Riyadh Meeting: Organising the Post-American World

Okay. So let's talk about this this meeting that they had in the about Ukraine. Well, let's talk about what it was really about, what it wasn't about, and so on. First of all, was only marginally about Ukraine. I mean, about Ukraine, there frankly isn't that much to say.

Ukraine itself has been continuously losing the war ever since it started. And in my opinion, that was always what it was was supposed to do. That's what was supposed to happen. I mean, I don't think anyone who was serious, any serious person ever imagined that Ukraine was gonna defeat Russia. The fact of the matter is, as I've always been saying, the Ukraine war has always been a proxy war by The United States against Europe.

And in that regard, it has been a very successful war. From the perspective of the a national OCGFC, the Ukraine war served at least two functions. First, the destabilization of Europe, and second, the strengthening of bricks, which included the, for example, the creation and the proliferation of alternatives to Swift, different trading systems and so forth. The boosting of BRICS economies like India, like South Africa, like China, like the GCC and so on, as well as Russia, as a result of the Russian sanctions, as well as advancing a sort of division of the globe in the spheres of influence, with the global North, the West, and so forth, Europe and and the the European continent falling under American influence, and the rest of the world being for bricks. The global South being for bricks, or to simplify it, for China.

The Ukraine war has been immensely powerful and immensely useful in accelerating the transition of the global economy that I've always been talking about. So what they are there to discuss in Riyadh, in my opinion, doesn't have so much to do with Ukraine as it has to do with managing the next steps of that transition. So The US is gonna wanna maintain the dependence of Europe, and that means negotiating the the issue of Russian energy. Because the only way to keep Europe energy dependent on The United States, which it is now, is to keep Russia or Russian energy out of the European market. See, it's a it's a bit of a tricky thing for Russia because they're a major member of BRICS, but Russia is not a global South country geographically.

So that means that Russia is gonna share the global North. Basically, it's gonna be shared between America and Russia with the lines of those fears of influence basically following the the Soviet era pattern. I mean peace and harmony between Russia and Europe is in the interest of both Russia and Europe obviously, But not so much in the interest of The US, and not so much arguably, not so much in the interest of BRICS. If Russia is allowed to normalize completely with Europe, and become their major energy supplier, then that would drive The US out of the European market, and it would decrease Russia's vested interests in the success of BRICS itself, the the the BRICS project. So potentially resolving the Ukraine conflict could undo a lot of the progress that has been made towards the transition of the global economy, and I don't think anybody wants that.

I don't think even Russia wants that. Now also, of course, for the GCC, for Saudi Arabia, they have a vested interest in in all of this as well because the lifting of sanctions against Russian energy would impact their own market share. Not Saudi Arabia so much, but the GCC, their own market share in Europe and elsewhere. So in other words, what the what the Riyadh meeting was about, in my opinion, and what the upcoming meeting in Saudi Arabia between Trump and Putin will be about essentially, isn't Ukraine, but it's negotiating the terms and setting up the dividing lines for the respective spheres of influence. Now let me be clear here, these these negotiations in the real are not negotiations between enemies.

These are not negotiations between people who are or who have radically conflicting views of the future, no. As I've said many times, Donald Trump is a representative of the a national OCGFC. Putin and MBS are among the major leaders of the global transition of the global economy, and they are among those who will be the leaders in the new management system of international affairs. See, in the global South, as I've talked about before, business, the private sector, remains subordinate to the state for the most part, or anyway compared to The US and Europe, it's subordinate to the state. Compared to The US and Europe where the state is subordinate to business, the a national OCGFC are the product of the subordination of state power in the West to the private sector, that's why the a national OCGFC exists.

But when the a national OCDFC deal with China, or they deal with Russia, or they deal with the GCC, they're dealing with players who hold power in both the private sector and in the state. And and those players operate more according to nationalistic interests. They're sort of a regional nationalistic OCGFC in their own right. So unlike a Trump or a Biden or you know, any political leader in the West, a Putin, for example, is genuinely interested in the prosperity and the security of Russia. Xi Jinping is interested in China.

MBS is interested in Saudi Arabia, and he's interested in the region, and so on. So they have a nationalistic element to them. Whereas western leaders do not care about their countries. You see what I mean? So for instance, when Trump goes to Riyadh, he's not representing America and he's not representing American interests, he's representing the a national OCGFC, the a national owners and controllers of global financialized capital.

