European Union joins US economic war against Chinese electric vehicles

Nick Beams

The European Union has decided to join the US-inspired trade war against Chinese exports of electrical vehicles (EVs) despite deep divisions within its own ranks with the opposition led by Germany.

Geely Auto Group unveils the Galaxy Starship a new technology flagship AI-driven SUV prototype at Auto China 2024 in Beijing, April 25, 2024 [AP Photo/Ng Han Guan]

The imposition of the tariffs, which could go as high as 48 percent in some cases, was announced in a lengthy European Commission report, which was initiated in September of last year.

It notified carmakers on Wednesday that it will apply duties of an additional 17 to 38 percent on top of the existing 10 percent tariff which is imposed on all Chinese EVs from July 4, unless in the unlikely event that some agreement to limit exports is reached before then.

The duty varies according to each company and whether it is deemed to have co-operated with the EU Commission. But two of the major companies BYD, the world’s largest EV manufacturer and Geely, which owns the Swedish company Volvo, are set to be hit by tariffs of between 17 and 20 percent.

The commission said that Telsa, which has factories in China, may receive an individually calculated rate.

The opposition has been led by Germany because of the close involvement of German companies in the Chinese market both as a buyer for their products, a base for manufacturing and as a source of component parts. It fears that Chinese retaliation is going to have significant adverse effects.

The German auto industry, one of the largest in the world, forms the backbone of the the country’s manufacturing industry.

According to EU officials, in the lead up to the decision, German chancellor Olaf Scholz put pressure on European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to drop the investigation, but to no avail.

As the decision was being prepared, he came out publicly against the move saying that “isolation and illegal customs barriers… ultimately just make everything more expensive, and everyone poorer.”

The German company Volkswagen is one of the most heavily involved in China. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal it has an EV factory in Hefei in which more than a thousand robots are involved in the manufacture of an all-electric SUV, which it intends to export to Europe. VW officials say it is one of the company’s most efficient in the world, drastically reducing the time taken from design to mass-market production.

China is the market for one third of VW sales as well as a production base for its exports.

In a recent interview, cited by the Journal, Ralf Brandstätter, the CEO of VW operations in China, expressed the company’s opposition to the tariff moves.

“We stand for fair and open trade and do not want additional protectionist measures. We have to adapt to this new situation instead of putting up new barriers.”

Sweden and Hungary are also opposed to the tariffs, with Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban joining Scholz. The Czech Republic and Slovakia are also expected to join the opposition. But so far, the opponents appear to have fallen short of the additional 11 needed to overturn the decision when it comes up for ratification by member states on November 2.

In response to the announcement, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian denounced the EU move and the anti-subsidy investigation on which it was based as a “typical example of protectionism” which “violates market economy principles and international trade rules.”

Beijing has yet to specify as to how it might respond but it has said it will “take every necessary measure” to defend Chinese interests. This could include restrictions on European dairy products and the imports of luxury vehicles. In January, China launched an anti-dumping investigation into the imports of French cognac in response to the push by Paris for the EV probe.

While the tariff hikes are significant, there is considerable doubt as to how much impact they will have, as a number of studies have revealed.

In 2023 China exported $10 billion worth of EVs to the EU, doubling its market share to 8 percent, with predictions that it could rise to 15 percent by next year. One of the main reasons is price, as the cost of Chinese EVs is about 20 percent lower than corresponding EU-made cars.

Bill Russo, the former head of Chrysler in China, told the Financial Times (FT) that while the tariffs would promote production in Europe, they would have little effect on the growth of BYD, which is competing with Tesla as the biggest manufacturer of EVs in the world.

“Will it slow them down? No. If you put that kind of tariff on top of the Chinese cost structure, it is still going to be better on cost that anything the European carmakers are currently capable of doing,” he said.

Yale Zhang, managing director of the Shanghai-based consultancy firm Automotive Foresight made the same point in comments to the FT.

“Even if Chinese EV brands sell their cars in Europe at 50 percent higher than [their domestic retail prices], they’re still very competitive.”

In a report on the EU investigation into Chinese EVs released in April, the Rhodium Group said it expected duties of between 15 and 30 percent.

“But even if the duties come in at the higher end of the range, some Chinese-based producers will still be able to generate comfortable profit margins in the cars they export to Europe because of the substantial cost advantages they enjoy,” the report said.

A review of the economics of the decision strongly indicates that political considerations were involved. No doubt France and Spain were pushing for the move in order to boost national production. But the EU has been under great pressure from the US to join its economic war against China in the fields of high tech and green technology of which EV production is part.

This was underscored in a major speech delivered in Germany at the end of last month by US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen in which she emphasised the importance of a “transatlantic alliance” in the drive against China.

In this situation any decision by the European Commission not to take action on EV tariffs would have meant a major breach of relations with the US.

At the same time, however, a decision to follow the US and impose a 100 percent tariff, as Washington did last month, and seek to totally exclude Chinese vehicles seems to have been considered a bridge too far.

This is because it would have brought significant retaliatory action from China, impacting most heavily on Germany and its auto industry, and widened the divisions within the EU itself on the issue of China.

The EU decision, irrational as it is from an economic standpoint, reveals that it is inextricably bound up with an even greater insanity—the drive by the US for the subjugation of China, if necessary through war, as it strives to maintain its global dominance.

