Ben Shapiro (27:18)
Well, President Trump is a savvy negotiator. I believe that he will in the end get to a solution that is peace through strength based. And if not, then the war will just continue. Because without peace through strength, there is no answer. It's true. President Zelensky, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you for we'll get to more on this in a moment. First, FBI data shows most break ins happen during daylight, not at night. As summer days get longer and you're out more, your empty home becomes an easier target. Simplisafe's proactive security stops threats before they happen, protecting your home while you enjoy those sunny days. Millions of Americans trust Simplisafe as their new standard in home security, giving them peace of mind whenever they arm the system. Unlike traditional systems that only react after somebody's Already broken in, SimpliSafe's Active Guard outdoor Protection prevents break ins before they happen in the first place. 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Let Tax Network USA help before the IRS makes its next move. Call 1-800-958-1000 or visit tnusa.com Shapiro so some of my big takeaways from the interview with President Zelensky. Did I get all of my questions answered in the way that I wanted? I mean, I can't say that all the questions were answered to my full satisfaction. I don't know where every dollar is going in Ukraine. I don't know that all my questions were answered with regard to, say, electoral problems in Ukraine or corruption problems in Ukraine. When it comes to the United States and our allies, one of the sort of great failures of American foreign policy over the course of the last 80 years, since the end of World War II, is this bizarre idea in the United States that if our allies are imperfect, somehow it makes sense to abandon them. This is what we did in Vietnam. Our allies were imperfect, so we abandoned them, and then the Viet Cong took over. The same thing happened in Afghanistan. Our allies were seriously imperfect. And when I say imperfect, I mean there are a lot of terrible people involved in the Northern alliance and then in the government in Afghanistan, tremendous corruption. And also it turns out that the people on the other side were significantly worse. And so in determining what's happening in Russia, Ukraine and what should happen next, the question is less whether Ukraine is perfect. It certainly is not. And the question is much more what exactly does Russia want? What is in America's interest? And I can tell you this, what is not in America's interest is a growing, more powerful Russia, because in determining how to negotiate an end to the Russia Ukraine war that originally broke out in 2014 with the Russian takeover of Donbass in Crimea and then was reignited by the full scale Russian invasion of 2022 is not enough to try to figure out what the quote, unquote, rational middle ground looks like. That feels like what the Trump administration is trying to do. Find a solution. Well, I mean, you can find a solution, but unless you have a way to actually implement the solution, any solution that you propose is meaningless. No matter how hard you try, you cannot impose the solution on from the outside in the way that the United States would if, for example, we had boots on the ground and we don't want to have boots on the ground. And that means somehow you have to get the Russians to the table. Both sides need to be at the table. The Ukrainians are at the table, The Russians are not at the table. Now, we are not the dominant force in the region, nor do we want to be. However, the Ukrainians being at the Table means that it's now time for the Russians to come to the table. So how do you get them to the table? If Vladimir Zelensky, as he talked about in this interview, he's already agreed to an immediate 30 day ceasefire. The Russians have not. He's already agreed to a rare earth minerals deal with the United States that is heavily, heavily slanted toward the United States. We already know what the Ukrainians want. They want the Russians to stop the war. The Ukrainians did not in fact start this war. They did not cross a Russian border. They want security guarantees, more durable security guarantees than the ones they gave in 1994 to give up their nuclear weapons. The Ukrainians want security guarantees that are material realities, not just promises. Again, the Ukrainians have already figured out that European and American promises tend to fade over time. They gave up their own nuclear weapons for a promise that the US and UK would respect Ukrainian territorial sovereignty and it didn't work out for, for them very well. The Ukrainians want the freedom to pursue a closer relationship with the EU and NATO. Again, that makes sense because again, the Russians continue to press, so the Ukrainians want to press back the other way. What Vladimir Zelensky basically wants here is what happened at the end of the Korean War and Armistice in 1953. South Korea and North Korea, the two sides, they drew a demilitarized zone. They agreed to cessation of hostilities and repatriation of PoWs. And then the war ended. Now, officially, the war is still happening. Okay? But in practice, the war ended because