Trump’s Dominoes

Stephen Cho

The world is in turmoil over a domino effect that began with Donal Trump. God’s “first shock” is conceptual, but Trump’s “first shock” is real. Like falling dominoes, it is delivering successive shocks across the world.

The United States’ National Security Strategy (NSS) 2025 can be summed up in one phrase: a “Western Hemisphere-fortification strategy,” choosing\and concentrating on the western hemisphere. In that sense, it can also be called a “gradual Eastern Hemisphere-abandonment strategy.”

As a result, the imperialist camp is weakening while the anti-imperialist camp is strengthening, accelerating the full-scale escalation of World War 3. A powerful wind of strategic change is sweeping across the global balance of forces.

1. Tactical Cooperation by the Anti-imperialist Camp That Accelerate the Fragmentation of the Imperialist Camp

Trump represents the US chauvinist forces. Because of the United States’ standing in the world, the Trump faction also represents chauvinist political forces worldwide. In explaining the contradictions within the imperialist camp, the confrontational framework between so-called “globalists”\and so-called “chauvinists” is particularly useful for analyzing the current political situation.

Within the traditional political spectrum, globalists are primarily based on right-wing social democracy, while chauvinists are centered on conservative forces. This is one of the grounds on which globalists criticize chauvinists as fascists. However, globalists too are chauvinists in a broader sense. The neo-Nazis in Ukraine\and the Zionists in Israel, operating in proxy wars under the direction of globalists, are quintessential political chauvinists―fascists. Those who wage fascist wars by putting chauvinists at the forefront cannot themselves be free of chauvinism. Contrary to their name, globalists are the representative chauvinists\and fascists of the present era. They have even, through cunning maneuvers, manipulated the social-democratic left into becoming a “Zionist left.” The social-democratic right\and globalists are making use of the opportunistic nature of the social-democratic left.

At present, the mainstream of chauvinist\and conservative forces opposes intervention in the war in Ukraine\and shows a relatively pro-Russia tendency. In the United States, the conservative forces of Republican Party not only lack a fascist tradition, but have even pushed out the neoconservatives who represented the military–industrial complex. The fact that the Republican Party appeals to the founding ideals of the United States, which include a spirit of independence, cannot be ignored.

Representative fascist policies include war against foreign states\and persecution of foreign peoples. The former constitutes the highest level, while the latter represents the lowest level. Unlike during World War 2, in the current conditions of World War 3, the former is carried out by globalists centered on the social democratic right, while the latter is associated with chauvinists centered on conservative forces. While globalists are waging brutal wars against foreign states by putting neo-Nazis forward in Ukraine\and Israeli Zionists in West Asia, chauvinists have not yet reached the level, within their own country, of persecuting foreign peoples by confining them to places like “Auschwitz”\and brutally killing them. In short, the representative fascists of today are not chauvinists, but globalists. Even when the persecution of foreign peoples becomes the focus of the news coverage, one must never overlook the fact that the forces that carry out\and drive a world war are globalists.

Meanwhile, chauvinists do not oppose war in principle; rather, they avoid\and refrainrom wars they do not desire. The reasons are that war results in the deaths of their own soldiers, entails enormous financial losses,\and is judged to be difficult to win. If a war could be won\and the scale of damage were\limited, then—as history has demonstrated—they would readily consent to the war at any time. Chauvinists are themselves a component of the imperialist camp.

For this reason, communist forces\and other anti-imperialist forces cannot take these chauvinists as a driving force for anti-war peace movements\or anti-imperialist, independent movements. In other words, neither a strategic united front nor even a tactical joint front can be formed with them. Unlike during World War 2, the forces that communist forces take as targets for tactical joint fronts are\limited to those of the social-democratic left. Since today the social-democratic right is the core of the globalists, it cannot serve as an object of a tactical joint front.

Anti-imperialist forces including the communist forces can’t form a tactical joint front with chauvinist\and conservative forces, but they can engage in tactical cooperation with them. Tactical cooperation differsrom the tactical joint front formed during World War 2 through agreements reached when representatives of the socialist Soviet\union met with representatives of the imperialist United States\and Britain. Just as a strategic united front differsrom a tactical joint front, so too does a tactical joint front differrom tactical cooperation.

