Afghanistan: From Soviet Occupation To American ‘Liberation’

Nauman Sadiq

During the election campaign of 2008 before he was elected as the president, Barack Obama made an artificial distinction between the “just war” in Afghanistan and the unjust war in Iraq. In accordance with the flawed distinction, he pledged that he would withdraw American troops stationed in Iraq.

The unilateral intervention in Iraq by the Bush Administration was highly unpopular in the American electorate. Therefore Obama’s election pledge of complete withdrawal of the US troops from Iraq struck a chord with the voters and they gave an overwhelming mandate to the ostensibly “pacifist” contender during his first term as the president.

In keeping with the election pledge, President Obama did manage to successfully withdraw the last American soldier from the Iraqi soil in December 2011 during the first term as the president, but only to commit thousands of American troops and the US Air Force to Iraq just a couple of years later during the second term as the president when the Islamic State overran Mosul and Anbar in early 2014.

The borders between Iraq and Syria are poorly guarded and highly porous. The Obama Administration’s policy of nurturing militants against the Assad regime in Syria for the first three years of the Syrian civil war from 2011 to 2014 was bound to backfire sooner or later.

More to the point, however, when President Obama decided to withdraw American troops from the unjust war in Iraq, at the same time, he pledged that he would commit additional American troops and resources into the purportedly “just war” in Afghanistan. And consequently, the number of US troops in Afghanistan jumped from 30,000 during the Bush Administration to more than 100,000 during the supposedly “pacifist” Obama Administration.

And now, the “steady hands” of the American deep state, the Secretary of Defense James Mattis and the National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, have advised the Trump Administration to further escalate the conflict in Afghanistan by deploying 3,000 to 5,000 additional troops to a contingent of 8,500 US troops already stationed in Afghanistan as “trainers and advisors.”

If more than 100,000 US troops at their peak during the Obama Administration’s tenure failed to achieve any long-term objective in Afghanistan, then how do Generals Mattis and McMaster expect from 3,000 to 5,000 additional troops to salvage the failed Afghan policy of the successive US administrations?

If the Trump Administration adopted an attitude of appeasement towards the diktats of the deep state, then it will only be a first step before the quagmire in Afghanistan will suck in tens of thousands of additional US troops and resources in the coming years.

Coming back to the topic, no one can dispute the assertion that the notions of “just wars” and “good militants” do exist in the vocabulary; empirically speaking, however, after witnessing the instability, violence and utter chaos and anarchy in the war-ravaged countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, the onus lies on any “liberal interventionist” to prove beyond doubt that the wars and militants that he justifies and upholds are indeed just and good.

More surprisingly, however, if Afghanistan was an occupied country during the years of Soviet occupation from 1979 to 1988 then how did it become a free country after the American occupation of Afghanistan since 2001-onward?

Furthermore, if the Afghan so-called “Mujahideen” (freedom fighters) nurtured by the Carter and Reagan Administrations with the help of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies and Saudi money constituted a legitimate resistance against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, then by what principle of consistent logic, the resistance against American occupation of Afghanistan can be reviled as “terrorism”?

In international politics, the devil always lies in the definitions of the terms that we employ. And the definition of the term “terrorism” has been deliberately left undefined by the Western powers to use it as a catch-all pretext to justify their military presence and interventionist policy in the energy-rich Islamic countries.

More to the point, there is a not-so-subtle distinction between a terrorist and an insurgent: an Islamic insurgent believes in something and wants to enforce that agenda in the insurgency-hit regions, while a terrorist is just a bloodthirsty lunatic who is hell-bent on causing death and destruction. The distinguishing feature between the two is that an insurgent has well defined objectives and territorial ambitions, whereas a terrorist is basically motivated by the spirit of revenge and the goal of causing widespread fear.

After invading and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq and when the American “nation-building” projects failed in those hapless countries, the US policymakers immediately realized that they were facing large-scale and popularly-rooted insurgencies against foreign occupation; consequently, the occupying military altered its CT (counter-terrorism) approach in the favor of a COIN (counter-insurgency) strategy.

A COIN strategy is essentially different from a CT approach and it also involves dialogue, negotiations and political settlements, alongside the coercive tactics of law enforcement and military and paramilitary operations on a limited scale.

The phenomena which is currently threatening the Islamic countries is not terrorism, as such, but Islamic insurgencies. Excluding al Qaeda Central which is a known transnational terrorist organization, all the regional militant groups like the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, al Shabab in Somalia and Boko Haram in Nigeria, and even some of the ideological affiliates of al Qaeda and Islamic State, like Al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula, Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb, the Islamic State affiliates in Afghanistan, Sinai and Libya which have no organizational and operational association with al Qaeda Central or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, respectively, are not terror outfits, as such, but insurgent groups, who are fighting for the goals of liberation of their homelands from foreign occupation and for the enforcement of Sharia in their respective areas of operations.

The goals for which Islamic insurgents have been fighting in the insurgency-wracked regions are irrelevant for the debate in hand; it can be argued, however, that if some of the closest Western allies in the Middle East, like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, have already enforced Sharia as part of their conservative legal systems and when beheadings, amputations of limbs and flogging of criminals are a routine in Saudi Arabia, then what is the basis for the US declaration of war against Islamic insurgents in the Middle East who are deliberately, but erroneously, labeled as “terrorists” by the Western mainstream media to manufacture consent for the Western military presence and interventions in the energy-rich region under the pretext of the so-called “war on terror”?

Notwithstanding, the root factors that are primarily responsible for spawning militancy and insurgency anywhere in the world is not religion but socio-economics, ethnic differences, marginalization of disenfranchised ethno-linguistic and ethno-religious groups and the ensuing conflicts; socio-cultural backwardness of the affected regions, and the weak central control of the impoverished developing states over their remote rural and tribal areas.

Additionally, if we take a cursory look at some of the worst insurgency-plagued regions in the Middle East, deliberate funding, training and arming of certain militant groups by regional and global powers for their strategic interests has played the key role.

Back in the eighties during the Soviet-Afghan war, the Afghan jihadists did not spring up spontaneously out of nowhere. The Western powers with the help of Saudi money and Pakistan’s intelligence agencies trained and armed those “freedom fighters” against their archrival the Soviet Union. Those very same Afghan “Mujahideen” later mutated into the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Similarly, during the Libyan and Syrian uprisings, the Western powers with the help of their regional client states, once again, trained and armed Islamic jihadists and tribal militiamen against the “unfriendly” regimes of Qaddafi and Bashar al-Assad.

And isn’t it ironic that those very same “cute rebels” later mutated into Ansar al-Sharia and Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) in Libya; and the Islamic State, al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Islam and scores of other jihadist groups in Syria?

