The Duran Podcast - BRICS Summit without Xi, Putin. Trump warns BRICS

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

BRICS Summit without Xi, Putin. Trump warns BRICSThe Duran: Episode 2273

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the BRICS summit in Brazil. And the talk about this summit, a lot of people are talking about the fact that Xi Jinping is not present at this event, nor is Russian president of Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin not being present at this brick summit, I don't think it's the first summit that Putin has missed. He's not attending because of the ICC warrant. I personally believe that he doesn't attend these summits that are quite a distance from Russia because I think the Russians rightly so are concerned about the flights from Moscow to Brazil

and the Neocons and the Collective West, who knows what they would do with a flight of such a distance. Anyway, Hez Jinping is a different story. This is the first summit. that he has missed. Yes. And a lot of people are asking questions. What is going on? Is China not interested in Bricks anymore?

Are things going that bad in China that he has to stay there for some sort of domestic emergencies? Has Bricks lost its number one? It's its main partner, its main member in China. What are your thoughts on this summit? Right. I'm going to just say a few things here. First of all, I've been looking carefully at the Chinese media over the last couple of days for some signs that Xi Jinping's position might be slipping. I see absolutely no evidence of this at all. Usually in this kind of political system that China has, you would expect if there was a sign that the leader was being challenged, that there would be commentaries that quietly, criticize his policies. You might notice the fact that he's getting less attention, you know, less coverage. You know, he might be downgraded in some way. There isn't any kind of hint of this at all. The media in China covers Xi Jinping

and what he's been saying and doing and, you know, referencing him, absolutely as much as always. the one thing I would say is that he has been rather less visible than usual. We're not seeing him as much. He's not as publicly visible as he usually is. Now, that might be because he's unwell. I mean, people do fall ill, and that might be one reason why he's skipping the meeting. But I don't think so. As with the other one, you know, the suggestion that the situation in China is very bad.

that the economic situation is somehow in some kind of crisis. This is something that is endlessly repeated in some sections of the media, especially in the United States, I have to say. Again, I've been looking at the latest economic numbers. I've been checking those people who write about China and its economy. The general consensus there is that after a rather soft period at the start of this year. The actual situation with the Chinese economy over the last couple of months has actually strengthened. So again, that doesn't seem very likely. I am going to suggest that the major reason why C is not going to Rio is because Putin isn't. They are very much a partnership. And I think that Xi Jinping doesn't want to go to Rio without Putin,

because the other leader who is going to be there is Narendra Modi. And I think at this particular point in time, Xi Jinping doesn't want to be, come face-to-face with Modi, without Putin being there. There have been tensions between India and China, over the last couple of weeks, these became aggravated because of the conflict between India and Pakistan. Pakistan was equipped with Chinese fighter jets and apparently China supplied Pakistan with long-range missiles, long-range air-to-air missiles. These apparently shot down some Indian fighter jets. There's been some tensions. Usually when there's a meeting of bricks and the Indians, Modi and Xi Jinping are both there,

they rely on Putin, who is on good terms with both, in fact, on excellent terms with both, to act as the bridge between them. And because Putin isn't there, I think Xi Jinping took the decision. that he would stay away, give Modi this opportunity to be the star of the show in Brazil and would contribute to the Brick Summit virtually in the same way that Putin has done. And by the way, just to say, I am absolutely in agreement with you as to the reason why Putin himself is not going. He's not going because it's just too dangerous if he was to go. I mean, you know, we're dealing with the sort of people.

I mean, they brought down, if you remember during the Assange affair, the air flight of the president of Ecuador, I can absolutely see them quite easily trying something with Putin's flights. So I think he's absolutely right not to go to Brazil. So because Putin can't go, I think Xi Jinping has decided that this time he's going to stay away. Now, I get to say something else. This is obviously a BRICS summit meeting. It is not a crisis within the BRICS or anything like that. Because the big decisions, the really big breakthrough with the BRICS took place a few months ago, 10 months ago, in Kazan, where Putin was presiding.

This meeting in Brazil is a follow-up to the meeting in Kazan. At Kazan, they made all the decisions to set up all the various payment systems and trading systems. Apparently, there's been quite a lot of work done in connection with all of that since then. But I don't think it requires the level of political input from the leaders, from China and Russia and the others that we needed in Kazan to get that thing moving. So Putin and C could stay away, leave it to Lula to run things because Lula has been able to keep the thing going and to move it forward, quite effectively, by the way, and quite successfully. So they're not needed there.

