In this powerful episode of The Duran, hosts Alexander Mercouris and Alex Christoforou explore how rising global economic tensions and trade wars—especially between the U.S., China, and the EU—could escalate into something far more dangerous: a hot war.
As Trump’s tariffs, EU sanctions, and China’s retaliatory moves reshape global trade, the panel discusses the geopolitical consequences. Could economic aggression spiral into military conflict?
What you’ll learn:
– How economic warfare is destabilizing global diplomacy
– The hidden motives behind U.S. and EU trade policies
– Why China and Russia are preparing for long-term confrontation
– Could a Cold War 2.0 turn into real-world conflict?
– Who benefits from a global trade collapse?
🎙️ Hosted by: The Duran (Alexander Mercouris & Alex Christoforou)
🧠 Insightful geopolitical breakdowns you won’t get from mainstream media.
👍 Like, Subscribe & Hit the Bell for Real News & Deep Analysis!
#TariffWar #TheDuran #GlobalConflict #USChinaTensions #TradeWar #EconomicWar #Geopolitics2025 #ColdWar2 #HotWarThreat #WorldNews
#TariffWar
#HotWarRisk
#USChinaTensions
#TheDuran
#TradeWar2025
#AlexanderMercouris
#AlexChristoforou
#GlobalConflict
#EconomicWar
#ColdWar2
#GeopoliticsNow
#WorldNews
#ChinaSanctions
#USForeignPolicy
#RussiaChina
#MilitaryEscalation
#BreakingNews
#DeepAnalysis
#UnfilteredNews
#WW3Warning
As Trump’s tariffs, EU sanctions, and China’s retaliatory moves reshape global trade, the panel discusses the geopolitical consequences. Could economic aggression spiral into military conflict?
What you’ll learn:
– How economic warfare is destabilizing global diplomacy
– The hidden motives behind U.S. and EU trade policies
– Why China and Russia are preparing for long-term confrontation
– Could a Cold War 2.0 turn into real-world conflict?
– Who benefits from a global trade collapse?
🎙️ Hosted by: The Duran (Alexander Mercouris & Alex Christoforou)
🧠 Insightful geopolitical breakdowns you won’t get from mainstream media.
👍 Like, Subscribe & Hit the Bell for Real News & Deep Analysis!
#TariffWar #TheDuran #GlobalConflict #USChinaTensions #TradeWar #EconomicWar #Geopolitics2025 #ColdWar2 #HotWarThreat #WorldNews
#TariffWar
#HotWarRisk
#USChinaTensions
#TheDuran
#TradeWar2025
#AlexanderMercouris
#AlexChristoforou
#GlobalConflict
#EconomicWar
#ColdWar2
#GeopoliticsNow
#WorldNews
#ChinaSanctions
#USForeignPolicy
#RussiaChina
#MilitaryEscalation
#BreakingNews
#DeepAnalysis
#UnfilteredNews
#WW3Warning
Category
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NewsTranscript
00:00all right alexander let's uh talk about the tariff war between the united states and china
00:08what uh what is the update on the tariff war we have some exemptions on electronics the 20
00:17tariff on china with regards to electronics is uh is staying it remains but the other hundred and
00:24and 20 or 30 percent on top of the 20 percent that's been exempt we're talking laptops and
00:31mobile devices and stuff like that and uh china saw this as as a positive uh small step that's what
00:40they said it's a small step but it's in the right direction uh but trump is saying that they're going
00:46to now examine semiconductors and that there were there were no real concessions made to china he's
00:54at least in his truth social post he seems to be uh doubling down on uh on the uh the tariffs
01:00with uh with china of course this is what trump says the the actions uh speak differently as to
01:07where we're heading uh your thoughts on uh on trump and and china perhaps uh some negotiations maybe
01:15something uh along the lines of bilateral talks in the next couple of months or are we heading towards
01:21uh towards uh towards a big tariff war and and who knows where else after that well i i think your
01:27lost your last point is where i'm actually starting to have concerns because there there are two ways of
01:35approaching this whole tariff question the one is the one that trump has used and which he has spoken
01:43about to his core constituencies of the industrial communities which is to protect and rebuild american
01:53industrial power american manufacturing to bring back manufacturing to the united states to um you know
02:02change the economy of the united states to recalibrate it back into something more like what it used to be
02:09in the mid uh in the mid-20th century before the processes of globalization really began to take off
02:16um in a big way in the 1980s so that that is the line that i thought he was following but increasingly it
02:27seems to me that we are moving into a completely different situation in the sense that we still do have
02:33tariffs on most of the world and they're 10 percent tariffs and we have tariffs to protect
02:41individual industries uh like automobiles aluminium other industries as well but there is now another
02:51side to this which is looking more and more like an outright economic war between china and the united states
02:59and a specific policy of not just increasing tariffs on china but increasing tariffs to the level that it
03:10looks like it's an economic blockade that is being imposed on chinese goods entering the united states
03:18and of course the chinese are responding in kind now on friday trump had to relax some of these 145
03:27percent tariffs that he imposed on goods the bulk of which arrive in the united states from china
03:38and these were things like um you know smartphones and computer equipment and those kind of things
