The Duran Podcast - Frontline crisis Ukraine. Trump/Merz dangerous escalation against Russia

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

Frontline crisis Ukraine. Trump/Merz dangerous escalation against Russia

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in Ukraine. Maybe give a quick update on what's going on on the front line, the situation in Pakorovsk, the big Russian drone and missile strikes into Kiev and Harkov and also the west of Ukraine. And also Ukraine continuing to launch drones into Russia, five nights in a row. they've been launching drones into Russia. And then we can perhaps talk about what is going on inside of Ukraine, the fact that Umerov, the former defense minister was going to be the ambassador of Ukraine to the United States and the U.S. said no. And now we're getting talks about a third round of negotiations. All of a sudden, Zelensky is in a panic.

in a rush to get negotiations with Russia back on again in Istanbul. So let's start with the front line. Yeah, let's indeed, because I mean, this is what is ultimately, of course, driving everything. And, of course, the military situation for Ukraine is getting worse. But I also get the sense that we are only at the start of events. So the Russians now routinely launching massive missile and drone strikes against Ukraine. They're doing it night after night. Sometimes there's a couple of days of pause.

I don't think this is to rebuild stockpiles anymore or anything of that kind because I understand that production is running far above even the number of missiles and drones that they are launching against Ukraine on any particular night. It's briefly more because I think the Russians need to, you know, survey and understand what exactly is going on in Ukraine after several days of big missile and drone strikes. So the night before we did this program, another huge strike on Kiev, on various other places, lots of missiles, hundreds of drones every night, night after night. There is absolutely no way that the air defense systems that Ukraine has can keep up with this.

And for the moment at least, there's no sign that Ukraine is receiving. It is Patriot missile systems in anything remotely like sufficient quantities to make up or to deal with this. And I just don't think those Patriot missile systems are there. All of the information we're getting from the US is of massively depleted stockpiles and of the United States being short of missiles. and there's attempts to get missiles sent to Ukraine from Europe, and the Europeans are very reluctant to do that. But it was it that happens. It's not going to ultimately rescue the situation

because the Russians can just keep on doing this. All that it's going to do is it's going to run through even the stock paths that are left faster still. So that's the situation in the sky over Ukraine. The Ukrainians have been launching their own drone attacks against Russia. They're on far less a significant scale than the ones the Russians launch against Ukraine. The only question is, is this a preparatory drone strikes in preparation for missile strikes that we here might be coming? There's lots of talk about how Ukraine with German assistance has been producing its own missiles.

I think nearly everybody who's been following this believes that these are terrorist missiles that the Germans have quietly transferred to Ukraine. They, of course, the Germans deny this, but I think many people assume that these missiles are indeed going to be launched at the end of this month against targets inside Russia. And the assumption again is that the drone attacks that we are seeing, which are not doing much in the way of damage, that they might be an attempt to try to drain the Russian air defense systems and also to identify where they are so as to make the passage of the missiles that Ukraine is going to launch from the end of this month is going to make.

the passage of those missiles more effective. I am skeptical that this is going to work in that way, whenever Ukraine has launched missiles, whenever it's been provided with storm shadows and at Akams, that hasn't really been much of a success. But, you know, we'll see. I mean, I mean, we can't estimate something that hasn't yet happened. If the missile strikes that Ukraine launches are more effective, Russia remains the biggest country in the world, its industrial system, dwarfs Ukraine's. Russia has a very sophisticated air defense system.

It might experience some damage, but it will rapidly adjust as it always has. and it will only be dented briefly, and of course Russian resolve will be further strengthened. Meanwhile, one gets the sense that on the front lines, we are now at a crisis point in the sense that the Russians have basically placed Pachrovsk, which is the place that they are focusing on at the moment under siege, that the Russians are to the north, south and east and southwest of Pachrosk. There's only one secure area through which Ukraine can, well, not obviously even very secure area. There's only one road left that the Ukrainians are able to use to send

equipment and reinforcements to Pachrosk. Even that, apparently, is being attacked by Russian drones and missiles and things of this kind, one gets the sense that Parkrovsk is going to be a major battle over the next couple of weeks. I do think anybody who's looking at the situation doubts that at some point Pakrovsk is going to fall when you look at where Pakrovsk is located and the fact that it is, again, a major logistical place, if Bakrosk falls, I think this will deepen the Ukrainian crisis in the remainder of Donbass, and the Russian army is getting bigger as well. The Ukrainians themselves say this, and the Ukrainians are,

