WASHINGTON—Behold the United States’ 250th birthday celebration, brought to you by a cavalcade of corporate behemoths, via Donald Trump.
And much of it will be paid for by you and me.
At least $103 million in taxpayer dollars were funneled to favorite Trump companies via no-bid contracts from the Trump-established celebration committee, Freedom 250. It has also collected tens of millions of dollars from the corporate class, the joint report by Public Citizen and the Revolving Door Project reveals.
The exact amounts the corporations kicked in for Trump’s 250th anniversary gala series of events are unknown because Freedom 250 is not a public body, but the mountains of dollars military contractors Lockheed (75% of its total revenue) and Martin Marietta (89%) get from the Pentagon are known.
Also, consider donor ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil is one of the big oil firms that has lobbied Congress and the Trump regime against combating climate change. Its CEO attended Trump’s billion-dollar dinner for fossil fuel firms during the 2024 campaign. Then, Don Bergum, Secretary of the Interior, who was heavily involved in the oil and gas industry before taking that post, opened Alaska’s previously protected North Slope to drilling, clearing the way for Exxon to bid on oil leases there. And Exxon faces 96 unfair labor practice charges before the National Labor Relations Board.
It’s not the only notorious labor law breaker who’s also a big giver to Trump’s gala. Amazon, Starbucks, Target, and Walmart are all on the donor and/or contract list, too. So is FedEx, which has waged a long and successful campaign to remove its tens of thousands of workers from protection under the National Labor Relations Act, moving them to the even weaker Railway Labor Act.
These are just examples, Public Citizen and the Revolving Door Project say, of how the whole effort smells. The recipients are rife with potential conflicts of interest. The donors want to curry favor with the White House.
The groups accuse the Trump administration of “engaging in a hostile takeover of the nation’s 250th anniversary.”
Replacing American values with grift and self-dealing
“The 250th anniversary of the country should be a moment to reflect on the values of the nation,” said Public Citizen Research Director Alan Zibel. “Apparently, the Trump administration is replacing those values with grift, self-dealing, and enriching friends with taxpayer dollars.”
“The Trump administration has once more found an avenue to tilt the scales in favor of corporate America–especially the corporations willing to pay him tribute– even as millions struggle to believe in the dream of America on the eve of our 250th birthday,” added Toni Aguilar Rosenthal of the Revolving Door Project.
Workers? Not represented. Unions? Forget it.
Corporations that break labor law and employ union busters? You bet they’re there on the donors/ grants list, including Walmart, Amazon, and Starbucks. So is Target, whose bosses quickly acquiesced to Trump’s racist crusade against diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Other donors to Trump’s Freedom 250 include all three Detroit-based automakers, Jeep, Amazon, and Southwest, American, and United Airlines. Add Anheuser-Busch, the Bank of New York, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, John Deere, CVS, Palantier, General Mills, KraftHeinz, Hilton Hotels, Coca Cola, and the New York Stock Exchange.
One of the last firms on the list is the Ultimate Fighting Championship company. They staged the June 14 bout under the looming steel arch on the White House lawn.
No-bid multimillion-dollar contracts were handed out like confetti by the Freedom 250 group. The Trump administration established it to co-opt and override the official gala panel, which Congress set up years ago, pre-Trump, to plan the 250th anniversary events.
Countering the Trump narrative
“It will likely fall largely on Black and Indigenous people to hold up a mirror to the nation and carve out space for accountability, honesty, and repair,” the Black Liberation-Indigenous Society Collective told the Non-Profit Quarterly before hosting a meeting in Asheville, N.C., last September to begin planning how to counter the MAGA narrative.
“We know firsthand that the creation of this nation happened at our ancestors’ expense. The legacies of anti-Indigeneity and anti-Blackness live all around us. The nation’s first sins were genocide and slavery, so our collective redemption is only possible through reckoning with and restitution for those harms. In other words, our solidarity and united insistence upon shared visions of justice are the balm and antidote. We are the medicine.”
They aren’t the only ones to turn their backs on Trump’s gala. The state governments of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Oregon, and North Carolina will not participate in what was planned to be the Great American State Fair, with exhibit booths lining the National Mall for every state and all six territories
Massachusetts, of course, is where the American Revolution began. Pennsylvania is where the Declaration of Independence was written, debated, passed, and signed. They’re planning their own celebrations. So is Oregon.
The 250th anniversary was barely mentioned at the recent AFL-CIO convention, and then usually in the context of Trump’s threat to U.S. democracy. The rest of labor is taking a low-key attitude towards the 250th anniversary events.
So far, the Labor Heritage Foundation has listed only two 250th anniversary-linked events. Both are more positive—and more democracy-oriented—than Trump’s corporate celebrations. The first was a 7 p.m. Eastern Time “Concert for the First Amendment” at the progressive Busboys and Poets bookstore at 14th Street and V Street N.W. on July 14.
The second is a virtual event on June 18 from 12:15 p.m.-12:45 p.m. Central Time: “Pullman on Parade: Celebrating America 1892 and 250.” That event focuses on the massive resistance of American Railway Union members to wage cuts by railroad magnate George Pullman that took place alongside the 1892 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Advance registration is required for the session.
“Discover how these two pivotal moments connect as we explore what changed over the years and which traditions endured,” Labor Heritage posted. “Join us as we examine the past, reflect on the present, and imagine possibility for the future.”
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