Tag: trump

A very Indian panel discussion for your perusal on News X

 Trump Greenlights ‘Russia Sanctions Bill’ | More Tariff Trouble For India?

I was honored yesterday evening to participate in a very Indian panel discussion which opens with Indian advertising that you will certainly not find on BBC, CNN or other global broadcasters. As for the discussion itself, note that I appear to be the only non-Indian expert.

The topic was one of great concern to the Indian government and business community, namely the bill presently before the U.S. Senate granting the President the powers to impose secondary tariffs of up to 500% on countries which continue to buy Russian oil. This bill enjoys bipartisan support and is sponsored by the viciously anti-Russian Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and his Democratic peer and fellow Russia-hater Senator Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut.  I add parenthetically that I take special interest in these sponsors because Blumenthal just happens to be a classmate of mine from Harvard College, 1967.

We each had just a few minutes to make present our evaluations of the likely fall-out from the 500% tariffs when the bill comes into law, as it inevitably will given that 82 of the Senators have previously expressed their support, making it veto-proof. The subject became news when President Trump came out yesterday saying he will sign the bill, which is a concession to the realities of politics on The Hill.

You will see that all the Indian experts were figuring the angles for India and for the USA coming out of the new tariffs: how this would add greatly to inflation for American consumers on the one hand and how it would harm Indian exports in areas until now not affected by Trump’s tariffs like pharmaceuticals. Regrettably, I limited my remarks to how the new tariffs would founder on the rocks of Chinese opposition. After all, Trump’s early attempts to impose 150% tariffs on China months ago fell through when the Chinese struck back and said they would freeze all sales of rare earth metals to the USA, in effect bringing US industrial production, especially in electronics and military hardware to an abrupt halt. Trump backed down and the imposition of high tariffs on China so far is in a suspended state, which is where it will likely remain to the end of Trump’s term in office. 

Regrettably, what I did not broach is the question of how such tariffs would affect Russia and change dramatically how the war in Ukraine is being conducted.

If indeed, Washington succeeds in forcing Russia’s major export markets to stop buying Russian oil and does great harm to Russia’s economy, we will not have to wait to see this damage impair the war effort.  On the contrary, we may anticipate that Russia will proceed to do in Ukraine what some argue it should have done a couple of years ago, namely to smash Kiev and Lvov to bits, putting a dramatic end to the statehood of Ukraine and ending the war here and now.  I can add based on today’s latest news, which I discussed with News X World this morning, that the message of such an escalatory path has just been given by Moscow to Kiev, London, Paris, Berlin and Washington by the use of an Oreshnik hypersonic missile in a midnight attack on Kiev. I await further news on this very important development to see what destruction actually resulted from the Oreshnik attack, which is only the second use of this missile in the Ukrainian campaign after an initial experimental strike on a hardened underground military production site in Dnipro in 2024.

‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 7 January 2026: Trump’s Maduro “Kidnapping” Is an Impeachable Crime

‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 7 January 2026: Trump’s Maduro “Kidnapping” Is an Impeachable Crime

This session with Judge Andrew Napolitano was a sad start to the New Year, as he stated at both the beginning and end of our conversation.  We are in a new world order created by what I call here Trump’s latest deal with the devil to raise his sagging popularity ratings at this critical time when the USA enters the season of midterm elections.

Whereas at the very start of his new term a year ago Trump made some very promising, even daring appointments, as for example Tulsi Gabbard to Director of National Intelligence, and whereas there were some wonderful actions to curb the Deep State, as for example, the virtual shut-down of US AID, the agency which had directed illicit funds to local NGOs and other actors engaging in regime change abroad, it appears that Trump has reversed course and has agreed to work with the power ministries for the sake of pumping up his political capital.  Nota bene, that this political capital was surely depleted not just by Trump’s failure to achieve a genuine peace in Gaza, not to mention still less success in ending the Russia-Ukraine War, but most recently depleted when he issued the new National Security Strategy document that upended all of US foreign policy priorities since 1949 and must have raised a hullaballoo on Capitol Hill and within the Republican Party establishment.

The net result is that the CIA, State Department and War Department are now once again running the show, setting the targets for foreign and military policy and executing that policy in ways that are simply astonishing and take your breath away, as happened this past weekend in the U.S. attack on Caracas and kidnapping of President Maduro. What we see again is the hubristic behavior of American officials that we have seen without end since Bush Jr. invaded Iraq in 2003. These people, like Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio, are overconfident in U.S. capability to ‘run Venezuela’ not to mention run the world. 

The only thing that can stop this juggernaut is the other two world superpowers, Russia and China.  So far both are silent, which does not inspire confidence in where the world is headed.

Time to impeach Trump

The attack on Venezuela and snatching of President Maduro puts an end to my flirtation with Trump.  He has just trampled on the National Security Strategy that he rolled out 3 weeks ago. He has proven that the Neocons control the government and he is nothing more than a figurehead.

I call for his impeachment so as to install JD Vance and give him two-three years to do what has to be done, namely to purge the Pentagon, the CIA, State of the Neocons who constitute the decision makers and implementers in the ‘power ministries’.  This accomplished, Vance could then hope to carry out the NSS and position the USA as a major world power among peers, rather than a hegemon and Cold Warrior.

For those in the Community who may be puzzled by my turning against Trump, I recommend that they read the first chapter in my 2019 collection of essays entitled A Belgian Perspective on International Affairs: “Time to Impeach Trump,” dated 21 September 2017, pp. 1-4. You may have overlooked this book because its title was explained only in the Foreword, p. xiii:  the ‘Belgian’ in question was not a collective part of this small nation that one could disregard until its Prime Minister Bart De Wever stood up to Ursula von der Leyen and Chancellor Friedrich Merz a couple of weeks ago and saved the global financial markets from the catastrophe that would have followed confiscation of Russian state assets held in Belgium. The word ‘Belgian’ in the title stood for one person, me, who had become a naturalized Belgian.  My call for impeachment was precipitated by Trump’s barbaric declarations before the UN General Assembly threatening to annihilate North Korea, a nation of 22 million people.

