Donald Trump’s Projects (II)

Part I 

President Donald Trump’s core objective is to reform the Western economy by putting an end to “American globalization,” according to which the components of complex products must be manufactured in multiple countries before being assembled. He intends to repatriate as many factories as possible to his country so that it becomes capable of manufacturing complex objects from A to Z.

Contrary to what we might think, the First World Trade War does not pit Washington against Beijing, but rather between two forms of capitalism.

After explaining Donald Trump’s efforts against “American imperialism” and the federal bureaucracy [1], I would like to turn to his economic actions and particularly to his approach to customs duties. Initially, Donald Trump was not a politician, but a business leader, and it was as an entrepreneur that he entered politics in the 1980s. He published a full-page advertisement in three major US newspapers to denounce the trade imbalance between his country and China. He thus opposed American globalization, which made the United States the center of the Empire and China “the workshop of the world.”

He only entered politics later, first alongside the Clintons, then by supporting the Tea Party, and finally by taking over the Republican Party.

To understand Donald Trump, we must always keep his background in mind: he is neither a Democrat nor a Republican, but a “Jacksonian” [2]. And his hobbyhorse is to bring the production of consumer goods back to his country. It is much easier for us to understand his adversaries in the United States because they almost all operate not from their experiences, but from their single ideology: “American imperialism.” And we must keep in mind that, generally speaking, academics confuse economic ideologies, which they discuss, with the functioning of the real economy, which they ignore.

When, as federal president, Donald Trump reformed the economy, he announced that he wanted to Make America Great Again (MAGA), that is, to make America a great power again. He specified that he did not intend to wage wars, but, like President Andrew Jackson, to replace them with international trade. We must therefore understand MAGA not as making America a great military power, but as a great economic power, that is, to make America great again.

Andrew Jackson was neither a free trader nor a protectionist. He saw tariffs not as a means of protecting American production from its international competitors, but as the only way to finance the federal government. This is precisely Donald Trump’s position today: he intends to eliminate all federal taxes and finance his administration solely through tariffs. However, he allows each state to levy the taxes it deems essential.

With this framework established, Donald Trump is organizing the transition from the old system to the new according to his method, which he described in his book, The Art of the Deal: destabilizing his interlocutors. He began by announcing widespread and prohibitive tariffs, then agreed to reduce them to 10% for three months, except for China.

Everyone then rushed to his feet, both to thank our good “master of the world” for these taxes and to beg him not to raise them too high. The absolute example of this submissive approach was provided by Giorgia Meloni’s Italy. The Prime Minister presented herself as a groupie of the ogre who imposed everything on her [3]. On the contrary, the opposite example was provided by China, which initially reacted by imposing reciprocal customs duties, then changed its mind. It then chose to respond “Chinese style,” that is, in an area where it was not expected: it interrupted its collaboration with the two global semiconductor giants, ASML and TSMC, significantly slowed the export of “rare earths” used in high-tech equipment, both civil and military, and banned the import of Boeings.

In the absence of stockpiles, in a few weeks, the United States will no longer have semiconductors or spare parts for its missile engines, radar systems, guidance sensors, anti-corrosion coatings, target designation lasers, seeker heads, tactical drones, fighter jet engines, and electronic warfare systems.

Without delay, President Donald Trump exempted high-tech consumer products from taxes: personal computers, cell phones, etc., but not the raw materials and components essential to the military-industrial complex. That’s where we are. In a few weeks, the military-industrial complex, not just the United States, but Western (including Italian) countries, will have to declare a lockout of its factories.

From Donald Trump’s perspective, the United States is no longer a successful economy because it no longer produces consumer goods, but mainly weapons and “financial products.” It has, in practice, a war economy. He therefore intends to tighten the belt of the military-industrial complex and develop local production, particularly that of “rare earths” and fossil fuels essential to modern industry. Contrary to popular belief, rare earths are not rare in themselves. They exist everywhere; it is the filtering capacity of these minerals that is rare. Today, 90% of them are in China. President Trump has therefore found, in the current standoff, an argument for exploiting US “rare earths,” a resource that environmentalists of all stripes oppose [4]. Indeed, it is difficult to extract them without depleting water reserves and polluting neighboring regions.

Just as the libertarianism of DOGE’s Elon Musk masks Donald Trump’s desire to restore to the states functions performed by the federal government, outside the Constitution, so the positions of his Trade Advisor, Peter Navarro, mask his own economic views. Navarro, a former Harvard economics professor, is a controversial figure known for warning—in a very graphic way—about the imbalance in relations with China. He told NBC’s “Meet the Press” [5] on April 13 that the Trump team is not surprised by the reactions, including those from China, to the tariff increase. But this does not mean that President Trump is anti-China.

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who fails to understand her political opponents and dismisses them as unscrupulous, money-hungry billionaires, accused President Trump and his entourage of imposing tariffs solely to enrich themselves through insider trading. She therefore urged the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to open an investigation into the personal fortunes of Trump and Musk. She told CNN’s “State of the Union” [6] on April 13 that the Trump administration’s recent exemption for cell phones, personal computers, and other electronic devices was a “special deal” with Apple CEO Tim Cook, who donated $1 million to her at his inauguration. “As if the chaos weren’t enough, he’s adding a very visible layer of corruption!” [7].

With all due respect to former Harvard economics professor Ms. Warren, what’s happening is neither corruption nor a desire to enrich oneself at the expense of the poorest, but a war. Not a war between the United States and China, but between two forms of capitalism on a global scale: that of producers versus that of assemblers [8].