US quits the World Health Organization and sabotages international public health

Benjamin Mateus

One of the first actions taken by Donald Trump after his inauguration Monday was to issue an executive order withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization. The order stated as among the reasons this abrupt departure, the “WHO’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic (and other global crises), failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states,” a reference to China.

Trump also cited the US’s disproportionate funding of WHO compared to China, although the assessed contributions are based on a country’s gross domestic product, and the US actually provides about 18 percent of WHO’s overall funding, well below its 27 percent share of the world economy. 

Contributions to the WHO budget [Photo: WHO]

Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health at Georgetown University in Washington DC and director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law, said of Trump’s executive action, “This is the darkest day for global health I’ve ever experienced. Trump could be sowing the seeds for the next pandemic.”

The day after the signing of the executive order to withdraw, the WHO offered a meekly worded reply:

The World Health Organization regrets the announcement that the United States of America intends to withdraw from the Organization.

WHO plays a crucial role in protecting the health and security of the world’s people, including Americans, by addressing the root causes of disease, building stronger health systems, and detecting, preventing and responding to health emergencies, including disease outbreaks, often in dangerous places where others cannot go.

The United States was a founding member of WHO in 1948 and has participated in shaping and governing WHO’s work ever since, alongside 193 other Member States, including through its active participation in the World Health Assembly and Executive Board. For over seven decades, WHO and the USA have saved countless lives and protected Americans and all people from health threats. Together, we ended smallpox, and together we have brought polio to the brink of eradication. American institutions have contributed to and benefited from membership in WHO.

With the participation of the United States and other Member States, WHO has over the past 7 years implemented the largest set of reforms in its history, to transform our accountability, cost-effectiveness, and impact in countries. This work continues.

We hope the United States will reconsider and we look forward to engaging in constructive dialogue to maintain the partnership between the USA and WHO, for the benefit of the health and well-being of millions of people around the globe.

The US pullout is taking place five years to the week since WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) when COVID first erupted in Wuhan, China. It is the imperialist powers, and above all the United States, which bear responsibility for the 27 million excess deaths globally attributable to the pandemic since then, including 1.5 million excess deaths in the US. It is they who did far more than “mishandle” COVID-19. They pursued a policy of deliberate mass infection, “living with the virus,” which has made this lethal illness a seemingly permanent affliction.

The US cutoff of ties with the WHO will only make more likely the emergence of new viruses, potentially even more lethal than SARS-CoV-2, such as H5N1 (bird flu) whose lethality could be 50 times as great unless urgent measures are taken to prevent mutations that make human-to-human transmission possible.

Lack of funding for the WHO means many of the programs that have controlled the spread of disease like tuberculosis, HIV and measles will see these previously checked pathogens emerge, in particular low to middle-income countries (Africa, Middle East, and Asia) reliant on the programs provided by the WHO. Additionally, viruses like Ebola and Marburg virus which have recently erupted could find their way into dense urban populations and spread unchecked across the globe. 

What the WHO spends its resources on. [Photo: WHO]

Global immunization efforts that have saved at least 154 million lives over the past 50 years are under threat. In that time, vaccinations against 14 diseases (diphtheria, Hemophilus influenzae type B, hepatitis B, Japanese encephalitis, measles, meningitis A, pertussis, invasive pneumococcal disease, polio, rotavirus, rubella, tetanus, tuberculosis and yellow fever) have seen a reduction in infant deaths by 40 percent globally, and by more than 50 percent across the continent of Africa.

A Lancet study from 2024 bears quoting. The report said:

The vaccines modelled in this study are estimated to have saved 154 million lives since 1974, 95 percent of these in children younger than five years. This equates to nine billion life-years saved and, further considering the added benefit of reduced morbidity, 10·2 billion healthy years of life have been gained due to vaccination. Measles vaccination has been the single greatest contributor and is likely to remain so. Vaccination has accounted for close to half the total global reduction in infant mortality, and in some regions to the majority of these gains (appendix p 8). As a result of 50 years of vaccination, a child born today has a 40 percent increase in survival for each year of infancy and childhood. The survival benefits of infant vaccination extend to beyond 50 years of age, a remarkable finding considering the exclusion of smallpox and the exclusion of the anticipated benefits of human papillomavirus (HPV), influenza, SARS-CoV-2, Ebola, mpox and other vaccines affecting adult mortality.

However, one in five children lack access to lifesaving vaccines. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2023, over 14.3 million children under the age of one did not receive their recommended vaccines. This is 2.7 million more than in 2019, the year before the pandemic. Almost all these children live in low and middle-income countries, mainly in Africa and South-East Asia. They include Angola, Afghanistan, Democratic republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan and Yemen. One must add Gaza and all of Palestine to this list.

Elevating RFK Jr. and witch-hunting of Dr. Peter Daszak

Any US contribution to research, training, and collaboration on the development and distribution of vaccines will likely become a thing of the past with Trump’s elevation of the anti-vaxxer and professional wrecker of public health Robert F Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Public health, instead of a global instrument for the betterment of the population’s well-being, will be turned into a weapon for US national security policy, with vaccines, medicines and even viruses treated as levers for coercion. 

