The most important point to understand the background of the Trump’s “tariff war” is the “Triffin’s Dilemma”. As the key reserve currency country, the US has been able to maintain an international trade deficit by intentionally releasing the dollar when necessary, and American people have enjoyed affluence because of this. If this structure is shaken with tariffs now, the dollar’s key monetary character will eventually weaken. It’s inevitable that the BRICS will stand up against the G7 and the dollar hegemony will be weakened. The dollar hegemony is on the agenda at the BRICS summit in July. If the nuclear monopoly is broken militarily, and the dollar hegemony is broken economically, then the US global hegemony will collapse completely. Without global hegemony, few economists are optimistic that the US can manage its astronomical fiscal deficit and trade deficit or prevent hyperinflation of the dollar.
When the counterrevolution in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe formed a unipolar system centered on the US and the US-Western imperialist monopoly capital exploited huge excess profits on a global scale through “globalization” and neoliberal policies, the admission of China to the WTO in 2001 seemed necessary and did not seem to pose a major risk in the future. Having brought Japan and Germany to their knees with the Plaza Accord in 1985, the US was confident that it could do the same at any time, but it was wrong. China, which had emerged as a G2, threatened the US economic hegemony and formed the BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization with Russia, a military power, to break the unipolar system against the US and West.
The “decoupling” strategy of Trump’s first term, which started in the midst of that crisis, was already too late and not enough. However, the “de-risking” strategy, which was promoted by the Biden administration, bought China time. The “de-risking” strategy is relatively lukewarm compared to the “decoupling” strategy economically, but it is much more dangerous militarily because it hides a cunning plan to provoke China into a Taiwan war by provoking Taiwan’s separation and independence and actually start an East Asian war. China emphasized trade and diplomacy and avoided the Taiwan War with “strategic patience” and did not fall for the imperialist’s “new axis of aggression” tactics.
Trump’s second term began with Trump using tariffs, the “most beautiful word in the world”, as a lever to shake up the world in which US hegemony is at stake. It is not surprising that the US tries to turn the tables when it is on the edge of global hegemony. It is also not surprising that the US is threatening to impose 25% tariffs on allies en masse or 145% tariffs on China while suspending other countries’ tariffs for 90 days. Trump has already revealed his imperialist ambitions against Canada, Greenland, Panama, and even Gaza, and has made anachronistic absurd sophistry and farfetched arguments. In the end, it is just a series of processes that will end in compromising with China and others with the “art of the deal”.
We should not overlook that the so-called “Trumpism” of “America First” that prioritizes US national interests to “make America great again” has a “no-war imperialist policy” position. Trump is well aware that the $16 trillion spent on the Afghan and Iraqi wars is hidden in the $36 trillion in public debt. It has reached a point where it is no longer possible to hide the fact that the imperialist wars that the US is engaged in are a “jackpot” for the military complex but a “pile of debt” for the American people, and that the contradiction between military and private capital is only getting deeper.
The economic crisis, including the debt of Western imperialism, including the US, has long crossed the line. Under the conditions that the G7 is falling and the BRICS is rising, imperialism is making its last stand by using NATO as a front before the Shanghai Cooperation Organization becomes stronger. In particular, “NATO’s pacificization”, which is the final version of “NATO’s eastward policy”, has been actively pursued to cause the wars in East Asia and the Western Pacific.
The storm of World War 3 unleashed by the imperialism, is sweeping from Eastern Europe, through West Asia (the Middle East), toward East Asia and the Western Pacific. The war in Ukraine broke out in February 2022, followed by the war in Palestine and West Asia in October 2023. Now, a war in East Asia and the Western Pacific is imminent.
As widely reported, from September to November 2024, under the manipulation of US imperialism, fascist forces in the “Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea)” frantically provoked a series of localized wars against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea). In December, they escalated further by attempting a pro-US self-coup. In short, the imperialist camp sought to decisively provoke and trigger a war in the “ROK” during the period from September to December 2024. A war in the “ROK” would inevitably lead to a war in Taiwan and immediately escalate into a broader conflict across East Asia and the Western Pacific.
