In a stunning escalation of political overreach, President Donald Trump has done what no American president before him dared: he has declared war—not on a foreign adversary—but on the very states that make up the United States.
In July 2025, the Trump administration issued an executive directive tying federal disaster relief—amounting to over $1.9 billion—to whether states support his hardline pro-Israel stance. New FEMA grant guidelines now stipulate that states implementing even symbolic boycotts of Israeli-linked industries risk losing critical disaster aid. For the first time, access to life-saving relief is contingent upon foreign policy alignment with a foreign state.
Legal scholars have called the move an unprecedented violation of the U.S. federal structure. Commentators across ideological lines have described it as disaster aid being used as a tool of political blackmail. It is a direct assault on state independence in the name of loyalty to a foreign government.
But this is only one front in Trump’s war on America.
His so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, passed last month, slashes Medicaid by nearly $1 trillion, cuts hundreds of billions from SNAP, and imposes strict work-reporting mandates—jeopardizing healthcare access for over 10 million Americans. In rural states like Oklahoma, Alabama, and West Virginia, already-strained hospitals are now at risk of collapse.
On the economic front, a wave of aggressive new tariffs—ranging from 15% to 55%—has hit imports from nearly 70 countries. Canada now faces a 35% tariff, Brazil and Switzerland up to 50%, India 25%, and China some of the steepest in U.S. history. As a result, American households are losing between $2,400 and $3,800 annually due to rising prices on groceries, electronics, clothing, and vehicles.
Despite claims to the contrary, tariffs are not paid by foreign countries—they are paid by American businesses and consumers. Researchers estimate that up to 60% of these costs are passed directly to U.S. households, deepening economic inequality while shielding large multinational corporations with offshore operations.
Financial markets responded with alarm. On August 1, the Dow fell 542 points, the S&P dropped 1.6%, and the Nasdaq plunged 2.2%. Job growth is weakening, inflation is climbing, and investor confidence is evaporating.
Trump’s assault is demographic, too.
Mass deportations are shrinking the U.S. workforce. Undocumented immigrants—who constitute over 75% of California’s agricultural labor—are being rounded up, decimating the $49 billion farming economy. Crop losses this year are estimated at $3 to $7 billion, while produce prices have surged 5–12% nationwide.
The labor shortfall extends far beyond farms. Immigrants make up the backbone of construction, hospitality, and service sectors—jobs most native-born Americans will not fill. Economists estimate that Trump’s immigration crackdown could reduce GDP by as much as $5 trillion over the next decade.
While families struggle with higher food and energy costs, Trump has doubled down on fossil fuel expansion—reversing support for renewables and slashing environmental protections. In the first six months of 2025 alone, wildfires and storms caused $131 billion in damages. Climate-related disasters now cost the U.S. economy nearly $1 trillion annually.
Meanwhile, fossil fuel pollution carries a hidden price tag of $790 billion per year in healthcare costs, lost productivity, and premature deaths—equivalent to 5% of GDP. Reverting to coal and oil will only accelerate climate devastation and economic decline.
Trump’s policies are also threatening the global financial order. The dollar’s dominance is slipping. Central banks’ share of dollar reserves has dropped to 57%, down from 70% two decades ago. BRICS countries are trading in local currencies. China has cut its U.S. Treasury holdings to a 15-year low. And the specter of foreign creditors demanding repayment looms—raising fears of forced asset sales, even of strategic infrastructure.
At the center of it all is Trump’s unwavering support for Israel—at a time when a growing number of Americans are shifting their sympathies toward Palestinians. The atrocities in Gaza—bombardments, starvation, and mass displacement—are no longer hidden from the public. In this climate, Trump’s foreign policy is not only morally indefensible but politically dangerous.
What Trump touts as ‘America First’ is, in reality, a slow-motion dismantling of the republic—economically, institutionally, demographically, and morally.
For now, the pain is felt unevenly. But that will not last.
The middle class is being squeezed, state sovereignty undermined, immigrants scapegoated, and climate resilience abandoned. The reckoning will come not in headlines, but in empty shelves, rising bills, collapsing hospitals, and shuttered schools. And when it arrives, Americans will realize: it wasn’t Russia or China that crippled their nation.
It was a president who declared war on his own people.
