Judging Freedom - Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Trump Saying Good Night to NATO

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Trump Saying Good Night to NATOSee 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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the ceasefire with Hamas when he announced that the IDF would prevent the introduction of food, water, and medicine into Gaza under the pretext of, are you ready for this? It's being stolen by bandits, and therefore we will starve everybody. How can President Trump tolerate this? How can the West tolerate this? I know this has been going on for a year and a half, but how can they tolerate it? Well, the situation in Israel and Palestine is similar to the situation in Ukraine. In both cases, there are manipulations by the governments, whether it's Zelensky in Ukraine or Netanyahu, which believe that they have the U.S. wrapped around their finger and that they can use the U.S. for whatever bullying or maximalist demands they want. When it comes to Ukraine,

Trump has finally drawn the line and he's done it properly. He said to Zelensky, you need to make peace. If you don't make peace, we're not supporting you anymore. And the most recent news is that the United States has suspended all military aid to Ukraine. This is the right approach, given Zelensky's attitude, which is maximalist demands and therefore continued war, not just maximalist, delusional demands. And when it comes to Israel, the situation is the same. Netanyahu makes maximalist demands, thinking that the United States will unconditionally back those demands. What are Israel's maximalist demands to control all of Palestinian territories, to rule over millions of Palestinians in Gaza, in the occupied territories of the West Bank, and in East Jerusalem, contrary to

international law, and as a total, complete blockage of peace. What Netanyahu represents is completely outrageous. It's a violation of every principle, whether moral or legal or pragmatic in terms of peace. But he operates this way because he thinks the U.S. is wrapped around his finger. And so far, that has been the case, actually. While Ukraine did get massive amounts of USAID to pursue aims that made no sense, when it comes to Israel, the Israel lobby has really effectively dominated U.S. foreign policy decision making of the United States, even leading the United States to wars in the Middle East on behalf of Netanyahu's grandiose delusional visions. And this is essentially what Donald Trump faces. Now, can he break free of the Israel lobby, some of which are his principal financial supporters in the election

campaign, let's face it. But that's what he needs to do as president of the United States. He needs to say, sorry, American foreign policy is American. It's for American interests. It's not for extremist Israeli positions. It's not for delusions, whether based on the biblical ideas that some of Netanyahu's supporters pursue, or whether it's based on misguided ideas of American power, Israel should not run American foreign policy. The United States should. The job of an American president is to do what President Trump has done vis-a-vis Ukraine, which is to say we're not in this for endless war. By the way, the United States provoked that war over 30 years. So Trump is ending a series of disasters that were, to a large extent, U.S.-made. In the case of Israel, Donald Trump needs to do the same thing.

He needs to say American foreign policy interests is for peace in the Middle East, for American good relations with the Arab world, for American support for Israel's security, but not for America's support for Israel's illegal, brutal, even war criminal occupation and devastation of Gaza and the West Bank. That's the choice in front of President Trump. I mean, you could count on one hand the voices that you and I have heard, and of the five fingers, here are two of them, characterizing the use of the deprivation of food, water, and medicines as a war crime, which it is under international law. This does not require an ideological analysis, but you don't hear a peep from anybody. You don't hear it from the Europeans. You don't hear it from the United States government. I haven't even heard it from the UN,

Professor Sachs. When the dust settles, and I mean that both literally and figuratively in Gaza, hundreds of thousands of people will have died because of Israel's brutality. This is a mass bloodletting. Whatever one says, what Israel is doing is criminal by every standard of international law, as well as basic morality. Israel has deliberately killed tens of thousands of innocent women and children and starved a population of 2 million in Gaza. And while this is going on, Israel is committing massive crimes in the West Bank that are less reported because the bigger crimes are in Gaza. When students protested, they were arrested. Universities tried to tamp down the protests, but the students were watching the TikTok videos showing Israeli soldiers celebrating the destruction and murder of Palestinians in Gaza. This is so tragic,

