The plan by the White House to tighten the noose on anti-President Donald Trump media and reward those in support of his government has raised concerns among some media houses and editors in the United States (U.S.).
Tuesday’s announcement about President Trump’s press operation taking over “press pool” organising duties is part of the plan.
At the White House, and at key agencies like the Defence Department, the plan is obvious: Punish traditional journalists who ask tough questions and promote a parallel universe of pro-Trump media outlets.
According to some editors, the administration is clearly trying to exert more control over who asks questions – and what they ask.
Journalists, newsroom leaders and press freedom groups are all objecting to the changes, to no avail.
Editors at the sidelined news outlets are speaking out now. In a rare joint statement on Wednesday, the top editors of The AP, Reuters and Bloomberg – the three wire services that were, until this month, daily fixtures in the press pool – said the White House’s changes are harmful to the public.
“It is essential in a democracy for the public to have access to news about their government from an independent, free press,” the editors said.
President Donald Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the USAID have got many worried about the impacts on Africa and Nigeria in particular. Lessons can be drawn from the dismantling and the foreign funding freeze. If the Trump approach works, more countries may take a cue from the U.S. Already, the UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer recently announced a boost to the UK’s defence spending, with the increase coming at the expense of the aid budget. Sir Keir explained that the increase will see an additional £13.4bn on defence every year from 2027, but it will be paid for by cutting development assistance aid. Netherlands has equally announced a cut to its funding for UN and civil society. It appears there were similar moves from Belgium and Sweden in the past few months. This surely is a bleak outlook across many relevant donors funding development work globally.
There is a strong argument that Africa will be the first victim of the USAID collapse. Only the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa received US$12 billion from USAID in 2024. This was even a reduction from US$16 billion in 2023. Across the continent, countries like Egypt, Ethiopia, Somalia, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) received huge aid from USAID and other donors.
For Nigeria, what local opportunities are there to tap into to provide sustainable funding source for development work? Generally, there is a decline in Official Development Assistance (ODA) and Nigerian civil society organizations (CSOs) rely disproportionately on international donors, with more than 500,000 organisations competing for scarce donor funds even as Official Development Assistance (ODA) to Nigeria declined from $11.43 billion in 2006 to just $3.38 billion in 2020—a 70% drop.
It is time for the Nigerian government to consider the setting up of endowment which should be managed independently. The proceeds of such endowment could be used to advance development work and fund projects that address Nigeria’s economic, social, and climate challenges. The country can tap into the significant revenue from the petroleum sector, leverage on recovered assets and debt swap to pursue this idea. The Nigerian Endowments through Asset Transformation (NEAT) initiative offers a potential solution to the financial needs of CSOs, especially as reliance on international donors decline.
The NEAT Initiative represents an innovative approach to addressing the chronic funding challenges faced by Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Nigeria. Through its strategy of “Philanthropication through Privatization” (PtP), the initiative seeks to leverage assets, including recovered loot, extractive industry proceeds, and debt swaps, to create endowments that can independently fund developmental work. By channelling proceeds from asset transfers into independent, private, charitable foundations, it hopes to fund projects that address Nigeria’s economic, social, and climate challenges.
The NEAT governance principles would involve independent governance, professional management, transparency (operate with complete transparency—statutes, by-laws, grant information, board and staff list, reports, and finances would be publicly accessible), there would be accountability and conflict of interest provisions, and the governance should be meaningfully representative of the constituencies they serve through robust community consultation processes.
Specific case studies already exist where similar models have been demonstrated in other jurisdictions. In fact, up to 643 NEAT types of foundations have been identified in 28 countries around the world and such foundations are managing over US$201bn. The NEAT Initiative is inspired by successful models in other countries, like the BOTA Foundation in Kyrgyzstan and the Kiisi Trust Foundation in the case of human rights abuses in Ogoniland, Nigeria. The BOTA Foundation in Kyrgyzstan was established through a multi-lateral agreement to accountably and efficiently distribute returned corruption-based assets to the neediest citizens of Kazakhstan. The BOTA foundation has been widely cited as one of the most effective and successful examples of asset return administration, including by Transparency International France in its 2022 “Handbook for Asset Restitution.”
