The people do not bow to threats and blackmail!
Pro-Palestine protesters clashed with California Highway Patrol officers at the University of California, Los Angeles, in Apr. 2024. (Philip Cheung / The New York Times)
On March 4, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump announced on his propaganda platform, Truth Social, that “All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS!”
Trump is targeting the impetus of student and worker activity that flared into mass protests genocidal attacks of Israel on Gaza, and Palestine as a whole, since Oct. 2023. This threat to cut federal funding to all public and subsidized private education is a direct assault on the political expression of working-class students and families who rely on grants, on public schools, and the like for their basic and higher education. Pair this with the DOGE defunding of federal student loans (FAFSA), and it is clear that the Trump administration, and the sector of the American bourgeoisie who support it, will not tolerate students and workers fighting for their future and a for a better world.
Some may argue that Trump’s statements are merely bluster and bravado meant to appeal to his xenophobic and anti-youth base. However, Republican lawmakers have already made sweeping changes in state legislature all over the country to criminalize certain demonstrations, with Gov. DeSantis of Florida championing a bill in 2021 that has granted civil immunity to people who intentionally drive their car into protesters.
Trump’s decision will only give an encouraging push to many universities that are already expelling students, dismissing faculty, and banning demonstrations. The bourgeoisie do this because they fear the masses. They saw what was accomplished on campuses and in workplaces last year. They see the damage done to their profits by boycotts and divestment, they see the magnitude of support given to the Palestinian people in solidarity, and they cannot tolerate it.
Earlier this week, Trump overrode Congress to send a $3 billion package of “aid” to Israel, on top of having recently approved the sale of bunker-buster munitions, all the while Israel maneuvers to sabotage the belated ceasefire. With the additional $4 billion in military assistance pledged by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, this administration has given nearly $12 billion to Israel in just six weeks since the start of the term. Trump and his regime are moving proactively here to undermine the resurgence of a spontaneous upsurge before it breaks out.
We must remain careful and cautious, but we must never remain silent and inactive. We must compound our outrage and vigilance with the will to organize. The bourgeoisie, regardless of party, fears mass mobilization. The American Party of Labor is prepared with its allies and supporters to carry out the struggle regardless of any threat of reaction.
The people will not bow to threats and blackmail!
We have a world to win!
For the Secretariat,
Camilo Lazo
National Chair, American Party of Labor