The international political and economic order is rapidly changing. The United States and Europe increasingly resort to protectionism, industrial policy, and the so-called friend-shoring of supply chains to source from allies only. The US establishment is all but openly admitting its need to put a check on China’s economic and geopolitical rise. Meanwhile, Russia has joined the club of isolated and sanctioned pariah states. However, the size of its economy, and its role as one of the world’s largest energy exporters, changes the nature of the anti-Western coalition, also affecting the US-China rivalry. And the arbitrary nature of “the rules-based order” is being amply exposed in Gaza.

Faced with these global imperialist shifts, the Left needs an analysis that can guide both a progressive foreign policy and a vision of radical change at home. Here, my aim is to define the contours of the current imperialist realignment and call on the Left to study these international processes, particularly in the semiperiphery, from a critical perspective.