The National Academy of Sciences issues a damning report on Long COVID in the United States

Benjamin Mateus

“The Academy shall, whenever called upon by any Department of the Government, investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art …” March 3, 1863, signed by then President Abraham Lincoln

In August 2022, the Social Security Administration (SSA) charged the Health and Medicine Division of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (the actual name of the institution popularly known as the National Academy of Sciences, NAS) to convene a committee of experts to review the chronic health impact related to infections with SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19. 

In the statement of tasks, the SSA wrote that the Academy “will review the evidence regarding long-term disability that may result from COVID-19 illness and produce a report addressing the current status of the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of related disabilities based on published evidence (to the extent possible) and professional judgment (where evidence is lacking).” 

The NAS report [Photo: National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine]

However, the SSA specifically requested “the committee’s conclusions regarding best practices for assessing disability in these populations,” but to “make no recommendations.” This has profound implications for the millions of people who continue to struggle, filing disability claims that are frequently rejected.

A USA Today report from last year found, “Although the federal government has said that Long COVID can be considered a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the health care system doesn’t have a clear way to diagnose it. There is no single test to identify Long COVID, and not having a positive test of the initial COVID infection can be a barrier to qualifying for disability, long haulers say.” 

How the SSA defines a disability makes it nearly impossible for Long COVID sufferers, whose illness may wax and wane or manifest different symptoms, to qualify for benefits. The condition must last at least a year and the government only pays out five months after they deem a person is qualified, which can be an eternity for those who can no longer work or care for themselves. Delays and denials of benefits are further exacerbated by a healthcare system poorly equipped to order appropriate tests and adequately document evidence of Long COVID in patients.

Almost two years later, after extensive discussions and exhaustive research into every facet of the multisystem disorder and high-level interviews with several established experts in the burgeoning field of Long COVID, on June 5, 2024, the NAS published a 265-page report drafted by a committee of 14 doctors and researchers, meticulously detailing the chronic disability the country’s population has been exposed to as a result of the “forever COVID” policy pursued under the administrations of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. 

At present, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, 17.8 percent of US adults have experienced Long COVID, or nearly 50 million people. Since last winter’s peak in infections, the number of adults reporting Long COVID symptoms has remained stubbornly high at 6.8 percent, or around 17.6 million. In a JAMA Medical News Brief from February 14, 2024, the number of children living with post-COVID conditions, including neurological consequences like loss of smell and brain fog, as well as mental health conditions including anxiety, was estimated at about six million.

In their summary the NAS committee wrote, “Long COVID is associated with a wide range of new or worsening health conditions and encompasses more than 200 symptoms involving nearly every organ system.” Average estimates of these found that four percent can expect chronic cardiovascular health effects. About six percent develop neurological and psychiatric symptoms, six percent may have gastrointestinal disorders and up to four percent experience pulmonary issues. 

Fatigue remains the dominant symptom, affecting upwards to three-quarters of those with Long COVID. Post-exertional malaise, or fatigue after minor physical or mental exertion, is insidious and may impact a significant majority of long haulers. They are unable to exercise, work or return to their daily activities. 

Cognitive impairments mean that those affected do not have the ability to think normally. They can’t recall information easily, process information or pay attention, or problem-solve and use executive functions to multitask. There are also conditions under the heading of autonomic dysfunction, which means problems like brain fog, lightheadedness and rapid heart rates.

However, the NAS report acknowledged there are no consensus-based diagnostic criteria for Long COVID because of the multisystem nature of the disease. Additionally, the study makes the critical point that due to the nature of testing in the US, sole reliance by healthcare and insurance companies on a documented history of SARS-CoV-2 infection when considering the diagnosis of Long COVID will miss many people. The scientific understanding, however, is that “the presence of signs and symptoms and self-reported prior infection are generally considered sufficient to establish a diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection.”

Protesters hold placards outside the COVID Inquiry at Dorland House in London, Monday, Dec. 11, 2023. [AP Photo/Frank Augstein]

The report also stated that the severity of Long COVID increases with the severity of the acute phase of the infection. According to their research, the committee said, “People whose infection was sufficiently severe to necessitate hospitalizations are two to three times more likely to experience Long COVID than are those who were not hospitalized, and among those who were hospitalized, individuals requiring life support in the intensive care unit may be twice as likely to experience Long COVID.” They then noted, “However people with mild disease can also develop Long COVID and given the much higher number of people with mild versus severe disease, they make up the great majority of people with Long COVID.”

Other factors exacerbating Long COVID severity, the study noted, include being female, lack of vaccination, baseline disability or chronic health conditions, and smoking. But in their investigation, given the SSA’s current Listing of Impairments, the NAS investigators concluded, “[Most] individuals with Long COVID applying for Social Security Disability benefits will do so based on health effects not covered in the Listings.”

Regarding Long COVID among children and adolescents, the committee members made the following important observation:

It is important to note that in pediatrics, because of typical development, the baseline for performance of skills is constantly changing, especially among young children. This can make deviations in their performance during Long COVID challenging to assess, and there may be a delay in recognition of any deviations (e.g., lack of developing a skill at the appropriate age).

Additionally, the duration of symptoms (e.g., 1 or 3 months) can feel very different to and have a greater impact on children compared with adults. Currently, there is a dearth of prospective and cross-sectional studies on the prevalence, risk factors, and time course and pattern of Long COVID in children. More research is needed to identify the long-term functional implications of Long COVID in children, because information from adult studies may not be directly applicable to the pediatric population.

