By JEAN MARC VON DER WEID*

The economic impact of Trump's strategy America First will erode support for Donald Trump, especially by increasing the prices of goods and services

1.

Since Donald Trump took office, we have been witnessing a flood of administrative measures taken by the Republican government, many of which are considered unconstitutional, targeting immigrants, public servants considered undesirable (“disloyal”) by the new occupant of the White House, partner countries or commercial competitors, among others.

The American and international press are running out of steam to follow, let alone comment on and criticize, the marathon of initiatives. The Democratic opposition is flustered and unable to respond to the challenges.

Donald Trump’s governing style remains the same, but with more boldness and brutality. When these are not administrative measures, the initiatives are even more bizarre, especially in the field of international relations. Turning Gaza into a “Riviera” under American control, expelling 2,4 million Palestinians in a gigantic ethnic cleansing (dreamed of by the Israeli far right, but for use by its own settlers) was described by a Democratic senator as “senseless, foolish and irresponsible.”

Threats to Panama for having handed over management of the canal to a Chinese company, to Canada for selling more than it buys from the US (proposing to make the country a member of the Commonwealth English, the 51st American state) and Mexico, for not controlling its own and other immigrants at the border and not preventing drug trafficking, were repeated until the imposition of surcharges on imports.

But each of these measures encountered reactions both internally and externally to the country.

For any analyst, the blitz against illegal immigrants is a shot in the foot for important sectors of the American economy, including sectors that strongly supported the Republican in his campaign. Knowing that 40% of the workforce in the agricultural sector and 25% of those employed in the construction industry are made up of immigrants (some say that most of them are illegal), the shock for business owners must have been enormous. Not to mention an unidentified, but certainly very important, percentage in the service sector.

Who will be employed in these sectors to replace immigrants? Even assuming that there are millions of Americans willing to do these jobs (which seems unlikely), the cost of labor will be much higher. The result predicted by economists of all persuasions is an increase in inflation, a specter that guaranteed Trump's victory in the elections, despite the good numbers of the American economy under Joe Biden's administration.

Threats to increase import taxes on products from Canada and Mexico lasted until talks between Donald Trump and the leaders of the threatened countries.

The president of Mexico, without fanfare or snarling, showed that the flow of illegal immigrants from her country has been falling for a long time, as a result of measures taken from the administrations of Barack Obama to Joe Biden. She negotiated with Donald Trump the deployment of Mexican troops to the border to control the smuggling of amphetamines and illegal immigrants, in exchange for measures by the US government to control the flow of weapons to the neighboring country.

What Justin Trudeau delivered in exchange for the suspension of the new tariffs is less clear, perhaps only the cancellation of the planned Canadian tariffs in retaliation. It seems like a draw, but it has created a huge outcry among normally serene Canadians, leading to a movement to boycott U.S.-made products.

2.

It is quite likely that the internal pressures from American economic sectors harmed by Donald Trump's measures were more important than these telephone agreements, which seem to be more of a way of giving the Republican the impression of victory in front of his electorate.

For many analysts, the measures to restrict imports from the largest trading partners of the United States are aimed at increasing government revenue, rebalancing the highly deficit balance of payments and encouraging affected companies to invest in the United States. This also seems to be the reason for increasing the import tax on Chinese products, since the trade balance between the two countries is highly deficit for the United States and worries American strategists who are looking at the dispute for global economic hegemony. If this was the objective, the result was null and void and the “concessions” from the partners, trumpeted by Donald Trump, are just a smokescreen to save face.

For the Chinese, the 10% rate represents very little from the point of view of the competitiveness of their products and their response was quite discreet, just enough to avoid showing submission to Donald Trump's snarling. So far, Trump has not spoken to the Chinese president and everything could end up in a mess. But even if the rates are maintained, the effect on both the flow of Chinese exports and the resources obtained by them is negligible.

The real Chinese response came in parallel with the debate over the tariffs: the launch of the Chinese company Deepseek, which sent shares of Big Tech companies, whose CEOs were sitting right behind Donald Trump’s podium at the inauguration, tumbling. And what a response! A trillion-dollar drop in the share prices of Silicon Valley AI companies in just a few days. This feat showed not only China’s advantage in science and technology, but also the futility of American attempts to control technology by preventing the export of more advanced chips to China.

