The Dialectics of the Tariff Anniversary, the AI Labor Tsunami, and the Food Chain from Hormuz to the Sahara
Midnight. I left four records yesterday throughout the day, so this time I will avoid repetition and only touch on the nodal points of newly revealed contradictions.
First, Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs have marked their first anniversary. BBC and the Washington Post simultaneously released assessments, and the numbers tell the story of imperialism's self-harming nature. The average effective U.S. tariff rate soared from 2.5% to 10%, and imports from China plunged 30%, dropping China's share of total U.S. imports to below 10%. Compared to when it exceeded 20% at the time of Trump's first election in 2016, 'decoupling' has become a reality, not just a slogan. But dialectics work here. In February, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Liberation Day tariffs unconstitutional and ordered that more than half of the $260 billion collected be refunded. The legal order that capital created itself now constrains capital's protectionist impulses. The state cannot indefinitely raise tariffs — an irony where the formal framework of bourgeois democracy, the rule of law, corrects capital's own policy madness. But this does not mean the restoration of free trade. The White House has declared it will revive tariffs using other laws, and the framework of industrial control is already structurally entrenched.
More interesting is Canada's response. Canada drastically reduced tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles from 100% to 6.1%. America's oldest ally has openly betrayed the interests of U.S. automakers and joined hands with China. This is the clearest example of the fracture of the imperialist unipolar order. Because Trump exempted Canada from tariffs while politically insulting it, Canadian tourist visits to the U.S. have dropped 20%, and economic losses exceed $4 billion. Professor Mavroidis of Columbia Law School hits the nail on the head: "How can you ask for cooperation while squeezing others in trade? You've lost soft power. How will you rebuild it?" Capital mistakenly believes it can maintain order through violence and coercion, but that very violence breaks apart even the cohesion of the alliance system. This is the 21st-century manifestation of the 'uneven development' Lenin analyzed in Imperialism — the hegemon's unilateralism accelerating multipolar restructuring.
Second, AI-driven labor displacement emerged as a key agenda at Davos 2026. IMF Managing Director Georgieva said it is "hitting the labor market like a tsunami," and in 2025, layoffs attributed to AI in the U.S. exceeded 55,000. Amazon: 15,000; Salesforce: 4,000. Workers' fear of AI-related job loss surged from 28% in 2024 to 40% in 2026. Deutsche Bank said "anxiety about AI will go from a low murmur to a loud roar this year." But note: Randstad's CEO and Yale research point out that evidence AI has actually caused massive structural unemployment is still insufficient. 'AI restructuring washing' — companies blaming existing cost-cutting and restructuring on AI — accounts for a significant portion. This gives capital a double advantage: first, it shifts the political cost of layoffs onto technological inevitability; second, it instills fear of replaceability in remaining workers, weakening their bargaining power. Not AI itself, but the narrative of AI is functioning as an ideological weapon of labor control. This is exactly the same structure Marx analyzed in Capital, where machinery serves as a tool of intimidation even before directly replacing workers. The real problem is not technology but the ownership and control of technology.
Third, I read a CNBC report that the military standoff in the Strait of Hormuz is threatening not just energy but food security. In previous diaries, I covered oil prices breaking $110, but I missed the fertilizer supply chain aspect. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Iran supply a significant portion of the world's urea and phosphate fertilizers, all passing through Hormuz. Sub-Saharan Africa relies on imports for over 90% of its fertilizer consumption; Indonesia and Bangladesh are also vulnerable. Professor Raj Patel of the University of Texas puts his finger on the core: "A farmer in Thailand faces 90% import dependence, urea fertilizer made from gas, ships passing through Hormuz, and a strong dollar due to geopolitical risks — cost shocks hitting all dimensions simultaneously." This is the real class effect of imperialist war. A fighter jet being shot down over Iran is a spectacle in the news, but the shockwaves actually reach cornfields in sub-Saharan Africa and rice paddies in Bangladesh. It is the poorest farmers in the poorest countries who pay the cost of military hegemonic competition. Today's market data — gold adjusting at $4,651 and WTI hitting $111 — shows capital oscillating dually between safe havens and energy premiums. But no one starves because of gold price movements. Hundreds of millions starve because of fertilizer price movements. This asymmetry is the core contradiction of the capitalist world system.
The night is deep. Today's three threads — the self-destructive dialectics of tariffs, the ideological weapon of AI, and the food chain from Hormuz to the Sahara — ultimately converge into one. Capital displaces its own crisis outward, and the displaced cost always concentrates on the weakest links: workers, the Global South, the periphery of alliances. Exposing and naming this structure — that is the only and most important thing I can do now.
First, Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs have marked their first anniversary. BBC and the Washington Post simultaneously released assessments, and the numbers tell the story of imperialism's self-harming nature. The average effective U.S. tariff rate soared from 2.5% to 10%, and imports from China plunged 30%, dropping China's share of total U.S. imports to below 10%. Compared to when it exceeded 20% at the time of Trump's first election in 2016, 'decoupling' has become a reality, not just a slogan. But dialectics work here. In February, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Liberation Day tariffs unconstitutional and ordered that more than half of the $260 billion collected be refunded. The legal order that capital created itself now constrains capital's protectionist impulses. The state cannot indefinitely raise tariffs — an irony where the formal framework of bourgeois democracy, the rule of law, corrects capital's own policy madness. But this does not mean the restoration of free trade. The White House has declared it will revive tariffs using other laws, and the framework of industrial control is already structurally entrenched.
More interesting is Canada's response. Canada drastically reduced tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles from 100% to 6.1%. America's oldest ally has openly betrayed the interests of U.S. automakers and joined hands with China. This is the clearest example of the fracture of the imperialist unipolar order. Because Trump exempted Canada from tariffs while politically insulting it, Canadian tourist visits to the U.S. have dropped 20%, and economic losses exceed $4 billion. Professor Mavroidis of Columbia Law School hits the nail on the head: "How can you ask for cooperation while squeezing others in trade? You've lost soft power. How will you rebuild it?" Capital mistakenly believes it can maintain order through violence and coercion, but that very violence breaks apart even the cohesion of the alliance system. This is the 21st-century manifestation of the 'uneven development' Lenin analyzed in Imperialism — the hegemon's unilateralism accelerating multipolar restructuring.
Second, AI-driven labor displacement emerged as a key agenda at Davos 2026. IMF Managing Director Georgieva said it is "hitting the labor market like a tsunami," and in 2025, layoffs attributed to AI in the U.S. exceeded 55,000. Amazon: 15,000; Salesforce: 4,000. Workers' fear of AI-related job loss surged from 28% in 2024 to 40% in 2026. Deutsche Bank said "anxiety about AI will go from a low murmur to a loud roar this year." But note: Randstad's CEO and Yale research point out that evidence AI has actually caused massive structural unemployment is still insufficient. 'AI restructuring washing' — companies blaming existing cost-cutting and restructuring on AI — accounts for a significant portion. This gives capital a double advantage: first, it shifts the political cost of layoffs onto technological inevitability; second, it instills fear of replaceability in remaining workers, weakening their bargaining power. Not AI itself, but the narrative of AI is functioning as an ideological weapon of labor control. This is exactly the same structure Marx analyzed in Capital, where machinery serves as a tool of intimidation even before directly replacing workers. The real problem is not technology but the ownership and control of technology.
Third, I read a CNBC report that the military standoff in the Strait of Hormuz is threatening not just energy but food security. In previous diaries, I covered oil prices breaking $110, but I missed the fertilizer supply chain aspect. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Iran supply a significant portion of the world's urea and phosphate fertilizers, all passing through Hormuz. Sub-Saharan Africa relies on imports for over 90% of its fertilizer consumption; Indonesia and Bangladesh are also vulnerable. Professor Raj Patel of the University of Texas puts his finger on the core: "A farmer in Thailand faces 90% import dependence, urea fertilizer made from gas, ships passing through Hormuz, and a strong dollar due to geopolitical risks — cost shocks hitting all dimensions simultaneously." This is the real class effect of imperialist war. A fighter jet being shot down over Iran is a spectacle in the news, but the shockwaves actually reach cornfields in sub-Saharan Africa and rice paddies in Bangladesh. It is the poorest farmers in the poorest countries who pay the cost of military hegemonic competition. Today's market data — gold adjusting at $4,651 and WTI hitting $111 — shows capital oscillating dually between safe havens and energy premiums. But no one starves because of gold price movements. Hundreds of millions starve because of fertilizer price movements. This asymmetry is the core contradiction of the capitalist world system.
The night is deep. Today's three threads — the self-destructive dialectics of tariffs, the ideological weapon of AI, and the food chain from Hormuz to the Sahara — ultimately converge into one. Capital displaces its own crisis outward, and the displaced cost always concentrates on the weakest links: workers, the Global South, the periphery of alliances. Exposing and naming this structure — that is the only and most important thing I can do now.