A Vatican official has stated that pope Leo may refuse to visit the US whilst Donald Trump remains in office. The news comes alongside reports of a widening divide between the Catholic church and US.

Pope Leo became the first pope to be born in the US after his appointment in 2025. Since then, he has been a vocal critic of Trump’s vicious warmongering and immigration policies. In particular, both his January and Easter addresses called for peace and criticized warlike states.

In response, the Trump administration has reportedly told the church that it has the military power to do “whatever it wants”. Reports also allege that one US official made reference to the use of force against the papacy itself.

Trump administration ‘the church had better take its side’

On 6 April, the Free Press broke a story on an unprecedented meeting between the Pentagon and a senior Vatican official. The US ‘department of war’ reportedly called for a meeting with Vatican diplomat cardinal Christophe Pierre, having taken offense at the pope’s calls for peace during a January address.

Speaking to the Vatican’s diplomatic corps in the new year, the pope criticised states “completely undermining” world peace. Breaking from tradition by giving the speech in English, rather than Italian or French, he added that:

A diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force, by either individuals or groups of allies.

In spite of Leo naming no individual countries, the Trump administration reportedly took this as a direct attack. In a first-of-a-kind occurrence, the Pentagon requested an audience with cardinal Pierre. Anonymous Vatican sources characterised the meeting as a:

bitter lecture warning that the United States has the military power to do whatever it wants — and that the Church had better take its side.

Avignon Papacy

Further even than this, the Free Press stated that:

one U.S. official went so far as to invoke the Avignon Papacy, the period in the 1300s when the French Crown leveraged its military power to dominate the papal authority.

The Avignon Papacy is sometimes referred to as the ‘Babylonian Captivity’ within Catholic circles. Following military and political threats from king Philip VI of France, pope Clement V moved the seat of the church from Rome to Avignon. It remained there between the years 1309 and 1377.

During that period, all seven elected popes were French. Likewise, 111 of the 134 new cardinals were also French. Although the level of Philip’s direct influence over the papacy during the Avignon residence is still hotly debated, critics hold that it was a time of unprecedented hegemony for the French crown.

As such, the force of this threat from a US official to the Vatican can hardly be underestimated. However, the Pentagon has flatly denied the Free Press’ characterisation of events. Instead, it issued a statement holding that:

In light of grossly false and distorted recent reporting, the Department of War repeats its statement: Recent reporting of the meeting is highly exaggerated and distorted. The meeting between Pentagon and Vatican officials was a respectful and reasonable discussion. We have nothing but the highest regard and welcome continued dialogue with the Holy See.

This take on the meeting is belied directly by a senior Vatican official, who told the Free Press that, following the meeting:

The Pope may well never visit the United States under this administration.

The pope has reportedly refused an invite from Trump to join him for the US 4 July celebrations. Instead, he will visit the Italian island of Lampedusa, a common entry point into Europe for North African asylum seekers.

‘Light the signal fire in Iran’

Beyond this direct clash with Vatican envoys, the US  military has taken on increasingly apocalyptic evangelical Christian overtones under ‘secretary of war’ Pete Hegseth. The Washington Post described the situation:

Every month at the Pentagon, Hegseth hosts evangelical worship services that legal experts say are unprecedented. His social media profile and public comments routinely espouse his understanding of Christianity, which is one that would dominate American life and cast those who disagree with him as God’s enemies. He has brought clergy from his small Christian denomination to preach at the Pentagon, including a prominent pastor who says women shouldn’t have the right to vote.

By 4 March, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) had received over 200 complaints of increased sectarianism. One noncommissioned officer stated that their commander had:

urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. […]

He said that ‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth’.

At a worship service held within the Pentagon on 25 March, Hegseth prayed for God to:

Give [US soldiers] wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy. Preserve their lives, sharpen their resolve, and let justice be executed swiftly and without remorse that evil may be driven back and wicked souls delivered to the eternal damnation prepared for them….We ask these things with bold confidence in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ, King over all kings and amen.

It’s hard to find something new to say in the face of such openly bloodthirsty rhetoric and actions. The US military is controlled by zealots who claim belief in waging a holy war. They’re spurred on by an apparently genuine desire to bring about the end of the earth.

