00:00:07.000Trump just got China to commit to opening the Strait of Hormuz without Iranian tolls, opposing Iran ever having a nuclear weapon and also buying more American oil.0.53
00:00:18.000So, um, that's called winning, not losing.
00:00:21.000I'll give you all the details in just a moment.
00:00:23.000Plus, we will also talk about people who hate the idea of American hegemony or don't understand basic economics or both and how these folks threaten America's dominant global position.
00:00:32.000Plus, We'll get to the Democratic attempt to stop Spencer Pratt from becoming mayor of LA.
00:00:43.000So, if you listen to the legacy media, President Trump had none of the cards.
00:00:48.000He's going over to Beijing and he's in Beijing, and this means that he's now going to get shellacked.
00:00:52.000The New York Times had a bunch of headlines all saying the same thing with about the same credibility as a Nick Kristof column on rape dogs.
00:00:59.000The New York Times had a headline that said, quote, Xi holds the high ground on trade and Iran.
00:01:49.000And now China is missing its oil supply, as we'll get to in a little bit.
00:01:53.000Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to claim that President Trump is going to go over to Beijing and suddenly surrender, which again, that seems like that's more of a democratic thing in the recent past.
00:02:04.000Who decided it was important to bring China into the World Trade Organization?
00:02:08.000Here's Chuck Schumer talking about President Trump supposedly caving to the Chinese.
00:02:14.000We all ought to fear what Donald Trump may concede to China just so he can claim a headline.
00:02:20.000Trump has fantasized about $1 trillion in Chinese investments in America that would give the Chinese a stranglehold on our economy, threaten our supply chains, our economic independence, and our national security.0.55
00:02:37.000This is Trump empowering Xi's made in China ambitions.0.59
00:02:48.000I mean, the idea that President Trump, who's been the harshest president of my lifetime with regard to China, is somehow going to be caving into Xi based on what?
00:03:46.000And the idea that Democrats are somehow siding against dictators is rather insane given the history of the recent foreign policy of the United States.
00:03:54.000But here's the thing all this is predicated on the idea that China has tremendous leverage over us.
00:05:03.000They're actually a declining power trying to stave off the darkness through IP theft, regional intimidation, and a lot of bluster.
00:05:10.000All right, coming up, we'll get to what the president and Xi Jinping are actually talking about in China.1.00
00:05:14.000Plus, we'll get to the people who seem to want to hand global power to the Chinese either out of malice or stupidity.0.97
00:05:20.000First, running a business today means spending half your life dealing with systems that somehow make everything more complicated.0.99
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00:06:01.000I mean, have you seen an insurance contract?
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00:06:53.000And this is what the Chinese do, by the way, to their intimidation tactic what if we have gigantic numbers of people who basically act like robots?0.99
00:07:00.000You remember they did this at the Olympics, the Beijing Olympics, a few cycles back.1.00
00:07:05.000And color me unimpressed with all of this.
00:07:08.000Then kids were cheering for Trump and Xi on the red carpet.
00:07:25.000Like, forcing small children to jump up and down and wave flags and flowers with troops in the background who are all of the exact same height.
00:07:34.000I understand that we're supposed to find this intimidating.
00:07:50.000It's not just weird, it is testament to the tyrannical nature of the government.
00:07:55.000Meanwhile, President Xi, when he first greeted Trump, he did so in Tiananmen Square, which, of course, is the place famous for Chinese tanks rolling over protesters.
00:08:03.000As I said before, China is not a geopolitical opponent.0.52
00:08:05.000They are a geopolitical enemy, and we ought to recognize that.
00:08:23.000Now, President Trump is doing his usual thing.
00:08:24.000This is the longest handshake in human history.
00:08:26.000Xi is standing there, Winnie the Pooh over there, trying to establish some sort of physical dominance, but President Trump not really having it.
00:08:33.000Xi also awkwardly shook hands with President Trump's cabinet and advisors, particularly awkward with the Secretary of State, who is banned from visiting China.