03:47and i think there were two reasons why he did that firstly because there was again signs of stress
03:55in the u.s treasuries market and i think that trump is clearly very sensitive to um a situation where
04:04the treasuries market begins to get out of control the other which is perhaps more long term but i still
04:11think is important for him is that he's worried that in the immediate term there is no replacement for these
04:17um items um from other countries um from other countries or from domestic production he doesn't want to have
04:26obvious consumer good shortages in the united states he doesn't want to see inflation spike with the cost of
04:36these items starting to grow and so anyway over the weekend he gave this exemption for these goods
04:44which uh with you know the tariffs brought back to the 20 percent level that he imposed on china before
04:52but then over the course of the weekend and this morning we're getting more statements not just from trump
05:00but from other people in the administration some of them going a lot further than trump is
05:04which talk again about the united states taking a very tough line with china and sometimes i do get
05:13the sense of i increasingly getting the sense that for some people maybe not for trump himself
05:22this is now evolving into a test of strength with china a kind of economic war with china
05:30basically push china back hard try to isolate it across the global economy um create problems
05:40domestically internally in china in which case this isn't really about protecting american industry
05:48and protecting american jobs and regenerating the american economy and starting a revival of industrialization
05:56and manufacturing and manufacturing in the united states it becomes a geopolitical project
06:01as part of a conflict that is being waged by the united states against china and that kind of conflict
06:10does run a very real risk of getting completely out of control bloomberg had an article and you know
06:19you know we're talking about bloomberg in which they were talking about the united states and china
06:25drifting into an actual military conflict a war with the world being invited in effect to take sides
06:36that's a very frightening thing and i can't believe that it is what trump himself wants but this whole
06:46process it seems to me is at serious risk now of getting out of control now we are hearing positive things
06:54as well there are reports that there are what one u.s official said was soft contacts between the chinese
07:03and the americans and i'm sure that is true in other words that there are contacts being arranged by
07:10various third parties we can guess countries that might be acting as third parties vietnam singapore
07:18other asian states they might be a dialogue being prepared it could be that eventually we're going to
07:26move towards some kind of negotiated solution to this incredible high tariffs that each country has imposed on
07:38the other but as i said if this is evolving into a geopolitical project ultimately and i have to say this
07:46a neocon project then trump needs to be very very careful because to say it simply the neocons never assess
07:57things economically in a well-grounded factual way they're probably underestimating china's ability to
08:07withstand this kind of shock they're i'm sure under arrest overestimating the us's ability to force
08:15countries to stop trading with china um and i think they're also underestimating chinese resolve that is a
08:24consistent pattern of neocon of neocon conflicts so he could very well find himself in a struggle with china
08:36which in which the odds might be more um in beijing's favor than he realizes and which given that we're
08:46talking about neocons and some of the people who are leading this do sound to me almost like a kind of
08:54species of economic neocon well as we've discussed many times in many programs once these people launch on
09:02a project they have no reverse gear yeah what are they looking to do though with uh with the tariffs
09:09this is the part that's that i think everyone's confused about um the the simple approach the
09:16the approach that trump is saying let's not say the simple approach the the straightforward um goal of
09:22the tariffs according to to trump is to re-industrialize the united states right yes uh and create uh fair trade
09:30and the the the two entities that have ripped off the united states the most according to trump is is
09:36china and the european union but now everything is focused on on china pretty pretty much but but then
09:42beyond everything that trump has said you have all these other uh theories about what is really going
09:48on uh some sort of uh 5d chess that uh that trump is is engaged in that his team is is engaged in and then
09:57then on the other side you have uh the the analysts who say trump has no idea uh what's going on and
10:02he's in way over his head and then of course you have what you've been describing which is that this
10:06is really all about just getting to to a hot war with china uh what what is what is the goal of of these
10:15tariffs uh maybe trump needs to i don't know maybe say something from the oval office in a prepared
10:23statement perhaps i don't know um you know many presidents do this right all the presidents have
10:29done this whenever you're entering into these types of difficult situations they usually give give a
10:36speech to the american people to explain uh what what they're up to what do you think which he hasn't
