William I. Robinson nails it: Trump’s tariff war isn’t about economic nationalism, it’s a desperate response to capitalism’s deepening crisis. The global economy is in chronic stagnation, mired in overaccumulation, and every move Trump makes simply intensifies the contradictions tearing it apart. Tariffs won’t revive US industry, they’re a class war weapon wielded against workers at home and abroad.
This fits neatly into the broader trajectory of American decline, something I explored in The Inevitable Decline. The US empire, once seemingly unassailable, has been in structural crisis since the 1970s. As Mark Fisher argued, capitalist realism means the slow cancellation of the future, the transformation of capitalism into a system that no longer innovates but merely manages crisis. Trumpism is just the grotesque final stage of this process, where economic stagnation breeds reaction, and a failing dominant class clings to power through authoritarianism, culture wars, and outright repression. Global capitalism’s core contradiction is the clash between a fully integrated world economy and a system of competing nation-states. Capital flows freely, but political legitimacy is still tied to national governance. The capitalist state has two irreconcilable tasks: ensuring conditions for transnational accumulation and maintaining legitimacy among its domestic population. The result? A spiral of economic nationalism, protectionism, and increasing state violence, all designed to keep the system afloat while capital keeps accumulating.
“The capitalist state has two irreconcilable tasks: ensuring conditions for transnational accumulation and maintaining legitimacy among its domestic population. The result? A spiral of economic nationalism, protectionism, and increasing state violence, all designed to keep the system afloat while capital keeps accumulating.”
As I wrote previously, the neoliberal turn of the 1970s and ‘80s set the stage for today’s economic disarray. Nixon and Reagan’s dismantling of the post-war social contract hollowed out US industry, financialised the economy, and transferred power to an emerging class of tech monopolists and financial speculators. Trumpism is not a break from this trajectory but its acceleration. Deregulation, wage suppression, privatisation, state violence, and hyper-nationalism: all aimed at intensifying exploitation while dividing workers. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint lays it all out: destroy what remains of the post-war social contract, shred any last constraints on capital, and entrench a dominant class dictatorship under a fascist order. The tariff war is just one front in this all-out assault on the working class. This ties directly into the emergence of Algorithmic Authoritarianism, where governance itself is being outsourced to billionaire-controlled social media and AI systems. Trumpism is not merely about tariffs or nationalism; it is about restructuring governance itself to serve capital in its most direct, unmediated form. As I argued in that piece, Musk and the tech oligarchs are no longer just influencing the state—they are the state. Algorithmic governance and social media manipulation are the new tools of class warfare, where capital no longer needs to negotiate through traditional political structures but can enforce its rule through predictive control, surveillance, and digital censorship.
“As I argued in that piece, Musk and the tech oligarchs are no longer just influencing the state—they are the state.”
“The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint lays it all out: destroy what remains of the post-war social contract, shred any last constraints on capital, and entrench a dominant class dictatorship under a fascist order.”
Trump’s resurrection of America’s brutal carceral state is another key facet of this broader authoritarian turn, as explored in Trump’s Resurrection Of America’s Brutal Legacy. The transformation of Guantánamo Bay into a migrant detention camp is not just a grotesque expansion of the carceral state, it is a weapon of class warfare. The capitalist state thrives on dividing the working class, using migration as a tool to pit workers against each other. As I wrote, this isn’t about crime, it’s about control. Criminalising migrants serves the dual purpose of disciplining labour and stoking xenophobic nationalism, distracting from the failures of capitalism itself.
The transnational capitalist class (TCC) isn’t loyal to any state. It plays the game where it profits most. Trump’s tariffs might extract some short-term investment, but capital won’t tolerate restrictions on its global operations. Major business lobbies and corporations are already pushing back, Tesla, for instance, is suing the EU over Chinese tariffs while Musk plays co-president in Washington. This isn’t economic patriotism; it’s naked class warfare, enforced not just through tariffs but through algorithmic suppression, digital propaganda, and an AI-driven war on organised labour. Now, with the return of mass migrant detention, Trump is deploying another classic weapon of the dominant class, border militarisation and mass incarceration (Robinson’s global police state) to divide and weaken workers, ensuring a precarious labour force remains available for exploitation. Trump’s mass base, especially disillusioned workers, will soon realise they’ve been conned. His protectionist rhetoric won’t bring secure jobs or rising wages, it’s a bait-and-switch. The reality is more precarity, more downward pressure on wages, and more repression. As I noted in The Inevitable Decline, when empires crumble, their rulers turn inwards, directing violence at their own people. Now, with Algorithmic Authoritarianism, that repression is not just physical but digital, shaping reality itself through social media blackouts, algorithmic de-prioritisation of dissent, and AI-driven narrative control. And as Trump’s Resurrection Of America’s Brutal Legacy makes clear, that repression is also material: the expansion of the carceral state, the criminalisation of migration, and the use of militarised border enforcement as a tool to discipline labour. When the illusion of economic renewal shatters, Trump’s coalition will fracture, and resistance will escalate. His answer? State violence, digital suppression, and an ever more brazen authoritarian crackdown.
“Trump is deploying another classic weapon of the dominant class, border militarisation and mass incarceration (Robinson’s global police state) to divide and weaken workers, ensuring a precarious labour force remains available for exploitation.”
We’re at a crossroads. The breakdown of global order and the slide towards fascism aren’t accidents, they’re capitalism’s crisis playing out in real time. The only way out isn’t through state-managed capitalism or protectionist fantasies, but through organised, revolutionary struggle. As I wrote before, the US ruling class can no longer justify its hegemony with prosperity, so it pivots to brute force. Now, with algorithmic control, mass migrant detention, and billionaire governance, the challenge is even greater. The alternative is clear: socialism or barbarism. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
“The only way out isn’t through state-managed capitalism or protectionist fantasies, but through organised, revolutionary struggle.”
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