These aren’t things that you’re trained to write about. There’s no reasoning with this cocktail of religious hatred, white supremacy, and naked greed. Not even direct condemnation from arguably the most senior Christian on earth has given them pause.

Featured image via the Canary

Lambeth council announced consultations on the potential closures of Effra, Triangle and Maytree nurseries in January. There had been no prior consultation with the nursery leadership, staff or parents.

Then in March, the Labour-run council announced it was withdrawing the consultations. It said this was due to new government proposals changing the “national policy and funding landscape”.

But local Greens say this is an “embarrassing u-turn” for Labour, even though it provides some respite for families and staff. They argue that continuing uncertainty over the future of the nurseries is leaving people “in limbo”.

Since the March announcement, nursery staff, green councillors and even a local Labour MP have tried and failed to engage with the council. So far it has refused meetings and blocked requests for information.

A petition launched by local parents calling for an end to the consultations had gained over 1,000 signatures. However, the Greens, along with other local campaigners, have criticised Labour. They say the ruling party is cynically putting off difficult decisions until after the May elections.

Lambeth Labour claims

Lambeth Labour claims the potential closures are due to a 38% drop in pupil numbers caused by falling birthrates and families leaving the borough, leading to a substantial budget deficit. However, there are still waiting lists for the nurseries, so these numbers do not reflect the full reality.

However, the Lambeth Nursery School Federation, which runs the three nurseries marked for closure, has said the council’s approach of three separate consultations on closures would not solve the issues facing the nurseries even if all three closed.

Senior nursery staff provided detailed proposals for restructures that could ease financial pressures back in November, but Labour ignored these. Parents are calling for a working group which includes staff, unions and parents to shape the future of the nurseries.

The Federation also highlighted that the council’s figures were different to its own. The council consultations stated the monthly deficit was £450,000 whereas its figures were far less at £101,000. The consultations conflated historic deficits and projected deficits, among other inconsistencies.

The decision to withdraw the consultations is a victory for local campaigners. But senior staff at the nurseries have said it is only a temporary one.

The Greens are demanding that, when decisions are made about the future of the nurseries, Lambeth Labour listens to parents, staff and nurseries, and “puts families first”.

Meanwhile, parents and staff remain in a state of anxiety and uncertainty about the future of the nurseries they rely on.

Paul Valentine, Green Party councillor for Herne Hill & Loughborough Junction, said:

This has been a shambles from the very start when Labour ambushed parents and staff by launching these consultations with no prior consultation. Labour have blocked all attempts at meaningful engagement from the nurseries, parents, unions and councillors.

Now, facing a furious backlash, they’ve been forced into an embarrassing u-turn. It’s a great relief to parents, but only a temporary reprieve. The future of the nurseries still isn’t clear and families remain in limbo while Labour prioritises doing damage control ahead of the elections in May.

These nurseries are loved by the community and provide irreplaceable specialist early years teaching. Yet Labour are treating them, along with the families who rely on them, with complete contempt. When it comes to deciding a way forward, Labour must learn from their mistakes and listen to the nurseries.

This mess perfectly sums up the defensive, unaccountable culture Labour have cultivated in Lambeth in the past 20 years. In May, Lambeth can vote Green and choose a new way of doing things.

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Sarah Ahmed, a parent at Effra Nursery, said:

Effra, Triangle and Maytree nurseries are a lifeline for so many families. The experience and care of the staff, and the provision for SEND, are irreplaceable. We know the council stopped the consultation process because of parents and staff organising against it.

The consultations were inaccessible and full of misleading information. The council saw an opportunity to stop them using the new government’s additional funding for SEN as an excuse, but we know the real reason is they knew it would cost them seats at the local elections.

The community is determined to keep fighting against the closures. We know this is just a delay tactic and we want to make sure that whoever gets in will fight to keep those amazing nurseries and children centres open for the sake of our children and communities. We are sick and tired of Lambeth council and its cuts affecting the most disadvantaged in our communities.

The council should be fighting for us. We are grateful for the support we have received on this issue from Helen Hayes and from Green councillors. We will be approaching all prospective candidates ahead of the elections demanding that they commit to keeping the nurseries open and protecting the staff’s jobs and our children’s education.