00:08:40.000They literally had to change his name on his input documents in order so he could enter the country because of the sanctions on him from when he was a senator.
00:08:48.000Here is Xi awkwardly shaking hands with everybody.
00:08:50.000You can see the Americans not particularly pleased with Xi.
00:09:00.000Okay, so you're shaking hands there with the Secretary of State.
00:09:05.000Does not look like the Secretary of State has much time for Xi Jinping.
00:09:08.000And then you see him shaking hands with Scott Besant.
00:09:11.000Pete Hegseth, again, not looking particularly pleased to be there with Xi Jinping.
00:09:21.000I mean, you can see that the people trying to make all of this happen are hoping that it'll be more enthusiastic.
00:09:26.000Not a ton of enthusiasm happening from the Trump administration here, which, again, perfectly merited because this regime is awful.
00:09:33.000President Trump put out a truth explaining his goal, which was to ask China to open up China for business.
00:09:39.000The idea here is that China has exported tremendous amounts of product to our markets, but we have not actually been able to open their markets.
00:09:47.000Quote, CNBC incorrectly reported the great Jensen Huang of Nvidia was not invited to the incredible gathering of the world's greatest businessmen and women proudly going to China.
00:09:55.000In actuality, Jensen is currently on Air Force One, and unless I ask him to leave, which is highly unlikely, CNBC's reporting is incorrect, or as they say in politics, fake news.
00:10:03.000It is an honor to have Jensen, Elon, Tim Apple, maybe Tim Cook of Apple, Tim Apple, Larry Fink, Stephen Schwartzman, Kelly Ortberg of Boeing, Brian Sykes of Cargill, Jane Frazier of City, Larry Culp of GE Aerospace, David Salmon, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and many others journeying to the great country of China, where I will be asking President Xi, a leader of extraordinary distinction, to open up China so these brilliant people can work their magic and help bring the People's Republic to an even higher level.
00:10:26.000In fact, I promise when we are together, which will be in a matter of hours, I will make sure that my very first request is this.
00:10:32.000I have never seen or heard of any idea that would be more beneficial to our incredible countries, would be them opening up.
00:10:38.000Well, again, China is quite unlikely to open up.
00:10:41.000Secretary of State Rubio, and he's on Air Force One.
00:10:43.000I have to say, this image is pretty fantastic.
00:10:45.000He donned the Nicolas Maduro Nike sweatsuit, which, again, high level trollery there from the Secretary of State, who, by the way, is gaining in the Republican primary polls.
00:10:54.000There was a Republican primary poll that came out just this week showing him ahead of the Vice President, JD Vance.
00:12:27.000The Chinese have ships stuck in the Persian Gulf because setting up a system that says we're going to let certain ships through but others not, it's easier said than done.
00:12:35.000And you saw a Chinese, not Chinese flag vessel, but it was Chinese cargo, got hit over the weekend.0.98
00:12:41.000I'm sure Iran didn't do it deliberately, but they did it.0.96
00:12:44.000And so that's why these Chinese ships are stuck in there.
00:12:46.000The second is, I don't think that China is a huge source of instability.
00:12:51.000Threatens to destabilize Asia more than any other part of the world because it's heavily reliant on the Straits for energy.
00:12:57.000And the third reason is because China's economy is export driven, meaning their economy is fueled not by what they consume domestically, but by what they make and sell to other countries.
00:13:08.000Well, if all the countries of the world's economies are melting down because of this crisis in the Straits, they're going to be buying less Chinese product and the Chinese exports are going to drop precipitously.
00:13:19.000Again, the Iran war has hurt China way more than it's hurt the United States.0.68
00:13:31.000They're having to beg the Pakistanis to act as go betweens to stave off the complete destruction of the rest of the Iranian regime.
00:13:39.000No, China is not in a strong position.0.97
00:13:41.000All right, coming up, more on China, on Iran, on the people who seem to want to give China more power, either because they are being dumb or because they are being malicious.
