The Duran Podcast - Collective West TRASHES international rules based order

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

Collective West TRASHES international rules based order

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the tanker situation. We have the seizing of foreign assets, and that wasn't enough. Now we have the seizing of tankers. And we have this going on in Venezuela of the U.S. is making. The Trump administration is seizing tankers, including Chinese-owned tankers. Panamanian flag, but Chinese-owned. And we also have the... the Europeans who are also attacking a tankers. Well, the Ukrainians, but it seems like the Europeans

are behind it. So let me clarify that. On record, it's the Ukrainians that are hitting these tankers. But I wonder, how do they get to tankers in Africa? How do they get to tankers in the Mediterranean, which is what happened a couple of days ago? Yes. And there are rumors that they're going after another tanker, though these rumors have not been confirmed that they're trying to chase out another tanker in the Baltic, I believe. But anyway, tanker wars, tanker escalation, what is your thoughts? Well, this is an incredibly dangerous game, and you're absolutely right. It is getting out of control, and it is moving very, very fast. If we talk about the seizure of the latest tanker in the Caribbean, that was a Chinese-owned, Panamanian, non-Sahue.

sanctioned tanker delivering oil, crude oil, to China. So the US has just taken a step that affects Chinese economic interests. And, well, anybody who knows anything about China knows that they're going to react. And if this thing continues to escalate, they will react and they will react strongly. Now, I find that very surprising that the US would do that because just a few weeks ago in Singapore, oh no, in South Korea, I'm sorry, the United States, the president of the United States had to retreat after the Chinese imposed restrictions on exports of rare earths and other restrictions as well, by the way. He had to retreat from a trade war. Taking much more direct, forcible action of this kind is inevitably going to provoke a strong reaction in China.

And it is going to, well, when you've lost already in just a few weeks, why are you now looking at refighting that whole battle all over again? I would add that seizing an unseesion and unseesion An unsanctioned tanker on the high seas goes diametrically against the policy that Trump announced just a week ago when he said that the US would only be seizing sanctioned tankers. I said this made little sense. We said that this made little sense because it is the United States which decides which sanctions, which tankers are sanctioned and which are not. Well, they didn't even go through the motions this time.

So they violated their own policy. They've undertaken an illegal act. They've seized an oil, which is China's oil. It's not Venezuela's oil. The Chinese presumably have paid for this oil. So now it is their oil. And they've seized also a tanker, which is flying the flag of a friendly country, Panama,

and which appears to be owned by, Chinese interests as well. So there will probably be a strong Chinese reaction, especially this continues. I'm sure that there are warnings from China already. And as for the Europeans, what they're doing is even more reckless because they are now, I mean, clearly harassing and assisting the Russians in conducting these attacks on tankers? I mean, again, you're right to say, I don't know this. Assisting Ukraine. Oh, sorry, Ukraine rather to conduct these attacks on tankers. Again, I don't know it. I don't know it any more than you know it. But again, how can Ukraine conduct attacks off the west coast of Africa? How can Ukraine conduct attacks

in the middle of the Mediterranean? in order to conduct attacks against any of these places, it would need to cross, it would need to operate across EU territory. And it seems to me it must be, it must be doing it with the assistance of some European states. And the Russians, by the way, have made it fairly clear that they believe that the primary player, the person who's most involved in assisting the Ukrainians to do these things, is Macron, that France is the country that is most involved. Though I'm not saying it is only France. Now, the Russians are already started to take countermeasures. And they're telling ship owners, apparently, who are traveling, whose ships are going to Russian ports. they're telling them to change their flags and to start flying the Russian flag.

And they're now actively working to set up convoys for tankers to protect tankers. And that means that tankers with Russian flags will be escorted by Russian warships. and there's reports that the Russians are hiring military companies. And by the way, there's an enormous number of people like this involved in such companies in Russia to actually provide armed men to actually go on these tankers in order to protect them from drones or potentially boarding operations. So we're setting ourselves up for a direct. clash on the high seas. And again, there are words apparently spreading in some places that this is

becoming dangerous. There is an interesting article about this in The Guardian of all places. This is becoming extremely risky and extremely dangerous. But you see the demands for confrontation and escalation. Macro probably is involved in some of these tanker attacks. And of course, Lindsay Graham is now openly calling for seizures of tankers supplying oil to Russia. He's now, I believe, I haven't seen this interview, but I believe he's actually said that. That's exactly what he said. It's time to start seizing the Russian oil tankers. That's what he said to NBC News, I believe.

