Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. Organize the working class to support the JBS meatpacking strike!
The JBS workers embody the international character of the working class. At the Greeley plant, between 80 and 90 percent of workers are immigrants, and more than 50 languages are spoken inside the facility. JBS itself is a Brazilian-based multinational and one of the largest food companies in the world, with operations spanning six continents. It employs between 270,000 and 280,000 workers worldwide—approximately 158,000 in Brazil, 80,000 in North America, 16,800 in Europe and 14,000 in Australia, with additional facilities in Argentina, Canada and beyond.
The billionaire Batista family in Brazil holds a controlling share, but significant ownership stakes are held by major institutional investors, including the giant private equity firms BlackRock and Vanguard, an expression of the fact that the company’s ultimate master is the global financial oligarchy.
The strike is a direct rebuke to Donald Trump and to the union bureaucrats who have long sought to pit immigrant and “foreign” workers against “American” workers. In reality, immigrant workers are an essential component of the American working class, just as American workers are part of the global working class.
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The conditions against which workers are fighting are horrific, recalling the worst abuses of the late 19th century. Haitian immigrants have filed lawsuits against the company, charging that they were lured to the United States with promises of stable employment and housing, only to be crammed by the dozens into houses without running water or electricity. At least six workers died during the first year of the pandemic, and in 2021 a worker died after falling into a chemical vat.
These conditions recall those described in Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle. But while President Theodore Roosevelt responded to the public outcry by enacting food safety legislation the following year, Trump invoked the Defense Production Act in 2020 to force meatpacking workers to remain on the job during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The reversion to barbaric conditions in the meatpacking industry is the product of a decades-long process in which the union bureaucracy has played a central role. A decisive turning point was the UFCW’s suppression of the Hormel strike in 1985–86. When Local P-9 in Austin, Minnesota sought to break out of its isolation and appeal for broader support, it was decertified by the international union.
The UFCW is one of countless unions whose bureaucracies collaborated with corporations to keep operations running during the pandemic. In Waterloo, Iowa, managers notoriously took bets on how many workers would become infected, with the complicity of the union apparatus.
At Greeley, UFCW Local 7 responded to spontaneous walkouts by instructing workers to remain on the job. Last year, the UFCW reached a national agreement with JBS covering 26,000 workers, but the Greeley plant was deliberately excluded and kept on a contract extension until just before the present strike—a maneuver that has facilitated the transfer of cattle to other facilities, including Cactus, Texas.
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Workers should reject any attempt to shut down the strike on the basis of vague promises that the company will “return to the negotiating table.” JBS has “returned” to the table countless times only to drag out talks, wear workers down and impose concessions. Workers should reject the UFCW’s self-imposed two-week limit, which is designed to demoralize workers and prepare a retreat.
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However courageous their struggle, the workers in Greeley cannot prevail on their own against a massive multinational corporation, backed by the fascistic Trump administration.
The IWA-RFC urges striking workers to appeal directly to workers at every JBS facility in the United States—especially Cactus, Texas and other plants receiving diverted cattle—to refuse to handle strikebreaking shipments and to prepare solidarity action. Reach out to autoworkers, teachers, healthcare workers, logistics and rail workers and other sections of the working class facing the same assault on wages, conditions and democratic rights.
Build lines of communication and coordinate actions independent of the union bureaucracy, which will try to keep every struggle separated and contained.
In particular, preparations must be made for concrete actions to defend workers against attacks on the picket lines or retaliation by ICE. Coordinated actions, including strike action, must be organized to defend workers against the state, which will inevitably act in concert with corporate management.
Most importantly, the fight must be taken to the global level. JBS is a multinational corporation with a single global workforce. Workers at JBS facilities in Brazil, Europe, Australia and Canada should be mobilized in coordinated solidarity with the Greeley strikers. The conditions these workers face differ in their legal and political form but share a common economic foundation: the subordination of human life to profit.
The nationalist poison of “America First” and its equivalents in other countries must be rejected in favor of the principle that has animated working class struggles since the 19th century: “Workers of the World, Unite!”
Workers at the Greeley plant exemplify the international character of the working class. On the picket line, workers speak Spanish, Creole, English and dozens of other languages.
Tuesday’s picket, like Monday’s, was well attended by workers, who voted overwhelmingly to strike. Workers at the plant are part of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7.
While workers are determined to fight for better wages and working conditions, the union has already signaled it intends to limit the strike to two weeks. This is despite the fact that the company has shown no indication it will raise starting wages of $23 an hour to levels commensurate with the backbreaking and deadly work at the plant.
For workers at JBS and across the country, the critical task remains building independent rank-and-file committees, free from company and union control, to advance workers’ demands.
Workers should recall that the two major strikes in the 1980s, the most recent struggles by meatpacking workers, were betrayed by the UFCW. In the Hormel strike in 1985-86, the national union worked with the AFL-CIO bureaucracy to decertify the local union, P-9, recruit the strikebreakers to replace the 1,500 strikers, and impose a concessionary contract. At IBP (Iowa Beef Processors) a year later, the company first imposed a lockout, ending it only to hire strikebreakers when the 2,500 workers refused to go back to work. After seven months, the UFCW signed an agreement that imposed major concessions.
WSWS reporters spoke with workers throughout the day about the strike and the way forward. Carlos said he was on strike because “we need better wages and better working conditions. For us to get done with work and not be dead tired, falling asleep on the way home. It’s dangerous."
3. London Underground drivers to strike against longer shifts under four-day week plan
London Underground train drivers are set to strike against the implementation of a compressed four-day working week. The walkouts are scheduled for March 24–25 and 26–27, April 21–22 and 23–24, and May 19–20 and 21–22.
Around 1,800 train driver members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) are involved. They are opposing management plans to use the four-day week to introduce longer shifts across fewer days, raising serious concerns over fatigue and safety.
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These issues were central to a week-long strike last September by 10,000 RMT members demanding a shorter working week and a genuine pay rise, which was ended by RMT General Secretary Eddie Dempsey and the union executive with none of the core demands met.
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The deal and its implementation exposes the supposed “left” credentials of Dempsey and the RMT as a militant, “member-led” union.
