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Rand Issues Commentary: China Could Play Spoiler in Venezuela's Debt Restructuring
SANTA MONICA, California, Jan. 30 -- Rand issued the following commentary on Jan. 29, 2026:* * *
China Could Play Spoiler in Venezuela's Debt Restructuring
By Rachel Lyngaas
U.S. officials have framed Venezuela's post-Maduro path as a three-step process: stabilization, recovery, then political transition, with early emphasis on restoring oil exports. But oil production alone cannot stabilize Venezuela. Decades of hyperinflation, collapsing public services, and the emigration of nearly 8 million people have left the country with acute macroeconomic and humanitarian challenges. Oil revenues ... Show Full Article SANTA MONICA, California, Jan. 30 -- Rand issued the following commentary on Jan. 29, 2026: * * * China Could Play Spoiler in Venezuela's Debt Restructuring By Rachel Lyngaas U.S. officials have framed Venezuela's post-Maduro path as a three-step process: stabilization, recovery, then political transition, with early emphasis on restoring oil exports. But oil production alone cannot stabilize Venezuela. Decades of hyperinflation, collapsing public services, and the emigration of nearly 8 million people have left the country with acute macroeconomic and humanitarian challenges. Oil revenuesare necessary--but without a credible strategy to address Venezuela's legacy debt, they are not sufficient.
Venezuela and its state-owned oil company, PDVSA, defaulted years ago on roughly $60 billion in bonds. Its total external liabilities likely exceed $150 billion (Figure 1). Absent a credible debt restructuring, sanctions relief and higher oil output will not translate into durable stabilization or sustained investment. Instead, debt overhang and litigation risk will continue to deter the capital that Venezuela needs to rebuild its oil sector and the broader economy. In other words, investors will price in both the sheer scale of Venezuela's unresolved debt and the risk that repayment disputes or creditor holdouts will disrupt cash flows. This means higher risk premia, limited access to long-term capital, and reluctance by international oil companies to commit fresh investment--regardless of whatever sanctions relief and additional investment guarantees are offered.
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Figure 1: Venezuela's Total External Liabilities
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The more acute risk, however, stems from China. Despite holding a relatively modest share of Venezuela's total external debt--roughly $10-12 billion--much of China's exposure is collateralized by oil shipments. That structure gives Beijing leverage to delay or complicate a comprehensive debt restructuring, particularly if it prefers continued oil-backed repayments to accepting a haircut.
An IMF-supported program usually serves as the anchor of sovereign debt restructurings: it combines financing and policy conditionality, establishes a debt sustainability framework, and signals to markets that appropriate reforms are underway. That, in turn, helps catalyze external financing and encourages creditor coordination. Without such a program, Venezuela will struggle to unlock broader financing, stabilize its economy, and attract the investment needed to restore oil production.
China's Spoiler Role
China's role as the world's largest bilateral creditor has complicated recent sovereign debt restructurings to the detriment of its borrowers. In Zambia, it took more than two years after the November 2020 default for China to provide the financing assurances required for IMF lending. Comparable delays followed Sri Lanka's 2022 default and Ghana's 2022 moratorium. These episodes were driven by protracted negotiations over debt perimeter, demands for comparable treatment (https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/mrcbg/working.papers/Final_AWP_248_0.pdf), and procedural delays on the Chinese side.
Such delays matter. Protracted post-default restructurings are associated with large output losses and persistently weaker investment outcomes. In addition, Chinese official lending has frequently relied on commodity-linked repayment arrangements that route export proceeds through accounts controlled by the creditor. This effectively grants Chinese lenders seniority over other claims.
In response to such challenges, the IMF has reformed (https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/pp/2024/english/ppea2024017.pdf) its lending framework to allow programs to proceed even when official creditor assurances are delayed, which limits the ability of a single creditor to veto financing. But the IMF framework also recognizes a practical constraint: when a creditor can exert "significant influence" over the debtor's repayment capacity, the Fund may still require that creditor's participation.
In oil-backed cases like Venezuela, China meets that "significant influence" threshold because collateralized oil shipments give it the ability to extract preferential repayment, particularly after the IMF program ends. As a result, unless IMF staff can credibly demonstrate that the program architecture prevents off-terms repayment, China would likely need to be part of any "sufficient set" of creditors providing assurances. This is the channel through which China could act as a spoiler, even under the IMF's reformed approach.
Export data illustrate how China's role has evolved into a de facto buyer of last resort for Venezuelan oil. Following default and the imposition of PDVSA and oil sector sanctions, crude oil export volumes collapsed, and destinations narrowed sharply (Figure 2a). When U.S. purchases under Chevron's license are excluded, China's share of remaining exports rises markedly, underscoring its outsized role in the post-sanctions period (Figure 2b). While China's absolute import volumes decline after sanctions, its share of Venezuela's non-U.S. export market increases--reflecting reduced diversification.
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Figure 2a: Venezuelan Crude Exports by Destination
Figure 2b: China's Share of Venezuelan Crude Exports
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Using U.S. Leverage
While the IMF's engagement with Venezuela has been suspended since 2019, there are signs that its shareholders will greenlight reengagement. Once that occurs, the existing executive order requiring Venezuela's oil proceeds to be deposited into U.S.-custody Treasury accounts could be used as a temporary transparency and control mechanism during restructuring. Under this approach, proceeds from licensed oil exports would flow through monitored accounts, allowing revenues to be tracked, audited, and safeguarded against preferential creditor repayment.
Two steps would make that approach more robust.
First: Build oil revenue controls into the licensing regime. Any U.S.-authorized Venezuelan exports should use centralized, auditable payment routing and standardized disclosure of realized prices, discounts, counterparties, and intermediaries. Washington can ban--or tightly circumscribe--advance payments, cargo-financing structures, and opaque swaps that function as off-balance-sheet repayment. Revenue controls are not a substitute for stabilization policy, and if designed poorly they could inadvertently constrain the government's ability to fund essential imports and basic services. That is precisely why any controls should be paired with auditable payment routing and independent monitoring: to ensure that oil revenues translate into usable foreign exchange for stabilization rather than opaque creditor capture. These controls should include sunset provisions tied to completion of an IMF program or comprehensive debt restructuring.
These revenue controls can be executed largely through existing Treasury authorities. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) already requires detailed reporting from authorized persons under Venezuela sanctions, and the Chevron license has included restrictions on payment flows. Independent monitoring adds complexity, but there is precedent in revenue transparency frameworks like the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).
Second: Make China's leverage less valuable by reducing buyer concentration and standardizing a settlement instrument. The fastest way for China to extract preferential repayment is to become the residual buyer of Venezuelan oil--or act as a gatekeeper during a transition. The United States can blunt that by encouraging early diversification of oil exports (where legally and commercially feasible) and by pushing a transparent restructuring template that offers upside without side payments (e.g., long-dated instruments plus contingent value linked to production recovery) available only to participating creditors on comparable terms. Upside participation rather than outright losses gives Beijing a face-saving channel to accept haircuts without preserving special access to the repayment stream.
This second step will require sustained diplomatic coordination. Aligning creditors around a transparent restructuring template demands engagement with bondholders, bilateral creditors, and arbitration claimants with divergent interests. Still, much of Venezuela's bond stock is governed by New York state law and the U.S. sanctions and licensing regime is a gatekeeper for many transactions--meaning Washington has significant political influence and could convene such a coalition.
These two steps would reduce the scope for hidden repayments and would strengthen debt transparency--both essential for an IMF program anchored on credible macroeconomic parameters. They also would protect Venezuela's immediate stabilization and recovery by helping ensure that early oil revenues translate into usable foreign exchange for essential imports, rebuild basic fiscal capacity, and support a path to recovery of production--rather than being siphoned off into opaque creditor side-payments that will deter new investment. Absent these safeguards, the United States' three-step plan risks foundering on the same creditor coordination failures that have plagued other debt restructurings where China holds the cards.
This commentary was also published on The Sanctions Age on January 28, 2026.
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More About This Commentary
Rachel Lyngaas is a senior policy researcher at RAND and a professor of policy analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy. She was previously Chief Sanctions Economist at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where she built and led the Sanctions Economic Analysis Division within the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and worked as an economist at the International Monetary Fund and in Treasury's Office of International Affairs.
