As Trump is gonna put his insane tariffs in place, what do you guys think is the goal here? Because I fear that he is playing 4D chess but making it look like he is playing checkers, and if his tariffs are out into place it’ll undoubtedly anger and radicalise lots of Americans especially, and just cause a general shitshow for approval ratings and threaten the domestic safety of capital. Thoughts?
This is all highly speculative and subject to trump getting what he wants at every turn: I think he is going for the big tamale. I think he wants to become supreme dictator of north america. I dont think he cares about approval ratings or the whims of the bourgeoise. I think he has the support of the military and is going to lean into that. He’s going to make a total war economy before starting a total war with China.
I did a bit of looking into the foreign aid ban and the investigations into state department and pentagon officials and the details are slim but it sounds like he is doing a purge.
I think he and the right wing have realized usa can’t compete against state owned arms manufacturers and banks. So the plan is to declare the profit gouging (like the $52k garbage can) by defence contractors as treason or some such. They’ll build up a case against all the companies selling things to the government at inflated cost and then force them to nationalize. They’ll make a government monopoly on arms manufacture and vertically integrate them so they can produce weapons at a lower cost by not paying shareholders or middle men. This probably means they will do this for some other industries like steel mills and even mines. I think he’ll leave tech companies and farming alone.
The tariffs will be coupled with large numbers of visas for temporary workers. High cost of living in canada and mexico will drive people to work in america for slightly better wages. Meanwhile he will raise the pay for joining the army and maybe even offer citizenship to white canadians who join the military as a way to make the annexation of canada easier. If a salary from a entry level soldier can raise a family and all the low skill jobs are filled with migrant labor americans will have little choice but to join up.
There is no 4D chess here, the US foreign policy has always been might makes right, its just that Trump says the quiet part out loud.
I think he’s simply following the plan his new bfff Stephen Miran laid out in A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System (pdf: https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/research/638199_A_Users_Guide_to_Restructuring_the_Global_Trading_System.pdf)
tldr: use tariffs to cause allies to fall in line and further entwine economies with the American security apparatus, then copy paste to the broader globe with tariffs on everything. effectively using inflation to consolidate capital further and pull as much manufacturing “home” as possible.
Starting with North America kills the chicken to tame the monkey (whip major world powers by bloodying minor ones) and puts him in ideal place to milk what little surplus value the bourgeoisie doesn’t have obvious access to. Implementation relies heavily on American military might and a productive capacity that existed in prior decades; it’s unclear whether that terrain matches the map anymore.
Trump is inconsistent and surrounded by the dipshit peons of a crumbling empire so who knows what actually happens, but I believe the intent is clear.
Coincidentally blurted out a post along the same lines. I wholeheartedly agree, it’s a threat to make allies and dependent governments fall in line.
Imagine how much it’d hurt Germany if they get hit with tariffs, they’d do anything to avoid that. Even supporting war against China against their own interests. And if they’re hit, German capital will just flow naturally to the US and it’ll become Poland 2.
Edit: hyperlink ate the parenthesis.
Idk about this. 10 years ago definitely. But now? Theres a very real chance China can simply make places like Germany a better offer, and the US just further isolates itself. My guess is itll be a mixed bag. Some nations fall in line with the US while some are pushed right into Chinas arms. Its already a cold war again basically and itll be fought with soft power. The US soft power is crumbling while Chinas is booming.
Do you have a read on the viability of this?
I’d see it as a plausible effort to extend American influence if it was done at the end of Trumps first term, but the failed proxy war has blessed western powers with a trove of debts and embarrassments amid already active de-industrialization across the the EU. I can’t imagine it’ll be simple to reunite hungry, embarassed people behind such an extreme neoliberal scheme while BRICS is visibly prospering next door.
In North America, Canada has been a vassal state for decades, and while Mexico has built internal capacity and infrastructure that may grant some degree of independence, Canada seems to be in a hopeless position. Canadian politicians are blustering about cutting off trade or power to the States, but if this is just phase 1 of a multi pronged strategy, one would expect Trump to respond with much higher and widespread tariffs to ensure compliance in future phases (from all future parties). Nevermind that the American market would be forced to react to denied imports by building capacity to finance permanent alternatives which is what Trump wants in the first place.
