We hereby share an article published by Nuevo Peru.

UPDATE: Current situation: Notes on the Global Crisis (40. Regarding the “new Trump tariffs” 1)

Trump’s Measures Sharpen Contradictions Inherent to the Imperialist System

Brief introduction

On April 2, the ultra-reactionary and genocidal president of the United States, Donald Trump, announced new customs tariffs worldwide.

Lenin: These protectionist measures are intended to open negotiations, which will not be on an equal footing and give rise to new trade agreements. Customs wars are rare, but their potential is threatened by negotiations, etc. He says that England is based on its economic power (the “economy of the sterling pound” that dominated world trade, in the present, it is the “economy of the dollar”), in its military power and in its colonies.

Quote by Lenin with the observation outside NB: “Extreme protectionism resembles free trade in which, while making it difficult to enter the country (high prices), it promotes foreign trade (import of cheap raw materials, etc.) (sale abroad, since the population is impoverished).

(…) It is not true that the “commercial agreements” have suffered a “bankruptcy” (Notebooks about imperialism ”,“ Beta ”, cites that he takes from a bourgeois economist)

Both in the imperialist countries and in the oppressed countries this new “customs and commercial war” will again lead to greater accumulation and centralization of capital for the benefit of large monopolists and to the detriment of the majority of the population.

The imperialist partners and rivals of Europe and Asia know this and to have better leverage in the negotiations, they hope that Trump’s measures against them have an impact on the US themselves to negotiate seriously not only customs rates but everything else that the “Uncle Sam” is brought under the sleeve. They are aware about the “greatest negotiating power” of the superpower. The European Union – EU (Germany) and social-imperialist China try to coordinate their response.

After the announcement there was a protest by the Republican representatives themselves, because they fear that the ruin of medium and small entrepreneurs will cause their future electoral failure.

Donal Trump, after heavy falls in stock markets around the world starting by their own country itself, on April 9, he himself has announced the postponement of the tariffs for 90 days.

To begin with, a general question regarding the transition of power in the United States government from the Democratic Party (DP) to the Republican Party (RP) is essential for understanding the broader context.

But before referring specifically to the theme of the “new Trump tariffs”, it is necessary to address what is behind the scenes.

BIDEN FAILS (DP) AND TRUMP ENTERS (RP) AS A REPLACEMENT HORSE; ITS FAILURE IS PRE-PROGRAMMED

In the Electoral Campaign (2024) of the two mafias that operate under the auspices of the imperialist State, they not only showed a difference in speech and styles between the two candidates but also in policies (we refer to economic policy; other differences will not be dealt with here); Harris represented the continuation of the Biden’s State interventionist economic policy, privileging State investment; meanwhile, Tump labeled that economic policy as “socialism” and a failure, advocating for a “new policy” of lower taxes and boosting the economy for the “benefit of workers” based on private investment. Therefore, the last electoral campaign did not offer anything new in this matter from either side and was not an alternative to the failures of the genocidal Biden administration, because the Yankee economy problems are due to the current phase of greater decomposition through which it is going.

Lenin established that the economic essence of imperialism is monopoly, from which its parasitic, decomposing, and agonizing character arises. That is why he described it as the phase of the general crisis of capitalism and transition.

Specifically, the different governments of the United States (USA) have failed both domestically and internationally. Let’s understand how the contradiction is presented: the monopolies generated by financial capital have centralized and accumulated more and more capital and, therefore, their power is immensely greater in the metropolis itself and in the world. Yankee imperialism is the biggest monopolist of the moment, and that is why it is the most parasitic; it lives to exploit the entire world, which has led to the fact that in the last 50 years, production in the country itself has decayed, and economic life in the country has deteriorated. This is similar to ancient Rome during its decline, which lived at the expense of its provinces, such as Egypt, Palestine and so on.

The trend referred to in the preceding paragraph, affects imperialism in general and, in particular, Yankee imperialism and is irreversible. The increase in productivity in imperialist countries acts as a counter-trend; but at the same time, it leads to a new accumulation and centralization of capital, more monopoly and more parasitism. For example, the great advance in this field, which has meant the “era of the Internet and AI”, has resulted in the economy centered on services and the greater accumulation and centralization of large monopolies based in Silicon Valley, which we will refer to below. Thus, we see how imperialism is increasingly inconvenient due to its own internal contradictions and the struggle of the oppressed peoples and nations against imperialism and its lackeys advances, which is shocking the entire order of oppression and exploitation of imperialism, accelerating its decomposition and sweeping away.