The U-Turn Queen: Theresa May in Action

Binoy Kampmark

Authoritarian styles can come at cost.  The manner with which the British Prime Minister has reacted to the concept of debate has been one such point. While the joys of the Westminster system hardly suggest untrammelled enlightenment, one superficial element remains: the need to debate policies.

Having called an election, the pollster community were more or less suggesting Theresa May could sit back and shut-up with disdainful reclusiveness.  A victory with a majority of 100 seats would be netted and British Labour would suffer their worst electoral showing in generations.

As ever, the pollster community can no longer be said to be a uniform gaggle, having been pummelled by the remorseless wheels of history. One has decided to buck the trend:  should current trends continue as they are, the May government could face a hung parliament, and the distinctly anti-British turn of negotiating with minor parties.  The Corbynistas, it seems, were gaining.

The debate showing was poor, largely because the PM decided to send a proxy in her stead, Home Secretary Amber Rudd.  The other parties were hardly worth a jotting.  Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron was in stern mood: “How dare you call an election and then run away from the debate?”

The Greens co-leader Caroline Lucas also posited some guidelines of leadership: “the first rule of leadership is to show up – you don’t say it’s the most important election of our lifetime and not be bothered to show up.”

But May has not so much running away as simply ignoring the convention of a debate format that is held in such high esteem in the United States.  “I don’t think seven politicians arguing among themselves is that interesting or revealing.”  For the PM, there really is nothing worth talking about, though it is evident that members of her party are getting rattled. This lady has been for turning from the start, and nerves are showing.

In a separate event organised by the BBC Question Time program, May faced her own set of questions from a selected audience. She found in it a chance to stress that she had “absolute, resolute determination to respect the will of the British people.”

She then trained her rhetorical guns on the Corbyn option.  Imagine, she posed, the nightmare of a government that would include “Diane Abbott, who can’t count, John McDonnell, a Marxist, propped up by Nicola Sturgeon, who wants to break-up the UK, and Tim Farron, who wants to go back into the EU.”

On money, May proved conventionally Tory, and brutal.  There was little time for that old canard of compassionate conservatism in the face of indignant teachers and nurses.  A cap of 1 per cent on annual public sector pay rises was justified, despite not keeping up with the rate of inflation, since public money had to be “managed carefully”.  Her opponents seemed to believe, by way of contrast, in “a magic money tree”, one that could be repeatedly plucked and raided.

In the 45-minute show, May insisted that “the only poll that matters is the one that takes place on polling day”.  Few could disagree with that putative fact, though it also chimes with a certain long yawn shown by the prime minister of late.

This sheer indifference has seen May do a set of U-turns on various policies, be it the issue of Brexit, which she campaigned against, or raising the National insurance for self-employed workers, which effectively amounted to a repudiation of the Tory position on raising taxes. Few will forget that other corker of a turn: the steadfast refusal to hold an election without first serving a full term.  Robotically, continues to adjust gears and alter course as needed.

Corbyn’s own set of questions from the Question Time crowd also had their element of discomfort, though they did draw out old principles.  He reiterated a certain doubt about using Britain’s Trident missiles, even in the event of the country being subjected to “imminent threat from nuclear weapons”.  He preferred “negotiation and talks” to existential annihilation.  “If we did use it, millions would die.”  The current UK Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, found such an  attitude “chilling”.

For all that, Corbyn had to concede to internal defeat, having lost the debate within his party on the renewal of the Trident option.  The Labour Party is hardly a collective for peace, and fantasies involving nuclear holocaust remain wedded to the Union Jack and patriotic self-worth. Even faded dreams need their weapons.

A May Britain will continue looking bleak and squalid, but it will continue being British. The only thing left for the prime minister as she goes forth hoping that Labour’s momentum weakens is to wish that others fail. Such a Tory strategy has worked before, and may well work again.

Higher Education In India: License To Loot

Vicdan Azabi

University Grants Commission (UGC) has drafted a new set of regulations/ guidelines and released it inviting feedback from public. (http://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/9837591_Public-Notice-regarding-draft-Regulations-and-Guidelines.pdf ) These regulations/ guidelines are going to have profound impact on the higher education in the country and are in fact an extension of the thrust towards the assault on the public higher education and the attempts towards creating avenues for profit maximization of the private sector.

These include: UGC (Categorization of Universities for Grant of Graded Autonomy) Regulations, 2017; University Grants Commission (Promotion and Maintenance of Standards of Academic Collaboration between Indian and Foreign Educational institutions) Regulations, 2017; UGC [institutions Deemed to be Universities] Regulations, 2017; Guidelines for Grant of Graded Autonomy to Central and State Public Universities and University Grants Commission [Minimum Standards and Procedure for Awards of M.Phil/ PhD Degree ] (1st Amendment) Regulations, 2017.  While the last one pertains to the research admissions and in an extension of the assault on public research (with the result of massive exclusion and seat cuts) through the earlier gazette notification of May 2016; the first four are intrinsically linked to the agenda of privatization.

What are the prime features of these new regulations/ guidelines?

UGC (Categorization of Universities for Grant of Graded Autonomy) Regulations-2017 classifies universities into three categories based on their National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) accreditation and National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings. The first two categories will be accorded greater autonomy by the UGC.

To be in category I, a university must have NAAC accreditation with a score of 3.5 or above. Otherwise, it should figure in the NIRF’s list of top 50 institutions for two consecutive years. The institutions in category I will be able to open ‘research parks, incubation centres and university society linkage centres in self-financing mode either on its own or in partnership with private partners, without the UGC’s approval’. Such institutions will simply have to send a report of the self-financing courses started by them and there won’t be any monitoring/ inspection by the UGC. The deemed-to institutions figuring in category I can now start unlimited number of off centres without the need of any confirmation from UGC (As per the existing regulations such institutions can start only 2 off centres in a span of 5 years).

These regulations/guidelines need to be seen in the backdrop of aggressive push towards autonomy by UGC at the clear behest of the HRD ministry. In the recent past we have  seen aggressive push from the central government and UGC to arm-twist the colleges to apply for ‘autonomous status’. It needs to be noted that the idea of ‘autonomous colleges’ in its present form was first mooted by Birla-Ambani committee during the NDA-1. The UGC’s 12th plan document on the ‘Guidelines for autonomous colleges’ says that the fund given by commission as autonomous grant cannot be used for creation of posts, payment of salary to any of the college staff, payment of honorarium, or to meet normal college contingency requirement or subsidies. It also adds that the examination fee should be fixed so that income from fee can meet the expenditure on examinations and other staff appointed in examination cell.

