While China champions global cooperation and free trade 🌏🤝, Trump is gearing up for a 3-front geopolitical war 🔥⚔️ — risking U.S. dominance in a rapidly shifting world order.
In this powerful discussion with Danny Haiphong and Rachel Blevins, we break down the clash of ideologies between East and West.
🔍 From military posturing to economic pressure and media manipulation — is this the final push for U.S. global control?
🚨 Don’t miss this urgent geopolitical analysis.
👇 Drop your thoughts in the comments & subscribe for more uncensored perspectives!
#ChinaFreeTrade
#TrumpWarStrategy
#USvsChina
#DannyHaiphong
#RachelBlevins
#GlobalHegemony
#GeopoliticalTensions
#TradeVsWar
#USImperialism
#EasternDiplomacy
#MultipolarWorld
#USForeignPolicy
#WorldPolitics2025
#EconomicBattle
#GlobalShift
#USChinaConflict
#GeopoliticsExplained
#MediaVsReality
#TheNewAtlas
#WesternHegemony
In this powerful discussion with Danny Haiphong and Rachel Blevins, we break down the clash of ideologies between East and West.
🔍 From military posturing to economic pressure and media manipulation — is this the final push for U.S. global control?
🚨 Don’t miss this urgent geopolitical analysis.
👇 Drop your thoughts in the comments & subscribe for more uncensored perspectives!
#ChinaFreeTrade
#TrumpWarStrategy
#USvsChina
#DannyHaiphong
#RachelBlevins
#GlobalHegemony
#GeopoliticalTensions
#TradeVsWar
#USImperialism
#EasternDiplomacy
#MultipolarWorld
#USForeignPolicy
#WorldPolitics2025
#EconomicBattle
#GlobalShift
#USChinaConflict
#GeopoliticsExplained
#MediaVsReality
#TheNewAtlas
#WesternHegemony
Category
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NewsTranscript
00:00It is April 16, 2025, and as we are now nearly three months into the second term of the Trump
00:07administration, I wanted to take a step back and look at how it is handling U.S. foreign policy
00:13overall when it comes to tensions with China, as we are now fully into an escalated trade war,
00:20when it comes to tensions with Iran and with Russia, as we have talks happening,
00:25but not too much progress actually being made. It raises a lot of questions, including the very
00:32important one of what can the Trump administration actually do, right? How many moves can it make,
00:39and is it going to pursue any kind of long-standing peace, or are we going to see the U.S. war machine
00:47rolling on as it continues to do from one target to the next? Because as we know, it has had its eye
00:54on China for a long time, and it feels as though the Hawks in Washington think that they are finally
01:00getting to their moment of being able to see a U.S. versus China war play out. So what does all of
01:08that mean for the American people? Well, we got into all of the latest with a special guest earlier,
01:13so let's take a listen to that conversation now. Joining me now to discuss is journalist and
01:19geopolitical analyst, Danny Haifong. Danny, thanks so much for taking the time to join me.
01:26It's great to be here, Rachel. Glad we could finally do this.
01:29Yeah, I'm glad. I know we've kind of gone back and forth over the years, so I'm glad we've been able
01:34to actually have a conversation here. And I want to start off with the latest on the current tensions
01:40between the U.S. and China, because we have Trump. He came into office claiming that he wanted to work
01:47with Beijing on a number of issues, and it quickly seems like we've turned to the opposite of that as
01:53he drastically escalated the trade war, and China has responded at every step to the point where both
02:00countries have now hit each other with tariffs surpassing 100%. So how do you see the latest
02:07tensions? I mean, we already have concerns that the U.S. is preparing for an all-out war with China.
