by Sara Flounders, published on Workers World, November 14, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump faces an entirely new problem confronting U.S. imperialism. It is unprecedented. A new world is emerging.
It is globally recognized that U.S. economic and political power is in an unstoppable downward spiral, having failed in decades of war to turn its fortunes around. Now it is at a tipping point. Even as major corporations reap billions of dollars in record profits, the capitalist mode of production is in an irreversible stage of decline, and the U.S. empire is being challenged on a global scale.
The election campaigns of both the Republican and Democratic party candidates confirm that the U.S. empire has nothing to offer the world except threats, sanctions and wars — which are no longer sufficient to maintain its dominance. The two imperialist political parties have different social bases and different styles, but they offer no meaningful choices.
Rapidly developing alliances of countries of the Global South can no longer be ignored. Trump’s MAGA slogan — “Make America Great Again” — ignores this reality, and it confirms just how out of touch the U.S. ruling-class establishment is with the world today. U.S. hegemony is gone, but U.S. imperialists, in their arrogance, can’t see the facts on the ground.
The massive, systematic destruction in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon reveals to the world the extent to which U.S. imperialism is willing to go to defend Israel, the settler-colonial outpost of its dying empire. But the people of the world have seen the power of resistance. The bombs, the targeted assassinations, the hunger and the destruction of all civilian infrastructure have failed to break the determination of the Palestinian people and their allies in Iran, Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere.
The complete inability of Israel in more than a year of bombing — backed by the U.S. and other imperialist powers — to defeat the Palestinian liberation struggle and the revolutionary unity of the Axis of Resistance confirms the limits of U.S. power.
Trump’s embrace of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and of most extreme right-wing Zionist forces appears to have little difference with the attitude of the Biden/Harris administration and the Democratic Party. It won’t save Israel, their failing proxy state. It will only sharpen the global divide between imperialism and the camp of workers and oppressed people.
Consider the events of Nov. 11: 56 Islamic and Arab countries in Western Asia and North and Central Africa, as well as Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Gulf States and Türkiye — a member of the NATO military alliance — convened in an emergency Gaza Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to reaffirm support for Palestine and collectively denounce Israel’s genocide.
On the same day, President-elect Donald Trump announced his choice for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations: Elise Stefanik, an extreme Zionist who labels herself an America First fighter. She called for cutting all U.S. funding to the U.N., including desperately needed programs run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees in Palestine in the Near East (UNRWA). Stefanik led the charge in the U.S. Congress in labeling the Gaza campus encampments and all forms of solidarity with Palestine as antisemitism.
While Trump and his whole crew of right-wing, racist planners announce their plans to take everything backward, the whole world is aggressively moving forward. No slogan calling to “make America great again” is going to turn this around.
Eight years ago and now
This is not the world situation that Trump faced when he was elected president in 2016, a mere eight years ago. The world is changing fast!
Eight years ago, Trump promised – which he has also done this time – to end “endless U.S. wars” on his first day in office. He then focused on the war in Afghanistan. Instead, Trump sent more troops and kept the war going for four more years. After Trump left office, early in the Biden administration, the U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan ended, in a humiliating and frantic airport stampede and a total collapse of the U.S.-backed regime.
In 2016 the U.S. ruling class, in both the Democratic and Republican parties, was united in bringing down the government of Syria by providing the Islamic State in Syria (ISIS) and a myriad of well-funded contra forces with weapons and air cover. This U.S. effort failed. The Syrian Arab Republic survived due to a fierce mobilization and international help and assistance.
Both imperialist parties were confident that the U.S. sending arms to Saudi Arabia would overturn the resistance in Yemen. That too failed. Threats against Iran were at an all-time high. Israeli settlements were surging in the West Bank while Gaza seemed effectively sealed-off by strangling sanctions. In direct violation of all past international agreements on the status of Jerusalem, as an international city administered by the U.N., Trump moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem in 2020 to cement his relationship with Netanyahu.
During Trump’s first administration, new rounds of thousands of economic sanctions were imposed on Cuba and Venezuela in a concerted effort to overturn these revolutionary governments. The result was another U.S. failure.
The BRICS+ and other summits
Now, a whole series of trade alliances, new forms of exchange and a confident new spirit confront a tired, old MAGA slogan.
The 15th annual summit meeting of the BRICS+ countries (currently Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates), held from Oct. 22-24, two weeks before the election in the United States, confirms this new reality.
This gathering of 54 foreign delegations and 1,500 attendees, representing nearly half of the world’s population, in Kazan, Russia, sparked more interest globally than the U.S. elections that have nothing new to offer. Among the world’s emerging economies, new payments and trade mechanisms to bypass U.S.-dominated structures and sanctions on one-third of the world, are developing. More than 30 countries have applied to join BRICS.
At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, in July, the SCO, with 10 member states and 14 dialogue partners, called for the creation of a fair, multipolar world order of peace and prosperity. This body for peaceful mutual development met just days before the U.S.-dominated NATO military alliance met in Washington, D.C., and arrogantly demanded Russia, China, Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea sever ties with each other. (workers.org/2024/07/79921/)
The successful meeting of African nations in Beijing, in the 2024 summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation on Sept. 5, was the ninth China-Africa summit and the largest in the continuing series. China pledged $50 billion in infrastructure funding and the creation of 1 million jobs for Africans.
Now, in Sochi, Russia, the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum is concluding. The third such meeting in five years confirmed that Russia wiped out $23 billion of African nations’ debt amid new cooperation agreements, confirming new breakthroughs for the anti-colonial countries of Africa. The integration of nations is growing at great speed.