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Original text here: https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2026/01/china-could-play-spoiler-in-venezuelas-debt-restructuring.html
[Category: ThinkTank]
RAND Wraps Up Decade of Gun Policy Research With New Online Tool, Updated Data and Reports
SANTA MONICA, California, Jan. 30 -- Rand issued the following news release on Jan. 29, 2026:* * *
RAND Wraps Up Decade of Gun Policy Research with New Online Tool, Updated Data and Reports
RAND today released a slate of new gun policy resources as it concludes its decade-long Gun Policy in America initiative, which has provided objective analyses of the effects of firearm laws in the United States. The new resources include an online visualization tool that allows users to explore how state-level firearm mortality rates relate to a range of social and economic factors, and the fifth edition ... Show Full Article SANTA MONICA, California, Jan. 30 -- Rand issued the following news release on Jan. 29, 2026: * * * RAND Wraps Up Decade of Gun Policy Research with New Online Tool, Updated Data and Reports RAND today released a slate of new gun policy resources as it concludes its decade-long Gun Policy in America initiative, which has provided objective analyses of the effects of firearm laws in the United States. The new resources include an online visualization tool that allows users to explore how state-level firearm mortality rates relate to a range of social and economic factors, and the fifth editionof RAND's flagship Science of Gun Policy report.
Homicide and suicide mortality rates vary widely across states. The new Firearm Mortality and State Characteristics Visualization Tool allows users to examine how these mortality rates differ among states with similar demographic, economic, political and geographic profiles. It highlights which state characteristics are most strongly linked to firearm violence and identifies states with unexpectedly high or low mortality rates relative to their peers. For example, the tool shows that 60% of state variation in suicide rates is associated with rates of household firearm ownership, a stronger predictor than other factors examined, yet some states, such as Alaska and Colorado, have suicide rates considerably higher than other states with similar gun ownership levels.
"This new tool provides a way to explore how firearm deaths relate to the broader social and economic context of each state," said Andrew Morral, co-director of RAND's Gun Policy in America initiative. "By making these relationships transparent, we hope to support more informed discussions about the factors that could contribute to firearm violence and the policies that might reduce it."
Alongside the new tool, RAND has published the final scheduled edition of The Science of Gun Policy, the project's flagship report assessing the effects of 18 types of gun policies on outcomes such as suicide, violent crime, mass shootings, defensive gun use and hunting and recreation. This edition incorporates findings from 207 studies--up from just 67 in the first edition--and provides increased confidence that permit-to-purchase laws may reduce total and firearm homicides.
"Over the past decade, our goal has been to clarify what is known, and how confident we are in that knowledge, about the effects of gun policies," said Rosanna Smart, a senior economist at RAND and co-director of the initiative. "While the evidence base has grown substantially, there remain many areas where rigorous research is still lacking. Our work helps identify those gaps and points the way towards future study."
Other enhancements include an update to the RAND State Firearm Law Database, a comprehensive dataset cataloging state-level firearm laws through September 2025, and an updated essay on mass shootings in the United States. The essay reviews how differing definitions of the term mass shooting can lead to inconsistent estimates of their frequency and trends, underscoring the importance of clear and precise definitions in public discourse and research.
Launched in 2016, RAND's Gun Policy in America project was designed to bring an objective, evidence-based approach to one of the nation's most divisive policy areas. Over the past decade the project has produced a suite of publicly available tools and analyses to help policymakers, researchers, journalists and the public better understand the effects of gun laws.
"All of these resources have been developed to make the best available evidence on gun policy accessible to everyone," Morral said. "Our hope is that this foundation will continue to support constructive, fact-based dialogue and guide future research that can help reduce gun injuries and deaths in the United States."
Support for the RAND Gun Policy in America initiative is provided by Arnold Ventures.
All of the new and updated resources are available at www.rand.org/gun-policy.
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About RAND
RAND is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous.
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Original text here: https://www.rand.org/news/press/2026/01/rand-wraps-up-decade-of-gun-policy-research-with-new.html
[Category: ThinkTank]
Jamestown Foundation Posts Commentary: Sahel's Eternal Yesterday - Chosen Traumas Sustain Jihadist Violence
WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 -- The Jamestown Foundation posted the following commentary on Jan. 29, 2026, in its Terrorism Monitor:* * *
Sahel's Eternal Yesterday: Chosen Traumas Sustain Jihadist Violence
By Chris Mensa-Ankrah
Executive Summary:
* On January 13, Nigerien authorities revoked the operating licenses of dozens of fuel transporters and tanker drivers who refused to continue deliveries into Mali amid escalating jihadist attacks along the Niger-Mali corridor.
* The ongoing conflict in the Sahel is not only driven by material factors such as poverty, political instability, and military ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 -- The Jamestown Foundation posted the following commentary on Jan. 29, 2026, in its Terrorism Monitor: * * * Sahel's Eternal Yesterday: Chosen Traumas Sustain Jihadist Violence By Chris Mensa-Ankrah Executive Summary: * On January 13, Nigerien authorities revoked the operating licenses of dozens of fuel transporters and tanker drivers who refused to continue deliveries into Mali amid escalating jihadist attacks along the Niger-Mali corridor. * The ongoing conflict in the Sahel is not only driven by material factors such as poverty, political instability, and militarypresence, but also by overlapping "chosen traumas" of past humiliations, which are reactivated by modern-day crises, thereby narrowing the political space and fueling violence.
* Counterterrorism measures that focus on force--whether they are of Western or Russian-backed origin--often fail, as they reactivate these traumas, which in turn makes jihadist narratives and recruitment stronger.
* To put an end to the cycle of violence going back to the past requires the statecraft approach to be aware of the trauma: localized reconciliation, restraint in security operations, and political processes that recognize historical memory rather than try to suppress it.
On January 13, Nigerien authorities revoked the operating licenses of dozens of fuel transporters and tanker drivers who refused to continue deliveries into Mali amid escalating jihadist attacks along the Niger-Mali corridor. The decision followed months of mounting pressure from Bamako, which accused regional partners of failing to uphold the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) solidarity amid Jama'at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) attacks on fuel convoys supplying Mali's capital (African News, January 13).
The blockade itself began in September 2025, when JNIM announced a campaign to sever Mali's strategic supply lines from Niger, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, and Guinea. Since then, more than 300 fuel tankers have been destroyed or disabled, drivers have been killed or abducted, and escorted convoys have repeatedly come under attack despite Malian military protection (Africa Defense Forum, September 23, 2025; Al Jazeera, November 6, 2025; BBC News, November 12, 2025).
At first glance, the blockade appears to be a classic insurgent tactic: asymmetric warfare targeting logistics to undermine a militarized regime. Yet its deeper significance lies elsewhere. The crisis has reactivated unresolved historical anxieties across the Sahel: memories of state collapse, ethnic repression, abandonment, and humiliation. These memories shape how communities interpret the present and why political responses repeatedly escalate rather than stabilize.
The Sahel's conflict cannot be understood or resolved without grappling with these collective psychological dynamics. Vamik Volkan's theory of large-group psychology examines how overlapping chosen traumas among states, ethnic communities, and armed actors generate a persistent "eternal yesterday," trapping the region in cyclical violence and empowering jihadist movements. The past has not been just one day but rather an endless repetition, which has looped the region in the winding road of violence and nourished militant Islamic groups.
Chosen Trauma and Time Collapse in the Sahel
Volkan defines his theory of a chosen trauma as a collective psychological image of a historical event involving loss, humiliation, or a similar experience that has become the core of the group's identity and is passed down from one generation to the next (Volkan, 1997)./[1] Such traumas are not created; they are, instead, remembered, ritualized, and politicized in ways that give them particular significance. The result is a time collapse in which the past and the present merge emotionally, and political behavior becomes reactive, absolutist, and resistant to compromise when contemporary stressors resemble or resonate with the original wound.
The Sahel is an area where this phenomenon is likely to occur. The region forms a belt running from Mauritania to Chad, including countries whose borders were drawn by external powers, which influenced their post-colonial histories through rebellions and repression, and where public loyalty to the government remains relatively weak. In 2012, jihadist insurgencies marked the beginning of new violence on top of the already existing grievances. These insurgencies have continued till the present day. The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) recorded that the political violence in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger remained at very high levels in 2024, with the instability spreading and the death toll running into thousands due to the increased militant activity (ACLED, December, 12, 2024). Rather than replacing older conflicts, jihadism has created new ones.
