Isolating China or strategic divorce
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00:00all right alexandra let's do an update on the uh tariff war between the united states and china
00:06and uh that that is what this has become it has become a a tariff war between two superpowers
00:13the united states is facing off against china every other country that was on trump's liberation
00:20day all the countries with the exception of russia and belarus which were on
00:24uh trump's liberation day tariff uh list um no one's even really talking about that stuff anymore
00:3270 countries that the us is negotiating with negotiating with japan the other day but even
00:36japan was pushing back and was a very happy with what's uh taking place but but that's that's a whole
00:44subplot secondary type of uh type of story or type of uh news that uh that's going on with these
00:52tariffs the the main the main focus is on china and the united states this is the big battle
01:00that we have going on so what uh what is the situation between these two we did a recent
01:06program about this and we said that it it's looking increasingly that we're no longer in a policy of
01:12protectionism anymore and i think people need to understand this that this is now becoming
01:17increasingly now a straightforward geopolitical battle between china and the united states i
01:24i am going to repeat my own view here i know some people are pushing back against this but i don't
01:30think that was donald trump's intention he has been calling for tariffs ever since the 1980s long before
01:38china became a peer economic competitor with the united states i have no doubt that donald trump
01:45actually does believe in tariffs and does see protection of american industry as the way back
01:52for american prosperity but along the way he was um he was drawn into this struggle with china
02:01and now instead of the um civilized structured divorce which it looked like he was trying to negotiate
02:10during his first term we are now in an absolute complete long term i think it is becoming increasingly
02:17clear that this is now a long-term geopolitical conflict between china and the united states now the
02:24only way that the united states can win this geopolitical conflict against china or so the united states
02:33itself believes is by isolating china so they're now trying to use the threat of tariffs and other forms of
02:43leverage to pick off trade partners from china to isolate the chinese economy they're putting enormous
02:53pressure on the europeans you read article after article secular europe must make a choice it was either aligned
03:01with the united states against china or if it aligns with china against the united states and it's committing
03:06suicide it's absurd and it's mong it's all of that kind of thing so they're putting enormous pressure
03:12on the europeans they're putting enormous pressure on other countries uh vance is off to india for
03:18example trying to negotiate some kind of deal with india which will also supposedly try to make india cut its
03:26links links with um china uh there's been pressure on vietnam there's been pressure on all sorts of
03:32countries there is only one country in my opinion that ultimately matters in this and that is russia because
03:44if you're talking about isolating china what that really means is yes you can limit the number of
03:53countries that receive chinese exports but i think that there is a misunderstanding here and i've been
04:01looking at the figures now in great detail there is a misunderstanding about the importance of exports
04:08for the chinese economy there's this belief that china restricts consumption in order to um export more
04:17china does restrict consumption to some extent but people overlook the fact that consumption in china
04:23has increased enormously over the last 30 years as chinese living standards have grown so
04:31china doesn't depend on exports to anything like the same extent that it once did apparently exports now
04:41count for something like well there's different arguments but the current account the chinese current
04:47account account is around 2.2 percent of china's gdp china does depend on imports of certain special
05:00materials it needs to import oil it needs to import gas and gas looks like it's going to become
05:08increasingly important is of course already a major producer of various important minerals and rare earths
05:17but it still needs to import huge quantities of them from third parties the most important of these again
05:25is russia russia is in a position to provide all of that as for in a position to provide all the food
05:33that china needs there are gaps soybeans being one but even there the russians apparently are looking to
05:41increase production to increase production of soybeans the russians together with their central asian
05:46central asian friends can provide china with cotton all of those things that the chinese need so that is the real
05:56relationship that matters for china and in order for this policy of isolating china to succeed
06:07at least i don't know whether it can even succeed but for it to have any chance of succeeding you need
06:15somehow to get the russians to detach the russians from the chinese now this goes all the way back to an
06:22article that i remember reading back in 2021 in the website of the atlantic council which made exactly
06:29all of these points that the key country is russia you're going to take on china this article was very
06:35key taking on china if you're going to take on china you need to detach russia from china and it spoke about
06:44making concessions to russia opening up the american economy giving sanctions relief allowing some concessions
06:52to the russians in uh eastern europe which meant of course ukraine the russians said no they were not
07:00prepared to go down that route the ukraine war followed there was an attempted regime change that
