Analysis of: Markets fall and gold and silver hit new highs after Trump’s latest tariff threat
The Guardian | January 19, 2026
The Trump administration's threat to impose 25% tariffs on eight European nations until the US is permitted to purchase Greenland represents a stark example of how inter-imperialist rivalry intensifies during periods of resource scarcity and geopolitical realignment. The immediate market response—gold surging to $4,689 per ounce, silver reaching $94, and European stocks declining—reveals the capitalist class's flight to safety when the stability of existing trade arrangements is threatened. What the financial press frames as 'market uncertainty' is more precisely understood as capital seeking shelter from the contradictions of a system where territorial expansion and resource control remain fundamental to accumulation. The article's framing is notably class-blind, presenting the conflict primarily through the lens of national interests, market movements, and business concerns. The voices quoted—ING's global head of macro analysis, Capital Economics' chief economist, analysts from StoneX and XTB—represent exclusively the perspectives of financial capital. Absent entirely are the voices of workers who will bear the costs of tariffs through higher prices and potential job losses in affected industries, or the Greenlandic population being discussed as a commodity to be purchased. This framing naturalizes the notion that international relations should be conducted according to the interests of investors and corporations. The underlying material reality is the scramble for Greenland's vast untapped resources—rare earth minerals, oil, gas, and strategic positioning in increasingly navigable Arctic waters due to climate change. This represents a continuation of historical patterns where capitalist powers have sought to resolve internal contradictions through external expansion. The European automakers' stock decline (Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis) illustrates how working-class jobs become bargaining chips in conflicts between capitalist blocs, while the mention of potential 'tariff evasion' through Belgium reveals how capital finds ways to circumvent restrictions that workers cannot.
Class Dynamics
Actors: Financial capital (investors fleeing to gold/silver), Industrial capital (European automakers, tech companies), State apparatus (Trump administration, EU ambassadors), Financial analysts and economists (representing capitalist class interests), European and American workers (implied but voiceless), Greenlandic population (objectified as part of territorial asset)
Beneficiaries: Gold and silver holders and speculators, Safe-haven currency holders (Swiss franc, Japanese yen), US extractive industries seeking Arctic resource access, Belgian ports and businesses exploiting tariff loopholes, Financial analysts and institutions profiting from volatility
Harmed Parties: European autoworkers facing potential layoffs, Workers and consumers facing higher prices from tariffs, Greenlandic people whose self-determination is being traded, Small businesses without capacity to navigate tariff evasion, UK workers (facing potential 0.3-0.75% GDP reduction)
The article reveals a hierarchy where financial capital's concerns (market stability, investment certainty) are treated as paramount, while state power is deployed to serve extractive and strategic interests. Workers appear only as abstracted GDP statistics. The Greenlandic population's agency is entirely absent—they are the object of great-power competition, not subjects with legitimate interests. The EU-US relationship shows subordinate capitalist powers preparing retaliatory measures but fundamentally constrained by economic interdependence.
Material Conditions
Economic Factors: Arctic resource access (rare earth minerals, fossil fuels), Climate change opening new shipping routes and extraction possibilities, Existing trade dependencies between US and European economies, Automotive industry's vulnerability to tariff disruption, Currency valuations as indicators of capital flight
The article reveals production relations organized around transnational supply chains vulnerable to state intervention. European automakers' immediate stock decline demonstrates how production in contemporary capitalism is organized across borders in ways that give powerful states leverage over weaker ones. The mention of potential GDP reductions abstracts the concrete reality: reduced production, job losses, and wage stagnation for workers. Capital's mobility (exploiting Belgian ports for tariff evasion) contrasts sharply with workers' immobility and vulnerability.
Resources at Stake: Greenland's rare earth mineral deposits, Arctic oil and gas reserves, Strategic military positioning in the Arctic, Control over emerging Arctic shipping lanes, Existing US-European trade flows worth hundreds of billions, European automotive production capacity
Historical Context
Precedents: US purchase of Alaska from Russia (1867), 19th-century 'Scramble for Africa' among European powers, US territorial expansion through purchase and coercion (Louisiana, Florida), Smoot-Hawley tariffs and 1930s trade wars, Post-WWII US establishment of global dollar hegemony, 21st-century 'resource wars' in Middle East
This episode reflects the historical pattern of capitalist powers using state power to secure resource access and territorial control when market mechanisms prove insufficient. It echoes the late 19th-century era of high imperialism when inter-capitalist competition for markets and resources produced escalating tensions. The shift from the post-WWII liberal international order toward naked coercive extraction represents a potential transition from hegemonic to more openly contested imperial relations. The Arctic, like Africa in the 1880s, represents a new frontier for capitalist accumulation as climate change makes previously inaccessible resources available.
Contradictions
Primary: The contradiction between capital's need for stable, predictable trade relations to facilitate accumulation and the compulsion toward aggressive resource competition that destabilizes those same relations. The markets fall precisely because Trump's actions, while serving long-term US resource interests, threaten the short-term stability capital requires.
Secondary: Climate change as both crisis and opportunity: the ecological destruction enabling Arctic resource access, National sovereignty rhetoric versus the reality of great-power territorial ambitions, EU unity as trading bloc versus member states' divergent interests in responding, Free trade ideology versus protectionist practice when strategic interests are at stake, Democratic legitimacy claims versus treating populations as assets to be purchased
These contradictions may intensify as climate change accelerates Arctic accessibility and resource competition. Short-term resolution through negotiation would merely postpone the fundamental tension. More likely trajectories include: escalating trade conflict weakening transatlantic alliances; potential alignment shifts (UK toward EU as noted); increased militarization of the Arctic; or emergence of new international frameworks. The contradiction between capital's need for stability and its drive for expansion cannot be resolved within the current system—only managed or displaced onto workers and peripheral populations.
Global Interconnections
This conflict cannot be understood in isolation from the broader restructuring of global capitalism. The aggressive pursuit of Greenland reflects US anxiety about declining hegemony and China's growing influence in critical mineral supply chains essential for the green energy transition. Rare earth elements in Greenland represent not just economic value but strategic control over the material basis of future production. The European response—retaliatory measures while seeking accommodation—mirrors the broader pattern of junior partners in the US-led order navigating between dependence and resistance. The market movements reveal how financialized capitalism responds to geopolitical instability: capital doesn't disappear but flows toward assets perceived as stable stores of value (gold, silver, Swiss francs). This flight to safety represents not productive investment but wealth preservation for the capitalist class, while workers face the material consequences of disrupted trade. The pattern connects to broader dynamics of secular stagnation, where surplus capital increasingly flows into speculation and safe havens rather than productive expansion, reflecting deeper contradictions in accumulation.
Conclusion
The Greenland tariff threat illuminates how inter-imperialist competition for resources intensifies as easily accessible reserves are exhausted and climate change opens new frontiers. For working people on both sides of the Atlantic, this conflict offers no progressive outcome under current arrangements—whether tariffs are imposed or negotiations succeed, the costs will be socialized while benefits accrue to capital. However, the contradictions exposed—particularly the revelation that 'free trade' is always subordinate to power politics—create openings for working-class internationalism. The challenge is building solidarity between European and American workers who share interests against both their own ruling classes and the logic of resource competition that treats populations and territories as assets to be acquired. The EU's preparation of retaliatory measures and potential UK-EU realignment suggest that even within capitalist parameters, alternatives to subordination exist—though genuine alternatives require organization beyond national frameworks that capital easily exploits.
Editorial Note: This analysis applies a dialectical materialist framework to news events. It represents one interpretive perspective and should not be considered objective reporting.
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