Global South

1. Emptying Gaza: Norman Finkelstein & Chris Hedges

Is it so that we have to start accepting that nothing will now save Gaza? This is a very disturbing presentation by Norm.

Israel, both materially and rhetorically, has made their intent to destroy the Palestinian people clear. One of the most renowned and courageous Middle East scholars, Norman Finkelstein, has assiduously documented the Palestinian plight for decades and he joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report. Finkelstein and Hedges assess the current state of the genocide in Palestine as well as how the media and the universities have all but abandonded their principles in servitude to the Zionist agenda.

2. Agriculture: BRICS countries approve Joint Declaration with focus on food security

This was a ministerial meeting of agriculture ministers, and the Joint Declaration will now be forwarded to the BRICS summit, where the leaders can agree or not. We will be looking at the formal article that accompanies the Declaration.

First Assessment:

This Agricultural BRICS Joint Declaration is the result of a talk shop that did not create anything, but is based on Brazilian Interaction in the UN via the Millenium Development Goals, documents developed by the G7 and subsequently accepted by the G20, COP. I can't help but ask where is BRICS? as I cannot find even one document or reference piece that is not in some or other way of Brazilian origin or Brazilian sponsorship, and drawn from the G7 / G20 / COP / UN Millenium Development Goals. This Joint Declaration is a talkshop piece.

You will find the Joint Declaration available to look at in the article, where it automatically downloads, and I cannot reference it as a link. https://brics.br/en/news/brics-countries-approve-joint-declaration-with-focus-on-food-security

The first serious meeting of this kind was held in 2022 and the result was a document (declaration) called BRICS Strategy on Food Security.

In this current meeting they state that they are building on the Deccan High-Level Principles on Food Security and Nutrition and drawn from the G7 and adopted by the G20.  They say; "We also recognise the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty as an important initiative to promote international cooperation.  Are we not supposed tobe promoting BRICS cooperation?  Again, directly from the G7 / G20.  In this case, they are into the Global Development Goals and guess what, they reference the Brazilian initiatives.

Let's do a high level comparison of the 2022 document (2 pages) and this document (18  pages).

To say it clearly, the 2 pager was clear, direct and gave us the policy and strategy, i.e., the bones to start building on. The 18 page current document, is full of women's equality, youth capacity building, documents from the G7, the G20 and COP. There is very little BRICS here and there is no creativity. I may as well have read something ginned up by the UN.

A segue: with thanks to a small 'thinktank' that we brought together by committed BRICS followers over the past few days.

Why did LULA veto the inclusion of Venezuela at previous BRICS Kazan summit? This was purely political. The previous president, Bolsonaro, we all know, was a Trump supporter. LULA, possibly to differentiate himself politically, turned out to be a Kamela Harris or rather democratic supporter. As one discussion member said, "He put all his eggs in the wrong basket." The non-quality of this Agricultural BRICS document is almost mute testimony to having eggs cuddling in the wrong basket and making up words to describe someone else's eggs.. In addition, early on LULA called Trump a fascist and joined Macron's initiative for democracy. Let's do a comparison with the President of Mexico who has never insulted Trump, always open for negotiations, perfectly courteous, even while the attempt to screw Mexico is ongoing. It demonstrates the difference between those with class and the barbarians. Quietly, the relationship with Russia and with China is being worked on, without stirring the Trumpist hornets' nest and keeping her country together and people motivated with a very short slogan: "coordination, yes; submission, never".

In Brazil, Bolsonaro is alive and well and making hay among his supporters, while posting screeds of emotional pics on his stay in hospital where he has just undergone something like a 5th surgery. Even I felt sorry for him, it is so emotionally done and he looks so brave while sucking on the oxygen and the sympathy teat, lol. The LULA supporters are angry and he is losing support hand over fist. LULA has handled this like a thug, while Bolsonaro has nothing to worry about except his comeback to Brazilian politics if legally, he is allowed.

—

Following is the article, and I will point out inline the overlaps with the G7, the G20, COP, and the Brazilian part of the UN Millennium Development Goals.

AGRICULTURE
BRICS countries approve Joint Declaration with focus on food security

Promoting Inclusive and Sustainable Agriculture through Cooperation, Innovation, and Equitable Trade among BRICS was the theme of the Ministerial Meeting held on Thursday, April 4, in Brasília. The event brought together Agriculture Ministers and leaders from the 11 member countries, who approved and signed a Joint Declaration reaffirming their commitment to sustainable agricultural development, food security, and reducing inequalities in rural areas. Signing the declaration symbolizes the group's dedication to concrete, cooperative action. It is a political gesture that reinforces their unity and shared responsibility in pursuing common goals on the global stage.

[Oh yes, to call your own Joint Declaration a 'political gesture' describes it well.  And the second word is 'inclusive' with screeds of DEI language following.  There is a reason, as you will see]

BRICS countries represent 54.5% of the world's population, hold one-third of global agricultural land, and possess over one-third of the world's freshwater resources, according to Brazil's Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Ministério da Agricultura e Pecuária/MAPA). Together, they account for 75% of global agricultural production and are home to roughly half of the world's 550 million family farms—many of which are run by small-scale producers.

"This data not only reveals the productive and economic strength of the BRICS countries but also their decisive role in the world's agriculture and food security. Meetings like this are a privileged space for dialogue and cooperation, and for building joint solutions," stated Brasil's Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, Carlos Fávaro.

[Note: There are copious passages like this, but there are no joint solutions offered. It is just a weak 'yet another resolution' document that promises the world but delivers little]

"We all wish to reach the same level as Brasil regarding food production. Agriculture is a key aspect, and discussing this theme at BRICS is extremely valuable. Coming from a much marginalized and poor continent, such as Africa, where agriculture is not as developed, it is of great importance for us to participate in this process."

Focused on food security, sustainability, and facilitating international agricultural trade, the document approved by the ministers represents a landmark for global agriculture, establishing clear guidelines for the 2025-2028 period.

According to South African Ambassador Vusi Mavimbela, BRICS represents a strategic opportunity for exchanging experiences and strengthening cooperation among member countries, particularly in such key areas as agriculture.

[There are only two Agricultural Ministers of other countries referenced and the rest is Brazil]

"We all wish to reach the same level as Brasil regarding food production. Agriculture is a key aspect, and discussing this theme at BRICS is extremely valuable. Coming from a much marginalized and poor continent, such as Africa, where agriculture is not as developed, it is of great importance for us to participate in this process."

The first commitment relates to food and nutritional security, with emphasis on ensuring equitable access to quality food for all populations, particularly in times of global crises. The declaration recognizes the importance of the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty to promote international cooperation.

[What is the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty? It is a Brazilian initiative from the G20 that is held by Brazil. " The Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty is a multilateral treaty that was drafted by the Federal Government of Brazil. Brazil acts as depository. The draft was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rio de Janeiro on 24 July 2024 by the G20 countries and international organizations."

