The Duran Podcast - Merz blames US/Trump for rapid German economic decline

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

Merz blames US/Trump for rapid German economic decline

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in Germany and in Europe as well. When we talk about the economic situation in Germany, obviously you're also talking about the overall economic situation in the European Union. And it's not good. The economic situation in Germany is going from bad to worse. And Mertz, he gave a speech the other day, which was... delusional, delusional and you really listen to Merch and to Merz. And the only thing that I could think of is that this guy has lost his freaking mind. And he's talking about the economic situation

in Germany is a result of Trump or partly a result of Trump and the tariffs and the tariff policy and how the United States is moving away from Europe. Pax Americana is over. He doesn't dare touch the real reason why Germany is undergoing the industrial. of which we were the first, you were the first to identify this four years ago. When you actually use the term deindustrialization, which now the entire media, mainstream media and alternative media is using that term deindustrialization. But you brought it up about four or five years ago. Everyone thought you were a little bonkers.

What is he talking about deindustrialization of Germany? How is that going to happen? It's not only happening. It's happening on steroids. Your thoughts. Absolutely. Absolutely. I can tell you exactly when we brought up the topic of de-industrialization in Germany.

I remember the specific program. It was the program that we made directly after the previous German Chancellor, Olaf Schultz, suspended Nord Stream 2. He wouldn't stop on Nord Stream 2. And we said over the course of that program that that was going to lead to the de-induced. industrialization of Germany. And that ball has been rolling and gathering speed ever since. And that takes you directly back to the cause of this deindustrialization.

Now, it is becoming absolutely critical. Volkswagen has just closed a major factory in Dresden. The first time Volkswagen has ever closed a car factory in Germany. in Germany. And overall, German industrial production not only is continuing to fall and fall every month,

but I read somewhere that is now 20% below its 2018 level. Obviously, there was the coup, there was the pandemic, which also caused a fall, but you would expect after the end of the pandemic

that there would be a recovery. Instead, what we are seeing is a protracted decline and that decline is accelerating and there is apparently very bad news coming out of the chemical industry and the chemical industry like the automobile industry is central to the german industrial system and um the the fact that the chemical industry which is very energy intensive is now having to close plants in Germany and is apparently reopening now some of them in China, where it's, by the way, able to obtain Russian gas at cheaper rates, just to say. Well, that tells you the whole story. But you said that Mance is delusional about this, which, by the way, he is. He's becoming very

bitter and very angry and he's looking for people to blame. He can't, of course, blame himself, or his own policies. He's now blaming the Americans. He's talking about the Americans being somehow to blame, Trump being somehow to blame. He talks about Pax Americana and tariffs and all of those things. But he won't address the underlying problem, the proximate problem for this economic crisis in Germany and by the way across Europe. And that is that whereas previously, German industry had been able to remain competitive because it had cheap and reliable energy. Now it no longer does. And Mertz continues to support Osula and Kallas and all of these people as they impose more and more sanctions stopping imports of Russian energy.

And of course, that's only making the situation worse. Now, there's a number of points I want to say here. First of all, a great deal of the narrative that you see being pushed by many people is that a lot of the problems come from the green transition. And I'm not here to defend the move towards green factories and green things, you know, all of that sort of thing. But it is not the big cause of this economic decline that we are seeing in Germany. The starting point of it was the stopping of Russian energy flows. Russian energy flows subsidized German industry enabling the German government to pursue the green transition. That's the way it needs to be understood.

Now that that subsidy from German, from Russian imports of natural gas has gone, this is the point when suddenly the costs of the green transition are starting to become unbearable. And it explains why Germany and Italy now are now arguing for a lifting on the ban of congen, are on, on petrol engines where previously they'd insisted on electric cars. Because factories, German car factories, under enormous pressure, don't have the economic space to conduct this transition in the way that they could, once attempted to do. And of course, the Chinese, who have a lot of,

who have, of course, enormous economies of scale, but who do have cheap and reliable energy, they're able to take an advantage. They have now a inbuilt, massive, competitive advantage. So that is one thing I wanted to say. The other major proximate, it's not even a proximate cause, the other major cause for European economic stagnation is the introduction. is the introduction of the euro, which is also making European industry