02:13Does it seem like this is the initial step in what is going to continue to be more and more
02:19escalations between the two countries? Well, if we remember Trump's first administration,
02:24it shaped out very similarly. Trump actually, during that time, was diplomatic enough to take a pause on
02:34his ire toward China and actually visit Xi Jinping in a state visit and come up with a kind of quote-unquote
02:42trade deal that was almost immediately eviscerated following that trip. But tensions actually didn't
02:48really rise between the U.S. and China under Donald Trump to a big degree until the latter half of his
02:53administration, humanitarian atrocity propaganda around places like Xinjiang, Hong Kong, of course,
02:59the protests in 2019, and then this constant militarization of both Taiwan and the Asia Pacific
03:06that really accelerated toward the second half of his administration, especially and during the
03:13COVID crisis. So Donald Trump has a long record of being anti-China, and he also has a long record now
03:24of bait and switch. He did this with Russia during his first administration. He said he was going to
03:30establish detente, and he packed his cabinet with anti-Russia hawks. After the Helsinki meeting with
03:37Putin, we saw just an incredible escalation of sanctions, as well as war threats, and the evisceration of
03:45the INF and so many other things. So this is not even particular to China, but Donald Trump, during his
03:54political career as U.S. president, has made China the primary focal point for the U.S.'s imperial
04:02strategy on how to maintain and, in wishful thinking terms, expand its dominance. What we see with Donald
04:11Trump really is the limits of the U.S.'s ability to actually expand its dominance. And in my estimation,
04:20what we are actually seeing with Donald Trump is desperation. So the trade war is an escalation of
04:28what he championed and led during his first administration, these tariffs on China, which
04:35were established in big ways during that first term, and of course continued under Biden, actually
04:41expanded under Biden with things like electric vehicles, 100% tariffs on them. And so Donald Trump
04:49has essentially done what really is all he can do at this point, which is to, if he's not going to look
04:58like a Democrat, if he's not going to look like the so-called deep state that he, in my opinion,
05:05in a very fake way, goes after, then he has to choose methods and means to contain China that are
05:13part of his brand and identity. And tariffs are perfect in this way because they fit within this
05:20mold of his overall identity as someone who is going to come in as a big, strong political figure
05:27and fix the problems of the Biden administration, mainly the economy, which, of course, is always a
05:33big reason why a U.S. president and one U.S. politician is chosen over another during presidential
05:39cycles. So he is still playing the presidential cycle game. He is saying he's going to re-industrialize
05:43the United States, although he very rarely uses those terms. Now he's talking about replacing the
05:49income tax with tariffs. But all of this is geared toward his very ambiguous, very unplanned, there's no
05:57strategy to it, promise that this economic war on China is going to bring dividends toward people in
06:05the United States. Of course, none of that has been realized. And in fact, all of the predictions
06:12are that tariffs are only going to worsen what is a very difficult situation for ordinary people in
06:18the U.S. dealing with high cost of living, inflation, debt, low wages, spiking unemployment numbers and the
06:26like. So it is a guarantee that Donald Trump will continue and his administration, his administration
06:32full of China hawks. Pete Hegseth wrote a whole book about China, the left, and the big enemies of
06:39the U.S. crusade that he is waging, which is all about containing China and destroying what many, much
06:47of his cabinet, including Hegseth, see as this communist juggernaut that is the real challenge
06:55to U.S. global supremacy. Pete Hegseth also said before he became Secretary of Defense that the U.S.
07:01loses all these war games with China. And now he's talking about preparing for war. There are leaked
07:07documents saying that the United States is preparing for war with China, not just over Taiwan, but in a
07:12larger way. Pete Hegseth's early visits to places like Japan have all indicated that the U.S. wants to
07:18use the entire Asia-Pacific to militarily encircle China. So we can expect that to increase. We can
07:25expect Taiwan to reenter the conversation now that Marco Rubio, as Secretary of State, has removed the
07:32language around Taiwan and one China that says the U.S. doesn't support separatism. There is just move
07:42after move that the United States is making to make China the focal point here. But it is all going to
07:50be connected to what is a more grand strategy that the United States has. And this is not necessarily
07:56a strategy that is particular to Trump. Trump has his own flavor on it. But in reality, what the United
08:03States as an empire, as an imperial albatross that is seeking to maintain and expand its dominance,
08:10what is really going on is that Russia, China, and Iran are the three principal rising powers in the
08:20East that are challenging U.S. hegemony, that are challenging the rule of U.S. capital itself,
08:27the financial mechanisms and the economic mechanisms that these monopolies and banks are
08:31able to run away with their massive profits with the dollar system. All of this are being challenged by
08:36these three powers by simply developing sovereignty, developing their own economic development
08:42mechanisms, their own multilateral institutions, which are more attractive than what the U.S. is
08:51offering. And so now Donald Trump is saying countries are going to have to choose between the United States
08:56and China around how they trade in this world economic system. And somebody is going to have to tell
