The cause for which the Haymarket martyrs gave their lives was
embraced by the working class all over the world. Three years later, in
1889, the founding congress of the Second International, meeting in
Paris, resolved that May 1 would be the day on which workers of all
countries would simultaneously demonstrate for the eight-hour day. From
that day forward, May 1 has belonged to the international working class.
The
eight-hour day was the central demand of those first May Days. Today,
May Day is a fight for the survival of human civilization itself.
Indeed, such is the state of exploitation that even the most elementary
conquest of the workers’ movement, the eight-hour day, has been
abandoned by the trade union apparatus. While AFL-CIO functionaries
organize “May Day Strong” events with the Democratic Party, workers in
the warehouses, hospitals, schools and factories endure 10-, 12- and
14-hour shifts.
The celebration of May Day came to be embedded in the fight for the
unity of the international working class against capitalism, inequality
and exploitation—a day dedicated to advancing the struggle for workers’
power. Leon Trotsky wrote in 1918 that the original purpose of May Day
had been “by means of a simultaneous demonstration by workers of all
countries on that day, to prepare the ground for drawing them together
into a single international proletarian organization of revolutionary
action having one world center and one world political orientation.”
That
task—the construction of an international revolutionary leadership of
the working class—remains the unfinished historical work of our epoch.
It is the work of the International Committee of the Fourth
International.
*****
Speakers will include leading representatives of the ICFI and its
supporting organizations from the United States, Britain, France,
Germany, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, Turkey, Brazil and Russia;
along with representatives of the International Youth and Students for
Social Equality and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File
Committees.
The rally will feature statements collected from
workers and young people on every continent—postal workers, autoworkers,
teachers, dockworkers, students—who are entering into struggle and
looking for a way forward.
*****
Register now at wsws.org/mayday.
The rally begins at 3:00 p.m. US Eastern Time. Gather your coworkers,
your classmates, your families, your friends. Today, May 1, 2026, take
your place in the international socialist movement.
Dr. [Abeer] Omar, who has over 25 years of experience as a nursing educator and
researcher, has faced down persecution of her principled defense of the
human rights of Palestinians, Lebanese and Iranians under imperialist
attack. That she should have had to do so comes as no surprise: Canada’s
Liberal government has backed the genocide in Gaza and the US/Israel
war on Iran to the hilt. In June 2025, she joined hundreds of academics
and civil society groups in signing an open letter to Prime Minister
Mark Carney that denounced Canada for its complicity in the Gaza
genocide and demanded Carney take action to stop any “aid and
assistance” to Israeli war crimes. Predictably, this letter fell on deaf
ears.
*****
In a video statement... in support of the International May Day Online Rally
to be held Friday, May 1, Dr. Omar denounces the systematic slaughter of healthcare workers
by Israel in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, and the US and Israel’s
targeting of civilians in their war of extermination against Iran.
Minutes after US Secret Service agents took Donald Trump from the
stage at the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday and detained an
alleged attacker after a shooting incident, Venezuela’s interim
president Delcy Rodríguez became one of the first world leaders to
publicly condemn the attack.
In a post on X, she declared: “We
reject the attempt of aggression against President Trump and his wife,
Melania, to whom we extend our good wishes, as well as to the attendees
of the Correspondents’ Dinner. Violence will never be an option for
those of us who defend the banners of peace.”
This statement was
one of the most grotesque from any leader. Associating Trump with
“peace,” Rodriguez whitewashes the ongoing avalanche of war crimes
unleashed by Washington across the globe and directly against Venezuela
itself.
The World Socialist Web Site opposes the kind of
attack alleged at the Washington Hilton on a principled basis. Political
violence carried out by individuals serves only to strengthen the
forces of reaction. But this opposition does not require—or
permit—portraying Trump, or US imperialism more broadly, as a victim
divorced from its own systemic violence.
Indeed, as in previous
assassination attempts, Trump is already exploiting the incident to
criminalize opposition and escalate his authoritarian drive. His efforts
to overturn democratic processes in the United States are inseparable
from a broader imperialist campaign aimed at recolonizing Latin America.
Rodríguez’s statement, along with a similar one from Mexico’s “leftist”
president Claudia Sheinbaum, objectively lends support to these
efforts, providing political cover for Washington’s aggression.
*****
The January operation was not a one-off attack. US military activity
in the region has intensified dramatically. Bombing campaigns have
expanded into Latin American waters and border regions. A joint
US-Ecuadorian operation dubbed “Total Extermination” targeted rural
areas, bombing rural homes and detaining agricultural workers.
Simultaneously,
the Pentagon has escalated maritime strikes, particularly in the
Caribbean and eastern Pacific. More attack aircraft and MQ-9 Reaper
drones have been sent to bases in El Salvador and Puerto Rico to carry
out more air strikes on fishing boats, killing at least 186 people under
the pretext of combating drug trafficking since September.
Meanwhile,
Washington is openly threatening further regime change operations,
including against Cuba. Trump has declared that “Cuba is next” after
Iran.
US naval exercises have begun near Cuba, codenamed Flex2026,
integrating artificial intelligence, unmanned systems, and traditional
forces to enhance surveillance and control. Reconnaissance drones like
the MQ-4C Triton and electronic aircraft such as the RC-135 patrol Cuban
airspace and maritime routes, tightening the noose around the island.
Within
Venezuela, Rodríguez’s statement has drawn criticism even from Chavista
circles, with some pointing out that it ignores the long campaign of US
sanctions that has caused over 100,000 excess deaths and forced over 8
million to flee the country.
Some commentators, however, argue
that the government is merely “buying time,” hoping for better
conditions—higher oil prices, geopolitical shifts, or a popular
upsurge—to reassert sovereignty and defend social programs. But such
illusions have already been exposed.
*****
This trajectory is not a betrayal of Chavismo’s principles—it is
their logical outcome. The so-called Bolivarian Revolution, proclaimed
after the 1998 election of Hugo Chávez, represented sections of the
national bourgeoisie seeking better terms within the global capitalist
system. During periods of high commodity prices and closer ties to
China, Russia and other economic powers, it used limited social programs
to contain the class struggle and negotiate a greater share of the
profits for the local ruling class.
But as conditions
changed—particularly with the slowing growth of the Chinese economy, the
weight of US sanctions and military threats—these same forces have
capitulated, prioritizing their own privileges and class rule over the
working class.
*****
The events in Venezuela confirm a fundamental lesson: the national
bourgeoisie in oppressed countries is incapable of carrying out
democratic tasks, including genuine independence from imperialism.
This
reality vindicates the Theory of Permanent Revolution advanced by Leon
Trotsky. Only the working class, leading a socialist transformation of
society, can break the chains of imperialist domination. This requires
not only the overthrow of capitalist states domestically, but an
international movement aimed at restructuring the global economy to
serve human need, not private profit.
Rodríguez’s statement is not
merely hypocritical—it is symptomatic of a deeper crisis. It reflects a
political movement that has abandoned any pretense of resistance to
imperialism and now seeks accommodation with the very forces responsible
for the immense suffering of the people it claimed to represent.
In a blatant act of censorship in late March, Sri Lankan Customs
authorities have seized books by Tamil writer Pradeepan Deepachelvan,
who teaches Advanced Level students at Murugaananda College in
Killinochchi in the war-ravaged northern province of the country. The
targeted works included three novels titled Naduhal (Memorial Stone), Bayangaravadi (The Terrorist) and Cyanide, along with a collection of essays and a volume of interviews.
Customs seized 360 copies of the five books, which were shipped from
Chennai, India and arrived in Colombo, underscoring the state’s direct
intervention to block the circulation of literature dealing with the
social and political experiences produced by Sri Lanka’s decades-long
communal war.
Customs authorities claimed without providing a
shred of evidence that the books posed a threat to “national security”
and “national harmony.” Unable to substantiate the accusation, Customs
officials reportedly referred the matter to a “special committee”
attached to the Ministry of Buddha Sasana, Religious and Cultural
Affairs, as well as to military authorities, before making any final
decision.
Such high-handed, politically charged allegations would
not be levelled by Customs officials without being prompted by the
ruling Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna/National People’s Power (JVP/NPP)
government, which is steeped in anti-Tamil chauvinism.
Deepachelvan told the World Socialist Web Site
that officials informed his representatives in Jaffna that the books
were being held for review. Following criticism of the government’s
actions by several civil rights groups, including the Free Media
Movement, Customs has agreed to release three of the books.
The
two remaining works continue to be withheld on the grounds that they
could allegedly damage “coexistence among communities,” a claim that
remains entirely unsubstantiated.
These actions by the government
and its authorities constitute a direct and blatant attack on freedom of
expression, carried out under the fraudulent banner of protecting
“national harmony.”
The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and the World Socialist Web Site
condemn this act of censorship and demand the immediate and
unconditional release of all of Pradeepan’s books. Writers and artists
must have the democratic right to present their views without state
interference or intimidation.
Deepachelvan, a Tamil writer with seven poetry collections, has
consistently addressed themes stemming from Sri Lanka’s three-decade
civil war. His works have been translated into Sinhala, Malayalam,
Hindi, French and Norwegian, reflecting a broad readership that crosses
the communal divide in Sri Lanka and extends internationally.
*****
The anti-democratic action against Deepachelvan takes place amid a
deepening economic crisis and rising social anger. The Dissanayake
government is implementing the austerity dictates of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), imposing severe attacks on workers and the poor
through tax increases, spending cuts and privatisation.
Since
independence in 1948, successive Sri Lankan governments have
systematically cultivated anti-Tamil chauvinism to divert mounting
social tensions and defend capitalist rule. This policy culminated in a
protracted communal war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were killed
during the final months of military operations, and thousands more were
forcibly disappeared. The JVP, mired in Sinhala chauvinism from its
inception, was an ardent supporter of the communal war.
The Human
Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, a toothless, government-appointed body,
has criticised the seizure of Deepachelvan’s books as a violation of
freedom of expression. The Free Media Movement, condemning the seizure,
has also questioned the authority of Customs officials to determine
whether literature constitutes a threat to “national security.”
*****
Such attacks on freedom of expression are not unique to Sri Lanka.
Across South Asia, governments increasingly invoke “national security,”
“religious harmony” and “public order” as pretexts to suppress dissent.
In India, the Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party government has
encouraged censorship and attacks on intellectuals accused of offending
religious sentiments. In Pakistan and Bangladesh, journalists and
writers face arrest and intimidation under allegations of spreading
“anti-state propaganda.”
These developments are inseparable from
the deepening global crisis of capitalism and the intensification of
imperialist rivalries. Governments around the world are strengthening
authoritarian forms of rule as they prepare for social upheavals driven
by war, inequality and economic breakdown.
*****
The Socialist Equality Party insists that Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim
workers must reject all forms of communal politics and defend the
democratic rights of writers, artists and intellectuals.
The
immediate release of Deepachelvan’s books must become part of a broader
struggle against state repression, austerity and the capitalist system
itself, which breeds dictatorship, war and communal division.
The observance of Workers Memorial Day 2026 took place amid an
escalating assault on workplace safety in the United States of
breathtaking scope. Trump has vastly accelerated the dismantling of
already inadequate safety regulations and enforcement mechanisms.
According
to “Death on the Job,” the annual report issued by the AFL-CIO in
conjunction with Workers Memorial Day, based on 2024 figures, an
estimated 380 workers die each day from illness and traumatic injury.
The
report notes that over the past year, job fatality rates increased in
several sectors, including leisure and hospitality (from 2.3 to 2.4
deaths per 100,000 workers) and government (from 1.8 to 2.0).
Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting remain the most dangerous
industries (20.9 per 100,000), followed by mining, quarrying, and oil
and gas extraction (13.8 per 100,000).
At
the same time, staffing at the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) has fallen to historic lows, with only five
inspectors per 1 million workers. The fatality rate for young workers
has nearly doubled since 2020. Environmental rules are being repealed
wholesale, including limits on the emission of toxic chemicals,
greenhouse gases and other pollutants.
Despite these conditions,
the American trade union bureaucracy marked the day with largely
boilerplate statements that neither accept responsibility for worsening
conditions nor propose meaningful initiatives to defend workers’ lives,
beyond appeals to employers, lobbying in Washington and electoral
activity.
The AFL-CIO stated that its officials “will be in the streets and at
worksites to peacefully engage our co-workers and neighbors on the
issues at stake in the next election so we can ensure that everyone can
vote and every vote is counted.” This only underscores the union
bureaucracy’s efforts to subordinate workers’ lives to the Democratic
Party, a party of Wall Street and corporate America no less than the
Republicans.
Similarly, the American Postal Workers Union
encouraged members to participate in symbolic actions such as moments of
silence, candlelight vigils and AFL-CIO events.