There are as yet no approved drugs or disease-modifying treatments for Long COVID. Recently, a Reuters report on a study with 155 participants who took a 15-day course of Paxlovid versus placebo found the drug failed to reduce the Long COVID symptoms of fatigue, brain fog, shortness of breath, body aches, or cardiovascular or gastrointestinal symptoms. 

Although the COVID vaccines have shown the potential to reduce the risks of Long COVID, the current policy that allows the virus to continue to re-infect millions each week only undermines these benefits. Scientific research has shown repeat infections can exacerbate Long COVID compared to a single infection. However, vaccine hesitancy, misinformation and the evisceration of public health has led to a plummeting in the uptake of vaccines by the public.

What is left then to help those with Long COVID? The NAS committee wrote, “As with other complex multisystem conditions, management of Long COVID relies on techniques for controlling symptoms and improving functional ability, such as pacing (i.e., balancing periods of activity and rest in daily life), mobility support, social support, diet modulation, pharmacological treatment of secondary health effects, cognitive behavioral therapy, and rehabilitation. Management often requires a multidisciplinary team.”

Given how heavily COVID has impacted workers, in particular low-income wage earners who faced the brunt of COVID with limited access to healthcare and subjected to strict work demands without any meaningful paid sick leave, for them the forever COVID policy also means forever Long COVID. The notion that masses of workers will be able to engage in “pacing” or have a multidisciplinary healthcare team that can care for them is laughable. 

Although the population is told that their Long COVID symptoms will improve over time, recovery may stall after six to twelve months. Only 22 percent of people at six months will make a full recovery by one year. For those who don’t fully recover, some can see their symptoms continue to worsen. 

These same points were underscored in the committee report. They stated, “Patients with Long COVID may encounter skepticism about their symptoms when they present in medical settings, which discourages care seeking. This is particularly true for individuals disadvantaged by their social or economic status, geographic location, or environment, and can result in preventable disparities in the burden of disease and opportunities to achieve optimal health ... Individuals with Long COVID have increased health care utilization and financial burden, which may be exacerbated if they are unable to work to gain income and or receive health insurance coverage.”

Milei’s fascistic Law of Bases nears vote in Argentine Senate as union apparatus facilitates approval

Rafael Azul

Argentine President Javier Milei’s “Law of Bases” (Ley de Bases, aka, the omnibus bill) is approaching a vote in the Senate. While Milei has threatened to remove the bill for a second time if legislators introduce too many changes, several media reports indicate a growing likelihood of its approval “within days.” 

Argentine Senate debates the omnibus bill, May 22, 2024. [Photo: Senado Argentina]

The omnibus bill is a set of 250 neo-liberal measures aimed against the working class. The lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, approved the legislation last month.

If the Senate does approve the Law of Bases, with no changes, it will make it easier for banks, corporations, and public agencies to sack full time workers at will and replace them with contingent “gig” workers and temps, bringing back the infamous “shape-ups” of the past. New reprisals against strikers in the public sector will include the non-payment of wages, suspensions and layoffs.

The legislation would sanction the declaration of a state of emergency citing the existing economic crisis and other “emergencies,” which would give the fascistic president widespread authoritarian powers to further attack the social and democratic rights of workers. 

This legislation also imposes new income taxes for single workers earning yearly extremely low wages of US $2,000 and families earning US $2400, adjusted for inflation.

These measures are coupled with reductions in property taxes, along with measures that facilitate the privatization of public firms and deregulation of capitalist industry. Together they will ensure the immiseration of the working class, the destruction of its democratic and social rights, and a sharp increase in the gap between rich and poor.

The “center-right” Radical Civic Union (UCR), which holds the balance in the Senate, is demanding the removal of the state of emergency provisions, the halting of the privatization or elimination of a handful of state companies, institutions and funds, and the curtailment of some of the massive investments for corporations. 

Even if approved with these changes, the legislation constitutes a massive counter-revolutionary attack on public services and workers’ rights. A “Regime of Incentives for Big Investments” for natural gas and mining would remain in place, turning Argentina into an economy dependent on natural resource exports.

In the six months since Milei took over as president, the collapse of Argentina’s economy has accelerated; living costs have shot up relative to wages, and unemployment is on the rise, as many small and medium firms shut down, or greatly reduce their operations. The Argentine crisis is also impacting the economies of other Latin American nations.

Since the end of World War II, Argentina has gone through waves of inflationary and hyper inflationary crises combined with stagflation—growing unemployment, rising inequality—and periods of brutal military rule.

What is developing today is the worst economic crisis in 70 years, the culmination of a continuous wave of economic crises and implosions that followed the end of World War II and the overthrow in 1955 of President Juan Domingo Perón, whose integration of the trade unions into the state and other aspects of his regime were inspired by Mussolini’s Italy.

Throughout this entire epoch the working class has fought, resisted, and protested, as it is resisting the Milei administration today. The most salient epochs of rebellion (1968, 1982, 2001) raised the necessity of a socialist revolution and a workers’ government.

In May 1969, a protest took place involving sugar workers in Tucuman Province, followed by protest strikes in the industrial cities of Córdoba and Rosario that led to the end of Franco-like Onganía dictatorship. 

The Cordobazo and Rosariazo forced the resignation of the Onganía-Lanusse dictatorship, but without a revolutionary leadership and a program of concrete demands, the working class was diverted back toward illusions in Peronism and blocked from power. The Stalinist Communist Party, the trade unions, the pseudo-left organizations led by Nahuel Moreno and those advocating for Castroite guerrillaism all bear political responsibility for this outcome.