07:08didn't succeed we can see that some neocons at least have been again open to some kind of relationship with
07:16russia um to reopening some kind of relationship with russia but on their terms the russians however
07:27don't seem to be interested the chinese understand that this relationship with russia is now a critically
07:37important to them um xi xinping is on his way to moscow in may and the reports now are that china is
07:45now going to finally conclude that deal to import russian gas raw materials and other things it's
07:53already importing russian gas through power of siberia one but the chinese ambassador to russia
07:59has now basically said that um power of siberia two is almost agreed and will be finalized very soon
08:08i personally would not be surprised i'm not predicting it but i would not be surprised if we get an
08:15agreement on power of siberia two when xi xinping is in moscow
08:23the uh the strategic uh mistake the catastrophic strategic mistake of uh the conflict in ukraine
08:32was pushing russia and china together yes end of story correct yeah and so and so understanding
08:41that you've pushed russia and china together or you can make the argument that you you accelerated
08:49the the uh the uh the alliance the de facto alliance of uh russia and china they don't call
08:56it an alliance but no that's pretty much what what it is in a way um this this would have prohibited you
09:04as the united states understanding this from uh launching this tariff trade war with china i mean
09:12the fact that this happened until this can be resolved until you can resolve things with russia
09:18you can't really go after china can you well that's right which perhaps brings us back to why the idea was
09:26to try to gain peace in ukraine in the first hundred days of trump's presidency uh the idea was you needed
09:35those hundred days to sort out the relationship with the russians that would then distance the russians
09:41from the chinese you get all of these great trade agreements done with the russians and then you could
09:46slap sanction the tariffs from china launch your economic war on china and all would be well yeah but can i
09:53ask you a question a question on that if if that was i mean that that is the strategy but you would
09:59think that if if that is the case and and your main target now has become china you you would not look to
10:08to try and and um you would you would not go with with with the kellogg plan is what i'm trying to say you
10:19would basically you would say you know what russia what do you guys want we'll give it to you yeah
10:27and for you ukraine would be irrelevant as the united states well it serves no no no interest to
10:34you anymore because what you're saying is we're going after china now we absolutely need russia on
10:41side or at least to a certain extent we need to somehow normalize relations with russia if we're
10:47going to take on china so you know ukraine well you know we we tried to take out uh russia first
10:56by ukraine it didn't work now we're pivoting to china whatever russia wants with with ukraine we'll
11:04give it because um you know we can't we can't get out of uh we can't go after china without getting out of
11:10the the mess that we're in with uh with project uh ukraine well there are people who made exactly
11:17that point in the united states steve bannon is one now steve bannon has always been hostile to china
11:23for various reasons not consistently so i mean he's he's he's spoken sometimes about china in rather more
11:31sympathetic ways but he's consistently said that the what the united states needs to do is sort out
11:37issues with russia so that he cannot basically sever this relationship with china and it shouldn't
11:44have wasted its time in trying to broker a peace agreement in ukraine that's a complete waste of
11:52time and um you know energy and resources just just end this connection to ukraine let ukraine take
12:00care of itself establish that relationship with russia and isolate china that way i think that was the plan
12:07now um the the trouble is in washington nothing ever really works like this because there are all of
12:14these different different competing factions there there's the neocon factions which don't want to make
12:23those sort of concessions uh to the russians not the substantive concessions they want they they
12:29want they also they're already too invested in ukraine anyway to simply pull out of it they think that
12:39pulling out of ukraine would be a major blow to um us prestige they think the russians are much much
12:47weaker than they really are they persuade themselves that the russians are desperate to get back into a good
12:54relationship with the united states that they're under enormous pressure and their economy and all
12:59of that kind of thing and they also make the assumption this is very common amongst americans by
13:05the way that the russians are very very restless about being dominated by china to the extent so that they are so
13:15that they are looking for some means to escape china's embrace so they come back these people come back and
13:24they say well look we don't really need to go all the way that steve bannon says we we can get a deal
13:30with the russians but we know we don't sell them everything we don't give hand over ukraine to them
13:39we we get the deal done and it's a deal that looks reasonable to us which of course the russians will
13:45accept but of course they don't really take into account what the russians are really thinking
13:50and what they're saying because that's not what neocons do neocons never really interest themselves
13:57in what is being said by the other side so that's why this whole thing has failed it would fail anyway
14:06there is no conceivable way that the russians would sacrifice their relationship with china
14:13in the kind of way that some people in washington appear to think and um they've made that clear
