Germany leads the way, as Europe rearms

Peter Schwarz

Europe is responding to the growing conflict with the US by massively rearming. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, yesterday presented the assembled heads of state and government of the European Union with a plan to “rearm Europe,” which she said would raise an additional €800 billion over four years for military equipment, military support for Ukraine and the development of a European defence industry.

A soldier fires a machine gun from a Leopard 2 tank at the Field Marshal Rommel Barracks in Augustdorf, Germany, Wednesday, February 1, 2023. [AP Photo/Martin Meissner]

Facilitated by a relaxation of EU debt rules and other incentives, €650 billion is to come from the member states themselves. The EU intends to provide a further €150 billion in a fund.

“We are in an era of rearmament. Europe is ready to massively increase its defence spending,” said von der Leyen, explaining her initiative. It was about both “the short-term urgency to act and support Ukraine” and “the long-term need to take much more responsibility for our own European security.”

In a televised address to the French people on Wednesday evening, French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated his offer to extend France’s nuclear umbrella to Germany and other European countries. He would “respond to the historic appeal” by future German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) and talk about an extended nuclear deterrent, Macron said. However, the decision on the use of nuclear weapons will always remain in the hands of the French president.

In contrast to von der Leyen, who kept a low diplomatic profile, Macron attacked the US directly. Unlike in the past, “our ally in America” can no longer be relied on, he said. “We must strengthen our defence. In this respect, we remain linked to NATO, but we must strengthen our independence. The future of Europe must not be decided in Washington or Moscow.”

Macron accused Russia of having “become a threat to France and Europe for years to come.” No one can believe “that Russia will stop after Ukraine.”

Germany is blazing the trail in Europe’s rearmament programme. On Tuesday evening, the leaders of the CDU, Christian Social Union (CSU) and Social Democrats (SPD), who are negotiating a coalition government, appeared before the press and announced a rearmament programme that hardly anyone could have imagined just a few days ago. At around €1 trillion, it is 10 times greater than the special fund that Olaf Scholz’s government adopted three years ago, which he described as a “new era.”

All defence spending that exceeds 1 percent of economic output (around €45 billion) is to be exempt from the debt brake, which sets strict limits on new government borrowing. Originally, a further special fund of €400 billion had been under discussion. With the regulation now proposed, military expenditure can be increased far beyond this. Experts estimate it could rise by at least €500 billion.

Special fund for infrastructure

In addition, the CDU/CSU and SPD have agreed on a special fund totaling €500 billion, which is also not subject to the debt brake. This is to be used to finance the expansion of infrastructure. However, this is not—as the SPD would have us believe—about repairing schools and investing in hospitals but about direct and indirect preparations for war.

In addition to the rearmament and expansion of the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces), which is financed from the defence budget, achieving “war readiness” requires the development of a huge arms industry that is independent of US imports and the expansion of war-related infrastructure. This is the purpose of the special fund.

The project is reminiscent of Hitler’s infamous Autobahn construction, which was also presented as a civilian project but in reality served in the rapid transport of troops. Today, the issue at stake is also the transport of troops. President of the IFO think tank Clemens Fuest, who proposed the fund together with other economists, told the F.A.Z. newspaper that it should be used to “invest in civil defence and in the military upgrading of infrastructure, stable bridges first and foremost.”

The fund will also focus on digitalisation, reconnaissance satellites, secure communication, drones and other weapons technologies that are crucial for modern warfare and in which Europe lags far behind the US, as well as independence from supply chains and the supply of raw materials and energy.

A background paper written by the President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Moritz Schularick, who, like Ifo head Fuest, is part of the group of economists who proposed the huge special fund, is revealing. The paper also bears the signatures of two leading defence industry executives, Thomas Enders, the former CEO of Airbus and current president of the think tank DGAP, and René Obermann, Airbus supervisory board chairman. Airbus is the second largest defence company in Europe.

The paper makes clear that the gigantic arms build-up is not for defence, as claimed, but to escalate the war against Russia with vast quantities of modern weaponry and to prepare for further wars.

The paper’s core is “an appeal to direct defence billions specifically towards creating an ‘asymmetric superiority’ in the event of war,” writes the F.A.Z., which has access to the text. Overall, the proposals are aimed at “superiority on the modern battlefield, and less on support or logistics aspects of defence.”

Germany must initiate a “SPARTA” project (Strategic Protection and Advanced Resilience Technology Alliance) for European defence, the economists and defence industry executives demand. This means “the immediate launch of major armaments programmes with a focus on new technologies and sovereign intra-European procurement.” Today, superiority on the battlefield is achieved through mass, in combination with technological excellence, as the war in Ukraine shows.

In the short term, the paper calls for, among other things, an “extensive drone wall over NATO’s eastern flank” with tens of thousands of combat drones. In the medium term, technical improvements such as a “European Multi-Domain Combat Cloud for the decentralised, networked use of data on the battlefield” are to be developed.

Constitutional amendment at breakneck speed

The CDU/CSU and SPD are seeking to adopt their huge rearmament programme with tremendous haste, ruthlessly disregarding election promises and democratic procedures.

They have agreed on the funding before the actual coalition negotiations on the joint programme of the new government, which will not be elected until mid-April at the earliest, have even begun.

In order to obtain the necessary two-thirds majority, the voted-out Bundestag will be convened once again to pass the necessary constitutional amendments in the third reading on March 17 at the latest. They are to be approved by the Bundesrat, the upper chamber of parliament, on March 21. The new Bundestag will then convene for the first time on March 25.