Three years of right-wing Peronist rule followed, including the formation of the right-wing Triple A death squads directed against radicalized workers, militant students, and the Montonero left-wing guerrilla movement (Peronist). 

In 1976, the military dictatorship took over. Some 30,000 workers and students were “disappeared” (murdered) by the military. By 1980, Argentina was going through an enormous economic and debt crisis, combining mass unemployment and hyperinflation. Once more, the working class responded with revolutionary strikes and protests, particularly in the auto industry, centered in Cordoba. In 1981, the US-backed military junta went through five “presidents.”  

The military, in desperate fear of more workers’ uprisings, initiated the war over the British-occupied Malvinas Islands, a military disaster that caused thousands of deaths and the end of the junta. The war was supported by the CGT and Peronism, which helped recruit volunteers for the Argentine army.

Rather than call for the dictatorship’s defeat and a policy of unity between British and Argentine workers against their own regimes, Nahuel Moreno and other Pabloite renegades of Trotskyism advanced a policy of critical support for the junta. Even following the defeat, these organizations took a passive hands-off attitude as the working class once more renewed its struggle.

Fast forward to 2001, as the native financial oligarchy was removing billions from the country to invest them in Wall Street, which bankrupted the Argentine banking system, the working class rose up and forced the resignation of President Fernando de la Rúa and four other presidents in less than two weeks. Workers occupied factories and carried out protest strikes.

Throughout this whole 32-year period (1969-2001), Argentina’s ruling class parties—the Peronists and the center-right—together with the military, presided over one inflationary crisis after another, while living standards collapsed for the working class.

The current government, led by Milei, is already facing mass working class opposition as it imposes deep austerity measures, in the interest of the ruling class, which consists of the landed oligarchy, the industrial monopolies, and the financial aristocracy.

Once again it is up to the working class to replace this government with a workers’, socialist, regime. This means breaking with those pseudo-left leaderships that create illusions in the falsely called “classist” and “pro-worker” sections of the trade union apparatus and in Peronism.

The General Workers Federation (CGT) of Argentina and the Autonomous Argentine Workers Federation (CTA-A) were among the attendees at the 112th conference of the United Nations’ International Labor Organization (ILO) which began in Geneva on June 3 and will end on June 16. On June 6, these union federations made presentations at the conference asking that the ILO members to support the struggle of Argentine workers against Milei’s “Law of Bases.”

The CGT’s and CTA’s call for support was directed not to the workers of the world, but to the governments and other union bureaucracies attending the ILO meeting to help provide a cover for betraying the struggle of Argentine workers against Milei’s bill.

True to form, on June 6, Gerardo Martínez, a CGT leader, used the podium at the ILO meeting to announce that his federation intended to carry out a “dialogue” with President Milei: “We are committed to an agenda of dialogue,” he said, offering Milei the CGT’s help in restructuring the Argentine economy and promoting growth. Ominously, he declared that “without a state, there is no nation,” a phrase full of fascistic content.

The version of the omnibus bill approved by the Chamber of Deputies was already modified according to certain demands made by the CGT to secure the economic interests of the union bureaucracy, including the removal of an earlier ban on automatic dues payments to unions from non-members, called “solidarity dues.” 

Prison terms of up to three years for setting up picket lines outside workplaces were also eliminated from the current version, as well as blanket bans on strikes in some “essential services” like education. These changes, however, have merely served to underpin the ability of the union bureaucracy to suppress opposition to the bill, with the CGT becoming an effective cosponsor of the bill.

Why is the far-right vote surging in the European elections?

Peter Schwarz & Alex Lantier

Sunday’s European elections saw a surge in the vote for far-right and neo-fascist parties. The European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) coalition, led by the Brothers of Italy (FdI), the Identity and Democracy (ID) coalition of France’s National Rally and the Alternative for Germany won 146 seats altogether. This is over one-fifth of the EU Parliament’s 720 seats and a 28-seat increase from the previous record vote for the far right in the 2019 European elections.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen speaks as Jordan Bardella, president of the French far-right National Rally, listens at the party election night headquarters. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)

The result is a humiliating disavowal by voters of the current social-democratic and liberal parties that dominate the European Union (EU) and the EU Parliament.

These parties campaigned as defenders of the decades-long EU austerity diktat, supporters of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and promoters of a massive escalation of the US-NATO war with Russia in Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz recently announced plans to bomb Russia with NATO missiles, and French President Emmanuel Macron has moved to send troops to Ukraine to fight Russia.

Scholz’s Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) fell to 13.9 percent of the vote. This is its worst election result in 137 years, when the young SPD’s activities were largely banned under Bismarck’s Anti-Socialist Laws. Their Green coalition partners lost 8.6 percentage points, falling to 11.9 percent. Together with the 5.2 percent of the Free Democratic Party, the German government parties won only 31 percent of the vote. The far-right AfD took 15.9 percent of the vote and 15 seats, coming second behind only the right-wing Christian-Democrats (30 percent).

In France, with 31.4 percent of the vote, Marine Le Pen’s neo-fascist RN trounced Macron’s party, which collapsed to 14.6 percent of the vote, as well as the Socialist Party (PS, 13.9 percent) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed (LFI, 9.9 percent).

Macron reacted Sunday night by suddenly dissolving parliament and calling snap legislative elections for June 30–July 7. The RN is set to make large gains and possibly form France’s first-ever neo-fascist government.

