Tariffs As Global Class War: The Capitalist Onslaught Beneath Trump’s Trade Gambit – OpEd
When Donald Trump imposed a 25% tariff on Canadian steel and Mexican automobiles in March 2025, he framed it as a patriotic defence of American jobs. Yet behind the rhetoric of economic revival lies a darker truth: tariffs are not tools of national renewal but weapons in a global class war.
By reigniting trade conflicts with China, Canada, Mexico, and the EU, Trump’s policies expose how monopoly capital—concentrated in the hands of corporate elites—tightens its grip on the global economy, exploiting both American workers and the Global South. The collateral damage? A fractured world order where the poor subsidize the rich, and systemic inequity hardens into permanence.
The Myth of Protection: Tariffs as Capitalist Tools
Trump’s tariff escalations—25% on Canada and Mexico, 245% on China, and threats of 200% levies on EU wine—are framed as a revival of “economic nationalism.” But history reveals a grimmer pattern. During his first term, tariffs on steel, aluminium, and Chinese goods failed to resurrect manufacturing jobs. Instead, they cost U.S. households $1.4 billion annually in higher prices, while retaliatory measures vaporized $27 billion in agricultural exports. The Congressional Research Service found that tariffs on washing machines raised consumer prices by 12%, enriching a handful of domestic producers while stifling competition.
This is not protectionism but predation. Tariffs act as regressive taxes, disproportionately burdening low- and middle-income households, who spend a larger share of earnings on essentials like food and clothing. Meanwhile, corporate lobbyists carve exemptions for favoured industries, ensuring that the costs of protectionism are socialized while profits remain privatized. As the Federal Reserve Bank of New York noted in 2019, tariffs function as “a transfer from consumers to protected industries,” entrenching monopolistic power.
Global South Subjugation: India’s Capitulation and the Neocolonial Playbook
India’s unilateral tariff reductions under U.S. pressure epitomize the coercive dynamics of neoliberal imperialism. Faced with Trump’s threats of reciprocal tariffs, New Delhi slashed duties on American steel scrap, electronics, and even cancer drugs—industries critical to its developmental sovereignty. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal’s plea to replace Chinese imports with U.S. goods reveals a Faustian bargain: surrendering economic self-determination for fleeting diplomatic favor.
The U.S. demand that India abandon Russian defence contracts for American arms underscores the geopolitical calculus. Tariffs here are not mere trade tools but instruments of subordination, binding weaker economies to U.S. supply chains. India’s concessions—reducing apple tariffs from 50% to 15%, opening markets to U.S. walnuts and dairy—mirror colonial-era extractivism, where raw materials flow outward and value-added goods flood inward. The result? A dependency trap, where the Global South subsidizes Western capital while stifling its own industrial growth.
Retaliation and Recession: The Futility of Capitalist Competition
Canada and Mexico, despite their integration into U.S. supply chains, face existential threats. A 25% U.S. tariff could decimate Mexican exports by 26%, risking 3.6% of its workforce. Canada, reliant on the U.S. for 80% of exports, confronts similar devastation. Yet China’s retaliatory 12% tariff on Canadian canola oil and 25% on pork reveals the zero-sum absurdity of capitalist trade wars: nations cannibalize each other’s markets, accelerating global recession.
The OECD forecasts that Trump’s tariffs will shave 0.72% off U.S. GDP, 1.3% off Mexico’s, and 0.64% off Canada’s—a self-inflicted wound shared across borders. Goldman Sachs warns of a 35% recession risk, while the Atlanta Fed forecasts a 2.4% GDP contraction. These are not isolated shocks but symptoms of a system in decay. As the IMF notes, tariffs depress productivity, innovation, and wages, creating a “stagflationary spiral” where capital’s short-term gains immiserate the working class.
Marxist Critique: Monopoly Capital and the Exploitation Nexus
Beneath the tariff skirmishes lies the structural violence of global capitalism. Trump’s policies are not aberrations but logical extensions of a system where monopoly capital—concentrated in tech, finance, and defense—dictates state policy. The 2018-2019 tariffs exemplify this: while steel producers lobbied for protection, downstream industries like automakers absorbed $3.4 billion in losses, illustrating capital’s internal contradictions.
Marxist analysis clarifies this chaos. Tariffs, like colonialism, are tools for capital to externalize crises. By destabilizing rival economies, the U.S. secures hegemony over strategic sectors (energy, tech, defence), ensuring that surplus value flows upward. The Global South, stripped of tariff protections, becomes a reservoir of cheap labor and resources. Meanwhile, Western workers, squeezed by global competition, face stagnant wages and shrinking purchasing power as inflation bites.
Beyond Tariffs: Toward a Post-Capitalist Horizon
The solution is not tariff reform but systemic overthrow. As long as production is organized for profit rather than need, trade wars will recur. The 2025 tariffs, like their 19th-century predecessors, reveal capitalism’s inability to resolve its crises. Historical parallels are instructive: the 1870-1909 U.S. tariff regime reduced productivity by 25-35%, stifling innovation. Today, automation and offshoring render tariffs even more futile—a 10% tariff cannot resurrect industries outsourced decades ago.
A post-capitalist future demands global solidarity. Decoupling trade from exploitation requires democratizing production, socializing key industries, and dismantling the IMF-WTO architecture that enforces neoliberal discipline. The EU’s pivot to China amid U.S. tariffs hints at multipolarity, but only a class-conscious internationalism can dismantle monopoly capital’s grip.
The Urgency of Class Struggle
Trump’s tariff war is not a policy failure but a feature of capitalist decay. It entrenches inequality, fuels nationalism, and accelerates ecological collapse. The path forward lies not in tinkering with tax rates but in abolishing the system that commodifies labor and nation. As Marx warned, capitalism’s crises are born of its own contradictions. The task now is to forge a world where trade serves humanity, not capital—a world beyond tariffs, beyond borders, beyond hegemony of capitalist class.