their armies getting smaller and the Ukrainians themselves admit this. So a major crisis, is building up on the front lines, and I'm focusing on Pakrovsk, but it's not like it was earlier in the war where the Russians would attack in one place, Bahmoud, of Dejvka, the rest of the front lines would be relatively quiet, because actually the Russians are attacking everywhere else also. And again, that perhaps tells us more than anything, the degree of imbalance in the military strength of the two parties and in every place where the Russians are attacking. They're making progress. They're achieving advances. So we are looking at

a major operational crisis, both in the sky and on the ground. Yeah. So Zelensky is going to to buy some time with this meeting, the negotiations, right? He's going to remove some pressure that he's getting from the Trump administration by pushing for negotiations, which is something the Trump White House wanted to do. They wanted this third round of negotiations so they can keep the deception going that there are some sort of mediators in this conflict, right? This You know, this is the theater of it all. While what's really happening is Kellogg, Zelensky, the Germans, they are planning to strike Russia.

And maybe even Moscow, or as deep as they can get into Russia with the tourist missiles or the Ukraine-manufactured missiles that have to be delivered from Germany into Ukraine. Okay, the whole thing is ridiculous. I think everyone understands what these missiles are. And you even had the other day the German major general Freuding say that Ukraine should launch long-range missile strikes deep into Russia. So, I mean, everyone sees what's coming. I agree with you.

Perhaps these drone strikes into Russia are about trying to identify certain areas to target, to try and perhaps drain whatever Russian air defense systems are around these. targets in in preparation for the tourists the tourist like the tourist like missiles wrecked. So what does Russia do? This is this is Germany attacking Russia. Will Russia, as they do with the United States, will Putin play along in this theater? Like he plays along with the U.S., that the U.S. is a mediator and they're not involved. in the conflict and all of this stuff, Putin and the entire Russian administration goes along with it. Are they going to go along with this German deception?

Well, who knows? I mean, I think that it will a lot will depend. And again, I suspect this is true with attack and storm shadows. A lot will depend on how effective these strikes are. If these terrorist missile strikes do actually hit targets in Moscow, start causing real damage, start killing Russian civilians, then I think the Russians will indeed start to get really, the pressure in Russia to respond. The storm shadows did that in the beginning. The storm shadows, but they didn't do much in the way of damage. In the beginning, they did slip through, I mean, especially in Cremay, I believe they, yeah.

Yeah, yes. But for reasons which many people find surprising, the Russians always made a distinction between Crimea and the Donbass and those places and pre-2014 Russia. They always said that Crimea, Donbass and all of those, they accept that that's a theatre of war, whereas pre-2014 Russia is not, apparently. So I mean, this is something that they made clear way back in 2022. When the missile strikes against pre-2014 Russia with the storm shadows and the attackans happened in the autumn, they proved completely ineffectual. So I think the Russians took the decision then that they were going to shrug their shoulders and let it go. Now, if it is the same with the tourist missiles, if the tourist missiles prove similarly ineffective, and I'm going to call them tourist missiles. because, as you rightly say, that is exactly what they are. I mean, I think we should not, I mean, others can go along with this pretence, but there's no reason for us to do so. If these tourist missiles are, is ineffective as the storm shadows and the scalps and the

attackers were, then I think the calculation in Moscow will be that the best thing to do is just to brush them off, to keep doing what they're doing. They're continuing to win the war. They're advancing. They don't need to respond and escalate the situation in a way that would not be to their advantage. If the tourist missiles do go through and do start inflicting real damage, then the pressure to respond will be very, very strong. And I noticed that Zagharovar, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, was careful to, to remind everybody that the Russians, that Putin has said in the past, that if missiles are

launched at targets in Russia, Western missiles using Western technicians, then the Russians do reserve the right to retaliate against targets in the West. So I think that we'll see, and I think a lot will depend on the effectiveness of these missile strikes. Yeah. Sometimes I wonder if this narrative about these missiles being produced by Ukraine in Germany to be delivered to Ukraine in order to not call them missiles is not only about providing Germany cover, but it's also about providing Russia cover. So they don't escalate against Germany. I mean, this is such a bizarre song and dance that's taking place between the collective West

and Russia. It almost gives the impression of a conflict that is to a certain level managed. Well, indeed. Isn't it? I mean, well, absolutely. I mean, this is not the first time this has happened. And I give an example, which is during the Korean War, over the course of the Korean War, the Soviet Air Force, as we now know, became directly involved.

