“Hands Off” Rallies Across the US and Trump Tariffs
Interview with El Machete TV
Watch the full interview on YouTube here:
El Machete TV- Se movilizan en EEUU contra las políticas de Trump
Background Information
[-] The return of a Trump presidency takes place within the context of the US competing with China for primacy in the imperialist system. What we are seeing, far from the explanations of the bourgeois media which attempt to categorize the actions of Trump as something to be explained through psychological factors, are the attempts of imperialism, in decline, which is aggressively seeking to meet the interests of the dominant class.
[-] Throughout Biden’s administration, China’s GDP grew faster than the US, compounded by a trade deficit of $900 billion and outstanding accounts with other countries. All the balance sheets of the country’s financial and industrial companies show massive obligations and debts to the rest of the world.
[-] Economic recessions were avoided in 2023 and 2024, with a weak recovery following the COVID pandemic. Such a weak recovery saw many red flags along the way: the increase in the printing and supply of money, contraction of manufacturing activity, and the banking system nearly derailing in 2023 with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and other financial institutions.
[-] Throughout all of this, it was the workers and the people who were ultimately forced to pay the price. Inflation has taken a heavy toll on the country, remaining well above 1% since 2020. Prices have risen by 21%, while the purchasing power of the dollar has declined by roughly 19%.
[-] Furthermore, the people and workers of the US have faced rising mortgage rates, along with increasing costs for health and car insurance. The middle classes have been hit hard by credit contraction as interest rates climb. Under the Biden administration, inequality has grown. While the bourgeoisie benefited, the working class did not, undoubtedly contributing to the Democrats’ defeat.
What sectors of workers participated and what was the reason for the mobilizations that took place last weekend in the United States?
What we consider important was the presence of workers and unions who highlighted the Trump administration’s attacks on their contracts and bargaining rights. Notably, airport workers attended and their representatives brought attention to the administration’s assault on their union rights.
The unions in attendance were:
[-] American Federation of Government Employees
[-] National Federation of Federal Employees
[-] International Association of Machinist and Aerospace Workers
[-] Transportation Communications International Union
[-] Communication Workers of America
The Trump administration, as a reflection of the goals of US monopolies, seeks to regain ground lost to its global rivals. The protectionist current under Trump aims to raise the cost of imports, reduce demand for foreign goods and services, and shrink the US trade deficit. It also calls for direct investment by foreign monopolies and their operations to be based on US soil. This economic program is intertwined with racism, nationalism, and a broad assault on the workers and people of the U.S. This has manifested in sweeping budget cuts and the reallocation of large portions of funding from social programs to defense spending, with a promised record $1 trillion defense budget. This shift confirms the ruling class’s intent to prepare the US for the possibility of a large-scale war. It also helps explain the widespread cuts and layoffs occurring across all levels of government.
These cuts target healthcare, education, and scientific research. At the same time, the repressive measures of the Trump administration have targeted immigrants, students, and leaders of the Palestinian liberation movement, as well as the collective bargaining rights of 50,000 airport screeners and federal workers’ unions more broadly. Notably, under his administration, Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino, a union leader representing farmworkers in Washington state, was also arrested. All of this, despite Trump’s shameless efforts to present the tariff war as a defense of US workers, clearly reveals the anti-worker and anti-popular character of his administration.
What kind of demands or political slogans did the demonstrators have?
As a response to these measures by the Trump government, nearly 1,400 rallies took place across the US, in hundreds of cities with the slogan “Hands Off!”. Its demands included social security, healthcare, indignation towards the layoffs of thousands of state and federal employees, the crackdown on immigrants, and the consequences of the tariffs on which the people of the US are called to pay the price.
Protestors gathered in many cities including in major ones:
[1] New York
[2] Washington
[3] Boston
[4] Los Angeles
Did the protests generate any kind of coordination or program to help overcome spontaneity?
Here, it’s important to clarify the nature of the protests. The presence of CWP members at demonstrations in Baltimore and smaller cities across Florida made it clear that workers and ordinary people are fed up. However, this outrage is once again being channeled into support for the Democrats, attempting to continue the cycle of alternating governments, from conservative to liberal, from Republican to Democrat.
Two organizations, Indivisible and MoveOn, were responsible for organizing the rallies. Both are front groups for the Democratic Party. Indivisible’s strategy involves holding occasional rallies, stringing people along with the promise of a Democratic comeback in 2026 to reclaim Congress. MoveOn is a well-known organization focused on mobilizing voters for the Democratic Party. It was behind the anti-Bush ads in 2004 and played a major role in mobilization efforts for Obama. It also led efforts to draft Elizabeth Warren into the 2016 presidential race and supported Kamala Harris in the most recent elections.
At the protests, the deception of the Democrats was clear in their speeches, which called on people to fight fascism, defeat the oligarchy and billionaires, and restore democracy. In reality, the Democrats are using these protests to obscure the role of the bourgeois state. One hand of capital carries out the dirty work, while the other feeds lies to and covers the mouths of those who suffer from it.
