Let's start with what the terrible images of Trump's investiture as 47th president of the United States tell us. Surrounded by an attentive court of billionaire vassals, as rich as they are opportunistic (they were also present at Biden's coronation) Trump solemnly declared that he had been “saved by god to make America great again”, a feat that will entail performing two miracles. The first is to bring the USA back to being the greatest economic and financial power in the world (“America first”). The second will be to bring “peace” to the world — by building “the strongest military the world has ever seen”. Translated into international geopolitical terms, or inter-imperialist power relations, we find that he who claims to be anointed by the Lord will continue to do what all previous Administrations have done, whether Republican or Democrat, including Biden’s. The only difference being the crudeness of the character, his political aggression and personal vulgarity.

Even before resuming possession of the White House, Trump had already shouted to the entire world that he was in favour of taking over neighbouring Canada as the 51st state of the US; of acquiring, by force if necessary, the island of Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat) from Denmark; of reclaiming the Panama Canal; and of changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. If we look at these ultra-belligerent declarations separately and put them in simple terms, the new name suggested for the Gulf of Mexico is nothing less than an autocratic warning to the USA’s southern neighbour, so that it understands that it is in Washington's sights and not only over the question of migrants. As for Canada, the aim is simply to have a safe, reliable and subordinate ally at its disposal, as if it were part of the United States Federation. The objectives regarding Greenland are more worrying. American imperialism is not only interested in making the autonomous Danish territory a US outpost towards the North Pole, the idea is also to immediately exploit the huge resources of the island in question. Greenland is rich in potential mineral and strategic resources. As well as natural gas and oil, highly sought-after "rare earths", plus gold, lithium, etc. — indispensable for the production of microchips for civilian and, above all, military use — have been discovered. Thus, in the face of international law — for what that’s worth when the management of imperialist interests is at stake — the new president has not ruled out the use of force in order to gain possession of it (despite the vaunted, obviously fake, pacifism of his equally dishonest electoral campaign).

As for the fate of the Panama Canal, the prospect is even more tragic, because the prey in Trump’s sights is of absolute importance. According to one source:

The Panama Canal, one of the most impressive engineering works ever built, is 81.1 kilometres long and connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, offering a vital maritime transit route for millions of tons of goods every year. Every year, more than 14,000 ships pass through the Canal, transporting goods that represent about 6% of global seaborne trade. This traffic includes raw materials such as oil, liquefied gas, cereals and metals, vital to the global economy, produced mainly in the United States. In fact, 73% of this commercial traffic is linked to the American giant, making the Canal a fundamental resource for the star-spangled economy. But the Canal is not only important for trade. US military forces also use it as a strategic route for rapid movement between the two oceans, making it crucial for security as well.

firstonline.info

This omits one important factor that Trump has not forgotten, namely that China has obtained the use of two strategic docks from the Panamanian government. Docks that are not only useful for aiding commercial navigability of the canal but which could enable Beijing to create a garrison for military use in direct competition with the US since — let's not forget— the US and China have been for years now the principal enemies in the modern world’s imperialist phase.

As a corollary to all this, and even before his official inauguration at the White House, Trump reintroduced the death penalty for federal crimes, cancelling the moratorium that Biden had issued in 2021. He also ordered the Attorney General to request the death penalty "regardless of other factors", when the case concerns the killing of a state official or capital crimes "committed by an alien illegally present" in the country, making sure to "take all necessary and lawful actions" to ensure that the States have enough drugs for lethal injection. A barbaric way to eliminate migrants, treating them as if they were nothing but ferocious murderers.

Amongst his other pre-inauguration promises came the guaranteeing of $500 billion from the State to promote the launch of Stargate, an artificial intelligence infrastructure project which, as well as boosting American competitiveness in commercial goods and services, has the primary purpose of modernising the military apparatus in general, particularly sectors considered technologically inferior to the imperialist competition (China again, but not only). This is certainly not about creating the conditions for peace, but rather about preparing for possible, and increasingly probable, war. In fact, according to the comments that Trump made after the phone call with President Xi Jinping on Friday 17 January, any truce in a conflict with China would only be short-lived.

