Here’s Where U.S.’s Imported Oil Comes From: Top 29 Oil Exporting Countries to U.S.; Venezuela Is Currently the 4th-Largest

Eric Zuesse

At the present time, the latest month for which the U.S. Department of Energy publishes the number of barrels per day (bpd) of oil that’s exported to the U.S. is November 2018. Here are the rankings:

1. Canada 142,206 bpd
2. Saudi Arabia 30,028
3. Mexico 18,020
4. Venezuela 16,889
5. Iraq 11,767
6. Colombia 7,769
7. Russia 7,611
8. Ecuador 5,866
9. Nigeria 5,392
10. Algeria 4,848
11. UK 4,653
12. Norway 4,073
13. Kuwait 3,027
14. Brazil 2,777
15. Belgium 2,075
16. S. Korea 1,927
17. Netherlands 1,462
18. Egypt 1,405
19. UAE 1,771
20. China 1.268
21. France 1,239
22. Singapore 1,232
23. Indonesia 1,204
24. Argentina 1,101
25. Peru 1,061
26. Denmark 1,000
27. Brunei 961
28. Spain 846
29. Angola 833

Here were the top 10 for the entire year of 2015 as reported by Bloomberg Finance at Forbes. For comparison to today, the country’s sales and rank in November 2018 is also indicated [between brackets]”

1. Canada 3.2 million bpd   [1. Canada 142,206]
2. Saudi Arabia 1,1  [2. Saudi Arabia 30,028]
3. Venezuela 780,000 bpd  [4. Venezuela 16,889]
4. Mexico 690,000  [3. Mexico 18,020]
5. Colombia 370,000  [6. Colombia 7,769]
6. Iraq 230,000  [5. Iraq 11,767]
7. Ecuador 225,000  [8. Ecuador 5,866]
8. Kuwait 210,000  [13. Kuwait 3,027]
9. Brazil 190,000  [14. Brazil 2,777]
10. Angola 190,000  [29. Angola, 833]

Clearly, the figures change over time. Whereas Angola was #10 in 2015, it’s #29 now; and whereas Russia, Nigeria, and Algeria, weren’t in the top 10 in 2015, they now are.

U.S. President Donald Trump is bringing down the latest Venezuelan monthly number from 16,889 to close to zero. On 25 August 2017, Reuters headlined two stories, “Trump slaps sanctions on Venezuela; Maduro sees effort to force default” and “Venezuela says U.S. sanctions designed to push Venezuela to default”. The first of those reported that, “U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that prohibits dealings in new debt from the Venezuelan government or its state oil company on Friday in an effort to halt financing that the White House said fuels President Nicolas Maduro’s ‘dictatorship’.” The second reported that Venezuela’s Government daid that Trump’s action “essentially forces the closure of its U.S. refining unit Citgo,” which means bringing an end to Venezuela’s oil exports to the U.S.

Venezuela’s socialized oil company, PDVSA, of which Citgo is the U.S. distributor, had never prepared for the measures that Trump is now imposing, and Reuters’s report said, “As a result, it will be it tricky for PDVSA to refinance its heavy debt burden.” The Reuters report continued:

“Maduro may no longer take advantage of the American financial system to facilitate the wholesale looting of the Venezuelan economy at the expense of the Venezuelan people,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday.

PDVSA, the financial engine of Maduro’s government, is already struggling due to low global oil prices, mismanagement, allegations of corruption and a brain drain.

However, the likely failure of Venzuela’s oil company is due not only to the lowered price of oil, but to the fact that Venezuela’s oil is among the two costliest in the world to produce, because it’s from the dirtiest source, tar sands, much like Canada’s oil is. The difference between Canada and Venezuela is twofold: first, that whereas Canada is a vassal-state of the U.S. empire and so its aristocracy is allied with America’s aristocracy (which controls America’s Government), Venezuela isn’t. And, second, that whereas Venezuela has a monoeconomy that’s based on oil (which accounts for around 95% of Venezuela’s exports), Canada does not.

Saudi Arabia used to be the top foreign source of oil imported into the U.S., but now it’s only a very weak second-place to Canada in this, exporting only 21% as much oil to the U.S. as does Canada. This is a huge decline for the Sauds.

Whereas Saudi oil is the world’s most “light” or cleanest and least-costly to produce and therefore has the lowest “carbon footprint” of any oil, Canada and Venezuela have the most “heavy” or dirtiest and most-costly to produce and therefore have the highest “carbon footprint” of all the world’s oils.

(NOTE: There are many different ranking-systems for the ‘average’ cost per barrel of oil produced, such as this and this and these, but all tend to vastly underestimate in order to continue the case for fossil fuels. The BBC once noted that its calculation-system “only covers the cost of production, not the cost of exploration and development.” And it also ignored the cost of transit. It also ignored environmental costs. It also ignored the costs to taxpayers for the many subsidies they pay in order for the fossil-fuels investors to continue investing in those companies. The environmental site “The Energy Mix” headlined in April 2018, “Ditched Bitumen Desperately Seeks True Commitment” and reported that fewer and fewer investors were continuing to trust the industry’s reported numbers regarding the costs of tar-sands oils. Also, on 11 February 2019, they headlined “Trans Mountain’s Fee Plan for Fossil Customers Represents $2-Billion Taxpayer Subsidy”. But, mostly, the heavy taxpayer subsidizations to the fossil-fuels industries are ignored, both by consumers and by investors. Realistically, the tar-sands oils in both Canada and Venezuela are costing far more than any per-barrel oil price that’s below $100. They are money-losers, but bring lots of money to the ‘right’ people.)

So: the U.S. is replacing the world’s cleanest oil with the world’s filthiest oil, and that’s not only from Canada but also from Venezuela. However, because the U.S. aristocracy want to take over Venezuela, the U.S. Government now is set to zero-out oil imports from Venezuela, so as to increase the pressure on Venezuela’s Government to place in charge there a leader who will do America’s bidding. Canada has been working right alongside the U.S. to achieve that objective, and will probably be supplying to the U.S. much (if not all) of the 16,889 bpd oil that currently has been supplied by the other producer of very dirty oil: Venezuela. The U.S. produces fracked oil, which is dirty but not as dirty as that from Canada and Venezuela. The U.S., Canada, and Venezuela, have been committed to ignoring the global warming problem. To the extent that the problem becomes globally recognized, the oil-production in all three of those countries will decline in its marketable price even more than will the oil-production in other countries (especially than Saudi Arabia’s oil-production, since that’s the cleanest); and, so, the profits from those dirty oils will quickly (especially for Canada and Venezuela, where it has already happened) turn into losses. All three governments — Venezuela, Canada, and U.S. — are trying to postpone that, till as late a time as possible.

