Why America’s Enemies Smell Blood : CIA Secrets, Economic Warfare, and the Next World War | Andrew Bustamante PT 2

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: Tom Bilyeu’s Impact Theory
Episode: Why America’s Enemies Smell Blood: CIA Secrets, Economic Warfare, and the Next World War | Andrew Bustamante PT 2
Date: June 4, 2025
Host: Tom Bilyeu
Guest: Andrew Bustamante (Former CIA Covert Officer)

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Episode Overview

In this high-stakes, insightful conversation, Tom Bilyeu sits down with ex-CIA operative Andrew Bustamante to dissect the hidden levers shaping global conflict, power, and influence in 2025. The episode explores how nations use covert strategies—including economic manipulation, information warfare, biological research, and alliances— to vie for supremacy. Bustamante brings real-world intelligence experience, explaining how these dynamics impact not just world leaders but everyday people, and offering “spy tactics” for personal empowerment. The episode addresses tough questions about American global decline, China’s ambitions, the fragmentation of Western alliances, and whether democracy as we know it is in jeopardy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Morality and Strategy of Bio-Weapons & COVID-19 Origins

Timestamps: 01:00–10:51

• Bilyeu probes the controversial theory that U.S. funding of gain-of-function research in Wuhan could have been a strategic move to gain intelligence or leverage, not merely incompetence or oversight.
• Bustamante: Emphasizes moral flexibility among nations. Treaties ban chemical and biological weapons, but “people are still developing options”— pointing to the weaponization of space as precedent (02:11).
• Multiple layers of motivation are explored:
  • The U.S. may fund “bad” research abroad to monitor and counter it.
  • It’s plausible both nations supported research, for defensive, scientific, or even offensive purposes.
• Bustamante quote:
  “We allow bad guys to do bad shit because we know they're doing bad shit, and we can develop the counter as they're developing the offensive weapon.” (04:32)
• The discussion shifts to China’s rationale: leveraging population size, managing aging demographics, and the strategic value of controlling a pandemic and the response data.

2. COVID’s Real Global Consequence: Exposing Supply Chain Weakness

Timestamps: 07:57–10:51

• Bustamante argues COVID’s transformative impact was to reveal global dependence on China for manufacturing and logistics.
• “Covid changed the world because it showed the entire world, we had let China become the center of the hub and spoke model for the entire globe. And now we've all been trying to fix that.” (10:36)

3. Global Power Realignment: Decline of US Influence, Rise of “Counter-West”

Timestamps: 14:13–19:45

• The world is in flux—American supremacy is fading, and powerful new alliances (China, Iran, Russia, North Korea) are actively contesting Western dominance.
• Bustamante relishes the historic moment:
  “We are sitting at such an intensely interesting time … we are watching the decline of American supremacy.” (14:19)
• European and Western democracies are increasingly fractured, torn between strongman rule and populist movements, while non-democratic states (Saudi Arabia, Russia, China) gain cohesion and global sway.

4. Democracy vs. Strongman Leadership: A Worldwide Identity Crisis

Timestamps: 15:14–19:45, 45:54–50:23

• Erosion of traditional democratic cohesion is highlighted across NATO, Europe, and even the U.S.
• Countries are electing leaders not for policies, but for their stance relative to global personalities (pro-/anti-Trump).
• Bustamante:
  “The people can't decide: do we want democracy or do we want strongman leadership?” (17:20)

5. The Economics of War: Wartime as an Engine, Not Just a Catastrophe

Timestamps: 18:09–19:45, 36:53–41:09

• Russia’s economy, though shaken, is reportedly stronger than a decade ago due to the "wartime economy".
• Memorable Moment: Discussion of how nations, including China, observe Russia’s tactics in Ukraine as proof that “slow, protracted wars” can be strategically viable.

6. China as America’s Top Strategic Threat

Timestamps: 24:11–27:52, 31:03–41:09

• Bilyeu: Questions if concerns about China are paranoia or pragmatism.
• Bustamante:
  “Right now, China is the single largest threat to the United States … there’s a huge narrative bias in media where they try to soften it, but they’re our largest threat.” (24:51)
• The U.S. is shifting policy focus and military doctrine to “degrade China”—not just general adversaries.
• The "Thucydides Trap": China’s rise creates a scenario almost inevitably tilting toward conflict with the U.S.
• China’s Belt and Road Initiative is reframed as a covert infrastructure for dual military/civilian use in the Americas.

7. Spy Tactics and Economic Warfare: Applying Porter’s Five Forces to Geopolitics

Timestamps: 36:53–41:09

• Trump’s tariff strategy is explained via buyer power. China seeks seller power and “substitution”, trying to be an alternative to U.S. dominance, especially in Latin America.
• Bustamante notes China’s state-run enterprise system allows seamless integration of military and commercial operations—unlike the US separation.

8. Middle East Geopolitics: The Proxy Game and Iran’s Duel with Saudi Arabia

Timestamps: 41:09–44:55

• Iran occupies a pivotal, but shaky, position:
  • Breadbasket of the region, funding proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah.
  • Their main enemy: Saudi Arabia (not the U.S.).
• Iran’s proxies have been weakened, but opportunities exist for rebuilding as regional war distracts attention.

9. China-Iran Relations and Strategic Partnerships

Timestamps: 44:55–45:39

• China is Iran’s main buyer of oil, and Iran gets tech support from China.
• The relationship is pragmatic, not ideological, but key for both states’ leverage in the global balance.

10. The Fractured West: Can the U.S. and Europe Defend Their Values?

Timestamps: 45:31–52:16

• Bustamante doubts Western resolve or unity in defending stated democratic values.
• “Even Europe, even NATO can’t fucking agree right now. Not America to Europe and most definitely not within Europe itself.” (45:39)
• America’s post-WWII model of dominance has unintentionally made allies weak and dependent—now leaving both exposed.
• China, meanwhile, is building commercial/military infrastructure globally (notably in South America).

