Transcript submitted by a reader

https://odysee.com/@RT:fd/doctorow-interview-2025:3

RT: 0:00
Well, as Humayun says, we can wait and see, but we can also get a lot of forecasts right now with Gilbert Doctorow joining us here on RT International, live to an independent international affairs analyst. Mr. Doctorow, a big fan of your work. I’ve been seeing you on all these different YouTube channels and news channels around the world for such a long time now. You really are very much on the front line of today’s worldwide information wars.

It’s so good, the information wars I should say, it’s so good to get you here on RT International. So in advance, I thank you for your time. And I know you just heard the report between myself and Umamayyem Eshara as we’re waiting to go live on air. Netanyahu, back in DC, not the first time he’s gone there to an administration in the White House suggesting some kind of operation against Iran. But what’s striking is he proposed a so-called Libya scenario for Iran.

We all know what happened to Libya, Mr. Doctorow. Could you give us your thought? What kind of lessons should Tehran take away from the rhetoric we’re hearing right now?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 1:00
Well, I think they’ve done a very good job of interpreting the foreign policy actions of Mr. Trump. They understood that he works by bullying. And they– the supreme leader called that out, said that Iran would not submit to American bullying and that discussion of taking down its missile program or its support for the axis of resistance would not be subjects for discussion. They were non-negotiable. But they would talk precisely about their nuclear program, because they know very well that Mr. Trump has in his back pocket the reports of American intelligence community, which has said since 2007, year after year, that Iran– most recently reconfirmed by the outgoing head of the CIA, Mr. Burns– that Iran does not have an active nuclear weapon program. So under these conditions, it is conceivable that Mr. Trump will claim victory if essentially he succeeds in declaring the Iranians are doing what they otherwise had been doing, not building a nuclear weapon.

RT: 2:16
Yeah, yeah, I think you make a really good point there. In the meantime, you know, as you say, the US intel community is saying Iran for a number of years now has not been trying to develop a nuclear weapon. Netanyahu still calls Iran a nuclear threat, Mr. Doctorow. But isn’t Israel itself in possession already of nuclear weapons as it is?

Doctorow: 2:34
Well, of course, it’s the height of hypocrisy. It’s a very poorly guarded secret that Israel is a nuclear power. I think that even the BBC this morning in remarking on the visit of Netanyahu to the Oval Office said that he was disappointed and slightly surprised by what Donald Trump had to tell him, namely that the United States is expecting this Saturday to have, well, direct talks with Iran in Oman. The Iranians deny that they would be direct, but that’s a subtlety. The main point is that they’re talking, and they are not about to bomb Iran. So there’s been a lot of bluster, but that is nature, Mr. Trump.

RT:
Yeah, yeah. Meantime though, Mr. Doctorow, meantime, in the past week or two, we’ve seen the US move a whole bunch of Spirit stealth bombers to the Chagos Islands. These are big bunker buster bomb carrying aircraft.

The Chagos Islands not that far away from Iran. Meantime, we understand Tehran saying that their deep mountain missile silos are all activated on alert. I mean, some people saying we do seem to be on the cusp of a conflict. Mr. Doctorow, what is the possibility team Trump will walk away from the brink and allow diplomacy to play out?

Doctorow: 3:52
Well, those those weapons systems that are now in the Indian Ocean, with an easier striking distance of Iran, they otherwise would be in striking distance of Iran if they flew directly from the United States. So this is a matter of show and plumage by Mr. Trump and his group, which doesn’t change the fact the United States can at any time unleash devastating bombing attacks on a country like Iran.

Nonetheless, it’s also possible to consider, I think more likely the intention is to use these weapons systems against the Houthis. It’s much easier to attack a small group that is not backed by major powers.

This is a distinction that we have to make when speaking about Iran, unlike Libya, which had the whole Western world against it. Iran has two major colleagues and close cooperation partners. They are Russia and China. That is a vast difference. The terms of the Russian Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement concluded with Iran signed in January does not contain within it provisions for mutual defense.

5:21
But nonetheless, close cooperation, the mutual drills, naval drills that they’ve had together with the Chinese as well, these are ongoing, and they cannot be ignored by Washington, particularly under the conditions of a very combative China. How China has responded to these, to the tariffs is indicative of how China will respond to any bullying that is implemented, not just juggled, by Washington with respect to Iran.

RT: 5:56
Yeah, that is a very intriguing comment there, Mr. Doctorow. What about your recent interview on Press TV? Gilbert, you said “The US may have plans to fight several wars at once, but I don’t think they’re ready to fight on three fronts.” You did say “If the United States goes rogue and attacks Iran, then I think all bets are off.” You said “We will see a response, definitely a military response from China and something significant from Russia.” Can you expand on that, please?

Doctorow: 6:24
Well, let’s concentrate on China, because they are not in another war as Russia is. Russia’s attention is focused for good reason on its dealings with Ukraine, where they’re very close to victory and they’re not going to pull back, be distracted, and lose the concentration that they’ve enjoyed up till now. But China’s a different case. China has already demonstrated a week ago by its exercises off the coast of Taiwan that it is prepared to introduce a complete blockade of Taiwan. They don’t have to fire missiles. They can strangle Taiwan by imposing a no-fly zone over Taiwan and by interdiction of any naval vessels that are headed towards Taiwan.

7:21
And very quickly, that would bring Taiwan to its knees. And so, if the– this is also a threat, a deterrent, this message that was made by the Chinese a week ago in these naval exercises. But unlike Russia, I think the Chinese are ready, if not just to take measures to forestall an American attack on Iran, but to take measures after such an attack takes place. As I say, they can bring Taiwan to its knees and end the question that has, the United States has made foremost in its relations with China: what happens to Taiwan?

RT: 8:02
Yeah, that’s a good point there. Well, let’s go from China and Taiwan back to China and Iran, if possible. Some people say, Mr. Doctorow, that the sanctions on Iran are also sanctions on China. China buys so much energy from Iran. It’s heavily invested in the Iranian economy. Meantime, if something breaks out in that part of the world, talk to me about an oil crisis, the US dollar, the primary currency in oil trade, Iran being a massive oil producer, the whole region. Can you give me a brief overspective on that?

Doctorow: 8:33
Well, if I understand properly, about 75 percent of Iran’s oil exports are going to one country, China. As regards China, it is importing 30 percent of its oil needs from Iran. So the cooperation there in hydrocarbons is very, very tight.

If the United States were to attack, Tehran has made it clear that they will close the Straits of Hormuz, and that will cut off the supply of Arab Gulf oil to the world. There will be an enormous crisis. There will be a devastating impact on the global economy. And that is a price to pay that I think Mr. Trump cannot consider now, when he’s already in the middle of dealing with the consequences of his tsunami of tariffs.

RT: 9:29
Yeah, yeah, indeed. That’s a great comment to wrap up our conversation here with Gilbert Doctorow, an independent international affairs analyst who’s really doing a true service to the world with your commentary, I’m a big fan of your work, Gilbert. You are going on so many channels. You’re pushing back on the narratives. You’re telling the other sides of the stories. I love your work. I hope to see you again soon. Thank you very much for your time.

Doctorow:
Very kind of you. Very kind.

RT: 9:53
Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Press TV (Iran):  Standing against Trump trade war

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this panel discussion is the way that my fellow panelist in Boston, who by his opening remarks clearly identifies himself as being Left-leaning, is espousing globalist, mainstream arguments to criticize Trump and his tariffs. The tariffs will hit hardest against poor people and are just another case of stealing from the poor to pay the rich, he tells us. The tariffs will damage U.S. global hegemony, he says, ignoring the reality that Trump is ready to overthrow global hegemony which the country can no longer afford (the unbalanced trade with ‘allies’ being a major component of this) for the sake of a tighter hegemony in its own hemisphere.

This discussion shows just how effectively Donald Trump has stirred the pot and confused experts of all stripes

https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/133259

It was a curious experience to be back on RT after wandering the globe and talking regularly to the likes of Press TV (Iran) or WION and News X World (India).

RT remain at the top of their game as this video illustrates.

The complete quotation from today’s edition of The Great Game, part one, was:

“We underestimated Trump! We had wanted Biden to win because it would have meant the self-destruction of the USA. But now we are watching the tsunami that Trump has created… This is a revolution…”

Indeed, Russian elites have been watching developments in the United States very closely ever since ‘Independence Day’ last week when Trump unveiled his plans for a universal tariff on all goods from all nations and targeted tariffs against the greatest offenders in bilateral trade as evidenced by whopping trade deficits for the United States.

Since Russia is not on the list of countries about to be hit by tariffs, because sanctions against it are already so far-reaching, the Russian commentators can take a disinterested view in what is going on and why. Well not entirely disinterested, because they are concerned that the popular wave of protest that swept the United States this past weekend, with a vast outpouring of citizens bearing signs denouncing Trump in more than 1400 cities and towns across the land, egged on by the Democrats, who were revived from their stupor by the collapse of stock markets in the closing days of last week, may seriously weaken Trump and render him unable to continue his rapprochement with Russia, a policy that also does not enjoy popular support according to latest poll figures.