In this regard, strong-arming the entire academic infrastructure is not a farfetched thought. One should recall the comments made by David Feith, deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the first Trump administration, speaking to the Heritage Foundation in July 2024. After condemning government funding of international research as national security threat, speaking to how such collaboration can be brought under check, he added:

It can be done through Congress and the executive branch through various ways, for the US government to perform an audit on all US government funded biomedical and related research in China, and that this audit place a strict one-year deadline establishing a presumption that this research, because of the nature of the Chinese political system is going to be nontransparent and unsafe, and a net negative for international scientific cooperation … it would establish essentially an audit and a rebuttable presumption that would hopefully have a very dramatic effect in cutting down on research cooperation with China which the US government and the US universities and also US corporations have shown not to be able to properly monitor. 

A key element of this anti-China campaign is the McCarthyite witch-hunting of scientists like Dr. Peter Daszak, formerly head of the EcoHealth Alliance, for their principled work on pandemic prevention with China. It is shameful that so many scientists have stood on the sideline and kept silent. Working people and young people must come to the defense of Daszak and the critical work he and others are carrying out.

The origins of the WHO

Presently, the WHO has offices across the entire globe divided into six WHO Regional Offices—Washington DC (Pan American Health Organization), Copenhagen (Regional Office for Europe), Cairo (Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean), Brazzaville (Regional Office for Africa), New Delhi (Regional Office for South-East Asia) and Manila (Regional Office for the Western Pacific). Although it has been the most enduring international public health agency, it wasn’t the first.

The emergence of public health as a discipline was intimately connected with the growing class struggle in the milieu of the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This period saw centers of population growing rapidly, intensifying the impact of communicable diseases that left the poorest sections of workers facing high rates of infant mortality and despondency. 

In 1851, the first of the International Sanitary Conferences was held in Paris. Twelve countries participated in the meeting sending physicians and diplomats to discuss how to stop the spread of yellow fever, cholera and plague. In particular, the national policies in place had failed to contain the epidemics of cholera that swept across Europe in the first half of that century severely disrupting commerce. Many of the merchants who bore the brunt of the quarantine measures urged their government to support international action.

By the end of the 19th century, advances in germ theory and medicine paved the way for application of more effective forms of disease prevention. Publications about diseases assumed international classification systems that aided front-line health workers. By 1902, the Pan American Health Organization was established in response to yellow fever epidemics in the Western hemisphere. 

The initial development of public health education as a planned discipline fell to the charity of the well-to-do, as with the Rockefeller Foundation, established in 1913, which helped establish the public health departments at Harvard and Johns Hopkins. After World War I and the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed more than 50 million people and infected more than 500 million across the globe, the League of Nations Health Committee and Health section were established in 1920.

By 1928, the first antibiotics had been discovered, with widespread use as treatments for infections beginning in 1942, in the first years of World War II. It was at this time that the first form of immunodeficiency virus was transmitted from simians to humans in central Africa. A mutated form of this virus was later identified as a human immunodeficiency virus. 

In the aftermath of the war, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation which was founded in 1943 to address the needs of war victims. UNICEF was established in 1946 to address the needs of children whose countries were destroyed by the war. Two years later, the WHO was founded under the auspices of the UN.

The year before the WHO was established, a horrific cholera outbreak in Egypt that claimed more than 20,000 lives spurred an international response. At the same time, the US established a National Malaria Eradication Program to eradicate the disease that was prevalent in the Southeastern states.

Bond markets reveal growing concern over government debt

Nick Beams

For several months global bond markets, the chief source of financing for government debt, have been sending out signals that beneath the appearance of stability in the financial system and the continued rise in stock markets, all is not well.

Specialist Dilip Patel works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023. [AP Photo/Richard Drew]

While immediate factors, such as whether central bank interest rates are going up or down and the expected movement of inflation, affect bond prices, it is apparent that longer-term, deeper forces are at work.

The bond market is being moved by concerns over how much longer governments can continue to finance the mountain of debt they have accumulated. The International Monetary Fund estimates total global government debt to be $100 trillion. This is the result of the continual outlays governments have incurred in propping up their economies and corporations.

When interest rates were low or near zero after the onset of the COVID pandemic, the payment of interest on this debt was not a major problem. Now it is, because of the increase in rates since 2022.

This is attested to by the fact that despite the US Federal Reserve cutting interest rates by a percentage point since September last year, the yield (interest rate) on 10-year bonds in the US, and their counterparts around the world has risen. Under “normal” conditions they would be expected to fall.

The yield on the 10-year UK bond, or gilt as it is known, has spiked from around 3.6 percent last September to about 4.6 percent now. In recent days it has been trending higher, raising predictions it could reach 5 percent.

The US 10-year bond has undergone a similar movement which started at the same time as the Fed began cutting its base interest rate.

Significant attention has focused on the UK which experienced severe financial turbulence in October 2022 because of the attempt by the short-lived Liz Truss government to finance tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy by increasing debt. This set off an escalation in bond yields requiring the intervention of the Bank of England to prevent a full-blown financial crisis, leading to the resignation of Truss.

While the crisis two and a half years ago has sometimes been attributed to the excesses of Truss, or incompetence, the underlying causes of the near meltdown have remained.

The state of the UK was the subject of an interview given by billionaire Ray Dalio, the founder of the global hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, to the Financial Times (FT) this week in which he warned that it could be headed for a “debt death spiral.” This is a situation where increasing amounts of money must be borrowed just to pay the interest on existing debt.

There was a risk that the combination of rising interest costs, now at £100 billion a year, and the need to roll over existing debt at a higher interest rate would produce a self-reinforcing cycle.

He said the situation looked “like a debt death spiral in the making.”

The gilt market turbulence was a “supply-demand problem.”

