The Duran Podcast - Europe's unpopular BIG THREE leaders

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

Europe's unpopular BIG THREE leaders

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the three big leaders of Europe. Let's talk about Stamer. Let's talk about Macron. Let's talk about Mertz. Stamer. He's the champion of Zelensky, the champion of Ukraine. The UK, they are taking the lead now in waging a war against Russia. We have, of course, underpitting all of all of.

All of the things that are happening now in the world, we now have this tariff war. And we do have businesses, the automotive business in the UK. They're in panic mode. Jaguar has said that they're going to put a pause in the cars that they sent to the United States, at least for April. Stommer hasn't really talked to that much about the tariffs. To be honest, I don't know, maybe you know better, but he hasn't really gotten into any details as far as his plan to deal with the tariffs.

Mertz, we talk about Mertz in Germany. He's looking to put together a trillion euros and turn Germany into a military powerhouse. That doesn't sound too good. I don't know how he was going to do that without the cheap Russian energy, but anyway, that's Mertz. And then, of course, we have Macron,

A little Napoleon, Jupiter himself, who is going to be the Europe's envoy to meet with Putin in Moscow. And Macron, one day he's talking about peacekeepers in Ukraine. The other day, the next day, he's flip-flopping and talking about some sort of a reproshbonne with Russia. and taking the lead as Germany as the European Union's, becoming the European Union's leader and taking the European Union into a tariff conflict with the United States. Macron is pushing very hard for retaliatory tariffs against the United States, even talking about hitting the U.S. service sector as well. So that's the situation.

The big three. Who do you want to start? off with? Well, let's start with Kirstama because he's the one closest to home. So he's been spending weeks and months of time, as we've discussed in program after program, talking, negotiating with European leaders, with the Ukrainians, sometimes with Trump himself, about getting European troops, the peacekeeping force, led by the British, commanded ultimately, by him into Ukraine. This has been his overriding priority. He's given a disproportionate amount of time to it, even as the economic situation in Britain has been deteriorating, as we've discussed in recent

programmes. We did a programme recently, which we spoke about the doom loop that the British economy has already been in. Now, he's suddenly confronted with this gigantic economic earthquake, which is the Trump Tariffs. He appears to have convinced himself that he would be able to get the Americans to grant relief to Britain on the tariffs, that there would be no, that Britain would be accepted to some kind of free train treaty with the United States. or something like that. He appears to have been generally surprised when he discovered that Trump really wasn't very interested in that.

And what he's now confronted with is a situation where key exports by Britain to the United States are massively hit by tariffs. Now, Britain is one of those countries which only has a 10th,000. 10% tariff. But amongst Britain's key exports to the United States are motor cars. And in fact, Britain exports a bigger proportion of its motor cars to the United States than does any other European country. So you talked about Jaguar Land Rover, Americans by Land Rovers, rich Americans by Bentley's and especially Rolls-Royces. In fact, I can tell you for a fact that Rolls-Royce's biggest market by far is the US, suddenly

they're going to have to pay 25% tariffs on all of these things. There is a sense of crisis surrounding the British car industry. It's important to remember that the British car industry is almost entirely owned by foreign companies, BMW owns Rose Royce, Bentley is owned by Volkswagen, Jaguar Land Rover is owned by the Indian Tatter Group. If they all sense that the car industry in Britain is a loss-making proposition, they might cut their losses and pull out, in which case we will have a major crisis in Britain. There are all kinds of other problems that the British economy is also going to face as a result of these tariffs. So what does Kirstama do? He hasn't been able to negotiate a reduction of tariffs

with the United States. He hasn't been able to agree anything preferential with the United States. He says that he's going to take steps to protect British industry. He says that the era of globalization has ended. He not he personally, but he's going to take steps. But he says, he says, he says, he's officials were saying that all of yesterday. Where did they hear that from? Sorry? Where did they hear that from? Well, well, indeed, where did they hear that from?

That's a very good point, actually. Just to say, but anyway, they've been saying that. The era of globalization has ended. Stama has said that, you know, the rules-based a system is now going, we're going to go into a system of deal making and transactions. that kind of thing. And so he writes a big article for the Daily Telegraph. He makes speeches and what does he talk about?