11. Trump’s Performance and Style as President

Timestamps: 50:23–52:16

• Bustamante gives Trump a solid B:
  • Impressed by unconventional, high-risk leadership.
  • Suggests US media and public are “systematically made ignorant of what actually matters”.
  • “What actually matters is is that person willing and able to leverage the capabilities of your country to give you a better probability of success in the future. I think Donald Trump is doing that.” (50:32)

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Notable Quotes

• “We allow bad guys to do bad shit because we know they're doing bad shit, and we can develop the counter as they're developing the offensive weapon.”
  — Andrew Bustamante (04:32)

• “Covid changed the world because it showed the entire world, we had let China become the center of the hub and spoke model for the entire globe. And now we've all been trying to fix that.”
  — Andrew Bustamante (10:36)

• "We are sitting at such an intensely interesting time ... we are watching the decline of American supremacy.”
  — Andrew Bustamante (14:19)

• "The people can't decide: do we want democracy or do we want strongman leadership?"
  — Andrew Bustamante (17:20)

• "Right now, China is the single largest threat to the United States … there’s a huge narrative bias in media where they try to soften it, but they’re our largest threat."
  — Andrew Bustamante (24:51)

• "Even Europe, even NATO can't fucking agree right now. Not America to Europe and most definitely not within Europe itself."
  — Andrew Bustamante (45:39)

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Memorable Moments

• Tom’s raw inquiry about the cold logic behind potential mass casualties for the sake of national power:
  “Could you see a world in which power brokers go, all right, we’re going to kill a few hundred thousand, maybe a million people with the vaccine, but we’re going to understand how it works?” (06:16)

• Bustamante’s pragmatic dissection of China’s flexibility and willingness to play the long game:
  “If we develop it, we win. If we develop it and it leaks, we still win. And if we develop it and it leaks and it travels around the world … unless we’re also the ones that have the vaccine for it. And then we win again.” (08:54)

• The candid assessment of American and European ignorance:
  “Americans have been systematically made ignorant of what actually matters. What actually matters is not the words that come out of somebody's mouth.” (50:32)

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Important Timestamps

• 01:00 – Opening on moral ambiguity, bio-weapons, and trusting global institutions
• 02:11 – Weaponization of space as historical precedent
• 07:57 – China’s demographic and strategic calculations
• 10:36 – COVID exposes global dependency on China
• 14:19 – The new anti-Western power base
• 17:20 – Democratic crisis across the West
• 24:51 – China, the #1 threat to the U.S.
• 31:52 – China’s timing: “they’re in a stronger position now”
• 36:53 – Porter’s Five Forces and economic warfare
• 41:23 – Iran’s position in the Middle East
• 45:39 – Europe’s fragmentation and America’s postwar strategy backfiring
• 50:32 – Trump’s leadership: “doing more for America than America gives him credit for”

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Conclusion

This episode offers an unflinching look at the realities of global power, showing listeners how covert tactics, economic leverage, and shifting values are redrawing the world order. Bustamante’s intelligence background provides unique, actionable insight—both into what’s likely to unfold on the world stage and how individuals can think more critically and strategically about the forces shaping their lives.

Find more from Andrew Bustamante at Everyday Spy on all platforms.

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Transcript

[A]

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[A]

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[B]

I'm Tom Bilyeu and this is Impact Theory. Welcome back to my conversation with former CIA covert officer Andrew Bustamante. If you haven't heard part one, go back and start there. Because what comes next will only hit harder once you know what this guy's really capable of. In part two, we're digging into the dark arts of persuasion. How power is wielded behind closed doors, and how you can start applying spy tactics to regain control of your own life. Let's jump right back in. According to Jay Bhattacharya, the new director of the nih, they probably funded the gain of research, gain of function research in the Wuhan lab, which is probably, according to Jay Bhattacharya, where Covid emanated from. And he's making it sound like that's a bad thing, but is it really a bad thing? According to this paradigm, if we could make a biological weapon that we could use to keep Americans safe and should we surreptitiously run an experiment on the entire world population to see how well this stuff works?

[A]

Looking through the lens of right and wrong, everybody has their own opinion, right? But when it comes to long term strategic benefit, the only reason chemical and biological weapons are are wrong is because we have a treaty that says we won't, we won't do that. In reality, there's lots of situations where we have treaties and people are still developing options. Look at the whole idea of weaponizing space, right? Look at the idea of a space force. There was a time when we didn't want to weaponize space at all. Then we developed a space force.

[B]

Them days is over.

[A]

Them days is over. We want to. Then we developed a space force, and now the whole world is talking about, like, is it the Golden Dome, I think it's called now?

[B]

Golden Dome, Yep. Which is China is supposedly going to get their quantum computers off the ground by mining helium on the dark side of the moon. This is all probably conjecture, but still.

[A]

But don't forget China launched a missile to destroy satellites to create debris in space. And what was that, 2001, 2003, something like that. Right. So it's already been kind of proof of concept about weaponizing space has already taken place. I don't know why we would think that biological chemical weapons would be an exception. Right. They're in use in Sudan, for crying out loud.

[B]

I'm not saying we're not doing it.

[A]

I'm saying is it morally right or wr.

[B]

Yeah, it's not morally right or wrong. Like, I'm trying to find the edges of. When we talk about moral flexibility, remember my goal, and this is more for anybody listening than just for you, but I am trying to figure out how the world actually works, not how I want it to work, not how I think it ought to work, how it actually works. And every word out of your mouth while it is sinking, my stomach feels like it has high predictive validity. And I just want to keep going and seeing, like, is that why Covid played out potentially allegedly, the way that it did? Because this was people going, yeah, but this could be really useful to us. And if we can get China to run the risk for us, we'll fund it, we'll have them do it, but they have to worry about whatever mess comes out of this. But we'll get the information that we need.

