Trump’s election highlights the need to understand the increasingly complex, polarized, and unstable global political situation. The government of the most powerful imperialist country in the world will be in the hands of one of the greatest exponents of the far right, which could generate many more serious confrontations than those that occurred in his first term. This is because the current global context is marked by a much greater crisis than during his first term in office.
Trump is the expression of a sector of the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie linked to oil, speculative financial capital, and the big technology companies. His project will not be a simple continuation of previous imperialist plans, but rather the qualitative expansion of the exploitation needed to increase profits during this period of decline in the world economy and increased inter-imperialist rivalry. This could lead to some significant changes.
Why did Trump win?
He was elected on the basis of a combination of two distinct processes. One, which is already well known, was the way his campaign capitalized on the widespread discontent with the Biden administration over the economic situation. This is due in large part to the post-pandemic inflation which is around 20% for working families. This situation led to a significant loss of support for the Democratic Party among working people in general, as well as among the Black and Latino population. In fact, support for Trump grew in those sectors.
But there was also another very important element. Trump ran a far-right political campaign that focused on immigrants but was also directed against all of the oppressed. This campaign, which won over a section of the masses to a certain worldview, developed along the same lines as today’s far right, using fake news on social media to spread their ideas. It also pointed to a nationalist revival in the United States focused on anti-immigrant sentiment. This element is important because it reflects the basis for a more strategic perspective coming from the far right
Trump’s plans
The result of the campaign was that Trump now has greater superstructural weight than in his first term. He has a majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives. As he had already secured a majority on the U.S. Supreme Court in his previous term, and so his influence will be much greater than that of most previous governments.
This gives him a base to implement his extreme plans, which include the mass deportation of immigrants, a reform of the state led by Elon Musk with radical deregulation, the expansion of oil production through fracking, and an imperialist-nationalist turn in the economy with the imposition of high tariffs.
To support these changes, Trump advocates authoritarian and increasingly repressive measures. As in other processes, the far right is putting pressure on bourgeois democracy with an increasingly Bonapartist tendency.
Evidence of the crisis of bourgeois democracy in the U.S.
Trump is both a consequence and an agent of the crisis of bourgeois democracy in the U.S. On the one hand, he is an expression of the crisis of bourgeois democracy which has capitalized on the erosion of the old Republican Party (which he transformed) and the Democratic Party, as well as the other institutions of the regime.
On the other hand, he is an active agent of this crisis. He has already promoted a failed coup attempt (the storming of the Capitol) and may now adopt a new authoritarian stance.
Trump is likely to increase the social and political polarization that already exists in the U.S. He will not stabilize the country, but instead bring greater instability. It’s important to remember that during his first term, there was one of the biggest mass uprisings in the U.S. since 1968, following the assassination of George Floyd. We’re not saying that this will happen again. We don’t know. We’re just pointing to a trend of instability.
An expression of capitalism’s decadence
Trump’s election is also an expression of the decadence of capitalism. It is a product, like all the strengthening of the far right, of this phase of capital’s downward curve since the 2007-09 recession. This decline has also been expressed in the crisis in Germany and the European Union, in the retreat of entire continents in the world division of labor, but also in the hegemonic imperialist country, the USA.
In this phase of the downward curve after 2007-09, inter-imperialist disputes have widened, especially with the conflict between declining U.S. imperialism and the emerging Chinese imperialism.
While the U.S. remains hegemonic in economic, financial, technological and military terms, it is undeniable that Chinese imperialism is growing and expanding. China has been occupying important spaces, such as in the automobile industry (especially with electric cars) and in the production goods sector (machinery and equipment) and through the New Silk Road.
Trump’s nationalist-imperialist policy, summarized in MAGA (Make America Great Again), includes a qualitative expansion of the tariff war against China. But it will not limit itself to the conflict with China. Instead, these tariffs will also affect the European Union, as well as the exports of semi-colonial countries. These types of policies tend to generate retaliatory chain reactions that end up affecting U.S. exports.
While policies like these can lead to immediate partial gains, they also involve trying to reverse the trend of imperialist globalization. There is no way to dismantle the internationalization of production with the value chains established by multinationals around the world, because this would directly affect the production costs of the multinationals themselves. Instead, Trump’s tariff policy could accelerate the decline of U.S. imperialism. For example, it is not favorable to the battle for Asian economic space, which is one of the most important aspects of the current imperialist dispute.
