongoing South Africa-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
Watchdog Says Trump Tariff Pause Lays Bare 'Just One More Con on Working People'
"All he has shown is that he'll cave to Wall Street's hand-wringing and prioritize his own power over real people's plight," said one expert at Public Citizen.
Apr 09, 2025
"Trump's 'will he, won't he' tariff chaos is just one more con on working people."
That's what Melinda St. Louis, Global Trade Watch director at the watchdog group Public Citizen, said in a Wednesday statement after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 90-pause for what he has called "reciprocal" tariffs, excluding China.
"He claimed that the so-called 'reciprocal tariffs' would protect American jobs, but these reckless tariffs were never designed to do that," she said of Trump. "He just wants to wield threats as a schoolyard bully while giving his billionaire buddies sweetheart deals."
St. Louis warned that "when he says he's going to 'negotiate,' he means more harmful free trade agreements that double down on the failed trade model he claims to oppose and that force countries to gut public interest protections for the benefit of Big Tech, Big Pharma, and other corporate giants."
"Who's left out of his megalomaniacal game? The workers he claimed to support."
"And he wants U.S. companies to beg for exemptions from his tariffs, as they did in his first term. This is all part of Trump's authoritarianism and corruption, forcing countries and businesses to bend the knee just as he is doing with law firms and universities," she stressed. "Who's left out of his megalomaniacal game? The workers he claimed to support. All he has shown is that he'll cave to Wall Street's hand-wringing and prioritize his own power over real people's plight."
St. Louis wasn't alone in continuing to blast Trump's tactics around tariffs, which have led some economists to conclude that the president does not actually even understand how international trade works.
"It took a month to 'negotiate a deal,' but it only took one day for Trump to hit the brakes on his nonsensical new tax on autos from Canada and Mexico," Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a Wednesday statement. "This endless flip-flopping and bluster is just further proof that Donald Trump has no economic strategy beyond slapping tariffs on our trading partners."
"Instead of coming up with a real plan to get American workers a fair shake, he's making the United States into an international joke and driving up prices for U.S. consumers," he added. "If Republicans in Congress allow him to keep this up, Trump will keep yo-yoing on tariffs and using threats to pressure U.S. companies to stay in line instead of fighting back against this senseless economic war on American families."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a longtime critic of "disastrous unfettered free trade deals," said in a lengthy statement that "targeted tariffs can be a powerful tool to stop corporations from outsourcing American jobs... But Trump's chaotic across-the-board tariffs are not the way to do it."
"What Trump is doing is unconstitutional. Trump has claimed supposed 'emergency' powers to bypass Congress and impose unilateral tariffs on hundreds of countries... This is another step toward authoritarianism," the senator asserted. "And let's be clear about why Trump is doing all this: to give massive tax breaks to billionaires."
"These tariffs will cost working families thousands of dollars a year, and Trump plans to use that revenue to help pay for a huge tax break for the richest people in America. That is what Trump and Republicans in Congress are working on right now: If they have their way on the tariffs and their huge tax bill, most Americans will see their taxes go up, while those on top will get a huge tax break," he added. "Enough is enough. We need a coherent trade policy that puts working people first."
Despite warnings that the costs of his planned tariffs would be passed on to consumers, Trump unveiled the duties last week, causing stocks to plummet and fueling recession warnings and speculation that he's tanking the economy on purpose.
Trump's tariffs took effect at midnight Wednesday. By the early afternoon, the president declared a partial pause via his Truth Social platform. He said that more than 75 countries have reached out "to negotiate a solution."
In clarifying comments to reporters on Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the 10% baseline tariffs will remain in effect, but higher duties targeting various nations are suspended. He also reiterated that the administration's message is, "Do not retaliate, and you will be rewarded."
The exception to the pause is China, which initially hit back by announcing 34% import duties on American goods last Friday. Faced with Trump's 104% rate on Wednesday, China hiked that to 84% and imposed restrictions on 18 U.S. companies.
Trump wrote on social media Wednesday that "based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World's Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately."
The Chinese government issued a travel advisory on Wednesday, saying in a statement, "Recently, due to the deterioration of China-U.S. economic and trade relations and the domestic security situation in the United States, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism reminds Chinese tourists to fully assess the risks of traveling to the United States and be cautious."
The Hill reported that during a Wednesday press briefing, Lin Jian, China's Foreign Affairs spokesperson, said that "the U.S. is seeking hegemony in the name of reciprocity, sacrificing the legitimate interests of all countries to serve its own selfish interests, and prioritizing the U.S. over international rules. This is typical unilateralism, protectionism, and economic bullying."
"The abuse of tariffs by the United States is tantamount to depriving countries, especially those in the Global South, of their right to development," he added.
Before Trump announced the pause, the European Union was planning to respond to Trump's steel tariffs with "levies of up to 25% on a sweeping list of U.S. products," The Washington Post reported. "There was no immediate comment from the European Union, and it was unclear how Trump's latest announcement might affect the E.U. countermeasures approved Wednesday."
Although stocks soared after Trump's pause announcement, many experts remain skeptical and demanded transparency around the administration's global trade talks.