10:43actually done and which i think he should have done actually um because he hasn't really explained his
10:48policy very well and very clearly now you have to go back to what trump has been talking about in his
10:54campaign across his life going all the way back to the 1980s i have no doubt that trump supports tariffs
11:06ultimately because he wants a re-industrialization of the united states he's been saying this since the 1980s
11:14he even took out about your full page advertisement in a new york newspaper back in the 1980s criticizing
11:21the policy of free trade and calling for the return to protection and tariffs so this is very deep within
11:29him he's also brought back um you know the um figure of william mckinley um who also supported tariffs
11:38and protection and he's talked in those terms now i think this is what trump himself believes and thinks
11:50but it's absolutely clear to me that even as he says all of this he hasn't perhaps really
11:59researched properly what the protectionist policies that the united states was following in the 19th century
12:08and in the early 20th century were really like because at that time the focus was absolutely on
12:18protecting u.s industry but not a targeting individual countries and by the way there was a country that some
12:27people in the united states did want to target which was of course brison brison at that time was the big
12:33exporter of manufactured goods a little bit like um the united like china is today
12:41people in the united states spoke about unfair competition from britain and there were policies
12:46to target britain but the protectionists at that time said no that's not what we're going to do we are
12:52going to create tariff barriers which are designed to protect industries and that means they have to be
12:59blanket tariff tariffs a simple straightforward tariff affecting imports from all over the world because
13:08if we start getting into a practice of trade wars and tariff wars against individual countries this
13:16absolutely has the possibility of getting out of control and it will involve us into in quarrels with
13:23other countries that we don't want to be involved in so people like henry clay and william mckinley and
13:33others in the 19th and early 20th centuries were opposed to reciprocal tariffs now this is where i think
13:42trump has perhaps gone wrong because somebody's come along and has told him well the united states is
13:49being ripped off by the europeans it's being ripped off to a far bigger level by the chinese all sorts of
13:56countries around the world that after the united states they're trying to rip it off too and so we've
14:02got to impose reciprocal tariffs against any and all of them and maybe what you can then do is you can
14:09negotiate individual deals with all of these countries one by one pick them off one after the other and
14:17then you'll get the optimal situation that um you want now i i think that that is a policy that is not
14:27going to work it is over complicated it also sets the united states in conflict with too many countries
14:37around the world and trying to negotiate too many trade deals at once and inevitably it drifts into it
14:48into a full conference state confrontation with one state which is by far and away the biggest exporter
14:56of goods to the united states which is of course china what he should have done and what the 19th century
15:03and earlier 20 early 20th century protectionists would have advised him to do is to have one
15:10one flat straight tariff say 10 percent or even higher if that's what you think plus specific tariffs
15:21to protect individual industries like the automobile industry that has to be pitched higher something of
15:28that kind in other words you look at your domestic industries and don't worry about what the rest of the
15:36world is doing that that was the attitude the approach that they took now that's where i think a lot of the
15:44confusion is coming from because trump i think is focused on protecting american industry but as i said somebody
15:55has sold him with this idea of reciprocal tariffs and that is getting out of control and as i said it is
16:02evolving into a conflict a confrontation with china and all kinds of people with all kinds of
16:09of geopolitical agendas are now uh clambering on board with this policy as well and as i said it is
16:18increasingly looking out of control and of course they're coming up with all of these 5d chests and
16:26um all kinds of um theories about what trump is doing which when you examine them carefully or have a look
16:36about them of seeking some kind of confrontation with china and i i think this is dangerous because
16:44there are very strong feelings about china in the united states there are now increasingly strong
16:50feelings about the united states in china too there are enormous armies and fleets being assembled on each
16:59side and as i said this thing judging by this article in bloomberg has a risk of getting out of control
17:07he needs to de-escalate this for the benefit of the us economy it's better anyway that he starts to
17:16look for ways to try to get these impossible tariffs that the chinese and the americans have imposed
17:23on each other down it's overlooked that the chinese tariffs are in some ways very damaging to parts of
17:35us industry so the oil and gas industries in the united states are now basically barred from selling oil
