Jamie Galbraith (University of Texas) je naredil odlično analizo kaotičnosti trumpizma. Težko je bolje opisati kaotičnost ukrepanja in kaos, ki ga je povzročila reakcionarna psolovna elita, ki je prevzela oblast v ZDA. Na dolgi rok bo s temi ukrepi, ki kratkoročno škodijo šibkejšim (zaposlenim in potrošnikom) prizadela predvsem lastne interese. Tako kot komunisti, tako kot zeleni, tudi poslovneži nikoli ne bi smeli imeti odločilnega vpliva v vladi. Ker so ekstremisti. Nekaj njihovih idej je dobrih, toda njihov celotni, enostranski in ekstremistični program je katastrofa za družbo in gospodarstvo. Poglejte Slovenijo, poglejte Nemčijo, poglejte Argentino, poglejte Ameriko…

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What to make of the blur of news, revolutionary rhetoric, panicky fundraising texts, economic indicators, the plunging stock market, and, of course, President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on March 4, 2025? Are we on the brink of a socioeconomic Armageddon? Or is there—as the great Tallulah Bankhead once said, “less in this than meets the eye”?

Leaving aside the buckets called “culture wars” and “foreign policy,” we may distinguish eight distinct forces at work in Trump’s economics. They are (a) the targeted destruction of specific regulatory agencies, (b) random disruptions of the federal civil service, (c) old-fashioned Reaganism, (d) tariffs, (e) migration, (f) energy, (g) the military, and (h) the general effect of rash and unpredictable policymaking—otherwise called uncertainty and chaos.

Targeted destruction. Trump’s early days have seen the declared end for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board, crippling blows to the Environmental Protection Agency, and a start to dismantling the Department of Education, among others. These are regulatory and supervisory agencies specifically targeted by longtime adversaries, now empowered. Their demolition (in whole or part) is a political gesture that will weaken labor against business, consumers against bankers, and citizens against polluters. However, taken alone these will not have large economic effects in the short run.

In the longer run, systematic deregulation will degrade economic performance. Not all regulation is effective. But quite distinct from its social and health benefits, effective regulation serves the interests of advanced businesses, including in manufacturing, by forcing old, dirty, and unsafe technologies and low-wage competitors out. Trump’s government, like others before it, is—unfortunately for its own declared strategy—in the hands of the reactionary branch of the business elite.

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The tariffs are the most dramatic of Trump’s economic measures, because they lie within his sole discretion, and he can impose or retract them at will. In a simple world—like the one depicted in economics textbooks—they would fall straightforwardly on consumers or producers, and either way they foster import substitution on both sides of the tariff wall. In the real world of complex supply and production chains, they are highly disruptive and could kill the profits of major American firms—a fact that seems to have dawned, a bit late, on the Trump team. So the tariffs on Canada and Mexico were on-off-on and now off again, thanks (most likely) to stiff complaints from the auto makers. With respect to those countries, our largest and closest trading partners, it’s possible that the big stick may turn into a weak reed.

Not so with China, where the tariff war is on, and China is biting back. US tariffs on China will force supply chains for many Chinese goods to divert to other Asian countries—a boon, for instance, for Vietnam. China’s tariffs will hit American farmers, who sell a large share of their wheat, corn, rice and meat to China. Both sides will adjust. A key consequence may be in the markets for high-end chips and software, as the US moves to restrict or shut down Chinese apps like TikTok, DeepSeek and WeChat, not to mention RedNote. Is this, perchance, the agenda of formerly free-trading oligarchs in the tech sector, suddenly faced with superior competition in their niche?

We do not yet know where Trump’s tariffs will settle; a general high-tariff regime is possible. What would it bring? Higher prices for American consumers, and higher profits for businesses protected by tariff walls. Will it bring back jobs and production to American shores? Probably not. Monopoly power usually brings lower output at higher prices; there is no automatic path from higher profits to competitiveness. If the government wants more (and better) production, it needs extra tools: mandatory investment directives, excess profits taxes, credit allocation and price controls, public purchase and ownership of new factories—and above all competent public supervision of private performance. That is how it was done in the New Deal and in the mobilization for World War II—creating the era of American dominance to which Trump would like to return.

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Uncertainty and chaos are the final factors in Trump’s operation. The winners, broadly, will be financial speculators with fast fingers and (especially) inside knowledge. Those in position to move quickly in and out of stocks, bonds and real estate—and perhaps even in and out of the dollar from a base in crypto—could be the biggest winners. The apex financial and tech predators, already at Trump’s feeding trough, could end up in control of the whole economy. Which may be their goal. Well, no surprise—it’s an oligarch’s world, is it not?

And what do the oligarchs want? Like all feudal lords, they want untrammeled power and insecure, obedient serfs—and for this, the vast social services operation that is the US federal government must be cut back, along with the professional classes who form the modern core of the Democratic Party. The words of Andrew Mellon (as recalled by Herbert Hoover) come to mind: “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. Purge the rottenness out of the system.… enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.” The problem the oligarchs face, and possibly do not understand, is that they cannot do this, any more now than then, without bringing the economy to ruin—from which recovery will be possible only with the competent government they are now working to destroy.

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Over the longer term, it is hard for an old progressive, who fought against the forces of deindustrialization and financialization when they took control under Reagan in the early 1980s, not to sympathize with the stated vision of the old man now in charge. But it is one thing to yearn for a vanished past of superior American engineering, industrial strength and technological prowess—and quite another to create the conditions for revival. Handing the economy over to libertarians, monopolists, speculators, and rich reactionaries with big egos will not make America great again.

Vir: Jamie Galbraith, The Nation