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The leaders of ASLEF—the other drivers’ union on London Underground with around 2,000 members —backed management’s plans for a compressed four-day week from the start. They did not mobilize their members alongside the RMT last year, having accepted the substandard three-year pay deal and distanced themselves from a joint struggle on the shorter working week.
Instead, ASLEF balloted members last April, recommending acceptance of the compressed four day week, which passed with a 70 percent majority on an 80 percent turnout. The plan was presented as beneficial, citing a paid meal break, an additional day off and an average 34-hour week, ignoring longer shifts and job losses estimated at 10 percent.
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Finn Brennan, ASLEF’s full-time official on London Underground smeared all opposition after securing a majority of just over half the membership stating, “Despite a campaign of disinformation and distortion by those who want to prevent drivers having improved working conditions and a better work life balance.”
Brennan has since publicly attacked the planned RMT strikes, telling the Guardian, “It will be the first time in the history of the trade union movement that a union has voted to strike against a shorter week and fewer days at work.”
This is a fraud. The minimal reduction in the working week comes at the cost of longer working days of at least 8.5 hours, increasing fatigue and safety risks. It is a productivity measure to extract more labor from a reduced workforce.
The unions are far removed from the struggle that gave rise to them. The fight for a shorter working week originally advanced the 8-hour day to curb exploitation and secure rest and recreation to assert the social rights of the working class against capitalism. Now shifts are lengthened beyond 8 hours in direct collaboration with the employer to cull jobs and increase productivity, claiming it is about improving a “work-life balance.”
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The claim that there is no money for a genuine shorter working week must be rejected. London is the seat of the financial oligarchy, embodying the divide between those who produce wealth and those who live off it. London Underground operates as a profit-making concern, with government subsidy withdrawn in 2018 and running costs covered by passenger revenue based on the highest fares of any metro system in the world.
A properly funded public system means ending tax giveaways to big business and the billions diverted to war—expenditures set to escalate further through the government’s participation in the illegal war against Iran.
4. Growing UK inequality in years spent living in good health between rich and poor
Over the past decade, the average expected years spent in good health have fallen by three years. This social regression—recorded in the ONS report Healthy Life Expectancy (HLE), UK: Between 2011 to 2013 and 2022 to 2024—is shocking, but hardly surprising (published February 2026).
The data for people born between 2022 and 2024 show the steepest decline in health expectancy since the ONS began collecting such data in 2011-2013.
The report states that, on average, males in the UK can now expect to spend 60.7 years (77 percent of their life) in 'good' general health, while females can expect 60.9 years (73 percent). This represents a decrease of 1.8 years for males and 2.5 years for females compared to the previous period (2019-2021).
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While the ONS study does not specify which morbidities produce ill health, Long COVID has had a devastating effect on health outcomes and the decline in HLE. ONS figures reveal that about one million people reported debilitating symptoms of Long COVID lasting over two years.
When the pandemic began, Labour, then in opposition, gave its full support to the Conservatives' drive to reopen the economy precipitously, resulting in unnecessary deaths and long-term illness. Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was insistent that schools be reopened, “no ifs or buts,” and complicit in allowing the virus to take its deadly toll.
The ONS reports differences in years of good health between the nations and regions. Scotland fared worst for males (59.1 years) and Wales for females (58.5 years) for 2022-2024. England had the highest HLE statistics for both males (60.9 years) and females (61.3 years).
Most significant was the gap between those with the highest HLE in the 97.5th percentile of the population and those with the lowest in the 2.5th percentile—14.7 years for males and 15.8 years for females.
Comparing HLE by region, it was highest in the richer areas in the south and lowest in the north for both sexes. London, the South East, and South West had the highest HLE, while the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, and the North West scored the lowest.
A boy born between 2022-2024 in a leafy suburb of Richmond upon Thames can look forward to living in good health until he reaches 69.3 years, and a girl, 70.3 years, the highest HLE scores. Within the Greater London area, home to Kew Gardens, the borough has 100 parks and open spaces, far from the carcinogenic traffic fumes choking the inner city. Poverty levels at 14-15 percent are much lower than London’s 26 percent and England’s average of 22 percent.
Blackpool, a seaside resort on the north-west coast of England, scored the lowest HLE, 50.9 and 51.8 years for males and females respectively. Of the 296 local authorities in England, Blackpool is the most deprived, scoring high on the indices of child poverty (19.8 percent), unemployment, low income, food insecurity and fuel poverty, bad housing, and poorly paid seasonal employment, in tourism.
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The priority of governments across the globe today is to massively increase military budgets at the expense of essential spending on health and welfare. Health Secretary in Starmer’s Labour government, Wes Streeting, declared “The answer to the NHS isn’t just more money… I don’t want to just pour money into a black hole… The NHS is going to have to get used to the fact that money is tight.”
The wealth of the rich is ringfenced. In every country, inequality has deepened dramatically, with the redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich being compared to the days of the Gilded Age (1870s-1900) and the 1920s, which preceded the great crash of 1929 and depression. The richest 50 families in the UK possess total wealth of £468 billion, equivalent to what is owned by the poorest half of the population, or 34 million people.
5. New Zealand: Seven years after the fascist massacre in Christchurch
March 15 marked seven years since New Zealand’s deadliest mass shooting, in which 51 Muslim worshippers were murdered at the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch, by fascist Brenton Tarrant.
Those killed included four children, the youngest just 3 years old. Another 40 people were injured, some with multiple and debilitating gunshot wounds. The terrorist attack inflicted severe trauma on Muslim communities in New Zealand, and produced profound shock across the world.
Tarrant broadcast his massacre live over the internet and issued a manifesto with the aim of sparking other racist attacks. Mass shooters who have cited Tarrant as an inspiration include John Earnest, who killed one person and wounded three at a synagogue in Poway, California (April 2019); Patrick Crusius, who killed 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso (August 2019); and Payton Gendron, who murdered 10 black people in Buffalo, New York (May 2022).
Notwithstanding all the official claims that Tarrant acted alone and did not represent any broader movement, he was motivated by the same fascistic and white supremacist ideology that has been systematically promoted by far-right governments in the US and elsewhere. The “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which was central to Tarrant’s manifesto and states that white people are being deliberately “replaced” by immigrants, is promoted by the Trump administration in the United States. Like Tarrant, Trump and his henchmen refer to non-white immigrants as “invaders” in order to justify violent mass arrests, imprisonment and deportation.