As for the tariffs themselves, last week’s Evening with Vladimir Solovyov talk show revealed far more acceptance of their necessity and correctness than you hear or read in American mainstream media. I heard a very cogent defense of the tariffs based not on their value in bringing industrial production back to the United States but in their stopping further rises in the federal debt which was reaching unsustainable levels. Indeed, the panelist who advanced this explanation said that Trump intentionally diverted attention to reindustrialization to avoid creating panic by divulging the dangerously weak state of American finances.

In these past few days, analysts in the U.S. have deciphered the formula that Trump pointed to as the determinant of the de facto level of tariffs practiced by America’s trading partners. As they make clear, the percentages in his table are in effect just the ratio of trade deficit to bilateral trade. The intent of the tariffs is to cut off imports as much as possible and so to reduce the trade deficit to zero over time. Moreover, if the trade wars lead to recession that is also all to the good, since imports of all kinds will fall precipitously and domestic energy costs in the United States will fall, as they have already begun to do these past several days. These deflationary trends will offset the supposed inflationary tends coming directly from the tariffs.

Note that Russian state television news programs have had massive coverage of the tariffs issue drawing on all major mainstream electronic and print media in the West.

****

One other fear that has been expressed on the Russian talk shows including on The Great Game today is that the way out of domestic political crises is often war. Trump is in growing trouble. Today he is meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, and Netanyahu is in even greater trouble back home in Israel. Surely, they will be conferring on a military solution to their problems, namely a joint attack on Iran.

The risk of such an attack is considered to be quite high if you listen to the panelists on the leading Russian talk shows.

As we know, tomorrow officials from Iran and China will be meeting in Moscow with their counterparts to discuss the Iranian nuclear program.

The talk show panelists are saying nothing about the possibility of Russia and China coming to the defense of Iran should Trump proceed with war plans against Iran. However, somewhat enigmatically Vyacheslav Nikonov, main presenter on The Great Game and a member of the State Duma said that tomorrow he will be introducing into the Duma a discussion of the terms of the Russian-Iranian Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement that was signed in January. What this means we may find out in a day or two.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Translation into German below (Andreas Mylaeus)

„Wir haben Trump unterschätzt!“ Vyacheslav Nikonov in „Das grosse Spiel“, 7. April

Das vollständige Zitat aus der heutigen Ausgabe von Das grosse Spiel, Teil eins, lautete:

„Wir haben Trump unterschätzt! Wir wollten, dass Biden gewinnt, weil das die Selbstzerstörung der USA bedeutet hätte. Aber jetzt sehen wir den Tsunami, den Trump ausgelöst hat … Das ist eine Revolution …“

Tatsächlich haben die russischen Eliten die Entwicklungen in den Vereinigten Staaten seit dem „Independence Day“ letzte Woche, als Trump seine Pläne für einen universellen Zoll auf alle Waren aus allen Nationen und gezielte Zölle gegen die größten Sünder im bilateralen Handel vorstellte, sehr genau beobachtet, was sich in den enormen Handelsdefiziten der Vereinigten Staaten zeigt.

Da Russland nicht auf der Liste der Länder steht, die von Zöllen betroffen sein werden, weil die Sanktionen gegen das Land bereits so weitreichend sind, können die russischen Kommentatoren die Vorgänge und ihre Gründe unvoreingenommen betrachten. Nun, nicht ganz unvoreingenommen, denn sie sind besorgt, dass die Welle des Protests, die am vergangenen Wochenende durch die Vereinigten Staaten rollte, in der eine große Zahl von Bürgern in mehr als 1.400 Städten und Gemeinden im ganzen Land Schilder mit Trump-kritischen Slogans hochhielten, von den Demokraten angestachelt wurde, die durch den Kurssturz der Aktienmärkte in den letzten Tagen der vergangenen Woche aus ihrer Lethargie gerissen wurden, Trump ernsthaft schwächen und ihn daran hindern könnte, seine Annäherung an Russland fortzusetzen, eine Politik, die laut den neuesten Umfragewerten auch nicht die Unterstützung der Bevölkerung genießt.

Was die Zölle selbst betrifft, so zeigte die Talkshow „Abend mit Vladimir Solovyov“ letzte Woche, dass ihre Notwendigkeit und Richtigkeit weitaus mehr akzeptiert werden, als man in den amerikanischen Mainstream-Medien hört oder liest. Ich hörte eine sehr überzeugende Verteidigung der Zölle, die nicht auf ihrem Wert für die Rückverlagerung der Industrieproduktion in die Vereinigten Staaten beruht, sondern darauf, dass sie einen weiteren Anstieg der Staatsverschuldung verhindern, die ein untragbares Niveau erreicht hat. Tatsächlich sagte der Diskussionsteilnehmer, der diese Erklärung vorbrachte, dass Trump absichtlich die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Reindustrialisierung lenkt, um Panik zu vermeiden, wenn er den gefährlich schwachen Zustand der amerikanischen Finanzen preisgeben würde.

In den letzten Tagen haben Analysten in den USA die Formel entschlüsselt, die Trump als bestimmenden Faktor für die tatsächliche Höhe der von Amerikas Handelspartnern praktizierten Zölle bezeichnet hat. Wie sie klarstellen, sind die Prozentsätze in seiner Tabelle in Wirklichkeit nur das Verhältnis von Handelsdefizit zum bilateralen Handel. Die Absicht der Zölle bestehe darin, die Importe so weit wie möglich zu reduzieren und so das Handelsdefizit im Laufe der Zeit auf Null zu senken. Außerdem wäre es auch gut, wenn die Handelskriege zu einer Rezession führen würden, da die Importe aller Art drastisch sinken und die Energiekosten in den Vereinigten Staaten fallen würden, wie es in den letzten Tagen bereits begonnen hat. Diese deflationären Trends werden die vermeintlichen inflationären Tendenzen, die direkt von den Zöllen ausgehen, ausgleichen.

Beachten Sie, dass die Nachrichtensendungen des russischen Staatsfernsehens die Zollfrage massiv aufgegriffen haben und sich dabei auf alle wichtigen Mainstream-Elektronik- und Printmedien im Westen stützen.

****

Eine weitere Befürchtung, die in russischen Talkshows, darunter auch in Das grosse Spiel, geäußert wurde, ist, dass der Ausweg aus innenpolitischen Krisen oft der Krieg ist. Trump steckt in wachsenden Schwierigkeiten. Heute trifft er sich mit Benjamin Netanjahu in Washington, und Netanjahu steckt in seiner Heimat Israel in noch größeren Schwierigkeiten. Sicherlich werden sie über eine militärische Lösung ihrer Probleme beraten, nämlich einen gemeinsamen Angriff auf den Iran.

Das Risiko eines solchen Angriffs wird als ziemlich hoch eingeschätzt, wenn man den Diskussionsteilnehmern in den führenden russischen Talkshows zuhört.

Wie wir wissen, werden morgen Beamte aus dem Iran und China in Moskau mit ihren Amtskollegen zusammentreffen, um über das iranische Atomprogramm zu sprechen.

Die Diskussionsteilnehmer der Talkshow äußern sich nicht zu der Möglichkeit, dass Russland und China den Iran verteidigen könnten, falls Trump seine Kriegspläne gegen den Iran weiterverfolgen sollte. Vyacheslav Nikonov, Hauptmoderator von Das grosse Spiel und Mitglied der Staatsduma, sagte jedoch etwas rätselhaft, dass er morgen in der Duma eine Diskussion über die Bedingungen des im Januar unterzeichneten russisch-iranischen umfassenden Kooperationsabkommens einleiten werde. Was das bedeutet, werden wir vielleicht in ein oder zwei Tagen erfahren.

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7HGxiJBnAI
NewsX: 0:01
Moving on now, the French and the British army chiefs are in Kiev to discuss the developing plans for a peacekeeping force in Ukraine. Amid these talks, Russia launched a barrage of drone strikes in an overnight attack on Ukraine, killing at least four people and injuring 35 people [interruption] In the fourth such strike on the city so far this week, Russian drones hit residential quarters, damaging several multi-storey apartment blocks and causing multiple fires. The French foreign minister and the British foreign secretary chief have both condemned these attacks. Here is what they said.

Barrot: 0:41
Over the past three weeks, Russia has been flip-flopping, continuing its strikes on energy infrastructure, continuing its war crimes. [Putin] owes an answer to the United States that have worked very hard to come up with a mediation effort and a ceasefire proposal.

Lammy:
–is that Putin continues to obfuscate, continues to drag his feet. He could accept [interruption] He continues to bombard Ukraine, its civilian population, its energy supplies. We see you, Vladimir Putin. We know–

NewsX: 1:22
The drone attacks that recorded the death of [xxxx] of the victims was retrieved by the rescuers from the site of the attacks in Kharkiv. The victim is identified as an 11-year-old girl. According to Russia’s Ministry of Defence, Ukrainian forces attacked Russian energy facilities four times in the past 24 hours. [The Ukrainian] military denied the accusations, saying its troops were adhering to the ceasefire, but claimed Russia had violated xxxx numerous times.

1:55
We are joined by Gilbert Doctorow to discuss this further, Russian affairs expert located in Brussels. Gilbert, what can you tell me about the accusations from both sides of constant barrage on energy infrastructure that has been agreed by both parties that has been mediated by the US.

Doctorow:
There is a difference between these claims. The Russians have been showing on television daily the consequences of Ukrainian attacks on their energy infrastructure. Of course, the most serious attack occurred just immediately after the agreement was reached on the 18th of March. This was the destruction of a metering station in Sudzha, which is in the Oblast, the region, of Kursk.

