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Trump's Trade War, Authoritarian Power, and the Oligarchs
Yes, the president is a malignant narcissist and sadist with an insatiable lust for power who gets pleasure out of making others squirm. But there’s something else.
Feb 03, 2025
Understand this: The reason Trump has raised tariffs on Canada and Mexico is not to have more bargaining leverage to get better deals for the United States from Canada or from Mexico.
Hours before the Canadian tariffs went into effect, Trump was asked if there was anything Canada could do to stop them. “We’re not looking for a concession,” Trump said, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday afternoon. “We’ll just see what happens, we’ll see what happens.”
The real reason Trump has raised tariffs on Canada and Mexico is to show the world that he’s willing to harm (smaller) economies even at the cost of harming America’s (very large) economy.
The point is the show — so the world knows it’s dealing with someone who’s willing to mete out big punishments. Trump increases his power by demonstrating he has the power and is willing to use it.
The same with deporting, say, Colombians or Brazilians in military planes, handcuffed and shackled. If, say, Colombia or Brazil complains about their treatment, so much the better. Trump says, without any basis in fact, that they’re criminals. Then he threaten tariffs. If Colombia backs down, Trump has once again demonstrated his power.
Why did Trump stop foreign aid? Not because it’s wasteful. In fact, it helps stabilize the world and reduces the spread of communicable diseases. The real reason Trump stopped foreign aid is he wants to show he can.
Why is he disregarding (or threatening to tear up) treaties and agreements (the Paris Agreement, NATO, whatever)? Not because such treaties and agreements are bad for America. To the contrary, they’re in America’s best interest.
The real reason Trump is tearing up treaties is they tie Trump’s hands and thereby limit his discretion to mete out punishments and rewards.
Don’t think of these as individual “policies.” Think of them together as shows of Trump’s strength.
If Canada or Mexico retaliates, he’ll retaliate against them with even bigger tariffs.
If some senior Republican members of Congress object that he’s stepping on congressional prerogatives, so what? It’s an opportunity to show them who’s boss.
If a federal court temporarily stops him, so what? He’ll go right on doing it and demonstrate that the courts are powerless to stop him.
Look behind what’s happening and you’ll see that Trump is employing two techniques to gain more power than any U.S. president has ever wielded.
The first is to demonstrate that he can mete out huge punishments and rewards.
It doesn’t matter if the punishment or reward is justified. A 25 percent tariff on Canada? Hello?
It’s a show of strength.
If prices skyrocket in America for oil and lumber from Canada or for fruits and vegetables from Mexico, no problem for Trump. Most Americans don’t understand how tariffs work, anyway. Trump will blame Canada and Mexico. And then threaten them with, say, 50 percent tariffs. Kabam!
Which brings us to the second technique Trump is using to expand his power: unpredictability.
What makes an abusive parent or spouse, or an abusive dictator, or Trump, especially terrifying? They’re unpredictable. They lash out in ways that are hard to anticipate.
So, anyone potentially affected by their actions gives them extra-wide berth — vast amounts of obedience in advance.
Trump keeps everyone guessing.
He demands that Denmark sell Greenland to the United States. He chews out the CEO of the Bank of America at Davos for allegedly discriminating against conservatives. He fires independent inspectors general. He purges the Department of Justice of career civil servants who prosecuted cases against him. He attacks birthright citizenship.
What’s next? Who knows? That’s the whole point.
How else to explain the bizarre deference — cowardice — we’re seeing among CEOs, the media, almost all Republican and even some Democratic lawmakers? Presumably, they’re all saying to themselves: “He could do anything, so let’s be especially careful.”
Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg kiss his derriere. Bill Gates is “frankly impressed” with him. Jamie Dimon, chief of JPMorganChase, decides he’s “not all wrong.”
Nearly 50 House Democrats support a bill targeting undocumented immigrants charged with nonviolent crimes for deportation. What?
In 1517, Niccolò Machiavelli argued that sometimes it is “a very wise thing to simulate madness” (Discourses on Livy, book 3, chapter 2). In his 1962 book, Thinking About the Unthinkable, futurist Herman Kahn argued that to “look a little crazy” might be an effective way to induce an adversary to stand down.
The “rule of law” is all about predictability. We need predictability to be free.
