Judging Freedom - Pepe Escobar : The New Alliance Doesn’t Need the US.

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Pepe Escobar : The New Alliance Doesn’t Need the US.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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That's an equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited. plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, September 10th, 2025, from I'm not sure where, but in China. Pepe Escobar joins us now. Pepe, a pleasure, my dear man.

Thank you very much. Where did we find you, Pepe? Inormous pleasure, Judge. I am in Cian, China, the former imperial capital Shangan. That was the start of the ancient Silk Road, which I'm going to retrace again. I wanted to do this years ago, but COVID intervened. So I'm doing it now. And the contrast, yes, the contrast

judge between the dynamism all across China and all the horror stories that we have to put up with, especially in West Asia and across the West, it defies imagination. Wow. A historic trip. I mean, before I ask you about the history you observed in the past 10 days at Vladivostok in Beijing and wherever else you were traveling, I must ask you about the events of the past 48 hours.

The Israeli regime with the knowledge. consent and help of the Trump administration bombed a residential neighborhood in Doha, the capital of Qatar. The Qatar air defenses and radar systems, which are operated by the United States, stood down, and these 10 planes did their damage. They were refueled mid-air by the British Royal Air Force and then they returned to their home bases in Israel. What all of this was an attempt to assassinate the Hamas negotiators who had immunity from this because they were participating in a negotiation. The negotiators were lured to their place of attempted assassination by the United States and by Israel. As far as we know, the assassinations

were not successful. What is the international reaction to this monstrosity? Well, once again, we have to go back to the warped logic of a death cult. They kill civilians, they kill diplomats, they kill negotiators, they kill health workers, they kill journalists. So in this case, they were killing negotiators in a sovereign... in theory, Arab nation, with full complicity of the US. So in fact, once again, the US bombed itself.

The so-called umbrella of protection over the Gulf Petro Monarchies, now it has completely evaporated. If Israel can do this with Qatar, which is extremely pliable and was always extremely pliable vis-à-vis Israel, They can do this against MBZ in the Emirates. They can do this against MBS in Saudi Arabia. So the Gulf Petronarchies, they have a lot of work to do to re-study the so-called American umbrella protection,

which was a kind of a mafioso deal. This deal now, it's over. Who would negotiate? with the Israelis or even with the Americans after this. I mean, by my count, this is the third time the U.S. and the Israelis lured negotiators into a false sense of security only to try and kill them. They did this with Nassarala in Lebanon.

They did it with the Iranians and now with Hamas. Who would trust the Trump administration and who would be crazy enough to sit across a table from the Israelis. Absolutely. Well, in terms of Israelis, we can say the overwhelming majority of the planet. In the case of Trump 2.0, they already lost Eurasia, which is something that we saw last week in detail.

And they are losing West Asia as well, especially the petro monarchies. It was very, very easy for the petro monarchies for at least two decades. We had fires of hell raging in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Syria, but they were always protected. They were protected by the Americans. They were building their glitzy towers. They were bringing, you know, very, very wealthy tourists. And all that bling-bling was very safe under the supposition that they were protected. They were never protected.

And when Israel comes in an out-of-control desk, which it is now, in the past few months, they have been bombing literally everybody. There's no way out and there's no diplomacy left, an international law. Come on. You have this. Is there maybe a year and a half ago, you had expressed the view that a resistance was growing, on the Arab street, so to speak, and it was of such profound

in its sincerity that it would eventually reach the Arab governments. Do you still feel that way? Is there a resistance? Is it meaningful? Will it manifest itself in some military resistance? Or is Netanyahu unstoppable? At the moment, from a deskult point of view,

yes, he is unstoppable. In terms of, the resistance in the Arab street, if you talk to people in a cafe in Cairo or in a cafe in Amman for instance, which are

American protectorates, let's put it this way. We hear the same point of view that we hear in the spectrum of the axis of resistance. They totally understand what's going on in

Gaza. They support Palestine as a whole. They know that this current incarnation of the death cult is the deadliest ever and they are unstoppable. But the problem is this doesn't translate into

their leadership in these countries. Sisi or that little king in Amman or the petro monarchies being forceful vis-a-vis Israel or the West because they can do it. They simply can do it.

They are two. They are powerless essentially. So this dichotomy between the street and the palace, sooner or later, we're going to have to start to revaluate that. But what are they going to do? Their weapons are Americans. Their systems, their defense systems are American. Their money is in the U.S. or in London. There's nothing they can do about it. They are puppets. One last observation I want from you before we get to Tianjin, Beijing and Vladivostok, and that is a fascinating statement made this morning by Victor Orban about the future of the EU. Watch this. Chris, cut number 17.

