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- [00:00]
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- [00:30]
CNN Promo
Have I GOT News for YOU is back for another season. Roy Wood Jr. Amber Ruffin and Michael Ian Black are finding the funny in the week's biggest stories. Have I Got news for you? Return Saturday at 9 on CNN and stream next day on Max Donald Trump.
- [00:46]
Political Analyst
Is getting easily outmaneuvered by China and its leader Xi Jinping. Even Republican members in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, whether they want to admit it or whether they're saying it privately. Donald Trump and Elon Musk gutting the main source of America's soft power, US Aid, which Elon Musk and Donald Trump are seeking to destroy and just completely rip apart the destruction of that. The main beneficiary is Xi Jinping in China. They, they are already getting calls from our former allies asking for help. The America's leaving. We need your help. China's going to swoop in there and establish those relationships which were built over a long time by the United States. China was prepared for this. They're taking advantage of it. Foreign affairs magazine just wrote an article. Chinese leaders expect that the Trump administration policies will will dismantle the foundation of US Global hegemony and create an opportunity for Beijing to expand its influence farther and faster, writes Yoon Sun. Right here just so you can see how Donald Trump has basically forced everybody around him or they've done it willingly to compromise things that they've said before. Let me just show you and CNN did a great job compiling this Secretary of State Rubio, former Senator Marco Rubio, the importance that he said existed with US Aid which now Marco Rubio is contributing to destroying because Donald Trump and the co president or the real President Elon Musk is telling him to do so. Just look about what a malleable, weak individual. I'm gonna call him a man valuable weak individual. Marco Rubios. This is what his views were before about how important USAID is, how small it was on our overall budget, less than 1%. Watch this right here.
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Marco Rubio
Give foreign aid. We do so because it furthers our national interest. That's why we Give foreign aid. Now, obviously, there's a component to foreign aid that's humanitarian in scope, and that's important, too. I promise you, it's going to be a lot harder to recruit someone to anti Americanism, anti American terrorism if the United States of America was the reason why they're even alive today. Anybody who tells you that we can slash foreign aid and that will bring us to balance is lying to you. Foreign aid is less than 1% of our budget. It's just not true.
- [03:22]
Political Analyst
So that's what Marco Rubio said when he was in the Senate. Much different than what you're hearing him say now as Secretary of State, which is destroy usaid, Fire everybody. I mean, just horrific stuff we're hearing, right? Like people who have been receiving medication from the US Being forced to basically die, not get their medication. People who have had stuff implanted to try to help them live, being forced to keep medical device. I mean, horrific, horrific stuff. This is current GOP Senator Wicker. Here he is again. He's saying, right now, we need to look into this. US aids, a pretty important thing here. Um, so I'm not sure what fraud Elon Musk claims exists, but this was an important tool. This is a Republican Senator saying this. It was an important tool to help American leadership abroad, which America is now compromising, and saying America shouldn't be the leader in the world. Play this clip.
- [04:23]
GOP Senator
I have felt for a long time that USAID is our way to combat the Belt and Road Initiative, which is China's effort to really gain influence around the world, including Africa and South America and the Western Hemisphere. So we need an aid program to match the Chinese effort, but it needs to be done in a way that the policymakers of the United States have decided ought to be done. I'm eager to see an audit and see the sort of mismanagement that the Secretary of State has told us about today.
- [05:08]
Political Analyst
And one of the things we're already hearing about as well is that China and Russia are already celebrating. Lots of other governments have reached out to them. Hey, America's abandoned us. Want to be our ally. Let's play this clip right here.
- [05:24]
Health Minister
The. The pause is two weeks old. This is now the firing of the crew and the loss of the entire capacity for the United States. China and Russia are celebrating governments. I know. I've spoken to ministers of health. They are calling them, asking China, can you backstop these programs that America is walking away from? Can you make sure our people don't die from malaria? Can you make sure that 20 million people with HIV who now, as of last week, stop being able to get medication that is keeping them alive that this can be solved. They've been trying for this, for for undermining the US in this way for decades now.
- [06:08]
Political Analyst
I want to just again share this with you. U.S. aid was created by John F. Kennedy to Project America Soft Power as a way to help the United States gain influence and win friends and to avoid wars by helping by extending Play.
- [06:27]
John F. Kennedy
This clip the presence of the United States as a leading power in the free world is involved in your work directly. The people who are opposed to aid should realize that this is a very powerful source of strength for us. It permits us to exert influence for the maintenance of freedom. If we did not were not so heavily involved, our voice would not speak with such vigor. And as we do not want to send American troops to a great many areas where freedom may be under attack, we send you and you working with the people in those countries to try to work with them in developing the economic thrust of their countries so that they can make a determination that they can solve their problems without resorting to totalitarian control and becoming part of the block.