Under Trump, there is likely to be a strengthening of the policy advocated by the reformists for defending the “Global South” (China’s alliance with the BRICS) against U.S. imperialism.
It is not the role of revolutionary socialism to support one imperialism against another in these inter-imperialist economic disputes, but to fight against all of them.
We support the struggle of any semi-colonial country against imperialist attack. We fight against the attacks of U.S. imperialism against semi-colonial countries (for example, in Latin America). We defend the semi-colonial countries of Africa and Asia against the brutal Chinese impositions with the foreign debt and the New Silk Road. We support Ukraine against Russia’s imperialist invasion. But we do this from a policy of class independence, without giving the slightest political support to any bourgeois government.
The impact of Trump’s victory on the ongoing wars
The two most important wars underway in the world today (Palestine and Ukraine), which did not exist during Trump’s first term, have already led to the erosion of U.S. imperialism around the world.
Zionism’s growing isolation among the world’s masses, which has been precipitated by the Israeli genocide has also contributed to descrediting the U.S. imperialism that supports it. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also been a source of political and economic wear and tear for the U.S., which has been unable to impose a solution to the conflict.
This whole process is likely to get worse under Trump. The Zionist genocide is likely to receive even more support from the U.S. government, as is its attack on Lebanon. Trump pushed through the Abrahan agreement in his first term in 2020, which he called the “Deal of the Century”. The aim was to restore diplomatic and political relations between Israel and Arab countries, especially with Saudi Arabia. However, this agreement only included the United Arab Emirates. Netanyahu’s genocidal policy in Gaza prevented its continuation. And Trump’s support for Netanyahu will continue to pose major problems for its implementation. Let’s see what happens.
There may be major changes in the war in Ukraine as well. The reduction in U.S. economic support for Zelensky, which was already small, could have major consequences, leading to the imposition of a “peace agreement”, with the division of Ukrainian territory and Russian victory.
It doesn’t seem that Trump’s intervention in these processes with these objectives will lead to the restoration of U.S. hegemony. On the contrary, it could increase its decline in this area too.
Trump and climate denialism
Trump’s climate denialism will deepen the environmental disaster that is already unfolding.
The year 2024 is expected to be the hottest in history. In addition, there have been catastrophic weather events and natural disasters including the floods in Valencia (Spain) and Rio Grande Sul (Brazil), fires in Latin America, and much more. At this very moment, having a denialist president in the government of the most powerful country will only increase the paralysis of bourgeois governments around the world in the face of climate disaster.
It’s not that Trump is going to paralyze any really important imperialist policies to protect the environment. These plans are really just cosmetic. They don’t change the essence of fossil fuel consumption and global warming.
But now it’s possible that, once again, the debate will return to the debased level of “Trump versus the Paris Accords”, as if the real alternative were these “agreements” that don’t change anything.
We need to strengthen the struggles that have already begun in defense of the environment. Mass awareness of the issue has grown in the wake of climate disasters, disproving the denialism of the far right.
But it is necessary to start from concrete struggles in defense of the environment to point to a revolutionary socialist alternative, in opposition to reformist policies that point to ways out from within capitalism..
Trump’s victory strengthens the global far right
It is undeniable that Trump’s victory strengthens the global far right. There is already an international articulation of the far right with figures including Orbán, Milei, Bolsonaro, Fox, Le Pen and others, which will now be strengthened for the next elections.
The global far-right network, coordinated by Steve Bannon, does much of its work on social media. Its startegy in this sense is much more developed than the liberal or reformist ones. These social networks reinforce the ideological position of the far right with their supremacist, anti-immigration, misogynist, racist and LGBT-phobic worldview. They produce and disseminate fake news, creating an alternative form of “information” parallel to the mainstream media and also financed by large companies.
It is not yet known what the international repercussions of a future Trump administration will be. But a new far-right government in the U.S. is also likely to increase instability around the world. It could generate a trend towards greater international social and political polarization.
The alternative to this strengthened far right cannot be the legitimization of the Democratic Party in the U.S., or Peronism in Argentina against Milei, the PT in Brazil against Bolsonaro, or class conciliation alternatives in other countries. Trump’s rise to power cannot be explained without the disaster of the Democratic Party, Bolsonaro without the thirteen years of previous PT governments, or Milei without the experience with Peronism.
Building an alternative based on mass mobilization and class independence is, in fact, the best response to the Trump administration.