And so we see ongoing that Brazil is doing two things on the face of it. They are the convenors and they do lead the meetings. But none of the current documentation is BRICS documentation. It is all drawn from the G7/G20 and COP) which is Brazil's favorite organizations. LULA has lost all his friends with placing his eggs in the wrong basket overall. And now the initiative is heavily slanted to Brazilian initiatives]

The country representatives recognized the essential role of agriculture as a cornerstone for eradicating hunger and reducing social and regional inequalities. Moreover, given that the New Development Bank (NDB) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) are founding members of the Global Alliance, the Declaration encourages both institutions to engage with member countries willing to implement policy instruments and programs related to this theme.

[Wrong way around copout. The countries need to engage as I illustrate at the end]

Among the agreed actions are the strengthening of strategic food reserves, investment in storage infrastructure, and the promotion of public policy instruments such as minimum price support and the monitoring of production costs — all aimed at stabilizing access to essential food items. These measures are intended to address price volatility, identified as one of the main challenges to global food security.

The Declaration also includes a commitment that, in exceptional situations affecting any BRICS country —such as food shortages or sudden price spikes— cooperation among members can support emergency responses, grounded in solidarity among the countries.

While respecting each country's agricultural strategy, BRICS encourages the formation of food stocks, whenever possible, through the purchase of products from small-scale family farming. This approach can help revitalize and develop rural areas, generate income for low-income communities, and promote the value and preservation of local and native food production and consumption.

[Unfortunately again, this paragraph is talk shop wording. Where is the creativity? Where is for example the creation of a fund that could perhaps work on the principles of shared membership, to put reality to the vacuous language.]

Family Farming

Regarding small-scale agricultural producers, the Executive Secretary of Brazil's Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Farming (Ministério do Desenvolvimento Agrário e Agricultura Familiar/MDA), Fernanda Machiaveli, emphasized the importance of strengthening policies for family farming and reaffirmed the bloc's role in building a more sustainable and just future for small-scale producers.

She underscored that although the world is experiencing significant technological advancements, it is essential for innovation to reach small-scale agriculture. "Technology must serve to facilitate work in the fields, generate income, and ensure the production of healthy and diverse foods," she argued.

Among the strategic items highlighted by the secretary and included in the Joint Declaration is the promotion of partnerships among Global South countries aimed at producing machinery and equipment tailored to family farming. The goals, she argued, are to promote dignity, attract young people to rural areas, and accelerate a just transition.

[This I thought was an initiative to strenthen agricultural production and deal with both the quality and availability of food. Here we go into a type of DEI language where we now promote dignity and a just transition. We're BRICS. Dignity is baked in the cake and a just transition? May I ask transitioning to what?

"Family farming is not responsible for the global rise in temperatures, as it does not contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, it is the sector suffering the most from climate change, precisely because it depends on the climate. In this sense, these producers must be included in the transition process — first, so they can adapt; and second, because they will play a key role in mitigation through carbon sequestration, by adopting increasingly sustainable practices," said Fernanda Machiaveli. She also emphasized that "family farming has the potential to combine agroecology, sustainable natural resource management, and the conservation of biodiversity by traditional populations."

[Dear Fernanda, please tell us exactly how you're doing to do that, or are you simply preaching? As you will see in the next paragraph quoted from Egypt, it is the same DEI language and Sustainable Development Goals]

Egyptian Ambassador Mai Khalil recalled that the document also addressed the promotion of women's participation in the agricultural sector, noting that women in rural areas are more vulnerable to food insecurity and malnutrition than men. Empowering women and reducing gender disparities in agriculture and food systems are essential for eradicating hunger, malnutrition, and poverty, as well as achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5, which aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls by 2030.

[Now we are empowering women and girls according to UN sustainable development goals. May I ask, is this a women's conference or an agricultural conference?]

"BRICS countries are committed to addressing the needs of women and vulnerable groups. This concern was reflected in the development of the Joint Declaration, where we emphasized the importance of designing programs to support women in the rural sector, with a particular focus on credit, knowledge, technology, training, and finance," the ambassador highlighted.

Sustainability and Innovation

Another important argument presented in the Joint Declaration is that BRICS countries have the potential to play a strategic role in the sustainable and inclusive increase of global agricultural productivity through the alignment of their industrial capacities with the needs of small-scale producers, both within the bloc and in other Global South nations. To advance on this path, the document recommends the adoption of investment strategies that foster partnerships among companies and universities in the member countries, promoting the local production of agricultural machinery and the voluntary exchange of innovative technologies adapted to regional contexts.

The Declaration proposes the establishment of a structured financing mechanism, potentially involving international organizations, to support projects focused on soil conservation and the restoration of degraded areas such as mangroves, riverbanks, floodplains, and wetlands. Priority actions include correcting soil acidity, controlling salinization, and investing in research, infrastructure, and technical assistance for agricultural workers and rural landowners. To support the adoption of these practices, the document highlights the launch of the BRICS Partnership for Land Restoration, in alignment with the framework of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

[Need I repeat myself. This has become just another amplification of UN Conventions.]

Fewer Barriers for Agricultural Trade

The third and final pillar of the Declaration focuses on facilitating international agricultural trade, intending to reduce unnecessary barriers, promote transparency, and enable the exchange of agricultural and livestock products among member countries. It also proposes the adoption of digital certification to reduce bureaucracy, mitigate the risk of fraud, prevent falsification, and improve traceability.

Another commitment is the potential establishment of a mechanism to facilitate financing for food imports within BRICS, as a means of providing emergency financial relief to low- and middle-income countries affected by rising costs of food and other essential inputs, such as fertilizers and energy.

"The result of the work carried out during this two-month cycle of intense dialogue is reflected in the Declaration we signed today. It represents a political commitment to our BRICS partners and to the world. Above all, it expresses our shared desire to move forward on what we consider a priority: ensuring that our populations have access to nutritious and safe food," concluded Rivetla Edipo Araujo Cruz, Executive Secretary of the Brazilian Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture (Ministério da Pesca e Aquicultura/MAPA).

2025–2028 Action Plan

The event also marked the conclusion of the 2021–2024 Action Plan for Agricultural Cooperation among BRICS countries and the launch of the 2025–2028 Action Plan, which reflects a more ambitious approach aligned with principles that seek to balance food and agricultural needs with environmental sustainability.

This new plan will operationalize the political commitments outlined in the Declaration, setting goals, deadlines, and concrete initiatives to be submitted for approval at the BRICS Summit, scheduled for July 6–7 in Rio de Janeiro.

[A new plan, new initiatives, new goals with concrete initiatives all harvested from G7, G20 and COP. If you scan through the Declaration you will find copious examples of this. And after these two months of intense discussion, we have a weak action plan, that contains no real action but contains vagueries, talk shop language, promises for the future and Brazilian initives. Dear BRICS, get off your duffs and get done with talkshopping!]

… End of Article

My Summary

To illustrate, let me write two quick and high-level illustration imaginary action items for this declaration.  These are illustrations and certainly not refined statements:

1. To combat desertification, we have drawn together a group of experts from X and Y. a)These experts stand ready to assist you in building a local initiative in your country to combat desertification. b)We have drawn together a library of educational materials that you may take back to your countries to discuss locally. c)We have initiated conversations with the New Development Bank, and they stand ready to consider funding for an initial investigation.