What political dynamic has underlain the rapid growth of the far-right parties? It is not the emergence of mass, middle-class fascist movements like the Nazi “Brown Shirts,” the Italian fascist “Black Shirts,” or the French Nazi-collaborationist Milice units. Europe’s far-right wave is not the product of mass fascist sentiment in the working class or in the broader population.

In fact, military aggression and genocide, the policies championed by European fascism, face mass opposition. Polls have found 68 percent in France, 80 percent in Germany and 90 percent in Poland oppose Macron’s call to send troops to Ukraine to fight Russia. And popular opposition to the Gaza genocide, which has triggered protests across Europe, is so deep that even EU governments that arm Israel feel compelled to issue a few hypocritical and insincere criticisms of the ongoing mass murder.

The rise of the far right is the product rather of the systematic disenfranchisement of the workers by nationalist, bureaucratic organizations that the media and the ruling class promote as the “left.” Unlike the far right—which tries to exploit mass discontent with the existing political system, denouncing it as a conspiracy against the nation and expressing reservations about unrestrained war with Russia—these parties of the affluent middle class exude complacency and self-satisfaction.

Even in the face of war between nuclear-armed powers, genocide and the surge of police state and fascistic forms of rule, these organizations insist that popular opposition must be tied to debilitating alliances with parties of capitalist government and allied union bureaucracies. Whatever criticisms they make of the far right, they are far more hostile to Trotskyism and to building a revolutionary movement in the European working class for socialism.

Yesterday, David North, the chairman of the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), replied to the complaints of Yanis Varoufakis, the former finance minister of Greece’s SYRIZA (“Coalition of the Radical Left”) government, on his “personal defeat.”

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“Would it not be appropriate for [Varoufakis] to examine his political responsibility, and that of the pseudo-left tendencies, for the resurgence of the fascistic right? The betrayals of Syriza, Podemos, Corbynism, et al. have provided an opportunity for the extreme right.”

Their treachery is epitomized by SYRIZA, which came to power in 2015, pledging to stop EU austerity policies, only to flagrantly betray its promises. Forming a government alliance with the far-right Independent Greeks (ANEL) party, it adopted a further EU austerity package slashing living standards and built EU prison camps for refugees. After leaving power in disgrace in 2019, SYRIZA is now led, fittingly enough, by former Goldman Sachs banker Stefanos Kasselakis.

Such treachery and fecklessness, repeated in various guises in every country, is opening a path for the far right. For a long time, the German Left Party served the SPD-led government as a left-wing fig leaf. It expressed verbal criticism but supported the war and attacks on the working class. Now, with 2.7 percent, it has achieved its worst result in a European election. Even in the province of Thuringia, where it still has Bodo Ramelow as prime minister, it only achieved 5.7 percent.

From the Left Party there emerged the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which combines limited criticisms of the war in Ukraine with xenophobia and social demagoguery and explicitly rejects socialism. It received 6.2 percent of the vote nationwide and as much as 13.9 percent in the former territory of the Stalinist East German regime.

In France, Mélenchon’s LFI lost half its vote in the 2022 presidential elections, when it had 20 percent and a majority in working class districts of almost all France’s largest cities. It consistently rejected making any appeal to mobilize its electorate in strikes and struggles, even during last year’s mass strikes against Macron’s pension cuts, when two-thirds of French people supported blocking the economy with a general strike against Macron. It insisted that protests against the Gaza genocide had to be based on a perspective of supporting LFI members’ maneuvers in parliament.

LFI works entirely within the ever more authoritarian framework of France’s police state. Mélenchon pledged during the 2022 elections to serve as prime minister under either Macron or a neo-fascist president. In these elections, LFI allied with the Stalinist French Communist Party and with pro-Ukraine war PS candidate Raphaël Glucksmann, issuing only verbal complaints even as the Macron government threatened to prosecute its members for statements of solidarity with Gaza.

Critical conclusions must be drawn from this continuing surge of the far right in European politics. In the absence of a Marxist-internationalist revolutionary leadership in the working class, the neo-fascists grow uninterruptedly—even amid mass strikes and protests.

The far right enjoys support from powerful sections of the capitalist media and ruling class because it gives the sharpest and clearest expression to the needs of imperialism in a period of war, genocide and capitalist crisis.

Their promotion of nationalism and police-state rule divides workers along national lines, legitimizes militarism, and promotes violent hostility to socialism. As the French RN’s shift on the Russia war—notably its decision not to vote against military aid to Ukraine—makes clear, the neo-fascists do not oppose imperialist war, but are preparing to adjust themselves to the military escalation being prepared by NATO.

Nigeria’s trade union leaders sabotage general strike over minimum wage

Jean Shaoul

On the second day of a nationwide general strike calling for a higher minimum wage, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) leaders suspended the strike “for a week” and rushed into talks with the government and the employers’ association. 

The unions are intent on suppressing massive opposition within the working class to Nigeria’s atrocious living conditions, intensified by the ruling class’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the soaring of prices due to the US-NATO war against Russia in the Ukraine and the government’s disastrous austerity policies. They are shoring up the country’s capitalist regime, which is facing its worst economic crisis in decades.

