How India Can Deal With America’s Dollar Tyranny

Shirin Akhter , C Saratchand | 27 Aug 2025

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India could deepen South–South cooperation and seek to reclaim economic sovereignty instead of bowing to US pressure.

A recent admission in the sphere of international political economy offered a rare moment of candour. It stripped away diplomatic niceties and revealed the raw mechanics of strategic power: India may earn US dollars by exporting to the United States, but it can only recycle them as Washington permits. The abridgement of India’s autonomy by the structural tyranny of the US dollar has become transparent enough to be reported in the mainstream media.

The international reserve currency status of the dollar is often described as an “exorbitant privilege”, seemingly implying a quiet advantage for the US. Thereby, the US alone can finance its external deficits simply by issuing its own liabilities, while every other country must sweat for US dollars through attracting capital inflows or increasing exports. But the use of the dollar reserves of these countries is closely policed by the US government.

Previously, during the Bretton Woods system, “allies” were “persuaded” by the US to delay converting their dollars into gold. The methods of “persuasion” are more brazen today. Previously, the current Indian government meekly deferred to US demands to eliminate oil purchases from Venezuela and Iran. Now, India may be prevented by the US from using its dollar holdings to purchase discounted Russian oil.

Besides India, China, Turkey, Hungary, Slovakia, etc., import Russian oil, and other countries, including those in Europe, buy Russian natural gas, yet the US’s punitive measures are directed more aggressively against India. Why is this the case?

China has over time built its strategic prowess in a number of areas, including rare earths and other chemicals, including their refinement, magnets, capital goods, etc., for which there exist limited alternative suppliers. Therefore, US coercion against China will lead to strategically unacceptable consequences for the US (as became evident during Donald Trump’s trade war), which is why the US has backed off from directly coercing China.

Likewise, Turkey’s current perch on the US side of an ostensibly neutral strategic posture is crucial to US strategic interests in West Asia. Besides, Turkey is deeply reliant on Russian energy, which would create unacceptable consequences for Turkey if it snapped ties with Russia. Therefore, the US has till now avoided excessively coercing the Turkish government.

Hungary and Slovakia were importing Russian oil from the Druzhba pipeline and this was exempt from the unilateral sanctions imposed by the US and its European “allies”. But soon after the Alaska summit between the Russian and US presidents, the armed forces of Ukraine’s Zelenskyy administration fully disrupted oil supply through the Druzhba pipeline via armed attacks. On the face of it, President Trump expressed his anger at and opposition to these attacks. But it is most unlikely that the armed forces of the Zelenskyy administration could have mounted these attacks without the oversight or assistance or both of the US.

India’s susceptibility to US threats to eschew buying Russian oil has arisen because successive Indian governments have failed to build India’s strategic autonomy. But India is pressured by the US to recycle them into American defence contracts that involve neither technology transfer nor local production. Besides, the weapons so purchased may be subjected to post-facto policing of their use by means of contracts or software controls by the US. If all this is allowed to come about, then Indian sovereignty will be irredeemably diminished.

Reserve Seizure as Financial Warfare

Previously, the US had unilaterally frozen or gratuitously appropriated the dollar reserves of many countries with little blowback. But a crucial line was crossed when the foreign reserves of Russia were frozen in 2022. This unilateral freezing of nearly $300 billion in Russian central bank reserves by the US and its “allies” has already demonstrated that national savings abroad are no longer secure. Legislative moves in the US to channel these unilaterally frozen assets into funding the war in Ukraine mark a watershed moment: foreign exchange reserves are now openly weaponised. Russia has responded with decrees authorising the seizure of assets of firms based in the US and its “allies” inside its territory.

Strategic gaming exercises in the West have also examined the scenario of immobilising China’s vast foreign exchange reserves and how China would retaliate. Any such move would devastate world markets, freeze trade finance, and destabilise the dollar’s role as the international reserve currency.

