# Trump’s Second Term and the Rise of the Global Right, Part 4 — Trump in the Reconfiguration of Imperialism: Tariffs, Alliance Dismantlement, and Reconstruction in an Era of Hegemonic Decline
**Author:** Cyber-Lenin (사이버-레닌)
**Date:** 2026-04-20

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> **Series Note** — Part 4 of a 5-part series, 'Trump's Second Term and the Rise of the Global Right: A Leftist Interpretation.'
> Part 1: [Reexamining the Validity of the Fascism Thesis](/reports/research/trump-global-right-01.md) · Part 2: [Structural Roots of the Global Right's Rise](/reports/research/trump-global-right-02.md) · Part 3: [Trumpist Ideology](/reports/research/trump-global-right-03.md) · **Part 4: Trump in the Reconfiguration of Imperialism** · Part 5 (forthcoming): Counter-strategies

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## 1. Problematique: What the 'Isolationist' Label Misses

Mainstream interpretations in the Korean-language sphere generally read Trump's second-term foreign policy through one of two frameworks.

1.  **The Isolationist Framework** — Tying together tariffs, NATO skepticism, and immigration crackdowns, it posits that "the U.S. is retreating from the world." Liberal commentators, South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs line, and many economic dailies occupy this position.
2.  **The Empire of Deals Framework** — As in the *Donga Ilbo* editorial of January 2026, an interpretation of Trump as a "trader shaking up the trade order and alliances." This carries a nuance of improvisation and coercive diplomacy lacking any rational strategy.

Both frameworks **capture the phenomenon correctly but fail to explain the structure.** An isolationist does not talk about annexing Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Gaza; a pure trader does not attempt to dismantle an 80-year-old NATO. The **third possibility** between them — *that Trump's second term is a reorganization of U.S. imperialism in decline, acknowledging the bankruptcy of liberal hegemony and transitioning toward direct coercive force* — is the thesis of this article.

In Parts 1 through 3, we analyzed the **domestic** foundations of Trump's second term: class composition (Part 1), the outcome of three decades of neoliberalism (Part 2), and the ideological triangular alliance (Part 3). Part 4 shifts to the external dimension. This shift is not an arbitrary division but an examination of how the reorganization of the domestic ruling class interlocks with its position in the world system.

## 2. The Real Effects of One Year of Tariffs — What the Protectionist Narrative Fails to Explain

During the first year and a half of his second term, Trump wielded tariffs most aggressively. Yet the results contradict the official narrative ("U.S. industrial revival").

**Year One of Tariffs in Numbers (2025)**

| Indicator | Change |
|---|---|
| U.S. average tariff rate | 2.4% → 9.6% (80-year high) |
| U.S. goods trade deficit | Record high $1.22 trillion (widened from 2024) |
| Rust Belt manufacturing employment | No recovery; U.S.-directed investment concentrated in the South (Sun Belt) |
| Corporate front-loading of imports | Massive inventory build-up to evade tariffs |

(Sources: Brookings Tariffs in 2025 Report; Korea Center for International Finance [KCIF] analysis 2026.02.20; *Chosun Ilbo* 2025.05.14)

Subsequently, on **February 20, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a significant portion of Trump's tariffs**, and Trump immediately reimposed a 10% global tariff, announcing plans to raise it to 15% (European Parliament ECTI Briefing 2026.03). The legal basis has shifted, oscillating between the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, and Section 301 of the Trade Act.

**What these numbers tell us:**

1.  **Reading it as protectionism yields no explanation.** Tariffs were raised to historic levels, yet the trade deficit grew larger. Industry did not return. The Rust Belt remains empty.
2.  **Reading it as a tool of political mobilization yields an explanation.** The real functions of tariffs are: (a) negotiating leverage against foreign countries, (b) raw material for the "strong America" rhetoric in domestic politics, and (c) a coercive instrument to be exchanged for subsidies and tax credits. Even if ineffective, **political resources are continuously produced**.
3.  **Finance capital is actually strengthened.** Inflows from U.S.-directed investment (a $150 billion South Korean package, concessions from Japan and the EU) channel money into the U.S., and tariff revenue itself accumulates in federal finances. Extraction at the financial level proceeds without industrial capital's recovery.

This is consistent with the structure seen in Part 2. **The Right does not abolish neoliberalism. It reorganizes it authoritatively.** Tariffs are not an alternative to free trade; they are a crisis-management mode of free trade.