The Kiisi Trust Foundation (KTF) was set-up from the philanthropic actions of the plaintiffs of the 2009 Wiwa vs. Shell lawsuit with $5 million out of the $15.5 million out-of-court settlement in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs were victims of human rights abuses arising out of SPDC’s operations in Ogoniland. At the time of the settlement, it was agreed that the Kiisi Trust “should stand as one legacy of the labours of our heroes past.” The Kiisi Trust Fund is used to support programmes in education, health, community development, and other benefits for the Ogoni people and their communities.
High-level advocacy efforts have already been launched to advance the NEAT initiative in Nigeria. This includes the formation of an advisory committee by the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice, to push for the adoption of the initiative by the Nigerian government. The committee will engage with key stakeholders, including government officials within the executive and legislature, academia, and civil society organizations, to drum support for its adoption and implementation.
To succeed, the initiative would need passionate advocates who can raise awareness and garner political support. It is a promising strategy for addressing the funding challenges faced by CSOs and contributing to the country’s development.
The NEAT initiative represents a bold and innovative step toward self-sustaining, locally driven development solutions in Nigeria. With support, it could play a significant role in addressing the country’s most pressing social and economic challenges.
The United States President, Donald Trump on Tuesday said billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk will be excluded from space-related decision-making.
Trump made this remark at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in reply to a question about Musk’s potential conflicts of interest amid his efforts to cut government spending, according to media reports.
“So anything to do with possibly even space, we won’t let Elon partake in that,” he told reporters.
The White House has said Musk would recuse himself from any conflicts of interest between his business interests and efforts to reduce government spending via the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
On Monday, regarding Musk’s role in the Trump administration, the White House said he is a White House employee and senior adviser to the president.
It added that Musk is not an employee of DOGE, he has no decision-making authority.
Trump said Tuesday that Musk could be called an “employee” or “consultant.”
US president Donald Trump’s recent actions seem designed to reassert American power and demonstrate that it is still the dominant global power and is capable of bullying weaker nations into following America’s lead.
He has shown contempt for international collaboration by withdrawing from the UN climate negotiations and the World Health Organization. His officials have also indicated that they will not participate in upcoming G20 meetings because he does not like the policies of South Africa, the G20 president for 2025.
In addition, he’s shown a lack of concern for international solidarity by halting US aid programmes and by undermining efforts to keep businesses honest. He has demonstrated his contempt for allies by imposing tariffs on their exports.
These actions demand a response from the rest of the international community that mitigates the risk to the well-being of people and planet and the effective management of global affairs.
My research on global economic governance suggests that history can offer some guidance on how to shape an effective response.
Such a response should be based on a realistic assessment of the configuration of global forces. It should seek to build tactical coalitions between state and non-state actors in both the global south and the global north who can agree on clear and limited objectives.
The following three historical lessons help explain this point.
Cautionary lessons
The first lesson is about the dangers of being overoptimistic in assessing the potential for change.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the US was confronting defeat in the war in Vietnam, high inflation and domestic unrest, including the assassination of leading politicians and the murder of protesting students.
The US was also losing confidence in its ability to sustain the international monetary order it had established at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944.
In addition, the countries of the global south were calling for a new international economic order that was more responsive to their needs. Given the concerns about the political and economic situation in the US and the relative strength of the Soviet bloc at the time, this seemed a realistic demand.
In August 1971, President Richard Nixon, without any international consultations, launched what became known as the Nixon Shock. He broke the link between gold and the US dollar, thereby ending the international monetary system established in 1944. He also imposed a 10% surcharge on all imports into the US.
When America’s European allies protested and sought to create a reformed version of the old monetary order, US treasury secretary John Connolly informed them that the dollar was our currency but your problem.
Over the course of the 1970s, US allies in Western Europe, Asia and all countries that participated in the old Bretton Woods system were forced to accept what the US preferred: a market-based international monetary system in which the US dollar became the dominant currency.
The US, along with its allies in the global north, also defeated the calls for a new international economic order and imposed their neo-liberal economic order on the world.
