Judging Freedom - Pepe Escobar: BRICS: Did Putin or Xi Prevail?

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

Pepe Escobar: BRICS: Did Putin or Xi Prevail?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, October 29th, 2024. Pepe Escobar is here with us in just a moment from Paris. We'll ask him why he's there to talk about BRICS and the meeting in Kazan last week. Who prevailed? Was it President Putin? Was it President Xi? Or was it all of the BRICS nations? But first this. A divisive presidential election is upon us and the winner is gold. Let me tell you what I mean. Since 2016, our national debt has grown a staggering 70 percent and gold has increased by 60 percent. Do you own gold? I do. I bought my gold in February 2023 and it has risen 33 percent. You've heard me talk about Lear Capital, the company I trust.

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Pepe Escobar, my dear friend, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for joining us. You set the record for joining us from the most unique, exotic, and beautiful places on the planet. And your time is very much appreciated. Of course, I'm a little bit envious. What is the big picture takeaway? You were at the Lear Summit last week. What is the big picture at Lear Summit? You were at the BRICS Summit, excuse me, last week.

What is the big picture takeaway from BRICS? George, first I came up with a metaphor of a departing station of a high-speed train journey towards the multipolar and multinodal world. This is a possible metaphor, including the fact that the whole summit was inside an actual station. It was connected to the airport. It was connected to the air express to go to Kazan and several pavilions.

It was, in fact, a giant warehouse station. But then I went to Istanbul in the middle of the night, looking at the Blue Mosque at midnight. I said, no, maybe there's a different metaphor. It was a gigantic laboratory. And this laboratory will start working in Kazan and will keep working for the next weeks, months, and years, in fact. It was enormous.

You know, it takes us not only a few days, but a few weeks and months to grasp the enormity of it all. Even though it did not change the world. It could not change the world in three days, of course. But some things were absolutely outstanding. Stuff that we have not seen in decades in terms of international relations. You refer to it as a laboratory, and laboratory experiments are conducted. What is the grand experiment? Is it uniting Iran to Russia or Egypt to China?

What is the experiment? There are so many, Judge. Okay, I'll try to outline at least some of the most important ones. Diplomacy. The day that the summit started on Tuesday, China and India chose to announce officially that their border problems in Ladakh are being addressed and will be solved. This decision was taken, according to our diplomatic sources, this decision was taken

weeks before, but they chose exactly the start of the summit to announce it. And guess who was the privileged mediator? President Putin himself. President Putin is the only leader on the planet who can put Xi and Modi in the same room and say, OK, guys, start talking and solve your problems. This was number one. Number two, Saudi Arabia didn't go, but they sent their foreign minister because the Saudi situation is extremely complicated. And Putin himself, during his press conference said we saudi arabia we have we are talking at the highest level but he didn't say if they're in out or over the wall they are over the wall they will make a decision probably after the america election what does over the wall

mean they are not totally saudi arabia in or not? Or is it in some neutral? They are not totally. They're not out, but they are not totally in. Because, for instance, all these very tricky decisions and debates with BRICS working groups and the BRICS Business Council throughout the past few months, for instance, the Saudis were not there, most of them, for instance. So they were not at the deciding end of BRICS deliberations. They may be starting next year. The other thing, diplomatically, the list of BRICS partners, the 13 BRICS partners, this was a strategic masterpiece, in fact.

Announced the second day of the summit, it includes four Southeast Asian powerhouses, including two Muslim ones, Malaysia and Indonesia, and also Thailand and Vietnam as well. Two Central Asian powerhouses, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the most important Central Asian powerhouses, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the most important Central Asian stands, three Africans, two Latin Americans, and Turkey. So you see that the lands of Islam are ultra-represented among the partners,

as they also are among the BRICS-9, in fact. And it is not by accident, Judge, because the defining symbolic image of the summit was the minaret of the world, this was immense, immense. Means that the lands of Islam are at the main table of the main multilateral organization deciding where we go in the multipolar, multinodal world. And the sense of continuity in Kazan. Kazan, since the 10th century, the Kremlin represents continuity from the Bulgars to the Golden Horde to the Khanate in the 15th, 16th century to Tatarstan nowadays. And it's a mix of Muslim Tatars living with Orthodox Christians in absolute harmony. The city itself is extremely harmonic, is developing in a harmonic way.