Tactical cooperation, in the sense of acting in step tactically, refers to a situation in which anti-imperialist forces\and conservative chauvinists, for the purpose of isolating\and striking more forcefully at their common enemy—the globalists—each direct the spearhead of their attacks toward the globalists, while restraining mutual attacks between the two forces. Through this tactical measure, communist\and anti-imperialist forces can maximize the contradictions between globalists\and chauvinists within the imperialist camp. Put simply, It leads our side to unite twofold while the enemy side is split in two, thereby producing an effect that is, arithmetically speaking, quadrupled.

If one were to seek a comparable example of tactical cooperation in the experience of World War 2, one could point to Stalin’s conclusion of the German–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact\and the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact with Germany\and Japan respectively. The form of these arrangements as “treaties” is ultimately not essential, as they were in fact abrogated through the treacherous actions of Germany\and Japan. What mattered was that these tactical measures proved effective in redirecting Germany’s main direction of attack toward Western Europe\and another imperialist power, Britain,\and Japan’s main direction of attack toward Southeast Asia\and another imperialist power, the United States. As a result, the imperialist camp was fragmented\and weakened, while the socialist Soviet\union avoided a two-front assaultrom both the west\and the east, gained time to strengthen its capacities,\and turned this respite into a decisive opportunity to alter the course of the war. For reference, today there is no need to conclude agreements similar to past tactical treaties in\order to pursue tactical cooperation. Making mutual agreement a precondition belongs not to tactical cooperation, but to a tactical joint front.

Tactical cooperation is the measure currently being employed in practice by Russia, China,\and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea against the United States. Since the war in Ukraine, these principal anti-imperialist states have consistently designated the globalists within the imperialist camp as their main target of attack, while engaging in tactical cooperation with the chauvinists. Just as, during World War 2, communist\and anti-fascist forces worldwide understood\and took note of the Soviet\union’s tactical joint front\and tactical treaties, so today communist\and anti-imperialist forces around the world must also pay close attention to the tactical cooperation measures being undertaken by the three anti-imperialist states.

2. The Intensification of Contradictions within the Imperialist Camp

Since the emergence of the Trump administration, conflicts between globalists\and chauvinists have intensified by the day. These conflicts are serious enough to spill beyond the economic\and political spheres into military clashes in the form of civil wars\and territorial disputes. The contradictions between globalists\and chauvinists are deepening across multiple dimensions.

First, upon taking office, the Trump administration immediately launched an unprecedented “tariff war.” Its primary targets were its “allied nations,” whose ruling forces are, for the most part, globalists\and right-wing social democrats. At The Hague NATO summit in June 2025, the Trump administration pressured European\union member states to raise their defense spending to as much as 5 percent of GDP. This amounted to a bombshell declaration that the United States no longer intends to remain actively engaged in NATO. By attaching the modifier “gradual,” the Trump administration’s intention—essentially to disengagerom the war in Ukraine\androm NATO activities—was clearly conveyed to the European\union\and NATO.

By contrast, Trump maintained a consistently cordial atmosphere in his August meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska\and in his October meeting with Xi Jinping in the ‘Republic of Korea (ROK).’ This dual\and contradictory posture—quarreling intensely with allies within the imperialist camp while instead seeking friendly relations with rival states of the anti-imperialist camp—clearly illustrates the political position\and pragmatic judgment of the Trump faction\and US chauvinists within the imperialist camp. This pattern of the Trump administration remained consistent throughout both its first\and second term. For the Trump faction\and US chauvinists, the primary enemy—the main threat to their very existence—is the globalists.

In the United States, chauvinists refer to globalists as the “deep state”\and regard them as the primary target for liquidation. The antagonistic contradiction between US chauvinists\and globalists has not changed even oncerom the Trump’s first-term inaugural address to the present second term\and has continued to worsen.

After declaring at the Washington NATO Summit in July 2024 that the political preparations for the “Pacificization of NATO” had been completed,\and while its military preparations were being carried forward through joint military exercises such as “Freedom Edge,” “RIMPAC,”\and “Ulchi Freedom Shield”rom June to August of that year, on July 13, a would-be assassin’s bullet grazed Trump’s ear. At the time, globalists were openly inciting calls for Trump’s removal. Although the assassination attempt on Trump ended in failure, the assassination attempt on “Little Trump,” Charlie Kirk, in September 2025, did not fail.

