LAST Friday’s ruling by the US Supreme Court that president Donald Trump did not have the authority or right to impose his ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs last April has sent shock waves throughout world capitalism.
The decision by the highest court in the US, by a margin of six votes to three, was a particular cause for resentment for Trump given that he had personally appointed three of the judges in the belief they would cave in to his every wish.
Instead, Trump, incandescent with rage, denounced them as ‘an embarrassment to their families’.
Trump had for months been warning that if the court ruled against his tariff war on the rest of the world it would be an ‘economic and national disaster’, but this didn’t stop the judges from ruling that under the US Constitution, Congress, not the president, has the power to impose tariffs.
They ruled that Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, that he claimed gave him the right to arbitrarily impose tariffs on every country in the world under the pretext that these countries were ‘ripping off’ the US, did not delegate such sweeping powers to the president.
The decision was a blow to Trump after the majority of justices who sit at the Supreme Court have shown a marked unwillingness over the past year to uphold the constitutional rights of US citizens which Trump has trampled over claiming ‘executive authority’ in an attempt to impose dictatorial rule on US workers and the world.
What emerges from his decision is the fundamental crisis that is ripping the US capitalist class apart.
While the Supreme Court were happy to sit back and allow Trump to wage a vicious war against US workers, they baulked at his trade wars that put the profits of the bankers and businesses at risk.
When an enraged Trump announced on Saturday that he was imposing a 15% tariff on all goods imported into the US, utilising a never-before-used law which is time-limited to 150 days, the effect on the world stock markets was instant.
Trump threatened he would be able to impose tariffs ‘in a much more powerful and obnoxious way’ insisting that the Supreme Court had given him the ability ‘to do absolutely terrible things to foreign countries.’
Yesterday morning both the dollar and cryptocurrencies slumped, as investors fled the US dollar and Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, seeking the shelter of gold which increased in price to $5,154 an ounce.
Trump clearly represents the section of the US ruling class that in its desperation is attempting to restore American imperialism as the dominant force across the globe by use of tariffs and military wars.
A state of chaos reigns in what has long been considered the most powerful capitalist nation in the world, presided over by an increasingly unhinged Trump.
In fact, US imperialism is at the weakest it has ever been, with the entire US capitalist system exposed to the world and the working class as truly having ‘feet of clay’ with all the posturing and boasts of supremacy laid waste by disastrous attempts to resolve the economic crisis drowning the US in over $38 trillion of national debt.
At the same time as Trump’s attempts to resolve this debt by imposing it on US workers by increasing the cost of imports, so his military attempts to reorganise the Middle East for exploitation by American capitalism have met the unyielding resistance of Palestinians, the Iranian government and the masses of the region.
The only force on the planet with the power and ability to resolve this crisis and put capitalism out of its death agony is the working class.
The burning issue today is to build sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in the US, UK, Europe and in every country to provide the leadership required to organise the working class to use its strength and take power and advance society from the cesspit of capitalism to a socialist society.
This is the way forward.
