The Duran Podcast - Xi Jinping and Putin pushback against Trump drive for war

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

Xi Jinping and Putin pushback against Trump drive for war

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the pushback that is coming from China and Russia, pushback with regards to the blockade against Cuba and also push back against the United States and its ramp up towards a conflict with Iran. What is going on here? Yeah, it's very interesting because we've now had extraordinary rhetoric from the administration, from the US administration. And of course, what crystallized it was this extraordinary speech that Marker Rubio gave at the Munich Security Conference,

which we've analyzed, we've discussed it in a program. And in that speech, basically Rubio outlined a Uber neocon project for American imperialism around the world. Now, Rubio was not the only superpower, power, foreign minister at the Munich Security Conference. Wang Yi was there as well. Now, Wang Yi isn't just China's foreign minister, but he's also Xi Jinping's national security advisor. And over the last couple of weeks, we've been having very intense discussions between the Chinese and the Russians, Putin's national security advisor, the man who is Secretary of the Russian

Security Council. Shoygu was in Beijing, and Putin and Xi Jinping had a long virtual conference with each other, of a sort that is starting to look rather more interesting than perhaps it first appeared. Anyway, Wang Yi also spoke, and he basically set out not just a different agenda from Rubios, but I would say an opposing agenda to Rubio. He basically forswore imperialism of the kind that Rubio was talking about. But what he was really talking about was not China not being imperialist. It is China and the other powers, the other great powers, resisting this American neo-imperial drive.

And he talked a lot about the various institutions. He talked about international law. He talked about all of these things, the sort of things that, of course, the Americans are now openly scorning. But Wang Yi was positioning China as the great defender. All of this, we've heard from the Chinese before. But what is starting to be different, what is starting to change? is that the Chinese and the Russians, but of course ultimately it always has to be, mostly China,

because that is by far the greater power, are now actually taking specific steps to try to block what the Americans are doing. So both China and Russia have in different ways been sending assistance to Iran. Jammers, electronic jammers, aircraft, helicopter gunships, intelligence, there's Chinese spy ships monitoring the movement of the American warships in the Arabian Sea. And the Chinese have also been providing, and they've made this quite open. They're also providing Iran, for example, with satellite data. They've gone much further than they had done previously. They've also signed with Iran in January, this is after the protests, by the way, a tripartite partnership agreement,

China, Russia and Iran together. China and Russia are also now starting to work together to support to the best extent that they can, Cuba. So Russia is now openly saying that they will provide oil to Cuba. China is also rushing support to Cuba. Was it rushing? I believe that is the right word. They're sending aircraft to Cuba with food, rice, and also solar panels to help with the energy crisis. And of course, they're doing diplomatic steps together. And Putin and C, we know, talked about all of this together, about the kind of help they were going to give to Cuba over the course of their meeting. And Putin briefed Xi Jinping, apparently in detail, about his meeting in Moscow with Larijani,

who was Harmoniz, who was Harmonize National Security Advisor. So for the first time, since the end of the Cold War, basically, we see a situation where other great powers, China first and foremost, but Russia too, are not just trying to navigate a complex world in which the United States is, you know, the hegemon and is being aggressive. It is that they're starting to take countersteps, actual physical kinetic countersteps to try to protect, not just themselves, but their allies from what the Americans are trying to do. That hasn't happened before. What can Russia and China do for Cuba and for Iran?

I mean, I know we've talked about what they're doing, especially with Iran. But will it make a difference, at least in Iran's case and with Cuba? What can they do for Cuba? because the Cuba one is more straightforward, I guess you could say, in that they need oil. It's that simple. They need all or else they're going to collapse. Russia is sending some oil. But from what I understand, it's enough oil.

It's a humanitarian reason. It's enough oil to last them out another month, I believe, extra. But they need a lot more. Yes. There's something in mind. If you said one delivery, call it humanitarian. Then that opens the way to sending further deliveries and continue to call it humanitarian, which is, I think, where all of this is going.

But you ask an excellent question because, of course, the United States is organized to do what he's doing. It has bases all around the world. It still has what is the most powerful ocean fleet. It's got aircraft carriers. It's got 10, I believe, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. China and Russia, they've only got one. There's only one Chinese aircraft carrier, which is comparable to American supercarriers. It's only just entered service.

It is not nuclear powered. China does not have the kind of global reach that the U.S. does. So they are starting from a very, very much weaker position in terms of global presence than the United States has. But you can see that they're now working together in a concerted way to create this challenge. So the Chinese obviously do have a massive shipbuilding program. Both sides are building up their armed forces. They're taking further steps in the economic sphere. So Brick's pay is apparently starting to work.