09:04Donald Trump that actually countries have made their choice. More than 120 countries have China as
09:09their biggest trading partner. The Belt and Road Initiative that China champions as its flagship
09:15infrastructure development project and multilateral mechanism led principally by China itself
09:21has 150 plus countries signed up to it. And right as Donald Trump was slamming China with these
09:31tariffs. What did China do? Well, Xi Jinping went on, the president of China went on a huge tour of
09:36Malaysia, Vietnam, and inked incredibly large deals with these countries, including having the government
09:44of Malaysia say very straight up that it stands with China. So ASEAN, the larger block of Asian countries
09:53developing together economically, they stand with China because China is their lifeline economically for
10:02taking care of development problems like poverty, like underdevelopment, which the United States has
10:08nothing to offer in this way. And actually what we see is the United States wants to wage this three-front war,
10:16which it is right now. People have to understand, Donald Trump just extended sanctions on Russia,
10:20has not lifted any kind of arms, has not stopped any kind of arms dealing with Ukraine. That war is still
10:28going on. It's just, we don't pay attention to it as much because the news is simply Russia continues
10:33to fight on the battlefield. And that's really it. And then talks, that's what's happening on the
10:39Russia front. So it's still very much a war there. Of course, the war threats on Iran that have been
10:45building up that still, even with these negotiations going on, are not going away. And then with China,
10:52what we actually see is that with this escalation against China around trade, and of course, these
11:01military threats, you have both on the home front, more and more people realizing that this is absolutely
11:09absurd, that people don't want to buy. There's a huge meme about buying handbags. You're buying
11:14handbags for $38,000. If Trump didn't exempt the tablet and phone and technology exemptions,
11:24if he didn't exempt those products, then your iPhone purchases would go from $800 to $8,000.
11:31All of this is to say is that people in the United States actually have been finding out for many,
11:38many, many weeks now and months that perhaps all of Trump's bluster toward China is not helping them
11:48at all. And on the world front, we see the world getting closer and closer to China. Russia and
11:56Iranian oil imports exports into China. China's imports of this oil have skyrocketed in recent
12:02weeks and months, in large part because of this aggressive push by Donald Trump to destabilize
12:09the economic system to the world economic system to attempt to isolate China. And we have Scott
12:16Besant, the Secretary of Treasury, this Soros appointee, he is saying that this whole trade
12:26war is about containing China and trying to get allies to do that. All of this is to say is that
12:32this is what we can expect. This is going to be the problem. There's no pivot from this. There's no,
12:37well, he said something in the beginning, we all want to work together. Let's all cut 50%
12:41military budget, Russia, China and the US. Let's solve the world's problems together. As you
12:46mentioned, Rachel, in the beginning, before he was sworn in, he said, we're going to solve all the
12:51problems together, China and the US. No, the United States is, that's talk. This is how Donald Trump
12:57actually operates. And it's just more sloppy than most US politicians. It's not as skillful. Some
13:05people see it as skill, because they see that he'll make threats, and then he'll walk back. And
13:11maybe what happens is some kind of sense of normalcy, like with Iran. But at the same time,
13:18is that really success? Is that really achieving anything? The truth is with Iran or China or with
13:26Russia, the outcomes are going to be the same. And the fact of the matter is, is that's because
13:31the US can't dictate terms to these countries anymore. The US isn't having direct talks with
13:37Iran, it's having indirect talks, they're speaking in separate rooms, and they're handing pieces of
13:41paper to each other. That's what Iran said they would do from the very beginning. Russia, they're
13:47not taking any kind of ceasefire over Ukraine. And, you know, obviously, the Trump administration
13:52has been signaling that it's getting impatient and making all these threats, but can't really do
13:56much. It's already doing what the Biden administration has been doing sanctions, threats,
14:01and then continuing the war. China the same way, hit China with tariffs, hit China with anything you
14:07want. China said it'll fight to the end. And it's already showing its resiliency in moving closer to
14:15willing and, you know, able partners without any, I know people in China, they're telling me, hey,
14:23you're paying $12 US dollars for eggs, we're paying 50 cents for a dozen. So it's it goes to show that,
14:30you know, China obviously has a plan, the rest of the multipolar world has a plan, they're doing what
14:36they can and persevering through this time. And the Trump administration's bluster and aggression and
14:43the US's aggression is showing itself and exposing itself as in some forms of paper tiger, but a very
14:50dangerous one, because it's causing damage. And it's costing people's lives, both economically and,
14:56and, and literally, in so many parts of the world. And that's what we can expect, we expect more of
15:02this, because the empire doesn't change its stripes, just because the, the emperor sitting in the throne
15:09shifts. Yeah, I think that that's a really great point to keep in mind when you look at kind of the
15:14overall US foreign policy, because exactly as you noted there, Trump knows how to campaign,
15:20right? He knows that he's going to come in, he's going to say, hey, you're not happy with egg prices
15:25under Biden, or the price of gas under Biden. So I'm going to promise to do the exact opposite.
