By Miguel Sorans, a leader of Socialist Left of Argentina and the IWU-FI
7 April 2025. The “trade war” of tariffs launched by the far-right Donald Trump is causing a new leap in the global economic crisis of capitalism. Rarely has a measure by a US president caused such disarray in the global economy. Trump achieved it.
7 April was defined as “Black Monday”: global stock markets plummeted following the tariffs imposed by Trump. But the crisis is so deep that on Thursday, 3 April, there was another drop that was called “Black Thursday.”
Analysts have already described what happened as a “historic” drop and even a veritable “bloodbath” in the Asian and European markets, with “devastating consequences.” They do not want to call it a “crash” yet, but it is the closest thing to it.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange was one of the hardest hits, plummeting 7.8 per cent, and sharp declines also occurred in Seoul (5.6 per cent), Sydney (4.2 per cent), and Hong Kong, where the index fell by nearly 13 per cent. European markets fell sharply; Germany’s DAX dropped 6.5%, France’s CAC 40, 5.9%. In London, the FTSE 100 lost 5 per cent, closing at 7,652.73. US stock markets also fell, with Wall Street leading the way.
Tariffs are just another fuel for the crisis of the capitalist economy
Trump touted his global tariff war as a victory, falsely claiming the US was victimised by other countries. “Look at Cambodia,” he said, when according to the World Bank itself, the average Cambodian worker earns $6.65 a day. That is not even $140 a month.
The US, with its multinationals, its banks, and the IMF, are the oppressors and plunderers of the countries and peoples of the world. The ten largest companies in the world, for example, are American. They are part of the 1 per cent of the world’s population (about 56 million people in a world of 8 billion inhabitants) that appropriate 45 per cent of the world’s wealth.
Facing decline, Trump uses tariffs to extort trading partners.
The tariff announcement was so insane and desperate that Trump included two small, remote islets populated only by penguins and seals on the list. A week-long boat trip from Perth is needed to reach Heard & McDonald Islands (4,000 km southwest of Australia), unvisited for nearly a decade.
According to Trump, this “tariff war” would usher the United States into a “golden age” and “emerge from its decline.” He enthusiastically announced that “investment is coming” and that “new jobs would open up.” The “American Dream” would once again be just around the corner. But the opposite could happen in the US and around the world.
According to imperialist analysts themselves, the current economic earthquake could lead to a recession in the US and around the world. This would lead to further stagnation of the capitalist economy with falling employment and wages. Tariffs may increase inflation and lower living standards.
Even his allies in the multinational corporations and the IMF are criticising him
Such is the chaos Trump has caused that high-ranking Trump allies have come out to question, or even outright challenge, this tariff policy.
Among them is IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, who noted that the tariffs “clearly represent a considerable risk to the global outlook at a time of weak growth.” (Clarín, Argentina, 4 April 2025).
JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon has joined the growing corporate outcry against the trade war: “Economic fragmentation with our allies could be disastrous in the long run,” the banker warns. (…) He believes the tariffs will slow growth, although he believes it remains to be seen whether they will trigger a recession. America’s largest bank now forecasts a US recession, and a global recession is increasingly likely. Dimon calls for the outlook to be clarified as soon as possible to minimise the damage” (El País, 7 April 2025).
Virgin Group’s Branson calls new tariffs a “colossal mistake”.
Dan Ives, senior analyst at Wedbush Securities, calls Trump’s tariffs “the biggest disaster the markets have ever seen. It will be an economic Armageddon” (Clarín, 6 April 2025).
Unusually, even the large technology multinationals that support Trump are seeing their super-profits affected. They are the “Magnificent Seven.” Among them are Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Nvidia, and even Elon Musk’s Tesla, whose shares fell 50 per cent. Almost these companies have most of their production in China or Vietnam, countries that suffer from Trump’s high tariffs.
In less than a week, because of the stock market crash, an extraordinary $6 trillion (millions of millions) was lost by the major companies listed on Wall Street (AP Data, Bloomberg, in Clarín, 6 April 2025).Faced with the crisis he has provoked; Trump has no intention of letting up. He threatened China with imposing 50 per cent more tariffs, beyond those already announced.
Facing criticism and street protests, a virulent Trump did not mince his words, stating: “The United States has to do something it should have been done decades ago. Don’t be weak! Don’t be stupid! Don’t be ‘Panican’ (a new word he coined to mean “weak and stupid people”)! Be strong, brave, and patient, and greatness will be the outcome!” (Ambito, Argentina, 7 April 2025)
Trump Says Capitalism Is Suffering the Worst Crisis in History
This political and economic shift by Trump is explained because imperialist capitalism has been going through an enormous economic, political, social, and environmental crisis for decades.
It is not a temporary crisis. Trump’s policies are provoking the beginning of a new acute crisis within the global economic crisis.
We revolutionary socialists consider it to be the most serious. It is even worse than the 1929 crisis. First, it is longer-lasting and extends over a longer period than that of 1929. It began in 2007/2008 and has already lasted 17 years. Second, it has been linked to other new ones and to the worsening of the environmental crisis generated by capitalism itself.
This is a broader process of absolute decline and disarray in imperialist capitalism. People’s resistance undermines capitalist crisis solutions. Therefore, more and deeper crises will come if we fail to install workers’ governments that pave the way for socialism.
Trump launches a counterrevolutionary imperialist counteroffensive. His goal is to dominate world powers and their dependencies through exploitation. He seeks to destroy mass movement struggles, reverse the gains of the fourth wave of women, and the rights of sexual dissidents. This is combined with a racist and anti-immigration offensive in the US and around the world.
Trump combines this offensive for change with a search for a new global realignment, breaking the post-World War II inter-imperialist agreements. For example, he is moving closer to a pact with Putin and Russia, breaking agreements with the European Union. He seeks to seize territories like Greenland or control the Panama Canal, which would violate the imperialist bourgeoisie’s own international laws, formally imposed 80 years ago.Trump’s attempt to overcome the imperialist crisis is doomed to fail. Expect rising global economic crisis, inter-bourgeois conflict, and worker struggles against austerity.
The American people responded with more than 1,200 demonstrations on 5 April in different cities across the country, which were also replicated in many European capitals. In the US, the central slogan of the mobilisation was “Hands off!” directed against Trump and Elon Musk, who is in charge of the mass layoffs of government employees. More than 5 million people mobilised.
These mobilisations of workers, students, immigrants, women, and dissidents pave the way to confront and defeat the reactionary attacks of the far-right Donald Trump in the United States and around the world.