Workers across Nigeria began indefinite strike action on June 3 in a long-running battle to establish a liveable minimum wage for those holding down a regular job—92 percent work in the “informal sector” where they earn far less—and to oppose an increase in electricity prices. The strike shut down the power grid shortly after 2 a.m., throwing the whole country into darkness. Many flights were cancelled from Lagos, the busiest airport, and from the capital, Abuja. Schools, offices and hospitals remained closed.

With the minimum wage of N30,000 per month, agreed in 2019, having expired in April, the unions had sought N494,000 per month to keep up with the skyrocketing cost of living following President Bola Tinubu’s free market reforms. The government and the employers’ association were reportedly considering 62,000 naira ($40) per month, a starvation-level payment about which the NLC had previously declared, “The Government’s counteroffer mocks the excruciating hardship brought on workers by its insensitive and oppressive economic policies.”

Nigeria's President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, center first row, poses for a group photo with other West African leaders before an ECOWAS meeting in Abuja, Nigeria. Thursday, August 10, 2023. West African heads of state began meeting Thursday on next steps after Niger's military junta defied their deadline to reinstate the nation's deposed president. [AP Photo/Gbemiga Olamikan]

Information Minister Mohammed Idris said that the unions’ demand would increase the government wage bill by 9.5 trillion naira ($6.3 billion), which is “capable of destabilising the economy.”

The N494,000 was already lower than the N600,000 the unions had used in public speeches, while the government barely moved on its offer. Shittu Lawal, a civil servant in the northern city of Kano, told the BBC he wanted at least N100,000 a month. “Even 100,000 naira won’t be enough as prices in the market have gone up but it will be better than what we have now. I spend 500 naira to get to work every day which is not easy, we will return to work now and continue to push for more,” he said.

The unions have refused to restart the strike, claiming that the government was considering their latest demand of N250,000 per month, less than half the amount demanded by workers. In the same breath, they noted a “wide gulf” between that and the N62,000 a month apparently on offer from the president, an amount state governors have already rejected and which press reports had earlier said the unions had accepted. 

The strike is the fourth major action since Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress became president in May last year, after winning less than 50 percent of the vote in an election marred by fraud and other irregularities and a 27 percent voter turnout that sparked angry protests and a dawn to dusk curfew in Kano state. There is widespread anger over mass unemployment, endemic poverty—some 87 million of Nigeria’s 229 million and predominantly young population live in poverty--and unprecedented social inequality in Africa’s largest country. 

Nigeria Labour Congress protest on the street in Lagos, Nigeria, , July 26, 2022. [AP Photo/Sunday Alamba]

Inheriting an empty treasury and a huge debt burden from his predecessor Muhammadu Buhari, who stepped down after his eight-year tenure, Tinubu moved swiftly to implement the demands of Nigeria’s creditors, including the removal of the fuel subsidy, introduced decades ago because despite being a major oil producer, Africa’s largest, Nigeria has little oil refinery capacity. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) floated the naira, previously pegged to the US dollar, to unify the exchange rate on the official and black markets. By February, the currency had fallen by 70 percent, forcing the CBN to authorize armed raids on currency exchanges across the country and arrest two executives from Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange platform, and the government to seek additional loans. The government, at both federal and state level, spends more on debt servicing than on public infrastructure and services. 

With Nigeria dependent upon the import of most of its essential commodities, including food and medicine, the devaluation led to soaring inflation, 34 percent in April, the highest since March 1996, with food inflation reaching 41 percent, up from 25 percent a year ago. According to the International Monetary Fund, “per capita income has stagnated. Real GDP growth slowed to 2.9 percent in 2023, with weak agriculture and trade… despite the improvement in oil production and financial services.” The International Monetary Fund anticipates that Nigeria, once Africa’s largest economy, will slip to fourth place behind Egypt and Algeria.

Nigeria’s monthly minimum wage of N30,000, equal to $84 in May 2019 and $65 when Tinubu became President in May 2023, has fallen to just $20 today. Children are going to bed hungry while the sick have to forego medication. People have died in stampedes for free sacks of rice. 

The removal of the fuel subsidy, with 75 percent of Nigeria’s electricity supply coming from diesel and petrol-powered generators, tripled the cost of fuel, putting electricity and transport out of reach and driving up manufacturing costs.

Ethnic and religious conflicts have disrupted agriculture, including armed conflicts with jihadist groups in the northeast and Biafran separatists in the southeast, herder-farmer conflicts in north-central, the widespread operations of criminal gangs as well as kidnappings to extort a ransom. Nigeria, once a large net exporter of food, now has to import some of its food products.

In July last year, Tinubu declared a state of emergency. Since then, the situation deteriorated further. The Central Bank repeatedly raised interest rates to an unprecedented 26.25 percent in a bid to stabilize the naira and curb soaring inflation.

Every year, four to five million young Nigerians enter the job market and struggle to find work. According to official statistics, the unemployment rate had risen to 33.3 percent in 2020 and is now estimated at about 40 percent by the consultants KPMG, prompting a surge in the number of young Nigerians trying to emigrate.

In some states, there have been cost-of-living protests with demonstrators blocking roads. Kano state’s Governor Alhaji Abba Kabir Yusuf admitted earlier this year that people were starving.

The cost-of-living crisis has provoked major protests in at least 12 other African countries, including Kenya, South Africa, Tunisia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Algeria, Sudan and Uganda. In a review of about 59,000 reports about protests in Africa collated by the Armed Conflict Location and Data Project between January 2016 and May 2024, more than 7,000 protests—most of which took place after March 2020--were driven by food, pay (wages and salaries) and price concerns.