15:31And then he comes in, and it's a lot of more of the same. And while yes, we are having talks with
15:36Russia or indirect talks with Iran. And so some people would look at that and say, well, hey,
15:41it's not World War three, yet, I am still very concerned when I look at his policies on China.
15:47And a big part of that comes from the fact that, you know, you look at the way that the US has
15:51handled Russia, you look at the fact that, you know, over three years ago, NATO got together,
15:56and they said, we are going to make Russia the most sanctioned nation in the world, we're going to get
16:01everyone to completely isolate Russia. And that didn't work, in large part, because as you were also
16:07pointing out there, you've got all these little countries around the world that rely on big
16:11countries like Russia and China. And the US wasn't offering them anything other than threats,
16:17saying you have to cut off any business that you do with Russia. So we get through that, that doesn't
16:23work. Russia is now actively winning this proxy war against NATO. And then you have the US in this
16:29position where they're deciding, okay, we're going to take on China. But when you look at the US
16:35reliance on China, I mean, in 2024 alone, the US imported nearly $440 billion worth of products from
16:43China. And we're talking about everything from smartphones to shoes to cookware to key parts that
16:49keep our supply line going. I mean, I don't think the American people really realize how much we
16:54actually rely on China. That's not something you just turn off overnight. Either things get really,
17:00really expensive as these now 145% tariffs we're at go into play. Or you have businesses here in this
17:08country that start looking for other ways to try to manufacture. The point is, it's not easy. It puts
17:14us in a very dire situation. But it also reminds me of kind of what the Biden administration was more
17:20than willing to do to Europe, right? They were like, hey, we don't care if all of these policies we're
17:25putting into place hurt you. Our goal is to try to hurt Russia. In this case, now you have the Trump
17:31administration trying to quote unquote, contain China, even though it is going to end up hurting
17:37us as a country now directly. How do you see the position that the Trump administration is in and
17:44especially going back to Trump and all of this flip flopping? I mean, can we even guarantee that he is
17:50going to keep these policies in place and is the only certainty that the US is going to continue to
17:57pursue increased escalated tensions against China? Well, there's no guarantees with Trump. I mean,
18:05Trump is going to be all thinking about his self preservation as an administration. And as the
18:13focal point and essentially the power center of the fledging and right now, I guess you could say
18:22GOP with momentum, that could go away very easily. In the US political system right now,
18:30we're in a situation where both parties are trying to do everything they can to, of course, scapegoat the
18:39other and make it look like there's a competition when in fact, they're unified on all the most
18:45important points policy wise. But the Trump administration won't want to give the so-called
18:53opponent the ability to essentially do nothing and win, which is very much a possibility if there's an
19:00economic crisis, a recession, wars, these kinds of things are suicide. They're the end of a political
19:06administration in the United States because these are two big outcomes that many people tie to
19:14politicians, many people tie to presidents and they will sink his administration. So he will be trying
19:21to navigate what is very murky waters for the United States because there's almost like a clock that is
19:32ticking for the United States as an empire. The big issue for the United States and what the investors and
19:40financiers, the monopolists, the banks, the cartels, what they see as the big issue in the world is that with the
19:49emergence of a new power center, multipolarity, you have one of those countries in China, essentially moving fast
20:00toward becoming the biggest in all terms economy in the world. It already is a purchasing power parity
20:07terms. It already is more advanced in the United States and most of the biggest and advanced technologies
20:14in the world, even the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a very anti-China state department, defense
20:21department funded Australian think tank will admit. They see that as coming very soon and in the next
20:3010 years or less, depending on how the US's situation ends up playing out from here on. So at some points
20:40they're saying, well, it's not going to happen ever. Sometimes they're saying it's going to happen in a
20:44decade. Sometimes they're saying five years. It always changes because the US really is what is
20:50the basket case in a sense. It goes through what China doesn't, which is periodic cyclical economic
20:57crisis. China actually doesn't go through this. You can't name a time even during the 2008 economic
21:02crisis where it went through the same kind of massive job losses, massive shifts in capital output and
21:11economic decline and negative growth or any of this. Actually, even during the COVID crisis, China grew
21:20several percentage points, much smaller than usual, but it still grew. And so that kind of resiliency