The film “Civil War,” produced by globalists, depicts a president who attempts to secure a third term—clearly modeled on Trump—only to be shot dead in the White House amid a civil war. As can be seenrom Putin’s experience, there is more than one method by which a third term can be carried through constitutionally. At present, Trump appears prepared, if circumstances demand it, to declare martial law. That the contradiction between chauvinists\and globalists within the United States is escalating toward civil war is now a widely known fact, to the extent that it is reported even in mainstream media.

The killings of Renee Good\and Alex Pretti that occurred in Minneapolis respectively on January 7\and January 24, 2026, are provoking mass public outrage surpassing that of the death of George Floyd on May 20, 2025. It would not be surprising for Barack Obama to step forward\and incite anti-government protests. Obama is universally known as one of the principal leaders of globalists. Trump has always pointed to Obama as the power behind Joe Biden.

The so called “Epstein list” was raised by chauvinists as a weapon to attach globalists. The recent controversy unfolding in the manner of “the pot calling the kettle black” ultimately serves only to intensify the deadly conflict between these two forces.

The contradiction between the United States\and the European\union is deepening further as a result of Washington’s Western Hemisphere centered strategy. The Western Hemisphere consists of the Americas plus Greenland. Strictly speaking, the Western Hemisphere also includes Iceland,\and encompasses everything west of the vertical line running through the Greenwich Observatory in Britain. The territorial ambitions of the United States will never stop at Greenland.

At present, the Trump administration has, in Central\and South America, abducted the president of Venezuela, which constitutes a “linchpin”,\and plundered its oil, while in the north it is concentrating on bringing Greenland under US ownership\and on turning Canada into the 51st state of the United States. It is no coincidence that immediately after carrying out “Absolute Resolve Operation” on January 3, the Trump administration revealed its desire to possess Greenland,\and then went on to threaten that if the Canadian government were to conclude an agreement with China, it would impose 100 percent tariffs.

Among these issues, the Greenland question in particular is severely provoking the European\union. As Trump himself has suggested, if a military option were taken\and an armed clash were to occur with the European\union, the collective-defense nature of NATO would make the dissolution of NATO unavoidable. As is well known, the dissolution of NATO would signify an irreversible split\and a catastrophic collapse within the imperialist camp. If the imperialist camp were to become this divided\and weakened, it would be absolutely impossible for it to wage a world war against the anti-imperialist camp. In an already-begun world war, the defeat of the imperialist camp would then become as clear as day.

Precisely because the danger is so great, the United States\and the European\union reached a temporary stopgap agreement at the Davos Forum. This is because the United States, which is militarily threatening Iran, needs to put its conflicts with the EU on hold. Merely in exchange for the rhetoric of excluding military options, the United States’ military\and economic dominance over Greenland has grown even stronger. Seizing Greenland has been a long-held ambition of US imperialism\and is the most significant achievement that Trump’s forces\and the Republican Party can showcase to win the November midterm elections. The level of mutual distrust between the United States\and the EU has already crossed the point of no return. The EU is well aware of the consequences that the dispute with the United States over Greenland will lead to. This is one of the reasons why the EU is seriously considering a NATO without the United States.

3. The Unity\and Strengthening of the Anti-Imperialist Camp\and the Accelerated Full-Scale Escalation of World War 3

If the Greenland issue intensified contradictions between the United States\and the European\union, the Venezuela issue has heightened the contradictions between US imperialism\and the anti-imperialist camp. The former contributes to the division within the imperialist camp, while the latter contributes to the unity of the anti-imperialist camp.

The Trump administration claims that its abduction of Venezuela’s legitimate President Nicolás Maduro is “law enforcement,” but everyone except the Trump faction recognizes that it is a blatant violation of the UN Charter\and international law. In response, the Trump administration has gone as far as to withdrawrom UN agencies\and even openly proposing complete withdrawalrom the UN itself, along with the creation of an “another UN.” This indicates that the Venezuela issue is also amplifying contradictions within the imperialist camp. In fact, other heads of imperialist states, including France’s Emmanuel Macron, have publicly denounced Trump’s abduction of Maduro.