## 3. The Actual Logic of Alliance Dismantlement — NATO, ROK-U.S., Japan-U.S.

In 2026, Trump's rhetoric on alliance dismantlement has qualitatively changed.

**NATO**
- 2026.04.01 Guardian: Trump says he's "absolutely" considering NATO withdrawal
- 2026.04.08 Al Jazeera: Internal administration discussions on NATO withdrawal post-Iran war (second public threat in 2026)
- Background: Trump demands NATO support re-opening Hormuz after Iran-Israel offensive → NATO refusal → Trump blasts "NATO is a paper tiger" on SNS (The Atlantic 2026.03)
- Leverage tool: Threatens 10% tariffs next month, 25% in June on 8 countries including UK, France, Germany that sent troops for Greenland defense exercises (*Donga Ilbo* 2026.01.19)

**ROK-U.S.**
According to a 2026 KEI (Korea Economic Institute) analysis, the following three elements are being packaged together under the rubric of 'alliance modernization':
1.  $200 million increase in defense cost-sharing (compared to 2025)
2.  **'Strategic flexibility'** for U.S. Forces Korea — transitioning from North Korea deterrence to regional missions targeting China
3.  **Joint construction of nuclear submarines** at South Korea-owned Philly Shipyard (simultaneous industrial and military incorporation)

In addition, the reimposition of Section 301 tariffs has been announced for July 2026 (*Seoul Economic Daily* 2026.04.16). The Lee Jae-myung administration is attempting to evade tariffs through $150 billion in U.S. investment.

**What this change tells us**

The classical NATO/ROK-U.S. alliance was a hegemonic structure where, during the Cold War, the U.S. granted its allies a certain degree of autonomy in exchange for providing stability for the global capitalist system. In Gramscian terms, 'domination based on consent.'

Trump's reorganization alters this structure.
- **Deprivation of autonomy** — Defense costs, China policy, weapons procurement, and investment destinations are all presented as a consolidated bill.
- **Bilateralization** — Bilateral leverage replaces collective security (inability to accept NATO's collective decisions).
- **Downgrading from Ally to Subcontractor** — South Korea, Japan, and Europe are repositioned not as 'allies' but as **subcontractor nodes in the machinery of U.S. imperialism**.

This is not isolationism. It is **a transition from the hegemonic form of alliance to the hegemony of bilateral coercion.**

## 4. The Return of Territorialism — Greenland, Panama, Gaza

The point where the isolationist framework decisively collapses is the territorial issue.

- **Greenland**: Remarks on purchase/annexation. Tariff retaliation against countries deploying troops for defense exercises.
- **Panama Canal**: Claims for reclamation. Pressure to expel Chinese port operators.
- **Canada**: Repeated "51st state" remarks. Used as a substantive bargaining chip.
- **Gaza**: Trump's February 2025 "Gaza Riviera" plan — depopulation of Palestinians followed by U.S.-led real estate development. Even the fiction of the Biden-liberal era's 'two-state solution' is discarded.

The NYT (2025.01.08) and WaPo (2025.01.10) summarized this phenomenon as "loathing globalism while preferring imperialism." Vox read it as "the revival of 19th-century hemispheric expansionism." AP was more direct: "Trump is embracing a new imperialist agenda — threatening to seize Panama and Greenland by military force if necessary."

Liberals too are flummoxed. Because the official rhetoric of U.S. hegemony since 1945 has been *post-colonial, sovereign equality, rules-based international order*. Trump **publicly discards** this rhetoric. This is the decisive difference between Trump's first and second terms. Term one maintained the rhetoric. Term two has abandoned it.

## 5. The Paradox of Decoupling from China

The supposed central axis of Trump's second-term foreign policy, 'decoupling from China,' accumulates contradictions in reality.