And for that reason, Xi Jinping chose to stay away. Yeah, I would also add to that. I agree with you as to why Xi Jinping is not going to be going to Rio. But I would also add to that, which is that Xi Jinping has met with Lula, I believe, two times in the last six months. So for him to go to Brazil and to meet at a high level, once again, with Lula, doesn't make so much sense. I mean, they've had high-level meetings twice in. six months, they've signed various agreements, they've talked about bricks. It didn't make any sense for him to go, especially since Putin was not going.

So, yeah, I agree with you on that. Let's finish off the video with Trump's comments about bricks. Truth Social, Trump posted any country aligning themselves with the anti-American policies of bricks will be charged an additional 10%. tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Alexander, what are your thoughts? Well, he's obviously taking it quite seriously because in fact, one of the other things has happened since Kazan is that Bricks has actually expanded. Two important countries, Vietnam and Indonesia have just joined Bricks.

Trump has just done a trade deal with Vietnam, and he's clearly annoyed about the fact that despite that trade deal, Vietnam is now an active member of the Bricks. By the way, the Chinese weren't happy with that trade deal that Vietnam did with the US, because quite clearly, China has been using Vietnam as a transit state to ship goods to the United States to circumvent American sanctions. But anyway, we, the sanctions, sorry, tariffs, the tariffs the US is imposing on Vietnam, I think mostly intended to counter the supply of Chinese goods into the United States. But, you know, these tensions always exist in the BRICs. And Vietnam is now a member of the BRICs, and it's clearly very closely allied with China. Indonesia, in

some ways an even more interesting and important countries, a huge country, and a very, very fast-growing country, fast-growing economically, has also joined the BRICS. As full member states, I think the other thing that's probably annoyed Trump is that two other states are now aligning with the BRICs. There's some talk about even a greater BRICS. In other words, the BRICS itself, the partner countries and then a whole series of other countries that are not either members of the bricks or partner countries of the bricks like, say, Turkey is, but are nonetheless aligned with the bricks on certain economic questions. Now, one of them is Uzbekistan, which I think is definitely heading towards the bricks. And I can't imagine the Trump very much cares about Uzbekistan

because it's a former Soviet Republic in Central Asia. It's already to a great extent, heavily integrated with the Eurasian and Russian and Chinese economies. But the other country is Colombia. I don't think he's very happy about that at all because he's not on particularly good terms with the current president of Colombia, who's, by the way, by Colombian standards, something of the leftist. And of course, Columbia has historically been the U.S.'s closest and strongest ally in South America. So I think maybe that was what provoked Trump more than anything else, is the fact that the Colombians, Colombia, has now joined the Bricks Bank together with Uzbekistan and is now being talked about as.

the, you know, part of the so-called Greater Bricks. I mean, the Greater Bricks is just a journalistic trobe. I mean, there's no actual institutional reality. But joining the Bricks Bank is a sign of that. So I think this is what it's all about. It shows again that Trump has perhaps, I think, a more insight about these things than many others do. there's still a certain tendency in the Western media and the commentaria to play down the significance of the bricks.

Even some people you would be surprised about seem to want to play down the significance of the bricks. I think they're completely wrong. And I think Trump is more alive to the realities of this than, as I said, many, many people in the West still are. And to repeat again, Bricks is not setting up a reserve currency alternative to the dollar. What they're doing and what they launched in Kazan was a whole complex arrangement of payment systems, which are apparently moving forward and, if anything, accelerating. So that, that I think Trump does understand is a long-term challenge potentially to the United States. And, you know, and as I said, that's why he's come out with this statement.

I suspect that the fact that Colombia is now showing signs and that its current president in getting involved was probably the thing that, you know, annoyed him most. Well, I mean, he says in his post on Truth Social, the anti-American policies of Bricks. So he's positioning bricks as anti-American. Correct. Absolutely. Absolutely, yes. I mean, I don't think it is exactly that. I mean, it doesn't talk us. That's what he's positioning it as.