Canada painted itself into a corner. Internal trade is intentionally obstructed by oligopolies in each province, and we don’t have the economic complexity to finance qualitative improvement to infrastructure because all we have are primary commodities - which will be affected by the volatility caused by tarrifs. We might delay the crunch by simply appeasing Trump for now, but ultimately everyone needs a basic mutual aid strategy for bank runs and layoffs - and the only long-term solution is a thorough reconsideration of how to light the coming swell of revolutionary potential our aristocratic unions and parties sure won’t.
We might delay the crunch by simply appeasing Trump for now, but ultimately everyone needs a basic mutual aid strategy for bank runs and layoffs - and the only long-term solution is a thorough reconsideration of how to light the coming swell of revolutionary potential our aristocratic unions and parties sure won’t.
I think you nailed it. Canada will get crunched and any exports to US are going to lose profitability with 25% tariffs in place. Demand will fall eventually because Americans aren’t an infinite source of money.
You don’t need accelerationism when Trump is president. The Canadian car factories are going to feel the pressure. They never gave a shit about diversifying away from the US market so the layoffs will be coming.
Revolutionary potential? Possibly. When there’s mass layoffs you kinda need mass employment to address it.
If Canada had any brains they would trade with Europe. But they are too stupid and gutless to do that.
Being very honest, my answer is “I’m not sure”. I think it makes some sense in Canada, but another user somewhere pointed to how Mexico is actually industrialising. It might only work with definite military vassals like Europe? Trump is certainly not taking the FDR road to fight the new cold war. I’ll gladly admit I haven’t managed to sit down and research this properly, and it’s all just disorganised thoughts for now.
It looks like, so far, the threats are building solidarity among the elected officials of the Canadian provinces (except Alberta). Its gone as far as one guy (Doug Ford, hes… Something else…) has been leading (?!?) the charge of “Canada is not for sale”.
If there is a single redeemable cultural quality of Canadians, its that we are definitely not Americans. So I guess things will get… Interesting
I’d disagree that this is a redeemable quality and just pure denial (of Canadians in general, no shade at you comrade). Canada has helped finance and run cover for every American military action while directly providing the raw resources at a massive discount which fuels the hegemony, we’re beyond complicit.
Even Jean Chretien, in his memoir, publicly bragged about bragging that Canada already does more for the States than it could ever do as a 51st state.
Canada actually spends less on social services than the states and the decline of our medical system could reach an exponential pace while provinces like Alberta are already pushing workers to private care. If you compare our healthcare to any developed country but the US, we’re an embarassment on effective care and timeliness of care.
I have no doubt politicians will take advantage of this situation to ramp up nationalist rhetoric, but would any assessment of the situation find actual material efforts to support Canadians? There’s neoliberal conversations about rolling back regulations to allow for more interprovincial trade, but these are led by reactionary think tanks financed by established corporations looking to further consolidate rather than return meaningful results to Canadians - and no Canadian institution is taking the lead on assessing the situation from a proletariat position so of course Doug Ford gets namedropped as a positive force for good. A few of my lib friends have tried to buy his stupid hat because all that matters is aesthetic here, and that’s why we’ve already lost.
I mean come on, we’re functionally Americans, who only hold the belief that we aren’t Americans as our single defining feature that we feel allows us to proclaim that we’re better than them… Even as things constantly fall to shit around us and we struggle to make any progress at all.
I don’t think Trump himself plans much at all. More insightful is probably looking at the sort of vultures who keep company with him and/or are in his ear, or considering what the alphabet agencies’ view would be. US electoral politics is largely spectacle and Trump is an expert in spectacle. The power brokers are more so the donors and the alphabet agencies and such. I’m not claiming it’s all a binary switch, where the elected officials don’t hold any real power, but probably more akin to a mafia-like thing where they are supposed to stay within certain boundaries and can get threatened or worse if they step too far outside them. And Trump is a useful distraction spectacle of a leader for a more overt consolidation of power attempt for an empire whose “soft” power neoliberal order is in question. He acts chaotically, he gets people to have lots of “wtf” moments, and he can be hard to take seriously at times even as he does in broad daylight the kind of stuff liberals hide behind decorum.