That is critical to the pipeline infrastructure in Ukraine to get Russian gas to Western Europe [if and when that] passage of gas is once again renewed. There have [been xxxxx], particularly that the Ukrainians have destroyed [xxxxxxxx] a coal-oil pumping station, xxxxxxxx some oil exports across Russia to its western markets. These are documented. What you have just quoted from the British and the French are absolutely empty charges. They are pure propaganda.

NewsX:
Gilbert, critics would say that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s relationship has the possibility of souring. Is Putin playing his cards right on the battlefield in order to keep these negotiations going [xxx] long-term peace in Ukraine?

Doctorow: 3:47
[xxxx] –on a battlefield is a battle. And there is nothing to prevent it. There is no agreement on cessation of hostilities, either in Donbass or in the Kursk region. So that is all fair game. Is Mr. Putin playing his cards right with Donald Trump? Well, we’ll see shortly. But I would say that he is. There are things going on that are not publicized. But if you look closely, you see that things are going on. For example, a few days ago, the Finnish president, Mr. Stubbe, visited Washington, played golf, and spoke with Donald Trump for seven hours in Mar-a-Lago. And I assumed, as I think many people did, that Donald Trump was leaning towards the European view of maintaining the war essentially, and was cited as saying that he was pissed off with Vladimir Putin.

However, the reality is that two days later, Mr. Stubb was saying publicly in Finland that relations with— we should prepare for restoration of relations with Russia. Then yesterday he was addressing the British and the French, the British prime minister and the French president, saying that they should take the initiative to renew discussions directly with Moscow. That doesn’t sound like the Stubb that we heard before he met with Donald Trump. So somehow Trump was influencing Stubb, and Stubb was not influencing Trump.

There are also these very important discussions between Mr. Dmitriev, the head of the Foreign Direct Investment Institution in Russia, and Steve Witkoff in Washington. This all heralds a start of not reset. Reset was a very flimsy thing in the Obama period. No, it heralds a return to the principle of detente that Mr. Nixon introduced in the 1970s.

NewsX:
Gilbert Doctorow, Thank you very much for joining us. We have run out of time, but we move on to the Middle East. An Israeli airstrike in Saidan, Lebanon has killed Hamas commander Hassan Farhat, along with his adult son and daughter in a targeted strike. This comes amid rising tensions with Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam condemning the attack as a violation of Lebanese sovereignty.

In Gaza, at least 27 Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering civilians, including 14 children reportedly. The strike, which also left dozens injured, has drawn widespread condemnation from Hamas, calling it a heinous massacre. This is what Gaza’s civil defence spokesperson had to say.

[from English-language subtitles]
Dar Al-Arqam School in al-Tuffah neighborhood was targeted by a belt of fire and more than one missle at the same time. It was targeted by the Israeli occupation forces. We are talking so far about dozens of martyrs and dozens of wounded who arrived at Al-Ahli Arabi Hospital and the [emergency] crews are still there carrying out rescue operations. More than one building was completely destroyed in the area and the reality there is very different and tragic.

Earlier this week, a mass grave containing 15 humanitarian workers’ bodies was uncovered, escalating international concerns over atrocity crimes. The ongoing conflict has led to severe food shortages in Gaza, compounding the humanitarian crisis.

The United Nations has warned that Israel’s actions in the region risk further atrocity crimes. Meanwhile, the Israeli military claims to have hit over 600 Hamas targets since resuming strikes on March the 18th, further intensifying the violence. Let’s listen in.

[from English-language subtitles]
Since the return to fighting in the Gaza Strip, we have attacked more than 600 terror targets throughout Gaza and eliminated more than 250 terrorists, including 12 senior figures in the Hamas terrorist organisation and its governing wing.

NewsX:
We move over to the African continent now, where a violent incident in Nigeria’s Plateau State claimed the lives of over 40 people.

Local officials have reported that more than 30 victims were buried in a mass grave, with 48 bodies recovered from several attacks that occurred across multiple villages. The violence primarily affected women and children, as confirmed by a Red Cross official. The attacks were described as in-communal, though the specific groups involved have not been detailed. The scale of the violence highlights ongoing security challenges in the region, where tensions between different communities have escalated in recent years. Local authorities are continuing their investigations and recovery efforts.

We move to South Asia now, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed …

I commend this morning’s interview with News X World partly because I was given the opportunity to comment on how Putin and Trump are getting on, but even more because of the introductory material put up by the presenter: videos of both the French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot and British Foreign Minister David Lammy lying through their teeth about supposed Russian violations of the limited cease-fire moratorium on attacking energy infrastructure, about supposed Russian foot-dragging in concluding a peace and much more. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels would be proud of both gentlemen for the whole of their remarks captured by News X.

Time was limited and I barely had time to fill out my answer to the presenter’s question of the latest state of Putin – Trump relations. As I began to say, when Finnish president Stubb visited Trump for a round of golf in Mar-a-Lago and spent 7 hours with the President, I assumed that this did not look good for the Russians, since Stubb has been one of the most Russophobic leaders in the EU. However, within a couple of days it became clear that Trump had given Stubb a good lesson on what’s what and who’s who in this world, not the other way around. Stubb was now quoted by journalists as saying that Europe should prepare for normalizing relations with Russia. Then yesterday he added to this, saying someone among the European leaders should take the initiative and make contact with Putin. He specifically named Britain and-or France as the best candidates for the job. Nota bene: no mention of the EU’s Russia-bashing vice president for foreign relations Kaja Kallas!

Then there is one further straw in the wind suggesting that the Russians and Americans are closer than we imagine to agreeing the terms of a peace treaty to end the war. The two day visit to Washington of the head of Russia’s CEO of their Direct Investment Fund Kirill Dmitriev is an extraordinary development. It is supposed that he had talks with Trump’s special emissary for Russia, Steve Witkoff. Given his official job, it is reasonable to expect they discussed opportunities for developing mutually interesting business opportunities in Russia when the state-to-state relations move on to full detente mode, which is something vastly broader and deeper than any ‘re-set’. For those who want to pursue this, I suggest looking up Dmitriev’s entry in Wikipedia. He is surely one of the most successful Russian business leaders with wide experience advising mergers and acquisitions between Russian and American businesses.

From the Russian talk shows it is clear that the Kremlin elites are expecting the U.S. to send a large delegation of business executives and possibly government officials to the St Petersburg Intenational Economic Forum, 18-21 June. I will be attending and hope that these expectations are realized.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

I have been listening to Jeffrey Sachs’ latest condemnatory remarks about the Trump tariffs, about the ignorance of economics that Trump displays at every turn. And given the wide respect that Sachs enjoys, given his international renown as a deputy to UN Secretary Generals, I find it essential to respond on behalf of Team Trump in a manner that they themselves seem unwilling to do.

At the outset I am obliged to say that I have the highest admiration for the constant work Jeffrey Sachs has been doing to enlighten the general public about the true causes of the Russia-Ukraine war and the culpability of the United States in decades long provocations that led Moscow to intervene militarily. I in particular salute him for his brilliant speech at a conference in the EU Parliament building, Brussels a couple of weeks ago in which he described the nefarious policies of the United States fomenting chaos and destruction in various global hot spots ever since the collapse of the USSR. However, that is not the subject of this essay, which is the Trump tariffs to which Sachs brings his influential voice as a prominent economist.

Profound expert that he is, with numerous examples of supposed successes as adviser to governments as from the early 1990s that he does not fail to mention in public speeches, Sachs has made very many grievous mistakes as an economics practitioner. His mistakes are best known with respect to Russia, where he is reviled to this day because of his role in the 1990s guiding Yeltsin and his ministers on implementation of the transition from the Soviet centrally planned economy to a free market economy. As we all know, the consequence of that advice was criminal theft of state assets in a crooked privatization, economic collapse and general pauperization of the Russian population, all of which gave democracy and Liberalism a bad name in Russia.

To be sure, Sachs’s words in his own defense on the Russian case have merit. He had actively lobbied the U.S. government to assist the Russians in their economic transition by massive financial contributions, which the Clinton administration refused to do, choosing instead to stand by and smirk while Russia sank.

Let us turn to a different country for which Sachs regularly claims to have been the savior in its transition to a market economy – Poland. After all, Poland did not experience economic collapse and emerged from the reforms that Sachs and others recommended in fairly good shape.

In fact, I was at that time a rather close observer of Poland and its reforms. I traveled there regularly and saw what was going on firsthand. I was never enthusiastic about how the transition was carried out, about the results achieved at the end of the day and about the applicability of what was supposedly learned there to Sachs’s work in Russia which immediately followed.

On the last point first: it should have been obvious to Sachs, but apparently was not then or even now that what seemed to work in a country of 40 million in a moderate sized territory of East Central Europe and with rather homogeneous population might be utterly unworkable in a Russia that was 4 times more populous, was the world’s largest in territory that extends over 11 time zones, had its last experience with capitalism two generations earlier than in Poland and had virtually no Western trained business people who could return to the country to participate in reforms as many Poles did from London and elsewhere. These differences were vastly important but were ignored by Sachs in his one size fits all approach to the market transition.

