Trump’s first moves deepen world instability
Robert Bechert, CWI
Trump’s ‘shock and awe’ offensive continues, nationally and internationally. The aim is to show his supporters that he is acting decisively, as one decision or announcement after another is made public. And to throw Trump’s opponents, nationally and internationally, off balance.
A few of Trump’s decisions have not lasted long, especially the rapid realisation that some of the nuclear safety staff fired on February 16 were actually needed, prompting a desperate effort to contact them and entice them back to their old jobs.
Other proposals, particularly those relating to tariffs, are clearly negotiating ploys designed to force concessions.
One thing is already noticeably clear, namely that internationally “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) really means at the expense of all the US’s competitors or suppliers. This will add fuel to the increasingly stormy world relations, as great and small powers undertake in geopolitical struggles, sometimes involving military action, for influence and resources.
The US administration is blunt in making clear that it alone will make the key decisions, nationally and internationally. Trump’s exclusion of Ukraine and other European countries from even knowledge of his opening talks with Putin is a classic illustration of ‘Great Power’ politics.
At home, Trump is largely ignoring the newly elected US Congress, despite its Republican majorities, by not presenting new laws etc. and instead relying on the ‘Executive Orders’ he issues. In this way, Trump is acting in the manner of the British government, which increasingly uses the ‘royal prerogative’ to issue edicts. Or similar to the way in which Macron’s governments in France have used presidential decrees rather than parliamentary votes to enact policies. Not without reason, the comedian Jon Stewart joked on The Daily Show, on US TV, that MAGA is really “Make America a Monarchy Again”. This tendency towards Bonapartist rule symbolises the way in which Trump is replacing what he calls the “Washington Swamp” with an “Imperial Presidency”.
These methods of rule are linked with the highly personal regime Trump is running, which demands total loyalty and expects obsequious behaviour from his underlings. Thus, US defence secretary Hegseth explained that in the planned negotiations with Putin over Ukraine “What he [Trump] decides to allow and not allow is at the purview of the leader of the free world, of President Trump.” In other words, one person rule, re-enforced by the recent US Supreme Court ruling that a President has legal immunity for any decision taken in an official capacity.
But the behaviour of the Trump government is not simply kowtowing to the chief. Trump and his crew represent a definite nationalist and combative strand within the US capitalist class. Internationally the Trump administration is deepening and escalating US imperialism’s nationalist pushback in reaction to the decline in its relative position especially vis-à-vis China.
This is not the first time that US imperialism has moved against its capitalist rivals. In 1924 Trotsky argued that the US, having become a net exporter of manufactured goods, was acting against its European rivals by setting “limits … with certain restricted sections of the world market allotted to it”. (Perspectives of World Development) But this is not so easy today given the enormous potential strength of Chinese manufacturing which has changed the international balance of economic power.
Between the two world wars the tensions were not simply over questions of trade but of strategic rivalry and potential conflict between the imperialist powers. By the early twentieth century, US imperialism had started its challenge to British imperialism’s global power. In 1927, the US military began detailed planning (the ‘Atlantic Strategic War Plan’) for a war against Britain and its then empire. This policy was approved by the US government in 1930, and the plan was kept active until 1939, when it was decided to make no further preparations for a conflict with Britain.
Significantly it was not just the US which was planning for war at that time. Earlier in 1921 the Canada military prepared their own plan, Defence Scheme No. 1, to launch a first strike against the US, occupy Seattle, Great Falls, Minneapolis, and Albany. Their aim was to divert US forces from invading Canada and hopefully give time for British forces to arrive to defend Canada. However, this plan was dropped in 1928, as it became clear that Britain wanted to avoid another war with the US.
Today US imperialism’s capitalist rivals are not just European powers and Japan, as it was, for instance, in the 1980s. Crucially now its rivals include China and several other countries. The Financial Times has commented about “discrete trade blocs developing, but on a geopolitical rather than a geographical basis. Last May, an IMF study found that there were three major politically aligned trade blocs emerging. First, there was a US-leaning one that includes the US, Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Second, a China-leaning bloc including Russia, Belarus, Syria, and Eritrea. Finally, there was a third bloc filled out by countries like India, the Asean states and others in the “global south” that are non-aligned or neutral in their relations to the US and/or China.” (London, February 17). While Trump and others will probably try to disrupt these groupings, their development is another product of the growing international rivalry and tensions.
The period between the First and Second World Wars showed that conflicts are not simply on trading questions but involve power relations and strategic interests, issues which inevitably can have a military angle. While it is unlikely that Trump will reactivate the Atlantic Strategic War Plan’s proposals for an invasion of Canada, the US military’s centre of attention now is the Pacific. The US is concentrating on China’s rapidly growing military strength; a development which raises the prospect of military clashes.
Thus, the new US defence secretary, Hegseth, while visiting Nato, told its members that the US’s shift away from Europe was necessary. The US, he said, “faces consequential threats to our homeland” adding that “we also face a peer competitor in the communist Chinese” able to threaten the American mainland and “core national interests in the Indo-Pacific”. Hence the US’s military shift to the Pacific.