Tuareg Chosen Trauma: Suppression, Betrayal, and Kidal
The Tuareg communities' memories--particularly in northern Mali--have a historical background marked by cycles of revolt, repression, and unfulfilled political agreements. The traumatic experience was the 1963-1964 uprising, known locally as Alfellaga, against the newly independent government of Modibo Keita. The uprising was put down with tremendous cruelty: the destruction of villages, the massacre of civilians, the poisoning of water sources, and the arrest or extradition of tribal leaders by neighboring countries such as Algeria and Morocco. Tuareg oral history continues to recount these events (CRU Report, 2015).
A series of rebellions in the 1990s--culminating in the Tamanrasset Accords and subsequent uprisings in the mid-2000s--called for decentralization, development, and political inclusion. The implementation of the accords remains very low and selective, thereby solidifying the trauma. Kidal gradually became not only a strategically important town but also a symbolic place where the Tuaregs' dignity, autonomy, and empty promises were stored (Sahel Research Group, March 2014).
Tuareg rebels saw the late 2023 Malian forces' return to Kidal with the support of Russia not as the beginning of law and order but as the repetition of a history of repression. The reports of human rights abuses against civilians during the operations that followed, which were documented by Human Rights Watch, reactivated past traumas and created even more alienation among the people. As a result, some groups within the population began to resort to tactical, non-ideological collaboration with jihadist actors, viewing it as the only option (Mali; ACLED, December 12, 2024; Human Rights Watch, World Report 2025).
Mali's Foundational Wound: The Loss of the North (2012)
Political and military leaders in Mali regard the 2012 insurgent outbreaks not only as a military defeat but also as a generational trauma (mouryyaniger.com, November 14, 2023)./[2] State authority over the northern part of the country crumbled fast after the Tuareg-led rebellion, and soon, the advances of the jihadists shattered the myth of the post-colonial era of unity. In a matter of weeks, the Malian army deserted the military posts they occupied in Kidal, Gao, and Timbuktu, which resulted in a coup in Bamako and the division of the country into two parts: the north and the south (Al Jazeera, March 22, 2012; see Hot Issue, March 23, 2012 allafrica.com, March 24, 2012; United Nations Security Council, November 28, 2012).
France's Operation Serval--which aided the Malian government--retook the lost territories of the north in 2013, but the mental trauma, nonetheless, remained. The Malian state perceived 2012 as a year of suffering, during which both insiders and outsiders contributed to the downfall beyond the limits of forgiveness. In response to this trauma, the Malian government's political responses are as follows: sovereignty must be proclaimed at any cost, and negotiating with the northern tribes is tantamount to the loss of the entire nation (Al Jazeera, September 6, 2024).
This situation became evident in 2023-2024, when the Malian junta withdrew from the Algiers Peace Accord and launched military operations to retake Kidal from the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA). Although it was labelled a restoration of law and order, the campaign rekindled the 2012 experiences in Bamako and the north alike. By 2025, the violence from jihadists increased correspondingly with the progress of the state forces, as JNIM roused the bitterness of the north and presented itself as the only power that could ever protect the south from being re-occupied (ACLED, September 21, 2023).
The fuel blockade has brought this wound to the surface again. The Malian government--which has lost two-thirds of its territory in recent years--now struggles to secure its economic lifelines. Public discourse in Bamako is increasingly framed in existential terms, thereby narrowing the space for pragmatic de-escalation as the siege mentality intensifies.
Fulani Trauma: From Marginalization to Massacre
The Fulani (Peulh) pastoralists of central Mali, northern Burkina Faso, and western Niger are the community that most clearly demonstrates the deliberate exploitation of trauma as a tactic. The ever-strained relations over land use, movements of herding, and political sidelining grew even more dramatic after 2015, when jihadist factions that had implanted themselves in the already state-deficient and competition-ridden areas of the Fulani turned them into battlegrounds.
Violent conflicts have come to define the memory of the Fulani people. The massacre at Ogossagou in 2019, where more than 160 Fulani non-combatants fell victim to Dogon militias, is drawn as a trauma, widely interpreted as a state's failure to protect, if not cooperation in violence (International Crisis Group, March 25, 2019; Human Rights Watch, Mali, March 18, 2020).
The Moura killings of March 2022, during a joint operation by Malian forces and Russian auxiliaries, have intensified the views of state-sponsored persecution. Reports from Human Rights Watch and International Crisis Group characterize these occurrences as amongst the most lethal instances of civilian casualty in Mali, thus reinforcing the Fulani belief of being collectively targeted (International Crisis, March 19, 2019; Human Rights Watch, April 5, 2022).
According to ACLED data, between 2018 and 2025, thousands of civilians were killed each year in the violence that was either communal or state-related in the central Sahel area, with the Fulani communities suffering the most (ACLED, October 8, 2025). These communities have used these developments as proof of an anti-Fulani identity campaign to justify the jihad as a form of self-defensive struggle rather than an ideological one (see Terrorism Monitor, November 7, 2025).
In this situation, time collapse is evident. The contemporary security operations are viewed through the histories of extermination that have been narrated over time, and this makes it socially dangerous and mentally unfeasible to dissociate from violent groups. Violence is therefore constantly reproduced through both the collective memory and the material incentives.
Military Trauma and the Politics of Humiliation
The armed forces in the Sahel region are not merely neutral tools of state policy; rather, they are traumatized institutions. Over the years, a combination of battlefield defeats, inadequate equipment, and enduring corruption has fostered widespread humiliation among junior officers and other ranks. The military coups in Mali (2020 and 2021), Burkina Faso (2022), and Niger (2023) can be seen as part of the process where the military tried to regain their lost honor through an expression of disgruntlement towards the civilian leaders who were viewed as corrupt, inefficient, and detached from the soldiers' suffering (DW, August 19, 2020; X/@olivier_salgado, May 25, 2021; Le Monde, September 30, 2022; New Afrique, July 27, 2023).
This humiliation can be understood as a form of institutionalized trauma. The series of defeats, from the collapse of the northern part of Mali in 2012 to the still ongoing ambushes in central areas, was experienced as collective shame. The junior officers paid the price on the front lines, while the senior elites reaped the benefits of corruption, creating a narrative of betrayal that was shared in the barracks' culture and public discourse. The coups were psychological "cleansing" events, interpreted as necessary breaks to regain power, dignity, and the national objective.
This reasoning is evident in the junta's statements and actions. In Mali, Colonel Assimi Goita's coup followed protests against corruption and security issues under President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. The military presented itself as the only protector of sovereignty (International Crisis Group, December 3, 2024; Africa is a Country, October 27, 2025). In Burkina Faso, Captain Ibrahim Traore's 2022 counter-coup was marked by decisive action and rejected what he considered weak, foreign-influenced embellishments (Le Monde, May 25, 2024). The 2023 coup in Niger was a clear indication that top military officers were dissatisfied with President Mohamed Bazoum's approach to security and regarded him as a figure dependent on external actors (International Crisis Group, October 4, 2023; May 22, 2025).
The expulsion of French forces and the rejection of UN missions further illustrate this search for psychological redemption. Operations Barkhane and MINUSMA increasingly symbolized neo-colonial humiliation--foreign troops operating on sovereign territory with limited accountability and contested effectiveness (Benbere, November 8, 2019; Mali Actu, January 12, 2023). Their removal enabled junta leaders to present themselves as sovereign avengers restoring national pride, a narrative reinforced by public celebrations during the French withdrawal (Benbere, December 31, 2022).
Russian security partnerships served as an alternative symbolic framework of a different nature. Through the Wagner Group deployments--later formalized under Russia's Africa Corps--Moscow provided unconditional military assistance framed as respect for sovereignty and equality (see EDM, July 16, 2025). This pivot reframed Sahelian militaries from humiliated dependents to assertive actors choosing their alliances (The Sentry, August, 2025)
This redemption proved illusory, however. Russian-linked operations have been implicated in serious violations, the most notable being the Moura massacre, which has been documented by both Human Rights Watch and UN experts as one of the conflict's worst atrocities (Human Rights Watch, April 5, 2022). ACLED data connects Malian and Russian forces with over 1,400 civilian deaths between 2024 and mid-2025 (ACLED, July 4, 2025; Africa Defense Forum, November 12, 2025). These abuses create new communal traumas, especially among the Fulani and Tuareg groups, thus reinforcing the jihadist recruitment narratives and eroding the legitimacy the juntas sought to restore.