The death of 64-year-old autoworker Greg Knopf on March 16,
2026, at the Ford Sharonville Transmission Plant in Ohio, when a press
machine activated during maintenance.
Two workers killed on April 23 at a chemical facility in Institute, West Virginia, with dozens more injured.
The death of April Flores following a forklift accident on April 4 at an H-E-B warehouse in San Antonio, Texas.
A 53-year-old worker crushed by an excavator on February 6 at RJ Industrial Recycling in Flint, Michigan.
The
November 8, 2025 death of maintenance mechanic Nick Acker at a Detroit
mail facility, where safety features were reportedly disabled, followed
by the death of Russell Scruggs Jr. days later in Georgia.
It
has also been more than one year since the death of Stellantis Dundee
Engine worker Ronald Adams Sr., who was killed on April 7, 2025, when a
gantry crane activated during repairs. Stellantis has not been held
accountable, and the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health
Administration has released no findings. The only detailed investigation
was conducted by rank-and-file workers associated with the
International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees.
Globally,
the International Labour Organization estimates that 2.93 million
workers die annually from work-related causes, including up to 380,500
from workplace injuries.
*****
The lack of seriousness with which the American labor bureaucracy
views the question of workplace safety was perhaps best highlighted by
the short shrift paid by UAW President Shawn Fain, who posted a short
statement on X on the occasion of Workers Memorial Day. Following a year
of fires, explosions and workplace carnage, the only actual incident he
referenced was the recent death of Ford worker Gregg Knopf. He said
nothing about the continued stonewalling and cover-up by MIOSHA and
Stellantis of the circumstances of the death of Dundee Engine worker
Ronald Adams Sr.
The reason for this is clear. The UAW is part and
parcel of the cover-up of Adams’ death. Last year, the UAW bureaucracy
used the occasion of Workers Memorial Day to issue a joint video with
Stellantis executives praising their joint efforts to protect workers’
lives. This insulting video, which made no mention of Adams, was
released the same day as the 63-year-old skilled tradesman was buried in
Detroit.
Far from fighting for strengthening safety, the UAW
actively collaborates with management to cover up safety violations and
to ensure that management is not held accountable when deaths and
injuries occur. This is because the union apparatus is joined at the hip
with Stellantis and other automakers through the UAW-Stellantis safety
committees and a host of other similar corporatist programs that
essentially funnel company cash into UAW coffers.
*****
Even the actual tracking of official statistics is undermined by the
patchwork of state, federal and local oversight and reporting in the US,
largely the product of corporate lobbying. While the federal OSHA
implemented a Severe Injury Dashboard
in 2024, which compiles all the reports from 2015 to the present, there
are major limitations. The data only covers just over half the US
population, which works in the 28 states covered by federal OSHA
programs. Injuries to workers in the 22 “state plan” states, which
administer the OSHA program at the state government level, do not appear
in the data, unless covered by federal OSHA, like United States Postal
Service workers. Federal OSHA does not cover state and municipal
workers, so those workers are not represented in the data.
*****
The basic social rights of the working class, such as workplace
safety, can only be defended and advanced through the independent
mobilization of the working class in opposition to the parties of the
ruling class and their defenders in the trade union bureaucracy. Over
the past year, the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File
Committees (IWA-RFC) has taken the initiative in defense of workers’
safety by conducting independent investigations into the deaths of
Ronald Adams Sr. and postal workers Nick Acker and Russell Scruggs Jr.
The
IWA-RFC calls on workers to form rank-and-file committees in every
factory, warehouse and workplace to counterpose the will of shop-floor
workers to the dictates of management and the union apparatus. This
includes fighting for workers’ control over line speed, safety
conditions and production, enforced through collective strike action
against any unsafe conditions.
The fight for health and safety is
bound up with the fight to put an end to a global social system based
on the exploitation of wage labor for private profit. This requires the
building of a socialist and internationalist leadership in the working
class.
Two more workplace deaths have been reported this week in Queensland,
taking the total number of workers known to have been killed in
Brisbane, the state capital, and its surrounding region to four in
recent weeks.
On Tuesday, a 36-year-old worker was crushed while
employees were moving large crates filled with stock at around 5:36 p.m.
at a workplace in Wellcamp, near Toowoomba, a regional city about 130 kilometers west of Brisbane.
Initial police and media reports
indicated that crates slipped and landed on the worker below. The man,
from Harristown, a Toowoomba suburb, was assessed by paramedics at the
scene for critical injuries but was declared dead a short time later.
Also reported this week was that Miikael “Mikey” Varuhin, 32, a
Finnish construction worker, fell about four meters through scaffolding
at a development site in Clayfield, an inner northern suburb of
Brisbane, on April 6, suffering a catastrophic brain injury.
Varuhin
was declared brain dead later that night. He had reportedly raised
concerns about the scaffolding on site on the day he fell and had sent a
photo from his phone.
The young worker’s sister, Anniina, told
the media: “This is an injustice what happened—no one should go to work
and never come back.” She said her young brother had moved to Brisbane
seven years ago and planned to make the city his home.
The known
workplace fatalities around Brisbane now total seven in six months. This
is part of a rising toll due to unsafe conditions, increased rates of
exploitation by employers, official coverups and government complicity
in Australia and internationally.
The latest shocking deaths follow two others just reported in April.
*****
In all these cases, the official state safety agency, Workplace
Health and Safety Queensland (WHSQ), said it would investigate the
circumstances with assistance from police, but few details have been
released. Such investigations can take many months or years and always
end up in whitewashes or, at best, paltry fines on employers.
Even
where trade unions have members on sites, they work hand-in-hand with
managements and the supposed government safety bodies to cover over the
real cause of dangerous working conditions—the subordination of workers’
health and lives to the interests of corporate profit, notably through
speed-ups, subcontracting and casualisation.
As a result, workers’
deaths continue. Data from Safe Work Australia indicates that by April
9, 30 workers had died nationally in 2026, following 180 deaths in 2025.
These figures understate the true toll because chronic occupational
illnesses and unreported incidents are often excluded from official
counts.
*****
Workplace deaths and serious injuries are on the rise globally, as corporations cut costs and impose productivity increases to satisfy the demands of their financial backers.
To
fight this, workers need to take matters into their own hands.
Rank-and-file committees, independent of the union apparatuses, must be
established in workplaces everywhere to fight for improved safety, wages
and conditions.
Hegseth spoke as the representative of a completely criminal
government, personally advocating that US troops commit war
crimes—including upon direct questioning at the hearing.
In the
face of a broadly unpopular administration, the Democrats made it their
highest priority to emphasize—despite tactical disagreements—their
solidarity with the Trump administration’s megalomaniacal program of
world conquest. Their objections were that Trump’s plans do not go far
enough, or that the Iran war has left the United States unprepared for
war with nuclear-armed China and Russia.
Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York called for doubling
the number of nuclear-capable stealth bombers in the request, from 100
B-21 Raiders to 200. “We’ve been working together to grow the industrial
base because we’re all worried about how our stockpiles would hold up
in a conflict against China,” Gillibrand said. The B-21, she added,
“will be a critical part of both our conventional and our nuclear
deterrence against China and Russia.”
Democratic Senator Mark
Kelly of Arizona voiced his support for expanding military spending,
saying: “I’ve always been supportive of defense spending in my entire
time here. After 25 years in the Navy, I want to make sure our folks
have what they need.”
Democratic Ranking Member Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the senior
Democrat on the committee, opened his remarks by saluting the war
against Iran. “Tactically the United States military performance against
Iran has been remarkable,” Reed said, “and I salute the service members
who executed this mission with skill and bravery.”
His criticism
was that the war has left the United States less prepared for war with
China. Three carrier strike groups have been pulled into the Middle
East, leaving the Pacific thinly covered. “In terms of … where we’re
putting … the most powerful part of our Navy,” Reed asked, “can you
explain again what that means in terms of the situation in INDOPACOM
where China is watching?” His argument was for a larger war, redirected
at Beijing.
Democratic Ranking Member Adam Smith of Washington took the same line at
the parallel House hearing Wednesday, telling Hegseth he had heard “the
chairman on the need for an increased” budget and attacking popular
opposition to the war: “I strongly disagree with the folks on the far
left who say that we don’t really face any threats.”
After Iran, Everyone Knows It.” The Iran war, the Times
argued, exposed weaknesses adversaries can now see. “The good news is
that Congress, the administration and the Pentagon can all now see our
military shortcomings,” the editorial concluded.
At Thursday’s
hearing, Republican Chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi endorsed the
Trump administration’s military budget as necessary to prepare for
military conflict with China.
“First and foremost, we’re locked in
a competition with Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party,” Wicker
said. “The competition is high stakes, and it is about whether this will
be an American-led century or a century defined by authoritarian,
autocratic regimes that care little for the needs of their citizens or
those in neighboring countries. The Chinese Communist Party has
accelerated its historic military buildup and its predatory economic
practices against Americans and countries the world over. Xi Jinping
leads not only China, but also an axis of aggressors.” Of the budget:
“Every penny of it should be money well spent.”
*****
The criminal character of the administration was on open display at
Thursday’s hearing. Asked to retract his March 13 order that US troops
give enemies in the Caribbean “no quarter, no mercy,” Hegseth refused.
Kelly read him the definition from his own department’s Law of War
Manual—that no “legitimate offers of surrender will be refused or that
detainees will be executed”—and asked twice whether he stood by the
statement. Twice Hegseth replied: “We fight to win.”
The character of “the mission” the Democrats endorsed was thus on the
record. Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan told Hegseth: “I
agree with the Chairman … that the world has never been more dangerous
and complicated, and … we can all agree that we want our military to
come out of it safely and successfully.” A successful mission, by the
secretary of defense’s own definition, means offering “no quarter” to
those targeted by US imperialism and the destruction of “a whole
civilization,” in the words of Trump.
Thursday’s hearing took place as the administration moved to defy the
60-day War Powers Resolution clock on the Iran war. Friday is the
statutory deadline by which the president must either seek congressional
authorization or certify in writing that more time is required to
withdraw US forces. The administration intends to do neither. Hegseth
said the White House takes the position that a current ceasefire pauses
the clock—a reading with no basis in the statute.
Trump was scheduled to be briefed Thursday evening by U.S. Central
Command chief Adm. Brad Cooper on new military options against Iran,
including, per news reports, a “powerful” series of strikes on Iranian
infrastructure, a ground operation to seize part of the Strait of Hormuz
and a special forces mission to secure Iran’s stockpile of highly
enriched uranium.
The Senate Democrats speak for the same
capitalist oligarchy as Donald Trump. Their disagreements were
operational—anxiety that the Iran war is going badly, anxiety that the
United States is unprepared for the larger conflict with China both
parties expect. On the question of whether US military spending should
surge toward $1.5 trillion to wage that war, Thursday’s hearing revealed
no disagreement at all.
His predecessor Olaf Scholz “always said he did not want to play
security policy off against social policy,” Chancellor Friedrich Merz
told Der Spiegel in a detailed interview. “We can no longer afford that,” Merz said. “We must set priorities.”
The
cabinet did just that on Wednesday. Military spending has priority. It
is being increased sharply, and social spending slashed accordingly.
According to the financial benchmarks presented by Finance Minister
Lars Klingbeil (Social Democratic Party, SPD) and adopted by the
cabinet, the Defence Ministry’s spending financed from the core budget
will rise from €82.2 billion this year to €179.9 billion in 2030. Almost
one in three euros from the federal budget will then flow directly into
rearmament and war. In the next two years, additional billions will be
added from the “special fund for the Bundeswehr [Armed Forces]” passed
in 2022, which expires at the end of 2027.
Outlays on debt
servicing are also rising, as rearmament spending is largely financed
via additional loans. According to Klingbeil’s plans, the government’s
interest expenditure will climb to €78.7 billion by 2030, which is about
12.5 percent of the budget. This year it still amounts to €30.3
billion. Little will be left for social spending.
Parallel to the benchmarks for the budget, the cabinet has initiated a
draft law to reform statutory health insurance from Health Minister
Nina Warken (Christian Democratic Union, CDU). It will now be debated in
the Bundestag (federal parliament) and is to be passed before the
summer holidays. It will deliver the death blow to healthcare in its
current form.
As
early as next year, the spending of the statutory health insurance
funds is to be reduced by €16.3 billion. This is to be achieved by
cutting and increasing the cost of services as well as imposing strict
savings targets for hospitals and doctors. The latter are to bear the
main burden of the cuts.
Overall, spending in the healthcare
sector may only rise as fast as the average contributory income per fund
member. This is supposed to save €11.3 of the total €16.3 billion. The
consequence will be that hospitals and doctors’ practices are faced with
the alternative of cutting salaries or laying off staff. Many will go
bankrupt or no longer be able to find enough staff willing to do the
demanding work while understaffed and poorly paid.
