United States: The key characteristics of Trump’s second term

First published at International Socialism Project.

We are almost through with the first year of Trump’s tumultuous second presidency. What follows is an outline of some of the key features of Trumpism and how they are playing out so far.

In terms of foreign policy, Trump’s second term signals qualitative shifts away from the neoliberal market precepts of “free trade” and the maintenance of stable alliances with chosen allies, to one marked by high (and constantly shifting) tariffs, “transactional” relationships based on financial pressure, and threats of military coercion of “enemies” as well as allies. One unnamed US official has summarized Trump’s “American First” approach as follows: “Countries who choose to align with U.S. interests and are open to mutually beneficial deals reap the benefits” … “and have the option of partnering with our incredible military and intelligence services.” Countries that “enable and support cartels who poison U.S. citizens or allow adversarial nations access to control critical infrastructure or base hostile capabilities in our backyard…will feel pressure to change course.”

The US is currently in the midst of a massive US military buildup in the Caribbean. Dozens of small boats, allegedly drug smuggling, have been destroyed so far, killing 80. Under the pretense of fighting drug cartels, military action in Venezuela — and possibly Mexico — are currently being considered by the Trump administration. Gunboat diplomacy is back with a vengeance.

Domestically, Trump has implemented rapid-fire a series of initiatives that threaten to severely erode, if not overturn, the traditional political system in the United States and turn it toward a more authoritarian model. This is something that until recently, outside of Trump circles, was considered unthinkable. The US political system — with the two capitalist parties, one liberal, one conservative — assuming government every four to eight years, is under extreme strain and the outcome isn’t yet clear. And unlike his previous presidential term, Trump has amassed a more solid coalition with a more developed plan of action.

Trump is clearly part of an authoritarian turn, which is a global phenomenon. What’s different is this turn is occurring inside the leading world power under one of its two major parties — the GOP appears to be jettisoning its own longstanding traditions based upon the constitutional so-called “checks and balances,” the vaunted two-party system. It appears as if the system is being strained from within until it explodes, or morphs before our eyes potentially into a one-party dictatorship. This development has alarmed whole sections of centrist and liberal commentators and Democratic Party politicians, not just ordinary people feeling the brunt of Trump’s vicious attacks and economic policies.

Trump, very much like a monarch, has created a coterie of sycophants who praise him incessantly at every White House briefing. His administration includes open racists, conspiracy crackpots, science, climate change and vaccine deniers, former mediocre right-wing television celebrities, and outright fascists like White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who believe that America should be a whites-only country. Trump’s base is not only the traditional base of the Republican party, but also includes the hard-core far right like the Proud Boys, Groypers, and other fascist organizations. Trump has built a right to far right coalition that includes Christian Nationalists (both evangelicals and Catholics), White nationalists, and Right-wing think-tanks funded by billionaires.

In line with other authoritarian politicians, Trump has leveraged his position to turn the state into a cash machine for him and his cronies, using his position of power to extract wealth through various means, including extortion based on legal threats, sales of Trump-themed trinkets, lavish gifts, and crypto-currency trading. According to a report by the Center for American Progress, the Trump family, as of late October, has pocketed $1.8 billion in cash and gifts since the 2024 presidential election. The most visible symbol of the excess of the regime was that at the very moment during the government shutdown that SNAP benefits (known as food stamps) upon which over 40 million Americans depend for food security were set to expire, Trump held a “Great Gatsby”-themed Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago which included scantily-clad women dancing in giant martini glasses.

Trump has the support, for now, of large sections of the ruling class.

Big businesses, major universities, as well as other institutions, have caved to Trump after legal/financial threats; others have done so in the hope of currying favor or at least to ward off negative attention. Many have made the simple financial calculation that, in the context of Trump’s cuts to social spending ($1.2 trillion in cuts in programs like Medicaid and food stamps), his generous tax breaks to the rich, and his almost complete deregulation of industry — as well as his assault on government unions and mass firings — the benefits of a Trump presidency far outweigh the problems. Tech/AI giants — the heart of the current overheated investment boom that is buoying the US economy for the time being — this time around are backing Trump, based on their desire not only to get on the financial gravy train, but to boost US competitiveness vs. China.

Trump’s “big beautiful bill” represents, according to some calculations, one of the greatest, if not the greatest single transfer of wealth in US history. In this context, Oxfam’s recent report — that the top 10 US billionaires have seen their wealth since Trump’s election increase by $698 billion — is noteworthy. (Meanwhile, Tesla’s board just voted to give Elon Musk a trillion dollars over the next ten years, contingent on meeting certain extremely ambitious long-term goals). As one commentator writing in the New Yorker wrote, “The profit motive certainly plays a prominent role: from Mussolini’s Italy and Nazi Germany to Vladimir Putin’s Russia and modern China, there is a long history of major corporations conceding to authoritarian governments for commercial reasons.”

