The following remarks were delivered to a seminar examining the Trump regime trade and tariff assault on the world, sponsored by the International Workers Institute (IWI), the labor research arm of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) https://www.wftucentral.org , and the online journal Theory and Praxis https://www.theoryandpraxis.eu/ The keynote address was by South African trade union leader Zola Saphetha, General Secretary of the National Education, Health, and Allied Workers Union, followed by Townsend, the retired political action director of the U.S. United Electrical Workers Union (UE). The seminar was held on May 30, 2025, by teleconference, and was attended by union leaders from the United States and more than 40 other countries.
By Chris Townsend, political director (retired), United Electrical Workers Union (UE) Alexandria, Virginia, USA,
May 30, 2025
Greetings to all trade union friends and comrades world-wide, from the United States.
Any understanding of the Trump regime maneuvers to impose massive and sudden trade tariffs on the importation of products and services from virtually the entire world, requires some historical context. The Trump re-election just 7 months ago came as a shock only to those unfamiliar with the economic destruction that has been visited on the U.S. working class. Since the 1970’s, more than 60 million working people in the United States have lost their primary jobs on account of mass layoffs, plant closings, and the destruction of numerous manufacturing sectors. Today, more than half of the U.S. working class works and lives paycheck-to-paycheck, totally impoverished, increasingly miserable – and angry.
Only two political parties – Republicans and Democrats – are allowed in any practical way in our political debates and elections. In this fraudulent version of “democracy” the ruling elites maintain their control by shifting back and forth between Democrats and Republicans in alternating fashion. Our elections are bought-and-sold by the corporations and the wealthy and are increasingly and openly corrupt and illegitimate. We are now given Donald Trump, once again, as a gift of this rotten system.
Since the conclusion of World War 2, the U.S. economy and our national trade policies have been systematically used by transnational companies and our ruling political parties not just for their enrichment, but to achieve their aggressive foreign policy goals. Our trade policies have been used as a tool and weapon to extract super-profits from subordinate trading partners. U.S. trade policy has supported reactionary regimes, installed and propped-up fascist, racist, and colonial dictatorships. All U.S. trade policy has been used to criminally attack and to punish any government standing up to U.S. imperialism. Tariffs, embargoes, and sanctions of every kind are routinely imposed on any country that defies U.S. imperialism. The incredible 63-year trade embargo and war waged against the heroic people of Cuba stands as the clearest example of the real content and meaning of U.S. trade policies.
For many decades, the U.S. economy has been operated on a profits-only basis and a parallel all-out war footing. Our trade policies were used to assault the socialist world in every way possible, and to boost our constant drive towards military intervention and war. For the entire existence of the Soviet Union there was not one single day when U.S. trade policies were not used as weapons against them. When it became expedient and incredibly profitable to expand trade with China, the U.S. did so in every imaginable way. China is today increasingly prosperous, while the United States slides into stagnation and decay, faced with unpayable debt levels. Our day of reckoning has arrived.
Now, Trump offers the U.S. ruling class and their corporations a “way out” of this crisis. The route of dramatically expanded trade wars; increased imperialist revival; expanded military and police spending; imposition of repressive measures on the labor unions, immigrants, and the broad multi-racial working class. Trump’s massive and illegal territorial claims against our neighbors round out the evidence of his imperialist aims. Our Republicans and Democrats, thoroughly in support of U.S. imperialism, speak daily of China as if a state of war exists with them. The genocide in Gaza continues with the approval and support of both of our political parties. Our gigantic military, intelligence, and diplomatic machinery now operates across the entire globe, with no limits. And the new expanded tariff wars now offer the Trump regime another tool to coerce, to threaten, and to assault any country or people on earth who do not bow down to his regime.
In 1848, Karl Marx reminded us in his observation of the “trade versus tariffs” debates of that era; “If the free traders cannot understand how one nation can grow rich at the expense of another, we need not wonder, since these same gentlemen also refuse to understand how in the same country one class can enrich itself at the expense of another.”
The Trump regime signals a new chapter in U.S. imperialism. His tariff declarations declare a new war against working people worldwide. His attempts to pit manufacturing workers against each other in different countries, to pit miners against one another, to set agricultural workers against each other, all must be denounced and opposed. His reckless and dangerous use of the tariff weapon will fail, as it has always failed.
And our mission, renewed once more, is to work for trade that is mutually respectful, truly fair, and undertaken with the aim of uplifting all nations. That is the trade union goal, and the socialist goal. The choice for the working class is not “free trade or tariffs”, but rather “socialism or global destruction.” Trade to uplift the quality of life of the masses, trade to support those less well off, trade to expand and improve living standards worldwide, and trade to protect our fragile environment must be our mission.
We take note that the corporate leaders who are now rushing to the side of Trump, who wait in line to win some favor or exception in his erratic tariff war, these folks share full responsibility with him for the strife and inevitable conflicts to come. The manufacturing base of the United States and its millions of jobs was stolen and dismantled by these corporate dictators, with the full support of both of our political parties. It will certainly not be rebuilt by them.
During my trade union career, I worked with U.S. members of my union 228 times as their plants and factories were closed down and moved abroad. In every episode I asked the workers if they had ever seen a foreign boss poking around the plant, sizing it up so they could close it and move the work to another country. Not one time did any of the members of my union report that they had seen that foreign boss. Instead, as we all know, it was the U.S. bosses and politicians who did that incredible damage to the working class here. Workers in the U.S. do not blame workers in Mexico, China, or any other country. They see through the Trump and big business scheme to incite hate, war, and conflict with his tariffs, insults, and threats. We want peace, prosperity, and good health for all.
Our watchword remains; “Workers of All Countries Unite!”
