The Monetization of International Relations

L. Ali Khan

“The point is that you can’t be too greedy.” The author of this saying, President Trump, is brazenly monetizing international relations. He demands more money from the NATO members for common defense. He urges Mexico to pay for the wall. He is slashing financial assistance to allies (except Israel). He vies to renegotiate trade agreements. He proposes to impose tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods in violation of international trade laws. He campaigned in the 2016 presidential election to declare China as a currency manipulator. Much like a Las Vegas tycoon, Trump views the world as a big casino where the U.S. is losing money. Trump fancies rigging the international game for the U.S. to come out as a tireless winner.

Trump’s money obsessions add nothing innovative to international relations. For centuries, money has been a dominant factor in relations among states. Occupations, invasions, war booty, indentured labor, and slavery were the common instruments for wealth aggregation. Now, nations marshal affluence through trade, investments, remittances, immigration, and migrant workers. Nations that have little to sell in international markets are poor. Nations with natural resources are vulnerable to subjugation. Nations raise huge armies and some develop weapons of mass destruction to commit as well as deter aggression. Predatory nations are armed to the teeth. Most nations are terrified. Fear rules the humankind.

By making money calls, Trump aggravates the undercurrents of self-interest permeating international politics. In many parts of the world, nations are terrorizing each other, seizing land and resources, seeking unfair advantage, spilling blood, and doggedly retarding the models of civilization that poets, philosophers, environmentalists, and ethicists romanticize.  Trump is not an idealist. He is a coarse money merchant with little interest in the welfare of global civilization. Trump speaks the language of intimidation to defend and extort money. Millions of Americans detest Trump the man and Trump the money maniac.

Superpower Status

Superpowers have action choices. A superpower can act as a greedy nation determined to aggregate wealth through exploitation, intimidation, threats, invasion, and occupation.  It can also act as a benevolent world leader imbued with generosity, idealism, and wellbeing of all the peoples of the world. Sadly, most superpowers, including the British and Spanish colonial empires, have committed immense crimes against humanity, including massacres, theft of land, destruction of occupied cultures, and transfer of wealth from abroad to national exchequers.

As a superpower, the U.S. has been inconstant as it swings from one choice to the other. Reconstructing a war-ravaged Europe, financially supporting international organizations for peace and security, opening its borders for the poor and the tired of the world, and giving money for the prevention and elimination of epidemics in different parts of the world, these and other munificent acts make the United States a special superpower, one that endears the hearts of the world and inspires other nations to do good as a purposeful policy preference.

Trump contemplates the other choice, much like Spanish conquistadors and British imperial viceroys known for their treachery and gold-grabbing.  Trump’s affection for President Andrew Jackson, who stole millions of acres of land from Native Americans, reveals his predatory mindset.  Trump’s campaign utterings that the U.S. “should have kept the Iraqi oil” reinforce his deep-seated hunger to loot assets that belong to others. If Trump is allowed freely to shape international relations after his own mind, the U.S. will become a superpower that the peoples of the world would hate from the bottoms of their hearts.

The World is no Pushover

What Trump misses to understand is the inherent will of other nations and communities to resist the dynamics of overreaching. If Trump opts for monetized national interests, other nations are unlikely to play dead.  History demonstrates that Germany can be pushed only too far before it reacts with irrational might. So is Japan. Vietnam proved that a small nation resolved to defend itself can successfully fight a weighty war machine.  Mexico refuses to succumb to Trump’s monetized pressure, as does Iran, China, Venezuela, and Russia.

Of course, a superpower can determine the dynamics of world affairs. Nations tend to imitate superpowers, at least in dealing with superpowers.  If Trump transforms the U.S. into a money-aggregating hegemon, the world is bound to resist and frustrate any such efforts. Turning selfish is not an act of genius for persons or nations. It’s easy. The U.S. has no special privilege to be selfish. Yes, the U.S. may pursue its monetized self-interest with the use of force, including the weapons of mass destruction, but even this option is a loser rather than a winner. North Korea trapped tightly in economic sanctions, and facing starvation of its people, may be condemned as a crazy country but crazy countries do emerge in a world where superpowers terminate fair play in favor of dog-eat-dog imperative.

Lacking Transparency: Israeli Drones And Australian Defence

Binoy Kampmark

“Give us the chance to compete, to see our capabilities, to compare, to see the benefit we can bring with our [drone] system.”

Shaul Shahar, Israel Aerospace Industries Vice-President, March 2, 2017

A certain part of you should go on vacation when a drone company, certainly one dedicated to killing, gets less custom to do what it does best.  The only problem in this case is that the winning party will also be a manufacturer of killer drones. Where there is unscrupulous demand, a willing if soiled supplier is always happy to step in.

The Australian Defence For was already making its intentions clear earlier this year when the murderous Reaper drone made a visit to Australian soil. This spine tingling presence of a weapon responsible for the deaths of thousands caused a minor titter in local circles.

In recent years, the ADF has pondered whether to get into the grim business of robotic killing, despite its abysmal failings on the legal front.  Defence Minister Marise Payne is fairly indifferent to such concerns: “There will always be, in a remotely piloted aircraft, a human involved and that is the threshold for this capability for us.” Precisely the problem: behind the machine is a human; and behind that human is a vulnerable commander executing government policy.

The ADF, in other words, is falling for that old canard that such technologies are good, clean and strictly sanitised through a line of command.   Malcolm Davis of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute throws the book of “strict rules of engagement” back at the critics.  As long as the nod is given to protocols of use, there is nothing to sweat over.  “We’ve worked with the US and other countries using drones, we understand about command and control.”

Davis also laments Australia’s limp into a brave new world of lethal technologies.  “I’m amazed to be honest, that we haven’t got drones or more correctly, unmanned aerial vehicles by now. I mean, Australia has fallen well behind in this regard.”

Whare are the options in an emerging smorgasbord of killing?  General Atomics from the US offers its prize MQ-9 Reaper, and Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) boasts the Heron TP.  The vigorous rumour whirling in the wings of drone central is not the whether the Heron discharges its job well, but whether the Reaper has an inter-operable dimension with the weapons systems of allies. To that end the usual plaudits are cast the way of the Israeli model, while the eye on the prize is already set.

The fuming Israeli representative, Shaul Shahar, was beside himself.  His ultimate fear: that the decision is already cooked for the American rivals.  In protest, he explained to the ABC that prospective Australian drone pilots had been training on the Heron-1 system, a “successful” one at that. Furthermore, Shahar claims that Australians were already using it in Afghanistan – for 3 years, no less.  (Such a nugget of information, implicating Australian pilots in incidents where whole families become the bloody collateral of a target mission.)

