The Duran Podcast - Liberation Day, the end of globalization

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

Liberation Day, the end of globalization

All right, Alexander, let's talk about Liberation Day, tariffs from the Trump administration to pretty much the world, not the entire, not the entire world. Russia is not on that list. Belarus is not on the tariff list. You'll explain why. It's a simple explanation. But basically, you have, it was three tiers of tariffs. I would say you had the one, just like a blanket.

tariff, which was the 10%, then you had the reciprocal tariffs, and then you had Trump announcing that the auto tariffs are actually coming into force today, and then in a month you're going to have the tariffs on auto parts. So that was the basic structure of the tariffs. Liberation Day, the goal, the general goal of this, according to the Trump White House, is to onshore the U.S. manufacturing to get companies back into the U.S., as well as to make things equal in trade. Your thoughts?

Well, I think that's probably actually the intention behind this. I mean, a lot of people are looking for all sorts of more complicated explanations, but I was looking at how it works out. and the countries that he slapped the heaviest tariffs on, and by the way, I accept completely your view that this is tiered in exactly the way that you've said. But the countries, the places that he slapped the tariffs on tend to be those that export the most goods, especially manufactured goods, to the United States. So the Asian states have been very, very badly struck. China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam.

Vietnam especially so. Now, that is going to be devastating to them. And Vietnam is a country that the United States sort of win over in a kind of alliance against China. My own sense is that after this, the Vietnamese who have been playing a careful game of balance, they're going to be pushed more towards China and possibly Russia. I mean, one of their top people is in Russia at the moment, just to say.

But anyway, but I mean, the very fact that Vietnam was hit in this way. So was India, by the way. India got quite heavy tariffs too. That surprised me. Surprise, exactly. So this, again, to my mind, shows that it's a trade and economic rationale. that lies behind this, rather than trying to win friends and use tariffs as an instrument of foreign policy, which is what a lot of people are saying.

The EU really badly hit as well, 20% tariffs. Now, that may not sound like a lot compared with the 46% tariffs that some of the Asian producers have been hit by, but it's 20% on what are already. sagging economies is an awful lot altogether. And a lot of people are saying, you know, this isn't going to affect the EU quite as much as people say. And Germany isn't going to be really particularly badly affected because so much German production has already been outsourced to the United States.

But I think it does actually because ultimately, Germany, people tend to forget that when we're talking about exports, we are talking about goods that are produced in one country and sold to another country. If you're talking about cars, for example, cars made by German manufacturers in the United States itself, well, they're not being imported from Germany. So yes, some of the money may go back to Germany in terms of, you know, profits and dividends and all of that. But it's the money that's made by those factories in the United States is not being used to pay German workers to support German supply chains in quite the same way. And with Germany already uncompetitive because of the huge fuel costs that are now affecting all of Europe and which are likely to get

worse. And with Germany now going to start spending money on a massive scale, them, rearmament and infrastructure and all of this. These tariffs, in my opinion, are going to start pushing Germany towards deficits, trade and current account deficits. And that, of course, completely upends the economic philosophy that the EU has been following for the last 30 plus years. So, hard on Europe, hard on Britain in a kind of way. The British were hoping to get a a free trade zone sorted out with the United States, but they didn't negotiate it. So only 10% tariffs on them, and the 10% tariff is a flat tariff on most countries that are not, you know, the other tiered countries. But of course, Britain runs trade deficits with

most of the world. It doesn't have a big trade surplus with the United States. That trade surplus is now going to be affected to such an extent that it is. This isn't going to be good for Britain at all. And there's already comments about this and criticism of Stama for failing to achieve that free trade zone that many people were talking about. And some global South countries are going to be affected. Ethiopia, for example. I don't know why. I don't know what exactly it is that Ethiopia exports to the United States. But it's been hit. Other countries like that have been hit. Countries that are not affected, countries which trade do not trade very much with the United States. Russia heavily sanctioned.

It barely exports to the United States anymore. So it's not on the list at all. Belarus as well. Some people see this as a gift from Trump to Putin. And maybe at some level it is. But overall, I think, again, what's driving this is simply economics or trade economics. Ukraine, to the fury of many people in Ukraine is there. It's had 10% tariffs slapped on it.

But overall, this is my own view about this. Whatever you think about this, whatever your perspectives on the economic justification, or fallacies behind this move, this reflects the end of, this is the end of globalization. Globalization was centered around the United States. The United States provided the market that was the key market around which globalization was built. The United States exported its currency, the dollar, which became the world's reserve currency. all of that now is being reversed. And I don't think it's going to be altered.