UGC already has over 575 autonomous colleges in the country. Of these, 167 are government institutions. Premier institutions such as Loyola College, Chennai, and St Xavier’s Colleges in Mumbai and Kolkata have already been granted autonomy. The erstwhile Presidency College in Kolkata has been granted the status of a deemed university. Most of the government autonomous colleges are struggling with the financial and academic aspects of autonomy. In effect, there is a big mismatch between the stated claims and the actual reality of the entire autonomy process.

‘Autonomy’ is being linked to academic excellence and only those institutions which have been awarded a minimum of B grade 3 times in the last 10 years are eligible to apply for the autonomous status. The ranking of educational institutions hence is directly related to the push towards autonomy agenda. The ‘India Ranking Report 2017’ as per the National Institutions Ranking Framework (NIRF) has been released recently. Both, ‘autonomy’ and ‘ranking’ are vehicles of privatization, which in turn means that education will become costlier, accessible to only the elite. For the vast majority of people, their children will have to go through D-grade institutions, if at all.

On the one hand, there is a tiny minority of “elite” institutions and on the other hand, a vast number of institutions which are struggling with faculty shortage, cramped classrooms and inadequate infrastructure.

Another aspect is that a set of pre-conditions has been laid down to get access to funds: implementation of Choice Based Credit System (CBCS), semesterization, and compulsory accreditation among others. Moreover funding for higher education under RUSA will be norm based as well as performance based. This basically means that the state governments or universities won’t have any room to modify the system according to their specific conditions. Funding will be linked to the performance of the institution based on set criteria (which would include student-teacher ratio, infrastructure, examination results etc.). This would effectively spiral into increasing the already existing inequalities.

We have come to a situation where public institutions are being made fund starved with continuous declined in the government spending. Prakash Javadekar claimed in February 2017 that India (centre & states combined) was now spending 4.5% of GDP on education. However, the Economic survey for 2016-17 shows that this figure is only 2.9%. Javadekar further claimed that India is ‘progressing’ towards achieving the 6% target. Far from increasing education spending, Modi Sarkar has ensured a dip in its share. Javadekar goes on to argue that while calculating the expenditure the private investments should also be considered (thereby negating BJP’s own poll promise in 2014 election manifesto). His assertion is not showing any novelty, rather it smacks of typical neoliberal dogma that seeks to quantitatively under-define the spending goals and hide the failures of the governments.

In the nutshell, the present policy level changes seek to further accelerate the process in Indian education sector that is giving the private institutions a ‘license to loot’. What it means for the burgeoning youth population and their aspirations is an easy guess. The UGC has invited feedback from the public till 15th June. This period should be used to build strong opinion against this policy offensive. However, the real test for those who want to defend the public education and the interests of the millions of people of this country will be on the streets. The situation demands strong movement of students, teachers and karmacharis as was witnessed during the NDA-1 regime.

New Zealand budget deepens austerity

Tom Peters 

New Zealand’s National Party government announced its annual budget on May 25, its ninth since it was elected in late 2008 following the global financial meltdown.

Delivered ahead of an election in September, the budget was promoted by the government and the corporate media as a generous “families’ package.” Finance Minister Steven Joyce told the New Zealand Herald it was “skewed towards the lower income earners, people with young families and people with challenging accommodation costs.”

In reality, the budget deepens the government’s austerity agenda, aimed at placing the burden of the economic crisis on the working class. The government books have a surplus of $1.8 billion, produced by a decade of attacks, including partial privatisating power companies, cutting basic services, pushing thousands of people off welfare, increasing the Goods and Services Tax and reducing corporate tax.

Health, housing and education will continue to be starved of funds, while the budget substantially increases spending on the military and the police.

Spending on the military, which has received little media attention, will rise by $982 million (5.3 percent) over the next four years, including upgrades for navy frigates and surveillance aircraft. This is part of $20 billion to be spent over 15 years announced in the 2016 Defence White Paper. The purpose is to improve “interoperability” with the US military, which is encircling and threatening war against Russia and China.

Joyce declared that the country’s economy had withstood the global crisis. Treasury forecasts, which are always overly optimistic, show that economic growth, currently around 3 percent per annum, will reach 3.8 percent by 2019. Much of this is due to population growth, reconstruction following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake and last year’s Kaikoura earthquake, and speculative activity in the property market. According to Goldman Sachs, New Zealand’s housing market is the most over-valued in the world and risks a major crash in the next two years.

The real economy, based on agricultural exports to Asia, Europe and the US, is highly vulnerable to increased national protectionist measures around the world. There have been major job cuts already in meat processing this year and dairy farmers have not fully recovered after a major slump last year.

The budget’s $2 billion “families package” consists mainly of income tax cuts that will not come into effect until April 2018. While the amounts vary, the government says the average working family will receive just $26 a week. Far from being “skewed” to the poor, 20 percent of the value of the cuts will go to the top 10 percent of income earners and the bottom 50 percent will receive the same amount.

Median wages have been stagnating for decades. In the last year inflation reached 2 percent, while wages grew only 1.6 percent. Unemployment stands at 4.9 percent, well above the 3.5 percent level before the 2008 crisis.

The government has trumpeted its increase in the Accommodation Supplement, a welfare payment given to more than half of all families. Low-income households will receive between $25 and $80 per week extra—not nearly enough to pay for soaring rents driven by property speculation.

The supplement was last adjusted in 2007, when it was based on 2005 rents. In 2005, Massey University reported private median rents in Auckland were $320 per week. This April the figure was $530, according to Trade Me’s Rental Index. Inevitably, landlords will respond to the increased supplement with further rent hikes.

There is nothing to address worsening homelessness. In 2013 there were 41,000 people officially homeless, including people living in cars, garages, or overcrowded homes. Auckland alone now has a shortage of 40,000 houses. The government only plans to build 34,000 houses in Auckland over the next 10 years, most to be sold at market prices.

Meagre concessions for poor people will be paid for with cuts in other areas. In March, Prime Minister Bill English announced a plan to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67 by 2040 and force immigrants to live in New Zealand for 20 years instead of 10 to be eligible for superannuation. This will cut about $4 billion from pensions.

For at least the past nine years, funding increases to basic services have not kept pace with inflation or population growth.

The new budget allocated $16.77 billion in health spending for the upcoming financial year—an increase of $879 million. Half of this will fund wage increases already announced for some 55,000 aged and disability carers.

Hundreds of thousands of people do not receive the care they need and many have been kept off surgery waiting lists because of inadequate district health boards funding. A pilot study published in March in the New Zealand Medical Journal estimated that 9 percent of adults are missing out on hospital treatment, including surgery, and 25 percent could not afford to see a doctor. Author Dr Philip Bagshaw told Radio NZ that in real terms health spending had declined for at least eight years.

