In recent days, Irish media and the political establishment have sounded the alarm about the
escalating dispute between the European Union and the United States, warning that new tariff
threats and the possible unravelling of last year’s trade deal could have serious consequences
for the Irish economy and jobs, particularly in light of the country’s heavy dependence on
transatlantic trade and investment.
The growing clash between the European Union and the United States tells us something
important about how capitalism works and why ordinary working people keep finding themselves
exposed to shocks they did not create. For workers, this matters because tariffs and trade wars
are not remote events. They raise prices, disrupt jobs and give employers excuses to restructure
workplaces in ways that weaken labour.
When firms confront uncertainty about export markets or supply chains, they do not absorb the
costs themselves. They freeze hiring, squeeze wages, increase workloads or shift production.
The risks of international conflict are pushed downward onto the working class, while profits are
defended through price increases or state support.
These conflicts are often presented as clashes between nations or blocs, but states do not enter
trade disputes to protect workers’ living standards. They act, always in the last instance, to
defend the competitive position of capital rooted within their borders. Tariffs, subsidies and
regulatory threats are tools used to secure markets, investment and profitability. The working
class has no control over the decisions being made and little protection from their
consequences.
What is striking about this month’s developments is that the EU and the US are not enemies in
the normal sense. Their companies are closely intertwined: American firms operate across
Europe, European capital is heavily invested in the US and financial markets bind them
together. Yet such integration is a weapon. States can threaten access to markets, restrict
investment or disturb supply chains precisely because capitalism has become so
interconnected.
These pressures reappear at the workplace. When tariffs threaten margins or supply chains
become unreliable, capital responds not by accepting lower profits but by intensifying
exploitation. Employers demand more output from fewer workers, extend working hours, rely on
temporary or subcontracted labour and waste human labour power by throwing it onto the dole
line.
For those of us who have already lived through a financial crash, austerity, a pandemic, and
inflation, this is why insecurity feels normal. Our societies are organised to protect capital first
and the costs of its conflicts are repeatedly shifted onto those who sell their labour to survive.
Workers have no interest in lining up behind one bloc of capital against another.
The alternative is not in fairer trade deals or smarter diplomacy, but in building working-class
industrial and political power that can challenge an economic system that treats instability,
insecurity and sacrifice as the price of human living.