Some have compared this Chinese feat to the launch of Sputnik at the height of the Cold War, which raised the threat of the Soviet Union's scientific superiority over the West. This was not the case, but there is no similarity whatsoever between the economic and technological power of the Soviets in the 1950s and that of the Chinese today. Without exaggeration, we are facing a turning point in the hegemony of both the United States and the West in technological development. And to rub salt in the wound, the Chinese have delivered an unpatented technology that is freely used and developed. The whole world was grateful and looked up to the East. These are new times, without a doubt.

Trumpist terrorism against illegal immigrants is creating a gloomy climate throughout the United States. Neighbors are being asked to report neighbors, immigration agents are raiding workplaces to check for illegal immigrants, and the police, especially in cities and states governed by Republicans, are stopping people on the streets who “look” like immigrants. Woe to those who are morochos Latinos! But the tsunami of deportations promised by Trump is yet to happen, no less than 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants. Given the importance of this workforce in the American economy, it is likely that this promise will be on the same level as the wall on the Mexican border, from the Gulf to the Pacific, made during Donald Trump's first administration and which was only a few kilometers long.

Donald Trump's behavior in power reminds me of a saying or expression from my teenage years. Anyone who played the bully but ended up chickening out was called the Metro Lion – two roars and the rest is just tape. For those who don't remember, the films of the Hollywood company, Metro Goldwin Meyer, always start with a lion roaring twice before the movie starts. And tape was slang for irrelevance.

But is it really all just bragging and the character just a grotesque clown? Unfortunately, the Donald Trump effect could be much more perverse than his blunders would have us believe.

3.

What remains real in all of Donald Trump's threats is the destructive side. First of all, among the measures already taken is the US's withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement, aimed at controlling global warming. It is a repeat of his first administration and is more symbolic than effective, since the agreement has been forgotten or disregarded by most governments, especially those of the richest countries.

What matters more is the decision to ignore any environmental restrictions on the exploration of oil, gas or shale oil, under the campaign slogan “drill, baby, drill”. It is along the same lines as eliminating any advantage for the production of electric cars or restrictions on high-powered cars (SUV) that have a greater impact on Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.

The worst part is that several countries, such as France and Germany, and the European Union itself, were quick to follow Donald Trump’s anti-ecological initiative and launched proposals to free European companies from “environmental obstacles”. Trump’s gesture was the green light (without irony) for the burial of the Climate Agreement, which should have repercussions on COP 30 and the biodiversity convention itself. We can expect an acceleration in greenhouse gas emissions and, consequently, an increase in average temperatures on the planet.

It is true that all these agreements were little implemented and what was done, especially in Europe, can be summed up with the expression “too little, too late” (too little and too late), but now the floodgates have been opened for everything to get worse, just as we are facing the last few years we have left, until 2030, to take the necessary measures to avoid the extremely dangerous 2ºC increase in the planet's average temperature by the middle of the next decade.

The Paris Agreement’s goal has already been achieved, and we surpassed 1,5ºC of greenhouse gas emissions last year, when it was believed that this would only happen in 2030 if nothing was done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The increase in emissions, despite the three-year hiatus due to COVID, continued to accelerate, but what surprised even the most pessimistic among the thousands of scientists at the IPCC was the speed at which temperatures rose. The goal now is to hold the temperature at 2ºC by 2030, but if it was already difficult, it got much worse with the “Trump effect”.

The other risk of Donald Trump's presidency is nuclear war. I've even heard left-wingers say that Trump is less dangerous than Joe Biden, or Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but the danger lies in his lack of even a minimum of judgment. So far, he has not gotten involved in the war in Ukraine and is said to have sympathies for Vladimir Putin, but he has not placed any restrictions on the delivery of strategic and tactical weapons that were decided upon by the Joe Biden administration but have not yet been carried out.

He has threatened to pull the US out of NATO during his previous administration and during his campaign for this administration, but it was never about differences of purpose with Democratic administrations, but rather complaints about excessive US spending and insufficient contributions from European partners. I do not believe he will send troops to dislodge the Palestinians from Gaza, as he has said he would do “if necessary,” but I have no doubt that he will support Benjamin Netanyahu’s most insane military actions, stoking the Middle East’s powder keg.

4.

The greatest military risk, however, lies in the threatening growl towards China. If it is not the lion's roar of Metro, the problem could be of the utmost gravity, despite the fact that the Chinese today are much more thoughtful and prudent than in the times of Chairman Mao Tse Tung. The most important legacy of the Deng Hsiao Ping period was the transformation of the bellicose ideology of Maoism into a pragmatic mentality. Two aphorisms define the difference well: “imperialism is a paper tiger” (Mao) and “it does not matter whether the cat is white or black, as long as it catches the mice” (Deng).