During the election campaign Trump threatened indiscriminate duties on countries exporting to the US: tariffs ranging from 10-25% for European countries and 60% on Chinese products. After the election he threatened to impose an additional 10% tariff on China, justifying it as an attempt to prevent Beijing exporting drugs to the US. In addition, he announced he would impose 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada if they did not help the US protect its borders. Last but not least, his threats are also aimed at Europe, with Germany, France and Italy the lead targets of tariffs ranging from a minimum of 10% to a maximum of 20%. Some of these increases are due to declining enthusiasm for political alignment by the countries in question. Finally, he decided to dismantle all regulations on "green" politics, replacing them with indiscriminate drilling licences, even in protected areas. Thus, he signed the exit from the Paris Agreement on climate and from the World Health Organisation (WHO), as if to say, who cares about the environment and health, the interests of the American economy come first even if this means a disaster waiting to happen? The US aims to remain the most important producer and seller of liquefied gas and oil in the world; if nothing else, it aims to consolidate its supremacy, and certainly no agreement will prevent this. The US has been among the biggest polluters on the planet and will continue to be so, in the name of its enduring god, the dollar.

As for aiding companies in difficulty, Trump has decided to reduce taxes from 21% to 15%, with the aim of making them more competitive on international markets. He has also decreed, with the help of Musk, to reduce the cost of federal bureaucracy by $2 trillion, with the prospect of thousands of jobs lost. As usual, funds are allocated to support banks when they are in difficulty and, above all, for companies involved in arms production, while billions are to be taken away from administration, increasing the already large army of unemployed through cuts to the public sector. Similarly, education, healthcare and pensions will be penalised in the name of a more “rational” social organisation. In reality, this is nothing other than a symptom of the permanent economic crisis which compels an economy towards war preparations, with the more and more resources going to the modernisation of land, sea and air armaments (see Musk again). Hence the attacks on illegal immigrants (there will be millions threatened with deportation!), who are not criminals but poor workers reduced to starvation by miserable wages, and finally the fight against abortion. Measures supposedly setting the US out on the path towards the new "golden age" are nothing more than corollaries dictated by a crude protectionist nationalism and an ominous quasi-feudal healthcare scheme.

As for peace, at the same time as setting up negotiations with Putin, the new Administration has revoked the sanctions against settlers and armed groups of the Israeli far right who are occupying and killing Palestinian civilians in the West Bank. This is becoming the new Gaza, as the same new Administration sponsors the completion of the Israeli project in the land of Palestine. So much for the promise of the creation of "two peoples and two states".

Trump’s Agenda in the Medium Term

Following in Biden's footsteps, the “overlord" of the world’s strongest imperialism is planning the best way to maintain its position and, if possible, to extend its power even further. One of the first objectives on his agenda concerns the war between Russia and Ukraine. Thanks to his predecessor, who provided billions of dollars for Ukrainian defence against Russian assaults, with the aim of weakening both Russia and Europe (which is now suffering the consequences of the war), Trump can try to give substance to one of his promises that with him in the White House he’ll have a peace deal “done in 24 hours”. This statement was later corrected to months, but we know that the tycoon clearly has some problems with narcissism. He had already declared that the US would reduce military aid to Zelensky, because it was too expensive, and that if Europe wanted to continue the war it could do so by shouldering a greater part of the financial burden, bringing military spending up to 2% and now 5% of GDP as a contribution for Ukraine. Thus, the US will be relieved of an economic burden that was beginning to weigh on State budgets, especially since the two competitors appear to be on the ropes. After almost three years of war, they are ready to attempt a peace agreement. Trump only wants to see quick results, hence his negotiation proposal. In this hypothesis, Ukraine would be left with independence from Moscow, the security of its borders, a “Marshall” plan for reconstruction, the certainty of joining the “European Community” and little else. Take it or leave it. Given the disastrous conditions in Kyiv and the increasingly less amenable American attitude, there is little more for it to hope for. Moscow would need confirmation of its hold on Crimea, Donbass, the Russian-speaking areas and, very importantly, a joint declaration (Ukraine-Russia) that Ukraine will not join NATO for the next 20 years. Regardless of how the negotiations go, three important strategic fruits have already materialised for the US, patiently cultivated by the Biden Administration and now harvested by the Trump Administration.

The first prize is that Russian imperialism has been severely weakened, having been forced into a war of attrition when Moscow thought it could resolve the Ukrainian “campaign” in a matter of months. The war has also led to a series of trade and financial sanctions that have significantly impacted Russia’s economy, isolating it from the Western market. Last, but not least, the closure of the two Nord Streams and restrictions on the passage of Russian gas and oil via Ukraine to Europe have fallen like an axe. The second prize is that Russia’s main ally, China, has also been weakened. Thus, the US has achieved its goal of weakening a crucial link in the opposing imperialist chain: a chain which, in addition to Iran, included the constellation of Shiite jihadist groups in Iraq, Syria and Yemen as well as North Korea and, obviously, China itself, which remains the most important adversary in Washington’s sights.

