Ben Norton

The historic re-election of Brazil's President Lula is a victory for BRICS, Palestine, the Brazilian working class, and the Global South. It's also a blow to US imperialism, Israel, Brazilian oligarchs, and dollar hegemony. I explain in this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPsz...

It is so widely accepted that the USA is losing the war against Iran that now even prominent neoconservative hawks admit it. They lament that Iran’s victory reflects the decline of US hegemony, and the rise of multipolarity. www.geopoliticaleconomy.report/p/war-hawks-...

Donald Trump visited Beijing alongside the billionaire CEOs of a dozen top US corporations. His failure to pressure China to meet his demands demonstrated how Washington lost the trade war: www.geopoliticaleconomy.report/p/trump-fail...

The US and Israel bombed 20 schools and 13 hospitals in Iran in one week, according to UNICEF. War Secretary Pete Hegseth boasted of unleashing “death and destruction” to provoke societal collapse. Hegseth bragged there are “no stupid rules of engagement”. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2026/03/08/u...

Self-declared “peacemaker” Donald Trump has bombed 10 countries, more than any other US leader. Now he plans to raise the US military budget to $1.5 trillion — nearly the rest of the world’s defense spending combined. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2026/01/25/t...

Donald Trump’s bombing of Venezuela and abduction of President Maduro is part of a larger imperialist plan to impose US hegemony in Latin America, control the region’s natural resources and create a new supply chain that cuts out China. This article explains: geopoliticaleconomy.com/2026/01/05/d...

Donald Trump imposed a naval blockade on Venezuela and admitted that he wants to take its oil and give it to US corporations. In this article, I outlined the strategy and goals of the US colonial war: www.geopoliticaleconomy.report/p/trump-take...

This says everything about politics in 2025: Far-right, pro-US, anti-China candidate José Antonio Kast won Chile's presidential election. Kast, a Trump ally, is a staunch defender of the Pinochet dictatorship, and the son of a German Nazi official. He also is very pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian.

Donald Trump pardoned and freed from prison the drug trafficker Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH), the former dictator of Honduras. The US is openly meddling in the country’s elections, amid serious accusations of fraud. The US backed a coup in Honduras in 2009. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/12/05/t...

I wrote this analysis of the goals behind Donald Trump's attacks on Venezuela and the economic impact of US sanctions. I also explained that, while there are some similarities to the Western regime-change war on Syria, there are also many differences: www.geopoliticaleconomy.report/p/analysis-v...

María Corina Machado -- the far-right US-funded Venezuelan coup leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize -- vowed “massive privatization”, offering to sell off $1.7 trillion of resources to US corporations, if Trump can help her overthrow President Nicolás Maduro. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/11/13/p...

The US is clearly isolated on the world stage: The Trump admin pressured countries to oppose a UN General Assembly resolution calling to end the illegal US embargo against Cuba. Only 7 voted against it. 165 member states (85%) supported the measure. www.geopoliticaleconomy.report/p/embargo-bl...

Trump is clearly losing the trade war with China, which he started. The US economy is vulnerable and much more dependent on China’s than vice versa. The one-year truce Trump made at his meeting with President Xi Jinping proves this. This explains why: www.geopoliticaleconomy.report/p/trump-losi...

Trump is propping up Argentina’s failing libertarian President Javier Milei and his “anarcho-capitalist” experiment with $82 billion in debt. This debt simply can't be paid -- ensuring the IMF and Wall Street will control Argentina's economic policies. www.geopoliticaleconomy.report/p/us-debt-tr...

The US is waging war on Venezuela. Trump authorized CIA "lethal operations" to try to overthrow President Maduro. The US military is killing innocent fishermen, not only from Venezuela but also Colombia and Trinidad. This is international terrorism. www.geopoliticaleconomy.report/p/trump-cia-...

New Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, a US government-funded far-right coup leader, vowed to privatize Venezuela’s oil. US companies will “make a lot of money”, she promised Donald Trump Jr. in an interview. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/10/16/v...

Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado is a far-right Venezuelan coup-plotter funded by the US government. She supports Israel as it commits genocide and is central in Trump’s regime-change war against President Maduro. I collected the evidence: geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/10/13/m...

Leaders from many countries condemned the USA and Israel at the UN General Assembly, demanding international intervention in Gaza to save Palestinians from genocide. Diplomats staged a mass walkout to protest Netanyahu. Latin America led the resistance: geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/10/06/u...

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth gathered generals and encouraged them to commit war crimes and ignore international law. Trump ordered the military to use US cities as “training grounds” to fight the “enemy within”. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/10/03/h...

I had the pleasure of interviewing prominent Chinese academic Zhang Weiwei, a brilliant political theorist. He discussed how China’s political system, and socialist market economy actually work; and how China sees democracy, the USA, and Trump’s trade war. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/08/25/c...

The US government has long tried to recruit India for its new cold war on China. Donald Trump’s tariffs have backfired, encouraging New Delhi to improve its relations with Beijing, strengthening BRICS. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/08/16/t...

Close Trump allies like Steve Bannon say “the president is pissed every time he looks at the BRICS de-dollarization effort”. The US is trying to punish Brazil, because its President Lula da Silva promotes a multipolar world and a new global reserve currency. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/07/14/u...