My coddling of Trump’s vile activities in some global hotspots since taking office again, in January 2025,  in particular his enabling the Israeli genocide in Gaza, was based on the reasonable assumption that that was the price to pay for him to enjoy the political capital in the heavily pro-Zionist Congress and in the foreign policy establishment in Washington necessary to pass his domestic and foreign policy programs.  The same logic persuaded me to remain silent about his attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities and his enabling Israeli strikes on Teheran and other purely civilian targets in their 12-day war.

But the recent months of Trump’s superintending so-called peace negotiations to end the war in Ukraine have shown that at best his efforts are incompetent and so are condemned to failure. Holding separate talks with each of the warring parties and agreeing with each side to their entirely contradictory peace plans shows that he is posturing and that nothing of use can come out of these talks. Moreover, no peace agreement that met the Russian demands of resolving the underlying reasons for the war, namely turning back NATO expansion to Russia’s borders and getting Washington to consider revising the security architecture in Europe, will get approval in Congress now that everyone has read about Trump’s hopes to overturn 76 years of American foreign policy priorities by the language of his NSS document.

Accordingly, I view without prejudice and on their merits Trump’s attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Maduro and his wife to face trumped up charges of drug trafficking in the USA. And on their merits Trump has egregiously violated international law. Sad to say, he has not set a precedent, but is following a pattern of ‘rogue state’ behavior established by President George H.W. Bush when he invaded Panama in December 1989 and seized president Manuel Noriega. Noriega then spent years in U.S. detention and died there.

Let us remember that ‘rogue state behavior’ was precisely what one of the chief popularizers of Neocon ideology, Robert Kagan, husband of the notorious Victoria Nuland, urged upon the United States in books and speeches. That is to say, scorn for all legal constraints on how foreign policy is conducted for the sake of maintaining U.S. global domination.

The difference between what H.W. Bush did in 1989 and what Trump has just down now in Venezuela must be called out. Bush was just ‘kicking ass,’ as they say in the States.  Trump is implementing a farther- reaching geopolitical objective of driving all foreign powers out of the Western Hemisphere, which he seeks to maintain as Washington’s exclusive hunting preserve. To be more specific, Trump has attacked not just Venezuela. He has attacked China which is a main export market for Venezuela; conversely, China is highly dependent on Venezuelan oil and an American take-over would surely cause economic harm to Beijing. In this regard, the warm-up exercise to yesterday’s snatch operation was the U.S. capture of two Venezuelan oil tankers, one of which was carrying oil destined for and already paid for by China.

Going back still further, this American attack on Venezuela is a continuation of the attack on China’s commercial activities in Latin America that we saw still earlier in 2025 when Trump brought pressure on Panama to remove the Chinese from their control over the Canal.

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What lessons can the world’s two other superpowers draw from Trump’s outrageous attack on Venezuela?

As for Russia, the message should be crystal clear to President Vladimir Putin that he does not and cannot have a partner in Donald Trump. Russia must proceed on its own path to resolve the Ukraine war, and as I have been saying in recent months, the sooner the war is ended, whether by a decapitation strike on Kiev and other decision-making centers, or by storming Kiev with ground forces, the better. Russia now has a window of opportunity that it should exploit without hesitation.  If President Putin is unable to act decisively in this sense, then he should resign and pass the torch to someone in a younger generation who is level-headed, has proven experience at high levels of the government and is decisive, not wishy-washy.

As for China, this attack on Venezuela is de facto an attack on China. Generally, Chairman Xi is more decisive and has more resources to threaten the USA than does Putin and Russia.  If ever there were a moment for China to resolve the Taiwan issue it is here and now.  The Americans have just stolen Chinese oil and are attacking a major supplier to China.  Xi will not straighten out relations with Washington now by remaining silent and failing to respond appropriately. Such reticence will only encourage further provocations and give Washington time to better prepare for armed conflict.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026

A conversation with Professor Glenn Diesen, 9 December: U.S. National Security Strategy Embraces Kissinger-Style Strategy

Today’s conversation goes on for 52 minutes, and could have run still longer if we were to examine more than the several aspects of the latest U.S. National Security Strategy document. I am pleased, nonetheless, that we had ample opportunity to explore the ways in which this 2025 document compares with Trump’s first NSS of December 2017, to see how there is continuity in thinking from then to now. Trump was then a Kissinger-mentored Realist. He is one today, as well.

His embrace of an interest driven foreign policy means that he is ready to seek compromises and compromises are arrived at by diplomacy, which is why he has placed emphasis on reestablishing communication lines with Russia. The efforts of the Biden administration to break off all contact with Russia, to close down diplomacy and to rely solely on a militarized foreign policy, was not the idiosyncratic wish of one man: it came directly from the Idealist, values driven approach to foreign policy that every U.S. administration since Richard Nixon has prioritized.

In this chat, I explained what insights into the NSS come from close textual analysis of the document, from decoding innocent statements like our favoring pragmatism over pragmatists, realism over realists; or by the mention of how Germany is deindustrializing because its industrialists are moving production to China to take advantage of cheap Russian gas there.

I also had a chance to explain the mechanisms in European politics which make it impossible to reverse course on failing policies, so that the meddling that Trump proposes in the NSS and which the Germans have denounced, is very much needed if Europe is to be saved from its present suicidal course.

There is a great deal more here for the Community to explore.

