On Monday 20 January, the first day of his presidency, Donald Trump placed Cuba back on the list of “state-sponsors of terrorism”, just days after Joe Biden removed it.

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.

In response, the Cabinet of the Progressive International published a statement on Friday 24 January. The Cabinet warns that Trumps initial flurry of orders show the US abandoning even the pretence of respecting the pillars of an international order that Biden’s administration had pretended to uphold while trashing. Trump has articulated a crude and explicit doctrine of submission or punishment: a "New Monroe Doctrine" for the 21st century.

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 pressure, sanctions, or threats of invasion.

But, as the statement reminds us, 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.

And so this clarifying new chapter in the long unmasking of US imperial power holds both promise and peril. 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.

Read the full statement here.

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