More to the point, the end result of the initial period of economic reforms that Sachs participated in as adviser was far less good than one could imagine looking at Poland today. Indeed, the whole process of privatization was dragged out far longer than needed because the big four US accounting consultancies were hired to lead the work and they took their good time. And when they were done, the Polish economy had been turned into a colony of Germany, producing bits and pieces for final assembly in Germany. There was no longer any complete cycle manufacturing in Poland. All of the global brands of Poland disappeared or were swallowed up by international concerns. This meant that for a Poland born and bred manager there was no longer a career line to the top. It meant that the profits of all production went abroad to the German owners. Was this a success? Yes, but only if you happened to be based in Berlin, just across the border from Poland.

*****

Now let us turn to the present and the way that Sachs is trashing the Trump tariffs. The single biggest problem with what he says, and he has many fellow thinkers among our professional economists, is that the reforms are only partially about economics. I insist that their basic driving force is exactly the same as drives Donald Trump’s wrecking ball approach to U.S. foreign policy, namely to bring back sovereignty by withdrawing from all alliances of every kind – economic, defense – and reordering the world around relations between the three or four Great Powers on this planet, the United States, China, Russia and India. The guiding principle will be national interest, not ideology, not democratic versus authoritarian countries and the other hogwash that has passed for guiding principles these past decades under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Trump talks about putting an end to the rip-off of the United States by its friends as well as by its foes through long acquiescence in their unfair trading practices that are obstacles to U.S. exports and feed into the presently unsustainable trade deficits each year, which this year are well in excess of one trillion dollars. In effect, he is proposing to end the subventions and overly favorable trade concessions to allies to buy their loyalty which explain U.S. indulgence up to now. Their loyalty is no more a matter of interest to Washington, which will deal only with its peers, the Great Powers. Though one may object that the highest tariffs will be applied precisely to a ‘foe,’ the Great Power, China, I believe that in this one case the parties will enter into negotiations to arrive at a less punitive tariff system for the sake of their other common interests as fellow members of the world’s governing board.

****

The economists all speak of the advantages that supposedly accrue to all nations from globalism, from free trade and in particular from the efficiencies of the international division of labor, whereby countries do not try to manufacture everything themselves but buy instead from a very few global suppliers of given products where there are cost savings from scale, from cheap labor and from highly experienced management.

However, that notion makes sense only under specific circumstances. In a small country like Belgium, where I live, and where the whole population is just 12 million, it would of course be unreasonable to manufacture home appliances and a vast array of other products. The domestic market will not support that. So purchasing from a global supplier abroad makes good sense. In the 350 million strong United States, the situation is entirely different. The demand is present to justify domestic production of a great many goods of daily use.

And yet we still have not spoken about what has been the real force behind offshoring in the U.S. case at least: tax policy. This is an entirely arbitrary factor which arose from cozy deals between companies and and the federal officials and legislators they lobby while working against the national interest and the interests of workers. Where do Jeffrey Sachs and our other leading economists stand on this issue?So far I have heard nothing on the subject, although you could have expected some comment on Donald Trump’s mentioning in passing during his speech in the Rose Garden that he hopes the additional revenue coming from tariffs will help push through a reduction of U.S. profit taxes on businesses from the present 21% to 15%, which would match or better the rates applied in countries to which American manufacturers have outsourced production.

Let us not forget another set of considerations that has driven U.S. tolerance of lost manufacturing jobs to neighbors like Mexico. By this I mean the argument for addressing low employment levels there and reducing motivation for illegal migration into the USA. Such social and political issues have nothing to do with economic efficiency. They give no comfort to unemployed U.S. auto workers.

Moreover, the big multilateral trade treaties have been heavily influenced by geopolitical considerations, such as isolating political competitors like China to hold back their further economic growth.

****

In this brief essay, of course I could not address all the complexities surrounding Trump’s rejection of globalism. But I do not see any of them properly addressed by professor Sachs and his fellow thinkers in the community of leading economists. Perhaps they will give this some thought before telling us again that Team Trump is harebrained.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Postscript, 5 April: for a very good alternative explanation of the Trump tariffs for the sake of immediately cutting the trade deficit and thereby cutting the interest rates on short term (less than one year) borrowings see Larry Johnson: https://sonar21.com/some-observations-on-tariff-hysteria/

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Jeffrey Sachs und der Unsinn unserer bekanntesten Ökonomen in Bezug auf die Trump-Zölle

Ich habe mir die jüngsten verurteilenden Äußerungen von Jeffrey Sachs zu den Trump-Zöllen und der wirtschaftlichen Ignoranz angehört, die Trump bei jeder Gelegenheit an den Tag lege. Und angesichts des großen Respekts, den Sachs genießt, und seines internationalen Ansehens als Stellvertreter des UN-Generalsekretärs, halte ich es für unerlässlich, im Namen des Trump-Teams auf eine Weise zu reagieren, zu der sie selbst offenbar nicht bereit sind.

Zunächst muss ich sagen, dass ich die ständige Arbeit von Jeffrey Sachs, die Öffentlichkeit über die wahren Ursachen des Russland-Ukraine-Krieges und die Schuld der Vereinigten Staaten an jahrzehntelangen Provokationen aufzuklären, die Moskau zu einem militärischen Eingreifen veranlasst haben, zutiefst bewundere. Ich persönlich bewundere ihn besonders für seine brillante Rede auf einer Konferenz im Gebäude des EU-Parlaments in Brüssel vor ein paar Wochen, in der er die ruchlose Politik der Vereinigten Staaten beschrieb, die seit dem Zusammenbruch der UdSSR Chaos und Zerstörung an verschiedenen globalen Krisenherden schürt. Dies ist jedoch nicht das Thema dieses Essays, sondern die Trump-Zölle, zu denen Sachs als prominenter Wirtschaftswissenschaftler seine einflussreiche Stimme erhebt.

Als profunder Experte, der er ist, und mit zahlreichen Beispielen für vermeintliche Erfolge als Regierungsberater seit Anfang der 1990er Jahre, die er in öffentlichen Reden nicht unerwähnt lässt, hat Sachs als Wirtschaftspraktiker sehr viele schwerwiegende Fehler begangen. Seine Fehler sind vor allem in Bezug auf Russland bekannt, wo er bis heute wegen seiner Rolle geschmäht wird, die er in den 1990er Jahren bei der Beratung Jelzins und seiner Minister bei der Umsetzung des Übergangs von der sowjetischen Planwirtschaft zu einer freien Marktwirtschaft spielte. Wie wir alle wissen, waren die Folgen dieser Ratschläge krimineller Diebstahl von Staatsvermögen im Rahmen einer korrupten Privatisierung, wirtschaftlicher Zusammenbruch und allgemeine Verarmung der russischen Bevölkerung, was der Demokratie und dem Liberalismus in Russland einen schlechten Ruf einbrachte.

Sachs’ Worte zu seiner eigenen Verteidigung im Fall Russland haben sicherlich ihre Berechtigung. Er hatte sich aktiv bei der US-Regierung dafür eingesetzt, den Russen bei ihrem wirtschaftlichen Übergang durch massive finanzielle Beiträge zu helfen, was die Clinton-Regierung jedoch ablehnte und sich stattdessen dafür entschied, tatenlos und grinsend zuzusehen, wie Russland unterging.

Wenden wir uns einem anderen Land zu, für das Sachs regelmäßig behauptet, er sei der Retter beim Übergang zur Marktwirtschaft gewesen – Polen. Schließlich erlebte Polen keinen wirtschaftlichen Zusammenbruch und ging aus den von Sachs und anderen empfohlenen Reformen in recht guter Verfassung hervor.

Tatsächlich war ich zu dieser Zeit ein ziemlich genauer Beobachter Polens und seiner Reformen. Ich reiste regelmäßig dorthin und sah mir die Geschehnisse aus erster Hand an. Ich war nie begeistert davon, wie der Übergang durchgeführt wurde, von den Ergebnissen, die am Ende erzielt wurden, und von der Anwendbarkeit dessen, was dort angeblich gelernt wurde, auf Sachs’ Arbeit in Russland, die unmittelbar darauf folgte.

Zunächst zum letzten Punkt: Es hätte für Sachs offensichtlich sein müssen, aber anscheinend war es damals nicht so und ist es auch heute nicht, dass das, was in einem Land mit 40 Millionen Einwohnern in einem mittelgroßen Gebiet in Ostmitteleuropa und mit einer eher homogenen Bevölkerung zu funktionieren schien, in einem Russland, das viermal so bevölkerungsreich ist, völlig undurchführbar sein könnte. Russland ist das größte Land der Welt, das sich über elf Zeitzonen erstreckt, die letzte Erfahrung mit dem Kapitalismus zwei Generationen früher gemacht hatte als Polen und praktisch keine im Westen ausgebildeten Geschäftsleute hatte, die in das Land zurückkehren und sich an den Reformen beteiligen konnten, wie es viele Polen aus London und anderen Orten taten. Diese Unterschiede waren von enormer Bedeutung, wurden aber von Sachs in seinem Einheitskonzept für den Marktübergang ignoriert.