OF course, tax cuts for the rich, deregulation of industry, trade, and banking, cuts in social safety net spending, and the ballooning of military, police, and immigration enforcement spending — are not new. Five decades of neoliberalism, carried out under both political parties, produced Trumpism: these were processes that went on no matter which party was at the helm. The Democrats have ever-shifted rightward, reinforcing the status quo each time, acting as a political block on any genuine political alternative.

It was Bill Clinton, after all, who passed the “omnibus” crime bill that led to an explosion of mass incarceration affecting Black, brown, and poor people in the US; Clinton who ended “welfare as we know it; Clinton who promised to eliminate “big government.” Barack Obama, who was known among immigrant rights activists as the “Deporter in Chief,” bailed out Wall Street but not main street. Biden/Harris tried to catch out the GOP by proposing tough anti-immigration enforcement which Republicans turned down. Abortion rights were slowly eroded, and the Democrats did little or nothing to resist it, and it was under Biden’s administration that the student movement against the genocide in Gaza was smashed on university campuses. Right wing policy passed by the Republicans have rarely been scrapped by the following Democratic administration (an example would be Obama’s use of a law passed under Bush II during the “war on terror” permitting targeting killings and assassinations against “enemy combatants”), despite their election time rhetoric that the only “answer” to the danger of the right is to vote Democratic.

Some of Trump’s policies were already being at least partially developed under Biden and previous administrations. In particular, Biden attempted to put through policies aimed at restricting computer chips to China and implementing more selective tariffs and trade restrictions designed to encourage industry to be rebuilt inside the US (known as “reshoring”) — a policy at least in part dictated by a concern that in the event of war with China, the US would be left vulnerable for imports that the military depends on to produce ammunition, weapons, ships, and aircraft — for example rare earth minerals, whose production currently is almost completely dominated by China. Meanwhile, the war on terror after 9/11 had already been used as an excuse to ramp up the domestic surveillance state.

But there has been a qualitative shift in US politics since Trump has taken office — adding up to a series of policies aimed at rolling back gains of social and working-class movements going back to the 1920s:

1. An all-out terrorist offensive from day one on undocumented immigrants, particularly immigrants of color, and largely immigrants without the slightest run-ins with the law. The behavior of masked, heavily armed thugs is drawing popular comparisons with Hitler’s Gestapo. Trump’s ultimate aim is to end “birthright citizenship.” The ICE dragnet has also ensnared many people are citizens of the US or are here with Green Cards or legal visas.
2. The sending of National Guard troops to DC, and potentially Chicago and Portland — to back up the ICE and Border Patrol goons already there (as well as in other cities) — against immigrants but also to “fight crime,” i.e., code for attacking Black people. (Trump’s September 30 speech to the globally summoned generals spoke of using American cities as “training grounds” for US troops practicing for overseas conflicts.)
3. The ending of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” and “wokeness,” i.e. a fierce campaign to dismantle any and all protections and advantages for anyone other than straight white men. The offensive includes an all-out assault on trans people. One of Trump’s first actions was to issue an executive order declaring that there are only “two sexes,” and immediately halting all “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs.
4. An assault on government agencies, jobs, government unions, and social spending (except for the various armed forces of the US state).
5. An assault on science, including massive cuts to research.
6. A campaign to criminalize resistance and define any and all opposition to Trump as terrorism — stepped up considerably after the national martyrization of Turning-Point leader Charlie Kirk after his assassination on September 10.
7. The effective use of a supine and supportive Supreme Court that so far has largely given Trump what he wants.
8. The pardoning of supporters (including the Jan 6, 2021, rioters), and the weaponization of the justice department to deploy it against Trump’s perceived opponents, including legal action against former FBI director James Comey, former national security adviser John Bolton and New York attorney general Letitia James.

The scope of Trump’s attack on free speech was made even clearer after Kirk’s assassination. In September he designated “antifa” as a “domestic terror organization,” and issued National Security Presidential Memorandum directing federal law enforcement and other agencies to investigate and disrupt any and all left-of-center nonprofit organizations that oppose his agenda. The memorandum listed as examples of “domestic terrorism” things like “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity,” “extremism on migration, race, and gender,” and opposition to “traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.” In short, if you are not a right-wing supporter of Trump, you are a domestic terrorist.