Phasing Out Coal And Other Transitions To Abate Global Warming: Lessons From Europe

Arshad M Khan

Climate change reports are seldom sanguine.  Carbon dioxide, the principal culprit, is at record levels, about twice the preindustrial value and a third higher than even 1950.  Without abatement it could rise to  a thousand parts per million in a self-reinforcing loop spiraling into an irredeemable ecological disaster.  The UN IPCC report warns of a 12-year window for action.

Contrasting President Trump’s boast of US energy independence based on coal and other fossil fuels in his SOTU address on Tuesday, two Democrats, Senator Ed Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, have introduced a 10-page Green New Deal resolution to achieve carbon neutrality within ten years.  An admirable start to the discussion for  the Germans are already attacking the problem forcefully as demonstrated by their new coal commission report issued at the end of January.

In November 2016, the German Federal Government adopted its Climate Action Plan 2050.  It outlined CO2 reduction targets in energy, industry, buildings, transport and agriculture.  Energy is the most polluting; its emissions total the sum of all the others except industry and energiewende (energy change) was a key aspect of the plan.

So even as our atavistic president is promoting coal, Germany, the EU economic powerhouse, announced it is planning to phase out all coal-fired power stations by 2038.  As outlined in the November 2016 plan, a commission comprising delegates from industry, trade unions, civil society including environmental NGOs and policy makers was appointed in 2018 to examine the issue and prescribe an equitable solution.  After eight months of negotiations and discussions, concluding with a final 21-hour marathon session, it has produced a dense 336-page document.  Only one member out of 28 cast an opposing vote, and Greenpeace added a dissenting option as it wants the process to begin immediately.

Such an objective was a special challenge because of Germany’s long industrial history coupled with coal mining.   The plan shuts down the last coal-burning power station by 2038 as the final step in the pathway outlined — an ambitious alternative is to exit by 2035 if conditions permit.  Total capacity of coal-using stations in Germany is about 45 gigawatts, and the report sets out a four-year initial goal of 12.5 gigawatts to be switched-off i.e. about two dozen of the larger 500+ megawatt units by 2022.  Progressively, eight years later (by 2030) another 24 gigawatts will have been phased out leaving just 9 gigawatts to be eliminated by 2035 if possible but definitely by 2038 at the latest.

It is a demanding plan for coal has been deeply embedded with German industry.  To ease the pain for tens of thousands of workers and their families, the plan allocates federal funding to deal with its broad ramifications i.e. job loss and displacement.  An adjustment fund will be used for those aged 58 and over to compensate pension deficits.  Funds are also directed towards retraining for younger workers and for education programs designed to broaden skills.

It includes 40 billion euros to develop alternative industry in coal mining states plus money not directly project-related.  In addition further investments in infrastructure and a special funding program for transport adding up to 1.5 billion euros per year are allocated in the federal budget until 2021.

The change-over will raise electricity prices, so a 2 billion euro per year compensation program for users, both private individuals and industrial, will continue until 2030.  This is designed to relieve the burden on families, and to maintain industrial competitiveness.

Germany is not alone.  The EU has issued an analysis of accelerated coal phase-out by 2030.  The Netherlands has its own energiesprong (energy leap) focused on energy transition and energy neutral buildings, meaning that the buildings generate enough energy through solar panels or other means to pay for the energy deficit from their construction and use.   It can now clad entire apartment blocks in insulation and solar panels, and is reputed to be so efficient that some buildings are producing more renewable energy than consumed. This expertise is also being utilized in the UK.

Given the forests, the Norwegians have tried something different.  They have built the world’s tallest wooden skyscraper, the Mjøs Tower, 85 meters high in Brumunddal.  Its wood sourced from forests within a 50 km radius uses one-sixth the energy of steel and of course much less, if at all, emission of greenhouse gases.

By the end of Germany’s enormous sector-wide endeavor, it expects to reduce CO2 emissions to roughly half through 2030 and 80-95 percent by 2050.  The comprehensive and complete nature of the program could serve as a blueprint here in the US.  Thus the obvious question:  If Germany with a far larger proportion of its workforce associated with coal can do it, why can’t the US?

Opportunity rover ends 15 years of Martian exploration

Bryan Dyne

The Mars exploration rover Opportunity is the most successful robotic explorer humanity has ever placed on the surface of another world. For more than 5,000 days, it has collected and transmitted outstanding scientific data about Mars’ history, atmosphere, chemistry and geology, including the first definitive evidence that liquid water once existed on the Martian surface. For the past 15 years, Opportunity has been the eyes for tens of millions of people as they viewed landscapes, dunes, storms, craters and sunrises on another world. On June 10, 2018, radio contact with the rover was lost, and on February 13, 2019, after more than eight hundred failed attempts to reestablish communications, Opportunity’s mission was declared complete.

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The mission’s success is owed to the hundreds of researchers, scientists and engineers who spent years designing, fabricating and assembling the rover and another decade and a half directing its actions from across the interplanetary void. They had to plot paths for the 174-kilogram Martian explorer that took it around, and at times over, rocks and boulders. The rover climbed gravel-covered slopes as steep as 32 degrees, reached the summit of hills, probed valleys and traversed ancient riverbeds. Its final resting place is the western limb of a landscape feature named Perseverance Valley.

This panorama mosaic of Perseverance Valley showing stripes in the soil that suggest that this area has undergone repeated freezing and thawing, possibly caused by liquid water. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The rover’s longevity, however, is also owed to the millions of people around the world who were fascinated by the vistas that have been sent back since the mid-2000s of an alien world so unlike and yet so similar to our own. This is embodied by Nick Rossomando, one of the rover’s engineers, who was first introduced to Opportunity (and its twin rover, Spirit) as a child. “Like many others, this was the first time I had really been interested in a robotic space mission. Thirteen years later, just a year into my career, I interviewed to work on that very same mission. … I was only on the team for a short time overall, but it will be very, very difficult to top that year and a half.”

