On 14 February 2026, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed the Munich Security Conference with an unadulterated declaration of the US’s imperialist agenda. Dressed up in manifest destiny idealism, he made a proposal to the European imperialist powers:
‘We want an alliance that boldly races into the future…An alliance ready to defend our people, to safeguard our interests, and to preserve the freedom of action that allows us to shape our own destiny, not one that exists to operate a global welfare state and atone for the purported sins of past generations. An alliance that does not allow its power to be outsourced, constrained, or subordinated to systems beyond its control. One that does not depend on others for the critical necessities of its national life. And one that does not maintain the polite pretence that our way of life is just one among many, and that asks for permission before it acts.’
For the past year of the Trump administration, the US has made its approach crystal clear. The US will take what it wants and do what it wants according to the needs of its ruling class. The other Western imperialist powers can either cooperate, move out of the way, or get slapped with tariffs as Trump sees fit.
Rubio’s remarks illustrate the nature of the crisis that imperialism faces. ‘Deindustrialization,’ he said, has ‘stripped our nations of their wealth, of their productive capacity, and of their independence…that left us dependent on others for our needs and dangerously vulnerable to crisis.’ He didn’t mince words when laying out what the ruling class will prioritise as it seeks to solve this issue:
‘Commercial space travel and cutting-edge artificial intelligence, industrial automation and flex manufacturing, creating a Western supply chain for critical minerals not vulnerable to extortion from other powers, and a unified effort to compete for market share in the economies of the global South. Together we can not only take back control of our own industries and supply chains, we can prosper in the areas that will define the 21st century.’
This unabated intention to reconquer, redivide and exploit the world is the essence of imperialism, and as inter-imperialist competition has intensified with the crisis, the US has gone on the offensive to obliterate any barrier to its accumulation. Bombing Venezuela and kidnapping President Nicolas Maduro, strangling Cuba with a genocidal blockade, carving up Palestine after two years of genocide, and launching a war on Iran.
Migration is a cornerstone issue
Every ideological position that the ruling class sets out serves as a pretext to this unapologetic pursuit of imperialist domination. This is why Rubio was sure to weave in the war on migrants throughout his Munich address.
‘In a pursuit of a world without borders, we opened our doors to an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies, the continuity of our culture, and the future of our people…[mass migration] was and continues to be a crisis which is transforming and destabilizing societies all across the West.’
These statements came off the back of the brutal Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis and the subsequent massive resistance movement. Since then, the war on migrants in the US has waged on, but the militant anti-ICE movement forced the Trump administration to withdraw and recalibrate its approach. Trump has since made personnel changes in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), replacing the lead of Operation Metro Surge Greg Bovino with veteran ICE hardliner Tom Homman, and firing Kristi Noem as DHS Chief, replacing her with Markwayne Mullin. The widespread resistance to the ICE terror campaign has also stirred up reservations among bourgeois representatives in Congress. In February, the Senate became gridlocked over the proposed budget of DHS for the next fiscal year, throwing the agency into a complete shutdown until it can come to an agreement with at least a 60-40 vote. After nearly a month, this shutdown has caused massive disruptions to airports across the country as more than 400 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees have quit and thousands more have called out of work due to salaries being frozen.
Trump has seized the opportunity of the DHS shutdown crisis, deploying ICE officers to airports across the country to ‘assist’ with airport security amid the shortages. This is yet another extension of Trump’s racist deportation campaign. TSA was created under George W Bush’s presidency one month after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 in order to federalise airport security. The agency has long worked hand-in-glove with immigration enforcement and police to enforce the US’s racist immigration controls and surveillance methods in the name of the ‘war on terror’, but since the Democratic Obama administration, the DHS agencies shifted toward collaboration with ICE to target undocumented migrants. Trump has built on this framework to further his ruthless crackdown.
SAVE America Act
Trump has said that he hopes the shutdown continues until an agreement is reached, not just for DHS funding, but also for the passage of his newly proposed SAVE America Act. Fearmongering over migration has also been the ideological pretext to this legislation as well, which is ultimately aimed at further disenfranchising the working class. Citing ‘widespread voter fraud’, the SAVE America Act will require proof of citizenship when registering to vote and a photo identification at the polls. This legislation will disproportionately target working class, and especially black and Latino working-class people, who cannot easily access or acquire the necessary documentation. Similar tactics have long been used to suppress voting along racial and class lines since the Jim Crow era. Trump boasted that ‘it’ll guarantee the midterms,’ leaving no room for doubt that this is an effort to secure an electoral base by all available means to maintain an illusion of ‘democratic’ legitimacy and stifle any opposition.
Faced with ever sharpening contradictions and attacks, the US working class has a monumental task. The US barrels ahead inflicting terror through its onslaught on Iran, its genocidal blockade on Cuba, the genocide and carving up of Palestine, and the war on migrants. It has done so even without public support, Supreme Court, or congressional approval. The direct and militant response to ICE has once again shown us that a mass resistance in the streets is the only thing that can oppose the ruling class in acting on its every imperialist whim. This is the type of movement that we must fight to defend and build here in Britain.