Soviet pilots and Soviet fighter jets started to engage American fighters and American fighter jets, and were shooting down American aircraft. But they were. either North Korean or Chinese Randals on their aircraft. So the pretense was that they were not Russia, Soviet at all, that they were North Korean or Chinese. Everybody knew that they were actually Soviet, but everybody pretended that they were not. Of course, the fundamental difference this time, and what makes this different from every previous superpower conflict, is that we are talking about an attack on the actual territory and potentially even the capital of the super,

one of the superpowers, one of the superpowers that is involved. This never happened during the Cold War. In fact, I would go further and I would say that during the Cold War, it was unthinkable. It was unthinkable that the United States would have counted in its missile strikes against Moscow, and it was unthinkable that the Soviet Union would have counted in its missile strikes against Washington by any one of their proxies. So, you know, this is the enormous red line that the Western powers have already conceptually crossed. Now, coming back to the fiction, whether these are tourist missiles or not, the Russians have actually said that they're not going to along with this pretense, the moment a missile is shot down, they will be able to tell from

the components who's made it. So apparently they're prepared to go out publicly and say that these are in fact German. Yeah, they may say they're not though as well to keep the theater going. Well, well, I mean, it's possible. For the moment, for the moment they are saying that they won't. Now the other thing to say is, if they are tourist missiles, the, The report I've heard is that we're talking about 150 in total. And even if they do get through 150 missiles with not particularly big warheads, I'm not

going to do a significant amount of damage against the country the size of Russia. I agree. But it's still crossing a red line that was unimaginable just three, four years ago. And I believe Mertz is ready to cross that red line. Oh, yes, absolutely. He is. I mean, I'm just thinking about everything that you were saying. It's Germany launching missiles into Russia.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That's what it is. Yes. And I think Mertz is ready to cross that red line. And I guess they've convinced Trump that this is the way to go. Yeah, you're going to have the negotiations. You have Umerov, and you may want to get into that, who was going to be ambassador, and then the U.S. turned

them down. So I think you have a whole distraction of negotiations and peace taking place. And I think my opinion is that a lot of this is distraction. You have this 50-day ultimatum. Now it's at 45 days or 44 days, whatever. But, you know, what's really going on is the Europeans, and a lot of the European media is reporting this. they have managed to convince Trump to go along with their thinking on Project Ukraine, and Mertz being the most hawkish of all of them,

is absolutely committed to striking Russia, the Russian Federation. I mean, he's committed to it. Mertz is not hidden the fact that he wants to take Germany into a conflict with Russia, maybe not immediately, but definitely in the future. And even NATO commanders are saying, 2027 is the date that the war will break out, not only with Russia, but also with China, by the way. Anyway, your thoughts on this. You can wrap up the video.

Metz has gone even further than you said. I mean, he's actually said that he's not afraid of a war with Russia. He said that he understands that many other people in Germany are, that they are, but he himself is not afraid of such a war. I mean, that is the rhetoric, that is the extreme rhetoric, which he is currently. using. And remember, I am in touch with people in Germany. And the sentiment there is not, doesn't, doesn't share his feelings. He's, he is having political problems in Germany. And the German elections that took place in February quite clearly show that if you're talking about younger people

in Germany, they do not want to be part of this war. They're not lining up to volunteer for the German army, which is why there's talk of conscription. And can I just quickly divert briefly to talk about the appointment of the constitutional court judges that has been talked about quite recently, which has triggered another crisis, a kind of mini crisis in Germany, which is affecting Schultz. A lot of focus has been upon the opinions, especially one of these judges, on the abortion issue. I think this is a complete misreading of it. The reason there's been this attempt to get these judges onto the Constitutional Court is that one of them quite clearly has made known her belief that the IFDF should be banned. That's what this is all about. I'm immobilizing

Germany, basically closing down all dissent and disagreement against this policy, getting the constitutional court itself to rubber stamp it. I think this is what this is all about, ultimately. Anyway, let's let's let's go come back to the issue of the Trump administration, what Donald Trump is doing and all of this. To be straightforward, I think what has happened is extremely simple. The Europeans have bribed Trump. They are saying to him, look, we'll buy all these weapons from you.