This has all been accompanied by an extreme ramping up of violent rhetoric. (White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said for example after the recent “No Kings” protests, “The Democrat Party’s main constituency is made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.”) On the other hand, no armed forces of the state other than local police forces were deployed against the 7 million so-called “terrorists” who came out to the “No Kings” protests. This helps show the gap that still exists between aspirations of the regime and its current reach. No doubt the Trump administration would like to close that gap.

His foreign policy, at least on paper, is designed to restore America’s “greatness” — compelling, through tariffs, foreign and domestic investment in the US to rebuild its industrial base and win the battle for dominance with China in Latin America, the Pacific and elsewhere. Whether and to what extent this can, or will happen, is up for debate. Even clearer is the U.S. turn toward old-fashioned “gunboat diplomacy” in Latin America. Trump has also recently threatened military action against Nigeria for not “protecting” Christians, and the US has been quietly building up its military forces in Crete with the cooperation of the Greek government.

It isn’t yet completely clear what military threats are designed to put pressure on a particular country, and which ones are going to be backed up, and to what extent, by military action — though an invasion of Venezuela, given the military buildup, seems closest to becoming a reality.

Take the case of the Panamanian ports, for example. First, Trump threatened to invade Panama and retake the canal on the grounds that there was too much Chinese influence over the canal; he then used the threat to force Panama to compel it to reject the running of its two major ports by Hong-Kong based company CK Hutchinson. Under pressure, CK Hutchinson agreed to sell its 80 percent ownership of 43 ports, including two in Panama, to a consortium headed by the US firm Black Rock. The deal was resisted by China, which insisted that as a quid pro quo the Chinese firm COSCO be added to the consortium with a 20-30 percent stake in the 43 ports outside of Panama, which has frozen the talks. According to an analysis in Foreign Policy magazine, the US is reportedly considering a deal in which it allows COSCO to gain a stake in the other 41 terminals and Black Rock gets the 2 Panamanian ones. The outcome is not yet clear, but if this is the deal the US gets, it will allow Trump to claim a victory in Panama while China extends its economic reach elsewhere.

The question of rebuilding US economic capabilities in the event of a major military conflict is key to current policy. For example, the US military is required by law to build all its ships in the US, but China has 232 times the shipbuilding capacity of the US., according to the US Office of Naval Intelligence. China booked 74 percent of the world’s shipbuilding orders last year; Korea, 17 percent; the US? 0.2 percent. The US is making deals with Korea and Japan to create joint ventures in Korea and in the US, for example, the Korean shipbuilder Hanwha is building up and modernizing a Shipyard in Philadelphia, and Trump is clearly for this kind of “reshoring.” The Trump administration is also currently ramping up its efforts to make trade deals with countries other than China, such as Kazakhstan and Australia, as well as reopening abandoned mines in Alaska and other parts of the US, along with processing facilities, to gain access to rare earth minerals, a market currently dominated by China.

The biggest problem with the plan to “onshore” and restore US manufacturing is the incredible degree of internationalization of trade and of manufacturing components. The internationalization of production has developed to the point where there is no such thing, for example, as a car produced and manufactured in a single country — a fact that holds true for millions of products. Car parts that find their way into a finished product are themselves composed of parts and materials from all over the world.

Under these circumstances, the blunt instrument of tariffs (even if they weren’t as confusing and erratic as they are under Trump) are not going to act as the magic bullet. Since the US is not about to become an autarkic economy that can survive solely on raw materials and goods produced inside its borders, tariffs will always have a double-edged impact, causing supply chain disruptions and increased production costs for many manufacturers. The idea that the United States is going to protect its way back to industrial dominance is a pipe dream.

But to the extent that it is implemented, it will involve a massive attack on the living standards of workers and the poor in the US in order to attempt to make US companies competitive with China. Making “American Great Again” is about cutting labor costs, eliminating the social wage, and using the state to craft a more integrated “military industrial complex.” To the extent that any of these plans go forward, it requires an even more massive shift of wealth from the bottom to the top. All of these things will make millions of working-class and poor Americans’ lives considerably worse than they are even today.

The economic impact of Trump’s policies is already being felt. October layoffs surged to a 22-year high in the US, and hiring has been anemic. This comes in a year where there have already been hundreds of thousands of US government-related jobs cut by “DOGE”, and the recent government shutdown led to the cutoff to millions in wages and food stamps. Inflation is currently at 3 percent, but that undercounts the impact of food, housing, and gas/transportation costs for ordinary people. Food inflation is eating into wages. Exit polls in the recent elections indicate that there is increasing concern over the state of the economy.

The economic uncertainty is likely to get worse, not only because of the tariff mess. There is increasingly a sense that the AI/tech boom is a bubble that is about to burst. The CEO of chipmaker Nvidia (with a current inflated value of $5 trillion) expressed anger over a report that the investor made famous by the film “The Big Short,” Michael Burry (who predicted the housing market collapse in 2008), for his recent announcement that he is betting against tech giants Nvidia and Palantir.

