- by M Santos
- The Guardian
- Issue #2174
Photo: JM
In 2025 a significant shift in international relations included the growing movement amongst the global south away from the US and former colonisers. A number of former African colonies have kicked French forces out of their territories.
President Donald Trump’s second term in office has been marked by bombast and threats from the global US bully and aggression, with no country spared tariffs which were used to try and blackmail countries into submission. This has contributed to the huge realignment of international relations and trend towards a multipolar world.
China is playing a critical role in providing an alternative path based on shared interests and relations based on mutual benefit. China’s loans and investments do not carry the punitive conditions that funding from the International Monetary Bank and World Bank entails.
More than 150 countries and 30 international organisations have signed cooperation agreements or memoranda of understanding with China under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) framework, including some EU countries.
The expanded group of BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) account for 43% of the planet’s population. China is the world’s number one economy in terms of GDP, India is in third place.
Israel, with heavy funding from the US, continued its genocide against the Palestinian people. This saw the South African government bring charges of genocide and crimes against humanity against the Israeli prime minister and a number of Israeli ministers in the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
The Australian government has continued to licence the export of weapons or critical weapons parts to Israel, in some instances via a third party to hide their destination.
GDP per capita in Gaza fell to US$161 – among the world’s lowest – alongside surging inflation of 238% and unemployment hitting 80%.
With the UN powerless in the face of the US veto power, Israel has ignored all UN resolutions aimed at ending crimes. At the time of writing, the US was banging the war drums in preparation for a possible invasion of Venezuela and an attempt to assassinate President Maduro in gross violation of international law.
CRISIS
Our planet and humanity are on the brink, driven by US imperialism and its lackeys including Australia. The clock is ticking on two existential threats to humanity and the planet: climate change and the threat of nuclear war. At the same time the militarisation of Western economies is being funded by cuts to social spending and increasing poverty and desperation.
The attacks being carried out by the Albanese government and the corporate media against the Construction division of the CFMEU demonstrate that the Albanese government has in its sights the stronger and more militant sections of the Australian labour movement. Its aim is to expel trade unions from militant, class conscious workplaces and give employers a free hand to smash wages and working conditions.
Forcing the CFMEU into administration is part of the wider employer offensive against the working class, in which democratic rights are under attack.
Throughout 2025 the gap continued to widen between the wealthy and the rest of the population with the majority of families being hit with income insecurity and recession.
Capitalist economies have proved incapable of providing the basic human rights of housing, health care, quality education, and food security for all. Worse, they have rolled back past social gains and handed out large tax cuts to corporations and the rich.
Inflation and high interest rates have hit household budgets hard. Housing prices continued to rise, driven by private, for-profit investors that bought up 30% of available stock. Instead of building public housing, the Albanese government is subsidising first home buyers to the tune of billions of dollars.
The number of homeless has continued to rise with 43,000 children homeless on any one night, 30% of them Indigenous. In addition 400,000 women were homeless or on the brink of homelessness with women in their 50s the fastest growing group.
The Foodbank Hunger Report 2025 paints a stark picture of widening food insecurity: almost 50% of renters have experienced food insecurity in 2025. It’s not just the unemployed and homeless.
FIGHT BACK
But this past year has seen an increase in trade union struggles including by education, health, transport, maritime, electrical, mine, and gig workers. Some have had significant victories but remained hampered by the virtual outlawing of industrial action.
At the same time, to Labor’s shame the theft of the Construction and General Division of the CFMEU entered its second year. Administration has had a negative impact on the ability of the union’s members to take industrial action and emboldened the employers. Many of the most experienced organisers have been sacked by the administrator.
The thousands of people who have maintained weekly pro-Palestinian actions since 8 October 2023 are to be congratulated on their commitment, despite the repressive measures of state governments and being dishonestly branded as antisemitic.
MILITARISATION
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reports that global military spending rose by 9.4% in the past year to a whopping US$2.7 trillion (AU$4tr).
The US is demanding that Australia increase its military spending by $40 billion a year “as soon as possible.” That would bring the total to $99 billion per annum – an increase of 68% to 3.41% of GDP.
Australia is being turned into a launching pad for US war against China. To enable this the Labor government has handed over Australia’s sovereignty and independence to the US.
The government is already making cuts to NDIS, Medicare, education, aged care, and other social spending to fund AUKUS nuclear submarines, missiles, and expansion of US military facilities.
A total of 73 countries have ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which aims to ban all nuclear weapons. Labor, despite a previous commitment, has not. China is the only nuclear power that has an unconditional, no-first-use policy. The US, NATO, and Israel are prepared to make a first strike.
In Australia and other Western states, there has been growing disaffection with the major political parties that have delivered lower living standards and loss of public services. Numerous, formerly social democrat governments, including the ALP have swung so far to the right that they can hardly carry that label any longer.
This has resulted in growing apathy on the part of some voters, and others, seeking an alternative, have turned to the extreme right, even fascist forces, who tell them what they want to hear. The Greens, who are mostly left-wing social democrats, have been blacked out by the corporate mass media.
CLIMATE CHANGE
Extreme weather events and ongoing heating of the earth and warming of oceans continued throughout 2025, continually breaking records and leaving a path of devastation in their wake, with the loss of thousands of lives and billions of dollars of infrastructure and homes. COP30 was hijacked by the fossil fuel lobby, petrostates, and big tech. It took a backward step, failing to reiterate a 2023 decision to phase out fossil fuels.
The world is on track for 2.6°C heating and countries including Australia continue to expand fossil fuel production. (See Guardian #2173)
The US Agency for International Development terminated more than 5,300 USAID grants and contracts worth US$27 billion, including climate and ecosystems research.
MAKE 2026 YEAR OF STRUGGLE
As we look towards the struggles and demands for 2026, high among the priorities are peace, climate change, Palestinian independence, overturning the austerity program the Albanese government has planned, and raising living standards.
Towards these aims, specific demands include:
- Nationalisation of utilities
- Nationalisation of health care and inclusion of dental in Medicare
- Nationalisation of aged care, the NDIS, and early childhood education and care
- Trade union rights, in particular, the right to strike
- Handing back the CFMEU to its members and sacking the administrator
- Rent controls
- Massive program of public housing
- No new or expansion of fuel fossil projects
- Rapid phasing out of fossil fuel use and production
- Accelerated production of renewables and storage
- Cancellation of AUKUS and the US alliance
- Slashing the military budget
- Closure of all US bases and facilities
- Independent foreign policy
- Tax reforms – end fossil fuel subsidies, capital gains tax concessions, negative gearing.
- Let’s build the greatest unity possible around these demands.
Make 2026 a fight for rights, peace and justice!