14:20many many times that they are fully committed to bricks and all that it means that they don't expect
14:28sanctions on them to be lifted anyway putin made a big speech about this on the 18th of march when you
14:35spoke to the industrialists i don't think enough people in washington are listening and that's always the
14:42trouble i don't think anyone's listening no i think they're stuck in in their beliefs about russia
14:48and they're stuck in their beliefs about china china well and in the middle of it all you have trump
14:55who as i said i think is pulled in all kinds of different directions the trouble with trump
15:01i get to say this is i don't think he's the sort of person who has the ability to sit and go through
15:07all of the paperwork for 15 hours a day working through it getting a real understanding of what
15:14it all means um engaging in detailed discussions with the chinese and with the russians and moving
15:22the process forward and unfortunately the result is that just as happened during the first term we see all
15:29kinds of shifts in direction all the time depending on who at any particular moment has trump's um you
15:37know is able i mean trump seems to have a tendency to go with the person he last speaks to which by the
15:46way is a phenomenon i watch i've seen happen many many times not a sign of weakness or indecision or um in
15:53lack of intelligence by the way it's it's a product of inexperience you have the neocons for one are
15:59always very skilled at giving putting together very impressive arguments now what he's got is what
16:07what i think he's got to start to see is this firstly to the extent that his entire strategy
16:16hinges hinges on russia because it it's becoming increasingly clear to me that it does and i think
16:23he has understood that i mean he's got to make up with the russians at some point even if he can't do it
16:31now i mean if he wants some leverage over china he's got to get some kind of agreement with the russians
16:41but i think he's also got to also understand that all of these people who surround him who are
16:48viscerally hostile to china which by the way i don't believe he is just to say i mean he's spoken
16:56he got on well with xi jinping as he's pointed out many times he doesn't seem to have this general
17:02antipathy to china that many other people around him do he's got to get past the point of seeing this
17:10as a kind of zero-sum game between the united states and china a geostrategic victory over china
17:18he's got to go back to that policy he was following in the first in his first term of negotiating the
17:25strategic divorce i think the chinese are up for it by the way i don't think they want to be so involved
17:34in the united states anymore um it worked for them very well in the 90s and the early 2000s
17:41over the last 10 years it's given them nothing given them nothing but trouble yeah it's just
17:46interesting that uh the the plan was we can russia uh we can russia then go after china you could get
17:53rid of russia first then you have a clear path to going after china and getting rid of china that was
17:58the neocon plan and now it seems that uh that in order to to fix things you need to uh to make up
18:06with russia in order to to uh to resolve things with china just everything just turned out in a
18:14completely upside down backwards way then the neocons had planned which is always the case yes i mean what
18:22what the u.s needs to do is stop thinking of the world as a chessboard this is this is the great
18:33mistake that is made in which you know um you you're constantly maneuvering pieces on this chessboard
18:40in some kind of very intricate game in order to to try to sort of checkmate the other side
18:48international relations isn't about that at all interact international relations as rubia by the
18:54way appeared to acknowledge in that very first interview he gave with megan kelly is about
19:01finding ways to live with people and focusing on your own country which is to say the united states
19:08uh trying to win strategic victories against china and russia and all of that
19:18is pointless and it's not what the united states used to do during that period when it embraced
19:25protection in the late 19th and early 20th century when on the contrary at that time the united states
19:35sought peace with all nations again the apostle of protectionism the man who perhaps much more even
19:43than alexander hamilton was the person who set the united states on a policy of protectionism
19:50abraham lincoln he that only was his policy whilst he was president and it was repeatedly his policy
19:56by the way but he also set it out when he said you're just a lasting peace between ourselves and all
20:04all nations and that's the correct policy for the united states to follow today not one in which you
20:12know that they worry about what goes on in um you know one particular you know in bangladesh and try to
20:18overthrow the government there or worry about what goes on in georgia because georgia is somehow a
20:25strategically important country or try to play china off against russia or russia off against china
20:33that's a complete waste of time all it does is that it antagonizes everybody and um means
20:43that you spend so much time engaging in these intricate chess games that you lose attention from the real
20:53things that really matter which is what is going on in the united states itself and of course it creates
21:01violence and chaos all around the world and threatens to draw you into conflicts which you should
21:07certainly want to avoid conflicts which always have immense danger of escalating out of control
21:15but that then is realism as i said it's realism is not about looking for enemies it's trying to maintain
21:24peace with everybody all right we will end it there the duran.locals.com we are on rumble
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