New SARS-CoV-2 variant predominates in the United States

Bill Shaw

The SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 continues to evolve, with a new variant becoming predominant in the United States. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the new viral variant, called KP.2, made up 28.5 percent of COVID-19 cases by May 11. It maintained that level as of May 25. 

The viral variant with the next highest percentage of cases is also new. It is called KP.3, and as of May 25, it makes up an estimated 12.7 percent of cases.

The previously predominant variant was JN.1. It now makes up only 8.4 percent of cases in the US. Wastewater surveillance data also demonstrates a rapid increase in the prevalence of KP.2, although in wastewater as of May 11, JN.1 still predominates.

To date, only one study has examined the properties of the KP.2 variant. Published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases under the category of “Correspondence”, it is a brief study that provides early results about the variant obtained as quickly and rigorously as possible to inform policy and the public.

First, the researchers used surveillance data to estimate the reproduction number or Re of the virus. The reproduction number is the number of new infections that are expected to occur from each existing infected individual in the population. A value greater than 1 means that the virus will spread exponentially.

The researchers estimated Re values for the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada of that are 1.22, 1.32, and 1.26 times higher than the Re values for the previously predominant JN.1 virus, respectively. They reported only the relative Re with respect to JN.1, not the absolute Re number.

This result means that the new KP.2 variant is more infectious than its predecessor, making it more likely to spread among the population. Notably, in the United Kingdom, JN.1 had a Re that was 1.261 times higher than its predecessor prior to becoming the predominant strain. Thus the virus continues to become more contagious.

Artist’s conception of the spike proteins that allow SARS-CoV-2 to invade human cells. [Photo by Emanresucamit / CC BY-SA 4.0]

Notably, the study was done prior to KP.2 becoming the predominant viral variant in the U.S. On the basis of their findings, the researchers correctly concluded that KP.2 had high potential to become the predominant strain worldwide. Indeed, their prediction has come true already in the United States.

The researchers also conducted neutralization assays to study the degree to which existing immunity to SARS-CoV-2 variants, whether through infection or vaccination, was protective against KP.2. These assays use blood serum obtained from vaccinated and previously infected individuals. In this study, the sera collected contained antibodies against the previous strains of virus including XBB 1.5, EG.5.1, HK.3, and JN.1.

The researchers then combined the serum with cultures of cells that are infected with the same strains of the virus. They then quantified how much serum was required to neutralize the virus, using the 50 percent neutralization titer or NT50. Lower values of NT50 mean that greater quantities of serum are required to neutralize 50 percent of the virus.

The researchers found significantly lower NT50 values for the KP.2 variant. The significance of this result is that pre-existing immunity to previous variants is less protective against KP.2. Therefore, KP.2 has an increased immune escape ability as well as greater infectiousness.

The net effect is that the recent predominance of KP.2 is in line with its known properties per the lone study to examine it thus far.

Although the “herd immunity” approach to the pandemic has already been overwhelmingly discredited, it is demolished even further by the emergence of KP.2, yet another highly infectious SARS-CoV-2 variant that is escaping pre-existing immunity to previous variants.

So long as the criminal “let it rip” policy of the ruling class is in place, SARS-CoV-2 will continue to evolve new variants with varying levels of infectiousness, severity of infection, and probability of causing Long COVID. Scientifically, there is no reason to expect that future variants will be less dangerous: each new variant poses a risk that the virus will be more deadly and cause more long-term disability.

Therefore, each new variant immediately poses the same set of urgent questions as the last variant. How infectious is it? How severe is the infection? How much protection does pre-existing immunity provide? What is the probability of developing Long COVID after infection?

The indifference of the ruling class to the suffering and death caused by the virus is demonstrated by the dismantling of the public health system to let a novel virus continue to evolve into potentially more dangerous forms. The CDC’s COVID Data Tracker web site illustrates this disregard for human life, saying, “New variants of SARS-CoV-2 are expected to continue to emerge.” In other words, the ruling class is willing to risk newer and potentially more deadly variants to evolve, no matter the consequences.

Australian COVID-19 infections rise to highest level in more than a year

Martin Scott

Recent weeks have seen successive rises in reported COVID infection numbers across Australia, with figures in some states indicating virus levels not seen since early 2023.

The growing wave of COVID, along with high rates of influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), has increased pressure on the already dangerously under-resourced public hospital system. Amid an influx of additional patients and a surge in staff illness, authorities in some parts of the country have been forced to cancel elective surgeries and temporarily reinstitute masking in health facilities.

Australia is “right in the middle of another big wave” of COVID, according to Professor Adrian Esterman, chair of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of South Australia.

Former Australian Medical Association (AMA) president, Dr. Andrew Miller, speaking on WAMN News about the “massive surge of COVID,” said governments “prefer to believe the lie that it’s all just gone away and we can forget about it.”

That is putting it mildly. State and territory governments, all of them Labor except Tasmania, and above all Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s federal Labor administration, have consciously and deliberately eviscerated COVID testing and reporting, along with all mitigation measures, in order to promote the criminally reckless conception of “living with the virus.”

Victorian State Premier Dan Andrews (left), Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Queensland State Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk at National Cabinet meeting on September 30, 2022 that ended compulsory isolation for those infected with COVID-19. [Photo: Anthony Albanese Facebook]

Precisely quantifying the growing spread of COVID is therefore impossible, because officially reported data is dated, incomplete, inconsistent, and reflects only a tiny sliver of the real state of affairs.

