Analysis of: Donald Trump set to welcome Colombian president to White House for talks – US politics live
The Guardian | February 3, 2026
TL;DR
Trump administration attacks courts, immigrants, and universities while hosting Colombia's leftist president—revealing how state power serves capital while managing imperial contradictions. The judicial branch becomes both obstacle and legitimating tool as class war intensifies domestically and abroad.
Analytical Focus:Class Analysis Contradictions Historical Context
This collection of developments from February 2026 reveals the Trump administration operating on multiple fronts to consolidate class power while managing the contradictions inherent in both domestic governance and imperial relations. The attack on Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, the $1 billion demand from Harvard, and the theatrical investigation of the Clintons through the Epstein files all serve distinct but interconnected functions in maintaining capitalist hegemony while redirecting working-class anger toward approved targets. The meeting with Colombian President Gustavo Petro is particularly revealing. Here we see the limits of reformist left governance in the periphery: despite Petro's criticisms of Trump as an 'accomplice to genocide' and his characterization of the Maduro capture as 'kidnapping,' he nonetheless travels to Washington to negotiate 'regional security cooperation and counternarcotics.' The material reality of Colombia's economic dependence on the United States constrains even left-leaning governments, demonstrating how imperial relations persist regardless of ideological differences at the leadership level. Stephen Miller's attack on Judge Ana Reyes—'an unelected judge has ruled that elections, laws and borders don't exist'—represents a growing contradiction within the capitalist state itself. The judiciary, traditionally a stabilizing institution that legitimates state power through procedural formality, is increasingly framed as an obstacle by an executive branch pursuing more naked expressions of class rule. This tension between different state apparatuses reflects deeper instabilities in the current phase of capitalist governance, where the ideological cover of rule of law conflicts with the administrative needs of disciplining labor and managing surplus populations.
Class Dynamics
Actors: Trump administration (executive state power), Federal judiciary, Haitian TPS holders (immigrant working class), Colombian state/Petro government, Harvard University (elite educational institution), House Republicans (legislative state apparatus), The Clintons (political establishment), Immigration enforcement apparatus, Epstein victims (predominantly working-class women)
Beneficiaries: Immigration enforcement industry and personnel, Private prison and detention contractors, Ruling class factions seeking to delegitimize judicial oversight, Political actors using Epstein investigation for partisan advantage
Harmed Parties: 350,000 Haitian workers facing deportation, Immigrant communities broadly, University workers and students affected by funding cuts, Epstein victims whose names were improperly disclosed, Colombian working class subject to continued narco-militarization
The state apparatus is revealed as internally contested terrain where different branches serve different functions in managing class rule. The executive prioritizes direct coercion and ideological mobilization against immigrants and liberal institutions, while the judiciary maintains formal legal protections that occasionally protect working-class interests. The Epstein investigation demonstrates how ruling-class scandals are managed: partial disclosure satisfies transparency demands while protecting core networks of power. Meanwhile, the US-Colombia relationship shows how imperial power disciplines even nominally left governments through economic leverage.
Material Conditions
Economic Factors: Immigrant labor as essential but disposable workforce, University endowments as accumulated capital subject to political extraction, Drug trade profits flowing through both legal and illegal channels, Detention and deportation as profit centers for private contractors
Haitian TPS holders occupy crucial positions in the US labor force—the judge notably lists a neuroscientist, software engineer, laboratory assistant, economics student, and registered nurse. These are workers whose labor power is extracted by US capital while their legal status remains perpetually precarious, allowing for wage suppression and political scapegoating. The attack on Harvard represents capital-on-capital conflict, where accumulated institutional wealth becomes a target for extraction by state power aligned with different ruling-class factions.