North Korea understands if it walks over the South Korean border, it will be obliterated, partially by the way, because American troops are stationed on that border. Now the Ukrainians are not asking for American troops stationed on their border. They want security guarantees. They want probably some European force. We know what the Ukrainians want. We know what they want. They're ready for an armistice today. They're at the table. The real question in all of this, the question that people do not want to ask because they don't like the answer, is what exactly do the Russians want? What would get the Russians to the table? Well, here's the thing. We actually know what the Russians want. According to a speech that Vladimir Putin made last June. He wants one, no NATO membership for Ukraine ever. Two, Ukrainian recognition of Crimea and Donbass's Russian territory. Three, Ukraine's demilitarization and what he calls denazification. What he really means is he wants the installation of a puppet regime in Kiev and for the lifting of all anti Russia sanctions. I mean, that is just called surrender. Now, Ukraine can't surrender her entire government and autonomy and live at the whim of Vladimir Putin, who has killed literally tens of thousands of Ukrainians in an aggressive war and kidnapped tens of thousands of Ukrainian children into Russia. So again, I ask, what would get Russia to the table? Now, Steve Witkoff, the supposedly magical negotiator that President Trump has deployed to Iran, Gaza, Ukraine, seems to think that either Ukraine is the problem or that Russia can be wheedled into dropping its core demands that if you tweet hard enough at them, suddenly Vladimir Putin becomes friendly. Now, he and the administration are threatening to walk away from negotiations if the two sides don't come together. This misses the entire point. Russia would love for that to happen. They want the war to continue because what Russia is saying is they want negotiation, and that's code. They don't actually want negotiation. They want a continuation. What they want is to either take giant chunks out of Ukraine and until they eat the whole thing over time, or they want the war to continue until the west gives way. Why? Because Ukraine is extraordinarily key to Russia's entire vision of itself as an empire. And that empire is geared in absolutely irremediable fashion against the United States of America. See, Vladimir Putin sees the west as irredeemably, decadent, directed at containing the aspirations of the Russian people. So in November 2024, he gave a speech that at the Valley Club in Moscow. And there he said, quote, the peril lies in the imposition of totalitarian ideologies and making them the norm, as exemplified by the current state of Western liberalism. This modern Western liberalism, in my view, has degenerated into extreme intolerance and aggression towards any alternative or sovereign and independent thought. Russia's role is certainly not limited to protecting and preserving itself. It may sound a bit grand, but Russia's very existence guarantees that the world will retain its wide color gamut, diversity and complexity, which is the key to successful development. That's a direct quote from Putin. Now, that sounds pretty hypocritical coming from Putin talking about the tyranny of Western liberalism and his desire for a thousand flowers to bloom. He's one of the most repressive dictators on planet Earth. He's a man who has launched aggressive war against multiple neighbors and supports terrorist regimes across the globe. And Putin's take on Ukraine in the same speech sounds like the absolute photo negative of reality. Here's what he said in that speech. Again, this is just last year, quote, today they have been using Ukraine and its people as a tool by cynically pitching them against Russians and turning them into cannon fodder, all while parroting about a European choice. We are committed to creating conditions for a long term resolution so that Ukraine can ultimately become an independent sovereign state, not a tool in the hands of third countries that is used for their interests. He's accusing the west of using Ukraine as a tool against Russia. But it's Putin who has repeatedly invaded Ukraine, not the West. He wishes Ukraine to be a permanent tool in his hands. This all sounds like fantasy. It doesn't make a lot of sense on his face. What he's saying, however, does make a sort of perverse sense if you understand its philosophical underpinning. To understand what exactly Putin is saying, you actually have to examine the work of the man known as Vladimir Putin's brain, this guy named Alexander Dugin. I've spent a fair bit of time reading Dugin's work because you can't actually understand your geopolitical enemies until you study them. And there's no question that Dugin is an enemy of the United States. He openly says as much. Dugin got his start as the co founder of the National Bolshevik Party. This is a party that started in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was essentially a fascist party calling for restored Russian empire and centralized economics. The flag of the party was literally a mashup of the Soviet flag and the Nazi flag. While Dugin was working with the NBP in 