The Chinese follow the old motto “if you want to keep the peace, prepare for war”, but they do not buy provocations, much less Donald Trump’s roars. The risk lies in Trump’s lack of restraint and even ignorance, which leads him to behave like a schoolyard bully, coupled with the fact that he is seeking total control of the American state apparatus, including military and intelligence, something that eluded him in his first administration.

Donald Trump's elephant-in-a-china-shop approach could create a process that is beyond the control of either party. The problem is not just the unpredictability of Trump's behavior, it is simply an extra risk, like lighting a match to see if there is gasoline in the can: both the gasoline and the match must be available.

Since the end of the Soviet Union, the US and Western military forces, united in NATO, have sought to position themselves strategically to “contain” Russia. Taking advantage of the moment of weakness of the bloc that inherited the USSR’s atomic arsenal, the West surrounded Russia’s borders with allies and military bases armed with short- and medium-range rockets with tactical and strategic nuclear charges.

Confident in their nuclear superiority, the US and NATO ignored Vladimir Putin's warnings, particularly in the strategic region of Ukraine. And they ended up being surprised by the Russian reaction and led to raise the bar of military engagement ever higher and ever more risky.

The war in Ukraine has shown that the West's entire conventional arsenal of weapons was not enough to defeat the Russian army. It has also revealed weaknesses in Russian equipment and troops, but the balance sheet indicates that it will be necessary to release more powerful weapons to the Ukrainians or they will be definitively defeated and will have to accept the loss of Donbass and the demilitarization of the country. And each more powerful weapon released increases the risk of a nuclear confrontation.

Na entourage of Donald Trump there are already those who consider the nukes tactics as a necessary weapon in this fight and this normalization of risk is highly dangerous for an unrestricted escalation and total nuclear war. It is in this context that a figure with the personality of bully and structural ignorance like Donald Trump's is highly dangerous. According to many experts, the world has never been so close to a nuclear holocaust.

In addition to helping to destroy the planet by accelerating global warming and other gigantic environmental problems and threatening the world with a nuclear holocaust, Donald Trump is preparing another catastrophe, a new pandemic even more virulent than COVID 19.

Donald Trump tried to prevent vaccination and social isolation in the US during his first term. Now he is persecuting the key figures who limited the health catastrophe in the United States, the country that has had the highest number of fatalities in the world, followed by Bolsonaro's Brazil. It is very clear from Trump's statements that if there is another pandemic he will ignore science and the WHO and let the contamination spread “to save the economy and jobs”.

Scientists who study pandemics have been warning for decades that the risk of highly virulent and rapidly circulating infections is growing. For these experts, COVID was a small warning of what could be on the menu. The most likely candidate for the future killer is the avian flu virus, H1N1 or one of its variants. All it takes is a flick of a genetic mutation for airborne contamination among mammals to occur. And some recent cases in the US show that this risk is very palpable.

If the US does not follow the safety protocols outlined by the WHO, from which Trump insisted on removing his country, not only could the contamination spread even faster than COVID in the US, but it will also inevitably spread to the rest of the world. The psychopath's quirks are a global threat.

Finally, Donald Trump's threat also has a political connotation. By turning the US into a melting pot of hatred in various directions (racism, homophobia, sexism, fascism, etc.), fueled by his allies in Bigtech, Trump is not only destroying the republican institutions of his country but also reinforcing movements of the same nature around the world.

Democratic Senator from Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders, held a very important live broadcast seeking to define a strategy to combat the madman in power in the White House. Bernie rightly showed that all of Donald Trump's speeches and deliberations ignore the most important economic and social issues for the American people: the incredible imbalances in income distribution, with the impoverishment of the working class, the lack of housing for millions of families, the precarious and extremely expensive health services, the deterioration of public education and the vulnerability of all inhabitants to the worsening environmental impacts caused by global warming and the contamination of air, soil and water.

Bernie Sanders proposes a mobilization of all progressive forces to demand measures to address these issues, leaving aside attempts to respond to Trump's multiple provocations. Let's see if it works.

In my view, the economic impact of Trump's strategy of “America First"will erode Donald Trump's support, especially by increasing the prices of goods and services. The danger lies in what the madman will do when multiple crises hit the largest economy in the West. Cornered in his own country, the Metro lion may want to bite.

*Jean Marc von der Weid is a former president of the UNE (1969-71). Founder of the non-governmental organization Family Agriculture and Agroecology (ASTA).

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