mostly outside of Germany uncompetitive. The effect of the euro was that it made Germany very competitive relative to the other European economies. It made the European economies, Italy, for example, which used to be a major exporter, France as well. It made those economies uncompetitive, which is why you've seen de-industrialization processes begin in Italy and France before they started in Germany. But now with the interruption of Russian energy imports into Germany,

the stopping of those imports, you see that Germany is now falling into the same de-industrialization trap as all of the others. So it's the euro. and it's the economic war that lie at the heart of Europe's problems. Unless you address these two issues, you are not going to solve Europe's problems. And this debt-fuelled programme that Mouths is engaged in is not going to make any difference. And neither will rearmament, by the way. Lots of talk, lots of rhetoric in Europe about Europe needs. to rearm. There's lots of people who believe these narratives. They'd say that Europe is building

up its militaries. It is not building up its militaries. European militaries continue to be in decline. This is true in Germany. It's true in Britain. I believe it is also true in France. And if there was a massive search in the military-industrial complexes, well, you would see this starting to show in higher production, industrial production numbers, whereas the reality is that industry across Europe is continuing to contract. That is the reality of this. There is no military buildup to speak of, and there is still, we're locked into accelerating deindustrialization and economic decline. Yeah, the problem is that the Mertzes and Ursula's and Kayakales, they don't deal in reality. And so I think what really worries people about the whole rearmament narrative is that everyone

understands that that Europe, the EU is not able to rearm and is not able to build a massive military to take on Russia without the United States. Everyone understands this and everyone knows this, except for the delusional bureaucrats and presidents and prime ministers in Europe, not all the countries in Europe, but the ones that matter. Yes. And the fear is that they're dumb enough and delusional enough to sleepwalk into a conflict with Russia. Russia, even though they're not going to last one week. And that might pull in the United States as well. But I think that's the fear is that, okay, you're not able to fight Russia.

Everyone knows even in four years or 10 years, you're not going to be strong enough to get into a war with Russia. But they're so out of their freaking minds. Yes. And they believe the BS that the media is pumping out there. They believe in their own BS that they just might do. the unthinkable, that they want to do the unthinkable. They want to go to war with Russia. It's obvious they want to go to war with Russia. That's the fear. That is entirely the fear. It's entirely justified fear because you are talking about ideologues. These are not people

who have a pragmatic, realistic understanding of things. If they did, they would understand that conducting the economic war against Russia is destroying Europe's economy. They would also have long ago re-sort the Euro project. But of course, they're not able to do that because they are committed ideologically to a particular project, which is that project of European construction. And they organize their reality around it, their understanding of reality around it. And at the moment they see Russia both as the threat and as the scarecrow that they could use to scare the people of Europe into agreeing to more European integration.

And we get these absurd speeches like the one that Marc Rutter has just provided, which is, I mean, you know, about Russia being this indefinite permanent threat and our people must prepare for that. And we have others in France saying we must prepare. to sacrifice our children and all of this. But in terms of actual war, our capacity to wage it is not increasing, despite all of these numbers, these figures of extra spending that are appearing in Germany and to some extent in France.

Our ability to wage war is reducing, and it is reducing. It is declining by the day. By the way, I read an estimate. that the mighty German military industrial complex in Germany employs fewer people than are employed by the Germany's toy making industry. So that gives you an actual sense of what the reality is. But of course, it's a reality that European leaders won't face. And Mertz can't criticize the euro.

No. You can't criticize the euro. The euro has to expand. The currency has to expand. We see Bulgaria in a couple of weeks about to adopt the euro. As their government resigns, as their government collapses. Yes. Because of economic instability, because of corruption, because of budgetary problems, they don't have money to continue to fund Ukraine, Bulgaria, to continue to go on.

this adventure to war with Russia, nor do the Bulgarian people want this. I was there. They don't want any part of this war with Russia. Yes. Right. But here they are, speeding towards the euro. Their government resigns. So you can't criticize the euro. And you cannot admit that your economic decline is due to your 20th. They're about to go on the 20th sanctions policy now package. Yes. They're about to announce the 20th. I believe you. either today or tomorrow. Yes. Twenty times they've been gone through this sanctions routine,

and each time it's getting worse and worse for the Europeans, but they can't pull back on it, and they can't admit that this is the reason for the economic decline. So what is Mertz say in his speech the other day? It's Trump. Yes. It's Pax Americana. Yes.

