Trump's First Failure

Trump's first failure of his second term did not take long to materialise. He had promised to end the Ukraine-Russia war within 24 hours of becoming President. He hasn't, nor even within 48, or 72 hours of becoming President. Like everything that comes out of his mouth, it was a lie, and ridiculous.

As I wrote in my predictions for 2025, the only way that Trump could bring even a rapid end to the war, is if he were to immediately pull the rug from under Zelensky, much as, if Biden had really wanted a ceasefire in Gaza, he would have stopped supplying weapons to the Zionist state. Biden obviously was not going to stop arming the Zionist state (and nor will Trump as it resumes its genocide and wars of annexation), because the Zionist state is implementing US policy in the region. It requires the annexation of large amounts of land by the Zionist state, and obliteration of the Palestinians, and any other potential obstacles to that goal. That clears the path to the normalisation of relations with Saudi Arabia etc., as set out in the Abraham Accords, and the creation of a US friendly economic bloc in the region, to counter the growing influence of China/BRICS+.

The supporters of Putin anticipated that Trump would, indeed, quickly pull the plug on Zelensky, whilst the supporters of Zelensky, created their own new straw to grasp, by hoping that Trump was just setting up a bargaining stance in which he would threaten Putin that, unless he did a deal, the US would step up its arms supplies to Ukraine. As I set out in that prediction, that was always a false hope, “because as has already been seen any such additional support will not change things. More importantly, Trump has promised his supporters an end to the war, and that the US is removing itself from it. He is not going to undermine that position, and the only way of ending it soon is by pulling the plug on Zelensky.”

Already, Trump has failed, and reneged on the promise he made to his supporters, of ending the war in 24 hours of becoming President. Its not the only failure he's going to face, and those failures will increasingly lead to the disappointment of many of those that voted for him, as reality imposes itself, much as happened when reality imposed itself following the implementation of Brexit, in Britain. Trump has tried to cover his failure by saying that he has told Putin to do a deal quickly or face further sanctions, tariffs and so on. Much as with the threats issued to the EU by the Brexiteers, it is a toothless and empty threat.

Russia has been suffering sanctions and so on since 2014, and each new round of such have decreasing scope and effectiveness. Indeed, the main effect of those sanctions and so on, has been, not on Russia, but on the EU, which has seen its energy prices soar, as it boycotted Russian oil and gas. As I set out in that prediction,

“one of the reasons that all of the predictions by NATO imperialism about Russia's economy being destroyed, as a result of western sanctions, failed is that Russia, whose economy is heavily geared to the sale of primary products, has been able to continue selling them to China, India and elsewhere, and the effect of western sanctions has simply been to raise global prices of those products, and to encourage the development of alternatives to the western controlled global systems. It has been one of the biggest encouragements for the BRICS+ imperialist bloc there could be. What is developing is not a multipolar world, but a bi-polar world of these two huge imperialist blocs butting heads against each other, with the EU being torn by different forces in both directions.”

Russia knows that Trump can't step up arms supplies to Ukraine without Trump losing face with his base, and, in any case, with Russia sitting secure in its newly annexed regions of Eastern Ukraine, any additional weapons are no more likely to help Ukraine, than all the previous supplies. Indeed, Ukraine's main problem is, increasingly, not supply of weapons, but available troops to use them, especially as it faces increasing opposition from those it is asking to fight. So, Russia is likely to ignore any such threat. But, Trump has, also, used that recognition to shift the ground on to the real target of US imperialism, which is not Russia, but China. Recognising that further sanctions against Russia are unlikely to have any impact, Trump has opened the possibility of further sanctions and tariffs against anyone that facilitates trade with Russia, i.e. primarily China, but it, also, thereby, draws in India, and other BRICS+ states.

However, for reasons I also set out in my predictions for 2025, this is also unlikely to be effective either. The US, and EU already have tariffs and other protectionist measures in place against China, because they are losing out in global competition. Further such measures were already planned.  For example, Trump had promised to impose 100% tariffs on imports from China – another promise he has failed to implement – and the EU has imposed large tariffs on Chinese EV's. Threatening China with additional sanctions and tariffs for continuing to facilitate Russian trade, is unlikely to be very effective, therefore, both because it sees those measures being threatened either way, and because, not only does China get much of its energy and other materials from Russia, but, it has increasingly developed its own regional market for its exports, as well as others in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America.

