The Internationalism

Internationalism No. 85, March 2026 Page 16 No surprise: the US Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump's protectionist policy. He was not allowed to bypass Congress and impose tariffs through emergency procedures. Some see in this a vindication of the principle of checks and balances . The unchecked claims of the executive power – the presidency – have been pushed back by the highest expression of judicial power – the Supreme Court – which has returned the matter to the legislative power – Congress – to which the US Constitution grants authority over taxation. Everything seems to fall into place, yet liberals can easily shut themselves inside their paper labyrinths and thus lose sight of the clash of real forces which shape rules and institutions. For us Marxists, the plurality of powers reflects the plurality of interests of the dominant groups of capital, amid relentless battles that know no truce. ...

Internationalism No. 84, February 2026 Page 6 With the announcement of an increase in military spending from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion in 2027, Donald Trump is relaunching the United States’ primacy in the rearmament cycle. This Trumpian rearmament will have to be approved by Congress, where so far only the heads of the armed forces committees have expressed their support. Regardless of whether or not these figures will be immediately reflected in the Pentagon’s budgets, they are nevertheless indicative of the strategic scenario that Washington intends to guard against. On the one hand, with 5% of its GDP, the US would ensure that its spending over the next few years exceeds the combined total of the three runners-up — Europe, China, and Russia — and in this sense, this functions primarily as insurance against the multipolar dynamic. On the other hand, in terms of American political culture, which tends to frame international issues in ...

Internationalism No. 83, January 2026 Pages 1, 4 and 5 The Trump Doctrine and the Unknowns of Imperialist Europeanism It is said that the 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) – the document that formalises the Trump Doctrine in foreign policy – marks a break with 80 years of transatlantic relations following the Second World War. Moreover, in our Marxist analysis, for more than twenty years we have been writing about a new strategic phase ; for almost a decade, about the crisis in the world order ; for a couple of years, about the wars of the crisis in the world order , and since the beginning of Donald Trump’s new term, about an Atlantic crisis . That this crisis is now at a turning point is a fact; the extent and permanence of its strategic consequences in the future remain open questions. Whether Trump’s NSS is conceptually up to the task of American imperialism is debatable. This is where the unknowns lie: in the relative decline ...

Internationalism No. 73, March 2025 Page 5 When, in 2015, Moscow initiated direct military intervention in Syria against ISIS bases and in support of Bashar al-As-sad's regime, this was seen as a signal of Russia’s resurgence as a great power: it was its first deployment in a war zone outside the territory of the former USSR since its withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. Singers of the resurrection Sergey Karaganov, honorary chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, and currently one of the most fervent supporters of the war in Ukraine, wrote that this action “has strengthened Russia’s international position”, to the point of making 2015 “one of the most successful years in the history of Russian foreign policy” [Russia in Global Affairs, February 23, 2016). Dmitri Trenin, then head of the Carnegie Center in Moscow, which was later closed by the authorities in 2022, revisited this in his 2018 book What is Russia up to in the Middle East?, ...

Internationalism No. 73, March 2025 Page 4 “By punishing his longtime allies with tariffs, Donald Trump is encouraging other nations to form trading blocs and networks that exclude the United States”. Whilst the New York Times treats the issue polemically, it constitutes an important strand of reflection in European and Asian assessments. The duties are a “declaration of economic war”, according to Le Monde. A rapid, temporary negotiating truce followed, with tariffs suspended in exchange for tactical concessions from Canada and Mexico. Whilst the “bluff” may have yielded some transitory results, a “permanent instability” is settling at the heart of American affairs. Unpredictability as a weapon is the strategy with which the new presidency intends to tackle, and perhaps even temporarily reverse, American decline. This, though, comes at the cost of compromising the United States” credibility as the guarantor of the old order and the network of alliances which...