Genauer gesagt war das Endergebnis der ersten Phase der Wirtschaftsreformen, an denen Sachs als Berater beteiligt war, weit weniger gut, als man sich vorstellen kann, wenn man sich das heutige Polen ansieht. Tatsächlich zog sich der gesamte Privatisierungsprozess viel länger hin als nötig, weil die vier großen US-amerikanischen Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaften mit der Leitung der Arbeiten beauftragt wurden und sich viel Zeit ließen. Und als sie fertig waren, war die polnische Wirtschaft zu einer Kolonie Deutschlands geworden, die Teile für die Endmontage in Deutschland produzierte. Es gab in Polen keine vollständige Fertigung mehr. Alle globalen Marken aus Polen verschwanden oder wurden von internationalen Konzernen übernommen. Das bedeutete, dass es für einen in Polen geborenen und aufgewachsenen Manager keine Karriere mehr nach oben gab. Es bedeutete, dass die Gewinne der gesamten Produktion an die deutschen Eigentümer ins Ausland gingen. War das ein Erfolg? Ja, aber nur, wenn man zufällig in Berlin ansässig war, direkt hinter der Grenze zu Polen.

*****

Wenden wir uns nun der Gegenwart zu und der Art und Weise, wie Sachs die Trump-Zölle in der Luft zerreißt. Das größte Problem bei dem, was er sagt, und er hat viele Mitdenker unter unseren professionellen Ökonomen, ist, dass es bei den Reformen nur teilweise um Wirtschaft geht. Ich bestehe darauf, dass ihre grundlegende Triebkraft genau dieselbe ist wie die, die Donald Trumps Abrissbirnen-Ansatz in der US-Außenpolitik antreibt, nämlich die Souveränität durch den Rückzug aus allen Bündnissen jeglicher Art – Wirtschaft, Verteidigung – zurückzugewinnen und die Welt um die Beziehungen zwischen den drei oder vier Großmächten auf diesem Planeten, den Vereinigten Staaten, China, Russland und Indien, neu zu ordnen. Das Leitprinzip wird das nationale Interesse sein, nicht die Ideologie, nicht demokratische gegen autoritäre Länder und der andere Unsinn, der in den letzten Jahrzehnten unter demokratischen und republikanischen Regierungen als Leitprinzipien gegolten hat.

Trump spricht davon, der Ausbeutung der Vereinigten Staaten durch ihre Freunde und Feinde ein Ende zu setzen, indem man sich nicht länger mit ihren unfairen Handelspraktiken abfindet, die die US-Exporte behindern und zu den derzeit untragbaren Handelsdefiziten beitragen, die in diesem Jahr weit über eine Billion Dollar betragen. Im Grunde schlägt er vor, die Subventionen und übermäßig günstigen Handelskonzessionen für Verbündete zu beenden, um sich deren Loyalität zu erkaufen, was die bisherige Nachsicht der USA erklärt. Ihre Loyalität ist für Washington nicht mehr von Interesse, da sich die USA nur mit gleichrangigen Partnern, den Großmächten, befassen werden. Man mag zwar einwenden, dass die höchsten Zölle gerade auf einen „Feind“, die Großmacht China, angewendet werden, aber ich glaube, dass die Parteien in diesem einen Fall in Verhandlungen treten werden, um im Interesse ihrer anderen gemeinsamen Interessen als Mitglieder des Weltverwaltungsrats ein weniger strafendes Zollsystem zu erreichen.

****

Die Wirtschaftswissenschaftler sprechen alle von den Vorteilen, die angeblich allen Nationen aus dem Globalismus, dem Freihandel und insbesondere aus der Effizienz der internationalen Arbeitsteilung erwachsen, bei der Länder nicht versuchen, alles selbst herzustellen, sondern stattdessen bei einigen wenigen globalen Anbietern bestimmter Produkte einkaufen, wo es Kosteneinsparungen durch Größenvorteile, billige Arbeitskräfte und ein sehr erfahrenes Management gibt.

Diese Vorstellung ist jedoch nur unter bestimmten Umständen sinnvoll. In einem kleinen Land wie Belgien, wo ich lebe, und wo die gesamte Bevölkerung gerade einmal 12 Millionen beträgt, wäre es natürlich unvernünftig, Haushaltsgeräte und eine Vielzahl anderer Produkte herzustellen. Der heimische Markt würde dies nicht unterstützen. Daher ist es sinnvoll, bei einem globalen Lieferanten im Ausland einzukaufen. In den 350 Millionen Einwohnern zählenden Vereinigten Staaten ist die Situation völlig anders. Die Nachfrage ist vorhanden, um die inländische Produktion einer Vielzahl von Gütern des täglichen Bedarfs zu rechtfertigen.

Und dennoch haben wir noch nicht über die eigentliche Triebkraft hinter der Auslagerung in den USA gesprochen: die Steuerpolitik. Dies ist ein völlig willkürlicher Faktor, der aus heimlichen Absprachen zwischen Unternehmen und den Bundesbeamten und Parlamentariern, die sie beeinflussen, entstanden ist, während sie gegen das nationale Interesse und die Interessen der Arbeitnehmer arbeiten. Wie stehen Jeffrey Sachs und unsere anderen führenden Ökonomen zu diesem Thema? Bisher habe ich nichts zu diesem Thema gehört, obwohl man einen Kommentar zu Donald Trumps beiläufiger Erwähnung in seiner Rede im Rosengarten hätte erwarten können, dass er hofft, dass die zusätzlichen Einnahmen aus Zöllen dazu beitragen werden, die Senkung der US-Gewinnsteuern für Unternehmen von derzeit 21 % auf 15 % durchzusetzen, was den Steuersätzen in Ländern, in die amerikanische Hersteller ihre Produktion ausgelagert haben, entsprechen oder diese übertreffen würde.

Wir dürfen eine weitere Gruppe von Überlegungen nicht vergessen, die die Toleranz der USA gegenüber dem Verlust von Arbeitsplätzen in der Produktion in Nachbarländer wie Mexiko vorangetrieben hat. Damit meine ich das Argument, die niedrigen Beschäftigungsquoten dort anzugehen und die Motivation für illegale Einwanderung in die USA zu verringern. Solche sozialen und politischen Fragen haben nichts mit wirtschaftlicher Effizienz zu tun. Sie trösten arbeitslose US-amerikanische Automobilarbeiter nicht.

Außerdem wurden die großen multilateralen Handelsabkommen stark von geopolitischen Überlegungen beeinflusst, wie z.B. der Isolierung politischer Konkurrenten wie China, um deren weiteres Wirtschaftswachstum zu bremsen.

****

In diesem kurzen Essay konnte ich natürlich nicht auf alle Komplexitäten eingehen, die mit Trumps Ablehnung des Globalismus zusammenhängen. Aber ich sehe nicht, dass Professor Sachs und seine Mitdenker in der Gemeinschaft der führenden Ökonomen auf irgendeine davon angemessen eingegangen sind. Vielleicht werden sie darüber nachdenken, bevor sie uns erneut sagen, dass das Team Trump hirnverbrannt ist.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025 Nachtrag, 5. April: Eine sehr gute alternative Erklärung für die Trump-Zölle, die darauf abzielen, das Handelsdefizit sofort zu senken und damit die Zinssätze für kurzfristige (weniger als ein Jahr) Kredite zu senken, finden Sie bei Larry Johnson: https://sonar21.com/some-observations-on-tariff-hysteria/

Transcript submitted by a reader

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXdsNRJepog

Napolitano: 0:32
Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for “Judging Freedom”. Today is Thursday, April 3rd, 2025. Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us now. Professor Doctorow, always a pleasure. I want to talk to you essentially and eventually about President Trump in a rush and President Putin patient.

But first I need to ask you some questions on another field of your expertise, which is the politics of Europe. How do you account for the recent bellicosity of leaders like Ursula von der Leyen, Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz, and Keir Starmer? Real serious bellicosity as I view it.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD: 1:24
They are … they’ve invested so much in what they thought was a common program of the United States based on defending Europe from the Russian bear, based on free trade, based on globalism and progressive social policy. But when they found themselves confronted by Donald Trump, they dug in.

And of course, for all of these persons, saving their own skin, saving their own power, is their primary motive. They have invested in the war with Ukraine and they want to stick to it in the hope that the policy will be reversed in the United States because of opposition to Trump and to his seeming failure to produce results within this hundred days, the golden period of a new administration.

Napolitano: 2:30
Does Ms. Von der Leyen command an army? I know she’d love to, but is there such a thing as a European military?

Doctorow:
No, this is all her political strength, but she has no army. She has only her immediate following in what is essentially a cabinet on the executive in European institutions. But she has no serious opposition. And she can easily be lulled by the belief that she is omnipotent, therefore that others will move away, including the United States, if it is in a direct confrontation with her policies. So they are living in a bubble.

Napolitano: 3:17
Tell me if she knows what she’s talking about here. Chris– this is a minute and a half long, but it’s the core of her message– Chris, cut number 22.

von der Leyen:
We had a very good meeting of the coalition of the willing. The coalition of the willing has gotten bigger, stronger and very determined. I have basically three key takeaways. The first was a broad discussion on how to step up in the support for Ukraine in the short term, financially and military-wise, the military needs that are there in Ukraine that have to be fulfilled, but also the financial needs. And here I can contribute that we will front-load the EU part of the G7 loans for Ukraine.

4:07
Second topic, keep up the pressure on Russia. It was very clear that the sanctions stay in place. What we want is a just and lasting peace agreement. That is the goal. And the third key takeaway was on the long-term support for
Ukraine and our own European defense posture. Here, of course, The Readiness 2030 plan is crucial. It provides up to 800 billion euros of defense investment possibilities for the member states.

