Judging Freedom - Larry Johnson: Worrying About China

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

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Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, February 17th, 2025. Larry Johnson is here with us on worrying about China. But first, this markets are at an all time high. Euphoria has set in. The economy seems unstoppable. But the last administration has buried us so deep in debt and deficits. It's going to take a lot of digging to get us out of this hole. Are you prepared? Lear Capital specializes in helping people like me

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When you call, ask how you can also get up to $15,000 in bonus gold with a qualifying purchase. Call 800-511-4620, 800-511-4620, or go to learjudgenap.com and tell them the judge sent you. Larry, welcome here, my dear friend. Why is China getting tough with the United States economically, and what exactly is it doing? Well, the United States has been threatening to go to war with China. The Chinese have listened. The United States has been imposing sanctions on Chinese government officials and Chinese industry. The Chinese are responding in kind. I saw last night, I haven't been able to confirm it, but if true, this is going to further heighten tensions with China. The Trump administration is

going to remove language from the State Department and other CIA websites where we acknowledge the one China policy. Richard Nixon agreed with the Chinese, and it was put into full effect under President Gerald Ford, that the United States would recognize China as the sole government and withdrew recognition of Taiwan as an independent country. Trump's wanting to reverse that. But wait a minute, didn't Congress enact legislation on that consistent with what Nixon did? Yeah, my understanding is yes.

But, you know, we can rename Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America. And so we'll just rename Taiwan as an independent country. That's a red line for the Chinese because they view Taiwan as part of their nation. It's right off their shore. So what has happened now? And we've heard Trump talk about imposing tariffs on China. The problem for the United States is that China is not just the manufacturer of, say that are critical, essential, vital to U.S. defense industry, to electronics industry, anything that has to do with communications devices. So China is a major supplier of tungsten. And then you get into these other elements.

One's called antimony, gallium, and germanium. All of those, China controls the supply. And what has happened is China has now cut off supplying that to the United States. What do we use tungsten for? Well, it goes into metal, hardening metals. It's used in aircraft. And it's used in a lot of military equipment. And it's not like this is readily available at, you know,

go down to Sam's Club, Costco, BJ's, you know, pick it up. It is, there are only a few countries that produce it. China is a major dominant supplier of it. And so this really does create some genuine challenges, if not threats, for the U.S. defense industry. Why would the United States needlessly be making an enemy out of China when we rely on them for vital materials? Because we're morons? I mean, you know, look, we don't sit down and say, okay, what is the true nature of our relationship with China? What do we depend upon China for?

Well, if we would take that into consideration, we'd realize a significant percentage of pharmaceutical products, including the vitamin supplements, those are produced in China, and we don't have an alternative for it. On these key minerals, those are produced in China. We don't have an alternative for it. So you would think that you would then take that into consideration and said, all right, we have some clear objectives for ourselves. We want the Chinese to crack down on those who are producing fentanyl. We want the Chinese to stop stealing some of our technology. So I'm not saying there are no issues that separate us, but at a minimum, we could sit down and talk and negotiate and find a way that we could work together.

Instead, what the United States is doing, and it's actually dangerous under Donald Trump in this regard, because he's making it very clear to the Russians and to the Europeans, we're shifting our priorities away from confronting Russia to confronting China. And yet at the same time, we're going to China and asking them to help us get Russia to stop the war. It's the most schizophrenic foreign policy. Are these decisions, Taiwan is not part of China, Donald Trump's, Marco Rubio's, Michael Wolf's, Sebastian Gorka, or just the collective people around the president? No, no, it's around, it's Trump and company. You know, one of his, one of the key appointments that right now is being challenged by Senator Tom Cotton is a fellow named Elbridge Colby. Mr. Colby is the grandson of William Colby, who is the director of the CIA.

And Elbridge is big on, we've got to confront China. There's an entire, let's call it, class of pundits and lobbyists in D.C. that talk about the need to confront China. And so we're always in this, you know, China confrontation mode. Again, this goes back to Trump's actions in Panama to, you know, try to strip the Chinese of having any involvement in the Panama Canal, even though, you know, they've been there, Chinese companies have been there for more than 30 years, managing the ports at the north and south end of the canal. So it's a needless confrontation that we're seeking with China, but that's where we're headed.

Do you foresee military action over Taiwan that would involve the United States, Larry? That's where we're headed, yes, unfortunately. And if it comes to that, we're going to lose. Well, how could we possibly transport enough military equipment across the Pacific effectively to resist the Chinese who are right there? Well, we don't. Our Navy's not big enough. The only thing we'd rely upon would be nuclear submarines and nuclear missiles, and we don't want to go into that. And notice how China came up in this discussion about the peace opening with Russia, when you had General Kellogg talking just two, three days ago saying, you know,

that one of the objectives of the United States is to split Russia away from Iran, China, and North Korea. So, you know, this is, there is an active policy in place with strong advocates. It exists within both the intelligence community and the military, that they believe that the relationship between China and Russia is unnatural, that it is ephemeral, that it is only temporary, and that if we play our cards right, we can somehow make Russia our partner, and that therefore we can go against China collectively. It's madness. It's a form of insanity. But these people really believe this, and that's what they're working towards.