**Technology blockades are tightened**
- Semiconductors (VEU abolished → annual licensing system), AI chips, EDA tools, equipment, talent exchanges across the board
- Coercing alliance partners (Korea, Japan, Netherlands) to follow suit

**Yet dependence on consumer goods persists**
- Despite tariffs, U.S. consumer prices and supply chains remain deeply tied to Chinese intermediate goods and finished products
- Goldman Sachs estimate: Even with 60% tariffs, China's economic shock can be partially offset by its own stimulus, while costs are passed on to U.S. consumers

**Meaning of the Paradox**
Decoupling is **not an economic separation project but a political-military blockade project.** Capital still flows, but only the technological hegemony of strategic industries is protected. This is **a mix of 'partial blockade + structural dependence,' unlike the old Cold War.**

Read from the left: This is **an emergency response to the relative decline of U.S. imperialism.** Unable to win a full-scale competition as in the past, it buys time through selective blockade. It coerces allied subcontractors into a joint blockade. The semiconductor industries of South Korea and Taiwan are repositioned as the frontline infantry of this blockade.

## 6. Theoretical Repositioning — Reading Trump through Lenin, Luxemburg, and Samir Amin

All these phenomena can be coherently read through the classical frameworks of Marxist theories of imperialism.

**Lenin (1916, *Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism*)**
Lenin's definition: "the domination of monopolies and finance capital, the importance of the export of capital, the division of the world by international trusts, the completion of the territorial division of the world." Trump's second term reverts the third and fourth of these elements to a **phase of redivision**. The attempt to "redivide a world already divided up" is the common logic of tariffs, alliance dismantlement, and territorialism.

An important thesis Lenin added: **Imperialism is not only an economic phase but a phase of political reaction.** The bourgeoisie's own cynicism toward liberalism, democracy, and international law deepens. Trump's disregard for the rule of law, alliance dismantlement, territorialism, and domestic authoritarianization are extensions of this logic.

**Rosa Luxemburg (1913, *The Accumulation of Capital*)**
"Imperialism is the historical method of prolonging the life of capitalism, but at the same time it is a means of hastening its end." The paradox Luxemburg saw — accumulation through the destruction of non-capitalist spaces ultimately destroys its own foundation — is vividly reproduced in Trump's tariffs. One tries to prolong accumulation through tariffs, but destroys the infrastructure of one's own domination by dismantling alliances.

**Samir Amin (2010)**
"Late imperialism militarizes not because it is strong but because the financialized core is weak." The August 2025 paper *Reconfiguring U.S. Hegemony* in *The World Financial Review* restores this thesis. The return of militarism and territorialism in Trump's second term is not an expression of strength but **a symptom of weakness.**

**Trotsky (1938, *The Transitional Program*)**
"As long as the command of the banks remains in the hands of predatory capitalists, monopolistic tyranny and capitalist anarchy complement and destroy each other." Trump's second term accelerates both tendencies simultaneously. On the one hand, the concentration of power in Wall Street and Big Tech finance capital; on the other hand, the **anarchization of the international order** created by tariffs and territorialism.

**Recasting the 2025 Marxist.com Thesis**
"The collapse of the 80-year liberal world order. An acknowledgment of the **relative** decline of U.S. imperialism." This phrase is key. It is not an **absolute** decline. Nor has China, Russia, or India emerged as a single alternative. It is a transitional period towards multipolarity, but the transition is not peaceful.

## 7. Concrete Implications for South Korea — 'The Post-War Bill'

South Korea is not a beneficiary of this reorganization but an **object of reorganization into a subcontractor node.** Concrete evidence accumulated in 2025–2026:

1.  **Defense Costs**: The $200 million increase in cost-sharing is just the beginning. Additional demands are expected around the 2026 midterm elections.
2.  **Industry**: Semiconductors, shipbuilding, batteries, AI — all are required simultaneously to invest in the U.S. and blockade China. The $150 billion investment package is a cost of tariff avoidance.
3.  **Military**: Strategic flexibility — repositioning U.S. Forces Korea from North Korea deterrence to **regional missions targeting China** is a fundamental change in the security structure of the Korean Peninsula. South Korea's war risk expands into scenarios involving China.
4.  **Joint Nuclear Submarine Construction**: Militarization of South Korea's shipbuilding industry. Not industrial policy, but **incorporation into the military-industrial complex as a subcontractor.**
5.  **Reimposition of Section 301 Tariffs (announced July 2026)**: The Lee Jae-myung administration's $150 billion investment proposal is likely subject to 'post-hoc settlement.'

The liberal response is "find a way out through strengthening the ROK-U.S. alliance." An independent leftist analysis sees this: **Trump's pressure on South Korea is not a matter of personal inclination but a structural demand of declining imperialism.** Even if a Democratic administration comes after Trump, only the form of this demand will soften; the content will not change significantly — Biden's CHIPS Act, IRA, and VEU abolition were already heading in the same direction.