By the way, I perhaps abused my privilege as guest to promote my 2019 book of essays entitled The Belgian Perspective on International Affairs, sales of which are just beginning to take off, six years after its launch. Perhaps prospective readers were turned off by the notion that Belgium dominates the content and Belgium is too small to be of value for understanding world politics.  However, I had used a play on words, since the Belgian perspective was in reality, my perspective, now that I had become a naturalized Belgian two years earlier. It is in that book that you will find my detailed analysis of Trump’s 2017 NSS, which largely sets out the thinking he has stayed with in 2025. It is there, in chapter one, that you will find my call for Trump’s impeachment over his vile speech to the UN General Assembly in September 2017 when he proposed to utterly destroy North Korea and obliterate its 22 million population. I am viewing Trump very differently these days, focusing as I do on his top priorities for global power sharing with Russia and China and choosing to overlook his bullying, imperialist ways in Venezuela and his enabling genocide in Gaza.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Trump – Putin meeting in Budapest is now officially canceled by the U.S. side

Trump – Putin meeting in Budapest is now officially canceled by the U.S. side

Many laymen and a good many experts who are well known to the Community from their regular appearances on major interview podcasts will deeply regret the news that Washington has canceled, not postponed the Trump-Putin summit planned for Budapest, per today’s Financial Times and carried by Reuters. I am not among them, because in his present posture of subservience to Trump, it is best if President Putin is not given an opportunity to sacrifice core Russian interests and to overlook the loss of 150,000 Russian soldiers’ lives by accepting the ‘American conceptualization’ of what the end of the war will look like. That last remark on conceptualization was issued by Putin just a few days ago before it was withdrawn by Sergei Lavrov in a lame-looking acknowledgement that the American president has gone back on his words to Putin at their Anchorage summit and now is pressing for a cease-fire without addressing the root causes of the conflict.

I still maintain that Trump has been messaging Putin in various ways that he must end the war as soon as possible and that he, Trump, does not care if this means wreaking total destruction on Kiev here and now. This is what all the delays in applying secondary sections on Russian oil exports were all about. The sanctions themselves will start to bite very soon and that is heavy pressure on Putin to do what is needed. Sooner or later this issue will be resolved at the top in Russia, either by Putin or by his successor if he is pushed aside.

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I close this essay by sharing the video link from yesterday’s interview with NewsX World (India), the content of which I partly discussed in an essay yesterday.

https://youtu.be/wWepGQ4GJl0?si=8wlw5VH9TBPDOqBV

Conversation with Professor Glenn Diesen: Trump washing his hands of the Ukraine war

I am particularly grateful to Professor Diesen for providing his audience with commentators offering divergent interpretations of the key international developments. Today in separate interviews he asked both me and Jeffrey Sachs the same questions regarding Trump’s speech to the General Assembly gathering, his statements on Truth Social that Ukraine can win the war against Russia and recover its occupied territory with help from the European Union and his answer to a journalist’s question about possible U.S. support should the Europeans shoot down Russian military jets violating their air space, per his recommendations.

I invite the Community to watch not only my interview with Glenn today but also the one with Jeffrey Sachs which you can easily find via the youtube search box.

My point is that Sachs’ derision of Trump and his accusation that Trump has shown ‘a colossal failure of leadership’ by not being transparent with the American public over his intention to end American participation in the Ukraine war must be placed in the context of Sach’s being a champion of globalism and of the Green Agenda in his capacity of director of the Columbia University center for sustainability. It was precisely these core beliefs of Sachs that Trump trashed during a speech to the GA which was definitely not a ‘disjointed rant’ per Sachs but a programmatic statement from Trump. 

My further point is that in his remarks on Open Borders (a key aspect of Globalism) and on the futility of Renewable Energy Trump was saying what his MAGA supporters want to hear and so he could allow himself to be candid with the audience and with the American public.  On the other hand, Trump’s views on ending the war on Russia’s terms, on normalization of relations with Russia do not find much support within MAGA and are positively hated by a majority of Congressmen and by the American political establishment, hence his duplicity, his espousing the positions of his opponents while in effect trolling them.

Enjoy the show!

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Conversation with Professor Glenn Diesen: Trump washing his hands of the Ukraine war

I am particularly grateful to Professor Diesen for providing his audience with commentators offering divergent interpretations of the key international developments. Today in separate interviews he asked both me and Jeffrey Sachs the same questions regarding Trump’s speech to the General Assembly gathering, his statements on Truth Social that Ukraine can win the war against Russia and recover its occupied territory with help from the European Union and his answer to a journalist’s question about possible U.S. support should the Europeans shoot down Russian military jets violating their air space, per his recommendations.

I invite the Community to watch not only my interview with Glenn today but also the one with Jeffrey Sachs which you can easily find via the youtube search box.

My point is that Sachs’ derision of Trump and his accusation that Trump has shown ‘a colossal failure of leadership’ by not being transparent with the American public over his intention to end American participation in the Ukraine war must be placed in the context of Sach’s being a champion of globalism and of the Green Agenda in his capacity of director of the Columbia University center for sustainability. It was precisely these core beliefs of Sachs that Trump trashed during a speech to the GA which was definitely not a ‘disjointed rant’ per Sachs but a programmatic statement from Trump. 

My further point is that in his remarks on Open Borders (a key aspect of Globalism) and on the futility of Renewable Energy Trump was saying what his MAGA supporters want to hear and so he could allow himself to be candid with the audience and with the American public.  On the other hand, Trump’s views on ending the war on Russia’s terms, on normalization of relations with Russia do not find much support within MAGA and are positively hated by a majority of Congressmen and by the American political establishment, hence his duplicity, his espousing the positions of his opponents while in effect trolling them.

Enjoy the show!

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Transcript of RT Interview, 8 August

Transcript submitted by a reader

RT: 0:00
Let’s discuss this topic now with author, historian and geopolitical analyst Gilbert Doctorow. Gilbert, thanks a lot for joining us on the program. I just want to ask you, what do you think about this, your thoughts on the upcoming Putin-Trump meeting?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Well, as your colleague at RT said a little bit earlier, this whole event is filled with symbolism, and I would like to unwrap some of the symbolism.