2. In order to share produce among BRICS countries trading in local currency, we have produced a produce bank database where we indicate what is available in our BRICS  market place.  This contains estimated future harvests which even now you could bid on.  Let us strengthen our BRICS countries and work effectively toward food security by making information available well in advance in order to create local planning for your country.  Responsible for this active produce bank informational database is (and name the names).

What is also spectacularly missing in this article and the Declaration itself is an assessment of previous failures and successes.  At this stage, I see at least this agricultural meeting of BRICS falling into talkshop mode and borrowing documents from those who have made no material difference in our world.  The incessant inclusion of DEI language masks the vacuous emptiness of the 18 pages of the Resolution and could have been dealt with in one sentence.   It is obscurantism.  This is but the tip of the iceberg.  It is both a political issue from Brazil itself, a profound interference in what should be a positive and action-based workshop, and in my view, these documents are useless.  Yes, one has to look at the available literature out there and not reinvent the wheel, but to coolly draw together a Declaration out of Brazilian initiatives at other non-BRICS international organizations reeks of the brakes being slammed on somewhere in the organization with a severe shortage of both initiative and creativity.

I am really sorry to report that at this stage it seems as if LULA wants to repair his tarnished political reputation on the back of BRICS and this Declaration is all optics and form.  There is very little of substance.  It is, however, time to clone Mr Lavrov.  On April 28-29, Sergey Lavrov will participate in the BRICS Foreign Ministers meeting in Rio de Janeiro.

A reminder:  https://globalsouth.co/2025/04/23/run-up-to-brics-in-brazil-not-only-in-moscow-circles/

3. Run-up to BRICS in Brazil – not only in Moscow circles

In the run-up to BRICS in Brazil, this message is very important, not only in Moscow circles. Let me ask you a question. BRICS is a revolution no? Even though the presentation is one of building alternatives, it is a revolution in that it moves away from a single polar world to a multipolar world. What is the first attack on successful revolutions? Yes, we see the war on BRICS which has circled out to a much wider war, but beyond that. Successful revolutions invariably get coopted. That is a real and present danger currently. In Brazil, despite the LULA administration doing the work of preparing for the BRICS summit, I still note that the most major objectives being amplified, are Brazilian objectives, and not necessarily BRICS objectives. More will follow.

Immensely consequential, and Lavrov – as always – is spot on: the 5th Column circling around the highest levels of power in Moscow is extremely dangerous. https://t.co/kbWbqjdla7

— Pepe Escobar (@RealPepeEscobar) April 23, 2025

4. Michael Hudson with Ben Norton: Will Trump’s Tariff Games Backfire?

Donald Trump's tariffs are benefiting rich elites at the expense of the majority of the population, argues economist Michael Hudson. He explains how the US trade war on China is isolating the United States and encouraging countries to seek alternatives. Ben Norton hosts the interview.

Transcript

(Intro)

BEN NORTON: Why has US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on countries all around the world? And in particular, why is Trump waging a trade war on China? What are his real goals?

Well, to try to answer these questions, I spoke with the economist Michael Hudson, who is the author of many books, and who just published the new report "Return of the robber barons: Trump's distorted view of US tariff history".

Michael Hudson outlined the history of the use of tariffs in the United States and in other countries, and he explained how Trump is using tariffs as a weapon of class war, to benefit the rich at the expense of the vast majority of the population, and also how Trump is trying to reshape the global financial system, in order to benefit the United States at the expense of everyone else.

But as Michael Hudson warns, this is already backfiring on the US economy, and it's accelerating the transition to a more multipolar world.

So here are a few clips from our discussion, and then we'll go straight to the interview.

MICHAEL HUDSON: The United States is the only country in the world that has weaponized its foreign trade; weaponized its foreign currency, the dollar; weaponized the international financial system; and treated every economic relationship in an adversarial way, to weaponize it.

And other countries say, how can we have a different approach, and treat trade as how can we mutually gain? How can we treat investment as something where the investor gains, but we also gain?

So what's happening is that, as other countries are putting in place their mutual production facilities, transportation facilities, investment facilities, Trump is isolating the United States from trade and investment relations.

It has tried to isolate China, but what it's doing is isolating itself from everyone, except its satellites.

(Interview)

BEN NORTON: Michael, thanks for joining me; it's always a pleasure. Let's start by talking about this report that you published.

You outlined the history of US use of tariffs and industrial policy, and your argument is that Trump is using tariffs essentially as a form of class warfare, to move the burden off of the rich and corporations, and to increase the burden of taxation on the working class through the use of tariffs.

So can you talk about what your argument is in this report and why you decided to write it?

MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, it's much more than simply class warfare. Trump has for years been complaining about the fact that the richest people are taxed progressively, at a higher tax rate than other people. He wants to get rid of the tax rate altogether for the finance, insurance, and real estate sector, the FIRE sector.

I think he must have had a discussion with some economist or historian and said, "Isn't there some way that we can get by without an income tax?" And the person must have told him, "Well, you know, the United States didn't have an income tax before 1913".

And Trump said, "No income tax?" No, the Supreme Court ruled that an income tax was unconstitutional. That's what supreme courts do; they try to prevent any kind of progressive social legislation.

Well, finally, in 1913, the Senate passed the 14th Amendment, and enabled an income tax to be levied.

So Trump said, "Well, how did the United States finance itself before that?" And the answer was, well, almost all the US fiscal revenues came from the tariff, from customs receipts, in addition to land sales for land that they grabbed from the Indians.

So Trump said, "Well, they did it through tariffs!" The advantage of tariffs, for Trump, is that the cost falls on consumers. He doesn't see that they also fall on companies that import goods from their foreign affiliates.

But, ultimately Trump said, "Oh, this is on consumers; this is wonderful! Why couldn't we go back to the way things used to be, today? Why can't we get rid of the income tax altogether — at least on my constituency, the campaign donors — and why can't we simply raise tariffs?"

Well, his associates must have said, "How ever are you going to convince people to go along with this?" And so Trump said, "Well, let's see, under tariff protection, in the late 19th century, that's how the United States rose to be a great industrial power. So somehow, tariffs must have nurtured industry. And I want to bring industrialization back to the United States, to make America great again. And I can say tariffs are going to bring back industry".

And what he means is, un-taxing the wealthy people, especially the finance and real estate sector, and shifting the tax on the consumers is going to make the country great again.

Well, what he's leaving out is the fact that it wasn't tariffs as such that made America into an industrial power. There was a whole large program that was necessary to industrialize America.

All of this was spelled out in the 1820s by Henry Clay, and it was called the American System. And the American System was protective tariffs, with "internal improvements" — that means public investment in infrastructure — and a national banking system to finance industry.

Well, Trump said nothing about these, so it's worth saying something about them.

By the late 19th century, the United States, said, "How are we going to lower the cost that industry has to pay for its wages, without leading to a huge round of strikes?"

The solution was we can have the public sector pick up many of the costs that labor would otherwise have to pay out of its own paychecks.

For education, we can have free education — not the $50,000 a year that workers have to pay today in order to get a job. We can have social programs, health programs, and others, to help them.

