Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
This is the real state of Trump’s America in the 250th year since the Declaration of Independence: a society riven by class antagonism on a scale not seen since the Gilded Age, ruled by a criminal oligarchy that has dispensed with even the pretense of democratic governance, lurching toward war abroad and dictatorship at home.
But there is another side to the equation, and it is the decisive one. The same crisis driving the ruling class toward fascism and war is propelling the working class into struggle. A developing strike wave, the mass anti-ICE protests, last year’s “No Kings” marches, the ongoing and walkouts by high school students—These are the initial expressions of a social force that neither party of big business can contain.
The critical question is one of political program, perspective and organization. The opposition to the Trump administration cannot be entrusted to the Democrats, who are complicit in everything he does. It must be based on the independent mobilization of the working class.
Workers must form rank-and-file committees in every workplace, school and neighborhood to coordinate resistance, demand an end to the ICE terror, defend immigrants, and prepare for a general strike against the government’s program of war, austerity and dictatorship. The building of such committees, organized on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program, is the only realistic strategy for defeating the fascistic conspiracy of the American oligarchy.
2. Union bureaucrats shut down Kaiser Permanente strike without a contract
The strike was shut down without a contract, without a membership vote and without any substantive details about negotiations. Workers were instructed to return to their jobs by 7:00 a.m. Tuesday morning.
The union justified this betrayal with the deliberately vague claim of “significant movement at the bargaining table.” But rank-and-file nurses, pharmacists and clinicians had been told repeatedly that the strike would continue until a “fair contract” addressing wages, staffing and patient safety was secured. Instead, they were directed to stand down without knowing what, if anything, had been won.
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This is a flagrant violation of members’ basic democratic rights, and healthcare workers should organize to overturn this decision made over their heads. They must continue the strike, under new leadership drawn from rank-and-file healthcare workers rather than career officials, with democratic control over all future talks to prevent a betrayal.
The order to shut down the strike came the same day that 500 operating engineers at Kaiser from the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) launched their own strike. By ending the larger strike, UNAC/UCHP is isolating and betraying fellow Kaiser workers.
The shutdown of the strike comes after similar maneuvers by the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) to shut down a strike by 15,000 nurses in New York City. After 6 weeks, NYSNA forced an end to the last holdouts at NewYork-Presbyterian with a sellout contract. The strike went on another week at that hospital after workers overwhelmingly rejected a contract which had been brought to a vote in violation of the union bylaws.
Both strikes are part of a broader resurgence of the class struggle, driven by impossible social conditions, which is intersecting with mass opposition to the Trump administration’s rampage against democratic rights. Tens of thousands of workers across California are poised to strike in the coming weeks, including teachers at the Los Angeles Unified School District and graduate students across the University of California system.
The mass protests against ICE raids point to a growing radicalization in the United States. During the mass protests in Minneapolis following the ICE murders of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, people around the country began discussing the need for a general strike. This shows that broad layers, disgusted with the inaction of the Democrats, are turning to the working class as the new basis for a fight against fascism and oligarchy.
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For nearly three decades, relations between UNAC/UHCP and Kaiser management have been governed by the so-called Labor Management Partnership, which was explicitly founded to prevent strikes. Kaiser even threatened to walk away from national contract talks on the grounds that the union’s modest criticisms violated the LMP agreement’s commitment to “norms and behaviors reflective of mutual respect, trust, and the Parties’ joint commitment to creating a workplace culture of collaborative problem solving.”
The strike itself, however, shows that there can be no “collaboration” between nurses fighting for the right of their patients to high quality healthcare and corporate executives seeking to maximize profits by slashing spending to the bone.
The fight at Kaiser is not just over wages and staffing ratios at one network—It is against the domination of US healthcare by profit interests. Recent court cases have exposed the “non-profit” sham of Kaiser and other major healthcare providers. The corporation agreed to pay $556 million to settle allegations of Medicare fraud involving the inflation of patient risk scores to obtain higher government reimbursements, a scheme that federal investigators said generated roughly $1 billion in improper payments.