Some of my colleagues have tried to parse the language of Mr Ushakov when he was describing the agreement to meet with the American president. I say that the skills needed for this are not criminology. The skills are those of someone entering the Easter egg hunt. And what I mean by that is that we have to look at who initiated everything that is about to happen. That is Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump is known as a real estate man. And I haven’t heard anybody pay attention to what that means in a given instance other than to say that territory will be swapped. That’s the least of it.

1:04
As you just pointed out, swapping a little bit of Sumi, a little bit of Kharkov against a substantial amount of land in the Donbass that is not yet occupied by Russians, that isn’t a very interesting swap, is it? However, the swap will take place because something else is involved. Now, before I get to that something else involved, I want to look at another symbolism, the date. The date is the 15th of August. To most Americans, that doesn’t mean much.

To Europeans, it means a lot. To Catholics, it means a lot. The 15th of August is known as the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. However, it all goes back 2,000 years to the Emperor Augustus, from which the month of August is named. And this date, 15th of August, is the Feira Agosto.

That is the celebration feast day of the Emperor Augustus. And who was Augustus? He was the founder of the Roman Empire, and he was the founder of the Pax Romana, the perpetual peace enforced by the Roman Empire. Mr. Trump is today’s Emperor Augustus, and he would like to be known for his Pax Trumpiana.

The point is that the day was not arbitrary. It’s highly symbolic. The place was not arbitrary. It’s highly symbolic. And the fact that it’s only two miles away from separating Russia and the United States is coincidental, but not decisive.

2:35
What is decisive is how did this territory become American? I haven’t heard a word about that. By the way, it was bought. It was bought. It was sold by the Russian Tsar, and it was bought by the Americans.

And that’s what we’re going to see now in Ukraine. And nobody’s saying a word about it. But let’s use our minds. Let’s expand a little bit. Let’s be extravagant like Mr. Trump is. The Russians have $350 billion worth of assets that are now frozen in the West. Practically speaking, they have written that off. In their bookkeeping internally, they recouped most of that money by the extraordinary profitability of selling hydrocarbons in the first days of the war. So $350 billion, well, you can buy a lot in Ukraine with that, can’t you?

And the opinion of Mr. Zelensky about refusing or accepting the $350 billion in exchange for all of the territory of Ukraine that Russia wants, which is the whole Donbass, the four oblasts that were named. Well, that’s a deal. That is Mr. Trump’s great art of the deal.

And I haven’t heard anybody talk about it yet, but it’s just hanging there, low-hanging fruit in front of our very noses. So I expect that there will be a deal. And I expect that whatever Mr. Zelensky thinks, if he doesn’t like it, they’ll be overthrown at once because the Ukrainian people would like to have that money to rebuild.

RT: 4:04
That’s a fascinating take, to be honest, about Augustus; and of course you have a deep understanding of the history of Alaska and Russian-US relations obviously. But I want to ask you, why do you think Zelensky himself, all things considered, wasn’t invited to this summit in the first place?

Doctorow:
His opinion is not wanted, because the decision at the end will not be his. It will be the decision of the Ukrainian people. Either he goes with what the polls are saying, which is that 70 percent of the Ukrainians now want the war to end, or he’ll be overthrown.

So to invite his opinion is useless. In fact, it’s counterproductive. The parties, the United States and Russia, will tell him what his deal is. The Ukrainian people will go for that deal, because it’s fantastic for them. And that will be it, whether Zelensky stays or goes, that will be his decision, but it will have no influence on the outcome of this war.

RT: 5:01
Well, you mentioned the art of the deal, how obviously Trump is approaching this as a businessman in large part. And the Kremlin also pointed out that these two countries, they’re neighbors, right? And both Alaska and the Arctic, they both hold great potential for joint projects. So do you think that this could be in part an attempt to come to a peace agreement, but also in part to expand some sort of joint projects there?

Doctorow:
Joint projects, of course. Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Direct Investment Fund, has been an integral part of all discussions. And everyone knows that he is a backer of the old idea of a tunnel bridge connecting Russia and the United States over the Bering Strait. So that, of course, is an element that cannot be excluded. At the same time, the real possibilities for further development of whatever is reached on the 15th of August are on a different level. They are at global security.

6:00
The time on the New START treaty, the arms limitation treaty, is expiring in ’26. It is entirely predictable that if the parties reach an agreement on the 15th in the little petty business of the Ukraine war, they will move on to the big global issues of arms control, removing the threat of intermediate-range missiles in Europe, which would come with the introduction of American missiles in ’26 in Germany. These issues will then be next on the agenda. So what we’re looking forward to is a big rollout of a global realignment for which the first step will happen on the 15th of August.

RT: 6:48
Well, you brought up a lot of good reasons for why this meeting is set to take place in Alaska. But also, there were other options that we heard about before, right? The United Arab Emirates was brought up. And of course, there are other more neutral countries that could have been chosen. Again, Alaska is not neutral territory. It’s a state of the United States. What do you think was the main factor in them choosing Alaska over these other potential venues?

Doctorow: 7:13
Well, Mr. Trump’s a showman, first of all, and nothing could be showier and more symbolic than having it in Alaska, which was purchased by the United States from Russia. And that is what he probably has put on the table to Mr. Putin, that Russia purchase the land that it now occupies and that it claims as part of the Russian Federation from Ukraine on condition that there be a complete and permanent peace between the countries, which puts an end to any Ukrainian claims against Russia, and puts a big “Nyet” on all the hopes of warmongers in Europe to continue this conflict.

Now, why Alaska? There are other reasons, one of which nobody has mentioned, security. To reach this meeting in Alaska, Mr. Putin flies only over Russian territory. That’s not a bad solution.

He doesn’t have to cross anybody’s territory and doesn’t have to have 20 jets accompanying his jet so he isn’t shot down. This is reality. This is the world we live in today. And I believe that was another factor.