But much of what Trump is doing is either illegal yet will take months or years before the courts decide so, or is in the gray area of “probably illegal but untested by the courts.” Which suits his strategy just fine.
The media calls it “chaos,” which is how various people and institutions experience it.
The practical consequence is that an increasing number of so-called “leaders” — in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors, and around the world — are telling their boards, overseers, trustees, or legislatures: “We have to give Trump whatever he wants and even try to anticipate his wants, because who knows how he’ll react if we don’t?”
Together, these two techniques — big demonstrations of discretionary power to reward or punish, and wild uncertainty about when or how he’ll do so — expand Trump’s power beyond the point any president has ever pushed power.
Which brings us to the obvious question: Why is Trump so obsessed with enlarging his power?
Hint: It’s not about improving the well-being of average Americans and certainly not about making America great again (whatever that means).
Yes, he’s a malignant narcissist and sadist with an insatiable lust for power who gets pleasure out of making others squirm.
But there’s something else.
The bigger his demonstrable power and the more unpredictably he wields it, the greater his ability to trade some of that power with people with huge amounts of wealth, both in the United States and elsewhere.
I’m referring to America’s billionaires, such as Elon Musk and the 13 other billionaires Trump has installed in his regime, as well as the 744 other billionaires in America, and the 9,850 Americans with at least $100 million in net worth.
Together, these individuals have a huge storehouse of wealth. Many are willing to trade some of it to gain even more, and to tie down what they have more securely.
They give Trump (and his family) business deals, information, campaign money, and positive PR (propaganda). In return, he gives them tax cuts, regulatory rollbacks, and suspensions of antitrust.
I’m also referring to oligarchs in Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia. He gives them special trade deals, energy deals, intelligence deals, access to global deposits of riches; or he threatens to hold them back. In return, they give him (and his family) business deals, information, support in political campaigns, and more covert propaganda.
This is Trump’s game: Huge demonstrations of power that’s wielded unpredictably. They’re eliciting extraordinary deals for Trump and his family, domestically and worldwide.
Trump says he’s doing this for American workers. Nothing could be farther from the truth. He’s doing this for himself and for the world’s oligarchy, which, in turn, is busily siphoning off the wealth of the world.
How to stop this? The first step is to understand it.
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We Need a Shared Working-Class Agenda to Overcome Economic Hardship and Defeat Trump
If we resist getting caught up in the endless drama, divisions, and distractions—and work together to further our own slate of issues—we have the power to create meaningful change.
Jan 30, 2025
As Trump creates crisis and chaos, testing the limits of his authority and driving the news cycle, it’s critical we keep returning to what matters most to the American people. By focusing on our shared priorities and working together, we can stay grounded during the turmoil and build the power to drive positive change.
At the top of Americans' concerns is economic hardship and inequality. Ninety percent of voters told Gallup the economy was a top influence on their 2024 votes. The rising cost of housing and everyday expenses was cited as the most critical issue by both Trump voters (79 percent) and the broader electorate (56 percent).
These concerns reflect real struggles. According to the Federal Reserve, more than one-third of American adults lack the resources to handle a $400 emergency without borrowing. Families face crushing costs—median childcare runs $1,100 monthly, matching typical rent payments. Natural disasters have financially impacted nearly one in five adults.
By focusing on the issues that affect the lives of millions of Americans, we can build common ground for organizing and advocacy.
The ALICE framework helps us understand this crisis. These Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed families—now 42 percent of all U.S. households—often work multiple jobs yet still struggle to cover basics. They are our neighbors, many of them working nearby in businesses, medical facilities, and factories living paycheck to paycheck, while caring for children and elders. Many are forced to choose between rent, food, gas for the car, and paying the power bill.
Millionaire and Vice President JD Vance said at the recent “March for Life” rally in Washington, D.C., that he wished more young people would have children. Yet over half of parents surveyed said that they suffer anxiety due to not having enough money to support their family.
It is not unusual to find people living in their cars or in tent encampments, going to work at multiple jobs but unable to afford rent. The numbers of these ALICE families have grown by 23 percent since 2010 and now make up 42 percent of American households.
