Trump’s authoritarian government of nationalism and war

Joseph Kishore

The Democratic Party and the media are doing everything they can to normalize the transfer of political power to Donald Trump, even as his initial appointments confirm the extreme and historically unprecedented character of the administration he will head.

For attorney general, Trump has tapped Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, long known for his opposition to civil rights and his support for the most invasive forms of government spying, beyond even those backed by the intelligence agencies. He has called for an expansion of police militarization and fiercely denounced immigrants, once declaring that “almost no one from the Dominican Republic” is coming to the US with “a provable skill that would benefit us.”

For CIA director, Trump is proposing Representative Mike Pompeo, another advocate of unconstitutional spying programs, who said earlier this year that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden should be prosecuted, convicted and executed.

For national security advisor, Trump has selected retired general Michael Flynn, a fanatic anti-Islamic militarist who supports the removal of nominal restrictions on torture, saying he believes “in leaving as many options on the table right up until the last possible moment.”

Other choices will follow a similar pattern. Reportedly, the top contender for secretary of defense is retired Marine General James Mattis, who led the brutal onslaught against Fallujah, Iraq in 2004 and notoriously declared a year later that “it’s fun to shoot some people.”

Most significant, however, is the central role of Trump’s new “chief strategist” Stephen Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News, who has been hailed by the white nationalist organizations that surround the so-called alt-right (which have also praised the selection of Sessions).

Bannon will play the central role in crafting the overall political agenda of the new administration. In an interview published Friday by Hollywood Reporter, Bannon outlines a policy of economic and political nationalism, with fascistic overtones.

“I’m not a white nationalist,” Bannon states, “I’m a nationalist. I’m an economic nationalist.” He denounces the “globalists”—a term popular among the alt-right to refer to anyone who does not support restrictions on trade and the movement of peoples—for having “gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia.”

Bannon’s aim, he says, is to “build an entirely new political movement” based on this nationalist economic policy combined with debt-fueled infrastructure spending. He declares, “With negative interest rates throughout the world, it’s the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything… We’re just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution—conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement.”

This is a type of language that has not been heard before at the summit of American power. While Trump, Bannon and others seek to couch their program in populist language, exploiting the widespread hostility to the Democratic Party and the identity politics of privileged sections of the upper-middle class, the program of economic nationalism is one of brutal class warfare.

Domestically, it means the suppression of all class struggle in the interests of the “nation” and “national security.” Internationally, it means resort to war, both to divert social tensions at home and to subordinate the United States’ principal competitors in Europe and Asia to the interests of the American ruling class. The new administration will be dominated by the military-intelligence-police apparatus, acting as the violent instrument of Wall Street and the financial aristocracy.

No less significant than the character of the incoming Trump administration is the response of the Democratic Party. With extraordinary speed—within just two weeks—the Democrats have moved from hysterical warnings that a Trump victory would be a catastrophe for the country to assurances that they will support the incoming administration and work with it on key elements of policy.

Trump’s initial cabinet appointments have coincided with the election of Charles Schumer as the Democratic Senate minority leader. Of all Democrats in the Senate, Schumer is perhaps the closest to Wall Street and the most fervent advocate of trade war measures, particularly against China.

Schumer has elevated Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to a leadership role in the Senate. During the presidential election campaign, Sanders worked to channel oppositional sentiment of a left-wing and anti-capitalist character behind Hillary Clinton, the candidate of war and Wall Street. As the World Socialist Web Site noted, his nationalist economic program closely paralleled that of Donald Trump.

In interviews over the weekend, both Schumer and Sanders declared that they hoped Trump would “work with us” on issues of “trade” and “infrastructure.” Sanders said Americans were “sick and tired of seeing their jobs go to China and other low-wage countries.”

The Democrats are proposing an alliance with Trump on economic proposals that are being spearheaded by Trump’s fascistic chief strategist, Bannon.

American presidential elections are characterized by all manner of lies, mudslinging and rhetoric, behind which various tactical divisions and conflicts within the ruling elite are fought out. It is in this way that the ultimate policy and trajectory of the ruling class asserts itself.

The coming period will be one of immense shocks and political upheavals. Trump’s economic policies, financed by ever greater levels of debt, combined with massive tax cuts for the rich and cuts in social programs, will produce economic chaos and class conflict. They will not resolve the intractable contradictions of American and world capitalism.

Moreover, while Trump could exploit social grievances during the election campaign and benefited from the collapse in voter turnout for Clinton, the program he is planning on implementing does not have mass support.

In preparing for the struggles to come, the basic political task is the organization and mobilization of the working class as an independent political force. This requires a complete and decisive break with the Democratic Party and all of the organizations that operate in its orbit. It is only in this way that the working class can advance a socialist, internationalist and revolutionary opposition to the economic nationalism, authoritarianism and militarism of a Trump administration.

University of Manchester President’s Doctoral Scholar Awards 2017 for PhD Students

Application Deadline: 9th December, 2016

To be taken at (country): UK

Eligible FieldS of Study: Only those applicants with an offer of a place on the Accounting and Finance, Business and Management or Science, Technology and Innovation Policy PhD programme for September 2017 entry can be considered

About the Award: Alliance Manchester Business School provides a thriving research environment, and the opportunity to work with the top international scholars in the full range of business and management disciplines, accounting and finance, and information systems. The University normally has a range of scholarships, studentships and bursaries available for students commencing their doctoral studies. The University seeks exceptional students who will both benefit from, and make a contribution to, our research community.

Type: PhD

Eligibility: To be eligible, candidates:

• must have obtained a First or Upper Second Class Honours degree (or equivalent) and hold (or expect to obtain) a Masters-level qualification with Distinction.
• should have a track-record of research engagement (including relevant research experience and dissemination) and/or potential for outstanding research, as demonstrated in the quality of the proposal submitted as part of the application.

Selection Criteria:  Consideration will be based on academic track record and evidence of research potential.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: In addition to standard awards which include tuition fee and stipend, successful PDS Award candidates are entitled to an additional £1,000 p.a. enhancement to their funded stipend/living allowance.

They will also have the opportunity to:

• Attend a series of exclusive events where you’ll have the opportunity to meet the University of Manchester President and Vice Chancellor, interact closely with our academic community and network with other PDS Award students
• Benefit from international research leadership under distinguished scholars
• Become a PDS Award ambassador for the University
• Receive a President’s Doctoral Scholar medal at graduation
• Benefit from our extensive postgraduate researcher development and training

Duration of Scholarship: 3 years

How to Apply: To be considered for one of these awards, candidates should submit a PhD application and indicate that they wish to be considered for this funding opportunity.