The anniversary of the mass shooting in New Zealand passed with minimal media coverage. A few hundred people attended a commemorative event in Christchurch. Dr Hamimah Ahmat, whose husband Zekeriya Tuyan was killed, told the crowd that families and friends of the victims “continue to live through and go through the memory of March 15th.”
Rosemary Omar, whose son Tariq was killed at Al Noor Mosque, told Radio NZ that she felt politicians had abandoned the families: “I don’t believe they have any concept of what families have been through. There appears to be no compassion.”
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For the past seven years public discussion of the Christchurch shooting has been deliberately suppressed. The state outlawed possession of Tarrant’s manifesto and restricted reporting on its contents, in order to obscure the similarity of his positions to those of NZ First, One Nation and other parties. Ardern declared that she would never say Tarrant’s name and instructed the media not to report on his statements in the event of a trial.
Many questions remain about how Tarrant was able to plan and carry out the 2019 attack without being stopped. A royal commission of inquiry in 2020 produced a report which whitewashed the intelligence agencies and the police, declaring that nothing could have been done to prevent the attack. The commission’s hearings were conducted in secret and the vast majority of evidence submitted to the inquiry has been suppressed.
The royal commission sought to quash any suggestion that Tarrant was acting as part of an organized movement; its report declared that he had self-radicalized online, carried out the attack alone, with no assistance from any organization.
There is, however, ample evidence that punctures the “lone actor” narrative. Soon after the attack it emerged that Tarrant had been in contact with members of the Australian fascist Lads Society—formerly the United Patriots Front (UPF), now rebranded as the National Socialist Network—which had tried to recruit him in 2017. He sent death threats via social media to an opponent of the UPF in 2016, which was reported at the time to police, but no action was taken.
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Tarrant has never been publicly questioned about his activities; an interview he gave to the royal commission was suppressed.
Early last month, Tarrant spoke at length in a courtroom for the first time, seeking leave to appeal against his conviction and sentence for murder. He claimed that his guilty plea in 2020 was entered under duress, due to poor prison conditions, and was an “irrational” decision.
The Court of Appeal hearing took place amid an extraordinary level of censorship, with media outlets barred from recording the proceedings. Tarrant reportedly answered questions for three hours but hardly any of this has been published.
He told the court that when he pleaded guilty he had “put on the best front possible” to represent “the political movement I’m part of.” It is unclear whether Tarrant elaborated on this statement.
The World Socialist Web Site applied to the Court of Appeal to view a transcript of the hearing but this was declined. A minute dated March 17 explaining the decision stated: “Acceding to the request would be burdensome for the resources of this Court due to the extent of suppression in place.”
The court has yet to rule on whether Tarrant’s appeal can proceed.
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The real targets of such surveillance and censorship machinery are not the far-right, whose ideological representatives sit in parliaments across the Western world, but left-wing, socialist, and anti-war organisations. Most notably, the WSWS has been heavily censored by Google, Facebook and Twitter/X—all of which support the Christchurch Call to Action.
In Australia, meanwhile, state and federal governments have exploited the Bondi terrorist attack on a Jewish gathering last December—in which 15 people were killed by two gunmen inspired by Islamic State—to ban protests against the Gaza genocide and to smear protesters as “antisemitic.” Laws passed in January will allow the government to ban political parties or organisations classified as “hate groups”—one of the most serious attacks on democratic rights in Australian history.
The working class must draw sharp political lessons from March 15, 2019, and from the seven years that have followed. The fight against fascism and Islamophobia cannot be entrusted to capitalist governments that are responsible for both and are intent on crushing opposition to war and genocide. In the US, Israel, across Europe, and in Australia and NZ, the same poisonous ideology that drove Tarrant is being systematically cultivated in order to divide working people and to justify genocidal wars.
6. Four dead in worst Michigan tornados since 1980 as Democrat Whitmer deflects responsibility
A series of rapidly forming deadly tornados struck Michigan, Oklahoma, Illinois, and Indiana between March 5 and March 10, resulting in 11 deaths, at least 20 injuries, and significant damage or destruction to hundreds of buildings across the region.
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The fact that tornado sirens did not sound and the NWS did not issue a tornado warning is a significant factor in the death toll. In the aftermath of the deadly weather event, every level of government is seeking to avoid responsibility for the lack of preparedness and inability to warn the public about the approaching danger.
Two days after the storm, Democratic Governor of Michigan Gretchen Whitmer released a video following a helicopter tour of the damage and, through her spokeswoman Stacey LaRouche, pointed the finger at the Trump administration for the tornado deaths. LaRouche said, “While tornadoes can be hard to predict, the federal government should investigate whether the failure to issue a watch was related to federal cuts.”
While it is true that the NWS Storm Prediction Center did not issue a tornado warning for the southwest area of Michigan, it is also true that outdoor warning sirens in Michigan are controlled by counties and local municipalities.
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On March 10, Whitmer traveled to the White House to meet with President Donald Trump, ostensibly to brief him on the deadly tornadoes. A statement from LaRouche referenced the tornadoes only in one sentence. “The governor gave an update on the deadly tornadoes that hit southwest Michigan on Friday.” The rest of the statement regarded appealing for further disaster assistance for a 2025 ice storm in Northern Michigan and other investments in Michigan.
Then Whitmer moved on to military matters, with LaRouche saying, “Michigan looks forward to welcoming new fighter jets to Selfridge, which will strengthen our national security, boost base readiness, and protect thousands of jobs in Macomb County.”
Whitmer’s groveling before Donald Trump amidst the escalating war against Iran is particularly revealing considering his role in stoking far-right hostility to her pandemic measures and providing political cover for militia groups. In 2020, the armed Wolverine Watchmen conspiracy planned to kidnap and execute Whitmer. Three of the men were convicted for providing material support for a terrorist act and are currently serving prison sentences of 7 to 12 years.
Since securing commitments from Trump, Whitmer has stopped calling for an investigation into the lack of a tornado watch before the March 6 storm.
