America Suffers Biggest Tariffist Attack in History

Tariffs.

Yeah. We have to talk about the tariffs. Yes. The what Trump called Liberation Day. There were a few a few sort of controversies or scandals around his announcement and that he used a graph showing what he said are the sanction or not the sanctions, the tariffs that American that American products face in other countries and all of them were wrong, Like every single one of them was wrong.

But it seemed to be that it was based on a on a they just did it. They sort of divided the trade deficit that America has with that country by another another by the amount of imports or exports or something like that. So it it was not an exact science at all. An accurate representation? It wasn't accurate at all.

The chart that he put up. But anyway, that's a different issue. There's the actual reality of what he's imposing, the tariffs that he's actually imposing. And a lot of people are doing all sorts of analysis about, for example, if you're pro Trump, then you're saying, you're giving the rationale of how this will boost manufacturing in America, how it will bring manufacturing jobs back to America, and how it will force countries around the world to buy more American goods and so forth, and create a fair balance of trade. And then there's the other side which is saying all of the reasons why that won't work.

And I think that both sides, well obviously the pro Trump side is missing the point, but I think that the other side is also missing the point. In that you're making the same mistake that people always make when any politician implements any policy, which is to ever believe the rationale that they're presenting for the policy. The Trump, the rationale that Trump is presenting for the policy and his people are presenting for the policy is exactly that. It's gonna bring back manufacturing jobs and so forth. Your mistake is to believe that that has anything whatsoever to do with why they're doing what they're doing.

I've said many times, and this policy is a proof of it. I've said many times that Trump is a tool or a mascot of the a national OCGFC. That faction of the financial elite, the financial power structure who have transcended national nationalism, have transcended nations, have transcended national boundaries and so forth and feel no loyalty to any country, The United States included. That's the faction that he represents. The faction of the power structure that he represents.

And it has become the dominant power structure, the dominant faction in the power structure. And this is just this policy is proof of that. And it's and I said I've said before that Trump's main job is to destroy America. And that's exactly what this policy is intended to do. That's the intention behind this policy.

I don't know how people can always look at these kinds of policies and act like the predictable outcome, the predictable result of these types of policies is a surprise when it happens. This is what they wanted to happen and this is what will happen. Or rather this is what will happen and this is what they want to happen. No one is gonna be surprised. Everyone will be surprised if this doesn't work to destroy the the economy of The United States.

And and when I say that, you know, it it seems paradoxical to say that Trump is really good for America and he's destroying America. That obviously sounds like a paradox, but that's because you're not thinking you're still thinking of an old mythical America and and and America, a version of America as a global hegemon, that it hasn't actually been for quite some time. And you think that that the job of someone who is doing something for America is to try to restore that status. Rather than face reality, that you don't have that status, you haven't had that status in a long time, and you don't have what it takes to ever have that status again. Those days are over.

They were very short. That period of history was very short. And like I was I've also said before, it's gonna be the shortest empire in history. Trump is good for America in so far as he's doing the needful. He's doing the needful.

That's going to be that will cause a great deal of pain for the American people. But the the simple fact is that there's no way around that. And and it can be done like in a state of denial over, you know, painful erosion over time, or you can just amputate the amputate the limbs rather than letting them rot on your body. This is what's happening now, it's just amputation. The federal government is going to be increasingly weakened as a as a governing entity.

More and more aspects of the of the government are going to be privatized. Decentralized. Decentralized and privatized. And and this is just the way it has to go. There's not another way it can go.

If you're from the a national OCGFC and if you are looking at the American economy, in the context of the global economy, say ten years ago. If you look at America, the demographics, the the the state of their economy, meaning everything that their economy relies upon, and they look at the trajectory of that, the predictable trajectory of that, you would conclude that as I say within the context of the global economy and the the very boisterous future of the global South, where all the minerals are, where all the resources are, where all the workers are, where all the consumers are, where all the the birth rates are continue to be robust, you would understand that we need to de center the global economy from America. America needs to be removed. As I said before, the center of gravity has to move. America can't keep up.

America hasn't been competitive in the in the world for a long time. And they've they've made the decision that we have to amputate America basically from the global economy and from global politics. It needs to be removed. And that's that's exactly what's happening. If you understand that that is what's going on, then none of this will be confusing to you.

What Trump is doing? That that you're proposing this idea that tariffs are going to bring back manufacturing jobs. You will understand how ridiculous that is and you will understand that that isn't someone being ridiculous.

