Trump's tariff war and other policies
The President of the US, Donald Trump, has started a tariff war all over the world. This tariff war is mainly against China, but it covers more or less all countries of the world. Trump claimed that almost all countries have pillaged and looted the US for a long time. How ridiculous! The imperialist superpower, which has exploited and oppressed hundreds of countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, is now claiming that it has been looted and pillaged for a long time. What is the logic behind this ludicrous claim?
The real fact is that the USA is having a total trade deficit (ingoods and services) of almost 1 trillion dollars with its tradingpartners. Actually, the USA has a surplus in services, and so, thedeficit in goods is more than 1.2 trillion dollars. The data are for2024; the largest trade deficit is with China (almost 70 billiondollars), followed by the European Union (more than 37 billion dollars).It also has trade deficits with India, Vietnam, Japan, Ireland, and manymore countries.
The Trump administration is claiming that all these countries areexporting goods to the US, taking advantage of America's low importtariffs, but they are imposing huge import tariffs on American goods,which is resulting in a huge trade deficit for America. Calculating onthe basis of the trade deficit, the Trump administration has imposed aconsiderable amount of import tariffs on the exports coming in fromalmost every country. We have already passed through a period oftariffs, counter-tariffs, reciprocal tariffs, etc. However, everythingis now stalled till July 9.
The intention of Trump is now pretty much clear. Trump wants toreduce the trade deficit it is incurring with its trading partners, andto achieve that, it wants to make trade deals with its main tradingpartners separately. The US government wants to reduce its imports byslapping import duties, and it is trying to project that this importduty will raise the price of imported products. The increased price ofimported products will make the products made in the USA competitive,which ultimately will lead to the growth of the manufacturing industryinside the USA.
On the other hand, it is using the import duty as a weapon to forceits trading partners to open up their markets for US-made products. TheUSA can use import duties as a weapon because it is a big market for thecapitalists of different countries, and import duties will definitelyrestrict this market for them, putting them in dire trouble. Actually,Trump is using tariffs to bring these countries to a negotiation thatwill be favourable to it. For example, it is reported that, with respectto India, Trump's aim is to open up the market for agriculturalproducts. However, how much gain the US can make in this direction isyet to be seen, because its trading partners, especially the EuropeanUnion and China, will not submit easily to the wishes of US imperialism.Things will be clearer after the trade deals that are in the process ofnegotiation.
However, this tariff war launched by Trump brings us to a biggerquestion. We know that 'globalization' began with the slogan of freetrade. In terms of world trade ? that is, in terms of the import andexport of goods ? no country would impose any restrictions. This was thepolicy of free trade at that time. It goes without saying that thispolicy of free trade was in the interest of imperialism, so thatimperialist capital could freely sell its products in comparativelyunderdeveloped countries. Everyone should remember that the Indiangovernment at that time had also almost withdrawn import tariffs to nilon many products or was compelled to do so. As a result of lifting allkinds of restrictions on the import and export of goods on the one hand,and on the movement of capital on the other, we have clearly seen howthis country was flooded with products manufactured by imperialistcapital, and Indian companies in several fields like TV manufacturinghad to wind up.
Interestingly, the imperialists ? especially their leader, USimperialism ? who once advocated free trade, have now started imposingimport tariffs on other countries. Why is US imperialism now goingagainst an important component of the policy of 'globalization'? Why isthe USA facing such big trade deficits, which have increased since thebeginning of the nineties and have surged heavily in the last decade orso?
A major reason for the US trade deficit with countries like China,Mexico, Vietnam, India, etc., is that since the time of globalization,imperialist countries including the US have shifted much manufacturingwork out of their own countries to use cheap labour for higher profits.Thus, many US multinationals like Apple are carrying on production inChina or other such countries and exporting the products to the US. As aresult, even though the products are manufactured by US multinationals,they are entering America as exports by countries like China or Vietnam.As a result, the US trade deficit is increasing, even though USmultinationals are making profits. We should keep in mind that while thetrade deficit has increased, this has helped the US in another way, asit earned a share of the profits of the multinationals as tax.
However, this cannot explain all the reasons behind the US tradedeficit. This is because, according to 2024 estimates, the US has atrade deficit with the European Union after China. They even have largetrade deficits with Japan and Canada. This is because America has fallenbehind other imperialist countries in the manufacturing sector due tothe outsourcing of manufacturing industries to backward countries duringthe globalization process. So, the two objectives of Trump's tariff warare: energizing the manufacturing sector of the USA and, moreimportantly, opening up the markets of other countries for US-madegoods.