Opportunity was only planned to last for 90 Martian days, but the design and engineering of the rover proved so successful that it continued operating successfully, year after year, with an immense haul of data. There is little doubt that its funding would have been zeroed out years ago by the retrogressive minds of the US ruling elite had they not been wary of the international public outcry that would have followed. Its total operating costs for a decade and a half of scientific discovery, after all, could have been spent on several hundred Tomahawk cruise missiles.

NASA closed this chapter of Martian science after eight months of blackout of the rover caused by a global dust storm that covered the Red Planet last June, which forced the solar-powered Opportunity into hibernation. It was not the first time the rover put itself into emergency power mode because of Martian weather and its controllers prepared months’ worth of strategies to revive the planetary pioneer once the storm subsided. In the past, Opportunity continued to perform groundbreaking research after several other incidents which threatened to end the mission: getting stuck in a sand dune, having a broken battery heater, failed actuators, losing its flash memory and being forced to drive in reverse only after steering was lost in both its front wheels.

An image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft showing Opportunity’s journey from Eagle Crater to Marathon Valley. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/NMMNHS

These previous challenges were solved through weeks of research by Opportunity’s controllers on Earth, who ran simulations and made physical mockups to determine the best way to recover the rover. The most scientifically interesting success was to drag the broken wheels as the rover drove along, digging a trench in the Martian soil which the rover could then analyze. Thanks to these efforts, Opportunity survived on the surface of Mars for 5,498 days, nearly 60 times its original specifications.

Through all of this, Opportunity returned more than 217,000 images from the surface of Mars, including 15 360-degree panoramas. It directly sampled 52 rocks and used its spectrometer and microscope to inspect a further 72. It traveled more than 45 kilometers, breaking the off-Earth driving record set by the Soviet lunar rover Lunokhod 2 in 1973. In the end, it took Mars' worst to finally silence the intrepid machine.

Spirit and Opportunity landed in January 2004 on almost exactly opposite sides of the Martian equator, after a seven-month journey from Earth. They were the successors to the two Viking landings in 1976 and the Mars Pathfinder probe in 1997 and were sent to study the Red Planet’s geological record in search of any indication that liquid water once flowed on its surface.

Last year’s dust storm covered the entire planet in a matter of weeks, forcing Opportunity to hibernate on June 10, 2018. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Opportunity provided this evidence almost immediately. Its landing site, dubbed Eagle Crater, was characterized by large numbers of small spherical structures found loose on the surface and embedded in a nearby outcropping that were tagged “blueberries.” Their smoothness suggested that they were formed in some sort of liquid. Chemical and microscopic analysis performed by the rover revealed high concentrations of the minerals hematite and jarosite, further confirming that the area was once an aqueous environment that had since evaporated.

Once it finished exploring Eagle Crater and its surroundings, Opportunity was directed to drive to Endeavour, an impact crater about 22 kilometers in diameter located in the Meridiani Planum. Orbital data indicated the presence of basalt, hematite and sulfate, as well as active erosion. The minerals are evidence that Endeavour once held water while the erosion could have been caused by wind or even water bubbling up from underneath the surface. Opportunity began its trek toward the crater in August 2008 and arrived after traveling for three years across Martian plains.

One of its first discoveries at this new location was a mineral vein that consisted of calcium, sulfur and water. The closest match to the data is gypsum, and it could have been produced under conditions that were not as harshly acidic as other places where water likely was. Subsequent research indicates that Endeavour Crater once held a body of water that was more hospitable to Earth-like life. These and numerous other discoveries have left an indelible mark on Martian and planetary exploration.

A panoramic view from Opportunity as it looked back toward the west rim of Endeavour Crater that it drove along as the rover continued its trek southward. Opportunity’s tracks from weeks earlier can be seen trailing off past the distant Murray Ridge. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU

Spirit and Opportunity also paved the way for subsequent Mars rovers and landers, including Phoenix, Curiosity and InSight, as well as NASA’s planned Mars 2020 rover and the European Space Agency’s ExoMars rover, which are both slated to launch in July 2020. Mars is the only planet besides Earth to have a constant retinue of ground- and space-based instruments that are regularly developed and deployed. The closest parallel in the history of human spaceflight are the Soviet Venera orbiters and landers which studied Venus for 22 years, which included the only probes to transmit data from the surface of that world’s hellish landscape.

The resources and technical expertise exist to massively expand these efforts in humanity’s persistent quest to expand its knowledge about the natural world. We have proven our capacity to reach our immediate neighbors and there could be dozens of spacecraft, rovers and landers studying the numerous frontiers of the Solar System.

Tragically, there are not. Space exploration for the purposes of discovery and expanding knowledge is being reversed, and the technology perverted into tools for mass annihilation. If the historical development of mankind’s increasingly social and collective effort to master nature and explore the universe is to be continued, it can only be realized through the struggle for international socialism.

Australian university sacks academic critical of Israeli and US wars

Oscar Grenfell 

In a major attack on democratic rights and academic freedom, University of Sydney management sacked Dr Tim Anderson this month on the basis of allegations that his criticisms of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people were “offensive.”

The move, carried out in defiance of widespread opposition among academics and staff, is part of a broader push to outlaw growing hostility to militarism and war, including at university campuses.

It follows a protracted campaign by senior figures in the federal Liberal-National Coalition government, the corporate media and university management to demonise Anderson because of his public denunciations of wars and military interventions by the US, Israel and other major powers.

Anderson, a senior lecturer in the faculty of political economy, was suspended by university management on December 3. He was informed in a letter from university Provost Stephen Garton that he was accused of “offensive conduct” and that termination proceedings had been initiated against him.

Garton cited lecture material displayed by Anderson, which allegedly featured an Israeli flag with the Nazi swastika superimposed on it. Critics of the Israeli government have frequently compared its brutal persecution of the Palestinian people to the actions of the fascist German regime.

The lecture material examined media coverage and the response of international organisations to Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2014.

The graphic noted that Israel’s aerial bombardment of the besieged territory was widely described as “precision strikes” targeting Palestinian militants. This was despite the fact that the barrage resulted in over 1,000 deaths, 75 percent of which were of civilians. By contrast, primitive Palestinian rocket attacks, which resulted in six civilian deaths, were denounced as “indiscriminate.”

The slide encouraged students to seek out independent evidence and to “be wary of moral equivalence claims carrying inbuilt assumptions” and recognise that “both the objectives and actions of the parties are important.”

