Trump’s $40 billion Health and Human Services cuts: A prescription for social devastation

Evan Blake

Donald Trump shakes hands with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a Turning Point Action campaign rally, Wednesday, October 23, 2024 in Duluth, Georgia. [AP Photo/Alex Brandon]

The Trump administration’s plans to cut $40 billion from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—a staggering reduction of roughly one-third of its discretionary budget—marks an inflection point in the deepening assault on science, public health and the social rights of the working class in the United States and internationally. 

This unprecedented attack on programs which affect the health and well-being of virtually the entire world’s population is a critical component of the fascist program that Trump and his health secretary, the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., seek to implement. It is a conscious effort to roll back more than a century of social progress and scientific achievement and will have catastrophic consequences.

The cuts, detailed in an internal memorandum obtained by the Washington Post and published Wednesday night, include the following:

• National Institutes of Health (NIH): Budget slashed from $47 billion to $27 billion—a 40 percent reduction. The number of NIH institutes and centers is to be cut from 27 to eight, with the elimination of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities and the National Institute of Nursing Research. Hundreds of research grants, including those on vaccine hesitancy, transgender health and COVID-19, are to be canceled. Thousands of scientists will be laid off, accelerating a mass exodus of expertise from the US.

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Budget cut by 44 percent, from $9.2 billion to $5.2 billion. All chronic disease programs—including those targeting heart disease, obesity, diabetes, domestic HIV care, and smoking cessation—are to be eliminated, exposing Kennedy’s claims to be fighting “America’s chronic disease epidemic” as nothing but hot air. Staff working on drowning prevention, gun violence, worker safety and STD testing have already been laid off. 

• Head Start: Complete elimination of federal funding, cutting off early childhood education and care for 750,000 low-income children. This will devastate working families, particularly in rural areas where Head Start is often the only non-family childcare provider, forcing parents out of the workforce and deepening social inequality. This cut by itself will outrage tens of millions of people whose children have benefited or are benefiting from the program.

• Rural health programs: Elimination of grants for rural hospitals, residency developments and state offices of rural health, threatening to shutter critical access points for millions in rural America. Trump ran up huge vote margins in rural areas during the 2024 election, thanks to the long record of neglect and austerity on the part of Democratic Party administrations. Now he is seeking to outdo all previous administrations in the destruction of rural infrastructure.

• Food and Drug Administration (FDA): Funding set at the bare minimum to allow continued collection of industry fees, threatening the agency’s ability to regulate drug and device safety. The agency is one of those turned over to the control of a right-wing opponent of public health measures to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, Martin Makary.

Coinciding with these massive cuts, which will directly worsen the health of millions of Americans, Kennedy is creating a new $20 billion agency with the Orwellian title “Administration for a Healthy America.” The central purpose of this new agency is to consolidate and eliminate numerous prevention-focused programs, including those for childhood lead poisoning, healthcare workforce development and ALS patient registries. Funding for policy and research will be tightly controlled by Kennedy, who is launching initiatives that will serve as vehicles for anti-scientific, eugenicist policies.

These cuts are not “cost-saving” measures, as claimed by the White House. They represent a deliberate, fascistic effort to destroy the infrastructure of scientific research and public health that underpins modern society. The aim is to return the working class to conditions of social misery and industrial exploitation not seen since the 19th century.

The HHS cuts were revealed just two weeks after Kennedy imposed the layoffs of over 20,000 HHS workers, roughly a quarter of the federal public health workforce. These included 80 percent of staff at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which is responsible for workplace safety and disease monitoring, and the gutting of agencies tracking infectious diseases, monitoring chemical exposures, enforcing food and drug safety, and more.

At the same time, the administration has imposed gag orders on scientific agencies, erased public health data from thousands of government websites and elevated anti-science quacks like Jay Bhattacharya to positions of power. The CDC and NIH, once global leaders in disease prevention, have been crippled. The US has withdrawn from the World Health Organization (WHO), and the PEPFAR program—which provides life-saving HIV/AIDS treatment to over 20 million people in low-income countries—faces elimination.

On the same day that the HHS cuts were revealed, Nature published the results of recent modeling which underscores the vast global ramifications of these policies. The study found that if the United States were to end all global health funding—including for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and maternal and child health programs—an estimated 25 million people would die preventable deaths over the next 15 years. These include 15 million from HIV/AIDS alone, due to the cutoff of PEPFAR funding, and over 7 million child deaths from other causes.

The model projects that by 2040, HIV deaths would surge by over 50 percent and tuberculosis infections would rise by 69 million worldwide. Even partial cuts, such as maintaining only HIV treatment programs, would still result in millions of additional deaths and a catastrophic reversal of decades of public health progress. 

