Trump’s return – the critical issue for Britain remains disengaging from the US war chariot

In this insightful article for Stop the War Coalition, Andrew Murray discusses the implications of Trump’s return to the presidency for the anti-war movement in Britain.

Andrew notes that the collapse in the Democrat vote “is surely in part attributable to the Biden-Harris administration’s sustained and unqualified support for Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people”. While there is little prospect of a Trump administration being any better on this issue, the Democrats’ utter failure to stand up against the Gaza genocide has clearly lost them support among progressive voters.

In relation to China, while many had high hopes that Biden would adopt a less confrontational approach than Trump, in reality “Biden’s rhetoric and actions have been the most aggressive of any president since the 1960s”. Under the incoming Trump administration, “continuity in escalating confrontation is most likely”.

Andrew writes that, for the anti-war movement, “our fight is against imperialism” and, in Britain specifically, “the critical issue remains disengaging from the US war chariot”, regardless of whether it is driven by a Democrat or a Republican; regardless of whether its character is “centrist liberal war-mongering” or “populist chauvinist war-mongering”.

Andrew Murray is the political correspondent of the Morning Star. He has served as the Chair of the Stop the War Coalition, Chief of Staff at Unite the union, and as an adviser to Jeremy Corbyn MP when he was Leader of the Labour Party. The author of several books, he has contributed a chapter to the recently-released volume People’s China at 75 – The Flag Stays Red.

Donald Trump’s unexpectedly emphatic election victory clearly poses new challenges for the anti-war movement in Britain and globally, and calls for sober analysis.

Trump appears to have won the support of most working-class people who bothered to vote, including millions of Muslim Americans and larger minorities of African-Americans and Hispanic Americans than a Republican can usually expect.

Many issues obviously contributed to this, including the state of the US economy and cultural questions, broadly defined. However, war and peace impacted in two ways.

First, the huge collapse in the Democrat vote from 2020 (Trump’s poll also declined, but by much less) is surely in part attributable to the Biden-Harris administration’s sustained and unqualified support for Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people.

This made the idea of supporting Kamala Harris quite impossible for millions, who may instead have voted for Green candidate Jill Stein, other progressive candidates where they made the ballot, or simply have sat the election out. There is an analogy here to the masses who refused to back Keir Starmer’s Labour in July because of its support for Israel.

Second, part of Trump’s base lies in sections of the working class sick of the “forever wars” in which a liberal-neoconservative elite send ordinary Americans to die for US hegemony. The Biden administration has sat squarely in that imperialist tradition.

To those voters can be added a larger number who are receptive to the position advanced by Trump, and more stridently by his vice-president J D Vance, that the vast sums being sent in military and economic aid to Ukraine to prolong the war with Russia would be better spent on other things, or not at all.

Trump’s own record and rhetoric on world issues is reactionary without doubt. However, he has made much of not starting any fresh wars when last in office, and of trying to extricate the US from direct engagement in those that he inherits, or at least diminishing its involvement.

For all that, he is an “America first” imperialist committed to advancing US corporate interests worldwide, through economic sanctions and bullying, as well as military intimidation. During his first term, he followed aggressive policies towards, inter alia China, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, as well as across the broader Middle East, including endorsing Israeli dispossession of the Palestinian people. 

However, the Biden administration reversed very few of these policies, like recognising Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. Biden’s difference with Trump lay more in trying to rebuild imperialist alliances like NATO, and in the Pacific in particular, rather than going it alone.

In relation to China, Biden’s rhetoric and actions have been the most aggressive of any president since the 1960s. Confrontation with China began to develop anew under Obama, was intensified by Trump and then further developed by Biden.

It is important that the anti-war movement recognises this bipartisan establishment continuity in foreign policy. Our enemy is not one administration or another, but the systemic imperatives of US hegemony, and the subordination of British policy to Washington’s demands.

In that context, Trump may introduce some novelties. The most obvious is his stated determination to end the Ukraine war speedily, presumably using as leverage the fact that Ukraine cannot continue to fight without US support. There is no possibility of European NATO powers filling that gap alone. 

He will likely have a fight with broad sections of the US establishment who will seek to obstruct such a policy, since continuing the proxy war in Ukraine meets their strategic interests. Trump may sell the policy as necessary to clear the decks for confrontation with China.

Likewise, even should he determine to disrupt NATO, it is not clear that he will be allowed to get away with it – if Republican legislators are to rebel against him over anything, it might be that.

In relation to the Gaza genocide, there is no reason to hope for a positive change of policy. A Trump administration will continue the full-throated support for Israel not only in Gaza but in the wider region shown by Biden and Harris. Netanyahu may feel further emboldened to escalate his war against Iran, with more direct attacks, although there is no sense in which the outgoing administration has played a restraining part. With war already engulfing Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq alongside Palestine, fighting against this vast human disaster remains our imperative priority.

In the Far East, again continuity in escalating confrontation is most likely. Trump will particularly focus on a tariff war against China, something Biden has more than rolled the pitch for. Britain is of course deeply engaged in all these zones of conflicts, playing as ever first violin to Washington’s conductor.

Much is unclear as to how Trump will conduct policy. This is not only down to his erratic personality and often shambolic conduct of official business but also to real differences in his coalition. His supporters seem to polarise between bellicose and chauvinistic figures like Mike Pompeo, his last Secretary of State, who will push for aggression on a broad scale, on the one hand; and those like Vance and his billionaire backer, Elon Musk. The latter recently tweeted his opposition to neo-conservative wars, a view which, as noted, corresponds to the hopes of a big part of Trump’s base.

There are, of course, other ways in which Trump will negatively impact the international situation which can only be briefly noted here. He will likely intensify the nuclear arms race and undermine any arms control possibilities. He will also impact extremely negatively on efforts to address climate change, as well as stoking anti-migrant hatred and, specifically, Islamophobia. None of this will reverse the decline of US hegemony in the world.

For us in Britain the critical issue remains disengaging from the US war chariot. Starmer is entirely committed to the war alliance with the US and will seek to influence Trump to maintain the Ukraine conflict at full throttle. He is probably no more capable of drawing the lesson from Harris’s defeat – that “liberal” imperialism and endless war is not a vote-winner – than he was from his own electoral setbacks.

Stop the War should focus above all on that objective. Trump’s extremely poor public image in this country may make it easier to win arguments for breaking with US policy. But we do not support centrist liberal war-mongering against populist chauvinist war-mongering. Our fight is against imperialism, and British imperialism’s alliance with the US above all. We must remain ready to mobilise against Trump’s policies, but for the next ten weeks or so, we must be on the streets against Biden-Harris and their continuing genocide.