The university employment review panel, which voted two to one on February 11 to sack Anderson, found that dissemination of the lecture material constituted “serious misconduct.” It claimed that it was “reasonable” to find the image of the Israeli flag with the superimposed swastika “offensive.”

The panel consisted of Janice McLeay, a former industrial relations commissioner and “dispute management specialist,” Professor Philippa Pattison, the university’s deputy vice chancellor of education, and Dr Neil Maclean, a senior anthropology lecturer. Maclean voted against sacking Anderson, but the termination was pushed through by McLeay and Pattison.

In his dissenting comments, Maclean warned of the implications of firing Anderson for academic freedom. He expressed opposition to university managements’ use of a “minimalist criteria,” based on vague claims of “offensive” and “inappropriate” conduct, to sack an academic.

Maclean stated that it was “consistent with the requirements of professional judgement that staff formulate their own concrete criteria for the exercise of academic freedom.”

In a public statement on February 11, Anderson condemned the panel’s decision, stating that it “avoided important issues of principle over intellectual freedom” and “ignored an attempt by managers to link criticism of Israel with anti-semitism.”

Anderson warned: “This censorial abuse will send a cold chill through the University of Sydney. Other academics will worry they might also be expelled if a manager considers something they say is ‘inappropriate or offensive.’ Who would know?”

Anderson pointed to the politically-motivated character of the sacking. He noted that Garton, who initiated the termination proceedings against him, had condemned the lecture material documenting casualties during the attack on Gaza as not being “even handed.”

The sacked academic said that despite such remarks, the review panel found that Garton “expressed no political views.” Anderson countered: “I say he expressed reactionary politics dressed up as ‘ethics.’ I also say he has no mandate to protect Israel from criticism, on behalf of the University of Sydney.”

The initiation of termination proceedings against Anderson in December provoked widespread opposition from academics and university staff.

A December 7 open letter, signed by 30 prominent academics and lecturers warned that Anderson’s dismissal would be “an unacceptable act of censorship and a body-blow to academic freedom,” which, by “instilling a fear of arbitrary reprisal… stifles the very freedom of debate and of thought that education requires.”

That the university nevertheless proceeded with the sacking makes clear that Anderson has been the subject of a political victimisation.

In the first instance, Anderson’s repeated condemnations of Israeli attacks on the Palestinians have provoked the ire of various Zionist organisations. At university campuses, there is a concerted attempt to ban all criticisms of Israeli policy, on the basis of cynical and bogus accusations of anti-Semitism.

Anderson has also come under attack for his opposition to the US-led regime change operation in Syria. In April 2018, Education Minister Simon Birmingham called for an investigation into Anderson for comments he made questioning US claims that the Syrian government was responsible for a sarin gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun. The Murdoch-owned Daily Telegraph hysterically denounced Anderson as a “sarin gasbag.”

The alleged sarin attack was used to escalate direct US intervention, including the launching of a bombing campaign against Syrian government forces by the Trump administration. Anderson had noted that no evidence was provided of Syrian government culpability for a chemical weapons attack and that US-backed rebels, who were being militarily defeated, had a far greater motive for staging such an incident.

In a lengthy article late last year, Anderson reviewed a series of attempts by university management to suppress his public statements opposing US militarism.

Significantly, one of the earlier allegations of “misconduct” against Anderson was over his opposition to a May 2017 invitation by the university to US Republican politician John McCain to deliver an address on campus. Anderson had denounced McCain, who was implicated in every US war and military intervention over the past three decades, as a “war criminal.”

Garton responded: “There are no grounds to assert that Senator McCain is a ‘war criminal.’”

The attacks against Anderson are inextricably tied to the integration of Australian universities into a vast US-led military build-up, aimed at preparing for war with China and other powers. Virtually every university campus across the country participates in government funded programs to subordinate academic research to the development of new military technologies.

A host of pro-war think tanks have also been created. At the University of Sydney, the US Studies Centre was founded in 2006, with US and Australian government funding. Its explicit aim is to counter mass hostility to Australian involvement in US wars.

The attempts to suppress anti-war sentiment underscore the need to build a political movement of workers, students and young people in defence of democratic rights.

University of Sydney staff and students, and all academics, should oppose the sacking of Tim Anderson and demand his immediate reinstatement.

No More Deaths volunteers prosecuted for providing humanitarian aid to migrants

Anthony del Olmo 

On January 18, a federal judge rendered a guilty verdict against four volunteers from the humanitarian organization No More Deaths (NMD) for their actions in the Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Refuge in southwestern Arizona along the US-Mexico border a year and a half ago. Judge Bernardo Velasco’s ruling marks the first conviction of humanitarian aid volunteers in the US in a decade.

The volunteers—Natalie Hoffman, Oona Holcomb, Madeline Huse and Zaachila Orozco-McCormick—were found guilty of misdemeanors related to entering a wildlife refuge without a permit and leaving behind “personal property.” The latter was a reference to basic lifesaving necessities such as food, water and other small items left behind by the volunteers in order to ensure migrants survive the dangerous desert crossing.

The four volunteers each face a sentence of up to six months in prison, along with a possible $500 fine. Another four NMD volunteers are set to go to trial later this month on similar charges. A ninth volunteer, Scott Warren, will face trial in May on more serious charges including felony harboring and concealment for allegedly providing food, water, clean clothes and beds to two undocumented immigrants last year. If convicted and sentenced to consecutive terms, Warren could face up to 20 years in prison.

NMD has launched a campaign demanding that the Justice Department release the defendants on humanitarian grounds.

While NMD volunteers are not speaking to media while the trials are underway, WSWS reporters were able to speak to Enrique Morones, director of Border Angels, a sister organization of the group. Border Angels has been providing humanitarian aid to migrants in the US-Mexico border region of San Diego, California, since 1986.

“Border Patrol was very upset when NMD came out with a video of their agents destroying water bottles,” Morones stated.

“This [lawsuit], I think, is in direct response to two things—the hate rhetoric of the Trump administration, and the video that exposed these Border Patrol agents. We have been supporting NMD and demand that those charged should be released.”

“What they’re trying to do is intimidate us. Border Patrol has approached us before—asking what we’re doing, if we have a permit, etc.—and we tell them that we’ve been doing this for more than 20 years and that we’re going to continue doing it. We’re outraged and paying attention.”