1997, he wrote a seminal book called Foundations of Geopolitics. That book was then apparently used as a textbook at the Russian General Staff Academy. So, so Dugan's theory is essentially this. He says the world is split between what he terms tellurocracy, which is land power, and thalassocracy, which is maritime power. Tellurocracies are characterized, quote, at the civilizational level by collectivism and hierarchy. Thalassocracies are characterized by nomadism. He says, quote, the individual, as the most mobile part of the collective, is elevated to the highest value, while ethical and legal norms become diluted, relative immobile. In short, tellurocracy, land power. Russia, as we'll see, is about faith, land and the collective. Thalassocracy is about secularism, globalism. The individual is all. Dugin's theory. These powers correspond to the power of what he calls Eurasia, centered around Russia and Atlanticist power, centered around America. Now, according to Dugin, the Atlanticist power, predominantly the United States in the aftermath of World War II, has sought to expand its hegemony in the quote unquote rimlands. The rimlands are the areas that surround Russia so as to create a new Mondialist New world order. Now we should pause here for a moment to point out that this is nonsense. America is not in fact some sort of secular leftist entity on the world stage. America has very much been characterized throughout its history by both religious belief and meritocracy, which is a form of earned hierarchy. Furthermore, it was American hegemony in the aftermath of World War II that prevented the collapse of the Western world into the absolute secular barbarity of Soviet Communism. The Soviets were secularists. But for Dugin to explain why America has to be confronted, he has to straw man America and completely rewrite global history. America must instead now become the evil imperialist power hell bent on global domination. American hegemony must be treated as some sort of effort by left minded globalists to flatten religion and export left wing social values. In order to rewrite history. Then Dugin has to unspool a theory containing references to the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission. It's a theory that would make Alex Jones blush. Meanwhile, Russia, a spiritual being, not a country. That's what he calls it is what he calls the axis of history because, quote, only Russia can speak on behalf of Heartland with full geopolitical foundation. Russia acts as a sort of spiritual force in the world. According to Alexander Dugan Van R. Putin's brain. Quote, the Russian people, I. E. Russia, are endowed with with a particular type of religiosity and culture which differ sharply from the Catholic Protestant West. By the way, we should make a note there. Many of the people who are religious in the Catholic Protestant west seem to believe they have common cause with the Russians. Dugin is saying no. He is saying that Russia differs sharply from the Catholic Protestant west and from the post Christian civilization that has developed there. Russia's cultural and geopolitical antithesis should be taken to be the west as a whole and not just one of its constituent countries. Quote it is not a question of an infinite expansion of the Russian living space, but the establishment of a special Russian type of worldview which is accentuated eschatologically and claims to be the last word in earthly history. This is the supreme supremacy of the nation as a God bearing people. Consequently, theoretically, there is no people, culture or territory on the planet whose fate and path would be indifferent to the Russian consciousness. This manifests itself in the unshakable belief of Russians in The final triumph of truth, spirit and justice, not only within the Russian state, but but everywhere. To deprive the Russians of this eschatological faith is tantamount to their spiritual scoping. Russians care about everything and everyone. And therefore, in the final analysis, the interests of the Russian people are not limited to the Russian ethnos, the Russian Empire, or even the whole of Eurasia. This transcendent aspect of the Russian nation needs to be taken into account when developing a future geopolitical strategy. Unquote. Okay, now, if that sounds crazily messianic, that's because it is. What does this mean in practical terms? It means, according to Dugin, Russia is an empire with global aspirations, and it must be an empire. As Dugin states, quote, russia is the geographical axis of history which simply cannot fail to fulfill its geopolitical destiny, regardless of external and transitory factors. He says the Russian people are so connected with geopolitical reality that space itself, its experience, its awareness, its spiritual perception have shaped the psychology of the people, becoming one of the most important definitions of its identity, of its essence. Unlike Rome, the first Rome, Moscow and Russia have in their imperial impulse a deep teleological, eschatological meaning. Eschatological means like the end of times. The status of regional power, according to Dugin, denies Russia its aspirations. It's not enough to say, Russia, you know what? You can exist in your own sphere of power