so much in front of our eyes, so shocking. And I always say it's the job of an American president to put the brakes on war. President Trump is ably doing that in the case of Ukraine, and he should do the same in the Middle East. By the way, when Zelensky doesn't want to listen to President Trump, President Trump says, well, okay, then you're on your own. Say the same to Netanyahu. It's not that the U.S. can force Netanyahu to do something. It's just that Netanyahu is using U.S. bombs, U.S. munitions, U.S. artillery, U.S. intelligence, U.S. finance to do it. So President Trump just needs to say, we're not going to be party to this any longer. We can't stop you, but you can't do it without us. That's what President Trump said to Zelensky,

and it's exactly what he should say to Netanyahu. Professor Sachs, yesterday in what is arguably an act of perjury, Secretary of State Rubio signed documents certifying that Israel is in a state of emergency and therefore needs $4 billion, with a B, worth of military equipment without authorization from the Congress, channeling his predecessor, Antony Blinken. There really doesn't seem to be much difference between the two, except on the Ukraine side, where Rubio is willing to speak with Foreign Minister Lavrov. Yes, if I could make a more general point about that, American legislation is filled with the word emergency. If the president declares an emergency, basically we have one person rule in the United

States. We once had a revolutionary war to move away from one person rule. But since the US security state was begun in the immediate aftermath of World War II, Congress ceded its constitutional duties, its responsibilities, by putting these emergency clauses into legislation. And not surprisingly, the executive uses the claim of emergencies to circumvent basic constitutional standards. This is true not only in the case you cited of arms to Israel, but all of these tariff measures are, again, in my view, a constitutional violation, because Congress has the sole constitutional authority and responsibility to levy taxes. Tariffs are a tax. So how is it that one person is deciding on these tariffs? Well, this is an emergency. What's the emergency? Fentanyl? Because of fentanyl, we're putting on tariffs all over the world. That's the claim. Is this how our system of government now operates,

that it's one person rule? I'm not talking about the substantive choice of these tariffs. I'm talking about the fact that the power to levy taxes is rightly a power that is granted to the legislative branch. That is a legal tradition of the British and American world that goes back many centuries. We actually have abandoned that in the case you cited, in the tariffs that were imposed yesterday, and in the functioning of our government in general, we are in one person rule. I don't like it. I'm not talking about any one person. I'm talking about the fact that our form of government has collapsed, even though the structures are there, the form of government has collapsed. And what's shocking is there are no voices in Congress saying, oh, but tariffs, that's our

responsibility. Arming other countries, well, that's an appropriation. That's our responsibility. You know, they're a little bit like the Senate in the Roman Empire after the end of the Roman Republic. The senators still wore their togas. They had no power, but they loved their status, and they liked to flaunt their status. But they didn't do anything anymore because the decisions were now in the hands of the emperor. Well, is that what the United States has become? I find it very, very sad. Well, the emperor is going to appear before a joint session of Congress tonight, and they will applaud him even as he slowly and inexorably, in some cases radically and demonstrably,

takes power away from them. I do want to ask you about tariffs in a moment, but before we do, just to finish up on Israel, as we speak, the Arab League is meeting. Is something going to come from this? Is this a resistance, or are they as feckless as they've been in the past? Yeah, you know, this is a story that goes back a century. The Arabs were largely under the domination of the Ottoman Empire until the end of World War I, and had also been picked apart by Britain and France as the two imperial powers of North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean since 1921, essentially. So for a century, the Arabs have been manipulated by the Western world, first by Britain and France as the dominant imperial powers,

and then after 1945 by the United States. The principle is an old Roman principle, divide et impera, divide and conquer. The whole idea of U.S. policy has always been to prevent a unified Arab voice. The Arab League, which is the group of Arab nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, have repeatedly said in now more than 20 years, they want peace, they want normalization of relations with Israel, but on the basis of a Palestinian state living alongside a state of Israel. Everything in our mainstream media hides that call by the Arab world, and by the way, Iran is a member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, have been sending every possible peace feeler trying to reach the Biden administration, now the Trump administration, to say we want peace,