This unprecedented procedure, which ruthlessly tramples over the election results, was chosen because the SPD and CDU/CSU, together with the Greens, have the required two-thirds majority in the old Bundestag. In the new Bundestag, they would have to rely on support from the Left Party or the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

The Greens are still reluctant. They are offended because they were not consulted at an earlier stage. However, they have already made it clear that they will vote in favour of the constitutional amendment if the words “climate protection” are inserted somewhere in the text.

Chancellor-designate Friedrich Merz vehemently spoke out against relaxing the debt brake during the parliamentary election campaign. Now, in less than 10 days, he has done a 180-degree U-turn and is in favour of a rearmament programme that would increase the national debt from the current 63 percent to 90 percent or even 100 percent of annual economic output within a short space of time.

Merz justified his new stance by saying that Europe must grow up in the face of new international challenges. “Whatever it takes” must now apply to defence, he declared. The phrase was coined by former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi, who used it during the financial crisis to announce support for the banks to the tune of around €500 billion.

The scale of the rearmament programme that is now being introduced is reminiscent of the early years of the Nazi dictatorship. The share of the military budget in the German national product rose from 1.5 percent in 1932 to 5.5 percent in 1935, the third year of Hitler’s rule. As financing from tax revenues was no longer possible, armaments were financed by state-backed loans. The higher the debts rose, the more inevitable the war became. Germany would have been bankrupt if Hitler had not invaded Poland in 1939 and later the Soviet Union and started the most brutal campaign of plunder in history.

Dominate Europe to become a world power

Sums on a similar scale are involved this time around. And the German ruling class is going down the same path again. It is trying to dominate Europe in order to become a world power.

Back in 2014, Ursula von der Leyen (then German defence minister) and the current Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (then foreign minister) announced that Germany must once again play a role in world politics that is commensurate with its economic weight. Since then, the country has massively rearmed and played a leading role in the war against Russia in Ukraine. Now those in power see an opportunity to free themselves from American domination.

An editorial published in Der Spiegel on March 6 expressed this with remarkable candour. Under the headline “America is now our adversary,” Mathieu von Rohr wrote: “The Western alliance is broken. Europe must now become strong itself—or it will perish.”

According to Der Spiegel, the significance of this fundamental shift for Germany cannot be overemphasised. The Federal Republic was in many respects an American creation, the US was a big brother. “That is now over.”

Von Rohr wrote almost triumphantly: “Dramatic events can awaken forces. Nobody strengthened Nato like Putin when he invaded Ukraine. ... There is no reason why 500 million Europeans cannot defend themselves against Russia alone. They are economically strong enough to be able to do so—and they will have to now.”

It is particularly important that “Germany, which has been so hesitant militarily in the past, must now take a leading role as the most important European nation.” Lifting the debt brake on defence spending can only be the beginning, he continued. Europe needs “strategic autonomy” and also requires nuclear armament.

One can find dozens of similar comments. Former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer (Greens), for example, called for the reintroduction of compulsory military service and a European nuclear umbrella in an interview with Die Zeit, arguing that “the West is finished” and that “Europeans and Germans must now think about our own security.”

In its election statement, the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) wrote that the response of Germany’s ruling class to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” was “Deutschland über alles.” It is “responding to Trump by rearming at a pace not seen since Hitler.” This is now being stunningly confirmed.

Zelensky faces mounting domestic political crisis amid clashes with Trump

Jason Melanovski

The demonstration in Berlin against the Zelensky regime in Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is facing an uncertain domestic political future as the Ukrainian government deals with the fallout from Zelensky’s disastrous meeting with US President Donald Trump and the potential imminent cut-off of US aid.

The already existing tensions within the Ukrainian ruling class are being exacerbated as US imperialism and the European imperialist powers themselves are divided over the Ukraine question. 

Since the pro-NATO 2014 coup against the elected President Viktor Yanukovych, the country has essentially existed as a US- and NATO-backed client state. With the funding and arms from NATO, Ukraine has waged a war against Russia for over three years now, which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

Now, amid mounting fatigue with the war and discontent in the Ukrainian population, there is significant anxiety in the Ukrainian ruling class that Zelensky has become a serious liability following the return of Trump to the US presidency.

Last Monday, shortly after Trump labeled Zelensky a “dictator without elections,” Ukraineʼs parliament held a vote on a resolution supporting the legitimacy of Zelensky’s presidency despite the undemocratic cancellation of the county’s presidential elections, which were scheduled to take place in the spring of 2024 according to Ukraine’s constitution. The vote was aimed at bolstering Zelensky just prior to his White House visit on Friday.

But although Zelensky’s own Servant of the People party holds an outright majority in parliament, the first vote failed to pass, garnering just 218 votes—eight short of the required 226 votes.

Later on Tuesday, the draft resolution ultimately passed after former President Petro Poroshenko announced that he and his European Solidarity party would no longer oppose the resolution as it was part of “key defense and international legislation.”

Just weeks prior, Zelensky had signed a decree that placed sanctions on Poroshenko for “high treason” and supporting a criminal organization. According to the country’s domestic security agency, the SBU, which led the investigation, the sanctions were placed due to Poroshenko posing “threats to national security, territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine” and the “creation of obstacles to sustainable economic development.”

Poroshenko responded to the accusations by directly blaming Zelensky for the charges stating, “There are many accomplices in this crime: Zelensky’s entire team, the Cabinet of Ministers, which was forced to submit to an absurd proposal, members of his National Security and Defense Council. But the customer, executor, and signatory is one—Zelensky personally.”

