Articles mentioned:

“I’ve seen many phoney trade wars come and go. This is the real thing”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/09/trade-war-donald-trump-us-china

“‘The Tsunami Is Coming’: China’s Global Exports Are Just Getting Started”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/business/china-manufacturing-exports-trump-tariffs.html

“On the Question of Free Trade”

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1888/free-trade/index.htm

“Trump’s tariff programme deepens protectionist tendencies in world economy”

https://marxist.com/trump-s-tariff-programme-deepens-protectionist-tendencies-in-world-economy.htm

______

Last week, Trump’s tariffs delivered a shattering blow to the world economy, sending stock markets around the world into precipitous collapse. This week, he U-turned and paused the tariffs, with the exception of those on China, which now stand at 125 percent. What does this chaos mean for the world economy?

The reversal of the tariffs has provoked a sigh of relief from the capitalist class. But it is not over yet. With the two biggest economic forces on the planet – America and China – going head to head, the globalised world economy is going to be ripped apart. This will only bring closer and intensify the devastating recession that is looming over the capitalist system.

For the working class of the world, this will be a catastrophe. They will be forced to pay the price, while the capitalist politicians will do everything they can to bail out the bankers and billionaires that got us into that mess. Unemployment and brutal cuts to living standards are coming. Already, in their dash to remilitarise, governments around the world are implementing brutal austerity programmes. The ripping apart of the world economy will only intensify matters and force capitalist governments to cut even deeper.

But, as we have already seen with the revolutions and mass movements in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Serbia, Greece and elsewhere, the working class will not take this lying down. The capitalist disaster is preparing a social explosion. Such chaos will force the working class to wake up to the fact that a dignified existence is incompatible with the continued rule of capitalism.

To explain how the anarchy of the market can be overthrown, Niklas Albin Svensson and Hamid Alizadeh from the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International met for another episode of Against the Stream, the weekly current affairs podcast of the RCI.

This episode premiered on YouTube. Tune in every Thursday at 6pm GMT, or catch up on Spotify or Apple Music.