“Why else would long-term [yields] rise when there’s an easing [of monetary policy], the exchange rate is going down, and the economy is weak?”

The supply-demand problem means that the issuing of government bonds (debt) exceeds the demand for them at a given price. Consequently, investors are only prepared to purchase bonds if their price is lowered with a consequent rise in the yield. (The two have an inverse relationship.)

The economic and social consequences of the emerging UK debt spiral were spelled out in an FT editorial last week. It said the lack of confidence in the UK economy had become “infectious,” spreading from businesses to the financial markets. Bond yields were near their highest in 16 years.

The FT said the so-called “bond vigilantes” had the UK in their sights and would be looking for “improvements.”

What that would consist of was laid out very directly. Tax increases had been ruled out because that would be “disastrous for confidence.”

“But that means Labour must be prepared to make savings in high-cost, yet politically sensitive, areas such as welfare benefits, the civil service and the triple-lock on pension payments,” the editorial said.

(The triple lock refers to the present arrangement in which pensions are increased by whatever is the highest number, 2.5 percent, the increase in wages or the rise in inflation.)

While the UK may be characterised as the “sick man” of the major economies as far as debt and interest payments are concerned, the position of the US is objectively even worse. However, it is able to sustain massive government debt, now approaching $36 trillion, with an annual interest bill heading for $1 trillion, because the US dollar is the global currency and in demand.

But there are growing warnings that even with this “exorbitant privilege” the US financial position is ultimately not sustainable.

In his FT interview Dalio did not confine himself to the UK but pointed to the situation in the US. He called for the deficit to be cut from its present level of 6 percent of GDP to 3 percent.

In a blog post he advocated for a cut in interest rates to 1 percent, letting inflation rise to 4.5 percent, increasing tax revenue by 11 percent, slashing discretionary spending by 47 percent or some combination of these measures.

But the Trump administration has ruled out tax hikes, and will cut corporate taxes, the Fed has no intention of reducing rates and will increase them again if inflation rises. This means that the focus is on spending. There is no question as to where the axe will fall, with the Department of Government Efficiency headed by the fascist billionaire Elon Musk calling for spending cuts of $2 trillion.

US government spending is around $6.3 trillion, of which nearly $1 trillion is on the military and the same amount on interest payments to bond holders. Neither of these items will be reduced which means that the target will be social services, health, education and other vital areas impacting the working class.

Trump has said Social Security will not be touched in his Make America Great Again program, advancing at times the bogus claim that tariffs will pay off government debt.

But all his assertions are founded on quicksand as the logic of the debt numbers makes clear. US government debt is at present around 100 percent of GDP. But on current projections it is set to rise to 200 percent of GDP within a decade. Even with the “privilege” conferred on the US because of the role of the dollar, this escalation is unsustainable.

In a recent comment, FT columnist Gillian Tett cited what she called the “influential” “Tree Rings” newsletter which warned that if the 10-year yield rises above the nominal US growth rate, then it is “mathematically certain to quickly trigger a debt death spiral.”

In his FT interview Dalio provided no timeframe for the explosion of what he has characterised as a “debt bomb.” He likened it to the development of a heart attack when plaque builds up and increases the risk of a piece breaking off.

“You can’t tell exactly when that is going to happen, but you can say that the risks are very high and rising.”

Gig economy apps demand payment for UK workers to even receive their wages

Darren Paxton

Workers using the gig economy app YoungOnes have accused the company of holding their earnings to ransom by charging them a fee to receive their wages on time.

YoungOnes now charges workers 4.8 percent of their earnings to receive their wages in one minute, 2.9 percent to receive it in three days, or they can decline and receive their wages after waiting 30 days. Before this, these gig economy workers would typically receive their wages in the three-day period free of charge.

Screenshot of the YoungOnes website which states, "Download the App - Find a Gig in Five Minutes"

The company was founded in the Netherlands in 2017 by Pim Graafmans, as an offshoot of YoungCapital recruitment agency. InsiderMedia noted in October 2023 that “Almost 350 UK businesses have signed up to the platform to find freelancers since its launch in the UK.”

Providing a digital platform for companies to hire workers on a gig-to-gig basis without offering them basic legal protections or income stability, YoungOnes advertises, “We call it ‘work on demand’. After all, why would you want to work for a boss, if you could be one yourself?”.

This is not the reality for workers using the app. They are not their own bosses, but one of the most exploited sections of the working class.

YoungOnes is not the only app to function like this. Others include PeoplePerHour, an Israeli multinational named Fiverr, as well as Flexy and Temper. There are hundreds more.

This “pay to be paid” policy blows up the lie that the gig economy is a flexible way for workers to control their hours and receive quick money as and when needed. Tom Gillam, a gig economy retail worker from Manchester, told the Guardian, “People do gig work for short-term cash ... it feels like we’re being held to ransom… It is so immoral it’s unreal.”

The Observer found that the YoungOnes app was being used by major chains and retailers such as Urban Outfitters to supply young workers over the Christmas period, while forcing them to reapply every day for each shift. Companies involved included the exercise brand Gymshark, cosmetics brand Lush, fashion brand Uniqlo and mattress manufacturer Emma Sleeps. In each of the ads put out by these companies, they state they are looking for “freelancers”.

In some Emma Sleeps stores, every employee is a “freelancer” hired through gig apps. The Guardian notes of the Observer’s findings: “The manager of mattress manufacturer Emma Sleep’s first UK shop said in a promotional video released by YoungOnes that her team is composed of ‘only freelancers’. She hailed the approach as ‘definitely the way that hiring… is going to go in the future’.”