Poroshenko became the president of Ukraine after the 2014 coup and has been a longtime political rival of Zelensky. In the 2019 presidential elections that brought Zelensky to power, Poroshenko was roundly defeated, despite being the preferred candidate of US imperialism at the time.

Since then, Poroshenko, a billionaire oligarch, has retained a significant political presence both at home and abroad. In Ukraine’s parliament, he has been serving as head of the European Solidarity Party. He has also often met with Western leaders, while at the same time fighting a plethora of criminal charges brought against him by the Zelensky regime.

Others sanctioned by Zelensky were Viktor Medvedchuk —a former pro-Russian opposition leader in Ukraine now residing in Russia—Kostyantyn Zhevago, Hennadiy Boholyubov, and Zelensky’s former financial backer and oligarch Igor Kolomoisky.

The sanctions mean that all related assets of the targeted individuals have been frozen. Poroshenko, Medvedchuk and these other individuals have also been blocked from conducting financial transactions, among other restrictions which will last indefinitely.

In the weeks since, Poroshenko has called for “national unity” and refused to criticize his political rival following last week’s debacle at the White House. However, he did state that he hopes Zelensky has a “Plan B” following his fallout with Trump.

These moves against Zelensky’s political rivals were taking place just as talk of a return to elections in Ukraine has surfaced in recent weeks, with some proposing presidential elections in Ukraine as part of any potential peace deal.

While meeting with Trump officials at the Munich Security Conference in February, Zelensky attempted to head off any attempt to impose elections on Ukraine by its Western backers.

“I am ready to speak about elections if you want. Ukrainians don’t want [them]; totally don’t want [them], because they are afraid. Because otherwise we will lose the martial law, our soldiers will come back home, and Putin will occupy all our territory,” Zelensky stated.

More recently, Zelensky offered to step down in exchange for NATO membership, a move that has been flatly rejected by the Trump administration as it seeks to abandon the US’s role in the Cold War military alliance and plot its own course for a potential war with China.

As Zelensky has turned to the EU for support in the wake of his White House visit, the Trump administration has already begun meeting with Zelensky’s rivals within the Ukrainian ruling-class.

According to Politico, four senior Trump officials held secret meetings in Kiev with Poroshenko, as well as with former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who in 2014 was recorded threatening to drop nuclear weapons on Russia.

Conversations reportedly centered on whether Ukraine could in fact hold snap elections with the ultimate goal of removing Zelensky from power. 

As a top Republican foreign policy expert told Politico, “Poroshenko’s people and Yulia [Tymoshenko], they’re all talking to Trump World, positioning themselves as people who would be easier to work with. And people who would consent to many of the things that Zelenskyy is not agreeing to.”

While Zelensky’s White House trip ultimately failed to secure a deal based on giving up a huge share of Ukraine’s critical minerals, oil, gas and infrastructure to US imperialism, there remains hope in the Ukrainian bourgeoisie that a deal can still be worked out that would salvage Ukraine’s status as a US client state.

Speaking to the Kyiv Independent, former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk—who was  handpicked for his role by US imperialism following the 2014 coup—urged the signing of the minerals deal, despite the blowup between Zelensky and Trump, as a means to save the Ukrainian ruling class.

“We urgently need to develop a roadmap on how to fix the situation we all find ourselves in. Neither Ukraine nor the Trump administration has benefited from this, only the war criminal (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. It is better to sign this (resources) agreement as soon as possible to show that Ukraine is ready for any kind of investment. If the U.S. president needs this deal to ‘sell’ it to his MAGA base, we are okay with this. But we need real investments and economic cooperation.”

Inter-imperialist tensions between the European powers and the US have also impacted the return of what the New York Times called in an article this week, the “Long shunned, Pro-Russia politicians.” Unsurprisingly, the newspaper failed to mention that the pro-Russia political opposition was systematically censored and persecuted under Zelensky with the help of the US prior to the start of full-scale war in 2022.

One such figure featured in the article is Oleksandr Dubinsky, a Ukrainian parliamentary member currently in prison. Dubinsky is pro-Trump and has been accused of having ties to Russia, despite at the same time being under sanctions from both the US and Russia. 

Following Zelensky’s White House debacle, Dubinsky called for an emergency parliamentary session on Zelensky’s impeachment on X.

“The events of the past hours—the public humiliation of Zelensky at the White House, Trump’s acknowledgment of Zelensky’s diplomatic failure, and Ukraine’s loss of unconditional U.S. support—have marked the final act of the regime’s collapse. But Zelensky has not only failed in foreign policy—he has driven the country into a state where anyone who disagrees with his course faces repression,” Dubinsky wrote.

“I appeal to all Members of the Ukrainian Parliament: stop wasting time, stop waiting! Zelensky is bankrupt. Zelensky is not Ukraine! It is time to put him on trial. If he cannot offer a real way out of the crisis, then it is up to us to make fateful decisions,” Dubinsky declared.

Brazil faces threat of historic dengue outbreak in 2025

Fátima Ferrante

Zoonosis team doing fieldwork to combat dengue outbreaks in neighborhoods of Osasco, in the metropolitan region of São Paulo, on 15/03/2024. [Photo: Paulo Pinto/Agência Brasil]

As part of a broad attack on public health in Brazil, all the criminal negligence the country has seen in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has served as a model for confronting a series of endemic tropical diseases that pose a devastating impact, especially on the country’s poorest population.

This is certainly the case with dengue, a neglected disease that was once popularly known in Brazil as “bone-breaking fever,” due to its severe symptoms that can last for weeks and which causes thousands of deaths every year. It can also leave the infected person with numerous sequelae.

