Ben Norton

BEN NORTON—Marco Rubio has waged a kind of political war against Petro, fixating on his past as a guerrilla in a revolutionary leftist organization, claiming that he “has put Colombia’s security and stability at risk”.

Rubio has aggressively aimed to cut off Latin America’s relations with China, which has become the largest trading partner of South America, and the number one trading partner of Latin America as a whole, excluding Mexico.

In 2023, Petro visited Beijing, where Colombia and China elevated their relations to the level of a “strategic partnership”. Rubio wrote in outrage on Twitter that “Petro’s new ‘Strategic Partnership’ with the Chinese Communist Party will leave Colombia hostage to their authoritarian grip”.

EDITOR—No one in China is above the law. Even China’s former Justice Minister Tang Yijun found he was not too privileged to be immune. In 2024, anti-corruption authorities announced he was “being investigated for suspected severe violations of the discipline and law”.

Another former justice minister, Fu Zhenghua, was jailed with a suspended death sentence for corruption in 2022.

The graft-busting campaign shows no special leniency to those who, with the most power and authority, are therefore most responsible to the people.

The anti-corruption policy has been pursued with the resolve to “offend a few thousand rather than fail 1.4 billion”.

EDITOR—India has the world’s largest population, but can it be the next global economic superpower? Or will extreme poverty, inequality, unemployment, and lack of industrialization and manufacturing capacities hold it back? Why is the Western media so eager to portray India as a pro-Western alternative to China? Ben Norton is joined by economic historian Jyotishman Mudiar to explore these questions and more.

BEN NORTON—”An unsinkable carrier in the Middle East”
A geopolitical analysis of why the United States so strongly supports Israel: Economist Michael Hudson discusses with journalist Ben Norton.

GEC—Neoliberalism is often misunderstood, but it is very important to understand this ideology that has dominated global economics and politics for decades. Ben Norton discusses the history of the neoliberal “Washington consensus”, and how it was imposed on the world. How China became the world’s industrial superpower – and why the US is desperate to stop it.