This dystopian situation, where the most advanced technology is used to prey on workers who have no legal protections or rights—and who don’t know where or when their next shift or wage is coming from until they are pinged on their phones—opens up the working class to the most exploitative and insecure conditions. It is becoming a daily reality for ever larger numbers.

Lancaster university’s Work Foundation thinktank details the enormous growth of the gig economy and zero hour contracts.

Its UK Insecure Work Index for 2024 notes that “work has become less secure in the UK in the last year as workers have faced the worst cost of living crisis for 41 years…. In 2023, an estimated 6.8 million people (21.4 percent) were in severely insecure work. Since we last reported on this data in the UK Insecure Work Index 2022, this has risen by 600,000 people.” The COVID-19 pandemic, it observes, massively deepened this process.

Another study, “No Progress? Tackling long-term insecure work”, also published by the Work Foundation, explains that these workers face “a mix of low pay, unpredictable hours, poor protections, and limited career progression.”

Gig economy practices such as those introduced at YoungOnes are expanding across all industries and sectors, now reaching far beyond food delivery and retail into key and essential sectors like healthcare and childcare work.

A New Economics Foundation (NEF) thinktank study, “How The Platform Economy Can Impede High-Quality Care”, states:

“The way care is organised, via an under-regulated market of private providers, has resulted in a system whereby poor-quality care delivered by a workforce on low pay and poor conditions is the norm. In this context, the last decade has seen the emergence and growth of global corporate nurseries. In addition to expanding geographically, and buying up nurseries, several chain companies are expanding their portfolios into digital services and providing platforms for in-home childcare, which seek to disrupt the childcare market by linking and mediating between parents and carers”.

These “digital platforms” provide the basis for gig economy conditions for care workers, stripping them of their basic employment rights. In the case of care work, a sector that is tightly bound up with legal procedures, workers that are viewed as “freelance” will have to face the full weight of legal repercussions and be liable individually for any problems or damages whilst in work, with the employer abdicating all responsibilities.

The NEF notes, “The erosion of worker protections enabled by these platforms, through how workers are so often defined as ‘independent contractors’, is well documented. Likewise, care workers on platforms tend not to be treated as employees, and rates paid tend to be low.”

Warning that this “impacts care quality, since wages and working conditions are major predictors of quality in childcare,” the NEF adds that digital platforms “offer ‘on-demand’ or ‘emergency’ backup care by a pool of workers at short notice, despite numerous studies showing the importance of continuity of care.” It also raises concerns over safeguarding practices.

There have been many court cases in the UK ruling in favour of recognising workers in “gig economy sectors” as workers, and against defining them as “freelance”—including the 2021 Supreme Court case that saw Uber drivers officially defined as “workers”. Yet, since this ruling the gig economy has significantly grown in the UK, with the Office for National Statistics estimating that the number of gig economy workers will almost double by 2026.

The Labour governments “employment rights bill”, to take effect in autumn 2026, does absolutely nothing to protect gig economy workers who are falsely identified as “freelance”. The Guardian states, “The government has promised to consult on a simpler two-tier employment framework, which distinguishes between genuine self-employment and all other types of worker, but nothing has been published yet.”

This cynical operation from a government constantly boasting of its pro-business agenda will cement a tier system for employment, allowing 4.4 million gig economy workers to continue working with zero legal rights.

The trade union bureaucracy occasionally mouths “concerns” over the growth of the gig economy, but has organised nothing in opposition to its rapid growth.

What is in Trump's executive orders on immigration?

Eric London

President Donald Trump displays executive order after signing it at an indoor Presidential Inauguration parade event in Washington, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. [AP Photo/Matt Rourke]

The first wave of immigration-related executive orders issued by President Donald Trump have now been published. With a few scribbles of his name on paper and no involvement from Congress, Trump has undertaken a substantial transformation of the legal landscape in the United States, eviscerated the basic rights of a significant portion of the population and upended the lives of millions of people. Having pardoned various officials and close relatives of the outgoing president to protect them from the coming onslaught, Joe Biden and the Democrats have left the population almost entirely at Trump’s whim.

Ideological travel ban

Name: “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Security Threats”

What it does: Orders the State Department to initiate a review of all policies and regulations over the granting and denying of visas to enter the United States to prevent entry of those who “espouse hateful ideology.” Deems inadmissible for entry any who “bear hostile attitudes toward [US] citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles” or who “advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to our national security.”

How it works: Requires the rewrite of all State Department and DHS policies related to admission to the country and requires deportation of non-citizens who “who preach or call for sectarian violence, the overthrow or replacement of the culture on which our constitutional Republic stands.” Requires additional measures be taken to “ensure the proper assimilation” of immigrants into the US, to “promote a unified American identity and attachment to the Constitution, laws, and founding principles of the United States.”

Applies to: Millions of immigrants applying for all forms of visas to enter the US, whether to reside in the U.S. (immigrant visas) or to travel for work, study or vacation (non-immigrant visas). Also applies to roughly 25 million non-citizens in the United States, including those lawfully present on visas and those present without documentation. It makes no distinction based on age. This order is specifically directed at opponents of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Birthright citizenship restriction

Name: “Protecting the Meaning and value of American Citizenship”

What it does: “Clarifies” the Constitution by declaring that “The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’” and interprets this provision to mean that children born to undocumented parents and many parents present in the US lawfully are not citizens.