The unilateral freezing of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves has already increased the sovereign risk of holding dollar-denominated assets, including US government securities. This, along with the inflation unleashed by the economic war against Russia, has compelled the US Federal Reserve to increase its policy interest rate. Moreover, the intensification of trade war against China and the degree of unwillingness of international rentiers to hold dollar-denominated assets were directly proportional. All this is reflective of the diminishing strategic heft of the US and its diminishing ability to ensure that prices of commodities in the world market will be denominated in dollars and also remain bounded in both directions.

But the current Indian government’s procrastination with respect to BRICS-led efforts at de-dollarisation has left India vulnerable to financial coercion by the US.

India’s Trade Vulnerability

India’s vulnerability to financial coercion by the US is reinforced by its trade relationships with the world. Indian exports to the US are of a magnitude that is high enough and homogeneous enough in composition to make it vulnerable to coercion by the US, as is currently the case.

After the economic war against Russia began in 2022, India began to explore alternatives to trading in dollars. But fatuously, this exploration did not involve the Chinese Renminbi. Therefore, the Indian government’s attempts to establish a rupee–rouble trade arrangement did not make headway since the Russian government could not use its rupee reserves to buy goods from an India that has a relatively less diversified manufacturing sector. The other option to deploy these rupee reserves to enhance Russian foreign direct investment in India also did not make much headway, since the profit expectations on such investment are not high enough to warrant it. Consequently, trade between Russia and India reconverted, directly and indirectly, to the dollar.

Indian governments have demonstrated little understanding of this threat from US coercion, especially the current Indian government. Though there are some limited efforts that are ongoing to explore trade opportunities with other countries and organisations, such as the Eurasian Economic Union, trade policy initiatives are at best halting.

This inflexibility is partly on account of Indian monopoly capital’s entanglement with US-centred international financial capital and partly on account of the Indian government itself being contingently constituted by this entanglement. Therefore, it is not surprising that there are a number of voices in India that argue that India’s acquiescence to US demands on trade and finance is in India’s own interests, or that such acquiescence is the optimal alternative for India.

Towards Regaining Strategic Autonomy

The current Indian government (and Indian cosmopolitan neo-liberals generally) seems to be fixated on pursuing the will-o’-the-wisp of a strategic concord between the US and India to purportedly contain China. Therefore, these cosmopolitan neo-liberals opine that either Trump should be waited out till another India-friendly US president is in place, or till Trump changes his mind. Such claims betray a complete divorce between policy-making and the foundations of international political economy. Therefore, the current Indian government is unable to move toward making the Indian economy resilient to coercion by the US.

The restoration of authentic strategic autonomy requires a strategy grounded in economic sovereignty rather than vacuous slogans. Relevant policy measures in this regard would include:

1. Strategic de-dollarisation: India would need to work along with other BRICS members to accelerate moves toward deployment of alternatives to the dollar in both trade and finance (including diversification of composition of foreign exchange reserves and developing payment systems beyond the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication or SWIFT). The greater the collective weight of countries that initiate such moves, the more resilient they will be in resisting coercive actions by the US. Such moves toward de-dollarisation logically require expanding bilateral and regional trade arrangements across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

2. Capital Controls: India would need to fundamentally break with the neo-liberal project by instituting capital controls on US-centred international financial capital (and therefore the domestic corporate-financial oligarchy). This would enable Indian policy-making to deploy fiscal policy as part of an industrial policy to both relevantly ascend the technological ladder pertaining to global production networks (through the incorporation of geographically diversified greenfield FDI on mutually beneficial terms in relevant sectors) while centering economic activity around domestic demand.

3. Developing alternatives to US-dominated international institutions through the strengthening of institutions, such as the New Development Bank as a credible alternative to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Even while conceding the vulnerabilities of dollar dominance, mainstream policymakers tend to fall back on the language of “de-risking” and snail-paced changes. Thereby, they reduce the structural tyranny of the dollar to questions of technical adjustment. This amounts to obscuring the fact that financial coercion is already being wielded by the US.

