South-South coordination is more crucial now than ever. Trump is using tariffs to force global South governments to accept US demands (to cut their export prices, abolish their industrial policy frameworks, devalue their currencies, and accept reduced US payments on bonds). This will be devastating. If Southern governments negotiate alone, they are likely to lose and suffer. If they negotiate together, they can win and force Trump to retreat. Remember, the US is *utterly* dependent on labour and resources from the global South. Through collective action, the South can leverage this power, increase their prices, and force Trump back. Better yet, Southern governments can and should take the opportunity to delink from the US altogether by shifting to South-South trade and swap lines. Cooperation and planning with China and other key industrial powers in the South is crucial to this. The South faces a fork in the road. Either submit to intensified US imperialism, or organize to make a break for it. Here’s a plan for delinking from the US. Buckle up: 1. First, reduce all unnecessary imports from the US (luxury goods, etc), and from all core states for that matter. 2. Substitute necessary imports where possible with domestic production (food is a big import category that can easily be substituted). 3. For goods that cannot be provided domestically, obtain these through South-South trade or swap lines (using national currencies or special-purpose currencies for trade rather than the US dollar). China is crucial here. 4. For products that currently cannot be obtained from the South, buy them from other core states for the time being. 5. Use industrial policy and planning to build sovereign industrial capacity to further reduce dependence on the core. 6. Use regional planning to develop capacity to produce and trade necessary goods that currently cannot be sourced in the South or which cannot be produced by a single country (like how European countries cooperate to produce Airbus jets). 7. Increase state control over foreign exchange earnings through nationalization of key export industries (especially resource extraction), and taxation of private exporters, and use the foreign currency to prioritize imports of capital goods that can further reduce dependency on the US. Nobody should be going tail-between-legs to accept a beating from Trump. Turn the tables and take the fight to him instead.

Here's a quick roundup of highlights from research we published in 2022, on capitalism, imperialism, degrowth and decolonization. It's all open-access, and free PDFs are available via the link at the end of the thread. 🧵