As well as concerning US interests regarding the war in Ukraine, Trump’s gestures towards Putin’s regime can be seen as part of an attempt to weaken Russia’s ties with China and hope to move it towards at least a more ‘neutral’ attitude to the tensions between the US and China. This is a backdrop to Trump’s criticism of the eastern expansion of Nato, pointing out that Russian rulers before Putin also opposed its growth.
Trump’s capitalist-politician critics in Europe are completely hypocritical as they also act in their own interests. They argue about the need to defend Ukraine while largely remaining silent on the Israeli state’s onslaught in Gaza, Lebanon and now the West Bank. Neither side in the war in Ukraine is allowing the peoples of Ukraine and Russia to freely decide their own futures. The reality is that the way in which the talks between the US and Russia are being arranged is typical of imperialist politics, where not only are working people excluded but also weaker capitalist powers are treated as mere pawns in the game.
Tariffs
This is the backdrop to Trump’s twin drive to defend US capitalism and for trade concessions that started with the announcement of the 25% tariffs on all Canadian and Mexican imports into the US and 10% on all Chinese imports. While the imposition of the increase on Canadian and Mexican goods was postponed until early March, the tariff rise on Chinese goods went ahead. However, the attack on Chinese imports into the US was rapidly modified when US Post hastily dropped its sudden ban on parcels from China carrying goods worth less than $800 to freely enter the US. Trump did not want to anger the millions who had bought over the internet Chinese goods for their personal use.
While Trump felt it necessary to warn at the beginning of February that higher tariffs may bring “pain” to the US population, he is clearly fearful of the rise in tariffs leading to higher prices. This is especially given that a main plank of his recent election campaign was attacking the inflation under Biden’s presidency.
The announcements of higher tariffs are an opening play in negotiations and Trump may secure some concessions. But this is not certain in all cases and, even if this happens, they can still have a negative economic impact. However, if serious tariff increases go ahead the possible of a trade war looms. This will deepen the bitterness over how Trump has shut out the European powers, as well as Ukraine, from the initial discussion of a truce in Ukraine.
The world is seeing the destructive nature of capitalist competition and rivalry in all spheres. Capitalist ideologies speak of capitalism’s “creative destruction”, ignoring the unnecessary pain and suffering this will bring. This inevitably happens in times of capitalist crisis and wars, but now it also is the result of the political decisions in Washington. Trump’s abrupt closure of USAID means that, in Nigeria alone, around 28,000 health workers are no longer being paid, and the continuation of treatment for 20 million HIV sufferers is threatened.
Already in the US there is the beginning of resistance by public sector workers to the wave of job cuts being brutally imposed by the Musk-led DOGE team. This will build when it becomes clear that Trump cannot deliver the ‘good jobs with good wages,’ he promised. Already excuses are being made as to why US prices are not already starting to come down, as Trump promised would happen if he won the election.
Workers internationally will learn that they need to act in their own interests in the same ruthless way that Trump and his gang operate. Obviously, this would not be in the interests of the elite and profiting making but for the benefit of the vast majority.
The world today is more interlinked than ever before. The world economy is greatly tied together, and its functioning gives an indication of how it is possible to plan on a global scale. But under capitalism, the competition for profit between rival companies and also between nation states prevents that possibility being fully realised. Millions of people do not even have technologically simple things like clean water or regular electricity.
The threat of a trade war is an illustration of the character and limits of capitalism. However, what can be done if the capitalist nations are heading down that road? For socialists the starting point is that under capitalism neither free trade nor tariffs ultimately benefit working people. Neo-liberals favoured breaking down trade barriers to open new areas for exploitation and to strengthen the grip of the large manufacturing, trading, financial and service concerns at the expense of local rivals. Local capitalists often supported tariffs and closed markets to boost their own profits by limiting competition from foreign competitors. While action needs to be taken against the immediate suffering both policies cause, fundamentally the alternative to both capitalist practices can only be found in the socialist alternative. This means the collective ownership and democratic planning of the key worldwide economic sectors, in individual countries to start with, setting an international example for others to follow.
To achieve this fundament change means building and strengthening workers’ and socialist organisations so that a collective resistance can be built, and support won for a socialist transformation.
The fact is that many capitalist societies are beginning to go backwards, with stagnant or falling living standards, and basic needs like health and housing are not being met. A result is that tens of millions of people having less hope for the future. This is amid rising tensions internationally and increasing military spending, alongside a worsening of climate conditions and the environment. This combination illustrates the stormy period we have entered. There is no scientific or technical reason why these conditions continue; the reason is the character of capitalism.
There will be a search for a way out by working class people and youth everywhere, for answers to the many questions about the future and what can be done, alongside the crucial experience of mass struggles. This can give socialists the opportunity to lay the basis for building a movement that can challenge the ruling classes of the world and make the fundamental socialist changes necessary, so that life can be fully enjoyed.