and that's it. According to Dugin, that's not enough. That would be, quote, unquote, tantamount to suicide for the Russian nation. If we were to relegate Russia to the status of regional power, that would reverse, quote, the vector of Russian history. Russia as a regional power would represent a repudiation of that deep impulse of the nation which lies at the heart of its highest and deepest identity. The loss of imperial scale for Russians means the end and failure of their participation in civilization, the defeat of their spiritual and cultural system of values, the fall of their universalist and messianic aspirations, the devaluation and debunking of the entire national ideology that animated many generations of the Russian people and, and gave strength and energy for exploits, creation, struggle and overcoming adversity. Again, according to Dugin, if Russia is not an empire, it's nothing. And what is the big Russian enemy? You know what it is? Atlanticism. So what exactly should Russia be doing? Well, they should be engaging in, quote, the rejection of US Strategic control and the rejection of the supremacy of economic, market, liberal values. Instead, Dugin calls for the building of a New empire, an anti American coalition. That anti American coalition is directed against America, which he calls, quote, unquote, the common enemy. America. The common enemy in his terminology, will be the glue that holds together the Russian led world. And this is the Russian mission, according to Dugin. Again, Dugin is the philosopher who most reflects Putin. Quote, eurasia is predestined to be geographically and strategically united. Eurasia, by the way, is all of Europe and all of Asia. This, he says, is a strictly scientific geopolitical fact. He says Russia must inevitably be at the center of such unification. The driving force of unification must inevitably be the Russian people. What exactly are the borders? All of Europe. He calls for the eventual Finlandization of all of Europe. Finland, of course, was a titularly neutral power during the Cold War that was not neutral at all. It was effectively run by the Soviets. The main scapegoat, he says it over and over, of the planetary new empire will be the United States, quote, the undermining of whose power up to the complete destruction of this geopolitical structure will be carried out systematically and uncompromisingly by all participants in the new empire. We'll get to more on this in a moment. First, not everyone who handles your personal information is going to be as careful with it as you are. It only takes one mistake to expose it to hackers and identity theft. That's why there's a new victim of identity theft every five seconds in the United States. Well, fortunately there's, there's LifeLock. LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points every second for threats to your identity. 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The pole of the direct opposite trend to Eurasia, the headquarters and center of Atlanticism. It is necessary to counteract US Atlanticist geopolitics at all levels and in all regions of the world, trying to weaken, demoralize, deceive and ultimately defeat the enemy as much as possible. It is especially important to bring geopolitical turmoil into into the US Domestic reality by encouraging all kinds of separatism, various ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements of extremist, racist and sectarian groups that destabilize internal political processes in the United States. At the same time, it makes sense to support isolationist tendencies in US politics. The theses of those often right wing Republican circles that believe the US should confine itself to its domestic problems. This state of affairs, again I'm quoting Dugin here, is highly advantageous to Russia even if isolationism is carried out within the original Monroe Doctrine wording. That is, if the US limits its influences to Americas. This does not mean Eurasia should give up on destabilizing the Latin American world by seeking to remove certain regions from US Control. All levels of geopolitical pressure on the US must be engaged simultaneously. And there's Alexander dugin writing in 1997, Putin's brain. Does some of that sound like things that are happening right now? Does some of it sound like it? Then there's the question of territory. So Dugin posits that Russia should use economic power, political power, and, when necessary, military power to achieve the restoration of its heartland empire, an empire that's supposed to stretch all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. Because, according to Dugin, the Soviet empire, which was in effect a manifestation of Russian spiritual ambitions, was rooted in landlocked status and that locked them in and boxed them in. Dugin says friendly puppet states in European countries would do the job well. Quote in the West, Russia should have maritime borders. This is a strategic imperative for the geopolitical development of Eurasia. It was the absence of such borders and the presence instead of them of a landline crossing Europe in the middle artificially and forcibly, that ultimately led to the geopolitical loss of the ussr. By the way, worth noting here. This is