The second cautionary lesson highlights the importance of building robust tactical coalitions. In 1969, the International Monetary Fund member states agreed to authorise the IMF to create special drawing rights, the IMF’s unique reserve asset. At the time, many IMF developing country member states advocated establishing a link between development and the special drawing rights. This would enable those countries most in need of additional resources to access more than their proportionate share of special drawing rights to fund their development.
All developing countries supported this demand. But they couldn’t agree on how to do it. The rich countries were able to exploit these differences and defeat the proposed link between the special drawing rights and development. As a result, the special drawing rights are now distributed to all IMF member states according to their quotas in the IMF. This means that most allocations go to the rich countries who do not need them and have no obligation to share them with developing countries.
A third lesson arises from the successful Jubilee 2000 campaign to forgive the debts of low-income developing countries experiencing debt crises. This campaign, supported by a secretariat in the United Kingdom, eventually involved:
• Civil society organisations and activists in 40 countries
• A petition signed by 21 million people
• Governments in both creditor and debtor countries.
These efforts resulted in the cancellation of the debts of 35 developing countries. These debts, totalling about US$100 billion, were owed primarily to bilateral and multilateral official creditors.
They were also a demonstration of the political power that can be generated by the combined actions of civil society organisations and governments in both rich and poor countries. They can force the most powerful and wealthy institutions and individuals in the world to accept actions that, while requiring them to make affordable sacrifices, benefit low-income countries and potentially poor communities within those states.
We shouldn’t under-estimate the power of the US or the determination of the MAGA movement to use that power. However, their power is not absolute. It is constrained by the relative decline in US power as countries such as China and India gain economic and political strength. In addition, there are now mechanisms for international cooperation, such as the G20, where states can coordinate their actions and gain tactical victories that are meaningful to people and planet.
But gaining such victories will require the following:
Firstly, the formation of tactical coalitions that include states from both the global south and the global north. If these states cooperate around limited and shared objectives they can counter the vested interests around the world that support Trump’s objectives.
Secondly, a special kind of public-private partnership in which states and non-state actors set aside their differences and agree to cooperate to achieve limited shared objectives. Neither states alone nor civil society groups alone were able to defeat the vested interests that opposed debt relief in the late 1990s. Working together they were able to defeat powerful creditor interests and gain debt relief for the poorest states.
Thirdly, this special partnership will only be possible if there’s general agreement on both the diagnosis of the problem and on the general contours of the solution. This was the case with the debt issue in the 1990s.
There are good candidates for such collaborative actions. For example, many states and non-state actors agree that international financial institutions need to be reformed and made more responsive to the needs of those member states that actually use their services but lack voice and vote in their governance. The institutions also need to be more accountable to those affected by their policies and practices. They also agree that large corporations and financial institutions should pay their fair share of taxes and should be environmentally and socially responsible.
The urgency of the challenges facing the global community demands that the world begin countering Trump as soon as possible. South Africa as the current chair of the G20 has a special responsibility to ensure that this year the G20, together with its engagement groups, acts creatively and responsibly in relation to people and planet.
•Bradlow is Professor/Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria, South Africa. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. “https://theconversation.com/donald-trumps-war-on-global-governance-lessons-from-the-past-on-how-to-fight-back-249666”
Mr. President, over the last 15 months your country America has subjected the people of Gaza to mass murder, genocide & ethnic cleansing.
You armed, assisted & enabled the State of Israel to murder, by your own admission, hundreds of thousands of innocent Gazan civilians the vast majority of whom were women & children.
You turned their once beautiful country into a poisonous, stinking, uninhabitable, burnt flesh-filled, rodent-infested sea of landmines & sulphurus rubble & into an ocean of foul, rotting, verminous body parts.
You did this by supplying Israel with the most deadly modern weapons including 2000 pound bombs which they unleashed on a weak, impoverished & defenceless civilian population in what can only be described as the most barbaric slaughter in modern history.
You crushed them in body, spirit & soul.
Yet your nation was still not done. As soon as you were sworn into office, to the horror of the civilised world, you declared your insidious intention to displace the 1.6 million Gazans that are still left alive (there were originally 2.5 million) & take over their land in order to develop it into a “prime piece of real estate” & a “beautiful holiday resort” for rich Americans!
These are the homes & ancestral land of the Palestinian people who have been living there for over 2000 years.