But Putin and MBS are representing the interests of their countries, and the the interests of their country's private sector elites. And this is the whole negotiation that's going on over the transition of the global economy. This is the whole negotiation. It's between the a national OCGFC coming from the West, and the regional more nationalistic OCGFC of different parts of the global South. And they're discussing how the global economy is gonna be managed, how it's gonna be managed between these factions.

So for Trump, or whoever else might be in the White House at at at any given point, their only nationalistic concern will have to do with the military industrial complex, which does continue to be, you know, an economic force, and a force in American politics and policy making, but much less than in the past. So as I see it, they have at least two major issues to work out in Riyadh, the future of Europe and the future of The Middle East. The future of The Middle East obviously includes what to do about Israel and what to do about Raza, which is why Stephen Wittkopf was in Riyadh. I mean, he is Trump's envoy to The Middle East. He's the one who got Netanyahu to agree to the ceasefire.

He has nothing to do with Ukraine. There's no real reason why he should be there except that they're going to discuss the Middle East. So in my opinion, they're gonna be talking about this, and they will be talking about this when they meet the the next time. And because all of these issues are connected in one way or another, Europe, Ukraine, Russian energy exports, The Middle East, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, so forth. In all of these issues, there are possible trade offs.

Possible trade offs exist. These are all bargaining chips. So if you look at what what each side wants to achieve in these negotiations, Trump as a representative of the a national agency, GFC, he will want to keep Europe dependent on American energy exports. He will want animosity to continue between Russia and Europe, but with the The United States sitting it out on the bench. He'll want the price of energy to decrease for his own domestic popularity, and he'll want access to Ukraine's minerals.

He'll want Europe to become dependent also on weapons from The US, from US manufacturers, and he'll want Europe to be cut off from China as much as possible. Further than that, he'll want guarantees that he's gonna have a share, he himself and his family will have a share in the development of Gaza. He will want the global transition to proceed, he will want American containment to proceed, he'll and want the continued move towards de dollarization, don't believe the hype, and he'll want conflict in Europe and so on. So his bargaining chips in the negotiation are the Russian sanctions, The US trade policy towards China, American support for Israel, and their military posturing about Iran, among other things. For Russia, they will want control over the Ukraine.

They'll want restored access to the energy markets of Europe, and they want generally normalization of trade and business for all Russian companies. This is what Russia would like. Saudi Arabia will want continued access to European energy markets for the GCC. They will wanna make sure that Russia's interest and commitment to BRICS will be preserved, and they'll want the establishment of a Palestinian state with Israel defamed. And, of course, they'll want guarantees from The US that that there will be no interference by them in Be'lat Hashem and in the broader Middle East, Syria, Iraq and so on.

Like I said, The US or rather the a national ACGFC, they want Europe to remain dependent, specifically on American energy. That's gonna mean trying to limit Russian influence in European markets and trying to keep the EU on a short leash. They don't want Europe to be completely, you know, destroyed, but they do want for Europe to be weakened, and they want Europe to be subordinate, they want it to be controlled, they want it to be completely within their sphere of influence. Second, they will want, as I say, Ukraine's resources, the minerals, the agricultural land, the energy reserves, and so on. This all has to be brought under Western corporate control, and this is what they want.

And they wanna keep China at a distance from Europe. The global economy is shifting and Washington is trying to ensure that Europe won't gain any autonomy through building a relationship with China. So what kind of a deal should we expect? Most likely, Russia will keep the territories that they have taken, but they will allow Western economic access to Ukraine's resources. They'll go along with whatever deal is made between The US and the Ukrainians with regards to that.

The US will drop their own support for Ukraine, but Europe most likely will continue to support Ukraine to ensure that the war just sort of drags on but never reaches a definitive conclusion and potentially can ignite conflicts elsewhere. Possibly some sanctions against Russia will be lifted, especially where it benefits multinational corporations. I think that energy prices will probably be stabilized for the right people. Oil prices will probably want to to to stay within a a controlled range as they always have. So that Saudi Arabia and Russia and The US, US corporate interests all benefit, not America itself, but their corporate interests.