Shahar smells discrimination and foul play, that awful sense of being strung along. “With all the risk analysis, all competitive analysis, they need to do here and they didn’t done [sic] it because no one has approached us, no one has offered to put our data of the system on the table.”

Minister Payne complied with cabinet protocol: avoid the grievance, keep the options open and claim that nothing was off the boardroom table.  A similar option is done in appointing academic staff to faculties: you know who you want, but you want to keep up appearances by getting appropriate external candidates.  To that end, the playbook of deflection ensures that no one option is ignored in favour of another, even if a decision has been made months in advance.

“Defence,” goes such weasel speak from a statement from the minister, “is considering a range of options for the future of the future Australian Defence Force armed remotely piloted aircraft system.”

Naturally, Payne makes the mandatory addition, the qualifier that suggests keen objectivity, gentle and deft consideration: “As the evaluation process is ongoing it is not appropriate to comment.” Woe to the Israeli contractor.

The notable disdain for transparency shown by the ADF is far from unusual in the Australian defence industry.  The ADF, for one, can hardly be accused of being overly patriotic when it comes to local industries, showing a drug-addicted preference for US products.

This was made clear in 2015 when Australian drone manufacturers – this time in the surveillance context – found it impossible to net contracts from the ministry of defence.  The Australian forces showed greater and ultimately definitive interest in dealing with the American company AeroVironment.

This time, the pattern is set to repeat itself.  Few are better in the business of drone-directed killings than the Israelis, but the Reaper has clout, a grotesque resume to back it, and the brutish swagger of made in the USA.

Beggars for War: The US, North Korea And Bankruptcy

Binoy Kampmark

The statement before members of the United Nations Security Council was both brash and high strung. The US ambassador had clearly decided that firm words were needed to understand the continuing military advances of North Korea. To do so, Nikki Haley, far from the sharpest tool in the US diplomatic toolbox, hit upon what Kim Jong-un was doing: “begging for war.”

“Enough is enough,” she warned those gathered in the emergency session.  “War is never something the United States wants. We don’t want it now.  But our country’s patience is not unlimited.”  Troubling then, that the United States should be encouraging the circumstances for that war to take place.

Haley’s points suggest the exhaustion of options. They also cast a light on continuing failings.  “Despite our efforts the North Korea nuclear program is more advanced and more dangerous than ever.” Suggesting, in fact, that US foreign policy has failed to reassure and counter; to contain and hem in.

But to hem in, to contain, to asphyxiate – the conditions, in short that will make Kim beg for conflict – is exactly what is being proposed. The upstart’s wings will be clipped, goes this attitude, and Kim will be potted.

To aid this, the Trump administration is renewing its efforts to enlist China to do its dirty work: bankrupt Pyongyang.  A form of forced economic encirclement is proposed.  The South Korean President Moon Jae-in has also suggested cutting off North Korea’s access to crude oil and foreign currency sources.

Beijing is hardly thrilled to shrink trade with a state that actually grew last year.  “A temporary or partial ban is possible,” suggested Shi Yinhong, an adviser to the Chinese cabinet, “but the Chinese government will definitely refuse to cut off oil exports completely or permanently to North Korea.”

The method of forcibly starving a country of its oil and other necessaries has a good precedent for encouraging, rather than discouraging war.  The United States was very much in the position of provoking conflict when it came to dealing with Japan in 1941. The rhyme of history is a strong one.

In the summer of 1941, prior to his departure for Placentia Bay, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave an executive order to freeze all Japanese assets in the United States.  This was another measure to add to various embargoes on such items as scrap metals that were already implemented in 1940.  Imperial Japan, went the reasoning behind these orders, might duly compose itself, desisting from aggressive measures in China, Indochina and Southeast Asia.

This approach did have its panic-inducing effect suggesting, to such historians as Charles Beard and Charles C. Tansill, the necessary opening of a back door to war. Given Japan’s hunger for US crude and refined petroleum products, the need to seek and obtain licenses to export and pay for each shipment of goods from the United States seemed steep. But supply would still flow.

What Roosevelt had not anticipated was the mischievous ferret under the cocktail cabinet. The agency responsible for granting such licenses fell that summer to Assistant Secretary of State Dean Acheson.

The disruptive Acheson, against state department advice, withheld approval for licenses to Japan to pay for goods in dollars. This was made more onerous by the fact that the US dollar was Japan’s only medium of international exchange after the German invasion of the Soviet Union.  The supply effectively dried up, targeting key Japanese vulnerabilities outlined by various studies done by the Economic Control Administration.

A cocksure, hardline Acheson was certain that his actions would not provoke in quite the way it did.  “No rational Japanese,” he confidently surmised, “could believe that an attack on us could result in anything but disaster.”

This amounted to, in the words of financial historian Edward S. Miller, a conscious and dangerous strategy to bankrupt Japan, a change from an initial “patchwork of export restrictions to full-blooded financial warfare”. It was the sort of economic belligerence that had its ultimate realisation in the attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7 that year.

There are natural differences between the context of 1941, which saw Japan snaking relentlessly through Asia, and 2017, which sees a contained nuclear armed midget facing a bellicose superpower.  What remain are the ingredients of desperation, and the assumption that reason shall prevail between the players.

Historical analogies do offer useful illustrations, even if superficial. The one that stands out here is not only that threats of war can loose their edge of pantomime.  (Will you really fire the first shot?)  To forcibly cut off a state from its lifelines, to render it an economic invalid, can also be tantamount to a declaration of conflict, a form of begging, in fact, for war.

Australian governments knew about the dangers of airforce fire-fighting foam for decades

Patrick Davies

Thousands of Australian residents living near military airbases have potentially cancerous toxins in their blood. The compounds—PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate) and PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid)—which are used in fire-fighting foam, have been found at dangerous levels in water supplies near Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) bases.

Residents known to have been affected by PFOS and PFOA live near bases in Townsville and Oakey in Queensland, Williamtown in New South Wales, Darwin and Katherine in the Northern Territory, and in Perth, Western Australia. A Defence Department report late last year revealed that drinking water at the Townsville RAAF Base contained PFOS at 307 times the acceptable safe limit and PFOA 12 times the limit.