00:13:48.000First, people spend a ton of time talking about bringing manufacturing back to America, which is great.
00:13:54.000But it's also worth noticing that many industries never actually left.
00:13:58.000One example would be America's beverage companies.
00:14:01.000The drinks people have grown up with for generations, sodas, sparkling waters, teas, sports drinks, the companies behind them have continued making those products here in the United States this entire time.
00:14:11.000And behind all of that are 275,000 men and women across all 50 states showing up every day doing real work.
00:14:17.000These are good paying jobs, distribution, manufacturing, trucking, production, the kind of jobs that support families and local communities.
00:14:24.000For more than a century, America's beverage companies have continued investing here, building here, employing American workers in American hometowns.
00:14:30.000And in an economy where so many industries moved operations overseas, that actually does matter.
00:14:35.000Learn more about how they're keeping America strong at We Deliver for America.org.
00:14:40.000Again, that's We Deliver for America.org to learn more about America's beverage companies, how they're keeping jobs here, and keeping America stronger at We Deliver for America.org.
00:14:50.000President Xi, over in China, the dictator, he has an interest in pretending that China is a rising power when, in fact, they are in a secular decline.
00:14:59.000At the actual summit, Xi said we should be partners, not rivals.
00:15:05.000We both believe that the China-US relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world.
00:15:13.000We must make it work and never mess it up.
00:15:17.000Both China and the United States stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation.
00:15:24.000Our two countries should be partners rather than rivals.
00:15:29.000President Trump and I also agreed to build a constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability.
00:15:37.000To promote the steady, sound, and sustainable development of China-US relations and bring more peace, prosperity, and progress to the world.
00:16:01.000Looking back at the course of China-US relations, whether or not we could have mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation is the key to whether the relationship can advance steadily.
00:16:16.000The world today is changing and turbulent.
00:16:20.000China-US relations concern the well-being of the over 1.7 billion people of both countries and affect the interests of the over 8 billion people of the world.
00:16:33.000Both sides should rise up to this historic responsibility and steer the giant ship Of China US relations forward, steadily, and in the right direction.
00:17:09.000And in particular, I want to thank President Xi, my friend, for this magnificent welcome.
00:17:17.000And it really was a magnificent welcome like none other.
00:17:21.000and for so graciously hosting us on this very historic state visit.
00:17:27.000We had extremely positive and productive conversations and meetings today with the Chinese delegation earlier, and this evening is another cherished opportunity to discuss among friends some of the things that we discussed today, all good for the United States and for China, and it was a great honor to be with you.
00:18:41.000Currently, transformation not seen in a century is accelerating across the globe, and the international situation is fluid and turbulent.
00:18:51.000The world has come to a new crossroads.
00:18:54.000Can China and the United States overcome the Thucydides trap?
00:19:00.000And create a new paradigm of major country relations?
00:19:07.000Can we meet global challenges together and provide more stability for the world?
00:19:14.000Okay, so the Thucydides trap is a term that was coined by a Harvard professor named Graham Allen.
00:19:20.000And it essentially is a theory that when you have a rising power that threatens a global power, conflict generally follows.
00:19:30.000The Thucydides model, because he was an ancient historian, would have been the rise of Athens, which threatened the regional domination of Sparta.
00:19:36.000And so Sparta saw Athens rising, and so that made war inevitable, Sparta trying to shut down Athens to prevent them from overcoming them.
00:19:42.000There's only one problem here China is not Athens, and we are not Sparta.
00:19:47.000China is not, in fact, the rising power, and we are not the declining power.
00:19:51.000Actually, if conflict arises in this moment, it would not be because of the so called Thucydides trap.
00:19:56.000It would be much more in line with this sort of closing window theory.
00:20:00.000That's the theory that sometimes a power sees its window closing because of self defeating policy and has to act aggressively because of the policy they've created for themselves.
00:20:10.000So, to take an example, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, largely because it saw its window of opportunity closing.