Mental healthcare services will continue to worsen. Council of Trade Unions economist Bill Rosenberg told the media that funding would increase 3.5 percent, yet “client numbers are climbing over 5 percent a year.” Under the impact of the social crisis, suicides have reached record levels two years in a row.

Operational funding for schools will receive a token $60.5 million extra over four years. The 1.3 percent increase is a cut in real terms—half the rate of inflation last year. Preschools and kindergartens will get no increase in per-child funding. According to the Early Childhood Education Council, there has been a total reduction of $105,000 per centre since 2010.

Subsidies for university student fees have increased by 1 percent. Institutions will respond by further hiking fees, forcing students to borrow more. The parental income threshold for student living allowances has been frozen since 2010, cutting access to tens of thousands of people.

Students are being driven into poverty. In a recent survey of 2,000 students at Unitec in Auckland, 17 percent agreed they “regularly go without food or other necessities because I can’t afford them.” Half said their income was not enough to cover basic living costs at some point in the past year.

A $2 billion “law and order” package includes funding for 1,125 more police officers. There is also more than $1 billion to expand the prison system—roughly the same as the extra spending on schools and early childhood centres over the next four years. The ruling elite intends to deal with the consequences of homelessness and poverty by throwing more people in prison.

Labour and its allies, the Greens and New Zealand First, support the increased military spending and have long pushed for greater spending on the police.

The opposition parties essentially agree with the government’s austerity measures and have made only mild criticisms of the budget. The Labour Party criticised the lack of affordable housing, but its own policy is to work with private developers to build houses, which would then be sold at market prices of around $500,000. While the Labour Party now claims to oppose the retirement age increase, it campaigned for the same increase in the 2011 and 2014 elections.

Significantly, the Greens voted in favour of the budget’s tax cuts, echoing the government’s false claim they would meaningfully assist working families.

Labour and the Greens, which are contesting this year’s election in a formal alliance, agreed in March on key “Budget Responsibility Rules.” These include a promise to slash government debt by 20 percent within five years and keep core spending below 30 percent of gross domestic product—the same as the government. The rules, praised in the corporate media, will inevitably mean more cuts to social programs if Labour and the Greens are elected.

Huge job losses loom in India’s IT sector

Joy Bose & Kranti Kumara

A recent spate of reports reveals that a major crisis is looming in India’s IT sector, with hundreds of thousands of jobs threatened with elimination. Given the IT sector’s importance in providing relatively better-paid jobs to university graduates in a country with a rapidly expanding youth population, this crisis is likely to have explosive social consequences.

Seven major Indian and foreign IT companies with major operations in India, including Wipro, Infosys and US-based Cognizant, will reportedly lay off about 56,000 employees this year. This amounts to about 4.5 percent of the 1.2 million persons they collectively employ worldwide. But numerous business publications and corporate media are reporting a more ominous projection of 600,000 Indian IT workers losing their jobs over the next three years.

India’s IT companies are experiencing intense cost pressures from their clients, who themselves are facing profit and revenue squeezes due to the global crisis of capitalism. They have also been roiled by the election of Donald Trump, who has vowed to clamp down upon the H1-B visas that Indian-based IT companies depend on to send some of their highly-skilled, but low-compensated, employees to the US.

The market for IT services is characterized by cut-throat competition, pitting India’s IT companies against each other both domestically and internationally.

India’s IT companies are using the most underhanded methods to rid themselves of loyal, long-term, highly-skilled employees whom they deem a drain on their bottom line.

Some have gone so far as to deny that they are laying off workers and portray their job cuts as the “normal” process of weeding out “low performers.” For example, a Cognizant spokesperson told the Hindustan Times that “Cognizant has not conducted any layoffs” despite the fact that there were widespread reports that the company has targeted 6,000 to 10,000 employees for pink slips just this year.

By classifying targeted employees as low performers during an annual or biannual performance review, IT companies can circumvent even the measly compensation accorded laid-off workers under Indian labor laws.

Under these laws, which the authorities in any event routinely fail to enforce, an employee sacked in a mass layoff is entitled to a minimum 30-day termination notice and a half month’s wages for every year worked. The latter stipulation applies, however, only to workers with a minimum of five years of continuous employment.

Having classified workers as “low performers,” companies often pressure and outright bully them into resigning, including by making threats regarding the work references they will need to gain future employment.

Recently the Forum for IT Employees (FITE), an organization created by workers at various IT companies and call centers, complained on behalf of numerous workers to Labor Ministry officials in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, and Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh, that Cognizant is illegally terminating employees.

It charged that this was a deliberate tactic, aimed at replacing relatively well paid and experienced professionals with younger, lesser experienced workers and at lower pay.

In a statement to the Hindu Business Line, a Cognizant representative claimed that the “company’s performance review process [is] consistent with the standard practice that has been followed by the IT industry for many years.”

Indeed, there is evidence that Cognizant’s practices are similar to those of many other IT companies and are part of a system designed to exert relentless pressure on workers.

Companies systematically target so-called low performers for sacking, using this as a means to intimidate workers into meeting productivity goals and to shed better-paid, longer-term staff.

In addition to the pressure of meeting deadlines and costs on projects, workers have to constantly worry about whether they are next in line for sacking. Moreover, the deadlines and costs are frequently determined by management with little or no input from the workforce.

The means the companies employ to identify “low performers” are arbitrary, even capricious.

Frequently, they employ a Bell Curve “model” to classify employees, with the ones who fall at the bottom either sacked or placed on notice of possible termination. Workers who may have been classified “high performers” in one year, or even several years in a row, can be deemed low performers any time in the future, since companies routinely expect workers to increase their output year after year so as to swell company profits.

Many of the affected employees are managers and consultants with at least seven to 15 years of experience, who are deemed expendable because they are “easily replaceable” with junior IT employees at a vastly reduced pay package.

In addition, automation and artificial-intelligence software are increasingly resulting in job cuts, with even managers and other experienced workers under threat. Decisions previously made by team leaders and middle management, such as determining which workers should be deployed to most speedily and profitably complete a project, are now being made largely or wholly by artificial intelligence software, threatening the career progression and livelihoods of professionals who till recently were among the most upwardly mobile sections of India’s urban middle class.

India’s IT sector, which in 2015 earned $147 billion in revenue with $99 billion of this coming from the export of IT services, faces major economic and political headwinds.

US President Donald Trump has issued threats against the “abuse” of H1-B visas, which are the central facility Indian IT companies use to send their lower-paid Indian employees to work onsite with US clients. The US, it should be added, is far and away the largest overseas market for India’s IT companies.

According to NASSCOM, the Indian IT industry association, Indian IT companies command 55 percent of the $175 billion global IT and Business Process outsourcing market. However, growth in outsourcing is reportedly reaching a plateau and India’s IT companies do not have the expertise in developing software products to compete with the likes of Google and Microsoft.