You could stay completely out of this. will deal with the Russians all by ourselves and we will pay you money so that we can go on doing this. We will pay you money because we will buy weapons from you for Ukraine. We will pay money because we will increase defense spending to 5% of GDP and we will have to buy weapons from you also. Trump, and I mean when I say bribe, I don't mean that they bribed him personally. but he's very susceptible constantly to this idea that if he can cut good financial economic deals for the United States, that somehow is doing something good for the United States. We saw that with the mineral rights deal, which basically disintegrated in his hands.

but he nonetheless went for it and he's going for this one as well. He's been, he's gone along with this idea that the United States could stay out of the conflict, but it can provide weapons to the Europeans. It can look the other way whilst the Europeans do whatever they do. And in the meantime, the United States can make money out of it. It doesn't work like that. And I think on top of everything else, else, he's also got the constant pressure from the people in the Senate, from Lindsay Graham

and Richard Blumenthal and the others. And I think he's very nervous about that. And as we discussed, and we've discussed in many programs, back in April, he could have stopped it. He didn't stop it. It's now developed a life of its own. He's been maneuvered into this policy of threatening the Russians with further sanctions and Russia's trade partners with further sanctions. He's making all sorts of noises about the bricks, which bear little relation to reality about how he's intimidated and frightened the bricks. I don't think he wants to be in an economic war with China again. I think he wants to try and use these 50 days again to achieve some kind of a breakthrough. I think he imagines that the missile strikes on Moscow, might do that, might push the Russians in that direction. I think

he's hoping that over the next couple of weeks, the Russians will climb down and will agree to his demands for a freeze of the conflict and for a ceasefire. And I think that's why he stopped Ummerov's appointment as ambassador to Washington. And I think that he's told, that's why he's told Zelensky to restart the negotiations in Istanbul because Zelensky, over the last couple of weeks, had been saying that he could see no point in those negotiations in Istanbul at all and wasn't willing to restart them. And the Russians and Erdogan were saying, you know, where are the Ukrainians? Where's their response? But now we have the response. And I think this is what it is. I think Zeletsky has any belief in these negotiations.

I don't think the Europeans have any belief in the negotiations either. I think that the hardliners in Washington don't believe in these negotiations at all. And I think that the negotiations are simply taking place, not to string the Russians along, because I don't think the Russians have any doubts or are uncertain about the realities of what's going on in Ukraine. and what the Europeans are up to, or anything of that kind. But basically, it's another part of the game of keeping Donald Trump on sign.

Yeah, you're going to get the negotiations the third round, and what's going to happen is that Zelensky and the Europeans and the U.S. and the entire collective West Main Street media is going to say that Russia refuses peace and they won't agree to a ceasefire. That's what they're going to say. And Russia's going to try to get their message across root causes Istanbul Plus, June 2024. What we talked about is our terms.

And no one's going to listen. I mean, this is what it's going to be. The message is going to be in the collective West is going to be Putin refuses peace. He refuses a ceasefire, right? They're not going to get into the details on conditional ceasefire. They're not going to explain the context of the story, anything like that. That's going to be the message that's the message that's. that we're going to get from the third round of negotiations.

Once again, Russia plays along with this, though. So, I mean, you know, there's nothing much that you can say. Trump is then going to issue angry statements. Putin refuses peace. He refuses a ceasefire. He's going to get more frustrated. Long-range missiles will be launched, most likely, will be launched into the Russian Federation.

I agree with you. Most likely, Russia will brush them off. What next? Another red line crossed, a Trump that is more and more frustrated. Lindsay Graham whispering in his ear to keep on escalating. Now we're getting talks about bricks in China and India and Brazil having to pay tariffs. Not to stop funding Putin's war machine. This is what Lindsey Graham is saying.

Trump is pretty much saying the same things. It's obvious that Lindsay Graham. has an immense amount of influence over U.S. President Trump. I mean, what comes next? Because I want to repeat myself here. I don't want to repeat myself here, but Russia is playing along with this. And we are going to get, most likely, another big red line that will be crossed. And I agree with you.

Most likely, nothing's going to really happen or really change. So, I mean, what comes next after all? of this concludes, and we get to the 50-day mark. Well, let's just unpack that, because first of all, it's not correct that no one is listening. No one in the West is listening. In the West, in the West. Yes. Yes. In the West. I mean, there are other parties who do listen, people in Russia listen. Some of them get very angry because they feel that it's a mistake for Russia to engage in negotiations at all. But for the Russians, They've always argued that they are prepared to sit down and talk with the Ukrainians.

