Dear friends,
welcome to the 13th newsletter on and against global authoritarianism in January 2026. The Trump administration's interventions dominate the headlines at the turn of the year, as does the militarization of the US internally, with further deaths resulting from ICE operations. But how are the democratic forces responding?
In our ReGA newsletter, you will find
→ as always, a look at the AfD's foreign policy, especially the appearance of a 20-member AfD delegation in New York City,
→ under Europe's Far Right, we report on how the end of the ‘cordon sanitaire’, the European version of the ‘firewall’, is continuing, this time in France,
→ with our LineaB project, we report on the extreme right in Latin America, focusing on the consequences of the US intervention in Venezuela, but also on Chile and Honduras after the elections,
→ finally, we provide information on upcoming and past events – by and against the right!
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In early January, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a writer and mother of three, in Minneapolis without any apparent provocation. Good had parked her car across a street, apparently participating in protests against brutal ICE raids on migrants. Donald Trump and the US Department of Homeland Security claimed that Good herself was responsible for her death because she had committed “an act of domestic terrorism” and attempted to kill ICE agents with her car. Video footage of the incident completely refutes this version of events.
While countless people in the US continue to protest against the unrestrained racist and authoritarian actions of ICE agents and the US government, Trump issued an executive order withdrawing the US from 66 international treaties and organizations. These include the Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UN organization for gender equality, UN Women, and the UN International Law Commission (ILC) (here is the original government document).
One year after Donald Trump took office, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), which continuously analyzes developments surrounding the Trump administration and Project 2025, takes stock: “Most disturbing is the appointment of avowed extremists to positions of power and the adoption of white nationalist ideas into official policy.” You can read the entire article here on the GPAHE website.
The US intervention in Venezuela, which violates international law, and the abduction of de facto President Nicolás Maduro are seriously undermining the world order based on the rules of (international) law. German Chancellor Merz speaks of a “complex situation,” while the German government and the EU are hesitant to unequivocally condemn the attack under international law. This practice effectively contributes to the “normalization of the breach of law,” explain international law experts Alexander Schwarz and Andreas Schüller from the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in their article in the IPG Journal.
A more detailed assessment of this and the realignment of US policy following its National Security Strategy can be found in an article by Ute Löhning here in this newsletter in our LineaB section.
Geopolitics helps Mercosur agreement achieve breakthrough
It may have been precisely the US's claim to geopolitical hegemony that increased the pressure on some EU states to now approve the free trade agreement between the EU and the Mercosur economic community (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and in future also Bolivia). With a qualified majority of at least 15 of the 27 EU states, representing at least 65 percent of the EU population, the European Council – against the votes of France, Poland, Hungary, Austria, and Ireland – has now approved the agreement after 26 years of negotiations. Von der Leyen and the EPP group had pushed for this, while Italy secured concessions in renegotiations and tipped the balance in favor of the majority. The vote in the EU Parliament on the free trade agreement was suspended without further ado, as reported by euractiv.
This creates one of the largest free trade areas in the world. The automotive, chemical, and mechanical engineering industries in Europe, as well as large agricultural and livestock producers in Latin America, will benefit. European farmers are protesting because they fear they will be unable to compete with Latin America, which can produce more cheaply than the EU.
The Fair World Trade Network criticizes that the EU-Mercosur agreement will lead to massive job losses in Europe, drastically increase greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation, and weaken the rights of indigenous peoples and workers. Bettina Müller, trade advisor at the NGO Power-Shift, criticizes the European Commission for playing “a game of imperial supremacy in global trade with China and the US, in which neither workers nor consumers have anything to gain.” In doing so, she says, it is “adding fuel to the fire of Eurosceptics” by undermining “fundamental democratic principles such as a vote in the European Parliament.”