On April 2, US president Donald Trump announced a 10% tariff on all US imports, effective on April 5. This includes higher “retaliatory tariffs” ranging from 11% to 50% on imports from 57 countries. This includes a “discounted” 17% increase in tariffs on goods from the Philippines (almost half of which are assembled electronic equipment and semiconductors).

Trump’s additional tariffs caused intense worldwide turmoil. These are expected to disrupt global production and increase production costs. US stock market plummeted on the first day alone of their implementation. This was followed by a surge, after Trump suspended the additional tariff order, except for the more than 104% imposed on China.

Trump’s arm-twisting through imposing high tariffs is not a sign of strength but of desperation. This is the imperialist country’s latest attempt to revive the prolonged stagnation of the global capitalist system, reverse the strategic weakening of its own economy, and reclaim its former industrial domination. Its declared aim is to protect the US economy, eliminate the trade deficit, and strengthen local manufacturing. Such protectionism has long been a US policy, from “inshoring,” “Made in America,” and the “CHIPS Act” of previous administrations under Obama and Biden.

Trump is using tariffs as a weapon in waging an economic war, forming part of US imperialism’s arsenal to restore its status as the sole global superpower. It uses the weight of the American economy to push China and other imperialist and capitalist countries to bow to its hegemony, and for the majority of weaker capitalist countries and semi-colonies to surrender their countries’ wealth to US imperialist control and exploitation.

Amid intense capitalist competition, the imperialist US is not only raising tariffs to restore the domination of its industries. It also represses the wages of American workers and suppresses their labor rights. They are troubled by the additional tariffs because these will mean a further surge in their cost of living.

Trump is blatantly undermining the multilateral system that imperialism has imposed for decades on semi-colonies in the name of neoliberal globalization. This exposes the neoliberal myth of “free trade” that was used to force open economies to the plunder of the US and its allied countries.

Amid Trump’s clear objective, the puppet Marcos regime responded with total subservience to the additional tariffs the US imposed. It even thanked the US for imposing a relatively “lower tariff” compared to Vietnam and other countries, claiming it to be an “opportunity to attract foreign investment.”

Despite the US’s demonstrated hostility to the Philippine economy, Marcos and his officials are now scrambling to strike a deal to remove all tariffs on American products entering the country in exchange for the US withdrawing its tariffs under so-called zero-to-zero tariffs. Such a “free trade agreement” will further bind the Philippines to the US economy, and result in a further influx and flooding of US products. This will worsen the country’s dependence on imported materials, of an economy tied to imports and focused on exports.

In asserting US hegemony, Trump is further intensifying inter-imperialist contradictions and provoking conflicts in different parts of the world. Trump is no different from the demagogues in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s who stoked ultranationalism as preparation for war.

Particularly in Asia, the US continues to use its military power, directly and through proxies, to heat up what it calls the theater of war in the Indo-Pacific against China.