RT: 8:30
All right. Well, we have a little bit more time left, but if you could give me a pretty short answer to this next question, right? Donald Trump ran on peacemaking. I mean, the Ukraine conflict was one of the main things that he said he was going to fix during his campaign trail. But he’s put a lot of things on the back burner in terms of things he promised on the campaign trail. So after, let’s say this is done with in Alaska and a peace deal is reached, where do you think Trump is going to go next in terms of promises that he made on the campaign trail or different foreign policies that he’s looking to establish?

Doctorow: 9:03
The big outstanding contradiction to his peace mission is, of course, the genocide in Gaza. And that is an issue that will not go away even after this deal is signed or is reached on the 15th of August. It won’t go away for a little bit of time because the general accommodation with Russia, that is Mr. Trump’s intent, and I would say possibly also, however paradoxical it may sound, an accommodation with China, which may come in September if the next Yalta meeting is held there for the celebration of the 80th anniversary in Beijing of the end of the war in the Pacific.

9:51
These accommodations have to go through Congress. And Mr. Trump is very dependent in Congress on the Zionist majority in both houses, pro-Zionists. People say the Israeli lobby, well, the Israeli lobby was a factor, but there are also other factors. There are these born-again Christians who are Zionists also.

And so Mr. Trump has this problem of navigating Congress, and he is stuck with this Zionist presence in Congress. And he cannot, he doesn’t have much wiggle room in dealing with Israel for that reason. For this very reason, it is incumbent on Europe to do something and to take a lead and do something of importance on the world stage and not just kick the tires about Trump’s policies here and there. So, Europe has a great opportunity to lead peace in Palestine. I hope they take it. Mr. Trump, unfortunately, because of political realities, cannot do that on the other burning issue of world peace.

RT: 11:07
All right, Gilbert Doctorow, author, historian and geopolitical analyst, thanks a lot for joining us on the program.

Doctorow:
My pleasure.

Jeffrey Sachs is back to selling snake oil

Jeffrey Sachs is a magnificent orator.  His speech in the European Parliament a couple of months ago denouncing the decades-long destructive behavior of the United States on the world stage was a tour de force. I take my hat off to him for that.

However, by professional training, he is an economist not an orator and it is my intention to address that side of his activities in this brief essay.

In the 1990s, Sachs was a key foreign adviser to Poland and Russia in their transition from Communist-led planned economies to market economies.  In Poland, this transition was overly long but reasonably successful in the end as measured by growing prosperity if not by economic sovereignty as the country became a colony of Germany. I always considered that Poland’s success was due less to the sage advice of Sachs and other carpetbaggers from U.S. universities and more to the return to Poland of Western trained Polish business cadres from London, from the USA after the fall of Communism. It is they who took leading positions in the economy.

In Russia, Sachs’ advice on drastic reforms, taken up by Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar and his followers, resulted in catastrophic collapse of the economy, in generalized pauperization of the population while a very few foxes among the sheep became fabulously wealthy – those whom we in the West came to know as ‘oligarchs.’  The entire process gave democracy and free markets a dirty name in Russia that the population has still not outlived.

To be sure, Sachs at the time and ever since has said in exculpation that he had also advised the U.S. government at the time to extend massive financial assistance to Russia to see it through the painful period of transition. This Washington did not do, of course.  Nice words, but they do nothing to mitigate the real damage, meaning the closing of most factories and production facilities caused by the shock therapy urged by Sachs and other Liberals. They came to Russia with an inflated sense of their own skills, ignoring the fact that no one, NO ONE in the 1990s had relevant experience to see any country the size of Russia through the shift to a market economy. In ordinary parlance, we call that hubris.  Hubris is not just monopolized by the President and his entourage in Washington.

Let us now move forward to today.  Jeffrey Sachs’ latest interviews, which are watched by vast audiences on youtube, persuade me that, as they say, the dog has returned to his vomit.  He is selling highly partisan anti-Trump economics.

There are in this Community those who will object to my criticizing so sharply and publicly another upstanding member of the Opposition Movement to U.S. hegemonism.  I ask that you hold your fire and hear me out.  First, because Sachs himself is directing ad hominem attacks against others in public space. 

The commentators in The Washington Post are ‘idiots’ he tells us.  They may be wrong-headed. They may be paid well to lie. But I don’t think they are mentally deficient.

The analysts producing papers promoting ‘American primacy’ are not analysts at all, Sachs tells us.  Really?  Misguided, I would say.  Dishonest, I would say.  But that they are not analysts?  Really, Mr. Sachs, do clean up your language if you expect others in the Movement like me to be more indulgent towards you.

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The interview which got my attention yesterday focused on U.S. relations with China, which, said Sachs, were splendid from the mid-1970s up to 2010 when America’s foreign policy elites decided that China was growing too fast and was threatening America’s national ambition to retain global ‘primacy.’  From that point on, the demonization of Beijing set in. Defense alliances were constructed to ‘contain’ China. Trade alliances were designed to isolate China. And so forth, and so on, taking us to the present day when the American foreign policy establishment is preparing the broad public for the idea of a military clash with China that will remove the threat to American global hegemony once and for all.

So, China was no threat to the American economy? 

Says Sachs, it was all win-win.  American companies prospered by manufacturing cheaply in China and participating in global distribution.  California did stunningly well from the China trade, he tells us.  OK, he concedes, sotto voce, the American Mid-West took a hit and industries there suffered, but the problem could have been addressed by assistance from Washington, if Washington had an industrial policy, which it stupidly (per Sachs) does not have.

Dear Mr. Sachs, I ask you to follow the current rules of transparency when you issue your sweeping commentary like the foregoing.  You are wedded to globalization, which was, above all, an economic policy backed by the Democrats and has been their chief point of pride in economic policy.  Think of al those multilateral free trade agreements that every Democratic president had to have on his CV.