Russia will probably retain limited access to the European market in terms of energy, but only in a way that doesn't undermine America's energy dominance. Just it's been the case like this all along, actually. Europe is gonna be further weakened and they're gonna be further tied to The US. The US will ensure that Europe remains militarily dependent upon The US US weapons manufacturers, increasing their purchases and so on of weapons of American weapons. European industries are gonna be completely locked into American energy supplies, preventing them from pivoting to Russia or to China.

I think BRICS will continue to grow. The US isn't interested in stopping BRICS expansion, but they will work behind the scenes to try to keep it somewhat financially fragmented. Saudi Arabia is gonna stay aligned with BRICS, but they will also maintain their ties to western financial systems. They're going to work on some sort of a deal about Gaza. I think that The US and The Gulf are going to take control of the of reconstruction with Gulf financing and with some American partners being involved.

But I think that the plan for the Middle East, the plan for Gaza, the plan for Palestine and that that whole region is basically being worked out to the exclusion of The US. I think Saudi Arabia is gonna have the the the major say over the political landscape in Gaza alongside Egypt. See, this meeting in Riyadh was about how the system is gonna be managed going forward, the the global system. It was more about the future of Europe than anything else. Russia is gonna keep its territories, but they will accommodate Western economic interests.

Saudi Arabia is gonna preserve their influence, but they will also stay tied to one extent or another to Western financial structures so that The US can stay involved in terms of for profit reasons. See, none of this is a battle between nations. This is a negotiation among the elites, ensuring that the financialized global system remains intact, it's just who's managing it and and whose interests are being served. The conflicts and the crises and so forth are all going to be managed for their benefit. This is why it's useful to have an overview, a sort of a theoretical framework for looking at, you know, current affairs, current events, news headlines and so forth.

A framework for understanding power dynamics. Because when you understand what the interests are for the various power players in any given scenario, you can analyze more accurately what's actually going on and what's likely to happen, how it's how it's likely to all play out. Like I said before about Trump, he is dismantling the American empire, there's no question about that. They, national OCGFC, want America to be contained because they don't want sort of nationalistic short sighted policies to disrupt the conditions around the world in places where they have interests, you know, more specifically in places where securing their interests requires collaborative relationships with the regional nationalistic OCGFC, because I mean wherever America goes it breaks things. So they want The US to be isolated on the global stage as much as possible, and of course they will they they also want to prey upon America itself, the international OC GFC wanna prey upon America itself.

I mean this is, again, this is obvious from Trump's economic policies. Like again, the tariffs, we talked about it before. It's important to understand, tariffs are being presented as some sort of a magic technique for bolstering the domestic economy in The US, but that's all hype. That's all just hype. The reality is the is is the complete opposite of that.

I mean, the idea that tariffs will make America great again, the basis for that is an obsolete sort of nationalistic framework that no longer reflects the way the global economy actually functions. I mean, tariffs were were once an effective tool for The US when The US was an industrial power engaged in genuine production and genuine competition. But the American economy today, you can barely even call it a national economy in any meaningful sense. It's become a subordinate structure within the a national OCGFC, owners and controllers of global financialized capital, in which capital flows and wealth extraction supersede national interests, and where traditional economic policies such as tariffs are not designed to benefit the working class. They're not designed to bolster domestic production, but to help the corporate and financial aid be.

I mean, Trump's tariff policies are rationalized on the basis that you will assume that America's economic woes are due to unfair foreign competition. I mean, this this argument would be valid in a world where The US was still structured around industrial production, but that hasn't been the case for a very long time. American economic landscape has been completely transformed by financialization, where wealth is no longer generated by producing goods, but by financial speculation, you know, monopolistic control, the systematic extraction of rent from debt, from real estate, digital economies and so on. It's not China or Mexico or the European Union that have gutted American manufacturing, it's Wall Street. It's your own country, your own elites, your own power structure did that.

Corporate executives no longer prioritize reinvesting in production, in training workers, in expanding manufacturing capacity and so on. That's not where the money is. They engage in stock buybacks, you know, debt financed expansion, asset inflation, the objective is no longer to produce goods but to inflate balance sheets and maximize shareholder returns. This is why imposing tariffs won't in any way whatsoever incentivize companies to bring their factories back. Rather than investing in domestic production, companies, corporations are simply gonna shift their supply chains and raise their prices and increase automation.

