Donald Trump's authoritarian and interventionist drift takes a new leap. After firing tens of thousands of officials, closing agencies such as the development cooperation agency, targeting judges, or threatening to cut funding to dozens of universities, the President of the United States has now focused on private companies. Trump had already used his position against them on several occasions: against retail giants like Walmart to urge them to absorb the losses from his tariff decisions, trying to prevent price increases from affecting their customers; against chip companies like Nvidia, to prevent them from selling advanced products to China; or against tech companies like Apple, to bring back production to the United States.
The president had also broken all norms with an unprecedented campaign of pressures or extortions, which has personally earned him tens of millions of dollars. On one hand, reaching agreements with the owners of all social media networks, from Facebook to Twitter (now X), in lawsuits for having closed his accounts after the Capitol riot. On the other hand, bending major law firms after issuing ad hoc executive orders against some of them, by name, getting them to work for him, his family, or his party for free, in exchange for ceasing his attempts to destroy them from the Oval Office; or television networks needing approval from federal regulators for mergers and paying millions of dollars to settle completely delirious lawsuits. A few days ago, he sued Rupert Murdoch for 10 billion dollars.
In his campaign, Trump labeled price controls as "socialist," "communist," "Marxist," and "fascist," and has used the same rhetoric against the unknown candidate who won the New York mayoral primaries, Zohran Mamdani, who advocates for some form of public food store for the poor and rent control. Without any coherence issues, at the same time, the president has promised price controls for medications and has effectively nationalized the management of U.S. Steel through the back door, authorizing its sale to a Japanese holding, but retaining a "golden share" in perpetuity, practically meaning that there are many things "the company cannot do without the approval of the U.S. president or someone he designates."
But the president's authoritarian drift has reached a new level in recent days. First, using all his power to threaten or protect his international allies. He did so in Israel, with repeated messages against the courts trying Benjamin Netanyahu and hinting at withdrawing military support from the country if his "friend Bibi" is convicted. Trump even sent his ambassador Mike Huckabee to the courtroom to intimidate the judges, a tactic that the Israeli press has described as "mafia-like." He also ordered sanctions against a United Nations rapporteur highly critical of the destruction in Gaza. Or against Brazilian judges, who are judging another friend of his, Jair Bolsonaro.
But now, after deploying the National Guard against the will of the states, celebrating the arrest of a Hispanic senator, and giving free rein to the arrests of immigrants by masked agents without any legal guarantees, he is using his executive power for personal obsessions. For example, ensuring that CBS cancels the flagship evening program due to his hatred for host Stephen Colbert, just as he got ABC to fire journalist Terry Moran after Moran told him in an interview that his statements were untrue and wrote a comment about the White House's chief immigration advisor.
He also tried to get Coca-Cola to change the type of sweetener used in its formula in the United States. Trump, who does not drink alcohol but has a dependency on the red beverage to the extent of having a button on his desk for his assistants to bring him new cans, announced this week that, after "speaking with Coca-Cola about using REAL cane sugar in Coca-Cola in the United States, they have agreed. I want to thank all the authorities at Coca-Cola. It will be a very good decision on their part. You will see. It's just better!" he declared.
While in the United States Coca-Cola is made with high-fructose corn syrup, its Mexican branch is made with cane sugar. The company, in a massive public relations crisis, has not confirmed whether it will alter its production, but that high-fructose corn syrup had been one of the products openly criticized by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in recent months, calling it a "foolproof formula for obesity and diabetes."
The latest example of the drift, while filling his social media with videos fantasizing about the arrest of Barack Obama and top Democratic officials, has been reflected in the last hours with a blatant blackmail of the professional American football league teams, the NFL. The Washington team is the Commanders, using that name since 2020. Previously, they were the historic Redskins, but the franchise made the change because the name had been heavily criticized, amid the wave of protests following George Floyd's murder, for being considered an insult to Native Americans. The owner had resisted for decades, but pressure from sponsors, especially FedEx, was the tipping point.
And now Trump demands that they return to being the Redskins if they do not want his Administration to block a $3.7 billion ambitious real estate operation to build a new stadium, something over which he theoretically has no jurisdiction, as it is an agreement between the team, the city, and Congress, which ceded the land. "The Washington 'whatever' should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to Washington Redskins Football Team. There is a great clamor for it. The same goes for the Cleveland Indians [who changed in 2021], one of the original six baseball teams, with a historic past. Our great indigenous people, en masse, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige are being systematically taken away from them. Times are different now than three or four years ago. We are a country of passion and common sense. OWNERS, DO IT!!!" he wrote on his social media.
Hours later, delighted with the attention but upset because the measure was not received only with applause, the threat came. "My statement about the Washington Redskins has been a disaster, but only in a very positive way. Perhaps I will impose a restriction: if they do not change the original name to Washington Redskins and eliminate the ridiculous nickname of Washington Commanders, I will not make any deal for them to build a stadium in Washington. The team would be much more valuable, and the agreement would be more exciting for everyone. Cleveland should do the same with the Cleveland Indians. The owner of the Cleveland baseball team, Matt Dolan, who is very political, has lost three consecutive elections due to that ridiculous name change. What he doesn't understand is that if he were to change the name back to Cleveland Indians, he could even win an election. The Indians are being treated very unfairly. LET'S MAKE THE INDIANS GREAT AGAIN (MIGA)!", he posted.