Team USA's World Cup Success Is a Direct Rebuke of Trump

Trump's war on birthright citizenship has been undermined by America's World Cup success.

Hi, Raw America family! Welcome to the Sunday Wrapup. I’m sitting here with my cup of coffee, enjoying the World Cup, and gobsmacked at how Trump is trying to destroy the one thing that makes America truly special.

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Team USA’s Star Player Wouldn’t Be American if Trump Had His Way

In the first round of the World Cup’s group stage, Team USA did something unprecedented: One of our players, Folarin Balogun, scored two goals against Paraguay, which is considered the fourth-best team in South America behind Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Retired Team USA soccer standout Alexi Lalas called it the single best Team USA performance in World Cup history.

Here’s what’s remarkable about Balogun: even though he’s a U.S. citizen, he wouldn’t be if Trump succeeded in his attempt to undo birthright citizenship. Balogun’s parents, who are Nigerian, lived in London at the time they took a trip to the U.S. in the summer of 2001.

Flight attendants wouldn’t let Balogun’s mother board her return flight due to her being in the final stages of pregnancy. So she gave birth to Balogun in Brooklyn, New York, on July 3. Now her son — who could have played for either Nigeria or England — will turn 25 as Team USA makes a historic run to World Cup glory.

Balogun’s story is what makes America truly great, and proof that our diversity is our greatest strength. And as much as people around the world have made America the butt of their jokes for decades, tourists in the United States for the World Cup can’t help but fall in love with our warm and friendly people, our breathtaking landscapes and our delicious cuisine. Our foreign visitors are simultaneously giving their own countries a reason to give America a second chance, while giving Americans disenchanted by Trump a reason to once again believe in America’s potential.

Trump’s unprecedented attempt to get the Supreme Court to eliminate birthright citizenship — a core pillar of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — is the antithesis of all of that. It’s based on a closed-minded, hateful worldview that would shut out millions of Americans from becoming a part of what Martin Luther King Jr. referred to as “the beloved community.” One would hope the Supreme Court wouldn’t singlehandedly axe basic rights enshrined in the Constitution, but we also were convinced they wouldn’t make a president into a king above the reach of the law.

This is all part of why we launched Raw America. We need a media free of billionaire and corporate influence to connect the dots and provide the context the legacy media outlets gloss over. If you believe in the power of a truly free press that can accurately report on what’s happening without having to soften their coverage for a billionaire owner, take a moment to upgrade your free Raw America subscription to a paying one.

Italian Leader Cancels Trip to U.S. Over Trump’s Comments About Prime Minister

While Team USA exhibits the best of what America has to offer, Trump is embodying the worst. And his comment about a foreign leader only adds to our embarrassment on the global stage.

During the recent G7 summit in the French Alps, Trump insisted Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni “wanted a picture with me so badly” and that he acquiesced simply because he “felt sorry for her.” Meloni disputed Trump’s account, saying “neither I nor Italy ever beg.” And now, Italian foreign minister and deputy prime minister Antonio Tajani is cancelling his trip to the U.S. over Trump’s comments.

In a post to his official X account, Tajani wrote that Trump’s “serious and offensive” remarks about Meloni “offend all of Italy,” and that he would be cancelling his trip as a result.

Meloni — who is considered one of the most ardently right-wing leaders in Europe — didn’t hold back on her criticism of Trump either, saying: “I don’t know why the president of the United States behaves this way with his own allies.” She added: “I can only say that it’s a pity he doesn’t show the same determination with enemies of the West, with enemies of the United States, with leaders with whom, instead, he is far more accommodating.”

We all know this kind of blistering criticism from a foreign ally would be considered a career-ending scandal if it happened under Joe Biden or Barack Obama. And this is just scratching the surface of how thoroughly Trump has embarrassed the United States on the world stage. Trump signed the memorandum of understanding to end the Iran war at the Palace of Versailles. This is the same place where the treaty to end World War I was signed more than a century ago, which historians universally agree was a harbinger of an even greater and more destructive conflict in the future.

Even the most stalwart Republicans on Capitol Hill are calling the Iran deal the “worst foreign policy blunder in decades,” as Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said. Iran gets all sanctions lifted, and access to hundreds of billions of dollars in a “redevelopment” fund. They get to keep their ballistic missiles. The deal doesn’t even mention Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, but rather simply extends nuclear talks for another 60 days. What did the U.S. get? The Strait of Hormuz is open again, but still fully under Iranian control. And ordinary Americans got gouged at the pump to the tune of billions of dollars.

Earlier this month Raw America interviewed Ben Rhodes, who was President Obama’s deputy national security advisor. He correctly predicted that any deal Trump struck with Iran to end the war would have to mirror to the 2015 deal Obama brokered with the Islamic republic. But while Obama’s agreement allowed for the un-freezing of Iranian assets stuck in international bank accounts due to sanctions and regular monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Trump’s deal gives Iran exponentially more money, and virtually no checks on its nuclear ambitions.

We Are the Ones Who Will Restore America’s International Standing

Despite the damage Trump has done to our reputation overseas, I see reasons for hope right here in the United States.

On our Notes page, which we update daily, we’ve been highlighting beautiful moments in which people from all over the world are being welcomed and embraced by Americans in every World Cup host city: Bosnians parading through Los Angeles on their way to the stadium. Bostonians dancing in the streets with Scots. Lawrence, Kansas musicians performing an Algerian folk song to thank Team Algeria for choosing their town as their base camp. This is what America is really about.

President Obama summed it up during the opening ceremony of his presidential library in Chicago. The people currently running America want us all to think it’s about accumulating as much money and power as possible, and “getting over” on people. But the true representation of America can be seen in places like Minneapolis, where local residents stood up to tyranny to protect neighbors and strangers alike because they knew “it was the right thing to do.”

I find comfort in the fact that despite all the damage Trump is doing to our standing around the world, it still doesn’t hold a candle to the extraordinary compassion and kindness Americans are showing to our foreign guests during the World Cup. Trump is convinced his bluster and chest-beating makes him look powerful. But it’s the opposite: he’s never looked weaker and more pathetic.

What This All Means

If you’re still reading, you’ve likely noticed a common thread tying this all together. A petty wannabe dictator thinks power is about being a bully. But ordinary Americans are demonstrating that the true power of America is in our diversity. And that peace is built not through bullets and bombs, but through simple acts of solidarity.

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P.S. Want to see what global solidarity looks like? Here’s a montage of Americans welcoming and embracing people from all over the world in World Cup host cities across the country. Check out our website for all the latest viral news videos from around the world.