Donald Trump’s first steps at the beginning of his second term as US president are shaking the international and domestic political scene in his home country. In different sectors and latitudes, there are fears that the policies of the US president will cause an aggravation of existing geopolitical conflicts and create new ones, affect the growth of the world economy, accelerate the process of a global recession and seriously affect the living conditions of the workers and peoples. The Trump administration is sending a message to the world: We are the world’s largest economy and we will be respected one way or another.
Trump’s victory in the November 2024 elections took place in the context of the advance of conservative, reactionary, pro-fascist and fascist forces around the world. The current president campaigned on reactionary, violent and fascist rhetoric and is now implementing his programme.
Trump was at the head of the government of US imperialism from January 2017 to January 2021, the world witnessed what he did to fulfil his ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) slogan, but this new period will not be a repetition of the previous one: We are now facing a more openly authoritarian Donald Trump; he supports the concepts of ‘white supremacy’; he is more aggressive in his relations with countries, including the traditional allies of the United States; he is ready to maintain his position of hegemonic power on the planet by all means.
For more than half a century, US imperialism has been the standard-bearer of neo-liberalism. With the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), it has succeeded in making it the dominant model of capitalist accumulation on a world scale: Breaking down tariff barriers, allowing the free movement of capital, reducing the size of the state and its influence on society, submitting to the ‘infallible’ laws of the market, were the dogmas imposed on the economic management of countries. The serious problems of the US economy in recent years, and above all the fear that China could replace the US as the hegemonic power, have led Trump and the monopolies and financial groups around him to change their vision of the management of the economy and other elements of the state. To this end, he has prepared his new government of the richest US billionaires, whose composition is a striking picture of the integration of the global financial oligarchy into the executive apparatus of the biggest imperialist state in the world today. The big monopolies in the field of modern technologies (Tesla, X, Truth Social and the many companies and institutions of the Silicon Valley technology centre), the military industries and the big financial and real estate speculation companies have seized control of the executive apparatus to directly manage their affairs. This is a striking fact in the transformations of the bourgeois state in its monopoly phase.
As soon as he took office in the White House, Trump cut public spending in the budget, crippled social programmes and started layoffs in the public sector. The funds are being diverted to finance new tax cuts for billionaires in income and corporation taxes, which he reduced drastically in his first term.
Extravagant subsidies are being handed out, especially to digital financial technology companies, on the pretext of competing with foreign monopolies.
Public health infrastructure has been undermined by Trump’s executive orders. He halted research grants, travel and training reviews for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is dedicated to biomedical research. In many states, health programmes lost access to funding, leaving poor people without basic health care. A federal judge overturned an executive order freezing federal funding for the time being, following nationwide protests.
With the privatisation of the national postal service on the agenda, seemingly pro-labour members of the National Labour Relations Board (NLRB), which mediates between the unions and the capitalists, have been sacked and replaced by direct Republican capitalist supporters.
US imperialism is today clearly signalling its intention to get rich at the expense of other countries by resorting to protectionist policies. Starting with China, Canada and Mexico, the announcement of higher tariffs and the threat that this policy will be applied to everyone, including the members of the European Union (EU), now opens a new chapter in the trade war, broader and deeper.
China has responded in kind by imposing a 15 per cent tariff on US imports of coal and liquefied natural gas, and the EU will respond with new tariffs if the US increases its tariffs. In essence, the world is entering a period of sharpening inter-imperialist contradictions. Not only the contradictions between the USA and China, but also the contradictions between the USA and the EU countries and the G7 countries are becoming more acute.
The tariff policy created by the US imperialism to protect the US monopolies affects not only the countries that sell the products, but also the US economy and, in the short term, the same US monopolies operating in other countries that will pay more taxes when the products produced abroad arrive in the USA. Of course, it is the workers and the peoples who will pay for the more expensive products; as always, the consequences of the anti-people policies of the bourgeoisie governments fall on their shoulders.
Trump is dusting off his policy of threats, open blackmail and the big stick. He is warning Panama to send troops to regain control of the Panama Canal; the president of this Central American country has declared that the canal belongs to it, but at the same time announced that the Memorandum of Understanding signed with China in 2017 for the New Silk Road will not be renewed next year. The US president wants to make Canada the 51st state, rekindling the rivalry with Great Britain that has existed since the Revolutionary War. He also has his eye on Greenland for its geostrategic value and its enormous underground wealth: Hydrocarbons, uranium, gold and above all rare earths, mineral resources that are vital for today’s economy, especially for the development of electric cars, high-capacity batteries and large military defence systems.