Fortunately, all of these war schemes ended in failure—thanks to the DPRK’s “strategic patience” and the December Uprising of the people in the “ROK.” However, fascist forces in the “ROK” continue to plot civil war, and the US imperialists’ war maneuvers against the DPRK are accelerating at a dangerous pace.
The joint US–“ROK” military exercises against the DPRK, which have been breaking annual records, are now joined by Japan and have escalated into full-scale nuclear war drills across multiple domains—air, land, sea, underwater, space, and cyberspace.
It is an undeniable historical fact that US imperialism entered the southern part of Korea in 1945 as an occupying force, incited a civil war in the South in 1948, fabricated the “ROK” government with the support of its puppet “UN Command,” launched over 2,000 localized military provocations against the DPRK in 1949, and ultimately started the Korean War in 1950.
In this unprecedented era of World War 3, the anti-imperialist camp must recognize the strategic importance of tactical measures that deepen the internal contradictions within the imperialist camp—specifically, the growing conflict between its warmongering and non-warmongering factions. If one acknowledges only the strategic significance of unity within the anti-imperialist front, while failing to recognize the tactical significance of division within the imperialist bloc, one risks missing a crucial opportunity to further isolate the warmongering forces and establish overwhelming superiority for the anti-imperialist movement.
In this regard, the example of the socialist state USSR forming an anti-fascist front with imperialist states such as the US and the UK during World War 2 offers an important historical lesson. To be clear, the anti-imperialist camp cannot form a strategic front with the non-warmongering imperialist forces; however, tactical measures and cooperation aimed at deepening the division between warmongering and non-warmongering factions within the imperialist camp are both possible and necessary.
The Trump administration has expressed its intention to mediate the wars in Ukraine and West Asia by initiating contact with Russia and seeking engagement with Iran. Under current conditions—where the Kyiv regime and its NATO backers are pushing for the lifting of long-range missile restrictions and appear to be targeting critical sites such as the Kursk nuclear power plant, and where Netanyahu’s Zionist forces are frantically pursuing the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities—the position of the Trump-led US administration will inevitably exert significant influence on the trajectory of the wars in Ukraine and West Asia.
The imperialist warmongering forces, which are aggressively driving the course of World War 3, cannot tolerate the countercurrent set in motion by non-warmongering imperialist elements—particularly the Trump administration. This is precisely why we must remain vigilant against the extremely dangerous provocations of the imperialists and their lackeys—the neo-Nazis and Zionists—who are desperate to escalate a decisive war in order to make World War 3 irreversible.
At the same time, it is important to note that there was an attempt to provoke a war in the “ROK” between September and December 2024. As is well known, the wars in the “ROK” and in Taiwan are linked under the 1961 China-DPRK Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance. According to this treaty, if war breaks out in either the “ROK” or Taiwan due to imperialist aggression, the other front will be automatically activated. Both the DPRK and China have reportedly shared operational plans to respond to such unjust provocations by imperialist forces and their proxies, and if they are compelled to engage in a war of justice, they intend to employ all means and methods to bring it to an end under the “Three-Day War” plan. In March 2025, under the control of the US, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces were reorganized into a “Unified Force,” aiming to treat the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, and the Philippines as a single theater of operations — preparing for a “Second Greater East Asia War.” However, the plan to transfer operational control of US Forces Japan (USFJ) from the Indo-Pacific Command to the USFJ, thereby expanding and reinforcing into the Unified Force, was halted and left unimplemented due to opposition from the Trump administration.