but on the basis of international law, justice for the Palestinians, and not this kind of ethnic cleansing and slaughter that the Israeli extremists want. But the idea of the U.S. very successfully has been, well, pick this apart. Let's try to get the Saudis on our side or the Emirates or Qatar or others, rather than having the united voice of the Arab world. When you ask me what will happen, I hope, I truly hope that the Arab world speaks with a unified, dignified, firm, clear voice. It has the overwhelming majority of world opinion on its side. In fact, 95% of humanity live in countries that want the two-state solution, 95%. But the United States pushes, the Israel lobby pushes, Netanyahu manipulates. And because of our political institutions at this point, Donald Trump will have a very big effect on this. If he listens to what the Arab countries are

saying, Donald Trump can make peace for the first time in a century in the Middle East, based on basic justice, that there is a Palestinian state. That's, I hope, what the Arab countries continue to make clear. I know you're traveling and have more important things to do than watching the Oscars, but there was a very touching moment the other night in which an Academy Award for the best documentary was given to a documentary made by a Palestinian and an Israeli. And these two gentlemen gave a very, very touching speech. Each of them, Chris has cut it down to its core. I'd like you to listen to it because this is what you have been saying in all the years that I have followed your work and been privileged to work with you Chris the Oscar goes to No Other Land

thank you to the Academy for the award it's such a big honor for the four of us and everybody supported us for this documentary. About two months ago I became a father and my hope to my daughter that she will not have to live the same life I'm living now, always fearing settlers' violence, home demolitions and forest-filled displacements that my community, Masaf Riata, is living and facing every day under the Israeli occupation. No other land reflects the harsh reality that we have been enduring for decades and still resist as we call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop

the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people. We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together our voices are stronger. We see each other, the atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people which must end, the Israeli hostages brutally taken in the crime of October 7th which must be freed. When I look at Bassel, I see my brother, but we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law and Bassel is under military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control, there is a different path, a political solution without ethnic

supremacy, with national rights for both of our people. And I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path. And... You know, I... Why? Can't you see that we are intertwined? That my people can be truly safe if Basel's people are truly free and safe? There is another way.

It's not too late for life, for the living. There is no other way. Thank you. Very moving. Remarkable. And it's not too late. There is another way. I work at the United Nations, as listeners know, and I speak with the UN permanent representatives, that is the ambassadors

to the UN from all over the world, there is an overwhelming consensus in the world, overwhelming consensus that there should be a Palestinian state living alongside the state of Israel. There are extremists on both sides of this Palestinian-Israel divide, but they are not the majority at all, and they manipulate. Netanyahu is a demagogue and a man of violence. His colleagues in the Israeli cabinet, people like Smotrich and Ben-Gavir, are zealots who would mass murder the Arab population, who would ethnically cleanse the Arab population. This is not subtle. It's not hidden from view. It's in our sight every single day. Now, at the United Nations, essentially every country in the world, except for Israel, with its extremist government, and the United States as Israel's so far unconditional backer, support the two-state solution. It's not literally every state because when the U.S.

votes, countries like Micronesia by treaty vote with the U.S., Mauro, Polau, Paraguay, a few tiny countries vote with the U.S., but 95% of the world population votes for two states. And this two-state solution for peace has been endorsed just in recent months by the G20, by the BRICS countries, by the Arab League, by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, by the UN General Assembly, and by the UN Security Council. But in the UN Security Council, there was a veto of the state of Palestine. That veto was the U.S. veto. This is what we just heard. The U.S. is the blockage to peace that the entire world, other than Israel's extremist government, wants. What Donald Trump can do and should do as president of the United States is to say, first, American foreign policy is American. It's not Israeli. It's American. Second, our interests are in peace, avoiding World War III, avoiding escalation of war, avoiding Netanyahu's provocations to have a war with Iran, avoiding mass bloodshed and war

crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. Third, we are not going to be complicit in these war crimes. Just as President Trump has stopped the arming of Ukraine because of its extremist demands, so too the United States should stop the arming of Israel because of its extremist demands. That is until there is the two-state solution. And the United States can make that happen actually irrespective of Israel's opposition because Israel doesn't have a veto on international law. So if the United States changes its sole vote in the UN Security Council, that Palestine will become the 194th member of the United Nations on the borders of the 4th of June, 1967. And on that basis, the entire Arab League countries and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation have committed to peace and to normalization of diplomatic relations with

Israel. So what this gentleman, this great director said is literally true. The United States is the sole blockage of peace in the Middle East now. Israel, of course, doesn't want it, but the United States is the one that blocks the peace in practice. What will happen if Donald Trump announces tonight or begins the process for the U.S. withdrawal from NATO? What becomes of NATO, Professor Sachs? Well, the Europeans are recognizing, which they should have recognized a long time ago, that they should defend Europe. They can defend Europe. Their interests and American interests coincide in some ways and differ in other ways. Europe followed the U.S. into this terrible U.S.-Ukraine project, which was a project to expand NATO.