21:27that China has is a big threat to the United States in large part because that resiliency rides off the
21:33back of policies, which the United States elite also see as a big threat, which are while China focuses
21:39on poverty alleviation, infrastructure development, state planning to a large degree, it protects certain
21:45sectors of its economy from privatization. It doesn't allow for the so-called market to play
21:53the dominant role, the only role in the economy. Actually, the market plays a sizable role, but it
21:58cannot do so without checks on its influence. So that's why you don't have, you have billionaires in
22:05China, but you don't have billionaires running the government. They can't tell the Chinese government,
22:10do this, and the Chinese government will just do it. This is why you have in this inflationary crisis,
22:14you have food prices in China staying low because Chinese government is committed to ensuring that
22:20people have food to eat. And so that actually is a big threat because worldwide, the rest of the
22:28world has understood this model as being incredibly inspirational. They've seen what China has been
22:34able to do to become the biggest economy in the world, the richest economy in the world, the most
22:38advanced technologically, and still address problems internally that speak to a level of sovereignty
22:46that the global South just hasn't had throughout much of its history over the last several centuries.
22:56So of course, you have the majority of the world really wondering how they can make that kind of
23:02economic model workable for them in their own way and working with China to ensure that everybody
23:10wins. And it just so happens that China is interested in that. China doesn't want to wage wars. It doesn't
23:15want to destroy other countries. So all of this has made China a big threat to the United States.
23:20And this is a consensus among the entirety of the ruling elite. The Trump administration just sees
23:26this. Some people say it's the Kissinger model, what the Trump administration, reverse Kissinger model.
23:32But I think what it is, is more along the lines of a kind of, you know, it's a big new Brzezinski-like
23:44chess game that these elites are playing. So you have some who believe, well, if we can peel off Russia
23:52from China, if we can shape the world order in a way where China is contained, that is the first step
23:59toward toppling all of the opponents on the chessboard. While there are others who believe,
24:08well, if we can peel, if we can destroy Russia, if we can take control again of the Middle East,
24:14West Asia, then we can topple the opponents on the chessboard. It all ends up being the
24:22the same overall strategy of trying to destroy these rising multipolar powers. It's just a matter
24:28of which is the focus. What is the focus? Where can the United States put its resources and energy
24:35toward? Now, the only guarantee here, as you asked, Rachel, is that, yes, there will be more
24:42escalations with China. It will ebb and flow. But I think what we're going to see is a big flow
24:48into aggression with China, especially toward the latter half of this administration, because
24:53we're going to quickly see that the questions in West Asia of Russia, Ukraine, these don't have
25:01resolutions that the United States can accept. The United States, in truth, if it's going to
25:09maintain its dominance in West Asia to any degree with any extended period of time, it's going to have
25:15to try to balance a situation between Israel and the rest, or at least the resistance led by Iran,
25:24which is not going to be acceptable to the US political class. And it won't be acceptable to
25:30Israel. And it certainly won't be acceptable in the sense that the United States sees Iran and the
25:39resistance as the biggest threat to their continued dominance there. But that's the only way they're going
25:44to be able to maintain it. To continue to fight endless wars there is going to grow the resistance,
25:49it's going to create more instability, it's going to embolden Israel even more, and it's going to make
25:55the situation far, far worse than it already is. With Russia and Ukraine, this is what I know you've
26:04been talking about, Rachel. I've been saying is, it is very difficult for me to imagine that the United
26:10States under Trump or anybody else to accept a kind of peace treaty in Ukraine that accepts Russia's
26:16terms. And so we are in this kind of long consultations, which Russia calls them now,
26:22but negotiations, which others call them, which are really about kind of waiting this out, trying
26:29to see how far Russia will go toward normalization, and seeing then if it will accept a deal that's
26:35acceptable, that is amenable to U.S. interests, which would be really bad for Russia. But that is,
26:43I think, the strategic thinking there. And I do truly believe that normalization with Russia and
26:49trying to scramble around West Asia, it's very haphazard. But ultimately, there is this impetus
26:55toward deciding soon more with Iran versus, you know, pausing that with a JPC away with a Trump label on
27:04it. All of that, I believe, is to try to rush the process of, okay, now we are maneuvering these
27:11chess pieces and trying to neutralize them in a sense so that China is more vulnerable. Maybe China
27:17won't have Russia as its best friend very much longer if Trump can succeed in his madman diplomacy.
