United States

The Los Angeles riots started at a local Home Depot store. These stores are a national network of shops selling hardware and DIY material.

Throughout America they act as a magnet for illegal aliens—main Hispanic and Latinos—who base themselves outside shops in search of part-time construction and handyman jobs.

Where illegal aliens gather you will now find Trumps ICE (Immigration Control Enforcement) agents ready to swoop down, arrest, detain and deport. Which is exactly what happened last Friday at the Home Depot store in Los Angeles’s Westlake District and at LA’s Huntington Park.

Normally, the arrests are relatively peaceful. The arrestees may try to run for it, but generally, they are quiet affairs. This time they fought back. They were soon joined by friends, neighbours and family trying to prevent the arrests.

The result was a riot. There was looting and cars were set alight. But the fighting was confined to a few city blocks. Elsewhere in Los Angeles life continued as normal.

Trump did not care. The Los Angeles riots were an opportunity to project his strong man image on the one issue that resonates most with American voters—immigration. Despite the local nature of the riots he went over Governor Gavin Newsom’s head and ordered in 2,000 National Guardsmen and 600 marines.

According to the LAPD, Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass and Governor Newsom, Trump inflamed the situation and – most important of all—broke the law.

The law which they claim Trump broke is the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which restricts the use of federal troops for domestic law enforcement. There are exceptions, mainly those governed by the 1807 Insurrection Act which says the president can order in federal troops in order to suppress rebellion or insurrection or to enforce federal law when local authorities are unwilling or unable to do so.

The Home Depot disturbances were not an insurrection—however much far-right nationalists claim otherwise. Neither were they a rebellion. And as for the willingness of the local authorities, the mayor had already ordered in the police who said they were in control.

The end result is three-fold. First liberal progressives are now convinced that Trump will use every demonstration as an excuse to shout “insurrection” and possibly declare martial law which could lead to a postponement of elections. Secondly, MAGA Republicans think their president is even more wonderful which means the country is even more divided. Finally, Trump faces another court case. This time he is being taken court by Governor Newsom who also happens to be the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president in 2028.

Trump v Musk

The Battle of the Titans—Trump v. Musk—is over. And Trump has won.

It was inevitable. Alright, Musk is the world’s wealthiest man at $400-plus billion. But Trump controls the machinery of the world’s most powerful country, and he has repeatedly proven that he is not afraid to use that power to further his own ends.

Musk talked—or rather tweeted—big about exposing Trump’s sexual antics and funding a third political party. But his power is based entirely on his pile of cash and Trump has the power to reduce it.

Musk does have some leverage. Both NASA and the Pentagon are dependent on the billionaire’s technology to maintain vital satellite communications and complete planned lunar expeditions. The contracts to provide this technology are worth billions for several years to come.

Trump—in one of his more peevish moods—did threaten to terminate those contracts. It was an empty threat.

But he has a political machinery which can wreak havoc on Elon’s empire. Before Trump was elected to his second term, at least 11 federal agencies had ongoing investigations or lawsuits targeting Musk’s companies. Almost every one of these investigations/law suits have been put on hold in the wake of Trump’s victory.

The Fish and Wildlife Service, for example, has halted its oversight of Space X’s Texas launch site, where the company has been accused of damaging wildlife in the adjacent state park. That enforcement could be turned back on overnight if Trump so ordered.

A simple presidential decree could also cancel Musk’s security clearance which would make it almost impossible for him to negotiate directly with NASA and the Pentagon. The president has already done this with several of his Biden-era critics.

Or, if he so wished, Trump could tie Musk and his companies in accountancy knots by ordering an audit by the Internal Revenue Service.

All the above would be highly unethical and quite possibly illegal and unconstitutional. But this has not deterred Trump in the past.

European Union

Europe – not China—could be the main target of Trump’s tariffs.

In MAGA eyes the Transatlantic relationship is like a marriage that has lasted too long and is starting to sour.

“The European Union,” President Trump, told a recent cabinet meeting, “was formed to screw the United States”

That, of course, is totally false. The Common Market—precursor to the European Union—was formed to promote European peace by making its member states economically interdependent. In that goal it had the support of successive US administrations who saw the goal of a peaceful and prosperous Europe as vital to American interests.

But in recent years American conservatives have started to take a different view of the EU.  For a start, they tend to view the world through the Trumpian prism of economic competition and a trading syndicate of 500 million is a massive bloc which carries significant leverage in negotiations.

There is also the defense angle. Both Democrats and Republicans have argued for years that Europeans have exploited America’s generous military provisions to divert money from defense to a generous welfare state. Europeans are now reluctantly admitting their mistake, but for Republicans it is too little too late.

Perhaps more important is a perception of diverging values. MAGA America is Christian America and it shakes its evangelical head in sorrow at growing secularism in Europe.

Europeans and MAGA America simply cannot understand each other’s positions on issues such as climate change and gun control. Socialised medicine is an anathema as is abortion, transgender rights and same-sex marriage.

MAGA has a deep suspicion of bureaucrats as demonstrated by the support that Elon Musk had for his Department of Government Efficiency (aka DOGE). The European Commission is seen by conservative Americans as the quintessential, self-serving bureaucratic deep state.

MAGA, The Republican Party, American conservatives and Donald Trump all hate the European Union. But then again, the EU does not think kindly of them.

Israel and Palestine

This week has seen yet another example of a disconnected American policy-making machine.

In a series of controversial interviews, Trump’s Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, called on Muslim countries to give up land for a Palestinian state.

He went on to add that the two-state solution was “an aspirational goal” which is diplomatese for pie-in-the-sky.

Finally, the former Governor of Arkansas and past presidential hopeful, said that Washington was “no longer pursuing the goal of an independent Palestinian state.”

Not so fast, implied State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce, when she retorted: “The ambassador speaks for himself,” which is diplomatese for saying that there is a disconnect between Huckabee and the rest of the US diplomatic service.

Mike Huckabee has a long history of full-throated support for an Eretz or Greater Israel that encompasses the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In 2008 he said there is “really no such thing as a Palestinian.” Then in 2017 he told a political rally “there is no such thing as a West Bank—it’s Judea and Samaria.

The ambassador is an ordained southern Baptist minister and as such subscribes to the evangelical belief the state of Israel must be protected to insure the second Coming of Christ. “Israel is not just a geopolitical ally,” he is reported to have said, “it is a fulfilment of God’s promise and central to his plan.”

* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He also contributes to “The New World” magazine and lectures on world affairs. He is the author of “America Made in Britain,” two editions of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “The Falklands Crisis.”