Trump forces regard Venezuela as a country that must be firmly seized under the strategy of the ‘fortification of the Western Hemisphere.’ While abducting President Nicolás Maduro, whose commitment to the ideologies\and principles of anti-imperialist independence\and people’s democracy is steadfast, Trump is focusing on controlling Venezuela’s crude oil reserves—the largest reserve in the world—to achieve the goal of lowering oil prices, a key task for winning the November midterm elections.

The Rodriguez government, which succeeded the Maduro government, is faced with the difficult task of defending national sovereignty while simultaneously conducting negotiations with the United States. A situation similar to the experiences of China\and Vietnam following the collapse of the Soviet\union\and Eastern Europe is recurring in Venezuela today. Balancing principles\and flexibility is always a crucial yet difficult task. Now, more than ever, international solidarity in support of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution is of paramount importance.

The fact that the United States is controlling not only Venezuelan crude oil but also Iranian crude oil constitutes the most serious threat to China, whose largest oil imports comerom Iran. If the United States can control the oil of these two countries\and manipulate international oil prices, this would also deal a significant blow to Russia. For this reason, it is only natural that China maintains an unusually high level of vigilance regarding United States-\and Israel-led attempts at a “color revolution” in Iran\and supports Iran more strongly than ever. Since the operation “Absolute Resolve” was carried out after the appearance of a US nuclear carrier strike group in the Caribbean, the deployment of a US nuclear carrier strike group to the waters near Iran in the Indian Ocean is, without a doubt, a highly perilous military adventure.

Iran is a military power, distinctrom both Venezuela\and Syria. As a missile power, Iran can, at any moment, devastate US bases in Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates,\and eastern Saudi Arabia in an instant using various missiles\and drones. In retaliation for the US assassination of Qasem Soleimani on January 3, 2020, Iran struck US military bases in Iraq. Similarly, when the United States bombed Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025, Iran retaliated by targeting US bases in Qatar with missiles. Israel now lacks sufficient missiles to maintain high-, medium-,\and low-altitude defense systems,\and the United States, with its constrained production capacity, cannot replenish the missiles.

In other words, a ballistic missile strike by Iran could instantly pulverize US military bases in West Asia (the Middle East)\and Israel. In the process, even Saudi Arabia’s largest oil facilities in the Eastern Province, including Aramco, could catch fire. This is why countries such as Saudi Arabia have declared that they will not cooperate with any US attack on Iran. Nevertheless, a US nuclear carrier strike group has entered the waters near Iran,\and US naval forces are gathering one after another. The world has recently witnessed what kind of attack Venezuela suffered after US naval forces gathered in the Caribbean at the end of last year. Iran is now maintaining the highest level of vigilance\and is prepared even for a ‘regional war.’

If the United States eventually dares to launch a war against Iran, it will expand into a conflict involving not only West Asia but also its allies—a world war. World War 3, which began with the war in Ukraine in February 2022, will escalate into a full-scale war through an all-out war in Iran. This is a scenario that the Trump administration\and US chauvinists, fully aware of the enormous human\and financial consequences of war, do not desire. While we must prepare for the worst-case scenario of war, the full-scale outbreak of World War 3 is more likely to occur in East Asia than in West Asia.

Given that the United States has decided to focus on the Western Hemisphere in response to the power shifts of the multipolar era—branding this policy as the “Trump Corollary”\and “Neo-Monroeism (Donroeism)”\and releasing the National Defense Strategy (NDS) 2026 following the NSS 2025—it is rational for China\and the DPRK to interpret this policy shift as a “New Acheson Line.” In other words, it is understood that the United States, fearing a full-scale war with nuclear missile superpowers like China\and the DPRK, has effectively abandoned Taiwan\and the ‘Republic of Korea’\and retreatedrom the “First Island Chain” to the “Second Island Chain.” Consequently, analyses are increasing that the “Territorial Integrity”—the long-cherished aspiration of China\and the DPRK—is now imminent.

In fact, as a response to the US military pressure on Venezuela\and its attempted “Color Revolution” in Iran, China urgently conducted a three-day encirclement exercise around Taiwanrom December 29 to 31, 2025, like a final rehearsal. There are also unconfirmed reports that the Chinese leadership convened a meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee immediately after the January 3 incident to impose financial, oil,\and logistical sanctions against the United States.