He talks about Ukraine. He talks about continuing to support Ukraine. This is the only thing this man knows. He has no plan. He has no project. There's no emergency meeting of the cabinet that discussed this. There's no calling in of people from industry to Downing Street to meet with them to talk about what they need to do in this situation. There's no contacts with other world leaders

and European leaders. There's no attempt to contact China, for example, or India or any of these places. One gets the sense of a prime minister who has absolutely no idea. Generally, no idea about what to do. He's fixed on one topic, which is Ukraine. It's the only thing he really understands or thinks he understands. And his major focus still is on trying to get British troops into Ukraine for no discernible purpose, other than that anyone can realistically see. So Britain, to all intents and purposes, there's no government.

In this moment of crisis, we don't have a government. We don't even have a proper functioning administration. Do you remember what Dr. Parvini said on one of the programs we did with him, that nothing in Britain works properly anymore? You know, the potholes aren't filled, that drains aren't mended. We have problems with major rat infestations now spreading across cities. I don't want to get into the details of this. They're very ugly and very sordid. And I don't want to put people too much of coming to Britain. But that is the reality of Britain today. We have no government, no real administration. We still have very rigorous laws. There's strong pushback against J.D. Vance's comments about free speech restrictions in Britain. We're going to stick with those. In fact, we're going to make them even stronger. a strong article today, or rather yesterday, The Guardian, about how it's absolutely unacceptable to have pro-life people making their public comments. That mustn't be allowed at all.

But a real program, a real vision, a real plan about how to turn the problems of Britain round. You don't see that. Stama hasn't got one. The conservatives don't have one. Farage sometimes comes up with the old idea, but even he's not put anything convincing together. So Britain, as far as I can see, is a dead loss. Let's move to France. France, what happening there with Macron? Well, Macron, as you rightly say, he thinks that he's Napoleon. He also thinks he's Tarryan.

He's going to become the great diplomat of the future. He is going to talk to Putin. He's going to represent Europe to Putin. He's going to mend relations with the Russians because Putin is so under the spell of his brilliance and charm. Apparently, Macron actually believes this. He really believes that he's got this ability to work with Putin and he's got this tremendous skill diplomacy behind him. What he doesn't understand is that the world. Russians loathe him. I think probably the Russians dislike Macron more than any other

head of government in Europe today. Previously, that was Boris Johnson, whom they disliked. Now that Boris is out of the scene, it is Macron. Putin can't stand him. The Russians find him condescending and duplicitous. They feel that he says one thing to them and a completely different things to other audiences. Putin has never forgiven the fact that he had a conversation over the phone with Macron and then discovered that Macron had all his friends of the media listening in to what they were saying. Putin took that as an extraordinary breach of faith. The worst person you could appointers, Europe's ambassador to Russia is Macron, which is why, by the way, I think he will be appointed. As for Macron's plans about how he's going to deal with the Americans, well,

it's all the same things that he's always saying. More Europe, we mustn't deal with the Americans at all. We mustn't buy their weapons. We mustn't invest in their economy. Macron believes that he's also charmed and won over Donald Trump, just as he thinks he's won over and charmed Vladimir Putin. How he imagines that that can be possible when he's calling on European companies and businesses to divest from the United States. States. I really just cannot comprehend, but that is Macron. Does he come up with an economic plan? Does he have any proposals about how to deal with these problems? Well, of course, he has none. And all that he knows how to do, and what the French political class knows how to do, is to lock up,

or at least ban his major political opponent, Marine Le Pen, from trying to, from standing in the election in 2027. That is, again, his plan. And Mertz, what is Mouths going to do? Well, we've discussed this many times, Mr. Black Rock, he's going to flood Germany with money, he's going to relax all of the debt breaks, he's going to rebuild Germany's armaments industries, which there's a good report about this from the Royal United Services Institute, talking about how fragmented and chaotic, all European arms industries actually are how there is no mechanism to organising them properly, how floods of money are not going to make any fundamental difference unless there is a proper plan behind it.

Does Mets have such a plan? Of course not. Does Mets have a plan about how he's going to deal with the challenges that the new system, the new Trump tariffs are created? Of course he doesn't. Does he have any plan to achieve some kind of rapprochement with the Russians, to at least get pipeline gas from Russia moving again? Some people in his party are suggesting this now. The Minister Presidents of Thuringia and Saxony have called for it. But no, of course, Mertz is dead against all of that. He too doesn't like Donald Trump.

It doesn't conceal the fat. He can't stand Vladimir Putin. He won't conceal that either. He's on bad terms with the Arab world. He's on extremely bad terms with China as well, apparently. So what is Friedrich Mertz going to do? Well, more of the same, which means Germany continues its descent. At least in Germany, there is now an opposition.