Regardless of which party holds power, the state ultimately serves to maintain the functioning of capitalism and secure profits for the monopolies. The worsening conditions faced by working people under the Biden administration are ignored; an administration that continued funding the murderous state of Israel and its genocide in Gaza, and even shamelessly used slogans like “Hands Off” to justify support for the war in Ukraine. The devastation to workers’ incomes under Biden has been overlooked, while the same monopolies that welcomed the Trump administration with a smile and a firm handshake received massive subsidies.
There is silence about the long history of US governments placing major figures from big capital in key roles in Washington during times of war. The presence of Elon Musk, signaling terms of modernizing production and driving global competition through robotization and automation, is far from unusual, especially with war on the horizon. Under bourgeois rule, it is common for monopoly representatives to run the government, either directly or through various agencies. One need only recall the “dollar-a-year men” of the World Wars and the Korean War. Rhetoric about oligarchy and the rule of the wealthy was widespread during those periods, and it helped bring Truman to power, who went on to establish NATO and the Truman Doctrine.
It is telling that some attendees of the “Hands Off” rally in Washington, disillusioned by the speeches of the Democrats, chose to leave and join the pro-Palestine event taking place the same day at the Capitol. The fact that these two protests were held separately on the same day also highlights the lack of coordination between these expressions of public outrage.
Other political forces in attendance included the well-known Democratic Socialists of America, a left wing of the Democratic Party, trying to gain support for their bankrupt organization with speeches backing Bernie Sanders, the so-called socialist who voted to drop bombs on Yugoslavia in support of NATO.
According to the Communist Workers Platform of the United States, what should be the workers’ response to the anti-worker policies implemented by the Trump administration?
Even within Trump’s public supporters, tensions are beginning to rise. Several town halls have been organized by the Republican Party in counties where Trump won the majority, such as Oregon and Indiana. At these events, chaos erupted, with shouting and booing directed at the Republican representatives and Musk’s role in Washington.
At the moment, there is no political force capable of representing the interests of workers and channeling their indignation into a break with this exploitative system. Nor is there a coordinated or developed, class-oriented trade union movement. However, the seeds of class struggle and resistance to imperialist aims do exist. We saw this in the dock workers who refused to unload cargo from Israel in 2021, the massive student protests this year, and the strikes by workers at Amazon, Ford, General Motors, Stellantis, and in the healthcare industry.
The only way forward is for power to be in the hands of the workers. Any attempt by the Democratic Party and its allies to channel popular indignation into an electoral force must be actively opposed. The workers and people in attendance are seeking a way out, but the only path is through power in the hands of the working class. This must be achieved through popular struggle, against both parties. It requires the regrouping of the Communist Party in our country and its active involvement in workplaces and unions. Only this political force can effectively intervene to bring about a rupture in the workers’ and popular struggles that are expressed in the various manifestations continuing to emerge in our country against the bourgeois parties.
Workers must reject both parties. The question they must answer now is whether to attempt to return to “restoring democracy”, or to fight now to strengthen our class for the larger struggle ahead. We believe workers will choose the latter. The bourgeoisie are sleeping on a volcano.
What is your opinion on the question of the implementation of tariffs, to what extent it affects workers?
US tariffs were effective in the late 19th century. Capital accumulation was strong, and tariff protection helped develop domestic industries. The 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariffs, however, did little to help when the boom of the 1920s had already collapsed into a deep depression. Capitalism cannot escape the law of the falling rate of profit; booms inevitably turn into busts. Now, Trump’s tariffs are worsening conditions for workers. The immediate consequence is higher prices. As capitalism decays, it either pushes for ever-lower wages or competes to monopolize a technological niche. Capital does not see more profit in investing in good jobs or improving the standard of living for U.S. workers.
Tariffs only worsen the situation, one in which workers under Biden have already seen their wages severely impacted. In this new era of intensified capitalist antagonisms both between rival imperialist camps and within them the “trade war” measures announced by the Trump administration confirm its role as a representative of the bourgeoisie of the US in its confrontation with China for dominance in the global imperialist hierarchy.
The central issue is the protection of US monopolies in the intensifying international competition, which is erupting across all sectors and regions of the world, especially during a time of war preparations, as the US pushes support for its own capitalist production. The implementation of tariffs is already being flagged by representatives of finance capital as a further step toward recession and the largest tax hike on US households since the 1960s.
The capitalists are using yet another tool in their arsenal. They will pass the cost of escalating new tariffs and the resulting signs of economic crisis onto the people, through increased exploitation, pressure for higher productivity, layoffs, and renewed demands for sacrifice. Already the consequences are felt by the workers of Stellantis in the US and Canada with 950 workers laid off in the US and about 4,500 workers in Ontario.
All this takes place within the context of the global arms race, of the war preparation in which all imperialist centers are engaged, with the US demanding an increase of 5% of GDP for military spending by European allies.
We continue to emphasize that this all takes place on the backs of the workers and the people.