This is the land in which their loved ones & families have been caged, butchered & buried by your murderous Zionist friends for the last 76 years.
This is the place in which millions of them have fought & died for the last seven decades in order to preserve their honor, dignity, heritage, history & identity & leave something for generations of their children yet unborn.
You went further by publicly stating that you were “committed to owning Gaza” & that “we will let other countries develop parts of it: it will be beautiful. People can come from all over the world to live there.”
In conclusion you said “the Palestinians would have no right to return when they leave”.
As Ambassador A. M. Shawesh, the Palestinian Ambassador to India rightly said,
“When a real estate developer rules the world no one will be spared, everyone will follow”.
Your lack of empathy for the plight of the women & children of Gaza is appaulling.
Your inability to feel their pain & acknowledge their tears betrays the fact that you lack compassion.
You not only want to take the little that is left of it from them but you also want to send the 1.6 million Gazans that have been left alive to Egypt & Jordan (both of whom have outrightly rejected the proposal) & turn their homeland into a holiday spot filled with American hotels, American holiday homes, American escorts & American casinos.
You fail to appreciate the fact that to stand with Gaza is to stand with humanity.
This sentiment is shared by the majority of nations including Ireland, South Africa, Brazil, China, Russia, Iran & Spain who have taken the lead in this cause.
It is not only the Muslims and Arabs that feel this way: His Eminence Pope Francis and the majority of Christians throughout the world do as well.
Killing innocent women & children, subjecting them to mass murder, ethnic cleansing & genocide & forcefully displacing them & taking over their land cannot be justified under ANY circumstances.
Is this so difficult to comprehend?
You will recall that Vice-President Kashim Shettima eloquently stated the unassailable position of the Nigerian people when he said the following at the United Nations General Assembly:
“Today we are all witnesses to the heart-wrenching situation in Gaza & other Palestinian Territories. Justice is antithetical to revenge. Freedom is an inalienable right & a natural entitlement that cannot be denied to any people. The Palestinian people deserve their independence. They deserve to have a home of their own on territories already recognised by this very Assembly & by international law which is being routinely ignored.“
His words reflect the position of no less than 149 countries that recognise the State of Palestine as an independent, sovereign nation.
I am proud of the fact that my country has taken such a noble stand and, unlike yours, has chosen to stand for peace & justice.
I have always admired you because of what I believed to be your reverence for God, your Christian values, your stated intention of pulling America out of foreign conflicts, your rapprochement with Russia, China & North Korea, your opposition to the globalists & your support for the nationalists.
Again I have always respected you because of the way you stood strong and proud in the face of the persecution that you were subjected to by the Deep State.
Yet despite my respect I am constrained to tell you the truth.
This is not the time for platitudes or spouting the cowardly words of a quisling & lickspittle.
I must be candid.
Permit me to begin by saying that your proposition for Gaza is an expression of unadultetated evil.
Whilst others are rightly talking about establishing a two state solution where both the Palestinians & Israelis can live in peace you are talking about America taking over Gaza for itself & forcefully acquiring its offshore gas & oil reserves.
Is there no end to your greed? Is your insatiable desire to pillage & steal other people’s land & wipe them off the face of the earth just to gain access to their natural resources not of the devil?
Is this not the same thing that your white American forefathers did to the Red Indians?
Is this not what Pharaoh, Genghis Khan, Atilla the Hun, Christopher Columbus & Adolf Hitler did to others in their time?
Did they not annihilate their victims, driving many into extinction, subject them to a holocaust and take their land?
Is it not the same violent, butchering, slaughtering, conquering, plundering & pillaging spirit that drives you all?
Then come your puerile gaffes & brazen threats which are reminiscent of that of a school yard bully.
For example when you say things like “all hell will break loose if Hamas does not release all the hostages by Saturday” you betray the fact that you do not know that Hamas is far stronger today in terms of resolve and numbers than it was before October 7th.
This came as a consequence of the massive number of Palestinian women & children that were butchered post-October 7th by Israel in the name of retaliation.
Hamas have been energised by their quest for vengeance & if they had 10,000 fighters before October 7th they now have at least 200,000.
The more innocent Palestinans you kill the stronger Hamas will get.
