"We in India connected well with President Trump and with the words of candidate Trump, "Abki Baar, Trump Sarkar", rang loud and clear” – these words were spoken by the right-wing Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, in August 2019, openly supporting the re-election campaign of Donald Trump in the 2020 US presidential election. And I recall this for a reason, because we are currently observing the widespread joy of far-right forces around the world due to Donald Trump's return to power in Washington.
- The Hopes of Multipolarists
In recent years, a number of commentators in left-wing circles – or what some call the “extreme left” – to which I belong and proudly identify myself – have been living in a certain belief. A trend had emerged in most of the global communist and anti-imperialist movements in recent years to believe in the emergence and permanent constitution of a multipolar world. I must admit with shame that I myself fell for this naive bait a few years ago (as evidenced by my articles from late 2022 and early 2023).
The illusion of this “multipolar world” was not entirely naive, however. First, this term (which was once part of academic Marxism only) began to appear in official documents and statements by heads of state. Russia, in particular, began to use “multipolarism” as a diplomatic figure after the launch of a special military operation in Ukraine. Media and politicians sympathetic to BRICS also began to talk about the formation of a multipolar world.
The second aspect of this not being just rhetoric was the steady weakening of the US global position in the international arena. Let's be clear: we have been living for almost 40 years in a unipolar world completely subordinated to the US. Or rather, not the US but the global bourgeoisie that was concentrated mainly in the US and its interests.
Joe Biden's presidency has been a series of diplomatic disasters for the US position. And of course, that's good for the world, because the fall of the US will liberate – temporarily, until another capitalist hegemon takes its place – the nations of the world from the yoke of this one-sided imperialism.
The supporters of the multipolarity theory are convinced that this period, when the US unipolar hegemony will fall, will allow for the birth of many independent players on the arena of world capitalism, who will not be so strong as to destroy – as the US is currently doing – all revolutionary movements in the world. This, they argue, will allow for:
- local communist-led revolutions in certain countries of the world (although I am not sure that they themselves believe in this outcome);
- even if it does not lead to a single socialist revolution anywhere, at least the countries of the Global South, not being under the yoke of American imperialism, will be able to develop their own national bourgeoisie and go through an industrial revolution.
The second argument is, of course, more realistic, but in my opinion only at first glance. Because we can currently see it in the example of BRICS – a capitalist alliance of developing countries. And it is precisely the fact that it is a capitalist alliance that, in my opinion, makes the vision of "local industrialisation" naive and completely idealistic. The best example of this is Brazil, the country with the greatest social inequalities in the world. Namely, Brazil, which is a founding member of BRICS, despite having all the predispositions to become a rich country (abundance of natural resources, unlimited population, water and agricultural potential) is a poor country – and what is worse, economically regressing instead of developing. China-Brazil relations have no chance of being positive for Brazil (a country more backward than China) because in capitalist relations, the stronger always wins. This is what competition is all about (the basis of the capitalist system). Brazil, despite its grand promises, is not industrialising. Most of the industry that is being built there is Chinese, not Brazilian, so the earlier American companies are now being replaced by Chinese capitalists. But this shouldn't be a shock because that's how capitalism works. It's a system in which importing cheaper will always drive out domestic industries (which are more expensive).
Nevertheless, it seemed that under Joe Biden's presidency, the US was on the verge of collapse. And that would mean impending changes for the world. The death of a hegemon is always momentous and some world players can use it to develop (just as China benefited from the fall of the USSR and its switch to the US side, fitting in perfectly with the new neoliberal order of the globalised world economy that was emerging in the 1980s).
The sealing of this defeat of the United States was the war in Gaza. The criminal Netanyahu administration repeatedly humiliated the US government in front of UN bodies. The world had never seen anyone so officially mocking the US State Department. In the past year, we have witnessed many situations in which the US president went to a press conference saying "we have an agreement with Israel to cease hostilities" and a moment later Netanyahu said "there is no agreement" – which put Washington in a position of complete ridicule.