- [07:29]
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- [09:41]
Political Analyst
And so the Belt and Road Initiative is basically China's version of USAID that they've been pursuing now for a significant time as China's been looking to expand, expand its influence abroad, like this article right here, China has begun to challenge the United States hegemony and Latin America. The chaos of the Trump presidency may present it a new opportunity. And one of the things that we've been saying is China's been expanding the BRICS Bloc alliance of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. And by the way, one of the places that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are attacking now is South Africa. And they're saying that the white South African should be allowed to immigrate to the United States, but only the white South Africans in South Africa as part of Elon Musk's, who was from South Africa. That's what their focus is on right now. But back in the G20 summit, right after Donald Trump was elected, one of the things I noticed and I started reporting on right away is how Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum, who was not supposed to meet with Xi Jinping and in my view would not have met with Xi Jinping if Vice President Kamala Harris or former Vice President Vice Kamala Harris won the election. She was, she met with Xi Jinping. She was photographed with GPing. I have no doubt that in those private meetings as well, not the public ones, they discussed deals that they were going to strike together in the event of Trump doing the types of things that he was doing. Now, one of the things that Trump was doing as well as though he, you know, created these fake trade wars with Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Panama, where all of those countries outmaneuver Donald Trump. Whether it was Mexico offering less troops than were already at the border, and Trump thinking that was a deal. Whether it was Canada agreeing to the money that they've already spent at the border, so not agreeing to anything at all after Donald Trump threatened to annex them, whether it was Panama where they were. Trump and Marco Rubio claim there was a deal, but then the Panama Canal Authority said there's no deal whether they threatened Colombia with tariffs, but Colombia basically did the same deal that they had with former President Biden. So it was no deal at all. So while Donald Trump's doing that, he did impose a 10% tariff on China. China then swiftly retaliated with tariffs against the United States. On Friday, Trump temporarily allowed, quote, de minimis packages from China to come into the US Tariff free. This is good news for anyone ordering from Tamu Sheen. Certain Amazon sellers packages valued at less than 800 are exempt from tariffs. But the executive order today or Friday says this is a pause until, quote, adequate systems are in place to collect the 10% tariffs that. Remember earlier in the week, uh, the Trump administration banned packages from China, but then they said, oh, then they reversed their own policies. Very strange stuff right here. So Trump's Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, is going to have to figure out how to tariff 4 million de minimis packages a day from China to the US which Trump first was going to block. Figure out how to fund a sovereign wealth fund, because that's one of the things that Donald Trump wanted, a sovereign wealth fund. Figure out how to enact sweeping tariffs without taking the economy. Ensure trust remains in U.S. economic data. Decide what to do on the very popular CHIPS act semiconductor funding. Help renegotiate the usmca, the United States Mexico, Canada agreement, which Donald Trump negotiated and said, we got ripped off in the deal. It was the US The US MCA was Trump's deal, which he now says is a ripoff. Okay? David Axelrod says Xi Jinping probably can't believe his luck. This is a stunning US Retreat and getting rid of US Aid that will now open some of the best opportunities imaginable for China to gain stronger toeholds throughout the world. Kishore Mahubani speaking with Foreign Policy, talks about how China is reacting to Trump in the first weeks and how it is looking to retaliate. And this is very fascinating. Here, play this clip.
- [14:15]
Kishore Mahbubani
China is watching Trump more closely than any other country is. And so far I must say, Trump is delivering at least two goodies to China. Number one, he's clearly playing a short term game, not a long term game. And in the case of China, China understands better than most countries in the world that a new world is emerging. And I describe the new world as a 3M world, multi civilizational, multipolar, multilateral, to deal with global challenges. The Chinese are preparing for a world of 2050 rather than the world of 2025. They're, in a sense, running a marathon, not a sprint. Trump is running the sprint. And at the same time, of course, he's alienating so many countries, especially friends, so quickly. Frankly, the Chinese may say, why don't we have eight years of Trump? Because after eight years of Trump, you wonder what the world will look like in terms of its approaches towards the United States. But the final thought I'll mention is, of course, the Chinese are also prepared for a big blow from Trump at some point. They know it's going to come. They got to be ready for it. They're holding the firepower. It's going to come and then they'll retaliate.
- [15:46]
Political Analyst
Now, one of the interesting things I found as I was reading this article from Foreign affairs, which of course is the gold standard, I think, in writing about some of these foreign developments. So China's preparation of dealing with Trump was structured by China to mirror the success of how Biden focused on America's China strategy and how America was beating China. I just wanted you to think about that. China was so impressed with how Biden outmaneuvered China. China wanted to learn from Biden. Wow. America's economy was growing faster than China. China was supposed to catch up and America exceeded all expectations. Fastest growing gdp. And President Biden was doing things to reach out and strengthen American alliances abroad. So China's strategy is the Biden strategy towards China to continue to expand upon their belt and road initiative. I'll tell you who else is loving this. One of the Russian former leaders, Dmitry Medvedev, he's loving all of this as America's power is just completely deteriorating every day. I know. I guess for Fox, they find this, do this like cosplay GI Joe Trump crap, like, yeah, let's go. But you know, America's both a laughingstock and just generally detested and despised. Now under Donald Trump abroad, almost universally hated. And again, here was Donald Trump about a week ago or so, here he is talking about, he wants to put tariffs on Taiwan, our ally Taiwan. Who thinks that? Who do you think that's gonna help tariff Taiwan semiconductor industry play this clip.
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CNN Promo
Particularly in the very near future, we're going to be placing tariffs on foreign production of computer chips, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals to return production of these essential goods to the United States of America. They left us and they went to Taiwan, where, which is about 98% of the chip business, by the way. And we want them to, I mean.
- [17:55]
Political Analyst
Or you could do it, former President Biden did, which was to bring the semiconductor industry here, compete, make sure we strengthen our all of our alliances abroad. But Donald Trump is just, you know, with a sledgehammer, destroying all of America's alliances. We're seeing this happen in real time and China is the main beneficiary. You put this all together. On Friday, a court did temporarily block Donald Trump's attempt to fire pretty much everybody from US Aid as a surgical injunction, if you will. Small injunction. Until more data is presented, we'll keep you we'll keep you updated every step of the way. Hit subscribe and let's get to 4 million subscribers. Thanks for watching.
- [18:41]
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- [19:03]
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