27:26But all of this is wishful thinking. All of this is wishful thinking because it assumes
27:31that the United States at this time has the muscle that is required outside of military threats and
27:41warmongering, which can actually attract these other countries to stab themselves in the back. And I just
27:48don't, I don't see that. So the guarantee will be that we will see these very chaotic and just very up
28:00and down attempts to stabilize and to manage the situation toward US interests. And it will usually
28:07fall back on, as we've seen now, it'll fall back toward more aggression against China. I think that's
28:15what the tariffs, the trade war has taught us, is that it was all this Liberation Day bluster.
28:20Everybody gets tariffs. No, actually, no. It was all a bluff. It was to bully allies. It was what
28:28Scott Besson exactly said, which is, we want to configure our allies against China. But the way Trump
28:35is doing it is by essentially tightening a leash and saying, well, if you aren't with us, you're against
28:42us. And if you're with us, well, you got to be with us against China. I don't believe the strategy
28:49will necessarily work. But that's where I think this whole Trump peace with strength motto, and
28:59if we can call it a strategy, I don't think it is, but maybe a framework for dealing with the world is
29:06heading. And I think we're already there.
29:08Yeah. And it's been interesting to see. And I know that, you know, in a lot of ways,
29:12U.S. foreign policy is still U.S. foreign policy, right? You still have this continuity of agenda,
29:17no matter who is in the White House, as we were talking about earlier. And then you look at someone
29:22like Donald Trump and kind of how his ego comes into play, right? When it comes to these tariffs,
29:27it's, okay, which countries are going to grovel hard enough to get a deal worked out with me to then
29:33get the tariffs lifted. It's like, he's proud of that. And when I look at how he's handling things
29:39with Iran and things with Russia, my biggest concern is always what happens when Trump runs
29:45out of patience, right? What happens when, as Rubio, he's already gotten to that point of saying,
29:51oh, Russia's not taking the quote unquote peace process seriously. It's like, yeah, because they
29:56don't have to, right? They don't need a ceasefire right now. They don't need a deal right now.
30:00Therefore, while they're going to engage in talks, they're not going to give the U.S. whatever it
30:05wants. My concern is what happens when Trump gets to that point where he starts to get frustrated.
30:12And as we're seeing with Iran right now, you know, and kind of this back and forth of the Trump
30:17administration saying, oh, it's direct talks. And then Iran saying, no, actually, it's really
30:21indirect talks. Well, then when you look at the way that the Trump administration is handling Iran,
30:27you have their Middle East on voice, Steve Whitcoff, saying in a post on X that Iran must
30:32completely eliminate its nuclear program just 12 hours after he said on Fox News that the U.S.
