Trump’s Tariffs Have Done What No US Adversary Could
Great powers often decline through self-inflicted blows. By starting a trade war he was unable to follow through on, Donald Trump may have just dealt a severe one to the United States.
19064 Articles by: William G. Martin
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William G. Martin teaches at SUNY-Binghamton and is co-author of After Prisons? Freedom, Decarceration, and Justice Disinvestment (2016) and a founding member of Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier; he covers local justice matters at www.justtalk.blog
Can Canada’s Left Survive Trump’s Second Term?
The NDP helped build Canada’s welfare state. Now, under pressure from Donald Trump’s tariffs and a shifting political terrain, the party risks electoral annihilation as voters split between technocratic centrism and right-wing populism.
Rich and Successful Enough to Be Moral
Rutger Bregman’s book Moral Ambition calls for successful people to use their talents to “make a difference.” But he’s suspicious of systemic change, making his call for personal morality into a shallow exercise in self-help.
Bet on Worker-to-Worker Organizing
There are no guarantees that any approaches, new or old, to reversing the labor movement’s decline will succeed. But Eric Blanc makes a case for why we should wager on worker-to-worker unionism.
An Italian Communist in the Ethiopian Resistance
On April 25, Italians celebrate liberation from Fascism. One leading partisan was Ilio Barontini, a Communist who helped lead Ethiopia’s resistance against Benito Mussolini’s colonial occupation.
How China Is Reacting to Donald Trump’s Trade War
Amid all the confusing signals, China is clearly the prime target for Trump’s trade agenda. China’s best response to tariffs would be to rely more on domestic consumption than exports, but executing that turn presents a huge challenge for its leaders.
Indonesia’s Communists Helped Forge Its National Identity
After the bloody repression of the Indonesian left in the 1960s, Suharto’s regime wrote it out of the history books. Indonesian communists played a crucial role in developing national consciousness among workers and peasants against Dutch colonial rule.
Turning Retirement Against Workers
You’ve been saving for retirement. But Wall Street has been using your savings to erode union strength, inflate asset prices, and consolidate its control over the economy.
When US Labor Helped Free Jailed Salvadoran Trade Unionists
As American unions denounce Donald Trump’s deportation of Kilmar Abrego García to El Salvador, it’s worth recalling when US labor used its collective power to resist repression in that country in the 1980s.
Sinners Is the Non-IP Hit Hollywood Needed
Ryan Coogler’s vampires ’n’ blues thriller Sinners is everything Hollywood tells us the masses don’t want: Set a hundred years in the past, it’s not a sequel, reboot, or adaptation of anything. And yet it’s a smash hit with moviegoers.
The GOP’s Tax Revolt May Be Unraveling
Tax cuts for the rich have been the glue holding the American right together for decades. But as Republican voters’ skepticism of this strategy grows, some GOP lawmakers are considering the unthinkable: proposals to raise taxes on the wealthy.
Ha-Joon Chang: There Should Be No Return to Free Trade
Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the global trade regime are chaotic and uncoordinated. As economist Ha-Joon Chang tells Jacobin, Trump has failed to see that the cause of the US’s relative decline is its own domestic capitalist class.
How Mayor Fiorello La Guardia Transformed New York City
Zohran Mamdani’s unexpectedly popular campaign is raising the question of what a socialist might accomplish as mayor of NYC. To answer it, it’s worth looking back on the successful mayoralty of ambitious New Dealer Fiorello La Guardia.
Nadine Gordimer and the Second Life of Apartheid
Novelist Nadine Gordimer crossed South Africa’s color line to become a staunch opponent of apartheid and supporter of the ANC. Her fiction tackled the savage inequalities of South African society that have continued beyond the end of minority rule.
How the UFC Went MAGA
MMA used to be home to oddballs unified by a love of beating each other up inside cages. But since Donald Trump’s first presidency, the UFC has rebranded the sport as a refuge for the “anti-woke sports fan,” while breaking unions and censoring the media.
Trump’s Tariffs and Capital’s Constraints
When Donald Trump was forced to pause most of his tariffs, the country got a basic lesson in Marxist state theory: when states push policies that threaten profits, they trigger mechanisms that discipline them back into line with capitalist interests.
The Canadian Right Wants to Copy DOGE
Canadian Conservatives are discussing how to emulate Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency north of the border should they win the upcoming federal election — and they think they can make cuts even more quickly than the Trump administration has.
Stellantis’s Tariff Plan: Cut Jobs and Reward Shareholders
Stellantis used the Trump administration’s tariffs as an excuse to lay off nearly 1,000 workers. Two weeks later, the automaker announced a $2.26 billion payout to its shareholders.
Canada’s Oil Habit Is Wrecking Its Future
Canada’s climate plans are a PR front for a carbon-export economy: its oil sands are distorting the economy and derailing any hope for transition. The country’s upcoming election reveals how far leaders are from reversing course.
What Happens When Private Equity Owns Your Kid’s Day Care
When my toddler’s day care started turning parents away at the door due to staffing shortages, I learned it was owned by private equity — which maximizes enrollment to squeeze profit out of childcare and now owns eight of the 11 largest US day care companies.