Governments in capitalist societies have given priority to protecting “the economy” before protecting the people’s health and well-being, while the covid pandemic has accelerated an existing deep global economic recession.
Such countries as Cuba, Viet Nam and China, on the other hand, which have a fundamentally socialist-based economy, have given priority to their own people’s health but have also engaged in a massive international effort to help fight the covid-19 pandemic.
The growing economic crisis and the continued decline of Western economic hegemony, in particular that of the United States, in the global imperial network can be best understood in its continuous efforts to impose economic sanctions and blockades and to raise trade barriers in order to isolate and undermine left and progressive governments.
The imperialist powers, headed by the United States and the European Union, are attempting to unleash a new “Cold War,” with the People’s Republic of China as the focus of this strategy. There has been a subtle but important shift in their anti-communist ideological drive. Now when they address issues connected with China they use the term Communist Party of China, rather than the Chinese government. They are also using the pandemic as a cover for further advancing their strategic military and political strategies globally but most particularly where US imperialism feels most threatened—that is, in Latin America.
It has become increasingly clear, as predicted by the Communist Party early in the pandemic, that the forces of imperialism globally are using the health crisis to tighten their control, to attack, abolish or further restrict workers’ rights, to restructure the economy in a way that will result in the loss of millions of jobs and will lead to a worsening of the living standards of the poor and of working people around the globe, as well as leading to an even greater concentration of capital and wealth in fewer and fewer hands.
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean estimates that unemployment will grow by 11½ per cent—roughly 40 million people in the region—on top of the tens of millions of precarious workers. Poverty levels are also expected to grow, affecting the lives of nearly 35 per cent of the population.
Recently the Trump regime in the United States tightened the sanctions, accompanied by a succession of hostile actions in the diplomatic, political and economic arenas, against Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
The US Department of State has once again put Cuba on its list of countries that are “not co-operating fully with US counter-terrorism efforts in 2019,” making 2020 the first year that Cuba has been certified as “not fully co-operating” since 2015.
This is because Cuba refuses to surrender its national political and economic sovereignty to the United States. Throughout Latin America the United States continues to support mercenaries in its efforts to overthrow the government of Venezuela and to support and promote internal subversion against Nicaragua.