Esterman told the Guardian, “We’re looking at six to ten times as many people actually infected as the case numbers are showing.” This estimate would indicate that between 86,000 and 145,000 people were infected with COVID in the past seven days alone.

But what is inarguable is that, in virtually every state and territory, by every measure that exists, infection numbers are rising.

In Victoria, more than 3,000 COVID infections were reported last week, with 412 hospitalised, up from 319 a week earlier, and 160 at the start of May. The most recent published data show 104 COVID deaths in a four-week period, but as this ended on May 21, before the impact of the current surge of infections, the figure is likely to rise sharply in the coming weeks.

Partly as a result of the surge in COVID cases and a 65 percent increase in influenza infections in the second half of the month, the Victorian ambulance service declared “code orange” 20 times in May, and every day in the last week of the month. Under a “code orange,” the second most serious emergency classification, the whole health system is warned about ambulance demand and staff are called upon to work extra shifts.

Last Monday, the Victorian Department of Health raised its caution level across the public health system, advising hospitals that they can mandate mask wearing “if they wish,” and warning that they may need to discharge patients earlier in order to free up beds for the anticipated influx.

The fact that such a basic precautionary measure as requiring masks in hospitals was removed in the first place, not just for patients and visitors, but for staff, is a damning indictment of the state Labor governments and health authorities. This could not have been carried out without the collaboration of the bureaucrats in charge of the health unions, who not only allowed this attack on staff and patient safety, but cheered it on.

Esterman noted that the continuing surge in COVID cases was “a major concern, especially since many hospitals have stopped mandatory face masks for their staff.”

The Australian Capital Territory government announced on Tuesday that mask mandates for patients and visitors would be temporarily reinstated, along with restrictions on visitor numbers, under an “amber alert.”

This was as a result of surging weekly COVID infection numbers, which have quadrupled to 270 since last month, and seen 53 people hospitalised with the virus. As well, 231 cases of RSV were recorded in Canberra last week, more than half in children under five.

In South Australia (SA), 2,429 COVID infections were recorded in the week ending June 4, the highest since November last year.

A “code yellow” was declared for the state’s hospitals last week, meaning the cancellation of some elective surgery. With 200 more patients than this time last year, and 237 health workers off sick with COVID, SA Health Chief Executive Robyn Lawrence said pressure on the health system was “the worst she’d ever seen.”

On June 1, every public emergency department was rated as “busy” or “very busy,” with wait times of up to 4.5 hours.

In New South Wales (NSW), 5,220 COVID cases were recorded in the week ending June 1, a 22 percent increase over the previous week. This is the highest level recorded in more than 12 months, a particularly significant fact given that recorded infection numbers dropped sharply last October with the shutdown of the rapid antigen test reporting portal.

Around 800 patients presented to NSW emergency departments with COVID in that week, and just under 300 were admitted to hospital. These are also the highest figures in more than a year.

Meanwhile, influenza infections rose by 30 percent to 5,230 last week, with the test positivity rate increasing 9.6 percent, while 2,627 cases of RSV were recorded, more than 1,000 among children under five.

In Queensland, 1,895 people contracted COVID and 283 were hospitalised in the week ending June 2. In the same period, 1,242 RSV infections were recorded, with 76 requiring hospitalisation, along with 948 cases of influenza, 46 of them requiring hospital care.

In Western Australia, 1,191 cases of COVID were recorded in the fortnight ending May 26, a 9 percent increase on the previous reporting period and the highest figure recorded since January 2023.

In the week ending June 2, 129 COVID infections were recorded in the small island state of Tasmania, along with 95 cases of RSV and 66 of flu.

Throughout the country, vulnerable elderly aged care residents continue to be subjected to infection and reinfection with COVID. There are currently 499 outbreaks in aged care facilities, with 3,051 residents infected, as well as 1,362 staff. These are the highest infection figures since early 2023.

In the week ending June 6, 49 new resident deaths from COVID were recorded. More than 5,700 COVID deaths have been recorded in aged care facilities since December 2021.

Despite the federal government’s claim that aged care residents are a “high priority” for COVID vaccination, just 41.6 percent have received a booster dose in the past six months.

SA Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier sought to blame this on the families of aged care residents. She said: “I actually find it difficult to understand if you have a loved one in an aged care facility, why people are not being a bit more proactive about protecting them.”

This statement exemplifies the position of all the governments and health authorities, that the time for a public health response is long gone, and avoiding infection by the “forever pandemic” is entirely a matter of personal responsibility and choice.

This is totally at odds with the interests and needs of ordinary people, and instead represents the demands of big business that nothing, including protecting human health and lives, can be allowed to stand in the way of profit. It is on this basis that more than 24,500 people—according to understated official figures—have been allowed to die from COVID, more than two-thirds of them under the Albanese government.

This social murder, overseen by Labor governments at state and federal level, has been supported without question by the entire political establishment, including the Greens. Also complicit are the corporate media, in which news of the ongoing pandemic is almost totally suppressed, in line with the fraudulent position that the deadly virus is something that can be “lived with.”

Critical to this conspiracy are the trade union bureaucracies, in health and all other sectors. Since the earliest stages of the pandemic, the unions have opposed any public health measures that could possibly impact the profits of big business, and ensured workers have remained on the job, whatever the risk to their health and lives. That is one expression of their role as a police force of big business, continuously enforcing attacks to workers’ jobs, wages and conditions.