Last week, Donald Trump escalated the fascist regime’s global trade war in a big way by slapping into place punishing new tariffs on more than 90 countries. Tariffs are like a tax that is put on goods imported from other countries into the U.S. This is a tool of capitalist competition that will have the effect of overall raising prices on goods.

Among the new tariffs is the shockingly high 50% tariff that Trump imposed on Brazil. This has nothing to do with trade—Trump said explicitly that this tariff was in retaliation for what he claimed was the current Brazilian government’s “witch hunt” of former Brazilian president and fellow fascist, Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro is on trial now for leading a coup attempt after losing the 2022 presidential election, when his supporters violently stormed the presidential palace.

Trump also slammed India with 50% tariffs—to go into effect on August 27 unless India stops buying oil from Russia. The Trump regime is threatening higher tariffs on other countries which buy oil or do other trade with Russia, as part of pressure on Russian leader Putin around the war in Ukraine.  

After reaching “deals” with the European Union, Japan, and Britain, Trump imposed 10-15% tariffs on them instead of the much higher tariffs he had threatened. Those “deals” involved those countries dropping tariffs on some goods they import from the U.S., buying more U.S. oil and gas, and increasing their investments in the U.S.

What the impact of these tariffs will be—in the U.S. and around the world—is still unclear. Here are five basic points to understand what is happening, what we can say for now about why, and what is in the interests of humanity.

1. These tariffs are an expression of how, as revolutionary leader Bob Avakian points out, for Trump/MAGA fascism "raw destructive power is what must rule in the international arena, without even the pretense of adherence to international law or concern about the sovereignty, or even the right to exist, of less powerful peoples and countries..." (from @BobAvakianOfficial social media message REVOLUTION #114: Defeating Trump/MAGA fascism: Looking to some future elections... or working now to mobilize millions around this powerful unifying demand: The Trump fascist regime must go!)

Trump’s tariffs are not senseless or idiotic blundering—they are part of an outlook and strategy aiming to radically reorder the whole world economically, politically and militarily, to the advantage of U.S. capitalism-imperialism.

This whole strategy is extremely explosive—with many commentators talking about the punitive tariffs as a “war-like” move.

2. Trump imposed the high tariffs on almost 100 countries unilaterally (that is, on his own authority), risking international financial crisis—even though under the U.S. Constitution, the power to impose tariffs is supposed to be in the hands of Congress, not the president. This is part of moves by Trump to take personal control of the whole economy, including trying to dictate to the Federal Reserve Bank—a major institution that is supposed to be independent by law, and whose decisions have profound impact on not only the U.S. but the world economy. 

3. One justification Trump gives for his tariffs is that “For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike." This is a monstrous lie. The U.S. has been the number one exploiter and oppressor in the world for decades—looting, pillaging, raping and plundering countries like Vietnam, Bangladesh, Mexico, and many, many more. Millions and millions of human beings, including 150 million children, sweat out their lives to produce cheap goods for U.S. companies like Apple, Nike, Walmart, and H&M, keeping prices down in the U.S. while funneling super-profits to capitalists in the U.S.

Many people who oppose the Trump tariffs are focusing on the harm that they will do to American people. Yes, these tariffs will cause real harm to many people in this country already struggling to make ends meet. But far greater harm will be done to the countries that America has looted and exploited for the past 70 years—the Vietnams, Bangladeshes, Nigerias, Guatemalas and all the others whose resources and people the U.S. has sucked on like a vampire. Trump’s tariffs are a tool to intensify that parasitic relationship.

4. Whatever hardships and turmoil the tariffs will visit on people in this country will not, in and of themselves, cause the Trump fascist regime to fall. The economic impact of these tariffs on people in this country could be part of what compels them to go into the streets and could move some among the outer layers of Trump voters—but this will not, by itself, cause Trump's social base to be broken away from fascism. The America First chauvinism, the anti-immigrant hysteria, the white supremacy, and the scapegoating of women and LGBT people may even be strengthened by economic hardship. 

Speaking of the millions of fascists, in his social media message REVOLUTION #114, Bob Avakian said:

...it is not just their economic position but also their social position that they are worked up about. For the ranks of the MAGA fascists, even beyond their economic situation, a powerful, perverse motivating factor is their insistence on white supremacy and male supremacy, hatred of LGBT people and of immigrants (especially immigrants from “shithole countries,” in Trump’s disgusting racist terms). This is what these fascists mean by “Make America Great Again.” And all this is wrapped up with and driven by blatant lies, anti-scientific lunacy and crazed conspiracy theories—with vulnerable groups made into targets of hatred and persecution, like immigrants denounced as “dangerous criminals” and trans people treated as perverted predators.

All the more urgently, there needs to be a force exposing the nature of this fascist regime, acting together in mass, determined, non-violent protest, raising the demand: The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go Now! Acting in every corner of society to create a political crisis such that Trump cannot govern and implement his fascist rule. In combination with the intensified jolts and radical shifts and cracks these tariffs and other moves by the regime may cause, this has a real chance to succeed if we act to defeat this fascism—before it's too late.

5. Whether the imperialists in power pursue a policy of "free trade" or of extreme tariffs, these are both variations on a system of cruel international exploitation, one that crushes the spirits and mangles the lives of billions of people, day in and day out. 

Bob Avakian, in his series on exploitation (EXPLOITATION: WHAT IT IS, HOW TO PUT AN END TO IT and PUTTING AN END TO EXPLOITATION, AND ALL OPPRESSION), lays out why this capitalist-imperialist system must do that—and how a socialist system brought about through an actual revolution could begin the process of getting beyond exploitation and all antagonistic divisions between people. 

The kinds of radical shocks happening today can, in the words of Bob Avakian:

shake people’s belief that “the way things have always been” is the only way things can be. It can make people more open to questioning—in a real sense it can force people to question—the way things have been, and whether they have to stay that way. And this is all the more likely to happen if the revolutionary forces are out among the people shining a light on the deeper reality of what is happening, and why, and bringing out that there IS an alternative to living this way.