In effect, the military trauma of the Sahel region operates as a self-reinforcing loop: humiliation leads to coups and shifts in alliances; brutal counterinsurgency tactics create new civilian traumas; and these traumas ultimately empower jihadist actors. If these institutional and societal wounds are not dealt with through the means of accountability, restraint, and inclusive political processes, the cycle of humiliation and violence will continue.
Matrix for Sahelian Trauma
Historical Trauma - Time Collapse - Militarization - Civilian Harm - Recruitment - Insurgency - New Trauma
Conclusion
The Jihadist insurgency in the Sahel--represented by JNIM's tight control over Mali's supply routes since September 2025--is not just a matter of combating violent extremism. It is a confrontation with historical traumas (African Centre for Strategic Studies, December 17, 2025).
Volkan's notion of "chosen trauma"--collective, mythologized memories of historical loss, humiliation, or victimization transmitted across generations--helps explain much of the region's apparent political and strategic irrationality. Societies trapped in this framework live in an "eternal yesterday," where unresolved past wounds dictate present behavior. In the Sahel, these wounds include the Tuareg repression dating back to 1963, the 2012 collapse of the Malian state, Tuareg repression dating back to 1963, Fulani massacres since 2019, and military humiliation under corrupt civilian regimes. Together, they foster reactive absolutism, render compromise synonymous with betrayal, and lock actors into cycles of retaliation that empower jihadists rather than resolve conflict (Security Council Report, April 2025; ACLED, December 11, 2025).
This produces a self-reinforcing dynamic. State military operations reactivate ethnic memories of repression, driving tactical--often reluctant--alliances with jihadist groups. Jihadist recruitment then exploits narratives of persecution to radicalize youth. Brutal counterterrorism campaigns, including Russian-backed operations implicated in mass civilian abuse, generate new traumas that feed the next round of insurgency. The failure is therefore not merely tactical or operational; it is psychological and structural, creating an impasse in which negotiation, reconciliation, or power-sharing becomes emotionally and politically impossible (R4 Sahel, January 1).
Why the Cycle Persists
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Approach ... Intended Goal ... Actual Effect
Military offensives ... Restore state control ... Reactivates ethnic trauma
Russian-backed force ... Sovereign redemption ... Mass abuses -> backlash
Drone strikes ... Precision targeting ... Civilian fear & radicalization
Aid without reconciliation ... Stabilization ... Dependency & resentment
Suppression of memory ... National unity ... Deepened fragmentation
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Failure to acknowledge and resolve historical issues will entrench a permanent conflict system in the Sahel, continuing to be a source of instability for the region and contributing to the decay of governance and the prolongation of humanitarian crises (Africa News Room, January 8).
[1] Volkan, Vamik D. (1997). Bloodlines: From Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism. 1st ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
[2] Boisvert, Marc-Andre (2019). The Malian Armed Forces and its discontents: civil-military relations, cohesion and the resilience of a postcolonial military institution in the aftermath of the 2012 crisis. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.
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Chris Mensah-Ankrah is a geopolitical risk analyst specializing in counterterrorism, organized crime, OSINT and natural resource, conflict, and electoral risk in West Africa and the Sahel.
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Original text here: https://jamestown.org/sahels-eternal-yesterday-chosen-traumas-sustain-jihadist-violence/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Jamestown Foundation Posts Commentary: Georgia Risks Diminished Position in South Caucasus's Connectivity
WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 -- The Jamestown Foundation posted the following commentary on Jan. 29, 2026, in its Eurasia Daily Monitor:* * *
Georgia Risks Diminished Position in South Caucasus's Connectivity
By Beka Chedia
Executive Summary:
* On January 20, speaking at the World Economic Forum, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated that cargo flows between Azerbaijan and Armenia could soon take a direct route that bypasses Georgia, intensifying regional transit realignments that threaten Georgia's traditional transit role amid Armenia and Azerbaijan's diplomatic progress.
* In December 2025, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 -- The Jamestown Foundation posted the following commentary on Jan. 29, 2026, in its Eurasia Daily Monitor: * * * Georgia Risks Diminished Position in South Caucasus's Connectivity By Beka Chedia Executive Summary: * On January 20, speaking at the World Economic Forum, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated that cargo flows between Azerbaijan and Armenia could soon take a direct route that bypasses Georgia, intensifying regional transit realignments that threaten Georgia's traditional transit role amid Armenia and Azerbaijan's diplomatic progress. * In December 2025,a dispute over Georgian tariffs on Azerbaijani oil traveling through Georgia to Armenia exposed growing tensions, weakening the Georgia-Azerbaijan partnership and fueling fears that Georgia may be marginalized in the evolving Middle Corridor transit system.
* While neighbors advance new connectivity projects, Georgia risks losing leverage by exclusion from key forums and tentative involvement in Russia-linked transit initiatives through its occupied territories, undermining Georgian sovereignty, credibility, and its long-term role in South Caucasian logistics.
On January 20, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated that cargo flows between Azerbaijan and Armenia would soon take a direct route that bypasses Georgia (Facebook/radiotavisupleba, January 21). According to Aliyev, Armenia has also raised the possibility of using Azerbaijani territory for cargo transportation between Armenia and Russia. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgia was Armenia's only gateway to the outside world--primarily to Russia--for decades. Georgia played this role due to Armenia's strained relations with Azerbaijan and Turkiye, which blocked alternative routes. Following the August 8 meeting in Washington between Armenia and Azerbaijan, however, the process of unblocking regional transit routes in the South Caucasus has intensified (see EDM, September 3, 8, 11, October 15, November 6, 2025). Georgia's passive foreign policy and increased international isolation is leading Tbilisi to lose political and economic leverage as a key transit state.
Aliyev's statement was met with a deliberately calm response from the ruling Georgian Dream party. Member of Parliament and Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Regional Policy and Local Government Irakli Kadagishvili stated, "Georgia will not lose any function." According to him, the country will not be destroyed because of this and will remain part of the existing logistical chain. Kadagishvili also claimed that Aliyev's statements were taken out of context and misinterpreted (Kvirispalitra.ge, January 22). Within the Georgian opposition, it is believed that the development of the Middle Corridor is unfolding in a way that risks Georgia losing its key role in the transit ecosystem of the region (Interpressnews, January 21). According to the "Lelo" party, Georgia faces a real risk of becoming a buffer zone between Russia and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries, without economic prospects or security guarantees (Interpressnews, January 22). The "United National Movement" went further, stating that "under the current regime, Georgia risks becoming a geographic dead end" (Gruziya Online, January 22).
Aliyev's statement in Davos was preceded by a tariff dispute between Georgia and Armenia and Azerbaijan. In December 2025, Azerbaijani state media criticized the Georgian government, accusing it of acting against peaceful projects in the region. These media outlets claimed that Georgian customs officers were systematically mistreating Azerbaijani cargo (Minval Politika, December 5, 2025). Georgia reportedly requested a tariff of $92 per ton for the use of a 111-kilometer (69-mile) section of Georgian territory for the transit of Azerbaijani oil to Armenia (Minval Politika, December 5, 2025). Azerbaijani authorities did not openly acknowledge the dispute with Georgia, instead limiting their involvement through state-controlled media. In contrast, the Armenian Ministry of Economy officially confirmed the dispute over tariffs on the transit of Azerbaijani oil, saying that the rates proposed by Georgia were uncompetitive (Radio Tavisupleba, December 25, 2025).
At the end of December 2025, relations between Azerbaijan and Georgia were seriously strained for the first time in history, when the Azerbaijani government, through its media, indirectly threatened the Georgian government. One of the headlines in the Azerbaijani media read, "Tbilisi is testing Baku's patience" (Minval Politika, December 5, 2025). Such a tone appeared for the first time and may hurt Tbilisi-Baku relations in the future. The tariff conflict was later suspended by Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, who announced that both countries were exempted from any tariffs for a one-time shipment, and the first cargo of Azerbaijani oil to Armenia was sent free of charge (Business Media, December 8, 2025; YouTube/@AnewZ_TV, December 18, 2025).