The Trump administration’s assault on federal workers in 2025 resulted in a net decrease of 10 percent of the US government workforce. This process was spearheaded by Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, who led the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) before a personal falling out with Trump.
DOGE-mandated layoffs and hiring freezes left NWS offices understaffed by 20-30 percent in critical forecasting roles, radar maintenance and data analysis. Overall funding of the parent organization of NWS (NOAA) dropped 14-30 percent from 2025 levels, hitting weather satellites ($209 million cut), climate research labs ($53 million cut) and cooperative institutes that support NWS models.
Cuts also terminated contracts for next-gen satellites and research on severe storms, weakening real-time monitoring and predictive tools like those used for tornado detection.
The number of tornadoes annually reported by the NWS since 1950 has steadily increased over time. Simultaneously, the number of fatalities has trended downwards. This is due to significant scientific advances in meteorology in the last century.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), founded in 1960, has played a major role in performing science that has led to meteorological advances and increased understanding of the link between climate change and the increasing prevalence and severity of extreme weather.
Supercomputers at NCAR operate complex models that forecast hurricanes, track wildfire smoke and project rising sea levels and floods.
In December 2025, the Trump administration labeled NCAR as a source of “climate alarmism” and announced plans to dismantle it. The New York Times reports that proposals under consideration include moving the supercomputer to the University of Wyoming and shifting a space weather lab to a private company. Nearly 900 scientists and engineers work at the NCAR headquarters in Boulder, Colorado.
7. 6 deaths a day: Homeless mortality exposes social catastrophe in Los Angeles
In Los Angeles County, more than six homeless people die every day, a staggering toll that reveals the social reality concealed behind the image of prosperity promoted by politicians and the corporate media. In 2024 alone, 2,208 people experiencing homelessness were found dead, after a modest decline from the previous year. The mortality rate for unhoused people is more than four times higher than that of the general population.
These deaths occur in a region that is home to 54 billionaires and 516 centimillionaires. California itself, with an economy larger than most countries, is one of the richest territories on the planet. Yet for tens of thousands of people forced to live on sidewalks, in tents, vehicles and makeshift encampments, life expectancy collapses under the weight of poverty and neglect.
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The causes of death among unhoused people reflect the inhumane conditions imposed by life on the streets.
Drug and alcohol overdoses remain the leading cause of death, accounting for roughly 40 percent of all fatalities among the homeless population. Hundreds die every year from overdoses involving fentanyl, methamphetamine and other substances.
But substance use alone does not explain the full picture. Homeless mortality is driven by a complex interaction of untreated illness, physical danger and chronic deprivation.
According to county health data:
- Coronary heart disease is the second leading cause of death, responsible for about 14 percent of fatalities.
- Transportation-related injuries (people struck by vehicles while walking along roads or sleeping near traffic) are the third leading cause, with a homeless person killed by a vehicle roughly every other day.
- Homicide ranks among the top causes, reflecting the violence faced by people living without shelter.
- Suicide remains a persistent cause of death, particularly among younger homeless individuals.
Many deaths are classified broadly as “natural,” including heart failure, liver disease and complications from chronic illness that have gone untreated for years due to lack of healthcare. Many bodies are discovered in tents, at abandoned lots, bus stops, sidewalks, vehicles or parks, locations that reveal the reality of daily survival outside the shelter system.
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While thousands die on the streets each year, the official response to homelessness in Los Angeles has increasingly been shaped by financial and political interests.
Central to the city’s homelessness apparatus is the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), a joint city-county agency responsible for distributing billions of dollars in public funds intended to address the crisis.
In recent years, however, political leaders have advanced plans to restructure the system as part of a broader drive toward privatization. Officials in the Los Angeles City Council, including four Democratic Socialists of America councilmembers, and county government have promoted proposals to reorganize LAHSA’s responsibilities and shift significant functions to private contractors, nonprofit intermediaries and development firms.
Under the banner of efficiency and accountability, these initiatives would further embed profit-making enterprises in the management of homelessness. Even death management would inevitably become a lucrative line of business.
Construction companies, real estate developers, consulting firms and investment groups already play a significant role in the homelessness industry. Billions of dollars have been spent on temporary shelters, modular housing projects and service contracts.
Yet despite this massive expenditure, homelessness has remained entrenched. Many projects involve extraordinarily high construction costs and lucrative contracts for private firms, while permanent affordable housing remains scarce.
The transformation of homelessness into a quasi-market sector, funded by public money but administered through private intermediaries, has created powerful financial incentives that have no connection to solving the crisis.
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Housing costs in California have soared over decades as real estate speculation transformed housing into a financial asset rather than a social right. At the same time, public housing, social services and mental health infrastructure have been dismantled.
The result is a society where luxury towers rise beside sprawling encampments and billionaires amass vast fortunes while thousands struggle to survive outdoors. The daily removal of bodies from the streets is the predictable outcome of a system organized around private profit. While political leaders frame homelessness as a technical issue, the deaths expose the profound inequality of American capitalism and the need for a socialist reorganization of social priorities.
8. Trump calls for a delay in summit with Chinese president
In another sign that the US-Israeli war on Iran is not working out as he planned, US President Trump has called for a delay in his planned summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing at the end of March. “Because of the war I want to be here, I have to be here, I feel. And so we’ve requested that we delay it a month or so,” Trump told the media at the White House on Monday.
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The abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, the reduction of the country to a US neo-colony and Washington’s control of its oil industry effectively cut off its exports of discounted oil to China. Many considerations undoubtedly went into the timing of the Trump administration’s decision to attack Iran on February 28 but the upcoming summit with the Chinese president was obviously a significant one.
Having notched up triumphs over Venezuela and Iran, the gangsters in the White House felt the US would be in a strong position to make China an offer it could not refuse. But the plans have quickly gone awry. The criminal assassination of top Iranian leaders has not brought the country to its knees and no US puppet regime has been installed in Iran. Moreover, what Trump apparently did not foresee was that Iran would retaliate by closing the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which some 20 percent of global daily seaborne oil passes.
