From erasing the stories of Navajo “code talkers” on the Pentagon website to demolishing a “Black Lives Matter” mural in Washington, President Donald Trump’s assault on diversity across the United States government is dismantling decades of racial justice programs.Delivering on a campaign promise, the Republican billionaire made it one of his first acts in office to terminate all federal government diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, which he said led to “illegal and immoral discrimination.”The crackdown on DEI initiatives at the Pentagon has been broad, ranging from a ban on recruiting transgender troops — a move stayed by a court this week — to removing vast troves of documents and images from its website.Earlier this month, Civil War historian Kevin M. Levin reported that Arlington National Cemetery had begun to wipe its website of the histories of Black, Hispanic and women war veterans. “It’s a sad day when our own military is forced to turn its back on sharing the stories of the brave men and women, who have served this country with honor,” Levin wrote on his Substack.”This insanity must stop.”- ‘Woke cultural Marxism’ -References to war heroes, military firsts, and even notable African Americans were among the swathe of images and articles marked for deletion, according to a database obtained by the Associated Press.Among the more than 26,000 items marked to be removed were references to the Enola Gay, the US aircraft that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 — apparently because the plane’s name triggered a digital search for word associated with LGBT inclusion.   Other content removed by the Pentagon included stories on the Tuskegee Airmen, who were the first African American military aviators, and baseball legend and veteran Jackie Robinson. Responding to a question on those and other removals, the Pentagon on Wednesday said it saluted the individuals, but refused to see “them through the prism of immutable characteristics.””(DEI) is a form of Woke cultural Marxism that Divides the force, Erodes unit cohesion and Interferes with the services’ core warfighting mission,” said Pentagon Press Secretary John Ullyot.He added that in “rare cases” that content was removed that should not have been, it would be restored — as was the case with the articles on Robinson and on Navajo “code talkers” — but defiantly stood by the purge as a whole. – ‘Erase history’ -Not everyone has been convinced by the Pentagon’s explanations around the purge.Descendants of the Native Americans who played a vital role for US forces in World War II said they had been shocked to discover their ancestors’ heroic contributions had been effectively deleted from the public record.”I definitely see it as an attempt to erase the history of people of color in general,” said Zonnie Gorman, daughter of military veteran Carl Gorman. Carl Gorman was one of the young Navajo “code talkers” recruited by the US Navy in 1942 to test the use of their Indigenous language, whose complex structure made it an almost impossible-to-crack wartime code.Several web pages detailing the role of the group, whose contribution was key to the United States’ victories in the Pacific between 1942 and 1945 in battles such as Iwo Jima, recently disappeared from the Pentagon’s site.For Gorman, a historian, the action was an insult.”From the very beginning, we are very invisible in this country, and so to have a story that was so well recognized for us as Indigenous people, that felt good,” she told AFP.”And then this is like a slap in the face.”- Chilling effect -The US president’s move to end DEI programs has also affected more than just the federal government.Since he won last year’s election, several major US corporations — including Google, Meta, Amazon and McDonalds — have either entirely scrapped or dramatically scaled back their DEI programs. According to the New York Times, the number of companies on the S&P 500 that used the words “diversity, equity and inclusion” in company filings had fallen nearly 60 percent compared to 2024.The American Civil Liberties Union says Trump’s policies have taken a “‘shock and awe’ approach that upends longstanding, bipartisan federal policy meant to open doors that had been unfairly closed.”US federal anti-discrimination programs were born of the 1960s civil rights struggle, mainly led by Black Americans, for equality and justice after hundreds of years of slavery, whose abolition in 1865 saw other institutional forms of racism enforced.Today, Black Americans and other minorities continue to disproportionately face police violence, incarceration, poverty, homelessness and hate crimes, according to official data.