In June 2017, an NMD humanitarian aid camp on the outskirts of Arivaca, Arizona, was raided by Border Patrol and four patients receiving care were arrested. A second Border Patrol raid was carried out in January 2018, at the NMD humanitarian aid base in Ajo, Arizona, where two individuals receiving humanitarian aid were arrested along with Scott Warren.

In a statement published earlier this month, Parker Deighan, one of the so-called #Cabeza9 defendants, detailed that the “remote terrain was being weaponized against people crossing the border, many of whom were fleeing poverty and violence. More specifically, since the mid-1990s, US border enforcement strategy has been to heavily concentrate enforcement in urban areas where people traditionally have crossed, thereby intentionally funneling migrants into remote and dangerous terrain, like Cabeza Prieta.”

The increased use of these more dangerous crossings, particularly along the Southwestern border, is the product of a deliberate strategy adopted by the Border Patrol under both Democratic and Republican administrations to use the harsh terrain as a means of killing larger numbers of migrants who perish in the scorching desert and discourage others from crossing.

Rather than accepting and processing asylum seekers in accordance with international law, the US government’s focus on militarizing the border has worked to reroute migrants, driving them further into uninhabitable terrain and territory controlled by organized crime syndicates and right-wing militias. This has only worsened with the Trump administration’s efforts to build up the border wall, while ramping up the militarization of border areas in general.

Late last month, Pentagon officials confirmed the deployment of an additional 3,750 troops to the US-Mexico border, continuing the build-up of repressive forces directed against defenseless immigrants and refugees seeking asylum in the United States.

Under the fraudulent contexts of terrorist threat and an influx of drugs entering the United States, the Democrats have downplayed the mobilization of the military on US soil as a political stunt, refusing to acknowledge that the move is in violation of the Posse Comitatus law barring the military form performing domestic police functions.

Yesterday’s declaration by President Trump of a national emergency at the US-Mexico border will mean billions more in funding for the mobilization US troops to build and construction of many miles of border wall.

These measures will only exacerbate the humanitarian crisis of migrant deaths in the deserts along the border. Between 2000 and 2016, the US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) discovered the remains of 6,023 people who died crossing from Mexico into the United States. One Texas sheriff reported in May 2017 to the New York Times that, “I would say for every one [body] we find, we’re probably missing five,” putting the total dead in the tens of thousands.

The declaration of a state of emergency and mobilization of active duty troops coincides with the abusive treatment of tens of thousands of immigrants held in ICE and CBP facilities across the US, with billion-dollar companies making vast profits operating modern-day concentration camps.

In this context, the prosecution of the NMD volunteers demonstrates another step in the destruction of democratic rights in the systematic criminalization of individuals and groups who attempt to provide life saving aid to the most vulnerable sections of society.

The Trump administration is seeking to make an example out of Scott Warren for charges that he harbored immigrants crossing the border. Such an attack finds historic parallels in the persecution of sympathizers for harboring of Jews during the Holocaust.

The crackdown is part of the administration’s efforts to whip up national chauvinism and prevent a unification of the working class internationally. The brave strike by maquiladora factory workers in Matamoros, Mexico, and the unity of workers across North America and all borders is the primary target of such measures.

German defence minister advocates German-European war policy

Johannes Stern

In her opening address to the Munich Security Conference yesterday, German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen declared that “the most prominent characteristic of the new security landscape” is “the return of competition between the major powers.” She followed this up by adding, “Our American friends recognised this early on. We also recognise and see, whether we like it or not, that Germany and Europe are part of this competitive struggle. We are not neutral.”

Von der Leyen’s entire speech made very clear what this means. Almost 75 years after the end of World War II, the imperialist powers are openly preparing for a new round of military conflicts. In front of over 600 politicians, military personnel and intelligence service operatives, including 35 heads of government and 80 defence and foreign ministers, von der Leyen appealed for an independent German and European defence policy to enable Berlin and Brussels to play an independent role in the coming struggle.

“We Europeans have to step it up a gear,” stated von der Leyen, who also vowed to increase military spending. There is a clear plan: “The white paper and capability plan shows how we will modernise our army by 2025. But we are also realistic,” she added. “We know we have to do more. Especially we Germans. We are firmly committed to the 2 percent goal. Just like how the federal government recently reassured NATO, and how it is included in our coalition agreement.”

NATO’s 2 percent goal, which the federal government together with other governments agreed at the NATO Wales summit in 2014, amounts to at least a €35 billion increase in the German defence budget over the course of a few years. The cost for this madness, which recalls rearmament under Hitler during the 1930s, will be borne by workers and young people, who will be used as cannon fodder in new wars and suffer the consequences of social spending cuts to pay for military rearmament.

“We have set out towards a European defence union,” boasted von der Leyen. “We have finally found ways and means to overcome our fragmentation. We are harmonising our planning, purchasing of equipment, and readiness to deploy. This is resulting in the emergence of new, European capacities. It enables we Europeans to act in a crisis. And this is also transatlantic burden-sharing. To step things up a gear, however, we have to clear up a few contradictions.”

The defence minister left no doubt about what the German ruling class wants to “clear up.” After its horrific crimes during two world wars, it now intends to use armed force to uphold the interests of German imperialism. “We Germans shouldn’t claim to be more moral than France, or more far-sighted on human rights policy than Britain,” added von der Leyen. “We have to summon up the political force for a reliable common line that connects our security interests with our humanitarian principles.”

When European politicians bluster about “humanitarian principles,” “responsibility,” or “peace,” they mean brutal military interventions, which rely on the forcible suppression and plundering of the targeted country. Von der Leyen boasted that the German government also agreed this week to extend its mission in Afghanistan for another year. “With that, we are making very clear that we stand by our responsibilities.”

The military interventions in Syria and Iraq, which have laid waste to both countries and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, must be continued, added the defence minister. “Our mission continues,” von der Leyen told her audience. Islamic State is not yet fully defeated and has been transformed into an underground network. The central focus therefore moves “from the military component to stabilisation.” In Iraq, it is necessary to support the newly-formed government and “integrate those into reconstruction who fought bravely on our side.”

Von der Leyen noted that a joint European force and military policy would be a benefit to NATO, but the first day of the conference underscored how sharp the tensions between the European powers and the United States have already become. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas used his remarks to launch a frontal attack on Donald Trump’s trade policy. Tariffs and protectionism don’t lead in the right direction, he stated, before describing American tariffs on steel and aluminium imports as “a classic case of lose - lose.”