I think that whoever comes next in the United States after Trump, if it's Vance, for example, or another Republican, more likely than not, if almost certainly he will continue with these policies. But even a Democrat presumably trying to reach out to blue-collar voters in the United States, going to find it very, very difficult to reverse this approach. The United States is moving away from globalization. It is drawing back inwards. It no longer wants to be either, you know, the hegemon in the way that it was, or the policeman enforcing globalization.

That experiment is ended. The United States now wants, in some form or rather, to start looking after itself. Notice that there really isn't very, very much a backlash against these policies in the United States. The Democrats are saying that criticizing it, many economists are criticizing it. But there is no great popular opposition to it within the United States at all. And of course, Canada, Mexico, those sort of countries, they're going to eventually be hit, I suspect, hardest of all. Because I suspect that in time, NAFTA, North American free trade organization, that's all going to be ended too. And the United States, if it is going to continue to trade with these countries on preferential terms, it will be looking for much, much stronger political controls.

over them as well, and that also I think is there to stay. So this is what I see this as, it is the end of globalization. You cannot have globalization with tariffs. And by the way, the end of globalization must ultimately mean the dismantling of the World Trade Organization and all of the structures that were created to underpin. I was going to just ask you that. Where is the World Trade Organization? Where are they? What are they doing?

Well, nobody's talking about them. Nobody cares, yeah. Nobody cares. But I mean, they've just been, they were there basically to make globalization work. Now that the United States, which is the pivotal country behind it, is no longer interested in it. There is no point to the World Trade Organization. anymore. And as I said, we will see it taken apart over the next few years. I can't imagine

what function it serves anymore. No, I think that's the right way to summarize everything that happened during Liberation Day. The end of globalization. Yeah, I think that's the right way to categorize it. A lot of people are trying to analyze what the effects of all of this will be. it's hard to say. But I agree. We're not going to go back to this globalized world. I also think that the end of globalization is also an admission that it's the end of the unipolar moment as well. I mean, Trump is not coming out and saying it, but the fact that you're ending a globalization that was so centered on the United States.

If it was the universe, the United States was the sun and everything kind of revolved around the U.S. And the deal was that the world uses the dollar and the U.S. doesn't place tariffs and keeps its markets open. That was the deal. So that's coming to an end. Can you just explain the Russia, the lack of tariffs on Russia actually? The fact that trade is low with Russia and the United States, that's one explanation. But there's also exemptions on what is traded in this Liberation Day tariff policy. You're talking about energy, fertilizer, stuff like that.

So I think there's two explanations, or maybe more, as to why Russia was kept out of the list of countries tariffed. Well, indeed, because of course what Russia exports tends to be the kind of things that the United States needs. And that might ultimately underpin a strong economic relationship and trade relationship between the two, which would be very, very concerning for some people in Europe. Can I just say, by the way, before we go into further details about Russia, because what you said was actually very important, that, you know, It's the end of the unipolar moment. It's the end of globalization. I think it is the beginning of the end of the EU, because the EU has grown on the back of American unipolarity and globalization.

Without those things, the whole project, the old EU project begins to look both out of date and unsustainable. Bear in mind that, you know, the great advocates of globalization, the people who preached it were the WEF, they were the high priests of globalization, you know, Klaus Schwab and his people. And they started back in the 1960s as the great advocates of European political and economic integration. That is what they originally were. So they were pushing European economic and political integration as part of a general push towards a more globalised economic world. Now that all that's

reversing, it's going to eventually, I think, lead to the dismantling of the original project. So that's, I think, an important thing to say. It's perhaps not something that people are talking about much this morning. But I can't see how this can work. This is the biggest blow that the EU has suffered basically since it came into being in the early 1990s when the single market was created. So just to make that important point. But, you know, coming back to Russia now. Russia is excluded because as you, I mean, what Trump is trying to do is protect American manufacturing.

He wants American industry, technology, factories, blue-collar jobs. He wants those sort of things protected. The Russians are not competing with the United States in those fields. So he wants access for the United States to Russian fertilizers, Russian minerals, Russian, all of those sort of things. And the Russians are prepared to supply them. Now, if we go forward eventually, that could it underpin a successful trading relationship. Now, of course, Russia's economy is evolving.

it might eventually change its character, might no longer be quite what Trump wants it to be, just to say, I mean, you know, they're developing a civil aviation sector, for example. Contrary to an article that I read in the Financial Times, they're expanding chip reduction and developing AI and all of those things and machine tools and all that. So it may be that in 5, 10, 20 years time, we will be looking at a very different Russian economy from the one that Trump imagines. But at the moment, he sees Russia as a potential good economic partner for the United States. I would not be surprised if he's able to sort out the political difficulties, whether we might even get a kind of free trade agreement.

