The Latin American Report # 484
The judiciary continues to restrain Donald Trump's aggressive cutback policy. This Friday, a Manhattan judge dealt another blow to the White House by entering a temporary restraining order blocking the decision to reduce the operations of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which has Voice of America as its main program. Judge James Paul Oetken's order also blesses the reactivation of Congress-backed grants funding Cold War-born, U.S.-powered radio broadcasts targeting European and Asian audiences. Oetken blasted the Trump administration's decision as a “classic case of arbitrary and capricious decision making.” The Obama-appointed, openly gay U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York criticized the Republican officials for “taking a sledgehammer to an agency that has been statutorily authorized and funded by Congress,” taking a clear position on whether the Executive is entitled to disregard congressional directives on spending. The Voice of America has a history in Latin America, and particularly became very relevant in the context of the Missile Crisis, when the Kennedy administration decided to direct its medium wave signal to Cuba through transmitters set up on the run at two locations in Florida, a move that violated binding regional treaties of the time.
After the crisis was overcome, one of the transmitters, located on Marathon Key, remained active, and eventually took over broadcasting the Radio Marti programming from 1985 until the middle of this month, when the Trump-backed, Elon Musk-run DOGE arm also reached this Reagan-driven spawn gifted to the increasingly influential Cuban exile community in South Florida. In this regard, I want to highlight here the difference in the way Cuban-Americans dealt with Marti going off the air compared to the other entities associated with USAGM, including VOA. While these went through the judicial process, the intimidating delegation of Cuban-origin representatives limited themselves to careful comments without going against Trump. In the end, they have achieved the reactivation—still limited—of Radio Marti broadcasts—which have not the slightest relevance in the Cuban media ecosystem—and also the resumption of some regime change programs backed by federal funds. I had foreseen this dynamic in a previous report.
Argentina/IMF
The global lender confirmed that a new agreement with Argentina to shore up the aggressive fiscal adjustment program being advanced by Javier Milei's government could be in the neighborhood of $20 billion. The Inter-American Development Bank expressed strong support for the new deal—which now awaits the Executive Board's blessing—and would be among the bodies contributing between 5 and 10 billion dollars more, together with the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Noem's Latam tour has ended
There is an acknowledgement, but the Trump administration makes it clear that it can continue to press on key issues.
Today, I met with @Claudiashein to discuss Mexico’s role in securing the U.S.-Mexico border. Mexico’s deployment of National Guard troops to the border and acceptance of deportation flights is a positive step, but there is still much work to be done to stop the flow of drugs and… pic.twitter.com/WcxknPxyYM
— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) March 28, 2025
There is a very good reason that there is a judicial branch of government, because executive power has clearly historically aggrandized itself and deprecated legislative power. In a republic that would destroy constitutional limitations on government, which chafes every executive, and every legislator, and impedes their assumption of tyrannical power. That is good. That is necessary in a republic, where the inherent sovereignty of individuals is recognized by the foundational constitution, to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the competence of the drafters of that constitution.
No constitution yet is perfect, and the American experiment has serially failed to attain perfection, and lately has descended into something much resembling totalitarian tyranny, as the executive has arrogated to itself power to assassinate sovereign American civilians without any judicial process or legislative authority. When Bush II took captives without judicial process that was blatantly unconstitutional, and torturing them is clearly tyrannical. Obama went further and assassinated American children without even claiming, much less availing due judicial process, there was any fault of the children, much less accusing them of crimes. The belated efforts of the courts today to restrain Trump are not very likely to succeed because the executive has been allowed to run rampant for decades, and the constitutional framework of America is a tattered fantasy unrelated to the actual operations of the USG.
Jefferson rightly pointed out that successful operation of a just government would require occasional revolt and reconstitution of government. He estimated that would be necessary every 20 years, or so, and it has not been done at all for ~250 years. Government in the USA is in woeful condition, and we the people are in dire straits, beset by Fascist Corporatism that has treated us as little more than lab rats and profit centers by mandating jabs that demonstrably alter our DNA and are orders of magnitude more ruinous to our health and well being than even the lab created common cold virus the USG itself paid to craft in an inadequate Chinese lab.
While getting vicious psychopathic criminals that have been literally flown into the country by the deranged operations of the former tyrannical administration out of the country is necessary, it is also necessary that due judicial process precede governmental force. It isn't necessary to the violent criminals that are removed, but the hapless innocents that are mistakenly swept up in the purge. If every captive isn't allowed due process, sovereign Americans will be purged along with the criminals, and only moronic idiots would support that - which they do in droves. However the US Constitution prevents even majority support for such actions from being lawful, and only amending the Constitution with 2/3 of the legislature can enable such a change in operations of the executive, which has not been done by inherently tyrannical executives yet.
A great deal of the operations of the fed.gov are utterly criminal, treasonous, and unlawful, and the courts have been horrifically negligent in reining in such tyranny for decades. I have little hope they will be effective today, despite I wish they would. Lack of fear is not bravery, and idiots that have no fear of tyrannical government turning them into victims aren't brave. They're foolish. America, like every other country in the world, is full of fools and cowards that are failing to stup up and slaughter tyrants and their toadies and minions to restrain government to it's lawful operation, which is why we have a Second Amendment, because that violent correction is necessary to prevent tyrannical oppression. We see that tyrannical oppression has been unrestrained for decades, and is likely to continue unrestrained until it becomes utterly intolerable and impossible to survive at all. Then there will be unrestrained and uncontrollable violence, with little hope that a constitutional republic results from it. We'll likely find out all too soon.
Thanks!