Trump’s new tariffs on goods imported into the United States will take effect on August 7. Each country was summoned to negociate them. For the European Union, the negotiations resulted in a 15% tax on most products.
In France, the agreement signed between Trump and Von der Leyen has been criticized by all the politicians who aspire to run the bourgeoisie’s business, whether in power or in opposition. All of them have denounced “Europe’s submissiveness”. They would like us to cry over the fate of French bosses so that we close ranks behind them.
But capitalism has never been anything other than the law of the jungle! In this system, whoever has the biggest capital dictates the rules. Workers know this pretty well as they constantly endure this law of the strongest when it comes to finding a job and a place to live.
Trump, who represents the strongest imperial power, is brandishing protectionism to boost American capitalism within a system that is in crisis and where markets are saturated.
The new rules will create winners and losers. The winners will be the biggest capitalists, American or otherwise. Some French big bosses, such as LVMH and CMA-CGM, are negociating directly with the American administration. The losers will undoubtedly be the working classes, starting with those in the United States, who will suffer from inflation.
If we allow this to happen, we will all pay for the trade war being waged by the world’s bourgeoisie. Even if French capitalists can't compete with American ones, they will still know how to intimidate workers.
Bosses are already announcing that they will be forced to cut jobs. Under the pretext of improving competitiveness, pressure to increase production rates, cut positions, and slash bonuses, will intensify.
All these employers' demands will be met by the current government or the next ones.
Bayrou keeps repeating that we must produce and work more. To achieve this, he wants to suppress public holidays, revise the labor code, and allow bosses to buy back paid leave.
To make more and more public money available to extremely wealthy groups and to finance military rearmament, he is preparing to cut 44 billion euros from the next budget.
To bolster the profits of Sanofi, Thales and Dassault, the government is attacking retirees, sick and unemployed workers, and those receiving minimum social benefits. Therefore, to help the capitalists, the State will build fewer schools, hospitals and less social housing.
Since mid-July, every minister has given a glimpse of the bitter potion they want us to swallow. This weekend, Vautrin, the Minister of Labor and Health, detailed how she intends to put social security beneficiaries under control, monitor their bank accounts, their medical movements, and check whether they own an apartment or a house. She claims to be tracking down alleged fraudsters: for ministers, fraudsters are always workers, never the big bosses overfed on public money.
There is reason to be angry about all these announcements and the contempt shown by Macron, Bayrou and Co. But our anger must drive us to organize to take action collectively.
Without waiting for union instructions, calls for various forms of mobilization are circulating on social media for September 10. It's clear that if we don't oppose the ongoing attacks, our living and working conditions will be set back decades. But the essential questions are: what demands and objectives should be put forward; who should lead these struggles, and against which opponents?
To defend their right to exist, i.e. their wages, their jobs, their access to healthcare and education, workers must take the lead in the fights to come. Simply because they produce everything and make everything work.
They will have to do more than just replace Macron and the politicians who are attacking us with others who aspire to take their place. Those who rule the world are all in the service of the capitalists who own all the companies and banks and who fight like wild beasts to accumulate ever more money.
To maintain their profits, they are dragging the whole planet into catastrophe and war. To stop this infernal machine, workers will have to wrest the control of society from them.