President Donald Trump’s administration advanced another major US natural gas export project on Wednesday, handing oil companies a win the same day as a White House meeting with industry executives.The Energy Department approved an export authorization for the Venture Global CP2 liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, drawing praise from business groups and withering criticism from environmentalists.The project is the fifth major LNG export venture progressed since Trump returned to the White House, the Department of Energy said in a news release.Energy Secretary Chris Wright touted the project following the late-afternoon White House meeting, which included the CEOs of ExxonMobil, Chevron and other oil giants, according to US media.”We want to bring low cost, affordable, reliable, secure energy to Americans and our allies around the world,” said Wright, who slammed former president Joe Biden’s administration for suspending LNG expansions over environmental concerns.The White House meeting comes as uncertainty around Trump’s trade tariffs and threats stokes concerns about the economy slowing.The oil industry has kept a muted public stance on Trump’s myriad tariff actions, while privately expressing misgivings about the policy.Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told reporters that dialogue on tariffs was “ongoing,” while downplaying the chances that there will be a significant economic impact.Burgum and Wright said they were committed to streamlining permitting of new petroleum projects, addressing the industry’s criticism about lengthy delays due to protests from environmental groups.Environmentalists have attacked projects like the CP2 LNG venture because of the increased pollution affecting communities near such industrial sites, while slamming LNG as exacerbating climate change.”The Trump administration’s conditional approval of CP2 illustrates everything that’s wrong with Trump’s fossil fuel agenda,” said Allie Rosenbluth, US campaign manager for Oil Change International.”It comes on the same day as Trump welcomes oil and gas industry donors to the White House to brag about the favors he’s done them -– clear evidence of who this administration actually serves.”Mahyar Sorour of the Sierra Club called the latest LNG project approval “a disaster for local communities devastated by pollution, American consumers who will face higher costs, and the global climate crisis that will be supercharged by the project’s emissions.”

The US Federal Reserve paused interest rate cuts again on Wednesday and warned of increased economic uncertainty as it seeks to navigate an economy unnerved by President Donald Trump’s stop-start tariff rollout.Policymakers voted to hold the US central bank’s key lending rate at between 4.25 percent and 4.50 percent, the Fed announced in a statement. They also cut their growth forecast for 2025 and hiked their inflation outlook, while still penciling in two rate cuts this year — in line with their previous forecast in December.”Uncertainty today is unusually elevated,” Fed chair Jerome Powell told reporters after the US central bank’s decision was published, adding that at least part of a recent rise in inflation was down to tariffs.All three major Wall Street indices closed higher on the news, while government bond yields fell after the Fed announced it would slow down the rate at which it is reducing its balance sheet, which swelled during the pandemic. In an unusual move, Fed governor Christopher Waller opposed the Fed’s rate decision because of his colleagues’ support for slowing down the pace at which it is shrinking the balance sheet. – ‘Unclear’ tariff policy -Since returning to office in January, Trump has ramped up levies on top trading partners including China, Canada and Mexico — only to roll some of them back — and threatened to impose reciprocal measures on other countries.Many analysts fear Trump’s economic policies could push up inflation and hamper economic growth, and complicate the Fed’s plans to bring inflation down to its long-term target of two percent while maintaining a healthy labor market.”Everybody knew there was not going to be a rate cut,” Moody’s Analytics economist Matt Colyar told AFP after the Fed’s decision was published. “What has changed is the kind of broader economic environment, mostly coming out of chaotic policy coming from DC.”Until fairly recently, the hard economic data pointed to a robust American economy, with the Fed’s favored inflation measure showing a 2.5 percent rise in the year to January — above target but down sharply from a four-decade high in 2022.Economic growth was relatively robust through the end of 2024, while the labor market has remained quite strong, with healthy levels of job creation and the unemployment rate hovering close to historic lows. But the mood has shifted in the weeks since Trump returned to the White House, with inflation expectations rising and financial markets tumbling amid his on-again, off-again rollout of tariffs. – Recession risk up -In updated economic forecasts published Wednesday, Fed policymakers sharply cut their growth forecast for this year to 1.7 percent, down from 2.1 percent in the last economic outlook in December. They also downgraded their outlook for growth next year, while raising their forecast for headline inflation in both 2025 and 2026.  But they kept their rate cut predictions largely unchanged, penciling in two rate cuts this year and next, in line with their previous forecast.Powell told reporters that the risk of recession in the United States had risen slightly in recent weeks, but was not yet a cause for concern.”If you go back two months, people were saying that the likelihood of a recession was extremely low,” he said. “It has moved up but it’s not high.”At the White House, which sits a short walk from the Fed’s Washington headquarters, Trump’s National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett took questions about the Fed chair’s press conference.”I try not to cherry pick things that chairman Powell said,” he told reporters. “And I think that chairman Powell is clear that if there were a tariff effect, it’s a transitory one.” “What gets tariffed and not is something that you’ll have complete clarity on on April 2,” he added, referring to the date at which Trump has said he intends to impose retaliatory levies on US trading partners.