Meanwhile, America's billionaire class has accumulated unprecedented wealth—$6.72 trillion among 813 individuals, growing by $1 trillion in just that last nine months of 2024, according to the Institute for Policy Studies. This concentration of wealth translates directly into political power that even many wealthy Americans recognize as wrong. The Patriotic Millionaires group, representing 500 wealthy individuals, has called for higher taxes on the ultra-wealthy, warning that extreme wealth concentration is corroding democracy.
In spite of his populist language, the Trump administration’s millionaires and billionaires show few signs of being interested in addressing the economic hardship of American families. The president’s true priorities were on display as the billionaires lined up to kiss the royal ring with large donations for the inauguration and were seated in the most prestigious seats at the events.
What can be done? How can ordinary people build sufficient power to put the wellbeing of ordinary families first?
The American people understand these challenges and 89 percent of them recognize that excessive political influence by the wealthy drives inequality, according to the Pew Research Center. Two-thirds believe our economic system needs major reform. Even wealthy Americans largely share these concerns, polling just 9 points lower in their worry about inequality.
With MAGA Republicans dominating Congress and the Executive Branch, national reform is tough. But if we resist getting caught up in the endless drama and distractions, and work together to further our own agenda. we have the power to create change.
- We can remind elected officials at all levels of government that their constituents expect support for child care, healthcare, education, minimum wage increases, and housing policies for working families;
- We can support state and local initiatives to tax wealth and invest in communities;
- We can keep economic hardship and inequality at the center of public discourse; and
- We can join organizations, like the Working Families Party, and build coalitions around shared economic concerns.
By focusing on the issues that affect the lives of millions of Americans, we can build common ground for organizing and advocacy. Instead of being distracted, divided, and overwhelmed, we can set our own agenda, build power together for positive change, and insist that our elected leaders act on our shared priorities.
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American Voters Need to Care About Foreign Policy Again
Foreign policy is not truly foreign; it remains a domestic issue, not some abstract concept that does not affect the average American’s everyday life. Voters do not realize this, but they need to.
Jan 27, 2025
At the start of 2024, in an AP-NORC poll, only 4 out of 10 Americans mentioned a foreign policy topic when asked to list five important issues facing Americans. This represented an increase from years past but is still bleak since it means 6 in 10 Americans do not view foreign policy as a top concern.
Yet, as I write this, the United States is involved in multiple violent conflicts, many of which have no real end in sight, along with foreign interventions that drastically affects other countries’ well-being. While Israel’s now multi-front war has broken through to an extent over the past two years, and time will tell if this cease-fire is real, many of the other conflicts and interventions linger in the background, if, indeed, they are mentioned at all in day-to-day political chatter.
For instance, the United States is normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia despite open questions on that government’s knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and its hold on the oil industry, not to mention MBS’ brutal killing of a Washington Post journalist. In addition, Saudi Arabia’s relentless assaults on Yemen, backed with U.S. arms, began in 2015. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has gone on for almost three years while the United States supplies humanitarian aid and arms to Ukraine. Crippling sanctions on Cuba have decimated the country’s economy and caused it to struggle mightily after recent hurricanes. And that’s not even to begin to list the various ways the United States has increased its involvement in Africa via AFRICOM, arming countries and training paramilitary groups.
For many Americans, with their own positions so precarious due to our capitalistic approach to society, worrying about how to improve relations with China and Cuba is simply not a priority.
These events, all of which involve or are directly caused by the United States, can and in most cases will result in history-changing phenomena for better or worse. This is not to say that all of these situations require a complete reversal—humanitarian aid to Ukraine is a worthy cause in my opinion—but the scale of these endeavors should not be absent from the political sphere. So, why don’t more voters care?
Consider: In the 2024 vice president debate, the opening question was about foreign policy, but pitched in the most juvenile fashion possible, circling around the candidates’ eagerness to bomb Iran. Not an intellectually serious question but rather a little blood sport for the masses to enjoy. It led to no real discussion on the United States’ overall approach to foreign policy nor to the possible aftereffects of the country’s decisions. No discussion of Ukraine and NATO, no discussion of Cuba or even Yemen.