And this means, for example, joint procurement with Ukraine in the European Union, but also in the Ukrainian defense industry. It’s strengthening the defense industrial base of Ukraine. And of course, we need also a credible deterrence and defense posture in the European Union. And thus, we have to develop our own defence industrial base.

Napolitano:
Do you have 800 billion euros “to invest”?

Doctorow:
This is imaginary money. Look, she is putting lipstick on a pig. The reality is that the Coalition of the Willing produced no soldiers on the ground. And Starmer, who was the author and the promoter of that notion, had to backtrack and speak instead about support for Ukraine from the air and from the sea, because on the grounds there’s no possibility.

5:41
The money that she’s talking about, well, she would like it. The money that they hoped that– Kallas, her deputy for foreign affairs, was speaking about 40 billion euros in aid to Ukraine this year, and finally they voted, I think it was five. And even that is questioned by members who refuse to contribute one cent or one euro to that number. We know about, of course, about Fico and Slovakia and about Orban and Hungary, but other countries are now striking out on their own. Spain refused to make any commitment to support Ukraine. Other countries are questioning.

6:22
And even those that are most fervent and you would think are aligned with von der Leyen. And I myself fell into this trap less than a week ago when speaking about Donald Trump’s seven hours meeting with Stubb, the Prime Minister of Finland, and I interpreted that as being Trump having decided it’s easier to turn on Russia than to turn on the EU, if he’s going to apply pressure. I now have to revise that, because Stubb two days ago said, “Well, we have to consider how are we going to deal with Russia when when we have to return to normal relations.” So I was wondering who influenced whom? Did Trump influence Stubb or did Stubb influence Trump? It’s not obvious today.

Napolitano:
Let’s go back to von der Leyen. Where would she get 800 billion from? I mean, does the EU tax other countries? What is their source of wealth?

Doctorow: 7:24
No, this is notional money. It is just as Mr. Starmer’s initiative a day ago to create a fund for procurement, a joint procurement of military equipment that would be– that all member states could, [who] wish to could take part in, without putting up one euro in advance. This is the kind of money that she’s talking about. It is bonds. It is obligations that they would jointly subscribe to. And that is subject to a lot of disagreement within the EU.

Countries like Holland don’t want one more euro of common bonds or mutual obligations such as they did succumb to during the covid fight.

Napolitano: 8:13
Has Viktor Orban weighed in on the nonsense from his European colleagues?

Doctorow:
Oh, every day, yes. He certainly has not lost his vigor and his determination, and I think probably increasing confidence that whatever they say publicly, privately, many people agree with him. Nonetheless, having been around politics long enough, I know that what [counts is only] what people say publicly, because we’re all angels privately, but sometimes we’re wearing horns publicly.

Napolitano: 8:49
How do you, switching gears, Professor, how do you account for Donald Trump’s public impatience and Vladimir Putin’s public and private, as we understand it, patience over the negotiations to bring an end to the special military operation in Ukraine?

Doctorow:
Donald Trump has to deal with a specific problem. He’s doing very well on domestic policy. His executive orders are being signed, carried out, large, large, large measure. He has put in place a tightening of security at the southern borders. He has put in place, partially at least, his deportation program.

He has as of yesterday put in place his tariffs. These are all going swimmingly. However, in the international front, he’s doing very poorly. He has very little to show for the high personal engagement he’s made on the international front.

The ceasefire in Gaza, which gave him a gilded entry into office, is coming unraveled, partly with his assistance. The Ukrainian ceasefire has very modest achievements and even they are not being honored, because the Ukrainians are not adhering to the moratorium on strikes on Russian energy infrastructure.

So he is concerned that the hundred-days period of grace will expire exactly on April 20th, because that is the date that he is given for the Russians and the Ukrainians to sign a ceasefire or else. That is the date that he has given to the Iranians to submit to his will on their nuclear program, on their missile program and on the support for the axis of resistance. That date of April 20th is looming. And he has nothing to show for it. So he’s very impatient.

Napolitano: 11:01
The domestic strength that he has is unraveling a little bit. I mean, the Senate voted last night, a Republican-controlled Senate, to eradicate his declaration of emergency as a basis for the tariffs. I don’t know of any well-regarded economist who buys that the trade imbalance is an emergency. And of course, this is not enough votes to overcome, override a veto. And of course, his buddies in the House won’t even let this come to the floor where it would probably pass, but also not enough to override a veto.

But I just comment on that not to take us into American domestic politics, but just to underscore your, as I read your argument, that dark clouds might be coming. Where do you see the Ukraine war going? I mean, our military experts on this show believe that Ukraine can’t last another six months even if the Biden-Trump pipeline is kept [open].

12:14
Where do they get the six months from? General Zaluzhny himself has apparently said this to General Kovoly, the American commander of Centcom, when they met last in Germany.

If the “New York Times” is right, they’ve been meeting in Germany all the time, and the American generals in Germany have been helping target sites in Russia for Ukrainians to use American military equipment to fight Russia.

Under the law, that’s the United States at war with Russia. Another topic for another time. Question, how much longer can Ukraine possibly last?

Doctorow: 12:55
Well, the decisive issue here is how much risk does Vladimir Putin want to take with the lives of his military? Because of the blowback from possible losses of personnel in any offensives that they may be planning, blowback domestically. On the Ukrainian side, it has to be said, and I’d just like to add here something that you probably haven’t heard that is coming out of, again, Russian talk shows, that the Ukrainians are in fact recruiting young Ukrainians. It’s not as disastrous as it sounds. And the Russians on the ground are very concerned both about the relative strength and vigor of the new recruits now joining the Ukrainian army–

Napolitano:
OK, how young and how well trained could they possibly be? Are they just being sent to the front line with a weapon in their hands and a uniform on their backs?

Doctorow:
Judging by what I’ve seen on Russian television, no, that these people, the people who are worrying the Russians have been trained. Moreover, let’s come back to the nature of the war. The war now is very much a matter of technology, and the Ukrainians are not stupid in that area, not at all.

By technology, I mean drone warfare. It’s a very big issue. Therefore, the Russians are very cautious about big advances, about big movements that subject their people to kamikaze drone strikes and so forth. This is not a simple war; it is really state-of-the-art war, and the Ukrainians are not slouches. They have a lot of very well-trained people, yet precisely in this type of electronic and drone warfare.

Napolitano:
In his recent talk aboard a Russian submarine, President Putin, in his usual articulate way, attacked the Azov group and intimated, and I believe you have written on this also, Professor, that they are [not just] a freestanding battalion; they are everywhere in the military and in the government. Question, Does President Zelensky fear the Azov group?

Doctorow: 15:23
He should, but I think we’re just passing over a critical point in Putin’s statements to the staff, which looked like offhand remarks in answer to a question from one of the crewmen, but actually was clearly a well-prepared, well-orchestrated statement. He was explaining why he thinks the Trump initiative can fail and what can replace it.

Napolitano:
Which initiative, which initiative?

Doctorow:
The whole ceasefire slash long, durable peace.

Napolitano:
OK.

Doctorow:
That initiative is in danger, because not just is Mr. Zelensky illegitimate– which is what has been called out and what Trump reacted to and said is untrue and Guterres reacted to and said is untrue– but what he was suggesting is that Zelensky has lost control of his army. And they are day by day violating the moratorium, which the [team selected] by Zelensky had signed onto, a moratorium on striking Russian infrastructure, energy infrastructure.

16:39
It’s going on every day. So what, who and what– the point of Putin was that the army is infiltrated by this Azov battalion, and they’re not the only one, which are bearers of Nazi ideology. And like Hitler, would like to fight to the last day. So these troops, these forces are out of control. A cease fire with Ukraine, signed with Zelensky’s people, would be valueless not only because the man himself is illegitimate, but he seems to have lost control. A line– I don’t want to play the whole clip because it’s a minute and a half long and I know you’ve seen it– but a line from his address on the submarine says, neo-Nazi formations such as Azov, among others, are effectively beginning to run the country. Do you agree?

Doctorow: 17:39
Well, run the country — they’ve been doing since 2014. Run the army, they haven’t. And I think that is what is most troubling. From the very beginning, the Russians thought this would be over quickly when they approached Kiev. They assumed that there were rational people in control of the Ukrainian military, who would overthrow the Zelensky regime for the sake of the nation.

That didn’t happen then, and certainly it doesn’t look like it’s happening now. This is an intelligence failure by the Russians, which unfortunately, I think, has persisted.

Napolitano: 18:18
Transitioning, Professor, if the United States and Israel attack Iran, what is your opinion of a likely response by Moscow and the likely response by Beijing?

Doctorow:
I think this is precisely what they’ve been discussing in Moscow with the visit of the Chinese minister of foreign affairs these last two days. Nominally, the reason for the visit was to prepare for Xi’s trip to Moscow for the May 9th, 80th anniversary of VE-Day celebrations.

But I think among the discussions, there certainly was– a subject for discussion directly with Putin, which took place a day ago– was how they’re going to prevent an American attack on Iran and/or react to one. I believe that what we’ve seen in the last two days, the Chinese military exercises, staging an assault on Taiwan, staging a siege on Taiwan. I think these were not what they were explained to be. They were not a response to some remarks by the Prime Minister of Taiwan, to which Beijing took exception. No, they were a message to Washington: “Watch out, you touch Iran, and you lose Taiwan the next day.” They are preparing for siege of Taiwan. The Russians can do something also, but not as dramatic.