Australian and international studies have raised concerns about the impact of these chemicals on human health for almost two decades. However, consecutive federal Liberal-National and Labor governments allowed their use and are now refusing to provide any meaningful financial assistance to residents impacted by the poisons.

Aqueous Film Forming Foam, which was first produced by the giant 3M Corporation and marketed as 3M light water in 1964, is used in aviation firefighting applications and training exercises.

In 2000, the company began phasing out production of foam containing PFOS and PFAS. The decision followed negotiations with the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) in the US and revelations that the compounds had entered the bloodstream of the general population. International bodies, such as the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee, also said PFOS and PFOA are potentially dangerous to human health and highly persistent in the natural environment.

In 2003, Australia’s industrial chemicals regulator, the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS), warned against any unnecessary use of PFOA and PFOS foam. The following year, the Defence Department claimed it would phase out the material.

At Williamtown, near Newcastle, where PFOS and PFOA chemicals were detected in the soil and waterways in 2012, 400 residents have begun a class action lawsuit against the Defence Department. Residents living in a designated “red zone”—i.e., in close proximity to the contaminations—have been advised by health authorities not to drink bore water or eat home-grown vegetables or eggs from chickens, and there are fishing bans in nearby waterways.

Despite the gradual withdrawal of the material, governments have downplayed the health consequences of its use. Defence and health officials continue to insist there is “no scientific evidence” PFOA and PFOS have adverse effects on human health. These statements fly in the face of the evidence.

The C8 science panel of leading epidemiologists in the US surveyed over 69,000 exposed people in 2005–2006 and found probable links between PFOA in drinking water and ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, testicular cancer, kidney cancer, pregnancy-induced hypertension and high cholesterol.

No exhaustive studies prove beyond doubt the health risks, but there is more than enough evidence available to warrant extreme caution and adopt measures to reduce exposure.

In Williamtown, children living in the “red zone” have been found to have significant levels of PFOS in their blood. At least 24 people who have lived or spent significant time in the “red zone” on Cabbage Tree Road near the Williamtown airbase have been diagnosed with cancer. On two properties either side of a small drain, five people have developed cancer since 2009.

Some 450 people from Oakey, near Toowoomba, are also taking legal action. In 2010, an area surrounding the Army Aviation Centre was found to be contaminated. Local bore water and farmland have been rendered unusable.

A Senate inquiry was initiated in late 2015 by Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon, designed to serve as a safety-valve for the frustration and anger of victims.

Submissions to the inquiry called for the development of national standards and regulatory mechanisms, compensation for residents and workers and the acquisition of devalued properties. The inquiry's recommendations are non-binding.

During last year’s national election campaign, the Turnbull government announced $55 million in funds for “managing the environmental impacts and investigating the potential health effects of the chemicals.” This pittance will provide little assistance to those poisoned by the foam. The government offered “business hardship payments” for local fishermen but these are capped at just $25,000 and only if the waterways used to earn a living remain shut.

By contrast, the Williamtown air base last year received $360 million for capital works to host the new Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) war planes. The total allocated for the JSF program so far is $12.4 billion.

Katherine and Darwin are the latest communities involved. Last month, major water restrictions were imposed in Katherine because of PFAS in the local water. The town of 10,000 is close to the Tindal RAAF base. This is the first time a town's water supply has been restricted as a result of PFAS contamination.

While the government offered free blood testing to some residents around Williamtown and Oakey, it has refused to do the same in Katherine, saying further investigations are needed.

In Darwin, recent research conducted by the University of Queensland in Rapid Creek and Ludmilla revealed that of the fish and crustacean specimens sampled, 91 percent contained PFOA and 100 percent contained PFOS.

Although the seafood is deemed “safe for human consumption,” the study did not consider human exposure to any other possible sources of contamination, such as groundwater or local produce. When combined, this could place individuals at risk.

The primary concern of federal and state governments, Liberal-National and Labor alike, is not the health of residents but the impact of compensation and relocation costs on their budgets.

The Senate inquiry and an associated $12.5 million health study are cynical attempts to keep the mounting anger over the contamination within the parliamentary framework. At the same time, the Turnbull government, backed by Labor, has introduced new laws that will create more toxic chemical disasters.

In the name of cutting “red tape,” the government tabled legislation last month that will slash industrial chemical regulation standards and allow companies to “self-assess” whether new chemicals threaten public health and the environment.

Last financial year, more than 10,000 new chemicals were examined by NICNAS. Under the proposed measure, NICNAS would assess only 0.75 per cent of new chemicals.

Deaths of children in government care skyrocket in Canada

Riksen Stewart 

There is nothing so heinous as a government failing to support its most vulnerable citizens: young children. Yet due to government neglect and chronic underfunding of critical social services, the number of deaths and critical injuries of children in foster care in Canada has steadily risen in recent years.

In British Columbia alone, deaths of children in care jumped from 72 in 2008 to 120 last year, while critical injuries skyrocketed from 120 to 741. In Alberta, within the span of 14 years between 1999 and 2013, 741 children died while in care or while receiving child welfare services. Since 2013, another 71 children have died. These deaths and injuries result from suicide attempts, overdoses, sexual and physical abuse. But they are only the tip of the iceberg, as a far larger number of young children in care suffer emotional and psychological damage.

The childcare crisis is rooted in the unwillingness of Canadian governments to provide proper funding for social services and, more generally, in capitalist society’s treatment of poor working class and, especially, indigenous families.

At the end of 2016 there were more than 10,000 children receiving child intervention services in Alberta, with more than 7,000 children in the care of the province. According to Statistics Canada, indigenous children made up 73 percent of those in government care, although Alberta’s indigenous people comprise only 6 percent of the province’s population. This is a pattern replicated across Canada, with indigenous children making up 48 percent of all children in foster care, even though indigenous children age 14 or under represent just 7 percent of all children in this age group.

Despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s promises of equal treatment for indigenous people, the living conditions within indigenous communities are deplorable. Per capita funding for education, health care and other basic services on native reservations, where poverty is generally endemic and many lack access to proper housing and safe drinking water, remains far below the Canadian norm.

Successive governments at the federal and provincial level have starved indigenous communities of funding for physical and mental health services, resulting in suicide and drug addiction rates that are twice as high as in non-indigenous communities, and six to 11 times higher than the general population among Inuit people. All these factors lead to an increasing number of children being forced into government care.

Most in government care are placed with foster parents who, according to Wayne MacFarlane, president of the Prince Edward Island Federation of Foster Families, receive a stipend of between $600 and $1,400 per month per child to look after them.