In 2024, Brazil had the worst year for dengue in history, with more than 6.6 million cases, 6,216 confirmed deaths and another 489 deaths still under investigation. By the end of February, Brazil had 440,000 cases of dengue fever on record, with 177 confirmed deaths and another 413 under investigation. 

Just like last year, the government of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers Party - PT) is doing everything it can to minimize the situation of dengue in Brazil. On February 27, the Ministry of Health’s website celebrated a more than 60 percent decrease in probable cases of dengue compared to the same period in 2024.

However, numerous health organizations and experts have insisted that the epidemiological situation of dengue in 2025 could be worse than last year. On February 7, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) issued an epidemiological alert after 23 countries and territories in the region of the Americas registered 238,659 suspected cases in the first four epidemiological weeks of 2025, with Brazil accounting for 87 percent of these cases. These figures are 249 percent higher than in the same period last year.

PAHO also warned of the greater risk of dengue outbreaks in the Americas due to the increased circulation of serotype 3, or DENV-3, one of the four serotypes of the virus. It has already been identified in several countries in the region, including Peru, Colombia, and Mexico.

In Brazil, DENV-3 was detected for the first time in over 15 years last year. In an interview with Estado de S. Paulo at the beginning of February, infectious diseases doctor Alexandre Naime Barbosa, professor of Medicine at São Paulo State University (Unesp) and scientific coordinator of the Brazilian Society of Infectology (SBI), warned that this fact means that we have “a large number of people susceptible” to dengue.

He mentioned a survey from the end of last year which “showed that less than 30 percent of blood donors in São Paulo had had contact with the virus,” and a smaller number among children. According to Barbosa, “I’m talking about having contact, but if you have dengue fever once, you can have it again with the other three serotypes. Most people have never had type 3 dengue, and everyone is susceptible.”

As a result, a person can be infected at least four times with the dengue virus, and the four serotypes, according to the alert issued by PAHO, are circulating simultaneously in Brazil. As with COVID-19, subsequent infections with other serotypes can increase the risk of severe forms of the disease. DENV-3 has been specifically associated with more disease severity, even in people who have had their first infection with the virus.

Given this situation, Barbosa warned: “There’s no doubt that 2025 will leave a mark – and I’m not being alarmist or pessimistic. It will be the worst year for a dengue epidemic throughout the entire historical record, not only in the state of São Paulo, but also in Brazil.”

In fact, São Paulo, Brazil’s richest and most populous state, has already registered 50 percent more suspected cases this year than at the same time last year. It has the leading figures for dengue in Brazil, with 247,000 cases – more than half of the total – and 136 confirmed deaths, representing more than 75 percent of the country’s total deaths. This situation forced the government of São Paulo to declare a state of emergency for the disease throughout the state on February 19. In 2024, this occurred at the beginning of March.

Contrary to what the Lula government authorities claim, there has been no effective fight against infectious diseases such as COVID-19 and dengue fever in Brazil. After the Lula government and the entire Brazilian political establishment adopted the “forever COVID” policy, the same can be said for dengue. According to Barbosa in the interview with Estado, “dengue has become normalized as a disease we can live with, and that’s not true. Today we have various ways of mitigating and reducing the impact of dengue.”

In contrast to what is happening today, the scientific knowledge accumulated long ago in relation to dengue has already made Brazil itself an international example. It has been established for over a century that dengue is transmitted through the bite of the Aedes aegypti mosquito. This mosquito is also the vector for numerous epidemic viruses in Brazil and the Americas that cause Zika fever (which causes microcephaly), chikungunya, and yellow fever.

In 1969, Dr. Odair Franco wrote in his book História da febre amarela (History of Yellow Fever): “When we joined the Yellow Fever Service in 1935, we didn’t find any plan underway to eradicate Stegomyia fasciata [now Aedes aegypti] from Brazil. On the contrary, they believed it was impossible, due to the country’s territorial extension and the spread of the mosquito throughout the states and territories.”

Between 1947 and 1955, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation and PAHO, Brazil took part in a hemispheric program to eliminate Aedes aegypti. Actions such as port inspections, basic sanitation, and spraying of insecticides resulted in the eradication of the mosquito in 1958.

The mosquito returned to Brazil in 1967, due to failures in post-eradication surveillance, accelerated urbanization, and a population influx from countries where the vector persisted. More significantly, this happened three years after the US-backed military coup of 1964, which led to a brutal attack on public health in Brazil.

The control of Aedes aegypti to combat yellow fever indirectly prevented outbreaks of dengue fever. The reintroduction of the mosquito in the following decades, however, allowed dengue to emerge as an endemic problem from the 1980s onwards.

The temporary success of the 20th century highlights the importance of international cooperation; the integration of actions such as sanitation, education, and surveillance; and the continued maintenance of preventive measures, even after the vector has been eliminated. Today, in 2025, with more knowledge and more technologies – such as the Wolbachia method, rapid tests, and the vaccine – to combat dengue, there is no reason to believe that eradication is impossible. However, all this has been ignored by the Lula government.

Last year, the Lula government announced with fanfare that it would start immunizing the Brazilian population against dengue. The Ministry of Health has been acquiring batches of the Qdenga vaccine since last year, but the low production capacity of the Takeda laboratory in Japan has meant that immunization is restricted to the population between the ages of 10 and 14 and to 1,900 municipalities with more than 100,000 inhabitants where dengue has emerged more frequently in recent years. 