Napolitano: 19:49
The Secretary of Defense, Hegseth– who in my view has very little credibility here in the United States, nevertheless, he is the Secretary of Defense– was in Japan three days ago threatening China. I mean, isn’t that absurd? How could the United States military possibly resist the Chinese military in the Chinese back yard?

Doctorow:
At present time, they could not. Of course, this– the logic here is something that extends all across the West. It is the same logic as Starmor saying, or von der Leyen saying, “We’ll be ready for a war with Russia in five years.” But wait a minute, we live today.

And so it is with the statement that we’re going to create a very strong base in Japan to attack China or to neutralize China. That’s very good. But we live today and the Chinese are quite capable of doing great damage to the United States and its interests, right here and now, for which the United States has no remedy.

Napolitano: 20:57
Wow. Do you see the bombing of the Houthis and statements from Trump– I’m going to use his barnyard phrase; when I was a kid, this was considered improper language, but it’s made its way into the lexicon of American speech these days– that he’s pissed off at Putin. Statements like that and the killing of the civilians in Yemen, do they advance the ball of negotiations between Russia and the United States?

Doctorow:
No, they don’t. I would just like to point out, though, that many of the more absurd statements coming out of Trump and his Team Trump should not be taken in isolation, because I believe that there’s a lot of linkage in his thinking. The tariffs are not just tariffs; the tariffs are a way of reducing income tax.

22:04
The tariffs are introduced because the United States is “pissed off” with its allies and friends who have been ripping off the country for the last 50 years, correct? I see no criticism of that basic logic in the press today, in the anti-Trump press–

Napollitano:
You’ll hear that criticism later today on this program from Professor Sacks, but I don’t want to get into the economics now, but please continue. And then I’m going to ask you about if there is a connection in your view between the slaughter in Gaza and the peace negotiations between Russia, but go ahead, please.

Doctorow: 22:47
Yeah, the– well, to pick up the last one, it’s easier, the slaughter in Gaza. There is, unfortunately, in big politics there is a cynicism. The morality– this goes straight back to Machiavelli; private morality and state morality are different things. And however horrible various activities of the Team Trump have been in facilitating the slaughter in Gaza, in the muzzling of free speech in the United States, these are steps taken for a bigger purpose. They have aligned Trump with the Israeli lobby, and I agree with Scott Ritter yesterday, in a statement on your show, that who was commanding whom?

23:39
The United States is commanding Netanyahu, not the other way around. The objective of Trump’s support for them is to get general support for his policies of changing the American approach to world politics from alliances to great powers. These are all interlinked and regrettably, they’re being analyzed separately and taken on their separate merits. But I have to apologize, I lost the line to your first question.

24:13
Oh, that’s all right. You were commenting, I think, on the absurdity of threatening China and analogizing it to the absurdity of what Mrs. von der Leyen was saying, threatening Russia, and you were aligning those two mentalities, if you will, as defects in Western thinking. How much longer do you think, and I may have asked you this earlier, the Ukraine special military operation can last? Did you comment on General Zaluzhny saying it doesn’t go beyond June, even if they keep giving us all these arms? Or is that just a deception articulated by Zaluzhny?

Doctorow: 25:05
Well, as I said, it can go on for considerably longer than June. But it is unpredictable. We cannot speak about a capitulation as being in the cards. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t. What we can say is what the Russians have produced as their alternative scenario in case the plans that are promoted by Donald Trump don’t succeed. And that is to offload the Ukrainian state, rump state on the United Nations and have as they call it, an external governance of Ukraine to see it through new elections and to form a new government with which a peace can be negotiated.

25:56
So the Russians are preparing an alternative scenario. Of course, this greatly offended Donald Trump, who wanted to take credit, get his Nobel Prize for peace based on his initiative. However, his initiative is faltering because of the sabotage of the Europeans, who are whispering to Zelensky, “Don’t do it; we’ll support you.” And so they are not allowing Trump to deliver the prerequisites set by the Russians for a firm ceasefire, namely the end of hostilities against their infrastructure and several other points.

Napolitano:
Thank you. When we speak next, I’m going to ask you about the freedom of speech on college campuses and your very unique and fascinating observations about it. I’m sure it’ll still be going on, but Professor Doctorow, thank you very much for your time this morning. Your approach is so unique and crystal clear and helpful to my team and to our audiences. We try to get a handle on all these events as rapidly as they are moving. Thank you so much. Have a great day. I look forward to seeing you next week. I look forward to it already.

Doctorow:
Oh, very good. Thanks.

Napolitano:
Thank you. And coming up later today at two o’clock this afternoon, on all of this, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson; at three o’clock this afternoon, on all of this, Professor John Mearsheimer; at four o’clock this afternoon, I have spoken with him already, and he’s madder than a wet hen over the tariffs, and this is his field, Professor Jeffrey Sachs.

27:56
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.

Today’s chat with Judge Andrew Napolitano covered the waterfront of news from and about Donald Trump. This is perfectly fine, because my basic thesis is that Trump’s many different initiatives both domestic and foreign are interlinked by a common concept of sovereignty and national interest.

Many of Team Trump’s actions are deeply offensive to those who uphold the rights of Palestinians to live in peace, the rights of Americans to enjoy freedom of speech, the rights of our long time allies to find us reliable and true to our past commitments. But everything Team Trump does finds its own justification in the higher objectives they have set, including and not least of all being the right of 8 billion inhabitants of Planet Earth to live out their days and not to be incinerated in a nuclear war. Even Trump’s critics in Moscow give him credit for moving us all away from that awful scenario.

My point is that personal and state morality are not the same – have not been since the time of Macchiavelli and will not be in the future.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXdsNRJepog

You may wonder why in a website focused on Russia, I seem to stray here into an unrelated realm of domestic US economic policy. I ask your forbearance and assure readers that this will all come together in the last quarter of the essay.

*****

Yesterday afternoon, Donald Trump delivered a lengthy, typically rambling and self-congratulatory speech in the Rose Garden during which he explained his introducing base-line 10% tariffs on all goods imported into the United States from all countries and higher country-specific tariffs for countries with which the United States is running especially high annual trade deficits and which apply very high tariffs, non-monetary obstacles to American goods and artificial exchange rates that work against imports from the US. With respect to the country-specific tariffs he read off a table that the Commerce Department prepared which converted the various obstacles posed by the most egregious offenders into a single percentage rate.

He observed that in response to the biggest offenders, many if not most of which are considered as allies or friends of the USA, Washington will apply tariffs amounting to half the effective rate of the offenders.

From all of these measures, Trump expects to see a big inflow of investment capital from companies abroad that will now build factories in America in order to avoid the tariff discrimination. This, he says, will result in re-industrialization of the country, in a vast number of manufacturing jobs and in generalized prosperity at the level of working people.

What was the response of the media to his speech?

Of course, there were media outlets that published pundits denouncing Trump for economic illiteracy. Then there were those who grudgingly accepted that many more factories may open in the States as a result, but then go on to say that this will happen over the course of several years while the disruption to trade flows, the uncertainty that businesses hate will all have a negative effect on growth today.

I take that last line of criticism with a grain of salt. It comes from those whose only view of the economy is what happens in the next calendar quarter. You cannot build a national economy with such a short time line dictating decisions just as you cannot build a company only by looking at the next quarterly return on capital.

To my surprise, there was more acceptance in the media of Trump’s initiative on tariffs making sense than one might have expected.

First, so far no one has attacked the effective tariff rates that Trump’s economic advisers assigned to China, the EU, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, etc. That is of critical importance. Accordingly, we see that the injustice of the prevailing trade practices that have been accepted by a long succession of U.S. presidents is real.

Trump says it is time to end the robbery of the States by friends and foes through unbalanced trade.The question then is why did this go on for so long until a certain Mr. Trump said ‘enough is enough’?

Trump did not raise that question. I will, because it puts everything he is doing on trade in line with what he seems to want when he applies a wrecking ball to U.S. alliances in general as he seems to be doing.

The point is that the United States has been buying subservience from allies by turning a blind eye or even facilitating through multilateral trade agreements the depredations that Trump is now denouncing.

Obviously, the well is now running dry. Obviously, the de-industrialization has gone so far that it threatens the nation’s ability to produce weapons systems at home in the numbers required to remain the world’s number one bully.

The end result is that Trump is calling some of the country’s best allies robbers and is reversing course on globalism and free trade.

All of this is very familiar to those of us who have followed political thinking in Russia since the break-up of the USSR in late 1991. The politician who most clearly and colorfully made the point was the founder and leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, Vladimir Zhirinovsky. He insisted that it was a godsend that Russia was free of the Warsaw Pact countries and of other ‘parasites’ whose allegiance the Soviet leaders had been purchasing not only by financial subventions but by barter trade that saw highly valuable Russian raw materials exchanged for junk manufactures from the friends.

From my personal experience, that type of rip-off pertained not only to wares coming from Eastern Europe but also to Western ‘friends’ who had to be bought off. Thus, for example, Russian logs and natural gas and oil was shipped to Finland and what came back was shoes and other consumer goods that were of inferior quality, often unsalable elsewhere.

