By El Machete correspondent in the United States.

The protectionist current, once again, has reached the direction of political power in the American Union. This trend, as we had pointed out in a previous article, expresses the interests of monopolistic groups that seek to withdraw from the political, economic and military struggle in the European theater of operations, and prepare the decisive confrontation with capitalist China, strengthening production and the concentration of capital in the United States.

As much as pathetic jingoism and international opportunism present Trump’s administration as an arrival of fascism, and call on progressive and leftist forces, once again, to sacrifice their souls to the “national bourgeoisies” to fight against it, it is evident that, for migrants and the people of the world, the path represented by the Republicans does not offer essential differences with that represented by the Democrats: exploitation, wars and deportations. If that is true for them, it is also true for the working masses of the United States themselves, for whom precariousness and unemployment do not and will not cease to advance.

An example of this is the savage attack suffered by federal State workers just at the beginning of the Trump administration, and the drastic reduction of expenses in said sector is proposed. The reduction of the federal workforce, with the advice of none other than Elon Musk, is proposed as a deferred and “voluntary” process, that is, gradually carried out through the resignation of the worker in exchange for an incentive: the continuation of the payment of his salary until the month of September.

According to the New York Times (“Trump’s federal resignation program…”, February 13, 2025), as of February 6, the closing date for applications to enter the program, only 75,000 workers had accepted the offer, representing 3 percent of the workforce. He continues: “This falls short of the Trump administration’s stated goal of dramatically reducing the size of the federal workforce. In any given year, more than 5 percent of federal workers will retire or leave their jobs, according to federal government data.”

It is clear that federal workers perceive this decision as an attack on their interests and consider the “incentive” offered by the government to be insufficiently cushioning. We will have to be attentive to the actions that the Trump administration will take once its peaceful and conciliatory tactics fail. It should be noted that, until now, even under the conditions of said “peaceful” tactic, North American unions and labor have been overwhelmed and powerless in the face of such a measure, not being considered for any negotiation.

Another immediate attack has been the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. Beyond the fact that the DEI, as a decree, are used as an electoral and populist tool by Democrats, as a practice, they have been a victory for the social movement against discrimination. The IEDs aim to counteract discrimination against the African-American population, migrants, or by virtue of religious profession or sexual orientation, in the exercise of the right to work and the satisfaction of one’s needs. The prohibition of DEI programs – again, with the propaganda and economic support of Elon Musk –, considered either as a decree or as a practice, appears on the surface only as an offensive against civil rights. Hence the opposition to it from democrats and progressives.

However, like the planned cut to the federal workforce, this prohibition has an even deeper meaning: the deregulation of the labor market, or, in other words, the liberalization of the purchase and sale of the workforce, and, consequently, the increase of the industrial reserve army and the reduction of wages. Strengthening local production not only requires labor, but labor at a lower price, and this is achieved by increasing its supply; stripping your purchase of any other criteria other than strictly economic ones.

The IED ban is not only an offensive against vulnerable groups, but, fundamentally, an offensive against the entire working class of the United States. We will, therefore, continue the anti-worker and anti-popular adventures of this new administration.

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