However, as recent months have shown, this was completely deceptive. Because I will be honest: in my opinion, the United States has achieved huge successes in the Gaza war. Israel has carried out everything that American capitalists needed. They have eliminated almost the entire command of Hezbollah and made a deal with Lebanon that basically means the total collapse of Hezbollah. Hezbollah, which has been one of the strongest anti-imperialist resistance movements in the Middle East in the last 20 years. The party, which was a powerful and popular force in Lebanon and de facto in the entire West Asian region, has lost almost all of its political and military strength overnight.
Some might say that I am repeating "Zionist propaganda," but let's face it. Hezbollah is giving up its positions in southern Lebanon and its weapons to the Lebanese army and is withdrawing. Moreover, it has completely lost the political significance it had in Lebanon, as shown by the recent presidential elections, where the new president and former head of the army Joseph Aoun does not hide that he is a puppet of the USA, and also the Hezbollah candidate for prime minister Mikati received only 9 votes! This is the biggest slap in the face that Hezbollah has received since its inception.
Another success for the US is the fall of the Bashar al-Assad-led government in Syria to Al-Qaeda (because that's what HTS is, even though they officially deny it). Some might ask: "How is Al-Qaeda's rule a success for the US, if the US is waging war on terrorism?" I would respond: "Look at the declarations of the new Syrian regime." Not only is the new Syrian leader al-Joulani waging war on the Kurds and Islamist militias supported by Turkey and the Alawites in western Syria, but he has publicly said that he does not intend to fight Israel. In other words, he has the strength for a war within the country, but he wants peace and good relations for a war with an entity (Israel) that has territorial claims to his country. In addition, the Syrian finance minister has officially declared that he will privatise Syria's state-owned enterprises and open the country to foreign investment (implicitly Western investment). In addition, the fall of Assad means cutting off Hezbollah and Hamas from supplies of weapons and money from Iran. And this will be a huge blow to these organisations. This essentially means the collapse of the "Axis of Resistance" that Iran has been building.
- Trump on the Throne
And in such an international environment we come to Donald Trump, who took office as the President of the United States on 20 January. His inauguration itself showed that he is not the President of the Americans – he is the President of global capitalism. Guests at his inauguration were not only American billionaires (Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Cook) but also the CEO of TikTok (and therefore a Chinese capitalist), Hussain Sajwani (UAE), Hary Tanoesoedibjo and Ambani. This is significant because throughout the campaign Trump presented himself as the “anti-establishment” candidate – and many naive multipolarists supported him). On the other hand, at least 13 millionaires and billionaires will take up positions in the new Trump administration.
As CJ Atkins wisely wrote : ”Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai—add up their estimated wealth and you get close to a trillion dollars of combined economic power sitting on the stage. They were the perfect image of capitalist politics in the US today. These billionaires invested hundreds of millions of dollars in their candidate, and they came to DC to celebrate their conquest.”
Far-right heads of government such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni have already made pilgrimages to the US to pay tribute to Trump, while Germany and France were represented at the inauguration only by ambassadors. Poland, the Baltic states and other Eastern European countries have regularly sided with the US when tensions between Berlin and Washington flare.
What's more, the political changes in the world were visible the day after the election results in the US were announced. The day after the election, the German government – a hopeless social liberal government – fell, paving the way for the German far right to take power in snap elections at the end of February this year.
Elon Musk has publicly launched attacks on the UK government, preparing the ground for Nigel Farrage’s far-right party to take power in Britain. He has done the same in Germany, where he publicly supports the neo-fascist AFD party, at whose rally he spoke on Saturday, 25 January. Everything also indicates that for the first time in history, the new chancellor of Austria will be a member of the far-right party FPÖ. In this way, Trump’s presidency is paving the way for a series of far-right governments in Europe.
I have outlined the entire international situation in great detail, which not only shows that the twilight of American imperialism is very distant but also proves how weak the alternatives to it are
But that is not all. One might say that "the US has always had influence in Europe, so this is nothing extraordinary." And that is, of course, true. However, events in Washington also have an impact on the Global South. Everything indicates that not only the domestic but also the international position of Javier Milei (the extreme right-wing prime minister of Argentina) is growing stronger. In addition, Bongbong Marcos, the right-wing president of the Philippines, has increased his attacks on China – in fact, preparing his country to be an American proxy for an open, "hot" war with China – while purging the Philippine political establishment of supporters of the Duterte family, who in recent years have been open agents of Chinese influence in the Philippines. The Philippines’ Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr personally met with the new US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, to confirm the "enduring alliance between the Philippines and the United States."