EVERYTHING IS LEADING IMPERIALISM TO A DEAD END

Today, what was established by Maoism is more relevant than ever:

The manifold irreconcilable contradictions that severely affect the imperialist countries, both internally and externally are like volcanoes constantly threatening the rule of monopoly capital. The imperialist countries are intensifying the arms race and doing their best to militarize their national economies. All this is leading imperialism into an impasse. The the brain trusts of the imperialists have produced plan after plan to save their masters from the fate that is now confronting them or will confront them, but they have been unable to find a real way out of imperialism’s predicament (excerpt from the document that we quote below).

The world revolution is in its strategic offensive, and imperialism is in its strategic defensive; it corresponds to the proletariat, led by its Communist Party, to lead it.

The measures of the Biden government and the speeches of the genocidal Trump, during the electoral campaign and in government, along with his own slogan to manipulate the masses of “MAGA” are the political proof of what we support. The US governments of this century, both of the DP and the RP, have failed in their attempt to reactivate the economic life of the country, a strategic basis of their hegemony on the World. Both Bush Jr., and Obama, as well as Biden and Trump’s first government have failed, they have not been able to find a real exit to their situation. An impossible historical and political situation has imposed imperialism once again as a necessity to change leadership.

The reflection in the subjective plane of what we have just said is seen in the consensus among the reactionary politicians on this side of the Atlantic, that the failure of the Democratic Party in the November 2024 elections has not been a problem of the candidate Harris, a secondary issue, but mainly due to the failure of the DP in the government. This time, it was the faction of imperialism represented by said party and its policy under the command of the imperialist state, led by the financial oligarchy (both factions). Failure of one of his features at the head of imperialism, which is imposed as a need to change horses and politics.

According to this, the Trump government responds to that need for Yankee imperialism in the face of the failure of the DP under the command of the imperialist State, both internally and externally, it needs to respond to this situation in search of maintaining its global hegemony and facing the new challenges and dangers that are presented to it. This new government is sentenced to failure, its first measures until the current one of April 4 progress harvesting more problems.

STATE REACTIONARIZATION IS A NECESSITY FOR IMPERIALISM

IMPERIALISM IS REACTION ALL ALONG THE LINE IN BOTH INTERNAL AND EXTERIOR POLITICS

The faction of State monopoly capitalism in the US is politically represented by the DP and the particular monopoly faction by the RP. Presidents or legislators, governors, etc., they serve one or another faction of imperialism, and since imperialism is reaction all along the line, there is neither progressive faction (liberal, called in that way by some bourgeois historians), nor conservative faction. This denomination corresponded to the era of the development of capitalism in its first phase.

Biden protectionism applied against its imperialist allies and rivals, is not abandoned with Trump but takes a more open and shameless form. This has its explanation not only in individual differences, which are indisputable, but also to a large extent by the differences in interests between both factions and their representatives. One will also be represented as the highest bureaucrat using the name of the State and the “anti-monopoly” standards to deceive and benefit the particular monopolies. That is why at the international level, despite the fact that there is no greater fundamental difference in imperialist policy, the representatives of this faction are presented as respectful of the institutions and norms of international law when it suits them. However, when it does not, they leave them aside or violate it by resorting to the traps that are embedded in the same international agreements or treaties that gave them life. This has been the approach of Yankee imperialism since the new international order arose after World War II, a trend that has become more shameless and aggressive since the beginning of the 1990s with the wars in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and the agreements on ‘security in Europe” following the bankruptcy of Russian social-imperialism. This trend continued throughout the entire decade, emboldened by its status as the sole hegemonic superpower. Chairman Gonzalo stated in the II Plenary of the CC in 1991 that Yankee imperialism has questioned the sovereignty of the oppressed countries, with this, the same reaction questions the State. Since 2001, with the Patriot Act and the so-called ‘War on Terrorism,’ it has acted outside all the so-called institutions and standards of international law, continuing to the present with the genocidal war of Yankee imperialism and Zionism against the Palestinian people and the peoples and nations of the Greater Middle East. All of this has occurred with the agreement of both Parties and all their governments.