Consequently, they are adopting savage cost-cutting strategies to try to grow profits.

The threat of a hollowing out of this industry, which has been pivotal to the rise of Indian capitalism, threatens to have major social and political consequences.

Up until now, India’s political leaders depended upon the relatively well-paid IT industry to absorb a portion of the vast number of engineering graduates coming out of Indian universities. If this avenue for advancement contracts, the future facing India’s educated youth will become even darker, with explosive political consequences. As it is, India has one of the world’s most rapidly growing labor forces. Close to half of India’s 1.2 billion people are under the age of 25 and some two-thirds are 35 years old or under.

Amid deepening crisis, Temer turns to Brazil’s military

Gabriel Lemos 

The brutal police repression unleashed against demonstrators at the May 24 “Occupy Brasília” march, and the “Guarantee of Law and Order” decree that sent 1,500 armed soldiers into the streets of Brazil’s capital, mark a definite bid by the crisis-ridden government of President Michel Temer (PMDB) to find a base of support within the military.

The Temer government’s increasing turn toward the military coincides with its attempt to push through the National Congress labor and pension “reforms” against which the demonstration was initially called. At the same time, since the first demonstrations in March, popular anger against these counter-reforms has been growing, culminating in the April 28 general strike, the largest such action in Brazil since 1989.

The “Occupy Brasília” march brought tens of thousands of demonstrators from all over the country to the Brazilian capital. Temer’s crackdown and his “law and order” decree, however, was aimed not merely at repressing the march itself, but at preparing for social unrest once the regressive labor and pension laws are enacted, scheduled for the coming weeks, and to create a state of siege in Brasília to deal with future major demonstrations.

Initially, the “law and order” decree was set to last until May 31, with the possibility of it being renewed. However, it was revoked one day after being decreed, on May 25, in the face of broad criticism that it was an unnecessary and disproportionate response to what had been a largely peaceful demonstration.

The leading political figure behind the “law and order” decree was General Sérgio Etchegoyen, minister of institutional security. Etchegoyen, together with Defense Minister Raul Jungman, acted as the government’s spokesmen during the “Occupy Brasília” march, announcing the decree after convincing Temer of the need to call out the armed forces, according to the Brazilian daily Globo.

Globo also reported that Brazil’s Intelligence Agency (ABIN), controlled by the institutional security minister, was monitoring the march’s organization and, a week before, “had alerted the ministries and the government of the Federal District to the presence of vandals and the possible radicalization of the march.”

Brasília was heavily guarded for the march by 3,000 military policemen and members of the heavily armed, militarized National Security Force. This repressive apparatus had been in preparation since April 27, one day before the general strike, when the vice-minister of institutional security, General Antonio Freire Gomes, and other senior officers joined with representatives of the National Congress and the Brasília government in issuing an Integrated Tactical Protocol for Demonstrations.

The protocol allows for demonstrators to be searched, forbids glass bottles and flagpoles on the Esplanada dos Ministérios (Ministries’ Esplanade) area near the National Congress and outlines 110 possible scenarios of how the repressive forces should act in confronting political demonstrations.

Within this repressive framework, the slightest provocative action by the demonstrators could serve as a pretext for calling out the armed forces. As if by plan, the provocation began with members of the so-called “black bloc” advancing on a police barricade, unleashing police repression and leading to the issuance of the “law and order” decree.

Etchegoyen’s considerable influence in the Temer government has grown even greater since May 17, when the president was plunged into a new crisis. Secretly recorded tapes implicated him in a conspiracy, together with the heads of the Brazilian meatpacking giant JBS, to pay hush money to the jailed former speaker of the lower house of the Brazilian Congress, Eduardo Cunha, a pivotal figure in the massive bribes and kickbacks scandal surrounding the state-run energy conglomerate Petrobras.

According to the UOL web site, “Since the beginning of the political crisis unleashed by the plea bargain negotiations of the JBS executives, President Temer has been meeting almost daily with the minister of defense, Raul Jungman, Sérgio Etchegoyen and even with the armed forces commanders.”

A right-wing general of the army, Etchegoyen is a member of a century-old military dynasty. His father was charged by Brazil’s Truth Commission with carrying out murders and torture under the US-backed military dictatorship, a charge to which his son reacted furiously, calling for the commission to be disbanded. The outburst represented a direct challenge to civilian control of the military.

He played a leading role in the issuance of previous “law and order” decrees this year, particularly the first one, in which the armed forces were sent to contain a prison rebellion in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte. According to an article published by Época magazine, Etchegoyen was the one who convinced Temer to use the “law and order” decree in this situation.

In the beginning of May, Etchegoyen announced a new National Security Plan, saying that Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian state facing the deepest economic crisis, while confronting growing urban violence, would be the “laboratory” for this plan if the state government failed to halt the rise in crime. With the National Security Force policing Rio de Janeiro since May 15, the daily Extra reported that the National Security Plan’s “inspiration is the scheme mounted for the Olympic Games,” in which 22,000 armed troops were sent into the streets of Rio.

The growing influence of the military in Temer’s government represents an intensification of a process that was initiated with the removal of former Workers Party (PT) President Dilma Rousseff by means of impeachment in August of last year.

The Ministry of Institutional Security, which had been disbanded in 2015 by Rousseff, returned under Temer, who appointed Etchegoyen to head it. At the same time, Brazil’s Intelligence Agency (ABIN), placed under civilian control under Rousseff, was returned to the Ministry of Institutional Security under Temer and, with Etchegoyen at the ministry’s head, put back under the control of the military.

In a profile of Etchegoyen published on May 2016, headlined “Ministry of Institutional Security views the MST (Rural Workers Movement) with concern,” the influential daily Folha de São Paulo reported that, under then generals’ control, “Brazil’s Intelligence Agency will make an intense list of left-wing movements in order to avoid surprises for the government like the demonstrations of June 2013.”

One month later, in June 2016, the magazine Carta Capital, in an article titled “Military on stage?” denounced Temer’s turn to the armed forces, charging that the then-interim president had “assigned to General Etchegoyen the monitoring of the Workers Party’s movements.” Folha then noticed that the Brazilian government “received information from the intelligence services about regular meetings between former PT president Lula da Silva and Guilherme Boulos, from the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST), besides a list of meetings and demonstrations against interim president Michel Temer.”

One of the most controversial acts of spying on left-wing movements was revealed last September by the Spanish daily El País daily and the Ponte web site, when they reported the infiltration of an army captain into a group of demonstrators in São Paulo. In the run-up to a demonstration against Temer’s government, 21 members of the group, including the infiltrated army captain, were arrested on charges of criminal association. The army captain was the only one immediately released.