Furthermore, the dismantling of pandemic surveillance and response programs, including the CDC’s Global Health Center and the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, means that the US and world population are now flying blind in the face of growing threats like H5N1 “bird flu.” Both Kennedy and USDA head Brooke Rollins have openly floated a proposal to allow bird flu to spread unchecked on poultry farms, risking the emergence of a strain capable of human-to-human transmission.

The Trump-Kennedy war on science represents a continuation and deepening of the criminal policies of the Biden administration, which normalized mass infection and the abandonment of public health during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Both capitalist parties have subordinated science and social needs to the interests of the corporate-financial oligarchy, paving the way for today’s unbridled social counterrevolution.

The trade union bureaucracies, in particular the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), have done nothing to oppose these attacks on science and the working class. Instead they have stifled the enormous opposition of rank-and-file public health workers, isolating them and allowing them to be fired en masse. The defense of science, public health and social rights cannot be entrusted to these reactionary bureaucrats.

Social Security to mark immigrants as dead to force them to “self-deport”

Marc Wells

A father and son in San Juan, Texas [AP Photo/Eric Gay]

In one of the most ruthless assaults on immigrant workers in American history, the Trump administration has launched a policy that weaponizes the Social Security Administration’s “Death Master File” to erase the legal existence of thousands of living people.

This is not mere administrative cruelty. It is a campaign of financial assassination, designed to strip immigrant workers of their livelihoods, sever their access to essential services, and force them to “self-deport” through economic strangulation.

The list already includes over 6,300 individuals, and officials admit it will likely expand. Among them are minors and individuals with no criminal record. While the administration claims these people are “suspected criminals” or “terrorists,” even internal agency staff have found no evidence to support those allegations. These are workers who have paid into Social Security, Medicaid and unemployment insurance programs now used as weapons against them.

The scheme targets immigrants who were granted temporary legal status under the Biden administration, a status that carried no path to citizenship and no permanent protection, only the illusion of security until the political winds shifted. Trump has already started revoking their temporary status.

Their real “crime” was allowing themselves to be registered and tracked in federal databases built by Democratic administrations, which have long relied on immigrant labor while denying them lasting political rights or protections.

Now, under Trump, these records have been repurposed into a purge list.

Through this sinister manipulation, the government has begun reclassifying living immigrants as “dead,” transferring their names and Social Security numbers into a system meant for the deceased. The consequences are catastrophic: without a valid Social Security number, one cannot legally work, open a bank account, sign a lease, access healthcare or claim any benefit. In the eyes of the financial system, they cease to exist.

The government’s intent is clear: dismantle the Social Security system as part of its attacks on fundamental past gains such as Medicare, Medicaid and other vital social programs. It starts by erasing these immigrants on paper and forcing them out of the country by depriving them of every means of survival after years of exploiting their labor.

As Leland Dudek, Trump’s acting commissioner of Social Security, admitted in an internal email, the financial lives of these immigrants will be “terminated.”

Martin O’Malley, Social Security commissioner under Biden, said, “It’s tantamount to financial murder.”

There is no due process, no hearing, no appeal before one’s life is wiped from the records. And getting off the death list is no simple matter. As former Social Security Administration (SSA) official Marcela Escobar-Alava noted:

“There’s a whole ‘I’m not dead’ routine... but the centers are backlogged.”

Staffing cuts have only deepened that backlog, leaving thousands trapped in legal limbo. 

But this attack did not appear from nowhere. It stands on the shoulders of decades of bipartisan reaction.

Under Bill Clinton, border militarization and punitive immigration laws were expanded. The Obama administration perfected the digital architecture that made this atrocity possible, building mass surveillance systems, registration pipelines and legal frameworks that funneled immigrant workers into the machinery of deportation. Despite his “progressive” facade, Obama earned the title “deporter-in-chief,” overseeing the forced removal of more immigrants than any other president in US history.

Biden extended these policies under more “humane” branding. Programs like the CBP One app and humanitarian parole created vast registries of immigrant workers, funneled into low-wage jobs while awaiting permanent status that was never offered. These workers paid taxes, contributed to Social Security, and enriched American society—only to be left completely exposed when the political calculations shifted.

Now Trump, inheriting these lists, has flipped a bureaucratic switch and declared them dead.

To justify this grotesque act, the administration has fallen back on the well-worn rhetoric of “law and order.” Trump and his mouthpieces, including the corporate media, have painted immigrant workers as criminals, rapists, terrorists, and freeloaders.

Internal agency reports confirm that most of the people targeted have no criminal history at all. The lists have been compiled so recklessly they even include minors, some as young as 13.