17:45and gas on the chinese market the chinese do have alternative supplies but that was an important
17:53export market for the u.s oil and gas industries agricultural producers producers of soybeans are
18:01also going to be under great stress as a result of the fact that china has basically closed its doors
18:09to their exports again china can find alternatives to these things it may take them time it will cost them
18:17money but china is the kind of country that will do this and most likely anyway they've stockpiled on these
18:24items a long economic war with china is going to come with many many costs for the united states it's
18:33very different from the kind of protectionism that the united states used to do which always avoided
18:41getting involved in economic wars and of course an economic war on this kind of scale has the potential
18:49to evolve into something worse and even even bloomberg is now talking about it yeah i just get the sense
18:57that uh the the escalation with china was fabricated i guess i mean trump places
19:11this this this this baseline this blanket this ten percent tariff okay fine um then he he gets into
19:18this country by country reciprocal tariff and the the markets didn't like it and uh more importantly
19:27which i think is the important part of of all of this the the bond markets didn't like it i i believe
19:33and i think this is confirmed now that the trump administration was looking for for a certain uh trajectory to
19:40the bond markets and it went in the opposite direction and uh trump did receive pressure from
19:47from wall street he did receive pressure from the tech oligarchs but more importantly he also received
19:52pressure from uh from the bond markets yeah and and that's what caused the uh the 90 day pause in the reciprocal
20:01uh tariffs and then something happened and and and i believe we don't know the full story yet
20:11i get the feeling that his team members of his team thought it would be a good idea in order for
20:19the administration to save face for them to to put out to this this explanation that this was one
20:27one one uh ruse one one game that was being played by the trump administration
20:34in order to to um to put all the blame on on on china to expose china i believe best even said as much
20:43that that this was all an elaborate uh scheme to to expose china to the world and i'm just trying to figure out
20:51expose china to to what to the world they say that china is has been exposed as the bad actor and i
20:58just can't figure out what what have they done i mean this is a part i mean i just add the the us
21:04argument i understand that argument that industry moved to china and all that okay um we could do a
21:09whole video on on that uh did industry go to china was the businesses actually took it to china the us
21:16the us businesses went to china for for many reasons but anyway uh the this whole exposing china to the
21:22world narrative just doesn't make any sense to me at all and and trump's and trump's uniting the world
21:29against china that's what best had said said i believe or someone in his administration
21:34said that said that trump is rallying the world now uh against china this is another part of the
21:40narrative that i just don't don't understand it doesn't make sense to me so i i just think that
21:45something was was improvised or or or put together in order to explain the the difficulties that they
21:54were having with the markets and especially the bond markets and now i just get the feeling that it's
21:59it's moved into this this whole new new war between or it's actually it's snowballed into this war between
22:08russia between russia between china and uh and the united states and and i say russia because a lot of
22:14this reminds me of the russian sanctions where the the biden administration was thinking they would
22:20get one outcome and uh a whole different outcome occurred and everyone was certain that russia was
22:26going to crack everyone was certain that russia was absolutely and it didn't and it didn't exactly
22:32well that's exactly what we're looking at now i i think i think this is absolutely correct i think your
22:38analysis is absolutely correct i would add one other thing to this to this which was that what i think
22:46trump himself had expected was when he started to impose tariffs on china he expected the chinese to come
22:56and start negotiating and of course what the chinese did instead was that they imposed um counter tariffs
23:05tariffs of their own and then it became a matter of pride and face to go on raising tariffs
23:14in response to what the chinese were doing now if anybody knows china if anybody knows uh chinese history
23:21one would have expected that that would be what would happen again if somebody told trump that the chinese
23:32will come around and start negotiating um simply because you brought up raised tariffs um then as i said
23:40they were they were misinformed about china and they misadvised the president that is all i could say
23:47can i ask you a question on that before you go on why why not just set up bilateral negotiations with
23:54china well i mean trump himself says that he has excellent relations with xi xi he says it all the time
23:59why not just why not just i mean what if the proper way have been to to schedule bilateral talks with
24:06china well and they have a good relationship trump and she well they had a good whether they have it anymore