*****
What is completely missing from the draft law—apart from a slight
increase in the contribution assessment ceiling, i.e., the income limit
up to which health insurance contributions are payable—are measures that
make the rich pay. The massive wealth accumulated through rising stock
market prices, exorbitant real estate values and inherited fortunes do
not contribute to these costs. In Germany, there is not even a wealth
tax.
The problem, therefore, is not that there is not enough money
available for good healthcare for everyone, but that healthcare stands
in the way of the enrichment and war plans of the ruling elites. It is
of interest to them only insofar as it yields profit.
*****
Klingbeil’s budget plan contains numerous further austerity measures
at the expense of the wider population. Federal subsidies for long-term
care insurance and pension insurance are also to be cut, and social
benefits slashed. In pension insurance alone, €4 billion a year are to
be saved, even though its requirements are growing due to the increasing
number of pensioners; the pension commission set up by the government
will not present its report until the summer.
Overseas development
aid is also to be massively curtailed. In addition, all ministries are
to reduce their spending by 1 percent, even though inflation is rising
sharply again. The Ministry of Defense is, of course, exempt from this.
The integration of the RIO Morenoites into the Left Party marks a
further political shift to the right by this pseudo-left tendency, which
can only be understood in the context of the current crisis of
capitalism. It is taking place against a backdrop of escalating
imperialist wars, growing social attacks and increasing political radicalization, particularly among young people and workers.
Worldwide,
the development towards a Third World War is intensifying dramatically.
NATO is escalating its confrontation with the nuclear-armed power
Russia in Ukraine. Israel is committing genocide in Gaza with the
support of the US and European powers. The US-Israeli attack on Iran
threatens to plunge the entire region into war. At the same time,
Germany is witnessing the largest military buildup since the Second
World War, while social and democratic rights are being systematically
dismantled.
This development is meeting with growing resistance.
In Germany, in the past year, before and after the federal election,
thousands—primarily young people—have joined the Left Party, often in
the hope of finding there a political instrument in the struggle against
war, fascism and social inequality.
“There is a huge discrepancy
between the hopes that young people associate with the Left Party and
what it actually is. The former want to oppose the fascists, they reject
the refugee agitation, and they want reasonable incomes and affordable
rents,” wrote the Socialist Equality Party (SGP) in a statement
on the result of the 2025 federal election. “But the Left Party has no
program to counter the shift to the right by those in power. It is
spreading the illusion that the main parties of the ruling class can be
persuaded to change course through a combination of parliamentary
opposition and pressure from the streets.”
The statement continued: “The Left Party claims it is possible to reform
capitalism, not abolish it. But that is a dangerous illusion. The
ruling elites’ turn to the right is not simply the product of mistaken
policies that can be corrected by a bit of pressure. The ruling class
everywhere is resorting to dictatorship and war because it is confronted
with the deep crisis of its social system.”
*****
Officially, RIO justified its entry into the Left Party by citing a
focus on the party’s new, predominantly young members. Yet instead of—as
would be the task of Marxists—educating them about the character of the
Left Party, breaking them away from it and winning them over to an
independent socialist perspective, RIO pursues the opposite goal: It
deliberately ties these potentially oppositional forces to a party that
is itself deeply integrated into the capitalist state apparatus and
actively supports the reactionary offensive of German imperialism.
*****
The reactionary nature of this orientation can only be understood by
clearly defining the character of the Left Party itself. It is not a
contradictory “arena” in which different class interests vie for
influence but a historically developed bourgeois party that represents
the interests of the state and the wealthy middle classes.
Its
roots lie in the SED (Socialist Unity Party), the Stalinist ruling party
of the GDR (East Germany), which oppressed the working class for
decades and organized the capitalist restoration in 1989–90. With the
fall of the Berlin Wall, the Stalinist bureaucracy transformed itself
into a bourgeois force, secured property rights and integrated itself
into the reunified German state. In doing so, it carried the nationalist
and anti-Marxist character of Stalinism to its ultimate conclusion.
As resistance to the consequences of the Schröder government’s Agenda
2010 intensified, the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism), the
successor party to the SED, merged in 2007 with the Electoral
Alternative for Labour and Social Justice (WASG) to form the Left Party,
in order to absorb and neutralise the resistance. The WASG was an
alliance of former SPD and trade union officials who feared that the
SPD, due to its right-wing policies, was no longer capable of
suppressing the class struggle.
Since then, the Left Party has
established itself as an integral part of the capitalist profit system.
Its participation in government, particularly in the state of Berlin,
was inextricably linked to massive social spending cuts. Under its
shared responsibility, tens of thousands of public sector jobs were cut,
public housing was privatized and comprehensive austerity programs
were implemented. The party thus proved that it is prepared to enforce
the interests of capital just as consistently as the SPD or the CDU.
At the same time, it played a central role in laying the political
groundwork for the return of German militarism. The involvement of its
foreign policy spokesperson, Stefan Liebich, in the 2013 strategy paper
“New Power—New Responsibility” was a decisive step in this direction.
This document openly articulated Germany’s ambition to once again assume
a leading military role on the international stage and served as a
blueprint for the bellicose speeches delivered by Gauck, Steinmeier and
von der Leyen at the 2014 Munich Security Conference.
In the years
that followed, the Left Party increasingly and openly supported this
course. It backed the NATO war offensive against Russia, the regime
change war in Syria, the genocide in Gaza and, most recently, the
US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran.
The party’s political
callousness is particularly evident in the statements of its chairman,
Jan van Aken, who welcomed the assassination of Iranian leaders by
saying they should “rot in hell.” This statement is not a personal lapse
but an expression of the political character of a party that has placed
itself entirely at the service of imperialist interests and the
barbarism that goes hand in hand with them.
The Left Party also bears primary responsibility for the rise of the far
right. In its former strongholds in the east, the Alternative for
Germany (AfD) is now the strongest party. On the one hand, it has itself
contributed significantly to the social misery that is driving many
workers, in particular, to despair. On the other hand, the fact that it
pursues right-wing policies under the guise of “left-wing” rhetoric
fuels the disappointment and political frustration that the AfD and
other far-right forces deliberately exploit. And like all other
bourgeois parties, the Left Party is also prepared to cooperate even
with the far right and its supporters within the ruling class and to
implement their anti-refugee and anti-worker policies.
RIO’s role is deeply rooted in the history of Morenoism. This
current, named after the Argentine politician Nahuel Moreno, has for
decades been characterized by its adaptation to non-proletarian forces.
As early as the 1950s, it broke with the world Trotskyist movement and
aligned itself with Peronism. Moreno and his followers joined this
bourgeois-nationalist movement and declared that their organization acted “under the discipline of General Perón.” In doing so, they
abandoned the fundamental principle of Marxism—the political
independence of the working class.
This accommodation had
devastating political consequences. In 1958, on the instructions of
Perón, who had fled abroad to escape the military, Moreno supported the
election of a right-wing bourgeois president, even as sections of the
Peronist rank and file opposed this course.
In the 1960s, this
pattern was repeated in the attitude towards the Cuban Revolution.
Initially, Moreno denounced Fidel Castro because the Peronist movement
glorified his opponent, the dictator Fulgencio Batista, as the “Cuban
Perón.” Moreno subsequently made a 180-degree turn, describing Cuba as a
workers’ state and hailing Castro, a petty-bourgeois nationalist, as a
model for the revolution throughout Latin America. Underlying both
positions was Moreno’s refusal to formulate an independent policy for
the working class.
The full extent of the reactionary role played
by Morenoism became apparent in Argentina in the 1970s. While the
country was in the throes of a deep revolutionary crisis, Moreno’s party
aligned itself with the Peronist government and advocated for its stabilization. It signed declarations in defense of the “institutional
order” and pledged to fight for the “continuity of the government” at a
time when paramilitary forces were murdering workers and left-wing
activists. This policy contributed to the political disarmament of the
working class and paved the way for the 1976 military coup, which cost
tens of thousands of lives.
*****
For workers and young people who wish to fight against war, fascism
and social inequality, a clear conclusion follows: This struggle cannot
be waged within parties that are themselves part of the bourgeois state
and political reaction. It requires a conscious break with all such organizations and the building of an independent revolutionary movement
of the working class on an international basis.
RIO’s entry into
the Left Party is therefore not merely a political declaration of
bankruptcy on the part of this organisation. It creates political
clarity. The struggle for a socialist perspective is inextricably linked
to the struggle against pseudo-left tendencies which, under the guise
of radical rhetoric, defend the political pillars and interests of the
capitalist system. It requires the building of an independent
revolutionary world party—the International Committee of the Fourth
International (ICFI), which is represented in Germany by the Socialist Equality Party (SGP) and its youth organization, the IYSSE.
The
fight for the Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist's freedom is an
essential component of the struggle against imperialist war, genocide,
dictatorship and fascism.
In the evening, the king and Queen Camilla were honored at a white-tie
banquet in the White House State Dining Room, with a guest list
personally curated by Trump and populated by the oligarchs whose wealth
and power constitute the real monarchy in America. Among those attending
were Paramount CEO David Ellison, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim
Cook, and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. They dined on Dover sole and spring
herbed ravioli alongside Trump’s fascist cabinet members and a host of
right-wing media personalities and venture capitalists.
From the standpoint of British imperialism, the visit was aimed at
shoring up the somewhat strained “special relationship” between the US
and UK. Charles’s address to Congress was packaged in the usual royal
idiom of empty homilies about “peace” and “friendship,” anchored in the
“Christian faith,” the wrapping for the real concern transmitted through
the 77-year-old monarch: war.
*****
Trotsky once observed that the British bourgeoisie had adapted “the
old royal and noble castle to the requirements of the business firm”—a
description that retains all its force today. The monarchy functions as
an ideological prop of British capitalism, even as the royal household
is steeped in corruption and scandal.
*****
But the more fundamental significance of Charles’s visit lies in the
American context. The grotesque spectacle exposes the relationship of
the American ruling class to the revolutionary traditions it has long
since repudiated.
The American Revolution established the world’s
first major bourgeois democratic republic on the basis of Enlightenment
principles. The Constitution’s prohibition on titles of nobility,
contained in Article I, Sections 9 and 10, was a conscious rejection of
the social principle that birth confers authority and that the masses
must bow before dynastic power.
Thomas Paine, whose Common Sense
helped give political form to the American Revolution, poured scorn on
hereditary monarchy. “One of the strongest NATURAL proofs of the folly
of hereditary right in kings,” he wrote, “is, that nature disapproves
it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by
giving mankind an ASS FOR A LION”—an appropriate future epitaph for both
the honoree and the host of yesterday’s events.
The visit of this representative of the British monarchy takes place
under an administration that has repudiated, in word and deed, the
democratic principles of 1776. The Bill of Rights has been trampled
underfoot, and the grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence
against King George III read like a rap sheet for the present occupant
of the White House.
*****
Trump, however, speaks and acts not just for himself, but as the
representative of an oligarchy that regards constitutional restraints
and democratic rights as intolerable obstacles to the defense of its
wealth.
This is evident in the official response to Charles’s visit. The media
fawned over the monarch, treating his banalities as a profound statement
of democratic principle. The Democratic Party and the liberal press
have spent years, through the New York Times’ 1619 Project and
related efforts, depicting Jefferson, Washington and Lincoln as little
more than racial villains. Yet they now bow before the living embodiment
of hereditary privilege. Their problem was never with oppression as
such, but with the revolutionary traditions that might inspire
opposition to the present order.
*****
In his work The Persistence of the Old Regime, historian
Arno Mayer described the way in which European society before 1914 fused
bourgeois wealth with monarchical, aristocratic and ecclesiastical
forms. The bourgeoisie adapted itself to the old regime, even as it
transformed the economic foundations beneath it. This alliance was
ruptured only by the First World War, the Russian Revolution and the
revolutionary upheavals that followed.
A similar dynamic prevails
today, in somewhat different form. The American oligarchy has
accumulated wealth on a scale without precedent in human history. Its
central political preoccupation is how this wealth will be
defended—legally, ideologically and physically—against the social
opposition generated by its own accumulation.
The result is the revival of aristocratic forms. The oligarchs want
deference. They want immunity. They want the masses to know their place,
to bow and scrape when in the presence of their betters. They want
inherited wealth and dynastic privilege to be recognized not only in
fact, but in social practice and political culture. The constitutional
prohibition on titles of nobility is being prepared for repudiation in
practice, even if not yet in text.
When Trump posts “TWO KINGS,”
he is absolutely serious. It is a declaration of intent by a president
and the social forces behind him, which are seeking to establish the
principles of hereditary rule and untrammeled executive power, enforced
through the paramilitary police agencies of the state and the
mobilization of fascistic gangs.
