"Our Most Urgent Task"

This decision was part of a barrage of executive orders, unleashed hours into Trump’s presidency, that further tore at the international norms that Biden’s administration had already shredded in Gaza. 

The orders paint a grim picture: withdrawal from climate agreements while Caribbean nations face rising seas, the militarization of migration policy, and the designation of cartels as terrorist organizations—new pretexts for cross-border intervention and belligerence. 

The US abandons even the pretense of respecting international law, multilateral institutions, and cooperation—the pillars of a broken international order that, through smirks and clenched teeth, Biden’s administration had pretended to uphold. In their place, Trump articulates a crude and explicit doctrine of submission or punishment: a "New Monroe Doctrine" for the 21st century.

The re-designation of Cuba as a "state sponsor of terrorism" marks just the opening salvo in what promises to be an extended assault on sovereignty across the Americas. This act, coupled with the confirmation of Marco Rubio, a lifelong Cold Warrior, as Secretary of State, signals the emergence of a new, more aggressive posture that threatens the independence and dignity of all peoples in the Americas and beyond. 

No nation that asserts its independence will be immune from pressure, sanctions, or threats of invasion. Under this doctrine of hemispheric control, Panama's strategic canal, Venezuela's oil reserves, Mexico's economic autonomy, Canada's Arctic sovereignty, and even Greenland could all face similar pressures.

Trump’s vision for the Americas echoes the history of the US’s neo-colonial assault on the continent during the Cold War, where nations faced a grim choice: submission to Washington's demands or economic strangulation and political isolation. US dollars turned swathes of the continent into killing fields, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives in the process.

But the world is not what it once was. The tools wielded by the US to subjugate others—from sanctions to dollarization, militarisation to debt—have now become ingredients in its decline. The empire is militarily overextended, financially overleveraged, and ideologically exhausted.  

This moment—a new chapter in the long unmasking of US imperial power—holds both promise and peril. 

The global balance of trade has shifted decisively away from the US. As nations and peoples seek to articulate a sovereign path free from imperial domination, new visions of development emerge alongside institutions increasingly capable of realizing them. There are now new ways to navigate US sanctions—and alternatives to US debt. 

The history of the Americas is rich in resistance to imperial domination. From the triumph of Haiti's revolution to Bolivia's nationalization of its resources, from Cuba's revolution to Mexico's pursuit of oil sovereignty, the Americas have repeatedly demonstrated that unified resistance to imperial control is not only possible—it is powerful. 

It was the sum total of these historic struggles that laid the foundation for the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States' (CELAC) to declare the Americas as a "Zone of Peace", rejecting militarization and foreign intervention in favor of sovereignty and cooperation.

But the present moment also holds great danger. Trump’s vision for the continent is one of retribution: deeper penalties for those who seek development and higher walls for those seeking to escape the underdevelopment to which they have been condemned. 

There is a real possibility that imperialism could suffer a decisive defeat in this century. But it will take the combined and organized force of the world’s peoples—and the guiding light of those, like the people of Cuba, who came before us—to assert a world of sovereignty and peaceful cooperation against imperialism’s futurelessness. That is the most urgent task of our era.

Photo: Twitter