This is why Gaza has been described as the “graveyard of imperialist delusions”.
Worse still the “hell” that you threaten to unleash may well engulf Israel and the entire Middle East.
Surely an attempt to ensure that the ceasefire is not broken & that negotiations for the release of hostages on all sides continue is better than issuing threats which may well endanger the lives of the very hostages that you are trying to save.
I pray that you cultivate the presence of mind to appreciate this point.
Your obsession with meddling in the affairs of other nations & laying claim to their territory, whether it be Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal, the Gulf of Mexico, South Africa, Colombia or Gaza is symptomatic of a troubled mind.
If you are not threatening other countries with taking over their land or withdrawing aid, you are threatening them with trade tariffs in an attempt to bring them to their knees.
Worse of all your disdain for immigrants & desire to send them back to where they came from in chains without any humanity & dignity or lock them up in Gauntanamo Bay whilst at the same time offering white South Africans refugee status is shameful.
It also provides us with a graphic expression of your inherent racism.
Your aversion to immigrants & categorisation of them as being “criminals, gangsters, murderers & mentally deranged people” is shameful.
Permit me to remind you that you are the grandson of a German immigrant, the son of a Scottish immigrant, the husband of a Slovenian immigrant & the ex-husband of a Czech immigrant.
You were a beneficiary of America’s immigration policies yet you hate immigrants with a passion & seek to not only stop them from entering your country but also to deny foreigners that are born there citizenship rights & abolish the ‘birth right law’ which is embedded in your constitution.
Such is your contempt for immigrants that Pope Francis was constrained to say the following in order to ameliorate the pain and damage that your vitriol has caused.
He said,
“I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant & refugee brothers & sisters.”
‘Making America Great Again’ does not mean destroying the aspirations of others & does not give you the right to intimidate, threaten, subjugate & conquer the world!
You would do well to remember that it was the collective prayers of millions to God that delivered you from the assassin’s bullet on two separate occassions, that stopped you from being sent to jail & that got you to where you are today.
Those same prayers will bring you to your knees if you refuse to change course.
May God guide you.
•(Chief Femi Fani-Kayode is the Sadaukin Shinkafi, the Wakilin Doka Potiskum, a former Minister of Culture and Tourism and a former Minister of Aviation).
United States President Donald Trump has declared that Palestinians would have no right of return to Gaza under his takeover plan, describing his proposal in excerpts of an interview released yesterday as a “real estate development for the future.”
Trump told Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier that “I would own it” and that there could be as many as six different sites for Palestinians to live outside Gaza under the plan, which the Arab world and others in the international community have rejected.
“No, they wouldn’t, because they’re going to have much better housing,” Trump said when Baier asked if the Palestinians would have the right to return to the enclave, most of which has been reduced to rubble by Israel’s military since October 2023.
“In other words, I’m talking about building a permanent place for them because if they have to return now, it’ll be years before you could ever – it’s not habitable.”
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has sent shockwaves across the global aid community, raising urgent concerns about the United States’ foreign assistance to Africa.
With his administration already pushing aggressive “America First” policies, African nations, like Nigeria, face an uncertain future. If history repeats itself, Trump’s renewed cuts on international funding could unravel decades of progress in healthcare, security, education and economic development.
The US as Africa’s biggest aid partner
The US has long been Africa’s most significant development partner. In 2021 alone, US aid to the continent reached $8bn, supporting critical programmes through the United States Agency for International Development, the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. These funds have strengthened healthcare systems, fuelled economic empowerment and provided relief during humanitarian crises.
Yet, Trump’s return could mean a drastic rollback of these commitments. His reinstatement of the controversial “Mexico City Policy” (Global Gag Rule) has already restricted funding for reproductive health programmes, directly impacting maternal and child healthcare across Africa. Moreover, potential cuts to disease control programmes threaten to reverse progress in the fight against malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.
Nigeria on the brink of aid shortfall
Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, has relied on foreign aid to supplement critical sectors. In 2022, the country received nearly $800m in US assistance, with the bulk directed towards health, education and humanitarian relief. However, the World Bank estimates that Nigeria still requires $3tn in infrastructure investment over the next three decades to bridge its development gaps.