Behind Trump stands Elon Musk,
Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, the Wall Street financiers,
the tech monopolists and the private equity barons whose wealth dwarfs
that of any historical monarch. Their fortunes are measured not in
palaces, estates and crown jewels, but in hundreds of billions of
dollars, vast corporate empires, control over communications systems,
military contracts, artificial intelligence, logistics, finance and the
commanding heights of social life.
*****
Charles declared in his address that the Anglo-American relationship
is “a partnership born out of dispute.” In this way, he sought to reduce
what was a revolutionary struggle against monarchy to a minor episode
in the general triumph of reaction. But masses of people, in the United
States and internationally, will draw very different conclusions and
inspiration from this history.
The defense of the democratic
principles proclaimed in 1776 is impossible today outside of the fight
for socialism. In the 18th century, the struggle against monarchy was
bound up with the rise of the bourgeoisie and the creation of the
democratic republic. In the 21st century, the defense and extension of
democracy requires the expropriation of the financial oligarchy and the
socialist reorganization of society on the basis of human need, not
private profit.
Canada’s Liberal government has pasted together a parliamentary
majority following a series of “floor crossings” by members of other
parties and victories in three by-elections held earlier this month. For
the first time since October 2019, a Liberal majority government now
holds power in Ottawa.
The securing of majority status will enable
former central banker and current Prime Minister Mark Carney to
accelerate the rapid shift to the right in official politics he has
overseen since replacing Justin Trudeau in March 2025.
Carney and
decisive sections of corporate Canada hope to use a majority government
to escalate a vicious onslaught on workers’ jobs and public services to
pay for the planned explosion of military spending over the next decade
and the enrichment of Canada’s financial oligarchy.
*****
Corporate Canada is demanding the government act “boldly” in imposing “sacrifices” on working people. The Globe and Mail, the
traditional voice of the financial elite, chided Carney in an editorial
published Tuesday for not slashing public services and social spending
more aggressively in last November’s budget; then added that now, armed
with a parliamentary majority, he has the opportunity to “create a more
competitive and entrepreneurial economy … all that is needed is
political boldness.”
*****
Each of the defections is significant. They reveal a realignment
within establishment politics in response to the deep crisis provoked by
American imperialism’s push to annex Canada as part of Trump’s “Greater
North America” strategy to prepare Washington for war with China and
other rivals, and the threat this poses to Canadian capitalism, its
profits, imperialist interests and federal state.
Since Trudeau
returned the Liberals to power in 2015 with a majority, the Canadian
bourgeoisie’s preferred party of national government has relied heavily
on its corporatist partnership with the trade union bureaucracy to
smother the class struggle and pursue a right-wing, pro-corporate
agenda.
Trudeau’s “progressive” rhetoric, amplified by the union bureaucrats
in their 2015 “Anybody but Harper” campaign to oust Tory Prime Minister
Stephen Harper, was quickly shown to be a fraud. Once in office, the
Liberals continued where Harper had left off. Public spending austerity,
support for the US-led war for regime change in Syria, preparations for
war on Russia by providing unyielding support to the far-right
Ukrainian government, a concerted turn to rearmament and a brutal
crackdown on refugees within the framework of the so-called “Safe Third
Country Agreement” with the US: these were the chief features of
Trudeau’s first term between 2015 and 2019.
Workers and young
people, who had been duped by the union bureaucracies and other
“progressive” forces to back the Liberals in 2015 to bring about
“change” after close to a decade of Tory rule, refused to give the
Liberals a second majority. After the 2019 election, Trudeau only held
onto power thanks to the support offered by the social democratic New
Democratic Party, with the strong backing of the union bureaucracy.
Although the NDP had failed to make any gains at the polls under its
right-wing leader Jagmeet Singh, it held the balance of power in the
House of Commons and continued to do so after a further election in
2021.
The NDP ensured the Liberals could govern as they bailed out corporate
Canada to the tune of hundreds of billions during the COVID-19 pandemic
and infected millions of workers through their profits-before-lives
policies. In 2022, the NDP-backed Liberal government made sure Canada
played a major role in the US-NATO war on Russia in Ukraine, and it
wholeheartedly endorsed Israel’s imperialist-backed genocide of the
Palestinians in Gaza from October 2023. On the domestic front, Trudeau
and later Carney enforced austerity spending through below-inflation
transfers to the provinces, and waged a systematic onslaught on
democratic rights, including workers’ right to strike.
*****
At last year’s federal election, workers delivered their verdict on
the despicable role played by the NDP and their union allies. The social
democrats saw their share of the popular vote cut by two-thirds to a
minuscule 6.1 percent, and were reduced to a parliamentary rump group of
just 7 MPs, five below the number needed for official party status.
Nonetheless,
the NDP continued to prop up the Carney government. In November it
joined with the lone Green MP to ensure passage of Carney’s first
budget, which imposed further austerity and over $80 billion in military
spending increases by 2030. In line with NATO goals, Carney has since
vowed to triple defense spending to $150 billion per year by 2035, and
committed billions to strengthening Canada’s military-industrial base.
The
union-NDP-Liberal alliance is continuing even now that Carney has
cobbled together a majority, and even as the corporate media
acknowledges that he has lifted many of his policies from the
Conservatives and their far-right leader Pierre Poilievre. Newly elected
NDP leader Avi Lewis held a friendly meeting with Carney on April 16 to
open up lines of communication and collaboration.
The corporatist
character of this partnership found expression in Carney’s new
Canada-US advisory council unveiled last week. The body, which aims to
assist the government in negotiating a new trade arrangement with Trump
to secure Canada’s position as a junior imperialist partner in American
imperialism’s “Fortress North America,” includes Unifor president Lana
Payne and Quebec Federation of Labour President Magali Picard, as well
as numerous CEOs and heads of business lobby groups. Retired
Conservative politicians such as Lisa Raitt, Jean Charest and Erin
O’Toole are also members.
Carney’s new majority is based on a concerted appeal to the Tory
right, which under federal leader Pierre Poilievre has morphed
increasingly into a far-right formation like the US Republicans.
Ontario’s right-wing populist premier Doug Ford, who stated prior to
this month’s by-elections that he hoped Carney would secure a
parliamentary majority, declared that Carney’s majority would strengthen
the bargaining position of Canadian imperialism in upcoming trade
negotiations with the United States.
The defection of the
far-right Conservative Marylin Gladu speaks volumes about the Liberals’
class war agenda. Gladu was a champion of the fascist-led “Freedom
Convoy,” which occupied downtown Ottawa and two US border crossings in
2022 to demand the complete dismantling of anti-COVID-19 public health
measures. It amounted to an attempt to overthrow the Trudeau government.
Gladu has also signaled opposition to abortion rights and support for
“conversion therapy,” a pseudo-scientific and abusive practice aimed at
“converting” LGBTQ people.
Canadian imperialism is desperate to
press forward with its aggressive agenda. Its plans for rearmament and
global war with Russia and China and its defense of its profits and
markets amid global trade war cannot be undertaken without escalating
the class-war assault on the working class that has been ongoing under
governments of all political stripes for the past four decades.
*****
The reality is that Canada’s ruling class is increasingly adopting
Trumpian policies. These include a dramatic escalation of military
spending, expanded police powers, and attacks on immigrants and
democratic rights. The allies of Canadian workers are not to be found in
the corporate boardrooms of Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and
Vancouver, or around the cabinet table of Carney’s majority Liberal
government. Rather, they will come from the factories and worksites of
the industrial Midwest, California and the US south, and the
maquiladoras of northern Mexico. Unifying the North American working
class in struggle against war, dictatorship and attacks on worker rights
requires above all a socialist and internationalist program, and a
revolutionary leadership capable of fighting for it—the Socialist
Equality Party, Canadian section of the International Committee of the
Fourth International. Everyone who agrees with this perspective should
join and help build the SEP as the revolutionary socialist party of the
working class.
A report by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) on
April 24 shows a significant rise in food prices driven by multiple
factors including tight supplies, weather shocks and upstream cost
increases. Among the major causes are higher fuel and fertilizer costs
from the US-Israeli war against Iran, and the prolonged drought facing
American farmers.
The summary in the USDA’s Food Price Outlook
states that in 2026 “prices for all food are predicted to increase 2.9
percent,” while “food-at-home prices are predicted to increase 2.4
percent” and “food-away-from-home prices are predicted to increase 3.6
percent.”
The report adds that “prices for 7 categories are
predicted to grow faster than their 20-year historical average rate of
growth,” specifically beef and veal, fish and seafood, fresh vegetables,
processed fruits and vegetables, sugar and sweets, nonalcoholic
beverages and other foods.
The report also says prices for pork,
other meats, poultry, cereal and bakery products, and fresh fruits are
expected to rise more slowly than the average, while eggs, dairy
products, and fats and oils are expected to decline.
On beef, the
USDA said, “beef and veal prices were 12.1 percent higher in March 2026
than in March 2025,” and the agency forecasts a further increase of 6.3
percent in 2026. The report ties this rise to “a cyclical contraction of
the cattle herd” and strong consumer demand despite tighter supplies.
Farmers are facing a “perfect storm” of circumstances: Fuel, fertilizer
and other inputs are rising while weather and market volatility make
harvests less predictable. CoBank reports that fuel and fertilizer
prices have risen 20-40 percent since the Iran war began, warning that
higher diesel costs alone could add thousands of dollars per farmer.
*****
At the farm level, fuel is the cost that shows up every day. It
powers tractors, combines, irrigation pumps, grain dryers and delivery
trucks, so even a modest diesel spike can add thousands of dollars in
expenses for a single operation and much more for large grain-handling
systems. Those costs are hard to absorb because many growers already
sell into thin-margin markets, so they cannot simply pass everything on
immediately.
Fertilizer is even more important because it affects
not just cost but output. When nitrogen or urea prices jump sharply,
farmers may reduce application rates, delay purchases, switch to less
fertilizer-intensive crops, or plant fewer acres altogether. That means
the full damage may not appear until harvest, when lower yields work
their way into grain, feed, meat, dairy and processed food prices.
Fuel also drives freight rates across the entire system. Trucking, rail,
ocean freight, warehouse handling and cold-chain refrigeration all
become more expensive when diesel and marine fuel rise, and those costs
are quickly built into wholesale and retail pricing. For fresh produce,
the problem is especially acute because refrigeration and fast transport
are essential to avoiding spoilage.
Storage and processing costs rise too. Grain elevators, flour mills,
feed mills, canneries and packing plants use large amounts of
electricity and fuel, so price shocks do not stop at the farm gate. As
expenses rise, processors often cut order volumes, renegotiate
contracts, or trim product sizes and margins, which eventually shows up
as higher shelf prices or reduced availability.
*****
The prolonged drought in the US is widespread and severe, and is not a
local or temporary dry spell. As of April 21, 2026, 63 percent of the
Lower 48 states were in drought, and 52 percent of the US and Puerto
Rico combined were in drought. The Southeast is especially hard hit with
97 percent of the region in moderate to exceptional drought and 82
percent in severe to exceptional drought.
The drought is hurting
agriculture and water supplies. The Southeast drought update says soil
moisture is limited or nonexistent in many areas, seeds are struggling
to germinate, some land is too dry to plant, irrigation is needed to
keep crops alive and stock ponds are low. It also says pasture
conditions are poor, forcing producers to continue feeding hay to
livestock far longer than normal.
This kind of prolonged drought
does more than dry out fields. It reduces crop yields, raises feed
costs, strains livestock producers, increases wildfire risk, and puts
pressure on reservoirs, rivers and groundwater. Because drought is
spreading across multiple major agricultural regions at the same time,
it has a much larger impact on the food system than a short, isolated
dry spell.
Meanwhile, weather shocks are also hitting food production in the same
moment. USDA-linked reporting on Florida shows that freezing
temperatures struck 66 of the state’s 67 counties, and caused more than
$3.1 billion in agricultural losses with heavy damage to sugarcane,
citrus, strawberries, tomatoes, watermelons, sweet corn, bell peppers,
potatoes, cabbage and squash.
*****
The Trump administration’s tariffs have also added another layer of
price pressure, especially for canned and processed foods that depend on
imported metal, packaging and inputs. A food-industry context report
cited in the USDA’s Outlook links higher prices in processed categories
to wholesale and input cost increases, including energy and commodity
movements that feed through the entire chain. In the globally integrated
food manufacturing sector, tariffs quickly become a tax on basic
consumer goods.
Labor costs are also a major issue, especially in
agriculture, meatpacking and food processing, areas where immigrant
workers are significantly represented. Mass deportation policies have
raised labor costs by shrinking the available workforce, pushing wages
up, and creating bottlenecks in harvesting, packing and transportation.
*****
While Trump’s Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has vowed that the US
agricultural workforce will become “100 percent American,” a recent
Labor Department filing admitted that replacing undocumented farmworkers
is nearly impossible.