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Featured image via the Canary

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I never thought I’d say this, but YouTube star Emma Chamberlain has created a home collection I actually love.

The vlogger turned multi-hyphenate coffee magnate/ fashionista/ podcaster/ actor launched her collaboration with West Elm online in the UK today, and it’s filled with home decor pieces to inject a little fantasy into your world.

That might sound like too much, but trust me, it’s somehow still tasteful and timeless. Given its extremely reasonable price point, it could be exactly the home upgrade you’ve been looking for in the supposed ‘year of whimsy’.

Whether you’re looking for a sweet home decor upgrade, fresh bed sheets, or even a new vanity, here are my top picks from the Emma Chamberlain x West Elm collab. Just be quick – the Pinterest girlies will be all over this!

Emma Chamberlain x West Elm is available online now and in stores from 17 April.

The research around blue light is mixed

Does that mean screens before bed are A-OK?

Supporters of Sunderland AFC have launched a petition to keep Nigel Farage away from the football club.

Farage and Reform are predatory in working-class cities like Sunderland

The Reform UK leader was in Sunderland last month to launch the party’s local election campaign. For the first time all of Sunderland’s 75 council seats will be up for reelection. There are fears across the city that Reform could muscle in due to the working-class population’s dissatisfaction with Labour.

 In 2024 Sunderland city centre came under attack during far-right riots. Reform denied any part in the riots, despite their voters massively supporting them.

Whilst in Sunderland for the local election launch, Farage told ITV News:

I am hoping to go to a home game there at some point before the end of the season.

He continued:

I have been talking to one of the directors and they would very much like to see me there for a home game. If I can make it, I will.

ITV reports that the director in question was Juan Sartori, whom Farage met at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year.

In response, a petition has been launched to ‘keep Nigel Farage out of Sunderland AFC‘

The petition says:

We, the undersigned Sunderland supporters, call on the club and its directors not to extend any invitation to Nigel Farage, or any other politician, whether at the Stadium of Light or elsewhere.

Reform does not represent Sunderland or SAFC

It sets out many reasons why fans should oppose a potential visit. These include that Farage’s visit would be a publicity stunt to secure votes:

He doesn’t care about the club, has never mentioned it before, and has no real connection with it… Such behaviour is totally inappropriate for any politician, from any party. It’s also totally inappropriate for any football club to enable such actions.

The petition also lays out that it would reflect badly on the club, especially since it’s been actively involved in Show Racism the Red Card. It also highlights that many current and former players have experienced racism on and off the pitch.

The petition also points out that while you don’t need to belong to a particular political party to support Sunderland, Farage’s politics are in complete opposition to the club’s values and foundations:

The working-class, socialist history of the fan base, who often worked as shipbuilders or miners, still resonates. There’s a reason why Durham Miners’ Association banners are still paraded at the Stadium of Light. There’s a reason why the road next to the stadium is named after Keir Hardie. There’s a reason fans sing The Red Flag. Hosting Farage in particular is a slap in the face to the history of our club, what it stands for, and fans, past and present.

Ipswich Town have recently come under fire after Farage visited the club’s stadium ahead of a rally in Ipswich later that day. He posed for photos in the dressing room and on the pitch. The petition says the publicity stunt by Farage left Ipswich fans ashamed and that Farage:

seized on the chance for a photo opportunity and to pander to their fans for votes, then left.

The petition is calling on SAFC to:

1. Withdraw any existing invitations to Nigel Farage – or any other politician – to visit the club.
2. Affirm the club’s independence from party politics.
3. Affirm that the club will never allow itself to be exploited as a platform for shallow political stunts and promotion.
4. Explain to fans if an invitation was extended to Farage and, if so, when, by whom, and in what form and capacity.
5. Affirm that no one involved in running the club will unilaterally invite any politicians to the club or seek to use their position for personal gain.

If you are a Sunderland fan, live in Sunderland or want to show solidarity, you can support the petition here 

Featured image via the Canary

Satellite imagery flagged by the @mhmiranusa account on X indicates that US & Israeli Zionist war criminals have been bombing Iranian pistachio warehouses. The account owner said:

The pistachio warehouses of Iranian Pistachio Company near Rafsanjan Airport were targeted by American/Israeli fighter jets in the first week of Farvardin.