Candidates are advised to submit the application as early as possible. Candidates who do not submit the required supporting documents by the specific deadlines will not be considered.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: University of Manchester, UK

City of Killers: the Battle for Tal Afar

Patrick Cockburn

Tal Afar is a small city notorious for sectarian hatred and slaughter, which may soon be engulfed by a final battle between Isis and its bitterest enemies. Shia paramilitaries seeking revenge for past massacres of their co-religionists may soon assault the place which has provided many of the most feared Isis commanders, judges and religious officials.

“Isis is full of killers, but the worst killers of all come Tal Afar,” says a senior Iraqi official who did not want his name published. Abbas, a 47-year-old Shia Turkman from Tal Afar living in exile in the Kurdish city of Zakho, agrees, saying that several of the senior military commanders of the self-declared Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi come from there. He adds that officers from the Shia paramilitaries have been told that they will soon attack the city. The Turkmen are on of Iraq’s smaller minorities but important because of their links to Isis and to Turkey.

Between 10,000 and 15,000 Shia Hashd al-Shaabi are now massing to the south and west of Mosul with Tal Afar in their sights. A spokesman for them said on Tuesday that they were within twelve miles of Tal Afar airport.

The paramilitaries.often referred to as militia, include an estimated 3,000 Shia Turkmen from Tal Afar who were forced to flee in 2014 when Isis seized the city, though it had long been infamous for its death squads operating on behalf of both the Sunni majority and Shia minority. Sectarian killings began in 2003 when Saddam Hussein was overthrown by the US-led invasion and the city, strategically placed between Mosul and the Syrian border, became a stronghold, first for Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and later for Isis.

“Fear fills the city like a great cloud,” says Abbas. “Many senior members of Isis have left for Syria, but locals who worked with al-Qaeda and Isis are still there and are frightened. I am sure that after the battle of Tal Afar there will be a great massacre.” But, though the Sunni Turkmen believe they may be slaughtered they are determined not to surrender.

Abbas says that he believes that the Iraqi Army can take the city though only after heavy fighting because “the locals of Tal Afar which are with Isis will never leave the the city. They have a strong belief that Tal Afar is Sunni not Shia and they prefer Isis to the Iraqi government.” But, bad though occupation by the Iraqi Army would be in their eyes, its capture by the Hashd would be even worse says Abbas.

But this is what is most likely to happen according to Khasro Goran, a former deputy governor of Mosul who now leads the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) MPs in the Iraqi parliament. After a visit to the area, he said in an interview that though the Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Badi had promised “that only the Iraqi Army would enter Tal Afar, I believe the Hashd will do so also.” The difference between the paramilitaries and government security forces is not entirely clear cut, because the former have been known to change into federal police and other uniforms in the past to hide their presence in the battle zone.

What happens next in Tal Afar has international implications because Turkey has threatened military intervention in defence of the Sunni Turkmen if the Shia paramilitaries enter the city. A Turkish mechanised brigade has been moved to the Turkish Iraqi border to give substance to the threat. The KDP, the dominant Kurdish party in this part of northern Iraq, is likewise worried by the presence of powerful Shia militia forces in the region.

In a recent paper on “The Looming Problem of Tal Afar” for the Wilson Centre in Washington DC, Professor Gareth Stansfield of Exeter University gives a warning that the struggle for Tal Afar could be the flashpoint leading to a wider conflict. He writes that “because of Tal Afar’s early and close association with Sunni jihadism in Iraq, and perhaps also because of the astonishingly brutal nature of the sectarian conflict that engulfed Tal Afar from 2005-2007, the town has taken on the reputation of being Isis’s very own heart of darkness among Shia and Kurds alike.” He adds that the political implications of what happens in Tal Afar has the potential to destabilise the US-orchestrated operation to take Mosul.

Abbas says that as of last weekend the Hashd were within four miles of Tal Afar. He believes that for Isis the city has always been of great importance because of its position close to the border with Syria and Turkey. He says that under Saddam Hussein there was no sectarian friction between Sunni and Shia Turkmen, but this changed after the invasion of 2003. Aside from their sympathy for Isis, Abbas says that these days “the Sunni Turkmen lean towards Turkey and the Shia Turkmen lean towards the Baghdad government and Iran.”

For the moment living conditions in Tal Afar are not too bad as Isis is giving local fighters their basic needs. Food still comes through from Syria, but over the last week supplies have been more limited and Abbas says that, though most things are still available, people “don’t have the money to buy anything.”

The capture of Mosul and Tal Afar by the Iraqi government and the Hashd would severely weaken Isis and re-establish the authority of the Baghdad government in northern Iraq. The Sunni population of Iraq, a fifth of the population, would lose their last urban strongholds. Turkey may be tempted to intervene, but this will be opposed by the US and Baghdad. Isis has evidently decided to draw out the fighting for Mosul and Tal Afar, and, if it is able to do so, not much of either city will survive the battle.

Uber UK verdict highlights super-exploitation through “self-employment”

Thomas Scripps

A UK employment tribunal has ruled that Uber––the £50 billion [$US62 billion] app-based taxi service company––can no longer treat its drivers as self-employed and should pay them the national living wage of £7.20. This opens Uber to claims from its drivers for holiday pay, pensions and other workers’ rights. The company has appealed the ruling.

Since its founding seven years ago, Uber has extended its reach to 66 countries and 507 cities worldwide, with over 1 million drivers––40,000 of those in the UK. The company’s business model classifies its UK drivers as self-employed workers, merely put in touch with customers via the Uber app. The company then takes a commission of the fares earned by the drivers. Under this setup, Uber are not required to provide the employment rights associated with full or part-time work or to pay government-set wage rates.

In their decision the tribunal ruled “that working hours began the moment most drivers logged into the app.” The ruling went on, “The Uber driver’s working time starts as soon as he is within his territory, has the App switched on and is ready and willing to accept trips and ends as soon as one or more of those conditions ceases to apply.”

If the recent ruling is upheld, Uber’s drivers will be entitled to back-payment equal to the amount they have been underpaid while working for the company.