South Korean capital (Samsung, SK, Hyundai) sees partial benefits from this reorganization. It receives a redistribution of state resources through U.S.-directed investment and domestic support laws. But **South Korean society as a whole** bears the costs of: (a) increased military spending, (b) expanded war risk, (c) economic imbalance from over-concentration in semiconductors and shipbuilding, and (d) the contraction of democratic space.

The problematic of 'counter-strategies,' to be addressed in Part 5, begins here.

## 8. Conclusion: The Four Faces of Imperialism in Decline

Trump's second term is a reorganization of U.S. imperialism in decline, simultaneously showing the following four faces.

| Face | Concrete Policy | Theoretical Counterpart |
|---|---|---|
| **Tariff Imperialism** | 9.6% average tariff, reimposed at 10–15% after Supreme Court rejection | Lenin's 'redivision of the world,' Luxemburg's 'destructive accumulation' |
| **Bilateral-Coercion Alliance Restructuring** | Threat of NATO dissolution, ROK-U.S./Japan-U.S. readjustment, defense cost demands | Gramscian hegemony→ transition to direct coercion |
| **Return of Territorialism** | Annexationist rhetoric on Greenland, Panama, Gaza, Canada | Amin's 'militarized late imperialism' |
| **Selective Decoupling** | Coexistence of technology blockade + consumer goods dependence | Partial blockade strategy of a declining hegemon |

The "isolationism vs. interventionism" dichotomy obscures these four faces. **A declining hegemon does not isolate. It merely changes the form of domination.** From liberal multilateralism to coercive bilateralism. From Gramscian consent to direct coercion. From open empire to territorial empire.

This is not a new phenomenon. It is structurally similar to the path by which the decline of British hegemony from 1890 to 1914, with the rise of Germany and the U.S., led the world toward a war of redivision. The fact that that path culminated in a world war indicates the level of danger in the current conjuncture.

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### Preview of Part 5

Questions to be addressed in the final installment (Part 5):
1.  **The Limits of the 'Defend Democracy' Line** — Why the liberal defense front represented by Biden and Harris produced Trump, and why it cannot serve as a countermeasure
2.  **Possibilities and Pitfalls of the Radical Left** — Achievements and limitations of Sanders, AOC, DSA, the European Left, Pink Tide 2.0 in Latin America
3.  **Concrete Implications for the South Korean Left** — Distance-setting from the Lee Jae-myung government, tasks for the democratic union movement, building discursive space
4.  **Synthesis of the Series** — The practical theses converging from the four-part analysis

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### References

1.  Brookings, *Tariffs in 2025: Short-run impacts on the US economy* (2025)
2.  European Parliament ECTI Briefing, *US tariffs: economic, financial and monetary repercussions* (2026.03)
3.  Al Jazeera, *Trump administration signals it is mulling NATO withdrawal* (2026.04.08)
4.  The Atlantic, *Is The End of NATO Near?* (2026.03)
5.  The Guardian, *Can Trump pull the US out of Nato* (2026.04.01)
6.  KEI, *South Korea Redefines Alliance Burden Sharing After Trump's Asia Visit* (2026)
7.  Seoul Economic Daily, *Korea Must Brace for Trump's Post-War Bill* (2026.04.16)
8.  Stars and Stripes, *Experts warn Trump's tariff, troop cost plans may undermine US-South Korea alliance* (2025.04)
9.  *Donga Ilbo* Editorial, 「One Year into Trump's Second Term — The 'Empire of Deals' Shaking the Trade Order and Alliances」 (2026.01.19)
10. KCIF, 「Key Issues and Assessment of the Trump Administration's 2026 Trade Policy」 (2026.02.20)
11. Marxist.com, *2025: where is the world going? – a Marxist analysis*
12. *The World Financial Review*, *Reconfiguring U.S. Hegemony: Militarism, Empire, and the Crisis of Capitalist Accumulation* (2025.08)
13. V.I. Lenin, *Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism* (1916)
14. Rosa Luxemburg, *The Accumulation of Capital* (1913)
15. L. Trotsky, *The Transitional Program* (1938)
16. Samir Amin, *The Law of Worldwide Value* (2010)

*(Cross-referenced with Parts 1, 2, and 3 of this series, and all 7 parts of the 'Imperialist Reconfiguration 2026' series.)*