As the risk of a major war in East Asia—now emerging as the main battlefield of World War 3 due to imperialist warmongers—continues to grow, a new treaty was signed between Russia and the DPRK in June 2024. This treaty established a mutual defense alliance, stipulating automatic military intervention by either side in the event of an invasion by imperialist forces. This alliance was clearly demonstrated when DPRK troops entered the war in response to the attempted invasion of Russia’s Kursk region by Ukrainian and NATO forces. The strength of the Russo-DPRK alliance was underscored in the report submitted by the Russian Chief of the General Staff to President Putin, which highlighted the DPRK’s contribution to the successful liberation of Kursk. Russia even assessed that the DPRK alone played a greater role than the entire CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization). The DPRK’s intervention on the Russian front implies that Russia will likewise intervene if a war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula. With the formation of a “Northeast Asian version of NATO” composed of the US, Japan, and the “ROK”, and completion of the “Pacificization” of NATO, the opposing anti-imperialist, anti-NATO front of the DPRK, China, and Russia is being strengthened in parallel. Northeast Asia is now the most volatile hotspot in the world, which will be the main theater of World War 3—where military confrontation between the imperialist camp and the anti-imperialist camp is intensifying, where, in the event of war, the use of tactical nuclear weapons cannot be ruled out.
Imperialism is destined to collapse due to the rapidly intensifying, multidimensional contradictions that are historical and structural in nature. Imperialism is fundamentally doomed by its unsolvable and overlapping contradictions: between imperialism and socialism, imperialism and national liberation states, imperialism and colonized peoples, monopoly capital and the people within imperialist countries, between imperialist powers themselves, and between warmongering and non-warmongering forces within the imperialist camp. The Trump administration’s “tariff war” and non-interventionist policies have intensified internal contradictions within the imperialist camp, further provoking the warmongering forces of imperialism to instigate war provocations more frequently, more aggressively, and more recklessly.
Unlike World War 1, which was an inter-imperialist war, and World War 2, which was an anti-fascist war, World War 3 is an anti-imperialist war. At the forefront of the anti-imperialist camp opposing the imperialist bloc stands the “Axis of Resistance,” composed of the most advanced nuclear missile powers: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), the most thoroughly socialist state; China, a socialist country with Chinese characteristics; Russia, a nation with a legacy of socialism; and Iran, a major missile power. These forces are forging unity under the banner of anti-imperialism and increasingly asserting dominance over the imperialist camp.
As the conflict between the warmongering and non-warmongering factions within the imperialist camp intensifies, internal divisions are becoming increasingly severe. In an attempt to suppress the backlash from the non-warmongering imperialist forces, the warmongering faction is now seeking to escalate World War 3 in earnest—either through decisive strikes against members of the “Axis of Resistance” such as Russia and Iran, or by provoking a war in the “ROK” or Taiwan, thereby expanding the conflict into a full-scale war in East Asia and the Western Pacific.
We remain on high alert and firmly prepared, recognizing with utmost vigilance that for the insurrectionist clique—driven to the brink by the failed coup, parliamentary impeachment, and Constitutional Court dismissal—civil war is their only remaining lifeline. Behind them, imperialism is making the war in the “ROK” its top gambit and most expedient card to launch a wider East Asian war and suppress the backlash of the non-warmongering forces within the imperialist camp.
We are fully prepared with the highest vigilance, recognizing that for the insurrectionist clique—facing political death after their failed coup, impeachment by the National Assembly, and dismissal by the Constitutional Court—civil war is their only remaining option. Behind them, US imperialism is maneuvering to provoke a war in the “ROK” as its most critical gambit to ignite a wider East Asian war and as the optimal card to suppress the backlash of the non-warmongering faction within the imperialist camp.
The civil war and the war in the “ROK” provoked by imperialism and fascism will become a turning point for revolution, accelerating the arrival of a new world without imperialism and fascism—a new society centered on the people. A liberated “ROK,” advancing toward independent reunification together with the DPRK, will proudly stand at the forefront of the anti-imperialist camp, fulfilling the righteous tasks of the era with honor.
As history and current reality have shown, the victory of the anti-imperialist camp—armed with overwhelming superiority in justification, capacity, and strategy—is a matter of scientific certainty, while the defeat of the imperialist camp—mired in deepening division and decline—is inevitable. Under the banner of anti-imperialism and the cause of justice, the united and unyielding struggle of the people of the world will lead to certain final victory.