And it was a U.S. project to which the Europeans were reluctant participants, but never expressed in public their opposition that they expressed to me repeatedly in private. Well, now they've seen that this isn't working. Europe doesn't carry its weight in global politics. I don't want a united Europe to make war with Russia. This is absurd. I want a united Europe that defends itself and that operates with diplomacy with Russia for the collective and indivisible security of Eurasia and Europe. And this is possible. So I don't know what Donald Trump will say about NATO, but arguably NATO could have been ended in 1991 when the Soviet Union ended because NATO was established in the late 1940s in order to defend against the potential invasion of a country that doesn't exist anymore. And Europe and Russia have all

the grounds for peaceful coexistence, and they will be coexisting on the map for centuries to come if we don't blow ourselves up. And so Europe, in any event, needs to move to a European security arrangement. There are enough shocks in the world day by day right now that I personally want us to focus our attention on not more destabilization, but on ending these wars, because this is the first practicality that we face and the most urgent task that we face. What are the effects of tariffs, Professor Sachs? Well, tariffs essentially isolate the economy putting on the tariffs from the benefits of trade with the rest of the world. So tariffs are a tax on imports and the United States is raising its taxes on imports. Other countries, China just now has retaliated on the U.S. rise of tariffs by putting on tariffs

against U.S. goods. So this is a diminishing of U.S. trade with the rest of the world. What economists like myself have taught and studied for my whole career, and I would say for the lessons that economists such as Adam Smith unveiled in 1776 in his book, The Wealth of Nations, is that trade is a win-win for the countries that are engaging in trade. Trade is not a win-lose proposition. Trade is a win-win proposition. Unfortunately, there's a basic point that Donald Trump confuses, I'm sorry to say. He thinks that when the U.S. runs a trade deficit with other countries, that's because other countries are doing something unfair to the U.S. in trade. But the truth is, what a trade deficit means is that you're spending more than you are producing.

That's all it means. So it would be like you're maxing out on your credit card, buying from all these stores in your city, and then accusing those stores of mistreating you because you're running a trade deficit with those stores. This is the ironic situation right now, which is that, yes, the U.S. has a large trade deficit. The reason is we consume a lot. One of the reasons we consume a lot is that our government runs an enormous deficit, nearly 7% of our national income. Because we're consuming a lot, it's like we're running down all our credit cards, and then we're blaming those who are selling to us as if they're doing something unfair to us. So there's a very basic mistake in analysis

right now, unfortunately, that's having huge ramifications for the world. But it's, unfortunately, it's macroeconomics 101, which I taught for many, many years at Harvard and Columbia University. And it's just not understood properly in the senior reaches of the U.S. government. By the way, I understand there's a new addition to the Columbia faculty alongside Victoria Nuland and Hillary Clinton and Jeff Sachs, and that's Mike Pompeo. Well, he's not in the economics department, at least. Are the four of you going to give a seminar or a joint teacher course?

I couldn't resist. Well, it's interesting. Anyway, diversity of opinions. There we are. Professor Sachs, this has been a brilliant and gifted 30 minutes with you. I am deeply grateful. I know you're traveling. Thank you for your brilliant and gifted 30 minutes with you. I am deeply grateful. I know you're traveling. Thank you for your time.

Great to be with you. I look forward to seeing you again next week, my dear. We will. Thank you so much. Bye-bye. Truly, truly brilliant and gifted. And what a pleasure to be able to pick his brains. Coming up at 11 o'clock, Colonel Larry Wilkerson at noon, Pepe Escobar at one

o'clock, Professor Glenn Deason at three o'clock, Aaron Mate at four o'clock, Professor John Mearsheimer, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm out.