No matter that the Dems are supposedly the party of the working class while globalization has and always will strip away well-paying manufacturing jobs that allowed working class people to live normal lives and to prepare their offspring for middle class professional jobs, if they so wished. Those manufacturing jobs have been replaced by part time work, gigs, delivery work for Uber Eats, at best jobs in McDonalds flipping burgers.  All of this is not my personal discovery. It has been called out long ago by many, including by the incumbent Republican president.

I am not saying that imposition of crippling tariffs on Chinese exports is justified. Moderation always makes for better statesmanship.  But directionally, the USA has to undo the excesses of outsourcing and to repeal the tax legislation that made production abroad more profitable for US corporations than production at home. Such carve-outs always provide greater advantages to certain industries and to certain companies within those industries than to the economy as a whole.  While my peers all speak in unison about the bribery of Congress by the military industrial complex, so far I do not hear a word about the bribery of Congress by industries and by specific companies within those industries seeking or enjoying the terms of multilateral free trade pacts and the tax benefits of producing and retaining profits abroad.

Mr. Sachs, where are you on all of those issues?  Or are they also just the tomfoolery of ‘idiots’?

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

Transcript of ‘Judging Freedom,’ 30 July

Transcription submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1Bud26z87M

Napolitano: 0:34
Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for “Judging Freedom”. Today is Wednesday, July 30th, 2025. Professor Gilbert Doctorow will be here with us in just a moment on “The European Union capitulates to Trump”. What’s behind it?

But first this. [commercial message]

2:01
Professor Doctorow, good day to you, my dear friend. Thank you very much for joining me today. Thanks for accommodating my schedule. What has been the general reaction amongst European leaders and European media to the announcement by Ursula von der Leyen and Donald Trump the other day about this agreement for 15% tariffs for everything the EU wants to sell in the US?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
I don’t know of anyone who was rejoicing on that here in Europe. On the contrary, the consensus is that this is a tragic moment for Europe, that this will cost them dearly in future investments in manufacturing, which will now be directed to the United States by their local manufacturers here, because it is the only way for them to save their market share in the States under the new regime of US duties. So jobs will move to the States, jobs will be lost here, and there is the understanding that the very low growth, or negative growth in some countries, that has prevailed in Europe for the last two to three years will continue indefinitely when this new system is applied. The question is how do you explain the capitulation?

3:33
I think most everyone understands that von der Leyen was kissing Trump’s ring, bending the knee, and that Europe was a supplicant and not an equal partner in negotiations.

Napolitano:
Some of your colleagues on this show have criticized the agreement, arguing as you did, but in addition, we can’t even read it because it’s not even been reduced to writing. Is that true? Have they just agreed on the 15% and nothing has been reduced to writing yet?

Doctorow:
There is nothing more than a handshake as far as we know. But that is sufficient for these purposes because there [is] a lot of detail work that has to be done. This is not assumed to be the comprehensive and complete agreement.

There will be some discussions at the margins. For example, over the fate of automobiles, will they be at the 25% or indeed at 15%, such as liquor, which was not a subject of agreement during that meeting in Scotland. So there are these little bits and pieces along the way, but the general understanding is a 15 percent blanket tariff on all European wares. That may be accepted as a solid fact, not as a speculation.

Napolitano:
Back to what you said a few minutes ago, I suppose you could manufacture a Mercedes-Benz automobile in Tennessee, but you can’t make French champagne in New Jersey. So some of the goods and products unique to Europe cannot be put together here. Impossible.

Doctorow: 5:21
Yes, that’s true. So they will forego some of their sales volume in products like champagne or fine wines. That is a given. And that is part of what some critics say is wrong with the European economy that has been very dependent on exports for future growth. This was precisely the line of critique in the leading Belgian French-speaking newspaper, Le Soir, a couple of days ago. They’re looking for explanations. How was it that we were so weak in these negotiations? Of course, that logic doesn’t hold up when you consider that China is another part of the world where exports have driven growth.

6:08
And they record five percent GDP annual growth, not 0.1 percent as the Europeans are now boasting about the first quarter results in 2025. So that is an excuse that this paper, that people like this paper, who are supporters of the status quo in Europe, are exploring to explain what went wrong. But in their discussion, there is a fact which really is evident when you look at it closely, and that is they capitulated to Trump on the trade agreement because they’re hoping to keep him in play. They’re hoping that they can agree with Trump on further support to Ukraine, which is the leading issue of all of the heads of state and prime ministers in Europe.

Napollitano:
I want to get into that in some depth with you, but before we do, one or two more questions about the Trump-Von der Leyen agreement. What’s the next step for the agreement? I mean, is this it, or do the French who’ve condemned it and the Germans who’ve condemned it have the ability to veto or modify or create carve-outs?

Doctorow:
Well, they do. This is not just on the say-so of von der Leyen that a treaty is agreed and is imposed on all the 27 member states. It has to go through parliament.

It requires a ratification. And that is going to take a lot of negotiation within Europe. Considering that the largest economy in Europe, Germany, headed by a defeatist leader in terms of the tarif war, but a bold leader in terms of the future war with Russia, considering his role, how he and his party, the Christian Democrats, are leaders of the European People’s Party, which is the most important party in the European Parliament. And he, Merz, has come out two days ago saying that this is, yes, it’s a black day for Europe, but, but, but … but this is the best that we could get. That assumes that the Germans will vote for the deal.

8:37
The French are going to put up a lot of resistance. Let’s remember that the major economies are the ones that are most interested in the nature of the agreement with the States because they have the biggest trade flows with the States. The smaller countries, the smaller economies here are, well, let’s say, bystanders. They are not going to have a decisive say. They will follow what they are told to do by the likes of Germany.

So the French are the single biggest points of resistance to the agreement that von der Leyen has set down, not just the the so-called far right of Marine Le Pen, who instantly came out condemning this, but even the centrist Bayrou, the prime minister installed by Macron to manage the difficulties he has with his parliament, he came out against it as well.