But, yeah, I mean, you know, objectively, that is what it is, because it is creating a trading and financial system, which is outside the one that was created all the way back in 1944 in Rerton Woods, and which is ultimately controlled by the United States. So, again, he's right. And as I said, he understands this better than some of other people do. He's right and he's wrong. He's right and is wrong because it was the abuse of the United States that destroyed that system. With the never-ending sanctions, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions, right?

They weaponized the U.S. dollar. They sanctioned everybody and they sanctioned everybody for stupid stuff, right? because they didn't conform to the international rules-based order or whatever excuses they would make. They did it to themselves. Trump, and Trump, he's also sanctioning. He hasn't come in and removed all the sanctions and said, okay, I'm not going to weaponize the U.S. dollar anymore, which is something that he should have done. He should have come in and said, I'm not weaponizing the dollar anymore. I'm removing all the sanctions.

I mean, it's a big, it's a crazy ask what I'm saying. It's naive, but still, you know, the trust has been lost. I do not in the reserve currency, in the United States because they sanction everybody, in the institutions, Alexander, because all the institutions have been weaponized, the OPCW, the IAEA, the United Nations, the OSCE when it came to Ukraine as well. The trust is, the Olympics, the trust is gone. Yeah. It's not a crazy ask at all. You're absolutely right. I mean, a U.S. government that really wanted to preserve the long-term interests of the United States would be taking exactly the steps that you were saying. They would be walking back the sanctions. They would say that the dollar is not going to be weaponized in the same way as before. They would be striving to rebuild confidence in the financial system, the global financial system. or rather the impartiality of the global financial system,

and in the credibility of the dollar as the major instrument of global trade. So, Barbara being a crazy ask, I would say it was an absolutely sensible ask. And I would also say something else. I think there are quite a lot of people in the United States itself now who do understand this. and who would actually support such a shift in policy if it was actually carried out. It's my own criticism of Trump that he often has a sort of instinctual understanding of these things, but he doesn't have the method and the consistency and the political guile to follow through on his own instincts quite often. And on the contrary, he gets pulled in opposite directions.

He's dragged back by his own visceral reactions. So he thinks that the way in which to keep the dollar supremacy going is to bash anybody who challenges on the head by threatening them with tariffs and things like that. And, well, he's not actually going to impose these tariffs. Anyway, I mean, it's a bluff. Just as when a couple of months ago, he said that he was going to impose 100, you know, percent. percent. Tariffs. I know what of these things.

You just walked. He's just the same thing. It's just the same with bricks. I'm going to impose 100%. Now it's 10%. 10%. Exactly. So nobody around the world takes this seriously.

He shows some insight as to what the underlying problems are in the world. But he just never really see, never really acts on this. On the contrary, he does things sometimes, which I think are frankly harmful. for, like threatening people in this way, which is just going to make them decide, well, we've got to be even more determined to build up these alternative systems. Because who knows, you know, with Trump, it's a bluff. With the next US president, it might not be. So, you know, that's the problem with Trump.

It's been the problem that beset his presidency from the moment of his inauguration. Yeah. These are dumb posts that he's putting up on truth social because he can't. can't back it up. These are bluffs that are going to be called. Even if he does follow through with these tariffs, it's going to piss off countries even more. They're going to move even even closer to Bricks. It's just, he puts this stuff up there and he's doing a lot more harm than good. His policies should be focused on working with Bricks and being done with the weaponization of the dollar and weaponizing the institutions and the organizations.

that the collective West built and removing all the sanctions and then the freezing of money and all of these things, that's what he should be doing. But he's never going to do it because the courage isn't there. Exactly. There is no courage. Exactly. He's a man who, as the assassination attempts showed, has immense physical courage. He really does.

but there is another type of courage, which is the courage in making, you know, these kind of decisions and, you know, seeing them through. And that, unfortunately, is a type of courage which he lacks. And one has to say this. Yeah. That's how you preserve the dollar system, if you make these moves. Which effectively is just a wrap of the video, which is the United States moving to a multipolar world. Exactly, yes.

which he recognizes is coming, his secretary of state is talking about, but he is too nervous to embrace, even though, and just to finish, I believe that the United States would be a much more happy country and a more prosperous country in the end if it did do it, but there it is. I agree, much more prosperous, yeah. All right, we will end the video there. the duran.orgals.com. We are on X. We are on Rumble. Go to the Duran shop. The Cubs some merch. Link is in the description box down below. Take care.