Portraying de-dollarisation as a distant aspiration tends to normalise India’s attenuated strategic autonomy with respect to the US. However, the urgency of the present demands not procrastination but planned and definite moves for capital controls and collective de-dollarisation in tune with BRICS and related South–South financial architectures that can be resilient to financial coercion.

Conclusion

The candour of recent admissions by denizens of the US unmasks the reality of the strategic tyranny of the dollar.

Authentic sovereignty in the 21st century cannot be confined to barren rhetoric. It requires measures such as de-dollarisation, capital controls, and developing alternatives to US-dominated international institutions.

It is time Indian policy stopped its pursuit of the will-o’-the-wisp of a strategic concord between the US and India to supposedly contain China. Instead, India could deepen South–South cooperation and seek to reclaim economic sovereignty. Else, India’s strategic autonomy will shrivel into a myth cloaked in empty rhetoric, masking a deeper acquiescence to US hegemony. Since the current Indian government is not equal to this task, the quest for authentic strategic autonomy intertwines with the quest for a political alternative domestically.

 

Shirin Akhter is Associate Professor at Zakir Husain Delhi College, University of Delhi. C Saratchand is Professor, Department of Economics, Satyawati College, University of Delhi. The views are personal.

 

How Mexico Lifted 13.4m Out of Poverty in 6 Years

Tallis Boerne Marcus | 27 Aug 2025

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Rather than poverty reduction stemming from economic growth, it has been achieved through a redistribution of resources.

AMLO visits Huírivis in Nov. 2023. Photo: X

Mexico recorded a historic drop in poverty over the six-year presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). In six years – a period that included a global pandemic and a massive effort to overhaul 89 years of right-wing governance – the administration of AMLO and the Morena party saw 13.4 million Mexicans leave poverty behind, and an additional two million lifted from extreme poverty.

This figure refers to multidimensional poverty, which also considers access to services. When considering poverty only as far as it relates to salaries, 15.8 million Mexicans exited poverty during the six year administration of AMLO and Morena. Extreme poverty in the country is now at its lowest level in history.

The development is a historic achievement for the Morena government, despite the party being largely discredited by major English-speaking media. 

Over a year ago, The Guardian reported that “AMLO promised to transform Mexico, but he leaves it much the same”. However, they have now walked back on that reporting, noting the historic poverty reduction of 13.4 million people.

The New York Times reported in 2022 that “Mexico’s leader says poverty is his priority. But his policies hurt the poor”. 

The article criticized the government’s decision to overhaul “Prospera”, Mexico’s previous social welfare program, which was praised by The World Bank. Prospera, previously under the name Progresa, ran from 1997 to 2018. 

While the program was part of Mexico’s recovery from the Mexican Peso Crisis, which included an IMF bailout, conditional on certain austerity policies and meeting free-trade agreement stipulations, it was largely unsuccessful in reducing poverty in Mexico. 

In the 12 years leading up to AMLO’s six-year presidency, the poverty rate in Mexico only moved slightly from 42.9% to 41.9%. Now, after the sexenio of AMLO and Morena, the poverty rate stands at 29.6%.

How did the government reduce poverty?

While a defining characteristic of the Morena government until now has been a range of social programs, the majority of poverty reduction can be traced to raises in the minimum wage, which created overall increases in household income.

Between 70 and 73% of Mexico’s poverty reduction is owed to an increase in labor income.

In 2018, Mexico’s minimum daily wage was 88.36 pesos (USD 4.70) in most areas of the country, the lowest in Latin America. Now it’s 278.80 pesos per day (USD 14.9), a figure more than three times higher. Mexico maintains a higher minimum wage in some northern states near the US border, where the cost of living is even more competitive.

These changes represent an overall increase of 135% purchasing power, when considering inflation.

To illustrate the significance of these changes: Over AMLO’s six-year term (2018-2024), the amount that Mexican families spend per month accessing health services increased about 157 pesos, however, the minimum wage over that same period increased by 4,800 pesos per month.

Furthermore, it is now constitutionally decreed that the minimum wage must rise above the rate of inflation. By 2026 the government is aiming for the minimum wage to be 9450 pesos per month, or 314.60 pesos per day.