The strategic partnership between Georgia and Azerbaijan is rooted in shared economic interests and regional priorities, dating back to the 1990s. The first president of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, and the second president of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze, initiated this partnership (YouTube/@theeduardshevardnadzecente4725, November 19, 2025). Georgia and Azerbaijan have shared economic interests and play a significant role in ensuring Europe's energy security. On January 16, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) announced the start of Azerbaijani gas deliveries through Georgia, Turkiye, Greece, Albania, and Italy to Austria and Germany (Facebook/SOCARofficial, January 16).
Azerbaijan and Armenia's desire to establish direct cargo traffic also appears logical, given their shared land border. At the moment, however, the infrastructure in these countries is not ready for the immediate resumption of direct rail cargo transportation. Armenia is also proposing that Baku begin cargo transportation to Russia, and vice versa, which naturally affects Georgia's interests. The only official land border checkpoint with Russia, however, operates in a limited mode and cannot ensure the timely delivery of goods to their destinations (Facebook/ExpressNews.ge, January 21). At the same time, when announcing new transit routes, Aliyev did not indicate any intention to halt logistical connections with Georgia. He noted that the new routes are meant to complement, not replace, existing ones, and that Georgia remains an important transit partner. Georgian expert and Director of the Transport Corridor Research Center Paata Tsagareishvili believes that ultimately, as the pan-Turkic countries accelerate the transformation of transport routes, a route may emerge within the Middle Corridor that could become a competitor to the Georgian route (Interpressnews, January 22).
For the second year in a row, Kobakhidze has not received an invitation to the World Economic Forum in Davos. In January, the newly established "Board of Peace" invited Armenia and Azerbaijan to participate, while Georgia was excluded. Georgian Dream has, in recent years, emphasized its commitment to peace as a central achievement, regularly claiming that Georgia has remained the only country in the region without war during its rule. Opposition politician and former president of the National Bank of Georgia, Roman Gotsiridze, sees Georgia's non-invitation--at a time when even many authoritarian countries were invited--as evidence of Georgia's complete international isolation, leaving the country without friends or allies (Interpressnews, January 22). Leaders of Georgia's ruling elite, however, explain the exclusion by noting the absence of an ongoing war in Georgia. Vice Speaker of the Georgian Parliament Giorgi Volski claimed that the countries invited to the peace council are those experiencing severe conflict-related processes (Facebook/Mtavarinow, January 21). Nevertheless, these developments underscore that relying solely on peace rhetoric without active diplomacy and participation in shaping the region's new security and logistics architecture risks Georgia's marginalization and the loss of diplomatic significance in the South Caucasus.
Georgia is increasingly becoming involved in Moscow's transit initiatives while its neighbors develop regional transit projects. Earlier reports have raised the possibility of transit routes from Russia through Georgia and, in the opposite direction, through Georgia's Russian-occupied breakaway territory of Abkhazia. There is even a customs terminal being constructed on the occupied territory of Abkhazia near the part of Georgia under Tbilisi's control. According to available information, the project is being implemented with the support of the Russian non-governmental organization Assembly of the Peoples of the World, headed by former head of the Federal Customs Service of Russia, Andrey Belyaninov (Ekho Kavkaza, January 21). Local media reports that former Georgian Minister of State Security Igor Giorgadze, who was sentenced in absentia in Georgia for organizing a terrorist act against Shevardnadze, is the deputy chairman of the Assembly of the Peoples of the World. In the 1990s, Giorgadze fled to Russia, where he remains in hiding. For many years, he stayed in the shadows, appearing only occasionally in Russian state media, particularly during the rule of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, whom he regularly criticized. Now, however, Giorgadze has again drawn attention as one of the leaders and active organizers of the terminal between Abkhazia and the part of Georgia still under Tbilisi's control.
It appears that the customs terminal in Abkhazia is not an isolated case (Ekho Kavkaza, January 21). In another occupied region of Georgia--the Tskhinvali region, also known as South Ossetia--another, equally notable transit project is also being discussed. As with the Abkhazian customs terminal, official Georgian Dream representatives have not confirmed their participation. The authorities of breakaway South Ossetia, together with the Russian state development corporation VEB.RF, are working on a Transcaucasian railway project planned to run from Russia through South Ossetia and the rest of Georgia, then continue toward the Middle East. The leader of Russian-occupied South Ossetia, Alan Gagloev, claims that this route could become the shortest connection from Russia to the Middle East (Kvirispalitra.ge, January 6).
Georgia seeks to strengthen its role as a transit hub and compete with neighboring countries while attempting to incorporate Russian-occupied territories into its logistics plans. This creates the appearance of concern for restoring Georgia's territorial integrity and of having some form of agreement with Russia. In reality, this undermines the country's sovereignty. As a result, the pursuit of transit advantages may ultimately conflict with Georgia's national interests. Internal instability and questions about the legitimacy of the Georgian Dream government place the country at a disadvantage when implementing geoeconomic projects. Connectivity projects increasingly involve dubious actors from Russia and the occupied regions, since an unstable Georgia is a less attractive partner for other international partners.
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Dr. Beka Chedia is a political scientist from Tbilisi, Georgia. He is currently a professor of political science and a Tbilisi-based Country Expert (Georgia) for the independent research institute Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) at the Department of Political Science of the University of Gothenburg, in Sweden.
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Original text here: https://jamestown.org/georgia-risks-diminished-position-in-south-caucasuss-connectivity/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Jamestown Foundation Issues Commentary: Giving North Caucasus Veterans Land in Homelands Could Trigger Conflict
WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on Jan. 29, 2026, in its Eurasia Daily Monitor:* * *
Giving North Caucasus Veterans Land in Homelands Could Trigger Conflict
By Paul Goble
Executive Summary:
* Programs giving land to North Caucasian veterans of Russia's war against Ukraine in the North Caucasus are exacerbating ethnic tensions in those land-short republics, especially in cases where those who are not given land are a different nationality than those receiving it.
* These programs are especially fraught because many returning veterans have weapons ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on Jan. 29, 2026, in its Eurasia Daily Monitor: * * * Giving North Caucasus Veterans Land in Homelands Could Trigger Conflict By Paul Goble Executive Summary: * Programs giving land to North Caucasian veterans of Russia's war against Ukraine in the North Caucasus are exacerbating ethnic tensions in those land-short republics, especially in cases where those who are not given land are a different nationality than those receiving it. * These programs are especially fraught because many returning veterans have weaponsand military training, a reason why Moscow stopped the draft in the North Caucasus after 1991 and later, for many years, took a smaller percentage of men from there than elsewhere.
* Moscow will certainly end these programs if they cause violence in the North Caucasus. The Kremlin would dispatch more forces there in response to increased conflict, which could become political, another way that the end of Putin's war against Ukraine could lead to less stability in the Russian Federation.
Officials in Moscow and Russia's federal subjects have been struggling to reintegrate veterans of Russian President Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine. Reintegration efforts intensified in recent months after a Kremlin official made a report, which Moscow has since denied, that 250,000 veterans have not found work (Radio Svoboda, January 26). Unemployed veterans are more likely to turn to crime to survive, a major fear of many Russians (see EDM, April 14, 2022, January 19, 2024, September 24, 2024, May 29, June 26, July 10, September 11, 2025; Window on Eurasia, October 16, 2025). Some of these veterans may choose to channel their anger politically. Because of those risks, regional officials are seeking to put in place new means of re-integrating such veterans. One approach, adopted by Ingushetia and some other republics in the North Caucasus, involves giving veterans land (Fortanga.org; Kavkaz.Realii, May 15, 2025). This approach has so far attracted little attention. If this program expands, as seems to be happening, however, it is likely to spark violence, reigniting some of the conflicts that roiled that region during the first two decades after 1991. Renewed armed conflict in the North Caucasus would force Moscow to intervene more forcefully than in recent years, with consequences for the region and the Russian Federation as a whole.