why when Vladimir Putin has said that the destruction of the USSR was a geopolitical catastrophe, he does not mean that he's a communist. He means that the Soviet Union was simply the latest, greatest manifestation of Russian imperial ambitions and the failure of the USSR was a failure of territorial holding. Well, now we can see the importance of Ukraine in the Russian scheme. Ukraine as an independent entity represents a complete rejection of Alexander Dugin and Vladimir Putin's entire theory, from Russian identity to the messianic dream to the geopolitical desire for control of the rimlands. Ukraine being a rimland, Dugin argues, remember, this is all the way back in 1997. This is almost three decades ago. Quote Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical sense. It has no special cultural heritage, no geographical uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness. The historical meaning of Ukraine is reflected in its very name, Ukraine, I. E. Outskirts, border, territories. Ukraine, according to Dugin, has been relegated to the status of a protective cordon against Russia and ought to be abolished. Quote for this reason, the independent existence of Ukraine, especially within its current borders, can only make sense as a Cordon sanitaire as opposing elements in geopolitical orientation will not allow the country to fully join either the Eastern or Western bloc. All this dooms Ukraine to a puppet existence and geopolitical service to the thalassocratic strategy in Europe. The existence of Ukraine in its current borders and with current status of a sovereign state is tantamount to a monstrous blow to Russia's geopolitical security. Tantamount to an invasion of its territory. The continued existence of a unitary Ukraine is, is unacceptable. Now that sounds exactly like Vladimir Putin last year. Exactly like it. Right. Ukraine is a threat by the very virtue of existing Ukraine, says Vladimir Putin has been weaponized by the west against Russia. They were saying this back in 1997, long before Euromaidan. At the time 1997, Russia had no capacity to simply retake Ukraine. And so at the time Dugin recommended that Ukraine essentially be eaten piecemeal, which is exactly what Russia has done. He said that the east should be turned into a puppet regime. That's what happened in the Donbass. Crimea should be placed under direct strategic control for Moscow. That's what's happened. Central Ukraine, he was hoping would gradually be turned into a puppet regime. The west would essentially be incorporated into Alexander Dugin's fantasy German led unified pro Russian Europe. This is one of his theories is that eventually Europe would unify under a sort of Russia friendly Germany, thus extending Russia's strategic frontier according to him at least to the western extremity of Central Europe and at best across the Atlantic. Now Dugin wrote all of this 30 years ago and now we understand just what Vladimir Putin is doing in Ukraine. He's attempting to reconstitute Russian empire, to restore the Russian soul through its messianic mission to break NATO. When Putin said the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical disaster of his lifetime, again he did not mean Communism had to rule. He meant Russian ambitions have always been in imperial territorial that the regionalization of Russia is a fundamental assault on the Russian identity itself. So now you can see the actual Russian goal. You either have to subjugate or fully incorporate Ukraine. The only way Russia will ever accept a deal will be if it leaves open every possibility of re invading and then completing its plans. This is not a border dispute. This is not a border dispute. It is a dispute over whether Ukraine should exist. Ukraine wishes to exist. Putin wishes for it not to exist. Now by the way, Alexander Dugan makes that absolutely clear. Like today he's still alive and he's still writing in a new Book released just this month entitled the Trump Revolution, Dugan makes the case that President Trump's election represents a surprise realization of his goals. At first, he suggests that perhaps Trumpism, being in opposition to leftist social politics of blue America, could coexist with a Russian dream. Quote, Objectively, Trump could become the catalyst for a multipolar world order in which the US Would still play an important role, but not a dominant one. In this new world, America will be great again, not as a globalist hegemon, but as a sovereign nation state, which is still a reduction of America's role in the world, but at least sounds passable. But then the mask slips. It turns out Dugin is not celebrating the end of usaid, transgender propaganda or the rise of a heartland American empire, but the end of American power per se. Because America, according to Dugin, is evil. Quote, we say that Russia is governed by God because its very existence defies explanation. But America, too, has a mystery. How can a nation with such foundations, such people, and such mental disorders become the world's leading superpower? This suggests someone far more serious and invisible is in control. And it does not appear to be God. Okay, so who do you think he's talking about there? He's essentially accusing America of being