9:38
So the French are going to dig in their deals and they will certainly demand concessions, though I doubt that they will overturn the agreement that von der Leyen reached, because so many other countries will follow Germany’s lead.

Napolitano:
Is it a simple majority vote in the European Parliament? Is it country by country? Is it two-thirds? How does it work?

Doctorow:
No, to my knowledge it would be a majority vote.

Napolitano:
All right, and you’re of the view that not withstanding this disenchantment for other reasons, which we’ll get into presently, this will likely be ratified.

Doctorow:
I think it will be. There will be modifications.

Napolitano:
Is she popular, von der Leyen, or is she not popular? That’s an inartful question. Is she popular with the folks in the streets? Is she popular with elites?

Doctorow:
No, I think it’s with elites. And “popular” is not an adjective I would apply here. Respected, willing to accept her judgment. However, let’s remember from the last several weeks, she was under fierce challenge in the parliament, and this was covered in the daily news. So the broader public, and even among elites, they are aware that she has opposition for the way she has managed the parliament and the European institutions. So she doesn’t have a free ride any more. Her situation is more tenuous than it was before the challenge to the way she negotiated the covid vaccine contracts.

11:14
That has put her in some jeopardy. And I think the broad public is aware of that, though it has other problems to worry about and isn’t very concerned about Madame van der Leyen.

Napolitano:
I mean, let’s just suppose, this may be fantastical, but let’s just suppose Marie Le Pen becomes the President of France. What can she do, if anything, to get out of this?

Doctorow:
Well, let’s look first as what von der Leyen is doing to get us into this. She has appointed the commissioners, all of whom, or a large majority of the important or key positions, she’s assigned to the non-entity countries, the Baltics and other East European countries, which are under German sway. She has appointed people who are intellectually inferior in the expectation that she could dominate them, and that has turned out to be true. Now, if Marine Le Pen came in, all of these people would be thrown out, and you might have a chance of seeing competent people who represent the 450 million people, a population of the European Union, and not people like Kallas, who comes from a country with one million population, who are drawing Europe around by the nose for the sake of their anti-Russian positions. So everything could change in policies, because the policies now are made by those who are under the direct instruction and control of von der Leyen.

Anyone who replaces her will certainly not enjoy that position of strength to appoint all of the commissioners and to control the whole of European policy the way von der Leyen has in the last several years.

Napolitano: 13:04
Okay, got it. But if the agreement with Trump is reduced to writing and ratified, and if France rebels, there’s nothing much they could do about it, right? This is part of the treaty that created the EU. They’re subject to this, or am I wrong?

Doctorow:
No, you’re right. But again, there is something here that we have to call out. There are parts of this agreement which are utterly unenforceable and which are probably the most damaging to the European economy.

Napolitano:
What are they?

Doctorow:
Not the 15 percent tariff, but the obligation to buy 650 billion dollars of American energy. That is the single biggest factor weighing on the weak European economies, starting with the German economy.

This, the dependence on liquefied natural gas at world prices, which has been the case ever since the destruction of the North Stream pipelines and the decisions in Parliament to phase out as quickly as possible use of Russian energy supplies — that has been the destructive factor in European economies more than this 15 percent tariff can possibly be. And the obligation to buy this, well, an obligation. What kind of obligations did the Chinese have in previous agreements with the United States? They never were effected.

14:34
And I doubt that this one ever will be carried out because the people who have signed onto it will not be in office.

Napolitano:
Got it. I don’t want to put you out on a limb, but which is the greater threat to European economic stability? Russia or the United States?

Doctorow:
At this point it’s the United States. To anyone with eyes to see what Mr. Trump has just done, the complete humiliation of Europe, the imposition of tariffs and purchase obligations from the United States, that is destructive of the European economy. It is not the act of a friend. And in that context, you have to ask, well, why are they going along with this? And there you have to look for the small print.

15:26
And is I said, even in the “Soir” editorial, it was, if you looked closely at the text, you found the answer. The answer is to keep up relations with Trump. And why do they want to keep up relations with Trump? In order to rope him in to continue American support for the Ukrainians in the war with Russia. This is the big, idee fixe of von der Leyen and her colleagues in the European institutions.

And it is not an economic concern. They don’t give a damn about the welfare of the broad populations in European countries. Their concern is their own holding onto power, which is made possible by this war with Russia because it gives them reason.

Napolitano:
Is it a coincidence that while all this is going on, France has announced a recognition of the state of Palestine and Great Britain with a little bit of wiggle room has announced that it is likely to do so by September.

Doctorow: 16:39
These are acts of impotence. They are giving Mr. Trump the finger in their pocket, which is what, which is a very common–

Napolitano:
In other words, giving him the finger and he can’t see them doing it.

Doctorow:
Exactly right.

Napolitano:
There’s a case in New Jersey where a guy gave a finger to the police. Oh, the prosecution went on for years. The Supreme Court said it was protected speech, but it was not in his pocket.

Doctorow:
Well, this is a Russian expression, by the way. So you see, they do have a sense of humor. It is a sign of impotence. They cannot say this openly. They are defying Trump. That’s what this recognition of the Palestine state is all about. It will change nothing, but it is holding up Trump to general opprobrium and criticism.

Napolitano: 17:36
Is this Epstein saga resonating in Europe? I mean, I was there for the past week and a half and talking to all kinds of folks, academics, elites, professionals, longtime friends, cab drivers. It wasn’t what Tulsi Gabbard was revealing. It was Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. Is it the same in Northern Europe where you are?

Doctorow:
Oh yes, and that’s certainly the Epstein story, it’s on the front page every day, and Ghislaine Maxwell’s picture is in the newspapers.