Maas also declared his desire, along with France, Britain and the rest of the EU, to retain the Iran nuclear accord. At a Middle East conference in Warsaw on Thursday, US Vice President Mike Pence, who will speak in Munich today, demanded that the Europeans “stand with us” by abrogating the nuclear accord and supporting Washington’s war drive against Iran.

The conflicts within the EU are also more intense than at any time since the end of the Second World War. After a months-long conflict, France withdrew its ambassador from Italy last week. And tensions between Berlin and Paris are rising, in spite of their agreement on rearmament.

Additionally, French President Emmanuel Macron cancelled a joint appearance with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Munich at short notice. Instead, von der Leyen appeared alongside British Defence Minister Gavin Williamson and stressed the need to deepen the countries’ defence cooperation, particularly in the context of Brexit.

Williamson focused in his speech in Munich on threats against Russia. He “welcomed Ursula’s personal efforts to push ahead with investments in German defence,” and declared that a common European military policy must above all be directed against Russia. “Let’s respond to the Russian violation of the INF treaty [The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty] and the threat posed by new Russian missiles. Let’s be prepared to deal with these provocations. Russia’s adventurism must come with a price.”

Although the imperialist powers are preparing for new horrific wars, which will call into question the very existence of humanity, no opposition to this within the establishment parties exists. In an interview with Deutschlandfunk, Alexander Neu, the Left Party’s representative on the parliamentary defence committee, made clear that his party supports the German-European great power plans in all essentials. The German government cannot “hide behind the US any more, or behind NATO,” he declared. “European security must be framed and realised by the Europeans themselves, not by the United States.”

The only party to call the war danger by its real name and oppose it on the basis of a socialist programme is the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP). Against the capitalist warmongers around the world, we counterpose the international unity of the working class. Under conditions where all of the fundamental problems of the 20th century are erupting with full force once again, this perspective assumes tremendous urgency.

No agreement on US-China trade with talks to continue

Nick Beams

The week-long trade talks in Beijing between top-level representatives of China and the US ended on Friday without any agreement. Negotiations are to continue in Washington next week.

The next round will be virtually the last chance to reach a formal agreement before a March 1 deadline after which the US will increase tariffs—from 10 to 25 percent—on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods.

Even if a deal is reached it will not take the form of a detailed document. According to a statement issued by the White House, “United States and Chinese officials have agreed that any commitments will be stated in a Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) between the two countries.”

The statement said detailed and intense discussions had led to “progress” but “much work remains.”

If an MOU is reached, along the lines of those established between the US and the European Union and the US and Japan, the drawing up of a final agreement would take place with existing US tariffs remaining in place. Thus the threat will remain that further measures would be imposed if the detailed discussions broke down.

Commenting on the outcome of the latest round of talks, US President Trump said they were going “extremely well” but then added: “Who knows what that means because it only matters when we get it done.”

Following his meeting with the US delegation, China’s President Xi Jinping offered no details saying only that China and the US are “inseparable” and “co-operation is the best choice.”

China’s official Xinhua News Agency said the discussions had made “important, interim progress.”

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the US felt “we have made headway on very, very important and difficult issues” without providing any details.

The comments by Trump and Lighthizer, together with a tweet by US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that “productive meetings” had been conducted, were enough to give a boost to the US stock market. The Dow finished up by more than 440 points or 1.7 percent for the day.

The White House statement said the key US concerns were so-called “structural issues, including forced technology transfer, intellectual property rights, cyber theft, agriculture, services, non-tariff barriers, and currency.” The two sides were also discussing increased Chinese purchase of US goods to reduce the trade deficit.

China has denied that it engages in forced technology transfers, insisting that any such transfers are part of agreements reached by US companies to gain greater access to Chinese markets. It has also committed to tightening laws on intellectual property. However, these measures are regarded as insufficient by the US.

Another key point, not specifically mentioned in the White House statement, has been China’s state subsidies to its leading corporations, which the US claims are “market distorting.” China regards the US demands for such subsidies to be wound back as a means of intervening in the running of its economy and therefore not negotiable.

According to a Financial Times report, during the negotiations China promised to provide a list of all central and local government subsidies in accordance with World Trade Organisation requirements to ensure that they complied with WTO rules.

However, this was treated with scepticism by the US negotiators. “China’s system is so opaque that you would have to take their word that the WTO notification is complete,” one of Lighthizer’s staff told the newspaper.

This dismissive approach highlights the more general issue of whether the US will accept any agreements from the Chinese side without establishing its own mechanisms for determining whether they are being carried out. As Lighthizer has emphasised on numerous occasions, “enforcement” is a key question.

For Beijing any mechanism that allows the US to directly intervene in monitoring, enforcing or determining the level of state subsidies would be an intolerable infringement on its national sovereignty.

In addition, according to a source “familiar with the Chinese position,” cited by the South China Morning Post, Beijing is concerned that the “US would use the verification mechanism to make additional demands on the technology front.”

Chinese officials have emphasised that they are prepared to reach an agreement to reduce the trade deficit and have made commitments to increase purchases of US goods. But they are well aware that the fundamental US objective is to try to block China’s industrial and technological development.

The US regards Beijing’s Made in China 2025 program as a direct threat to its economic and ultimately military supremacy.

During the course of negotiations, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that China’s top planning agency was proposing to increase US semi-conductor sales to China to a total of over $200 billion over the next six years, or five times the current level in order to address the trade deficit.

However, in comments to the WSJ, John Neuffer, chief executive of the Semiconductor Industry Association, dismissed the proposal as a “distraction” and “too clever by half.” He described it as an “accounting gimmick designed to help China achieve its Made-in-China 2025 goals.”

The underlying US objectives are revealed not only in its positions during the trade talks but in its actions. The US Justice Department has charged Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of the Chinese telecom giant Huawei, with breaches of US sanctions against Iran and theft of intellectual property from the US firm T-Mobile.

While the trade negotiations were taking place this week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was lobbying Eastern European countries to exclude Huawei from participation in the establishment of 5G mobile phone networks.

The US has already secured the exclusion of Huawei from countries in the so-called Five Eyes intelligence group—the US, Canada, Australia, the UK and New Zealand—and wants the ban extended to all its allies.