It's actually beginning to function. China is now taking steps, and it seems that this instruction did indeed come from the finance and trade ministries and from the central bank. They're starting to sell off treasury bonds. I mean, there's apparently an actual concerted move to do that. And they are providing assistance where they can to the extent that they can. But it will take at least 10 years before they're able to. to match the Americans all around the world if they still continue to pursue this course. It's very much like the first two decades of the Cold War.

It was only in the 1960s, mid-1960s, that the Soviet Union became a fully-fledged superpower, able to challenge the United States around the world. And of course, that required an enormous investment in technology and industry and shipbuilding, aircraft construction, and all of those things. And of course, the Soviet industrial base, as we know, was not really designed for it, and it caused a major crisis in the end for the Soviets. But there was this period from about 1965 until the mid-1980s, when the Soviets were superpower able to challenge the Americans. The Chinese and the Russians have a much bigger

industrial base than the Soviet Union did, multiple times bigger, bigger even than the American. So they can mount a more sustained challenge, but it will take them time to get to the point where they can do it. Iran, what's going to happen with Iran? We're getting news that Trump has basically signaled his support for Israeli strikes to destroy Iran's ballistic program. What do you see going on there? Well, this is where, first of all, this is, there's no doubt. I mean, we've been saying this all the way back to the June 2025 war. That didn't achieve its objective, which was regime change in Iran.

and that inevitably meant that there was going to be a further attack on Iran. And in fact, we had a first attempt to achieve regime change in Iran, which is in January with the protests. And bear a moment, we've now had admissions and the Americans. Scott Besson tells us that it was the Americans who created the crash in the real by engineering a dollar shortage in Iran. And it's the Wall Street Journal has told us that at the same time as they were doing that, they were smuggling, Starling terminals into Iran to basically coordinate the protests.

So they created the economic crisis and that they created the protests that were intended to exploit the economic crisis. Trump is saying it's about regime change. Don't even go. Trump is just openly saying we want regime change. Trump is now open to regime change. He says that is the best outcome. Now, Iran defeated the protests because it had help from the Russians, or perhaps the Chinese,

or perhaps both, or perhaps just China, who knows, but they got help in jamming the Starlink terminals. So now we have the next plan, which is the military attack all over again. And initially, apparently, the idea was that one American carrier force would do it, except that somebody came back and said that isn't enough. Now they have to send another carrier task force, and we've discussed this and it looks like it's going to be the Gerald Ford. That still isn't enough. It seems there were plans to send a third carrier, but that is running into logistical problems.

so you get Israel involved instead. So the Israelis are brought in to do it this time, even though the Israelis promised the Russians and through the Russians, the Iranians, that they would not attack Iran if Iran didn't attack Israel. But, of course, nobody should take those kind of assurances seriously. So we're going to have an attack on Iran, and it's going to happen. Now, the question is this.

The Russians and the Chinese are providing a signal. significant amount of assistance to Iran, but it cannot match the resources that the Americans and the Israelis are putting together. Those resources by themselves should not be enough to achieve regime change in Iran. If the government systems in Iran and the security agencies in Iran are strong enough, they should nonetheless be able to absorb this attack, even if it lasts for weeks. The trouble is Iran looks like it's been very heavily infiltrated. We've had lots of people who are obviously working for the Americans and the Israelis

inside Iran. We don't know to what extent that is still the case. There is at least a possibility that this might be successful if those internal forces are too strong and the government in Iran is too fragmented and too fragile to hold together. This is a classic example of how you need at least 10 years to prepare for these sort of operations. And with Iran, for Iran at the moment, well, obviously it doesn't have those 10 years. Even after the protests, even after everything that happened with the protests, the Iranian government has still not managed to be rid of all of these infiltrations, these forces that are infiltrating it. Well, you see, this is the point. Maybe they have been. Maybe they've had more help from the Russians or the Chinese and they've been able to track down and find all of these people inside Iran. But the trouble with Iran is that they've had this opportunity to clean up many times.

And it's never happened. We've had protests of this kind happen again and again. We've had examples of activity against Iranian targets from inside Iran. Remember, there was the assassination of the Hamas official on the very day that Pezishkan was being inaugurated president of Iran. I haven't heard of anybody been captured in relation to that. I mean, that already should have been a red light that there's problems with infiltration. But we saw with the protests that despite the fact that this happened, what, two years ago, almost two years ago, they still haven't really got on top of this problem.

Maybe they have done. Maybe over the last couple of weeks, they found their way. But based on experience, I don't think they have. When there was the attack in June, the Israelis knew exactly where all the top Iranian officials were. They knew where Pezishyan was conducting a meeting with his cabinet. They had information about the whereabouts of Iranian scientists. They had information about the whereabouts of top Iranian military officials. That was in June.