So, I mean, and he's aligning, the weird part about all of this is that Mertz is aligned with a person that he doesn't even like in Ursula Landerlion. They despise each other, but now they're aligned. Yes. Yes. Like it was the HOOD came together and concocted this Russian asset seizure plan that we've discussed extensively in our programs. But you're absolutely correct.

And that's crumbling as well. So I don't know if you want to say a couple of things about that and we'll wrap up the video. Well, I mean, in response to what I said and then also wrap it up with seven or eight countries now that are aligning against the... We're now aligning and are saying this can't happen and it can't be done. The key one now is Italy, and Italy is becoming increasingly hostile to this. Well, I mean, they rejected this idea, and they're uniting with Belgium. But, you know, Ursula and Mertz still want to move forward with this, even though, of course, if they ever do, that will be another.

cause of further economic decline because it would undermine the financial credibility of the European Union and of the Euro system itself. As the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, no less, had been pointing out. But of course, they don't want to, they close their ears to this. They want to press forward with this. It's a becoming. by the way, increasingly a small group of people from Germany. Orban said that it's three Germans who are pushing the asset fleet seizure plan. Ursula, Weber, the leader of the European group, the European People's Party group and the European Parliament, and Mouths.

It's those three plus the Scandinavians, plus the bolts, and they're driving this thing forward in the face of a growing industrial collapse in Germany and horror across much of the rest of southern Europe. Now, you know, one would like to believe that eventually this will all fracture and it will reach a juddering stop. At some point it will. But my own feeling is that there's an awful lot of momentum in this

and we have a fair amount of, a fair amount of way to go before, as I said, we really do finally hit the wall, and it all falls apart. And to repeat again, lifting the sanctions against Russia, starting to import Russian oil, if the Russians are prepared to export to us their oil and gas, which they might do, but not in the way that they did before. I mean, they're unlikely to give Europe the kind of cost advantages that used to be the case. And much of the gas, as we've discussed in previous programs, is now flowing to China. And this talk that eventually will go to India to, just the same.

So there may not be that oil on gas there anymore. But even if there is, you still have to address the problem of the euro. and no European leader of any of the major countries is prepared to do that. To get rid of the euro. Absolutely, of course. Absolutely. No one's going to do that. No, we're going to do that.

All right. Anything else you want to say about this or should we wrap it up? Well, just to repeat again, as I said, I think people are becoming a lot, very frightened. Some people are getting very frightened about the talk about military buildups and that Europe is rearming. Europe is not rearming. It cannot rearm. There is, the rhetoric is very dangerous because it could lead us into exactly the disaster that you outlined. But when they talk about World War III, Europe doesn't have the means to conduct World War III. Their big hope was that the Ukrainians would fight the Russians to a standstill. When that goes, they'll be left exposed and the Russians

are far stronger now than they were in 2022 and the Europeans are much weak. Yeah, the fear, however, is that you have these dummies who might actually take us to conflict. I mean, we've effectively given dynamite to a bunch of children and they might actually, you know, blow the thing up. Well, indeed. That's the fear. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Not the rearmament and the World War III per se, but it's the fear that these people are so, are so delusional and so driven by their obsession and their hatred for Russia that they may actually start something. And Russia will have to respond. Well, I will make one final point at that case, which is that if that is so, and if we do get a situation where there is a big war in Europe, between. the Europeans and Russia, then it will be the third time, the third time, that loathing and hatred of Russia by some people in Germany has led to that disaster. In 1914, it happened. In 1939, 41, it

happened. And of course, it's going to happen. It would have happened a third time as well. All right. We'll end it there. The durand.orgos.com. We're on X. We're on telegram. We're on Rumble, we are also on Substack, so check us out on Substack as well, and go to the Durant Shop. The link is the description box down below. Take care.