Okay, I need to for you to elaborate why is that ridiculous to have manufacturing back in The United States. Think this is going in over a lot of people's minds, brains.

Okay. Well, I mean

It's obvious to you.

Okay. Well, mean the first the first thing is everyone should know by now that tariffs are not paid by the country that's being tariffed. Tariffs are being paid by the importers. Domestic businesses, domestic companies, domestic importers, Americans. So it's a tax.

You're you're you're putting a tax on Americans for importing things. Okay. Roughly 50% of American imports roughly 50% of American imports are internal to American companies. Okay. So it's like for example Apple importing from China something within Apple.

Right.

You know. Okay. Obviously all that does is drive up the prices of goods. Because you don't have an alternative. It would be different if you actually had a manufacturing base in America.

But you don't have manufacturing in America.

Why don't you have a manufacturing? Manufacturing?

Because you offshored it all during globalization.

Right. So can we bring that manufacturing back into America? Was that

Okay. First of all, that's a very long process. Okay. Because no one is trained in that anymore.

No one's skills.

No one's you don't have the skills and you need a great deal of investment to build those factories, to build the facilities in the first place. And those companies have to have the incentive to do that. The theory is that by punishing them for manufacturing overseas via tariffs, that will incentivize them to bring back to America. But that's not how companies think. Because if you brought the money, like say, like just say Apple.

If Apple wanted to stop manufacturing in China and bring all of those jobs to America. You have to deal with the reason why they are in China in the first place, which is the affordability. So either you're going to now have factory workers in America at Chinese wages to make it worthwhile or you know an iPhone is going to cost $10,000.

So let's repeat that again. Unless you're willing to have American workers pay Chinese

wages. Wages And conditions.

And conditions.

You're gonna be seven days a week.

Right. I don't know. Nine, ten hours a day Yeah. Of work.

Yeah.

Maybe even more. Yeah. You just have that few hours of sleep and then get back to work again. And you can still have your iPhones at the kind of crisis that you're seeing today. It's not expected to.

It's not gonna it's this is not gonna happen. It's not sustainable. Obviously, is not going to happen. Yeah. And this is what the the other side is saying.

You know, the people who are critical of the tariffs. They are saying that that's not going to work. But what I'm saying is, no, everyone knows that already. Because that's not the intention of the tariffs. The intention of the tariffs is to completely isolate America from the global economy.

Yeah. And to force all of the tariff countries, especially the BRICS ones, especially China to focus on intensify and expand South South trade.

Okay.

We want all of the business to be there now. We don't need the business to be here anymore. Because I mean obviously the result of the tariffs is going to be higher prices for goods. Now now, I I was saying in the chat that most likely, and I'd be very surprised if you don't see this, most likely you will see and this this also there's an an evidence for this is also the stock market drop that happened when he announced the tariffs. And it also sort of also is evidenced by the drop in the oil price as well, which is that these companies, the biggest companies, the monopolistic companies, the largest corporations like an Apple or Walmart, who rely heavily on imports from China, They will want to get some relief from the federal government.

They will want to get subsidies, they'll want to get exemptions, they'll want to get bailout and aid package, low interest loans, tax breaks, and so forth. So to to soften the blow of the sanction or to soften the blow of the tariffs. In other words, they won't pay the tariffs. The taxpayers will pay the tariffs on their behalf. Mhmm.

Which just means the taxpayers will be paying the tariffs and the company will still charge more

Mhmm. For

On the rationale of the the tariffs. So you so the tax payers in America are now gonna be paying twice for the tariffs. You'll pay you'll pay for the tariffs with your taxes. This hasn't been announced, I'd be very surprised if it doesn't happen. That there's going to be for the largest players, not for the smaller ones, not for the smaller companies.

This is the another part of this move is to shake all of the smaller players out of the market.

Small businesses.

Small businesses will get bought up. More and more small business will get businesses will will get bought up. And this is just a continuation of the COVID lockdown program. To destroy as many small businesses businesses as possible and increase the monopolization by the largest players. This is very likely to happen with the tariffs in my opinion, that they'll probably give these large companies some kind of an out with regards to paying for the tariffs.

Not that the tariffs won't be paid, but that you and I will pay them, meaning tax payers, not you. But it will come, but I have to pay taxes, so it will go, it will come out of our taxes to pay for the tariffs for Walmart and then Apple and so forth. Okay. And then also they will continue to charge more for their products on the basis of this of their being tariffs. So all of that is going to undermine the the livelihood and the affordability of life in America for American citizens.