All the foreigners that I talked to about Kazan, they were gobsmacked. They were not expecting something. Who would have thought that Orthodox Christians in Russia, atheist communists in China,

would be united to 2 billion Muslims in an economic organization which might turn out to be even more than an economic organization and which already is larger than the G7 in the West. Absolutely, Judge. And that's where the concept of civilization states come in.

So we have among the top BRICS four top civilization states. Russia, China, India, and Iran. As partners, we already have Turkey. As Islam as a whole, if we take Islam as a civilizational way of living, religious and culture and customs as well, ultra representative. Africa, the representation of Africa now with three extra members as partners. We can speak in terms of African civilization as a whole as well. Are there different levels of membership in BRICS?

For the moment, only two, Judge. The nine full members, Saudi Arabia, which has to decide if it is a full member, and the 13 partners. But there's also everybody who's interested in becoming first partner and then full member. And then it's over 30 and soon reaching 40. What is Iran as we speak, a partner or a full member? Full member, because Iran became a full member with the batch that was the first batch of BRIC suspension. Iran, Emirates, Ethiopia, Egypt, and of course, Saudi Arabia, that extremely tricky situation. Argentina was also invited, and Argentina declined, considering now that they are an American colony run by the

Argentinian chainsaw massacre. In your piece that you wrote, as you were leaving or right after you left Kazan, which was your column in Sputnik, there was a very intriguing diagram in there, I don't know if you put it in or the editors put it in, of currency, which looked like it could be or was foreshadowing some uniform currency. Do you think that BRICS will do the same thing that the EU did and have a uniform currency, or are they not yet at that level? Very far away of that level, Judge. Before BRICS, I had an excellent conversation with arguably Brazil's top economist, Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr., who used to be at the IMF and he was the vice president of the NDB, the BRICS Bank in Shanghai. And he should ideally be one of the top advisors of the NDB. And Paolo told me, look, the key issue in all that is to strive to get a new global

reserve currency, new reserve currency. But we are at least six, seven, eight years away from that. So that reserve currency would have to be one that does not exist right now, correct? Exactly. You're absolutely right. It will be based on a basket of currencies. So what the BRICS are doing first, and that's where the lab metaphor comes in. There are several experiments that they are going to be starting, in fact, as we speak, next week or so. BRICS Pay, BRICS Bridge, the unit system, which was conceptualized essentially by two Russians and a Chinese guy. Alternative payment systems, some of them blockchain,

some of them based on gold and currencies of the BRICS countries. And all that will be, let's say, different tracks of different high-speed rail journeys, converting to the same point which will be in the future, an alternative reserve currency. But we are very far away from that. And the fact that I had the chance this year, for instance, to follow many of the deliberations and the roundtables of working groups and the BRICS Business Council as well in Moscow.

You can see how enormously difficult it already was for all those Sherpas. First of all, to get consensus among the nine, extremely difficult. And now it's going to be the nine. Anyway, they have to think about the 13 as well, because the 13 will have, ah, we want an opinion about this as well. But the Russian Ministry of Finance is very serious on starting this system they call BRICS Bridge, which is based on the M-Bridge that already exists. Bank of International Settlements, European Central Bank, IMF, they are involved.

It's the famous example of the Thais buying oil from the Emirates and paying with Enbridge instead of using their currency. So this could be done all across BRICS nations and starting soon. And BRICS Pay, which is that famous mini card that they presented, the test run one week before the summit in Moscow, where you can use Bricks Pay to buy your cappuccino. But companies are thinking about it. Why not use this to settle? Like, for instance, can you imagine an Indian company buying loads of oil from Russia? Instead of using rupees, they use Bricks Pay. What would happen if I used Bricks Pay?

Where would the money come from or go to? We still don't know. Because it's a lab, Judge. So I tried to get a one-minute concise explanation about BRICS Bridge from Moscow to Kazan and it was impossible. And I talked to a lot of Sherpas. Absolutely impossible. Is Turkey a member of Bricks?