But the emphasis, I think, is on one feature which is also covered in the States The aspect of it that is watched most closely in European papers is what this says about the … MAGA. Are they a genuine revolt? Is there some loss of strength, political strength by Trump? That is the angle that interests them most, not the details of pedophilia or whatever. That side of it is not in the front pages.

Napolitano:
How close to the end of his days in office is President Zelensky?

Doctorow: 18:57
I think it’s very close, and I think he’s being prepared for eviction by the United States. And I say that with reference to very specific events that I followed from an angle I don’t see other people covering, strange to say.

The events that persuade me that Zelensky is on the way out have been the demonstrations in Kiev and other major cities around Ukraine last week, and these were as many as 10,000 demonstrators out on the streets, against the newly-passed law that stripped the anti-corruption agencies of their independence. That, the fact that everyone speaks about this having happened is if it were a natural thing. It’s not the least bit natural. Everyone is ignoring the authoritarian, dictatorial exercise of power by Zelensky and his immediate followers that [has] made it impossible to protest without getting your skull broken or getting yourself killed in a prison cell. No, there have not been demonstrations, not because the Ukrainian public was satisfied with Zelensky, because nobody dared.

20:20
Now, what changed? How is it that these demonstrations could take place? How is it that instructions were given to the Ukrainian army not to take part in the demonstrations wearing their uniforms? This is incredible.

I say that there was an outside intervention. Some organization imposed on the powers that be in Ukraine not to dare to fire on the demonstrators.

Napolitano:
Well, there’s only two organizations that could do that, I think: CIA and MI6.

Doctorow:
Well, I originally came down on the side of MI6, but received some very interesting comments from readers who pointed me in the other direction. MI6, after all, they have been the providers of security for Zelensky. They are his bodyguards. It is less than likely that they would be behind acts which are going to bring him down.

The United States and the CIA is a different story. Here it fits in perfectly with everything that Mr. Trump is doing, not with what he’s saying, of course not, but what he’s doing.

De facto, arms are being shipped [to a] much lesser extent and of much lesser use to Ukraine than his words would have indicated. The famous Patriots are going to take eight months to get there, if they get there at all. So on the side of Trump, who is by his actions, by his deeds, not by his words, in fact, been abandoning Zelensky, this would fit in perfectly to get him out over his violation of rule of law, which has been picked up by Western newspapers. Even the very anti-Russian “Financial Times”, day after day, is speaking about Zelensky having lost credibility because of this authoritarian behavior to neuter the agencies against corruption. So the way– the public is being prepared for his removal, because the guy is no longer a saint; he’s turning out to be a devil. And I believe that the Americans are behind this. [But that someone would agree.]

Napolitano:
If you’re correct, and you make a compelling case, Professor, you truly do, then the Americans would choose his successor.

Doctorow:
Yes. But of course, this is the thing that people immediately object to. “Well, it’s more of the same.”

Why do they assume that? There are, you have to look closely, but there are some people in Kiev who are not neo-Nazis and who are not of the same mindset as the present rulers. And I think of Mr. Umerov, the one who is the head of the Ukrainian delegation to the peace talks in Istanbul, as a possible candidate. There are others.

And the Americans certainly would know about it. Umerov–

Napolitano:
How about the fellow that’s the, I forget the name, Ukrainian ambassador to London.

Doctorow: 23:37
Zaluzhny. That’s also possible. There’s a lot of talk about it. That’s why he’s in London and not in Kiev, because Zelensky understood that the Americans were winking at Zaluzhny, because Zaluzhny told the truth about the real state of the military efforts, that they were losing badly, and it was time to get him out of the way. Now Mr. Umerov is another candidate. The interesting thing about him is his pure civilian background, a man who spent a year in the States living with a family while he was in secondary school, and so he’s fluent in English and knows American situation, and who has become very frankly wealthy by dint of his wits in high tech, and wealthy enough to have established fellowships in Stanford University.

24:33
So the man had an interest in the States. It would fit in nicely with the kind of leaders that Americans think–

Napolitano:
He will be the CIA’s type of guy. Professor Doctorow, thank you very much. A fascinating, as always, a fascinating conversation. I missed you in the past two weeks. I’m glad we’re all back together. Thank you for your time. We’ll look forward to seeing you next week.

Doctorow:
Very good.

Napolitano:
Thank you. And coming up later today, I’ve missed everybody, including all of you. At 11 o’clock this morning, Colonel Douglas Macgregor. At one this afternoon, Professor Glenn Diesen; at two this afternoon, Max Blumenthal; at three this afternoon, Phil Giroldi.

25:12
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.

‘Judging Freedom,’ 30 July: EU Capitulates to Trump

‘

Today’s session with Judge Andrew Napolitano centered on the von der Leyen – Trump agreement in Scotland on a 15%  tariff for European exports to the USA, which was in effect a humiliating defeat for the EU. Bad as that sounds, the far worse point agreed was for the EU to greatly expand its LNG and oil imports from the USA, with the figure 650 billion euros specifically named.  Of course, this obligation will likely never be met, just as similar obligations on China to import US agricultural products at certain target levels never were met. But the principle, if actually applied, will condemn European manufacturing to excessive costs, meaning to uncompetitive export prices and loss of markets abroad.

As I have noted elsewhere, the capitulation on tariffs was clearly motivated by the hopes of von der Leyen and of those European leaders supporting her that this concession will keep open relations with Washington and, in particular, lead to continuation of the common Euro-Atlantic stand on giving Ukraine the financial and flow of military equipment it needs to continue the war with Russia.  What I did not say in the interview but should be mentioned here is that the expectation of further U.S. assistance to Ukraine is delusional.  Trump wants out of the war and there is no way that Europe can so ingratiate itself with him as to change his mind on that cardinal point of U.S. foreign policy.

 Our brief discussion of the Epstein scandal that currently fascinates Washington, of the decision by Britain and France to recognize the Palestine state in September and of likely CIA hand in the anti Zelensky demonstrations that swept Ukraine last week  may also interest viewers.