All of this has to do with undermining the American economy, with the owners and controllers of global financialized capital looking turning away from America, And wanting to turn America away from the world. This is the point of the of the tariffs. There's not another point. It's not at all about bringing manufacturing jobs back. Because even even you have choices like like like Apple, like as I said, first of all, you don't have alternatives to the products that you're buying from China.

You don't have those. And it will take you years, if ever, to be able to produce for yourself what you're getting from China. China is just one example, but there are other places where it's just not available. Like for example, vanilla. You don't grow vanilla or if you do it's in, it's in, you know, small part pockets of the country.

Right.

So you will always have to import that. You will always have to import that. There are many things that are not replaceable for for just just reasons of geography. There are things that are not going to be available in terms of especially natural resources. But as a manufactured things, you can't replace them because you don't have manufacture And it will be years if not decades before you reach that capacity.

So you're still going to buy from China. That's not going to stop. All it is doing is, as I say, it's not actually punishing China. Because they already know you still, you need our stuff.

Mhmm.

All all that is doing is on on the one hand, it's punishing small importers, making it too costly for them to do it. Yeah. So that the only people who can do it will be the big companies. Mhmm. And the big companies will get their tariffs paid by taxpayers.

Yeah. Most likely. Yeah. So this is a method of transfer, wealth transfer again of taxpayer funds into the private sector to the largest players.

Yes. Skimming on the top.

Yeah. Because you're still gonna import. You're not gonna stop importing.

Sure. Because you're not capable you you don't have the capacity, not the capability of

You don't have a choice. So so this is like a controlled demolition of American hegemony. It's a controlled demolition of American economic hegemony in the world. Because you have to do a controlled demolition because it's derelict as it is. And it's falling apart as it is.

And it can't compete as it is.

Hasn't in a while.

It hasn't been able to be really competitive globally for a while. And they have identified correctly that the solution to that issue is not to try to become competitive, because you can't. Because also the nature of the way that you have run your society, the way that you have run your society in service to a very small group of people at the at the top of the economic financial hierarchy. And because you because of your political system, which incentivizes you to keep the people as dumb and as unskilled as possible. I'm sorry to be rude.

But you have completely sabotaged your society, sabotaged your economy. It could only ever be a short term success. This model is not sustainable at all. And so now you don't have the ingredients, socially, demographically, educationally, to be economically competitive with a China. So there's no actual no one no one who is making these decisions, and Trump isn't the one making the decisions.

Trump works for the ones who are making the decisions and no that's not the Jews. That's the a national OCGFC which is a people who don't belong to non ideological don't belong to any nation and feel no loyalty to any nation.

Nothing. Profit is Trump. Profit trumps everything.

Yeah. Profit trumps everything. They've made the decision correctly that America does not have the ingredients in their society to ever become competitive. So the only thing to do is the control demolition of their status as a global power. And you see and Trump has been assigned this task.

And he's doing it very well. And he's and like I said before, he's a very good salesman and that he's got a lot of people believing that this is gonna be great for America. Right. Obviously, it's gonna be catastrophic for America. But my point is the catastrophe was unavoidable.

Yeah. You've reached a point where a catastrophe is unavoidable for your society. Okay. I mean, because also the other thing is what what companies are gonna do, even if they even if they get some kind of like tax breaks or subsidies or whatever relief to pay for the tariffs, all you're going to actually do, you'll actually have the opposite effect if if supposedly, I mean I feel funny to even argue this point, because like I said at the beginning, no one is doing this with the real intention of bringing manufacturing jobs back to America. Because all it all it will really do is accelerate and intensify the impulse for financialization for companies.

Because you will see, you will recognize, and this is what they've been doing now for a very long time, and this is one of the reasons why you are not a competitive economy anymore. Real productive activity is gonna be too risky and too dangerous and too costly. To actually to actually invest in manufacturing, when I don't know what your tariff policies are gonna be. I don't know how how affordable the supplies are going to be for the things that I need to manufacture. Also wages are going to be high, unless you are able to drive wages down to incentivize bringing manufacturing jobs and so on.

The point is, you are going to completely disincentivize anyone from getting involved in productive activity. And they will realize that the only way to make money is through financialization. And it's because of this financialization, one of the one of the reasons, a big reason why your economy is no longer competitive and why it cannot, it doesn't have the ingredients to be competitive is because you focused on financialization. Yeah. And you can have someone like Elon Musk.

Produce

Making or losing Yeah. Tens of billions of dollars overnight. Yeah. Because it's fake money. It's virtual money.

Yeah.