Nigeria after US aid slash – The consequences
Healthcare crisis: Nigeria’s HIV/AIDS response is heavily dependent on foreign funding. The Presidential Emergency Plan for Aids Relief alone has provided over $7bn since 2003, saving millions of lives. A reduction in aid could increase the mortality rate and overwhelm local health systems.
Rising security threats: The US has been a key partner in Nigeria’s counter-terrorism efforts, particularly against Boko Haram. A cut in security aid could weaken Nigeria’s military response, exacerbating violence and displacements.
Economic fallout: With an unemployment rate of around 33 per cent, Nigeria cannot afford further economic disruptions. Aid-funded programmes have created jobs in healthcare, education and social services – sectors that could see massive layoffs if funding dries up.
Education setbacks: The US aid has provided scholarships, teacher training and emergency education for displaced populations. Without this support, access to quality education could decline, widening the poverty gap.
Can Nigeria bridge the gap?
Nigeria has implemented many home-grown social security programmes, but their scale remains limited. Initiatives like the National Social Investment Programme and the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme aim to reduce poverty and boost entrepreneurship. However, inconsistent funding and mismanagement hindered their full potential.
The private sector and philanthropists have supported development efforts, but their contributions remain fragmented. Unlike in countries where businesses play a strong role in national development, Nigerian corporate giving is largely unstructured, with Corporate Social Responsibility efforts lacking sustainability and scale.
Call to action: Strengthening local capacity
With foreign aid in jeopardy, Nigeria must act swiftly to create sustainable, homegrown solutions. This means:
Empowering local NGOs: Indigenous organisations with deep community ties must receive greater financial support to drive long-term impact.
Increasing private sector engagement: Nigerian businesses should scale up CSR initiatives to support healthcare, education and economic empowerment.
Building PPPs: Government and businesses must collaborate to fund large-scale development programmes.
Strengthening domestic fundraising: Establishing national endowment funds for health and education can create a financial buffer against international funding cuts.
One organisation leading the charge is Friends of the Environment. It has been at the forefront of clean energy advocacy, environmental sustainability and youth capacity building.
Its initiatives, ranging from transitioning households to cleaner energy to planting over 1,500 trees in local communities, showcase how local organisations can drive meaningful change. With increased funding, FOTE and similar groups could help Nigeria chart a new course towards self-reliance.
The road ahead: Seizing the opportunity for independence
The potential withdrawal of US aid presents both a crisis and a clarion call. While it threatens progress in crucial sectors, it also offers Nigeria a chance to redefine its development strategy. By prioritising local funding mechanisms, fostering stronger partnerships and strengthening community-driven initiatives, Nigeria can reduce its dependence on foreign aid and build a more resilient future.
The time to act is now!
– Adesokan is the Executive Director, Friends of the Environment.
United States President Donald Trump said yesterday that Elon Musk, who is presiding over a purge of American government jobs, will help find “hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud” in federal agencies.
Speaking in a Fox News interview set to air before the Super Bowl, Trump said the American people “want me to find” waste and that Musk, the world’s richest man and the leader of the president’s cost-cutting efforts, has been “a great help” in rooting out unnecessary spending.
“We’re going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse. And, you know, the people elected me on that,” Trump said in interview excerpts released by Fox.
The president over his three weeks in office has unleashed a flurry of executive orders aimed at slashing federal spending.
He appointed the South Africa-born SpaceX and Tesla boss to lead his federal cost-cutting efforts under the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
But, while the administration has highlighted several government projects Trump believes should be ended or curtailed, evidence of widespread illegal fraud has not been presented.
Musk, a top Trump donor and ally, has already taken unprecedented steps to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, laying off thousands of employees. The DOGE reform team also has triggered alarm among critics by gaining access through the U.S. Treasury to the personal and financial data of millions of Americans.
On Friday a federal judge ordered a temporary pause to the administration’s plan to put 2,200 USAID workers on paid leave.
A day later, another U.S. judge issued an emergency order blocking DOGE from accessing Treasury Department payment systems that contain Americans’ sensitive data.
Trump said in his interview that over the next day or so he will order Musk to turn his government scalpel to the Department of Education, a frequent target of Republican ire.