A judge released the prisoners some days later, ruling that they had been subjected to an “irregular” arrest and comparing their imprisonment to acts committed by the military dictatorship. “We live in a sad time for our democracy,” said Judge Rodrigo Tellini. “Sad is the country whose citizens need to keep their mouths shut.”

At the time, the federal prosecutor, Debora Duprat, said that the monitoring of left-wing movements is illegal. “The Inter-American Court affirmed that social movements cannot be monitored because it is against the right of free association,” she told Ponte.

Last December, the São Paulo Public Attorney charged 18 demonstrators from the group with criminal association and corruption of minors. The evidence presented by the prosecution included a bottle of vinegar—used to combat the affects of tear gas—first aid materials, a metal disc and an iron bar. The prosecutor charged that these last two items “would be used as a shield” and “to hit policemen and damage public buildings,” respectively.

The prosecutor omitted both the army captain’s illegal infiltration of the demonstrators and the demonstrators’ testimony that the iron bar was planted by police officers. Judge Tellini said the “Brazilian democratic state of law cannot legitimize an ‘arrest for investigation,’ under the pretext that the group of demonstrators could, eventually, act violently.”

As for the army captain, the prosecutor shelved the investigation into his illegal infiltration of the group of demonstrators.

Although it has been intensified under Temer, with the monitoring and criminalization of left-wing movements, the PT government of Dilma Rousseff paved the way for such actions. Her government approved the criminal organization law, in 2013, which was used to charge demonstrators in São Paulo, and the antiterrorism law, enacted just before the Rio Olympic Games of 2016.

Just like Temer, Rousseff had invoked the “law and order guarantee” in June 2013 in response to protests in Rio de Janeiro when her government privatized the first pré-sal oilfield (underwater deposits off the shores of southeastern Brazil).

Before sanctioning the antiterrorism law, Rousseff vetoed two articles of it, one of them that classified acts of terrorism as including acts to “burn, depredate, loot, destroy or explode means of transport or any public or private good.” Pseudo-left parties, like PSOL and PCdoB, claimed that, as a result of the vetoes, the antiterrorism law did “not apply to political demonstrations … with the aim of defending constitutional rights, guarantees and freedoms.”

However, according to Martim Sampaio, of the São Paulo Bar Association, the antiterrorism law can still be used against left-wing movements. In an interview given last year to Brasileiros magazine, he said the law’s provisions are “wide” enough to reach well beyond acts of acts of terrorism, which may open the way to include social movements.

Now, with the Temer government, this is what is most likely to happen. In its profile of Etchegoyen, Folha cited a speech the general gave in 2015—before the law was enacted—criticizing the government for obstructing its use against the social movements. “It is necessary to take care of social preservation and cohesion and look at those who stray from legitimacy,” he said.

The militaristic right-wing turn of Temer’s government, which tends to place General Etchegoyen increasingly at the forefront of the repressive actions of the government, has been echoed by a shift to the right by the popular fronts Brasil Popular (Popular Brasil) and Povo sem Medo (People without Fear) composed of the pseudo-left parties, social movements and unions, which are leading the demonstrations against the Temer government.

While the “Occupy Brasilia” march was initially called against Temer’s “reforms,” after the revelation of the corruption scandal involving Temer, the popular fronts shifted the struggle to the demands “Fora, Temer” (Out with Temer) and “Eleições Diretas Já” (Direct Elections Now). This shift left the possibility of another and longer general strike against the reforms even more remote.

Last Sunday, May 28, in Rio de Janeiro, 100,000 demonstrators gathered in Copacabana to listen to music performances, TV actors and representatives of the popular fronts, which included politicians of the PT, PSOL and PCdoB raising the demand of Diretas Já.

Pseudo-left leader Guilherme Boulos, of the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST), who attended the rally, declared, “In 1983, there was the first great movement of the Diretas Já, which brought down the military dictatorship. On May 28, there is the beginning of a new great national movement.”

This is a gross historical falsification. What brought the Brazilian military dictatorship down was the increasing resistance of the workers movement from the end of the 1970s, which led to the first general strike against the military dictatorship in 1983. The Diretas Já movement channeled the growing hostility of the Brazilian youth and working class into an institutional and parliamentary means of preserving bourgeois rule while transferring power from the military dictatorship to a civilian government.

Thirty-four years later, the PT and pseudo-left parties that orbit it are attempting to channel the struggle against Temer’s reforms in the same way, threatening to repeat the earlier process in reverse, suppressing the independent struggle of the working class and opening the way for the military to consolidate its growing power.

The road to Temer’s social counterrevolution and the growing threat of military rule was paved by the Workers Party governments. A successful struggle against them can be waged only on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program. The most urgent task in Brazil today is the building of a new revolutionary leadership in the working class, a Brazilian section of the International Committee of the Fourth International.

Tuition hikes implemented throughout the United States, placing ever growing financial burden on students

Kayla Costa

While the academic year has drawn to a close for most colleges and universities, students returning to school in the fall can expect to pay even more on top of already unaffordable tuition rates, as significant increases have been announced at campuses in several states across the United States for the 2017-2018 school year.

The Board of Regents in Montana voted last Friday to raise tuition at the majority of public campuses. Tuition hikes range from 2.3 percent at Montana State University to 28 percent at University of Montana-Western as part of an effort to “equalize costs across the state.” In real value, these increases represent additional costs of up to $1,220 annually for resident students.

California State University’s governing board also voted last week on a 4.9 percent increase for resident tuition at all its campuses state-wide. Undergraduates at CSU will be paying an additional $270, and graduates an additional $438. This decision comes five months after the University of California system approved a 2.5 percent increase for tuition and fees.

Nearly all public colleges in New Mexico have raised tuition by an average of 7.5 percent, representing additional costs between $95 and $250. These hikes were announced in tandem with a legislature vote to reduce coverage provided by the Lottery Scholarship—a financial aid program for state residents covering 26,000 students—from 90 percent of tuition costs to 60 percent.

In Oregon, tuition is set to increase by 8.4 percent at Portland State University and 10.6 percent at the University of Oregon, amounting to extra costs of up to $1,000. Similar increases have been approved in Wisconsin, Iowa, Arizona, Missouri, and other states over the past six months.

Adjusting for inflation, tuition at public universities has risen by a staggering 538 percent between 1985 and 2013. Just since 2012, tuition costs have increased for public 2-year and 4-year colleges by about 10 percent.

During those same periods, state funding for public higher education has drastically declined. Forty-six states spend less per student than just before the 2008-2009 recession, with a decline by more than 30 percent in nine states.