They've talked about Istanbul Plus and Istanbul and all of that. They've explained all that to their friends around the world. It would be very difficult for the Russians simply to say we're not prepared to negotiate if the Ukrainians say that they are. So I mean, they have that issue ahead of them. The thing is that up to now, and they've been successful in this, they've been able to to convince and explain to their friends around the world why it is reasonable for Russia to demand Istanbul Plus. So, I mean, you know, we mustn't look at this purely from the perspective

of the West. Now, if we find ourselves in a situation where there are missile strikes against Russia, which there will be, I mean, I've no doubt about this. Within the next week, two weeks time, we're going to start to see attempts by Ukraine to launch missile strikes against Russia using what will clearly be tourist missiles. If they are ineffectual, then the war will continue and Pachrovsk will fall, and that is more consequential in terms of the war than ineffectual missile strikes against Russia. We mustn't let ourselves get swept along by the theatre.

Yeah, it is a red line. When we covered Iran, we talked about how whatever the effects were, I'm sorry to interrupt, but whatever the effects were, whether they were successful or not, it was a taboo that was broken. Absolutely. Isn't this diplomatically, geopolitically, a taboo that is being broken, you know, striking, Perhaps, perhaps going after the capital of a nuclear power? Absolutely.

Just as the attacks on, you know, the nuclear sites at the time of the IAEA was monitoring them was a taboo. And if the United States is so reckless that it goes ahead and imposes 100% tariffs on China and India and all of the others, it's already imposed 50% tariffs on Brazil, remember, and it's making all kinds of other threats. That too in a kind of is a violation of a taboo because there have been sanctions and there have been tariffs and as we've discussed in other programs now tariffs and sanctions are being united. They're being combined together. The point is this, violating red lines in this way in order to achieve objectives which you are not to achieve.

ultimately places you in a worse position. We see this with Iran, which is now saying that is refusing negotiations, and which is in a position to continue its enrichment program without the United States knowing what's happened. And the same, of course, applies even more so with the situation in Ukraine. If you start taking this kind of approach, and that ensures that the war in Ukraine ends with an even bigger Russian victory and an even bigger Western defeat than would otherwise this would be the case, that is going to have severe geopolitical consequences. And if you're going to wage economic war against the whole world, which is what the United States and the West is now doing, that too is going to have very negative consequences

for yourself. So the more taboos you break, the worse your situation becomes ultimately. Okay. What are the risks then for Russia once this taboo is broken, if this taboo is broken? Well, the big risks and the risks that are always there is that if the tourist missiles are launched, but they fail, then they will come back to Trump and they will say to him, look, we've got to escalate. The Russians are still advancing. It's not made any progress. So let's start sending Tom a Hall cruise missiles. That's that's that's where we go. I mean, that's by the way, where the risks ultimately are. Because if you get yourself onto the escalatory escalator, as we've discussed so many times about sanctions, remember, you know, some months, some years,

years ago, when the United States imposed its first trivial sanctions against China, we said that the United States was on the escalatory escalator in terms of China. And now we've seen where we are. Once you get onto the escalator escalator, it is almost impossible to get off. I don't think Trump himself, by the way, understands that. I think he still believes that, you know, if he imposes, if he says he's going to impose 100% tariffs on Russia and, you know, 44 days or whatever it is now, I think it's actually more like 43 days, by the way, just to say. But if he says that he's going to do that, then he can always back off. He can always wheel and deal. He can somehow talk to Blumenthal and Graham and get them to agree to pull back. That, you know, something like that will happen. I think. that he doesn't understand that people like Graham and Blumenthal are really not interested

in the kind of points that he's making. I said in my program, the program I did yesterday, that he's starting to show signs of stress. I don't think he's got any major issues, but I think these swellings. I've seen this myself. I've had to deal with many people

who are under stress. I've seen that similar things and I've seen this increasingly in signs of his increasingly strange behavior, at least some actions that he's taken, which look extremely strange to me. And I think he is under incredible amount of stress, but I think he's played this all wrong. He's played this completely wrong. Absolutely. And I think his number one concern now is when it goes back to what you said about the Europeans, bribing him or convincing him that they're going to take care of the war. I think this is ridiculous for a U.S. president to actually believe that it's the Europeans that are going to

