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Core Argument

Against The Stream · 2026-01-22

The central thesis is that Trump's aggressive posture toward Europe—exemplified by threats to annex Greenland, tariff escalation, and public humiliation of European leaders—is not merely the behaviour of an erratic individual but a structural expression of US imperialism's declining relative power. As the US finds itself unable to compete economically on a global scale, it is retreating to its own hemisphere and squeezing its former dependencies. This "re-hemispherisation" reveals the true balance of forces: Europe is a collection of declining minor powers whose post-war influence depended entirely on the US protective umbrella. Once that layer is withdrawn, their real weakness is exposed. The episode also argues that the Minneapolis anti-ICE uprising demonstrates the opposite of a rightward shift in the US—it shows working class self-organisation and radicalisation accelerating in response to Trump's provocations.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis draws on the Marxist theory of imperialism, particularly the Leninist understanding that imperialism is not a policy choice but the highest stage of capitalism, characterised by inter-imperialist rivalry. The episode situates itself within the tradition that sees the post-1945 "rules-based order" as a period of US hegemony that masked the underlying contradictions of capitalist competition. The argument that declining empires "gather resources at the core" while the periphery freezes is a materialist metaphor for the concentration of capital and military power during periods of crisis.

The episode also deploys a class analysis of the state: European ruling classes are not defenders of national sovereignty but parasitic intermediaries who benefited from US dominance. Their outrage at Trump is hypocritical because they supported every US imperialist adventure—Venezuela, Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza—until it turned on them. This exposes the class nature of "international law" as a tool of the powerful.

The Minneapolis analysis draws on the Marxist understanding of the working class as the decisive social force—not because of its numbers alone, but because it controls production. The reference to Ted Grant's formulation ("not a light bulb shines and not a wheel turns without the permission of the working class") grounds the argument in the Trotskyist tradition's emphasis on working class self-activity and the potential for general strikes as transitional demands.

Conjunctural Relevance

The episode connects to several concrete developments:

Geopolitical: Trump's threats against Greenland are situated within a broader US national security strategy that demands control over Arctic shipping lanes, rare earth minerals, and missile defence infrastructure. The episode notes that a Turkish shipping company already used the Arctic route from China to Felixstowe, cutting transit time by half. The US is also competing with Chinese mining interests in Greenland.

Economic: European capitalism is in structural decline. Germany's deindustrialisation, accelerated by cutting off Russian energy and switching to expensive US LNG, has destroyed its competitive position. Macron's Davos speech—demanding China transfer technology to Europe rather than just sell products—reveals the desperation of a declining power.

Political: The Minneapolis uprising shows 3,000 ICE agents deployed, a killing of an unarmed man (Rene Good), and a massive backlash. 48% of Americans now support abolishing ICE. Neighbourhood defence committees have formed, with Signal groups reaching 1,000-person limits in single neighbourhoods. A "general strike" (de facto shutdown) has been called for 23 February, endorsed by the local AFL-CIO.

Ideological: The leaked private communications of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and Macron—grovelling to Trump while supporting his actions in Syria, Gaza, and Ukraine—expose the complete subservience of European ruling classes. Mark Carney's Davos speech is cited as unusually honest: he admits the "rules-based order" was always a fiction, that international law was applied selectively, and that the current situation is a "rupture, not a transition."

Where the Argument Continues

The episode deliberately leaves open several threads:

  • The outcome of the Minneapolis movement: whether the neighbourhood committees can consolidate into a city-wide delegate structure, whether the unions will move from endorsing a shutdown to calling a legal strike, and whether this prefigures a broader wave of working class struggle in the US.

  • The fate of European capitalism: the episode states this is "not going anywhere" and will be returned to. The crisis of European capitalism—cuts, militarisation, declining living standards—is presented as the terrain for future class struggles.

  • The Venezuela situation: the 3 January kidnapping of the Venezuelan president is referenced as a "successful" US operation that emboldened Trump, but the episode notes "we haven't seen the end of what's going to happen."

These threads are developed in other Against the Stream episodes and in the broader RCI corpus, particularly the Revolutionary Communists of America's article "Anti-ICE Rage Surges in Minnesota: Prepare for a General Strike!" (linked in the episode description). The theoretical framework of inter-imperialist rivalry and the crisis of US hegemony is elaborated in previous episodes on the Ukraine war and the rise of China.

Connections

  • Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: The foundational text for understanding inter-imperialist rivalry and the parasitic nature of finance capital.

  • Trotsky, The Transitional Program: For the strategic orientation toward general strikes and workers' self-organisation as transitional demands.

  • Ted Grant, The Unbroken Thread: For the tradition of analysing the working class as the decisive revolutionary force and the emphasis on Marxist method over dogmatism.

  • Other Against the Stream episodes: Previous episodes on the Ukraine war, the rise of China, and the crisis of European capitalism provide the broader framework within which this episode's analysis sits.

  • Revolutionary Communists of America, "Anti-ICE Rage Surges in Minnesota": The practical companion piece, reporting on the ground from the Minneapolis movement.

  • Danish comrades' article on Greenland: Referenced but not yet translated; provides the colonial history of Danish rule, including forced sterilisations, child kidnappings, and the current suicide crisis.

Key Quotes

  1. "What Trump is doing is revealing the real balance of forces, the real relationship that exists between Europe, which is a collection of insignificant minor powers in a period of long term decline, and the United States, which is much more powerful. And once this US protective layer is withdrawn, the real position is revealed."

  2. "The old gang, they used to talk about the rules based order and democratic rights, national sovereignty. These guys just say it as it is. Yes, our hemisphere. And the US has moved from 'our world' to 'our hemisphere' first and foremost, and then we can fight over the rest of the world."

  3. "The aim of the ruling class in the west is to turn back time to the old world order where they were sitting at the table, happy vassals. They were eating and engorging themselves on the rest of the world. And now they are becoming—they're on the menu. That's literally what's happening."

  4. "Mark Carney was the governor of the Bank of England when the Bank of England decided to seize $2 billion worth of gold that Venezuela had deposited in the Bank of England. This is an act of imperialist aggression, theft. So Mark Carney knows what he's talking about. He was part of it. The horse's mouth."

  5. "We don't want to get rid of Apple, we don't want to destroy Apple, we want to take over Apple. Apple should be taken over by the working class and so should Google and Meta and all of the other technology. And their resources should be pooled instead of competing against one another."