Governments have consistently failed to provide foster parents and those in their care with adequate psychological, educational and therapeutic support, although many of the children have lived through traumatic experiences of abuse and neglect. Foster families are thus left to cope as best they can with complex care needs—needs which they are ill-equipped to manage.

While the stipends paid foster parents are tax-free, they are provided no additional benefits or assistance with paying for holidays for either themselves or those in their care.

The tragic results of this state neglect have been illustrated by a number of high-profile, tragic cases. Serenity was a 4-year-old girl who died in foster care in Alberta. At the time of her death, she weighed just 19 pounds and had suffered severe brain trauma along with significant physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her foster parents. Two years on, no charges have been laid and six other children who were living in the same home as Serenity have been allowed to remain there.

In Ontario, the deaths of three First Nations children in foster care over several months late in 2016 and at the beginning of this year prompted the Ontario Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth to indict the government for reinforcing the legacy of Canada’s residential schools, under which thousands of indigenous children died after being removed from their families and many more suffered abuse.

The chronic underfunding of social services is exacerbated by a shortage of foster parents. In 2016, the Canadian Foster Family Association declared that the nationwide shortage had reached a crisis point.

Governments often respond to this shortage by housing children and teenagers in group homes or motels, many of which are inappropriate for the purpose.

An example of this is the fate of 18-year-old Alex Gervais, who was placed in a BC motel after his group home was closed and ended up jumping through a four-story window. The teenager had been housed at the motel in virtual isolation for 49 days prior to his suicide. In BC at one point last year, there were upwards of 117 foster children being housed in cut-rate hotels and motels.

For years, Gervais had been shunted from one care-giver to another—a story all too typical for children in government care in Canada. In the last 11 years of his life, Gervais had lived in 17 different placements under the watch of 23 different social workers and caregivers. According to a report from British Columbia’s acting “Representative for Children and Youth,” Gervais suffered “profound neglect,” and was unable to form lasting attachments with foster caregivers or support staff.

In some cases children’s aid societies return children in foster care to a member or members of their biological families, after they secure proper housing and meet various tests, such as following parenting classes and entering substance-abuse programs. However, there is very little ongoing support or assistance for the biological parents after their children have been returned to them, even though they are generally among the most socially vulnerable and frequently have to work through complex personal and psychological issues.

The terrible fate of Alex Gervais is also indicative of the prospects facing children in government care once they reach the age of 18, when all sources of government child-assistance are abruptly cut off. Due to the deterioration of social conditions under capitalism and the lack of educational support and decent employment, 60 percent of young people aged 20 to 24 in Canada are forced to live at home with their supporting parents.

Lacking family support and deprived of all government assistance at the young age of 18, “in-care” children usually end up fending for themselves on the street upon attaining adulthood. This results in myriad additional social problems, such as drug addiction, homelessness, and crime. In BC, 41 percent of young adults who previously lived under government care have been involved with the criminal justice system.

The high rates of indigenous children in foster care contribute to higher percentages of native people incarcerated. Twenty-four percent of federal prison inmates have an indigenous background, an increase of 84 percent since 2003. The current public inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls is also examining the link between foster care and the disproportionate exposure of indigenous women to sexual trafficking, violence, and murder.

What is behind the 57-hour San Diego/Tijuana border closure and renovation?

Norisa Diaz 

The US General Services Administration is planning a 57-hour border closure and expansion at the US/Mexico San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego, California later this month. From 3 a.m. Saturday, September 23 until noon on Monday, September 25, all southbound car traffic into Tijuana will be halted.

The closure is expected to affect tens of thousands of immigrant families at the busiest border crossing in the world. Over the long weekend traffic is to be redirected to the Otay Mesa crossing, a port of entry some 10 miles away which has far less capacity.

The closure is part of a larger $741 million border renovation which is scheduled for completion in 2019. The September renovations involve a realignment and expansion of Interstate 5 southbound freeway lanes, which will double from five to 10, directing traffic from San Diego’s San Ysidro port into Mexico’s El Chaparral Port of Entry. Additionally, eight northbound vehicle inspection lanes will be added to San Ysidro, resulting in a total of 33 northbound lanes. The multiyear expansion will also include an additional 22-lane pedestrian inspection facility.

The San Ysidro Port of Entry is the busiest land border crossing in the world, with San Diego-Tijuana border region trade representing a $231 billion economy with over 5 million residents and nearly 2 million workers. Three hundred sixty-five days a year, 70,000 passenger vehicles, 20,000 pedestrians, and 4,000 commercial trucks cross back and forth.

Every day nearly 1 million people cross the US-Mexico border in both directions at 48 entry points along the nearly 2,000-mile-long border that extends along the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

The multiyear expansion is backed by the region’s top binational business leaders and politicians, including San Diego’s Republican mayor Kevin Faulconer and Tijuana mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum (PAN). Both mayors are involved in the advocacy group, Smart Border Coalition (SBC), which also includes top representatives from the real estate, manufacturing, health care, technology, solar energy, higher education, retail and telecommunications industries.

The expansion is being hailed by the Tijuana and San Diego media as a long overdue solution to the long border waits that workers and their families must tack on to the beginning and end of their day. Waits average two hours for each crossing, while nearly every commuter reports the occasional three- to four-hour wait time. The border dominates and divides all aspects of life from work and school to leisure activities, retail and groceries. Most K-12 grade schools along the border start closer to 9 a.m. to account for crossing time.

However, the border renovations are in no way directed at improving the quality of life of the working people and families who are burdened by it daily, but are directed at facilitating the smoother flow of capital and labor to be more efficiently exploited by multinational corporations.

Leaders of the SBC wrote in a San Diego Union Tribune opinion piece, “We are a constellation of powerful industries in a productive cross-border partnership. In Tijuana, we showcase the world’s largest medical device cluster and Mexico’s top aerospace, electronics and defense clusters, many of which have administration and operations facilities on the US side of the border. There are nearly 600 export manufacturing plants and 50 contract manufacturing options meeting world-class quality standards within a 15-mile radius south of the San Ysidro port of entry ...”

Revealing the true nature of the border expansion, they write, “From a purely commercial perspective, our borders are America’s cash registers. All exports and imports must pass through them. No place else in the US, however, could make their customers wait in line every day for two hours and stay in business.”

The coalition cites a San Diego Association of Governments’ study, “Economic Impacts of Wait Times at the San Diego-Baja California Border,” which outlines that border traffic is estimated to cost corporations $6 billion annually in gross output.