Almost a year ago, Mahmud-Ali Kalimatov, the head of the Ingush Republic, announced that his government plans to give land to veterans to reintegrate them into peaceful life (Fortanga.org; Kavkaz.Realii, May 15, 2025). Local observers immediately expressed concern that this program would exacerbate ethnic and sub-ethnic divides and could trigger violence because Ingushetia is one of the poorest republics in the Russian Federation, has serious ethnic problems with its neighbors, and suffers from land shortages given a burgeoning population (Telegram/@fortangaorg, April 11, 2023; Telegram/@sunzha_rayon, April 14, 2025). Despite that, Kalimatov has now announced that he has given land plots to more than 800 veterans, a number he expects to increase as more veterans return home from Ukraine (Fortanga.org, January 12).
Ingushetia is not the only republic to have adopted such a policy. Last year, Dagestan, the largest and most ethnically mixed republic in the North Caucasus, launched a program to hand out land parcels to returning veterans. This program threatened to explode when officials gave land to returning veterans of one nationality, the Avars, but not to those of a different nationality, the Chechens (Kavkaz.Realii, November 15, 2024). Not only were the local Chechens outraged, but Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov threatened to intervene on their behalf. Moscow dissuaded him, and because the Avars and the Chechens of Dagestan have been in conflict for so long, this development was widely interpreted as simply the latest stage of that conflict. Less attention was given to how the handing out of land to returning veterans was the trigger (Kavkazskii Uzel, February 26, 2025). As of January, the Dagestani authorities have given out almost 1,700 free parcels of land to returning veterans (RIA Novosti, January 29).
These problems are threatening to explode because Moscow and St. Petersburg are the only two federal subjects that have sent more of their men to fight in Ukraine than the republics of the North Caucasus relative to population (The Moscow Times, January 5). That means they will have a disproportionate number of veterans to reintegrate, all of whom have military training and many of whom will have weapons. That may strike many as surprising, given that for many years after 1991, Moscow did not draft men from the non-Russian nationalities of the region and later took them at a rate lower than elsewhere. This policy was a reaction to conflicts in the North Caucasus, and because of Russian commanders' opposition to having North Caucasians in their ranks. Moscow feared soldiers would acquire weapons and skills to later resist Russian power in their republics (see North Caucasus Weekly, July 10, 2012; see EDM, November 20, 2014).
A decade ago, Moscow began drafting non-Russians from the North Caucasus at higher rates. This was relatively easy because many men wanted to get their "military ticket" so that they could get jobs with the police after returning to civilian life and were even prepared to bribe their way into the military (Window on Eurasia, October 28, 2018, January 4, 2020). When Putin launched his expanded war against Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin leader took in still more men from the North Caucasus because there was less resistance to the draft there and far higher numbers of men in the prime draft age cohort. Birthrates in the North Caucasus remain much higher than among Russians or other non-Russian minorities. Putin has to increase North Caucasian troops despite continuing opposition of the overwhelmingly ethnic Russian officer corps (see EDM, March 1, 2022).
Experts in Moscow and the North Caucasus have long recognized that land disputes, triggered by the arrival of outsiders or returnees, can cause conflict. They often report on them case by case but rarely generalize about the problem. An important exception was Akhmed Yarlykanov, a senior specialist at the Moscow Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, who pointed out more than a decade ago that "the ethnic factor really plays an important role in the development of land conflicts" in the region, with longtime residents angered by the demands of arrivals (Vestnik Kavkaza, December 20, 2011). That is especially the case when the arrivals use land for purposes different from those of the older residents, when the claims of the former lack a legal foundation, or when the new arrivals occupy so much land that existing settlements cannot expand because they have been surrounded. In Dagestan in particular, the ethnographer observed, "a danger exists" that these conflicts will take on an "ethno-political" character. He noted "calls to solve the problem" by separating the Dagestani lowlands from the highlands by setting up "territorial formations for the residents of the valleys and so on."
For decades, analysts in Russia and the West have focused on the problems posed by the multinational composition of Moscow's army for the Kremlin. Now, given what is happening as ever more veterans return home, they are going to have to pay more attention to what the non-Russians among them are doing. Some certainly are turning to crime, but others may engage in violence directed toward political ends, including opposition to Moscow's increasingly Russian nationalist approach and supporting their national independence (Window on Eurasia, April 24, 2025; Kavkaz.Realii, July 9, 2025). If the number of North Caucasian veterans willing to engage in political violence increases--and there is every reason to think they will, since many of these veterans have guns, and because of the behavior of officials in their republics--then the Kremlin will face a more serious challenge in the North Caucasus than it has since the 1990s. This prospect is another way that the end of Putin's war against Ukraine may not lead to stability in the Russian Federation, but to even greater instability and more threats to Putin.
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Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia.
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Original text here: https://jamestown.org/giving-north-caucasus-veterans-land-in-homelands-could-trigger-conflict/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Capital Research Center Issues Commentary: Big Labor's Bid to Kill Its Golden State
WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following commentary on Jan. 29, 2026:* * *
Big Labor's bid to kill its Golden State
California should be America's Golden State. But the local SEIU has a ballot proposal to seize the gold and drive away the people who bring it in.
* * *
"I recollect, when I was lamenting to the Doctor [Adam Smith] the misfortunes of the American war, and exclaimed, "If we go on at this rate, the nation must be ruined; he answered, 'Be assured, my young friend, that there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.'" - Sir John Sinclair, recalling a conversation ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following commentary on Jan. 29, 2026: * * * Big Labor's bid to kill its Golden State California should be America's Golden State. But the local SEIU has a ballot proposal to seize the gold and drive away the people who bring it in. * * * "I recollect, when I was lamenting to the Doctor [Adam Smith] the misfortunes of the American war, and exclaimed, "If we go on at this rate, the nation must be ruined; he answered, 'Be assured, my young friend, that there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.'" - Sir John Sinclair, recalling a conversationwith Adam Smith
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By Michael Watson
Big Labor, not content merely to raise taxes to fund itself (with the occasional "extra steps"), is pushing an expropriation of private property in California to fund health care for illegal immigrants. This is absolutely, positively real, and it risks wrecking the economic future of Big Labor's long-standing Golden State.
On the Golden State
California should be the greatest state in the Union. Its climate may not be matched anywhere in the world. Its natural beauty helped inspire the great wave of conservation at the turn of the 20th century. Its industrial might built the war machine that defeated first the Nazis and Imperial Japanese and later the Soviet Communists. Its culture defined the American Dream of the post-World War II era. And its high technology industry has made America's computing sector the envy of the world.
But its Achilles' Heel has long been its government, infused for over a century with a strong progressive tendency and Progressive Era structures, especially its system of government-by-ballot-initiative. That system was once an idealistic bet on the wisdom of the public, self-government, and direct democracy. But in recent decades the California ballot has become a battlefield for well-funded special interest groups to fight each other. (Perhaps nothing illustrates this more vividly than 2024's Proposition 33 and Proposition 34, dueling measures pushed by and targeting the radical-left housing group AIDS Healthcare Foundation respectively.)
There is always a labor angle
Enter stage far-left the Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers-West, or SEIU UHW-West for short. The union has historically been one of the most powerful in Big Labor's Golden State, and it has frankly abused the ballot initiative system to advance its organizing goals. As I wrote before:
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SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West has used the California statewide ballot to repeatedly wage battle with dialysis clinics the union hopes to organize. The Santa Rosa Press-Democrat editorial board called the 2018 version of the ballot battle "an abuse of the initiative system" in its editorial calling on voters to reject the SEIU's measure. Between spending on the 2018 measure and a 2020 successor measure, both of which failed by wide margins, the SEIU has staked $25 million against the clinics' over $200 million in the battle of attrition. While SEIU-UHW leader Dave Regan has denied that the series of initiatives is a unionization tactic, a representative of the left-leaning organization Consumer Watchdog told Politico, "He [Regan] doesn't need to win to win . . . and that's the abuse of the initiative process."
To the extent it uses the initiative process as a pain point to support its organizing, SEIU-UHW is merely operating in standard procedure for unions exploiting California legislation and constitutional structure.