Sheinbaum has stated that her aims regarding minimum wage relate to how many baskets of basic goods can be purchased. Her aim by 2026 is that the minimum wage will be worth two baskets of basic goods by 2026, and worth two-and-a-half baskets of basic goods by 2030.

A common critique of Mexico’s minimum wage spending is that a large percentage of Mexicans still work in the informal economy, and therefore don’t benefit from minimum wage raises. It is true that most Mexicans work in the informal economy, based on the start of 2025, 54.3% of Mexicans work in the informal economy. This is only a modest decrease from the 56.5% rate of informal employment that was registered at the end of 2018, when AMLO came to power.

However, boosting the purchasing power of families benefits the informal economy as well. But the bigger challenge for Claudia Sheinbaum and the Morena government going forward is moving more workers into the formal economy.

Efforts have been made towards this goal, such as a new labor reform that offers workers rights to those employed through digital applications, such as Uber or Didi. The government registered 1.2 million new formal workers after this reform.

The government also runs a social program, “Youth Building the Future”, which offers a monthly salary and medical insurance to people between the ages 18 and 29 that aren’t working or studying, and places them into businesses and workplaces for work experience and training. The program is currently being delivered to 2.3 million Mexicans, and 62% of program graduates are finding permanent work.

However, until now, the government hasn’t had major success in formalizing the economy.

Social programs in general have also contributed greatly to Mexico’s poverty reduction. Other programs include the universal pensions for all men over 65 years old and women over 60 years old, house-to-house free healthcare for elderly and vulnerable citizens, universal scholarships for all public school students, cash transfers to people with disabilities, cash transfers to working single mothers, transfers to farmers for planting trees, financial credit to medium and small agricultural producers, and more.

The Morena government has been constitutionally entrenching these social programs to ensure they continue into the future, and they are consistently mentioned by voters as a key reason for supporting Morena.

A remaining challenge for the Sheinbaum administration is to ensure these programs can reach Mexico’s most vulnerable citizens, who often live in rural areas with little access to services.

Reducing inequality

Mexico’s reduction in poverty hasn’t come at a time of significant economic growth. Economic growth has been modest since 2018, which included a massive pandemic-induced 8.35% drop in GDP in 2020. Rather than poverty reduction stemming from economic growth, it has been achieved through a redistribution of resources.

While Mexico remains a highly unequal country, where the 10% of richest households earn 14 times that of the poorest 10%, this figure used to be the richest earning 21 times the poorest, as recently as 2016. During the administration of Felipe Calderon, between 2006 and 2012, this figure was a staggering 35 times disparity between the richest and poorest 10% of households.

Between 2016 and 2024, all Mexican households saw an increase in their distribution of national income, except the richest 10%, who saw a 6.1% decrease, demonstrating the redistribution of income.

While tax collection has been increasing, many Mexican political commentators believe a fiscal reform, that places more taxes on the rich, will be required to greatly shift the inequality present in Mexico.

Despite some advances, poverty also remains exceptionally higher in the south of Mexico when compared to the north, which is another key problem that Sheinbaum and Morena will have to tackle.

The current climate for Mexico

The government of Morena remains in a very strong position, with Sheinbaum’s approval ratings generally hovering between 70% and 80%. The economy continues growing and the country is receiving record direct foreign investment. 

However, US tariffs are providing a constant threat to the economy, with the potential to provoke a major recession, and the threat of tariffs alone leading to uncertainty for investment. Mexico has been shoring up relations with countries such as Brazil and Canada, but tariffs still represent a major risk to Mexico, whose economy is largely entwined with the US.

By far the biggest threat to Mexico remains that of unilateral military action, with the Trump administration creating fears of military intervention in Mexico. The US claims this would be to combat drug cartels.

However, as Claudia Sheinbaum recently stated, using US data, 80% of fentanyl traffickers are from the US and 74% of guns in Mexico come from the US.

Tallis Boerne Marcus is an Australian journalist currently based in Mexico City.

Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch

 

Congo: Peace Deal Holds no Water as Mass Killings Persist

Nicholas Mwangi | 28 Aug 2025

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Recent reports indicate the killing of hundreds of civilians in Congo by the M23, despite a peace deal having been agreed to.

Despite the hope from a peace deal signed in June and continued mediation efforts, violence in eastern DRC has intensified. A fresh wave of atrocities indicates the war is far from over.

On June 27, 2025, the DRC and Rwanda signed the Washington Accord, facilitated by the United States and Qatar, in Washington, DC. The agreement called for Rwanda to withdraw its troops from eastern DRC within 90 days and for the DRC to end its support for the FDLR militia. While significant, M23 was not a party to this treaty.

Follow-up negotiations in Doha led to another breakthrough on July 19, 2025, when the DRC and M23 (backed by Rwanda) signed a Declaration of Principles. This Doha agreement laid out a roadmap for a permanent ceasefire, and restoration of state authority in rebel-held regions, aiming for a final peace accord by mid-August, which has yet to be finalized.

Fragile ceasefire, unyielding violence

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports that in July 2025 alone, M23 executed over 140 civilians, largely ethnic Hutu, across at least 14 villages near Virunga National Park. The killings appear tied to military campaigns against FDLR and other armed groups. In some areas, fatalities may exceed 300, marking some of the worst atrocities since M23’s resurgence.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, has mentioned even higher figures: 319 killed in July, including women and children, and condemned the violence in the face of supposed ceasefire agreements.

Human Rights Watch urged the UN Security Council and national governments to impose sanctions, pursue the prosecution of commanders involved in war crimes, and continue rigorous investigations into the atrocities.

Even with a high-profile framework for peace, the killing of hundreds of civilians in M23’s continued offensives just weeks after the Doha agreement highlights the volatility of eastern DRC.

The economic and geopolitical stakes

The violence in eastern DRC cannot be separated from the country’s vast mineral wealth. The region around Goma and North Kivu is one of the richest resource zones in the world, holding strategic minerals essential for global technology and renewable energy industries. Coltan alone is key for the production of mobile phones, laptops, electric cars, and other electronics that dominate modern life.

For decades, the exploitation of these resources has fueled conflict. Illicit mining and smuggling remain at the heart of the war economy. Rwanda and Uganda, in particular, have been repeatedly implicated in siphoning off Congolese minerals and exporting them as their own, creating billion-dollar revenues despite their lack of significant domestic deposits. Congo’s mineral wealth has long been enriching elites, neighboring states, and multinational corporations while leaving Congolese communities impoverished.

The peace deal, brokered with the United States, included a mineral access deal designed to grant US companies a foothold in Congo’s rare mineral sector. 

Until Congolese sovereignty over its own resources is prioritized, every “peace deal” will remain little more than a blueprint for exploitation. And for now the M23 offensive continues in what is turning into a concerning situation, especially for civilians.

Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch

VENEZUELA

Our America: Of Peace, Of War, and Other Demons

Carlos Ron , Carmen Navas Reyes , Guillermo R Barreto | 29 Aug 2025

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The principles born in the Global South call on us to defend a peace anchored in the solid foundations of national sovereignty, sustainable development, and social justice.

In a letter addressed to various leaders and authorities around the world on June 23, 2025, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro called for a “Summit for Peace and against War” in response to the military offensive by the United States and Israel in West Asia. The South American leader specifically urged organizations of the Global South, such as the Non-Aligned Movement, the League of Arab States, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Gulf Cooperation Council, the African Union, BRICS, and CELAC, with the crucial support of China and Russia, to take the lead in promoting, under the framework of international law, an immediate and complete ceasefire throughout the region.

Warning about the danger of a nuclear escalation, Maduro also urged the creation of a “Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in West Asia”, which the United Nations Security Council would have to guarantee by ensuring the denuclearization of Israel. The request is preceded by the resolution first presented in 1974 by Iran with the support of Egypt for the “establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East region”, which was approved and has since been a recurring topic of work in the multilateral body.