Without information campaigns to alert the population to the dangers of dengue, the vaccination campaign has been a failure. In São Paulo, only 11 percent of the target population received the second dose—the Ministry of Health’s goal is to immunize 90 percent of the target population. A public notice from the Brazilian Society of Immunizations (SBIm) indicated that only 53 percent of the doses distributed by the Ministry of Health had been applied, and 59 percent of the people who received the first dose did not return for the second.

Today, the public health crisis intersects with the climate crisis, which has increased the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events and favored the proliferation of the Aedes aegypti mosquito and dengue fever. According to Dr. Barbosa, in Brazil, “There are two things happening: it’s raining and it’s hot...perfect factors for the proliferation of Aedes aegypti.” He continued, “Five years ago, we didn’t talk about dengue in Rio Grande do Sul, much less in Santa Catarina,” the southernmost states in Brazil.

The dengue fever crisis in Brazil last year and the prospect of an unprecedented outbreak this year were the reasons for Lula’s dismissal of Health Minister Nísia Trindade. Her two years in office were marked by criminal negligence in relation to COVID-19 and harsh attacks on federal public hospital workers who have been on strike since last May against what in practice means privatization. 

Additionally, the Lula government has subjected the budget for health and other social rights to repeated freezes and cuts in order to maintain the “zero deficit” and “new fiscal framework” goals. On February 20, Globo reported that he “will need to block BRL 18.6 billion [USD 3.16 billion] in spending in the 2025 budget to ensure compliance with fiscal rules this year.”

Trump’s tariffs rock US and global economy

Nick Beams

US President Trump’s imposition of a 25 percent tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico, which came into effect on Tuesday, has sent a shock wave through the global economy as the realisation grows that the entire framework of economic and trade relations set in place after World War II has disintegrated.

Workers harvest cabbage Wednesday, March 5, 2025, on a field less than ten miles from the border with Mexico, in Holtville, Calif. [AP Photo/Gregory Bull]

In addition to the tariffs imposed on Canada and Mexico, the US added another 10 percent to tariffs against China, on top of the 10 percent that had earlier been enacted.

China has retaliated with a 15 percent tariff on American agricultural products, including chicken, wheat, corn and cotton, as well as a 10 percent tariff on sorghum, fruits, vegetables and dairy products.

Beijing has added 10 US companies to the so-called “unreliable entity list,” meaning they are prohibited from exporting or importing in China or making new investments. It also made 15 US entities subject to an export control list.

Canada has responded with an immediate 25 percent tax on $21 billion worth of US imports, to be followed by a tariff on around $90 billion worth in three weeks’ time.

The tariff measures were initially unveiled by Trump shortly after his inauguration on the grounds that Canada was not doing enough to halt the flow of the drug fentanyl into the US. But this was only a pretext for the expansionist aims of the US, as Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has now blurted out.

At a press conference on Tuesday, he said the issue of cross-border trafficking of fentanyl was “completely bogus, completely unjustified, completely false.” What Trump really wanted to do was to trigger “the total collapse of the Canadian economy because that would make it easier to annex us.” Earlier Trudeau had told a meeting of business leaders that Trump’s focus on critical minerals meant his annexation threat was a “real thing.”

It is a sure sign of the economic and geopolitical breakdown. What might have been said behind closed doors is now out in the open, as imperialist leaders publicly accuse each other of lying in order to cover up their real agenda.

The threat to the Canadian and Mexican economies is a very real one. More than 80 percent of the exports of both countries go to the US. According to an analysis reported by the Wall Street Journal, Canada could face a contraction of up to 5 percent of GDP and Mexico 3 percent.

Europe is also directly in the firing line, with Trump having threatened to impose tariffs of 25 percent after denouncing the European Union as an organisation set up to “screw” the US.

In his address to the joint session of Congress on Tuesday, Trump emphasised that the imposition of “reciprocal tariffs” would go ahead after the delivery of a report on April 2. The planned measures go far beyond tariffs and include retaliation for any measures, such as the European value-added tax and regulations on the tech giants, which the US considers inimical to the profits of its corporations.

After lobbying by major US auto companies, Trump has given them a one-month reprieve on the Mexico-Canada tariff, which his press secretary Karoline Leavitt said was aimed at ensuring they were not “at an economic disadvantage.” How a one-month carve-out would assist the auto firms in their planning operations that extend over years she did not say.

Even before the one-month delay, there were warnings that whatever the twists and turns in the future, the damage had already been done.

Matthew Holmes, executive vice-president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, told the Journal: “Businesses just can’t switch their whole model to avoid tariffs and then go back again, depending on what politicians decide on any given day.”

The Trump trade war not only threatens every economy in the world but also the US itself. One indication is the fall in share values on Wall Street, which has wiped out all the gains made since the Trump election victory in November. So far, a total of around $3.4 trillion has been wiped off of market capitalisation.

Warnings about the impact of tariffs have been coming thick and fast. The farming sector is one of the first to be hit, as industry representatives denounce the tariff measures.

“Contrary to what the president thinks, this means nothing but pain,” Aaron Lehman, head of the Iowa Farmers Union, told the Financial Times.

Other comments to the FT were in the same vein. Caleb Ragland, president of the American Soybean Association, said farmers were “frustrated.” Tariffs were not something to be taken lightly and to “have fun” with, but hit businesses in the wallet. They have rocked a “core tenet on which our trading relations are built, and that is reliability.”

Referring to Trump’s election claims that he would bring down prices and grow the economy—part of the snake oil claims that induced millions of people to vote for him out of anger and disgust with the Democrats—Michael Hanson, a spokesperson for the Retail Industry Leaders Association, said: “Tariffs on Canada and Mexico put those goals in serious jeopardy and risk destabilising the North American economy.”