We can have natural monopolies in the public domain, such as transportation, starting with the Erie Canal, and going all the way through roads and other transportation. Communications too.

All of these natural monopolies, if they were not held in the public domain, would be owned by private people who would get monopoly rents. And the United States said the way that we can compete with other countries is pretty much the way that the classical economists said you compete: you lower the cost of production by having the government bear as many of these costs as possible through public enterprises, through public infrastructure; you essentially socialize or nationalize the land.

"Socialism" was not a bad word in the late 19th century. Almost everyone across the political spectrum was describing their policies as socialist. There were Christian socialists, and libertarian socialists, and Marxian socialists, and social democracy. Everybody was one kind of socialist for another.

That meant a rising role of government in providing more and more services, or regulating the economy, such as the anti-trust law of 1890, to prevent monopoly pricing, and Teddy Roosevelt's, trust-busting.

The whole idea was to minimize the cost of production with an act of a government. And they said that, well, if we can have a mixed economy, a public and private economy together, with the government sponsoring industrial credit — not the kind of British credit that was just for trade, or exploitative, or loans to the farmers — but actually to finance capital investment in industry, then we can take off.

It was this context for protective tariffs that enabled the United States to get rich.

Well, what Trump wants to do is the exact opposite of this context. He wants to deregulate the economy, not regulate it. He wants to privatize any public domain that's left, any public enterprises.

The post office, for instance, can be privatized. It's going to cut back services to rural areas. It's going to increase prices. It's going to make most of the US economy look like Thames Water in London, for instance.

They're going to Thatcher-ize the American economy, to do to the American economy what Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair did for England; or what Reaganomics began to do for the United States.

So we're talking about an anti-government policy, not a mixed policy. And under Elon Musk, he wants to just carve up the government agencies altogether, privatize everything.

What they're going to do is dismantle the country's social programs, dismantle its subsidies, dismantle subsidized social programs that have enabled companies like Amazon, or other low wage companies, to pay very low wages, and having the American social system pay for employees that are paid below the poverty line, because they haven't been increasing the minimum wage in the United States.

So, this is what is really in store for the US: cut, essentially privatize, the government; especially get rid of Social Security, and other social programs, Medicare.

They call it streamlining the economy or making a "free market", a market without government that interferes by protecting consumers, protecting the population against predatory monopolies and predatory finance.

BEN NORTON: Michael, you raised so many important points there.

I want to hit on this idea of the Gilded Age, that Trump sees the Gilded Age in the 19th century as essentially his model for what the US should return to.

The Gilded Age is notorious for the robber barons, these big billionaires like Cornelius Vanderbilt and J.P. Morgan.

Today there are, of course, similar oligarchs. Many of them are in the Trump administration, including Elon Musk, who's the richest billionaire oligarch on Earth. You have the Treasury secretary, another billionaire hedge fund manager, Scott Bessent. Then you have the billionaire who is the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick; he's also from Wall Street.

And at his inauguration in January, Trump invited the world's most powerful billionaires, like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and others.

So one of the points that you emphasize is that Trump is really trying to overturn not only the progressive gains of the New Deal, but even the gains of the Progressive Era in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

When Trump looks back at people like McKinley, the US president, he sees essentially the 19th century and the Gilded Age as something positive. Of course, the vast majority of the population was exploited, and lived in horrible conditions, but for a small handful of oligarchs, the situation was quite rosy for them.

So why do you think Trump sees it this way?

MICHAEL HUDSON: What Trump doesn't realize is that the Gilded Age was a failure of US protectionism.

In the process of protecting industrial investment, you had the financial sector making a lot of money off this. And finance has always been the mother of trusts.

Finance began to lead to a fight over who is going to control the railroads. The crisis of 1873 came when [robber baron] Jay Cooke's railroad defaulted. There were rivals trying to buy control of railroads from each other.

The Gilded Age emerged sort of accidentally, as a byproduct of making industry rich, you also made a lot of opponents of industry rich, like monopolists.

That's why in the year of the McKinley tariff, when he was a congressman in 1890, you had the Sherman anti-trust law. They said, OK, we're going to make sure that the protection of industry does not become protection of monopolies; it will not become a protection of unearned wealth, economic rent-seeking.

So Trump gets it all backward: what was an oversight that the Americans cured in 1890 — or at least started to put in place a public mechanism for avoiding the Gilded Age — as if that was actually a great success.

If only it had succeeded, Trump would say, then, America would have polarized and done what gilded ages do.

BEN NORTON: Yeah, and one of the points that you emphasize, Michael, is how China's model is completely different.

China is following the kind of state-led industry of policy that every industrialized economy has used to industrialize, to develop a manufacturing sector.

China has state ownership of telecommunications, infrastructure, education, energy, land, and finance — most importantly, the financial system in China is state-owned.

China has five-year plans, in which they target certain industries that they want to develop.

China creates plans for sectors like electric vehicles, and they say that the government is going to direct resources into these industries through the use of subsidies, and infrastructure investment, and job training, and education, and cheap loans from state-owned banks. And they're going to develop semiconductors; they're going to develop local civilian airliners.

So can you can you contrast China's industrial policy with the Trump administration's lack of an industrial policy?

MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, you could say, could I compare China's development to the policies of the United States and also Germany when it was developing?

China has sort of reinvented the wheel. One of the first books of mine that they translated as a textbook into Chinese was my book on trade, development, and foreign debt, when I described the contrast between free trade and protectionism, and how the United States developed a protectionist argument to counter the free-trade arguments of England, in order to protect industry.

So, China has essentially done the same logical thing that any government would have to do. You have to subsidize your own industry and protect it, insulate it, from lower-cost imports underselling you.

You have to enable industry, if not really to make a profit, to at least make enough money to somehow be able to pay its labor force, and to pay for the raw materials and the machinery that it takes to create industrial production.

The one thing that China has done that other countries did not do — although Germany began to do it in the 19th century — was to keep money and credit as a public utility.

China did this because it really didn't have much of a choice, after Mao's revolution. How is the government going to finance capital investment in industry in what was a very poor country of peasants, basically, as the US secretary of commerce keeps calling China, a country of peasants.

BEN NORTON: US Vice President JD Vance referred to the Chinese as a bunch of peasants. And this has really angered people in China.

JD VANCE clip: We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture. That is not a recipe for economic prosperity.

BEN NORTON: And this has really united people in China against the US.

MICHAEL HUDSON: Of course. Well, at any rate, since Mao's revolution had got rid of the wealthy financial classes, there was no way that the government could do what the Western countries did and borrow from the wealthy classes to pay for the government deficit in financing industry. So China created its own money.

Well, that's exactly what the American colonies did in the 17th and 18th centuries. When Britain was dominating the colonies, and forcing the colonies to export crops and other materials, by borrowing hard money from British merchants, the colonies began to create their own paper money.

That's how they basically developed.

When America fought the Revolutionary War, the government issued Continentals — fiat currency called Continental currency.

In the Civil War, in America, the costs of the war were so large that it couldn't possibly borrow from domestic creditors, the government printed Greenbacks. But in peacetime, the financial sector fought back and insisted on "sound money", meaning money that you pay interest on to private financiers.

