In the following interview, I sat down with an American political analyst to discuss Donald Trump’s victory in the US Presidential elections and whether or not he represents a blow to imperialism. We discussed the impact Trump would have if he sticks to his promises regarding NATO and free trade agreements and whether of not he will end the export of so-called freedom and democracy.
We got through a range of question regarding Trump, everything from why he was elected to whether or not he can deliver on what he says he can, and whether or not he is beneficial for proponents of communism and anti-imperialism.
In response to the latter question, he replied with:
“That’s a good question. I see it more for the business class, the middle class. I don’t really see it as a victory for communists unless he can highlight the contradictions in capitalism even more. One of the ways he could do that is through his disapproval of Chinese economics, he talks about increasing trade tariffs to the tune of 42%. The problem with doing this is that the US and China already have their agreements with GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) if he increases trade tariffs, that will start a trade war with their largest creditor. Apparently, China has $2 trillion in US bonds and they’ve already sold off $1 trillion of those bonds, and they could sell the other trillion which would make things really bad for the US, it would cause inflation to skyrocket, America would have to come back on its debts, it would make the entire country insolvent. That, in turn, could highlight the massive levels of poverty.”
Probably the biggest accusation slung around by liberals during and after the campaign was that those supporting Trump were bigots and racists. We discussed whether there weren’t any underlying issues that caused the Trump victory, rather than racism.
“It’s way-way more [than people just being racists], yes, Trump is a racist I guess you could say that, but he’s also a demagogue, he’s a voice that people wanted to hear, and I guess he spoke to people in a populist manner so that way he could get more votes… You’ve got a lot of disenfranchised voters with her [Hillary Clinton], as well as with the system as it stands now. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has been pushing all its money into regime change all around the world, it’s been doing whatever it can to topple governments that don’t play along with it and all of these events have accumulated to a point where people just want to get away from that kind of policy as possible and that’s precisely what Hillary Clinton represents… When your living standards are hurt and affected by what has been taking place – that took place under the democrats with Barack Obama – for the longest time people has been feeling that and want to come back to a policy where America focuses on itself.”
The full interview delves into many more hot questions on topics including NATO, free trade agreements, whether Trump was the better candidate, and we discussed whether the bourgeoisie in the imperialist camp.