The New York Times has reported that “anxious business groups” were holding meetings to determine their responses, with some even considering a legal challenge to the national security authority under which Trump has imposed the tariffs.

Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at the banking and financial forum Nationwide, said that if the tariffs were maintained and retaliation followed, economic growth would be at least one percentage point lower in 2025 than it had been in 2024, coming in at just 1.5 percent.

The outlook for the American economy appears to be rapidly worsening. Last Friday, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s running estimate of GDP growth forecast a contraction of 1.5 percent in the first quarter. In an estimate published on Monday, that contraction had risen to 2.8 percent.

US businesses are reporting significant declines in new orders and employment. The ISM purchasing manufacturers index for February dropped to 50.3 from 50.9 the previous month. The level of 50 marks the boundary between expansion and contraction. Other indexes pointed to a steep decline in new orders, falling from 55.1 to 48.6.

The prospect of a significant downturn in the US economy is also reflected in the bond market. Yields (interest rates) on the 10-year government bond have been falling.

Normally they could be expected to rise in the expectation by investors that the Federal Reserve would not be cutting rates because of inflationary pressures caused by the tariff hikes, which, contrary to Trump’s lying claims that they are paid for by foreigners, hit consumers and businesses.

But market sentiment is shifting rapidly. At the beginning of the year, there was an expectation that there would only be one interest rate cut this year. But now there is an expectation of three cuts starting in June.

This is because investors fear that Trump’s tariff measures will push the economy towards a recession in which the Fed will feel the need to cut rates. One of the concerns of the Fed, though this is not mentioned openly, is that a recession could set off a sharp fall on Wall Street and lead to financial turmoil.

As Emmanuel Cau, an analyst at the Barclay’s bank, told the FT: “Investors have started to really fear Trump’s policies. If there is a growth problem in the US, that will be hard to ignore … People are nervous, with some even starting to fear a recession.”

Huge rise in council tax bills for millions in Britain as services slashed

Barry Mason

Speaking in March 2023 just prior to that year’s local elections, Sir Kier Starmer said of a future Labour government: “Not a penny more on your council tax, not a penny more than the bill you paid last year.” He declared it would represent a “tax cut for the 99 per cent of working people”. This was a lie.

UK workers face crippling council tax rises in April even as local services are slashed, along with thousands of council workers’ jobs. Fully 85 percent of councils (139) are raising council tax by the maximum amount allowed without holding a referendum of 4.99 percent.

View of city of Bradford, England, showing Bradford City Hall [Photo by Linda Spashett, Storye book / CC BY 3.0]

Others have been given permission by central government to impose even higher rises, taking the proportion of local authorities implementing rises of 4.99 percent or more to 90 percent.

Bradford is increasing council tax by 9.9 percent. According to the i newspaper, the council had already issued nearly 30,200 liability orders for missing council tax payments.

The article noted, “The number of summonses sent by the council has steadily increased over the past few tax years, with 12,198 being sent in 2020/21, 33,094 in 2021/22, 34,796 in 2022/23, and 37,727 sent in 2023/24, the last full tax year.”

Windsor and Maidenhead and Newham in London are raising council tax by 9 percent; and Trafford in Greater Manchester, Birmingham and Somerset by 7.5 percent.

Workers’ budgets are already being squeezed by bills. Analysts are predicting a rise in the energy price cap (for electricity and gas) of between five and seven percent in April, with a further rise expected in July. The same month, water companies will increase their charges by an average 26 percent, around an extra £10 a month.

Research by the Resolution Foundation shows that the poorest fifth of households spend 4.8 percent of their income on council tax. This is three times the amount, 1.5 percent spent by the richest fifth. Economist Lalitha Try noted that these families are “spending almost as much on these bills as they pay in income tax. This terribly designed tax increasingly resembles the very thing it was meant to replace—the dreaded poll tax.”

The ultra-regressive poll tax was introduced by the Thatcher Conservative government between 1989-90, first in Scotland, then England and Wales—with each taxpayer taxed the same fixed sum. It was abolished and withdrawn over 1991-3 in the face of mass opposition and unrest.

Fully 15 year after the beginning of the Labour-Tory “age of austerity” many councils have lost so much central government funding that they are, nonetheless either bankrupt or on the verge of it. Workers are paying to barely keep the lights on.

Unison, the main public sector union, issued a report last September titled, “Councils on the Brink: The Local Government Funding Gap 2025/26”.

Based on freedom of information requests and searches of local authority financial strategy papers, it showed councils across England, Scotland and Wales would have a £4.3 billion collective shortfall for 2025/26. The report estimated this would rise to £6.9 billion in 2025/26.

It noted: “Between 2010 and 2023, at least 1,243 council-run youth centres were closed and 1,168 council-run children’s centres were shut. There has also been a significant decline in the number of council-run libraries (1,376 fewer) and public toilets (a drop of 1,629) over the same period.”

Another report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies issued just before the 2024 general election found that between 2010/11 and 2024/25 core funding for councils fell by nine percent, while demand for services has risen.

A Local Government Association (LGA) survey released last October showed one in four local authorities in England would likely apply for emergency government bailouts in the financial years 2025/26 and 2026/27 to avoid having to declare bankruptcy. Last week, the National Audit projected that the situation was so dire that without intervention by next March an accumulated deficit for councils in England—expected to have reached £4.6 billion—could leave 43 percent of local authorities at risk of declaring effective bankruptcy.

Introduced in 2021, the use of Exceptional Financial Support (EFS) measures allowing a local authority to borrow capital or sell assets to raise revenue has grown, with a record 30 granted by the government this year, including seven councils in London. Collectively, these councils alone will borrow around £1.5 billion to plug budget gaps, only pushing the crisis a year or two down the line.