satanic. Not only is America evil, the only path forward for Russia is multipolarity, meaning that America retreats from the world and Russia takes more power. And Dugin hopes that President Trump will usher that in. Quote, Paradoxically, the new post liberal world order that Trump is building is leading objectively to multipolarity. By declaring his ambition to make America a great power, Trump has inadvertently opened the door for others to do the same. All of that begins with the destruction of Ukraine, a state that Dugin calls, quote, an aggressive anti Russia, artificially created on our borders and within our united Russian world, intended to prevent the formation of a multipolar world, unquote. Ukraine, says Dugin, is the cataclysmic ultimate conflict. Quote, we must win the war in Ukraine, liberate the entire territory of this former country from the Nazi regime. Regardless of Trump's victory or anything else, this imperative remains unchanged. Just as the ancient Roman consul Cato the Elder used to say, carthage must be destroyed. In our case, Kyiv must be taken. So Dugin's strategy and Putin's strategy is simple. Don't stop the war. According to Dzugin, Trump is going to cave. Quote, hypothetically, Trump might present Moscow with a harsh ultimatum, demanding we immediately halt the special military operation. That's the Russian term for the attack on Ukraine. However, this is highly unlikely because as a realist and a pragmatist, he fully understands Putin will not comply. And what would happen then? Trump promised to stop the war, but he'd failed to do so. Therefore, it would be better to set aside such promises, at least until our victory is secured. According to Dugin, after Ukraine, the Russian ambitions don't end. They will utilize the strategies Alexander Dugin has laid forth to threaten other Russians rimlands ranging from the Baltics to the Middle East. They will ally themselves with enemies of the United States everywhere. In Foundations of Geopolitics, Alexander Dugin makes special reference to alliance with Iran. In his new book, he speaks highly of a coalitional relationship with China. Russia, in short, is not a regional power simply reacting to the supposed aggression of the Atlanticists, a la Jeffrey Sachs or John Mearsheimer. That is mere excuse making. Russia under Vladimir Putin is an ambitious regime that sees itself as a civilizational power with a messianic mission cleverly planned and steadfastly pursued. In this battle, once again, Dugin counts. He said this in 97 on the help of the very isolationists he said that Russia should foster in that book, Foundations of Geopolitics. Among the people that he name checks in his new book are tucker Carlson and J.D. vance as ideological allies. And Tucker is Dugan's ally here. I mean, there's just no question about this. Tucker literally had on Dugan last year on his show and praised him and then refuse to ask him a single question about Russia or Russian ambitions because that might burst the viewer's bubble. So I've asked you no questions about Russia or Russian politics, and I'm not going to, because I think it's so interesting to see your perspective on countries that you don't live in, because, you know, we do gain insight, I think, from the view of outsiders. So what does all this mean for the current Ukraine negotiations? Well, it means that America cannot trust Russian promises, especially absent security guarantees. Security guarantees are a must. Acknowledgement of territorial gain by the Ukrainians does literally nothing to guarantee the safety of the rest of Ukraine. The best that can be hoped for in this deal is an armistice that hardens into a permanent cold peace. And that requires a different strategy than yelling at Vladimir Zelensky or Vladimir Putin. It is not a strategy of carrots. To Vladimir Putin, carrots are not going to satisfy his appetite. It's a strategy of carrots combined with intransigence, total intransigence, a Cold War strategy. America stood down the Russians for half a century at far greater expenditure and cost than what we've spent in Ukraine. That doesn't mean the United States should shoulder the main burden of what's happening. Europe should, obviously, and it certainly doesn't mean US Boots on the ground. That's unnecessary, and the Ukrainians aren't asking for it. But in an era of rising power in China, rising aggressiveness in Russia, rising rising nuclearization in Iran, America cannot afford a weak approach that withdraws from the world, decouples from allies, shrugs its shoulders as the world is carved up by our geopolitical opposition. A multipolar world sounds nice and happy and less burdensome in theory. In practice, it looks like impoverishment, interminable war, because a multipolar world is a world constantly at war and endless opportunity for America's enemies. Alexander Dugin knows that, and Vladimir Putin knows knows that, and we ought to understand that as well. We'll get to more on this in a moment. First, looking to transform the look of your home? Blinds.com makes it incredibly easy to upgrade your windows with custom treatments. Their team of design experts guides you through the entire process, ensuring you find the perfect style and color for every room in your house. What makes blinds.com stand out is their hassle free approach. You can choose to handle the measurements and installation yourself or have their local pros take care of everything. There's no showroom markup, installation is just one low cost regardless of how many windows you you are covering. We've used blinds.com ourself at home and they have beautiful stuff. They make it really user friendly. 