Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff

Episode: Nine Key Events in 2025

Date: January 20, 2026
Host: Richard D. Wolff

Episode Overview

In this episode, Richard D. Wolff provides a retrospective analysis of the nine most consequential events of 2025, assessing their impact on the global economic and political landscape. Wolff places these events within the broader context of capitalism, world alliances, imperial decline, and societal shifts. The discussion serves as a guide for understanding not just the events themselves, but their profound implications for the future direction of the United States, Europe, Russia, China, and the global order.

Key Events & Discussion Points

1. The Right to Exist: Israel and Palestine

• [05:08] Wolff begins by spotlighting debates around Israel’s “right to exist,” noting that while 2025 reaffirmed this principle, it was dangerously conflated with the right to inflict violence upon Palestinians.
  • Quote:

    “By equating the right of Israel to exist with the right to impose a genocide on the Palestinians… both rights have been endangered and at great risk that neither one will survive.” — Richard Wolff [06:01]

• Analysis: The global community is forced to confront the moral hazards of equating state legitimacy with unchecked military action, risking the undermining of both Israeli security and Palestinian rights.

2. Capitalism, Globalization, and the Limits of Power

• [07:18] Wolff invokes Marx’s predictions about capitalism creating a truly interconnected global economy, and how this interdependence cut both ways in 2025.
  • European leaders attempted to use Russian funds (seized after the Ukraine invasion) as collateral for loans to support Ukraine but hit legal and political obstacles:
  • Quote:

    “The whole plan collapsed. A world economy created by capitalism prevented Europe from pursuing that war and may well end it much sooner than it otherwise might have.” — Richard Wolff [09:25]

• Analysis: The entanglements of global finance—rooted in capitalist development—now limit even superpowers’ abilities to act unilaterally.

3. The Strengthening of the BRICS Bloc

• [10:25] The growing alliance between Russia, China, and the BRICS countries proved especially consequential:
  • U.S. tariff measures (under Trump) were blunted as BRICS nations shifted trade amongst themselves, lessening U.S. leverage.
  • Quote:

    “The alliance proved to have been created just in time to blunt the effectiveness of Mr. Trump’s tariff wars. What a remarkable event in 2025.” — Richard Wolff [11:35]

• Analysis: Realignment of global power is accelerating, with new economic groupings capable of countering Western policy tools.

4. U.S., Russia, and China Draw New Red Lines in Venezuela

• [12:02] In Venezuela, Russo-Chinese warnings dissuaded the U.S. from a large-scale military incursion, leading only to limited involvement.
  • Quote:

    “No big landing, no big invasion… Russia and China may well have said: ‘you can go so far, but no further.’ Won’t that be an interesting lesson in the limits of a declining American empire?” — Richard Wolff [12:47]

• Analysis: Further evidence of the U.S.'s declining unilateral power and the growing capacity of adversarial blocs to enforce boundaries.

5. U.S. Military Action in Nigeria

• [13:17] Trump’s decision to bomb a Nigerian village—ostensibly to avenge attacks on Christians, which local sources claimed were fabricated—generated widespread anti-American sentiment in Africa.
  • Quote:

    “The damage to the Americans will be played out in the years ahead. But this was an unbelievable blunder.” — Richard Wolff [14:30]

• Analysis: Colonial legacies and foreign interventions remain flashpoints, undermining U.S. legitimacy abroad.

6. The ICE Backlash and Shifting Immigration Politics

• [15:21] The scapegoating of immigrants, especially under the expansion of ICE operations, began to unravel as public attention turned to frequent wrongful detentions and abuses.
  • Quote:

    “The people began to be hostile to ICE and not to the immigrants. ICE overdid it badly… It's shifted. Who knows? May shift back… but it's a remarkable change and part of why Mr. Trump has to have adventures abroad.” — Richard Wolff [17:07]

• Analysis: The narrative on immigration flipped as communities and the broader public rejected militarized immigration enforcement, signaling deeper discontent with government priorities.

