Americans have also discovered that, despite the promise to end wars, their country is becoming increasingly embroiled in conflicts they do not fully understand, from which they do not know exactly what they gain, and whose material costs are already weighing on the daily lives of millions. This is one of the great contradictions of Trump. At the end of the day, despite the narrative of a peacemaker and a leader who supposedly no one can oppose, what is observed is a Trump deeply conditioned and, in many ways, manipulable by circumstances. This is, in essence, a war between Israel and Iran, backed by the United States, while Russia and China watch with enormous caution, measuring times and costs without getting directly involved. Trump may exploit fear, but he cannot reverse the demographic, social, and economic reality of his country. Meanwhile, he has ended up embroiled in a war whose strategic dimension he seems to have underestimated. And that component—the fanaticism and radicalization of the conflict—is what makes this 'holy war' even more dangerous. Many Americans wanted to feel proud to be American again and bought the promise that respect, order, and prosperity would return. He presented himself as the man who would end wars, restore national strength, and shield the United States from the chaos of the world. He has increased the cost of living for his citizens, deepened internal division, and returned his country to the center of a spiral of conflict he promised to contain. Last Wednesday, when a light seemed to be on the horizon, Iran rejected the U.S. ceasefire proposal pushed by Donald Trump. But the most serious thing is that Trumpism has made exclusion a method of government and has turned dehumanization into an instrument of political cohesion. Military, energy, economic, and diplomatic balances have shifted in a way that cannot be corrected with a simple truce declaration. The most worrying thing about this war is what it truly demonstrates, what is behind the headlines. The United States is not, and cannot return to be, the homogeneous and pure country that Trump imagines. The combination of political polarization, social fear, racial resentment, and massive private gun ownership are not characteristics of a stable democracy, but a ticking time bomb. That an African American continues to die at the hands of police brutality remains an intolerable tragedy, and worse, a wound that the United States refuses to close. But one thing is to have oil allies, and another to believe that a war can be unleashed in a key region without paying global consequences. And he will not get out of that war easily. But there is one evident thing: even if the war with Iran ended soon, the damage is already done. And when the most powerful democracy on the planet is pushed to its limit, not only Washington trembles... the whole world trembles. The United States, with nearly 350 million inhabitants, drags an unsettling reality. That is the place he occupies today in the history of the world: that of a figure who does not manage a democracy, but pushes it to its breaking point. He does not act like a traditional Republican president, but as someone intoxicated by the idea of personal power without checks and balances, as if democracy were merely an annoying formality between him and his will. If he found a way to strip the November elections of meaning, or to turn an electoral victory into a letter of marque to sweep everything away, he would do it. That is why the situation becomes increasingly unsettling: for him, the only way out is not to lose the November elections; for his adversaries, inside and outside the United States, the only solution is precisely the opposite... that he loses. Trump does not govern like a conventional head of state, but like a man who wishes to place himself above institutions, the balance of powers, and even above the limits that the U.S. system still imposes on him. In this context, Trump has not shown the ability to fulfill what he promised. It is true that today the United States produces more and depends less on the outside than then, but that does not mean it can move the global market without paying costs. That was the risk of pursuing the American dream and longing to walk the streets of Times Square. Nor should one forget the close relationship Washington has cultivated with Mohammed bin Salman. But his presidency has once again shown the opposite: he has not pacified abroad nor ordered things at home. The new Iranian regime, led by Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, responded with its own counter-proposal, which included demands such as war reparations, guarantees against new aggressions, and the assertion of its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. So, what is going to happen? I do not know how tired you, dear reader, are of reading, writing, or hearing about Donald Trump. The 1973–1974 oil crisis made it clear that the West can be vulnerable when oil is used as a political weapon, and that lesson remains valid. That has always been the imperial self-deception: thinking that military muscle neutralizes the laws of economics. The distance between his rhetoric and results keeps growing, and with it, his margin for maneuver narrows. Saudi Arabia remains, according to OPEC, the second country with the largest proven crude oil reserves, only behind Venezuela. It is not so. One of the most uncomfortable lessons of this moment is that you cannot defeat an army that is first willing to lose its life, and that this fate is an acceptable part of its political and religious horizon. But it is impossible to avoid it. His aspiration is not the coexistence of a plural society, but the symbolic restoration of a hierarchical, Aryan, and obedient nation, where anything that sounds different, comes from outside, or challenges the identity he idealizes, is seen as suspicious. However, reality is stronger than fantasy. Immigration policies, particularly actions carried out through ICE, have deepened the climate of pressure, fear, and polarization, while the deterioration of people's pockets becomes a politically explosive fact as the elections approach. That is more than 1 weapon for every inhabitant of the country of the stars and stripes. The names change, the faces change, the official discourses change, but the fracture remains. That a Latino or Mexican migrant dies in the political and cultural machinery that criminalizes immigration shows another equally deep fracture. Even under the hypothesis that the objective was to prevent an Iranian nuclear scenario, what has already been altered in the international system far exceeds that point. However, the underlying problem persists. Today they face another reality: they pay more, live worse, and observe how entire sectors of their economy suffer from the lack of migrant labor that for years supported entire industries. It is enough to see what happens every time the Strait of Hormuz is strained: gasoline and transport prices rise, supply chains are pressured, and inflation gains ground. Internally, tensions are just as clear. No one knows for sure. Every time an American fills their gas tank and notes the price increase, they understand in very concrete terms that foreign adventures are also paid for at home. The United States does not need to desperately seek more oil, although the world market remains extremely sensitive to any serious disturbance in the Middle East. From a distance, but not off the board, there are also actors like Pakistan and India, whose position is part of a broader regional balance that, although not always visible, affects the dynamics of the conflict. The energy factor matters, but it does not explain everything. The 'miserable' justification? It is a nation irreversibly migratory from its origins, deeply diverse and interdependent, and also sustained by millions of Spanish speakers, migrants, and workers of the first, second, third, or fifth generations who are a structural part of its economy, its daily life, and its true identity. I must confess, I am deeply tired of the disproportionately large place that the former New York real estate speculator has come to occupy in contemporary history. According to data from the Small Arms Survey, there are about 393 million firearms in the hands of American civilians. More than 14 years have passed since the death of Trayvon Martin, whose case led to the birth of Black Lives Matter in 2013, and almost six years since the murder of George Floyd.