This is virtual wealth. It's finance it's through financialization. Yeah. Share prices and so forth. So they are only going to respond to this the same way that they always respond to these kinds of things, which is through share buybacks and so forth and financialization.

Productive activity is too risky.

It will be really really in the interest of the rest of the world to be cut off from this

Absolutely. System. I mean Trump said, Trump was calling this day liberation day.

Right.

It's global liberation day from American hegemony is what it is. It's not America getting liberated from anything. It's us getting liberated from America. Uh-huh. So it's not a misnomer.

It it it is liberation day. It's it's a little bit of a hard pill for people to swallow. If you if you haven't been following the stages of the transition. If you haven't really been following and understanding it. And you have you have still an ideological perspective of the world and you still haven't sort of ideological and obsolete paradigm for understanding the world.

In my opinion, it's it's obsolete. This idea of America being the superpower and so forth. If you're attuned to reality and like like the the new PM of Singapore made a statement about in reaction to Trump's announcements. And as I was saying, Singapore is not known for hyperbole. They don't have hysterical rhetoric.

They're very realistic and pragmatic and moderate and temperate in their reactions to any world events. They're always very very calm. And he is affirming that what we are seeing now is the whole the entire global world order is changed. And it's not going back. This is what he said.

And he's correct. And you should have seen it coming. I saw it coming and I've been talking about it. And I know that there's I'm not the only one. There's plenty of people who can see that.

And the trick of it is as I say, looking at the predictable outcome of the policy and assuming that that is the actual desired outcome and it has nothing to do with the rhetoric. The rhetoric about why this policy is what it is. As long as you're believing that, you'll never understand what's going on. Yeah. If you understand that the desired outcome or that the predictable outcome is the desired outcome, then you'll understand what's going on.

Just have to cut through matters. Yeah. You just have to cut through the propaganda. Yeah. The sales pitch.

Because that keeps the noise and the distraction.

And the confusion.

Yeah.

You know, and you'll and you'll be able to to to prepare better for what's going on. You won't be surprised. I mean it is absolutely exactly what's happening. It is a global transition of the center of gravity of the global economy. And like I've talked about also many many times, the system, the same system, neoliberalism, neoliberal capitalism, which manifested itself in the form of colonialism, colonization, the IMF, financial monetary colonization, debt colonization and so on.

Everything that you did in the global South is now going to be done to you. Yeah. Because again you have created this faction of people who are not aligned to any country. So they don't see any reason why. Why the logic of pillage and plunder that applied very well and profitably in the global South should not be applied to America and to Europe.

That doesn't make sense to them. Because the only way that it makes sense to you is if you're ideological. Right.

Of course. Do you suppose that there would be a disruption in the financialization with the increasing shift to the global South and so posing a challenge to international overseas GFC's existence? Because the way we operate is a little bit different, you know, as in our governments are not likely to be as subject to private businesses. We tend to operate in the mind of our own. So do you think that the financialization aspect of could could I don't know.

Could there be more regulation? Would there be a control alt delete?

I mean, this this this really remains to be seen. I think I I would hope that that our countries can see and understand the horrific flaws in the way the West especially particularly America, the way they've approached this. And can can learn the lessons of of how detrimental financialization has been for for a national economy. It's extremely beneficial for the people who get rich at the expense of everyone else. I mean it's it's absolutely absurd that, you know, I I'll talk about this.

I'll I'll I was watching that that South African interview of a South African investigative reporter who was talking about human trafficking, child trafficking, and a case that he had himself investigated and uncovered of a billionaire somewhere in the West, he he didn't give the details, of a billionaire somewhere in the West who would scroll through TikTok and see children, minors, and call a team of ex Navy SEALs, ex Green Berets, ex Special Forces, or what have you, a private military contractor of some form some form or another, mercenaries, some form or another, highly skilled, And say, get me this child. And then he has the money to do that. He's a billionaire and he has the money to do literally whatever he wants. So I'm saying those those type of people should not exist in society. You should not have people in your society who can do whatever they want.

Who have the power because of their wealth to do whatever they want.

This concept of an overlord.

Yeah.

You know, in your society. Because purely on the basis of the immense access to wealth they need.