A few years ago, supporters of the multipolarity theory predicted the end of US influence after Saudi Arabia announced its accession to BRICS (as it later turned out, they do not intend to join the organisation), and also when China negotiated an agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Thus, Mohammed bin Salman was the first foreign leader Donald Trump spoke to after his inauguration, the US president also assured that there would be no problem for Riyadh to normalise diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv, and everything indicates that Trump will fully implement his "Abraham Accord", which will seal US rule over all of West Asia. In addition, Mohammed bin Salman almost paid homage to the Washington fiefdom - he has told US President Donald Trump that the kingdom wants to put $600 billion into expanded investment and trade with the United States over the next four years. The Saudis, by the way, supported Trump very generously already in the presidential campaign.
In recent days, Iraq has also paid homage to the West. A few days ago, the Iraqi Prime Minister went to London to announce a security agreement with the UK (the country that proudly destroyed Iraq in 2003).
Trump’s influence has not been indifferent to Africa. Duma Boko, the president of Botswana, said: “(The West) has every reason to play its role in Africa, because if it doesn’t, there are others who will want to play a role. We have China in the bag, and they are trying to… exert influence on Africa”. Egypt, a staunch US ally, has announced that it is preparing an air operation against the Houthis in Yemen. There are many other signals that after eliminating Hezbollah and Assad, the US-Israeli alliance will now focus on destroying the Houthis, as Saudi Arabia seems set to try again to crush one of the last elements of the Iranian “axis of resistance.”
One cannot ignore Trump's comments regarding his desire to annex Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal.
Greenland’s location makes it crucial to missile defense and nuclear strategy. The US already operates the Pituffik space base in northwestern Greenland, which houses missile defense radar facilities. Trump’s plan would dramatically expand that infrastructure, integrating Greenland into a broader strategy of Arctic militarisation. But Greenland has more than just military significance—the melting ice sheets will expose vast mineral deposits that US capitalists want to exploit, and Greenland is on a polar trade route. Once the Arctic melts (which, given the pace of global warming, will happen later this century), the Arctic will be a vital trade route—a kind of Suez and Panama Canal of the 21st/22nd century.
Even if the US does not annex Greenland and Canada, Trump's declarations are already having an effect. The Canadian Prime Minister resigned, paving the way for a new, far-right Canadian government that will be obedient to Washington, and the Prime Minister of Greenland announced his desire to conclude a "trade" agreement with the US. I put the word "trade" in quotation marks because from what we already know, this agreement will allow US companies to exploit Greenland almost unlimitedly, so it is more of a feudal agreement than a trade agreement.
The issue of the aforementioned Panama Canal is equally important. Apart from the fact that the US wants to regain full control over this important trade route (which means the return of the Monroe Doctrine), it also shows China's shortsightedness. China has been delighted with globalisation and free trade for the past 40 years. There is no other country in the world – apart from Singapore, perhaps – that would fit in so well with this system. China naively believed that it could compete equally with the US and therefore buried the offer to build an alternative canal in Nicaragua. Therefore, if the US actually takes control of the Panama Canal, China will be left with no alternatives and will lose huge amounts of money on trade with Latin America.
I have outlined the entire international situation in great detail, which not only shows that the twilight of American imperialism is very distant but also proves how weak the alternatives to it are. Another important issue worth noting is that it is not governments—presidents or prime ministers—who set the global rules of the game. In the capitalist world, the bourgeoisie decides everything.
Now, by nominating Trump as the defender of its interests, the world – and not just the American – bourgeoisie has chosen a path similar to that of 100 years ago. This is the path of fascism, which will operate with primitive, nationalist and chauvinist slogans that will blind the working class, which will be exploited and robbed even more than ever before.
Author’s note: I want to dedicate this article to Harpal Brar – a prominent Marxist who passed away earlier this year on 25 January 2025. Rest in Power, Comrade Brar!