With less funding from the state and federal levels, the burden for educational costs is placed on the backs of students and their families whose means have been increasingly constrained by stagnant wages and the rising cost of living. These hardships mean that working class students, and many from middle- and upper-middle class families, will leave school with crippling amounts of debt.

Scholarships and grants, earnings and savings, and student loans make up the three main categories of post-secondary funding for higher education. At public universities, scholarships and grants cover 30 to 52 percent of net attendance costs for students from families making under $75,000 a year. Federal and state aid has remained relatively stagnant since the recession and is projected to decline. These funding opportunities are becoming more and more scarce as federal grants, such as the Pell grant, and state sponsored financial aid programs, like those in New Mexico, continue to be cut.

Earnings and savings, from both students and their families, are an unlikely counterweight to rising tuition. Though the vast majority of families value college education for their children, over half are not able to build an adequate college savings by the time their kids reach 18. Nearly three-quarters of all Americans have less than $1,000 in their savings, and one-third has nothing saved. Most full-time college students work at least 20 hours a week, with almost all their earnings going towards basic costs of living and miscellaneous education costs.

The rising cost of school, coupled with pressing economic conditions and dwindling public funding helps explain the explosive growth in student loan borrowing. Over 70 percent of working-class students graduate with student loan debt, with an average of approximately $37,000. In the last decade, tuition costs have grown 35 percent while student loan debt has grown by 400 percent. Student loans have been the primary method of offsetting the hikes in tuition and fees for the past decade, since they are widely accessible and backed by the federal government.

Most students, who stand to lose financial aid and do not have additional personal resources to pull from, will be forced to take out even larger loan amounts. Not only is this situation adding to the $1.4 trillion and growing student debt bubble, it is compounding the burden students face both before and after leaving school.

During college, students struggle to maintain a balance between school, work, and personal life often under tight financial constraints. Recent studies reveal that over 40 percent of college students receive SNAP benefits, and half of community college students have inconsistent housing. One in five students today is over 25 years old, many of whom are supporting families of their own. With these conditions, it is no surprise that campuses have reported sharp increases in the frequency and severity of anxiety, depression, and stress-related mental health issues.

After obtaining a well-earned degree, graduates still face few hopeful prospects. The average student leaves school in their mid-twenties to begin their “independent” life. With debt in the tens of thousands of dollars, loan companies grant borrowers a “grace” period of six months before onerous payments begin, which for many will not end for decades.

Indebted graduates are less likely to start businesses, buy homes or cars, or make other significant purchases. Ten percent of young college graduates 24 or younger are neither employed nor enrolled in graduate school. Average wages for employed graduates are only 0.7 percent higher than they were in 2000, reflecting a shortage in quality jobs. The material and emotional effects this financial stress is having on an entire generation cannot be overstated.

These dire conditions have developed as the top 10 percent of the population have gained tremendously. Even students from these upper layers have more opportunities than their working class peers, as they can afford 90 percent of universities without a lifelong debt burden or immediate financial stress.

Furthermore, the ruling class has profited directly from rising education costs and debt. Student loan servicing companies rake in billions of annual profits, corporate partners cash in on the market, and school administrators lead lavish lifestyles, all while the majority of students shoulder the expense.

Under these unprecedented conditions, it is not surprising that youth and students are beginning to look for a political solution.

All students have a right to a free education, to quality jobs, and affordable housing. However, only under socialism, where the working class holds power, can these rights be guaranteed. The International Youth and Students for Social Equality and Socialist Equality Party call upon students, youth, and workers to take up a fight against the ruling class, with a revolutionary socialist program that defends the interests of the working class and youth internationally.

GM announces more layoffs as US auto sales decline

Shannon Jones 

General Motors announced additional layoffs this week in Michigan as reported US auto sales in May showed a continuing decline.

GM says it is eliminating a shift at its Warren, Michigan transmission plant outside Detroit in late June, affecting some 300 jobs. The facility builds transmissions for 11 different GM models. The company says that the cuts are in response to slowing sales and reduced demand for passenger cars.

Just released sales figures for May show the fifth straight month of auto sales decreases. The seasonally-adjusted annualized sales rate fell to 16.7 million vehicles, down from 17.2 million in May 2016. Total sales for 2016 came in at 17.54 million, a record.

Among US automakers, Fiat Chrysler sales were down 0.7 percent, and GM sales fell 1.3 percent. Ford showed a modest 2.3 percent increase, due largely to stepped up sales to fleet buyers. Among Asian automakers, Toyota sales fell 0.5 percent while Hyundai was down 18 percent. Honda was up 0.9 percent.

One auto analyst told Automotive News that the May sales numbers were propped up by dealer incentives. “Dealers and automakers really pushed the deals over the holiday weekend to prop up their May numbers. Incentives were up sharply, and it seems automakers are putting cash on the hood to nudge car shoppers to buy versus lease.”

General Motors reports a 101-day inventory of unsold cars, much higher than the industry standard. The company said the large inventory was in part due to plans to close several plants this summer for scheduled model changeovers. Overall GM sales are down about 1 percent for the year, and the company’s market share is stagnating at near historically low levels. This reflects not just lagging sales for passenger cars, but also relatively poor numbers for its light truck models as well.

Autoworkers in Flint, Michigan contacted by the World Socialist Web SiteAutoworker Newsletter said there was talk that there may be layoffs at the GM engine plant this summer after the scheduled changeover. The plant builds motors for the Chevrolet Cruze passenger car. GM has plans to slow production of the Cruze this summer. Earlier this year, GM eliminated a full shift at its Lordstown, Ohio Assembly Plant that builds the Cruze.

Workers leaving the Flint Engine Plant at shift break

Altogether, GM has cut 5,000 jobs since November of last year. In addition to layoffs at Lordstown, GM eliminated a shift at the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant in March, with a loss of 1,300 jobs, as well as shifts at the Lansing Grand River and Delta Township factories.

Ford has carried out periodic temporary layoffs to cut inventory, including at plants that build its best-selling F-150 pickup truck. It recently laid off 130 workers at its Avon Lake Assembly Plant in Ohio.

Fiat Chrysler has carried through on plans to eliminate passenger car production in North America. Its Sterling Heights, Michigan Assembly plant north of Detroit, which formerly built the Chrysler 200 passenger car, is on long-term shutdown while it retools for production of the Dodge Ram light truck. Some 3,200 workers at the FCA Jeep complex in Toledo are also on temporary layoff.

An older worker at the GM Flint engine plant told the Autoworker Newsletter, “It doesn’t look good. Sales of the Cruze are down. There are rumors that there will be layoffs this summer after the changeover. This engine is also built in Tennessee and Mexico. If they don’t build it here they can build it there.”