What we have just said, does not mean that there are no differences in interests between both Parties and the factions they represent (collusion and struggle). For example, in the problem of centralization of power in the Executive (presidential absolutism) the situation has developed as follows: during the governments of John F. Kennedy and Lindon B. Johnson the Democrats concentrated more and more power in the president, at the expense of the Parliament, and the Republicans were against it, since the first Republican government led by Nixon carried out a further centralization of Power in the president, except when Carter was president, then with Reagan and Bush Sr., they returned to act in that way and that same procedure has been observed by both factions until today. This shows their reactionary essence and that the reactionarization of the State is a necessity for imperialism.

The representatives of the faction of particular monopoly capital, in this case, the Republican Party proclaim to defend “freedom of the individual” and the “free company”, while cutting and suppressing individual freedoms and rights. They support a regime of monopolies, advocate for complete freedom for particular monopolies. Representatives of the particular monopoly capital faction, in this case the Republican Party, are in favor of “individual freedom” (“against Stalinist control,” as Vance said at the Munich Security Conference) and “free enterprise,” which means complete freedom for particular monopolies.

In this regard, the great discussion during the first Clinton Government has an anecdotal value, concerning a new telecommunication law, to modify the Federal Radio Act which had been in force since 1927. Republican representatives argued that the “regulation was fine for the time of industrialization but not for the era based on knowledge, which did not admit any regulation”.

Logically, the other faction defended the intervention of the State in the world of communications and the nascent Internet, Clinton signed on February 8, 1996, the new law that deregulated telecommunications eliminated the New Deal standards, which prohibited mergers among companies in the sector, allowing the fusion of telecommunications companies and prohibiting Internet regulations. The inventions and basic research that made it possible were funded by the imperialist State through taxes. It is important to study the historical facts and the various individuals who participated in favor of and against the control of telecommunications and Internet companies. Among the latter were the self-proclaimed “Libertarians of the Internet” and others known as “the utopians of the Internet,” behind all of whom were the monopolies and the World Bank. This faction of financial capital was contrary to all State intervention on the Internet in the name of the sacred freedom of the individual. The other faction financed the proponents of these “utopists.” Clinton’s government, responding to the needs of U.S. imperialism and in collusion with the other faction, left this activity without regulation, leading to immense technical progress that became centralized in the hands of the great monopolists such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc. In this way, freedom of expression and freedom of business became nothing other than the freedom of the great monopolies of the Internet or AI, often referred to as “the five magnificent.”

Trump, as a representative of the imperialist faction of particular monopolies, is their highest subjective expression to the maximum because he considers himself a member of that oligarchy as a real estate tycoon. As such, he is invested with the power to reshape the board and ignores all institutions and standards based on the “negotiating superiority.” He openly shows himself these days as a representative of the sole hegemonic superpower in political, economic, and military terms. But, we repeat, it is not only with Trump that Yankee imperialism violates international norms; in this case, to apply “American protectionism” against “allies and rivals.”

To refer only to the last sections of this story, we will say that it has been practiced since the first Trump administration (2017-2021) and continues with Biden, but in one way, and now it occurs with this new Trump administration in a more open way and without measuring the consequences it already has for the U.S. economy. The imperialists of Europe and Asia know this, and to have better leverage in the negotiation, they expect Trump’s measures against them to have an impact on the U.S. itself to seriously negotiate not only customs rates but everything else that “Uncle Sam” has up his sleeve. In this, the EU (Germany) and social-imperialist China try to coordinate their response, while one side seeks appeasement and the other is the contestant. The character of this contradiction is that of inter-imperialist contradiction of the second level, that is, between the Yankee imperialist superpower and the other imperialist powers. The consequences will be borne by the masses around the world, starting with those of the country itself.

BOTH FACTIONS PRACTICE STATE INTERVENTION IN THE ECONOMY FOR THE BENEFIT OF PARTICULAR MONOPOLIES

Lenin said that once a monopoly arises, there are no natural or artificial barriers that may stop it, thus historically condemning anti-monopoly laws. The Communist Party of China, in March 1963, described it as a great deception to transfer great benefits to monopolies. Lenin, in his work Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916), gives us a series of examples of what we have said. For our part, we can cite an example: the great bank bankruptcies and mortgage crises of the 2007-2009 crisis. A great scam and deception perpetrated against the great mass of citizens worldwide. Bush and Obama resorted to $8 billion of state money to rescue the entities that, due to fraud of all kinds, triggered the global financial crisis without sanctioning any of those responsible for this fraud, under the slogan “too big to fail.” His critics labeled it as “privatization of profits and socialization of losses.” The broken monopoly companies were rescued and, once sanitized, years later, the government of the imperialist state returned them to the activity of the particular monopolies.