The real “crime,” in the eyes of the capitalist state, is not violence or fraud—it is being poor, foreign-born and a member of the working class.

This scapegoating is a classic feature of capitalism in crisis. As social inequality deepens and economic instability spreads, the ruling class turns to repression and nationalism to deflect working class anger. Immigrants, marginalized and politically weakened by legal status, become the most convenient targets, used to distract attention from the real architects of the crisis.

While immigrant workers are being declared “dead,” the true parasites—the financial oligarchy—continue to plunder society with impunity.

Donald Trump has built his fortune on tax fraud, wage theft and financial scams. Elon Musk, now actively shaping immigration enforcement policy, spreads conspiracy theories about immigrants “stealing benefits” while personally profiting from billions in government subsidies.

These men produce nothing. It is immigrant workers—alongside their native-born brothers and sisters—who create the wealth that the ruling class seizes. They clean hospitals, deliver goods, build homes, care for children and harvest food. Their labor sustains the world. The billionaires feed off it.

This attack is not an isolated policy but part of a sweeping assault on democratic rights. The same apparatus of state repression that targets immigrant workers is being deployed against students, young people and anyone perceived as politically oppositional. Students like Mahmoud Khalil, Momodou Taal and Rumeysa Ozturk are only a few among many. 

The campaign to erase immigrant workers from economic life is part of a broader offensive against the entire working class. Once normalized, these tools of control will expand, targeting dissent, slashing social protections and undermining labor rights for all.

IRS to slash 40 percent of workforce as deadline passes for agencies to plan cuts

Tom Hall

Just one day after the April 15 federal income tax filing deadline, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) revealed plans for massive workforce reductions, according to internal documents obtained by FNN and Politico. The agency is preparing to shrink its staff from around 100,000 to between 60,000 and 70,000 employees.

Protesters rally in Los Angeles against the Trump administration's attacks on the Constitution and federal workers, March 22, 2025.

This move is part of a far-reaching campaign by the Trump administration to gut the federal workforce and dismantle essential public institutions. Agencies not directly tied to military-intelligence apparatus, domestic and border policing, or the increasing of corporate profits are being targeted for destruction. Over 70,000 federal employees have already accepted voluntary buyouts, and tens of thousands more are expected to be laid off in the coming months.

At the IRS, over 20,000 have already taken buyouts. Internal memos make clear that these cuts are being made with full awareness of their impact. One such memo stated, “taxpayer services and compliance will need to be trimmed,” a clear signal that enforcement against wealthy tax cheats will be scaled back.

An IRS worker, speaking anonymously to the World Socialist Web Site, described the consequences of the cuts:

The cuts will have a profound impact on tax enforcement, which will make it easier for millionaire and billionaire tax cheats to avoid detection. Millionaires and billionaires tend to have very complicated transaction structures and can have tax returns well over a hundred pages long. They will no doubt be the primary beneficiaries of these cuts.

The worker went on to explain that the cuts will likely lead to a broader fiscal crisis:

This will most likely force the government to make up the shortfall from the rest of the population. Presumably the administration plans to do this through tariffs, which, unlike income taxes, are not progressive. Billionaires and the poor all pay the same amount for the higher cost of goods resulting from tariffs. Another outcome will be poor customer service and the wasteful payment of more fraudulent subsidies, the IRS pays out a lot of subsidies, since there will be fewer people monitoring things.

The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which represents IRS employees, warned in a statement to The Hill that enforcement is being specifically targeted:

Roughly 70 percent of the personnel cuts thus far have been in enforcement, which will make it easier to avoid detection for the millionaire and billionaire tax cheats who evade an estimated $150 billion in taxes every year. It is estimated that every dollar cut from enforcement costs five to nine dollars in revenue. So if Musk tries to cut $10 billion from IRS enforcement spending, he will be risking $50-90 billion in lost revenue each year

In other words, the entire purpose of the layoffs is to facilitate tax fraud by the wealthy and eliminate the programs their taxes help fund.

While tax enforcement is being slashed, sweeping cuts to social spending are underway. The Trump administration is backing $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid and roughly $230 billion from food stamps. On top of this, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is proposing to cut $40 billion in mandatory spending, which would inevitably include cuts to federal worker pensions and healthcare.

Elon Musk’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” which spearheading attacks on the federal workforce, is also demanding direct access to tax records for every American. This massive privacy violation would enable the White House to use tax records to facilitate roundups and other repressive measures against immigrants and political opponents of the regime.

This measure, aimed at establishing a presidential dictatorship, has prompted a wave of resignations of top IRS officials, including two acting IRS commissioners since Trump took office. The agency’s chief information officer also announced just before the April 15 filing deadline plans to step down at the end of the month.