Donald Trump threatened tariffs on BRICS, claiming the group is “dead”, but it is actually growing. 10 members and 10 partners participated in a BRICS summit in Brazil, discussing dedollarization, decolonization, trade in local currencies, and multipolarity. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/07/10/t...

The war on Iran seeks “US global dominance” and to “weaken China”, said Donald Trump’s former national security advisor, General Mike Flynn. He proudly described how the US is giving Israel substantial intelligence, weapons, and training. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/06/19/t...

US VP JD Vance announced the Trump admin’s “generational shift in [foreign] policy”, emphasizing “great power competition” and preparation for war with China. They focus on “hard power” and “overwhelming force”, returning to 19th century-style imperialism. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/05/31/u...

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivered an extremely hawkish speech in which he demonized China as a “threat” and said, “We are preparing for war” in the Asia-Pacific. He also aggressively told countries in the region to cut their trade with China. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/06/06/p...

Donald Trump wants to save the dominance of the US dollar as the global reserve currency, but his aggressive tariffs and trade war are accelerating dedollarization. Countries and investors are selling US stocks and bonds, seeking alternative reserve assets. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/05/05/t...

US VP JD Vance announced the Trump admin’s “generational shift in [foreign] policy”. He said they’re focusing on “hard power” and “overwhelming force”. It's a return to blatant, 19th century-style imperialism. They're also preparing for war with China. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/05/31/u...

Trump's policies benefit wealthy elites at the expense of everyone else. His admin includes 13 billionaires — including Elon Musk, the world’s richest oligarch — and he is cutting taxes on the rich and corporations while imposing a consumption tax on the poor geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/03/30/p...

The United States is the biggest arms dealer on Earth, responsible for 43% of the world’s weapons exports from 2020 to 2024. The US exported seven times more weapons than China, and five times more than Russia, in the past five years. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/03/13/u...

Argentina’s US-backed libertarian President Javier Milei is using an emergency decree to take a huge loan from the IMF. The self-declared "anarcho-capitalist" is deepening the debt trap that has devastated his country’s economy, fueling high inflation. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/03/10/j...

Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is an extremist self-declared “crusader” who believes the USA is in a “holy war” against China, the left and Islam. “Communist China will fall”, he vowed in his 2020 book “American Crusade”, which calls for a new Crusade geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/03/07/u...

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, is buying the ports on both sides of the Panama Canal, after Donald Trump threatened the Latin American country. The US government has two main goals: hurt China, and help Wall Street oligarchs. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/03/06/t...

The Ukraine “war is about money”, said US Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally. Noting Ukraine has trillions of dollars worth of critical minerals, he promised, “Donald Trump is going to do a deal to ... enrich ourselves with rare earth minerals”. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/11/27/u...

Trump’s fight with Zelensky reflected how the US treats Ukraine as a colony. Trump demands control of its rare earths and critical minerals, to weaken China, re-industrialize, and build tech products. Trump wants to be paid $350 billion: twice Ukraine’s GDP. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/03/02/t...

The Republican-controlled US House passed a new budget that will -boost military spending by $100 billion -cut food stamps & Medicaid -extend tax cuts on the rich -increase the deficit by $3 trillion US priorities: serve the rich, wage war, screw the poor www.stripes.com/theaters/us/...

Trump announced a new policy in which the US will sell “gold cards” for $5 million, so wealthy foreigners can buy permanent residency. All of Trump's policies are part of a class war. He's not against immigration; he's against immigration by *poor people*. www.ft.com/content/d93a...

The US government’s talks with Russia are more about China than Ukraine. Donald Trump admitted he wants to “un-unite” Russia and China, in a reverse of the divide-and-conquer strategy used by Nixon and Kissinger in the 1970s. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/02/24/t...

The blatant corruption and looting in the US today is like what was done to Russia in the 1990s -- except this time, the USA is doing it to itself. Trump green-lighted bribery of foreign officials. He boasted, "It’s going to mean a lot more business for America". www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Big Tech oligarchs in Silicon Valley fear Chinese AI competitors like DeepSeek. Billionaire Trump backer Peter Thiel admits they want monopolies, saying “competition is for losers”. The CEO of a major AI company said the US must maintain a “unipolar world”. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2025/02/03/u...

BRICS keeps expanding, adding 9 partner countries in January 2025, plus 4 new members in 2024. It now makes up half of the global population and 41% of world GDP (PPP). It’s an economic powerhouse, with top producers of oil, gas, grains, meat, & minerals. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/12/25/b...

As Donald Trump prepares to return for his second term as US president, all of his top cabinet candidates are China hawks. He appointed a warmongering neoconservative Iran hawk to lead his State Department transition team. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/11/11/t...

The Western alliance is divided on Israel, after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for PM Netanyahu over crimes against humanity in Gaza. US officials are threatening sanctions on both the ICC and their own allies. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/11/24/w...

China’s state-led economic development model and robust industrial policy has transformed it into what an influential European think tank calls “the world’s sole manufacturing superpower”, making up 35% of global gross production. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/01/31/c...

If Ukraine loses in the NATO proxy war with Russia, “it will be the end of Western hegemony”, lamented former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Meanwhile, the Global South, representing 86% of the world population, has not joined the West. geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/04/24/u...