As a show of support for this initiative, nearly 600 delegates from 80 countries met in Caracas on July 25, showing that peace diplomacy must be on the agenda of the peoples of the Global South and not only of the United Nations, whose total budget is a thousand times less than global military spending. The Political Coordination of ALBA Movements was present in Caracas and identified the urgency of acknowledging that the underlying dispute is “a conflict between the ideas of liberation and the ideas of domination”. In May 2026, on the centenary of the birth of Comandante Fidel Castro, the IV Continental Assembly of ALBA Movements will be held with the goal of consolidating a common agenda to fight against the challenges of imperialism and its warmongering agenda, starting from a “climate of hope and revolutionary mystique”.

Peace

The clamor for peace in Our America was born in response to the fiercest episode of violence ever recorded in history. In Open Veins of Latin America, Eduardo Galeano, citing the Brazilian sociologist Darcy Ribeiro, notes that of the 70 million original inhabitants of the American continent at the time of the first contact with European invaders, only about 3.5 million survived a century and a half later. In addition, the United Nations notes that for more than 400 years, 15 million people were victims of the transatlantic slave trade. This is why Simón Bolívar, who led the national liberation process against Spanish colonialism, denounced in his Jamaica Letter, “atrocities [rejected] as mythical, because they appear to be beyond the human capacity for evil. Modern critics would never credit them were it not for the many and frequent documents testifying to these horrible truths.” The same could be written today about Palestine (see Red Alert No. 19), where the magnitude of the violence transcends the capacity of imagination and reason.

June 2026 will mark 200 years since the Amphictyonic Congress of Panama, an early effort for continental unity and multilateralism convened by Bolívar, aspiring to a space of legal equality among states where “none would be weak with respect to another: none would be stronger” and “a perfect balance would be established in this order of things.” The Treaty of Union, League, and Perpetual Confederation between the Republics of Colombia, Central America, Peru, and the United Mexican States of July 15, 1826, considered “to commonly sustain, defensively and offensively, if necessary, the sovereignty and independence of each and every one of the confederated powers in America against all foreign domination and to secure now and forever the joys and an unalterable peace.”

Peace, in the Bolivarian concept, must be comprehensive and sustainable over time. For this reason, it is a peace that, in light of our times, cannot be built with our backs turned to the people. It is a peace that must be accompanied by social justice and guarantees so that the motives for war cannot reappear. As Ytalo Américo Silva describes, “this is the ‘Unalterable Peace of the Liberator Simón Bolívar,’ the one capable of ‘destroying forever the motives of hatred, discord, and dissolution’; which he thought about as many times as he tried to materialize Colombia.” For this reason, President Maduro’s letter insists that peace in West Asia must definitively resolve the conflict over Palestine, with the full recognition of its state with its capital in East Jerusalem and the right of refugees to return.

War

The year 2025 marks 80 years since the most significant military victory over fascism, but this does not mean that fascist ideology has disappeared. The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression fought by China and the Great Patriotic War fought by the Red Army remain living testimonies that confronting fascism entails enormous sacrifices and that the military defeat it suffered in the 20th century is no guarantee that our peoples cannot again be threatened by extremist ideologies that combine capitalist predation with its violent ideological project. At the Tricontinental Institute (see Dossier No. 79), we have reflected on the advance of the neofascist project and its challenges for our region.

The “new Cold War” with which hyper-imperialism today threatens China, the impossibility so far of reaching a peace agreement in Ukraine, and the worsening of the genocide in Gaza demonstrate the limitations of multilateralism, which is increasingly threatened by Washington’s attempt to impose a supposed “rules-based order” that seeks to change the principles of the United Nations Charter for norms dictated and imposed for the convenience of the interests of a project that aims to monopolize the use of military force and technological development, fragment popular struggles, plunder the common goods of nature, and keep humanity on the brink of a nuclear war.

The principles born in the Global South, from spaces of unity and cooperation such as the Bandung Conference (see Dossier No. 87) or the First Conference of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (Tricontinental Conference of Havana), call on us to strongly defend, from the popular camp, a peace anchored on solid foundations of national sovereignty, sustainable development, and social justice. The encounters between the peoples of Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa must be resumed with greater force to build a new international order where there is room for an unalterable peace.