“Then I’m going to go to the military,” Trump said, reiterating his call for a review of spending at the Pentagon, whose budget totals some $850 billion.
Musk’s role faces criticism in part because his companies have had billions of dollars in contracts with the US government – more than $20 billion, according to House Democrat Mark Pocan.Asked whether he trusts Musk to fairly root out wasteful spending, Trump appeared to assert that the wealthy entrepreneur and his businesses are not benefiting financially through Musk’s work with DOGE.
United States President Donald Trump said he has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin by telephone about ending the war in Ukraine, the New York Post reported, the first known direct conversation between Putin and an American president since early 2022.
Trump, who has promised to end the war in Ukraine, but has not yet set out in public how he would do so, last week said that the war was a bloodbath and that his team had had “some very good talks.”
In an interview aboard Air Force One on Friday Trump told the New York Post that he had “better not say,” when asked how many times he and Putin had spoken.
Putin “wants to see people stop dying,” Trump told the paper.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment outside normal business hours.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov yesterday told the TASS state news agency that “many different communications are emerging.”
“These communications are conducted through different channels,” Peskov said when asked by TASS to comment directly on the report. “I personally may not know something, be unaware of something. Therefore, in this case, I can neither confirm nor deny it.”
Putin sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, calling it a “special military operation” to protect Russian speakers in Ukraine and counter what he said was a grave threat to Russia from potential Ukrainian membership of NATO.
It is a ‘doom’ that was foretold, but America made its choice. Now the world, including a large segment of Americans, quakes from the tremor of his bullish swag. United States President Donald Trump is barely a month into his new term, but he has been a wrecking ball demolishing the global order as it was known, and stretching the constitutional borders of his own country’s governance model with imperial fiats. Call him the disruptor-in-chief and you wouldn’t be far off the mark.
For a country that for ages was perceived as some refuge for all shades of fugitives excepting criminal ones, Trump came into office promising the largest deportations of aliens the world has ever seen. He’s been making good on his word. Going by way of executive orders, he has seen to it that many thousands of migrants were airbused away from the ‘land of liberty’ in chains and dehumanised. No fewer than 3,690 Nigerians are marked for that treatment according to a document from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, which cited Nigeria as having the second largest African population facing deportation. Somalia has the highest number with 4,090 citizens, while Ghana holds the third place with 3,228 nationals.
Trump says the crackdown is against illegal immigration, but there are indications he has his sight set on a much wider target including genuine asylum seekers. And he is pushing to bypass the niceties of judicial arbitration and due process for which his country is famed. After taking office on 20th January, he ordered U.S. military and immigration officials to be ready to implement the 1798 Alien Enemies Act – a World War II enactment he invoked ostensibly to deport without court hearings immigrants accused of crime. But only ostensibly, because while the Act offers a leeway for rapid deportation of migrants deemed part of an “invasion or predatory incursion,” it also provides potential cover to sweep in people not charged with any crime. The policy option is almost certainly headed for legal challenges, though.
Not that Trump would be dissuaded by legal challenges. On the day he took the oath as the 47th US president, he signed a raft of executive orders including one that sought to revoke birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants. Birthright citizenship is protected by the 14th Amendment and the executive order was temporarily blocked by a US federal judge who held it “blatantly unconstitutional.” But that hasn’t stopped the American leader from hardline policy drives. In a supercharged clampdown, he empowered immigration officials to raid hitherto insulated places like schools, churches and hospitals. Again, he has faced multiple contestations by civil and immigrant rights groups and will have to contend with overwhelmed immigration courts where asylum cases can take years to resolve. Court cases are being plied, only they simply can’t keep pace with Trump.
Meanwhile, the American leader has expanded a fast-track deportation process known as ‘expedited removal.’ But this applies only to persons whose stay in the US is two years or under, and it still gives migrants an opening to pursue asylum. He is staging a more deliberate strategy, unlike his first term when he blocked entry by travelers from majority-Muslim countries and caused chaos in airports worldwide. That, perhaps, because he’s had a four-year hiatus to think through.
Another front where Trump’s disruption has altered the historical American persona is global humanitarian aid. The new administration in Washington imposed an aid freeze and gutted the implementing arm, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) – pulling the curtains on decades of American ‘soft power’ through humanitarian intervention in needy nations across continents of the world including Africa. Just so we are clear, Nigeria used to be a beneficiary nation.