Even after paying the settlement, Kaiser sought to recover $95 million from insurers through litigation, an attempt to offset losses and preserve surpluses. Just weeks ago, it reached another $28 million settlement over failures to provide adequate mental health services.
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Ultimately, the decisive issue is: What social interests dominate the healthcare system? The financial oligarchy that subordinates care to profit and war, or the workers whose labor sustains safe and humane treatment for patients? The experience of the Kaiser strike demonstrates that this question demands that workers themselves assume conscious leadership of their struggle.
3. Union shuts down South Australian nurses’ strike in backroom deal with Labor government
The union-government deal is a betrayal of nurses and midwives’ deep-seated anger over real wage cuts and intensifying workloads throughout South Australia’s public health system.
4. US begins pulling staff from Beirut embassy amid Iran attack buildup
The pullout follows a pattern established before Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025, when the US reduced its presence at embassies in Baghdad, Kuwait and Bahrain in the days before B-2 bombers struck Iran’s nuclear facilities on June 22.
The USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest warship, arrived at Souda Bay on the island of Crete on Monday after transiting the Mediterranean and is expected off the coast of Israel within days. The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group is operating in the Arabian Sea. Scores of fighter jets, bombers, refueling aircraft and antimissile batteries have poured into the region. More than 40,000 US personnel are stationed across military bases and naval assets in the Middle East.
The New York Times reported Sunday that this is “the largest military force [the US] has concentrated in the region since it prepared for the invasion of Iraq, nearly 23 years ago.” The Washington Post wrote Monday that a senior Persian Gulf official told the paper that Arab countries have informed Washington they would not allow their bases to be used for a strike against Iran, and that Iran’s threat to retaliate against any country that supports the US operation has raised questions about Washington’s ability to secure overflight rights.
Talks between the US and Iran are scheduled for Thursday, February 26, in Geneva. But the record of US “diplomacy” with Iran refutes any belief that Washington is seeking a negotiated settlement.
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The reported debates within the administration point to the massive stakes and consequences of the threatened war. An attack on Iran would involve a vastly greater scale of retaliation than Venezuela, potentially involving significant numbers of US casualties. Iran possesses over a thousand ballistic missiles, advanced drones, cruise missiles and a network of proxy forces. It has threatened to strike US bases across the region if it is attacked.
The Washington Post reported Monday that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Dan Caine cautioned Trump and senior officials at a White House meeting on Tuesday, February 17, that “shortfalls in critical munitions and a lack of support from allies will add significant risk to the operation and to U.S. personnel.”
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Iran has placed its armed forces on the highest state of alert and is positioning ballistic missile launchers along its western border with Iraq and along the Persian Gulf, within range of US military bases.
Ayatollah Khamenei told an audience last week: “The most powerful military in the world might receive such a slap that it won’t be able to get on its feet.” He has named four layers of succession for each military and government role, named three potential successors to himself, and delegated authority to a tight circle of confidants in the event he is killed.
The Democratic Party has offered no opposition to the preparations for war. None of its leading figures, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, has issued any statement condemning the threatened attack.
5. Canada’s Liberal government backs imperialist regime change in Iran
Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand emphasized the federal Liberal government’s full-throated support for imperialist-imposed regime change in Iran at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month.
“We will not open diplomatic relationships with Iran unless there is a regime change. Period,” she told reporters from the Globe and Mail. Earlier the same day, Anand announced sanctions against seven individuals she claimed were “linked to Iranian state bodies responsible for intimidation, violence and transnational repression targeting Iranian dissidents and human-rights defenders.”
In remarks dripping with hypocrisy, Anand demanded that “the repressive Iranian regime must curtail the consistent and illegal violation of Iranian human rights, including by respecting international law and international humanitarian law.”