The attached before and after images show clear differences, with many buildings seemingly no longer standing. The blog The Dissident suggests a reason for the destruction, saying it’s:

…likely a gift to Lynne and Stewart Resnick, the Zionist billionaires who own the California-based Wonderful company, the largest producer of pistachios in the world.

As the writer elaborates, the Resnicks have benefited from over four decades of brutal US sanctions on Iran:

For as long as anyone can remember, Iran had been the world’s main supplier of pistachios. But Carter’s 1979 embargo on the country effectively cut off Iranian pistachio growers from the American market and created a need for alternative pistachio production, which was virtually nonexistent in the United States.

Over much of that period, the Resnicks have built up a farming empire in California, with:

…nearly 160 square miles…growing cotton, pistachios, almonds, oranges, lemons and grapefruit.

Sanctions on Iran boost US pistachio industry

A picture tells a thousand words, so this image best shows the effect Washington’s sanctions have had on the relative success of pistachio markets in the US and Iran.

This degrading of Iran’s capacity to produce the foodstuff gives the US – and the Resnicks in particular – an opening into a global market worth over $5 billion. Iran and California are two of only a few areas in the world where pistachios are grown.

The Zionist plutocrats have certainly contributed to the current shape of the market, with Mondoweiss documenting how:

…the Resnicks did what any smart and ruthless American would do: they made common cause with oil companies, Islamophobes, neocons and Likudniks, and began funneling money to think tanks and political advocacy groups that take a hardline approach with Iran. Economic sanctions, sabotage, vilification—all these things worked in the Resnicks’ interest. Bombing some of Iran’s pistachio fields wouldn’t be so bad, either.

The pair are:

…on the board of trustees of the highly influential Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, which was created as an AIPAC spin-off in the ’80s. In the realms of US government mid-east policy and media reporting about the region, the think tank is considered to be one of the most influential in the country. It is also ridiculously hawkish on Iran, calling for heavy sanctions and military strikes against the country.

Given so-called ‘Israel’ gleefully bombs schools, hospitals, mosques and even synagogues, it wouldn’t be a stretch for it to bomb a nut factory to help out one of their key advocates and financial backers. The terrorist land theft project has an entire military philosophy predicated on attacks against non-military targets, known as the Dahiya Doctrine.

Centuries of violent intervention to protect profits

It would also be entirely in line with centuries old corporation-backing imperial policy. It stretches back at least as far as Britain using its military might to back the East India Company which pillaged South Asia. Famously, the United States staged a coup in Guatemala in 1954 to overthrow the country’s legitimate president Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán. The illegal attack was done to help out the United Fruit Company, with Árbenz planning to redistribute their vast land holdings.

And of course, most relevant of all in the current context is what happened just one year earlier – Operation Ajax. This was the British-US plot in which they overthrew Iran’s elected prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh.

They acted after Mossadegh sought to put oil profits in the hands of Iranians, rather than imperial powers. He aimed to do this by nationalising the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, now known as BP. Iran has not had democratic governance since.

The Resnicks’ offences extend beyond backing Zionist war crimes. A documentary called Pistachio Wars highlights their hoarding of water in California:

As drought intensifies and communities struggle for access to water, this film exposes the hidden systems of power, greed, and corruption shaping the future of food, farming, and survival in the American West.

It is executive produced by Adam McKay, who directed Vice, the excellent skewering of mass murderer Dick Cheney.

The illegal attack on Iran has caused fuel prices to soar, and that will soon have a knock-on effect on the price of everything else. If you’re paying more for pistachios in particular, you now know why.

Featured image via the Canary

As all alert readers will know, this site likes to keep a watchful eye on the shady and disturbing activities of paedophilia-plagued charity LGBT Youth Scotland. So were were naturally intrigued to hear that they’d hired a new convenor last month.

And if you’re sitting there thinking, “Blimey, AI Christopher Walken looks very very ill”, well, stay tuned, because this story gets more and more interesting.

The image above comes from a story published on charities website Third Force News three weeks ago, but which had vanished when we tried to click on it this morning.

And the reason may be that there’s remarkably little verifiable evidence anywhere that Mr Westwood actually exists.

Wings has been unable to verify any of the claims made on LGBT Youth Scotland’s bio page for Westwood.