[A]

There's a sinister assumption there, right, that we knew and were actively funding their efforts to create a biological weapon.

[B]

Is it sinister? According to this framework, if we think that it might help save American lives in the long run?

[A]

That's where I think the intersection really lies. If NIH was intentionally funding China's development of their own biological weapon to protect China, that's some. That's some sinister. That's. We're spending American dollars, American time, American money to help them create something that helps them. Yeah, that's. That's wrong. That's wrong morally, that it doesn't serve the outcome of a greater national security for the United States. However, I can see a lot of scenarios in there where they were funding some kind of research, but they were told the research was different than what it really was. I can also see situations where they were funding research knowing that it was going into the biological development of a weapon specifically because in parallel, we were creating a counter to that weapon. Right? That is something that we very commonly do in the United States. We allow bad guys to do bad shit because we know they're doing bad shit. And we can develop the counter as they're developing the offensive weapon. Right? That's how we can. We can counter hypersonic missiles, or we can counter biological weapons, or we can counter trade imbalances in foreign countries, right? Because we let bad shit happen knowing that we have intel on the bad shit and we can develop a counter now. So there could have been any combination of the three of those that went into the development. If COVID 19 was created intentionally to be a biological weapon, there's also plenty of situations where it was everybody was funding the development of a novel virus so that they could see how would we combat a novel virus? Well, we can't run simulations without having a novel virus that we created. And maybe they even created one that they knew was weak so that they could run successful tests in a limited population with a contingency plan for in case that thing was artificially released or accidentally released. I don't believe that we have enough information to say Covid was developed with nefarious intent and tested on the world population. I don't believe that. I do think that there's.

[B]

I don't believe we have enough information to validate it. But whenever one finds themselves in a situation where they're squabbling over facts, I always say eject out of that and just run it as a thought experiment. Because I'm trying to map global power. How does the global power network? How do the men and women behind the scenes that truly wield power, what are they looking at? What moves are they making? Leverage was your first hypothesis. That makes a lot of sense to me because it maps to what I think about central banking and why they. What I call they steal. Just blindly because money is fake. That's going to catch people off guard. But just so I don't have to spend a ton of time explaining it, it really is true. But because it's fake, then you can just print, print, print, print, print, print, print. You control debt and the money printer. You never have to worry about going broke. Everybody else does. You don't. So that all maps to that. But I had never considered before that something like what happened with COVID could have been intentional from a gain leverage perspective and that people are willing to sacrifice copious amounts of people if it protects the Constitution or whatever country it is that you work for. So this is shockingly eye opening. I don't want people to think that I, I just run with it. So anyway, as a thought experiment within that framework, could you see a world in which power brokers go, all right, we're going to kill few hundred thousand, maybe a million people with the vaccine, but we're going to understand how it works? I'm not saying they did. I'm just saying does that track in terms of the type of thing that somebody in that position would be like? Yeah, maybe.

[A]

Yes, I think it does for a few different reasons. China and the United States at the time of COVID especially were not in good terms. Right? This was the Trump trade war was active. Trump was at a high point in his, in his popularity. You know, China was trying to figure out what they were going to do next. So for China, the idea of developing a chemical agent, whether it's a weapon or whether it's a defensive ploy or whether it's just a experiment for someone's PhD, lots of reasons there why they would be exploring medicine, right, to try to differentiate themselves or make them a world broker at best and at worst with nefarious intents. It also makes sense for China to release said virus as a thought experiment. It makes sense to release it because China's biggest problem is excess population. China's biggest drag is an aging population that doesn't contribute and brings down the average per capita of the average productive individual. China knows they're not going to become the world's superpower if they continue to carry a population in the billions. Right there. There are two times as many people who make up the employment base of China than there are total population in the United States. So that means working age laborers. There are 736 million in China, working age, right? People looking for jobs. That's more than two times the entire population of the United States. Children, elderly, working age. China knows that in order for them to have a per capita income that comes anywhere close to our per capita income, which is what's required to make a true middle class. They can't carry billions of people. So it makes sense in a thought experiment for them to say, well, well, if we create something and it accidentally gets out, what is the probability that it's going to be devastating to our population? What's the probability that it might even be beneficial to our population? And that's what we saw happen with COVID 19. That doesn't necessarily mean that the United States supported the release or that the United States had anything to do with the release. But it makes sense as a thought experiment for China to say if we develop it, we win. If we develop it and it leaks, we still win. And if we develop it and it leaks and it travels around the world, that would be the only place where we might lose. Unless we're also the ones that have the vaccine for it. And then we win again. What I don't think anybody calculated was the fact that when COVID 19 spread, governments shut down. And when governments shut down, we all started to see that our, that all of our line of logistical supply chain went through China. That's where COVID 19 really changed the world. It wasn't in the fact that it killed a bunch of old people and sick people. I know a lot of people won't like that that I said that Covid changed the world because it showed the entire world. We had let China become the center of the hub and spoke model for the entire globe. And now we've all, since then, we've all been trying to fix that.

[B]

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[A]

Absolutely. Iran, Middle East.

[B]

Yeah. Iran hiding in the background. What is happening?

[A]

We have. We are sitting at such an intensely interesting time in our history and I am so happy that I get to be an adult watching it happen. Right. Because in multiple data points, we are watching the decline of American supremacy. We're watching the dollar become less popular. We're watching American influence, international influence reduce itself. We're watching the rise of a new anti Western power base. Right. With the. With the combination of China, Iran, Russia and other Iranian, North Korean and Iranian counterparts all coming together to create a counterbalance to the West. What a fascinating time to be alive. It does not mean we have a pleasant few decades ahead of us. It doesn't mean that. Yeah, but it does mean that the world that you and I will see from our deathbed is going to be so different than the world that we see today and the world that we saw when we were brought into this world. Right.

[B]

How dare you.