Well, since China didn't have private financiers, it did the same thing that America had done: it printed the money itself.

And it kept banking in the public domain. And what that means is that banking in China does not make loans for the same kind of things that American banks make loans.

We know that they went overboard in making fairly reckless real-estate loans, but they don't make loans for corporate takeovers, of private investors to borrow the money to take over another industrial corporation and just sort of empty it out and do what American corporate raiders and kleptocrats do.

So China has been able to create money to spend into the economy for purposes intended to serve the public interest, to build housing, to finance high-speed railways, to finance all of the public infrastructure that China has kept in the public domain, to offer at low, subsidized prices to the population at large.

So if you have a private enterprise in China, creating a factory to produce goods for exports to the United States or other countries, they don't have to pay the workers enough to have to pay for privatized transportation; they have wonderful public transportation, in the subways and railroads.

They they don't have to take out student loans to get an education; they can get the education from the public sector in China. They can get health care.

They don't have to pay for all of the things that the United States' employees and employers have to pay for. That's what enables China to have low-cost labor.

It's not that it's impoverished labor; it's not that it's pauper labor; because the labor in China is better and better remunerated; but its remuneration is not only in the form of its paychecks that it gets in salary; it's in the form of all of the public services that it gets, that Americans have to pay out of their salary.

So when you realize that the standard of living of workers is not only the paycheck, but the public services they get, or the subsidized prices they have to pay for basic needs, then you find that, if basic needs are treated as basic needs, then everybody should be able to get them, as a precondition for being citizens.

That's basically what happens in China. And that's what has enabled China to undersell Western economies that have privatized, and Thatcher-ized, and Reagan-ized their economies.

And, of course, that's how the United States, and Germany, and other countries that industrialized in the late 19th century built up their competitive power internationally.

BEN NORTON: Those are very important points, Michael.

Trump has been expanding his tariffs not only against other countries — he now has blanket 10% tariffs on all countries around the world — but he has specifically targeted China with now tariffs of 245% — which, after a certain point, there's not really any meaning to further increasing these tariffs; it's largely symbolic.

Why do you think Trump has been so aggressive targeting China specifically?

Do you think it has to do with what you were just explaining, the significant differences between China's system and the US system? That might explain why the US has deindustrialized, and simply can't compete with China's very sophisticated system of manufacturing.

MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, you're right that America can't compete. It realizes that it can't compete. It's treating China as an enemy.

But, regarding the the tariff question, the way in which Trump has arranged his three-month interim, before the very high punitive, disruptive tariffs are imposed, is specifically aimed against China.

Let me explain what the connection is, because it's not clear on the surface.

The tariffs that he has announced are so disruptive of trade for other countries that they're going to suffer — as will the US economy, and US consumers and businesses are going to suffer.

Trump says that these maximum demands are open to negotiation. And he's asking other countries, well, if we don't disrupt your trade by imposing these 40% or even higher tariffs on you, what are you going to give us in return? What's your give-back to us for us not making these demands on you?

At first, I thought, well, he's going to demand that maybe they'll have to sell off some public infrastructure to Americans. Maybe they're going to have to give trade favoritism to Americans. There are all sorts of things.

But Trump has made it clear: what Trump wants is diplomatic givebacks. Every country is going to be subject to one-on-one, distinct pressures. 75 countries, he says, have called him and want to negotiate.

DONALD TRUMP clip: I'm telling you, these countries are calling us up, kissing my ass. They are dying to make a deal. Please, please, sir, make a deal. I'll do anything. I'll do anything, sir!

MICHAEL HUDSON: With each country, he's going to treat individually, that they give America something. But the common denominator in all of his demands is that they impose trade sanctions against commerce with China, and against mutual investment with China, and especially any plans they may have to join its Belt and Road Initiative in favor of US plans to interrupt the whole connection system of Belt and Road that China wants to put in place.

So Chinese officials can see where all this is leading. They've announced their refusal to negotiate with the United States, when a gun is pointed to their head.

China recognizes that Trump really doesn't have many cards in his hands. What does he really offer other countries except to refrain from disrupting their economy?

He's what back in Mao's time was called a paper tiger, militarily. Well, America has become a paper tiger financially today. It doesn't really have anything to offer except the threat of tariffs, the threat of suddenly disrupting all of the trade patterns that have been put in place over the last few decades.

So the most important consideration for China in all of this, in what is it going to do, is that it doesn't need the US market to anywhere near the degree that the United States is dependent on China for key metals, and key materials, and key industrial products.

Most in the news are the rare earths, ores that are refined to make magnets and other alloys that are used in almost every high-tech manufacture today, from electric cars to military, and space things; but also steel and aluminum are faced with enormous tariffs, as well as key products that American industry needs; and of course all of the consumer goods that Walmart imports into the United States and that Apple imports for use in its iPhones.

So, what is really the threat of these tariffs against China? It has already said, well, we don't need to buy soybeans from America; we can buy soybeans from Brazil, instead of US farmers. And most US farmers of soybeans live in Republican districts, because the Republican Party appeals to the western, midwestern, rural population much more than the educated urban population.

I'm told that one of the key US products that the United States has sort of cut China off from is soy sauce. And, all these years, my Chinese friends tell me, they've been buying soy sauce from a Singapore company with a Chinese name that they thought was Chinese. Probably just organized out of Singapore, but it turns out that it's an American company, and now they can't get it.

So, what's going to happen? Well, it's not that hard to make soy beans into soy sauce. And you can imagine that what is going to happen is that China is going to respond to the US sanctions in the way that any country responds to sanctions: once they can't import something that they've been importing from another country, that they need, they produce it themselves.

That's exactly what Russia did, when the United States told Europe, stop exporting food to Russia; let's starve them out. Russia stopped its dairy and farm imports from the Baltics and other countries, and developed its own agricultural, production. That's called import [substitution].

So the reaction to sanctions is to force other countries to replace US imports with domestic production. And that's exactly what China has done.

Well, why do the United States strategists have this blind spot? And the reason is, I think, the whole mentality of US diplomats is punitive. That's the only thing they have today. They have little to offer the other country.

They can't do what President Xi does and say, here's a win-win situation; we'll develop our trade with each other, and we'll both gain from this, from our mutual interdependency that'll create an efficient, regional trading system.

But the United States doesn't have that. All it can do is disrupt the trading system. And they can disrupt it for a few months; maybe it'll take a year. It takes time to replace new means of production, to replace trade, imports and exports, with the United States.

But you can imagine that European countries, Asian, African countries, Latin American countries, are all spending these next three months thinking, how are we going to create a world after August, that is going to enable us to keep on producing what we're producing and importing what we're importing, but not from the United States.

They're all trying to think of realignment. And the United States says, well, this is going to disrupt your economy for a year or so; and the other countries will make a calculation and they'll say, yes, it's going to disrupt our economy for a year or so, but then for the next decade or century, we won't have to deal with US threats anymore.

The United States is the only country in the world that has weaponized its foreign trade; weaponized its foreign currency, the dollar; weaponized the international financial system; and treated every economic relationship in an adversarial way, to weaponize it.

