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Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice:

News broke yesterday that the United States and Iran have reached some sort of agreement that may or may not end President Trump’s disastrous war. Details remained scant as this newsletter was finalized Sunday evening, but significantly, Trump wasted no time moving the goalposts on when the Strait of Hormuz will reopen. Trump, of course, has claimed to be on the verge of a peace deal dozens of times before, only to back away when he realizes that ending the war inevitably means admitting the US lost.

It’s notable that the administration has been very leery of revealing the actual details of the agreement to the public. But it appears to involve the United Arab Emirates unlocking billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets, which is especially humiliating since Republicans have raged for more than a decade about the Obama administration releasing a measly $1.7 billion in Iranian assets to secure a nuclear agreement. To add insult to injury, it’s unclear that Iran will commit to ending its nuclear program; it has agreed to continue to talk about it over the next 60 days, but nothing more. All Trump seems to really be getting is a pinky swear that the Strait of Hormuz will open at some point in the future — which was open before the war started, and which Iran can now close again whenever it’s threatened or wants concessions.

Iran’s victory has been a disaster for the US. The shuttering of the strait has pushed gas and fertilizer prices into the stratosphere and inflation hit a three-year high this month. US credibility globally has been shredded. But the worst effects of Trump’s viciously erratic foreign policy have been born by those subjected to it overseas. Americans are, like everyone, mostly focused on their own worries — worries which now include a seemingly endless fascist assault on our liberty and lives. But the bloodiest and most painful costs of fascism are inflicted on the fascist’s neighbors, and when you’re talking about a global power like the US, “neighbors” here means “everyone on earth.” Authoritarians disregard the voices and needs of their own people, but they are even less constrained when they deal with people that are not their own. If you want to see what Trump would like to do at home, you have only to look to the misery he has unleashed in Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and Africa. It’s a bleak and terrifying picture.

War crimes in Iran

Trump’s unprovoked attack on Iran is itself an illegal war of aggression under international law. In addition, the war has been conducted with breathtaking disregard for the rules of war and little concern about civilian casualties. The war began in February with a horrific bombing of an Iranian girls’ school. More than 160 people, most of them children, were killed. US officials have tacitly acknowledged American responsibility, though Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Trump refuse to admit it publicly. Experts estimate that Trump’s unprovoked war on Iran war as led to as many as 10,000 deaths and more than 48,500 injuries across the Middle East. These have mostly occurred in Iran and Lebanon, where Israel launched simultaneous (and ongoing) attacks.

[...]

War crimes in South American waters

The evidence that military leaders ordered war crimes in Iran, and that troops carried out illegal orders, is disturbing. It is not, however, exactly surprising. Since the fall of last year, the US has been carrying out unprovoked strikes on boats in South American and Caribbean waters. As of earlier this month, 200 people have been killed.

[...]

USAID and Cuba

Trump’s shooting adventures are dramatic, illegal, and ugly. But he has done even more damage by demolishing US soft power might in other ways. The first example here occurred at the beginning of Trump’s term. Trump allowed Elon Musk and his supposed efficiency experts at DOGE to illegally shut down USAID programs that provided nutrition and healthcare resources around the globe. By November of last year, experts estimated that the withdrawal of aid had already resulted in 600,000 deaths, of which 400,000 were children. That number is expected to balloon to 14 million dead if aid cuts are not reversed by 2030.

[...]

A danger to us and to the world

Trump’s use of US power to indiscriminately target and immiserate civilians has a huge range of potential downsides for Americans. Experts worry that Iran War may lead to an increase in terrorism in the US — such as a shooting at Old Dominion University this March by a man with ties to Islamic State. Cuts to global disease control have made the US less safe; the recent screwworm infestation in Texas, for example, may have been caused in part by cuts to USAID, which funded screwworm detection and prevention at the US-Mexico border. And when Trump pushes the military to follow illegal orders and accustoms them to participating in war crimes, the domestic threat is very clear.

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Greg Owen at LGBTQ Nation:

In Ghana last week, participants from 20 African nations advanced the latest iteration of the African Inter-Parliamentary “Family, Sovereignty and Values” Charter, a document African rights activists say threatens to dismantle protections for women, girls, and LGBTQ+ people in service of a Christian nationalist worldview. Attendees at the annual conference have set an ambitious goal to realize the document’s illiberal agenda: ratification of the charter by the African Union General Assembly. Organizers hope to take it to the pan-African governmental body next February, where it would be put to a vote. “It is a license to oppose, regress on, or refuse to implement existing commitments on sexual and reproductive health, and on LGBTQ rights,” Gilbert Mitullah, a Kenyan lawyer and board member at Queer African Network, told the Guardian. “That is its operational function, even before any signature is placed on it.”