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Prior to last weekend, the White House gave no indication that it was going to propose a delay in the Trump-Xi summit. In fact, meetings took place in Paris on Sunday and Monday led by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng over possible trade agreements to be signed when the two leaders met. Despite being described as “very good” by Bessent, the talks wrapped up without resolution of the key issues of critical minerals and semi-conductors.
In an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday, Trump gave the first hint saying he “may delay the summit with Xi,” but also made the suggestion that Beijing should send warships to open up the Strait of Hormuz. “I think China should help too because China gets 90 percent of its oil from the straits.” The figure itself is a gross overstatement—around 45-50 percent of China’s oil imports pass through the strait.
Appearing to link the summit to the deployment of Chinese warships to the Persian Gulf is deliberately provocative. For more than a fortnight Israeli and American warplanes and missiles have been bombarding military and industrial sites in Iran, assassinating Iranian leaders and killing civilians, including schoolchildren. Though not a formal ally, China signed a 25-year, $400 billion strategy partnership in 2021 to invest in Iranian infrastructure and industry, particularly energy. And now Washington is declaring that Beijing should, under the guise of opening the Strait of Hormuz, assist the US in its efforts to subordinate Iran and the wider Middle East to its interests.
Bessent quickly walked back Trump’s suggestion telling the media that the US call for a delay in the summit was not because of “a false narrative” that it was “because the president demanded that China police the strait of Hormuz.” On Tuesday, Chinese foreign affairs spokesman Lin Jian simply noted that “the US side has publicly clarified these false reports by the media” and blandly declared that talks were continuing over the timing of Trump’s visit.
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In line with its overall stance towards the US-led war on Iran, the official Chinese response to the delay and the US request for naval support has been decidedly muted. The state-owned media, however, has given an indication of the top-level discussion behind closed doors. Commenting on the call for Chinese warships, the hawkish Global Times declared: “Is this really about ‘sharing responsibility’—or is it about sharing the risk of a war that Washington started and can’t finish?”
Far from supporting Iran, Beijing has postured as “neutral”—in effect, equating the US and Israel’s barbaric acts of aggression with Iranian retaliatory strikes on Gulf States that host military bases used by the US to bombard Iran. It has repeatedly called for a ceasefire, deescalation throughout the region and a return to a negotiating table that the US has now twice used to mask its preparations for war.
Beijing is clearly more concerned about cutting a rotten deal with the United States that preserves Chinese economic and strategic interests than even timidly condemning the naked aggression of US imperialism. Speaking to the media on March 8 during China’s annual meeting of the National People’s Congress, Foreign Minister Wang Yi made no suggestion that Trump’s trip to China would not go ahead.
While offering platitudes—the war on Iran “should never have happened” and “the world cannot return to the law of the jungle”—Wang painted a bright future for relations with the United States. He said that 2026 was a “big year for China-US relations” and that the two sides should “treat each other with sincerity and good faith.”
When and if the Xi-Trump summit will proceed remains unclear. No date has been set. Trump’s suggestion of a delay of a “month or so” is premised on a quick US victory in the war on Iran. But as the days drag on, that outcome is less and less likely.
9. European Union presents conditions for participation in the war against Iran
The European Union (EU) has firmly rejected US President Donald Trump’s call to participate in a military operation in the Strait of Hormuz. “No one wants to be actively drawn into this war,” said EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Kaja Kallas following a meeting of EU foreign ministers held in Brussels on Monday. “This is not our war.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and other European heads of government also spoke out against participating in the war. “The question is not whether we will participate,” said Merz. “We will not do so.” Regarding NATO, he said it is “a defensive alliance, not an interventionist alliance,” and therefore its involvement here is not called for.
US President Donald Trump had previously urged European allies to help secure the sea route, which has been blocked by Iran since the US-Israeli attack, and threatened consequences for NATO in the event of a refusal.
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Europe’s “no” does not mean a rejection of the criminal war against Iran, nor does it exclude the possibility that the Europeans will intervene in the conflict with their own troops. They are simply unwilling to get involved in a war over whose course and outcome they have no influence. They want to drive a hard bargain for their participation in the war.
Merz had assured Trump of his support just two weeks ago, immediately after the war began. “We agree that this terrible regime in Tehran must go, and we will discuss what will happen the day after they are gone,” he said during a visit to the White House.
But since then, it has become clear that Trump did not commit to a limited war that would bring down the Iranian regime like a house of cards. Iran proved to be far more resilient than the war hawks in Washington and Tel Aviv had imagined. It has carried out retaliatory strikes in eight countries and blocked the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies, as well as 13 percent of all fertiliser exports, flow.
If the blockade persists for weeks or months, the consequences for the global economy will be devastating. Fuel and heating prices, which have already risen sharply, will skyrocket further, as will food prices. The chemical industry, which relies on petroleum as a raw material, will also be severely affected. The disruption of global supply chains will reverberate through nearly every sector of the economy.
The Trump administration is responding by preparing a ground offensive that threatens to set the entire Middle East ablaze. Trump, who has neither informed nor consulted NATO allies about his war plans, is now demanding their support in the form of an ultimatum.
The European powers are outraged—but not adverse. They themselves have been working toward regime change in Iran for years and have supported economic sanctions against the country. They have backed the Israeli genocide in Gaza, which served as preparation for the war against Iran. They want to secure their share in the redivision of the Middle East and are directly affected by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Yet they are setting conditions. They want to ensure that their own interests are safeguarded.
Foremost among these is the continuation of the war against Russia in Ukraine. Iran is indeed one of Russia’s closest allies, and a defeat there would weaken Russia. Yet in the short term, the war is working in Moscow’s favour. Ukraine lacks weapons that are now being deployed in the Gulf, and rising energy prices are replenishing the Russian treasury, which the imposition of international sanctions were intended to drain.
The fact that Trump has eased sanctions on Russian oil to mitigate the consequences of the Hormuz blockade has been met with outrage in Europe. According to the former German ambassador to Moscow, Rüdiger von Fritsch, Russia has earned an additional 6 billion euros since the start of the war in Iran.
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The Europeans are not willing to submit to the command of the US, which they increasingly perceive as an adversary and rival. They do not want to be dragged into a long-running, disastrous, US-led war, as in Afghanistan. They fear that a US-provoked collapse of state power in Iran and an ethnic fragmentation of the country would trigger a civil war and a massive wave of refugees toward Europe. Reports that the US was arming Kurdish groups against the regime in Tehran met with protest in Europe.