The cost of tariffs is gonna be passed down to consumers. It's only gonna make it hard for consumers, as everyone knows this. Actual industrial capacity will remain stagnant stagnant or continue to decline. The sectors that dominate The US economy today are not engaged in production, but sectors of the economy that are engaged in extraction, you know, finance, like I say, real estate, and these technology monopolies, like Google and Apple and so forth, Meta. These rentier elites control the essential services of modern life in America, housing, health care, education, you know, even public utilities.

They've they've transformed all of these into profit generating assets rather than public goods. Tariffs will only exacerbate economic inequality because they will, as I say, drive up consumer prices while providing no tangible structural benefit to the working class, to the people. The financial elite will capitalize by leveraging inflation to justify high interest rates pushing more people into debt. You know, the very households that suffer from the rising costs will be the same ones who are forced into greater dependence on credit cards, on loans, on, you know, same day, you know, payday lenders, what do you call it, payday lenders. The net result will be redistribution of wealth upwards from the struggling households to the financial institutions that profit from their desperation.

And this this isn't accidental. A national industrial policy can only be effective if a country has the production infrastructure to actually replace what it imports. That's the the key that's missing here. The United States doesn't have that. Nearly every essential consumer good, from electronics to textiles to machinery to pharmaceuticals, it's imported.

You know, decades and decades of offshoring encouraged by corporate interests, cheap labor overseas has left The US economy structurally dependent on foreign manufacturing. Tariffs don't help in any way in this regard, they don't alter that reality. They're merely making things more expensive, that's all the tariffs will do. When import costs rise, the companies don't suddenly decide to start new factories in Ohio or Michigan, that's irrational. They'll just pass the cost on to consumers and they'll find other ways to cut their expenses, typically through layoffs, you know, automation or even more outsourcing.

As a result, American workers are not gonna gain new jobs or higher wages, they're simply gonna get burdened with higher cost of living. That's what tariffs will do. Inflation will rise, disposable incomes will decline, and economic pressure will intensify on the very demographic group that Trump claims to protect. America's global dominance was not built on tariffs or on manufacturing, but on financial supremacy. The dollar functions so far as the world's reserve currency, and that enables The US to maintain massive trade deficits without suffering the the economic consequences that would cripple other nations, and that other nations wouldn't be able to evade.

But by weaponizing tariffs and using economic coercion against key trade partners, Trump's policies will only accelerate the global trend towards de dollarization, and I think that's intentional. Major economic players like China and Russia and India, the whole bricks block are increasingly shifting their trade away from the dollar, and Trump is doing nothing but help that. You know, if he continues to alienate nations around the world through aggressive trade tariff policies rather, they're gonna have an even greater incentive to develop alternative trade mechanisms, you know, using their own currencies or using the yuan or the ruble or what have you or even digital currencies, even commodity based trade systems and so forth. This just weakens the dollar's global position, which is going to do nothing but make it harder for The US to finance its deficits, and that's going to make it even harder for them to sustain their empire, which is the whole point. I mean, the very foundation of the American empire is going to erode, it's not gonna strengthen.

The result of Trump's tariff strategy will not at all be a revival for American industry, rather it will only be higher cost for consumers with no corresponding increase in domestic production. There's not gonna be a whole bunch of factories opening. There's gonna be a greater burden on workers, there's be there's gonna be more inflation, there's gonna be stagnant wages, greater and greater household debt. The the rentier class is gonna profit from economic instability, while everyday people in America are gonna continue to struggle to make ends meet, it's gonna get harder and harder. There's gonna be a further decline in America's global influence as as I say, key trade partners are gonna accelerate their departure from US centric economic systems, and again, this is by design, this is exactly what they want to happen.

This isn't about restoring America's strength through tariffs. This is about actually exploiting the fragility of the system itself. The US is no longer a sovereign industrial power. It's a rentier dominated financial empire, rent seeking system, living off the extracted wealth of a system that is becoming increasingly unstable. I mean, if if Trump was serious about reversing America's decline, then tariffs would not be the way he would go.