30:39would accept a deal that allowed Iran to enrich uranium at a low level for civilian use. And when
30:47you look at the people who are around Trump, people like Marco Rubio, people like Netanyahu,
30:51these are hawks to their core, right? Never met a war they didn't like, would love war against China,
30:58war against Iran, and the list goes on and on. So what are your concerns there when it comes to the
31:05fact that, yeah, right now we are seeing talks that is positive, but in a lot of ways, it does not seem
31:11like the Trump administration can be trusted to have a sane, stable foreign policy that they are pursuing
31:18for more than five minutes. Yeah, well, very good points. It's quite obvious that while we can
31:29evaluate and judge actions like negotiations, for example, Donald Trump in his administration
31:38talking with Russia and moving toward normalization, we can look at that in isolation and say,
31:44that is a positive step. That is different from the last administration. It's always important
31:51when looking at anything that happens within official Washington and what people call the deep state or
32:00the real state to look at U.S. foreign policy and the interests that control it to understand all
32:08these actions in the context of not just history, but just the overall situation, which influences the
32:18decisions of U.S. politicians. This is where we need to become, as analysts, not just, we don't just report
32:27on what's happening. We evaluate it based on what are the interests, what are the stakes, where are these
32:36forces that are influencing and driving these actions on the world stage? Where do they lie? What are they
32:44concretely? And so for Donald Trump in the administration and people who, I guess, temporarily suppress, like
32:54Marco Rubio, at least rhetorically, suppress as much as they can, they're just three-front war, hawkish, absolute,
33:03bat shit, crazy whims, like their deep-seated hatred of all things, Russia, China, Iran. And really what it
33:15is, is it's, you know, it's Marco Rubio is really the most loyal soldier of empire. So his ability to
33:24suppress that is simply, it's career maneuvering. It's obvious. He's a younger politician. His record
33:31speaks for itself. He can, he never has met a war he didn't like. And so he's using this opportunity
33:38as a career move. So that's why he has changed his tone. But even that change of tone, that is still
33:43tone. Rhetoric and talk is still talk. And while talk is an action in and of itself and can be seen
33:49as positive, in this broader context, once we see the entire landscape from the explosion that Donald
33:57Trump essentially, supposedly attempted to hold back for what weeks to a month or so, and then allow
34:08to explode again in Gaza and West Asia, the back and forth threats against Iran, no threats. Well,
34:17that's that, those talks are actually coming on the heels of an escalation and even deeper in a bigger
34:23escalation. Now people are talking about in Yemen, the possibility of a US ground invasion,
34:29probably with special forces, but still quite brutal. If we look at how the United States and
34:34its military are conducting these strikes and where they are now targeting in parts of Yemen, there's
34:41hints that possibly at some point that could become a ground invasion that, well, it probably won't be a
34:49direct call to war. It will involve many special forces troops and be very bloody and brutal and
34:55lead to not much good because the Ansarala, I think, is very prepared. The so-called Houthis are very
35:03prepared to fight that. They've done it for many years. So all that is to say is that there is this
35:11bigger context playing out. That context speaks to, we could call it continuity agenda. What I call it
35:19is the real shape of what is a crisis of US dominance, full spectrum dominance, empire in the
35:33world. The hegemon is in big trouble. And now that doesn't mean, and a lot of people get mad, they're
35:40like, oh, what do you mean? How could it be in big trouble? Dollar is still dominant. The US military can
35:45still kill people and, you know, bomb and all of this. Well, the problem with the US empire now is
35:55that it has run up to the limitations of its own economic, political and military development model.
36:06Like it, it does not have the capacity anymore to dictate terms, to offer anything at all to anybody,
36:14its own domestic population, the majority of which you could consider working class, ordinary people.
36:23And the rest of the world, which sees the United States as more and more as a pariah with no ability
36:30to do diplomacy. Forget that. Even this Russia talks around times, I don't think that's changing world
36:35opinion at all because it's coming out with very few outcomes that would signal any kind of hope in that
36:42area. But in truth, the rest of the world sees the United States. They look more at something like Gaza or Yemen
36:52or the years that the United States has spent funding and arming Ukrainian nationalists and neo-Nazis to kill
37:02Ukrainians and Russians and to bring the world to the precipice of World War Three. They look at this handling of a
37:10relationship with China, which only causes shockwaves to the world economy, which damages and hurts the most, the poorest of countries.
37:21And the world says, most of the world, even Europe now is saying, well, maybe we need to reconsider our stance
37:30vis-a-vis the United States. And that leaves the United States more isolated. And then what can the United States
37:35do as an empire? It can continue to try to hammer everybody it can like a nail and hopefully it stays in place.
37:44But what we are seeing really worldwide is an exodus from the U.S. so-called rules-based international order.
37:51Now that Donald Trump is in, he doesn't want to use that term. So what we're seeing is an exodus from
37:56the, you know, the ties that bind U.S. imperial hegemony together, whether it's economically, whether it's
38:06politically, whether it's militarily. The trust in the United States has been forever broken unless the United States
38:12does an about-face and starts to mend these ties in real terms. We see concrete things. We see an end to Ukraine.
