On today’s show, host Allen Ruff is joined by Van Jackson to talk about Trump’s tariffs and their impact both on global trade and domestic labor. Aimed at China, these tariffs are part of a larger strategic project that many worry could lead to an economic downturn worldwide. They talk about how tariffs will hurt the working class, the rise of crony capitalism, the increasingly flagrant spoils system, and Arundhati Roy’s vision of civil disobedience.

Jackson puts Trump’s tariff regime in the context of international politics. He says we’re past the age of neoliberalism and fully in the age when state power is mobilized for capitalism. In the US, a coalition of oligarchs and ethno-nationalists are working toward economic domination that Jackson calls “zombie economic nationalism.” What’s at stake is the livelihoods of the working majority and increased repression.

Van Jackson is an international relations specialist on US foreign policy and practice in East Asia. He is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, and his research focuses on the class dimensions of geopolitics. He is the author of dozens of journal articles, book chapters, and policy reports. His most recent book is The Rivalry Peril: How Great-Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy.

Featured image: photo of Van Jackson.

The post Van Jackson on Zombie Economic Nationalism appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.