[A]

And that change, I find change to be a necessary fact of life. Change, certainly a fact. Yeah. Change is something that, that will happen. And the people who succeed are the people who can adapt and evolve with that change the most effectively. So essentially what we're seeing, in my opinion, essentially what we're seeing around the whole world is a question of whether democracy is truly what serves governments.

[B]

You think that's what's driving?

[A]

That's the question really. And you can. And here's why I say that most people would say that Donald Trump is a populist and or possibly authoritarian type of leader, right? I think even Donald Trump would say that he's somewhere in the mix, right? He is not a professional politician democratically elected through blah blah, blah, blah blah.

[B]

Right.

[A]

He's a, he's something else. We have literally watched the recent elections in Canada and Australia both elect far left leaning leaders specifically because those leaders were anti Trump. And the populations of those countries in the moment were also anti Trump. They didn't have high chances of winning. These are two strong American allies, Canada and Australia, right? They're part of the five eyes networks, the five countries that share all intelligence. Right. And these, these left leaning leaders were elected exclusively in a final push because they were like, we don't believe in Donald Trump. And their numbers soared and they were elected. So now these countries are stuck with these leaders, not because of their policies or their backgrounds or their histories of success, but because of their political stance against Donald Trump. Simultaneously, we see a leader in Romania, a leader in Portugal. We see continuing growth across. We see Germany, we see these countries that are quote unquote democracies doing the opposite, voting in strong right leaning authoritarian leaders specifically because they are pro Trump. Right? Germany's different because they dissolved their parliament, they dissolved their office of the chancellor, and then they couldn't come to a conclusion on the next chancellor. And then when they did come to a conclusion on the next chancellor, the parliament didn't endorse him and he had to go through a second round of voting. Germany's all up right now and that's Germany, man. One of the wealthiest state, most stable, strongest countries in Europe can't get their together. Portugal's had multiple prime ministers in the last three years. The UK only recently landed on a prime minister that they have let sit for longer than a year. Like Europe is all fucked up for the same reasons, because the people can't decide do we want democracy or do we want strongman leadership. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia flourishing under strongman leadership. Russia having the best years of last decade under strongman leadership. Really?

[B]

You think this is the best?

[A]

Say what? The best for them in the last 10 years. Really?

[B]

I thought their economy was like getting hammered.

[A]

Even as it's getting hammered now, it's still better than it was 5, 7, 10, years ago, they. Yeah, the war in Ukraine has created a wartime economy in Russia. And people are getting paid more, they're producing more. Their economy isn't happy, but it's better than it's been. Right. China is in the same place. China's struggling with their economy, but they have, they have a collective enemy right now with the West. So especially with the terrorists that are happening right now. Right. Every Chinese working age person is looking at the United States thinking, you are an enemy of China because you're taking away my job, you're shutting down my factory, you're making it hard for me to feed my kids. You're the enemy. You're the enemy. What's that person going to be in two years, three years, four years if they're not a direct soldier? They're going to be somebody who's looking for ways to get into some military role that creates revenue from a wartime economy. You were mentioning this during your Lusitania example. Governments have learned through the lens of history, wartime is a huge economic boost. The big concern that Europe has with Russia is that Russia is not going to stop after Ukraine. Not because Russia actually has ambition beyond Ukraine, but because they can't. They can't stop now that that engine has been developed, now that they're creating 1400 missiles. Right. Why would they stop? Instead, they would find little small ways to keep the conflict going and further test NATO. Right. That's what Europe is most concerned about. So we live in this world where, where this is not just happening in one or two pockets, it's happening everywhere. Right.

[B]

Do you think Putin is so incentivized to keep it going that the war just isn't going to end?

[A]

So I think Putin is incentivized to take what he wants in Ukraine. No reason for him to back out of Ukraine now. No reason for him to stop and even come close to accepting Zelensky's terms. Because he's, he is doing what intelligence officers do. He is systematically degrading the influence of Zelensky and trying to degrade the influence of Donald Trump. The difference being that Donald Trump knows how this game works. So he knows how to extricate himself from the degradation and save his own reputation. But Zelensky is right. Zelensky once said, I will never sit at the table with Putin. Now Zelensky's bitching about the fact that he went to a table and Putin didn't show up. Right. That makes Zelensky look like an, an idiot, as if he doesn't do enough to make himself look like an idiot. That does not help. He has insisted on 1991 borders. His own. Like senior liaisons to. For diplomacy around the world are saying that's an unreasonable expectation. So what kind of leader is it when you know you're your head of the Ministry of Foreign affairs in the United States is saying that the President's goals are unrealistic? It's. It's a complete meltdown of any kind of reputation. Putin understands it. All Putin has to do is keep launching ammunition and flying drones. Fucking dude. This pisses me off. Zelensky launched a one of the largest drone strikes on Russia in advance of the May 9th celebration. The May 9th celebration is Russia's annual celebration to celebrate the end of World War II and the destruction of the Nazi party. Do you remember what his original terms were for invading Ukraine? Yeah, that they were still Nazi. So somehow this country that's trying to make itself look like it's the victim literally attacks Moscow the eve of a celebration that's there to celebrate the defeat of the Nazi party when the original reason Putin went into Ukraine was because he said there were Nazis there. These are horrible strategic decisions made over and over again, if not by Zelensky, then by the advisory board that he has he's taking information from, assuming that that advisory board is even trying to help Ukraine. So my. My point is terrifying.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We have this incredible world that is a powder keg working around us. You have Trump in the Middle east to decide whether or not Sunni Islam is going to support the Palestinians or whether they're going to try to bring Israel to the table. You've got Netanyahu doing shit on his own that the world disagrees with, counting on America to back him up. But Trump is distancing himself from Netanyahu, and that's before you start getting into the stuff like the military. Pete Hegseth, our current Secretary of Defense, has set only two priorities in motion for the entire DoD, only two. One, protect the homeland. Do you know what the second priority is? Degrade China. That's it. Right? That is the memoir. Directing all of dod. Two priorities, nothing else. Defend the homeland, which basically means put missiles on our shores and degrade China. Nothing else. Not degrade adversaries, not counter, you know, political, whatever dissidents or influence from the East. None of that. It specifically says degrade and deter China. It's amazing. That is our world right now.