Emmanuel Macron, the president of France—a former colonial power—is the most vocal advocate for a European military intervention in the region that is independent of the United States.
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Unlike Britain and France, which only allowed the US to use their bases for the war on Iran after initial hesitation, Germany posed no problems whatsoever. Above all, the Ramstein Air Base, where some 9,000 US soldiers are stationed, is indispensable as a hub and logistical base for US wars in the Middle East.
Despite Kallas’s claim that “This is not our war,” the European powers are deeply entangled in the war against Iran—a war that violates international law, has already claimed thousands of lives, and threatens to set the entire region ablaze. They do not want to stand on the sidelines in the struggle for the redivision of the world among the great powers.
The war is being waged on the backs of the working class and the youth, who must bear the costs in the form of price hikes, massive military spending and the reintroduction of conscription. War and militarism are incompatible with democracy. As in the US, where Trump’s war policy goes hand in hand with a frontal assault on workers’ democratic rights, the ruling class in Europe is also increasingly relying on repression.
There is no serious opposition to this among the established parties. From Germany’s Left Party to the far-right Alternative for Germany, all have welcomed the treacherous assassination of the Iranian leadership. The war can only be stopped through the mobilization of the international working class on the basis of a socialist program that links the struggle against social inequality, war and dictatorship with the struggle against their root cause, capitalism.
10. US Marine unit steams toward Middle East amid growing threats of ground invasion of Iran
The USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault carrier bearing the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, was tracked Tuesday transiting the Strait of Malacca on its way to the Persian Gulf. The warship departed Okinawa on March 11 and is expected to arrive in the Middle East by the end of March. Its deployment comes amid growing calls within the American media and political establishment for a US ground invasion of Iranian territory.
Roughly 50,000 US service members are already in the Middle East, supported by two carrier strike groups—the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea and the USS Gerald R. Ford in the Red Sea—with a third, the USS George H.W. Bush, steaming toward the Mediterranean. The Tripoli and its Marine force will be the first ground combat-capable unit to enter the theater.
The deployment comes amid a dramatic escalation of the war, including the Israeli assassination of Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and the country’s de facto leader since the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the opening hours of the war on February 28.
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Both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have reported in recent days that the seizure of Kharg Island and a ground operation along the Strait of Hormuz are actively under consideration by the Trump administration. On Monday, US President Donald Trump told reporters he was “not afraid” to send troops into Iran, dismissing comparisons to Vietnam. “I’m really not afraid of anything,” Trump said.
The growing momentum toward a ground invasion reflects the failure of the administration’s efforts to overthrow the Iranian government by murdering its leaders. Politico reported Tuesday that some of Trump’s own allies now believe the president “no longer controls how, or when, the war ends.” One person close to the White House told Politico: “We clearly just kicked [Iran’s] ass in the field, but, to a large extent, they hold the cards now. They decide how long we’re involved—and they decide if we put boots on the ground. And it doesn’t seem to me that there’s a way around that, if we want to save face.”
A second source told Politico: “The terms have changed. The off-ramps don’t work anymore because Iran is driving the asymmetric action.”
Despite more than two weeks of bombing—over 7,000 targets struck, more than 100 naval vessels destroyed, the supreme leader and dozens of senior officials killed—the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil passes, remains effectively closed.
11. Who Moves America: The incomplete story of the 2023 struggle at UPS
A new documentary titled Who Moves America (2026) and directed by Yael Bridge examines the struggle of 340,000 UPS workers for a new contract in 2023. Many of its first screenings have been sold out, and audiences have given the film standing ovations. This warm reception reflects growing anger in the working class against mass layoffs, social inequality and attacks on democratic rights. It also underscores the need for an objective appraisal of the film.
In 2023, 97 percent of UPS workers voted to authorize a strike, signaling immense opposition to low wages, the two-tier driver classification and sweltering delivery trucks, among other issues. A strike would have paralyzed UPS and won the support of millions in the US and globally. A week before the strike deadline, however, the Teamsters leadership prevented a walkout by announcing a tentative agreement. This deal not only fell short of workers’ demands but also has paved the way for some 60,000 job eliminations and 93 facility closures so far.
Who Moves America gives an incomplete picture of the struggle at UPS. It includes ample footage of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien and implicitly accepts his militant rhetoric as genuine. In fact, O’Brien earned a reputation for faction fighting and threatening his opponents before he presented himself as a “reformer.” At the same time, the documentary shows UPS workers expressing their concerns about working conditions, about how a strike would affect them and about the tentative agreement that the leadership negotiated. Though the documentary includes valuable footage, it also leaves out essential information and must be viewed critically.
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Who Moves America ends with the ratification of the contract and says nothing about the mass layoffs that it enabled. In 2024, UPS laid off 12,000 workers in management and administrative positions. In 2025, the company eliminated a further 48,000 jobs. This year, UPS plans to eliminate as many as 30,000 more through buyouts and attrition. Moreover, UPS closed 93 facilities in 2025 and plans to shutter 24 more this year. Entire shifts are likely to be eliminated. In response, Teamsters officials have threatened to file ineffectual grievances and lawsuits but have not called for a strike to defend jobs.
The reason for this failure to fight is that the well-heeled Teamsters leadership seeks above all to maintain its own material interests, bound up with those of management. The bureaucrats’ pro-corporate orientation was made unmistakable when O’Brien spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention. Amid mass layoffs at UPS, O’Brien boasted about the company’s efficiency and demanded that it become “easier for companies to remain in America.” This is the agenda of corporate and finance capital. It is incompatible with that of the working class. O’Brien’s speech was also a de facto endorsement of the fascistic Donald Trump, who had attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election by inciting a mob to storm the Capitol.
12. UAW threatens to block strike by student workers at Columbia University
Following a 91.5 percent strike authorization vote by student workers, the UAW bureaucracy has threatened to withhold approval of a strike unless the campus local waters down its demands.
