The Internationalism

Internationalism No. 85, March 2026 Page 11 The White House’s siege on the Federal Reserve reached a moment of clarity with the appointment of Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s successor, but Donald Trump’s machine has not stopped. The Justice Department’s criminal investigation into alleged wrongdoing in the renovation of the Fed’s buildings continues. The aim is to oust Powell not only from the presidency, but also from the board of the central bank in order to break his resistance to Trump’s line, which demands drastic cuts in interest rates. Trump wants a hot, hot, hot economy, according to The Wall Street Journal . The judicial persecution, denounced by Powell as an attempt to impose a monetary policy directed by political pressure or intimidation , has provoked a bipartisan reaction in the Senate. North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis has pledged to block the approval process for the designated successor to the Fed chair until the ca...

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 9 From the series Major industrial groups in China Analysing the WTO data for 2023, it emerges that China exported goods worth $3,379 billion, surpassing the European Union and the United States. Industrial machinery accounted for over 7% of exports and electrical machinery 9%. In the same sectors, Chinese imports did not reach 40% of the value of exports, indicating that these are among the pillars of Beijing’s export economy. Sany Heavy Industry In this newspaper we have already examined the Chinese mechanical engineering giant Sinomach. But in the field of machine construction, Sany Heavy Industry also holds a prominent position, particularly in excavators, cranes, industrial elevators, and cement machinery. The company, based in Changsha (Hunan) since 1991, was founded by Liang Wengen, who had previously been an executive at a State-owned arms factory, and is its main shareholder. Sany had a 2023 turnover...

Internationalism No. 85, March 2026 Page 8 From the series The world energy battle Electricity is at the heart of modern economies and the demand for electricity is growing much faster than the overall consumption of energy in every scenario [ Electricity 2025 , International Energy Agency report]. Overproduction and power grid bottlenecks Electricity represents just 21% of energy consumption at a global level, but it is the main source for the sectors which represent more than 40% of the economy. A fundamental issue for the security of the electricity system is the modernisation of the power grid, which is currently lagging behind the expansion of production capacity. Although global investment in the production of electricity has increased by almost 70% since 2015, reaching $1,000 billion a year, annual spending on the grid has increased at less than half this rate, reaching $400 billion. This is also a European problem. Accordin...

Internationalism No. 85, March 2026 Page 7 From the series Pages from the history of the workers’ movement The January 1919 uprising has gone down in history as the Spartacist uprising , but in his biography of Rosa Luxemburg, Paul Frölich contests this definition: The truth is that there was no Spartacus uprising . As he explains, the leaders of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in fact counted on a gradual revolutionary process, and certainly not on immediate armed struggle on the streets of Berlin . Actually, indicates Frölich, the truth is that the January fighting was carefully prepared and cunningly launched by the leaders of the counter-revolution . Consciousness brought from without What therefore emerges is a party unable to hold back the masses in the face of provocation or to organise a conscious action or an orderly retreat. In this way, the Spartacist leaders themselves were swept along by the party b...

Internationalism No. 85, March 2026 Page 6 Sixty years of Lotta Comunista In recent weeks, we have been commemorating the newspaper’s 60 th anniversary throughout Italy. We publish some excerpts from the conclusions of the event held in Genoa. In 1959, Arrigo Cervetto wrote to Lorenzo Parodi, who was working at Ansaldo and developing the Genoa group: You too must study, with perseverance and method: a few hours a day, but study. It is what ultimately remains to us as most important: study and time . They were only in their early 30s and at the time were in the minority in the movement. Cervetto and Parodi are no longer with us, but that study is the newspaper you hold in your hands, and that time is also the same newspaper you hold in your hands; distributed by activists for years and decades, it has bound the second, third, and fourth generations to the party. It is study and time that allowed Cervetto and Parodi to see th...

Internationalism No. 85, March 2026 Page 5 In the columns of The Nikkei on October 21 st , foreign policy commentator Hiroyuki Akita wrote that the new Japanese prime minister’s mandate would be defined by a far more consequential challenge : forging a system of government capable of functioning under the duress of war . For Akita, emphasising the need to prepare for a ‘wartime’ regime serves to highlight that Japan is under severe stress . Tokyo has enjoyed a long period of peace and has been able to deal with peacetime crises , even largescale ones such as the pandemic of the century . The war in Ukraine has ushered in a turbulent global situation, reminiscent of the uncertainty of the 1930s. To confront this, Tokyo needs a government structure capable of rapidly shifting from peacetime routines to an emergency footing . This is a dilemma that does not concern Japan alone, but Japan finds itself in an even more perilous position than Europe [.....

Internationalism No. 85, March 2026 Page 4 In the new US National Security Strategy (NSS), Russia is placed in the European basket , third among regional priorities after the Western Hemisphere and Asia. It is no longer considered an existential threat , and indeed many Europeans who regard it as such are criticised. Alongside Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again openness to negotiations with Moscow on Ukraine, this helps to create an impression of rapprochement between the two powers. Obviously, there can be no comparison with the Yalta era, for at least two reasons: first, because the world has changed profoundly since then, starting with German and European reunification and the emergence of China as a great imperialist power; and second, because what was then part of the USSR has been the scene of a bloody war for four years, with hundreds of thousands of deaths. A setback that no public image can conceal. Russian...