This catastrophe is not the result of mistaken policies, but rather the natural consequence of how capitalism works in the imperialist epoch, in which the world is divided between a handful of industrialized powers and a large majority of oppressed nations.

The foreign debt is not a relationship between equals. Washington and other imperialist powers--through their control of capital, world markets, and technology, as well as their military superiority--set the rules and impose their exploitative terms on semicolonial countries. Unequal terms of trade mean that prices for agricultural goods and natural resources--the main source of revenue for Third World nations--tend to decline while prices for the industrial equipment they purchase from imperialist countries tend to increase, forcing the semicolonial countries deeper into debt.

Argentina, like nations throughout Latin America, Asia, and Africa, is being bled dry by massive payments to the banks and bondholders in the United States and other imperialist countries. Working people there have been forced to pay tens of billions in interest payments, yet the foreign debt continues to grow--it now stands at a staggering $132 billion. The foreign debt setup is simply a form of pillage through which the capitalist families in the imperialist countries suck massive amounts of wealth out of the semicolonial world and into their own pockets.

The Argentine capitalist class, currently represented by the de la Rúa administration, is unable and unwilling to defend the interests of working people. Its only solution is to tie its fortunes ever more tightly to its imperialist masters. The international creditors demand their tribute, and the government has tried to pay it by complying with their demands to slash pensions and wages of state employees, cut other social programs, weaken union rights, raise taxes, partially freeze bank accounts, and hold back public employees' paychecks in the provinces for months.

The Argentine government now faces bankruptcy and in practice has defaulted on its unpayable debt. This financial meltdown threatens to have repercussions throughout the increasingly volatile world capitalist economy, from Brazil to Turkey.

Similarly intolerable conditions are creating social turmoil throughout Latin America, from the Dominican Republic to Bolivia. Washington's response has been not only to demand cutbacks and continued debt payments. It is also anticipating the coming resistance of working people by increasing its military presence in the region. Through its "Andean Initiative"--previously called "Plan Colombia"--the U.S. military is expanding its intervention in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and other countries under the guise of "the war on drugs." And today Washington is even evoking the specter of "Islamic terrorism" in the so-called Triple Border--where Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina meet--to send U.S. military forces to those countries to conduct "antiterrorism" training--near some of the centers of recent working-class struggles in northern Argentina.

The U.S. rulers are correctly worried that the resistance by working people in Argentina today will inspire workers and farmers who face similar conditions throughout the continent, from Ecuador to the Dominican Republic.

The most important solidarity that working people in the United States can offer is to join with fellow fighters internationally to demand the unconditional cancellation of Argentina's foreign debt--and the entire Third World debt. Such a fight can strengthen the possibilities for collaboration by workers across national borders on related fronts: from the fight to demand jobs for all, to the defense of immigrant workers.
 
 
Related article:
Argentine workers rebel against capitalist collapse  
 
 
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