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This is entirely in line with the role the UAW apparatus has played for decades. Across the auto industry, the UAW leadership has integrated itself into corporate management and the capitalist state, trading away wages, conditions and democratic rights in exchange for dues income and positions for the bureaucracy. At universities, the same apparatus seeks to keep struggles isolated campus by campus, impose concessions and block any movement that threatens to challenge both big business parties.
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Today, student workers confront a qualitatively more advanced political situation. Trump is moving to establish dictatorship at home while waging imperialist war abroad. Student workers were and are still up against two hostile forces: the Columbia administration, run by the ultra-wealthy with deep ties to Wall Street, the Democratic Party and the military-industrial complex, and the UAW bureaucracy, which repeats Columbia’s lies that demands for adequate living and working conditions are not feasible.
The way forward for student workers at Columbia and more broadly begins with a break from the UAW bureaucracy and the building of a rank‑and‑file committee independent of the union bureaucracy. If workers defy the UAW apparatus, this will find wide support from tens of thousands of graduate students in the UAW and from autoworkers, and encourage them to do the same.
This is the basis of socialist autoworker Will Lehman’s campaign for president of the UAW. Lehman’s platform seeks not to reform, but to abolish the UAW bureaucracy and transfer power to the rank-and-file—taking the vast resources of the union out of the bureaucracy’s hands and placing them under the democratic control of rank-and-file workers. His campaign is based on ending corporate collaboration, establishing the international unity of the working class, and defending the democratic rights of immigrants and all workers.
On March 16, the Trump administration’s Non‑Domiciled CDL Final Rule effectively revoked the licenses of roughly 200,000 truck drivers. This is a major new stage in the administration’s fascistic assault on immigrant workers and the working class as a whole.
The rule sharply limits “non‑domiciled” commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) to a narrow set of temporary visa holders—specifically H‑2A farm workers, H‑2B seasonal non‑farm workers, and certain E‑2 treaty investors. It also forces state licensing agencies to check every such applicant against federal immigration databases before issuing or renewing a CDL.
In practice, drivers who relied on Employment Authorization Documents (EADs)—including DACA and Temporary Protected Status holders, refugees and asylum seekers with long records of safe work on US roads—will be allowed to drive only until their current licenses expire and will then be barred from renewing. An analysis by shipper J.B. Hunt estimates that roughly 97 percent of current non‑domiciled CDL holders will be unable to renew or re‑enter the system over the next two to three years.
The rule is part of a vicious political campaign to brand immigrant drivers as unsafe and illegal. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has repeatedly used high‑profile highway incidents to claim that immigrant drivers pose a safety threat, even though states had issued valid CDLs to those drivers based on then-current federal rules and their work authorizations.
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Instead of pursuing international data‑sharing or certification procedures to address that gap, the [Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)] treated immigration vetting as a proxy for safety, converting legal status into the main test of whether someone may earn a living at the wheel.
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Democrats have limited themselves to sound bites and hearings, offering no federal bills or direct legal defense for these workers.
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While immigrant drivers face the destruction of their livelihoods, the AFL-CIO trade union apparatus has confined itself to narrow legal maneuvers—treating the Final Rule as a matter of technical compliance rather than a class attack. The apparatus is opposed to mass strikes or other action to stop this massive assault on immigrant workers.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the AFL-CIO, and Public Citizen challenged both the 2025 Interim Final Rule and the 2026 Final Rule, filing suit to block the March 16 effective date.
The Teamsters limited themselves to public comments opposing the interim rule, with no workplace action as the Final Rule took effect. Teamsters president Sean O’Brien endorsed Trump at the Republican National Convention in 2024 and has backed the nationalist and anti-immigrant policies of the Trump government.
The Non-Domiciled CDL Final Rule is one front in a coordinated ruling-class offensive against the democratic rights of the entire working class. The same administration that is stripping immigrant truck drivers of their livelihoods is simultaneously mounting a constitutional assault on birthright citizenship, deploying the military and federal agents against immigrant communities and implementing a massive assault on jobs and social programs.
The attack on immigrant drivers is an attack on the whole of the working class, and it will only be answered when workers recognize it as such.
This rule, like all the fascistic policies of the Trump administration, will not be defeated by lawsuits. The defense of the working class must be taken into workplaces, freight yards and communities—organized democratically and united across logistics chains and borders. Workers must form independent rank‑and‑file committees in trucking companies, depots and ports to defend the democratic right to work.
14. Florida executes Michael Lee King, dismissing his childhood traumatic brain injury claims
In a continuation of what has become the deadliest era of state-sanctioned killing in modern Florida history, the state moved forward Tuesday with the execution of 54-year-old Michael Lee King. King was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. His execution marks the fourth in Florida this year alone, following a record-breaking 2025 in which the state led the nation with 19 executions.
King was convicted of the 2008 abduction, rape and murder of 21-year-old Denise Amber Lee, a mother of two young sons. The case has long been a flashpoint not only for the horror of the crime itself, but for the systemic failures of the very state that has now executed King in Lee’s name.
On the day of her abduction, Lee managed to use King’s cell phone to call 911, begging for her rescue. Despite her call and at least three other 911 reports from witnesses—including a woman who reported screams coming from King’s car at a traffic light—communication errors and a critical lack of dispatcher training prevented a timely rescue and Lee was killed. The state subsequently passed the Denise Amber Lee Act to reform operator training standards. It was, in effect, an admission that the system had failed her and most likely others.
The state has now chosen to respond to this state failure with another act of violence: King’s execution. His case exposes a legal system that disposes of individuals, mostly men, whose minds were fractured long before they ended anyone else’s life. King suffered a significant traumatic brain injury during childhood—the kind of neurological damage that research has consistently shown can permanently and profoundly alter impulse control, emotional regulation and the capacity for moral reasoning.
The injury left King with serious cognitive impairments and chronic hallucinations. He fell behind in school, struggled to maintain a stable grip on reality and moved through life carrying the invisible weight of a brain that did not work the way it was supposed to. These are not mitigating factors invented by defense attorneys, but documented neurological realities—the kind that should provoke reservations about culpability.
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The impairment of men like King may be profound and their histories of suffering well documented, but unless they meet the precise clinical threshold of “intellectual disability”—the Supreme Court left this determination up to the states—the 2002 ruling has limited impact.