The Labor Department’s filing in the Federal Register said, “the
Department does not believe American workers currently unemployed or
marginally employed will make themselves readily available in sufficient
numbers to replace large numbers of aliens no longer entering the
country, voluntarily leaving, or choosing to exit the labor force due to
the self-perceived potential for their removal based on their illegal
entry and status.”
Rising food costs are also deepening food insecurity. FRAC says the
USDA’s latest food security report found 47.9 million people lived in
food-insecure households last year, a number that captures the scale of
hardship beneath the official inflation figures. Even modest increases
in food prices can push families already living near the edge into
skipping meals, buying cheaper but less nutritious food, or depending on
charity.
Food banks are reporting this pressure directly.
Community food organizations have warned that demand remains elevated as
wages fail to keep pace with food costs, housing costs and utility
bills. The social consequences are straightforward. The heaviest burden
of food inflation falls on low-wage workers, the unemployed, retirees
and single-parent households.
*****
The war-driven rise in food and fuel prices is a global phenomena,
triggering protests and strikes in the Philippines, Haiti, India,
Ireland and other countries. In the UK, the Food and Drink Federation
says food inflation is now expected to reach at least 9 percent by the
end of 2026, citing energy, transport, fertilizer and shipping
disruptions tied to the war in Iran and the crisis in the Strait of
Hormuz.
The Bank of England has also reported that businesses fear
food inflation could reach 6 to 7 percent this year. The Food
Foundation says UK food price inflation reached 3.7 percent in April.
The
Canada Food Price Report 2026 forecasts overall food prices will rise 4
to 6 percent, with the average family of four spending up to $17,571.79
on food this year. That is part of a wider cost-of-living crisis in
which food bank use is climbing and households are increasingly unable
to absorb further price shocks. The pattern is international: When
energy, logistics and agriculture all become more expensive at once,
food costs rise everywhere.
The long-term effect of war on the
world food supply makes the global system more fragile. The USDA notes
that prices for wheat peaked after the Russia-Ukraine war began and that
farm-level wheat prices remain sensitive to war-related supply
disruptions. The UK food industry is already warning that Middle East
conflict and oil-market disruption are feeding increases in fertilizer,
transport and packaging costs.
In poor and importing countries,
fuel cost increases, shipping route disruptions and cuts to fertilizer
production reduce harvest reliability and this translates into hunger
and malnutrition. The food system is absorbing the combined impact of
war, tariffs, labor shortages and climate shocks simultaneously. The
result is an increase in inequality internationally, where millions pay
more to eat while others are forced to go without.
A recent report by the New York Times reveals that spending
on new medical research by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has
fallen roughly $1 billion behind its historical pace during the second
year of the Trump administration. Between October and late March, the
NIH awarded only about 1,900 new and competitive grants. This figure
represents less than half the number of grants typically approved by
this point in the fiscal year under the previous administration.
The
severe contraction in grant-making has been deliberately driven by a
renewed effort to screen grants using a computational text analysis tool
introduced to employees in December of last year. Designed to formalize
a reactionary campaign against so-called “woke science” that was led by
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, the algorithm scans
proposals and existing projects for roughly 235 flagged terms, including
“racism,” “gender,” “inequities,” “minority” and “vaccination
refusal.”
Within certain divisions, the tool flags up to half of
all grants, ensnaring vital research on cancer, diabetes, heart disease
and Alzheimer’s disease. These grants are frequently flagged simply
because they examine inequities in access to care or identify minority
groups disproportionately suffering from specific diseases. Staff
scientists are then forced to extensively justify or rewrite their
proposals, creating immense bottlenecks where a biological science grant
can be stalled for weeks, if not indefinitely.
The severe
contraction in grant-making is not solely the result of such ideological
screening, but is driven by a deliberate assault on both the personnel
at and operational funding for the NIH. Over the past year, the agency
has lost nearly 3,000 employees, which accounts for approximately 14
percent of its total workforce. This systematic gutting of the
scientific infrastructure was kicked off on April 1, 2025, when sweeping
layoffs led to the mass termination of roughly 1,200 to 1,300 staff
members.
Concurrently, the Trump administration has engineered severe operational
funding bottlenecks. In July 2025, the White House Office of Management
and Budget mandated that the agency pay the full cost of approved
multiyear grants upfront rather than in annual installments, drastically
shrinking the pool of capital available for new research. Furthermore,
the Trump administration took the unprecedented step of canceling or
freezing over 5,400 active agency grants throughout the year.
These efforts by President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services
Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have caused a catastrophic hollowing out
of the medical pipeline. The NIH is the primary public engine of
biomedical research in the United States. Consequently, the severe drop
in awarded grants directly translates into fewer laboratory hires,
delayed scientific projects, weaker clinical response and far fewer
discoveries moving into actual medical practice.
*****
The consequence of this deliberate starvation of scientific funding
threatens to permanently stall vital research projects. Furthermore,
this structural sabotage of the scientific research pipeline sets the
stage for the administration’s parallel assault on the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where the attack shifts from
blocking future cures to dismantling present-day disease surveillance
and prevention.
Perhaps more insidiously, the science that does manage to survive is now
subject to blatant political censorship. Recent reports in the Washington Post and the New York Times reveal
that Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the acting director of the CDC, blocked the
publication of a critical study demonstrating that COVID vaccines cut
emergency room visits by 50 percent and hospitalizations by 55 percent
last winter.
*****
The suppression of such data exposes how federal health agencies are
being transformed into ideological gatekeepers by subordinating
scientific publication to the reactionary political preferences of the
administration. This further and purposefully undermines public trust
and eviscerates evidence-based decision-making. This act of censorship
is not an isolated event. It represents a calculated component of a much
broader restructuring of CDC authority and the national governance of
vaccines.
*****
The systematic dismantling of public health infrastructure finds its
most devastating expression in the ongoing crisis of Long COVID, which
serves as the ultimate bridge between public health and the economy,
transforming a viral event into a permanent labor crisis.
Research
from the University of Florida demonstrates that lost wages from
employee sick time alone conservatively totaled $12.7 billion in a
single year. However, this is merely a fraction of the real social and
economic burden. Broader estimates, including those by Harvard
economists, place the total economic cost of Long COVID at a staggering
$3.7 trillion in the United States alone, with the condition erasing
approximately $1 trillion annually from the global economy. This is not a
niche clinical issue as Bhattacharya and company attempt to frame it.
It is a massive, ongoing disaster that has permanently sidelined between
2 million and 4 million working-age Americans.
The economic consequences of this mass disabling event are catastrophic
for the working class. Long COVID drastically reduces the labor supply
and drives up rates of disability and absenteeism. Furthermore, millions
of chronically ill individuals remain employed but operate at
significantly reduced productivity due to debilitating fatigue and
cognitive impairment.This burden is immense on an
individual level, with Long COVID imposing between $4,098 and $11,641 in
excess medical costs annually per person, representing an average of
roughly $9,000 in additional yearly healthcare spending per patient.
*****
While the macroeconomic drag of Long COVID is part of the global
capitalist crisis, in the United States, this mass disabling event
intersects with a uniquely brutal, market-driven healthcare system that
was already failing the working class. Healthcare spending now consumes
18 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, reaching a staggering $5.3
trillion in 2024, or $15,474 per person. For the working class, this
translates into an unbearable and escalating financial weight. The
average employer-sponsored family premium hit $26,993 in 2025, with
workers forced to pay $6,850 of that cost directly out of their own
paychecks. Out-of-pocket expenses have also surged, compounding the
economic strain on households.
Approximately 100 million Americans
currently carry some form of medical debt, a crisis that contributes to
roughly 530,000 personal bankruptcies every year. Nearly a third of the
country is forced to make desperate material sacrifices just to afford
healthcare, including cutting back on utilities, skipping meals and
delaying vital medical treatments. As the Roosevelt Institute correctly
noted, medical debt is not an individual financial failure but a
“medical debt crisis [as a] result of a wholly broken health-care system
that burdens patients, employers, and health-care providers alike for
the benefit of a handful of insurance corporations, pharmaceutical
companies, and pharmacy benefit managers.” In other words, it becomes
the institutionalized transfer of medical costs from the capitalist
healthcare system directly onto the backs of the working class.
This
systemic crisis is now being aggressively weaponized to dismantle the
foundational social safety nets of Medicare and Medicaid. The political
logic driving this assault was starkly articulated by President Donald
Trump during a private Easter luncheon on March 31, 2026. Trump
explicitly stated that because of the growing demands on the war machine
of American imperialism, it is “not possible for us to take care of day
care, Medicaid, Medicare” at the federal level, insisting instead that
the government must focus on “one thing: military protection” and that
citizens must “let states take care of them.”
This statement must be treated as a programmatic declaration of the
ruling class rather than a mere throwaway remark. It makes the brutal
priorities of American capitalism completely explicit: the financing of
global imperialist war and the servicing of a massive national debt take
absolute precedence over the health and survival of the population.
With net interest on the national debt projected to hit $1 trillion in
fiscal year 2026, surpassing both defense and Medicaid spending, the
state is actively stripping the social wage to fund its military
apparatus and enrich its creditors.
*****
To fully grasp the magnitude of the current destruction, the National
Institutes of Health must be understood not as a peripheral government
agency but as the historical product of the post-World War II settlement
between the working class and the capitalist state.
The architecture of modern American science was decisively shaped by Vannevar Bush’s 1945 report, Science, the Endless Frontier.
Bush argued that government-funded basic research at universities and
medical schools was the essential precondition for disease control,
economic growth and national security. His report recognized that the
relentless pressure of commercial necessity within private industry was
incapable of sustaining the foundational scientific research required to
ensure public health and prosperity. Operating within this postwar
compact, the NIH evolved into the critical backbone of the American
biomedical research enterprise. By linking vast sums of public funding
to university laboratories, the agency built an immense public
infrastructure that downstream pharmaceutical innovation has entirely
relied upon. Research funded by the NIH was linked to every single drug
approved by the Food and Drug Administration between 2010 and 2019,
representing a massive $187 billion public investment in foundational
science.
This arrangement operated on a specifically capitalist
logic, where public science subsidized private corporate profits while
providing partial health benefits to the working class. Nevertheless, it
created an infrastructure that yielded vital therapies and catalyzed
the entire biotechnology sector. The current operational slowdown and
funding freeze therefore represent a reversal of the very architecture
that made modern biomedical science possible. The institution currently
being sabotaged is not peripheral; it is the central engine of medical
discovery.
*****
The historical context of this assault extends beyond the
postwar period and requires a return to the very foundations of social
medicine. To fully understand the systematic destruction of the
scientific pipeline, one must look to the German physician Rudolf
Virchow.
Doctor Virchow
Born in 1821 and widely recognized as the father of modern pathology,
Virchow was commissioned by the government in Berlin in 1848 to
investigate a devastating typhus epidemic among the impoverished
peasants of Silesia. He concluded that the outbreak was not merely a
biological event, but a profound social problem rooted in abject
poverty, malnutrition and squalid living conditions. This realization
led to his famous formulation that medicine is a social science, and
politics is nothing but medicine on a grand scale.
Virchow demonstrated that public health has always been an inherently
political domain, arguing that epidemics could only be eradicated
through the equitable distribution of society’s resources and the
elimination of social inequality. The current crisis facing the NIH and
the broader medical system is a brutal demonstration of the class
organization of life and death.
The brain drain currently underway in the United States is a direct
result of the enacted policy changes, and both China and Europe are
aggressively taking advantage of this scientific exodus. A recent survey
found that 75 percent of researchers based in the United States are
considering moving abroad. The European Union has allocated €500 million
specifically to recruit scientists, while countries including France,
Austria and Germany have launched active recruitment programs explicitly
targeting American talent. Applications from US-based scientists for
early-career grants to the European Research Council nearly tripled from
60 in 2024 to 169 in 2026. During this same period, applications from
senior American researchers surged from 23 to 114.
Simultaneously,
China is capitalizing on the crisis by launching a new K visa to
attract scientific talent, and in 2024, China officially surpassed the
United States in research and development spending, investing $1.03
trillion compared to the $1.01 trillion spent by the United States.
The structural sabotage of public health and scientific research is
driven by a massive reallocation of resources toward militarism and the
servicing of federal debt. While the NIH faces a proposed 40 percent
budget cut and essential health programs are starved, the state has
allocated nearly $1 trillion for the Pentagon and spent between $31
billion and $34 billion (equivalent to the cuts in the NIH budget) on
military operations in the Middle East alone since late 2023. A
war-centered state is fundamentally incompatible with universal social
care, rendering public health collateral damage in the competition for
resources.