This brings us to the third gain for Washington: namely, that the economy of Europe, the “loyal servant” of the US, has been brought to its knees. In fact, the “Ukraine campaign”, was a war between the US and Russia, fought on the backs of the Ukrainians and paid for in economic, commercial and energy terms by Europe. With its energy source cut off, detached from its reliance on Russia and trade relations blocked by sanctions, Germany has entered into recession while France and Italy have seen their rate of GDP growth decline by up to 50% compared to previous levels. Governments have had to revise their growth outlooks downwards resulting in the dismantling of welfare benefits, and the usual repercussions on wages, healthcare and education. Thus, the US, regardless of the type of Administration, has managed to make things difficult for Russia, while at the same time its "European ally" has been rendered harmless and further subordinate. Europe is now forced to buy gas at exorbitant prices as well as reducing the role of the Euro, something which has recently caused some annoyance to the supremacy of the dollar. As for the future outlook for Europe, as already mentioned, the EU is threatened with import duties of 10% to 20% with the intention of hitting first of all Germany, Italy and France, i.e. the EU countries that contribute most to the US’ gigantic balance of payments deficit.

The Middle East and Israel

The same method was repeated in the Middle East. The clash between Israel and Hamas, which then spilled over into Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and North Yemen, first devastated the Gaza Strip then the West Bank in a tragic chain of events, including a genocidal massacre of the Palestinian civilian population, with American backing as usual. First under Biden and now with Trump, the immediate objective was to sever the tentacles of Shiite jihadism linked to Iran (the third link in the Eurasian imperialist chain and the main enemy of Israeli imperialism in the region), and then to move on to a more complex phase. In short, the new order in the Middle East has gone from US unconditional support to Israel, allowing Netanyahu’s government to annihilate the adversary against everyone and everything to the point of being convicted of war crimes by the International Criminal Court. Meeting with his partner in crime Netanyahu in early February, Trump announced that he was planning for the US to expel the Palestinian population in Gaza to Egypt and Jordan and have the US take over the territory. The expulsion of the Gazan population is the plan that Netanyahu has always pursued and the events of 7 October gave him a pretext to implement it. In this complex operation, the Biden-Trump-Netanyahu trio were able to isolate the common enemy, Iran. This further weakens Russia which, after the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, lost access to its naval base in the port of Tartus and has been forced to ask its unreliable ally, Haftar, to host another base in the Tobruk part of Libya he controls, in opposition to Turkey, which supports the "official" government in Tripoli. On the Palestinian question, Trump has shown his policy to be in continuity with Biden's approach by supporting the West Bank settlers and referring to Israeli territorial annexations beyond the wall as ‘legitimate’. Since the beginning of the war against Hamas, the illegal presence of Israeli settlers in the West Bank has gone from 100,000 to 750,000, with thousands of civilian victims among the Palestinian population. This time it is the Trump-Netanyahu duo that is crafting a new destiny for Palestine, which no longer includes the phantom theory of "two states and two peoples", but one state, one people and a North American style indigenous reservation for any Palestinians who remain. In short, the new Middle East involves the reduced role of Iran and its jihadist offshoots, the marginalisation of Russia’s role and Israel as not only the armed gendarme of the area under the control of its American ally but also an imperialist actor with its own agenda.

This is the new world order that is being built through both direct and proxy wars. At the moment, American imperialism has achieved its short-term goals. It has weakened Russia in the Middle East and in Europe. It has weakened Europe internationally in economic and energy terms, but, above all, it has prevented it from growing as a third imperialist pole. If the EU had continued to obtain Russian oil, it could have realigned itself politically. Instead, cut off from Russian energy supplies, with economic growth reduced to a minimum, and forced to accept the "offer" of much more expensive American gas, all possibilities of Europe playing an autonomous role have been closed. Under these conditions, it will be easier for America to exercise control over a much-weakened almost-former ally. Yet there may be a downside. This humiliating subservience to the US, peppered with sanctions and threats for those who do not respect their subordinate role and paying their dues, could have the opposite effect: European non-alignment. Certainly, a prospect that is difficult to achieve in current conditions, but not impossible to envisage in the future. However, even if it were to start it would be on a contradictory, slow path, of biblical years. Von der Leyen herself has launched a cry of alarm over European unity, observing that the US is no longer a reliable ally. But this takes us on to inter-imperialist political questions based on theories that, for the moment, are beyond the scope of this analysis.