There is an element of irrationality, unpredictability, and impulsivity in Trump’s behavior — as well as ideologically driven decisions that do not neatly fit into successful policy from the standpoint of American imperialism. First, there is the complete lack of a coherent tariff strategy — they seem to change every week, hindering investments, hiring, and leading many countries to consider the US an unreliable partner they must work around to find alternatives.

There are other examples. Trump recently dropped trade talks with Canada, for example, over an Ontario advertisement (accurately) quoting Reagan against tariffs. Another example is the abandonment of non-fossil fuel-based energies. Trump is not doubling down on fossil fuels — which from a US perspective makes sense because it is currently the world’s leading producer of oil and natural gas. But simultaneously he is completely ceding dominance on renewal energy, for example solar, hydrogen, and wind, to China.

And then there is the “brain drain.” The United States has historically drawn talent from other countries; Trump is reversing this process. His massive cuts in federal grants to university and other scientific research institutions for their alleged inability to combat “antisemitism”; his harassment, arrest, detention and deportation of foreign students who have criticized him or Israel’s genocide; his commitment to revoke the visas of Chinese as well as other foreign students; and his recent decision to charge $100,000 for an HB1 visa for skilled foreign workers coming to the US have all contributed to what is being called a “brain drain” from the United States. In addition to the billions of dollars universities will lose from the loss of tuition from foreign students whose fear of the Trump administration has prompted them to leave or simply not apply to US universities, and the key areas of medical and scientific research that are already suffering from the cuts, it’s clear that tens of thousands of potential applicants to US universities and US jobs are now looking elsewhere. According to Nature, in the first few months of the Trump administration the number of US applicants looking for jobs in Canada increased by 41 percent, in Europe by 32 percent, and in China and other Asian countries by 59 percent over the same time last year; while the number of European applicants for jobs in the US declined in the same period by 41 percent. Researchers in the US who have lost their funding are looking to China, Europe, Canada and elsewhere to continue their work.

Does the Trump presidency represent a turn toward Fascism? That is an ongoing question and too much to deal with in this article. But it is at the very least fascist-adjacent. Perhaps telling is that Trumps nomination for the Office of Special Counsel, Paul Ingrassia, was withdrawn when it was revealed he had made a statement that he had a “nazi streak.” And yet it’s quite clear that homeland security adviser Stephen Miller is a rabid supporter of the idea of the “great replacement,” the white nationalist theory that there is an ongoing “genocide” against white people. And there can be no doubt that far-right politics have been normalized by the right-wing media. The right-wing Fox news host Tucker Carlson recently had a friendly interview with openly fascist anti-Semite Nick Fuentes — where they discussed the domination of Jews over US politics and business. Fuentes has in the past made statements like “Hitler was awesome,” and “Jews have no future in America.”

Moreover, with state power in Trump’s hands, he does not need fascist shock troops — but he has opened the door to hiring the far-right dregs of society into ICE. In a very real sense, ICE is deliberately recruiting people who want to don masks while they inflict violence on defenseless immigrant families.

What we have is a regime that is pushing in several fronts as far as it can go toward an authoritarian state, testing who and where there is resistance, and continuing to push, seeing what legal rulings it can ignore, what policies it can push and bend, what new ones it can create. It is engaged in a deeply authoritarian turn that aims at the very least to severely curtail the already meager trappings of formal democracy that exist in the United States.

What the future holds isn’t yet clear. It is not out of the realm of possibility that Trump manufactures a crisis in order to declare an “emergency” to cancel the 2028 election; another possibility is that he finds a way to change the constitution to allow himself to run for a third term, with the hope that jerry-rigging the electoral map with guarantee him the majority he needs in the electoral college. The former is clearly his preference — he told a Turning Point USA meeting before the election, to wild cheers: “in four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.”

Alternatively, the political system could still survive this crisis after Trump is forced out of office by electoral means in the midterms and in 2028; or after he loses an election and attempts a January 6, 2021-style “coup”, this time with more state forces at his disposal, to “stop the steal.” Naturally, if this latter scenario transpired, the outcome would be determined by forces outside of the traditional constitutional process. The outcome is not yet clear. Much will depend on how much and what kind of resistance develops.

This is an edited version of a presentation given in Geneva, Switzerland on Sunday, November 9 as part of a seminar organized by the leftist web site Alencontre.com.

Paul D'Amato is the author of The Meaning of Marxism and was the editor of the International Socialist Review. He is the author of numerous articles on a wide array of topics.