The latest opinion polls put the IFDA and the CDU. CSU level, both now on 24%. The CDUCSU is falling. This ought to be met since honeymoon. But of course it's not. He's just won an election, but his popularity is dwindling away. And the IF DES popularity is rising. Does anyone like merch?

I don't think anyone likes Mertz. Does anyone like Makrota Stammer? I mean, my God. What does Europe do? What do they do? You haven't even brought up Ursula von der Leyen and her sidekick, Kayakalis. I mean, there's no one in Europe. There's no one in Europe that can deal with Russia.

There's no one in Europe that can deal with Trump. There's no one in Europe that is capable of dealing with the tariffs. What do they do? Well, I'll tell you what they do. They whip up hysteria. against Russia, that the Russians are out to conquer us, that this is, you know, one narrative that they're going to continue promoting. And they're also going to whip up hysteria against the United States, or to be more precise against Donald Trump, who is now across the European

media becoming as terrifying a monster as Vladimir Putin is. That's all they know how to do. And, of course, Roundup, suppressed, ban anybody who doesn't follow the EU line. I mean, that is the only thing they have. They better be careful because what they're going to end up doing is pushing the United States and Russia closer together. Yes. Don't you think? Yes. Yes.

But either they don't think about that at all because they still can't quite believe it's going to happen. or some of them say it has already happened that Heroic Europe is now defending democracy against the tyrannical American-Russian alliance, which is bearing down upon them. You know, the two autocrats, Trump and Trump and Putin, are coming together. It's bizarre, but you are actually finding a significant narrative to that effect, actually appearing in parts of the media, especially in Germany, by the way. I wonder if their hope is that somehow they remove Trump. Yes.

Somehow, some way, there's something that can remove him or box them in like another Russia gate to keep them boxed in so they can go off and fight and fight the Russians. Imaginary fight the Russians, says the Europeans think they're going to actually be able to do, which they're not equipped to do, but they believe that they'll be able to build up military and go after Russia. It's nonsense, but you are absolutely right. To the extent that they have a plan, that is their plan. It is to wait Trump out, to hope that this storm will simply blow away that someone, Pete Buttigieg or someone like that will then come back in 28. We'll do away all of these tariffs and that the world will be.

the right way up again. That is their plan. They have no other. And what they're saying to themselves, to the extent that they are talking to each other, is that what we've got to do is hunker down, see off this storm, eventually it will pass,

and we'll be back to the wonderful, globalized Obama-Biden world, which suited us so well. That is what they hope and believe will happen. It reminds me of the Soviet Union's East European leaders, you know, hernaker and Chashev and all of those. They thought the same. They said to themselves, you know, Gorbachev is an anomaly.

The Kremlin will get rid of him. He'll go away. We'll go back to the way things were. All we need to do is just to hold on a little longer. And eventually this terrible man will go and everything will be back to normal. Everything will go back to how it was. Okay. Not much of a plan, in other words.

No. Well, I think this complete, just as it misjudged the importance of what was happening in the Soviet Union at that time, I think this completely misjudges the realities of the United States. I don't need to make comparisons between the Soviet Union and the United States at that time. But my own view is that these changes that Trump has brought about are not just for real, but that they are for the long term, for the duration. I don't think we are ever going to see a return to the globalist United States of the Clinton, Bush, Obama era. Just say. Yeah. Bad news if you're Europe.

Absolutely. If you're the European elites, bad news. Absolutely. If you're the rest of Europe, maybe there is some light at the end of the tunnel. If you're an everyday average European citizen, or if you're Orban. If you'd so, then there is some light at the end of the title. Some of the East European states, Slovakia, Hungary, maybe the Czech Republic, depending all happens there in the coming elections, they might start to shift away.

Also, I think Southern Europe has the potential to change further. Maloney appears to be readjusting her policies very significantly. I mean, she seems to understand events much better than, you know, people in Paris, London, Brussels and Berlin do. And I suspect Spain, Greece, all of these places could probably adjust eventually. Spain's showing signs. Sanchez is showing flexibility. Exactly, exactly.

But the core, the EU core, just doesn't get this at all. They're very angry about it. They're furious about it. They're talking about betrayal and all of that. And they're telling themselves, this is the storm. It will pass. All we've got to do is wait it out. The tide of history is still with us.

We will come through. Let's wait. And as I said, maybe it would be Pete Buttigieg, or maybe it will be someone else. Gavin Newsom or someone like that. And all will be well in the end. Not going to happen. All right, we will end it there. The durand.com.

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