It could be years before the courts reach a final decision––one which Uber will work hard to delay––and before drivers see any money at all. Uber’s regional general manager for the UK, Jo Bertram, stated the company’s position: “The overwhelming majority of drivers who use the Uber app want to keep the freedom and flexibility of being able to drive when and where they want.”

It remains to be seen how Uber will respond long-term if it is forced to classify its drivers as employees and compensate them correspondingly. After the state of California ruled in June of last year that an Uber driver was an employee and not a contractor, American delivery company Instacart––which runs on a similar model––began shifting some of its contractors over to part-time status. The company ensured these part-timers were only allowed to work 30 hours a week and therefore not entitled to company–provided health insurance. One can imagine similar, legal, tricks being pulled in this case.

The UK Uber ruling comes on the heels of a series of protests and legal actions carried out this year by workers facing similar conditions at various companies. In March, drivers in Leeds and Manchester protested against Uber’s plans to cut fares by 13-14 percent, forcing them to work longer hours for the same money. In April, four bike couriers took Excel, City Sprint, Addison Lee and eCourier to an employment tribunal. The couriers were all classified as self-employed contractors, despite working in the case of one firm for some 50 hours a week.

In August, workers for the restaurant food delivery company Deliveroo staged a protest outside the company’s London office. The couriers were campaigning against plans to pay workers £3.75 per delivery instead of an hourly rate of £7 plus £1 per delivery. Deliveroo currently has 3,000 couriers working in the UK and is set to earn £130 million in 2016. In the same month, drivers for UberEats, Uber’s food delivery service, demonstrated outside an Uber office in Bermondsey demanding the company pay the London living wage of a guaranteed £9.40 per hour, plus costs. According to drivers, some were at risk of earning less than the minimum wage.

A large portion of the general workforce, including many young people, are working under such super-exploited conditions in the so-called “gig economy.” Uber and courier firms, including Hermes and Yodel, are among those relying on 4.7 million workers classed as “self-employed.” A Guardian investigation in July found that Hermes––the UK’s second largest parcel delivery company––was paying many of its 10,500 delivery drivers, also classified as self-employed, below the national living wage. Employees were working through illness due to the lack of sick pay and a fear of having delivery rounds withdrawn. Hermes, a subsidiary of the £12 billion Otto Group, made £36 million in 2015, three times its profits five years ago.

In recent years, companies have moved towards this style of employment as a means of slashing labour costs. This has resulted in a drastic lowering of living standards for self-employed workers, 80 percent of whom in the UK were living in poverty in the year 2012-13. Following the court case against Uber, taken forward by the GMB trade union, another union, Unite, declared it was setting up a new unit to investigate cases of false self-employment. The Trades Union Congress has launched a review of the scale and nature of such employment in the UK.

Meanwhile, the government has announced a six-month review of working practices and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is setting up its own department to investigate firms over this issue.

For their part, Labour Party politicians have criticised Deliveroo’s pay deals as “Victorian,” with MP Frank Field declaring the “clock is ticking” against companies exploiting the gig economy.

There is more than a little cynicism here. Both parties of the British bourgeoisie and their industrial police in the trade unions are wholly complicit in allowing such abuses to be normalised. The World Socialist Web Site recently reported on the scandalous treatment of workers at Sport Direct warehouses, who were paid below minimum wage, harangued from a public address system, submitted to regular searches and subject to a “six strikes” rule, over a six-month period, after which they faced instant dismissal. The “strikes” included “errors,” “excessive/long toilet breaks” and a “period of reported sickness.”

Businesses are only able to force hundreds of thousands of people into such hyper-exploitation because Labour and Conservative governments alike have given them a free hand according to the mantra of creating a “globally competitive economy.” Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May said this week, “The government I lead is unequivocally and unashamedly pro-business.” Despite the occasional criticism of the practices of firms such as Uber, nothing of any fundamental character will be done to infringe on the profitability of big business.

In regard to the likes of the GMB and Unite, workers at Uber, Deliveroo and across the self-employed sector should beware. Over the last three decades, the trade unions have carried out one betrayal after another. To the extent that the unions now wish to intervene in this growing section of the labour market, it is in order to slot themselves into the potentially lucrative role of managing formerly self-employed workers on behalf of multi-million and billion pound companies. In their struggle against appalling wages, terms and conditions, couriers and drivers at Uber Deliveroo, and other such firms must wage their struggle independently of the labour and trade union bureaucracy.

Volkswagen plans 30,000 job cuts

Dietmar Henning

Over the course of the next nine years, Volkswagen will cut 30,000 jobs at its core VW brand, including 23,000 in Germany. This was the announcement by the works council and management at a joint press conference on Friday at the company headquarters in Wolfsburg.

As part of the so called Pact for the Future, VW and the works council agreed to the destruction of more than one in seven of the company’s current 200,000 staff worldwide. The billions in fines and charges incurred through the diesel emissions scandal--the scale of which has still not been established as ever new offences keep being uncovered--as well as the cost of investment in electric vehicles and digitalisation are being pushed onto the backs of the workforce.

VW brand head Herbert Diess, supported by the main VW works council chair Bernd Osterloh, said, "With the Pact for the Future, Volkswagen is making a big step forward." The finalisation of the "Pact for the Future" was the precondition for an investment plan up to 2021, which the Supervisory Board discussed yesterday. This involves the dispostion of around 100 billion euros worldwide.

According to the Pact of the Future, VW operating profits should rise to 3.7 billion euros a year by 2020. In addition to the savings contained in the last cuts programme, three billion euros are to be saved in Germany and 700 million euros at international locations. There are still some 2.5 billion euros of savings outstanding from the previous cuts programme.

Works council head Osterloh not only gave the job-cuts his blessing, but called them a success. The Pact for the Future meant that the uncontrolled destruction of jobs was no longer on the table, he said, and stressed that all VW plants in Germany would remain in operation. Compulsory redundancies for the core workforce were now excluded for the next years, he said. Those to go were only agency workers. That amounts to 3,000 at the Emden plant alone, who will lose their jobs by the end of the year, as the Ostfriesen Zeitung reported.

Instead of compulsory redundancies, the job cuts would take place through early retirement. That was to be welcomed, Osterloh said. The IG Metall union, works council and company are agreed that the postions vacated by those taking retirement will not be replaced. Additionally, the regulations governing part-time retirement and early retirement would serve to push workers out of the factories.

"Volkswagen must start earning money again quickly and arm itself for the coming storm", Diess said at the press conference. Productivity at the German plants in Wolfsburg, Hannover, Braunschweig, Emden, Kassel, Salzgitter, Zwickau and Chemnitz should rise by 25 percent.