How it works: All children born 30 days after January 20, 2025 are not citizens unless both the mother and father are lawful permanent residents, or if one parent is a citizen. Even if both parents were present in the US on lawful work, study or other visas at the time of birth, their child will no longer be a citizen. The order requires the State Department, DHS and other agencies to not issue passports or other citizenship documentation to the children of parents born under the circumstances listed above.

Declaring an “immigrant invasion”

Names: “Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion” and “Protecting the American People Against Invasion”

What it does: Establishes a state of emergency that grants the president unbridled power to deny entry to immigrants, regardless of whether they have valid asylum claims under international law. It appears to effectively suspend 75-year-old statutes enacted by Congress relating to immigration based on theory that the president has the “foreign affairs” power to suppress the immigrant “invasion”:

The Immigration and Nationality Act [INA] does not, however, occupy the Federal Government’s field of authority to protect the sovereignty of the United States, particularly in times of emergency when entire provisions of the INA are rendered ineffective by operational constraints, such as when there is an ongoing invasion into the States. The President’s inherent powers to control the borders of the United States, including those deriving from his authority to control the foreign affairs of the United States, necessarily include the ability to prevent the physical entry of aliens involved in an invasion into the United States, and to rapidly repatriate them to an alternative location. Only through such measures can the President guarantee the right of each State to be protected against invasion.

The order does so on the basis of the rights of states under Article IV Section 4 of the Constitution, which requires the federal government “protect each of [the states] against Invasion” from a foreign nation, which clearly does not apply here. This sets the stage for the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (see below).

How it works: Suspends entry along the southern border and orders DHS, Secretary of State and the Attorney General to “take all appropriate action to repel, repatriate, or remove any alien engaged in the invasion across the southern border of the United States.” Requires all undocumented people in the United States register with the federal government under the Alien Registration Act of 1940 on penalty of civil fine or criminal prosecution. Creates “Homeland Security Task Forces” to coordinate large-scale law enforcement operations aimed at stemming the “invasion” throughout the country, regardless of distance from the southern border.  

Preparing Alien Enemies Act and military action in Mexico

Name: “Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists”

What it does: Instructs the Attorney General and DHS Secretary “to make operational preparations regarding the implementation of any decision I make to invoke the Alien Enemies Act in relation to the existence of any qualifying invasion” and to “prepare such facilities as necessary to expedite the removal of those who may be designated under this order” (i.e., construct a broad network of internment camps). Combined with the declaration of an invasion, this order sets the stage for “anti-terror” operations against drug organizations operating in Mexico and Central America, as well as for the deployment of the military to US cities to deport immigrants accused of being associated with gangs.

How it works: Requires the Secretary of State, in consultation with other agency heads, to “make a recommendation of any cartel or other organization as a Foreign Terrorist Organization” because “it is the policy of the United States to ensure the total elimination of these organizations’ presence in the United States and their ability to threaten the territory, safety, and security of the United States through their extraterritorial command-and-control structures, thereby protecting the American people and the territorial integrity of the United States.”

Deploying the military on US soil

Name: “Clarifying the Military’s Role in Protecting the Territorial Integrity of the United States”

What it does: Deploys the US Armed Forces to the US-Mexico border to “protect and defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the United States along our national borders.”

How it works: At the end of January, US Northern Command will deliver to Trump a “campaign-ready Unified Command Plan” to “to seal the borders and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States by repelling forms of invasion including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal activities.”

Other immigration developments

• Trump signed an executive order granting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border protection (CBP) the power to arrest immigrants at schools, churches, courthouses and other sensitive areas.
• The Mexican government of MORENA’s Claudia Sheinbaum has agreed to Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program, making Mexico complicit in the Trump administration’s ban on asylum.
• Life in immigrant neighborhoods across the country was severely disrupted by ongoing threats of mass workplace and community raids on Tuesday. In Chicago’s “Little Village,” local media reported that substantial sections of immigrants kept their children from attending school and stayed home from work.

Additional executive orders are expected in the coming days.

Right-wing coalition government deal reached in Ireland

Dermot Quinn & Steve James

The Irish Dáil (Parliament) will meet Thursday, January 23 when Micheál Martin, leader of Fianna Fáil, will likely be nominated as Taoiseach (Prime Minister) with Fine Gael leader Simon Harris as Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister).

Martin’s nomination was supposed to be confirmed Wednesday but the Dáil sitting descended into farce when opposition TDs (members of parliament), led by Sinn Fein, successfully disrupted Martin’s nomination because of a dispute over speaking rights. Members of the Regional Independent Group (RIG) which is supporting the government, have also formed a “technical group” allowing speaking rights normally reserved for members of the opposition. At the time of writing, no agreement has been reached and the Dail adjourned until Thursday morning.

Simon Harris (left) and Micheál Martin in the Dáil Éireann Chamber on January 22, 2025 [Photo by Houses of the Oireachtas/Flickr / CC BY 2.0]

Assuming a resolution is found, the new administration taking office will be a coalition of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the two main bourgeois parties in Ireland, along with nine right-wing Regional Independent Group (RIG) members.

Under the agreement worked out between the two parties Martin will hold the post of Taoiseach till 2027, which will then rotate to Harris, the current outgoing Taoiseach. The RIG, handed regional concessions for their support, will have two junior ministers sitting at cabinet (referred to as super-junior) and three junior ministers acting as ministers of state.

