Resisting a Trump world
Trump’s tariff war, ultra-protectionism and assault on democracy is turning the world upside down. Coupled with a reactionary international politics the world is shifting to a more dangerous place resembling the 1930s when dictators stalked Europe and the far east and fascism was on the march.
The spectre of recession looms following price hikes and trade interruptions as the fall-out from trade wars spreads. The air is thick with talk of the end of globalisation and open markets prevalent over the last 80 years. The architecture of the United Nations Charter of 1945 and a rules-based order that emerged from the WW2 is being undermined by the US slashing aid and undermining UN institutions from health to peace-making.
Trump is waging war on everything that promotes prosperity and global health, from environmental protection, civil liberties, and rights to protest to education, science, and the arts, and threatening independent nations, namely Ukraine, Canada, Greenland, and Gaza. Paul Garver outlines the opposition to Trump and growing pressure on Democrats, while Tanya Vyhovsky charts the descent of the US into repressive protectionism and ethno-nationalism. She describes how Trump and his bully boys are seeking to force Ukraine into a humiliating climb down and a carve-up, giving Putin all the illegally annexed regions and the US a share of the spoils of his aggression. Chris Ford, in an edited version of a talk at a European Network of Solidarity with Ukraine conference in Brussels, outlines the limited military aid provided by the UK and Europe in the early phases of the war alongside patchy sanctions that allowed Putin to sustain his barbarous attacks. It’s time for Europe to stand up for Ukraine and turbo-charge support to roll back Russia’s imperial ambitions. Halya Koynash spotlights the brutal treatment of Tatars by the Russian police state, warning that Crimea is at risk of being sacrificed in a “peace deal”.
Trump’s bullying and temporary withdrawal of arms and intelligence sharing has pushed the UK and Europe into increased defence expenditure. Mary Kaldor argues the accompanied cuts in overseas aid are at odds with the stated aims to reduce conflict. Labour must pull back from this decision and from nuclear commitments in the forthcoming Defence Review; neither add to our human security.
Glyn Ford examines Trump’s strategy to isolate China in a quest to re-establish US capitalist dominance across the globe.
Prem Sikka argues Labour needs to reset its economic policies to build a resilient economy. This means ditching self-imposed fiscal rules and an over-emphasis on the finance sector which leads to hand-outs for the biggest banks. Borrowing to invest in infrastructure alongside clamping down on rich tax dodgers with a modest wealth tax would provide huge funds for green growth. Lord Sikka sets out a wide-ranging plan for wealth redistribution which could help Labour stem the threat from the far right.
Ignatio Pinto and Caitlin Barr dissect Chancellor Reeves plan to reduce disabled benefits and cut back on welfare payments to save £5bn. Women and children will be particularly hard hit by the measures. Instead, why not a wealth tax on the richest one per cent?
Mark Seddon picks up this focus to emphasise how the threat from Reform UK must be met by a Labour drive to reduce poverty and inequality, deliver real change on health and housing and end austerity, all of which are the breeding grounds for the far right. This would also mean reversing the two-child benefit cap and other austerity measures that contradict Labour’s manifesto commitments.
Victor Anderson looks over the five years since Starmer’s election as Labour leader to assess progress. Long gone are the ten pledges of his original election campaign. There are faint echoes in plans for the environment, employment rights, improved minimum wage and nationalisation of rail. But further cuts in public services, airport expansion, overseas aid cuts, refusal to take over water, all indicate the wrong direction of travel. Foreign billionaires’ interference is a threat to our democracy. Trevor Fisher argues that the government must act to stop big money from tech oligarchs like Musk flowing to Reform UK. Natalie Pearce looks at the opportunities and threats of AI and says the opportunities need to be grasped by progressives rather than cede the initiatives to the profiteers.
Trump may be trying to kill globalisation but the consequences for the developing world of underfunding the UN and turning a blind eye to social injustices reach far and wide. The plight of Afghan women, highlighted by Julie Ward, is one such case where women now live in a Handmaid’s Tale nightmare world of isolation and subjugation. Similarly, the Palestinian people are continued victims of a violent and illegal genocide perpetrated by an ultra-right Israeli war machine, green-lighted by Trump. Tim Llewellyn reports on the censorship of a child-led programme – Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone, broadcast by the BBC and subsequently banned following Israeli state lobbying. This mirrors the failure of Labour to stop all arms to Israel and recognise a Palestinian state.
Socialists and progressives internationally face a dramatically changed political landscape with a resurgence of oligarchs and dictators. If an Orwellian dystopia is not to triumph, the UK needs to align with democratic forces, especially European, to defend fundamental values of human rights, social justice, pluralism and freedom, and promote socialist ideas of wealth and power redistribution. It means Labour joining with other European states to defend Ukraine from a US-led betrayal; it means joining a European customs union; it means a more humane policy towards migrants and standing up to racists and ultra-nationalists, as argued by Don Flynn; it means allying with rules-based states against US and Chinese superpowers’ attempts to force nations into a world dominated by demagogues and dictators.