Fight for socialist change
The relentless grind of a rising cost of living goes on. And Donald Trump is threatening to turn up the dial.
He has threatened an additional 10% tariff on goods destined for the US from its northern European ‘allies’, including Britain, and to increase that to 25% if the US is not able to ‘purchase’ Greenland by June. European leaders have threatened to retaliate.
Capitalist institutions like the IMF warn of a potential “spiral of escalation” in which “there would be no winners”. But if Trump, Keir Starmer, and the rest of the world’s capitalist leaders get their way, the working class would definitely be the biggest losers. They would tighten their squeeze on our real pay, threaten our jobs, and come for more brutal cuts to our services.
So far, the world economy has avoided an immediate crisis and a steep downturn, but the raw ingredients are there – including high levels of debt and asset bubbles. And Britain is especially vulnerable. Even without an acute economic crisis, for the working class, the cost of living grind goes on, in Britain and in the US.
Something else Trump and Starmer have in common is their deep unpopularity. Trump’s actions in Venezuela and now over Greenland will not fundamentally change that. In fact, the brutal anti-immigration ICE raids, including the shooting of an anti-ICE activist in Minneapolis, are provoking further struggles. Trade unions in the state of Minnesota are preparing for coordinated protest strikes.
And in Britain, no number of U-turns will change Starmer’s fortunes. His early attacks on pensioners’ winter fuel allowance, disability benefits and initial refusal to remove the two-child benefit cap cemented in the minds of millions that his is a government acting for the bosses against the working class. It is shown by his maintenance of an enormous crisis in local government services, education and the NHS. And trade unionists have been fighting back in all of those areas.
Millions will use May’s elections in local councils, Wales and Scotland to express their hatred of this government. The Socialist Party is fighting for the strongest possible anti-cuts, socialist stand. It can point the way towards the working class having its own mass party – one which doesn’t make us pay for the crisis of their system.
