Three months after Trump’s reinauguration, and popular interpretations of his political strategy are still woeful.
Most centre his personal irrationality, suggesting Trump’s ego and psychological imbalance are now driving American politics. Others emphasise the administration’s ideology, for instance believing a conservative nostalgia for the mid-century aesthetic of ‘manly’ manufacturing is shaping trade policy. Rather than understanding Trump’s re-election as an expression of the fierce contradictions of American capitalism, liberal explanations view him as an individual aberration of American politics.
Instead, Trump’s second presidency should be centrally understood as an accelerated restructuring of American capitalism for intensifying imperialist confrontation with China. For Trump, considerations such as liberal values, international reputation, and political legitimacy are subordinate to this aim. Trump is the ideal avatar for personifying this reassertion of American hard power. His transactional attitude, ruthlessness, and arrogance serve American imperialism in marshalling its strength at this juncture to defend its dominant position in world history.
Imperialism is fundamentally economic competition elevated to the level of nation-states. Trump’s strategy is therefore to limit Chinese economic expansion, especially advanced technological development. The clearest example has been the attempt to deny China access to advanced semiconductors, a continuous project since the Biden administration now escalated under Trump.
Trump has also sought to impair the Chinese economy through its record 145 per cent tariff, hoping to curtail its export-oriented development. These tariffs are also an attempt to realise Trump’s goal of reshoring American manufacturing to ensure industrial capacity for military production, necessary for an eventual direct conflict. It is unlikely the private sector can deliver this objective. The rate of profit is presently too low to incentivise investment, and countries including China are imposing their own tariffs on the US, thus increasing manufacturing costs. To compensate for this, Trump is championing corporate tax cuts while attacking the organised working class, reshaping the share of income between capital and labour in favour of the former. Should this prove insufficient, the American state may be compelled to adopt some economic features of Chinese state capitalism, such as taking a larger role in directing and forming capital directly.
Another barrier to making American exports compete with their Chinese counterparts is the American dollar itself. While the USD’s position as the de-facto global reserve currency provides the US near-unlimited borrowing power, this strength of the dollar makes exports relatively expensive. It is therefore likely that the Trump administration will attempt to oversee a controlled devaluation of the dollar while retaining the exorbitant privilege of being the reserve currency at the centre of international finance.
Trump’s attacks on liberal society and state institutions are in part an aspect of this militarisation of America in order to reverse its relative imperialist decline. The disciplining and purging of even minor liberal opposition from the judiciary, civil service, and college administrations is attempting to enforce the state-wide coordination necessary for the task of maintaining global hegemony. By inflaming American nationalism, scapegoating immigrants and LGBTQIA+ Americans, Trump is cohering a societal uniformity and constructing the ideological preparedness for a period of hardship and international conflict.
Where does this leave Australia?
The political consensus across the Australian political class has been to deepen its geostrategic alliance with the US. Whether the upgrades to Tindal, one of Australia’s most important military airbases to host advanced nuclear-capable American bombers, or the AUKUS alliance, Australia and the US are profoundly interdependent militarily. While Australia regards the US as a military guarantor of its local sphere of influence, the US considers Australia as a continental aircraft carrier to contain China’s regional expansion. This imperial competition will be the defining feature of international politics for at least the next decade. Understanding is the first step to defeating it.