Ultimately, the operational slowdown at the NIH, the
blatant political censorship at the CDC, the mass disabling event of
Long COVID, surging healthcare costs, the rollback of Medicaid and
Medicare, the ballooning war budget and the unprecedented scientific
brain drain are not isolated phenomena. They are all interconnected
manifestations of a single systemic social crisis. Public health is
being systematically dismantled because it stands in direct opposition
to a ruling class project organized entirely around imperialist war,
massive debt accumulation, privatization and deepening class division.
The crisis in public health is therefore not a mere side effect of
reactionary politics. It is a central arena of the international class
struggle, requiring the independent political mobilization of the
working class to defend human life against the dictates of the
capitalist system.
Banks are reporting that they expect an increase in defaults from
companies already reporting sharp increases in their cost structures
well above the rise in petrol and diesel prices. Major companies are
issuing profit downgrades. The cost hikes go across the board, from
energy, to fertilizers and building materials.
*****
Earlier this month at an event in New York, the deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), Andrew Hauser, said the “stagflationary shock” from the war on Iran
was a “central banker’s nightmare” with soaring fuel prices delivering a
“big income shock” as consumer confidence was falling to its lowest
level in years.
*****
How far and how fast the outlook can change is illustrated by the
plunge in the share price of the hearing implant manufacturer Cochlear, a
global leader in this field.
Last Wednesday its share price fell 41 percent followed by a further 4 percent the next day.
*****
The company has not been directly affected by the energy price hikes,
but its sudden decline nevertheless highlights their global impact, not
least in the US. The company said in its statement that it was forced to
make the downward revision because demand for its implants, which are
treated as discretionary healthcare purchases, has declined as the
result of consumer sentiment in the US falling to a record low—one of
the consequences of the war on Iran.
*****
Retail has not yet been affected, at least as far as available
statistics reveal, but it appears to be only a matter of time as has
been predicted by Ten Cap portfolio manager Jun Bei Liu whose firm owns
stock in the pizza making chain Domino’s among others.
*****
One of the major lenders to businesses, the NAB, has made increased provision for a sharp rise in bad debts.
Earlier
this month it said that its interim results, to be released next week,
would include an increase in the provision for impairments—that is a
permanent reduction in the recorded value of an asset on a balance sheet
below the recoverable amount—to $706 million, up from $485 million,
with an additional $300 million set aside for bad debts.
NAB said
the increase in the provisions was based on the likelihood that some
fuel dependent businesses would be unable to repay their loans. NAB is
the biggest lender to businesses in agriculture and transport which have
been hit by higher fuel and fertilizer costs.
According to a CNN report published Tuesday, the Trump administration is
seeking to fast-track the deportation of migrant children in US custody
by abruptly advancing immigration court hearings, in some cases by
weeks or months and with only days’ notice.
Children as young as four and five years old are being forced to
appear repeatedly in immigration court, sometimes without legal counsel.
Attorneys for the children warned that the rushed schedule makes it far
more difficult to obtain legal relief, including Special Immigrant
Juvenile status, which requires proceedings in state court before an
application can be adjudicated by federal immigration authorities.
CNN
reported that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller recently
pressed Health and Human Services officials to move faster to get
migrant children out of custody and return them to their countries of
origin.
The fascists in the Trump administration are presenting
the policy in the language of “rescue,” claiming that accelerated
deportations will protect children from trafficking and exploitation. In
reality, the policy places traumatized children, many of whom fled
abuse, abandonment, poverty or violence, on a fast track to removal
before they can even understand the proceedings against them, much less
secure counsel.
What meaning does “due process” have when a five-year-old is ordered
into court without a lawyer and expected to answer for themselves? The
Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process applies to “persons,” not
only citizens. Yet the government is compelling traumatized children to
participate in adversarial proceedings they cannot possibly understand,
while accelerating deadlines so their attorneys cannot obtain relief.
*****
The same administration that refuses to release the Epstein files,
pardons and commutes the sentences of fascist militia members and wages
illegal war around the world is now pressuring immigrant children and
families into abandoning their legal rights.
*****
The same day CNN reported the administration’s move to accelerate the
deportation of children, federal agents carried out 22 raids across the
Twin Cities as part of bogus investigations into alleged fraud in
Minnesota’s social welfare programs. The FBI and Homeland Security
Investigations executed the warrants, while the Minnesota Bureau of
Criminal Apprehension partnered with federal investigators and the state
attorney general’s Medicaid fraud unit to participate in searches at
autism-related facilities.
These “fraud” investigations are a
bogus pretext through which the Trump administration is seeking to
justify sweeping attacks on the democratic rights of the working class,
regardless of immigration status. For months, Trump has seized on
allegations of fraud in Minnesota’s social programs to whip up a racist
campaign against Somali immigrants and Somali Americans, denouncing them
as “garbage” and demanding that they be sent “back to where they came
from.”
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz responded not by opposing the federal
operation but by endorsing it. “Today’s raids by state and federal law
enforcement happened because our state agencies caught irregular
behavior and reported it,” Walz declared. “That’s how the system is
supposed to work, and our agencies will keep at it as long as there are
fraudsters around to put behind bars.”
In a separate post, Walz added that “joint investigations work,” while
also calling for a joint investigation into the killings of Alex Pretti
and Renée Nicole Good.
*****
The raids are being used to lend legitimacy to the administration’s
broader claims that social programs are riddled with criminality and
must be placed under police supervision or stripped of funding
altogether. The real target is not “fraud” but the social rights of the
working class. Programs for children, the disabled, the poor and
immigrants are being treated as suspect and expendable, while hundreds
of billions are funneled into war, repression and the enrichment of the
corporate oligarchy. As Trump himself said earlier this month while
appointing Vice President JD Vance as his “fraud czar,” “Don’t send any
money for daycare,” because “we’re fighting wars.”
He added, “You gotta let states take care of daycare and they should pay
for it too ... Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.” The
only concern of the US government, Trump stated, should be “one thing,
military protection.”
Walz’s call for a joint investigation into the killings of Renée
Nicole Good and Alex Pretti only underscores the fraudulence of his
position. When federal agents killed Good in Minneapolis on January 7,
the FBI did not work transparently with Minnesota investigators.
On Tuesday the Daily Beast reported
that Good’s killer, ICE agent Jonathan Ross, has been quietly relocated
to another state and allowed to resume work while the FBI investigation
has stalled. Senior DHS officials told the outlet that ICE’s own
internal review cannot begin until the FBI probe is completed,
effectively and conveniently, freezing the agency’s accountability
process.
The report confirmed that the FBI “investigation” into
Good’s death was compromised from the outset. FBI supervisor Tracee
Mergen resigned from the Minneapolis field office after saying she was
pressured to reclassify her civil rights inquiry into Ross as an
investigation into Good herself. Whistleblower accounts obtained by
Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Dick Durbin described FBI Director Patel
as directing agents to reframe warrant language so that Good would be
portrayed as a suspect rather than a victim.
Multiple senior DHS
officials also told the outlet that the decision to exclude Minnesota
state investigators from federal evidence and the crime scene was
directed by the White House.
The real fraud is not in Minnesota clinics and daycare sites but the
claim that the American justice system, the police and the immigration
Gestapo exist to protect workers, children and their families. These
institutions are not neutral bodies that can be reformed into
instruments of democracy. They are instruments of class rule, directed
against the working class, immigrants and all opposition to the policies
of war and austerity. The defense of children, immigrants and
democratic rights requires the independent political mobilization of the
working class against the capitalist system and both parties that
defend it.
German military spending rose by 24 percent last year. At €97 billion
($114 billion), Germany ranks fourth in the world behind the US, China
and Russia. This is according to the latest report from the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). And the increase
continues, from currently 2.3 to 5 percent of economic output. That
amounts to more than €200 billion a year, about 40 percent of the
current federal budget.
The bill for this massive rearmament programme is being presented to the
working class in the form of falling social spending, poorer
healthcare, lower pensions, lower wages and mass unemployment. Not a day
goes by without business associations and leading media outlets
demanding that the government must finally “deliver,” decide on “bold
reforms,” “break the resistance” and “withstand the anger.”
*****
As early as Wednesday, the federal cabinet wants to decide on the cornerstones for the future budget and pass healthcare reforms that
will cut the spending of the statutory health insurance funds by €20
billion next year. The consequences will be poorer care and more
expensive medicines for patients and even more unbearable working
conditions for healthcare personnel.
Before the summer holidays,
the “Old Age Security Commission” will then present its proposals for
pension reforms, which are to be decided upon in the autumn. Chancellor
Friedrich Merz has already announced drastic cuts. “Statutory pension
insurance will at best still be the basic security for old age,” he said
last week at an anniversary event for the German banking association.
“It will no longer be sufficient to secure the standard of living in the
long term.”
Additional “capital-funded elements of occupational and private old-age
provisions” were necessary, said the former BlackRock manager Merz, “and
on a much larger scale than we currently have, largely on a voluntary
basis.” This not only means old-age poverty for everyone who cannot
afford such capital-funded insurance, but it also provides banks and
investment funds with additional money and hands over old-age provisions
to the whims of the financial markets.
The government is also taking a sledgehammer to social spending. It has already abolished Bürgergeld (basic
welfare payments) and replaced it with a “New Basic Security Benefit,”
which is tied to much harsher requirements and enables the state to
force the unemployed into any job, no matter how poorly paid. But that
was only the beginning.*****
The Paritätischer Gesamtverband (Equality Welfare Association)
recently published a secret, 108-page document in which representatives
of the federal, state and local umbrella organizations compiled cutback
proposals affecting people with disabilities, children, young people and
their families. To the extent they are quantified, they amount to €8.6
billion annually. However, two-thirds of the proposals do not contain a
cost estimate, so total savings are likely to be significantly higher.
*****
While the government parties agree on the basics, the question of how
exactly the cuts are to be formulated is leading to fierce conflicts.
In particular, Finance Minister Klingbeil and Economics Minister
Katherina Reiche (CDU), an unscrupulous lobbyist for the gas industry,
clash repeatedly.
Chancellor Merz and Vice Chancellor Klingbeil
have been meeting in private for weeks to coordinate the austerity
measures. Nevertheless, according to a report in newsweekly Der Spiegel, an open conflict occurred on March 12. At a meeting of the coalition committee at Villa Borsig, the two shouted at each other.
However, it would be a dangerous illusion to hope that the conflicts
within the coalition—or occasional objections from the trade unions,
Labour Minister Bärbel Bas (SPD) and the so-called “CDU Social
Committees”—would prevent or even slow down the austerity measures. The
objections serve exclusively to dampen resistance against the austerity
policy.
The trade unions also stand unreservedly behind the government’s war
and austerity policies. Yasmin Fahimi, chairwoman of the German Trade
Union Confederation, was formerly general secretary of the SPD. Her
husband, the chairman of the chemical union IG BCE Michael Vassiliadis,
has been an SPD member for 45 years and is a vehement advocate of
collaboration with the corporations.
The crisis of the coalition,
which is also reflected in growing criticism of Merz in the bourgeois
media, has resulted in sections of the ruling elites orienting ever more
openly towards the Alternative for Germany (AfD). This far-right and
partly fascist party, similar to Trump’s MAGA movement in the US, uses
the anger at the ruling elites to present itself as an opposition, while
simultaneously representing the interests of the most greedy and
corrupt elements of capital.
*****
The ruling class and its lackeys in the media claim that society can no
longer afford social spending, pensions and decent wages. In reality, it
can no longer afford the billionaires and millionaires who senselessly
squander vast sums, are plunging the world into war and misery and use
groundbreaking technologies like Artificial Intelligence to destroy jobs
instead of improving the living conditions of all.
The powerful statewide strike by more than 40,000 Victorian public
school teachers, education support staff and principals on March 24
marked a significant turning point. It was the first such action in 13
years. It expressed a long-suppressed anger over plunging real wages,
chronic staff shortages and crushing workloads.
However, even as educators rallied at the state Parliament House in
Melbourne, the Australian Education Union (AEU) apparatus was already
moving to contain, dissipate and ultimately shut down this movement.
A
brief chronology of the lead up to the March 24 strike reveals the
union’s strategy. On March 16, after nearly nine months of closed-doors
negotiations, Premier Jacinta Allan’s state Labor government put forward
a 17–18 percent pay offer over four years—tied to increased
workloads—which the AEU formally rejected.
Yet, just four days
later, on March 20, the AEU executive and the union’s primary and
secondary state council voted to water down the campaign, voting for
regional half-day strikes and limited, largely ineffectual bans. The
rhetoric about “pulling back the throttle,” against the state
government, promoted by AEU Victorian branch president Justin Mullaly,
quickly proved hollow.
The so-called escalation in Term 2 replaces
a unified statewide strike with fragmented regional half-day stoppages,
isolating teachers, dissipating momentum and ensuring the government
faces no sustained pressure. The proposed bans—fewer after-school
meetings, limits on administrative tasks, reduced report comments and
refusal to participate in departmental initiatives—will have little or
no impact on the Allan government.
