Trump's Manipulation of Wounded Leviathan Syndrome

The US economy, currency, power, and hegemony are in deep crisis; they are not simply "fragile," but addicted to a cycle of self-sabotage that is geopolitically lethally destructive and highly profitable for a small, parasitic elite.

The fragility of civilian productive sectors and the acute indebtedness of the US are not accidents, but the necessary counterpart to the effort to maintain the hegemony of the US industrial-financial-military complex. For a time, the American people believed that their "American way of life" depended on maintaining their war machine and global dominance; increasingly, what is becoming clear to everyone is its true exclusionary nature.

Trump's tariff policies and his hostility toward allies are not miscalculations, but a conscious strategy of "Domestic and Foreign Economic Warfare" to perpetuate this vicious cycle.

The ultimate goal is to transfer global wealth to conglomerates in the decaying and corrupt arms and financial sectors, deepening inter-imperialist contradictions and sacrificing global stability on the altar of perpetuating a rapidly declining power.

The rise in crime and violence during the Trump era is not a deviation, but a direct byproduct and a functional component of the Wounded Leviathan Syndrome. It is the result of economic misery imposed by policies that benefit the war and financial complex, and is subsequently exploited to justify the fortification of the state and prepare the psychological ground for external aggression. The violence on the streets of Minneapolis, Chicago, and Portland is the blood flowing from the open wounds of the empire, and its political instrumentalization is the sign of a regime that, wounded, turns against its own people and against the world in a desperate attempt to survive.

The Trump era witnessed an injection of over $130 billion annually into the base defense budget in just four years. This historic increase, financed by debt and amidst social tensions and self-destructive trade tariffs, is material proof of the "Wounded Leviathan Syndrome." It was the response of a power that, feeling the economic foundations of its hegemony trembling, chose to double down on the only instrument in which it still maintained an overwhelming advantage: brute military power. The numbers don't lie: the wounded Leviathan has become more expensive and more dangerous.

Just as Hitler used the humiliation of Wounded Germany to assemble the military apparatus that claimed the lives of tens of millions of human beings in order to concentrate wealth, Trump manipulates the "weaknesses of American global power" to fuel his addictive military-financial complex.

It is not enough to simply denounce it; it is necessary to reveal its "perverse logic," which transforms the assumed weakness of "MAGA" into an instrument of manipulation and power, even if violently self-destructive.

Economic Metastasis: From the Military-Industrial Complex to the "Total War Complex"

What Eisenhower called the "military-industrial complex" has evolved into a "Total War Complex," a symbiotic ecosystem encompassing the financial sector, the national security and military apparatus, Big Tech, intelligence and disinformation, and a belligerent and openly interventionist foreign policy.

The survival of this addictive, war-financial complex increasingly depends on perpetuating tensions, making peace economically undesirable, and is leading its country and its people to ruin.

"The American empire... is sustained not by the production of consumer goods, but by massive debt and the export of inflation, combined with a global military presence. It is an empire of (military) bases, not factories….The empire is expensive, and we finance it not through trade surpluses or a robust productive economy, but through massive borrowing from abroad... We are becoming a militarized 'banana republic,' living on credit and the exploitation of a temporary monopoly on force." (Chalmers Johnson - Professor at the University of California and former CIA consultant) 

The fragility of civilian industry (evidenced by trade deficits) is not only a sign of national bankruptcy, but a symptom of an economy that has reallocated its capital and ingenuity to the sector of "goods of insecurity and destruction." Deindustrialization is a byproduct of "forced specialization" in military hegemony.

Systemic Consequences

1. For the Imperialist Powers:

Loss of legitimacy and moral authority.

○ Increasing debt to finance the military apparatus

2. For the International Capitalist System:

• Accelerated erosion of the liberal order based on rules and laws

○ Increased inter-imperialist tensions

○ Encouragement of nuclear proliferation and arms race

3. For Humanity:

• Diversion of critical resources from the ecological transition to military spending

• Normalization of war and violence as a political tool

○ Compromise and theft of global public assets

Trump's "tariff hike" as a crisis accelerator: creating the "necessity" of war.

Trump's tariffs are not classic protectionism, but a "geoeconomic shock policy." His goal is not to sustainably revive American manufacturing, but rather:

* Creating Supply Crises: Raising costs for consumers and businesses, increasing inflationary pressure.

* Fragmenting Alliances: Weakening multilateral architecture (such as the WTO) to justify a "every man for himself" stance.

* Preparing the Ground for Conflict: By alienating allies and closing markets, the administration created an environment of scarcity and competition where a military/coercive solution becomes more "attractive".

"Great powers are always looking for opportunities to gain an advantage over one another. The anarchic logic of the system compels them to do so." Tariffs are the economic expression of this logic, taken to its extreme against their own allies. (John Mearsheimer, Theory of Offensive Realism)

Tariffs directly impact the rising cost of living in the U.S., connecting them to the widespread protest movements like "No King." Social unrest is not a side effect, but part of the fuel for a "Siege America" ​​narrative that justifies increased military spending and domestic authoritarianism.