The core VW brand, which produces models such as the Golf and Passat, has been accused in the past by shareholders of realising too little profit. Every 100 euros turnover should produce around 1.6 euros profit, from which interest and tax is then levied. With the help of the Pact for the Future negotiated with the works council in the last months, VW wants to raise its profit rate in the next four years to four percent.

The negotiations over the massive job cuts were mainly conducted between the VW personnel dirctor Karlheinz Blessing and the works council chair Osterloh. Volkswagen boss Herbert Diess was also involved in support of Blessing. Diess and Blessing have put the component plants in Braunschweig, Kassel and Salzgitter up for closure. The engine plant in Salzgitter has been specifically targeted to be closed down and production outsourced.

Along with Blessing and Osterloh, representatives of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the IG Metall were sitting on both sides of the table. Personnel Director Blessing began his professional career on the IG Metall executive--where he headed the office of the IG Metall chief Franz Steinkühler--and in the SPD, where he was federal manager for a short time under the SPD chair Björn Engholm.

In 1994, Blessing moved to the Dillinger smelter and Saarstahl AG as labour director, following Peter Harz, who switched to VW. In 2011, he then took over the chief post and imposed a rigerous programme of cuts. Blessing is a close confidant of former IG Metall chairman Berthold Huber, who, until recently, also sat on the VW board.

In the negotiations with Osterloh, Blessing, as the representative of the company, called for thorough-going measures and blamed workers in the componant factories for the low profits. Diess called for a clearer orientation on the production of electric cars. Recently, CEO Matthias Müller was also involved in the negotiations.

What emerged was the decision to cut 30,000 jobs. The three component plants received commitments to produce electric motors and batteries. New electric cars are to be built at the main plants in Wolfsburg and Zwickau. The battery system for the modular transfer matrix will continue to be assembled in Braunschweig, and the plant will also take over the development and manufacture of the battery system for the so-called modular electric toolkit (MEB). Kassel will develop the MEB-drive and as well as assembling the E-Gearbox take on responsibilty for the assembly of the overall system. The MEB-drive component manufacturing is to be passed to Salzgitter. In addition, a pilot plant for battery cells will be built.

Moreover, the majority of the 23,000 jobs to be eliminated in Germany will be cut at these three plants, which currently employ around 30,000. This will have serious consequences, especially for younger workers. If not enough older colleagues take retirement, they could be forced to work in other plants.

Moreover, a smaller workforce increases the danger that it could fall victim to the next round of cuts. Given the tense international political and economic situation, this might come sooner than expected. Even now, the media is criticisng the pact as too weak. Spiegel Online called it a "half-hearted rescue plan", since no plants were being closed and wages for the core workforce were not being cut.

While the workforce is being made to pay for the costs of the diesel emission scandal as well as the reorganisation of a large part of production, those on the board are safe in their seats. Apart from the former CEO Martin Winterkorn, who had to give up his place as a result of the emissions scandal, while keeping his salary, hardly anyone from the top management has been held responsible for the billions of losses.

This has been made possible by the close collaboration between the corporate management, the IG Metall and the works council. These have always collaborated more closely at VW than elsewhere, since along with the trade union and works council representatives, the SPD state government of Lower Saxony also sits on the Supervisor Board as a major shareholder. However, this has further intensified in the last eighteen months.

When information about the emissions scandal began to emerge, the long-standing Supervisory Board chair Ferdinand Karl Piëch resigned his post on April 25, 2015. His position was taken on by IG Metall chair Berthold Huber, who had also been the VW Supervisory Board deputy chair for years. It was the first time in German coprorate history that a union functionary was appointed the supreme controller of such a large concern.

In September 2015, during Huber's term in office, news of the exhaust emissions fraud became known. The IG Metall, works council representatives and SPD have a majority on the supervisory board and could have held those responsible to account. However, under the aegis of Supervisor Board chair Huber, the directors not only remained secure in their posts but were given record bonus payments.

Meanwhile, the IG Metall and main VW works council were developing measures to shift the full cost of the emissions scandal onto the backs of the workforce. Only when everything was ready was the leadership of the Supervisory Board transferred to Hans Dieter Pötsch, VW's long-standing finance director.

Surgeon general’s report: One in seven Americans face substance addiction

Kate Randall

One in seven Americans will become addicted to drugs or alcohol in their lifetimes, but only 10 percent of those affected will ever receive any help in treating their addictions. These are some of the grim statistics provided in a new report released Thursday by the US surgeon general and the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Facing Addiction in America: The Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health” reports that over 27 million people in the United States reported current use of illicit drugs or misuse of prescription drugs in 2015, and over 66 million people reported binge drinking in the past month.

The victims of this health and societal crisis are the tens of thousands of lives lost and ruined each year due to substance misuse. Substance addiction cuts across all segments of society, but has hit rural communities, the deindustrialized Rust Belt and impoverished areas of Appalachia particularly hard.

Alcohol misuse contributes to 88,000 deaths in the US every year; 1 in 10 deaths among working adults is due to alcohol misuse. In 2014, there were 47,055 drug overdose deaths, including 28,647 people who died from a drug overdose involving some type of opioid, more than in any previous year on record.

The report uses the term “misuse” as opposed to “abuse” in an effort to remove some of the stigma of addiction to encourage and facilitate treatment.

While the US spends more than any other country on health care, it ranks 27th in life expectancy, at a time when life expectancy continues to increase in other developed countries. The report notes that this disparity in life expectancy “is largely due to substance misuse and associated physical and mental health problems.”

The report points to recent research showing an unprecedented increase in mortality among middle-aged white Americans between 1999 and 2014 that was largely driven by alcohol and drug misuse and suicides, although this trend was not witnessed in other racial and ethnic populations.

The surgeon general estimates that substance misuse disorders cost “more than $400 billion annually in crime, health and lost productivity.” The human costs are devastating, including deaths and injuries from motor vehicle crashes, intimate partner and sexual violence, suicide attempts and fatalities, overdoses, and numerous health problems.

In 2014, 9,967 people were killed in motor vehicle accidents in the US while driving under the influence of alcohol, accounting for nearly one third of all traffic-related fatalities. While there are approximately 1.3 million arrests for driving under the influence each year, this number represents only about 1 percent of the actual alcohol-impaired driving incidents reported in national surveys.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports more than 2,200 alcohol overdose (alcohol poisoning) deaths in the US each year, an average of six a day. More than three quarters of alcohol overdose deaths occur among adults between the ages of 35 and 64, and 76 percent who die are men.

