The Internationalism

Internationalism No. 85, March 2026 Page 10 On January 9 th , the European Council authorised the signing of the agreement with Mercosur, the customs union comprising Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. The decision by the 27 member States, taken by majority vote, overrode strong opposition from France, with Poland, Austria, Hungary, and Ireland also voting against and Belgium abstaining. Ratification by the European Parliament is still pending, as it has requested a legal opinion from the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, but both the Council and the Commission seem inclined to apply the agreement provisionally, as urged by the German and Italian governments. Meanwhile, on January 17 th , Presidents Antônio Costa and Ursula von der Leyen flew to South America to seal the deal, moving to close a 30-year political battle. False breakthroughs and ultimatums The EU’s strategic interest in Mercosur was already evident in the mid-199...

Internationalism No. 85, March 2026 Page 3 From the series European news At the Davos Forum in January, US President Donald Trump withdrew his threats to take Greenland away from Denmark and impose tariffs on all countries that opposed him. However, the damage had already been done. The episode was a trauma for Europe: now we no longer know how far the Americans might go , commented Emmanuel Macron. The French president warns against an illusory sense of relief after the peak of tensions. This Greenland moment has undoubtedly made Europeans aware that they are under threat . Now, we must think of Europe as a power [ Süddeutsche Zeitung , February 11 th ]. The German chancellor also spoke out in favour of more European power in his speech to the Bundestag on January 29 th . There, Friedrich Merz issued a warning: Anyone in the world who believes [...] that it is necessary to use customs tariffs against Europe must know—and now knows—that we are...

Internationalism No. 85, March 2026 Page 2 The pace of development of the Indian Giant is one of the major variables weighing on the Asian balance of power and, consequently, the global one. The possibility of counterbalancing the Chinese Giant depends on it. If India were to maintain a sustained pace, it could narrow the window of opportunity available to the Chinese Dragon to establish itself in Asia before the regional balance becomes less favourable—or, in any case, before other powers can rely more heavily on the Indian Elephant to condition it. The old metropolises of imperialism could therefore encourage India's rise, at least until the second Asian imperialist marauder presents them with the bill. Harsh Pant, vice president of the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, reports on this from the subcontinent's point of view. The think tank was founded in 1990 by the Ambani family, owners of Ind...

Internationalism No. 84, February 2026 Page 16 We must force ourselves to think of the present in terms of a decade, because the changes already underway are reshaping the face of the world. In the next ten years, China will have surpassed America's economic power, by whatever metric one chooses to calculate it. The Chinese navy will deploy six, or perhaps nine, aircraft carriers, compared with the United States' current eleven. Within the decade, China will also have 1,500 deployed nuclear warheads, bringing it level with the current deterrents of the US and Russia. To withstand the tripolar confrontation, America plans to increase its number of deployed warheads to 3,000. Not to be outdone, European imperialism plans to double military spending and is already thinking about a European bomb , drawing from the nuclear forces of France and the United Kingdom. The AI bubble will burst, but a handful of giants will emerge to share out...

Internationalism No. 84, February 2026 Page 3 From the series European news The irritation expressed by Denmark on December 21 st , after Donald Trump appointed a special envoy for Greenland, turned into widespread alarmism across Europe within a few weeks. Especially after the American military intervention in Venezuela on January 3 rd , Europeans have been wondering how far the Trump administration will push its claim for hemispheric dominance. The day after the raid on Caracas, the American president declared: We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security . The White House then made it known that it would not rule out the use of military force to grab hold of the island, a semi-autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, despite it being part of the Atlantic Alliance. The first formal European reaction was the statement of January 6 th , signed by the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spai...

Internationalism No. 84, February 2026 Page 2 We have often reflected on the memorandum that Charles de Gaulle submitted to American President Dwight Eisenhower in September 1958, at the beginning of the Fifth Republic. Referring to the recent events of the Suez crisis of 1956 and the ongoing confrontation in the Taiwan Strait with Beijing’s bombardment of the Quemoy Islands, De Gaulle considered NATO’s organisation and area of responsibility limited to the North Atlantic to be insufficient. This strategic horizon was too narrow, as if what was happening in the Middle East or Africa did not immediately and directly concern Europe, and as if France’s indivisible responsibilities did not extend to Africa, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific . The proposal was for a three-member directorate comprising France, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The directorate would have discussed and taken joint decisions on political issues concerning global sec...

Internationalism No. 83, January 2026 Page 16 Here it is at last, the Trump Doctrine , laid out in black and white in the NSS, the National Security Strategy. Some comment that it is more of an ideological manifesto than a real action plan, a patchwork of positions from the various political currents that move in and around the White House. That may be true; sometimes these documents amount to little and end up forgotten. Yet, the fact remains that the NSS pieces together fragments of pre-existing American policies, and is therefore not simply dominated by Trump's ideological fervour. Moreover, it describes things that the United States is already doing. It asserts American primacy in Central and South America – and Washington is increasing military pressure on Venezuela. Russia is no longer considered an enemy – and Trump is dealing with Putin over the heads of the Europeans. There is an offer of coexistence with China – and we sa...

Internationalism No. 83, January 2026 Pages 1, 4 and 5 The Trump Doctrine and the Unknowns of Imperialist Europeanism It is said that the 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) – the document that formalises the Trump Doctrine in foreign policy – marks a break with 80 years of transatlantic relations following the Second World War. Moreover, in our Marxist analysis, for more than twenty years we have been writing about a new strategic phase ; for almost a decade, about the crisis in the world order ; for a couple of years, about the wars of the crisis in the world order , and since the beginning of Donald Trump’s new term, about an Atlantic crisis . That this crisis is now at a turning point is a fact; the extent and permanence of its strategic consequences in the future remain open questions. Whether Trump’s NSS is conceptually up to the task of American imperialism is debatable. This is where the unknowns lie: in the relative decline ...