And I think the Chinese and the Russians are aware of this, and they've just got to be shaking their heads about the stupidity of the Americans. But, I mean, Judge, I'm not talking about some outliers. I'm talking about mainstream people, people with good educations that have worked in very important positions, both in the private sector and in government, who genuinely, sincerely believe that this Russia-China thing is not a real relationship. It's just a marriage of convenience, and that all we got to do is insert ourselves, and we'll peel Russia off, and that way we can go weaken China. And this is all, look, this has always been the United States approach to both Russia and China. We've never seen it as they're actual countries we want to be friends with. They're actual countries where we can develop mutual interests.

They are objects to be used against each other. That's the problem we have. You mentioned General Kellogg, and I was going to bring this up later on in the interview, but since you just mentioned him, he really is, I think, an old-fashioned Cold War warrior who doesn't see the world the way it is today, but I'll let you comment on it. When being asked if President Zelensky and his team would be present at negotiations between President Trump and President Putin over the war in Ukraine, his answer was a bit startling. I won't characterize it. I'll let you hear it. Chris, cut number one. Can you assure this audience that Ukrainians will be at the table and Europeans will be at the table. Oh, well, you just changed the whole dynamic.

The answer to that last question, just as you framed it, the answer is no. The answer to the earlier part of that question is yes, of course the Ukrainians are going to be at the table. So the Europeans who have provided as much or more support than the Americans in this process, you don't think should be at the table directly. You think it should be two protagonists. I donists. I said I'm a school of realism. I think that's not going to happen. But our philosophy is not to continue this war to the death of every last Ukrainian. There's really, there's two protagonists when you look at it, and there's one, hopefully, to be an intermediary.

Okay, who are the protagonists and who's the intermediary? Well, I'm saying as we do it, notice I'm being very diplomatic about it. The fact is we're looking at, you can have the Ukrainians, the Russians, and clearly the Americans at the table talking, but we've got to have specifics to get to a point. Does he know what he's talking about, Larry? No.

Well, to the extent that Europe's not going to be at the table, correct. Why should they? They bring nothing to the table. Their financial contribution to this war in Ukraine, to the Ukrainian government, has been about 25%. So even though from a population standpoint, I think when you lump all the Europeans together, there'll be larger population than the United States. They've only provided, you know, maybe 25% of the funding.

They don't have intact industries which are able to crank out significant quantities of military equipment. And frankly, who is the representative of Europe? You know, Ursula von der Leyen? You know, instead of, you know, that's a good name for her. That is a very fascinating and clever play on her name. Look, we know the Russians are not going to sit down with Zelensky because unlike us, they recognize that he has no lawful authority, is not the president of Ukraine, and can't sign a commitment. But look, Russia's, there's also, the problem with these negotiations are the assumptions that are still prevalent, dominant on the U.S. side. We still continue to convince ourselves that Russia needs this, that Russia wants this, that Russia is in a weak position and that they're going to have to make some concessions. The fact of the matter is Russia's approach to this is much broader than is ours. They're saying, look, we're going to win this war with Ukraine regardless of what the West does. The only risk is if the West gets involved, the war will expand and we'll have to fight the West.

Russia would prefer to be at peace with Europe and with the United States so they wouldn't have to spend as much on its military capabilities. However, they know from history that the West is not to be trusted. And everything they're hearing out of Europe right now is talking about going to war with Russia. So the Russians, they're the driver's seat. The United States has zero leverage over Russia on any, you know, they have no leverage whatsoever. And how do we negotiate when we have no leverage whatsoever? Well, because Russia has what we want. Russia has the ability to bring this war to a halt,

to stop the bleeding on the side of the West, as well as the, you know, the fact remains that the United States is still dependent upon uranium coming out of Russia. You know, we still buy it. Wait a minute. Wait a minute, Larry. The vice president said we're going to impose more sanctions on Russia.