According to the Associated Press, the administration is also attempting to eliminate the IRS Direct File system—a free e-filing option for ordinary taxpayers. By undermining this system, the government seeks to make the filing process more difficult and increase profits for private tax preparers.

Latest round of cuts

The layoffs at the IRS are only one part of a much broader purge of the federal workforce. April 14 was the deadline for all federal agencies to submit “reductions in force” (RIF) plans for the second round of layoffs. According to the New York Times, there have been at least 56,230 confirmed job cuts and about 76,100 employees who have taken buyouts, with a further 146,320 or more being currently planned. This is approximately equal to 10 percent of the total federal workforce.

Other recent cuts include:

• Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): 20,000 workers are being eliminated through a mix of layoffs and buyouts. The CDC and FDA are each losing about 20 percent of their staff. Two-thirds of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has been eliminated.

• Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): Up to 50 percent of staff are being laid off; some areas may lose as much as 75 percent.

• Department of Veterans Affairs (VA): Over 1,000 probationary workers have been dismissed, including researchers working on mental health, cancer, addiction, and prosthetics.

• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): 388 employees have been terminated.

• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): 880 employees have been laid off, including workers from the National Hurricane Center and Storm Prediction Center, making the country more vulnerable to severe death and destruction from extreme weather.

• Department of Energy (DOE): 1,200–2,000 layoffs affecting the National Nuclear Security Administration and other critical areas.

• AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC): Over 2,000 volunteers have dismissed due to “programmatic circumstances beyond your control,” the agency said in a memo. This decision impacts disaster relief and community service projects nationwide.

At the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), staffing cuts have been so severe that the agency was forced to hire dozens of contractors just to manage travel and scheduling for inspectors after the entire travel operations division was laid off at the start of the month. The move threatens to cripple in-person inspections of the food supply and even strand inspectors who were out in the field at the time of the cuts.

Despite the severity of these attacks, federal unions like the NTEU have taken no serious action. Upholding anti-democratic laws which ban federal workers from striking, their response has been limited to letters and statements, even as the administration tears up union contracts through executive orders. While federal workers are being stripped of their jobs and protections, union officials remain committed to a strategy of appeasement and legal appeals.

Commonwealth Is Offering The 2025/26 Distance Learning Master’s Scholarships

Application Deadline:

The application deadline is  16:00 GMT on Tuesday, 20 May 2025.

Tell Me About The Commonwealth Distance Learning Masters Scholarships:

The Commonwealth Distance Learning programme is one of three Master’s programmes offered by the Commonwealth Scholarships Commission. The Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the UK (CSC) provides the UK government scholarship scheme led by international development objectives. It operates within the framework of the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship plan (CSFP) and offers a vivid demonstration of the UK’s enduring commitment to the Commonwealth. By attracting individuals with outstanding talent and identifiable potential from all backgrounds and supporting them to become leaders and innovators on returning to their home countries, the CSC’s work combines sustainable development with the UK national interest and provides opportunities for international partnerships and collaboration.

Which Fields are Eligible?

The list of eligible fields can be viewed here. 

Type:

Master’s Degree (Distance Learning) Scholarships 

Who can Apply For The Commonwealth Distance Learning Masters Scholarships?

To be eligible for a Commonwealth Distance Learning Scholarship, applicants should:

• Be a citizen of or have been granted refugee status by an eligible Commonwealth country, or be a British Protected Person.
• Be a permanent resident in a developing Commonwealth country.
• Hold a first degree of at least upper second class (2:1) standard. A lower qualification and sufficient relevant experience may be considered in certain cases.
• Be unable to afford to study the programme without this scholarship.

How are Applicants Selected?

Each participating UK University will conduct its own recruitment process to select a specified number of candidates for Distance Learning Scholarships. Universities must submit their selected candidates to the CSC. The CSC will then confirm that these candidates meet the eligibility criteria for this scheme, and universities will inform candidates of their results.

Selection criteria include:

• Academic merit of the applicant
• Potential impact of the work on the development of the applicant’s home country

Which Countries Are Eligible?

The list of eligible countries can be viewed here.

Where will the Award be Taken?

The programme is delivered by UK universities, but scholars will remain in their home countries while undertaking their studies online.

How Many Awards?

Not specified

What is the Benefit of the Commonwealth Distance Learning Masters Scholarships?

The scholarship benefits include:

• Full tuition fees for approved courses are covered.
• Additional financial assistance may vary depending on the award and personal circumstances.
  For study based in the UK (not applicable to this distance learning programme), benefits may include airfare, visa costs, and a living allowance.

How Long Will the Award Last?