Further tariffs on China will not affect its exports to these other markets, and will also see China retaliate with its own tariffs on US and EU goods. Its why Germany, which is the biggest EU exporter to China, opposed the imposition of tariffs on Chinese EV's. Similarly, US imperialism tried to force Chinese owner of Tik-Tok, ByteDance, to sell Tik-Tok to a US company, to continue operating, but that also hasn't worked. Not only do many of Trump's supporters, along with millions of other US citizens, use Tik-Tok, every day, but many use it to earn a living. In addition, many of them, decided to move to a wholly Chinese alternative to Tik-Tok, Red Notes. Trump has not only been forced to give Tik-Tok a reprieve from being banned, but has also backed down, on his proposed 100% tariff threat.

Further tariffs by the US and EU on Chinese exports are only likely to raise the prices of those goods for their domestic consumers, further aggravating the so called “cost of living crisis” that they have faced over the last two or three years, as the vast amounts of liquidity they pumped into circulation during lockdowns, led to surging inflation. In conditions where we have systemic labour shortages, leading to rising wages, any such rise in the cost of living/value of labour-power, will simply lead to wages rising to compensate, and so reducing the profits of capital based in the US and EU. Central banks will, undoubtedly, try to ameliorate that by providing liquidity so that companies can further raise prices to compensate for the rising wages – and the ability of firms to use commercial credit, anyway, facilitates that, even if central banks don't – but that only leads back to the price-wage spiral that governments and central banks thought they had tamed.

Moreover, Trump partly based his campaign on dealing with that rise in the cost of living. If it quickly starts rising again, it will represent another one of his failures in the eyes of his supporters. Even more important, is that, as I set out, Trump's base, as with that of Farage, is within the ranks of the petty-bourgeoisie - the self-employed, the small trader and so on. Unlike big companies, they can't easily absorb those rising costs, and nor can they simply raise their wages, as workers can. It is they that will bear the brunt of Trump's economic policy, and his own, self-inflicted cost of living crisis, much as happened with the consequences of Brexit. That petty-bourgeois base undoubtedly likes the idea of swingeing tariffs, especially put forward on the basis that it reduces the requirement for higher taxes, but the reality of it is different.

Trump talked about the role of tariffs in that regard in the early days of the US, but Sky News' Ed Conway, illustrated the fallacy of those claims. 

Moreover, as Engels described, although such protectionist measures may have a positive role for an industrialising economy, as the US was, in order to accumulate its own capital and scale of production, those benefits quickly dissipate, and become reversed.

“Protection is at best an endless screw, and you never know when you have done with it. By protecting one industry, you directly or indirectly hurt all others, and have therefore to protect them too. By so doing you again damage the industry that you first protected, and have to compensate it; but this compensation reacts, as before, on all other trades, and entitles them to redress, and so on ad infinitum. America, in this respect, offers us a striking example of the best way to kill an important industry by protectionism.”

That is being seen again, with the effects of protectionism, against China, simply meaning that in all of those areas of new technology such as green energy, battery technology, the development of E.V's, and charging infrastructure, it is continuing to stride ahead, whilst those economies seeking to protect their existing old industries, in energy production, fossil fuels, and petrol engined vehicles are simply delaying the inevitable, whilst simultaneously holding back the development of the new technologies.

It has been interesting to see other elements of the points made in my predictions for 2025, already playing out. For example, in relation to the question of access to Arctic routes and resources. Setting aside all questions of morals, it is not surprising that Trump has laid claim both to Greenland, and the Panama Canal. Logically, there is no more reason for Greenland to be part of Denmark than the Falkland Isles to be part of Britain. Indeed, Trump simply blurts out the fundamental reality that logically not only Greenland, but, also, Canada, should be part of a North American state. Its no wonder, therefore, that whilst Trump has backtracked on his promise of 100% tariffs on Chinese imports, he has spoken about imposing 25% tariffs on both Canadian and Mexican imports, even though, under the terms of the Mexico-Canada-USA treaty, that would be illegal. The MCA, of course, was signed during his first term, as a replacement for NAFTA. As with the Brexit deal signed by Boris Johnson, it didn't take long for Trump to denigrate a deal he was responsible for!

Yet, the fact is that the deal has been more beneficial for the US than for Canada or Mexico. Consequently, that gives both Mexico and Canada leverage in responding to any such tariffs, in a way that would be highly detrimental to the US, even more so than retaliation by China. US exports to each country run at almost triple American exports to China. 

Expect reality to impose itself even more on Trump's rhetoric in the coming days and weeks. His policies in relation to energy production, are also full of contradictions, in a world where there is a surplus of oil production. As with Brexit, and the petty-bourgeois, nationalist agenda attempted by Truss, and now by Starmer/Reeves, they offer an even less credible solution than the already failed model of conservative social-democracy (Neoliberalism).