In 2014, 47,055 drug overdose deaths occurred in the US, with 61 percent of these the result of opioid use, including prescription opioids and heroin. The number of people dying from opioid overdoses increased nearly fourfold between 1999 and 2014.

The report notes that the over-prescription of opioid pain relievers beginning in the 1990s has led to a rapid escalation of their use and misuse among a wide demographic of men and women across the US. The use of opioids is so widespread that more people use prescription opioids (38 percent) than all tobacco products combined (31 percent).

Nearly 30,000 people died due to a heroin or prescription opioid overdose in 2014, and an estimated 20,000 died as a result of an unintentional overdose of alcohol, cocaine, or non-opioid prescription drugs.

The illegal manufacturing and distribution of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which are often combined with heroin or distributed as heroin, are contributing to the rapid increase in opioid overdose deaths.

Alcohol and drug misuse have numerous longer-term effects on physical and mental health. Heavy drinking can lead to hypertension, liver disease and certain cancers; regular marijuana use is associated with chronic bronchitis; and use of stimulants such as cocaine can lead to heart disease.

Alcohol and substance misuse during pregnancy can result in long lasting health effects for the baby. Alcohol misuse can cause fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs), resulting in physical, mental and behavioral problems in children. It is estimated that FASDs affect as many as 2 to 5 percent of the population. The opioid crisis has resulted in a fivefold increase in the number of babies dependent on opioids at birth.

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) found that among the more than 265 million Americans aged 12 and over in 2015, almost 8 percent of this population met diagnostic criteria for a substance use disorder for alcohol or illicit drugs. Another 1 percent met the criteria for both an alcohol and illicit drug use disorder.

Although 20.8 million people met the diagnostic criteria for a substance use disorder in 2015, only 2.2 million of them received any type of treatment. The surgeon general’s report is short on answers as to why this is the case.

The report includes a chapter on “The Neurobiology of Substance Use, Misuse, and Addiction,” which describes the three main circuits in the brain involved in addiction, and explains how substance use can “hijack” the normal functioning of these circuits.

“Understanding this transformation in the brain is critical to understanding why addiction is a health condition, not a moral failing or character flaw,” the authors note. They also point to medications that have proven useful in treating both drug and alcohol addiction, but which have been often overlooked and under-prescribed.

The surgeon general’s report recommends health professionals act on this research in their treatment of those suffering from addiction. However, the fact that 90 percent of those in need of treatment never receive it—and addiction and overdose deaths continue to skyrocket—points to deeper economic and social factors. This includes the lack of funding for alcohol and drug misuse treatment at federal, state and local level, leading to those in need often ending up in the prison system instead of in treatment.

Recognizing the role of poverty, unemployment and other life stresses as contributing factors to addiction, the surgeon general’s report recommends initiatives to provide affordable housing, job training and recovery support to “address the risk and protective factors that are most actionable at the local level.”

Arguing that “the health care system alone cannot address all of the major determinants of health related to substance misuse,” the authors recommend rallying “community-based organizations, religious institutions, law enforcement, local businesses, researchers and other public, private, and voluntary entities” to tackle the crisis.

Under conditions where austerity and budget cuts can only be expected to deepen under the future Trump administration, such band-aid prescriptions offer little hope to the tens of millions suffering from addiction, many of whom face a future of increased health problems, overdose and death.

Fed set to lift key interest rate

Nick Beams

Financial markets have priced in as a virtual certainty that the US Federal Reserve will raise its base interest rate when it next meets on December 13–14. Fed chair Janet Yellen lifted expectations of a rate rise when she told a congressional hearing this week that such a move could “become appropriate relatively soon.”

Yellen told Congress’s Joint Economic Committee that if the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee were to delay for too long “it could end up having to tighten policy relatively abruptly.”

The Fed last increased rates by 0.25 percentage points in December 2015. At that time it was projected that there could have been as many as four rate increases over the course of this year. But at each of its meetings the Fed has decided to keep its base rate on hold.

However the turnaround in bond markets in the last ten days, following the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency, has seen the probability of a rate rise, as reflected in futures markets, escalate rapidly.

The yield on 10-year US treasury bonds reached 2.33 percent yesterday, its highest level for the year. The bond sell-off (the price of bonds and their yield bear an inverse relationship to each other) is on the expectation that inflation in the US will start to rise and that any infrastructure program under Trump will increase government debt—both of which tend to lower bond prices.

The stock markets have been hitting record or near-record highs on the back of expectations that tax cuts, including a reduction in the corporate tax rate from 35 to 15 percent, and a winding back of business regulations, will boost the bottom line.

While it is not anticipated that a Fed rate rise will have a major effect in the US, the international consequences may be significant, with the effects of a rate rise transmitted through a movement of money out of emerging markets to seek higher returns in the US and a rise in the value of the dollar.

The dollar index, which measures the value of the US currency against basket of other currencies, reached a 13-year high at one point yesterday after recording 10 straight days of gains. And it could climb further in the expectation of an increase in official rates next month.

The increase by the Fed last December had a significant effect on emerging markets, which then resulted in major stock markets having one of their worst openings to a year on record. What kind of impact a rate rise will have is not completely clear, but the past weeks have seen major falls in the currencies of emerging market economies and in their stock markets.

According to a report in Bloomberg, emerging market bond markets are poised for their biggest losses since the so-called “taper tantrum” of 2013 when there was a rush for the exits after Fed chairman Ben Bernanke had indicated the central bank would ease back on its purchases of bonds.

Bond prices are falling across the board—it is estimated that the global paper losses so far total around $1.5 trillion—but there are significant divergences. While there is a ready market for the bonds of the major economies, the situation is different for emerging markets.

Every increase in the value of the dollar increases the real debt burden of dollar denominated loans and impacts on the balance sheet of the companies that issued them. If investors withdraw cash, then companies and financial institutions will have difficulties in paying back debt.

In other words, emerging markets, which had previously enjoyed dollar liquidity as investors searched for yield in an environment of near-zero and even negative interest rates, could face a dollar shortage as interest rates and bond yields start to rise.