Duration of study 

How to Apply:

• Apply for admission to an approved Master’s course at a participating UK university.
• Submit a separate application for the Commonwealth Distance Learning Scholarship using the CSC’s online application system.
• Applicants can apply for multiple courses and universities but may only accept one scholarship offer.

Visit the official application page

Trump says tech tariff exemption only temporary

Nick Beams

After announcing that electronic goods, such as iPhones and semi-conductors, would be exempted from his so-called “reciprocal tariffs,” US president Trump has said they could soon be imposed through another mechanism.

The iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max are displayed at the Apple Fifth Avenue store, Friday, Sept. 16, 2022, in New York. [AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura]

Barely 24 hours after announcing the exemption as a result of pressure from Apple and other tech giants, Trump made clear the reprieve was only temporary.

“Nobody is getting ‘off the hook’ for the unfair trade balances, and non-monetary tariff barriers, that other countries have used against us, especially not China which, by far, treats us the worst!” he wrote in a social media post yesterday.

Tariffs on electronic goods are set to be re-imposed as a result of national security investigations into this sector, as well into pharmaceuticals, expected to be concluded within two months.

Expanding on Trump’s social media post, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said: “What he’s doing is he’s saying they’re exempt from the reciprocal tariffs. But they’re included in the semi-conductor tariffs, which are coming in probably a month or two.”

Asked if tariffs on iPhones might be imposed, Lutnick replied: “Correct. That’s right … We need our medicines and we need semiconductors to be built in America.”

While the tariffs are completely irrational, if not totally insane, from an economic standpoint, they do have geo-political and military content.

Speaking about the imposition of tariffs on steel in March and the threat against pharmaceuticals, Trump said: “We don’t make pharmaceuticals anymore and if we have problems like wars or anything else, we need steel, we need pharmaceuticals.”

The military dimension of the economic war is virtually excluded from coverage of Trump’s actions in the so-called mainstream media. But it is very present in the documents accompanying the measures which emphasise that “national security,” that is military preparation, is front and centre.

The executive order of April 2, announcing the “reciprocal tariffs,” said the large and persistent “goods trade deficits” had “hollowed out” domestic manufacturing capacity, undermined critical supply chains “and rendered our defense-industrial base dependent on foreign adversaries.”

In all their pronouncements, Trump and his officials continually refer to the “goods trade” deficit, ignoring the fact that in the provision of services the US has a trade surplus. This is because services, such as the design of software and computer programs, while they are vital for the military, do not provide the actual hardware and materiel needed.

Following up on Lutnick’s comments in a further social media post yesterday, Trump emphasised “national security” considerations.

He said the administration would be “taking a look at semi-conductors and the whole electronics supply chain in the upcoming National Security Tariff Investigations.”

The total absurdity of the tariff measures and the utter derangement of Trump officials on the economy was underscored in recent remarks by Lutnick.

“The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones, that kind of thing is going to come to America.”

The remarks were so ridiculous that one even must wonder if he was not trying to mock the entire agenda.

In any case it is totally impossible. It has been estimated that an iPhone “made in America” would cost $3500 and that Apple would need at least three years and $30 billion to shift a tenth of its supply chain from Asia back to the US.

It remains to be seen what effect the latest twist in the Trump tariff war will have when markets open today. But the developments last week, particularly in the bond and currency markets where yields on 10-year Treasuries rose sharply and the dollar fell, indicate a growing crisis of confidence in the US financial system.

In a “normally” functioning financial market, US Treasury bonds are a risk-free safe haven in times of turbulence. But as the implications of the Trump economic war sink in, they have become the centre of risk, as reflected in the increase in yield as bond prices fell. The two move in opposite directions.

There are many comments from analysts, bankers and financial executives which underscore the historic nature of what has taken place. Essentially, the entire framework within which the global capitalist system operated in the post-war period has been shattered and cannot be restored.

In remarks reported in the Australian Financial Review, Kathy Jones, the chief fixed income strategist (bond market specialist) at the investment Charles Schwab, said: “The issue facing the markets is a loss of confidence in US policy. The abrupt changes in tariff policy have caused leveraged trades [those based on large amounts of debt] to come undone and sent buyers to the sidelines.”

Bhanu Baweja of the Swiss bank UBS said: “This is so scary. We are re-defining the risk-free rate of the world. If you put volatility in the risk-free rate of the world, it will upend every market.”

There is a myriad of such comments to be found.

Yesterday, the founder of the Bridgewater hedge fund and something of a student of the workings of the global financial system, billionaire Ray Dalio, told the NBC program Meet the Press: “Right now we are at a decision-making point and very close to a recession. And I’m worried about something worse than a recession if this isn’t handled well.”