38:19We see a thaw with China. We see the actual end of genocidal warfare in West Asia. And we see the United States act
38:31as a normal country. That trust isn't going to be repaired. And so we can look at Donald Trump as a change.
38:37We can say, whew, thank goodness we didn't have a Reshnik flying around because of Biden's long-range
38:45missile policy or what have you. Sure, that's a change. But there's this bigger world moving that
38:54the Trump administration has already shown it is more than willing to go along with what has been the
39:03dominant trend in U.S. foreign policy under the dictates of these oligarchs and warmongers, which
39:09is to do anything possible to preserve empire. And that's very dangerous. That is really the big
39:15danger we face in the world is, well, what would that be? What is the limit here when the United States
39:21is threatening Iran with war, which could turn nuclear, is still engaging in a proxy war with Russia
39:30that has that potential too. And then, of course, war planning and gaming with China, which has
39:37just as much of the possibility of turning into a hot war, which would not be fought on the battlefield
39:45or in the sea and in the ocean and in the air for very long because that's why nuclear weapons exist.
39:53They've existed as not just this brutal, inhumane weapon that can cause massive destruction
40:02offensively like the United States has used them in the past, but other countries have them for
40:07deterrence and they'll use them for deterrence if they are forced to. And that's where the danger lies
40:13is the United States moving toward this ultimate path of what would be the destruction of the human race.
40:20And really, there's no other power or force in the world that wants that. It's simply official
40:26Washington that can't restrain itself because it sees the writing on the wall that it cannot accept,
40:35which is that it will have to be just another country. It will have to be number two economically.
40:40It will have to acknowledge Russia's ascendance. It will have to acknowledge Iran's resilience and
40:45its ability to exist as a state. It will have to acknowledge the fact that you might have many more
40:50countries walking this path, which may take similar development models, similar ways of doing
40:56business, doing diplomacy and doing politics. That is a very scary proposition for the United States
41:04as an empire. People in the United States should welcome it. It could be a great time to
41:12really reconnect with the world and really gain actual tangible benefits from a global system rather
41:22than this, what I think is a very narrow and unhelpful debate now happening, which is globalization,
41:29anti-globalization. Are you for globalization? Are you just like a neoliberal, a WEF, a synchophant who
41:37wants to see everyone own nothing? Or are you on the Trump or Euroskeptic side or whoever it is and you
41:46want to see isolationism and protectionism? But that's really not the argument here. The argument
41:52is, well, how can we push for a world system that is fair and just to the people that inhabit it?
42:01And we see a model like that emerging with Russia, China, Iran, and the multipolar world,
42:08BRICS, et cetera. And we see the United States pushing one regardless of whether it's protectionist
42:13or globalist or whatever you want to say. The results are very similar. The results are more
42:18poverty, more war, and the enrichment of a very tiny few at the expense of the rest. And so that's the
42:25choice we have ahead of us. And the Trump administration is going to do what all administrations
42:29have done, which is show us where Washington lies. And that is on the former, or on the side of
42:42oligarchy and empire. Yeah, I think that that's a really great point to keep in mind. And I mean,
42:47I remember when the night that Trump was elected, right, he said, I'm not going to start wars. I'm
42:53going to stop wars. And he had a little bit of a grace period where he could say, oh, the war in
42:58Ukraine is Biden's war, right? That's not my war. And then the further he gets into it, even though
43:04it's only been three months, the further we are reminded that, hey, this is U.S. hegemony and this
43:09is U.S. foreign policy. And this is how the war machine moves. And I'm with you. I think that we
43:15have to start looking at the way that the world is evolving, what that means for the world as a whole.
43:21And also, yes, the U.S. and how hard the U.S. is going to fight that transition, even as it's
43:27literally pursuing proxy wars against Russia, China, Iran, pushing all three of these countries
43:33closer together. And it doesn't seem to understand that there are consequences for its actions. I know
43:40that there is certainly a lot at stake here all around. And I really appreciate you taking the time
43:45to join me today to get into all of the latest here. Journalist and geopolitical analyst, Danny
43:51Haifong, thank you so much for your time and insight. Thank you. Appreciate it, Rachel.
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