What is meant by a “Smart” border is one that allows for higher traffic volumes while beefing up security measures and further militarizing Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The industries and corporations lobbying for a “Smart” border are the very ones who benefit from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which went into effect July 1, 1989 to open up the markets of Canada and Mexico to US and foreign investors.

NAFTA is currently being renegotiated at the request of the Trump administration and in July of this year Congressional testimony was heard from corporations invested in the “modernization” of NAFTA for a “21st Century NAFTA.”

Having greatly benefited from the agreement, the corporate leaders requested that updates to NAFTA go much deeper in providing unbridled market access, that the US government must do more to curb practices that give state-owned firms access to more markets, and emphasized that borders be made cheaper and easier to cross for the export of goods and services, including e-commerce.

Amgad Shehata, senior vice president of Global Borders Policy at United Postal Services (UPS), commented, “Will [the updated] NAFTA open up trade lanes between the three countries? Restrictions, particularly by Mexico, are impacting UPS’s ability to bring American goods to consumers beyond the border. These restrictions add barriers and unnecessary complications and cost to the import-export process for our customers. ... The administration should compel Mexico to lift entirely or, at minimum, raise the defined weight of an express shipment to the internationally recognized 70 kilos.”

Gustavo Pupo-Mayo with the TV Association of Programmers Latin America (TAP) testified:

“As an industry, we are firm believers that the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, should be maintained but strengthened because its current provisions have fallen short of fully and adequately protecting the interest of the US pay television programmers in Mexico represented by TAP. ...”

Albert Zapanta, major general of the United States-Mexico Chamber of Commerce, told Congress: “In 2016 the United States exported $231 billion to Mexico, which is more than it did to the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Italy combined. And nearly twice as much as it did to China. In agriculture, NAFTA provides the third largest destination for American products and crops. It is also telling to note that the current $500 billion trade gap was created by the relocation of American manufacturing and technology-based business out of the NAFTA partnership.”

The efficiency by which goods and labor can pass through the border is of immense interest to shareholders in the region, particularly within San Diego’s biotechnology, defense, pharmaceutical, software and communications sectors which account for nearly 30 percent of the areas workforce or 400,000 jobs. The largest drone manufacturer in North America, 3D Robotics, operates on both sides of the border to take advantage of the cheaper manufacturing costs in Tijuana.

US-based corporations are seeking even easier access to labor in Mexico, which is on average 40 percent cheaper than in the US with a daily minimum wage of approximately $5 USD. Half of Mexico’s 127 million residents do not earn enough to meet basic needs, while one in five suffers from hunger. Half of Mexico’s children live in poverty and a United Nations study found that 14 percent of children suffer from stunted growth as a result of malnutrition.

A recent study by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) found that on the other pole of society, the top 10 percent of Mexico’s highest earning families capture two-thirds of the nation’s income.

The need to expedite the flow of labor and capital at the US/Mexico border is yet another expression of the productive forces bursting through the seams of the nation state. Capitalist production has turned the entirety of the world into a single economic organism which continues to be divided up into nation states controlled by competing capitalist elites.

Calls for closed borders or the attempt by the Trump administration to stoke up nationalistic and anti-immigrant sentiment, are a desperate and noxious attempt to keep the working class divided.

Workers have the right to live and work wherever they choose with full citizenship rights, something they are denied under the capitalist system. While the material conditions exist and the conditions for the truly global integration of the economy have been laid, only the fight for a socialist society which unites the working class internationally can bring about such a change.

Study highlights health epidemic: More than one in four US adults is obese

Kayla Costa

Adult obesity rates for 2016 hit over 30 percent in 25 US states, with nearly one in three Americans now obese, according to a recent study. In five states, the average rates topped 35 percent, the highest rates of obesity in the world. These figures are unprecedented in human history and signal a health crisis of global proportions.

These astonishing statistics come from a report by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which analyzed public health data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The top five states for obesity rates include Louisiana at 35.5 percent, Alabama at 35.7 percent, Arkansas at 35.7 percent, Mississippi at 37.3 percent, and West Virginia at 37.7 percent. The mostly Southern states are also some of the poorest, with the most deplorable living conditions for the working class—both rural and urban.

An additional 41 states have rates greater than 25 percent. Only three states—Hawaii, Massachusetts and Colorado—and the District of Columbia have obesity rates below 25 percent. Despite its relative success, Colorado is poised to have the highest growth of obesity in the nation.

The data analysis accounts for rates of obesity, defined as people with a Body Mass Index (BMI) ratio of 30 or greater. BMI values represent a calculation based on a person’s height and weight. Overweight people, or those with BMI ratios between 25 and 30, are not central to the study. Though it should be noted that they make up an additional 30 percent of the total US population, with minimal increases over four decades. Taken as a whole, nearly 70 percent of the US population is either overweight or obese and at risk for a variety of weight-related health issues.

Excessive body fat contributes to a variety of health complications, such as type II diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, osteoarthritis, cancer, sleep apnea, and depression. People with genetic predispositions for these ailments, or those with preexisting conditions, face much higher risk factors once they become overweight or obese. The Trust for America’s Health report places emphasis on the rising rates of type II diabetes, affecting about one-tenth of the US population and 15 percent of people in the South. The rising frequency and severity of these health issues makes obesity not only a social epidemic, but one of the top preventable causes of death.

Obesity rates have been climbing steadily for the past 40 years. Prior to 1980, the rates of Americans considered overweight or obese remained constant and reflected biological factors more than social inequities. Between 1980 and 2005, the average rate of obesity more than doubled. Within this same period, the percentage of overweight or obese children nearly tripled.

In 2004, a WHO report revealed the central role played by food corporations in advertising, monopolizing, and advocating foods high in fats, refined sugars and sodium. The United States was the only nation to reject the ensuing United Nations resolution for healthier foods, after representatives of corporations such as Birds Eye, Coca-Cola, Del Monte and Heinz successfully pressured the government to back their pseudo-science and claims of individual “choice” and slovenliness as the key causes of obesity.

According to OpenSecrets.org, agribusiness spent $127,492,310 to lobby the US Congress in 2016, including $26,503,856 to lobby on behalf of food processing and sales. Alongside the corporate dominance within the food and agricultural industries, general economic and social inequality has dramatically increased.