handle this conflict with Russia. I mean, you know, the tourist missiles, the German military commanders to fire them. I mean, you need U.S. satellites and U.S. intel. And of course, behind all of this is NATO and behind NATO is the United States. So, I mean, whatever Mertz and Tusk and Macron told Trump will take care of this and Kellogg. And Kellogg. We'll take care of this. Yours is going to make money and this is going to be a big win for America first

because you can go back to your base and say, look, I got the Europeans to pay for the weapons, something that dumb Joe Biden did not do. He was just giving away the weapons. But now we're making money on the weapons. And they'll be a part of America. first that's going to cheer and they're going to say promises made, promises kept, and they're going to think that Trump is a 10D chess player. It's ridiculous. I mean, this is not the situation at all.

It's media spin from Trump, and he's good at that. But behind whatever takes place going forward in the escalation with Russia is the United States ultimately. I think that's a correct statement to make, whether it's tourists, Germany, NATO, behind all of it, is the United States. They're their satellites, their intel, their command to control everything. Of course. And to come back to a point that we've made many, many times, we made this about the Stama, Macron plans to send peacekeepers to Ukraine, all of that.

When the Europeans, if the Europeans get into trouble, they're going to turn to the United States and are going to ask the United States to go. come to their rescue. The only way to stop, to make, to be absolutely certain that that is not going to happen is to stick, to give the Europeans clear red lines and to stick by them. We've talked a lot about red lines. The real problem with red lines is that Trump and the Americans have never shown any ability to stick to red lines with the European. Europeans. Well, you know, we've said it, that Trump is unable to say no.

He doesn't have the courage to say no to Graham or Blumenthal or to the Europeans. He really doesn't. I mean, he says yes to them. Eventually they work on him and they work on him, right? At first he says, no, but they keep on trying and they keep on trying and eventually he caves. I mean, that's just the sequence of events, whether it's Lindsey Graham or Blumenthal or tariffs or bricks or or escalation against Russia, eventually

he caves. Well, he does. I mean, there's now all the speculation that his wife is also involved in his book, we don't know that. I mean, this is just, but I mean, he does. My own view is that it's basically, again,

it goes back to what you said some time ago, this piece through strength idea. He can't bring himself ever to accept that the United States is not strong, it's not getting stronger. And talking about negative consequences, we had those reports three weeks ago, the United States down to 25% of the Patriot missiles that we need. We've had the admissions and the economist that the United States cannot scale

up its military production. Over the weekend, I did some studies about, I researched what is actually happening in the US economy and whether re-industrialization of the United States is indeed happening. And the interesting fact is that not only is there no re-industrialization in the United States, in fact, de-industrialization processes are continuing. Over the last 33 months, I believe we've seen 31 months of industrial contraction. So it's not addressed. the problems and abusing the tariff and protectionist policies, which were all about re-industrializing the United States in the way that he's being done is going to compound the problems. Yeah, don't get me started on that.

Let's end the video because he blew the whole tariff policy. He blew it. Even Lindsey Graham is running around the networks saying that the United States is going to use tariffs in order to bully China and Indian Brazil. I mean, tariffs are now sanctions, completely weaponized. Yes. Yes. I have to say, of all the things about Trump, it's the one in some respects I regret the most. Not, you know, I'm agnostic about whether tariffs work or not.

I don't have that degree of economic knowledge. But it was a policy. It was different from what was being. done before, it did seem like a serious attempt to address America's problems, its industrial decline. And what we say is that it's all been destroyed. It's been misused in this way. And in the meantime, the president himself has now quarreled with America's leading and most successful industrialism. Yeah. Yeah. Every statement that's coming from Trump now is, if you don't do what we say, we're going to put X amount of terror.

you. Yeah. It's become a joke now. I mean, terrorists have become a joke. Absolutely. And I think the rest of the world is sick of it, to be quite honest. Not the collective West, maybe even the European Union is not so happy about the whole thing. But I think, I think a lot of the world is absolutely sick of the weaponization of tariffs in much the same way that they were sick of the weaponization of sanctions. Absolutely. And the dollar and all of that. Yeah. Anyway, all right. We'll end the video there. The Duran. locals.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, Pitch, Telegram, RockFit, and go to the Duran Shop, pick up some merch like what we are wearing in this video update. There is a link in the

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