Welcome to the Empire Files podcast. This is your host, Abby Martin. This is the audio of our show.

You can watch the episodes on our YouTube channel or at the Empirefiles.tv.

We're in the midst of a global pandemic. Billions of people around the world are worrying about how they're going

to survive it physically and economically, while the U.S. Empire sees it as a perfect opportunity

to advance. This new reality exposes the great contradictions of the current world order.

So-called enemies of the U.S., Cuba and China, are exporting hundreds of doctors and medical supplies,

while the capitalist icon United States doles out death abroad and trails the world in caring for

its own people. First claiming COVID-19 was being used as a Democratic Party hoax, now Trump

boasts it would be a great success if only 200,000 Americans die.

Most Americans who don't know how they're going to pay rent can clearly see how the recent

$2 trillion bailout prioritized corporations and billionaires, handing out billions of dollars

for candy dynasties and cruise liners.

But what's more hidden is how the U.S. Empire is using the pandemic outside of its borders, too.

Longstanding U.S. policy has left dozens of countries on the brink of collapse,

making it near impossible to brace for the inevitable.

Few more so than war-stricken Yemen, already suffering the world's worst humanitarian crisis

from the five-year-long U.S.-S.-Sadi bombing campaign.

Since the assault began in 2015, there have been at least 120 attacks against medical facilities, crippling an already devastated medical infrastructure that couldn't deal with civilian casualties from war,

let alone the outbreak of a deadly pandemic.

But here, the U.S. has also escalated amidst the crisis.

Trump is moving forward with a drastic reduction of aid that would cut most of the support

to the country's already battered health sector, including critical assistance to crowded camps

...