The general election last November resulted in the votes of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael combined falling short of an overall majority, with both parties receiving 42 percent of first preference votes, securing 86 seats, between them. Sinn Féin received 19 percent of the vote winning 39 seats, a drop of 5.5 percent nationally compared to the 2020 election. The Green Party, who were part of the outgoing coalition, plummeted, keeping just one of its 11 seats.

The fact that the two longstanding rivals of Irish politics have once again been forced into government together testifies to the growing resentment by working people of the ongoing crises in homelessness, health care, education and social provisions. A graphic released by broadcaster RTÉ after the election showed the combined vote of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael over the past 17 years down 33 percent—from 68.9 percent in 2007, to 40.5 percent in 2024.

The Irish Labour Party and its ideological protégé the Social Democrats increased their share of the vote, winning 11 seats each. Both parties rushed to holding talks on government formation, putting forward their credentials as safe bets to govern on behalf of capitalism in Ireland. In the end, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, doubtless with an eye across the Atlantic, considered the right-wing independents would serve better as the government’s third leg.

In line with this, the ruling parties have agreed a programme for government devoted to expanding corporate and private wealth at the expense of the Irish working class, while securing Irelan’s place as the preferred investment hub for US tech and pharmaceutical corporations.

The programme “Securing Ireland’s Future” warns, “the positive, global economic environment, which has benefited Ireland for many years, is no longer guaranteed.” In response, the new government proposes a sharp shift to the right and pledges to defend “economic resilience” through a “whole of Government Action Plan for Competitiveness and Productivity” for “reform” and “reducing the cost and regulatory burden on business, investing in infrastructure, digital regulation and reform, energy reform, international trade and research and development, and innovation.”

In other words, the new coalition is pledging to increase levels of exploitation and rip up what business regulation there is while pouring resources into “key economic sectors”, namely semiconductors, pharma, medtech, ICT, finance and agribusiness. Particular attention is drawn to AI and data centres.

In public finance, the programme pledges to run budget surpluses while reducing public debt and maintaining a “tax system that supports innovation”. The government seeks a corporatist deal with the trade unions for “a new public sector pay deal, linked to a reform agenda”, i.e. increased productivity.

New measures are proposed to force welfare claimants into work. The government proposes a new employment strategy “focused on intensive engagement and supports to help those most distant from the labour market”.

There are promises on housing, but the headline 300,000 new homes is aimed primarily at the private sector and will amount to massive handouts to housing developers, with only limited subsidies for first time buyers. New social housing will be restricted to a minimal 12,000 units annually.

Some investment will be directed towards infrastructure, particularly transport, in recognition of its necessity for retaining transnational corporation investment.

Five thousand more police and 20 more judges are to be recruited.

The previous coalition government was criticised by Israel during the election for its intervention in the International Court of Justice case against the genocide in Gaza. The new programme is a full capitulation to Tel Aviv. It pledges to give “effect to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) ‘Working Definition of Antisemitism’” which maliciously equates criticisms of Israel government policy with anti-Jewish hate.

The government intends to continue with the Occupied Territories Bill that had annoyed Israel and US investors, but subsequent statements made by Taoiseach Martin made clear that the government was looking to “rework” every section of the legislation, clearly with a mind to entirely neutralising or further delaying its already minimal impact.

The coalition will also “unequivocally support Ukraine, affirming that Russia cannot win this war and supporting Ukrainian resistance” and upholding sanctions against Russia. Ireland is not a NATO member and retains a pretence of “neutrality” while being politically supportive of NATO operations. This includes allowing Shannon airport to be used as stopover for military transport flights.

The previous government allocated €1.35 billion to military spending, a €100 million increase on the previous year. It said at the time, “This level of investment is critical in the current geopolitical situation.”

The new programme notes that it will “Progress the Naval Service Vessel Renewal and Replacement Programme, replacing secondary armament across the fleet and enhancing our subsea capabilities, and we will continue to develop our maritime support infrastructure, investing to future proof Haulbowline Naval Base, and establishing an additional East Coast Base for the Naval Service.”

The forces to which the government is turning for support include some of the most discredited figures in Irish politics.

The most prominent and wealthiest independent is Michael Lowry. Although not included in the government he was a prominent part of the negotiations and is widely seen as leader of the RIG. A former minister in Fine Gael, Lowry, who represents Tipperary, was recently named Ireland’s richest politician with an estimated worth of €6.4 million. He has been the subject of a succession of political and financial scandals since 1996, and the focus of two government inquiries.

The McCracken Tribunal into political corruption found that the supermarket owner Ben Dunne paid for huge extensions to Lowry’s home while he was a government minister. The Moriarty Tribunal found that Lowry pocketed hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling in exchange for favourable treatment in granting mobile phone licences.

The RIG also includes Galway TD Noel Grealish, who in 2019 described African asylum seekers as “economic migrants who sponge off the system” at a public meeting in Galway. He was speaking to a crowd over speculation that a direct provision centre may be located close to the town. Later the same year Grealish claimed Nigerian migrants were repatriating €3.5 billion to Nigeria and that some of this was the proceeds of crime. He claim was debunked; a mere €17 million was sent back to Nigeria.

Part of the orientation to the RIG was the appointment of Verona Murphy as Ceann Comhairle (speaker) of the Dáil. Murphy, another former Fine Gael member, former haulage company owner and until recently head of the Irish Road Haulage Association, once claimed that migrant children as young as three or four years of age were a danger because of ISIS brainwashing. Murphy has also been accused of workplace bullying.