And he wants the bone crushing sanctions. Of course. So he's back to escalation. And he wants the Tomahawks as well and the long range strike. So we've gone full circle with all that stuff. The international rules-based order, which the West goes on and on about, which they created and set up and which they always talk about, is being trashed by the West. Yes.

They're the ones trashing it. They're seizing oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela, in the Caribbean. They're seizing Russian assets. They're attacking oil tankers. They're seizing Russian tankers. They're trashing the international rules-based order. Yes. They're the ones that are doing it.

So why? Why are they doing it? Well, because they're losing the war and they're becoming desperate. I mean, that is the actual proximate simplest reason. They are becoming increasingly desperate. And here we have to come to a discussion that we've had over many, many programs that Putin has up to now exercised phenomenal restraint in the face of unending provocations. and that has unfortunately, and as was predicted by us, yourself, many people, that has led to an appetite amongst these people for more and further escalations. And the thing is that over the

last few weeks, the Russians are starting to push back. I mean, they started the legal case, which I think was one of the factors. that led to the acid seizure plan collapsing. They are now, as I said, telling shipowners to raise Russian flags over their ships. They're starting to organize military convoys for their ships, and they've actually started to do these things. They launched strikes against the port of Odessa and have destroyed merchant ships there, Turkish merchant ships.

So, I mean, they are finally and very belatedly beginning to take. take counteraction. But the pattern, and it's always the pattern, is that as they lose, the hardliners in the West, the neocons, people like Lindsay Graham and Macron, as they become more desperate, become more reckless, and demand further and further escalation. And Russian restraint up to now has invited him. So Putin said a couple of weeks ago that if these attacks continue, then he could possibly blockade Odessa or do something to the port of Odessa so that nothing can leave Odessa. So as these attacks continue, it does look like the attacks are not going to stop.

And the attacks are not taking place in the Black Sea. We're starting to see the attacks taking place outside of the Black Sea. And let's say Putin does go through with this. and whether he takes out all the merchant ships, all the ships in Odessa, or whether he blockades, Odessa, whatever. Let's say he takes the port of Odessa out of the picture. Then if there is an attack on a Russian ship going forward,

you know 100% that Ukraine was not behind it. Because right now, the reports that you get is that this was a Ukrainian drone, this was a Ukrainian attack. That's what they use is cover. If it is cover, Maybe it's not. Maybe Ukraine is managing to get to Africa and to the Mediterranean. But if you stop all activity in the port of Odessa and an attack happens after that,

then without a doubt if you're Russia, you know that this is not coming from Ukraine. Then what do you do? Well, in fact, Putin also floated the possibility of the Russians taking countermeasures. against ships of countries that are resisting in these attacks. He actually said this in recent comments at a brief press conference when he was pressed the question. So, and, well, the Russians have the capability to do that. They have a powerful fleet, more powerful than some people in the West.

Imagine that it's not obviously as powerful as the United States fleet. I mean, you can see the dangers then. If things like this start to happen and happen in more and more places, then, as I said, we're in a very, very dangerous escalatory spiral indeed. And, of course, China will probably start to take countermeasures before long to. The Chinese, as they will not be happy about tankers owned by Chinese companies, carrying cargoes being intercepted on the high seas. Now, there's something I just wanted to add about this.

Venezuelan oil is very heavy crude. If China cannot is prevented from buying heavy crude from Venezuela and some of its refineries work with heavy crude, it has no alternative but to source heavy crude from another source, and that has to be Russia, because that's the major producer other than Venezuela, are very heavy crude. So that then brings. the Chinese back to a situation where they need to buy more Russian oil. Anyway, the whole thing is incredibly dangerous. China should not be left out of the picture because Russian ships carrying oil, many of them are traveling to China as well. One of the tankers that was attacked was apparently owned by a company in Hong Kong. That might have been a shell company,

but it could very well be that there is a Chinese owner behind it too. Yeah, but if China doesn't do anything with the tankers in Venezuela, with the oil in Venezuela, and they say, okay, we'll just leave it and we'll just go with Russia. Well, that looks bad for China. Well, absolutely. I'm not saying they will. I don't myself think they will. I think the Chinese will respond. I don't see how China could do that.