In Marxist theory, this is clear, as we read in the following quotes:

“Whether a bourgeois State pursues a policy of grabbing colonies or contending for world supremacy, a policy of free trade or protective tariffs, every such policy constitutes state intervention in economic life, which bourgeois states have long practiced in order to protect the interests of their bourgeoisie. Such intervention has played an important role in the development of capitalism.

(…) Concentration of capital results in monopoly. From World War I onward, world capitalism has not only taken a step further towards monopoly in general but has also taken a step further away from monopoly in general to state monopoly. After World War I, and particularly after the economic crisis broke out in the capitalist world in 1929, state-monopoly capitalism further developed in all the imperialist countries. During World War II, the monopoly capitalists in the imperialist countries on both sides utilized state-monopoly capital to the fullest possible extent in order to make high profits out of the war. Since the War, state-monopoly capital has actually become the more or less dominant force in economic life in some imperialist countries.

(…) State-monopoly capitalism is monopoly capitalism in which monopoly capital has merged with the political power of the state. Taking full advantage of state power, it accelerates the concentration and aggregation of capital, intensifies the exploitation of the working people, the devouring of small and medium enterprises, and the annexation of some monopoly capitalist groups by others, and strengthens monopoly capital for international competition and expansion. Under the cover of “state intervention in economic life” and “opposition to monopoly,” and using the name of the state to deceive, it cleverly transfers huge profits into the pockets of the monopoly groups by underhanded methods” (More on the Differences Between Comrade Togliatti and Us, Some Important Problems of Leninism in Modern Times, Editorial in the Hongqi (Red Flag) magazine, Beijing, March 1963).

As we have said, the imperialist faction represented by the Democratic Party focuses on the state as the main lever for moving the economy. “As they approach their end, the bourgeois class as a unit assumes productive functions through the state” (Marx). The economic intervention of this faction benefits the other faction, the financial oligarchy faction represented by the Democratic Party, which relies on capital and private monopolies as the main lever for moving the economy. When the state invests or implements protectionist measures, as we will see in the report that refers to Biden’s “new U.S. productive development policy” with the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act, we are faced with one of the ways in which the faction that relies on capital and private monopolies benefits. This corresponds to state-monopoly capitalism, which, according to Lenin, occurs at a certain point in the process of imperialism, where the union of state power with the immense power of the private monopolies generated by finance capital occurs, around the time of World War I.

The function of the faction represented by the Democratic Party is to serve its enemy, to strengthen the financial oligarchy faction represented by the Republican Party, as Maoism says:

“By taking full advantage of state power, it accelerates the concentration and accumulation of capital, intensifies the exploitation of working people, the takeover of small and medium-sized enterprises, and the takeover of some monopoly capitalist groups by others, and strengthens monopoly capital for international purposes, competition, and expansion.”

And, crushing and sweeping away modern revisionism in the head of one of its representatives, the renegade Togliatti, it establishes the following law:

“The facts presented above make it clear that state monopoly and private monopoly are, in fact, two ways that support each other, used by monopoly capitalists for the extraction of enormous profits. The development of monopolist capital of the state aggravates the contradictions inherent to the imperialist system and can never, as Togliatti and the other comrades say, ‘limit and break the power of the large monopolist groups’ (Thesis for the X Congress of the PCI) or change the contradictions inherent in imperialism.” (Document cited above).

In this document, we have clearly exposed the two forms used by monopoly (imperialist) capitalists, which determine the two factions in the different imperialist countries. As the document says, these two factions aggravate the contradictions inherent in imperialism; they are in contradiction, which is developed in collusion and struggle between them. The faction of state monopoly capitalism in the U.S. is politically represented by the Democratic Party, and the particular monopoly faction by the Republican Party. Presidents, legislators, governors, etc., serve one or another faction of imperialism, and since imperialism is reactionary throughout the line, there is no progressive faction (liberal, as some bourgeois historians claim) or another conservative faction. This denomination corresponded to the era of the development of capitalism in its first phase.

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Will continue