Rather, you would dismantle this whole system of financialized capital that's hijacked and undermined, sabotaged the economy. That would mean, you know, breaking up monopolies, breaking up the rentier industries that profit from artificial scarcity, you know, and the the monopolistic control over essential goods and services. It would mean reversing financialization by eliminating, prohibiting corporate stock buybacks, curbing speculation, redirecting capital into productive investment and so on, requiring that. And actually rebuilding industrial capacity, not through protectionism, but through structural economic reforms that would incentivize production over speculation, which again goes back to de financialization. You would have to try to rein in the a national OCGFC that operates beyond borders, beyond national borders, and prioritizes corporate wealth or public prosperity.

You have to rein that in. Tariffs are not a real economic strategy at all. They're a political distraction, it's a gimmick that's designed to just placate disenfranchised working class while the ruling elites just continue to pursue their extractive rent seeking agenda. Without confronting the realities of the of of the system of financialized capital and the power structure that sustains it, tariffs will do nothing whatsoever to reverse America's economic decline. Instead they will only serve to accelerate the inevitable collapse of an empire that produces nothing but debt.

They produce nothing but debt. They produce dependence and delusion. But everyone knows that, like I said, everyone knows this already. The outcome of these policies is well known and predictable and predicted, but these are the desired outcomes. But of course, you know, Trump and his people, his cabinet and so on, his administration and his supporters, they can all act surprised and shocked when the inevitable collapse occurs.

They can blame this, that, the other for why these great policies that were just brilliant policies, somehow they failed to produce the results that they promised, and they'll get voted out, and the same policies will continue. Because this is the politician's job, sell policies to the public that are against their interests, sell them in a way that makes them believe that they're in their interests, and then you take the hit, you agree as a politician to take the hit when everyone gets mad about the, predictable result. Politicians are effigies, I keep saying. They're elected to take the blame. They're elected to get voted out.

They're the ultimate expendables. You know, I've seen people talking about this this meeting in Riyadh, and most of the analysts that I've seen, so called analysts, they look at, how can I say this, their their analysis is completely undermined by their own ideological bias? They're trapped in in a in a in an ideological way of thinking, and a very obsolete way of thinking about sort of state power, know, the competition between great states, great nations and so forth, great powers, great power competition. They've adopted a sort of, you know, the framework, the political theories of a Kissinger or or like, what's his name, Mearsheimer, and so on, where they believe in this concept of, first of all, great states that have their agendas, their geopolitical agendas, and then competition between the great powers. These political theories completely leave out the private sector.

The most powerful non state actors in the world are corporations, and the owners and controllers of global financialized capital, and their power surpasses the power of any of these great powers, so called, certainly the the power of The United States. The United States is subordinate to them, Europe is subordinate to them. So this is always going to be a a a cause serious flaws in your analysis of geopolitical affairs when you don't understand the the power of the private sector. And when you misidentify the real drivers of policy as being, first of all, that the controllers of policy are the states themselves and not private sector players, and then when you don't understand the motives for the policies. And then third, I've seen another issue or mistake in the way people analyze, which is that they look at the rhetoric around a policy.

They look at they actually listen to what politicians say and and think that that is related in any way whatsoever with the actual desired outcomes of policies that they are advocating or that they are implementing. There's no connection. The the politician is nothing but a salesman selling to the public policies that you can't put forward plainly because they're atrocious, and because they are against the interests of the population. There are so many analysts I see who are locked in this way of thinking, this ideological way of thinking, and this obsolete way of thinking about state power, and this the the mistake of of listening to what politicians say. In my opinion, like I say, this meeting in Riyadh is not between enemies, is not between countries that are in conflict, and it's not about trying to resolve the Ukraine Conflict.

What it's about is determining the future of Europe. It's determining the future of Europe and the future of The Middle East. But I think that the the that The Middle East is is largely the future of The Middle East is largely already being determined by the power players in the region and by Briggs, and not as much by The United States. But The United States doesn't want to get left out. The a national GFC just don't want to get left out.

This is this is the the struggle of the a national agency, GFC, trying to make sure that they will have a place in the global system post transition. The US wants to make sure that they have dominant control over their sphere of influence, which they see as being North America and Europe. This is, I think that they have resigned themselves to their sphere of influence being restricted to North America and Europe. The like I say, the the the difficult part of that is that Russia is also in Europe. Russia is a part of BRICS, but it's not a global South country, but they have interest in Europe and they're right there.