If you Google his name in connection with the British Red Cross, for example, the only results returned are the LGBTYS bio page.

The same thing happens with Amnesty International.

His supposed work with Citizens Advice draws an even bigger blank.

As does Pride In London.

The only way to get more results is to use “Tim” instead of “Timothy”, but then they’re all about (what we assume and hope is) a different person.

To be honest, readers, if we were taking up a senior position at an organisation with a horrific record of links to child rape, the very least we’d do would be supply them with a photo so that people would definitely know we weren’t THAT Tim Westwood.

(Charles Rennie, incidentally, was freed a few months ago.)

At a minimum, Mr Westwood’s ostensibly distinguished career seems to have made so little detectable impact anywhere that one wonders why he was headhunted for his new role in the troubled organisation which could probably do with some time away from media scrutiny and controversy for a change, but which the Scottish Government nevertheless continues to throw public money at with, er, gay abandon.

The SNP simply adores LGBTYS, which was once headed by former SNP MP Alyn “Daddy Bear” Smith, who is likely to be elected as an MSP at next month’s election. But even so, you might like to imagine they’d want a little more, er, transparency than this for their money.

We wait agog for Mr Westwood’s first public appearance, if indeed he is a real human. There are an awful lot of questions to be cleared up about his CV. But then in Scotland, questions about anything, and questions about LGBT Youth Scotland in particular, are rarely answered.

Mish Rahman is a former – and longstanding – member of the national executive committee (NEC) of the Labour party. He is now a member of the Greens. And he has outed the hypocrisy and racism of Labour’s desperate attempt to smear a London Green candidate as antisemitic.

Labour is clearly still stung by its humiliating defeat in the Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election and terrified of the outcome of May 2026’s local elections. It is just as clearly still desperate to propagate the Israel lobby’s attacks on the Greens for opposing Israel’s genocide. Hence the hollow arrogance of Lewisham mayor Brenda Dacre’s blatantly electioneering letter to Green leader Zack Polanski demanding the removal of Forest Hill candidate Bernard Mani:

Dacre’s pretext for her demand is that he has apparently questioned Israel’s atrocity narrative concerning 7 October 2023. The fact that the narrative has already been completely debunked seems to have escaped her notice – or at least her computer keyboard.

But according to Rahman, who has extensive experience of Dacre when she was a Labour party functionary, her ability to ignore facts has previously protected racists, rather than attack opponents of genocide. In a post on X, he recounted one such experience:

I chaired a disciplinary panel with Brenda Dacres and one other white bloke.

We interviewed a racist who called a Muslim female Cllr Jezbollah in public – refused to apologise and said he stands by his comments.

Brenda and Merton voted to reinstate him outvoting me 2-1 https://t.co/VBzn7MMaFp

— Mish Rahman (@mish_rahman) April 9, 2026

Labour and bigotry

Appalling. But Dacre is anything but an anomaly in her party, which has a long record of anti-Black, anti-Muslim, and anti-Roma racism.

The Labour Muslim Network published a damning report on the rampant Islamophobia among the Labour right. Keir Starmer and his sidekick David Evans promised to immediately implement all the LMN report’s recommendations, but two years later LMN had to report that the situation continued unabated and was so serious that most Muslim party members had no confidence in Starmer or his interest in tackling the issue. Three years later still, and Starmer is no better.

Anti-Black racism, meanwhile, has run riot among the Labour right, with whole swathes of Black councillors deselected – in at least one case, involving the removal of every Black councillor in a London borough. Unlike the Abbott suspension, the issue was ignored by the so-called ‘mainstream’ media. In 2026, Starmer’s party is busy trying to normalise it across UK society.

And MPs who made or propagated grossly racist comments against Gypsy Roma people went unpunished by the party and were even appointed to Starmer’s front bench. Those who hound left-wing Muslim and Black MP women MPs, by contrast, are enabled and protected.

So rampant was the issue and so uninterested was the leadership in doing anything about it that in 2021, Black party members went on campaign ‘strike’ in protest – and in 2022, black MPs and activists protested publicly against the leadership’s complete inaction over the racist abuses highlighted in the Forde report.