Just to say, I mean, it's not beyond the realm of the possible in terms of Trump's own thinking. terms of the United States and the political system there, well, that is completely different. There will be enormous opposition. But to Trump, Russia is not a hostile country. Now, not imposing tariffs on Russia. As it has that economic justification. But there is another political thing to remember, which is that, of course, if Trump is going to move forward at some point, impose massive further tariffs and sanctions on Russia, as he's occasionally threatening to do, well, he's kept the sheet open, the book open, so that he's available to do that. But then, if that was his plan, his long-term plan, than imposing tariffs now, say a 10%

tariff, wouldn't preclude him doing that in the future. So I don't think that is the reason myself. Well, I would argue that it would be, actually, these tariffs are an indication that Trump is not going to go forward with sanctions against Russia. My own view is exactly. Yeah, I'm not saying that's going to happen. He just might. But if I were to take a guess, looking at the fact that he's placed all of these tariffs on all of these countries and Russia's been exempt. I would say that the argument or the fear is that we are heading into a tariff war.

Short term, there's the risk of inflation and stagflation. And if you want to offset that, the best thing you could do is to lift some sanctions against Russia, specifically in the energy sector. that would be a mechanism that you could use to balance things out a bit as you go through this short-term turbulence. So my guess would be if I was thinking rationally, and once again, Trump may not be thinking like this, but if I was thinking rationally, I would say that the sanctions that he put on all these countries yesterday and the exemption of Russia could be an indication that

he's not going to place sanctions on Russia, but you may be getting the exact opposite. which is using a lifting of sanctions against Russia in order to balance things out with all the tariffs that he's placing on on all the other countries. I keep on mixing up the words sanctions and tariffs. Well, so does everybody. You know what I mean. So does absolutely everybody. Now, we have, I think you're absolutely right, by the way.

And I think in Trump's own mind, that is where he wants to go. The thing to understand about Trump is that he's. single-mindedly focused on what he believes the best interests of the United States to be. That's all he is about. I mean, you know, there is some elements of sentiment there as well, but, you know, Israel's been hit by tariffs. Russia has not. So, you know, that, you know, he's known to be very friendly to Israel. So he's single-mindedly focused on what he's.

understands to be the interest of the United States, he believes that tariffs are the way to rebuild American manufacturing prowess. You're absolutely right. He understands fully that there is going to be inflationary consequences as a result of all of this. Tariffs are inevitably going to raise, increase the price of goods sold within the United States. No question. So he needs to keep, he needs to keep some kind of cap on that. And reducing energy costs and other raw material costs makes perfect sense. And Russia is the country because it's the world's biggest exporter of, well, the whole range of natural resources, oil, fertilizer, all those kinds of, food, timber, all those kind of things, yeah.

Potentially strategic minerals, metals, all those kind of things. Russia is the country that is the link. It's the country that can help him do that. And look, what he's trying to do with the Russians now. He had this grain deal. The grain deal looks to. to lift sanctions on Russian agricultural exports. The United States has apparently entered into a written commitment to the Russians. Lavrov revealed that yesterday that the United States

at that meeting in Riyadh a week ago, 10 days ago, actually gave putting writing some kind of commitment to the Russians, that it would be looking to try to get the Europeans lift their sanctions on Russian food and mineral exports, food and, sorry, food and fertilizer exports. And who is currently in Washington meeting with Wickorf in the White House, Kiro Dmitriev, who is the head of Russia's investment fund. So it makes perfect sense if you think about it in this way. Of course, the Europeans will be furious about this. So will, um, so will, um, So will the Ukrainians, the Ukrainians are already very alarmed about this. And, you know, people like Lindsay Graham, who's talking about 500% sanctions on every country

that imports Russian oil and all of that. Well, I don't know where that leaves people like him. But that, I think, is the direction that Trump wants to go. Whether he will get there is an entirely different question. But you could start to see the outlines of the policy, the direction of travel, if you love. Yeah, well, the Europeans are going to be upset with this. If this is indeed where he ends up, if this is indeed the direction that he's moving towards, then yeah, the Europeans are going to be very upset with this.

But Europe really doesn't have anything to offer the United States to offset what Trump is doing with terrorists. Obviously, Russia does. You explained that Russia has all the things that the important things, things that are of the U.S. is national interest or it's national security. Russia has these things, and Russia can offset a lot of the inflation that the tariffs are going to create, possibly. Possibly, that's one direction that he's taking this. The end of the EU, can you expand on that?