[B]

Degrade china with the DoD?

[A]

Lots of different ways. I mean, some of it's denying their access to technology, some of it is actively seeking areas to frustrate or waste their resources in third country locations. Right. Countering their influence with the Belt and Road Initiative, countering their support to Iran or Russia or North Korea. Right. Taking, taking action with special forces in zones where, you know, Chinese interests are at play. Some of it is cyber attacks, some of it is space based assets, some of it is information warfare. Like there's lots of different ways that you can degrade. And I think what's happening is the United States is understanding that China is a major threat that no one has been calling China. They've been calling it Asia Pacific, Pacific Rim. The East Asia pivot is what, what Obama called it. Right. And that was 2008. It's 2025 right now. So we've been, we've been sugarcoating this threat for a long time, but now Hegseth is saying, let's just call it what the fuck it is.

[B]

How serious do you think the threat of China is? When I look at Thucydides Trap, when I look at the realities of geopolitics, when I look at being in second place is a lot worse than being in first place. Just like, yeah, we've got to be looking there. When I look closer at the corporate espionage stuff, it's like it's actually pretty serious. When I look at that, they're the hub and spoke of the entire world's manufacturing. And you can't have an adversary who might become your rival. Sorry, A rival who might become your adversary. You can't have them control your drones when drones are how the war is going to be fought. Am I just being overly paranoid or is this really where we're headed?

[A]

You're not being paranoid, you're being pragmatic. Right now, China is the single largest threat to the United States. If that's not an opinion that's laid out in the Director of National Intelligence, Intelligence estimate that's laid out by the Secretary of Defense, that's been communicated by, by the President in multiple policies that have been set forth like it's not paranoia. There's a huge narrative bias that happens in media and other places where they try to reduce it and they try to soften it. Right. They try to talk about decoupling, et cetera, et cetera. But they're our largest threat. And keep in mind that this same conversation is happening somewhere in China where that conversation is saying the same thing about us, where they say the United States is the single largest threat to China. Right. And the success of our people and the success of our long term growth and success is being hampered and reduced by American influence and American activity. The fact that those two conversations are happening in both countries just goes to show where the future is truly headed. Yeah, right. And all the examples you say are exactly right. The, the thing that has me the most kind of unnerved is that since about 2015, there have been multiple economists who have come out and said that the dollar is losing its influence as the central currency of the world. Right. Not losing quickly, necessarily, but there's absolutely a shift happening.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

When we then froze assets from Russia because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, that was like $300 billion worth in assets. That was a huge signal to China that said, hey, if we're willing to do this to them, guess what we're willing to do to you. So now China started decoupling from us. China has its own issues that it's dealing with. But let's not like be coy. We have our own issues that we're dealing with too. They have their economic issues, we have our economic issues, they have their real estate issues, we have estate issues, they have their whatever, we have our whatever. The difference is they have a shit ton of people and their primary target is like 150 miles off their southern shore, where our primary threats are thousands of miles away from us. And it's going to take a whole hell of a lot of professional military organization to do anything against those threats. Imagine a world where Russia launches a limited campaign against Estonia, a NATO country, at the same time as China launches any kind of cyber attack or aggression against Taiwan. What's the United States going to do? What's NATO going to do? Are we going to act on Article 5 and go to Estonia's aid, or are we going to let Estonia defend itself for a little while to watch what happens? Are we going to rush to Taiwan to give Taiwan aid? Are we going to let Taiwan work on its own for a little bit to see what happens? Are we going to divide our forces and go in two different directions that have an entire continent between them? What are we going to do? This is what's happening at the boardroom tables in, in Moscow and Beijing. Thoughts like this, conversations like this, probability and reliability matrix.

[B]

Do you see them as working in any sort of coordinated fashion in that way? Or you're just saying if China saw that Russia made that move, that they might do something?

[A]

I would say coordinated, but not necessarily collaborative. Right. Because what we're seeing is that the, the cooperation that's growing between Russia, Iran, North Korea, fundamentalist Islam, China, they're not agreeing on an ideology, they're not collaborating on ideas when it's pragmatic. They're sending some of their advisors to go help the other country. Like we're seeing with North Korean troops fighting in Russia. Right. But we're also seeing China sending troops to fight like mercenary troops to fight both for Ukraine and for Russia. You've got lots of opportunity for, for countries to get involved in Sudan and Syria where they can test their technology, they can test their tactics. Everybody understands. All of our adversaries understand the United States is, is second to none when it comes to real time war, conflict, experience. We know what it's like to get shot at in real time. We know what it's like to run coordinated operations in real time. NATO countries don't know how to do that. China doesn't really know how to do that. Russia has been learning it for the last almost three years. Right. So that's a very valuable skill to have and that's a skill that everybody's very eager to develop. So what I would say is because we see such pragmatic cooperation between them, I could see a phone call between Xi Jinping and Putin where they say, hey, this is what I'm going to do on this day about. If you see it happen and it benefits you, it would be really helpful to me for you to do that thing right. Or just giving you a heads up. I'm not telling this to anybody else, but this is going to happen. Maybe it'll happen in July, right. And then they can plan, and they can plan in separate silos to help keep compartmentation going. But for sure, we are seeing that all of those countries are benefiting from the cooperation with each other in a collective push against Western power.

[B]

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Learn [e-mail] AI and we're back. Let's pick up right where we left off. The geopolitics. The strategy of this moment, where we no longer feel like a hegemon is it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out if we if I'm running the scenarios and I'm China, I realize that I'm in a stronger position now than I probably will be down the road. So that's the part that that unnerves me.

