Who is José Andrés, the Spaniard abruptly fired by Trump on his first day?

Although the chef always places his title before his first name, José Andrés, this Spaniard with U.S. nationality spends more hours in offices and airplanes than in the kitchen. In fact, his withering dismissal less than 24 hours after Donald Trump's inauguration has not taken him out of the White House kitchens, but from his post as vice president of the Sports, Fitness and Nutrition Council. The founder of the NGO World Central Kitchen develops a tireless left-wing activism and his stance on immigration already earned him a resounding confrontation with Trump in 2016 that ended in court.

Born in Mieres and raised in Barcelona, the chef moved at the age of 21 to New York to develop his professional career. After several years in the country, in which he received numerous awards for his work as a chef and opened several restaurants, he began to develop his activism while promulgating the ideals of the left.

Trading culinary awards for political recognition

This earned him trading culinary accolades for political awards. Thus, after receiving U.S. citizenship in 2013, Barack Obama presented him with the National Humanities Medal. His then vice president, Joe Biden, went further during his presidency and, after appointing him vice chairman of the Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, presented him late in his term with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the country.

Earlier, in 2016, in his facet as an entrepreneur he reached an agreement with Donald Trump to open a restaurant in one of the towers bearing the Republican's name. However, with the presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton, and before even getting to open the business, the chef broke the contract citing the mogul's speech on immigration as the cause.

"We were going to be partners, but I didn't like the way he talked about immigrants. I wanted to make a successful restaurant in a hotel he had leased from the U.S. government. He made us partners, but the moment he went beyond the limits of what I consider logical with immigrants I decided to break the contract," he told Planeta Calleja, a Spanish television program.

His move prompted the tycoon to take him to court for breach of contract and claim $9 million in compensation. José Andrés also went to court to demand compensation of $8 million for the costs of the opening arrangements. Finally, both parties reached a settlement.

His advocacy for humanitarian causes led him to found World Central Kitchen after the earthquake in Haiti with the aim of supplying food to the neediest people around the world, especially in conflict zones. With this platform, he has been known for establishing "good guys and bad guys" in each of the places where he goes, aligning himself always with the position of the left, whose governments have generously collaborated with donations that fill the coffers of his entity.

Up to 62 employees of his NGO in Gaza, dismissed for links with Hamas

Without going any further, in the Israeli conflict against Hamas terrorists, in which several of his NGO's employees lost their lives in an Israeli attack, José Andrés has been very critical against Netanyahu's government. Curiously, the report that investigated what happened pointed out that three of the seven dead workers were armed escorts, not activists, and that it was this fact that caused the mistake of the Jewish soldiers, since the organization never warned the Israel Defense Forces that men with firearms were part of the convoy. Indeed, many of the NGOs, such as Intermon OXFAM or Médecins Sans Frontières, renounce armed escorts in conflict zones to avoid being mistaken for terrorists.

As if that were not enough, it was subsequently discovered that a significant number of its workers in the strip were singled out by Israeli intelligence for links to Hamas terrorists, leading the NGO to dismiss more than 60 employees on this basis. However, the NGO tried to deny that this fact was the trigger for the end of the labor relations.

From humanitarian activist to left-wing guru

In addition to his work as an activist and humanitarian aid, José Andrés has been positioning and reinforcing his figure as a left-wing guru for years, with messages critical of right-wing policies. Delighted to have met, his photo admiring his own portrait went viral, as did a snapshot he took with Ryan Wesley Routh, the leftist radical who tried to assassinate Trump at his Mar-a-Lago golf course.

In the brief post in which Trump announced his firing, the president made it clear that Jose Andres, as well as the three other people who lost their jobs on Monday, "are not aligned with our vision of Making America Great Again." Something quite evident in light of statements by the chef such as these from 2019 on immigration: "He creates fear as if the country is under attack by immigrants when, in reality, they are the essence of the US. What happens at the border is a humanitarian problem and not a national security problem, no one wants to invade the country."