Immediately after the Venezuela incident broke out, the DPRK carried out a test launch of the “Hwasong-11Ma” new-type hypersonic missile on January 4. It is reported that this missile will be equipped on nuclear-powered submarines in the future. Russia, in light of these various events, also took action on January 8 by striking Europe’s largest gas storage facility, located in Western Ukraine, with the “Oreshnik” hypersonic missile.

It is by no means a coincidence that the DPRK\and Russia launched hypersonic missiles—the weapons most feared by the United States, the EU,\and NATO. If World War 3 were to escalate in full-scale, the DPRK\and Russia could easily suppress their opponents using these formidable hypersonic missiles even without tactical nuclear weapons. The same applies to China. Naturally, if the war situation becomes unfavorable, they could also equip these missiles with tactical nuclear warheads. The “selection\and focus” content outlined in the NSS 2025\and NDS 2026 should be interpreted as the result of the Trump administration’s serious deliberation on these realities.

US imperialism’s abduction of President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela\and its attempted “Color Revolution” in Iran are extraordinarily accelerating the awakening\and solidarity of not only anti-imperialist nations\and forces in Latin America but also the anti-imperialist camp on a global scale.

Just as the fascists in 1936 drew arrows of aggressionrom Spain toward France, Western Europe,\and Eastern Europe, the imperialism of 2026 is mapping out its direction of attackrom Venezuela toward Cuba, Central America,\and South America. Identifying Cuba as the next target after Venezuela in Central America, the United States is suffocating the Cuban economy by thoroughly blockading oil import linesrom Venezuela\and Russia. Just as the International Brigades shouted the slogan “¡No Pasarán!” in Spain, we must do the same in Venezuela today. If Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution collapses, a domino effect of counter-revolution—a turbulent surge of the “Blue Tide”—will sweep across Central\and South America.

If China\and the DPRK in East Asia quit the policy of “Strategic Patience”\and decide to carry out the wars in Taiwan\and the ‘ROK’, it will inevitably force a shift in the “Strategic Patience” policies of Russia\and Iran. The full-scale outbreak of World War 3 is highly likely to begin in the East Asian theater, which will completely transform the landscape of local\and regional wars on a global scale. In West Asia, the “Axis of Resistance” will expand,\and it will be Israel—not Iran—that suffers a decisive blow; menawhile, a domino effect of revolution will sweep across Latin America, bringing a “Red Tide” that surpasses the “Pink Tide.”

Following its predetermined conclusion, the United States will respond by intervening moderately in the Eastern Hemisphere while gradually retreating, yet it will struggle desperately to maintain its hegemony in the Western Hemisphere at all costs. While the United States may describe this as an “orderly retreat,” but in reality, US troops deployed around the world will be reduced to prisoners of the anti-imperialist forces resulting in a total catastrophe for the United States. The United States will attempt to save at least the Western Hemisphere as outlined in NSS 2025, but it will be unable to reverse the already tilted tide. In the end, justice will prevail; by the final blow of the anti-imperialist camp, Latin America will become the graveyard of US imperialism.

Trump does not truly understand what he has committed. Since he still believes the United States is a superpower\and is obsessed with arrogance, committing acts of violence, how could any rational thinking be possible for him? Even now, the only way for Trump\and his forces to prolong their political lives is to first stop intervening in the affairs of the Eastern Hemisphere—specifically, by withdrawing the US military bases scattered across the Eastern Hemisphere\and permanently expelling aircraft carrier strike groups, which are nothing more than prey for hypersonic missiles,rom the region.

Furthermore, they must realize as soon as possible how foolish\and reckless the plan to seize control of Mexico\and other Latin American nations is—a strategy based on the fortification of the Western Hemisphere that runs counter to the era of anti-imperialist independence\and people’s democracy.\and they must immediately cease all military provocations\and economic plunder. Otherwise, the US chauvinists will ultimately be denounced as just “another Deep State”\and will follow in the footsteps of the perishing Globalists toward destruction.

The Trump forces\and the US chauvinists must see the prevailing trend correctly\and immediately stop their reckless behavior of acting as an “international gangster,” going beyond the role of an “international police.” As history\and reality prove, the masters of this world are the people. Any action that turns the people of the United States\and the rest of humanity into enemies will only return as a boomerang that strikes one’s own neck. The end of the domino effect that began with the Trump administration is a world\where the people become the true masters—it is revolution.

[source minzokilbo]