On Wednesday, 10 December, US President Donald Trump bragged to the White House press corps of his administration’s latest triumph. “We just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela,” he said. “A very large one — largest one ever seized, actually.”
The vessel was carrying oil from one heavily sanctioned, sovereign Latin American state to another — from Venezuela to Cuba. A literal lifeline between two nations was cut off by a foreign power claiming, without shame, the right to confiscate its cargo.
Venezuela’s government denounced the seizure as “blatant theft and an act of international piracy.” When asked what would become of the stolen oil, Trump grinned: “Well, we keep it, I guess.”
In the Caribbean Sea, we can see the Reactionary International find its most brazen expression: lawlessness as prerogative, theft as policy, and the naked exercise of imperial power advertised proudly rather than concealed. What distinguishes Trump and his cohort is not their behaviour — but their honesty about it.
As Trump’s ally and fellow oligarch, Elon Musk, once put it, “We coup whoever we want.” He posted the line following the 2019 US-backed coup in Bolivia, whose lithium reserves were coveted by the corporations he champions — and later bought the platform on which he said it, transforming one of the world’s central spaces of public communication into a megaphone for far-right, plutocratic politics.
For this fraternity of billionaires, reality itself is something to be manufactured. Truth is not something established from facts, but something asserted from wealth and by force. Trump, for example, has now embraced the white supremacist conspiracy theory of a “white genocide” in South Africa — a country whose real “crime,” in the eyes of the Reactionary International, is taking Israel to the International Court of Justice to face genocide charges for its assault on Gaza.
His interest is not philosophical. Trump is entwined with wealthy right-wing networks in South Africa — from Musk to apartheid-era sporting ambassador Gary Player, his longtime friend and golf partner. Their shared politics meet their shared interests.
And the network extends further. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is the heir to a family embedded in Israeli elite politics. So close is the relationship that Benjamin Netanyahu has stayed in Kushner’s childhood bedroom during visits to New York. Trump’s West Asia policy — from moving the US embassy to Jerusalem to blessing Netanyahu’s most extreme ambitions — was forged inside this personal-political-wealth nexus.
That nexus was on full display when Trump addressed the Knesset this year, boasting that “if it weren’t for Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, we would never have moved the embassy to Jerusalem,” and assuring lawmakers that Israel’s future depended on the kind of “tough Jews” the Adelsons represented. It was a confession: US policy is shaped not by laws or principles, but by billionaires and their demands.
Across the Americas, the same network is on the move. In Argentina, Trump intervened directly to assist President Javier Milei — offering to facilitate a bailout only if Milei’s coalition won key municipal races. In Honduras, he openly backed the conservative candidate — and pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, the former Honduran president and convicted drug trafficker.
So much for the “war on drugs.” The same hypocrisy appears in Ecuador, where the business empire of the family of President Noboa — now a central US ally — is enmeshed in scandals linking its operations to the drug trade through the port of Guayaquil.
These are not isolated scandals. They are evidence of a single political reality: the Reactionary International exists to defend the wealth and privilege of a tiny global elite — by any means necessary.
And the stakes could not be clearer. The World Inequality Report 2026 — published this week and introduced by Progressive International Council member Jayati Ghosh — reveals that the wealthiest 0.001% now hold three times the wealth of the bottom half of humanity. Just 56,000 individuals hold three times more wealth than 4 billion people.
This is what Trump meant when he boasted the tanker “was seized for a very good reason.” They fight hard to protect the obscene wealth of the very few.
But the more violent and brazen this international becomes, the more resistance it generates. And that resistance needs coordination, strategy, and solidarity.
This month, we are celebrating five years of the Progressive International — five years of building an internationalism powerful enough to confront the Reactionary one.
Five years of fending off coups, defeating Peter Thiel’s crypto-bros, defending the Amazon rainforest against Bolsonaro’s ecocidal project, and defending workers at the other Amazon against exploitation.
We have made this beautiful webpage to mark the occasion and invite our friends, comrades, and supporters to mark this anniversary with us — and, if they can, to make a monthly contribution to sustain our work for the next five years.
Together, we fight for land, bread, and peace — to forge a new international order of liberation, freedom, and dignity.
In solidarity for that struggle ahead.
From the story of the British women who stopped the supply of Hawker fighter jets to East Timor to the establishment of the East India Company, the 2026 Internationalism Calendar features 12 chapters of struggle, victory and defeat. Order your stunning 2026 wall calendar today.
The Hague Group is coming to Cape Town on 15 December. From South Africa to Indonesia, Malaysia to Colombia, governments are coming together to halt the Gaza genocide.
Speakers include: Naledi Pandor, Former Foreign Minister of South Africa, Zane Dangor, Director General of the Department of International Relations of South Africa, Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla, Executive Secretary of The Hague Group, Saleh Hijazi, BDS Movement’s Apartheid-Free Policy Coordinator, Guillaume Long, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador, and Clara López, former Minister of Labour of Colombia and former Mayor of Bogotá. Find out more and book your place here.
On International Volunteer Day, 8 December and every day, we honour and celebrate the extraordinary volunteer translators who make the Progressive International’s work accessible to communities worldwide. Our translators generously donate their time and skills to translate important stories, investigations, and political analyses, ensuring that our messages are conveyed accurately, sensitively, and with integrity in different languages. Their dedication strengthens our collective efforts, broadens our reach, and maintains our movement's international and decolonial character. To every translator who has contributed this year, thank you. Your work is seen, valued, and essential. If you would like to join our volunteer translation team, please complete this short survey.
The Kuwaiti Progressive Movement has published an analysis of the US National Security Strategy, warning that it threatens Kuwait’s own security. Instead, the KPM argues for abandoning dependence on the U.S.-led global order and instead pursuing an independent, sovereign path rooted in internal democratic cohesion, regional good-neighborliness, and Arab solidarity. It advocates building a new economic and security orientation—through regional cooperation, full engagement with blocs like BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and a diversified, productive national economy—to safeguard Kuwait’s security and autonomy.