He said he was concerned about trade disruptions, rising debt and the bringing down of the entire economic and geopolitical structure that had been in place since World War II and the shift from multilateralism to a “unilateral world order in which there’s great conflict.”

In the growing financial turbulence, the very value of money was at stake and that a breakdown in the bond market, combined with international conflict, would bring about disruption to the international monetary system even more severe than president Nixon’s removal of the gold backing from the US dollar in 1971 and the global crisis of 2008.

Fears over the very value of money are reflected in the rising price of gold which is hitting new record highs on almost a daily basis.

The gold price escalation is extremely significant. After the gold backing was removed, the dollar continued to function as world money.

But it has operated as a fiat currency, not backed by gold as real value, but has rested on the economic, political and financial power of the US state.

Today that imperialist state, plunging ever deeper into debt and with a financial system riddled with speculation, parasitism and outright criminal corruption, as graphically revealed in the 2011 Senate report on the 2008 meltdown, is at the very centre of the crisis.

In an earlier interview with the business channel CNBC, Dalio said he agreed with Trump on the problem—rising government debt now at $36 trillion and a growing trade deficit—but was very concerned about the solution. He could offer no viable alternative, however.

In a post on X last week, he called for a trade agreement with China describing it as a “win-win” outcome. But a deal between China and the US to jointly manage the world and prevent it plunging into an economic and financial crisis is impossible.

This is because, whatever short-term agreements may be reached there can be no long-term arrangement because that would involve US imperialism making major concessions to Beijing. All factions of the US ruling class, whatever their tactical differences with Trump, are united in their determination to ensure there is no so-called multipolar world. US hegemony must be maintained at all costs and that means the subordination of China.

What will exactly come out of the wreckage of the entire post-war order remains to be seen. But signs of a division of the globe into three blocs—one centered on the US, one on Europe and one based on China and the so-called BRICS group of countries—are starting to emerge.

It is too early say with any certainty who will line up where. But the fracturing, already underway before Trump arrived on the scene, is becoming ever more palpable and, as in the 1930s when the world was divided in such a way, it points in the direction of war.

Ukraine’s NATO-backed Kursk invasion ends in failure

Jason Melanovski

In this photo, taken from video, released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Wednesday, April 2, 2025, a "Grad" self-propelled 122 mm multiple rocket launcher fires toward Ukrainian position in the Russian - Ukrainian border area in the Kursk region, Russia. [AP Photo/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service]

The Ukrainian military’s eight-month-long incursion into Russia’s Kursk region has effectively ended after Russia announced it had regained control over Guyevo, one of the last villages held by Ukrainian forces on Russian territory.

Amid mounting Russian advances into its own Donbass region, Ukraine launched the adventurist invasion in August of last year and seized between 1,000 and 1,300 square kilometers of land, making it the largest ground invasion of Russia since Nazi Germany’s Wehrmacht during World War II. The troops sent into Russian territory had been trained by the UK and used NATO battle tanks.

The right-wing dictatorial government of President Volodymyr Zelensky originally touted the invasion as a means to simultaneously take pressure off its own undermanned forces in Donbass and improve Ukraine’s position in any future negotiations to end the war. In doing so, the Ukrainian military redirected a significant number of its best forces into an ultimately doomed incursion that predictably led to the casualties of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers with no improvement in Kiev’s negotiating position or the creation of a “buffer zone” for Ukraine’s military.

Earlier in March, the BBC reported on the “catastrophic” withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the strategically important city of Sudzha in the Kursk region. It was “like a horror movie,” according to the testimonies of Ukrainian soldiers who unanimously condemned the Ukrainian military leadership for the Kursk fiasco.

According to one soldier named Dmytro, “The roads are littered with hundreds of destroyed cars, armoured vehicles and ATVs (All Terrain Vehicles). There are a lot of wounded and dead.”

Dmytro estimated thousands of Ukrainian soldiers had perished needlessly since the beginning of the invasion in August 2024 and stated, “Everything is finished in the Kursk region ... the operation was not successful.”

Speaking to Reuters, Ukrainian soldier Oleksii Deshevyi, 32, a former supermarket security guard who lost his hand while fighting in Kursk in September, likewise condemned the disastrous Kursk invasion.

“We should not have started this operation at all,” Deshevyi told Reuters from a rehabilitation center in Kiev.

According to the Kyiv Independent, overall equipment losses for Ukraine amounted to 790 pieces of equipment in comparison to Russia’s 740.

In addition to its own military casualties and losses of Western-supplied equipment, the Russian government has implicated Ukrainian soldiers in the murder of 22 civilians in the occupied village of Russkoye Porechnoye between September and November.

