On March 15, less than 100 days into his reign of terror, “peacemaker” President Donald Trump unleashed a series of airstrikes in Yemen, killing and maiming over 100 workers (NBC, 3/16). The assault was a desperate attempt by the U.S. imperialists to regain some control over the Red Sea, a vital global shipping route. This fight is a move toward a wider war between the U.S. and the Chinese and Iranian imperialists who back the Yemeni Houthi militia. It shows that the “Fortress America” version of U.S. imperialism, the one favored by Trump and his capitalist backers, can’t save workers from the bloodbath of world war. Only building a mass international movement to fight for communist revolution can turn this impending conflict into a fight for the liberation of our class.
Imperialists kill over trade routes
The conflict between the U.S. and Chinese bosses has been sharpening for years, and workers are paying the price. Yemen was one of seven countries bombed by Barack Obama, the “drone-strike” president who massacred thousands of workers to defend the U.S. bosses’ profits and shipping lanes (vox.com, 1/10/17). Joe Biden resumed the bombing of Yemen last year, and now Trump continues the slaughter. But after their debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. bosses can’t murder enough people to stem their decline in the oil-rich Middle East. Meanwhile, China has strengthened its position as the region’s dominant power through its support of Iran and Iran’s proxy groups, including the Houthi militia (Atlantic Council, 1/14).
With the Houthis blocking shipments of oil and other goods across the Red Sea, U.S. ships have been forced to take a much longer and more expensive route around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa. Meanwhile, tankers and cargo ships from China and Russia, the two biggest U.S. imperialist rivals, have been able to continue to use the Red Sea route, adding to China’s advantage (Foreign Policy, 2/14/24).
As they build toward war, the bosses turn to rising fascism and racist scapegoating of immigrants and Muslims to divide the working class and shift the blame for the international crisis of capitalism. The attacks on immigrant students who protested the genocide in Gaza, alongside sweeps by the ICE gestapo and Trump’s plans for mass deportations, are designed solely to build fear and racism. It is essential that the working class fight back against these racist atrocities by uniting and defending workers whenever they come under attack.
As the battle among imperialists spreads, it becomes even clearer that the international working class shares the same common interest: to smash the profit system and the capitalist parasites who rely on it. The workers now dying in wars in Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan, and Gaza are all one class. But around the globe, too many workers remain tied to the deadly leadership of one imperialist and nationalist faction or another. It’s the task of the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party to lead our class to break free of these chains and create a society run by and for the working class.
Oil is STILL the lifeblood of capitalism
As much as Trump talks about avoiding wars in the Middle East, the U.S. rulers can’t afford to lose control over the world’s largest reserves of cheaply extractable oil—or the shipping routes that control its distribution. Oil is still the lifeblood of capitalism. The U.S. military’s enormous fleet of tanks, trucks, planes, and ships runs on it. Global warming and climate catastrophes notwithstanding, the world will be mostly powered by fossil fuels for the indefinite future. Beyond its military applications, oil and gas are the most abundant and profitable ways to power critical industries like steel and cement. At a time of global economic crisis, the capitalists aren’t about to sacrifice short-term profits to switch to renewable “clean” energy, which accounts for only a small fraction of U.S. industrial production (Energy Information Administration, 7/13/23). Goldman Sachs recently projected a “growing demand for natural gas as a transition fuel until 2050, and the need for new oil & gas development beyond 2040” (JP Morgan, 3/44). Even in Europe, where the finance capitalists have led the clean energy “transition,” renewables’ share of the energy mix is growing at less than one percent per year.
Nationalism is a death trap!
Out of desperation, in the face of an onslaught of racit violence from the bosses, many workers are siding with small-time capitalists under the banner of “national liberation.” From Vietnam to South Africa, this strategy has been proven a disaster for the working class around the world. Time and again, alliances with “lesser evil” capitalist bosses have wrecked the possibility of working-class emancipation. In many cases, they’ve led to thousands or even millions of workers’ deaths.
In 1968, after ousting the British imperialists, the National Front took power in southern Yemen. Because they identified with the bosses and lacked confidence in the working class, these fake “revolutionaries” maintained the British-built civil service and used British-trained forces to smash the workers who’d created a revolutionary workers’ militia. Today’s Houthi nationalist bosses, backed by Iran, are now battling the old regime of nationalist capitalists who are backed by the royal leeches of Saudi Arabia. The resulting civil war has killed more than 300,000 workers, all to replace one vicious oppressor with another.
In spite of these many betrayals, the heartbeat of working-class international solidarity persists. College students across the U.S. have risked expulsion and threats of deportation to protest the anti-Muslim genocide in Gaza. But even as Mahmoud Khalil and other brave students and workers are brutalized and jailed, the working class must fight back even more aggressively to defend our class. As the Trump regime expands its reign of state terror, as conditions for workers around the world keep getting worse, we must seize the opportunity of this moment. Most of all, we must call upon our class to build Progressive Labor Party (PLP). Without a commitment to antiracism, anti-sexism, and communist revolution, the most courageous struggles will lead to dead-end reformist battles settled on the bosses’ terms. Only an organized working class with a revolutionary outlook can lead us toward our final liberation: communism. Join us!