This is the last thing we haven't sanctioned because we vitally require it. Yeah. They say these things without, again, stepping back and saying, okay, look, it's one thing to have imposed sanctions on Syria, which proved devastating to that country and made it weak. What's happened to the sanctions in Russia is that they've grown stronger. And the reason for that is Russia is number one in the world in terms of natural resources. So whenever you start a supply chain of any kind, you start with who produces or creates that supply, whether we're talking uranium, oil, gas, tungsten, gallium, you know, minerals we mentioned earlier. When you try to sanction those, you disrupt and destroy the entire supply chain below it, which actually ends up affecting the countries that are imposing the

sanctions. That's why, for example, Europe right now is paying, has imposed sanctions on Russia, tried to cut off the flow of Russian oil, is paying astronomical prices in terms of both petroleum and natural gas, and yet they still are buying Russian oil, but through third parties. So they're paying more for it. They're de-industrializing it. We saw just this week that, or last week, that the Baltic states disconnected themselves

from the Russian grid. We're not going to take that Russian electricity. The price on electricity in those countries as of today, in just two or three days, has gone up 300%. Who does this? That shows you how crazy these people are. Here's President Zelensky saying how much Europe and Ukraine must together be at the negotiating table. Cut number four. We need the support of Europe and this common plan we have to discuss with Russians and we will.

And at the table it's very important to hear America, Europe, Ukraine, and Russia. Yes. Can you accept any peace deal that is cut without Ukraine? No. He's a madman. He's not going to, you know, he can say no, we won't accept it. It's going to be imposed upon them. as you know I'm sure Adolf Hitler until the last final moment said no we will not accept no we're not going to accept any peace deal well it was imposed upon you because the Soviet troops took over Berlin

right this is what people in the West fail to understand because they keep looting themselves with their own propaganda saying that oh Russia's militarily and Russia's militarily the West fail to understand because they keep diluting themselves with their own propaganda, saying that, oh, Russia's militarily inept, Russia's militarily weak,

Russia's not making any progress, etc., etc., etc. And the reality is Russia's pressing forward with the attack. They're taking more territory each day. The military position of the Ukrainian forces is growing more dire with each passing day, not stronger.

And, you know, one of these points, it's going to break. I don't know when that will be, but it's not going to be next year. It'll be much shorter than that. And it's something that's in Russia's control, not that of the West. West can send as much military equipment there as they want. Who's going to use it you have to have trained personnel the greek government for example in the last 24 hours announced it was sending 16 or or all of its it was more than a more than 10 uh f-16 jets

to uh ukraine who's gonna fly what are they gonna do with them there are no pilots yeah not to uh aggravate you but here is president zelinsky even being even more forceful cut number three i will never accept any decisions between the united states and russia about ukraine never and our people never And our adults and children and everybody. It can't be so. This is the war in Ukraine against us and it's our human losses. There is no any leader in the world who can really make a deal with Putin without us, about us. Of course, United States can have a lot of decisions economical partnership and etc we're not happy with it but they can help with russians but not about this war without us yeah go right your own checks yeah yeah i would

imagine that that attitude the the persistent uh embrace of that attitude would result in the U.S. somehow, either violently or diplomatically, replacing him as the spokesperson or head of state for Ukraine. What do you think? Yeah, he is, you know, you can follow the example of other people in history that the United States has been partners with where the United States has walked away or abandoned them or forced them to take a particular deal. And it doesn't end well. They usually end up either dead or in a jail cell. Rarely do they get to fly off into the sunset and have a cushy retirement uh so it'd be one thing if zielinski's words would translate into combat action on the ground where

the Ukrainians were actually defeating Russian forces and pushing them back that is that's not happening it's just the opposite and Russia you know Russia is going to continue rolling along. They're going to talk to the United States. They would certainly like to defuse the tensions in the world. But the problem, and it's represented by people like Keith Kellogg, they assume that the United States can bully, coerce Russia into separating itself, breaking its relationships with Iran, China, and North Korea.

The reason those relationships exist is because of U.S. bullying, U.S. threats, a record, a clear record where the United States has provided money to insurgent groups, terrorist groups that have carried out attacks inside Russia, where we have funded through USAID, National Endowment for Democracy, and other CIA black programs, propaganda efforts to disrupt and destroy and meddle in the internal affairs of Russia as well as these other countries. So they recognize the United States. It's not Russia and China and North Korea that are sitting around figuring out how to meddle in the United States. It's been just the opposite. We're the meddlers. We've got a clear track record of that. And yet we project this onto Russia and we want to compel them to do what we want.

Sorry. You know, it's like the 18-year-old kid that's been living at home with mom and dad. And he's got a father that's a tyrant. And the tyrant father says, you're going to do it my way or you're going to get out. He gets out. Goes out and sets up his own life and lives his own life. And that's what Russia and these other countries are doing. They're no longer feeling a need that they're going to have to submit and genuflect before Uncle Sam.

Larry, thank you very much, my dear friend. Very informative. Thank you for all the data about China, of which I had been unaware. And we'll look forward to seeing you on Friday with Ray McGovern. I'll be there. Thanks, Judge. Thank you. All the best. Coming up at two o'clock this afternoon, Scott Ritter, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.