And yet we see that in January, still the Iranians have not been able to get on top of this question of infiltration within their society. So why assume that what the Iranians have not been able to get on top of this question of infiltration within their society? So, why assume that what the Iranians have failed to do before January, they have succeeded in doing since? That is Iran's Achilles hue. And ultimately, it's a question for the Iranian security agencies and the Iranian authorities to get control over. The Russians and the Chinese can only do so much with it.

And in terms of providing military aid to Iran, logically, that should have been provided. years ago, when the Russians offered to help Iran create its own air defense system, when the Chinese apparently offered, I didn't know this, to provide Iran with an early warning system, when both China and Russia offered to provide Iran with advanced fighter jets. And for reasons which I still do not fully understand, the Iranians did not act on any of those offers. That's very weird why they haven't acted on that. Also with Cuba, too. I mean, both countries are just really bizarre how they don't act on the help that China and Russia tried to give them.

And especially Iran being a member of bricks. Utilize bricks? Well, to give another, I talk about this constantly, but when the Americans crashed, the RIA, the Chinese had already offered Iran a credit swap. It had already been offered some time before. It would have been an easy thing to do or the Iranian central bank needed to do was to pick up the phone. call Beijing, the money would have been there. Some people talk about, you know, billion dollars stabilizing the real. It would have required a hundred million dollars. No, no. The very fact that the Iranian Central Bank was buying reals and doing so with foreign

currency provided by China would have completely changed the entire dynamic of it. There is not a word that Iran did that. No one in Iran seems to have even thought about it. It's very weird. And Cuba, perhaps, I mean, again, there may be, I mean, I've discussed in many programs, the complicated history between Iran and Russia, and the reasons the Iranians might have for being deeply suspicious of the Russians. It's a suspicion that has become a luxury now that Iran can't.

afford. But Cuba is even more strange because to the extent that the Cuban Revolution achieved its social, you know, was able to achieve all its great social achievements, universal literacy, its healthcare system, all of that, well, that was achieved on the back of Russian economic aid during the Cold War. So there's already this very close, this history of very close and friendly relations between Cuba and Russia. And by the way, between Cuba and China too. And again, apparently an unwillingness by Cuba to move forward with this, I remember some years ago when Russian oil executives went to Cuba, the Cuban said that they didn't really want to import oil from Russia. What they wanted was Russian

technology to develop the oil fields off Cuba's coast, but these are very, very difficult oil fields to develop. And the cost of doing it would run into the hundreds of billions. And there's no logical reason why the Russians would want to do that. And again, so essentially the Cubans turned the Russians away. The Russians offered to complete a nuclear power station, which the Soviet Union had been building in Cuba. The Cubans turned that down.

The Russians offered to help Cuba build a metro in Havana, and I happen to know all about this. Again, the Cubans turned that down. The Cubans focused overwhelmingly on tourism from Canada and Europe. and oil from Venezuela. They didn't hedge. They were, for some reason, again, very suspicious or unskeptical about the Russians. And they turn the Russians away.

I'm going to make a suggestion. I think the fundamental reason in both Iran's and Cuba's cases is because there are powerful groups within each of these countries. countries that were wary of accepting this kind of economics and military support from the Chinese and the Russians, because they cut across direct interests. So people in the tourist industry in Cuba, for example, might have been worried about having the Russians come back because that might deter Cuban, sorry, Canadian tourists from coming to Cuba, things of that kind. They might have been also unhappy that if the Russians came in, it would be.

would interfere with the oil trade with Venezuela, which was highly lucrative, and why would you do that? Probably, I'm going to make a guess now, I suspect some of that oil that Cuba was receiving from Venezuela. It was also reselling on the international markets. I don't know that for a fact, but I wouldn't be surprised. In Iran, Iran has developed its own military industrial complex. You will always find people in any military industrial complex who will say, Why are we buying surface-to-air missiles and the Russians when we are perfectly capable of producing them ourselves and what we make is at least as good and maybe even better than what the Chinese and the Russians are offering? Which, by the way, is simply not true. But I suspect that there are all of these different forces within these societies.

And in both cases, the governments in Cuba and Iran are too fragmented to make the kind of difficult decision that would override the resistance of these internal lobbies. I mean, I see this happen many, many times. I mean, if there'd been someone like Fidel Castro still in charge in Cuba, he could have made the decision. But there isn't. There's no one like that in Cuba today. And the same is even more true of Iran, where the political system is chaotic at the best of times. And the supreme leader, Hamané, is now 87 and is probably not able to have that tight control that a leader in Iran needs it this time.

Yeah. All right, we will edit there. The duran.com. We are on Xen, Rumble, and Telegram. We are also on Substack, so check us out on Substack and go to Durand shop, pick up some merch. Link is in the description box down below. Take care.