24:13is another question but i mean i agree says it all the time and she also says it absolutely i mean the
24:20thing that they should have done i mean you know i i i accept that the americans have a genuine concern
24:27about the fact that china is running this enormous trade surplus and if we just go back to what china
24:33has been doing china has been doing what all great powers do which is that it has been aggressively
24:41advancing its interests it has been using every handle and every mechanism that it can in order to
24:49develop its own industry industries and its own manufacturing and it's been doing that because it wants to
24:56become rich and powerful which is what all great powers and all all all uh realist led nations do um
25:07getting steamed up and angry about this uh well i can understand why people do that but it's no different
25:16from what other countries do it's no different from what the united states historically did when it became
25:23the world's leading the world's leading economy it was no different from what britain once did
25:28and as i said you you do you accept it now what what you what they needed to do i absolutely agree
25:35was not to get into some kind of all-out economic war with china trump did have good relations with xi
25:45xi jinping they liked each other um they had i remember their very first meeting back in 2017 just
25:53after he was first elected president their first meeting in mar-a-lago went extremely well so the
26:00first thing you do when you become president is your rage assignment meeting with xi jinping you tell
26:07xi jinping uh when you meet him look this situation with the trade surplus is impossible you must know that
26:13it is it is no longer in your interests to sustain it in the way that you have been doing um at the
26:20same time obviously this is an important relationship we don't want to completely destroy it um so let's
26:27see whether we can find a road map together to get to the point where that trade surplus comes down
26:34and you for your part can be sure that we will not take advantage of you in other ways now the chinese are
26:43very very very tough-minded extremely realistic people they showed over the course of trump's first
26:50that they were prepared to negotiate the negotiations didn't go very well in the end not because the
26:58chinese weren't interested in negotiations but because trump's first term was completely sidetracked
27:05and wrecked and wrecked and trump himself lost authority as we both remember because of the russia gate hoax now
27:15um this time it could have been different and at the same time nothing would have prevented trump from going ahead
27:24and imposing um flat tariffs 10 percent tariffs on all the world including china he could have pitched them
27:34higher if he wanted 15 percent tariffs i'm not here by the way either to argue for or against tariffs but he
27:42could have done that too and he could have imposed more tariffs to protect individual industries the chinese
27:51could have complained this goes against the organized the rules of the world trade organization trump
27:57would have said so what it would not have prevented negotiations between the chinese and the americans it would
28:05have preserved a trade position and it would have advanced the interests of the united states the chinese would have
28:11accepted that instead quite plausibly because of what you said because of this
28:19need to try to uh rationalize to explain what happened on friday when the well not on friday when the
28:30reciprocal tariffs were um cancelled on every country against china we got the the we got this narrative that
28:39it was all 5d chest to isolate china to push china into a corner which is as i said it's it it has no basis in
28:49reality it doesn't understand the real way in which international relations and trade is conducted it is if it is
29:00impossible to isolate russia economically it is quadruply impossible to isolate china
29:09economically given what an enormous part of the world economy china today is so it it's a hopeless idea so um
29:21but that's what they said that was the narrative that they spun and the result is that they've landed the
29:29united states into what is increasingly looking like a geopolitical conflict with china which as i said
29:36has a genuine risk of getting out of control i understand that many americans have all kinds of
29:44reasons for not liking china i may agree with some of those reasons i may disagree with some of those reasons
29:52but the point is not whether you like or don't like china it is what your interests are that is the realist
30:02position and that is the one that donald trump should follow i think the final question is is how many uh
30:12conflicts can can the u.s take on now i mean you know things things are piling piling on you have the
30:18the middle east iran you have uh ukraine russia now you have uh china and of course you have a domestic
30:28agenda you have all kinds of issues inside the united states obviously that that you need to address
30:33um you know how much can this administration actually take on uh at once well how much can donald trump
30:42take on at once i mean he's um in train now must be exploding i mean it is again out of control he's
30:51got a conflict with ukraine which is far from sorted he's got a conflict with iran which is becoming
30:56increasingly complicated he's got another situation in the middle east with um israel and gaza and all