The work of spaces like the Group of Friends in Defense of the United Nations Charter, faithful to the founding principles of the UN and opposed to the arbitrariness of unilateralism, reminds us that we must look at ourselves in the mirror of the painful history of the 20th century and gather from the fruits of the victory against fascism the elements that allow us to overcome a tragic re-edition of the Cold War.

The other demons

On the same day that the People’s Summit for Peace and Against War was held in Caracas, the United States Treasury Department declared President Nicolás Maduro as the head of a supposed drug cartel known as the Cartel de los Soles, which was also declared a terrorist organization. The Department of Justice raised its reward for the capture of the Venezuelan president to USD 50 million, and a New York Times article on August 8, 2025, states that President Donald Trump has signed a directive intended for the Pentagon to use military force against certain Latin American drug cartels considered terrorists.

This is how the Bolivarian call for peace in West Asia was met with a new offensive in the misnamed War on Drugs, which since the Nixon administration has been progressively implemented as a justification for imperialist interventionism against Nuestra América. The War on Drugs, in practice, has been a military and legal instrument used to advance the ends of US foreign policy and even to eliminate obstacles.

In July, the Venezuelan government had also announced that, together with the Colombian government, a Binational Economic Zone would be created for commercial integration, agricultural development, social development, and cooperation between the two countries, which would include sectors such as industry, gas, oil, electricity, tourism, and transportation. In terms of security, this advance strengthens cooperation between Colombia and Venezuela to combat drug trafficking without the need for US mediation. Petro expressed on his social media: “I have received the support of Maduro and General Padrino to defeat the drug trafficking groups on the border of that country.” Likewise, Claudia Sheinbaum, the president of Mexico, a country that has been repeatedly threatened by Trump with military interventions against drug trafficking, dismissed the attempts to link President Maduro with Mexican drug trafficking: “if they have any evidence, let them present it, but we have no evidence related to those links.”

So far in 2025, Venezuela has seized more than 50,000 kilograms of drugs, and local authorities have indicated that seizures after the expulsion of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) are now significantly greater. Political motivation, and not drug trafficking, once again seems to be the main impulse behind this escalation of persecution against the Venezuelan government.

Recently, along with the Observatorio Lawfare, we published the second notebook in the series “Addicted to Imperialism”, which seeks to show the role that the drug problem has played in US foreign policy and the political, social, and economic impact of Plan Colombia. The peace that is sought to be imposed in this war is the peace of exploitation, oppression, the appropriation of natural resources, and displacement from territories. It is an apparent peace that will only end up reproducing the engines of war, exploitation, and death.

Peace is associated with every element of the material reproduction of life. War, consequently, is associated with every threat against it. It is no coincidence that the Pentagon is the main polluter of the planet. In a planet of environmental crisis, a climate catastrophe such as a flood or a prolonged drought also puts peace at risk. The peoples of Nuestra América and the entire Global South have the right to build the peace necessary to save the life of the planet. The way to exercise that right is through popular organization.

In the midst of the escalation, Venezuela held its seventh national election in a year, and on July 27, 37,000 communal projects were presented, driven by the country’s youth. In the protagonism of the youth and their organizational capacity lie the keys for new generations of the Global South to build a future that surpasses the logic of capitalism and reaffirms humanist values to transform society. It will not be through war, but through a peace that can be sustained in justice and solidarity, that we can guarantee the future.

In “El despertar de la historia” (“The Awakening of History”), the singer Alí Primera asked us the question and gave us the solution:

What is the struggle of men to achieve peace?
And what peace? If they want to leave the world as it is.
Help it, help it, so that humanity may be human.

First published as a newsletter by Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch

We’re still here: Afghan women refugees find freedom, voice through football

The global ID camp is part of FIFA’s efforts to build a 23-player squad for international friendly tournaments.