Advocates for clemency, including the Catholic Mobilizing Network, argued that King had become, in the structured environment of prison, a measure of the person his fractured childhood had denied him the chance to be. Prison officials and fellow inmates described him as a “model prisoner,” a “trusted contributor to the prison community” and a man of faith.
Study after study has found that death row inmates are disproportionately likely to carry histories of severe childhood trauma, traumatic brain injury and untreated mental illness. But in a legal system that values retribution and vengeance over rehabilitation and mercy, the impact a society wracked by violence and social inequality has had on these condemned prisoners is rarely considered.
King’s execution was carried out under a shroud of secrecy that marks Florida’s justice system as one of the nation’s most disreputable. His attorneys, echoing claims raised in several 2025 executions, argued that the Florida Department of Corrections has systematically mismanaged its death penalty protocols—potentially using expired drugs or unauthorized chemical compounds that could cause severe and unconstitutional suffering.
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The accelerating pace of Florida executions is driven and sustained by Governor Ron DeSantis, who maintains absolute and largely secretive control over the signing of death warrants and the selection of execution dates. Observers have noted that this unchecked power allows the governor to deploy state killing as a political instrument—a demonstration of subservience to President Donald Trump’s pro-death penalty agenda.
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Florida’s history of so-called botched executions—from the flames produced by the electric chair known as “Old Sparky,” to the documented chemical burns suffered by Angel Diaz in a 2006 lethal injection that took 34 minutes—underlines the drive to continue the assembly line of death despite the high degree of likelihood that an execution can go horribly wrong.
The execution of Michael Lee King is not an act of justice for a grieving family. It is a demonstration of the cold, calculated power of a state that has decided, systematically and deliberately, that the most appropriate response to violence is more violence—administered behind closed doors, with the drugs undisclosed.
15. Crowds flock to DC statue mocking Trump and Epstein in “Titanic” embrace
A gold-painted “King of the World” statue on the National Mall depicts Trump embracing Epstein in Titanic’s bow pose, drawing crowds, mockery and widespread popular hostility toward the oligarchy.
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The Trump/Epstein “Titanic” burlesque has struck a nerve because it crystallizes, in one nauseating image, the understanding that the war on Iran, like the war on immigrants and the war on science, is being waged by a government drawn from and answerable to a rapacious oligarchy that treats human life as disposable. The public laughs at the statue because it recognizes something true in it: A ruling class dancing on the prow of a sinking ship, arms spread wide, shouting that it is “king of the world” as it steers civilization toward disaster.
16. Australian central bank lifts interest rate again as recession threat grows
As was widely expected, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) voted at its meeting yesterday to lift the base interest rate by 25 points to 4.10 percent following a hike by the same amount in February. The bank made it clear it would lift rates further, even driving the economy into recession if it considered that to be necessary.
It was a split decision with five of the central bank’s governing body voting for the immediate rise and four voting to maintain the rate unchanged. But the board was not divided between so-called “hawks” and “doves.”
At her press conference, RBA governor Michele Bullock insisted there was not a disagreement over the direction of interest rates but only on the timing with the minority wanting to delay the hike to the May meeting.
Undoubtedly the swing factor in the decision was the US-Israeli war against Iran and the hike in inflation—above all in the leap in petrol prices—which it has already produced.
Petrol prices have risen by at least 50 cents a litre, in some cases by more—a process which started immediately after the war began, well before the higher-priced oil flowed through to the pump. It has been estimated that the cost of filling up the tank of an average car has risen by $40.
This means that workers, especially those in the cities who often travel long distances to and from work, will be hit with a cut in disposable income running at more than $100 a week or even higher.
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Home buyers face an additional slug. As a result of the two interest rate rises this year payments on a mortgage of $600,000 have risen by $180 per month, with the prospect they could take a further hit in May. The hikes will be much larger for those with a higher mortgage, a large portion of home buyers, under conditions where the median price for a house in Sydney, the country’s largest city, is $1.75 million.
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Like all central banks, the RBA is not a neutral body, somehow serving the interests of the population, but an arm of the capitalist state whose task is to serve the interests of finance capital, above all by the suppression of the working class.
Accordingly, its statement said that while part of the increase in inflation reflected temporary factors, “the Board judged that the labour market has tightened a little recently and capacity pressures are slightly greater than previously assessed.”
Apart from the direct aim of reducing the “tightness” in the labour market by increasing unemployment, the focus on “capacity pressures” is also directed against the working class.
17. Ontario’s Tory government tries and fails to ban Toronto Al-Quds Day demonstration
Al-Quds Day, the annual demonstration for Palestinian rights, which has been peacefully observed in Toronto for decades, went ahead on Saturday, March 14. It did so, despite an 11th-hour attempt by Ontario’s Doug Ford-led, hard-right Tory government to obtain an emergency court injunction banning the demonstration, on the fraudulent claim that it posed a “serious risk of violence.”
Several thousand people attended a rally in front of the US Consulate and then marched peacefully through Toronto’s downtown, in the face of an overwhelming police presence and a counter-demonstration organized by Zionists and Iranian monarchist elements, who shouted epithets and threats.
The demonstrators included entire families. Many carried placards denouncing the criminal war of aggression the US and Israel have launched against Iran, which has now expanded into an Israeli invasion of Lebanon that has displaced more than a million people.
Despite the hysterical fear-mongering from Zionist and far-right elements, including former Conservative MPP Lisa Mcleod and Toronto City Councilors Brad Bradford and Bob Pasternak, who smeared the demonstration as “a platform for antisemitic hate” and “supporting terrorist organizations,” the only arrests on the day were from among the Zionist and monarchist counter-protesters. Two Iranian monarchists were arrested, one for assaulting a demonstrator, and the other for assault and public incitement of hatred.
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The results are an embarrassing setback for the Ford government and for the far-right elements who have been attacking Al-Quds Day demonstrations for years as part of a concerted campaign to suppress anti-war and anti-imperialist opposition and roll back the basic democratic rights of the working class.
Successfully banning Al-Quds Day would set a precedent which Canadian imperialism could exploit as it militarizes society and forces the working class to pay the costs of its role as a protagonist in the imperialist drive to redivide the world.
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.