The habitual liar Zelensky and his Commander in Chief General Oleksandr Syrskyi have continued to praise the Kursk operation as a “success.” In mid-March, as Kiev was withdrawing its forces from Kursk, Zelensky preposterously declared that the retreating soldiers were leaving with the “mission accomplished.” It will be up to military historians to make a full accounting for the death and destruction caused by the invasion.

Notwithstanding the false claims of Zelensky and Syrskyi, the failure of the operation has clearly undermined the position of both figures within the NATO-backed Ukrainian state.

Last week, the Guardian published an interview with Bohdan Krotevych, the former chief of staff of the infamous neo-Nazi Azov brigade. In it, he called for the removal of Syrskyi as the head of Ukraine’s Armed Forces. Krotevych is a known admirer of the Nazi war criminal Albert Kesselring who played a central role in the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and is notorious for overseeing the Ardeatine massacre in Italy in 1944 in which 335 civilians were murdered.

Krotevych is a powerful figure. In June of last year, Zelensky replaced Ukraine’s Joint Forces Commander, Lt. General Yuriy Sodol, with Brigadier General Andrii Hnatov, at his behest, testifying to the enormous influence the far right has within the highest levels of the Ukrainian state. 

While Krotevych initially supported the Kursk invasion, in his remarks to the British newspaper, he criticized Syrskyi for “remaining there too long,” particularly as Russian forces continued to advance towards the city of Pokrovsk in southern Donbass. 

“Syrskyi is not trying to apply a high science and an art of war,” Krotevych said, accusing him of having “just two functions: if the enemy is attacking, you just throw more people in there. And if the enemy is overwhelming, withdraw the people and say that you’re concerned about the lives of the people.”

He also attacked Syrskyi for not granting mobilized soldiers sufficient rest from the front. Practically posturing as some sort of humanitarian when it comes to Ukraine’s soldiers, Krotevych stated that he quit his post at Azov after “receiving from the high army command, from the commander-in-chief HQ, orders that became more and more borderline criminal, which I, in my good conscience, was unable to fulfil and follow.”

While Krotevych is attempting ex post facto to absolve both himself and Azov from the failure of the Kursk invasion, the capture of “historically Ukrainian lands” in Russia has long been part of irredentist claims made by far-right Ukrainian nationalists.

In September of 2022, Dmytro Yarosh, the founder and former leader of the fascist Right Sector, foreshadowing the Kursk invasion, demanded on Facebook that Ukraine should make territorial claims on several Russian regions and cities. He cited specifically Belgorod, Kuban and Voronezh and called for an expansion of the war to capture “Ukrainian lands.” 

At the conclusion of his interview, Krotevych announced he would be spending time in London and starting “up a private company, Strategic Operational and Intelligence Agency (Soia), obtaining intelligence on Russia, Belarus, North Korea and other countries unfriendly to Ukraine and acting as an expert liaison with the west.” 

Krotevych stressed that his visits to London are not tied to Valery Zaluzhny, the former Commander in Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces. After a major public row with President Zelensky, Zaluzhny was dismissed from his position and sent to the UK where he is currently serving as the country’s ambassador. 

Valery Zaluzhny (left) with Andriy Stempitsky, a commander of the fascist Right Sector during his last days in office. Both men are photographed in front of a portrait of Ukrainian fascist leader Stepan Bandera

A known admirer of Ukrainian fascist leader Stepan Bandera, Zaluzhny is a favorite in any potential future presidential elections and would likely be supported by the country’s various far-right military and political organizations such as Azov. In March, amidst the ongoing attempts by the Trump White House to broker a deal with Russia and Ukraine to end the war and plunder the countries’ resources, Zaluzhny gave a provocative speech at Chatham House in London, declaring that the US was “destroying” the world order and had joined “the axis of evil.” The Zelensky government publicly distanced itself from Zaluzhny’s remarks. 

While Ukrainian forces have been expelled from Kursk, Kiev has continued its cross-border attacks in the Belgorod region. “We continue to carry out active operations in the border areas on enemy territory, and that is absolutely just—war must return to where it came from,” Zelensky stated last Monday in a nightly video address.

China hits back at Trump by tightening exports of rare earths

Nick Beams

China has taken a significant step in the intensifying economic war with the US by moving to tighten controls on the export of rare earth minerals and magnets critical for many advanced technologies in auto production, electronics and military equipment. Restrictions had already been imposed on the exports of some rare earths as the Trump tariff war has escalated, but the latest moves appear to be the most significant retaliatory measure so far.

Outside the Beijing Stock Exchange in China on April 10, 2025. [AP Photo/Andy Wong]

According to a report in the New York Times by its Beijing bureau chief Keith Bradsher published yesterday, shipments of magnets “essential for assembling everything from cars and drones to robots and missiles, have been halted at many Chinese ports while the Chinese government drafts a new regulatory system. Once in place, the new system could permanently prevent supplies from reaching certain companies, including American military contractors.”