In addition, the Trump administration reportedly has under consideration an executive order that would ban Chinese telecom companies from operating in the US on “national security” grounds. It would give greater authority to the Commerce Department to review purchases of products by companies connected to what are deemed “adversarial” countries.

Nationwide public sector strike hits Portugal

Will Morrow

Tens of thousands of teachers, nurses, garbage collection workers and other public sector employees took part in a nationwide strike in Portugal yesterday. They are fighting against wage cuts and austerity demanded by the European Union and imposed by the Socialist Party government of Prime Minister Antonio Costa.

The 24-hour strike was called by the major public sector trade unions, which support the Socialist Party government and its austerity policies, but are maneuvering to maintain control of a growing movement among nurses and other sections of workers that is increasingly developing outside of their control.

The strike in Portugal follows a 24-hour public-sector strike in Belgium on Wednesday, a strike of 70,000 teachers and public sector workers in Berlin the same day and mass protests of Italian workers opposing austerity and unemployment in Rome over the weekend. It takes place as tens of thousands of workers in France are due to take part today in the fourteenth weekly Yellow Vest protest against social inequality.

According to the National Teachers Federation, 90 percent of teachers and other school employees took part in the strike in Portugal, closing schools across the country. Roughly the same proportion of garbage collection workers struck.

The Common Front public sector union federation reported that more than two dozen hospitals had recorded a strike participation rate of between 75 and 100 percent in their Friday night shift, including at the Sao Jose and Santa Maria hospitals in Lisbon, and at the Sao Francisco Xavier, Santo Antonio and Pedro Hispano hospitals in Oporto.

Public sector workers have not received a wage increase for ten years. Their wages have been frozen every year by successive governments, and the Costa government announced last month that the freeze would be continued for another year. Only one group of public employees will receive a wage increase—those whose current wage of 580 euros per month is below the legal minimum wage of 600 euros.

A decade of austerity has led to a breakdown of schools and hospitals. Many teachers are hired to work for 3.5 hours per day but are expected to work the entire day, and are laid off at the conclusion of the school year for three months.

In contrast to the determination of workers to wage a struggle, the main union federations are motivated by entirely different concerns. Yesterday morning, Ana Avoila of the Common Front union declared that they “will not give up fighting until the elections,” which are due to be held in October. This points to the unions’ role in demobilizing opposition and channeling workers behind the re-election of a Socialist Party government.

The main UGT and CGTP union federations have called repeated one-day general strikes over the past five years, most recently last October, as a means of letting off steam among workers, as the unions have continued to negotiate further austerity. The latest strike is aimed at maintaining their control over and suppressing a movement among nurses in particular.

Beginning last November, tens of thousands of nurses supported calls for a strike that developed outside of the unions’ control on social media, particularly on WhatsApp groups. A statement published by a group of nurses called for a “surgical strike,” which would involve strikes of only a minority of workers at any one time, but enough to enforce the postponement of operations. The call was supported by Sindepor, the nurses’ union which is allied to the main Socialist Party UGT union federation, in order to prevent the strike from developing independently of the unions.

More than 14,000 workers, most of them nurses, donated money online via a crowd-funding page to provide a 42 euro daily wage to workers who strike. In the space of two months, the fund has raised over 600,000 euros. The strikes were first carried out between November 22 and December 31, forcing the postponement of 7,500 operations, and resumed on January 31 to continue until the end of February. According to government figures, it had caused the postponement of 2,657 operations in the week to February 8.

On February 7, the Costa government announced a legal injunction to shut down the nurses’ strike on the grounds that nurses—and not successive governments that have starved hospitals of funds in order to hand over billions of euros to billionaire hedge fund holders of Portuguese government bonds—are responsible for a reduction of services below a minimum required level. The Sindepor union has challenged the decision in the Supreme Court.

As part of an increasingly repressive crackdown against workers, the government has ordered that PPL, the private crowd-funding website, hand over the personal information, including IP addresses, of every worker who donated to the fund.

The trade unions have made clear that their real opponent in this situation is not the government, but workers themselves.

The president of the Portuguese Trade Union of Nurses, Lucia Leite, reacted to the president’s injunction announcement by warning of “more uncontrollable” forms of struggle by workers not supported by the unions themselves. “But I have a clear conscience,” she told Lula, because “I warned the Minister of Health about this risk.”

In an interview with RTP on January 30, UGT Secretary General Carlos Silva warned that any legal injunction against the nurses’ strike could trigger explosive opposition that the union could not control. “It’s not the attitude we expect from a leftist government,” he said. He asked if the government wanted to “maintain the climate of social conflict and wear out the unions”, and added: “And then negotiate with whom? The yellow vests, the social media networks, the inorganic movements? The government has to decide what it wants to do.”

Meanwhile, Publico magazine published a report yesterday, under the heading, “Hot Winter,” warning that the number of union strike warnings had reached 112 in the first month and a half of the year, compared to 260 in the whole of 2018, a roughly three-fold increase from the three previous years. The publication warned of signs of “contagion” of the nurses’ struggle among teachers.

Silva’s warning of Yellow Vest protests and “inorganic movements” expresses the real fears of the unions in Portugal and internationally—that workers, who are angered by the collaboration of the unions with continuous austerity, will take the struggle into their own hands and break out of the control of these pro-business apparatuses.

But that is exactly what is required. To take forward their struggle, nurses and other public sector workers should form their own independent organizations, networks of rank-and-file workplace committees—democratically controlled by workers themselves—in every hospital, school and workplace. Such committees would provide a means for workers to reach out and organize a joint struggle with their counterparts across national borders and overcome the continuous sabotage by the union apparatuses.

Such a fight must be coupled with a new political perspective. The anti-working class and pro-business policies of the Socialist Party government demonstrate the bankruptcy of all those forces who have worked to promote it, including not only the unions, but the pseudo-left Left Bloc party.

The answer to the program of capitalist austerity defended by all these parties is the taking of political power by the working class in Portugal and across Europe, and the reorganization of economic life on a socialist basis, according to social need, rather than private profit. Billions of dollars must be poured into healthcare, education and providing decent jobs for all workers, through the transformation of the banks and major corporations into public utilities under workers’ control.