As many obesity reports indicate, obesity disproportionately affects poor and working class communities. These populations typically lack access to nutritious food, recreational areas for exercise, youth programs in public schools, free time, and quality health care—which are among the top factors contributing to obesity. The poorest members of society, who face greater risks of obesity and health issues, are simultaneously restricted from receiving quality health care and public services, exacerbating the inequalities even further.

Though obesity rates are highest in the United States, the problem is increasingly global. One report, published in June by the New England Journal of Medicine, estimates that one-third of the world’s population is either overweight or obese. Just like in the United States, the burden falls to members of the poor and working classes of more advanced countries, who lack access to nutritious food, recreation, and preventive health care.

It is accepted by growing numbers of medical professionals that high rates of obesity cannot simply be reduced to a lack of self-control. As with many other epidemics, this is a social issue. As the political system gives free rein to private interests and increases the financialization of the economy, it seeks to violently suppress the working class by carrying out a counterrevolution against democratic rights and living standards. Obesity and its contributing factors are bound up with these capitalist processes.

With every new study on the health of American people, health research groups and scholars offer solutions to both help those with obesity and prevent others from getting to that point. The authors of this study suggest greater investment in public health and education sectors, hoping to pressure government and corporate leaders as “the obesity crisis costs our nation more than $150 billion in health care costs annually and billions of dollars more in lost productivity.” They also point to the impact on state forces, noting that obesity is the number one reason for disqualification from military service.

Such recommendations will fall on deaf ears. In the past six months alone, the US government has shown its lack of desire and ability to address public health issues. In the health care “debate” in Washington, key targets are the widely popular Medicare and Medicaid programs, which have played a key role over the last half-century in improving the health and life expectancy of Americans. These processes are now being reversed.

At the same time, public schools face continual budget cuts that greatly diminish the resources for health and recreation programs. Between 2007 and 2009, local school districts witnessed more than $2 billion in cuts to after-school programs. The most recent budget proposal by the Trump administration includes $1.5 billion in cuts to after-school and summer programs, $100 billion to public schools overall, and $2.5 billion to food stamps.

The obesity epidemic is one of the many social crises facing the working class in twenty-first century America. The demands for a healthy environment, accessible and nutritious food, quality education and health care come into conflict with the private interests of food corporations, giant agricultural industries, and their representatives in the US government. The obesity crisis can only be confronted through the defense of health care, access to healthy foods, recreational opportunities and education as social rights, addressed by a workers’ government that places the health interests of the vast majority over the financial interests of the wealthy elite.

Australian parliament overshadowed by Korean war crisis and disqualification of MPs

Mike Head

When Australia’s parliament resumed this week after a two-week recess it was immediately preoccupied by two crises: Australia’s likely involvement in any US-led war against North Korea and the continuing witch-hunt against MPs accused of being entitled to citizenship of a “foreign power.”

The parliamentary proceedings point to the close connection between the two issues, by linking the danger of war to a reactionary drive to ensure that all members of parliament have undivided loyalty to the nation.

When question time began on Monday, Labor Party opposition leader Bill Shorten broke with parliamentary tradition. Instead of asking a question, he jumped to his feet to ask indulgence to make a statement on North Korea. He was permitted to do so after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull made his own announcement on the Korean crisis.

Turnbull told the House of Representatives that he convened a meeting that morning of the National Security Committee of Cabinet, which was briefed by the intelligence agency heads and military chiefs on North Korea’s reported hydrogen bomb test.

The Liberal-National prime minister declared: “This is the most dangerous moment in time on the Korean Peninsula since the end of the Korean War. Much is at stake. The reckless and illegal conduct of this regime cannot be rewarded.” Turnbull blamed the besieged North Korean regime and its primitive nuclear arsenal for the confrontation, rather than Washington, the world’s greatest nuclear weapons power.

Moreover, Turnbull echoed the Trump administration in ratcheting up the pressure on China, insisting it had the “greatest responsibility” to use its “economic leverage to bring this rogue regime to its senses.”

Last month, without the slightest public consultation, Turnbull declared that Australia would join the US in any war against North Korea. “In terms of defence we are joined at the hip,” he said. Turnbull invoked the 1951 ANZUS Treaty, saying it required the country to come to the “defence” of the US in any conflict.

Granted indulgence by the government, Shorten assured the government of complete bipartisan support. “I’d like to say to all Australians who may be watching or listening to these proceedings in parliament that whatever disagreements might colour the next hour or so, on this question, the parliament is of one mind,” he said. Like Turnbull, he accused Pyongyang, not Washington, of provoking the crisis, declaring: “Labor unreservedly condemns North Korea’s deliberate, dangerous and provocative nuclear testing.”

The Labor Party then returned to the nationalist witch-hunt over dual citizenship by seeking to suspend standing orders to move a resolution that Turnbull immediately stand aside Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce. The motion called for Joyce to be removed from cabinet until the High Court rules on whether he can remain in parliament, after he admitted holding dual citizenship with New Zealand, via descent from his father, when he was first elected to parliament. The motion was narrowly lost by 74 votes to 73, with several “crossbench” MPs voting with Labor.

As soon as question time ended, Shorten asked for leave to make a personal explanation. He tabled a letter proving that he renounced his British dual citizenship before being entering parliament in 2007. Shorten, who had refused for several weeks to produce the document, said he needed to prove he was fit for office. “I accept that, if I want to be elected prime minister, there cannot be any doubt about my constitutional eligibility,” he said.

In effect, Shorten set a precedent that shifted the political burden of proof onto any MP accused of holding or being entitled to dual citizenship. For weeks, the Turnbull government and the entire parliamentary establishment have been convulsed by threats and counter-threats to refer MPs, possibly as many as 20, to the High Court for removal.

Already, Joyce and six other MPs, including two other National Party cabinet members, will appear before the court next month, facing potential disqualification under a reactionary, nationalist section of the 1901 Australian Constitution, leaving their political fate, and that of the government itself, in the balance for weeks.

On Monday, Regional Development Minister Fiona Nash and Senator Nick Xenophon, who heads his own four-member parliamentary team, became the sixth and seventh MPs to have their election referred to the High Court. Populist Senator Derryn Hinch and Labor Senator Katy Gallagher made statements to parliament declaring why they would not refer themselves to the court.

Section 44(1) states that any person who “is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power” is “incapable” of being elected to parliament. This potentially disqualifies up to half of Australia’s increasingly diverse population, because they are entitled to citizenship of another country, plus any citizen accused of “allegiance” to a “foreign power.”