The second important issue is the Trump administration's position onUkraine. Changing its long-standing position, the Trump administrationhas suddenly started pressurising Ukraine to stop the war by siding withRussia in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Stopping the war does not meanthat Russia will return the part of Ukraine that it has. Ukraine willhave to give up those territories to stop the war. Not only that, but itwill also have to make an agreement to give some of the valuable mineralresources under Ukraine's soil to America. What is more interesting isthat Trump does not seek any opinion from Ukraine in this effort to stopthe Russia-Ukraine war, and the US administration is reluctant to evennegotiate with the imperialist countries of Europe, which have been theUnited States' long-standing partners in many activities. Naturally,European countries are incensed at Trump's role and have started formingseparate blocs among themselves and also taking steps to prepare moremilitarily.
Another important goal of the second-term Trump administration is toreduce immigration to the United States. For that, on the one hand, theyare trying to reduce H-1B visas, and on the other hand, they are talkingabout completely stopping illegal immigration. To prove that the Trumpadministration is giving more importance to the issue of immigrationthan before, it has started sending illegal immigrants from India and afew other countries back to those countries. However, those who havebeen sent back so far were arrested long ago. There are variouscontradictions in the Trump administration's statements on immigration.Therefore, it is still not clear where the Trump government's policy onimmigration will ultimately stand. However, there is no doubt that thereis a strong opinion within the United States, especially among Trump'ssupporters, that illegal and even legal immigrants who have settled inthe United States from outside should be expelled, and that measuresshould be taken to prevent any new immigration.
The first two events show that the unity of the imperialist world,which was led by the United States and imposed the policy ofglobalization and liberalization unilaterally on the rest of the worldin the 1990s, has now broken down within the imperialist countriesthemselves. The unipolar world of that time has shattered, and manyseparate sides have emerged. The economic competition between thoseforces is becoming more intense day by day. Not only that, but economicdisputes are gradually creating a ground for military conflicts
It would be a great mistake to think of these steps by Trump asmerely his craziness or arbitrariness. These are not merely Trump'sdecisions; these are the decisions of the monopoly capitalist rulingclass of the United States, of which Trump, as the President, is actingas its spokesman. The situation in the world has changed a lot since thebeginning of the 21st century. After the collapse of the Soviet bloc inthe early 1990s, the Western imperialist alliance, led by the USimperialists, began to emerge in a unipolar world. US imperialism is nolonger the undisputed leader of the imperialist world, and the Europeanimperialist countries led by the US are no longer fully united.
The US is falling behind economically, as evidenced by the increasingtrade deficit between the US and the major countries of the world. Thatis why the policy of free trade of goods that the US imperialistsimposed on the world ? especially the relatively underdevelopedcountries ? for the past thirty-five years or so, and which ensured thefree movement of their goods and capital in those countries, is nowbeing reversed by the US, which is now trying to bring trade in goods inits favour by imposing tax restrictions. It would not be wrong to saythat the policy of 'globalization' that the imperialists imposed on therest of the world at that time has now begun to be reversed by theimperialists themselves.
Why is this so? There is a famous law in physics ? Newton's thirdlaw. That law states that for every action, there is an equal andopposite reaction. Whether or not this law always applies in socialsciences is unknown, but a similar phenomenon has occurred in the caseof 'globalization'. The intensity and power with which the imperialistsattacked the underdeveloped world with the assault of globalization hasnow produced a reverse reaction in the imperialist countries, especiallyin US imperialism.
The immigration or refugee problem that the countries of America andEurope are now facing is the result of the imperialists' globalizationpolicy. In the last three decades, the imperialists have imposed one warafter another on various countries in West Asia to install rulers oftheir choice in order to gain access to oil reserves. One reaction tothis has been that people from these war-torn countries have migrated indroves to various countries in Europe in search of a safe haven.
One of the main and important parts of globalization is to shiftproduction from developed countries to comparatively underdevelopedcountries. The purpose of this is to increase profits by using cheaplabour. We will come to the reaction to this later. But as another partof this, in several cases, imperialist countries have themselvesencouraged immigration from underdeveloped countries to use cheaplabour.
In the last thirty years, the number of skilled workers and employeeswho have migrated to these countries is much higher than before, andmost of this immigration has taken place through legal channels. It hastaken place legally because it was in the interests of imperialistcapitalists. The wages or salaries at which they make the workers fromIndia or China work are much lower than those in their own countries. Asa result, the problem of immigration that the imperialist countries aresuffering from ? and which is now largely controlling the politics ofthose countries ? has, in a way, occurred in response to their ownglobalization.
But the biggest issue is that while imperialist multinationals havebeen able to make profits by sending production from their own countriesto China, Vietnam, or India, it has given rise to new problems. Inparticular, as American production has moved to other countries, theirdomestic trade deficit has increased. Now, the United States has toimport most of its products from China or European Union countries. Butit doesn't have many exportable products. Secondly, factories haveclosed, creating an employment crisis, leading to unrest throughoutsociety.