I believe that the European Union has currently entered a state of fragmentation and disintegration. And if this continues, which is, in fact, the more likely scenario, then the history of the European Union will go down in history as the disappointing outcome of a noble experiment. Take into account that the fact that the French now have or will soon have their fifth government in two years, the descending popularity of Prime Minister Starrmer and Great Britain and Chancellor, Mertz in Germany where their numbers are down into the mid and high teens. In the U.S. it would be impossible to govern with numbers that low, but they have a

different system. And add to that, their drumbeat, their fantastic drumbeat in support of Ukraine. Where is Europe going? Well,

the EU is already Orban is one of the very few EU leaders who knows from the inside because he knows the absurdity of Brussels from the inside and how it is collapsing the whole institutional framework of the EU. And the nation states they are part of the EU, they are crumbling as well. Today, Judge, today is blockage day in France. There are blockades all over the place across France, And it's a citizen policy, in fact. And the people in all, every region in France,

from Britain in the north to Marseille in the south by the sea, they're saying the same thing, we can't stand this thing anymore. And this thing means that puppet in the LSA Palace, which is universally hated. His approval rate is actually less than 10%, the real approval rate. And there's nothing they can.

can do about it. And for instance, a few weeks ago I was in France, but not in Paris. When you go to Brittany or Normandy, for instance, and you talk to average people, then you feel the pulse of the province, as they say, the provinces. And this is the real France. And people can stand it anymore. And at the same time, they say, look, this, there was a lot of talk about today a few weeks ago about September 10. Let's paralyze the whole country and see if they understand the message. They don't.

Macron will never understand the message. He appointed another idiot to be his next prime minister, and this government is going to fall in between one or two months. Everybody knows that. But nothing changed. The Shanghai Cooperation Agreement

annual summit, the Victory Day parade in Beijing, the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, all of which you observed. How significant were these three events in forming a new economic and security order and thumbing their noses at the West? That was the most important week, one of the most important weeks of this millennium for the global South and for Eurasia as a whole. When we analyze what happened in this, practically, we can say four dates and happenings.

The SEO in Tianjin, which came out with a very forceful declaration and President Xi here in China, openly proclaiming the necessity of a new global governance system. This is something that he has been saying for years. In Beijing, for instance, a few days ago, I bought, I think his latest book, in fact, English translation. It's called the Modernization of China, a Collection of Speeches, Excepts from Speeches. And he started talking about global governance by 2015 or 16 already. So this is a mature process. Then the next day, we had the one-on-one between Putin and Xi in Beijing as well, at the Zhongganai, which is the official residence of the presidency of China.

So when you have a meeting like this in the Zhonggani, this is at the absolute top. And they discussed everything, not only their strategic partnership, but ahead these multilateral organizations, SCO and BRICS especially, and the leaders of both are everybody, knows it, Russia and China. Then we had the parade, which was a self-confident nation in front of Tiananmen Square. I wouldn't say showing off, but basically showing, look, we are strong, we can take care of ourselves. So it's better if anybody out there has ideas of confronting China. It's not going to be like the century of humiliation in the 19th century. And then we had business in Vladivostok, where we had Chinese, South Koreans, people from all across Central Asia, from South Asia, from Southeast Asia. There was enormous delegations from

Southeast Asia discussing business. And the most important element, which is oil and energy from the point of view of the Arctic Russia, the Americans are interested, and connectivity corridors and the most important one which was defined by president putting himself as the trans-arctic corridor it's going to be the swiss canal of the 21st century essentially and this was discussed in detail in vladivostok judge i went to two round tables in vladivostok one of them was absolutely striking we had for instance the head of rosatom the state nuclear conglomerate in Russia. Lycachev.

Lycachev is an excellent CEO. He gave a half an hour breakdown of everything that they plan to accomplish with this new connectivity policy and the challenges as well. And we need to find the money. It's not only the federal funds from Moscow provincial funds, but we need investors as well. But this is, can you imagine a project of this breast and scope, which is a project of national interest for Russia as or national security.

It's equivalent to what the Chinese did in starting in the end of the millennium. At the time, they used to call it Go West, which is to develop Tibet in Xinjiang. That's where I'm going next. In fact, I remember

at the time, in my previous trips to Xinjiang, you could see it building. My friends, my Chinese friends are telling me, you have no idea what going to see now in terms of the development of Chinko? Was the decision by President Trump to impose 50% secondary tariffs in India, sort of the last straw that produced those remarkable pictures of Modi, Putin, and G, embracing, smiling, making happy eye contact with each other.