The 2015 sellout contract agreement between the United Auto Workers and the Detroit carmakers further expanded the ability of management to hire part time and temporary workers, who receive few benefits and are not generally eligible for supplemental unemployment benefits (SUB) in case of layoffs. This has made it much easier for the car companies to eliminate jobs, creating in effect a disposable workforce.

The veteran Flint engine worker said, “They want to hire all these temporary and part time workers so they don’t have to pay medical or retirement. The UAW lets GM do what it wants.”

Ken, another worker at the Flint Engine plant, lives in Detroit and commutes more than an hour to and from work every day. When the WSWS noted that 300 more workers were being laid off at the Warren transmission plant, he exclaimed, “That’s capitalism! They are concerned only about the bottom line.”

He continued, “Everyone knows the union and the company are in cahoots!”

Workers pointed to the contradiction between the rising cost of living, including steep prices on new cars and trucks, and the low wages being paid to temporary and part-time workers. The older Flint engine worker remarked, “Big SUVs make $20,000 per vehicle profit, but who can afford them?”

Greg, a temporary worker at the nearby Flint Truck Assembly Plant, said that he made just $15 an hour after one year on the job. “I can’t afford much right now,” he declared.

The Flint Truck Assembly Plant builds the GMC Sierra and the Chevrolet Silverado light trucks, which have a typical selling price in the range of $30,000 to more than $40,000.

Several Flint GM workers remarked on the ongoing water crisis in Flint, where residents were forced to drink lead-tainted water due to the criminal negligence of state and local officials. Workers commented on the fact that GM management was aware that water was corroding parts at its Flint factories and insisted on shifting its water source, but did nothing to raise the alarm among Flint residents.

“It’s messed up, they should have told them,” Greg said. “Especially when they knew.”

He was angry at the fact that more than one year after the exposure of the lead poisoning of Flint’s water supply, the money for needed upgrades and repairs was barely trickling in. “The money is not being used for what it is supposed to be used for. It seems like it is all going to the military for wars.” He continued, “The government created the problem in Flint, they should pay for it!”

Pointing to the proposed Trump administration budget he added, “Now I see they want to cut money for the Great Lakes,” referring to the proposed elimination of money for environmental cleanup.

Remarking on the threat of home foreclosures facing Flint residents for not paying for the lead-tainted water Ken added, “Why do you have to pay for the water if it was poisoned?”

France, Germany seize upon US withdrawal from climate pact to push geopolitical interests

Peter Schwarz 

US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement on climate change has prompted denunciations from leading European politicians, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Merkel called on “everyone for whom the future of our planet is important” to continue along the path together “so that we are successful for our mother earth.” She added: “Nothing can and will stop us… In Germany and in Europe, we are more determined than ever to pool all of the forces in the world.”

Macron appealed to the global population in a video message in both French and English (an historic first for the Elysee Palace) an hour after Trump’s announcement. He accused the American president of committing a major mistake and imitated his election slogan by declaring, “Make our planet great again.”

Behind their melodramatic declarations, Merkel and Macron are exploiting the rift with America and Britain’s exit from the European Union to build up the EU into a great power capable of competing with the US for global markets, investment opportunities and strategic influence.

Following the US withdrawal, Europe has drawn closer together. Germany, France and Italy rejected Trump’s call for a renegotiation of the climate targets in a joint statement. British Prime Minister Theresa May refused to sign the statement, but also declared her “disappointment” with Trump’s decision.

As Trump was announcing the US exit from the climate change agreement in Washington, Merkel first welcomed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then Chinese premier Li Keqiang to Berlin. The centrepiece of each visit was a declaration of commitment to the climate deal, while business deals worth billions were sealed behind the scenes.

After Modi’s visit, Merkel praised India for being “very intensively engaged in implementing the climate deal.” Modi answered in German via Twitter: “I am sure that this visit will result in advantageous results and deepen the German-Indian friendship.”

Li proclaimed in Berlin: “China stands by its international responsibilities.” It is “unshakable” in its commitment to the struggle against global warming, he said, and intended to achieve its emissions targets “step by step.” From Berlin he flew to Brussels, where a joint statement with the EU leaders reaffirming their commitment to the Paris Agreement was planned. But the statement did not emerge, due to differences over trade policy issues.

“China wants to present itself as a responsible global power and simultaneously initiate the beginning of the end of the American epoch,” the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung commented. Another comment in the same newspaper stated: “Donald Trump should have no illusions. Germany is currently hard at work plotting new alliances in the areas of climate and trade policy. With China and India.”

The Paris Agreement, concluded in 2015, does not oblige any state to carry out concrete measures. Each country can set its own targets and China which, after the US, emits by far the most CO2, only has to reduce its emissions after 2030.

But climate change policy long ago became an important instrument of global power politics. Spiegel Online enthusiastically examined, in two articles, what opportunities the US withdrawal would provide for German business and foreign policy.

In a piece entitled “Complaining doesn’t help,” Feit Medick described Trump’s withdrawal from the deal as a “declaration of political and moral bankruptcy by the United States.” The good thing about this was “we can determine what happens next, not Washington.”

Protecting the climate was seen “in many places today no longer as a hindrance but an opportunity,” Medick continued. At stake were “jobs, innovation, connections and not least political leadership … if the Chancellor was serious with her sentence about taking one’s fate into our own hands, she can start by getting down to business here and find the best way to hold together the weakened climate alliance.”

America will feel the impact of the withdrawal “in part automatically, but partly also by what we do,” threatened Spiegel Online. Trump had “put himself in a terrible position with his childish cancelling of the agreement.” “From trade to finance and arms exports…the readiness to accede to Washington’s desires, outside of the war on terror, [will] decline dramatically.”

Another article posted by Spiegel Online, “What the US exit means for the world,” details point by point the disadvantages that will accompany the withdrawal.

“The UN climate talks,” it states, “Have become an important stage for diplomatic exchanges.” The issue at hand was not the reduction of greenhouse gases, but “development aid, economic incentives, the reorganisation of energy provision – that is above all business, ‘deals’, as Trump says. Whoever is not part of the talks loses influence.”

If a country needed “arguments with which to convince states on other issues…business deals at climate talks [could] be convincing.” China is building “African infrastructure at a rapid pace, which is securing the People’s Republic influence and trading relations there.”

The withdrawal from the global climate accord would “have disadvantageous consequences for the US’ global political influence.” It would also miss out on “billions in business deals,” that are arrived at in the course of configuring the agreement. The funds promised to poorer countries as part of the agreement were “not chiefly donations, but development projects into which firms from the paying countries are incorporated.”

“With the withdrawal from the climate accord,” Spiegel Online concluded, the US was leaving open “large business prospects for other countries: renewable energy.” Germany had “within the framework of the climate negotiations agreed the expansion of renewable energy in India–a project with advantages for both countries.”