I have little doubt that the response of America’s trading partners to the imposition of stiff American tariffs, whether China or Vietnam or even the EU will be muted. In her response to Trump’s announcement even Ursula von der Leyen conceded that there were reasons for the United States to criticize unfair trade practices.

I note in passing, that for those of us who have taken the notion of a ‘special relationship’ between the USA and Britain to have been an empty phrase, it came as a surprise to see that Britain is the only country in the vast list posted by Trump yesterday which has a negative trade balance with the States and that it has only a 10% level of tariffs on American goods.

I conclude with the remark that the tariffs are viewed by Trump not only as a means of cutting the unsustainable negative trade balance but also as a means of raising revenue to the Treasury that may offset the sharp reductions in income taxes on companies and private persons that Trump intends to push through Congress now. He said as much yesterday when he explained that the main source of the federal budget in the 19^th century was precisely tariffs, but that this changed early in the 20^th century when federal taxes on incomes were introduced.

This last issue of cutting income taxes as the offset for the new income from tariffs has not yet been analyzed by the pundits when they speak about how the increased inflation resulting from tariffs will hurt the common man. Whether the tariffs hurt or help is yet to be seen.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Translation into German below (Andreas Mylaeus)

Trump und Zölle

Sie fragen sich vielleicht, warum ich auf einer Website, die sich auf Russland konzentriert, hier in einen Bereich abschweife, der nichts mit der US-Wirtschaftspolitik zu tun hat. Ich bitte um Nachsicht und versichere den Lesern, dass sich im letzten Viertel des Aufsatzes alles zusammenfügen wird.

*****

Gestern Nachmittag hielt Donald Trump im Rosengarten eine lange, typisch ausschweifende und selbstgefällige Rede, in der er seine Einführung von Basiszöllen in Höhe von 10 % auf alle Waren, die aus allen Ländern in die Vereinigten Staaten importiert werden, und höhere länderspezifische Zölle für Länder erläuterte, mit denen die Vereinigten Staaten besonders hohe jährliche Handelsdefizite verzeichnen und die sehr hohe Zölle, nichtmonetäre Handelshemmnisse für amerikanische Waren und künstliche Wechselkurse anwenden, die gegen Importe aus den USA wirken. Was die länderspezifischen Zölle betrifft, so las er aus einer vom Handelsministerium erstellten Tabelle vor, in der die verschiedenen Hindernisse, die von den schlimmsten Übeltätern verursacht werden, in einen einzigen Prozentsatz umgerechnet wurden.

Er stellte fest, dass Washington als Reaktion auf die größten Übeltäter, von denen viele, wenn nicht sogar die meisten als Verbündete oder Freunde der USA gelten, Zölle in Höhe der Hälfte des effektiven Zollsatzes der Übeltäter erheben wird.

Von all diesen Maßnahmen erwartet Trump einen großen Zufluss von Investitionskapital von Unternehmen aus dem Ausland, die nun Fabriken in Amerika bauen werden, um die Zoll-Diskriminierung zu umgehen. Dies, so sagt er, wird zu einer Reindustrialisierung des Landes, zu einer großen Zahl von Arbeitsplätzen im verarbeitenden Gewerbe und zu einem allgemeinen Wohlstand auf der Ebene der arbeitenden Bevölkerung führen.

Wie haben die Medien auf seine Rede reagiert?

Natürlich gab es Medien, die Experten veröffentlichten, die Trump wegen wirtschaftlicher Unwissenheit anprangerten. Dann gab es diejenigen, die widerwillig akzeptierten, dass dadurch möglicherweise viel mehr Fabriken in den USA eröffnet werden, aber dann sagten, dass dies im Laufe mehrerer Jahre geschehen wird, während die Unterbrechung der Handelsströme und die Unsicherheit, die Unternehmen hassen, sich heute alle negativ auf das Wachstum auswirken werden.

Die letzte Kritik nehme ich mit Vorsicht zur Kenntnis. Sie kommt von denen, deren einzige Sicht auf die Wirtschaft darin besteht, was im nächsten Kalenderquartal passiert. Man kann keine Volkswirtschaft aufbauen, wenn Entscheidungen nur auf einer so kurzen Zeitachse getroffen werden, und man kann auch kein Unternehmen aufbauen, wenn man nur auf die Kapitalrendite des nächsten Quartals schaut.

Zu meiner Überraschung wurde Trumps Zollinitiative in den Medien stärker als sinnvoll akzeptiert, als man hätte erwarten können.

Erstens hat bisher niemand die effektiven Zollsätze angegriffen, die Trumps Wirtschaftsberater China, der EU, Japan, Südkorea, Vietnam usw. zugewiesen haben. Das ist von entscheidender Bedeutung. Dementsprechend sehen wir, dass die Ungerechtigkeit der vorherrschenden Handelspraktiken, die von einer langen Reihe von US-Präsidenten akzeptiert wurden, real ist.

Trump sagt, es sei an der Zeit, den Raub der Staaten durch Freunde und Feinde durch unausgewogenen Handel zu beenden. Die Frage ist dann, warum das so lange gedauert hat, bis ein gewisser Herr Trump sagte: „Genug ist genug“?

Trump hat diese Frage nicht aufgeworfen. Ich werde es tun, denn sie bringt alles, was er in Bezug auf den Handel tut, in Einklang mit dem, was er zu wollen scheint, wenn er, wie es scheint, die US-Allianzen im Allgemeinen mit der Abrissbirne angeht.

Der Punkt ist, dass die Vereinigten Staaten sich die Unterwürfigkeit ihrer Verbündeten erkauft haben, indem sie ein Auge zugedrückt oder sogar durch multilaterale Handelsabkommen die Plünderungen erleichtert haben, die Trump jetzt anprangert.

Offensichtlich versiegt der Brunnen jetzt. Offensichtlich ist die Deindustrialisierung so weit fortgeschritten, dass sie die Fähigkeit der Nation bedroht, Waffensysteme im eigenen Land in der erforderlichen Menge zu produzieren, um die Nummer eins unter den Tyrannen der Welt zu bleiben.

Das Endergebnis ist, dass Trump einige der besten Verbündeten des Landes als Räuber bezeichnet und den Kurs in Richtung Globalismus und Freihandel umkehrt.

All dies ist denjenigen von uns sehr vertraut, die das politische Denken in Russland seit dem Zusammenbruch der UdSSR Ende 1991 verfolgt haben. Der Politiker, der dies am deutlichsten und anschaulichsten zum Ausdruck brachte, war der Gründer und Vorsitzende der nationalistischen Liberal-Demokratischen Partei Russlands, Wladimir Schirinowski. Er bestand darauf, dass es ein Geschenk des Himmels sei, dass Russland nun frei von den Ländern des Warschauer Pakts und anderen „Parasiten“ sei, deren Loyalität die sowjetischen Führer nicht nur durch finanzielle Subventionen, sondern auch durch Tauschhandel erkauft hatten, bei dem wertvolle russische Rohstoffe gegen Ramschwaren von den „Freunden“ eingetauscht wurden.

Aus meiner persönlichen Erfahrung heraus betraf diese Art von Abzocke nicht nur Waren aus Osteuropa, sondern auch westliche „Freunde“, die man bestechen musste. So wurden beispielsweise russische Baumstämme, Erdgas und Öl nach Finnland verschifft und als Gegenleistung Schuhe und andere Konsumgüter von minderer Qualität geliefert, die anderswo oft unverkäuflich waren.

Ich habe wenig Zweifel daran, dass die Reaktion der Handelspartner Amerikas auf die Einführung hoher amerikanischer Zölle, ob China, Vietnam oder sogar die EU, verhalten ausfallen wird. In ihrer Reaktion auf Trumps Ankündigung räumte sogar Ursula von der Leyen ein, dass es Gründe für die Vereinigten Staaten gebe, unfaire Handelspraktiken zu kritisieren.

Ich möchte nebenbei anmerken, dass es für diejenigen von uns, die die Vorstellung von einer „besonderen Beziehung“ zwischen den USA und Großbritannien als leere Phrase empfunden haben, überraschend war, dass Großbritannien das einzige Land in der langen Liste ist, die Trump gestern veröffentlicht hat, das eine negative Handelsbilanz mit den USA aufweist und nur 10 % Zölle auf amerikanische Waren erhebt.

Ich schließe mit der Bemerkung, dass die Zölle von Trump nicht nur als Mittel zur Senkung der unhaltbaren negativen Handelsbilanz angesehen werden, sondern auch als Mittel zur Erhöhung der Einnahmen für das Finanzministerium, die die drastischen Senkungen der Einkommenssteuern für Unternehmen und Privatpersonen ausgleichen könnten, die Trump jetzt im Kongress durchsetzen will. Er sagte dies gestern, als er erklärte, dass die Hauptquelle des Bundeshaushalts im 19. Jahrhundert genau die Zölle waren, sich dies jedoch zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts änderte, als die Bundessteuern auf Einkommen eingeführt wurden.

Diese letzte Frage der Senkung der Einkommenssteuern als Ausgleich für die neuen Einnahmen aus Zöllen wurde von den Experten noch nicht analysiert, wenn sie darüber sprechen, wie die durch Zölle verursachte erhöhte Inflation dem einfachen Mann schaden wird. Ob die Zölle schaden oder helfen, bleibt abzuwarten.