7. Rhetoric & Realities of Territorial Ambition

• [22:03] Analysis of U.S. rhetoric—particularly Trump’s musings about annexing or invading countries like Greenland, Panama, Canada, Venezuela, and Mexico—serves to highlight U.S. neocolonial pretensions.
  • Compared with Russia and China, who (barring the special case of Taiwan) made no such overt threats.
  • Quote:

    “The United States is seriously considering taking them over, saying so, threatening military action on their soil… whereas the other side, Russia and China, aren’t doing that… and it hasn’t been in how the world looks at who is a stable element and which of the two sides is a destabilizing element.” — Richard Wolff [24:34]

• Analysis: The world’s perception of stability and legitimacy is shifting, with the U.S. increasingly seen as the destabilizer.

8. The Unfolding Epstein Scandal and Elite Depravity

• [25:53] The release of documents and revelations linked to the Epstein scandal further exposed corruption in media, justice, and politics—with Trump and other high-profile figures implicated.
  • Quote:

    “What do we see? We see a total depravity, a corruption of our media, a corruption of our judicial system, a corruption of our political system, and a corruption and destruction of the lives of who knows how many young women and girls by these people.” — Richard Wolff [26:07]

  • Wolff posits that public revulsion is transforming into broader critique of wealth and privilege, noting desertion of Trump by former allies.
  • Quote:

    “Somewhere else, lurking in the consciousness of the American people is a horror for the injustice of it all…” — Richard Wolff [26:57]

• Analysis: Elite scandals fuel anti-inequality sentiment that remains difficult to express directly but is gaining cultural and political traction.

9. Europe’s Eclipse

• [30:28] Wolff concludes by lamenting Europe’s declining importance, describing it as a “third player in a duet… a footnote” in the emergent U.S.–Russia/China confrontation.
  • Europe’s unwillingness or inability to chart an independent path—hampered by internal divisions and excessive reliance on the U.S.—leaves it squeezed on the geopolitical stage.
  • Quote:

    “Europe is at its lowest point in my memory… not clear that they can or may already be too little and too late. They're too divided… 2025 drove that home to the Europeans in a way that will shape world history.” — Richard Wolff [31:13]

• Analysis: European decline is not just relative but the result of long-standing structural and political choices; the coming years will reveal whether Europe can recover agency.

Notable and Memorable Quotes

• On conflating “right to exist” with “right to violence”:

  “…by equating the right of Israel to exist with the right to impose a genocide on the Palestinians… both rights have been endangered and at great risk that neither one will survive.” — Richard Wolff [06:01]

• On capitalism’s ironic limits:

  “A world economy created by capitalism prevented Europe from pursuing that war and may well end it much sooner than it otherwise might have.” — Richard Wolff [09:25]

• On ICE's overreach:

  “The people began to be hostile to ICE and not to the immigrants. ICE overdid it badly…” — Richard Wolff [17:07]

• On the Epstein scandal:

  “We see a total depravity, a corruption of our media, a corruption of our judicial system, a corruption of our political system, and a corruption and destruction of the lives of who knows how many young women and girls by these people.” — Richard Wolff [26:07]

• On Europe’s status:

  “Europe is at its lowest point in my memory… not clear that they can or may already be too little and too late. They're too divided…” — Richard Wolff [31:13]

Timeline & Timestamps

• [05:08] Israel’s right to exist and violence against Palestinians
• [07:18] European efforts to weaponize seized Russian funds collapse
• [10:25] Growing BRICS bloc shields itself from U.S. tariffs
• [12:02] U.S. limited by Russo-Chinese stance in Venezuela
• [13:17] U.S. bombing of Nigeria, global backlash
• [15:21] ICE backlash and immigration narrative shift in U.S.
• [22:03] U.S. territorial ambitions: rhetoric vs. reality
• [25:53] Epstein scandal and societal response
• [30:28] Europe’s eclipse as a global power

Conclusion

Richard D. Wolff’s review of 2025 underscores the limits of U.S. and European global influence amid the rise of alternative blocs, increased public skepticism toward elite institutions, and the shifting narratives around immigration and power. Amid scandals and strategic missteps, the groundwork may be shifting toward broader critiques of inequality and new international alignments, making 2025 a year of deep systemic significance.