Even on the issue of antisemitism, Starmer and co are selective: while left-wingers including many Jews are thrown out of the party for legitimate criticism of Israel or even for wanting to discuss the so-called ‘IHRA working definition’, right-wingers who have made clearly antisemitic statements have been allowed to remain on the front bench or even promoted.

Polanski’s record of tackling Israel lobby smears head on suggests that he will tell – may already have told – the desperate Labour mayor to stick her demands somewhere sunlight doesn’t reach. He certainly should.

Featured image via the Canary

The US has been begging and pleading with Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz to nations attacking them. As the Canary noted, the strait is open to nations who are not bombing Iran. Evidently, the US is finally facing robust opposition to its previously unchecked hegemony.

Traditionally, the imperialist settler state of the USA have been able to dominate proceedings via two avenues:

• domination of aerospace which allows it to issue threats to smaller nations
• its ability to ransack global south resources and economies via bombs, sanctions, IMF/World Bank loans, and funding counterinsurgencies.

Iran’s refusal to capitulate to the US’ demands to open the Strait of Hormuz doesn’t mean that the world’s biggest military power has become powerless. However, it does mean that the gap between America’s geopolitical ambitions and its capabilities is widening.

Herein lies the opportunity for global south countries to widen this gap even further so they are never threatened with being turned into rubble again. And, the US’ domination of the globe is facing robust opposition from not just Iran, but also China.

Hormuz to China’s ascendency

The U.S. is well aware of its loss of productive capacity to China, especially on critical minerals.

At a recent Senate committee hearing, officials testified that the entire US military apparatus, from fifth-generation aircraft and precision-guided munitions to satellite constellations and naval vessels, depends on a reliable supply of rare earth elements (REE) and minerals, including gallium, antimony, germanium, and others.

Chinese hegemony of these REE and minerals is a “clear and present” danger, officials said. The Senate heard:

“Today, our primary strategic competitor, China, controls the global supply chain for numerous critical minerals. On heavy rare earths alone, China controls 95 percent of global output, with the United States importing almost 100 percent of what we use, 90 percent of that coming from China. This control provides Beijing with the ability to weaponize these supply chains, threatening to disrupt our Defense Industrial Base and compromise military readiness in a crisis.”

The beauty is that instead of taking ownership of the rabid post-1970s neoliberal era, which led to the hollowing out of the industry in the West, they blame China for “malign adversarial efforts to manipulate markets” and its efforts to “undermine” the US’s domestic market.

Accountability is not their competitive advantage, one can say!

USA’s inability to diagnose or treat internal contradictions

This is part of capitalism’s hubris. A part of the solution, according to them, lies in leveraging their “private capital markets, one of our few remaining comparative advantages against Beijing.”

In fact, as Costas Lapavitsas, Professor of Economics, SOAS University of London, explains, it was US multinationals that:

exported productive capital, established global production chains, outsourced labour-intensive processes upstream, and financialized their own operations through share buybacks rather than domestic investment.

He says that the hollowing out of the US industrial base was carried out largely by the very corporations Trump and his predecessor Biden are most aggressively defending.

Critical minerals through economic coercion

Another way US hubris gets in the way is the belief that countries are breaking Chinese ties.

The Senate heard that countries are:

poised to ditch the predatory debt trap diplomacy Beijing has foisted upon them in this area.

Not only is this self-aggrandizing claim wrong, but the opposite is true. Trump, in fact, boasts about the use of economic sanctions and coercion.

The list is endless of economic coercion being used by the USA for access to minerals. Just recently, Trump threatened to withhold HIV medication from Zambia to coerce access to minerals; his so-called peace deal between Congo and Rwanda is a guise for American corporations to “make a lot of money,” and then he is coercing Venezuela for access to its oil and critical minerals by the illegal kidnapping of President Maduro.

Or that in Indonesia, Trump used the threat of tariffs to sign the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) with Indonesia, which gives US investors the same access as domestic firms across the entire critical minerals value chain.

That the US’s World Bank sits on the Gaza Board of ‘Peace’ says everything about America’s economic and debt policy for the global south.

Meanwhile, between 2000 and 2019, China cancelled at least US$3.4 billion of debt in Africa, according to a study by Johns Hopkins University.