Behind the Arrogance, Signs of Weakness

One might think that the behaviour of the Biden Administration and Trump's arrogant statements on the future destinies of Canada, Mexico, Greenland and the Panama Canal, to which Russia has already raised opposition as China surely will, are a sign of power. Yet they rather hide the symptoms of an intrinsic weakness deriving from a structural crisis that has affected the entire capitalist world for decades, starting with the US. Without dwelling too much on the aspect of the economic crisis afflicting the US, a few facts are pertinent. The American public debt has surpassed $36 trillion, with a servicing cost of $1.2 trillion a year. According to reliable projections in the next ten years another $20 trillion will be added, to reach the gigantic figure of $56 trillion. (For context, total world debt now amounts to some $310 trillion, when ten years ago it was $210 trillion.) Debts contracted by families to send their children to school alone amount to $1.7 trillion. The US balance of payments is in the red by $1.2 trillion and various sources estimate that up to 50% of American companies are unprofitable. In other words, in the US the fall in the average rate of profit is in almost unstoppable progression. Technological development increases exploitation and the mass of profits but undermines the rate of profit. The capital invested in production has increasingly greater difficulty in valorising itself when the relationship between the mass of invested capital and the number of workers in production (proletarians) goes in opposite directions. Thus this change in the organic ratio of capital, and the resulting inexorable fall in the rate of profit, is at the basis of the permanent crisis of capital. The average gross profits of US companies after 1940 show a constant decrease: until 1956 the rate of profit was 28%, which decreased to 20% until 1980 and then dropped to 14% until 2014. Between the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s (1997/2008) the organic composition of capital increased by 22%. Between 1963 and 2008, with a profit rate decreasing by 21%, the organic composition would have increased by 51%. The most recent figures confirm the trend down to 2020.

But how is it possible that the strongest imperialist power in the world can survive under such an avalanche of debt and financial deficits? The answer is simple: it is the supremacy of the dollar that channels an enormous river of capital towards the US and, thanks to this, it maintains its military hegemony. Thus, this underlying economic weakness has become a factor in the use of force and aggression on all fronts. Is the balance of payments in deficit? No problem, Trump would say, let’s tax imports: the infamous tariffs. Among the various examples, in addition to those already quoted against China, Russia and Europe, we could cite the threat of tariffs at 25% to be imposed against Canada and Mexico. Despite the 30 day pause on these tariffs announced on 2 February the threat remains in the back pocket. In the case of Canada, Trump seeks a more subservient partner providing economic relations in the US' favour and the pursuit of the political policies in the US interest such as increased military spending to ensure more auxiliary forces to project American power. For Mexico, the threat looms larger if its government makes no effort to rebalance trade in favour of the US and does not deal with the migrant issue. The recent deportation of thousands of Mexicans already reduced to slavery, no longer even paid wages, broadcast throughout the world, is a barbaric warning of this. Are competing imperialist powers looking for strategically functional raw materials? Greenland is full of them so the US will take it, by force if necessary. Are gas and oil still essential for energy? The US are the largest producers and we are fighting Russia which is one of the largest competing producers by involving it in a proxy war in Ukraine. Are any competing or enemy powers (Russia, China, Iran, Brazil) trying to combat the role of the dollar as the universal currency in international trade, especially on the raw materials and technology markets? The US will see to it that they end up like Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein, who threatened to do the same. Are American companies having difficulty competing with European and Chinese ones? Again “no problem”, the US will finance their activities by increasing public debt and increasing the number of tariffs. American productive investment capital has difficulty repaying itself and a significant portion moves into the murky waters of speculation (the first a cause and the second an effect of the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall). The US will implement a policy to attract foreign capital by encouraging investment at home, lowering taxes and ensuring an “understanding” attitude on the part of the unions, something already widely practised in the American labour market and beyond .... Once upon a time, it was the poor or “developing” countries that implemented such policies in order to attract foreign capital to “sustain” their economy, even at the cost of forcing their “own” proletariat to live on starvation wages and to abandon the most basic union demands for wage increases to meet the needs of capital investment. If Trump, with the brutal arrogance that distinguishes him, has descended to this level today, it only reveals the weakness of the American economic system that is floundering in a sea of debt and deficits, and shows that only military power (one of the few sectors that produces and functions at top speed) and the supremacy of the dollar are keeping it afloat. Conclusion: woe to those who compete commercially with the US, woe to those who undermine the role of the dollar, woe to those who try to question its imperialist domination, otherwise the use of force will be triggered automatically.