Labour-run Birmingham council, which oversees Britain’s second largest city, is one of the councils given permission to raise its council tax by more than 4.99 percent.

In September 2023 it issued a section 114 notice effectively declaring itself bankrupt. Central government sent in a record number of six commissioners for a potential five-year placement taking control over the council’s budget. Among the council’s liabilities is an outstanding equal pay claim bill for female staff costing around £760 million.

In February last year the council was given Exceptional Financial Support of £1.25 billion by the outgoing Sunak Tory government.

After losing around £1 billion in central government support since 2010, and imposing hundreds of millions of pounds in austerity cuts, the response of the Labour council was to escalate cuts. For the second year in a row Birmingham will impose cuts of around £148 million. This includes a £43 million cut in adult services, £39 million in children’s services, and £28 million for city operations including refuse collection.

Having already axed 11,000 of its workforce since 2011, a further 300 jobs are to go this year.

Other job losses announced by Labour councils are in North Tyneside (200), Derby City Council (more than 100) and Wakefield City Council (200). Liberal Democrat-run Somerset Council is to shed 555 jobs.

Under Labour, the central government support grant for local government for 2025/26 will rise by 6.8 percent, not touching the sides.

Responding to the figure the LGA noted, “Extra money for councils next year… still falls short of what is desperately needed to cover them all. This financial year therefore remains extremely challenging for councils of all types who now face having to increase council tax bills to bring in desperately needed funding next year yet could still be forced to make further cuts to services.”

The Scottish National Party (SNP) government in Edinburg is to carry out a similar council tax rise offensive, having ditched its previous anti-austerity posture. Over the last 20 years—with the SNP in power in Scotland for most of that time—council tax rates in Scotland have either been frozen or capped. The freeze ends in April with five local authorities, responsible for around two million people (approximately 40 percent of Scotland’s population) to hike rates.

The Starmer government came to office stating that it would impose “iron” fiscal discipline, while claiming it would end austerity. Its immediate withdrawal of winter fuel allowances from almost 2 million of the poorest pensioners and refusal to remove the two-child limit on child benefits exposed this lie.

But these attacks and the bill rises from April are just a small down-payment. Starmer is committed to large increases in military spending, meaning the savaging of what remains of the post-war welfare state and an offensive against the working class on a scale not seen since the 1930s.

Nigerian Women Association of Georgia (NWAG) 2025 Scholarships

Application Deadline:

The application deadline is April 30th, 2025.

Tell Me About The NWAG Scholarships For Nigerian Female Undergraduates:

The Nigerian Women Association of Georgia (NWAG) is offering 111 one-time scholarships to female undergraduate students in Nigeria. Each awardee will receive $300 in scholarship funds. Additionally, the first runner-up in each state will receive $150, while the second runner-up will be awarded $100. The scholarship will be given in Naira equivalent and is aimed at supporting the education of young Nigerian women.

Which Fields are Eligible?

All fields 

Type:

Undergraduate scholarship 

Who can Apply for the NWAG Scholarships For Nigerian Female Undergraduates?

Also, the eligibility criteria include:

• Open to female undergraduate students in Nigeria.
• Applicants must not be in their final year of study.
• Applicants must provide proof of state of origin.

How are Applicants Selected?

Applicants will be assessed based on:

• The completeness and accuracy of their submitted documents.
• The quality of their essay on:
  “Analyze how technology can be leveraged to address gender-based violence (GBV) in Nigeria, including facilitating reporting, access to services, and creating safe spaces for survivors. Evaluate current interventions and propose innovative solutions for ensuring timely and effective assistance for GBV survivors.”
• The level of financial need and academic merit.

Required Documents

Applicants must submit:

• Proof of State of Origin – A letter from the university or a local government office.
• Two letters of recommendation from any of the following:
  • Pastor or Imam
  • Village Head
  • Local Government Chairperson
  • University Lecturer or Head of Department
• One additional letter of recommendation from the Dean of Faculty or School Head.
• Departmental proof of enrollment (e.g., letter or document).
• Photocopy of current student identification card.
• A recent passport-sized photograph.
• A short explanation (not exceeding half a page) on why they need the scholarship.
• A two-page, double-spaced, typewritten essay on the given topic.

Which Countries Are Eligible?

Nigeria 

Where will the Award be Taken?

Nigeria 

How Many Awards?

111

What is the Benefit of the NWAG Scholarships For Nigerian Female Undergraduates?

Additionally, the benefits include: 

• $300 for each selected winner.
• $150 for the first runner-up in each state.
• $100 for the second runner-up in each state.
• Funds will be awarded in Naira equivalent.

How Long Will the Award Last?

One-time award

How to Apply:

• Visit www.nwag.org to download the application form.
• Prepare and gather all required documents listed above.
• Submit your completed application via email, ensuring that the email subject line includes your state and full name.
• Ensure your application form is typed-written (handwritten submissions are not accepted).
• Do not send money to anyone, the application is free of charge.

Visit the official webpage to begin.

Poverty among Australian retirees has doubled in the past decade

Max Boddy

A growing number of Australian retirees are facing financial hardship after decades in the workforce. According to the Australia Institute, 22.6 percent of retirees now live in poverty—a figure that has nearly doubled over the past decade.

Former-state owned inner-Sydney Millers Point public housing overshadowed by luxury units and office blocks.

This is a product of decades of cuts to social programs, including the slashing of funding to aged care facilities, the evisceration of public housing, attacks on pensions and declining real wages. A significant factor is also the skyrocketing cost of housing.