United Nations (UN) records showed that the US accounted for about 47 percent of global aid, making it the largest provider of humanitarian assistance globally. Even then, American analysts noted that international humanitarian support constituted less than one percent of that country’s national budget. Since it was established by Congress in 1961, USAID “has brought lifesaving medicines, food. clean water, assistance for farmers, kept women and girls safe, promoted peace, and so much more over the decades, all for less than one percent of our federal budget,” Oxfam America President Abby Maxman was reported saying in a statement.
Trump’s aid freeze is pulling the brakes on all that. Among others, there were reports of feeding programmes being shut down in places like war-ravaged Sudan, with food distribution elsewhere halted. Health services and support for medicare efforts like treatment of malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis have been pulled from many African nations, and that includes Nigeria where recent reports said these diseases are yet endemic. “Ending USAID as we know it would undo hard-earned gains in the fight against poverty and humanitarian crisis, and cause long-term, irreparable harm,” Maxman warned.
But there may well be something to thank Trump for, because his brash tackle on historical American largesse is forcing nations like Nigeria to become responsibly responsive. The American aid freeze formed part of discussions at the meeting of the Federal Executive Council, last week, where the Bola Tinubu presidency approved N4.8billion to support HIV treatment in Nigeria. Health Minister Professor Muhammad Ali Pate told journalists that while government looked forward to continuing constructive relationship and partnership with the US, it was also looking inward to applying domestic financing and other sources of funding “to ensure that those who are in treatment do not lose the treatment that they are already on.”
The Trump turbulence is rocking Americans themselves, like in agencies of the US government where bureaucrats are being knocked out of jobs in a cost-cutting drive as the new power in Washington claws back spending already approved by Congress. The turbulence is also buckling the world order and busting international trade pacts. Nowhere is the turbulence felt more fiercely, for instance, than in international trade where the American leader has declared serial tariff wars. Shortly after returning to the White House, he called a trade war with his country’s immediate neighbours – Canada on the northern border and Mexico to the south – as well as new superpower rival, China. He threatened a punishing 25 percent tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico allegedly for not strengthening their borders against influx of immigrants to the US, and for cross-border circulation of fentanyl – an illicit drug that reportedly has killed tens of millions of Americans. China was marked for additional 10 percent tariff on its goods for alleged unfair balance of trade. Those three countries are the top US trading partners, accounting for 40 percent of goods imported into the US last year.
And that wasn’t all. Trump hinted the European Union (EU) could be next to face punishing tariffs after he gets done with Canada, Mexico and China. Speaking when he arrived into Maryland from Florida early last week, he said harsh tariffs on EU goods imported into the US could happen “pretty soon” because “they don’t take our cars, they don’t take our farm products, they take almost nothing and we take everything from them – millions of cars, tremendous amounts of food and farm products.”
On their part, Canada, Mexico and China vowed swift and commensurate measures in retaliation to Trump’s tariffs if he went ahead. “It’s not what we want, but if he moves forward, we will also act,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said while seeking to assure Washington that action was being taken to address concerns about the borders. The catch: if US imports from Canada and Mexico are hit with levies, it risks undermining Trump’s promise to bring down the cost of living for Americans. The tariffs he threatened were to take effect last Tuesday, but he announced pre-emptive reprieve, saying he’d won major concessions from the two countries. “As President, it is my responsibility to ensure the safety of ALL Americans, and I am doing just that,” he wrote on Truth Social after putting the tariffs on hold for 30 days to see how the “deals” play out.
The latest whim of the American leader is the possibility of taking over Gaza Strip in the Middle-East and turning it into some high end seaside resort after relocating the about two million indigenous Palestinian population. The idea, which plays well into his land grab fancies and makes what Russia’s Vladimir Putin is doing in Ukraine look saintly, was aired when he hosted Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Washington last week. It was not an idle coincidence, obviously, that Netanyahu will be a chief enabler and conspirator in the territorial dispossession of Gazarians. At 78, Trump has proven the point that age isn’t a shackle. What is left is enshrining a reputation as the Bully of America.
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