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So recognize that in the trade war declared by President Trump on China, China has in turn declared its own trade war on the United States. President Trump is trying to find an off ramp here. The Chinese are not. The Chinese see this as an opportunity to draw closer to all of the countries that were alienated by President Trump's original Liberation Day announcement that slammed the rest of the world with tariffs. And China is flexing its muscles with regard to all of its allies like Russia and Iran. According to the Wall Street Journal, in the weeks since the US President first slapped sky high tariffs on China, Beijing has responded with defiance. A spokeswoman for China's Foreign Ministry posted on x footage from 1953 of Mao Zedong promising to fight to the end against US Led forces in the Korean War. We are Chinese, she wrote. We won't back down. The Mao post and other messages from Beijing highlight what China sees as one of its core advantages against the United States. While Trump and his Republican backers are vulnerable to the whims of American voters, the party Mao built is deeply entrenched. Having maintained power through more than seven decades despite war, famine, political upheaval and financial crises, Xi continues to strengthen his grip on his country. He continues to make overtures to third parties. The White House still has not said what actually it's looking for in an off ramp with China. And Xi himself is in no rush to solve this crisis because he believes it's a political crisis for President Trump. In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal today, President Trump's apparent softening on tariffs against China in recent days has buoyed markets. But for Chinese leaders, it only strengthens their resolve that Trump will eventually cave if they simply wait him out. A Chinese Foreign Ministry dismissed any suggestion the two sides are even negotiating as fake news. So Trump is saying, we're having great talks. It's all going well. And China's like, no, we're not. We're not talking at all. Now question why would China do that? If China wants the off ramp, why aren't they looking for it? The answer is because they believe that Trump is going to cave on this because it was poorly thought out in the first place. It was the Leroy Jenkins of trade policy, just charging into a room without any actual plan. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Ji Kon said Thursday. Quote, this tariff war was launched by the United States. The Chinese side's position has always been clear and consistent. Quote, if we fight, we'll fight to the end. If we talk, the door is wide open. Any dialogue or negotiation must be based on equality, respect, and mutual benefit. A spokesman for the Commerce Ministry of China demanded that Trump should completely eliminate tariffs against China if he's serious about resolving trades through trade disputes, through dialogue. So China is in no rush here. And why would they be? Why would they be? You know, right now, they feel like they have all the leverage. Meanwhile, by the way, they've put significant curbs on the export of rare earth minerals, which we need for our own national defense. And this is why I say that if you're going to launch a trade war against China, you. You actually have to do all of the groundwork, the preconditional groundwork, first. According to the Washington Post, senior administration officials are scrambling to stem economic damage from China's restrictions on rare earth exports, as President Trump's trade war risks cutting key industries and defense contractors off from supplies of metals crucial to production, according to three people familiar with internal deliberations. While companies search for alternative suppliers and urge the White House to cut a deal, the Trump administration is finding no easy solutions. Instead, again, they continue to push forward the Chinese export curbs on materials that we need. So when we talk about China being able to really constrict supply of rare earth minerals, I went to our friends and sponsors at Perplexity, and I asked what percentage of rare earth minerals used in military production in the United States come from China? And the answer is, a lot. According to Perplexity, the United States military is heavily dependent on on rare earth elements that are either mined or processed in China. Between 2020 and 2023, the US relied on China for approximately 70% of its imports of all rare earth compounds and metals. According to the US Geological Survey, China controls about 70% of global rare earth extraction and 85 to 90% of rare earth processing capacity. Even the rare earths that are mined outside of China are often sent there for processing before they are used in U.S. manufacturing and military applications. Apparently, 