Other countries say, how can we have a different approach, and treat trade as how can we mutually gain? How can we treat investment as something where the investor gains, but we also gain?

If China is going to build up ports and infrastructure for us, and we will pay China in the form of raw materials, or agricultural production, or whatever we're producing; then we get the capital investment that China is providing, and we're providing them with the trade that they've helped develop by putting in place ports, and roads, and railroads, and other means of transportation.

So you have two different views of what an alternative world trade system would look like. And of course, this alternative is what everybody expected to be created after World War One.

That was the promise of mutual gain that mutual trade was going to integrate countries, and provide gains from trade, for peaceful, friendly international relations.

It hasn't turned out that way. But now other countries are saying, well, we can achieve that kind of trade under rules very similar to those that the United Nations created in 1945. But we can't do it under the rules that the United States imposes for its own one-sided, unipolar world order that it's insisting on.

So what's happening is that other countries are putting in place their mutual production facilities, transportation facilities, investment facilities. Trump is isolating the United States from trade and investment relations.

It has tried to isolate China, but what it's doing is isolating itself from everyone, except its satellites, in Western Europe — Germany, England, and the other European countries.

The question is, how long can its Asian satellites — South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines, even Taiwan — how long can they decide, well, are we going to look at our long-term future as trade with China, which is growing and expanding its market, or with United States, whose market is shrinking?

And it goes even further than that. Trump also has said he's going to punish other countries that try to find an alternative to the dollar. And yet today's Wall Street Journal [on April 18] had a whole editorial: Trump is now trying to prevent other countries from keeping their international reserves in dollars.

He's forcing other countries to sell off their dollars by imposing a tax on other countries' holding of Treasury securities.

If you're a foreign central bank and you've done what you've done since 1971, when Nixon went off gold, and you kept your foreign exchange reserves in the form of US dollars, in the form of US Treasury securities, or government agency securities, or other US holdings, then all of a sudden you're going to have to pay a tax on them, and this tax is going to mean that you're losing money.

Well, the dollar has been going down steadily, day after day after day, for the last few weeks. And it looks like it's going down because other countries are looking at what Trump is threatening, and they think, this guy may really mean it!

The whole essence of American imperialism — as my book Super Imperialism explained way back in 1972 — the whole essence is that America gets a free lunch; it can print its dollars, flood the economy with dollars, mainly through its foreign military spending — which is, in most years, the leading element in the balance of payments deficit — flood this and other countries haven't had an alternative to the dollar to hold.

They've been discouraged from buying gold. Well, as you can imagine, China has been buying gold. Now other countries are buying gold. Germany has asked for the gold that it had been keeping in the Federal Reserve for safekeeping after World War Two, that this is returned. None of my German financial reporters have been able to find out whether it's actually got any of this gold. The politicians are quite mum on that.

So, other countries are essentially being driven out of the dollar, at the same time that Trump says, don't join together and create a non-dollar area.

Well, if they can't hold US dollars, or they're told, if you recycle your savings and your surplus dollars into US treasury bills, you're going to have to lose money year after year.

Well, as they sell the Treasury securities, the dollar is going down. And as the dollar goes down, that means that, even if other countries get a higher return in stocks or US bonds, the value in euros, and Chinese currency, and Japanese currency, the value in their own currency is going down as a result of Trump's policies.

Well, Trump believes that if you lower the exchange rate of the dollar, that will make American exports more competitive. And of course, it would, if America had something to export.

But how can you make industrial exports more competitive, at a lower price — which lowers the cost of labor, lowers the cost of America — if you don't have factories to produce these exports? That's the crazy thing about all this!

How can you increase export competitiveness of industry, if you don't have an industry?

The United States, ever since, really, Clinton in the 1990s, has offshored American industry — to Asia, to China and other countries — how on Earth can it be competitive?

Basically neoliberalism has undercut the ability of the United States to be competitive in the way that, it and European countries, and now China, had become competitive as a mixed economy.

The essence of neoliberalism is to carve up and privatize governments, basically on credit, borrowing the money to buy things.

So you're having an inherent instability. And this is what other countries are discussing.

Now, the question is, will other countries agree to give up the Chinese market in order to gain the American market?

Well, how long is the American market going to last? And how much trade and diplomacy with China are they going to give up? Will it be a total set of sanctions and isolation? Will it be partial? All of this is a product of bilateral negotiation.

I think other countries should take a look at what's happening domestically, in the way that Trump bargains.

You've seen two big fights, domestically, of Trump in the American economy, have occurred in the last few months: the fight against law firms and the fight against universities.

Trump declared war on law firms that had worked for the Democratic Party in the last few decades, especially law firms that supplied lawyers who prosecuted him for all of the Democratic lawfare that the Biden administration began.

And he said, well, you have to do a give-back. And the first give-backs that he asked from these firms is, you have to provide $50 million of pro bono — meaning work without payment – for Republican-backed organizations.

Well, almost all the law firms capitulated. They surrendered and they agreed to give him, you know, $50 million, or however much free legal advice he wanted, at their expense.

Well, now, in the last few days, he has asked for what the New York Times and Wall Street Journal say is $1 billion from the law firms, saying you're going to have to not only support the Republican administration, but you're now going to have to support me, and support Republican policies, as we bring lawsuits against the government, to try to carve it up, and shrink it, for the kind of things that Elon Musk is doing.

So, he keeps raising the price. He'll make an agreement. They think, ok, we gave him $50 million. That's enough. Trump had said, if you don't do this, I'm going to cancel your security clearance for all of your lawyers, and I'm going to ban your lawyers from federal buildings, because you're a "security risk". And I can declare a national emergency, and a national emergency is anything I find a national emergency in. Any threat to me is a national emergency, because I'm the state. Sounds like King Louis of France.

He asks for more and more and more. It's a never-ending rise in demand. So, again, here's the problem that they face.

Once you begin to give in to Trump, a bully thinks, oh, I've been able to do this; now I can do even more. If you begin giving into him, it's a never ending path of decline. That's the whole problem.

China describes the choice as between the post-war, the whole world's post-1945 commitment to free trade and the same rules for all countries; or henceforth, are they going to be subjected to America's neo-mercantilist protectionism, as the new context for international trade?

BEN NORTON: Michael, as always, you made so many great points there. It's hard to know where exactly to respond.

But let's pick at this idea, which I think is very important, which is that China has said that the US is essentially trying to recreate the global system that the US ironically helped to create in the first place, after World War Two.

You described that system very well in your book Super Imperialism, published in 1972. The US designed the international financial system, giving itself the exorbitant privilege of printing the global reserve currency.

The US also helped to design the international legal institutions and political institutions through the United Nations. And still at the UN Security Council, the permanent seats are held, yes, by China and Russia, but also by the US, France, and the UK. And the US has used its veto power to essentially neuter the UN, to prevent the UN from taking any action the US doesn't approve of.

So the US has really benefited from the system. But it seems like Trump is now just throwing a bomb and blowing everything up. What do you think is happening?