The plundering of Russian reserves: the precedent of plunder and the breakdown of the collective imperial order.

The confiscation of approximately $300 billion in Russian reserves by Western allies marks a point of no return. It is not merely a sanction, but an "act of imperialist expropriation." This event is pivotal and demonstrates:

* The Descent into the Financial "State of Nature": The end of the inviolability of sovereign reserves means that no country, ally or rival, can consider its assets safe. This forces a race for real assets (gold, commodities) and armaments.

* Pressure on Europe: Europe was dragged into this measure, deepening its strategic dependence on the US and being forced to increase its military spending (benefiting the US arms complex through arms sales), while preparing to be the potential battleground of a conflict.

"The West has proven that none of its liabilities are reliable. They froze, or rather, stole our funds. This was a blow to the entire global trust architecture." Regardless of the source, the act is recognized as a seismic event. (Vladimir Putin, in a speech on the world order)

This looting was not seen as a victory for the West, but as a moment when the US, in its weakness, cannibalized a pillar of the system it led, forcing its allies into a belligerent spiral to avoid becoming the next victims of financial plunder.

The "flight forward": war as a last resort for a decaying military and financial system.

The global financial system, centered on the dollar, is being choked by unpayable debts and toxic, worthless assets.

War and preparation for war offer a perverse "solution":

* Creation of Destructive Demand: War destroys capital, opening space for a new round of accumulation via reconstruction.

* Debt Financing: Military spending is financed by Treasury bonds, which the financial system absorbs, maintaining the appearance of solvency.

* Control of Resources: Conflict is the most brutal way to secure control over scarce energy and mineral resources, essential for the economy of the future.

"Finance capital, in its maturity, is the highest economic and political power. It subjugates all the forces of society to its dominion. The struggle for markets and spheres of influence becomes more acute, leading to colonial expansion and armed conflict." (Rudolf Hilferding, in "Finance Capital")

The conclusion is that the American strategy is a "Flight Forward." Unable to compete economically in a peaceful and sustainable way, and trapped in a parasitic and corrupt financial system, the US power elite doubles down on exploiting its own internal fragility and external global tension as a last resort for survival. The cost, however, is the total alienation from the human project of sustainability and peace, compromising the present and future of civilization in exchange for a few more years of hegemony by a mortally wounded Leviathan.

This is not simply a matter of denouncing something, but of understanding a frighteningly coherent, violently dangerous, and lethal mechanism.

The fragility of US economic and political hegemony is the engine, not the brake, of its belligerent and openly fascist foreign policy, aimed at forcing nations to support its war machine and plunder.

Understanding this dynamic is essential for nations and social movements to build alternatives for resistance and survival in the face of a power that, in its agony, becomes unpredictable and dangerously lethal in its destructiveness.

The fragility of the US economy increasingly and entirely depends on its arms industry, correlated with Trump's aggressive policy of imposing tariffs and predatory agreements on wealth, not only on his ideological adversaries or the BRICS, but also on his European and British allies, and his neighbors, Canada and Mexico, imposing high costs on his own people, throwing them into misery, aggravating internal tensions (see the NO KING protests), to continue fueling the war industry, violence and plunder, deepening inter-imperialist contradictions, leading his European allies to similarly plunder Russia's reserves to promote war on European soil, forcing his allies to increase their military spending, preparing the ground in Europe for a new scenario of war and destruction.

Feeding the decaying financial system with the costs and financing of new wars and widespread conflicts is the greatest threat we face. The loss of identity with humanity, with the planet, and with sustainability compromises the present and future of life and civilization; it is unacceptable and urgent to confront this harsh reality.

There is only one way out: to denounce and enlighten the people about the grave and lethal dangers, to mobilize, confront and defeat the "Wounded Leviathan" and its manipulations and lies, its fascism and militarism.

Faced with this scenario of a belligerent and self-destructive spiral, the real way out will not be found in the palaces of a hijacked global governance, but in the consciousness and organized action of the people. Disarming the 'Wounded Leviathan Syndrome' requires more than denunciations; it demands the construction of a new architecture of democratic and popular power, respect for the sovereignty of nations, international relations based on internationalist cooperation, and the economic reconversion of death industries into sectors focused on life and sustainability.

The historical challenge before us is clear: either the peoples of the world, united beyond the borders fabricated by imperialism, manage to impose a civilizational project based on social justice and peace, or we will all be hostages to the calculated shipwreck of an empire that, in its agony, does not hesitate to blackmail and set the planet ablaze to remain, even if only for a moment, in command of the deck.

Now is not the time for adaptation and acceptance, but for raising awareness and ideological resolve, preparing humanity to overcome this decisive confrontation with the logic of death of the dying empire. The future of humanity depends on our collective courage to stop this impending genocide.

Miguel Manso is a researcher at the Research Group on National Development and Socialism of the Maurício Grabois Foundation. An electronics engineer graduated from USP, with a specialization in Telecommunications from Unicamp and in Artificial Intelligence from UFV, he is the Director of Public Policies at EngeD – Engineering for Democracy.