In Ireland as throughout the globe, bourgeois politicians openly flaunt the concept that the rule of the oligarchs and their hangers on is the natural way of things. A report published last week by the charity Oxfam showed that Ireland itself now has 11 billionaires, who saw their wealth grow by a third in 2024 to €50 billion. The top oligarchs saw their wealth grow by €35.6 million every single day in 2024.

German military setting up a new homeland security division

Johannes Stern

An ad for the German military

Germany’s ruling class is systematically pushing ahead with its military buildup and war preparations in the federal election campaign. On 11 January, the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) announced the establishment of a new homeland security division. According to an army spokesman, it will consist of reservists and active-duty soldiers. It is to be placed under unified command and will become operational on 1 April 2025.

The formation of the new division is aimed at a massive expansion of the armed forces. Currently, the army consists of three divisions, each with around 20,000 soldiers. The fourth major unit is now being added for homeland security. It will initially comprise 6,000 soldiers but will gradually be increased to at least a high five-digit number.

The division will combine the existing homeland security regiments and companies. In 2021, Home Guard Regiment 1 was set up in Bavaria, followed by Home Guard Regiment 2 in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2022, Home Guard Regiment 3 in Lower Saxony in 2023 and Home Guard Regiment 4 with companies from Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Schleswig-Holstein, and Home Guard Regiment 5 in Hesse in 2024. Preparations are currently under way to set up further regiments, including Home Guard Regiment 6 in Berlin.

The creation of the new division is part of the structural reform of the Bundeswehr that Defence Minister Boris Pistorius (Social Democrat, SPD) launched last April. After two devastating defeats in the 20th century, it aims to re-equip Germany with a war army appropriately structured and led under the slogan “Bundeswehr of the Future.”

“The armed forces new target structure” is “significantly less top-heavy than the status quo and is clearly geared towards operational planning and command in an emergency,” according to the reforms adopted a year ago. The aim is “to establish a war-ready command structure and to create the conditions for consistently strengthening the troops.”

On the reorganisation and restructuring of the homeland security forces, the military states:

The homeland security forces will be transferred to the army sector, according to the principle of “organize as you fight,” after they have been fully established, because in an emergency they will be deployed in country. The homeland security forces will follow the task of coordinating the recruitment and training of reservists.

This is unequivocal. In line with the goals set by Pistorius and the entire ruling class to make Germany “war-ready” (kriegstüchtig) again, all military and civilian organisational areas will be directly aligned with the maxim “organize as you fight” and will grow massively. As early as April 2021, the then-federal coalition of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and SPD introduced so-called “voluntary military service in homeland security.” The Ministry of Defence is currently working on the reintroduction of compulsory military service.

In a full-scale war against Russia, which the NATO powers are actively preparing and provoking through their constant escalation of the war in Ukraine, the homeland security division would play a central role. According to a report by the Bundeswehrverband (German Armed Forces Association), in the event of war, the domestic security forces are to “protect ports, railway facilities and goods transshipment points, as well as pipelines, roads for troop deployment, bridges, transport hubs and digital infrastructure.” They are “thus also to secure Germany’s role as a NATO base of operations and hub.”

The secret “Operation Plan Germany” (OPLAN DEU), which is more than 1,000 pages long and has been developed and continuously updated by the Bundeswehr’s Territorial Command since March 2023, underlines how concretely these plans are being worked on. The OPLAN is a blueprint for the total mobilisation of society for war. In an overview brochure published by the Bundeswehr, the following is stated about the plan’s objectives:

It brings together the central military components of national and alliance defence in Germany with the necessary civilian support services in an operationally executable plan. It thus provides for the planning so that in the event of a crisis or conflict, after a political decision has been made, targeted action can be taken. It defines procedures, processes and responsibilities for protecting and defending Germany together with other state and civil actors... and for ensuring the deployment of allied forces across and through Germany to NATO’s eastern flank. The aim is to be able to act quickly across all departmental and national borders.

Last year, homeland security forces were involved in NATO’s Steadfast Defender manoeuvres for the first time in this context. With around 90,000 troops, more than 50 warships, including aircraft carriers and destroyers, 80 combat aircraft, helicopters and drones, as well as over 1,000 armoured vehicles, it was NATO’s largest military manoeuvre since the end of the Cold War. The exercise took place in Scandinavia and the Baltic states, went as far as Poland, Romania and Germany, and simulated a military buildup against Russia. The WSWS wrote in an article:

This is not just a training exercise, but the escalation of NATO’s war with Russia in Ukraine into a world war that encompasses the whole of Europe. Leading NATO officers do not mince their words. In Brussels, the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, called for a “reshaping of NATO’s warfare.” “It cannot be taken for granted that we live in peace,” Bauer said. In the event of war, he added, “the whole of society will be involved, whether we like it or not.”

Since then, the militarisation of society demanded by the ruling class has been pushed forward ever more aggressively. In a keynote speech on 12 December, the new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said, “It is time to switch to a war mentality. And to get our arms production and defence spending into high gear.” It was clear that “much more” than two percent of GDP had to be spent on defence, which meant “less spending on other priorities” such as “pensions, health and social security systems.”

In Germany’s federal election campaign, parties and politicians are outdoing each other with their demands for ever higher military spending. For example, the Green Party’s chancellor candidate Robert Habeck has spoken in favour of increasing the regular military budget to 3.5 percent of GDP, which would correspond to a tripling, or increase to €150 billion. The chancellor candidate of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alice Weidel, spoke recently in favour of an increase to 5 percent of GDP. That would amount to well over 40 percent of the current federal budget.