After tabling his renunciation letter, Shorten reiterated Labor’s demand for Joyce’s removal. He asserted that if Joyce became acting prime minister, as scheduled when Turnbull leaves the country for a South Pacific forum on Friday, “the entire legitimacy of this government and this parliament is at risk.”

In part, this reflects concerns that every decision made by Joyce while remaining a minister—such as approving mining projects or awarding government contracts—could be challenged if the High Court disqualifies him, opening up a legal minefield.

The disqualification furore first emerged in mid-July, in still unclear circumstances. Two Greens senators immediately quit their seats once they were alleged to hold dual citizenship, simply because they were born in New Zealand and Canada respectively. Since then, the affair has evolved into the greatest constitutional crisis since the Governor-General’s dismissal of the Whitlam Labor government in 1975.

However, there is mounting concern in ruling circles that the loyalty witch hunt, while intended to whip up jingoistic sentiment, is adding to the already widespread popular hostility toward the political establishment amid worsening living conditions, escalating inequality and deep anti-war feeling.

On Monday, the Senate voted down a motion from Senator Pauline Hanson, the leader of the xenophobic right-wing One Nation party, to conduct an audit of the eligibility of all MPs and senators. Labor and the government joined hands to defeat the motion, hoping to contain the crisis, at least for now.

Significantly, Hanson’s motion was supported by the Greens, who have been at the forefront of the nationalist agitation. Greens leader, Senator Richard Di Natale, was the first to call for such an inquisition in July. While anxious to be the purest protectors of the patriotism of MPs, the Greens are also offering to stabilise the parliamentary system by helping Labor form a minority government if the Liberal-National Coalition loses its majority.

Whatever the outcome of this constitutional crisis, the result has already been a further lurch to the right by the entire political establishment.

Danger of global war over Korea shakes Europe

Alex Lantier

The US government’s bellicose response to the North Korean regime’s nuclear test on Sunday has placed the world only a few steps away from a global war that would rapidly engulf Europe. As European governments denounce the North Korean regime in Pyongyang, Washington is pressing for aggressive actions leading to regime change in North Korea and a military standoff with North Korea’s neighbors, Russia and China, that could lead to nuclear war in Europe.

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said that Pyongyang is “begging for war” and told Russia and China to cut off trade with North Korea, including oil exports. This would rapidly bring North Korea’s economy to a halt. If China and Russia acquiesce to these demands, or if Washington reacts to the likely Chinese and Russian refusal by launching a war with North Korea, Chinese and Russian forces in their countries and US forces in South Korea could all intervene in North Korea.

Significantly, when asked point-blank whether China would intervene militarily in North Korea if Washington attacks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang pointedly refused to deny it. Calling it a “hypothetical question which it is hard to answer,” Geng only said that military force was “not on the list” of means China would like to use to resolve the Korean crisis.

Amid the explosive tensions between NATO and Russia in Eastern Europe since the 2014 NATO-backed putsch in Kiev, Europe would inevitably be a theater of any resulting conflict. Since backing a putsch that toppled a pro-Russian regime in Kiev in 2014, NATO has sent tens of thousands of troops to Eastern Europe near the Russian border. Moreover, Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung recently reported that Washington is planning to annul the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, in order to station nuclear missiles across Europe aimed at Russia.

Yesterday, Russia carried out large-scale exercises of its main strategic nuclear forces from Tver near Russia’s European border to Irkutsk, near Mongolia and China. “Eleven missile regiments armed with Topol, Topol-M and Yars missiles are currently on patrol missions in areas from Tver to Irkutsk. One-third of them are conducting intensive maneuvering,” the Russian Defense Ministry told the TASS news agency. “The exercise encompasses 20 regions of the country.”

Speaking at the BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) summit in Xiamen, China, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that aggressive action by the United States and its allies against North Korea could lead to world war: “Ramping up military hysteria in such conditions is senseless; it’s a dead end. It could lead to a global, planetary catastrophe and a huge loss of human life. There is no other way to solve the North Korean nuclear issue, save that of peaceful dialogue.”

Putin made clear that Pyongyang’s reckless pursuit of its nuclear weapons program is a desperate attempt to deter an attack like the 2003 US war of aggression against Iraq or the 2011 NATO war in Libya, in which European powers including France and Britain played leading roles in launching.

He said, “We all remember what happened with Iraq and Saddam Hussein. His children were killed, I think his grandson was shot, the whole country was destroyed and Saddam Hussein was hanged ... We all know how this happened, and people in North Korea remember well what happened in Iraq. They will eat grass but will not stop their program as long as they do not feel safe.”

The Korean crisis is the outcome of a quarter century of relentless imperialist war, waged by Washington and its European allies, since the Stalinist bureaucracy’s dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. By joining the Gulf War against Iraq in that year, the European powers signaled that they would also exploit the collapse of the Soviet military counterweight to wage neocolonial wars. In this context, the bankrupt regime in Pyongyang has manifestly concluded that only the possession of nuclear weapons will give it some protection from suffering Hussein’s fate.

The Trump administration’s hysterical threats against North Korea are also exposing, moreover, the deep divisions that have emerged between Washington and its supposed European allies. While condemning the Pyongyang regime’s nuclear tests, European governments have refused to endorse the Trump administration’s threats of escalation against North Korea. They are continuing their opposition to US policy in Asia starting with the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia,” notably by defying US calls to boycott China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2015.

At present, the European powers are denouncing Pyongyang but calling for talks to defuse the Korean crisis. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron issued a joint statement calling for sanctions: “This latest provocation by the ruler in Pyongyang has reached a new dimension. … In addition to the United Nations Security Council, the European Union also has to act now. The Chancellor and the President expressed their support for a tightening of EU sanctions against North Korea.” However, Merkel told the German parliament on Tuesday that only “peaceful, diplomatic solutions” to the crisis could be found.

Similarly, while London demanded “tougher action to have North Korea stop this dangerous and destabilising activity,” spokespeople for British Prime Minister Theresa May also called for moves to “increase pressure and come to a peaceful solution. ... It’s our view in the UK overwhelmingly that peaceful diplomatic means are best.”

European countries including Switzerland, where North Korea President Kim Jong-Un studied in Bern, are attempting to mediate in the crisis. Mocking Trump’s use of Twitter as not an “adequate instrument” in world diplomacy, Swiss President Doris Leuthard declared: “We are ready to offer our role for good services as a mediator. I think in the upcoming weeks a lot will depend on how the US and China can have an influence in this crisis. That’s why I think Switzerland and Sweden can have a role behind the curtain.”