[A]

That's an excellent observation. That people don't say enough.

[B]

This is something that people have ridiculed is a bit strong, but they think I'm off the mark by thinking that we need to bring some manufacturing back to the US but it just seems self evident. The one that I always focus on is drones. Right now China just controls that rare earth minerals being actually processed. China's like 95% and the amount of the modern world that that controls. And there's something interesting going on with the conflation of we want to be good people and therefore we don't want to do anything that would hurt China. And honestly, I don't want to do anything that would hurt China if we weren't in the scenario that we're in. It's like I think so much of the American psyche is built on certainly people my age is built on this idea that we won World War II. The Russians who we won World War II, we did it by the Japanese were dumb enough to strike Pearl harbor and we just on a dime started making ships out of nowhere and we feel like, oh, we can still do that because it's the American spirit not realizing, no, no, no, this is, that was the American manufacturing pipeline that we just aimed at something else. We, we no longer have that pipeline. It's all been outsourced to China. China is anything but dumb. And so they understand we can make everything for everyone. That was the game plan. So is it just that China can print their way out of this better than we can, that they're more poised to. They certainly don't mind depressing the value of the yuan. And if they just print, print, print, print, print to keep their economy going, yes, they're inflating, but they've, like you said, they've got such a massive working population that it's like, yeah, sorry, guys, over the next five years, you're going to take a 25, 30% hit. It is what it is, and I welcome you to come tell me your negative feelings. And we've got a nice cam for you.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So, yeah, I don't know what they're waiting for. I don't know if it's that they don't want it either. And that's just. That's too messy. And if we can just calmly take over the world, then we will. And so that's strat number one. And maybe it is. Trump is just a loose cannon. Enough. It's like, nah, we'll wait this out. Like, waiting 10 more years. Not a big deal for us. And so we're going to be obviously aggressively trying to build alliances with other countries, because you're doing all this dumb shit with tariffs. And so we're going to build alliances. Free trade. Look at us. China, free trade. Who said anything different, man? It'll be interesting. But my gut instinct is that's what's playing out, that they've got a long game in mind, they're willing to be patient, they want to get Trump out of office, they want to see if they can get the real estate problem a bit more under wraps, build more alliances, beat the west in the trade game. And then, man, if. If Trump's gambit doesn't work, I mean, look at it two ways. And now I'll speak this directly to all the people that think I'm dumb for this position. Look at it this way. Trump loses the trade war and China continues to offer trade to the rest of the world. How is that good?

[A]

Right?

[B]

Whether you're Europe or the U.S. how does that help you?

[A]

Exactly?

[B]

Not. Not tracking that. You get cheap shit, I'll give you that. But China then becomes the number one power, and the only read I can have on that is they just go, yeah, to your point, I'm cool with the strongman thing. I'm tired of this democracy bullshit. Like, I'm here for it. Let's go China. Otherwise I'm just like, what are you thinking? Like, this is the away team. Yeah, that. That's bananas. Alternatively, he wins. You may think he's Trump with the trade war. You may think he's a maniac. But if he can go in, destabilize things enough that he can rejigger everything so that we're in a better position and can afford. And this is the part, I don't think people understand economics well enough to understand what's really fucking going on. When you've got China that can produce everything so cheaply, you can't afford to do your own manufacturing. You literally can't get people to do it. You can't get the entrepreneurs to build the factories. Building these fucking factories is hard as hell. Like you, you have to convince a lot of smart people to go, ooh, I can make a lot of money doing that. And with China driving the prices down, you can't. So you literally can't bring the manufacturing back without becoming dictatorial. And so now you're stuck. Like they, they will literally boil your frog simply by going, we now manufacture everything and fuck you. Like we're gonna go take Taiwan because Taiwan can't resist. You can't help them because sure you, you've got your crazy lucky Palmer and all of his microwave technology and you could try to take down our, our drones, but like we're, we're going to hit you with so many waves of different things, down to dudes with sticks if we have to.

[A]

Have to.

[B]

And we will just overwhelm you.

[A]

Just like Russia is surviving the tech war in Ukraine, right? They're proving that concept is viable, that you can take a protracted approach and you can may at least maintain initial lines of demarcation just with a war of attrition, right? A rapid blitzkrieg style approach. And then once you have the lines, it's only changed like between 1 and 3% since the start of the war, right? With, with all the technology and all the intelligence and all the money that's gone into that, Russia, isolated and abandoned for, you know, a better part of the first year, still maintained their lines of, of attack, right? Plus or minus 3%. So absolutely China's watching that. The only thing I would add to what you're saying, I live and my whole company lives to bring spy principles into everyday life, right? Sometimes it's everyday life principles that come into espionage and people don't realize that one of the foundations for what informs national security policy is actually an economic concept called Porter's Five Forces. So Porter's, Porter's Five Forces, right? Porter's Five Forces is an economic principle that has to do with industry, right? And those five forces are the, you've heard of them before? Most likely, there's buying power, selling power, the power of substitution, the power of new entrants, and the power of existing competition. Right. These are the five powers that shape business. If you want to make more money or, or if you want to start a business, or if you want to grow your business, you're always looking for the balance of these five forces. Are you a buyer, a a seller? Are you a competitor? Are you a new startup? Are you something else? Trump and all of his tariffs have to do with buying power. He knows that America buys the most at the highest premium, that any one of the people who sell to us could sell to someone else, but they would sell and they'd get a smaller margin and they would sell to a smaller audience that wouldn't have the same appetite. So he's gambling on that big gamble, like you said. But he understands like, hey, selling to one American is the equivalent of selling to five different countries in South America. So how long before someone says, fuck, trying to market, increase my marketing costs, increase my advertising costs, increase my shipping to sell to five different countries in Latin America, or I just accept whatever the demands are to lower my tariffs so I can work with the United States. That's the game for Trump. It's just like whenever you mark up the prices on your product and then you offer a special rebate, right? It's the same thing that he's doing. That's buyer's power. China is leaning into seller's power and new entrants. They're trying to offer everything at the lowest possible price because they're a very capable seller. And they're also trying to, to outpace the United States by being a new, a new alternative, a substitute or a new alternative for what the United States has. That's why they're trying to get involved in tech. That's why they're trying to get involved in so many other industries, from electro electric vehicles to telecommunications, et cetera. They're trying to say, hey, you don't only have to buy from America world, you can also buy from us. Right? And there's a lot of the world that's saying yes to that. Right? Trade from Mexico down trade has increased by like 38% with China in the last 12 months. It has decreased by 24% with the United States. Right? So now China is gaining more trade ground in South America and Central America, and the United States isn't keeping the same the Amer America is losing its trade ground. Another thing that the Secretary of Defense is highlighting, why is China so Interested in gaining more trade with South America and Central America because that's going to allow more Chinese infrastructure, more Chinese presence. All of that can be flipped and dual purposed into intelligence and military ambition. Because China has something called a state run enterprise, right? Meaning the state runs the commercial business. So they can put a military antenna on the back of a fucking ice cream truck if they want to. Because it's, it's one in the same where here in the United States we divide military from commercial.