* * *
But harassing dialysis clinics is not enough for SEIU UHW-West. Fearing a shortfall in California's Medicaid program (which, incidentally, gives state-subsidized health coverage to illegal immigrants) from declining federal subsidies, the union has proposed a massive asset seizure unprecedented in American history. The technology-industry-focused media outlet Pirate Wires describes the proposal:
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The ballot prop would impose a "one-time" 5% asset seizure on residents with a net worth over $1 billion, including everything from cash, property, and the watch on your wrist to, most insanely, illiquid and unrealized equity. Ostensibly, this is being done so poor Californians can finally have healthcare, but actually, as I uncovered in November, it's largely not about Californians at all. Due to cuts to federal Medicaid spending, California is anticipating upwards of a $100 billion budget shortfall, maybe more, in the state's healthcare system over the next five years. Thus, the talking point from the union behind the asset seizure is roughly: we have to levy this "one-time, emergency tax on around 200 to 300 people" to keep emergency rooms from going bankrupt. What the heroic, emergency room-saving union leaves out is California's state-funded healthcare programs are, uh, generous: new state legislation, for instance, guaranteed taxpayer-funded healthcare for all illegal immigrants at a cost of something like $12.5 billion last year.
* * *
Pirate Wires discussed the proposal with almost two dozen of the figures who might be affected, and most said they would leave the state if the SEIU got its way. While it would not protect them from the retroactivity clause in the ballot measure, it would protect them from the almost-certain return to the well the union (and the state's hegemonic left-wing political movement) would undertake when the first raid on private property proved insufficient to pay for medicine for California's illegal population forever. They also expressed sentiments that because the ballot measure defines expropriate-able property in a way that makes privately held firms or special classes of public stock essentially impossible to hold, the technology industry that has kept California's economy afloat since the 1990s will have to undertake a mass exodus.
Lessons for the class
In short, SEIU UHW-West is risking killing Big Labor's Golden State (or at least its economic driver, the high-tech industry of Silicon Valley) in order to prop up health care for illegal immigrants. This feat of leftism intersects with two of the major issues that I expend so much effort trying to raise, so I will now raise them.
First, Big Labor is Everything Leftism (and always has been). While I usually discuss Everything Leftism in terms of non-economic issues, it is also an economically leftist movement, and nothing is more economically leftist than class warfare to seize the means of production for the state. (If you can get to the Kremlin wall these days, just ask the ashes of socialist American labor unionist Big Bill Haywood, who was interred there by Joe Stalin's government.) But when some claim that organized labor has a "conservative heart," it is important to illustrate just how comprehensively wrong that is.
Second, it is important to remember just how committed Big Labor is to de facto open borders. SEIU UHW-West is all but staking the future of its state--which has been so friendly to the union movement that rides along on its climate, its innovation, its population size, its agricultural productivity and so forth--to get free health care for illegal immigrants.
Sure, the union, which represents hospital staff, has a pecuniary interest in the hospitals it organizes having more business. But this effort--a first in the nation property seizure that may cause Silicon Valley's firms to exit the state for more business-friendly (and right-to-work) climates in Texas, Florida, and the like--is much more than Samuel Gompers's "more wages" for workers. It is a declaration that SEIU UHW-West will risk everything--potentially the entire state's economic future--on welfare for illegal immigrants. And that should tell anyone more about where Big Labor is ideologically and where it would take America if let off its leash.
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Michael Watson
Michael is Research Director for Capital Research Center and serves as the managing editor for InfluenceWatch.
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Original text here: https://capitalresearch.org/article/big-labors-bid-to-kill-its-golden-state/
[Category: ThinkTank]
American Action Forum Issues Commentary: Health Care Extenders - Key Provisions in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026
WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 -- The American Action Forum issued the following commentary on Jan. 29, 2026:* * *
Health Care Extenders: Key Provisions in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026
By Nicolas Montenegro
Executive Summary
* On January 22, the House of Representatives passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 (H.R. 7148) to fund numerous agencies; the bipartisan bill also includes temporary "extenders" of health care programs, waivers, and moratoria, some of which are set to expire on January 30.
* The legislation also introduces new, but previously considered health policies, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 -- The American Action Forum issued the following commentary on Jan. 29, 2026: * * * Health Care Extenders: Key Provisions in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 By Nicolas Montenegro Executive Summary * On January 22, the House of Representatives passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 (H.R. 7148) to fund numerous agencies; the bipartisan bill also includes temporary "extenders" of health care programs, waivers, and moratoria, some of which are set to expire on January 30. * The legislation also introduces new, but previously considered health policies,including broad reforms to pharmacy benefit managers, new requirements for Medicare reimbursement, and authorizations for several public health initiatives.
* This insight reviews the legislation's "extenders" and the other policies that could have far-reaching implications for Medicare, Medicaid and the broader health care sector.
Introduction
On January 22, the House of Representatives passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 (H.R. 7148). The "minibus" combines several spending bills with additional standalone legislation from authorizing committees, funding many agencies until the end of the fiscal year. As in prior appropriation cycles, the legislation packages temporary "extenders" of health care programs, waivers, and moratoria, some of which are set to expire on January 30.
While H.R. 7148 contains a multitude of provisions that address Medicare, Medicaid, and the Food and Drug Administration, it notably includes a nearly two-year extension of Medicare telehealth flexibilities, a five-year extension of hospital-at-home waivers, and a one-year extension of funding for community health centers. The legislation also introduces many new policies, including broad reforms to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), new requirements for Medicare reimbursements, and authorizations for several public health initiatives. Notably, many of these policies were previously considered under past legislation and now must gain enough support to pass the Senate's 60-vote threshold.
While some of the wide-reaching legislation's amendments make only minor revisions to laws governing long-standing institutions, others could have profound, undetermined effects on the health care industry, impacting both government-supported programs and the private sector. This insight provides an overview of key health care sections featured in the House legislation ahead of a potential upcoming vote in the Senate.
Extensions of Programs, Waivers, and Moratoria
H.R. 7148 includes more than 60 provisions in its "Health Care Extenders" section (Division J). This analysis identified 21 sections that temporarily extend programs, waivers, and moratoria relating to the operation of Medicaid, Medicare, and other federal or state programs. In tandem with these extensions, the bill also streamlines enrollment for out-of-state Medicaid/CHIP providers, increases payment incentives for Medicare providers using alternative payment models, and reauthorizes several public education programs administered by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Public Health Programs
Division J reauthorizes several public health programs administered by the Human Resources and Services Administration. Specifically, the legislation allocates $4.6 billion to Community Health Centers (CHCs) for the remainder of fiscal year (FY) 2026, along with roughly $1.2 billion in bridge funding through December 31. These funds support a nationwide network of more than 1,500 CHC facilities delivering primary care services to low-income and uninsured patients. To help mitigate workforce challenges affecting CHCs and other health care providers, the bill also extends funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) and Teaching Health Centers Graduate Medical Education (THCGME) programs. The NHSC would receive nearly $440 million through December 31, 2026, to support scholarships and student loan repayments for primary care physicians working in Health Profession Shortage Areas. Similarly, THCGME programs, which train medical residents in rural and underserved areas, would receive $225 million for FY 2026, with annual funding increases of $25 million through FY 2029.
Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital Allotments
The legislation includes a provision that would extend the moratorium on scheduled reductions of disproportionate share hospitals (DSH) allotments immediately upon enactment. Federal law requires state Medicaid programs to provide supplemental payments to qualified DSHs, used to help offset the costs of delivering care to Medicaid and uninsured patients. Beginning in 2014, the Affordable Care Act mandated a gradual reduction of these DSH allotments based on the forecast that fewer Americans would require uncompensated care. Congress has since repeatedly delayed these cuts, however, fearing millions of Americans would lose access to essential care. With an impending $24 billion reduction in state Medicaid funding to DSHs over the next two fiscal years, H.R. 7148 authorizes a further delay of the planned allotment reductions until September 30, 2028. This temporary extension of the moratoria ensures sustained Medicaid funding for safety-net hospitals in all 50 states.
Medicare Telehealth Waivers
Originally authorized during the COVID-19 public health emergency, Medicare telehealth waivers allow all beneficiaries to receive care administered via remote methods - such as live video conferencing and audio-only communications - from an expanded list of health care providers. With widespread utilization of these waivers, previous legislative updates also established Federally Qualified Health Centers and Rural Health Clinics as eligible "distant site" providers, enabling them to bill Medicare regardless of whether virtual methods are used. In addition to extending telehealth waivers through December 31, 2027, H.R. 7148 introduces new requirements for telehealth reimbursement and transparency. More precisely, the bill would require the HHS secretary to establish unique billing codes or modifiers in instances when Medicare providers contract any third-party platforms to deliver telehealth services.
