New US gov’t takes shape amid growing conflicts, wars

By Terry Evans
February 10, 2025

Since Donald Trump took office as president again Jan. 20, he has moved to advance his “Make America Great Again” nationalist agenda and, at the same time, to promote his pledge that his plans will mean a pro-worker White House. He’s issued a swath of executive orders, announced plans to grab Greenland and the Panama Canal, paused most foreign aid for review, and visited workers in North Carolina and Los Angeles devastated by storms, fires and government indifference.

It’s too early to say exactly what he will prioritize. As a businessman who brags about his ability to make a good deal, much of what he threatens is a negotiating tactic. But one thing is clear. He will do his best to defend the national interests of the capitalist ruling families, at home and worldwide.

In his Jan. 23 Zoom remarks to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump presented his course to strengthen the profit-driven interests of the U.S. rulers as being in the interests of all countries, and good for both bosses and workers alike at home. He said he will bring jobs and prosperity to the U.S. and peace to the entire world. At the same time, he stepped up his threats to make any government that gets in Washington’s way, whether an ally or foe, pay with damaging tariffs or worse.

Trump moved back into the White House as turmoil grips the imperialist world “order.” Washington’s status as top-dog, the prize of the U.S. rulers’ victory in the Second World War, is fraying. Conflicts between rival powers are intensifying, as shown by watershed events, like Moscow’s three-year-long war to conquer Ukraine and Tehran’s and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, pogrom in Israel and their threats to massacre Jews again and again until either Israel is destroyed or all Jews are dead. Ruling classes worldwide are cranking out more weaponry and seeking new alliances in preparation for the bloody wars to come.

This follows years of sharpening competition between Washington, its EU allies and its rivals, especially Beijing and Moscow and their allies in the expanding BRICS bloc, which also includes the governments of Brazil, India and South Africa. At issue are resources, markets and political and military domination. None among them is capable of halting the growing conflicts and vulnerability of the world capitalist system to economic breakdowns, social upheavals and potential nuclear conflict.

Trump told the political leaders and corporate titans at Davos that he was lifting former President Joseph Biden’s restrictions on energy production to “make the United States a manufacturing superpower.” He announced tax cuts on corporate income that would make the U.S. more profitable for foreign capitalist investors. “But if you don’t make your product in America,” he threatened, “you will have to pay a tariff.”

“We are watching the end of the second age of globalization,” complained Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of S&P Global.

Many attendees were enthralled, hoping to profit from grabbing hold of Washington’s coattails. Others were appalled. Trump behaved “like a 21st-century emperor announcing edicts to his newly conquered princes and satraps,” wrote David Ignatius in the Washington Post.

Workers need their own party

For well over a century, the Democratic and Republican parties have alternated in the White House, each presenting themselves as a “lesser evil,” while consistently and loyally serving the capitalist class against working people. Trump’s second term is one more step on that road. What is most striking is not anything the new administration is doing, but the sharpening of the challenges the U.S. rulers face worldwide since Biden took office in 2020.

Trump aims to respond by using the massive size of the U.S. domestic market as a club against Washington’s rivals. U.S. consumption is a massive 31.5% of total world personal consumption, Barron’s reports.

His threats are aimed at extracting concessions for Washington and its capitalist masters in future trade negotiations and other conflicts.

Trump has also made immigration a key issue for his administration, claiming its current level is an obstacle to workers getting good jobs. Raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have risen in recent days, with some 2,200 immigrants arrested Jan. 25-26. Trump brandished the threat of a 25% tariff on goods coming from Colombia to get its government to accept Washington’s use of military aircraft to transport undocumented workers there.

The U.S. rulers have long turned the spigot of immigration off and on to meet the needs of the bosses for cheap labor in industry and agriculture. And they use raids and deportations to try to reinforce the pariah status of the many millions of workers without papers and to divide the working class in order to attack the wages and working conditions of all workers.

In response to these attacks, advancing working-class solidarity is key. “Fighting for an amnesty for all undocumented workers in the U.S. is the road to strengthening the labor movement,” Joanne Kuniansky, Socialist Workers Party candidate for New Jersey governor, told the Militant.

Trump told Davos attendees that he wanted to start talks with Moscow to end the war in Ukraine, and sit down with Beijing and Moscow to begin talks to reduce the number of nuclear weapons each holds.

At the same time, Trump called on governments in the NATO alliance to increase their military spending to 5% of their gross domestic product, a move aimed at bolstering the striking-power of the Washington-led bloc.

As the conflicts shaking the world deepen, the cut-throat competition inherent to capitalism can set into motion forces beyond the rulers’ control and pave the way for World War III.

These clashes underline why the labor movement needs its own political party and an independent working-class foreign policy, based on workers’ common interests worldwide, against the bosses, all their parties and governments.