The head of the US imperialism made a brutal statement that can be understood as paving the way for the Israeli Zionism to continue bombing the Gaza Strip and to establish a permanent occupation regime in Palestine. He said that Gaza should become a ‘Middle East Riviera’ for the benefit of the whole world. We will own this place,’ he said, and spoke of ‘levelling the land and removing demolished buildings to create an economic development that will provide unlimited jobs and housing for the people of the region’. Let us not forget that Trump has previously said that all Palestinians should leave the area and live in Egypt and Jordan.
Trump also announced that he would impose 100 per cent tariffs on the BRICS countries if they abandoned the dollar, and demanded a commitment from them not to create a new ‘BRICS currency’ or support another currency to replace the ‘strong US dollar’. Moscow responded: ‘Today the BRICS member countries are talking about new investment platforms, not the creation of a common currency,’ said Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, forgetting everything they discussed at the last summit in Kazan. Trump is trying to block the policy of de-dollarisation of international trade supported by many countries, including China, Russia, India, Iran, Brazil and others.
Since the US dollar has become the dominant reserve currency and the most used currency in international trade, the USA has turned it into a weapon for the economic control and subjugation of countries. The US imperialism does not want to lose this weapon because it is one of the mechanisms that guarantee its hegemony and domination.
However, Trump’s ‘love’ for the dollar is not complete: he is now also betting on cryptocurrencies. In 2021 – and before – Trump called them “not money”, “extremely volatile and based on nothing”, and warned that cryptoassets help facilitate illegal underground markets. He doesn’t think so now, or if he continues to do so, he will be in the business of facilitating illegal underground markets. In mid-2024, he and his sons founded the cryptocurrency company Word Liberty Financial. In July 2024, he said he wanted the US to become the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world. Long live financial speculation!
Launching what he called ‘the largest deportation operation in US history’, Trump targeted millions of undocumented immigrants who he said were ‘poisoning the blood’ of America. This criterion (blood poisoning) corresponds to the concept of white supremacists, who are responsible for fomenting contempt, hatred and violence against African Americans, Latinos and Asians. Hitler used the term ‘blood poisoning’ in his manifesto Mein Kampf, in which he criticised immigration and racial mixing. All the great cultures of the past perished only because the originally creative race died of blood poisoning,” Hitler wrote.
A massive campaign was launched against criminalised immigrants, and the criminalisation of a section of society became a source of legitimacy for the struggle and crimes of fascism.
Hatred, revanchism, white supremacy, xenophobia, the superiority of the “American nation” over the rest of the peoples and countries of the world are part of the reactionary concept of Trump and the elite that accompanies him. In one of his last campaign speeches, Trump reminded his audience that in 2016 he had told them that he was their voice: “Now I add, I am your warrior, I am your judge. And for all those who have been wronged, I am your avenger.” The air of superiority of the US rulers is expressed in the following words of the Speaker of the House of Representatives: “The Bible is clear: God honours the powerful, all of you, all of us”.
Trump’s policies are causing outrage among workers, young people and the people. In the US, street demonstrations have begun to protest against deportations, challenging the police and security apparatus; resistance actions such as ‘a day without immigrants’ demonstrate the importance and enormous benefits of migrant labour for the development of US society and the wealth it generates.
The popular discontent with Trump’s policy of blackmail and repression is growing. This is an important scenario in which we have to develop with more force the denunciation of the reactionary, repressive and exploitative nature of imperialism.
It is clear that a new economic, political and social scenario is taking shape in the world and its impact on different countries is obvious. We have said that the sharpening of inter-imperialist contradictions is on the horizon; we can see that the most reactionary sections of the right wing at the international level will try to take advantage of the new situation to gain positions. But they are not the only ones on the move. The resistance and struggle of the workers and peoples continues, not only to resist the onslaught of reaction, but also to present and build their own revolutionary political project, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, for the victory of revolution and socialism.
The member parties and organisations of CIPOML have the responsibility to lead against the aggression of the US imperialism and the fascist and pro-fascist forces. The unity of the workers, peasants, labouring classes and oppressed sections; the common action of the democratic, progressive, left, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist forces is essential to face the moment we are in.
With the power of the workers and the people we will defeat the offensive of the owners of capital.
Coordinating Committee of the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations (CIPOML)
February 2025