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?
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.
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
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?
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.