As the Trump administration massed its naval and air forces in the Middle East to prepare a potentially devastating assault on Iran, 60 heads of state and hundreds of high-ranking foreign affairs and defence officials gathered in Munich to navigate what conference organizers termed a new era of “wrecking ball politics” and “sweeping destruction.” With a US aircraft carrier battle group looming in the Arabian Sea, a second en route and over 120 fighter jets poised to launch weeks of air strikes, Anand cynically refused to say whether Canada would support an unprovoked and illegal US military attack on Iran.
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Anand’s declaration of Canada’s support for imperialist-orchestrated regime change in Iran coincided with the “global day of action” called by the exile Iranian Crown Prince for February 14. Right-wing opponents of the Iranian regime demonstrated in Munich, Los Angeles and Toronto, where the pre-1979 Iranian flag with the monarchy’s emblem and pro-monarchy chants were widespread. Demonstrators denounced the regime’s bloody crackdown on protests that began in December of last year, which were initially motivated by the economic hardships induced by the US-led sanctions but quickly became dominated by right-wing, pro-imperialist forces. The imperialist powers seized on the bourgeois-clerical regime’s violent crackdown against the protests to escalate preparations for war as part of American imperialism’s relentless drive to secure dominance of the Middle East. The demonstration in Toronto explicitly called for the Canadian government to recognize Pahlavi as the leader of Iran’s “democratic transition.” Draped in the flag of the Iranian monarchy, demonstrators, many of them wearing Make America Great Again caps, marched down Yonge Street chanting “King Reza Pahlavi!”
6. Fascist mobilisation after Quentin Deranque’s death
A political front, embracing fascist groups, the Socialist Party, the extreme right National Rally (RN), all the way up to Macron and his government, seeks to carry out an offensive against democratic rights and a mounting opposition to the installation of a police-state dictatorship. The objective is to clear the way for either of RN’s candidates, Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella, to assume power after the current local elections and presidential elections next year.*****
The ruling classes seem to have made their choice for the RN. The millions of voters who aspired to a left government and voted LFI are now considered a problem for the potential victory of the RN. The state’s immediate role is to repress the opposition of youth and workers to the installation of an authoritarian regime in France.
7. After Supreme Court decision, Trump tariff war to intensify
The US Supreme Court may have ruled that sweeping tariffs imposed by invoking an “emergency” under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) were illegal, but the tariff war will go on and possibly even intensify.
That was the message from US President Trump after the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision struck down his so-called “reciprocal tariffs” first unveiled last April and subsequently used to impose a series of shakedown deals on major US trading partners, including commitments from Japan and South Korea to make investments of hundreds of billions of dollars in the US.
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In an action not carried out by any president before him, Trump has invoked the tariff under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act.
This provides for a tariff of up to 15 percent to be imposed for 150 days after which Congressional approval is required for an extension.
During the operation of the Section 122 tariff, which applies across the board and unlike the “reciprocal tariffs” under the IEEPA cannot be varied for individual countries, the Trump regime will seek a more permanent basis for its tariff regime, initially using Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act.
In television interviews, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the new tariffs would be temporary to ensure the continued inflow of money. He described the Section 122 imposts as a “five-month bridge during which studies on Section 232 tariffs and Section 301s are done.”
In a social media post over the weekend, Trump hinted that other means may also be developed.
“During the short number of months, the Trump Administration will determine and issue the new and legally permissible tariffs, which will continue our extraordinarily successful process of Making America Great Again,” he wrote.
While he suffered a setback as a result of the decision, Trump made clear he was determined to press ahead using presidential authority.
“While I am sure they did not mean to do so, the Supreme Court’s decision made a president’s ability to regulate trade and impose tariffs more powerful, and more crystal clear,” he said.
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Trump said that in response to the decision he would seek to use Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act. This provides for the US to impose tariffs long-term if it is decided, after an investigation, that a country is engaged in unfair trade practices against the US.