Turkey is a partner now. Very, very important. And extremely important. Erdogan spent only a few hours in Kazan because there was that terrorist attack near Ankara last week. So he spent a little over 12 hours, if I'm not mistaken. But for the first time, we could see that he was visibly excited by the whole thing.

Not only by meeting Putin, Xi and Modi in person. Very, very important. So he was basically selling Turkey to these top three BRICS. But he was at, I would rate it as the most significant event graphically for the whole planet,

which was the BRICS outreach session, where we had that enormous roundtable, Putin presiding, he opened with a very short speech, then he opened the floor to everybody, and everybody, 35 nations plus the UN Secretary General. This was enormous, you know, and everybody with equal time, speaking their original languages. It was quite a sight, in fact, quite a sight. And some of the speeches were more accommodating towards the, I wouldn't say rules-based international order, but at least at the order that we have to live in, the Bretton Woods order.

And some were extremely critical. Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas had a theory speech. Nicolas Maduro told Guterres in his face, and Guterres was shrinking, what is the UN doing when you have a genocide in front of the planet 24-7? So this was amazing. It lasted three and a half hours, three hours, 25 minutes. And I would suggest somebody to

do a super edit of the session, like 10 minutes, TikTok style, so everybody can see it and TikTok audiences can see it. It's amazing because it's the new world based on the

global majority emerging in front of you. Do you think that Turkey will become a full member and then leave NATO? Well, this is after Kazan, I went to Moscow and I spent a week in Istanbul, where I wrote this column. And in Istanbul, I talked to some of my academic scholar contacts and they said, yes, they are very serious. Erdogan is very serious about joining, but he wants to keep a foot in NATO and he wants to use BRICS as leverage to pressure the Americans to extract some more concessions. Typical Erdogan. Typical carpet bazaar merchant style. Right. I guess that'll depend on November 5th. Depends on November 5th. He can negotiate more from the Americans if Vice President Harris wins. He won't get a nickel if Donald Trump wins.

He won't get a nickel from Trump. Exactly. Right. Was there any mention at BRICS of the war between Russia and Ukraine? Of course. This was discussed during the BRICS outreach briefly, I would say, but in the bilaterals. Don't forget that there were a lot of,

like Putin, when he gave us the press conference on the last day, he had to leave earlier. He wanted to stay there and answer questions because most of us, we had no chance. There were more than 200 hands and he answered 10 or 12 questions because he had five bilaterals on the last day after the press conference. So he had at least 17 or 18 bilaterals. And obviously, a key theme in all of them was the war in Ukraine, which is something that he discusses in detail with, I would say, the other three top bricks, China,

India, and Iran, of course. President Pesachkin was there. They discussed not only West Asia, the incandescence in West Asia, and how Iran is trying to defuse it, but also Ukraine. Well, President Pesachkin was there, and Iran is now a full member, and Russia and Iran are very close to us. I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong, but I've not yet actually signed that defensive agreement. In the next few days, Judge. Wow. Was Israel, Gaza, Israel, Iran discussed at BRICS.

Yes, it was. And in the BRICS outreach, many of the speeches, especially from representatives of the lands of Islam, including leaders, not, for instance, Sisi from Egypt. His speech was whatever. But many of them, they made the connection. And they made the connection in a forever wars framework, which they are. These are two forever wars in different latitudes. But they involve roughly the same players on one side. And Israel also plays

a role in the Ukraine war. And they are against BRICS members, essentially. In West Asia, the top target is Iran, BRICS member. In Russia, the top target, in Ukraine, sorry, the top target is Russia, but also China, BRICS members. And it was very interesting to see as well the body language interaction in many of like, for instance, Modi and Xi, I never saw them so relaxed face to face. Maduro,

the way he was received by both Putin and Xi, it's amazing. Can you imagine Xi totally relaxed and saying, we are iron brothers, translating from Mandarin literary to Maduro, and Putin smile like he was in, you know, with Maduro, the same thing, which brings us to one of the, I would say, most serious diplomatic mishaps of the whole thing, which was the Brazilian veto against Venezuela becoming a BRICS partner. And this would require a very long analysis, in fact, for a number of reasons. Because Brazil is privileging the G20. The G20 is next month in Rio. So the Brazilians pay practically zero attention to BRICS,

and even throughout this year. There is an enormous anti-BRICS lobby in Brasilia among ministries and the Brasilia comprador classes, let's put it this way. But that's an enormous problem, George. Guess who's the president of BRICS next year? Don't tell me, Silva. Brazil.

