The real reason why we are in a national emergency

It is difficult to remember that only 10 weeks ago, the American economy was quite good, our foreign relations were on the positive whole, we were about to manage climate change with wind and solar energy subsidies, and we still live in a democracy.

Today, everything that disappears. The economy is in acute danger, our relations with traditional allies collapse, we subsidize polluters of fossil fuel and we transform into dictatorship.

This has occurred in part because of the continuous creation by Trump of false national emergencies.

He declared the foreign trade a national emergency and used the international law on the emergency economic powers of 1977 to increase the prices at levels not seen from the 1930 Smoot-Hawley disastrous rate.

During his campaign in 2024, Trump undertook to bring the immediate Americans at lower prices. Scratch that. Americans are now faced at higher prices for cars, grocery stores, clothing and other goods.

He declared immigration to a national emergency and used the national emergency law and the power of war under the law on extraterrestrial enemies of 1798 to authorize mass deportations.

Now no one is safe-not even people legally in the United States, maybe not even American citizens.

Last week, Trump officials admitted that they had made an “administrative error” by removing a man from Maryland whose woman and child are both American citizens and sending her to a notorious prison Salvadorane – despite a court order that he could remain in the United States because he could be confronted with torture in El Salvador. To worsen things, Trump’s regime says he has no power to get him out of this El Salvador prison.

What guarantee do we have that American opponents of Trump will not be removed and sent to Salvador?

Once everything becomes an emergency, there is no background.

All in all, since its entry into office on January 20, 2025, Trump declared six national emergencies, including a “national energy emergency” and an emergency declaration against foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists.

He also declared an emergency to justify his wholesale level of important parties of the federal government and the public service and its virulent attacks against the pillars of civil society – our universities, the media, science, law and the arts.

Trump republished a video saying that he crushed the stock market on Friday on Friday aim – Create a national economic emergency in a “wild failure decision” to “force” the federal reserve to reduce interest rates and refinance a piece of debt by 36 billions of federal government “very much expensive”.

Admittedly, the yields for American treasury tickets, which are a starting point for mortgage loans to companies’ obligations, collapsed last week – because the 10 -year reference treasure has dropped more than 10 base points to a six -month less than 3.9%.

But this is not a cause of celebration. The economic collapse that Trump is that engineering also increases prices and strikes consumers, and it could easily change America (and the world) in a recession.

Meanwhile, while Trump declares the emergency after the emergency to justify his reign of terror, he simultaneously eliminates America’s ability to meet real EMERGENCIES.

Like large expanses of Arkansas, Missouri and Kentucky were underwater, Trump announced that it ended a key program used by communities across the country to help prepare natural disasters such as floods and fires.

By closing the program of the Federal Emergency Management Agency for Building Resilient Infrastructure, Trump cut back funds to alleviate real disasters, such as road farming to keep them away from flood waters or the construction of underground storage units to prepare for droughts.

Don’t be mistaken about what is really going on here. While the United States has many real problems to manage, Trump ignores it to make the false emergencies he needs to expand and centralize his power.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy in Berkeley and former work secretary. His writings are on https://robertreich.substack.com/.