MICHAEL HUDSON: The world has changed a lot since 1945, when the US not only led the creation of the United Nations, but also the International Monetary Fund and the world Bank.

It created a system of free trade because, under free trade, the dominant economic and industrial power wins over countries that haven't industrialized.

That's why countries that haven't industrialized need protective tariffs, to develop their industry, and especially their agriculture — which is how the United States subsidized all of its agricultural productivity in the 1930s.

So, the United States, in 1945, could say, all countries have to follow the same rules, because it knew that the rules that they were to follow — with free trade, and no imperial preference for the British pound sterling, no colonialism, you decolonize — the US knew that it would gain.

But, since 1945, we've now gone eight decades since then, and since the United States has deindustrialized, it no longer benefits from the rules and the whole philosophy that it supported back in 1945.

Under the United Nations, at that time, it said all countries should be treated politically as equals. That has been the whole rule of international law since 1648, when the 30 Years War was ended: no country should interfere with other countries.

Well, the United States no longer treats that. It is able to interfere with other countries, but essentially claims that any other country that gets a benefit from the United States is somehow interfering with its trade, or posing a national security threat.

So the United States has ended the kind of idealistic rhetoric, and the underlying world order that it put in place in 1945.

So, China, Russia, the speeches of Foreign Minister Lavrov and President Putin, they're all saying the same thing: the ideals of the United Nations as they were set out; the ideals of trade, not to weaponize trade, but to have mutual gain; the ideal of the role of government to provide basic needs for the population; all of this was a good idea.

But the spread of neoliberalism by the United States and by Europe, essentially, is now opposing everything that was promised in 1945. We're in a completely different world.

We cannot achieve and restore this world as long as we leave the United States with veto power in the United Nations, to stop it; and with a military power and willingness to intervene in foreign elections; to support regime change, to make sure that its own politicians are elected, over and above whatever the population may want.

Such as Europe — most of Europe's population wants an end to the war in Ukraine. The politicians want to escalate NATO's war against Russia.

You can go right down the line, that what the politicians that are supported by the United States in many countries advocate is the opposite of what voters want.

Just like in the United States. Trump won the election saying he's going to bring peace in NATO's war against Russia; he's going to be a peace candidate, not the war candidate that Biden and Harris were. Now all of that is just sort of, well, that's campaign promises; that's just rhetoric; that's the narrative that we've created.

So, you're having, in a way, two different narratives to shape how people think of the split in the world, between the 15% of the population — the US and Europe, plus America's satellites in Asia — and the 85% — the Global Majority, in the Global South — that are trying to have mutual trade and benefit.

In order to have this mutual trade and benefit, you have to have a political system and a tax system, that essentially prevents the emergence of a domestic financial oligarchy, and monopoly oligarchy, and real estate oligarchy, from stifling economic growth in their countries.

And the United States wants to create such an oligarchy as long as it's controlled by US investors themselves.

So how do you explain why politicians follow this pro-US submission that they're doing?

Well, I think there are a number of answers for why you're having a different approach to how the world is being restructured.

Politicians live in the short run, and many are so used to being bullied that they've succumbed to the Stockholm Syndrome and identify with the bully. They think, well, the Americans are so powerful; there's really nothing that we can do; we have to join them because the bully strong enough to fight any other policy that we may do.

Well, democracy is supposed to prevent the kind of oligarchy from developing that you have in the United States.

They're supposed to prevent a Gilded Age. They're supposed to prevent the economic polarization between the 1% of the economy — the creditor class, the billionaire class of creditors, monopolists, real estate owners — and the rest of the economy — of debtors, of renters, of wage earners that have less and less control over their working conditions.

That's not being prevented; that's being encouraged by neoliberalism — just the opposite of what was promised.

It's as if we're having a new kind of colonialism; but it's not overtly a military colonialism, except in countries that refuse to follow US laws. It's sort of what free-trade imperialism, or what the [US] Treasury bill standard was.

It's what the West calls "democracies", which is foreign control by the neoliberal class, the kind of people who go to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland and think that they're planning the kind of world that they would like to see.

We're dealing with two kinds of economic theory.

The reality-based economic theory recognizes that debts tend to grow exponentially, and polarize society, and create a crisis, if they're not canceled.

The orthodox economic theory, that's taught in all the universities throughout the West, says if you just get rid of government, leave government alone, don't regulate anything, the economy will automatically self stabilize, and produce equality among people, and among nations; free trade will make nations more equal, instead of polarized.

You have a whole different body of economic theory to justify a whole means of social and economic organization that occurs.

In other countries, the fight by Asia and the Global Majority today — and by Putin against the legacy of kleptocrats that the neoliberals subsidized in Russia — was how do you keep this wealthy class — you can let it accumulate wealth, but it has to use its wealth in the public interest, to develop the overall economy and benefit the economy, not to subject the economy to lower wages, to use its wealth to take over government and disable the government from the ability to regulate it.

Well, this disabling of government to regulate is the political program of Donald Trump. He says he wants to deregulate any kind of government regulations, and tax. He wants to get rid of progressive taxation.

He wants to stop any environmental regulation. He has pulled out of all of the global warming agreements that America has had.

Trump and Vance have gone to Europe and backed the right-wing parties that are following this there.

The US is backing this kind of economic and social philosophy. For any country that is trying to do regulation, it's being attacked politically.

This has gone on for 2500 years. The lead for democracy in Greece occurred already in the 6th, 7th, and 8th centuries BC, when the local mafia-like oligarchies were overthrown by populist leaders who were called "tyrants".

The Roman oligarchy accused reformers of seeking kingship. The Greek oligarchy called any reformers wanting democracy as being tyrants. And the Americans call any reformers as being socialists — as if socialist today is the same term as seeking kingship to control ambition, being tyrants.

The narrative of history has been turned inside out. And they treat all of these as bad words, not as the ideal that it was during the whole reform movement, in the 19th century.

BEN NORTON: Well, I don't know if I can add much there. You again raised so many interesting points. And you did a great job of drawing these parallels over thousands of years of history, in the fight against oligarchy.

We see this so clearly today. Of course, every US president represents the financial oligarchs on Wall Street. But Trump has taken the mask off, lifted the veil, and made it as clear as day.

He's regularly inviting these billionaires to the white House. He gave Elon Musk, the world's richest billionaire, an office at the white House. He invited all these oligarchs to his inauguration.

So I think your argument is — you've been saying this for a long time, and you've been proven so correct. Trump is really the epitome of everything you've been saying for so long.

So on that note, I think that's actually a really good place to conclude. Is there anything else you want to add?

MICHAEL HUDSON: Listening to what you just summarized, what kind of country would elect a leader who made this money by cheating other people? By cheating his suppliers and not paying them, offering only half the money that they had promised; cheating his suppliers; going bankrupt and defaulting on his bank loans; and being not only a congenital liar, but treating that as a social virtue!

You wonder, when somebody like that is elected, or someone like Obama, or Biden, when you look at the people who have been elected in the United States, or even in Britain, how could this have ever happened, under what was expected 80 years ago?

The world is being turned inside out. And how is the rest of the world going to try to undo the damage?