78% of all U.S. military weapons systems rely on materials sourced from or processed in China. And that includes antimony, gallium, germanium, tungsten, tellurium. All of those are essential for advanced defense technologies. So this is why you really have to set up alternative chains of supply for these materials before you launch a giant trade war with China. China knows that, which is why they are now attempting to basically batter President Trump by doing nothing. Our geopolitical enemies are on the march. They are, and President Trump is right to try to contain China. But that means an actual well thought out strategy. It cannot be impulsive. It cannot be wild. It has to be perfectly planned and perfectly executed. Because by the way, even if we boxed in China economically, even if all the tariff regime worked, we would still face down the prospect of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be full scale disastrous for the world economy and for the United States military because the sophisticated semiconductors that we use in our military equipment come from Taiwan. China doesn't have to capture that and then use it for its own purposes. They just have to destroy it. If China were to destroy TSMC in Taiwan, China has ramped up its material capacity to manufacture secondary order microchips, like not quite as good as the top level, but kind of close to as good. They're outproducing us in that, in that way. And so if they feel boxed in, they just go for it again. It's a dangerous world and a dangerous world requires strong and determined American leadership. By the way, this also holds true in Iran. Steve Witkoff continues to claim that progress is made, is being made in a deal with Iran. What that looks like, nobody really knows at this point. Again, Witkoff has demonstrated to my mind pretty much zero actual negotiation chops. It seems like he goes over to Qatar and then repeats their talking points and then he goes over to Russia and seems to repeat Vladimir Putin's talking points after, quote, unquote, developing a friendship with him. I just don't know what Steve Woodkoff does for a living. Honest to God. We need better envoys. Well, President Trump set a two month deadline for negotiations with Iran and he has threatened the possibility of a, of a strike on the Iranian nuclear facilities. However, Witkoff continues to say that maybe an interim deal is possible. The Iranians said that they wanted an interim deal and Witkoff said we're not going to do that. But then he also said he doesn't want to discuss an interim deal right now. He said, quote, this is according to Axios. If both parties think significantly more time is needed as the 60 day deadline approaches, they can revisit the idea of an interim deal. What kind of negotiation is that? We're not going to take your interim deal, but don't worry, we might do it later. What the hell. A senior US Official said that Witkoff and Arahi, who is the envoy for Iran, made very good progress during talks in Rome. Oman's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. After the talks, the parties agreed to enter into the next phase of the negotiations. According to the Omani statement, Iran and the United States agreed to work, quote, on a fair, enduring and binding deal which will ensure Iran is completely free of nuclear weapons and sanctions and maintaining its ability to develop peaceful nuclear energy. Okay, well, if that's the deal, forget it, man. Because the idea that Iran is developing peaceful nuclear energy. Iran is one of the most oil rich nations literally on the planet. For what purpose would Iran need a nuclear facility other than to develop a nuclear weapon? Notice the language there that's being put forth by Oman. It would ensure Iran is free of nuclear weapons, but they'd have nuclear facilities. Okay, well, that's, that's what we call the Obama deal. That's the jcpoa, a deal that Donald Trump backed during his first term called literally the worst deal ever signed. How about we don't do that? Now, a piece of news that is sort of interesting is that the State Department has announced that policy planning chief Michael Anton is going to lead the U.S. team when it comes to uranium enrichment. And Anton is an expert. He does know a lot about nuclear materials and fissile development and all the rest of it. But if the idea is that some sort of interim deal with Iran is going to take place, or a deal with Iran that relieves sanctions, I mean, again, the signal achievement of the Trump administration, aside from the Abraham Accords, was maximum pressure on Iran during his first term abandoning that, abandoning that in favor of allowing Iran a, quote, unquote, civilian nuclear program, which seems to be the tack that the administration is now taking. Iran is lying about that, and everybody knows Iran is lying about all that. And if you relieve the sanctions, all that money goes immediately to fostering the very terror network that we are currently fighting the United States in Yemen with, the Houthis, for example, like directly. President Trump yesterday was asked about this. He said, don't worry, we're going to make a very, very good deal. I think we're doing very well on an agreement with Iran.