A recent report from the Grattan Institute found that poverty among retirees is most severe for the 12 percent—around 200,000 households—who rent. Of those, 67 percent are living below the poverty line. 

While renters are especially vulnerable, financial security is by no means guaranteed for the 78 percent of Australians over 65 who own their homes. Some 25 percent of retired homeowners with a mortgage, as well as 11 percent of those who own their homes outright, also live in poverty, according to the report.

More than 90 percent of older Australians receive the full or partial pension, and for many it is not just a supplement to their superannuation or savings, but their only source of regular income. Yet, it falls woefully short of covering basic living costs. Including subsidies for utility bills, a single pensioner receives a maximum of just $1,144.40 per fortnight, while couples receive $1,725.20 combined.

In addition, aged pensioners can get rent assistance, capped at $211.20 per fortnight for singles and $199 per fortnight for couples. Therefore a retired couple, each receiving the full pension and the maximum rent assistance payment, receives a total of $1,924.20 per fortnight.

If their rent is $960 or more per fortnight ($480 a week), or their mortgage repayments more than $760 per fortnight ($380 a week), they fall below the poverty line. The Melbourne Institute calculates that non-working couples who have less than $966.10 per fortnight ($483.05 a week) for all expenses other than housing are below the poverty line.

In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), 74-year-old retiree Jackie Collins described how her financial security vanished after decades working in the social service sector. Retiring with just $45,000 in superannuation, she was first forced into a caravan park before securing a social housing unit. While the rent is affordable, the home is dilapidated and plagued with mold. “I thought, ‘I had so much promise in my life, and this is where I ended up,’” she said.

Lyn, who lives in Melbourne, told the ABC she was always brought up to not be a burden: “I’m now bordering on being evicted. That’s what upsets me.” After a divorce, she was left with no superannuation. At first, she was able to pay rent in the unit she has been living in for 12 years, by working in the highly exploitative courier sub-contracting industry, using her own vehicle to deliver parcels and pathology samples.

However, injuries she sustained in a workplace accident years earlier eventually caught up with her. By 2023 she was barely able to get in and out of her car and needed a double knee replacement, leaving her unable to work. After her landlord increased the rent by $50 per week last year, she has fallen behind and is now two months in arrears.

Renting in retirement is becoming unaffordable, if not impossible. Since 2019, rents have soared by 46.8 percent—the equivalent, on average, of an extra $205 per week, or $10,660 per year. According to data from CoreLogic, the median national rent in 2019 was $438 per week. By the end of 2024, it had surged to $643 per week.

The Grattan Institute found that the average pensioner can afford to spend just $300 per week on rent—far below market rates. This means that just 4 percent of one-bedroom homes in Sydney, 13 percent in Brisbane and 14 percent in Melbourne are affordable for a single retiree. 

According to the latest available data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), in 2021, at least 9,000 Australians over 65 were homeless. However, data reported in the annual Homelessness Monitor show a more than 30 percent increase in the number of older Australians accessing specialist homelessness services between 2017–18 and 2023–24. 

Beyond the pension, stark wealth inequality exists among retirees. A report from the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) last year identified Australia’s superannuation system—in which employers contribute a percentage of workers’ earnings into a retirement fund—as a key driver of this inequality.

Professor Carla Treloar, author of the report, highlighted the extent of the disparity: “At the top end of our households [by wealth], they have on average about half-a-million dollars in superannuation wealth. The bottom 20 percent households, by wealth, have on average about $66,000 in superannuation assets.” 

For those in the bottom bracket, the aged pension is often their only income. Many are reluctant to spend what little superannuation they have saved, fearing they may need it for unexpected medical bills, home repairs, or vehicle costs—expenses that could push them further into financial hardship.

The number of retirees with a mortgage is also rising, as those 55- to 64-year-olds owning their home outright has nearly halved over the past 20 years. This trend is primarily driven by skyrocketing housing costs, with the median house price in Sydney—Australia’s most populous city—now reaching $1.48 million, while units average $846,000. Compounding the crisis is the ongoing cost-of-living squeeze and a continued decline in real wages, which have been falling since 2016.

The crisis facing retired renters is a phenomenon that has been building over the past 30 years. Since the introduction by the Labor government of Prime Minister Paul Keating in 1992 of compulsory superannuation, there has been a decline in the proportion of Australians receiving the full aged care pension. In effect, as superannuation comes from workers’ wages, they are forced to pay for their own retirement.

There has been a bipartisan effort to reduce the pension payment. This includes the means testing of retirees to determine their eligibility and in 2009 the raising of the pension age by the Rudd Labor government from 65 to 67, which came into effect in 2023. 

This is coupled with the broader housing crisis in Australia, which has seen massive tax breaks to property developers and speculators, ramping up the cost of houses and rent to unaffordable levels.

The current Albanese Labor government, since narrowly scraping into office in the 2022 federal election, has further deepened this crisis, instigating a program of austerity and cuts to social spending. As a result, poverty has deepened across Australia, with 3.3 million people now living below the poverty line and 2 million experiencing food insecurity.

Labor’s policies have further enriched the property development sector—the very industry driving the crisis. Part of its 2022 election policy platform was the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF), which supposedly aims to build 30,000 so-called “affordable” homes by 2029.

If this target were met, it would barely make a dent in the social housing shortfall, which already exceeds 600,000 dwellings and continues to grow rapidly. Since the HAFF was legislated in September 2023, fewer than 400 new homes have been built under the scheme and only around 13,000 more are even in the planning stages.