By Jorge Cadima
Cadima is a regular contributor to the Opinion section of the weekly newspaper Avante, a publication of the Portuguese Communist Party. This article is from the Feb. 27, 2025, issue. Translation: John Catalinotto
We are witnessing the most intense phase of inter-imperialist rivalry since the Second World War. The internecine war between factions of the ruling class in the U.S., which has been going on for years, is in a phase of reconfiguration of the state and its leading personnel.
European Union imperialists accept U.S. role in the sabotage of their own resources. Here, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that brought energy from Russia to Germany, exploded in 2022.
The intense transatlantic rivalries are generating a lot of ranting and raving. European vassals — accustomed to going along with U.S. wars and subversions against the rest of the world, colluding in the Zionist genocide and shamefully conniving with the sabotage of their own economic resources (NordStream 2) and their own economies by the U.S. — are now discovering what others already know:
Their vassalage has not made them safe from the domineering fury of their “big brother.” It doesn’t stop them from being treated the way they like to treat “recalcitrant countries.” It’s payback for those who sell their sovereignty for crumbs.
The U.S. in decline
Braggadocio can no longer hide the historic decline of the U.S. and the European imperialist powers. The U.S. crisis continues to worsen. It is reflected in the misery that is spreading even among those who are employed and in the communities abandoned to their fate in the face of natural disasters, in the 100,000 deaths a year from drug overdoses and the overall explosive discontent.
The decades-long deindustrialization has generated a fictitious economy, with obscene wealth for a small minority that is increasingly parasitic and incapable of any useful activity for the community on which it feeds.
A public debt that has doubled every decade for 40 years has already exceeded 120% of the gross domestic product (GDP). This debt is largely the result of spending on the military and the subversion machine, which does not prevent the U.S., its junior partners and its client states from suffering defeats in this area too.
Washington’s full commitment to the war to destroy Russia (a commitment U.S. leading politicians have openly proclaimed) has been defeated. This comes on top of the humiliating U.S. defeats in Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela and martyred Palestine. In 2024, the interest on the U.S. debt was greater than the gigantic military expenditure.
U.S. position unsustainable
The situation is unsustainable, especially in the face of the dramatic rise of China, which is overtaking the imperialist powers, even in cutting-edge areas. Sectors of the U.S. ruling class have already realized that it is impossible to continue on the path they have been following. They are looking for retrenchments that will allow them to regain strength so that they can once again be in charge.
The incompetent and corrupt ruling classes in the European Union and Britain, committed to imposing on their peoples the failed “American model” (warmongering and militarism, financialization, privatizations, destruction of the “welfare state,” explosion of inequalities) are still living in delusions of (neo)colonial “greatness” that no longer correspond to reality.
True to its class and imperialist nature and faced with the difficulties of continuing to extort other peoples, the new Trumpist power seems determined to extort its vassals in order to make America great again. It’s always easier to steal from those who are willing. We’ve learned a few truths from this squabble, which should be noted, but without any illusions about the true nature of either one or the other.
More than 100 years ago, Lenin warned [in his seminal work “Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism”] that: “Imperialism is the epoch of finance capital and monopolies, which everywhere bring with them the tendency towards domination rather than freedom. There is reaction across the board, whatever the political regime.” (“Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism”) Only the struggle of the peoples will be able to give them the fate they deserve: the dustbin of history.