Wow. And this will be like, you know, we're starting to have, I would say, backstage conversations in Moscow that they had to do all the heavy lifting this year and prepare for next year because they know the next year nothing much is going to happen because the Brazilians will be focused on the COP climate change thing at the end of the year in the Amazon rainforest. And the most stupid decision ever. They're going to have the BRICS summit in July. How can you have a wrap-up of a very complex agenda in the middle of the year? Because they said, oh, no, we cannot do it at the end of the year because of the COP30.

So it starts very, very badly. And the Brazilian veto against Venezuela all across the global south, this went down horribly. It was an instant erosion of Brazilian capital as one of the leaders of the global south. Very hard for them to recover. Let me change the subject a little bit because you are so adept on all things Russian, are there North Korean troops in Russia prepared to fight with Russian troops against the Ukrainian military? There are not. There's a very important distinction. We should never forget that the PRK is a neighbor of Russia and Vladivostok is 120 kilometers away from the North Korean border. Literally, they are neighbors. So as part of their new strategic partnership, that includes North Korean soldiers training in Russian territory.

That does not mean automatically that they will be dispatched to the front in Donbass or to Kursk. So they are in Russian territory and they are training in the Far East. So everything related to, ah, we're going to have DPRK troops in Donbass tomorrow, it's pure speculation. Got it. Got it. Who was the king of the hill,

as we say here in New Jersey, at BRICS? Was it President Putin or President Xi or both of them? We can say that I prefer to describe it as the Primakov Triangle, George. I think many of our audience will remember that the original Primakov triangle was Russia, India, and China. So that was the embryo of BRICS in the end. And Primakov, when he was foreign minister at the end of the millennium, in fact, he was betting that these three together would reshape the map of Eurasia as a whole. Brazil came later, and of course, South Africa came later. Brazil and South Africa had their own mini bricks, only two of them. So these were the three main characters, but it was obviously Putin's show. It was extremely impressive because of all the bilaterals, of course,

because of the impeccable reception. Everybody was in ecstasy by the reception, by the foreign ministry, of course, by the municipality of Kazan, and they are very, very good. I went to a previous summit in the middle of the year. They are excellent organizers. Everything works in the middle of the year. They are excellent organizers. Everything works in the city. Everything is seamless. And of course, the way Putin presided, the most important sessions, the BRICS session on the first day, and on the second day, the BRICS Plus or BRICS Outreach session, this enormous roundtable with 36 nations and

United Nations together. That was quite something. And of course, during the press conference, which it could have lasted five, six hours. It's a pity that he had all those bilaterals afterwards. He was starting to pick up steam after four or five questions. And he answered everything, including obnoxious questions by a resident BBC idiot and a guy from NBC who always shows up with, once again, confrontational, misinformed questions. But he answers everybody. Unlike in the West. Pepe, thank you very much. Thank you very much, my dear friend.

By the way, you're somewhere in that picture. There you are., my dear friend. By the way, you're somewhere in that picture. There you are. Yes, I am. And obviously, all of us, and right behind me, Judge, was George Galloway. And we are frantically raising our hands. Wow. Well, I was just on George Galloway's show last week. What a delight.

And he spoke very highly of you, of course, as I know you do of him. Thank you for your time, Pepe. Wonderful, wonderful analysis. We can bore more deeply into some of these unique topics if you like next time. I hope you can join us again next week. I would love to, George. Yes. Some details, especially geoeconomic

details. Yes. You got it. All the best, my friend. Thank you. All the best, George. My pleasure. See you. Sure. What a wonderful, delightful, informative human being. It's a great gift to be his friend and collaborator. Coming up later today at two o'clock this afternoon, Eastern, Matt Ho at three o'clock this afternoon, Eastern, Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski at four o'clock this afternoon, Eastern, Colonel Douglas McGregor. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.