It is also far from clear what will be the impact on the two most important central banks after the US Fed—the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of Japan (BoJ). The governing council of the ECB will next month set out the future of the asset purchasing program which is due to end in its current form in March 2017. ECB president Mario Draghi has indicated that there would be some form of extension, but that was before the rapid rise in bond yields that followed the Trump victory.

Similarly the Bank of Japan faces new conditions. In September, the central bank committed itself to lock in the interest rate on 10-year government bonds at zero as a central plank of its monetary policy. This week the yield went above zero for the first time since the policy was announced. If it now implements its “yield curve control” policy, a situation may well develop where Japanese government bond yields are under international pressure to rise while the BoJ is working to suppress them.

While US markets are enjoying a Trump boost, there are concerns among fiscal and monetary conservatives about the state of the international financial system and the consequences of a sharp rise in the value of the dollar.

In a statement headlined “Trouble Ahead for the Global Economy,” directed to the incoming administration, the right-wing free-market American Enterprise Institute warned that while the balance sheet expansion of the world’s central banks may have helped the recovery from the Great Recession of 2008–2009 it did so by setting the stage for the next global downturn.

“Sadly, that downturn could very well be on a similar scale to the one that followed the September 2008 Lehman bankruptcy,” it said.

It warned that debt had risen to record levels, financial market bubbles had been created, and the position of troubled banks, especially in Europe, had been worsened by the low interest rate regime.

The statement noted the recent International Monetary Fund study which disclosed that global debt has risen to an all-time high of 225 percent of global GDP over the past eight years, with two-thirds of the growth involving private debt.

It pointed to two causes of concern. European governments with high levels of debt, including Greece, Italy and Portugal, are vulnerable to any tightening of monetary conditions. And what it called “excessive borrowing” by emerging market corporations in dollar denominated loans made them “particularly vulnerable to any further dollar appreciation.”

But with the Fed set to lift interest rates next month, such a rise may be already in train.

Rising indicators of social distress in Australia

John Harris

Amid a slowdown of the economy and growing social inequality, indicators of distress and hardship are mounting, belying the claims of media pundits that Australian workers and young people are fortunate to live in the “lucky country.”

A report released by the Community Council for Australia (CCA) late last month showed that suicide rates and incarceration levels have risen starkly, hitting the most oppressed sections of the working class hardest.

The report, titled The Australia We Want, underscores the punitive character of the prison system, with imprisonment and lengthy sentences serving as the official reaction to a host of social problems.

Over the past decade, Australia’s prison population has increased by a staggering 42 percent, from 25,400 in 2005 to 36,134 last year.

The report noted that from 2014 to 2015, the number of prisoners increased by 7 percent. The rise takes the national average to 196 prisoners per 100,000 people, up from 186 prisoners per 100,000 in 2014. This is higher than every country in Western Europe, along with Canada, and is more than double the rate in a number of Scandinavian countries.

The Northern Territory has the highest incarceration rate, with 885.1 prisoners per 100,000, or four times the national average. The figure exceeds the rate across the United States—a world leader in mass imprisonment—of 700 prisoners per 100,000. The second highest levels of incarceration are in Western Australia, with 278.2 people imprisoned per 100,000. The number of prisoners has grown in other states, including South Australia, which now has 204.4 people behind bars per 100,000.

According to the report, the number of prisoners who have not been sentenced, but are in custody is almost 10,000, up by 21 percent from 2014. Many prisoners wait months for a sentence to be delivered.

Less than 25 percent of inmates have committed a violent crime—the majority are found guilty of property offences, often a result of poverty. Only 20 percent of imprisoned adults have completed high school education. One third of adult prisoners have a disability or long-term chronic health condition. Among Aboriginal people, the most oppressed section of the working class, the incarceration rate is 2,253 per 100,000.

The rise in incarceration is a direct result of the policies imposed by successive governments. In the late 1990s, state governments in the Northern Territory and Western Australia introduced mandatory sentencing laws for petty property offences, leading to young people being locked-up for stealing bottles of water, packets of biscuits, stationery and alcohol.

The policy was the sharpest expression of a broader turn to “law and order” measures by Labor and Liberal governments at the state and federal level, which has continued unabated. Last year, the Western Australian Liberal government and Labor opposition came together to push through an expansion of mandatory sentencing, including for children aged 16 to 18 involved in burglaries. In 2014, the New South Wales Liberal government and Labor opposition introduced mandatory sentences for assaults associated with alcohol.

The report also draws attention to a high incidence of suicide, which is a leading cause of death, outnumbering fatalities in car accidents. Suicide rates have risen by 20 percent in Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory.

In 2014, approximately 7.8 people committed suicide every day. In 2016, the figure stood at over 8 suicides per day. Incidences are highest in the most poverty-stricken areas, with workers, young people and the unemployed confronting a myriad of social and health issues.

The Northern Territory, which has served as a testing ground for punitive policies targeting welfare and expanding juvenile detention, has the highest rate of suicides—20.8 per 100,000 in 2014, up from 14.3 in 2013. The report notes that the current suicide rate for indigenous youth is four times higher than that of non-indigenous youth.

The official response to the social disaster was underscored by the recent announcement by Lifeline, which provides emergency assistance to people suffering depression and experiencing suicidal crises, that it is ending operations in the Territory. The charity organisation cited a persistent lack of government funding over the past 10 years.

Underlying the growth of social distress is the dramatic increase in social inequality over the past three decades. The report notes that the average income of the wealthiest 20 percent of households is five times that of the poorest 20 percent.

Australia’s GINI coefficient, which measures social inequality, has also grown. The higher the coefficient, the greater the wealth inequality. In 2012, Australia’s coefficient stood at 32.6, higher than more than half of the countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD.) In 2014, it increased to 33.73.

The report notes the rising cost of living, which is compounding the social crisis. It points, in particular to housing costs, and notes that those in the lowest quintile spend the highest proportion of their income on rent and mortgage payments.

House prices across the country have soared. Median house prices in Sydney hit a record $1.06 million last month and in Melbourne, the figure stands at over $773,000. These figures have risen by 65 percent and 45 percent respectively, over the past four years. The increases have seen rates of home ownership among young people drop by 50 percent over the past three decades, and have led to widespread financial stress and growing homelessness.

The social divide revealed in the CCA document contrasts sharply with the political complacency of its authors, including Tim Costello, CEO of World Vision Australia, and other charity organisations. The report—written in the form of a note of advice to the very governments responsible for the mounting social crisis—is a warning to the ruling elite that growing inequality will fuel social opposition and anger. To that end, the report issues a series of pathetic calls for greater “inclusivity,” a “united” community and a more “optimistic,” “kind” and “compassionate” society.