I think China will respond. I mean, whenever it has found itself under this kind of pressure up to now, it has always responded. bear in mind that the Chinese have a major concern that the United States might eventually impose a sea blockade against China. In fact, I mean, Brian Ballettick did a program in which he actually said that the attacks on the tankers are the Russian tanks. And the actions against the Russian tankers are addressed rehearsal for a sea blockade on China. And the Chinese are perfectly aware of this. So I have no doubt that the Chinese will act because it is a vitally important issue for them.

And of course, they have now the world's biggest navy, bigger in terms of numbers of ships, warships than the US does. And it's becoming increasingly a blue water navy as well. As I said, this is a very dangerous game that has been played. I hope somebody in Washington understands that. And I do hope somebody in Washington eventually decides to put the foot on the break with this and tell people like Senator Graham, look, this has to stop. The United States is also heavily involved in world trade. If things start to escalate and we start to see world trade collapse and the rules-based system, by the way, the expression rules-based international order. began originated with the rules of the World Trade Organization, which are primarily about trade, trade by sea. So when you said earlier in the program that this trash is the rules-based international order,

it goes to the root of it. It goes to where the whole concept of the rules-based international order conceptually began. That was where they took the expression from. But now, as I said, they're attacking ships on the high seas. They're attacking ships not just of small countries or politically, militarily, relatively small countries like Venezuela and stronger countries in some ways, like Iran, but they're now ticking on global nuclear superpowers like Russia and China with powerful navies. And that is a very dangerous game. Whether they will persist in it, we will see. But as I said, someone, somewhere at some point, I think, and I do believe this is going to happen, by the way, is going to say stop. And there was an article in The Guardian,

which basically said that there are increasing demands on the quiet that it should stop. The problem is, again, there are these hardliners in Washington, and there are these hardliners in Europe, and there are the Ukrainians themselves, Zelensky himself, Zelensky getting increasingly desperate, and of course they have no point to stop, as we've discussed in so many places, in so many programs, these people have no reverse gear, all they know how to do whenever they run into an obstacle is to put the foot on the accelerator. Yeah, they disrupt international trade. They're going to cause prices to continue to go up and to spike.

This coming at a time when you're going to have the midterms in the U.S. Yes. More risk, more uncertainty. it doesn't make any sense for the West, especially the United States, to be doing this at this moment in time, especially when when Trump is already going into the midterms. The Republicans are already heading into midterms where they are in a terrible position. And it looks like they're going to put the economy of the United States in an even worse position if they continue down this path. The problem is that you have people like Graham who really don't care. They don't care. They just want continued escalate. Yes. And you're dealing with nuclear powers now. Yes. Yeah, we're not talking about a small country that you're not talking about Venezuela, for example,

where you can take their ships and, okay, Venezuela doesn't have nukes and you can say, okay, well, we're going after narco-terrorists. But we've gone from narco-terrorists to seizing oil tankers, to seizing Chinese oil tankers, to attacking Russian oil tankers. Yes. When is the blockade of the Baltic Sea going to happen? This is where they're going. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. Exactly. And to say this again, Russia has a military advantage in the Baltic Sea. It's a thing again, people don't understand. Its coastline might be quite limited now. But the Russian Air Force can operate. And of course, their missiles can operate all across the Baltic Sea. Western warships in the Baltic Sea would not survive very long.

And Putin made some extremely, I would say even aggressive statements now about a potential attack on Kaliningrad. Yeah, he did. All right, which they go on and on about. Absolutely. Anyway, we'll see where all of this goes. Let's hope you're right. And someone puts the brakes on this. I doubt it, but let's hope.

All right, we'll end the video there. The durand.com. We're on X, we're on Rumba, we're on Telegram. We are also on Substack and go to the Duran Shop Pickups and merch. Link is in the description box down below. Take care.