And the the most logical thing would be for Russia and Europe to have peace and harmony between them. That would be the most logical thing for Europe and the most logical thing for Russia. But that would further restrict America's sphere of influence because Europe would have autonomy from America were that to happen. Were the Europeans to make peace with the Russians, they could free themselves from American domination, and America's sphere of influence would be basically their own country and Canada. As a regional power, it would be restricted even more if they can't have dominant economic and political influence over Europe.

I mean, look at how they did with Europe. This is another thing. People are saying that there's been some huge change, in the position of The United States towards Europe, between the Biden administration and the and the Trump administration. Now there's no change. There's no change at all.

The US has been hostile towards Europe this whole time. The Biden administration was no less hostile towards Europe than Trump is. It has just reached the point, it has just reached the phase where now you can be overt about it, but they've been sabotaging Europe for three years now. There's no reason to believe that they were friends before and now they've suddenly changed their position, no. It's just the progression.

It's just following the natural progression of events. The hostility was already there, they were already dealing with them in a hostile manner, they were already subordinating them, they were already subjugating them, they were already sabotaging them, they were already destabilizing them. This isn't the actions of a friend, this isn't the these aren't the actions of an ally. So if the Europeans are now having the rug pulled out from under them, well, you should have understood from the beginning that that's why you were told to stand on the rug in the first place. America has gotten you to stand on that rug just for the purpose of pulling it out from under you.

Now they're getting the rug pulled out from under them, but they should have seen it coming. I've been saying for three years now that the the war in Ukraine was a proxy war by The United States against Europe in which Russia and The United States were not on opposite sides. This should be understood. America hasn't been hostile towards Russia. Everything that they did, all of their policies, even the policies of the Biden administration, with the Russian sanctions and so forth has actually done nothing but strengthen Russia.

It has strengthened Russia. It has strengthened Russia's relationship with China. It has strengthened BRICS. It has strengthened all of the BRICS countries. All of the BRICS countries benefited from the Russian sanctions.

India benefited from the Russian sanctions. Suddenly, somehow, India has become an exporter of oil as a result of the sanctions against Russia. Europe should have known all along what was going on. It was actually quite blatant. It was as clear as day that you're being undermined, that you're being sabotaged, that you're being destabilized, that you're being industrialized, that your big ally, The United States, is the worst possible kind of friend you could have.

But now, see, after all of that work that America has done to undermine Europe, the last thing that they wanna see happen is for Europe to fall under Russia's sphere of influence. Part of the whole point of what they've done was to ensure that Europe would be under America's sphere of influence because they understand that America is now a regional power and that the world is being divided into spheres of influence. So America needs to have North America and Europe under their sphere of influence, otherwise they would be left with nothing but their own territorial borders and Canada. So this is one of the things that has to be sorted out in Riyadh, and this is what I think that they're actually dealing with. Because, as I say, settling the Ukraine conflict is is barely anything, there's barely anything to talk about.

Russia can get whatever it wants. No one is in a position to dictate terms to Russia at this point. But what is being determined is the future of Europe and how how we will proceed to ensure that Europe will remain an American dependency, that it will be a conflict zone, that it will continue to be subjugated and undermined, and that they will not be rescued by Russia or China. This is one of the main things that they wanna negotiate. And then, of course, as I say, they also wanna negotiate the future of the Middle East.

And they have their their bargaining chips with that. America has their bargaining chips with that. America wants to see Gaza rebuilt. They wanna see or the a national OZGFC, should say, wanna see Gaza rebuilt. They wanna see the end of Zionism.

They wanna see Israel contained. They wanna see the whole region stabilized. But they're dealing with players in the region who have nationalistic interests, like Saudi Arabia, like Egypt, and like Israel. So this makes the negotiations a little bit tricky because defanging Israel is a bit complex, mostly for domestic reasons in The United States, domestic political reasons. The meeting in Riyadh is very likely to be something of a watershed moment in the history of the transition of the global economy to the global South, and a watershed moment in the history of the development of a new global order, a new management system for the world.

And I think that is more what they're talking about in the Reyad than anything else. And Allah, Muhammad.