A comprehensive analysis of the latest charter by the Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA), a pan-African feminist initiative, reveals that authors have distorted legitimate claims around sovereignty and colonialism in service of a neocolonial goal: the end of abortion, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ rights on the continent. It defines a strict two-sex binary, recognizes marriage and family as heterosexual only, and would outlaw comprehensive sexuality education across Africa. “The charter is not a continental instrument that happens to share vocabulary with Western anti-rights groups,” Kenyan lawyer Mitullah asserted. “It is a transplant.” Activists point to the organizers of the annual draft-writing conferences. They say the events are supported, organized, and directed by right-wing American and European Christian nationalist organizations.

According to U.S.-based international reproductive rights organization Ipas, the events have been supported by Family Watch International (FWI), the Arizona-based Christian nationalist group run by co-founder Sharon Slater and designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Slater has repeatedly claimed that the UN and Western donor nations are imposing a “radical sexual rights agenda” on Africans. Writing in the Ghana-based Labari Journal, Professor Jeffrey Haynes of London Metropolitan University called FWI and the Netherlands-based Christian Council International two wealthy and influential Western far-right organizations “behind the African faces and the ‘protection-of-family-values-and-sovereignty’ language” employed in the charter.

Zachary Pleat and Gideon Taaffe at MMFA:

Americans are feeling pain at the pump and elsewhere thanks to the ongoing surge in oil and fuel prices from President Donald Trump’s war on Iran, and local television news stations have been at the forefront of documenting that pain, with even some local stations owned by the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group airing such coverage. Sinclair’s national programming, however, has often applied a Trump-friendly spin while discussing high gas prices, downplaying the increases and suggesting they'll be short-lived. Sinclair’s The National Desk, which airs on more than 70 stations, repeated administration claims early in the war that there would be only a small jump in prices and that the increase would be short-lived, and more recently has hyped seemingly every small drop in prices. And coverage from Sinclair’s Full Measure, which airs weekly on more than 130 stations, has featured a segment attacking California’s energy and environmental policies, much like Fox did, and another segment pushing a promise from Trump that gas prices would soon come down. 

Michael Sainato at The Guardian:

It’s been six months since Claudia first applied to renew her US immigration status – a process that, for the last 14 years, would only take a few weeks. But now, the prolonged delay has put her life on hold. Claudia, who moved to the US when she was four, has maintained legal status as a “Dreamer” with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, which was created in 2012 to protect undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children from deportation.

In December, Claudia submitted her Daca renewal, as she is required to do every two years. Under the Trump administration, a process that typically takes just a few weeks has dragged on for months. The delay has meant years of work she put into her education and starting a career are now at risk because of the lapse in her work authorization. “It feels like a personal attack,” said Claudia, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation given her immigration status. “I renewed on time, completed my biometrics, followed every rule, but I’m still waiting to hear back.”

Cesar, who requested anonymity due to his immigration status, has also been in a six-month limbo over his Daca renewal. After he lost his job in HR, he has been selling burritos on the street to make up for the lost income and has been sharing his story online. “I feel like I lose everything. We grew up here, we built a community here, and we built our lives here. I lost my dream job,” said Cesar, who moved to the US when he was four. “It’s been very hard, especially since I’m not making enough. I’m barely scraping by.” The processing delays come at a time when Daca Dreamers are face growing hostility from the Trump administration. Hundreds of Daca holders have been arrested by federal immigration enforcement and several have been deported over the last year amid the White House’s broader immigration crackdown. Though the White House has said it is targeting immigrants with criminal records, a Guardian analysis from earlier this year found 77% of people who entered deportation proceedings in 2025 had no criminal conviction.

More than 500,000 active Daca recipients reside in the US from nearly 200 different countries. To be eligible for the program, an individual must have entered and resided in the US before 15 June 2007, either in school or have a high school or equivalent degree, and no criminal record. Donald Trump attempted to eliminate the Daca program during his first term, but was ultimately blocked by the supreme court in 2020. Despite the ruling, litigation against Daca is ongoing and the administration has remained focused on targeting program recipients through new work restrictions and processing delays, immigration advocates said.

[...] Along with the processing delays, the Trump administration recently proposed a new rule that would impose new work authorization restrictions on Daca holders, including a requirement that their employer be enrolled in using E-Verify. It also implemented a rule that prohibits Daca holders from obtaining commercial driver’s licenses.