"Absent transparency about what is being demanded, we could end up with the worst of all outcomes—a bunch of bad special interest deals, all of the economic damage caused by tariff uncertainty and no trade rebalancing, U.S. manufacturing capacity, or goods jobs," said Lori Wallach, director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project, in a Wednesday statement.
"The Trump administration could be striking deals with dozens of countries, but absent transparency, the public will not know whether their interests or Trump's billionaire Cabinet and friends on Wall Street or his family are being served," she pointed out. "Deals must focus on addressing the mercantilist practices that some countries employ, which fuel the extreme global trade imbalances that have deindustrialized the United States and today deny the benefits of trade to numerous countries worldwide."
Wallach emphasized that "the Trump administration must not use these talks to bully countries into gutting their online privacy and Big Tech anti-monopoly policies or undermining their food safety, health, or environmental laws."
"The chaos of these whipsaw tariffs flip-flops is already causing economic chaos and losses, undermining confidence in America and our markets," she added. "Cutting deals in secret only adds to that uncertainty and risks corruption, which won't just hurt Trump's stated goal of investment in U.S. manufacturing but the economy as a whole."
While experts like Wallach call for transparency in the tariff process, many congressional Republicans are working to further empower Trump. Nearly all GOP members of the U.S House of Representatives
voted Wednesday for a rule that blocks lawmakers' ability to force a vote on repealing the president's import duties for 90 days.
Jewish Group Says Trump 'Using Jews as an Excuse' to Spy on Social Media Posts of Immigrants
One critic accused the administration of "cynically claiming to be fighting antisemitism" despite being "the most openly antisemitic U.S. administration in living history."
Apr 09, 2025
A Jewish-led progressive advocacy group was among those expressing horror Wednesday at a new policy unveiled by the Trump administration as part of what it claims is a wide-scale effort to protect Jewish people from antisemitism, but which critics warn is itself antisemitic.
The decision by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to begin considering immigrants' "antisemitic activity on social media," said Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, is actually an example of the administration "using Jews as an excuse to move a cruel, anti-immigrant, authoritarian agenda."
"This will NOT fight antisemitism," said the group. "We refuse to be used this way."
DHS said that effective immediately, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will begin screening immigrants' social media activity for what the administration views as expressions of antisemitism, including "endorsing, espousing, promoting, or supporting antisemitic terrorism, antisemitic terrorist organizations, or other antisemitic activity." The agency's findings could be seen "as a negative factor in any USCIS discretionary analysis when adjudicating immigration benefit requests," such as green card or visa applications, it said.
The agency cited President Donald Trump's executive orders that he says are aimed at "combating antisemitism"—which have also been used to round up international students, deny them due process, and threaten them with deportation for speaking out for Palestinian rights.
DHS did not specify what views expressed on social media could be used against an immigrant applying for benefits, but its approach to the State Department's "catch and revoke" program targeting international students who have called for their schools to divest from Israel suggests the agency won't simply be looking for immigrants who threaten the safety of Jewish people.
"This move by DHS will chill online expression for people in the United States and abroad alike."
In recent weeks the Trump administration has revoked the visas of hundreds of international students and immigration agents have detained Palestinian rights advocates including Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk. One DHS official explicitly conflated Khalil's involvement in pro-Palestinian protests with terrorism in explaining why he should be deported, and Secretary of State Marci Rubio suggested Ozturk had created "a ruckus" by writing an op-ed calling on her school, Tufts University, to divest from companies that benefit from Israel's assault on Gaza.
Kate Ruane, director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said that in addition to "targeting people based on nothing more than their First Amendment-protected expression," it will likely used "error-prone automated tools" to detect what it views as antisemitic activity.
"These tools are guaranteed to improperly categorize an unknown number of applicants as violent, terroristic, or antisemitic, even by the administration's broad definitions of those terms," said Ruane. "Given the U.S. government's demonstrated willingness to strip people's legal status for engaging in constitutionally protected speech it dislikes, this move by DHS will chill online expression for people in the United States and abroad alike."
Writer Dan Berger said the administration is "cynically claiming to be fighting antisemitism" despite being "the most openly antisemitic U.S. administration in living history."
Elon Musk, who was chosen by Trump to lead efforts to slash public spending at the Department of Government Efficiency, provoked shock from rights groups—but shrugs from the Republican Party and a leading pro-Israel organization—when he displayed what appeared to be a Nazi salute at an inauguration event in January. He has also promoted Germany's far-right party, Alternative for Germany, which has promoted Nazi slogans, and minimized the Holocaust at a rally for the group.
"Dark, abysmal stuff, and a pox on everyone whose defense of genocide made this possible," said Berger.
Jezebel reporter Kylie Cheung also pointed to politicians on both sides of the aisle, such as former President Joe Biden, who have vehemently supported Israel's assault on Gaza and accused those who speak out against it of antisemitism.
DHS's social media policy, said Cheung, "is the natural conclusion of every politician, Democrat and Republican, broadly smearing anti-genocide protesters as antisemitic terrorist sympathizers for the last two years."
Most Popular