00:20:16.000It had conquered Poland, it had conquered France, and it was dominant over the European continent, but it also was unable to conquer Britain.
00:20:24.000It saw that Britain would likely survive, that Operation Sea Lion, which was its purported attempt to take over the British Isles, would probably fail.
00:20:32.000They saw that the United States might get into the war, and they felt that the Soviets might attack first, and they needed a bunch of oil resources in the East and land in the East.0.74
00:20:42.000And so they decided to attack the Soviet Union.0.60
00:20:44.000The window, in other words, was closing.
00:20:46.000By the way, this is one of the theories behind why Nazi Germany decided to initiate a bunch of foreign wars, was because actually all the talk about how the Nazis had revitalized the economy was nonsense.
00:20:57.000They had created a kind of Chinese like economy in the sense it was heavily regulated, heavily subsidized, and heavily controlled.
00:21:04.000Government down, massively debt written, and then they had to invade other countries for resources.
00:21:08.000And that would be the real risk here China feels threatened, that Xi has actually put China's economy on a road to nowhere.
00:21:15.000They have a demographic problem, they have a military problem, they have an economic problem.
00:21:19.000And so China might lash out, knowing that their window is closing.
00:21:22.000So, what can the United States do about that?
00:21:24.000Well, we have to ease their transition back into second rate status, which means basically de escalation over things like Taiwan.
00:21:31.000We don't want them attacking Taiwan because that's bad for them and it's bad for us.0.94
00:21:35.000And we have to box them in simultaneously, which is why I have been encouraging for literally decades at this point better trade relations with all of Eastern Asia.0.96
00:21:44.000We should be having better trade relations with Japan, better trade relations with South Korea, better trade relations with Australia.1.00
00:21:50.000We need to be boxing the Chinese in.1.00
00:22:00.000Well, we have two separate readouts from the meeting.
00:22:03.000The American readout is pretty interesting.
00:22:07.000According to the White House, quote, President Trump had a good meeting with President Xi of China.
00:22:11.000The two sides discussed ways to enhance economic cooperation between our two countries, including expanding market access for American business into China and increasing Chinese investment into our industries.
00:22:20.000Now, again, I'm not a big fan of the idea that Chinese investment should go into our industries, considering.
00:22:25.000You know, that usually comes with strings attached, including IP theft.
00:22:28.000Leaders from many of the United States' largest companies joined a portion of the meeting.
00:22:32.000The president also highlighted the need to build on progress in ending the flow of fentanyl precursors in the United States, as well as increasing Chinese purchases of American agricultural products.
00:22:43.000The two sides agree that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open to support the free flow of energy.
00:22:49.000President Xi also made clear China's opposition to the militarization of the Strait and any effort to charge a toll for its use.0.80
00:22:55.000Hey, that'd be Iran doing that, right?
00:22:57.000Iran wants to militarize the Strait and charge a toll.
00:23:00.000And the White House is saying China opposes this.
00:23:04.000And Xi expressed interest in purchasing more American oil to reduce Chinese dependence on the strait in the future.
00:23:10.000So, in other words, they don't want to be as dependent on the Middle East and they don't want to be as dependent on Venezuela and they don't have a lot of choices.
00:23:16.000And so, they'd like to buy more American oil.
00:23:18.000Both countries agreed Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.0.78
00:23:22.000Okay, so that's a pretty good outcome.
00:23:28.000An outcome in which the United States has China agreeing that the strait has to be open.
00:24:10.000So the White House version does not say that President Trump made any concessions on Taiwan.
00:24:15.000However, a spokesperson for the Chinese wrote, quote, President Xi stressed to President Trump that the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations.
00:24:23.000If it is handled properly, the bilateral relationship will enjoy overall stability.
00:24:27.000Otherwise, the two countries will have clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy.
00:24:32.000Taiwan independence and cross-strait peace are as irreconcilable as fire and water.
00:24:36.000Safeguarding peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is the biggest common denominator between China and the United States.