Like I said I said in a video years ago now, imagine if or you cannot imagine any scenario in which Amr ibn al Khattab, when he was the Kharifa, would tolerate a rival to his power who was not the Kharifa. Because of his wealth. You can't imagine a scenario in which a rich business man, a rich land owner or something like that, in in within the Muslim empire could could challenge, create basically a parallel power structure where he could defy the Khalifa. But but this is what you're this is the this is the system that you created to create people like this. Music Because again you because again you insisted on this phony democracy, which requires you to have elections every couple of moments, historically, every couple of years, every few years, always changes in the in the personnel in government, which as I said before gives you just a tyranny of incompetence and inexperience, and the and the politicians have to do nothing but campaign and then of course they become owned by whoever gives them the money for their campaigns and so on.

We all know that, that's old news. But the the only solution to that or the only way to have any sort of planning in your society is for all planning, all decision making, all policy making to be moved outside the pale of government into the private sector, where they are unelected and so forth. So you've done so many things about the way you organize your society in such unrealistic ideological ways to cover up the basic foundation of greed and feudalism that has always fueled your society and your culture. You came up with all these ways to hide it and so forth. That you created a situation where there was really no check on private power.

The the the expansion of private power and the elevation of private power to the point of surpassing the government. And and that and that then of course creates a situation where ultimately, like I said, it has to be a short term empire because you can't function as an economy, you can't function as a society. When the entire machine of government and the power structure becomes completely in service to the creation of multi billionaires. Who exist outside of government, who exist outside of any checks and balances and so forth. This is this is no way that this can can be sustainable.

So I really hope that our governments, because our governments are not, you know, with maybe some exceptions here and there. But by and large, governments in the Muslim world are above business. Business is below them. In China, the government is above business, business is below them. In Russia, same.

And in many many countries it's like this. The countries that they accuse of being authoritarian, totalitarian or what have you. Meaning, the government is the totalitarian one, and the authoritarian one when the one that we like is when business is the authoritarian one. And the government is democratic which largely is what allows for the for the business to be authoritarian. But in our countries, we prefer the government to be that way.

We prefer the power to be in the hands of the government than in the hands of business. And you criticize us for that, but that's fine. So I hope that our countries, our governments won't make the same mistakes that they made. And I know that the a national OCGFC are contending with like an MBS. They're contending with Bin Zayed.

They're contending with Erdogan. They're contending with Xi Jinping. They're contending with Putin. They're they're even contending in South Africa, even though it's not, you know, a strong man government as you would as as as they would call it. Because they as I've said from for years now, there's not a question about the transition happening.

There's a question about the management of the way that the economy will be run after the transition. So part of that also includes trying to manage the transition. Trying to get ahead of it, trying to steer it, trying to direct it to see that it goes a certain kind of way. That's what they're interested in. No one is trying to stop the transition.

As we can see, they are accelerating the transition with what with Trump. The question is whether or not our countries are going to be savvy enough, cunning enough, strong enough, courageous enough, and incorruptible enough to not make the same mistakes that the that the Americans made Yeah. With regards to governance and keeping private power in check.

Right. And absorbing their economic systems into ours. Because because to a certain extent, I think a lot of Gulf authoritarian governments navigated restrictions against them through utilizing these mechanisms.

Yep.

You know, they they navigated and emerged to have a will of their own through utilizing this. And now they're emerging as the leading economies. Mhmm. And they have to contend with this international

Yeah. Actors. Yeah. And they're doing it through partnerships. Rather than through some sort of confrontation.

Right. They don't want to be adversary with them.

And having a say.

Yeah. Their

decisions on

the board. Which in my opinion is very wise. Yeah. It's also very dangerous.

Yes. Of course.

It's very dangerous and it can go badly. So we hope Allah will guide them and make them strong in dealing with these people because we know very well and they know very well. This is the other thing that gives me some more optimism because you know who you're dealing with. I don't think they have any illusions in their mind about the fact that they are dealing with wolves. They're dealing with predators, because also, you know that you're dealing with people who sold their own people out.

You're dealing with people who sold their own countries out, who sold their own nations out, who sold their own societies out. So you know these people are heartless. You know from the beginning these people are heartless. So I I don't think that they will have any illusions that we're friends. They know that we have to deal with you and by dealing with you we can limit, we are in a position to restrict and to limit and to control better than if we were on the outside and you were on the outside.

You know, if we're on the same side, then we can coordinate a bit better. This is in theory and so far so good. So far so good. I hope that that they will put some some kind of limits on financialization. I I I'm not too optimistic about that.

I I hope that they will, but I'm not too optimistic. I'm afraid that the financialization gravy train is too seductive. Because it's such easy money. And I haven't seen any restrictions or any limits or any hesitation about financialization on the part of the leaders in the global South. And that's something I wish that they would wake up to because it's extremely dangerous for your own society.