In a recent interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Defence Minister Pistorius made it clear that these war-mongering plans are shared by the SPD. “Two percent will not be enough,” he said. “Whether the mere quota lies at two-and-a-half, three-and-a-half or five percent—as Donald Trump demands—is not the only decisive factor.” It was just as important “that we have sufficient capabilities to meet NATO requirements.”

Germany “will have to bear a large share of this, and that will cost many billions of euros extra each year,” Pistorius continued. “In case of doubt, we will have to talk about three percent rather than two percent. We need to rethink external security.” He added that he was speaking about “next generation security.”

More appropriate would be “next generation world war.” Even if Pistorius claims that the additional billions cannot be paid “from the current budget, at least in the first few years,” it is clear that nothing will be left of workers’ democratic and social rights when it comes to the plans for rearmament.

In this respect, too, the establishment of the homeland security division is a warning. According to the Bundeswehr Association, the “homeland security forces” can be deployed “in peacetime [...] to provide assistance in the event of serious accidents, terrorist attacks or pandemics.” This means nothing less than the unconstitutional deployment of the Bundeswehr domestically, including to suppress strikes and revolutionary struggles by the working class.

Trump begins signing executive orders attacking immigrants and democratic rights

Eric London & Andrea Lobo

President Donald Trump displays executive order after signing it at an indoor Presidential Inauguration parade event in Washington, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. [AP Photo/Matt Rourke]

Donald Trump’s second term began with his signing the first in a series of unprecedented executive orders aimed at restricting immigration and democratic rights. Trump signed an initial set of orders in front of a crowd of supporters chanting “USA! USA! USA!” at an arena in Washington D.C. and returned to the White House where he signed further orders. Included among those signed are a ban on birthright citizenship.

Trump presented himself as a “peacemaker” during his inaugural address, but the policies he announced amount to a declaration of war against the world’s population. He denounced immigration as an “invasion” and said his executive orders were aimed at bringing about a “revolution” that will halt all immigration at the southern border, require mass detention for immigrants without criminal records and deploy the US military domestically in some form.

The president lacks the power to issue executive orders that contravene constitutional provisions like the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship, but that did not stop Trump. Many of the orders will be challenged in court, but the far-right-dominated Supreme Court will have the final say on their “legality.”

“I will declare a national emergency at our southern border,” Trump said during his inaugural speech earlier in the day, adding that “all illegal entry will immediately be halted. And we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.” The claim that there are “millions of criminal aliens” is a bald-faced lie—those without documentation have committed no criminal offense and it has been shown that immigrant workers commit substantially less crime than US citizens.

Trump also said he would designate “cartels as foreign terrorist organizations,” a measure that paves the way for potential military action in Mexico and Central America and which gives federal authorities the power to criminally prosecute individuals for “material support for terrorism” if they, for example, pay extortion fees to gangs against their will. When asked last night during an impromptu oval office press gaggle whether this designation meant Trump might launch military operations in Mexico, Trump said, “it might. Stranger things have happened.”

Trump also said during his inaugural speech that he would be “invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798,” the same provision of law invoked by John Adams, as well as by presidents Wilson and Roosevelt to detain immigrants and many US citizens during the First and Second World Wars. The law gives the president the ability to detain and deport individuals without due process. Trump also indicated his operations would target major population centers, stating the administration will “use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to US soil, including our cities and inner cities.”

As he signed the first of the orders, Trump told the crowd at Capitol One Arena that they were aimed at stopping “millions” of immigrants “pouring into our country from jails, prisons, mental institutions and insane asylums. It stops as of 1 o’clock this afternoon.” He told his supporters that they would be “happy reading the newspapers in the coming days” as they learn about the contents of the executive orders directed against immigrants.

As he signed the orders, the New York Times reported that Trump had ordered the firing of a number of officials in the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), the agency which oversees the immigration court system. Trump’s new Acting EOIR head, Sirce Owens, is a far-right-wing judge at the Board of Immigration Appeals and former Immigrations and Customs Enforcement attorney. This move indicates Trump and his aides are preparing to speed up removal proceedings by enforcing significant restrictions on due process.

Trump also pledged to reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy launched in 2019 during his first term; however, it will have a vastly changed character since migrants will not be waiting for their immigration cases to be considered. Under Biden, asylum seekers were already being compelled to wait in Mexico for months for asylum hearings through the CBP One mobile app, but now such requests have been suspended indefinitely.

As yesterday’s events transpired in Washington, scenes of immense suffering took place at the border crossing between El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez. Thousands of migrants waiting along the border began crying in near freezing temperatures as their CBP One afternoon appointments were immediately canceled. Nearby, lines of anti-riot police temporarily shut down the port of entry as a threat against any protests among the gathered migrants. An estimated 270,000 migrants were waiting to get an appointment through the app when it was shut down.

To an even greater extent than during his first term, Trump will rely on the collaboration of the Mexican government now led by pseudo-leftist President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has verbally denounced the return of the “Remain in Mexico” policy while remaining open to receiving deportees and those rejected at the border. Sheinbaum said Monday that she hopes to convince Trump to maintain access to CBP One applicants in southern Mexico, where they will become an extremely vulnerable source of cheap labor, especially after facing systematic extortion by gangs and security forces.

The orders will impact the lives of millions of people and will generate immense opposition in the population.