In reality, the corporate elite, and the major parties, including Labor, the Liberals and the Greens, are all committed to imposing the burden of the deepest crisis of the capitalist system since the 1930s, onto the backs of the working class and young people. In September, for instance, Labor and the federal Liberal-National government agreed to impose $6.3 billion in cuts to social spending, particularly targeting education, healthcare and welfare.

After Trump victory: Mexican peso plummets amid ruling class unease

Clodomiro Puentes

In the two trading sessions immediately following the election of Donald Trump last Tuesday, the Mexican peso’s value plummeted over 12.6 percent, its most precipitous decline since the 1994 financial crisis. By the close of last Thursday’s session, the peso had falle to 20.53 pesos to the dollar, from 18.6 on the eve of the election. It continued its plunge to 21.45 pesos on Friday.

The abrupt devaluation of the peso reflected the upending of the Mexican ruling elite’s expectations of a Clinton victory, and laid bare their anxieties over what a government headed by Trump may presage. Particular concern has been provoked by the president-elect’s protectionist rhetoric, including his professed intent to impose a 35 percent tariff on all Mexican-manufactured auto exports to the US, along with his denunciations of NAFTA as “the worst trade deal ever.” On the latter point, he has made vague threats ranging from abandoning it outright to renegotiating terms.

Bilateral trade between the US and Mexico is estimated at US$583 billion annually, with 80 percent of Mexican exports going to the US. A renegotiation of NAFTA could create conditions of crisis and uncertainty rivaling the effects of Brexit in Europe.

Nevertheless, the Mexican currency gained in value modestly to 20.3 pesos to the dollar this week as the initial panic of Mexico’s financial aristocracy gave way to some expressions of cautious optimism. Trump’s past remarks about infrastructure investment and slashing of corporate tax rates down to 15 percent from 35 percent in the US are seen as potentially benefiting sections of Mexico’s ruling elite as well in the long term.

The far-right billionaire’s anti-immigrant vitriol is also of some concern to the Mexican ruling class. This is motivated not by concern for the well-being of the millions of undocumented immigrant workers he intends to deport as by the possibility of greatly diminished revenues from the remittances (currently valued at US$24.8 billion per year) sent to Mexico.

There remains considerable public anger over the political fiasco that was Trump’s visit to Mexico in September. The display of servility by President Enrique Peña Nieto toward Trump, the most hated figure in Mexico, served to further undermine the legitimacy of his administration. Peña Nieto’s approval rating has fallen to 26 percent.

Trump’s threat of mass deportations is largely a continuation of the already existing situation. Mexican Secretary of the Interior Osorio Chong recently announced the expansion of the Programa Somos Mexicanos, a program that was implemented in 2014 with the express purpose of reintegrating deportees into the workforce. This was a complementary response to the Obama administration’s own deportation policy, which sent back nearly 200,000 Mexican nationals in 2015 alone.

Similarly, Trump’s proposed “wall” has elicited only the most guarded reaction from the Mexican political establishment, which can do little else since it is caught between the growing disapproval of the mass of the Mexican population on the one hand, and the demands of its subordination to US imperialism on the other.

Peña Nieto gave a brief press conference the day after the US elections in which he related little of substance, except to reaffirm the prostration of that country’s ruling elite to Washington. With regard to the charged question of Trump’s deportation scheme, he could only offer: “As President of Mexico, I will dedicate myself to the best of my ability, genuinely, with body and soul, to watch over the well-being and the interests of Mexicans wherever they may be.” The proposed border wall was noticeably absent from his address.

He added: “President-elect Donald Trump expressed his willingness to work with everyone and every country, looking for agreement and not hostility, alliances and not conflicts, and Mexico shares that vision.”

Peña Nieto will find areas of “agreement and not hostility” by adapting his administration to Trump’s proposed police state measures to round up millions of undocumented immigrants. Given his well-established record as enforcer of Washington’s repressive immigration policies, carrying out tens of thousands of deportations of Central American immigrants as part of the so-called Merida Initiative, there is no reason to suspect that the Mexican elite will not continue to do Washington’s bidding.

Contrary to Trump’s racist claims about drug dealers, rapists and criminals storming the US-Mexico border, the fact is that there has been a net outflow of Mexican immigrants back to their home country in recent years, in response to both the Obama administration’s draconian immigration policies and the limited economic opportunities available since the 2008 financial meltdown. Trump’s denunciations are designed to pollute the political climate in the US and scapegoat immigrant workers for conditions created by the decay of American capitalism.

His xenophobic appeals will inevitably run aground upon the intractable realities of American capitalism’s dependence on a vulnerable and super-exploited layer of undocumented immigrant workers. Divisions exist within the ruling class on how to deal with the “problem” of immigrant workers, particularly on the part of the large agribusiness conglomerates that have long pushed for immigration “reform,” the better to manage and exploit their workers.

Dave Heineman, who sits on Trump’s agricultural advisory committee, speaking to agriculture newsletter Agri-Pulse on the future of trade deals such as TPP and NAFTA, confirmed these differences: “Talk to governors of large industrial states and they will tell you that while [agriculture] was favored in trade relations in these trade deals, the manufacturing sector and other sectors of the economy weren’t.”

Whatever the final form taken by Trump’s approach to repressing immigrant workers, the underlying political logic is to drive a wedge between workers who are objectively linked across national boundaries in the production process, and whose common interests are inimical to those of their respective ruling classes.

Both US and Mexican workers and farmers were negatively impacted by NAFTA, which was developed by both Republican and Democratic administrations before being finally implemented in 1994.

Poor peasants found their livelihoods shattered by an influx of cheap US agricultural imports propped up by federal subsidies. This coincided with Mexico’s own slashing of agricultural subsidies alongside other neoliberal counterreforms, including a wave of privatizations of key assets such as telecommunications and railways and the dismantling of the constitutional protections of the ejido (communal agriculture) system.

As a consequence of NAFTA, Mexico, formerly self-sufficient in corn, now receives half its supply from the US. Mexican agriculture is estimated to have lost nearly a million and a half jobs—it was this ruination of the small Mexican farmer that proved to be a major source for immigration northwards in this period.