While tariffs imposed by this means may be “potentially higher” than those previously imposed, they cannot be applied across board, as was the case with the “reciprocal tariffs,” but only on a country-by-country basis and the investigation which is required to precede their imposition can sometimes take months.
The administration has other weapons as well, the use of which could be extended. Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act allows the president to impose tariffs on specific goods for “national security” reasons. It has already been used by Trump to impose tariffs on steel, aluminum as well as to initiate investigations into pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and other high-tech goods.
A key issue which has arisen as a result of the court decision is the fate of the “deals” imposed on a range of countries with the threat if they did not comply, they could be hit with massive “reciprocal tariffs.”
At this stage it appears that these so-called agreements will largely remain intact, though there may be some maneuvering where a final deal has not been reached.
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The deals with South Korea and Japan, which involved major concessions to the US in the form of investments, will remain in place because of the threat of auto tariffs not subject to the Supreme Court ruling.
The European parliament is meeting this week to consider the ratification of the so-called Turnberry agreement of last year—widely regarded as a capitulation by the European Union to the US.
The European Commission said it wanted “full clarity” on the next steps by the Trump administration. European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde said clarity from the administration was critical and that new measures would need to be “in compliance with the constitution, in compliance with the law.”
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Within the US, one of the major issues will be the reimbursement of corporations which have paid the bulk of the tariffs so far—despite Trump’s insistence they were being borne by “foreigners.”
The Supreme Court made no ruling on this issue; neither to say the administration could keep the money it had already collected nor indicating any means by which corporations might seek redress. It appears to have thrown the matter back to the lower courts.*****
The Supreme Court ruling does not mean that there will be some return to constitutionality by the Trump regime or a restoration of the status quo ante as far as international economic relations are concerned—quite the opposite.
Public anger must not be diverted, nor our independent organization blocked against renewed attacks on jobs, terms and conditions and the crippling workloads imposed by those responsible for a wrecking operation.
The parliamentary commission established as part of Turkey's negotiations with the PKK mainly advances the outlook of the Erdoğan government while receiving the support of the Kurdish DEM Party.
Across the United States, students are being threatened, suspended, arrested and violently attacked for exercising basic democratic rights.
11. High school students protesting ICE remain jailed days after police assault in Pennsylvania
Days after video showed a police chief choking a student, at least five youth remain in custody as authorities stonewall the public.
12. US-backed "execution" of Jalisco Cartel chief threatens greater carnage in Mexico
Far from marking a “victory” in the so-called war on drugs, the “execution” of El Mencho under US pressure threatens to provoke an even more violent and destabilizing struggle within and between cartels, which will in turn be used as the pretext for a massive strengthening of the repressive apparatus against the working class.
Defense Secretary Ricardo Trevilla openly acknowledged that US intelligence was decisive. El Mencho was located after being tracked when he traveled to meet a lover already under surveillance.
“This administration has greatly strengthened its relationship with the US Northern Command, and there has been an exchange of information and data. This is a very important flow of information, and that is how we arrived at this specific case,” Trevilla said.
At the same time, Trevilla insisted that the operation demonstrated the “strength of the Mexican state” in a nationalist statement suggesting that the Mexican state can act on its own. The White House confirmed that Northern Command played a key role and publicly “thanked” the Mexican military for the “successful execution” of Oseguera.
Nevertheless, US President Donald Trump added contemptuously on social media: “Mexico must intensify its efforts against the cartels and drugs!”
Trump’s statements underscore the openly colonial attitude of US imperialism. Only days before, in a Fox & Friends interview, he declared that “the cartels are running Mexico. She’s not running Mexico,” referring to President Claudia Sheinbaum, and again threatened to deploy the US military south of the Rio Grande.
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The fundamental reality facing Mexico—the Hitlerian ambitions of the White House for neocolonial control, the major social crises in both the United States and Mexico and the country’s geographic position feeding countless billions into drug trafficking—lays bare that capitalism offers no solution to the mass violence ravaging Mexico.
