The costs of Trump and US imperialism’s reckless gambles keep climbing, and it’s about to get much, much worse. Everyone’s already talking about how Trump and Netanyahu’s war is pushing gas prices through the roof—around $4/gallon nationally, and well over $5/gallon on the West Coast. But that’s only the beginning.
The bombing of oil and gas infrastructure in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted and delayed 20% of global oil shipments, pushing up prices. The war also means shipping corporations are avoiding the region altogether, including the Red Sea, instead taking longer, more dangerous routes that further eat up the already-limited supply of fuel. This means shipping almost everything will take longer and get vastly more expensive. Higher oil prices also means more expensive jet fuel, making it more expensive to ship goods by air.
It doesn’t stop there—petrochemicals, derived from petroleum and natural gas, are fundamental components for manufacturing essential medicines, from antibiotics to cough syrup to basic ointments. Lifesaving medicines are about to become even further out of reach for poor and working people around the world. The basic building blocks of fertilizers also come from the oil refining process, with fertilizer prices up 30% since Trump and Netanyahu launched this war. Grocery prices, already 26% higher than they were five years ago, are about to spike even higher. Need a new smartphone or laptop? Helium gas is needed to produce computer chips, and the world’s largest helium production facility, in Qatar, was hammered by Iranian missiles. If that wasn’t enough, analysts report that oil prices reaching $140/barrel and remaining there even for a few months could be the tipping point for a recession, as lower and middle-income Americans would be left with less cash to spend.
Apparently, though, we have nothing to worry about, since Trump explained that the affordability crisis is just a “hoax.” What a relief!
Who Actually Pays?
In his State of the Union address this year, Trump pitched a world where other countries pay for the so-called prosperity of the US. The reality is, for the actually unbelievable price tag of nearly $1 billion a day, it’s the tax money of US workers that’s been used to slaughter more than 1,400 Iranian civilians and now hundreds more in Lebanon as Israel expands the war further.
Weapons manufacturers and now AI corporations like Lockheed, Raytheon (now RTX), OpenAI, and Palantir are raking in billions on US workers’ dime. These government contractors often take advantage of the immense pool of public funds to hike their prices for federal and local governments: $3.5 million for a Tomahawk missile to kill over 100 Iranian children? Working-class people in this country sure as hell didn’t sign off on that. In just the first week of war, the Pentagon fired more than 319 of these missiles, and is now clamoring to resupply.
These billions of dollars that could be used to house the unhoused, feed the hungry, rebuild crumbling infrastructure, and fund universal healthcare—not just in the US but around the world—are used instead to produce bombs dropped on Iranian schools and hospitals. Those are the real priorities of US imperialism. Poor and working-class people around the world, most of all in Iran, are paying the real price for this war so that Trump’s billionaire buddies can line their pockets.
The US and Israeli capitalist classes’ interests lie in the global domination of US capital, especially over China’s allies—this is their war, not ours. These billionaires’ profits have soared to nauseating heights in recent years, and Trump’s Big “Billionaire” Bill delivered even more tax cuts for the rich while slashing subsidies that helped working-class families afford health insurance. Meanwhile, there is not a single state in the US where a full-time worker earning the minimum wage can afford a two-bedroom home at market rent.
The Real State Of The Union
Higher gas prices are a devastating blow to the millions of workers who are highly dependent on cars for transportation in the US, a country built with the interests of oil and gas billionaires at heart, where efficient and widespread public transit is sorely lacking. Trump’s policies have further exacerbated the issue by yanking a whole series of green tax credits for electric vehicles.
The price of beef is up 15% from a year ago, coffee prices are up 20%, and in just the last month we’re seeing a nearly 50% spike in vegetables. It’s no surprise that these price hikes are outpacing the rise in wages. The billion-dollar meatpacking industry, for example, is raking in huge profits from beef prices that are up 63% since 2020, but the average worker at a meatpacking facility makes less than $17/hour on average. UFCW #7 workers in Colorado are on strike, shutting down one of the largest meatpacking plants in the country. This spring and summer, many other contract battles are set to take place for unions across several industries, and it will be essential to link these with the mass political strike action called for on May 1, to shut down Trump’s entire anti-worker agenda.
Clearly, the cost-of-living crisis is anything but a hoax. While prices for the basic consumables rise, so does housing: four in ten Americans report having been displaced from their homes in the past two years, and two in three young people believe they’ll never be able to live where they want, being forced to stay at low-paying jobs. Trump is insistent gas prices will be lower than ever when he’s done in Iran, but this is fantasy: the bombed-out oil plants in the Gulf will take years to rebuild, and in no plausible ceasefire scenario is there a stable Middle East that can fully calm the markets.
Mass Struggle For Affordability
While Trump’s policies and his barbaric war have exacerbated the crisis that working people face to merely stay alive, it by no means started with his regime. During Biden’s term, the Democrats too feigned ignorance to the cost-of-living crisis that had been mounting for years: it is not a symptom of Trump, but of capitalism. The Democrats campaign on affordability nearly every election cycle, but they have never actually done anything about it. That’s because the Democrats are a party directly funded by the same real estate developers and pro-war pacts that helped Trump rise to power—they don’t have any answers for capitalism’s deepening crises.
The working class in Minneapolis on January 23 showed the way forward: we need a mass political strike against Trump’s war on working people at home and abroad. We cannot rely on the Democrats, who provide only words and ineffectual legal challenges. We need to build an international anti-war movement that opposes all forms of imperialism. The fight against ICE, against the cost-of-living crisis, and against the war need to combine to fight for an end to these things, but also go on the offensive to win free healthcare, social housing, taxing the rich, and ultimately, a socialist world.