The serious representatives of capitalism are petrified that the ongoing trade dispute between China and America could erupt into a full-blown economic war. In a recent editorial for the Financial Times, associate editor Martin Wolf described US President Donald Trump’s latest plan to reduce the $337bn US-China trade imbalance by imposing $200bn worth of tariffs on Chinese goods (over two years) as a “crazy” act of “fiscal irresponsibility”. But there is method in Trump’s madness. He is predictably applying his particular art of negotiation: threaten, bully and bluster – then strike a deal. However, Trump’s bellicose behaviour risks further destabilising an already-precarious global economy.

Venezuela is being bombarded from all sides by imperialist intervention and the impacts of the world crisis of capitalism. But the current leadership of Maduro and the PSUV bureaucracy is not offering a way forward. The Bolivarian revolution needs a new leadership, forged from the mass movement of workers and peasants, and based on a genuinely socialist programme.