To an extent, this is understandable. Based on polling in general and exit polls in the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election, the average American does not seem to vote based on Ukraine or Yemen or Gaza (although recent polling shows that Gaza mattered a bit to those who didn’t vote in 2024). One of the downsides of having a weak safety net in the United States is that voters’ main issues will almost always be the economy and healthcare. If you lose your job, you receive a pitiable amount of unemployment and end up in dire straits with health insurance. For many Americans, with their own positions so precarious due to our capitalistic approach to society, worrying about how to improve relations with China and Cuba is simply not a priority.
But it should be. There’s a moral argument that the United States’ foreign policy is largely making lives worse for millions and that with the immense capital the United States has it can care for refugees fleeing desperate situations instead of vilifying such people.
While Americans may like that argument in the abstract, it does not appear to be a pressing concern for them nor one they see affecting their own lives in any real way. With the 2024 election’s remains smoldering behind us, it’s worth reviewing the speeches and discussions to see how often issues of migration and prevention of war came up. The verdict? Beyond glancing references to a cease-fire in the Middle East and supporting Ukraine, it’s hard to find much rhetoric that addresses American foreign policy.
Voters need to consider that the next economic impact on their wallets may well originate due to decisions made overseas as opposed to ones here in the homeland.
Immigration is entirely treated as a domestic issue and even then, largely in a law-and-order fashion. The economics of immigration, which are extremely positive, were mostly absent from the discussion. So, too, however, were the causes, and it is impossible to address immigration without noting that the United States itself is responsible for many of the migration issues. After spending much of the 1900s undermining government after government in South America, it is no surprise that many of those countries still struggle economically, resulting in migration. Ditto the unrest in the Middle East, which can easily be traced back to George W. Bush’s neocon policies. On a purely ethical level, it seems immoral to turn around and claim that the United States has no duty to help the people it has hurt. On a foreign policy level, it makes sense to examine how our continued interference in other countries’ elections, which is done both overtly and covertly, has caused such a destabilizing effect. Whether the U.S. has done it on behalf of the United Fruit Company or Halliburton, U.S. involvement in South America and the Middle East has helped only the very wealthy and hurt everyone else, both in those countries and in America itself.
The other foreign policy issue sometimes addressed is terrorism, although that, too, was not much mentioned this past election cycle outside of vague allusions to immigrants being terrorists in order to scare swing voters into voting for U.S. President Donald Trump. Yet in most cases, terrorism does not come from nowhere: Destabilized countries brew radicalization and radicalization brews terrorist attacks. An unstable Middle East is far likelier to lead to another terrorist attack than a stable Middle East. A foreign policy geared toward non-intervention could result in a severe decrease in terrorist acts around the world, including in the United States itself. In turn, this would allow for the United States’ economy to detangle itself from the web of the military industrial complex and perhaps spend some of the seemingly infinite cash on concerns closer to home, such as building a safety net that allows Americans to vote with a vision beyond whether their next paycheck will allow them to afford rent.
In short, foreign policy is not truly foreign; it remains a domestic issue, not some abstract concept that does not affect the average American’s everyday life. Voters do not realize this, but they need to.
Of course, much of this lies at the fault of politicians, many of whom could easily formulate a foreign policy narrative but choose not to. Voters are not blameless, they have their own agency and the ability to inform themselves, but politicians seem to see no pressing need to address any foreign policy issue that is not massive front-page news—and even then, not always as we saw this past election season. Why?
For one, it does allow them to make foreign policy decisions without much interest from the public, meaning they can make decisions that enrich their donors with zero pushback from your average voter. For another, involving foreign policy means political risk, something they are naturally averse to. Questioning the economic sense behind Cuban sanctions, for instance, invites pushback from neoconservatives. Politicians often take the cowardly route. Don’t rock the boat, receive your donations, smile, get reelected.
If that makes it all sound hopeless, well, that’s a fair interpretation. But, once again, America finds itself in a precarious position as Donald Trump takes the reins in the White House. His tariffs may well crash the economy, and such a circumstance would be a good occasion for the American public to be reminded that we do not exist separate from other countries and their own economies and cultures. This is a globalized world, and all chickens come home to roost in one way or another. Voters need to consider that the next economic impact on their wallets may well originate due to decisions made overseas as opposed to ones here in the homeland. I also hear there is a political party entirely out of power as of now: Perhaps they could involve this message and use it to their advantage?
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