31:05that which is also unresolved he's got the uh issues with the europeans who are causing him
31:12huge problems not just over ukraine but other things too and who are running a media campaign
31:18against him and as you correctly said he's got an enormous crisis or rather not crisis he's got an
31:24enormous and ambitious program for domestic reform in the united states where he needs to keep his team
31:32united so that they're all working together to the same end now as a result of this trade war he's
31:39already created rifts within his own team between people like uh navarro but between navarro and musk
31:48musk is coming across very angry and this is already causing splits and too much is being done
31:58all at the same time um and i have to say not only is this too much for trump one individual is now being
32:10asked to do everything so um one day wick golf is being sent to russia to talk to putin the next day
32:17he's off to oman to talk with the iranians the next day he's off to israel to try to broker deals
32:24um over gaza i wouldn't be surprised if before long we see whitkoff shuttling off to beijing and
32:34trying to deal with xi jinping and his officials um again this is out of control
32:43there has to be a pause i mean i i mean not a pause in policies but uh you know a a decision to bring
32:53all of these various conflicts under control i would have said the the best thing to do is to
32:59have a meeting in the white house to go through all of them to look at the priorities and to decide
33:05what can be done and what can't be done and to start approaching these various different problems
33:11in a more systematic way ukraine as we discussed in a recent program actually
33:18in some respects is the easiest one you just walk away you just let the russians do whatever they
33:25want to do and the europeans do whatever the they want to do and the ukrainians do whatever they want
33:31to do also um you so it shouldn't take up that much time the middle east is much much more complicated
33:40on tariff questions i would just i would say get yourself a flat tariff and tariffs to um protect
33:49individual industries set up a proper negotiations with the chinese build a proper negotiating team
33:59get representatives of u.s industry involved in that negotiation as well uh and move forward with
34:07it the middle east is far more complicated and far more intractable and again my own view
34:14for what it's worth is that the united states the president would have been much better advised
34:21not to have got involved in it to the extent that has been done and i suspect that there are
34:27particularly difficult people here in the administration who feel even more viscerally
34:32strong about the middle east than they do about other questions but anyway you could prioritize you can
34:38decide what you can do quickly and what you cannot but you've got to get this whole thing under control
34:46and you've got to make decision making in future in a more structured way yeah uh the the iran um issue
34:58is i don't want to say it's easy but it's easier than uh obviously than uh than israel and uh
35:06and the palestinian issue that's where you would need to to put most of your focus i mean you can solve
35:13iran as well yes um it's there the the road map is there so you can solve ukraine you can you can
35:19solve uh iran you can have wick cough then and and the team fully dedicated to uh to the palestinians
35:28and and to israel and what's happening in gaza and that could be their their focus that could be your
35:34foreign policy agenda for the next uh couple of years and try to solve that and and and you get to the
35:40tariffs bilateral uh talk with with china absolutely i mean it's going to take time yeah it takes time
35:47and as i said don't i that doesn't mean you can't have your own tariffs at the same time but they
35:56mustn't be these reciprocal tariffs which create nothing but problems again i want to stress i'm not
36:04advocating for tariffs i'm just explaining how i think the president can implement his policy
36:12in a way that will work and won't draw him and the united states into further problems and certainly
36:21not into an all-out confrontation with china which i don't think serves the interests of the united states
36:28and certainly not at this president yeah and um the the democrats and the europeans they're coming
36:34after trump you can see there is a big media campaign especially coming out of europe and the eu which
36:40which is looking to to discredit trump well they're coming after him yeah well they're calling and they're
36:47calling him incredible things they're calling him they're saying that he's the mad king that he makes
36:52decisions from one day to the next which contradict each other they're calling him all sorts of things
36:58which are not just undermining his own authority potentially in the united states as well but which
37:04are undermining his ability to actually strike deals moving forward and to develop his relations
37:11with other countries and this has been done entirely intentionally
37:15and unfortunately because he's making policy in this way especially because somebody sold him this idea
37:27of reciprocal tariffs without that explaining to him that this was something that was looked at very
37:34carefully in the 19th century and rejected then that's reciprocal tariffs is not actually a
