By Chris Fry
Beginning on April 2, king Trump has conducted a chaotic global tariff “tribute” campaign, with the goal of forcing the rest of the world to “bend the knee” to U.S. imperialism. From nearby Canada and Mexico to the remote islands near Antarctica inhabited only by penguins and seals, Trump demanded new tariffs ranging from 10 to 50 percent.
But when nations around the world, led by socialist China, threatened their own tariffs against the U.S., Wall Street panicked. First, stock prices fell. Then countries began to sell their reserve of U.S. Treasury bonds, sinking their prices.
Trump was forced to relent. He “temporarily” lowered his new tariffs to 10 per cent for every country except China until July. At the same time, though, he targeted the “common enemy” of the U.S. billionaire class, the People’s Republic of China (PRC). He raised the tariff rate on it up to a whopping 245 percent.
Socialist China strikes back.
But China has not backed down. It has responded by setting tariffs on U.S. imports at 125 percent. And it has prevented the sale of “rare earth” minerals to the U.S., which are essential to producing computers, cars and military planes and submarines. It has refused delivery of dozens of airliners from the monopoly Boeing corporation.
Trump has tried to force other countries to cut their trade relations with China as a precondition to lowering U.S. tariffs. An April 22 Newsweek article reports:
To further turn up the heat on China, Trump administration officials are pressuring over 70 U.S. trade partners to scale back trade with the world’s second-largest economy and even introduce their own tariffs, The Wall Street Journal wrote last week, citing sources familiar with the discussions.
Trump’s effort to isolate China has failed spectacularly, even with typically servile Europe and England:
But rather than negotiating, Chinese President Xi Jinping is in the midst of a charm offensive, seeking to rally support from nearby Southeast Asia to Europe.
After years of aligning more closely with the United States on China over concerns about national security and over alleged Chinese industrial oversupply, some U.S. allies in Europe are pushing back against Washington and even signaling they’re considering a relative thaw in trade relations with China.
“China is the second biggest economy in the world, and it would be, I think, very foolish to not engage. That’s the approach of this government,” U.K. finance chief Rachel Reeves told The Telegraph.
When Trump told the press on April 24 that China was caving to his tariff attack by negotiating with the White House, China denied that such negotiations were occurring, saying that ,” … any suggestion of progress in this matter was as groundless as ‘trying to catch the wind.’”
Will Trump launch a shooting war against China?
So now the question emerges – does the Trump regime intend to turn his failing trade war with China into a shooting war?
On April 13, at one of his airplane impromptu press conferences, king Trump let “the cat out of the bag.” He told reporters:
“We’re going to have our drugs made in the United States, so that in case of war, in case of whatever, we’re not relying on China and various other countries, which is not a good idea,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One Sunday evening.
Of course, by itself, this could be just an example of Trump’s bluster. But other factors are giving reasons to believe that he is laying the groundwork for a military attack on Socialist China.
Hedge fund manager Ray Dalio posted an article on LinkedIn in early April that gives more detail on why Trump’s tariffs are directly linked to preparing for a shooting war. Of course, he is presenting this from a billionaire capitalist point of view:
Dalio, who founded the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, wrote that the tariffs “can reduce both current account and capital account imbalances.”
“Which in plain English means reducing the dependencies on foreign production and foreign capital which is especially valued in times of global geopolitical conflicts/wars…”
Taiwan gets F16s
This month the U.S. delivered 66 F-16 Block 70/72 fourth-generation warplanes for $8 billion to the renegade regime on Taiwan. Recognized by less than a dozen small countries, the secessionist leaders were elected by only 40 percent of the residents, yet they feel entitled to engage the island in a Ukraine-style proxy war with the PRC.
In July 2022, just before Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, a prominent right-wing think tank in Washington “suggested” that the island’s regime threaten to blow up China’s massive 3 Gorges Dam, which would flood a large portion of that country:
China has targets, and Taiwan has missiles. That translates into deterrence if Taiwan makes it clear that, in the defense of its sovereignty, it is prepared to take Chinese lives in the hundreds of millions.
Clearly both U.S. political parties desire to see Taiwan engage in a conflict with China. But this U.S. war campaign before Taiwan’s January 2024 election caused the majority of residents there to vote against the secessionist DPP party, who took the presidency anyway because of the split between the opposition parties.
The opposition parties did take control of the island’s legislature, which has hampered the U.S.’s war plans.
With the obvious reluctance of the island’s people to kill and die for U.S. imperialist hegemony and since Taiwan’s non-nuclear missiles may not be able to destroy the massive 3 Gorges Dam, the Trump regime has rushed to complete production of the B61-31 nuclear bomb.
Capable of being carried by a stealth bomber or missile, this bomb could destroy this dam, flooding the Yangtze River Basins, home for more than 500 million people. But that move by Trump would unleash a global nuclear war.
Finally, Trump has called for a massive military parade on his own birthday, June 14, which also is “Army Day.” This will be a xenophobic extravaganza, complete with tanks and planes, marching from the Pentagon to the White House.
On top of the millions of dollars required to execute this parade, officials in the predominantly Black city point out that more millions must be spent afterwards repairing the streets from the heavy tanks with their tracks tearing them up.
What’s at stake for labor
After decades of the loss of jobs caused by trade agreements like NAFTA, many unions, like the UAW and the Teamsters, applauded Trump’s tariffs. Their leadership believes that these will cause the bosses to cancel pending layoffs, reopen closed plants, and restore good paying jobs.
Of course, it is altogether right and proper for the working class to demand those things from Trump, since he now has taken full control of the economy. But Trump and his union-busting patrons like Elon Musk have no intention to do any of those things to help workers. They dream of replacing human labor and oust labor unions with robots.
All the benefits of reopening plants here should go to our class, the producers of all the wealth, not the parasitic bosses who amassed huge profits while we suffered layoffs and plant closings.
But we also must remember that Trump and the rest of the billionaire class behind him are motivated by the drive for hegemony, for world dominance over not only their capitalist rivals but also the world’s workers and poor. The rich seek to trap us into conflict with our class sisters and brothers, particularly now in Socialist China.
To Trump and the billionaires we are just cannon fodder meant to kill and shed our blood to protect their wealth.
In this time of extreme danger, our best weapon is our class solidarity with all the workers here and abroad.
Defund the Pentagon! Stop the war drive against Socialist China!
Good article.