The growth of the Mexican industrial working class was manifested in the mushrooming of low-wage maquiladora plants along the border states to facilitate production across national boundaries, a process known as “near-sourcing.” Mexico is now the third largest producer of automobiles behind the US and Brazil in the Americas, and auto manufacturers are eager to exploit a labor force whose wages average $5 an hour, barely a third of what is being paid to the low-wage new-hires in US auto plants.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, head of the center-left Movement for National Regeneration (Morena), has distinguished himself little from Peña Nieto with his blasé comments advising the Mexican population not to “panic” about Trump’s designs.

“In the case of the United States, it’s best to wait and we’ll respond depending on what they decide,” he said. “I hope that there are no unpleasant surprises—to the contrary, it would be something they would have to rectify because nothing will be resolved with walls and coercive measures. I trust that we’ll be able to convince them that the best thing with regards to the United States is cooperation for development.”

Lopez Obrador is expected to turn any deterioration in US-Mexico relations under a Trump administration to his own electoral advantage in 2018. To Trump’s far-right strain of economic nationalism, Lopez will respond in kind, with the support of the Mexican pseudo-left.

Tendencies such as the Movement of Socialist Workers (MTS), the Mexican section of the Morenoite FT-CI, attempt to formally distance themselves from the politics of Morena, but what they advance politically is not substantially different. Their insipid statement leading up to the US elections, “Neither ‘Killary’ nor Trump! Organize the discontent against Yankee meddling!” bears all the trademarks of a narrow nationalist outlook that repeatedly descends into vulgar anti-Americanism.

They offer no analysis as to what accounted for Trump’s emergence as the Republican frontrunner. The American working class appears in the piece not once. Instead, there are only telegraphed clichés about the United States as an undifferentiated imperialist monolith.

Significantly, its main criticism against the ruling PRI is that it has “long ago abandoned its nationalist rhetoric.” As the WSWS has pointed out, the basic aspiration of sections of the upper middle class is toward a return to the kind of nationalist course that existed in the days of the “Mexican miracle,” as if the objective conditions that allowed for the limited gains of import-substitution industrialization in the postwar period could be willed back into existence. Should the MTS strike out on its own in 2018, it would only counterpose to Morena’s protectionism a similar political trap for the Mexican working class, albeit with pseudo-socialist window dressing.

Protectionist measures are an economic blind alley that can only serve to intensify trade disputes and geopolitical tensions. The bogus invocation of “national sovereignty” in Mexico, or the promise to “make America great again,” can be accomplished only on the basis of attacking the living conditions of the working class, as already evidenced by Obama’s aforementioned “rescue” of the auto industry in 2009. Put bluntly, the only way to bring jobs back on a capitalist basis is to intensify the attack on all the hard-fought gains of the working classes throughout North America.

In a worried editorial Thursday headlined “Preparing for the worst,” the Mexico City daily La Jornada said that the implementation of Trump’s campaign promises could create a population of 10 million people “in a situation of complete deprivation.” It called upon the government to prepare a massive program of public jobs for building housing, schools, clinics and other infrastructure. Acknowledging that such an initiative would come at “an astronomical cost,” the paper warned that without it, “Mexico would face an unmanageable, destabilizing and tragic human catastrophe.”

As no section of the Mexican bourgeoisie is prepared to carry out any such program, the prospect is for a rapid intensification of the class struggle and a new period of revolutionary crisis.

Donald Trump and South Asia

Michael Krepon

What can the subcontinent expect from President Donald Trump? Bewilderment, for starters. If the new occupant in the Oval Office is unfamiliar with Russia, China, the workings of NATO, nuclear deterrence, and the impact of trade compacts, do not expect him to be well versed on the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and Kashmir.

True, most incoming presidents are strangers to the subcontinent, but Trump is a special case. He did not take his homework seriously during a lengthy presidential campaign, and one of the many questions surrounding his ascension is whether he will apply himself to the monumental job ahead. The same questions applied to President Ronald Reagan, who fared well when surrounded by savvy advisors, and stumbled badly when given awful advice. 

Trump will also be greatly dependent on the people around him for expertise and wise counsel. His inner circle of advisers consists of family members and a small cohort who stuck with him through thick and thin: Rudy Guiliani, Newt Gingrich, General Mike Flynn, and Jeff Sessions. Their abilities to handle the affairs of state are equally questionable. Guiliani is mentioned as a possible Secretary of State, along with John Bolton. Both have empathy deficits, confusing diplomacy with boorish behaviour. Their ties to Democrats on Capitol Hill are frayed, to say the least, and would encounter bruising conformation battles. Perhaps better-qualified candidates will come to the fore.

Below the top tier, where all of the diplomacy toward South Asia takes place – except for crisis management – the applicants are a mystery. If the top tier appointments have little standing, recruiting quality help will be extremely challenging. Many high-ranking officials in previous Republican administrations have sworn off working for Trump. The Heritage Foundation will be heavily involved in job placement, with Old School Republican internationalists continuing their retreat from the corridors of power. Obstructionists and deconstructionists will now have a go at making policy.

US presidential diplomacy is likely to return to the cue card era of the Reagan administration. Do not expect major initiatives toward the region in the Trump administration. The trend lines toward India and Pakistan established during the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations are too deeply grooved to change, but there could be differences in degree rather than course corrections. New Delhi could find it has a less persuasive advocate in the White House for its pursuit of NSG membership, and an unsympathetic ear to Prime Minister Modi’s 'Make in India' campaign. Pakistan faces a bigger problem: a less tolerant executive branch for hosting  Jaish and Lashkar cadres that carry out attacks against India.

Pakistan’s talking points have long since lost traction in Washington. If there is not evident change in Rawalpindi’s stance toward anti-India groups, the Trump administration and Capitol Hill could react very strongly when the next attack happens. One key variable is how much overt effort Rawalpindi makes to stop cross-border violence. A second is the scale of the attack.

Washington no longer pretends to have the carrots to influence Rawalpindi’s choices, but it still has more sticks. The 'nuclear' option is declaring Pakistan to be a state supporter of terrorism – a decision many in India would applaud, until they deal with the consequences.

US-Pakistan relations are a sad tale of mutually unrequited hopes. US-India relations are a positive work in progress that could also be defined by mutually unrequited hopes. One test of the relationship during the Trump administration could come with increased friction – perhaps of a serious nature – between Washington and China. In which event, boosters of the US embrace of India would expect something more than studied neutrality.