His personal interests are a factor (and they are probably to enrich himself as someone else said), but he could do that a lot of ways that don’t require becoming president. So why is he keeping at it? Is it ego? Is he in too deep? Whatever the reason, he’s one part among mixed fascist factions and infighting, with a lot of power that goes beyond him as an individual.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, yeah, he’s powerful, but I wouldn’t advise spending too much energy laser focused on him as individual. More important are the surrounding conditions and what the most powerful factions are doing as a whole. We know he’s a piece of shit ten times over. What we maybe don’t know as clearly is what is the factional interest in gathering around him as a figurehead and what the overall goal of that is, if they figure they can steer him through his TV programs as a useful lightning rod of attention or a useful cult of personality or what. Trump as a person I’d argue acts more like “chaotic evil”, but the US empire as a whole doesn’t and that’s a strange contrast, isn’t it? What is the purpose of allowing that? Or has he broken beyond what they allow and enough of them have eaten the onion on being part of his cult?
Goal? Get richer.
He will threaten with tariffs to get what he wants. As long as some sort of factory work gets moved to the US, he’s going to call it a win. The multinationals will move around factories to maximize profit. They moved certain production out of the US for the same reason.
Prices will go up for manufactured goods because American production costs are high. Americans won’t get radicalized. They will just absorb it.
Trump isn’t going to fix inequality or cost of living. It’s not his objective.
You really don’t think that over time even Americans will start to wake up? I know their track record is less than abyssmal but still I would like to hold out some hope
Nope, working americans are more likely to throw themselves at yet another war than overthrowing their bourgeois class.
Over time they will wake up and be angry about particular policies but radicalizing implies they would shift a lot further politically. I don’t think the majority of Americans will do that.
Us Lemmygradders would have to take far smaller, more realistic steps to build any sort of popular political power in America or anywhere in the West.
I’m in Australia and even collective bargaining from unions generates a lot of resentment when it is powerful enough to disrupt everyday life. e.g. our Sydney train drivers had a big strike recently. There’s no solidarity with them from most of the public.
I do not know for certain, but I can make inference from the context, results of Trump’s policies, and the fact that Trump in real life is less evil than Trump in fake news.
From the parochialism and localism, one possible goal is to create more economic independence that sustains American economy. The US is one of the free riding European diaspora that use the Bretton Woods instiutions like WB and IMF to depend that developing countries remove the protectionism that sustain economic development while enabling rich white countries to hypocritcally impose protectionism for ‘security purpose’, but engaging in more protectionism could create more local jobs and further strengthens the local industries that the global south specialized in.
A second possible goal is to subdue Canada and Mexico through economic sanctions until their agreed to united into one country so that the US could compete with Chinese superpower. This is especially important in an era where the US is losing puppet governments and victims of debt trapping from China’s intervention into international development.
A third possible goal is to destroy the Neo-Liberal order and create a new conservative order that privileges old values of the European diaspora.
Could you elaborate on your third point?
For clarification, my inference is that Donald Trump might not like the present policies of NATO, Bretton Woods Institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, or some treaties that encourages international connection. He might want to reform the NATO alliance, alter the policies of the Bretton Woods Institutions, or replace treaties with treaties that more explicitly favors withdrawal of foreign support, explicit national expansion, protectionism, or immigration.
I’m treating it all as an unknowable black box for now. Trump himself isn’t a rocket surgeon, and I hardly know the people around him, never mind what their internal thoughts & motivations are or how much influence each has on him.
Edit to add that Wolff & Hudson haven’t managed to crack this case yet, either, except to say that these are internal & external contradictions playing out among & against various factions.
