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TRUMP’S POPULIST BASE VERSUS CORPORATE POWER  
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Sam Gindin
September 2, 2025
The Bullet
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_ Trump is looking to consolidate his populist base without
challenging corporate power or addressing inequalities. _

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ILNA: During his second presidential term, US President Donald Trump
raised tariffs to an unprecedented level. In your view, are Trump’s
tariff policies driven more by economic considerations or political
motives?

SAM GINDIN (SG): Trump is looking to consolidate his populist base
without challenging corporate power or addressing inequalities. The
‘external’ sector offers a way of doing this. Cut immigration
appeals to American nativism and resentments about the alleged
economic costs of immigrants. And raise tariffs to generate revenues
from abroad, protect the domestic market, and pressure capital to
invest in the US. So, it is political but based on economic
assumptions that ignore the pluses for America of low-cost labour from
abroad and mistakenly believe that tariffs are a market-driven
intervention that can substitute for a larger industrial strategy that
includes interventions that challenge corporate leadership.

ILNA: To what extent do broad tariffs on imported goods genuinely
contribute to bringing investment and industrial production back to US
soil, and what costs do they impose on American consumers in return?
Also, some critics argue that tariffs are essentially a ‘hidden
tax’ on the middle class and workers. In your view, what effects do
these tariffs have on inflation and purchasing power in the United
States?

SG: In a larger context, such as countries trying to generate
egalitarian development rather than competing for investment, tariffs
have a role to play. On their own, however, they are a tax on
consumers and business (even business importing from their own
operations abroad) that will raise prices. Moreover, the tariff
revenues are not going to improve social programs for the poor but
will cut taxes on the super-rich.

As for bringing investment and jobs back to the US, in the immediate
term this is unlikely because Trump’s erratic on-again, off-again
tariffs have created uncertainty about both where trade rules are
going and the possibility of a recession. In the mid-term, Trump may
be able to shift the benefits and costs of trade in favor of the US in
some sectors in regards to some countries, e.g., the Canadian auto
industry is very integrated into the US and may move new investments
to the US to minimize disruptions. On the other hand, imposing high
tariffs on China will only shift imports to other low-wage regions
with no positive impact on jobs, only higher prices.

In the longer-term – which will come sooner than later – Trump’s
bullying use of tariffs and explicit turn to ‘America first’
weakens its alliances, is economically irrational, and threatens to
weaken and even risk the future of the American Empire. This raises
the question of capital’s reaction: having gotten Trump’s goodies,
will they actively resist his trade policy when it undermines the
imperial role of the US that has served them so well?

ILNA: At the international level, how have US tariff policies affected
global supply chains? Are we witnessing a redirection of investment
and production to third-world countries or merely a rise in overall
costs?

SG: It is too early to tell, since investment decisions take a while
to unfold, and many such decisions are waiting to see how things
unfold. It makes little sense to make major strategic shifts if, after
gaining some concessions internationally, either returns things to
normal or is defeated by the Democrats, and they at least partially
revert to the old status quo.

Nevertheless, we are seeing clear hints of changes: less exports from
China, more from the rest of South-East Asia; allies feeling alienated
by Trump’s overtly America-first actions; Third-world links to China
growing; American companies like Amazon and Walmart warning of both
inflation and supply-side disruptions; Trump’s reversal of attacks
on immigrant farm-workers because of the food lobby’s warnings of
supply shortages and increases in the price of food.

ILNA: The US–China trade war has now entered a new phase. In your
opinion, which side holds the upper hand economically and
geopolitically, and can this conflict be managed in a sustainable way?
Moreover, do you think Trump can achieve his intended outcome from
these tensions?

SG: It is important to recognize that China is not looking to replace
American leadership. What it wants is for the American state to act as
a reliable world leader so it can move on with its own development.
The bind for the US is that it wants to contain China but, unlike the
Soviet Union of old, China is _inside_ global capitalism, and the US
does not want to decouple from China – its market and supply
networks are too valuable for US business.

US sanctions and tariffs have not worked in containing China; they
have only led to China acting to shift its exports to other countries
and emphasize internal markets more. The same goes for the military
competition. American aggressiveness has only pushed China to
accelerate its military readiness.

China, unlike other countries, may not have an interest in replacing
the American Empire, but it is determined to maintain its autonomy.
The outcome may be a fracturing of global capitalism into partially
separate spheres or some accommodation whereby China opens its high
tech and financial markets up more (i.e., a deepening of
globalization), and there is some agreement on military co-existence
(akin to the American-Soviet peace agreements). But all this is
fraught with uncertainty. How and whether this can be resolved is one
of the most important geopolitical questions before us.