This reflects not a desire for peace on the part of the European countries, in which the ruling elites are all pressing for big increases in military spending, but growing rivalries between US and European imperialism. Since Trump’s election, after which he threatened to launch a trade war on German automobile exports, Merkel has come to regularly contacting Chinese President Xi Jinping before meeting with the US president.

These tensions are reflected in a wave of comments critical of US policy in Korea by European media over the Korean crisis, including calls for a broad reorientation of European foreign policy.

German television ZDF interviewed Professor Rüdiger Frank, a former citizen of East Germany who studied in Pyongyang, who said that a “radical rethink is necessary” in North Korea. “The toughest sanctions will not prevent North Korea from arming itself,” Frank said, adding that Pyongyang had made a “strategic decision” to pursue its nuclear program in an attempt to persuade the Trump administration to negotiate with it.

Frank called for talks with Pyongyang, saying that otherwise, specific predictions about what could occur would be only “café speculation.” He refuted claims that North Korea was driving the conflict, saying: “They say, if you attack us, if you for example strike our leader, then we will retaliate with everything we have, and that includes nuclear weapons. Because they know rather well in North Korea that we are not afraid of a million Kalashnikov rifles.”

When Le Monde asked Antoine Bondaz of France’s Strategic Research Foundation (FRS) think tank about Trump’s Twitter comments on Korea, Bondaz said: “his outbursts are totally counterproductive. Telling North Korea we can wipe it off the map by using nuclear weapons against it only serves to further legitimate its nuclear program inside the country.” Bondaz called for Europe to “serve as an intermediary to facilitate dialogue and avoid a military escalation that would have a dramatic impact on European interests in Asia.”

Trump rescinds DACA, putting 800,000 youth at risk of deportation

Genevieve Leigh

The Trump administration is ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the government program that offered limited protection from deportation to nearly 800,000 immigrants brought to the US as children. The administration plans to phase out the program over the next six months.

The Department of Homeland Security will not consider any new applications for legal status. Those with a DACA permit expiring before March 5, 2018, will be eligible to apply for a two-year renewal that must be requested by October 5, 2017. For all others, legal status will end as early as March 6, 2018.

If Congress fails to act, nearly 300,000 people will begin losing protections in 2018, and more than 320,000 from January to August 2019. Once their DACA status expires, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, in collusion with local and state law enforcement, will have free rein to carry out detention and deportation.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, well known for his decades-long career of attacking immigrants and minorities, announced the end of the program on Tuesday. His speech combined vicious law-and-order and anti-immigrant demagogy with outright lies aimed at scapegoating immigrants for “crime, violence, and terrorism” in the US.

“The effect of this unilateral executive amnesty [DACA]...contributed to a surge of minors at the southern border that yielded terrible humanitarian consequences,” Sessions claimed. “It also denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same illegal aliens to take those jobs.”

Trump echoed Session’s remarks on Twitter Tuesday morning following the announcement: “We are a nation of laws. No longer will we incentivize illegal immigration. Make no mistake, we are going to put the interest of AMERICAN CITIZENS FIRST!”

The Trump administration cites the “rule of law” to justify its attack on immigrants barely a week after Trump pardoned the notorious anti-immigrant Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was found guilty of criminal contempt charges for defying a federal judge’s order to stop racially profiling Latinos. Trump is himself the personification of the corporate and government criminality that operates with impunity in the United States.

As for the claim that the measures against immigrant youth are necessary to defend “American jobs,” this is an exercise in lying demagogy. The Trump administration is composed of billionaires intent on destroying public education, health care and other social programs, while its main domestic agenda is a massive tax cut for corporations and the wealthy.

While Democrats have issued criticisms of Trump’s actions, the anti-immigrant policies of his administration are based on the actions of his predecessors, particularly the Obama administration.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Obama wrote that preserving DACA was “about basic decency…about whether we are a people who kick hopeful young strivers out of America, or whether we treat them the way we’d want our own kids to be treated.” He went on to assure layers within the ruling class that these young people could possibly add to the economy, “start new businesses” or even “serve in our military.”

The DACA program was initiated by Obama in June 2012, largely as a cynical maneuver to court Hispanic voters in time for the 2012 election. It was also intended as a cover for his massive crackdown on immigrants, including through the expansion of “Secure Communities,” the further militarization of the border, and institution of the mandatory nightly bed quota of ICE detention facilities.

Implementation of the DACA program—done under the pretenses of a turn toward a more “humane” immigration policy— was carried out by the Obama administration while it oversaw the largest deportation operation US history, resulting in the expulsion of almost 3 million immigrants in his eight years in office. This included the rounding up and deportation of child immigrants fleeing Central America in 2014.

Discussions are taking place within ruling circles of combining some form of a DACA renewal with “comprehensive immigration reform,” which if passed would be part of a reactionary bipartisan measure to increase the militarization of the border and place even more onerous requirements on anyone seeking citizenship rights. The ending of DACA is part of a broader anti-immigrant offensive of the Trump administration that has gone unopposed by the Democratic Party, which has spent the past seven months denouncing Trump for being too “soft” on Russia. The Democrats have hailed moves to strengthen the grip of the military over the administration, including through the elevation of retired general John Kelly, Trump’s former Homeland Security Advisor, to chief of staff.

Kelly, who directly oversaw Trump’s anti-immigrant measures before taking on his new post, was selected by Obama in 2012 to lead the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), the military organization responsible for Central America, South America and the Caribbean. Kelly was confirmed in his first position in the Trump administration by a bipartisan 88-11 vote in the US Senate.

The ending of DACA marks a major escalation of Trump’s war on immigrants and will have far-reaching consequences. The tools and methods of oppression being forged in the attack on immigrants under the banner of “law and order”—the massive surveillance apparatus, the collection and sharing of data, the integration of all law enforcement agencies, and the arming of the police forces with military equipment—will be used against the working class as a whole.

There is widespread opposition to the anti-immigrant policies of the Trump administration. This opposition cannot be channeled back behind the Democratic Party, which is no less beholden to the corporate elite than the Republicans.

The defense of immigrant workers requires the independent mobilization of the entire working class, in the United States and internationally, based on a program that advances its own solution to the world economic crisis: the reorganization of global economy to meet social need, not private profit. This unity must begin with the rejection of all attempts to divide native-born and immigrant workers, regardless of their legal status, and upholding the freedom of all workers to live and work in the country of their choice with full and equal rights.