That is why the rulers of the United States ? especially now ? wantto bring the factories back to their country. But how is that possible?Why would multinational companies that are making huge profits by usingcheap labour abroad come back? And even if some companies do come backto the USA ? in other words, 'reshoring' happens ? it will not increaseemployment. Because increasing use of artificial intelligence androbotics will not make that possible.
However, one may question that the tariff policy is also affectingthe big US multinationals adversely, because the cost of their productswill increase. How much these multinationals will ultimately be affectedis still to be seen. They may have to shift their production to thosecountries where import duty will be less, and they may force the workersof those countries to work at even lower wages. Even the indigenouscapitalists of these countries ? like India, Vietnam ? who are exportingto the USA, will force the reduction of workers' wages so that they cansell their products at competitive prices. Ultimately, the burden willfall on the workers of these countries.
Another big problem for US imperialism is the weakening of thedominant role of the dollar, which is also accentuated by increasingtrade deficits. A major force behind the domination of US imperialismthroughout the world was the power of the dollar. This is because thedollar was the medium of exchange for all in the world economy. However,different countries have started to challenge it. Many countries havestarted to abandon the dollar and exchange goods in their owncurrencies. This trend is not yet that strong. However, once the trendto abandon the dollar becomes strong, it will be fatal for the USeconomy.
As a result, US imperialism is now entangled in a web of its ownproblems. What is more, many more countries have come forward in termsof production. The countries of the European Union are emerging from theshadow of US imperialism and creating their own areas of influence. Forthese reasons, for more than a decade, the alliance led by USimperialism has been breaking down, and new economic alliances andagreements are being formed, which are practically challenging themonopoly of the US. That is why US imperialism has become desperate torestore its lost glory ? or, better to say, lost monopoly. Trump'sslogan ?MAGA? or ?Make America Great Again? proves that US imperialismhas slipped from its seat of superiority, because otherwise, there wouldnot be any need to make America great again.
That is why US imperialism under Trump has started making desperateefforts to restore its supremacy. But why should the rest ? especiallythe European Union or the imperialist powers of Europe ? remain secondfiddle? That is why, as economic competition continues to increase, thebreakdown of various military alliances is also increasing.
The biggest proof of this is probably the war in Ukraine. The UnitedStates, excluding not only its ally the European Union but also thosewho are one of the partners in this war, is unilaterally taking the sideof Russia and pressurising Ukraine to stop the war. The European Unionis not ready to accept this unquestioningly. They have also said thatthey will help Ukraine against Russia in every way, and if necessary,they will even send troops to support Ukraine.
As a result, it is clear that the imperialist world is not unitedunder the leadership of US imperialism like in the 1990s. The policy ofglobalization of the last thirty to thirty-five years has broken theiralliances and created new alliances. The situation is still in a fluidstate ? no alliance is permanent now. The possibility of breaking onealliance and creating another at any moment is emerging. The mostimportant thing is that this competition is not only limited to thesphere of economics ? they are also gradually pushing the world towardsmilitary competition.
It may be added that these powers may not yet be in a position tocompete with US imperialism on equal footing, militarily or eveneconomically. But it is certain that the contradictions are increasing.We do not yet know when these contradictions will mature and push theimperialist nations into an all-out war, but it is bound to happen ? asrecent events indicate.
For the international proletariat, war between imperialists is not amatter of fear or panic. Because such wars weaken the imperialists, andthe proletariat takes advantage of it to pave the way for itsliberation. After the First Imperialist World War, Russia freed itselffrom the clutches of capitalism. After the Second World War, China andmany countries in Eastern Europe began their journey on the path ofliberation from capitalism. The proletariat in those countries may havebeen defeated, but we cannot forget the fact that the proletariat of allthese countries was able to defeat capitalism in the conditions ofimperialist war.
And they not only prepared the way for their own liberation ? theyalso worked towards stopping the war. In short, just as the proletariattakes advantage of the imperialist war for its own liberation, so too,by stopping the imperialist war, it frees the entire exploited andoppressed people of the world from the terrible trail of destructioncaused by imperialist war.
As a result, the more the conflict within imperialism deepens, theeasier the path of liberation becomes for the proletariat. But,unfortunately, the proletariat itself is scattered and unorganisedtoday. Not only internationally, but even within individual countries.There is no party of the proletariat in any country. The mass of workershave not yet overcome the shock of defeat ? they are still passive anddisheartened.
In such a situation, no matter how heated the conflict between theimperialists becomes, the proletariat is unable to take advantage of it.For that, they have to enter the field of struggle and build their ownparty ? a Communist Party. This is now the task of the proletariat. Themore the situation becomes heated, the more urgent becomes the task ofthe proletariat to organise and unite.
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