This watered-down campaign was
determined before the March 24 strike even took place. The purpose of
the one-day action was to let off steam after decades of union sellouts,
allow the AEU bureaucrats to posture as militant and promote illusions
such as a 35 percent pay claim over three years—which they have no
intention of fighting for—while preparing to demobilize educators.
The
AEU has also used the dispute to try to rebuild membership after
thousands resigned from the union in disgust over its 2022 sellout.
Under the reactionary enterprise bargaining laws imposed by the Keating
federal Labor government and the unions in the 1990s, workers must be
union members to participate in legally-protected industrial action, so
many educators joined or rejoined the AEU to participate in the March 24
strike and register their opposition to the intolerable conditions in
the schools.
At the March 24 rally, amid boasts of a record number of members and
bureaucrat-led chants of “union power,” there was no mention of the
1,500 Tasmanian teachers who walked out the same day over similar
conditions.
*****
The events in Tasmania are a sharp warning to Victorian educators of the
sellout being prepared behind closed doors. The decision of the
Tasmanian AEU to call off action and isolate educators from their
colleagues in Victoria created the conditions for another appalling
betrayal.
*****
The Allan government is under pressure from international credit
rating agencies like Moody’s and S&P Global to impose “fiscal
discipline” amid soaring state debt, projected to reach $236.6 billion
by 2029. Consequently, $2.4 billion in promised public school funding
has already been deferred, while funding to the elite private schools is
reaching unprecedented levels.
The same applies federally, where
the Albanese government is funnelling tens of billions of dollars into
AUKUS and military spending while deepening its assault on public
education. Just last week, the Albanese government announced another
funding boost for the military, headlined by an additional $53 billion
over the next decade in the 2026 National Defence Strategy as part of
preparations for a US-led war against China. This was followed by the
government’s announcement of a $35 billion cut over the next four years
to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), attacking the most
vulnerable sections of society. That is the largest single cut to an
Australian government program this century, and likely the largest ever.
The AEU, tied hand-and-foot to the Labor Party, is imposing Labor’s war and austerity agenda in schools.
*****
These groups falsify past struggles to preserve illusions in the
unions. They portray defeats such as the 2022 Victorian schools
agreement as the result of too little industrial action, rather than a
conscious betrayal, involving misinformation and censorship, carried out
by the union leadership in collaboration with Labor.
In this way,
the pseudo-left acts as a political shield for the discredited union
apparatus and a buffer for capitalism amid deepening crisis, war and
austerity. They attempt to channel opposition into protest politics,
parliamentary pressure and appeals to Labor.
Their central aim is
to prevent educators drawing the necessary conclusion, that the defense of public education requires an independent movement of the working
class, based on rank-and-file committees and a socialist struggle
against capitalism itself.
*****
The AEU functions as a corporatist organization integrated into the
structures of government. Its officials sit on advisory bodies,
negotiate behind closed doors with ministers and Treasury, and enforce
industrial laws that restrict strike action to tightly-controlled
bargaining periods. Senior union officials enjoy six-figure salaries
while policing Labor’s agenda.
The powerful walkout on March 24
demonstrated educators’ readiness to fight, but it must become the
starting point for an independent struggle.
The Committee for Public Education (CFPE), the educators’ rank-and-file network, urges all teachers and staff to:
Establish
democratically elected rank-and-file committees in every school. These
committees must be independent of the union apparatus and dedicated to a
politically independent struggle against the Allan Labor government’s
austerity agenda.
Establish direct links across schools, regions and states, to overcome the deliberate divisions imposed by the unions.
Advance
demands based on the needs of teachers and students, not budget
dictates: inflation-indexed wage rises; major reductions to face-to-face
teaching with guaranteed in-school planning time; enforceable class
size limits; full special needs staffing; and properly funded support
services.
Build solidarity with parents, students and other public sector workers to broaden the struggle.
Demand
full transparency: immediate publication of all government offers, full
briefings to members and genuine debate before any vote. Reject
backroom deals and censorship of oppositional voices and insist that any
agreements be decided through informed democratic votes, including mass
meetings.
Link the struggle to the International Workers
Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) to unite with the
international working class in a common fight against capitalism and
war.
The resources for a world-class public education
system exist, but they are being siphoned into military expansion, elite
private schools and corporate profits. To finance the government’s war
program, billions are being cut from public education, health and the
NDIS. This is part of Labor’s support for the criminal US-Israeli
assault on Iran and continued suppression of opposition to the ongoing
genocide in Palestine.
Securing the wages and conditions that
teachers require demands a socialist perspective that rejects the
subordination of education to the budget dictates of the capitalist
market and the war machine.
Socialist Alternative’s annual Marxism conference, held over the
Easter long weekend, marked a further lurch to the right by this
pseudo-left organization.
That was shown by the suppression of
any discussion of the US war against Iran, which was not the subject of a
single one of the conference’s almost 150 panels. SAlt displayed a
contemptuous indifference to the historic war crimes that are underway
and covered for the Australian Labor government’s active participation
in it.
It was also demonstrated by the central theme of the event, the rise
of the far-right and the anti-immigrant One Nation party in Australia.
SAlt’s essential line is to blame the population, including sections of
workers, thus consciously deflecting attention from those who are
responsible for the ability of the far-right demagogues to win a
hearing: Labor and the corporatized trade union bureaucracy.
That
was most starkly expressed in the contributions of SAlt’s longtime
leader Mick Armstrong. He denounced workers who voted for One Nation or
may have indicated support for it in opinion polls as “lumpen” and
“racist scum” who had to be “physically crushed.”
Armstrong’s
hysterical outbursts were a concentrated expression of the real class
character of the pseudo-left. Whatever the “left” phraseology it
employs, SAlt represents affluent layers of the upper middle-class that
are intensely hostile to the working class and the fight for a socialist
perspective within it.
On May 4, the school board of Paterson, New Jersey, will vote on a
proposed budget for the coming school year that would cut jobs. The
board’s professed goal is to preserve classroom instruction while
managing rising costs.
The board is using technocratic language to
camouflage its attack on public education in this poverty-stricken,
working class city. Paterson’s schools rely heavily on state aid, but
annual increases in this aid are capped at 6 percent. This year’s
increase will mostly go to charter schools and not to public schools.
In
February, Business Administrator June Gray warned that Paterson faced a
“fiscal cliff,” largely because of the expiration of COVID-era funding
and other nonrecurring revenue sources. In late March, the Board of
Education introduced a budget of $851.9 million.
*****
Like last year’s budget, the current budget would increase the school
tax by 8 percent. The capital outlay would drop sharply from $9.2
million to $876,346. This 90 percent cut would mean delayed repairs to
Paterson’s school buildings, many of which are between 90 and 120 years
old, and increased risk of hazards like leaks and mold.
The board
estimates that it will send $188.1 million to charter schools, which is
an increase of $27.5 million over last year. Thus, charter schools will
absorb most of the $37 million in additional state aid that Paterson is
receiving. In practice, this means austerity for public schools, which
have fixed costs and higher overhead than charter schools.
If the budget is rejected or further cuts are necessary, then as many as 200 school jobs could be cut, according to the board.
Paterson is New Jersey’s third most populous city. Nearly 65 percent
of the city’s population is Hispanic, and 44.6 percent are immigrants.
Paterson also has one of the highest proportions of Muslims of any US
city.
In the early 1790s, Paterson became a center for industrial
manufacturing powered by the Great Falls, a 77-foot waterfall on the
Passaic River. In 1792 the Great Falls was chosen by Alexander Hamilton
as the cornerstone for America’s first planned industrial city. Using a
pioneering water raceway system, it powered industries like textiles,
locomotives and silk.
It was the site of one of the most
significant mass strikes in US history, the Paterson Silk Strike of
1913. It was led by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and
important figures of the American labor movement such as Bill Haywood,
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Carlo Tresca helped organize the diverse
workforce, which included Italian, Jewish, Polish and Irish immigrants.
But
after World War II, economic changes brought a long process of
deindustrialization to the city. Today, Paterson is a city of small
businesses and low wages. Its poverty rate is 21.2 percent. Such levels
of social misery are incompatible with promoting academic achievement
and providing young people with opportunities to flourish.
The poor conditions in Paterson’s public schools have contributed to
increasing enrollment in charter schools. In consequence, charter
schools have been receiving even more funds, thus depriving public
schools of resources. But charter schools are not associated with
decisively better academic outcomes. Paterson’s charter schools have
modestly higher rates of English and math proficiency but still perform
far below state averages. Two of them rank in the bottom 50 percent
statewide.
Moreover, teachers at charter schools face generally worse conditions
than those at public schools. They tend to have longer working hours,
larger workloads, more non-instructional responsibilities, more turnover
and more burnout. Charter schools also rely on teachers with less
experience. They tend to be nonunion, and their educators enjoy fewer
labor protections.
*****
The proposed budget for Paterson’s schools follows the first budget of New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill, a CIA Democrat.
In her address to the state legislature, Sherrill noted that her
“fiscally responsible” budget contained $2.6 billion in “tough,
necessary cuts.” In its budget materials, her administration warned that
“more money alone cannot solve long-term fiscal challenges facing
school districts.” Perhaps this rationale is intended to justify the aid
reductions that 167 of the state’s 574 school districts face.
Paterson
remains millions of dollars below what the state’s own formula says it
needs for a “thorough and efficient” education. The 6 percent cap on
annual increases in state aid prevents the district from ever catching
up to that adequacy target. In addition, when Paterson’s health
insurance and transportation costs spike because of inflation, the 6
percent cap results in a net loss of purchasing power.
Neither Sherrill, a former Navy officer, nor her fellow Democrats insist
on fiscal responsibility when it comes to funding for the Pentagon. The
Democrats joined hands with the Republicans to provide the nearly $1
trillion that President Trump is using, without congressional approval,
to wage an illegal war of aggression against Iran.
*****
The wealth that could eliminate Paterson’s poverty and replace its
crumbling schools is being hoarded by New Jersey’s billionaires. These
figures include hedge fund manager John Overdeck, who has a net worth of
$8 billion, and businessman Peter Kellogg, who has a net worth of $5.5
billion. Providing the best education for Paterson’s children and
ensuring that they have opportunities to develop themselves and find
satisfying jobs requires the expropriation of this wealth by the working
class.
The Trump administration announced Friday, April 24, that the US
Department of Justice will expand the methods used to execute federal
death row inmates to include firing squads, electrocution and gas
asphyxiation. The measure, outlined in a 48-page DOJ report titled
“Restoring and Strengthening the Federal Death Penalty,” marks a further
regression into barbarism by an administration that has made the
expansion of state killing a central pillar of its political program.
The report, released by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, directs
the Federal Bureau of Prisons to reinstate the single-drug pentobarbital
lethal injection protocol used during Trump’s first term while
expanding federal executions to include firing squads, electrocution and
gas asphyxiation. The stated justification, difficulties in obtaining
lethal injection drugs, is a pretext. The real purpose is to signal to
the American working class and the world that the capitalist state
claims the unlimited right to kill by whatever means it has at its
disposal.
*****
The announcement fulfills a directive Trump issued on his first day
in office, January 20, 2025. Among the dozens of executive orders signed
on Inauguration Day was one titled “Restoring the Death Penalty and
Protecting Public Safety,” which called for a dramatic expansion of
capital punishment. The order directed the attorney general to pursue
the death penalty “for all crimes of a severity demanding its use” and
specifically targeted the murders of law enforcement officers and
capital crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. These categories
were chosen not because of any surge in such offenses, but to whip up
law-and-order and anti-immigrant hysteria in the service of dictatorial
rule.
The Inauguration Day order also called on the attorney
general to take “all appropriate action to seek the overruling of
Supreme Court precedents that limit the authority of State and Federal
governments to impose capital punishment.” This amounts to a sweeping
assault on decades of constitutional jurisprudence, including rulings
barring the execution of the intellectually disabled and those who
committed crimes as minors.
*****
Friday’s announcement cannot be understood apart from the trajectory of the Trump administration’s relationship to capital punishment. In July 2019, then-Attorney General William Barr directed the Bureau of Prisons to reinstate federal executions for the first time in 16 years. What followed was an assembly line of state killing. Between July 2020 and January 2021, the Trump administration executed 13 federal prisoners, more than the federal government had put to death over the previous three decades and more than all 50 states combined in 2020.