The WTO looks like it's finished. The end of the EU, the WTO goes, the EU goes. Does that also mean NATO? We kind of have the WHO pulled out of that as well. I mean, it does look like all of these globalist institutions are being knocked down one by one. Is that Trump's intention? is the EU next after the EU does NATO go? Is that why the EU is so insistent on holding on to NATO even without the United States

because they understand that? Absolutely. As data goes, the EU goes. I mean, it's the Euro-Atlantic community. They are two sides of the same calling that. I mean, they didn't used to be back in the 50s and 60s. when it was the European economic community, you could argue that there was a general difference. Today, nobody sees that there is any real difference.

They don't talk as if there is a difference. I mean, people go from one position to the next. You know, Ursula wanted to be NATO Secretary General at one point. So it's absolutely part of a single structure. Now, the EU essentially, as I said, was a construct intended to facilitate European integration and wider globalization. Look at how it talks about itself. First of all, it has complete single market within the EU itself. So it doesn't believe in national states, as we've discussed many times, at least not as economic agents.

It is basically hostile to sovereign decisions by EU states on their economic policy as a single currency. It has all of those things. So it seeks to not just facilitate trade between states. It seeks to eliminate trade in time, eliminate the states as economic actors so that goods and services can move in theory effortlessly within the Union. At the same time, it creates a massive centralized regulatory structure, which, together with its exports, it's been trying to export to every other part of the world. It calls itself sometimes the regulatory superpower. I've spoken to people who worked in the EU, And they actually are passionately believe this, that the EU sets the best standards and it wants everyone else to follow them.

It's impossible to see how the EU can continue and persist without the United States supporting a globalized system because it's a construct that was devised for another conception of the world, which was ultimately a globalized one. That was why the EU wanted to expand all the time, by the way, and why it sought its, you know, it's sort of mechanisms of expansion into Eastern Europe and did all of those things, because basically, you could argue that it saw itself and was seen as a kind of prototype for the globalized world that would come. A world where there would be essentially, as I said, sovereign states would no longer have economic agency. But these other structures that were layered above them, the commission and all the others, they would be acting as the regulators allowing trade, well, not trade, goods and services to move around in a kind of, you know, effortless way. but regulated by technocrats at the centre. That was the conception behind the EU.

And that's what he basically evolved into. Now, as I said, take all that away. And, you know, that whole vision is gone. And without the vision, without the belief, the conviction, that it will expand in that kind of fashion. Why shouldn't the sovereign states of Europe eventually start to reassert themselves? What future is there in this project that they would want to continue to be committed to? Yeah, it is the prototype for a one-world type of government.

Yeah. The EU, no doubt about it. And when you see all of the EU members, the leaders of the member states and Ursula, and Ursula as well, flipping out about the government. the sanctions, very, very upset, very angry with the sanctions, with the Trump tariffs. I keep on mixing up those words. But you know, it is sanctions. Okay, the EU was placing sanctions on Russia, and they were celebrating.

So, you know, now they're getting a taste of their own medicine. Anyway, when they're flipping out about this, that's when you know that maybe the tariffs, maybe they're not so bad when you see all of these EU member state prime ministers, presidents, and Ursula herself flipping out about this. Yes. Right? They're very upset, very angry. Yes.

China's been more, China's angry, but it's been more cool about it. Much, much more cool about it. I mean, they come up with statements and they say, okay, this is not constructive, it's not good. But no one's flipping out as much as Europe. No. No.

No, of course not. Because, as it said, for them, it pulls the rug underneath the whole project. You see, the sections. is an important point because tariffs are one thing. Tariffs are restrictions on trade. In the EU's conception, sanctions are something completely different. They are the technocratic center punishing those people who don't follow the rules that the center itself sets. So the Russians have not been following the rules of the rules-based international order. You understand now how all of these things fit together so they get punished by having all these sanctions imposed on them. If you think of the

EU as a regulatory agency, that starts to make sense because it regulates the rules and those who break the rules like the Russians or the Hungarians in a different way get punished, they have the sanctions slapped on them. This is very much the kind of mindset that these people have. So sanctions good, tariffs bad, tariffs very, very bad because tariffs are about trade and economics. Sanctions supposedly are not. and the philosophy behind the underpins tariffs destroys the entire conception of what the EU is all about.

Yeah, well put. Tariffs are about trade, sanctions are about punishment. Okay. The logic of the European Union. It's a twisted logic. And the United States, which places a lot of sanctions and the United States. Exactly. It's a twisted logic. It's a logic that has no real relevance to the actual realities of the world. But it is a logic that they themselves adhere to and follow and believe in. So a world where there are no sanctions, but there are tariffs, is a nightmare world for them.

It is the end of everything that they've been trying to do, basically since the 1960s. All right, we will end it there. durand. Dot locals.com. We are on Rumble, Odyssey, Bichu, Telegraphen, X. Go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch like what we are wearing in this video. Update 15% off all merchandise on the Duran shop. Use the code Spring 15. Take care.