37:45policy of protection the two are not the same they may look like they are but they are in conflict with each other
37:53so he's got to get all of that out of the way sorted out and of course because of this whole issue of
38:00reciprocal tariffs and the movements backwards and forwards over that we've had problems in the financial markets
38:06and we've had this rhetoric from europe and from the democrats that the president doesn't know
38:13what he is doing when if you go back and read what he's been saying about protectionism he has in fact
38:21always been consistent and in fact you do find some economic writers even in europe even in britain
38:30the uh you know the homeland of free trade who are saying well you know maybe we don't agree with
38:38trump maybe we don't agree with what he's doing but he does have a point he does have a policy but all of
38:45that is being lost because of this cloud of confusion because the president the administration are trying
38:54to do too much at one and the same time and they'd be given bad advice by some people yeah it's it's too
39:02much but it's also i don't know i get the impression that that it's a lot of bad advice anyway you know it's
39:08bad advice and and you know you have a lot of people who i to be honest um we'll let we'll end the video
39:16at this point alexander but just one quick comment there's a lot of people who who are in the trump
39:21administration who who don't seem to be serving any real purpose for example uh you know you have waltz
39:28and you have uh rubio you have uh kellogg you have all these people who are opening up more problems
39:36and then you have whitkoff who is pretty much acting as the the secretary of state for the entire
39:42united states i mean he's traveling everywhere doing everything i mean it has nothing to do with the
39:46tariffs i'm just saying it just seems like there's there there needs to be a rethinking of of his
39:51team and and what everyone is doing i don't know that's just the impression that i get yeah absolutely
39:56i mean he is playing he's he's actually acting as secretary of state but of course he doesn't have
40:03the state department and the bureaucracy and all of that at his disposal because he's acting purely as
40:09the president's private emissary and uh one individual doing all that by himself
40:15it's too much anybody can see that i mean wick off comes across to me as charming and extremely clever
40:24and probably very well intentioned and generally interested in solving these problems but there is
40:31only so much one person by himself can do he needs a team if you can't make him secretary of state which
40:39is very difficult by the way i think is very unlikely well i think wick off would have problems getting
40:45confirmed but you can't make him secretary of state why not make a national security advisor the job that henry kissinger
40:53once had which would give him a team of people that he can work with he can rebuild the national security council and start um creating if you like a kind of um structure and bureaucracy there which can
41:07provide him with the um throughput of ideas and the subordinates and all of those things that would enable him to conduct this kind of alternative foreign policy which could then become the foreign policy of the united states successfully
41:27but you know i i just throwing up i'm just throwing out ideas and suggestions but i i can see what the president what donald trump is trying to do
41:41but it's not being done in a way that works and there are far too many people in his team who have different agendas who he's out just as mr drew during his first term i mean there are some people in the administration
41:57administration to say it straightforwardly who are neocons and hate china and would love this to evolve into an economic war between the united states and china as part of some great epic geopolitical struggle
42:13they're less interested in what happens you know on the shop floors in detroit and places like that so i mean you know there are that there is that element there and then there are people like steven miran
42:27his advisor who whatever qualities he has as an economist it seems to me is an incredibly bad advisor and has given a set out this utterly inflammatory
42:43indeed incendiary message on the white house website in which he said you know you've all got to pay for the us hegemony
42:52you know you're having all these armies and fleets around the world us armies and fleets and you've all got to
42:58pay to sustain the dollar and you can do that simply by writing checks to the us treasury department
43:06making the whole united states and the whole economic policy of the president of the united states
43:12his tariff policy his policy of protection look like a protection racket which i cannot believe
43:20is what donald trump intended yeah well uh you know you could cut those uh costs if if moran has a problem
43:27with with all the bases and the military people are using it just close it down exactly get out of
43:34you know get those bases out of there and save the money save the money and spend it on the people
43:40on the us people exactly it's that simple exactly probably not that simple but i mean that's the
43:46that's what you do you know you don't complain about it you shut it down yeah exactly okay anyway
43:52all right we'll end the video there the durad.locals.com we are on rumble odyssey
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