In this context of permanent capitalist crisis, American capitalism must face up to its relationship with China once and for all. China is an imperialist power whose stated aims are not only to become the leading country in the world in terms of both production and trade (see for example the Silk Road), but also competing with the US in the field of high technology (robotisation, artificial intelligence – see for example DeepSeek – conquest of space, new generation military weapons, etc.). In addition, of course, it is trying to compete with the dollar on the financial markets with its own currency, the renminbi, which it uses for transactions in gas and oil and strategic raw materials. If the renminbi were to pose a serious challenge to the dollar, it would undermine one of the two pillars of American imperialism. This is something that Washington could never allow, even at the cost of a direct conflict which would plunge the world into an unimaginable catastrophe.

As a corollary to this, two other factors must be taken into consideration. First there is the issue of the domination of trade routes, of strategic port facilities, of the straits that give access or not, depending on the circumstances, such as, the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab-el-Mandeb, the Port of Djibouti and the Panama Canal. Second, there is the long-standing issue of the South and East China Seas, the control of the islands of the Indo-Pacific and, problem of problems, the fate of Taiwan. None of the recent American Administrations has underestimated China nor any of the problems that its imperialistic claims entail, and certainly not Trump. The Biden Administration had already moved with determination. For at least six or seven years, the American navy has been moving around the disputed island, and more recently South Korea has become involved. In the run-up to Trump’s inauguration at the White House, China conducted massive patrols in the increasingly contested South China Sea, in a not-so-random warning, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Command said its naval and air forces have conducted “necessary patrol operations.” Previously, the Biden Administration, as part of its bequest to Trump, sent a $571 million supply of high-tech equipment and military services to train the Taiwanese military, with another $295 million allocated independently by the Department of Defense. In addition, the Pentagon’s 2025 defence budget (which has risen to $895 billion) establishes an additional fund that would be used to send additional military supplies, if needed, to ally Taiwan on an ongoing basis, similar to that used for military support to Ukraine. But China has not been outdone, sending five aircraft and six warships into the Taiwan Strait (early December). However, Taipei's Ministry of Defence has specified that, at the end of the same month, Beijing, which continues to claim its jurisdiction over Taiwan, has sent a further 400 aircraft and 276 ships into the Strait. Tensions are higher than ever and the risk of an "accident" is the order of the day, with devastating consequences for humanity and the already degraded environment.

To conclude, we cite a document of ours from 2024 which raises the issue of the need for a response to this dire prospect of a generalised war that the permanent crisis of world capitalism is criminally preparing:

Faced with a barbarism which is more scientifically destructive than in the recent past only one force can really oppose it. This force is that of the exploited, of the international proletariat, of the enormous masses of dispossessed produced by the crisis of capitalism. It is that of the wage slaves who produce the social wealth of every country with their labour power and whose crumbs they laboriously collect at the best of times. At other times they are unemployed, underemployed and somehow survive on the margins of this unequal society made in the image and likeness of bourgeois needs. This force, which is exploited in times of peace and used as cannon fodder in times of war, can be the most powerful antidote to the barbarity of imperialism, provided that it behaves as a class that fights, but its own war is against capitalism, its incurable contradictions, its economic crises and its devastating wars. But to do this, this force with immense potential must first escape the dominance of ruling class thinking. Wars are imposed by the crises of capital, they are managed by the bourgeoisie to defend its economic interests, the primary condition of its political and social privileges, but fought by proletarians dominated by the ideologies of the ruling class. Ideologies which go from defending or exporting democracy, to national interests to be safeguarded, or even to "universal" religious principles which have to be imposed even at the cost of using violence. Not to mention all those racist and homophobic ideologies, old and new, that theorise war as an instrument of "purification" against the invasion of the new "barbarians". The ideological baggage of the bourgeoisie to get the proletariat to identify with their interests has no limits, especially when it comes to war. For these reasons it is essential that the class equip itself with an international political guide, with its own tactics and strategy, as the very essence of imperialism and its deadly actions are international. That is, we need an international party that brings all our energies together towards a single objective: the fight against capitalism in all its economic and social manifestations, starting with the individual national bourgeoisies, whatever role they play in the imperialist war scenario, whether as bystanders or participants. ... In conclusion, proletarian interests are not defended by leaving the destinies of wage slaves in the hands of the bourgeoisie, whether jihadist or secular. We cannot contribute to the rebirth of revolutionary internationalism by taking sides in imperialist wars. You don't fight war by joining it, whatever the justification. On the contrary, the first task of internationalist political organisations is to disentangle the working class from the thousand tentacles of the national bourgeoisies and international imperialists. The only condition for opposing all nationalisms and all wars is a revolutionary alternative to capitalism, against counter-revolutionary politics and the preservation of the “status quo”.

leftcom.org

No war but the class war; no to imperialist war, yes to class struggle!