Trump’s Protectionist Turn Is a Death Blow for Neoliberalism
Donald Trump’s trade war means that we’re entering a qualitatively new phase in the history of capitalism. Yet the new economic order taking shape will be just as “globalist” as the neoliberal regime it’s supplanting.
President Donald Trump delivering remarks on reciprocal tariffs during an event in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 2, 2025. (Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)
In the view of the reeling old neoliberal establishments, Donald Trump increasingly appears as the pure negation of their project. Some of his ideological outriders are happy to present him in similar terms. Yet Trump’s new regime actually exemplifies many of the features that have come to define the neoliberal era.
Consider the prominence of sympathetic billionaires in and around the new court. A product of the neoliberal period, this stratum of oligarchs crowded Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound in tribute even before his Washington return.
He has charged lurid tech baron Elon Musk with spearheading a major assault on “waste” spending, prominently involving labor discipline in the largest single US employer, the federal state. Another assault on the tax system looms as a major legislative challenge in Trump’s first year. We’ve heard these tunes before.
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