On April 4, two days after Trump’s announcement of his “reciprocal tariff” war—since suspended for all countries for 90 days except China for which tariffs have been raised in 145 percent—Beijing ordered restrictions on the export of six heavy rare earth metals refined in China and rare earth magnets.

The magnets are crucial for the production of electric motors for cars and other products. China produces around 90 percent of the 200,000 tonnes of rare earth magnets each year. Japan produces a large portion of the rest while a small quantity, dependent on China for raw material supplies, comes from Germany.

The Times article cited comments by Daniel Pickard, an adviser to the US trade representative and the Commerce Department on critical minerals. “Does the export control or ban potentially have severe effects in the US? Yes,” he said.

James Litinsky, the chief executive of MP Materials which supplies rare earths, said supplies to military contractors were of particular concern. “Drones and robotics are widely considered the future of warfare, and based on everything we are seeing, the critical inputs for our future supply chain are shut down.”

MP Materials owns the only sole rare earths mine in the US, Mountain Pass in California.

The key issue is not so much obtaining supplies of rare earths and critical minerals but in processing them. The US has considerable supplies of rare earths. Getting them out of the ground is one thing, processing and refining them is another.

Rare earths can be found all over the world but often not in sufficient concentrations to make mining them economically viable. And the refinement process itself is complex and expensive because the rare earths are found in combination with minerals having similar chemical properties, which makes it difficult to extract them.

An article in the Financial Times in early March cited remarks by Pierre Josso, deputy director of the UK Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre, who pointed to this issue. “Refining is where things become difficult. Managing to separate them into individual elements takes a lot of time and energy. You can mine anywhere in the world, but if you don’t build the smelting and refining capacity, you’ll send your ore to China to be refined,” he said.

The US at present mines about 12 percent of the world’s supply of rare earths, putting it second only to China, according to the United States Geological Survey. But refining is capital intensive and not particularly profitable and so China is the main center for processing.

An article in the Wall Street Journal in March noted that the “US exports about two-thirds of its rare earths to China. It has little choice: China is responsible for around 85 percent of the world’s rare earth refining. Chinese companies then turn the ore into the final product—rare-earth magnets—and export the magnets back to the US.”

According to Morgan Bazilian, director of the Payne Institute at the Colorado Institute of Mines, whose remarks were cited in the article, the so-called “midstream piece of processing and refining ores into chemicals and metals is really important and dominated by China. I don’t see it becoming undominated.”

His remarks are borne out by the data. According to industry estimates, the cost of building a refinery plant in China is one-third of the cost in the US.

Industrial dominance goes beyond rare earths and extends to cobalt and copper. The top six refiners of cobalt—vital for military industries and batteries—are Chinese. China’s share of the production of refined cobalt is estimated to have grown from 65 percent in 2018 to 83 percent in 2024.

In copper, crucial for all areas of electronics, US refining capacity lags behind China and the Trump administration has initiated an investigation into how dependence on imports of the metal is a threat to US “national security.”

The issue of rare earths and its importance for US military capacity has concerned Trump for some time. In 2017 he signed an executive order to secure supplies of critical minerals and issued another in 2020 regarding Chinese dominance.

In his address to the joint session of Congress in March, Trump said he planned “historic action to dramatically expand production of critical minerals and rare earths.” These minerals are part of his drive to annex Greenland and were at the center of his proposed agreement with Ukraine.

For its part, the actions of the Chinese government to tighten its grip on their supply and the magnets it produces is another indication that President Xi Jinping considers that whatever the short-term problems caused by the Trump tariffs—and they will be significant—over the longer haul China is in a stronger position than the US.

Such views will have been buttressed by the turbulence in financial markets, centered on the $29 trillion bond market, and the growing international sentiment that the US is no longer a safe haven for investment.

Significantly, while Trump has boasted of a line of countries “kissing my ass” in order to enter negotiations and make trade deals, China is not among them and Xi has not sought a phone call. The view in Beijing appears to be that despite being virtually shut out of the US market, any blow on that score will be able to be countered by boosting its domestic market with government stimulus measures.

The latest response by China is not likely, however, to produce any lasting US economic concessions, despite urging by financial oligarchs, such as billionaire founder of the Bridgewater hedge fund Ray Dalio, for a “win-win” US-China trade deal.

Given its lag on the production front, sharply expressed in the refining of critical minerals but present in many other areas of manufacturing as well, the response of the Trump regime will be to step up preparations in the one area where it considers it has superiority, that is, through war.