And they can't really undo the damage. All they can do is isolate, is go along with Trump — accept the isolation. Isolating themselves is the only way that they can create an alternative to surrender to the US neoliberal, polarized economy and society.

BEN NORTON: Once again, well said. I was speaking with the economist Michael Hudson, and I will link to his most recent report on Donald Trump's tariffs, and the robber barons, and the Gilded Age.

Thanks so much for joining me, Michael. It's always a real pleasure speaking with you.

MICHAEL HUDSON: Thanks for having me again, Ben.

5. The United Global South Front against the Tariff Paper Tiger

An excellent wide ranging discussion and follow-up on the Spirit of Shanghai article.

• coalescence of new Primakov Triangle with all three at once under the Orange devil-storm
• Yanquis about to be submerged in their own Century of Humiliation
• BRICS regain focus with urgency, propelled by ASEAN and China
• can Lula & Brazil deliver in three months at the mid-summer BRICS Summit?

6. Iran: a strategic mistake in the making?

With thanks to Quantum Bird

Iran's history is rich and complex. From the days of the glorious Persian Empire to today's Islamic Republic, Iran has experienced all kinds of geopolitical circumstances, including being, for a period, a colony of the Western powers. Like any former colony that has liberated itself through a popular revolution, Iran has its resentful comprador elite – some of them ex-patriates in the hegemon's metropolis and others infiltrated into the ranks of its society – who dedicate their existence to sabotaging the regime and plotting to recover their privileges taken away by the people. This is a very prevalent geopolitical model. So what justifies the short-sightedness of some "Western geopolitical analysts" and "Iran experts" in accessing Iran's geopolitical reality? At the moment, this short-sightedness reveals itself as an unjustified enthusiasm about the negotiations between Iran and the US, supposedly about the Islamic Republic's activities related to the production and use of nuclear fuel.

Over the last twenty-odd years, Iran's nuclear program has been a hot topic in the geopolitical arena. In the second half of the 2000s, Brazil and Turkey led an initiative to abort the Islamic Republic's advances in uranium enrichment. The agreement reached would allow Iran to keep its nuclear power plants, but provided for the dismantling of the nascent enrichment infrastructure. The country was to consume nuclear fuel produced by third parties. This agreement was actively torpedoed by the US (Obama), Russia (Medvedev) and other members of the UN Security Council, which allowed Iran to go ahead consolidating and safeguarding its enrichment infrastructure. The arrival of Hassan Rouhani's Western reformist government in Iran allowed the country to engage in negotiations with the UN Security Council, plus Germany – the strange guest in this arrangement, since the Germans decided still back in 2000 to extinguish all its nuclear-related activities. These negotiations led to the so-called JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), an agreement to limit Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, restitution of sequestered resources, etc. In 2018, the US (Trump) unilaterally pulled out of the agreement and further sanctioned Iran. Note that the JCPOA remains in force vis-à-vis the other signatories. The same Trump is now pressuring Iran to negotiate its nuclear program, using as leverage the automatic snapback mechanism provided for in the JCPOA that could be activated until the end of 2025.

It's worth noting that all this is happening in the context of warmongering rhetoric, economic sanctions and deliberate geopolitical and economic sabotage of the Islamic Republic by Western powers. In addition, of course, to the incessant – and irritating – bombardment of extremist Anglo-Zionist propaganda that Iran has been one week away from producing a nuclear bomb for the last 20 years. It matters little that in 2025, as in the last 20 years, the intelligence agencies of the US and other countries have produced reports attesting to the absence of any evidence of such developments and that in Iran there is a fatwa (religious decree) prohibiting the development of weapons of mass destruction.

On the other hand, in the almost euphoric atmosphere of geopolitical analysis focused on multipolarity, there is a lot of talk, usually with little substance, about the strategic partnership between Iran, China and Russia. The truth is that the level of mutual trust between these three actors is not the highest, especially with regard to Iran. In fact, while the strategic cooperation agreement between Iran and Russia has no provisions related to mutual defense, interaction with China is basically organized around commercial interests, mainly in the area of hydrocarbons. Certainly Russia and China would not benefit from a regime change in Iran and its conversion into a member of the Western bloc, and, for sure, would not remain passive in the face of such a development, but both seem to calibrate their interaction to avoid Iran's rise to the status of a first-class regional power, which would potentially offend their interests in the other countries of Southwest Asia.

The aim of the Western powers is to promote regime change in Iran. Despite the Israeli prime minister's wishes to promote a Libya-style scenario in the Islamic Republic, destabilizing Iran at this level would not be to anyone's advantage. The preference seems to be for the installation of a pro-Western regime, preferably presided over by a decoy president in the style of Lula – always capable of saying the right thing and doing nothing about it – who would convert Iran into a soft neo-colony in the style of Brazil, who would ensure the export of commodities and the entry of the US and Europe indirectly into the BRICS circle, in order to sabotage it from within and control its expansion in southwest Asia – echoes of Brazil vetoing Venezuela's accession.

The installation of such a regime in Iran presupposes the economic exhaustion of the country, as was done with Syria, and the dismantling of its military deterrence, as was done with Libya. Part of the Iranian leadership is well aware of this game. Moreover, there is no shortage of examples of what happens to a country in the process of emancipation and assertion of sovereignty when it gives up its military deterrence in exchange for economic integration with the West. Everyone saw what happened to Muammar Gaddafi and Libya as retribution for their engagement with the West.

The undisputed champion of this game is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. They wasted no time: they left the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and set up their nuclear deterrent. What would their fate have been if they had wavered? What was the Chinese and Russian reaction to the development of the North Korean nuclear deterrent? Both condemned it.

Iran's reluctance to follow the North Korean model is incomprehensible to most serious analysts. Especially considering that its main regional rival, Israel, which has weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear ones, donated by the US, is not part of the NPT and threatens the Islamic Republic on a daily basis. Note that there is no mention or international scrutiny of Israel's nuclear arsenal. Note also the position of the US. They have nuclear weapons, but they are part of the NPT and have permanent seat in the UN Security Council. In other words, they are in a position to dictate nuclear non-proliferation policy to the rest of the world, but also they have a dedicated proxy, Israel, armed with nuclear artifacts that remain unchecked.

Here's a question for readers: why did Russia and China stay in the JCPOA after the US pulled out? Why didn't they leave and make a separate agreement with Iran?

In short, I believe that the ongoing negotiations between Iran and the US only make sense if they are a ploy by the Islamic Republic to buy time while it builds up its nuclear deterrent. Another scenario – highly unlikely – would be the forced inclusion of Israel in the NPT and the dismantling of its nuclear arsenal under the supervision of the UN Security Council. Otherwise, I fear that re-engaging in a re-run of the JCPOA-like aggreement with the US would be a colossal strategic mistake – echoes of the Minsk agreements. In any case, in a year and a half, perhaps sooner, Trump will be a lame duck with nothing to lose politically, capable of ordering a US attack on Iran in the name of Israel. I don't see Russia and China risking a nuclear confrontation with the US over Iran.

Portuguese version on Saker Latinoamérica: https://sakerlatam.blog/ira-erro-estrategico-em-gestacao/