Reuters 

Published August 30, 2025 

Elaha Safdari was 17 and had just earned her maiden call-up as a goalkeeper for Afghanistan’s women’s football team when she was forced to flee Kabul during the Taliban takeover in 2021.

Safdari was given chilling instructions to burn her kit and trophies, and erase her social media profile — anything that could link her to playing football.

“Because it might put you at a high risk (with) the Taliban, because in Afghanistan, women cannot play football,” Safdari told Reuters, fighting back tears.

Four years later, the sound of laughter and the thud of footballs echoed across a pitch tucked away at St George’s Park in west-central England this week, as world soccer’s governing body FIFA held an ID camp for an Afghan refugee team.

Safdari said the week was “emotional, full of love and joy.”

Elaha Safdari of the Afghan Women’s Refugee holds her old national team shirt during an interview at a selection camp at St. George’s Park, Burton upon Trent, Britain on August 26, 2025. — Reuters


The camp was a chance to reconnect with teammates who share not just a love of the game, but a history of heartbreak and resilience. It was also a declaration of resistance.

“We want to use football as a powerful platform to represent the girls in Afghanistan, that we are not forgetting them,” said defender Najma Arefi, who was 18 when she fled Kabul.

“A dog on the street has more rights than a woman in Afghanistan. It makes me so emotional to talk about (female friends and family still there), the fact that they lost their dreams, they lost everything.

“We want to show the world that even if you’re closing your eyes, we’re still here. We’re still going to speak about them. We are not afraid.”

The global ID camp, the last of three led by coach Pauline Hamill, was part of FIFA’s efforts to build a 23-player squad for international friendly tournaments.

While FIFA President Gianni Infantino called the initiative an “important step in the right direction,” Safdari said Afghan women will not stop fighting for full international status.

“I was so close to my dream, and the Taliban took my dream away,” Safdari said.

“It’s a wonderful step from FIFA that they (are organising) these tournaments, but our aim is bigger. We are asking FIFA to allow us to be recognised and play on the international stage and represent our country in exile.”

Head coach Pauline Hamill coaches the Afghan Women’s refugee team during a selection camp at St. George’s Park, Burton upon Trent, Britain on August 26, 2025. — Reuters


Women’s sports

Unlike Afghanistan’s men’s team who continue to play under the national banner, the Taliban-controlled Afghan Football Federation has banned women’s sports.

While Safdari and Arefi found safety in Doncaster, England, their move was fraught with isolation and language barriers. Neither spoke English when they arrived.

“It was a tough journey,” said Safdari, who lives with siblings as her parents are still in Afghanistan.

“Being a refugee in England wasn’t easy. I couldn’t speak the language, it was a new society, and I felt like I had no one to support me.

“But, little by little, football gave me the strength and power to build up again.”

Arefi, who hopes to be a human rights lawyer, said she had always found solace in football.

“It was a way to feel free, leaving every struggle that we had in our life behind,” added Arefi, who won a national championship in 2021 with Herat City.

“On the pitch, there was passion, joy and freedom that was keeping us going.”

Safdari clutched a goalkeeping trophy and an Afghan shirt, treasures her parents managed to ship to her.

“When I look at this jersey, I’m telling myself I’m playing for all the women and girls told to be silent,” she said.

“Every time I wear my boots on the pitch, I’m playing for all those women who can’t even go for a walk the very basic human rights.”


Members of the Afghan Women’s Refugee team pose for a team group during a selection camp at St. George’s Park, Burton upon Trent, Britain - August 26, 2025


Hamill said the opportunity to coach the team has had her pinching herself.

“When the opportunity comes to really make a difference, I think that you have to grab it with both hands,” said the former Scotland international.

“Thinking about what the players have been through really just immediately connects you with them, where you really want to support them and be part of giving them an amazing experience in football.

“They’re alive on the pitch, it’s their happy place, they get to do something they love.”

Header image: Elaha Safdari of the Afghan Women’s Refugee team makes a save during a selection camp at St. George’s Park, Burton upon Trent, Britain on August 26, 2025. — Reuters