It was the last straw, Judge. Absolutely. In fact, our Chinese friends, for instance, I remember some excellent discussions with Chinese academics during the bricks in Rio, which was not a long time ago, was in early July. Now, for instance, on Monday, we had another dinner here with some top-class scholars and academics. And they say, yes, it's true that there was a sentiment here in Beijing

of lack of trust between China and India. This is changing. After the SEO, after putting Xi and Modi together, after the fact that Modi actually went, came here to China as an honor of guest, but would also defend Indian national. interest, but Eurasia interest as a whole. So the China-India relationship changed completely last week. And, of course, our friend Donald was instrumental.

Wow. What is the, where is the second largest bank in the world? I know the answer because you told me already, but I think the answer was. surprise people watching us now. Spare bank from Russia. Absolutely. And in one of the panels that we were in Vladivostok,

the CEO of Spar Bank, Herman Graf, was there. And he said that, if I remember correctly, it was the first time that he actually said that in public. That the second largest bank in terms of transactions in the world

is spare bank. It is larger than every American bank except for Chase? Except J.P. Morgan. Wow. But spare bank is, but spare bank is, it's a behemot, in fact. And it's respected by the international banking system, financial community, etc. Does, do Moscow, Beijing or New Delhi need Swift?

Do they need the American banking system? Do they need the dollar any longer? No, they don't. And this is what these, I call them lab experiments inside bricks. This is what they are working on. So when you hear our friend Grandmaster Lavrov saying that we are, he never mentions the dollarization. He always says, we are increasing a trade among us with our national currencies. This is exactly what Russia and China are doing.

Now it's over 90% in yuan and rubles. So this is going to go all around the 10 Eurasia members of the SCO, the 10 BRICS members, and the partners, the BRICS partners and the SCO partners as well. So this is where we're going. They are flowing in parallel these two multilateral organizations, BRICS and SCO. BRICS, of course, is more geared towards geo-economics, and there's a geopolitical aspect that's very important. The SCO started as security, and now is going towards geo-economics as well.

And soon, we're going to have on the table on the SCO very similar proposals that we see on the table when BRICS get together. Will BRICS and SCO eventually emerge and become the same thing? economic, political, military, cooperative. Judge, we should ask this question to somebody that Donald Trump deeply admires. Lukashenko said that last year, eventually Bricks and SEO will merge. And it makes logically, it makes total sense, especially because the top four on both, Russia, China, India, and Iran. Iran is more complicated because we can say Indonesia in BRICS. Indonesia is the very important eye, the new I in BRICS is Indonesia, much more. Iran, of course,

because Iran is under attack by the West still. But these four are on both. And the Central Asians, some of them are part of BRICS. We have two Central Asians as BRICS, part of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the two most important of the Central Asian states. And Southeast Asia, they are partners of SCO and some are partners of BRICS as well. Like Thailand and Malaysia, for instance. So they are merging. And what they discuss in the summits and what they discuss at the level of their foreign ministry, which are now talking all the time.

And that included on Monday this. day, this extraordinary summit of Bricks, which was called by President Lula from Brazil, there was nothing spectacular. We would even say that it was relatively lame, basically saying what all of us already know. But there's a twist. What President Putin said during this extraordinary summit, the Kremlin said, no, we're not going to have it released. apparently it was something really groundbreaking. Nobody knows what it was.

This is a secret for the moment. But Putin really relayed a very important message to his BRICS partners and obviously related to the current wobbly negotiations between Moscow and Washington and, of course, the Tari 4. When you learn what this is, President, Putin said, I hope we'll be the first people that you reach out to. Of course. Thank you very much.

This stuff is so fascinating and it keeps getting more and more fascinating. Where will you be when we reach you next week? Wow. Okay. The short version is, middle of next week, I'll be between Dunhuang and Yahyuguan, which is the end of the old Great Wall. Because I'm traveling west. I'm following the old Silk roads.

They started here in Siang. And I'm going all the way to the China-Pakistani border, which is a trip that I did many times before. But this is the, let's say, the post-CO-Brix trip to the west of China to see how China developed the West. that's not only this past 10 years special. Wow. Fascinating. Yeah, it's fascinating. It is.

It is. Fascinating stuff. Please reach us if you have breaking news. Otherwise, we'll see at your usual time next week, and we deeply look forward to it. Thank you so much, Pepe. Thank you so much, good. Greeting some Sian. Thank you. Be well. Safe travels, my friend. Wow. What an experience. Still a busy day coming up at noon, Professor, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey Sachs at one o'clock, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson at 2.15, Aaron Monte at three o'clock, Professor John Mearsheimer. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you. Thank you.