[B]

All right, we've got one more piece we've got to deal with. Where's Iran hiding in all of this so much? What's going on in the Middle east is proxy. Is China connected to Iran in any way? What's that game?

[A]

So Iran is a really interesting animal right now because for about the last 20 ish years it survived on this idea of an axis of resistance where it is the money maker. And it's a huge money maker. People don't realize Iran is the bread basket of the, of the Middle East. Everybody buys all their agricultural goods from Iran. It's green, it's lush, it's got active farms and agriculture. So Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, all of our American allies all buy, they're all enemies to Iran, but they have carve outs where they buy from Iran. So they have fresh vegetables and produce. Right? So Iran is the breadbasket. And then it sends those funds to these radicalized proxies to carry out Iranian interests abroad, like Hamas and Hezbollah.

[B]

Do they just want a caliphate like they want an Islamic state as far as the eye can see?

[A]

Absolutely. It's called the Shia Crescent. What they want is the expansion of Shia belief and ideology throughout the Middle east with, with Iran at the center of it. That's, that's the concern that all of the Middle east, that all the Sunni Muslims have, is that Iran wants a Shia caliphate again. Right. The larger thing that Iran is looking for is to become a sphere of influence that counters Western influence. And they consider Saudi Arabia to be Western influence. So it's really a constant game between Iran and Saudi Arabia. When we talk about the United States being involved, that's just, that's kind of like lip service. The United States isn't really involved in Iran. Iran doesn't wake up every day and think about the United States. They wake up every day and think about Saudi Arabia. Right. That's their primary problem in their region. So they have all these proxies that they support. And the proxies get confusing because the proxies have their own priorities. Hamas wants to counter Israel. Hezbollah wants to counter Israel. Puthis want their own independence. So there's all these different kind of split priorities among the proxies that Iran supports. But your original question is, where does it fit into all this? Iran's actually on its heels right now. Hezbollah has been mostly dismantled. Hamas has been heavily dismantled. The Houthis somehow are the shining like silver badge right now. For Iran, that's not a good sign.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But Iran's own internal military capability is still largely unknown. They couldn't defend themselves well against the airstrike that came from Israel, but we don't know how much they can actually organize and carry out their own IRGC efforts. And most people think the IRGC is very capable. They're Iranian guard. Right. So we don't know what Iran actually can do. And Iran's in a position now where it might see benefit from cooperating with Trump on a nuclear deal, because then that takes the heat off of them, allows them to gain more money, more power, more influence in the region, especially as Saudi Arabia is distracted with what's going on in Israel right now. Saudi Arabia has to protect Sunni Islam. And the biggest enemy against Sunni Islam right now is not Shia Islam. It's the Netanyahu war going on in Gaza.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

So Iran's in this great position where it's been hit hard, but no one's really looking at it right now. So it could rebuild, refund those proxies. And never has there been a better time to refund proxies because Netanyahu's war against Gaza is radicalizing, could radicalize every Palestinian in existence, not to mention any Sunni Islam member who's outraged by the fact that that Israel's been allowed to do what it's doing. Right. So Iran knows that. So all it needs is money and time and it can rebuild more proxy forces.

[B]

Do you know of any connection between China and Iran?

[A]

There are a number of connections. China is getting most of its oil from Iran right now. Iran gets a lot of its technology from China. There's pragmatic relationships between the two. Not to mention that Iran understands that it needs to be aligned with some sort of first world or quickly developing country. And the only two options out there are the United States and China. And you can't really become an ally of the United States unless you follow American ideology. But anybody can be an ally with China as long as you're pragmatically collaborative or cooperative with their economy.

[B]

So interesting man, the US the west is gonna have to Figure out if they're willing to defend their values or not.

[A]

Correct. And decide what those values are.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because even Europe, even NATO can't fucking agree right now. Not, not America to Europe and most definitely not within Europe itself. Even like bastion European powers like Germany and Spain and Portugal and France can't get on the same fucking page. Yeah.

[B]

What do you think is pulling them apart?

[A]

I think it's this question of how much do we adhere to democracy and how much do we adhere to democracy?

[B]

That's interesting.

[A]

I don't think it's purely that. I think that's a big part of it.

[B]

Because how, how has this come up?

[A]

The world really does take its dance steps from the United States.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So when the United States has a healthy democracy, when it's left leaning, when it's focused on social issues, then the rest of the world focuses on the same kind of thing. Right. If you recall, most of the world didn't take action on covet until the United States took action on Covid. China did its own thing, but the Middle east and Europe really didn't take action until the United States took action. So the world follows the U. S. Lead. When the US when the world started to see that the US Was having its own internal conflicts, do we go far right or do we go far left? But we've, we've gotten away from this idea of center government.

