My weekly Comment Column in the daily Plymouth Herald (8.4.25), following a weekend campaign stall which heard many local people saying they “like Trump”. In general, nationalist sentiments and comments were the majority. Socialists really do need to heed this shift to the right, and argue back. I can’t offer any deep economic analysis and would never predict the global impact of Trump’s tariffs, but one thing’s for sure. The working class is going to pay a heavy price, everywhere.

What have tariffs to do with us?

In Truth there is no such thing as the “National Interest”. We are not one nation, not because of any differences in skin colour or ethnicity, but because of social class. The richest 20% of British citizens live totally separate and different lives from the poorest 20%. In general their bonuses come from our losses.
Tax cuts for the rich do not benefit the poor in any way. Surplus personal wealth tends to be spent on luxuries, the larger amounts squirrelled away in off-shore tax-free bank accounts. In Britain the luxuries mostly come from overseas, the luxury holidays generally happen overseas, the upper-middle and super-rich upper class investing in cheap labour overseas. The working class hardly ever see the real wealth of our Nation.
Trump’s tariffs are portrayed as his attempt to pull production back to the United States of America in order to revitalise their endebted economy and improve the condition of the poorest. He has no such intention, and in any case, tariffs don’t do that. Trump’s taxes on imports to the USA will fuel price rises, maintaining or even increasing inflation at home and abroad.
The tariffs will damage any capitalist’s confidence in investing, anywhere. Last week’s sudden record losses on stock markets worldwide are evidence of this. The retaliation of other countries with large economies, imposing tariffs on US goods will replicate the inflationary pressures worldwide.
The UK’s economy is stagnant already. Before Trump, for the poorest 50% of people in the UK, prices kept going up and our spending power decline. The tariffs will ensure this continues. The outlook is stagflation.
We are already suffering disgusting inequality and poverty levels. Low wages, precarious work, 6 million households in fuel poverty, 4 million children in poverty. To judge where you sit in the hierarchy of rich v poor, just consider that Britain’s median hourly wage is around £37,000 per year before tax, roughly the same as in 2006. Most wage-rates have been pulled down by wage-compression resulting in the top 10% of salaries averaging £73k, the poorest 10% less than £23k. Standard Universal Credit per adult £5kpa. State pensioner a maximum of 12kpa. Of course the super-rich aren’t in these stats – they’re the directors and executives and property owners – not the workers – averaging £200kpa before bonuses and dividends. Where do you sit?
The top 10% of households hold 43% of the country’s wealth while the bottom 50% of us (33 million citizens) share just 9%. The 170 UK multi-billionaires own £700billion between them, their collective income rising over £30bn in the last year. We never see their money.
America’s gap between rich and poor is even more extreme. Trump’s primary motive in enforcing tariffs is to get more dollars into the USA’s federal budget to be able to further cut the rate of tax for the wealthiest in America. Damn the poor, the social infrastructure and welfare services. Why any working class person would still wish to support Trump beggars belief.
We have lived the fact that the rich having more cash doesn’t trickle down to the poor, quite the opposite. The poor pay substantially more of our disposable income on essentials with little or nothing for luxuries, the prices of which will now skyrocket.
Trump’s tariffs will make the price of essentials increase. Here in the UK. The world’s smallest countries are being hit so hard they will be plunged into even more abject poverty (the current jokes about penguins are not really funny). The big economies responding with tariffs of their own will cost their working class a double-whammy.
Trump’s administration isn’t benign. His people know the history of trade wars. They’re not stupid. Tariffs deepen economic competition and lead to military competition. Trade wars lead to world wars. The USA has a military budget that dwarfs the rest of the world’s combined. And wars make huge money for the arms manufacturers at the expense of everyone else.
Little wonder Starmer’s government and those across the world are now preaching rearmament and militarism. Nationalism is being drummed into our working class mindset as a prelude to war. And wars always make the working classes much poorer, economically, socially and emotionally. Surely, war is not in our interest. And neither is Trump.
More than one million people protested across the USA last weekend, against Trump’s offensive. The working class here must challenge Trump’s poverty policies here, too. Welfare not Warfare!