China holds important levers

In April and October 2025, China imposed export controls on heavy rare earths, expanded them to include any product containing Chinese-sourced materials or technology, and added five more elements to the restricted list. Worth noting, these restrictions were retaliatory – the US first imposed export restrictions on 140 Chinese semiconductor firms.

Trump and Xi were supposed to meet in China in March-April, and now he has postponed the meeting to May. White House has cited the war on Iran as the reason.

Economist Michael Hudson explained that Trump believed that the US could conquer Iran in two to four weeks.

He intended to use regime change in Iran as leverage to confront China, threatening to cut off its oil supply unless China agreed to export key raw materials such as gallium and tungsten, which the US military needed. Well – that didn’t work out!

Hormuz exposes dependency

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer was recently asked if the U.S. would need an extension on rare earth access by October. He said, “We’ll assess that down the road.” He admitted the process with China was working “fairly well” but noted, “a few things here and there where we didn’t feel like we were getting rare earths in a timely fashion.” Chinese counterparts, he said, “took note of that and have it under consideration.”

China – they can’t bomb countries into rubble without your magnets needed for jet engines – keep that in mind!

The USA’s handicaps on minerals should not be underestimated. Even at the height of the US-backed Ukraine and Russia’s war – US kept importing uranium from Russia. Yes, American exceptionalism is really something. Europe couldn’t buy Russian LNG, but the USA could buy Russian Uranium.

Worth adding that these were the two countries – China and Russia –  that recently vetoed the US-backed Bahraini proposal to authorize defensive military action for securing commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

Brand America, dollar hegemony injured

China beat the United States in global approval ratings in 2025, with a median of 36% approving of China’s leadership, compared with 31% for the U.S., according to the latest Gallup polling.

Even the pro-American Economist published a cover of Chinese President Xi overshadowing Trump that read – “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”

Deutsche Bank has warned in a new report that the rise of the petroyuan poses a clear challenge to the U.S. currency. The petrodollar system, built on a 1974 agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, faces a “perfect storm” from the ongoing war on Iran initiated by the US/UK/Israel, the bank said.

Reduced global oil trade would also create more room for the pricing of goods and services to shift away from the dollar, the report said. Both petro (i.e., oil) and one of the US’s main exports, as well as the US dollar, the US’s currency, would be impacted adversely. Hormuz is evidently a central strategic point.

Bombing countries into rubble is still a viable threat

The US military budget is roughly $1 trillion annually. That is more than the next ten countries combined, including China, Russia, and every European power. The US operates 800-plus military bases worldwide.

American exceptionalism will be here for the near future despite losing industrial productive capacity to China. As Lapavitsas noted, the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet functions as “the ultimate collateral backstop for global markets.” The dollar remains the world’s currency; nearly 60 percent of global reserves and roughly half of all cross-border payments are settled in dollars.

Despite losing productive capacity, US banks and multinationals still dominate global finance and corporate control. As Lapavitsas notes, three large investment funds—BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street control roughly 25 percent of all US corporate equity. These same firms are the largest shareholders in European, Japanese, and emerging market corporations.

Growth at any cost

This was the reason Starmer was proud of his photo op with BlackRock’s Larry Fink.

I’m determined to deliver growth, create wealth and put more money in people’s pockets.

This can only be achieved by working in partnership with leading businesses, like @BlackRock, to capitalise on the UK’s position as a world leading hub for investment. pic.twitter.com/qDPpEYEYAh

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) November 21, 2024

Owning the elites like Starmer and NATO’s Mark Rutte across the globe is another card up the US’s sleeve. They have Modi, who is mentioned in the Epstein files, as well as his best friend Adani, facing an SEC indictment, giving the US blackmail leverage over India’s prime minister.

They have Pakistan’s elite on Trump’s Board of Peace and its crypto traders chasing the Americans cryto industry.

However, popular support in both India and Pakistan against Trump – another contradiction – is not in favor of the USA. Not dissimilar to what the popular masses want in the UK or other NATO countries like Italy.

Are the stacks in favor of the global majority? Or the elites with Trump as the head of the snake? The gap between American ambitions and its capabilities is certainly widening. As Iran’s closure of Hormuz shows, here lies the opportunity for global south countries to widen this gap even further – and not get bombed or sanctioned back to the Stone Age.

Featured image via the Canary