Resources at Stake: $1 billion demanded from Harvard, Labor power of 350,000+ Haitian workers, Colombian cooperation on drug interdiction and regional military operations, Political capital from Epstein investigation spectacle
Historical Context
Precedents: 1990s-2000s US-Colombia Plan Colombia militarization, Historical pattern of using immigration enforcement during economic stress, McCarthyism and attacks on liberal academia, COINTELPRO targeting of Black immigrant communities, Reagan-era TPS implementation and subsequent weaponization
The current moment reflects late-stage neoliberalism's crisis of legitimacy. The Trump administration's attacks on judicial authority echo fascist movements' contempt for liberal proceduralism, while the selective enforcement against immigrants follows the historical pattern of using racialized 'others' as scapegoats during periods of capitalist instability. The US-Colombia relationship continues the century-long pattern of US intervention in Latin America, now complicated by the emergence of left governments that must navigate between popular mandates and imperial constraints. The Epstein affair represents the periodic exposure of ruling-class criminality that is managed through selective prosecution and controlled disclosure rather than systemic accountability.
Contradictions
Primary: The tension between the state's need for immigrant labor and the political utility of anti-immigrant mobilization. Capital requires cheap, precarious workers; political legitimation requires visible enforcement against those same workers.
Secondary: Executive versus judicial power in managing class rule, Reformist left governments in the periphery constrained by imperial economic relations, Transparency rhetoric versus protection of ruling-class networks (Epstein files), Rule of law ideology versus administrative state needs
These contradictions are unlikely to resolve cleanly. The immigration contradiction may intensify as labor shortages conflict with deportation policies, potentially forcing pragmatic accommodations or accelerating economic disruption. The judiciary-executive tension could escalate toward constitutional crisis or be managed through judicial appointments that align the courts with executive priorities. The US-Colombia relationship will likely continue in its contradictory form—rhetorical conflict alongside material cooperation—as both parties need what the other provides.
Global Interconnections
The simultaneity of these events reveals how US domestic and foreign policy serve interconnected class functions. Immigration enforcement disciplines the domestic working class (both immigrant and native-born) while reinforcing imperial hierarchy—Haiti's 'turmoil' that necessitates TPS is itself a product of centuries of colonial extraction and US intervention. Colombia's position illustrates how peripheral nations, even under left governance, remain subordinated to imperial capital flows. The cocaine economy that supposedly justifies US intervention is inseparable from the demand generated by US consumers and the financial channels that launder drug profits through US banks. The attacks on Harvard and the Epstein investigation spectacle serve ideological functions in redirecting class anger. Rather than examining how elite institutions reproduce class privilege or how wealth enables impunity for exploitation, these become culture-war fodder about 'woke ideology' or partisan ammunition against political opponents. The material reality—that institutions like Harvard and networks like Epstein's represent systematic class power—is obscured by framing that individualizes blame and channels resentment into approved directions.
Conclusion
These developments collectively demonstrate that the terrain of class struggle extends across state institutions, national borders, and ideological battlefields simultaneously. For working-class movements, several implications emerge: the defense of immigrant workers is not separate from but central to broader class solidarity; the judiciary offers limited and contingent protections that cannot substitute for organized power; and left governments in dependent nations face structural constraints that electoral politics alone cannot overcome. The contradictions on display—between labor needs and nativist politics, between legal formalism and authoritarian impulses, between imperial demands and peripheral resistance—create openings for organization, but only if movements can connect these seemingly disparate struggles into a coherent challenge to the class relations that produce them.
Suggested Reading
- Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by V.I. Lenin (1917) Lenin's analysis of how advanced capitalism creates hierarchical relations between core and peripheral nations illuminates the structural constraints facing Colombia's left government and the imperial dynamics underlying US immigration policy.
- The State and Revolution by V.I. Lenin (1917) The tensions between judicial and executive power, and Miller's attack on 'unelected judges,' demonstrate the class character of state institutions that Lenin analyzed—the state as instrument of class rule rather than neutral arbiter.
- Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti (1997) Parenti's examination of how fascist movements arise within capitalist democracies and target both liberal institutions and immigrant populations provides historical context for current administration tactics.