The final days of Trump’s first term saw a particular frenzy of state killing. In the week before Inauguration Day on January 20, 2021, the administration executed three prisoners in rapid succession: Lisa Montgomery on January 13, Corey Johnson on January 14, and Dustin Higgs in the early hours of January 16. Montgomery, whose history of gang rape, incest and child sex trafficking had left her severely mentally ill, was the first woman executed by the federal government in almost seven decades. Both Johnson and Higgs were likely intellectually disabled, yet the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 ultra-conservative majority, allowed their executions to proceed without giving either man a proper judicial hearing on his eligibility for the death penalty.
*****
[Former US president Joe] Biden, upon taking office, imposed a moratorium on federal
executions. In December 2024, he commuted the death sentences of 37 of
the 40 prisoners on federal death row to life in prison without parole,
sparing all but Dylann Roof, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Robert Bowers. Trump
responded with volcanic fury on his Truth Social platform, falsely
denouncing Biden’s commutations as a “pardon” of “the 37 most violent
criminals” and telling the prisoners whose lives had been spared to “GO
TO HELL!”
On his first day back in office, Trump signed the
Inauguration Day death penalty order directing the attorney general to
investigate whether the 37 commuted prisoners could be charged with
state capital crimes. The measure was a legally dubious effort to
exploit the “separate sovereigns” doctrine to nullify Biden’s acts of
clemency. The administration has since transferred a number of these men
to ADX Florence in Colorado, the federal supermax facility known as the
“Alcatraz of the Rockies,” imposing what amounts to extrajudicial
punishment intended to ensure that their conditions of confinement
match, in Trump’s words, “the monstrosity of their crimes.”
*****
The federal expansion of execution methods follows a pattern already
established at the state level under the political cover Trump’s
administration has provided.
*****
The DOJ’s Friday announcement is not simply a technical adjustment to
execution protocols. It is a political act, rooted in the Trump
administration’s drive toward authoritarian rule. The promotion of the
death penalty, with its deliberate cultivation of fear, anti-immigrant
hysteria and celebration of state violence, is integral to the effort to
intimidate the working class with the lethal power of the capitalist
state.
*****
As Karl Marx wrote in the New-York Daily Tribune in February
1853: “It would be very difficult, if not altogether impossible, to
establish any principle upon which the justice or expediency of capital
punishment could be founded, in a society glorifying in its
civilization.” His words have lost none of their force. The expansion of
the death penalty, the revived firing squad and the remote-controlled
execution chamber in Idaho are expressions of a system that holds human
life in total contempt—and of a ruling class that knows it is sitting
atop a social order heading toward an explosion.
The US government has made clear there will be no explanations, let
alone apologies, after two CIA agents died in a road accident during a
supposed anti-drug operation in the Mexican state of Chihuahua—an
operation the Mexican federal government claims was carried out without
its permission or even prior knowledge.
The incident reportedly
occurred at 2 a.m. in a remote area of the Sierra Madre mountains, when
the vehicle veered off the road, crashed, and exploded.
Initially,
US Ambassador Ronald Johnson—a former Green Beret and CIA
officer—claimed the deceased were merely “members of staff from the
United States Embassy.”
It was soon revealed, however, that the dead were not ordinary US personnel, but CIA operatives engaged in a covert mission.
The
CIA officers are among the first fatalities in Trump’s escalating war
in Latin America, following the death in February of a lance corporal
who fell off the USS Iwo Jima while conducting operations in the Caribbean.
The
political dimensions grew when Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum
revealed that the four individuals in the vehicle were “working jointly”
on a mission of which the federal government had not been informed.
But
as the US government conducts policing and intelligence operations
across the border without even notifying Mexican authorities,
Sheinbaum’s response has been remarkably restrained. She sent a letter
to the US embassy requesting information.
*****
Subsequent reporting has exposed the extent of US covert activity. Two US officials speaking on condition of anonymity to The Intercept
confirmed that the CIA has been running clandestine operations in
Mexico, working alongside vetted state-level police forces and other
agencies. According to these sources, the Americans died after a raid on
a synthetic drug laboratory. It has also emerged that one agent entered
Mexico on a tourist permit and the other with a diplomatic passport.
In
contrast to Sheinbaum’s response, the incident has raised alarm among
the Mexican working class and broader population, as the Trump
administration behaves with unrestrained violence and open criminality
across the hemisphere and the world.
*****
The reality is that the United States conducts covert operations
around the world without permission. As Carlos Pérez Ricart, a
researcher at Mexico’s CIDE, explains: US agents “operate, move, and
make contacts without consulting the Mexican government… whether the
federal government knew or not is irrelevant, since it lacks the
capacity to prevent or track these actions.”
What is pivotal is
the response of both governments to this involuntary exposure.
Washington has reaffirmed its presumed right to act unilaterally
anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, Sheinbaum—who presents herself as a
left nationalist defending sovereignty—continues to deepen Mexico’s
economic and military integration into US war plans. Mexico already
serves as an “essential” supplier of military components for the
Pentagon, participates in joint exercises with US forces while hosting
American trainers, and has joined the tariff war against China.
*****
The Mexican government has deployed National Guard troops to harass,
kill and deport migrants headed to the US. It has also carried out at
least 92 extraditions of alleged traffickers to the US, violating
Mexican constitutional protections.
At the same time, Sheinbaum’s
admission that she was unaware of operations in a border state exposes
more than a blind spot. It demonstrates that within the Mexican ruling
class she represents there is no constituency for opposing the US drive
to recolonize Mexico and Latin America. There is merely an eagerness and
apprehension about securing a “fair share” of the profits from this
process, including in the ongoing renegotiation of the US-Mexico-Canada
trade deal. This is as far as Sheinbaum’s talk of defending national
sovereignty goes.
More than 1,100 artists have signed an open letter calling for a
boycott of next month’s Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, Austria, over
the inclusion of Israel “despite its ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
The letter was produced by No Music For Genocide,
which calls for a cultural boycott of Israel in line with the Boycott,
Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. Among the signatories are Brian
Eno, Roger Waters, Macklemore, Hot Chip, Peter Gabriel, Paul Weller,
Sigur Rós, Kneecap, Paloma Faith, and Massive Attack. Former Eurovision
winners Emmelie de Forest and Charlie McGettigan have also signed.
Eurovision is the world’s biggest music event. Last year’s event in Basel, Switzerland, attracted 166 million viewers.
The
letter is a powerful rejection of this year’s event, stating it is
“being used to whitewash and normalise Israel’s genocide, siege and
brutal military occupation against Palestinians.” It aligns itself “with
Palestinian calls for public broadcasters, performers, screening party
organisers, crew, and fans” to boycott the event until the European
Broadcasting Union (EBU) “bans complicit Israeli broadcaster KAN.”
*****
The letter asks, “How can any performer or Eurovision fan in good
conscience participate… amidst US-Israeli plans for hyper-surveilled
concentration camps in ‘New Gaza’? There are moments in time when
passive silence is not an option.”
The letter is a moving
assertion of opposition to the ongoing genocide and the cultural
devastation that accompanies it, and a significant recognition of the
requirement for artists to speak out.
*****
It concludes simply: “No stage for genocide. #BoycottEurovision.”
The
letter applauds the withdrawal of broadcasters from Spain, Ireland,
Iceland, Slovenia, and the Netherlands, and the national selection
finalists who have committed to refuse to go to the event. It explicitly
harks back to the boycott movement against apartheid South Africa as
its model.
*****
Many of the signatories have long records of opposition to the
oppression of the Palestinians, and have been targeted for this.
Macklemore’s consistent criticism of the genocide, for example, led to a
smear campaign by Der Spiegel.
The sustained campaigns against artists criticising the genocide make
the courage of their continued response all the more noteworthy. The
Irish rap group Kneecap, who have been dragged through the courts under
baseless terrorism charges, wrote on social media, “We have paid a price
for speaking out—canceled gigs, legal cases, visa bans—and we would do
it again tomorrow. Silence is complicity.”
Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja was among the 523 people
arrested this month for carrying placards reading “I oppose genocide; I
support Palestine Action”, after a High Court ruling that the
proscription of that organisation was unlawful. Like Kneecap, Del Naja
spoke of the pressures on him as a musician—“there was a lot of
trepidation around how we might not be able to travel and get visas”—but
felt the action was necessary.
After three years, and with
growing popular support, opponents of genocide must increasingly face
the underlying cause of the escalating brutality before them—the
capitalist system.
On April 14, the government of Giorgia Meloni announced the
suspension of Italy’s military cooperation agreement with Israel, the
2003 memorandum codified as Law 94/2005. “In view of the current
situation, the government has decided to suspend the automatic renewal
of the defense agreement with Israel,” Meloni said in Verona.
Presented
as a decisive response to escalating tensions, the move exposes the
deepening contradictions confronting Italian imperialism.
At the center of this crisis stands Italy’s role in the Middle East,
where military, economic and diplomatic interests collide. Italian
troops deployed under the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon
(UNIFIL) are presented as “peacekeepers,” but are part of an imperialist
presence in a region critical to European energy and strategic
interests. With roughly 1,000 troops, Italy remains one of the mission’s
largest contributors, treating the deployment as essential to
maintaining influence in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Tensions
erupted on April 8, 2026, when Israeli forces fired warning shots at an
Italian convoy in southern Lebanon. Meloni denounced the incident as
“completely unacceptable,” citing a violation of United Nations Security
Council Resolution 1701 and invoking national sovereignty.
The
agreement had enabled extensive military, industrial and intelligence
collaboration in the last two decades, including joint weapons
development and training operations conducted largely beyond
parliamentary scrutiny and with the support of the entire political
establishment.
Italy’s government is entering a period of acute crisis. Its
increasingly erratic foreign policy expresses the growing inability to
reconcile global tensions, economic fragility and social unrest within
the framework of capitalism. Rome’s gyrations signal not independence or
peace plans, but the breakdown of the postwar imperialist order.
Italy’s
strategic fixation on Lebanon and the wider region reflects major
economic interests, including gas exploration and pipeline projects tied
to Eni.
Crucially, the suspension does not halt the flow of arms.
Italian weapons manufacturers such as Leonardo S.p.A. and Fincantieri
S.p.A. can continue fulfilling existing contracts. Unless licenses
already granted are revoked deliveries will proceed uninterrupted. The
government has made clear it will not take that step.
*****
Italy’s historical alliance with Israel is not an aberration, but
part of a broader imperialist offensive in the Middle East. As a
secondary power, Italy operates as a junior partner within a US-led
framework aimed at maintaining imperialist dominance over a
strategically vital region.
Yet this alignment is under acute
strain. The escalation of the US-Israel war against Iran in early 2026
exposed deep fissures within the Atlantic alliance between Washington
and the major European powers, including France, Germany and the UK.
Like them, Italy refused to participate in offensive operations or
support a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Italy’s dependence on
maritime energy flows makes it vulnerable to disruptions in the Gulf. A
closure of Hormuz would threaten global oil and gas supplies, with
severe consequences for an already fragile economy. The government
framed its stance as a defense of “freedom of navigation,” participating
instead in limited efforts to secure shipping routes.
Trump denounced Italy’s refusal as a failure of alliance obligations,
exposing tensions that reflect the erosion of the postwar framework.
In
March 2026, Meloni denied a US request to use the Sigonella base for
Iran-related operations, signaling a willingness to restrict American
military activity when it conflicts with national interests.
Meloni also criticized Trump for attacking Pope Leo XIV after the pontiff spoke out against the war in Iran.
At the same time, Italy has maintained commitments elsewhere,
including NATO operations in Eastern Europe. This selective alignment
attempts to balance obligations with national interests but deepens
underlying contradictions.
*****
Faced with mounting anger, the ruling class fears a broader eruption
of social struggle. This concern affects foreign policy. The reluctance
to fully align with US war plans against Iran reflects fear that such
actions could trigger mass opposition at home.
In the April 25
demonstrations marking the 81st anniversary of Italian liberation from
fascism, hundreds of thousands protested war, authoritarianism and the
erosion of democratic rights. While invoking democracy and unity, the
government moved to discredit the protests, using dubious isolated
incidents to justify repression and equating opposition to Israel’s war
with antisemitism.
Actions by dockworkers in Italy and across the
Mediterranean point to the potential for a more powerful movement.
Refusals to handle military cargo demonstrate the capacity of the
working class to disrupt the machinery of war and indicate the emergence
of international opposition.
The crisis of the Meloni government
encapsulates a broader historical and international breakdown. The
postwar order, built on US economic and military dominance, is
fracturing under the weight of global capitalism’s contradictions. No
faction of the ruling class offers a progressive alternative.
The decisive question is the development of a global independent
political movement of the working class. Growing opposition to war and
austerity must be transformed into a conscious struggle against
capitalism. Only through the international unification of workers can
the drive toward imperialist conflict be halted and a new social order
established based on human need rather than profit.
A video reminder describes Syrotiuk's ongoing plight
The
fight for the Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist's freedom is an
essential component of the struggle against imperialist war, genocide,
dictatorship and fascism.