[B]

Boy, have we ever.

[A]

Right. So then Europe had to start asking themselves the same question. Do we go far right or do we go far left? Especially since far left leaders in Europe were staunchly opposed to far right leaders in the United States. But Europe is heavily dependent on the United States and they're waking up to that fact. Trump has helped Europe to understand holy. We have exported so much of our health and well being to the United States there. They supply our weapons, they supply our medical technology, they supply our financial institutions, they supply everything. And now if the United States just shut the door on Europe, Europe would be. And they know that. Which is why you saw the previous German chancellor start talking about, you know, Germany becoming the new center of NATO and decoupling from the United States and investing more in their own internal defense. But you haven't actually seen good or bad for us. I think it'd be good for us, really. Here's the problem. When we came out of World War II, we had an attitude which was appropriate at the time, that we had to dominate everything. We had to dominate our enemies and our allies, because today's allies can, can turn into tomorrow's enemies. Right. That's what happened. Basically From World War II to World War or World War I to World War II, everybody thought Germany was defeated and then all of a sudden it had a war machine going. Right. Talk about a war building an engine for an economy. That's exactly what happened in Germany. Right. So the United States oppressed everyone, economically, educationally, behaviorally. We made slave labor in Japan. That's why Japan has the work culture it has. Because coming out of World War II, America basically put every working age Japanese person to like to work 12 hours a day, six days a week, relentlessly. And now they have a culture where they're just, they work all the time. That's all Americans, American influence. Coming out of World War II, that strategy isn't working so well anymore. That strategy of oppressing your allies has just made our allies weak. Which means if we want to, if we want to support our allies, it really means we have to do it for them. Which is what we're seeing in Ukraine. Right. Poland sees that. They understand that, Germany sees that. And they're all thinking, holy, if Russia actually does become more aggressive against Europe, how long before the United States can't support all of us? Like, there are 10 countries that are NATO countries that, that are within striking distance of Russia. If Russia attacks 1, 2, 3 of them at once, it's all coming from one country to one border. But for the United States and for the rest of NATO, there's different contingents in different countries and different bylaws and different weaponry that are all available. And there's different priorities. How do you compare Estonia or Lithuania against, you know, Romania or, or Poland? Who gets the priorities first? Who's more important? Who's of greater strategic significance? Who can actually handle enough airplanes to defend themselves? Right. It's, it's a nuts situation. And the old way of business, of doing business doesn't work anymore. Mm. Not to mention the fact that our adversaries have learned from us and they are doing something similar and hybrid of their own. That's what you see with China. China is now building commercial ports in Central and South America for commercial purposes, but they're also deep enough and industrial enough to take military grade hardware if it's ever needed. And who controls that port? Not the country where it was built. China, because they have 100 year lease on the port. Like what they're doing in Panama or what they're doing in Brazil. Right. So now we have to sit there and wonder, is it really commercial use or is it just waiting to Be at a flip of a switch now. It can take military ships.

[B]

Yeah. Give Trump a report card in the first 120, 30 days, whatever it is.

[A]

I think he's doing more for us than we give him credit for.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. I think he's doing more for America than America gives him credit for. And I think a lot of it's because Americans have been systematically made ignorant of what actually matters. What actually matters is not the words that come out of somebody's mouth. What actually matters is not whether or not they have, like, they like to look at themselves in the mirror or whether or not they change their mind or whether or not they sound foolish. That's not what actually matters in the person who leads a country. What actually matters is is that person willing and able to leverage the capabilities of your country to give you a better probability of success in the future. I think Donald Trump is doing that. He's testing it with tariffs. He's testing it with. With his executive orders. He's testing it with new relationships. I mean, the fact that the. The fact that the dude is meeting with Saudis and. And using that meeting as a chance to show Netanyahu, hey, I'm willing to meet with the largest, strongest Sunnis in the region, of which are very upset with you, by the way, Netanyahu. And I'm. After I meet with them, I'm going to take a trip over to meet with some folks in Iran about their nuclear capability that I might greenlight, even though I know it threatens you. Like, that's shit that Biden and Obama would have never done. They'd be, oh, we. We can't do that. Right. We're too afraid of upsetting these. The Jewish diaspora in the United States. Trump is like, well, let's see what actually happens. Let's see if this helps America. Well, let's see whether this hurts America. But someone's got to at least try it.

[B]

Give it A grade.

[A]

85% solid B. All right. But what's cool about that is sometimes your B can turn into an A. But I've been a student, and Bs can turn into Ds, too. Yeah.

[B]

Ain't that the truth, brother. This has been amazing. Where can people follow along with you?

[A]

If anybody wants to find me, they can find me at Everyday Spy on any social media platform. I have my own YouTube channel and podcast. If you follow me at Andrew Bustamante or if you look up the term everyday Spy, you'll find your way to me pretty fast.

[B]

You are killing it on YouTube.

[A]

Thanks man.

[B]

I hope that people find you there. And speaking of finding amazing channels, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace. Most healthy habits are hard. Meal prep takes hours. Gym routines get derailed all the time. Complicated supplement regimens fall apart, often within weeks. But AG1NextGen is different. AG1NextGen delivers what your body actually needs. 75 plus vitamins and minerals, 5 clinically studied probiotic strains, plus prebiotics and superfoods. It replaces your multivitamin, probiotics and more in one simple daily drink. AG1 Next Gen comes in three new flavors, Tropical citrus and berry. All plant based flavoring with 0 added sugar, 0 artificial sweeteners, 0 erythritol. Every flavor maintains NSF certification for sport, so you know you're getting the strictest quality standards. Subscribe today to try the next gen of AG1 and if you use my link, you'll also get a free bottle of AG D3K2, an AG1 Welcome Kit, and five of the upgraded travel packs. With your first order, click the link in the show notes or just head to drinkag1.comimpact to get started again. That's drinkag1.com impact.