The safety of workers and their families do not depend on strengthening the Army, the National Guard or their ties to the Pentagon. It cannot be achieved through any of the bourgeois parties—from Morena to the PRI and PAN—or through nationalist appeals to “unite the nation” behind the security forces. On the contrary, it is only possible through an international political struggle against all factions of the ruling class and against imperialism, aimed at dismantling the entire apparatus of capitalist exploitation and repression.
13. Berlinale award winners demand festival and its backers take a clear stand against Gaza genocide
The support for Israel’s genocidal policy in Gaza by the German government and the country’s official cultural institutions was the subject of fierce and prolonged protest at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale).
From the start of the festival, Berlinale management and the head of the festival jury, Wim Wenders, had determinedly sought to evade any discussion of the devastation taking place in occupied Palestine and block all criticism of the state of Israel.
On several occasions, festival director Tricia Tuttle declared that taking a clear position on the genocide in Gaza was not possible due to the “complexity” of situation. Tuttle repeated the phrase once again in her defensive speech at the festival closing ceremony. Wenders had gone even further, declaring at the start of the festival that the correct response by artists was to “stay out of politics.” This led to novelist Arundhati Roy’s cancelling her appearance at the festival and other expressions of outrage. Wenders later nervously retreated somewhat, asserting that: “Activists are fighting, mainly on the internet, for humanitarian causes, namely the dignity and protection of human life. These are our causes as well.”
In any event, to the dismay of Tuttle and Wenders and the German establishment, politics dominated the closing evening of the Berlinale.
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A series of further articles [at the World Socialist Web Site in coming days] will deal with some of the most notable films on show at the festival.
14. Australia: Early childhood educators in Victoria set to strike
Educators remain trapped in a cycle of low pay, excessive workloads and chronic staff shortages.
15. Australia: Questions about Bondi terrorist attack remain unanswered
More than two months since the December 14 terrorist attack on a Jewish gathering at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, in which two Islamic State-inspired gunmen murdered 15 people, questions about how the atrocity was able to be perpetrated remain entirely unanswered.*****
But despite its centrality to political life, the attack itself is increasingly remote in the official discussion. It is invoked in passing to justify sweeping attacks on the democratic rights of millions of people, without reference to the background, political identity or connections of the perpetrators themselves.
There are two basic reasons for that contradiction.
Firstly, the attack has been seized upon by the ruling elite and its political representatives, above all the Labor governments, to crackdown on the mass movement against the Israeli genocide in Gaza, which had no connection whatsoever with the Bondi atrocity. Secondly, information that has emerged about the perpetrators raises grave questions about the role of state and federal authorities, particularly the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), the domestic spy agency.
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There is also the question of the relationship between western intelligence agencies and Islamic State itself. The organization was spawned by a US-led intervention into Syria beginning in 2011, when the CIA funneled billions in cash and weaponry to Islamist militias fighting the Iranian- and Russian-linked government of Bashar Al-Assad. The US was in a de facto alliance with the group that would become the Islamic State, only beginning operations against it when it crossed back into Iraq, threatening Washington’s control over oil resources.
The current Syrian regime is the end product of the regime-change operation. Its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, an Al Qaeda terrorist who previously had a US bounty on his head, has been feted in Washington and has moved to normalize ties with Israel.
That is a reminder that in foreign policy, reactionary Islamist forces have frequently been used as the direct or de facto instruments of US imperialism and its allies. Domestically, their activities, often conducted under the eye of the intelligence agencies, have been invoked to crackdown on democratic rights and to legitimize further militarism.
16. Workers Struggles: The Americas
Argentina:
Brazil:
Mexico:
Canada:
Saskatchewan Catholic school workers vote to strike
United States:
USDA to allow increase in meatpacking line speeds
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.