The meetings of Saudi Arabia and Iran and their joint naval exercises in the Sea of Oman and the Red Sea in October showed new determination to overcome decades of U.S.-inflamed hostility between the two countries.
China – the game changer
China is the world’s largest exporter of goods. This is a threat to U.S. economic dominance. The scale of China’s exports of $1.6 trillion to the countries of the Global South and BRICS+ is now four times that of China’s annual exports to the U.S. and more than the combined total of China’s exports to the U.S., Europe and Japan. Trump’s threats to impose still more tariffs – even 100% tariffs! – on China only hurts U.S. industries and U.S. workers. Tariffs cause rounds of inflation in the U.S., making U.S. products even less attractive to buyers. But U.S. tariffs will hardly make a dent in China’s global trade. (asiatimes.com, April 25, 2023)
China’s Belt and Road initiatives, involving 150 countries, are the most ambitious infrastructure projects ever conceived. These include the construction of railways, power plants, satellite networks, ports, terminals and other physical development projects, along with establishing cultural and educational projects. Spending has already exceeded $1 trillion, with more funding in the pipeline. Belt and Road initiatives seek to connect Asia with Africa and Europe via land and maritime networks. (workers.org/2021/05/56379/)
What China offers is not just a powerful economy and new development plans. Because China’s socialist base isn’t driven to maximize profit for its private shareholders in every possible transaction, the government is able to introduce a wholly different approach to development. This gives rise to a very different kind of international relations. Genuine collaboration is possible. This is a radical break from centuries of horrific imperialist looting in Africa.
China, once a country robbed and exploited by all the imperialist powers, knows that its interests lie in global development. China’s ability to end poverty for 800 million of its people gives confidence to developing countries seeking concrete and immediate solutions. This is a dramatic contrast to imperialist arrogance.
Because U.S. imperialism is incapable of any project that is not immediately profitable for its corporate investors, it is only able to issue streams of threats, warnings and false information against Belt and Road development projects. It is common knowledge that the United States cannot even solve its own internal infrastructure problems. Funding that should go to emergency FEMA programs for natural and climate-related disasters is looted to pay for more war.
Ukraine war faces defeat
Trump’s election night promise to end the wars – especially focusing on NATO’s war in Ukraine – has created both positive reactions in Russia and apprehension in the European Union countries, which are left holding the remains of this defeated U.S. project. This means billions of dollars in now worthless loans to Ukraine and crumbling equipment and millions of Ukrainian refugees who are spread throughout Europe expect continued subsidies. The North Stream pipeline’s potential for cheap energy for German industries is undermined. More expensive U.S. fracked gas will find more EU customers going forward.
The European economies are now chained firmly to U.S. imperialism’s war chariot.
The corrupt, fascist-leaning Zelensky regime in Ukraine already appeared doomed to a resounding defeat, regardless of who won in the U.S. presidential election. It might be easier for an incoming Trump administration to put the defeat on the doorstep of President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party and move onto advancing U.S. war threats against China.
However, it is useful to remember Trump’s past administration and his promise to end the U.S. war in Afghanistan, withdraw troops from Iraq, Syria and U.S. bases in South Korea. Trump’s first loyalty is to the giant military corporations and banks which are so heavily invested in war. Even if the wars are failing, in the short term they are immensely profitable. For capitalism, that is decisive. As Trump reminds his moneyed supporters, he is first and foremost a capitalist, backed by the biggest capitalists like Elon Musk.
The U.S./NATO war in Ukraine, launched in 2022 under the Biden / Harris administration, failed to shatter Russia into divided pieces or turn the Russian ruble into rubble as Biden promised. Instead, it has led to a wild new round of thousands of sanctions by the U.S., the EU and Britain. The rest of the world refused to go along with the demands of the G7 (Group of Seven — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the U.S.) imperialist countries. Russia’s exports of oil, gas, grains and fertilizer are essential throughout the Global South.
Russia shifted its trade from Europe to the Global South. The ruble, backed by gold, soared in value. The sanctions boomeranged back on to the U.S. and especially battered the economies of the European Union countries.
The world situation has changed in profound ways in terms of what U.S. demands the Global South is able to bear. There is new solidarity and assistance developing among the more than 40 countries hit by starvation sanctions by the U.S. and other members of the G7. Trump’s MAGA slogans can’t reverse this.
People aren’t buying the Pentagon’s message
On Election Day, Nov. 5, the U.S. Air Force test launched a nuclear-capable Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The missile was equipped with “multiple targetable reentry vehicles,” meaning that it is capable of deploying independent warheads that can maneuver as they make their way through the atmosphere toward their targets. This is the Pentagon sending its own message that regardless of who wins the election, war is on the agenda.
But the Pentagon can’t generate enthusiasm for war. In the recent election, nearly 40% of those eligible didn’t vote and a great number are dissatisfied with the economy and more.
Popular sentiment — combined with the decades of war, the deteriorating U.S. global position and the unsolvable problems of a system built only to maximize profit — means that there is fertile ground for mobilizing working-class resistance in the coming period.
*Featured Image: Mass anti-Trump demonstration, Chicago, Nov. 6, 2024. Credit: Chicago Tribune
Sara Flounders is an American political writer who has been active in ‘progressive’ and anti-war organizing since the 1960s. Sara is Co-Director of the International Action Center (IAC) and a member of the Secretariat of Workers World Party She also frequently writes for Workers World newspaper and publishes articles on the International Action Center website.