ILNA: Given the imposition of steep tariffs on India, has the United
States risked losing a strategic partner in Asia? In this context, how
might China benefit from the rift between Washington and New Delhi?

SG: Trump’s erratic actions have alienated allies. In the case of
India, India has little choice but to explore closer relations with
China, if only as a bargaining lever with Trump. But India will want
to retain its balancing act between the US and alternative relations
like Russia or China. So, after bullying India, it would not be a
surprise if Trump found some accommodation.

And again, Trumpism isn’t forever. There are no calls from American
elites to break with India, and if Trump is defeated electorally, a
return to normal with India would be in the cards. Though even then
the example of the dangers of over-dependence on the US might be
expected to see the emergence of a more wary India.

ILNA: Europe and Canada are also embroiled in tariff disputes with
Washington. Will this trajectory erode trust between the US and its
traditional allies, or is a behind-the-scenes compromise more likely
in the end?

SG: Trump has certainly eroded trust, and there is a delegitimation of
American leadership throughout the world. But ‘delegitimation’
does not necessarily lead to material change. The extent of the
economic and military dependence of Europe and Canada on the US, and
the reality that delinking from the US and the radical restructuring
this implies might put socialism – or at least radical economic
interventions on the agenda – suggests that Europe and especially
Canada are desperate for some resolution as they wait for Trump’s
defeat and a return to the American Empire of yesteryear.

So yes, I expect European and Canadian governments, very much
reinforced by their domestic capitalist classes, to pressure their
states for compromises. The main reason for a conservative outcome is
the absence of an organized left with the capacity to act on the
openings created by Trump exposing the nature of the American Empire.

ILNA: From a legal and institutional perspective, how much has
America’s repeated reliance on tariffs weakened the multilateral
trading order, and what future do you foresee for the global free
trade regime?

SG: There were already cracks in the world order that went beyond
Trump such as the failures of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the
limits of the International Criminal Court, the bi-partisan support
for the tariffs imposed on China. Trump’s unilateralism has
certainly weakened the allegedly multilateral trading order. But
globalization and the empire stumble on, and what is not clear yet is
will Trump’s declining authority within the US and concerns from
American business lead him to reverse course? If the Democrats return
to power, how much of Trump’s damage to the global trading order
will be ‘corrected’?

But the more important question for socialists is our own
marginalization in such debates. Our goal is obviously not to return
to the American Empire as it was. Nor should we expect that
inter-imperial rivalry will do much of the heavy lifting for us. And
we should be careful of seeing the collapse of the American Empire as
inherently good. Absent a left movement and left alternative, the
decline of the American Empire is just as likely to increase
nationalism and its dangers, from naïve working-class alliances with
their own bourgeoisies to devastating wars.

ILNA: Some analysts argue that Trump’s tariff pressures are
effectively pushing countries toward parallel alliances and trade
blocs. Are we witnessing the emergence of a ‘multipolar trading
world’?

SG: We need to be clear on what ‘multipolar’ means. Alliances like
the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) are not another
pole in any serious way; their economic ties to the US and NATO are
far stronger than their ties to each other. Regional ties may become
stronger, but they can still remain part of the American-led world
order. For example, neither the development of the European region nor
the US-Canada-Mexico trade agreements are threats to globalization,
and a Middle Eastern bloc that included Israel would ease tensions in
that region and strengthen American-led globalization, not undermine
it.

In the case of a new Asian block, this is an open question. Trump’s
bullying is more likely to lead to such a development, but it is
important to remember that a) Asia includes close and important US
allies like Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam; and b) even if other
countries are pushed to strengthen ties to China, many of them are as
wary of China’s dominance as American dominance and would, at most,
be looking to balance their dependencies.

We are in a state of flux in global economic and political
relationships. We should not rush to project this into a fracturing of
global capitalism or loss of American dominance even if modifications
in the American Empire are occurring. On the other hand, neither can
we assume the status quo is forever fixed. But one of the factors we
must add to all these discussions is where left movements from below
might come to play a role – not just in the US but everywhere,
including China. •

This interview first published on the Iranian Labour News Agency
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Sam Gindin was research director of the Canadian Auto Workers from
1974–2000. He is co-author (with Leo Panitch) of The Making of
Global Capitalism
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(Verso), and co-author with Leo Panitch and Steve Maher of The
Socialist Challenge Today
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the expanded and updated American edition (Haymarket).

* Tariffs; Foreign Investments; Globalization; US Economy;
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