The time has come for Trump's triumphant return to the White House and his bigger-than-life show, since he must live up to his character: a strong, rich, powerful and shameless man like him can only strike a big blow.
A hundred executive orders are reportedly ready to be signed: tariffs, amnesty for his supporters who stormed the Capitol in January 2021, mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, environmental deregulation… Trump claims he is going to change everything at breakneck speed.
And all the commentators are singing the same tune: nothing will ever be the same again, with Trump, it's the reign of power struggles and the law of the strongest. As if this were something new! As if American imperialism, which has been shaping the world for over a century, had just emerged! And as if capitalism hadn't been, since the very beginning, the reign of billionnaires!
Of course, Trump will govern with and for billionaires. But Biden and all the American presidents before him have always done so and we can say they have succeeded, since, with 735 billionaires, the United States holds the world record. The only difference is that Trump wants this to be seen and known. Above all, he wants these billionaires’ gratitude.
And he got it, since on the occasion of his inauguration, Trump gathered an unprecedented number of billionaires per square meter. The three richest men on the planet were standing in the front row: Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX and X), to whom Trump has entrusted the mission of cutting public spending; Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) and Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and of the space company Blue Origin, a rival of SpaceX.
Together, they are worth a trillion dollars, while 60% of Americans have no savings and 800,000 live on the streets! But they don't owe their fortune and monopoly to Trump, they owe them to the workers they exploit in the United States and around the world.
With his motto “Make America great again”, Trump vigorously calls for ultra-patriotism. But here again, he is simply continuing the protectionist policy initiated by Biden. The latter surreptitiously increased the economic power of the United States which sucks up nearly half of the world’s financial capital and concentrates the largest part of the world's industrial investments.
As for the trade war and the pressure of US imperialism around the world, they aren't innovations at all. The world’s leading power has never stopped pushing its pawns all over the planet and has always imposed its law, including in Europe which has been in a vassal position since the end of the Second World War.
And let Trump not pretend to be a force of peace! It is American power that has spurred war between Ukraine and Russia and has been fueling it for almost three years. It's also responsible for having covered up the crimes of the State of Israel for over 75 years and armed it. Trump may now have an interest in forcing Netanyahu and Zelensky to sign a cease-fire but that doesn't turn him into a pacifist!
If there is a lasting cease-fire in these two regions, it will be the peace of cemeteries. A peace that will only consecrate struggles for power between imperialist countries and the possibility for them to continue their pillage and oppression, far from the peoples’ aspirations to live freely and peacefully.
What is new with Trump is that he doesn't want to pretend anymore to set limits to the exploitation of people and the planet, as other leaders before him have done and as ours would like to continue to do.
With him, no more regulation that regulates nothing! No more rules that capitalists never respect! Long live the law of the jungle and the hunt for illegal immigrants in order to divide workers! Up with attacks on the rights of women and minorities! Let the powerful manipulate people and lie to them through social networks!
More than a novelty, Trump is a reminder: progressive capitalism with a human face doesn't exist. At its core, there is only the law of the rich, and it can only benefit the biggest predators.
But we must keep in mind that these kings of the capitalist jungle are nothing without workers. And it depends only on us, on our revolt and our organization to get out of this jungle to found a truly humane society.
Nathalie Arthaud