Spanish government falls amid Catalan crisis

Alejandro López

On Friday, two days after his budget was voted down in the Congress, Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called a snap general election for April 28. Sanchez’s government, the shortest-lived since the Transition from fascist to parliamentary democratic rule in 1978, fell over the state prosecution of Catalan political prisoners who organized or supported the October 1, 2017, independence referendum. They face up to 25 years in prison on false charges of having instigated violence during the referendum.

Sánchez criticized Catalan nationalist parliamentarians who voted down his budget in retaliation for his trying of the Catalan nationalist prisoners. “When some parties block the taking of decisions, it is necessary to call new elections,” he said. “There are parliamentary defeats that are social victories,” he added, claiming that supposedly progressive measures inscribed in the budget that the PSOE is abandoning meant that “citizens have seen what we wanted for the country.”

Other PSOE officials said they were happy to abandon the budget to focus instead on attacking the Catalan nationalists. “It’s too bad the budget was not approved, but paradoxically thanks to that we now have a line. The right cannot throw in our face the accusation of having any agreement with the separatists. It was something that hurt us and that provoked uncertainty in parts of our electorate,” a leading PSOE mayor told El Pais .

The PSOE is opening the door to the most right-wing campaign since 1978, in which the imposition of austerity and police-state rule is to proceed under cover of opposition to Catalan separatism. Elections in 2015 and 2016 produced hung parliaments, as votes split between the PSOE, the right wing Popular Party (PP), Citizens (Cs), and Podemos. Now, while the PSOE denounces the Catalan nationalists, the PP aims to assemble a narrow right wing majority on the basis of an anti-Catalan coalition with Cs and the new, pro-fascist VOX party.

VOX leader Santiago Abascal declared that “the Living Spain,” as he calls his supporters, “has finally defeated an infamous legislature.” He also denounced as “incapable and cowardly” the previous PP government of Mariano Rajoy, for having failed to crack down violently enough on the Catalan independence referendum.

This comment by Abascal, who has defended the genocidal record of Francisco Franco’s fascist army during the Spanish Civil War, underscores that VOX speaks for factions of the bourgeoisie planning military repression of the population.

Under Rajoy, Madrid sent 16,000 police to violently assault voters in the Catalan independence referendum, including the elderly, injuring over 1,000. It then jailed Catalan nationalist politicians in pre-trial detention and dissolved the elected Catalan government, using Article 155 of the 1978 Constitution to replace it with a government named by Madrid. At the height of the crisis, the PP threatened direct military intervention in Catalonia. Nonetheless, Abascal is attacking this record as insufficient.

PP leader Pablo Casado, while calling his party a “calm, moderate force,” stressed that he would work with Citizens and VOX to win a majority. Citing the “Andalusian pact” where the three parties are in a regional governmental alliance in Andalusia, he stressed the PP would build no “sanitary cordon” walling it off from the explicitly pro-Franco position of VOX. “Sanitary cordons always harm those that build them,” Casado commented, adding that he was fighting the “Popular Front,” that is, the government brought down by Franco’s coup and civil war.

In recent weeks, Casado has also unleashed a torrent of hysterical insults against Sánchez, calling him a “felon,” a “compulsive liar,” “illegitimate,” a “squatter” and guilty of “high treason.”

Similarly, Citizens leader Albert Rivera demanded that “all candidates position themselves” on the Catalan issue. He added that, if elected, he would “promise not to pardon the coup plotters,” that is, the prosecuted Catalan leaders. He warned that there could be a new “Frankenstein government,” with Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias “as deputy prime minister in charge of Spain’s economy and the separatists deciding how my country should be ruled.”

The principal danger in this situation is that the working class is not fully aware of the threat of police and military rule. There is no opposition from the European Union (EU) to the drive to legitimize Francoism, and what passes as opposition within the Spanish political establishment are split between open supporters of the policies of the right, and political indifference.

On Wednesday, Sánchez accused Citizens and the PP of failing to show the same “loyalty” to the government he had shown to the previous conservative government: “The PP government had the institutional loyalty of the Socialists. But they were not loyal, not only to us, but to Spain.” He added that “we’ve been willing to compromise with those who think differently. We’re pro-Europe, progressive, left-leaning, and not a single OECD country has had more female ministers than us.”

In government, the PSOE was virtually indistinguishable from the PP. Its fundamental agenda was further austerity for the working class, stepped-up militarism in the service of Spain’s geo-strategic ambitions and re-stabilizing the state after the Catalan independence crisis.

On democratic rights, it continued the PP’s clampdown. They have endorsed so-called “hot returns” of undocumented migrants—quick deportations that bypass immigration laws—at the southern borders of Ceuta and Melilla, and defended the anti-democratic Public Safety Law, better known by its nickname of the “gag law.” On the Catalan court case, the Sánchez government told state attorneys to charge the jailed nationalists under sedition, which carries a 15-year sentence.

Podemos has made clear it will mount no serious opposition to the right-wing campaign. Rather, it is fraudulently claiming that the Podemos-backed PSOE government was a success. Podemos parliamentary spokesperson Irene Montero cited “the most socially progressive budgets in history” as the main accomplishment of that government. But plans for an increased minimum wage, an end to the “gag law” outlawing the filming of police repression of protests, and subsidies for the elderly unemployed—many of which were included in the failed budget—will not pass after this week’s budget vote.

She said that Podemos and the PSOE had “In the eight months … worked to do things pushed by millions of people who have not given up.” In fact, the vote for the PSOE and Podemos collapsed in the last elections held in the most populous region in Spain, Andalusia, as hundreds of thousands refused to support these parties and instead preferred to abstain.

According to Montero, however, Sánchez’s gravest mistake was to not have integrated Podemos in his government. This would have produced a “stable and solid government with which to present itself in Europe.” She also attacked the Catalan nationalists for not having supported the PSOE government, cynically claiming Sánchez was “the best guarantee of an honest and sensible dialogue with Catalonia.”

Asked about possible post-electoral agreements, Montero said that Podemos would “speak with all the legitimate representatives of the citizens,” opening the door to alliances with all parties.

Nothing exposes more clearly the complacent and indifferent attitude of Podemos to the dangers facing the working class more than Montero’s announcement that Iglesias, her partner, would continue on paternity leave during the campaign, in which he is Podemos’ lead candidate. She claimed this is a way of showing what “type of Spain we want,” one in which men and women share household duties. In fact, it underscores that Podemos is largely unconcerned by the drive towards police-state rule in Spain, which it does not intend to fight seriously.