Hospital-at-Home Waivers
Acute Hospital Care at Home (AHCAH) waivers allow eligible hospitals to treat patients requiring acute-level care in their own homes through a combination of in-person and virtual visits. Last year, more than 400 hospitals nationwide used these waivers, treating both Medicare patients and those covered by other plans. Along with extending AHCAH waivers through September 30, 2030, H.R. 7148 appropriates $2.5 million to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to conduct a study comparing the quality and cost of hospital-at-home care against traditional inpatient hospital care. The results of this study would inform Congress on whether the program should be modified or made permanent. Furthermore, a separate section in the bill enables Medicare patients to receive cardiopulmonary rehabilitation care at home or via telehealth services through January 1, 2028, temporarily waiving the requirement that patients are physically present in an outpatient facility.
New Policies
While H.R. 7148 integrates traditional health care extenders, it also enacts programs through new authorizing language not traditionally found in appropriations packages. Some of these regulatory changes are discussed below, providing important context for evaluating their potential impact on existing government programs and commercial health care markets.
PBM Reforms
Of the new policies included in this legislation, the most notable pushes to address long-standing concerns related to pharmacy benefit managers. Three sections in the bill introduce broad reforms to PBMs and their affiliates by amending laws governing Medicare Part D and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). One new provision would require PBMs contracted with Medicare prescription drug plans (PDPs) to enter binding agreements that limit their compensation to only "bona fide service fees." These contracts would effectively delink PBM remunerations from a drug's list price. The bill clarifies, however, that certain incentive payments would remain permissible, provided such payments are a "flat dollar amount" consistent with a fair market value determined by the HHS secretary. Moreover, the legislation stipulates that PBMs must pass through 100 percent of all rebates, discounts, and price concessions negotiated with drug manufacturers directly to Medicare PDPs.
As in past efforts to reform PBMs, H.R. 7148 also mandates several transparency measures for PBMs contracted with employer-sponsored health insurance policies. Starting 30 months after enactment of the bill, PBMs would be required to periodically disclose pricing information - including all rebates negotiated with drug manufacturers - directly to plan sponsors and HHS. This information would expose any instances of PBMs charging health plans more than what they paid to the pharmacy for the same medication. Moreover, reports showing a sizeable difference between the gross and net price of each drug on plan formularies would be used to enforce the 100- percent rebate pass-through requirement. For PBMs integrated with their own mail-order or specialty pharmacies, the bill also mandates that such organizations report any benefit design parameters that encourage or require health plans to fill prescriptions exclusively at those pharmacies, a provision intended to identify self-steering practices.
Finally, the amendments to ERISA require that PBMs and their affiliates remit 100 percent of fees and rebates negotiated with manufacturers directly to contracted health plans within 90 days of the end of each financial quarter. The plans' fiduciaries would be responsible for conducting independent audits of PBM financial records to verify these rebate pass-throughs; however, the bill provides a "safe harbor" for plans that take reasonable steps to ensure PBM compliance. Organizations acting within this safe harbor would be exempt from any civil monetary penalties imposed by the Department of Labor.
Prescription Drugs
Language in H.R.7148 advances federal efforts to address health care access and affordability by amending laws governing both PDPs and prescription drug coverage. Notably, the bill would extend existing Medicare cost-sharing subsidies for low-income beneficiaries covered under the "Extra Help" program through plan year 2027, maintaining copayments caps of $1 for generic drugs and $3 for brand-name drugs. Beginning in plan year 2028 and each subsequent year, however, the bill mandates a reduction of copayments to $0 for generic drugs, while retaining a $3 copayment for preferred brand-name drugs, adjusted annually for inflation. This amendment is intended to promote Medicare Part D drug benefits for low-income seniors.
To improve pharmacy access for all Medicare Part D beneficiaries, the bill would require PDPs to allow any pharmacy to participate in their networks if the pharmacy meets "standard contract terms and conditions." Effective on the first of January 2029, all PDP contract terms and conditions would have to adhere to "reasonable and relevant" standards established by HHS and informed by input gathered through a public comment process. To ensure that such contract standards are enforced, the provision would establish a reporting mechanism, allowing pharmacies to notify HHS of any nonpliant PDPs subject to civil monetary penalties.
Food and Drug Administration
Title VI of Division J specifically amends laws governing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The bill implements provisions from the Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act, which aims to accelerate therapies indicated for children with cancers and rare diseases. Section 6601 requires sponsors of drugs and biologics targeting forms of cancer to study each molecule's pharmacological effect in children, regardless of whether the molecule is originally indicated for use in adults. The bill directs the FDA to issue draft guidance on the recommendations for these studies - including expectations for data on safety, dosing, and efficacy - within 12 months of the bill's enactment.
A separate provision of the bill reauthorizes the Rare Pediatric Disease Priority Review Voucher program until September 30, 2029. The program, which lapsed in 2024, allows the FDA to award transferable vouchers to sponsors of novel drugs and biologics indicated for rare pediatric diseases, shortening the agency's product review timeline by about four months. Notably, recipients may redeem these vouchers to obtain priority reviews for other categories of drugs or biologics under development.
Other FDA-focused reforms in the bill are intended to promote generic drug competition and modify standards for certain drug patent exclusivity. Section 6703 requires the FDA to provide more detailed feedback to sponsors of rejected generic drug applications, including exact information on how the sponsor can alter the drug's formulation to achieve brand-name comparability. By streamlining the development and approval process, this provision may encourage greater industry investment in generic medicines. Another section revises how Orphan Drug patent exclusivity is applied, changing the standard for patent protection from drugs for the "same disease of condition," to the "same approved use or indication within such rare disease or condition." This technical change allows generic competitors to market previously patent-protected drugs designated under orphan status for new uses or patient populations.
Hospitals
The legislation introduces several amendments that permanently modify how certain hospitals receive payments from Medicare and state Medicaid programs, specifically through updates to reimbursement standards for "off-campus" hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs) and new rules for calculating DSH payment adjustments. Section 6225 of the bill codifies site neutrality in some instances and mandates that, beginning January 1, 2028, Medicare plans cease reimbursement for services provided at "off campus" sites unless the hospital provider has established a unique National Provider Identifier from the main hospital campus. Moreover, these HOPDs would be required to submit a formal attestation verifying that each off-campus site meets federal integration standards. These provisions may lay the groundwork for future initiatives to enact site-neutral Medicare reimbursements.
Working in tandem with the delay to scheduled DSH allotment reductions, the bill authorizes a methodological change to how hospital-specific payment limits are calculated. Effective immediately upon enactment, the law would allow eligible DSHs to include the costs of treating Medicaid beneficiaries dually enrolled in Medicare or another health plan, provided the hospital can demonstrate an incurred aggregate financial loss on those services. By modifying this calculation, safety-net hospitals can effectively increase the maximum payment allotment they are eligible to receive from state Medicaid programs. To support this transition, the bill authorizes states a one-time option to use any unspent DSH allotments, dating back to FY 2022, to fund payments for hospitals that adopt this new payment adjustment model.
Rural Health Care
Certain provisions in the bill explicitly provide financial assistance to rural health care facilities and their providers. Most notably, section 6201 extends increased inpatient hospital payment adjustments for qualifying low-volume hospitals through September 30, 2027. Although the provision is not limited to rural hospitals, the expanded eligibility criteria for these higher Medicare payments - which are also separately reauthorized by H.R. 7148 - primarily benefit hospitals in more sparsely populated areas. Additionally, the legislation extends the Medicare-Dependent Hospital (MDH) program through January 1, 2027, maintaining specialized reimbursement rules for small rural hospitals with at least 60 percent of their admissions attributable to Medicare patients. The MDH program allows eligible hospitals to receive an additional payment if their historic costs from previous years were higher than what the hospital would have otherwise received under the Medicare inpatient prospective payment system.
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Nicolas Montenegro is a Health Care Policy Analyst at the American Action Forum.
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Original text here: https://www.americanactionforum.org/insight/health-care-extenders-key-provisions-in-the-consolidated-appropriations-act-2026/
[Category: Think Tank]