00:24:42.000However, we have no news that the president has made any serious concessions with regard to Taiwan.
00:24:48.000Again, the United States has taken a position of strategic ambiguity for decades with regard to Taiwan, where Taiwan is self governed, but we suggest that it isn't necessarily an independent country and all the rest.
00:24:59.000Because if we do, then we have to defend it from a Chinese invasion.
00:25:03.000But if the idea is to maintain the status quo, continue to arm the Taiwanese in order to deter Chinese aggression, Box the Chinese in with better trade agreements, offer carrots, and also sticks in the form of control of global oil supplies, the Chinese are in a particularly weak position right now.
00:25:20.000And again, just another reason why all of the headlines about how the Iran war is going are just wrong.
00:25:34.000It is the Chinese who are hardest hit here.
00:25:38.000Not only that, if this war was supposed to Momentum against the United States in the region?
00:25:43.000Why is every single country in the region on the side of the United States and against the Iranian regime?
00:25:50.000So much so that apparently the Saudis actually participated in forward attacks in Iran, according to Reuters.
00:25:58.000The Saudi strikes, according to Reuters, were carried out by Saudi Air Force fighter jets on Iran linked militia targets near the kingdom's northern border with Iraq, one Western official and the person briefed on the matter said.
00:26:08.000The Western official said some strikes took place around the time of the April 7th U.S. Iran ceasefire.
00:26:14.000Gulf countries are also arresting Iranian traitors.
00:26:18.000In Kuwait, officials arrested six people they said were plotting to assassinate the country's leadership.
00:26:22.000In the UAE, The authorities accused 27 men of belonging to a secretive terrorist organization in Bahrain.
00:26:28.000The government has stripped dozens of their citizenship.
00:26:30.000Again, I'm speaking to top officials in many of these governments.
00:26:33.000And I'm just telling you, they want to align with the United States.
00:26:35.000They increasingly want to align with Israel.
00:26:40.000The Saudis would like to openly align with the United States and Israel as well.
00:26:45.000They just have to run the gauntlet of domestic opposition to recognition of Israel.
00:26:51.000But Israel and the UAE, according to the Wall Street Journal, have coordinated operations around the war.
00:26:56.000Israel's Mossad spy chief visited the UAE at least twice during the bombing campaign to coordinate operations.
00:27:02.000Israel sends Iron Dome and Iron Beam to UAE.
00:27:06.000And apparently, there are reports that the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, secretly visited the UAE in the middle of the Iran war.
00:27:13.000This was confirmed by the Prime Minister's official ex account.
00:27:18.000In the midst of Operation Roaring Lion, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secretly visited the UAE where he met with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed.
00:27:25.000Again, the alliance between those two countries is growing significantly stronger.0.96
00:27:29.000And this is why Iran has been forced into the position of attacking all surrounding countries.0.97
00:27:33.000Because all those, again, for those who don't know any history, I'd just like to reverse the clock back to the first Gulf War.0.94
00:27:40.000During the first Gulf War, the United States was so afraid of Israel being unable to work with the Arab states because the Arab states would not work with Israel that Israel took dozens of incoming scuds from Iraq in the middle of that war.
00:27:54.000And the United States, under George H.W. Bush, told Israel they could not respond because H.W. was afraid it would break up the coalition.0.54
00:28:00.000Of the Saudis and the rest of the countries in the region.
00:28:03.000Now, Israel is openly operating in coordination with all of those countries against Iran.
00:28:07.000That's how far things have changed, which is why the foreign minister Abbasarraq knows Iran is now isolated.
00:28:14.000According to the foreign minister, he put out a tweet basically threatening UAE, Bahrain, and all the rest.
00:28:22.000Netanyahu has now publicly revealed what Iran's security services long ago conveyed to our leadership.
00:28:27.000Enmity with the great people of Iran is a foolish gamble.
00:28:29.000Collusion with Israel in doing so is unforgivable.
00:28:31.000Those colluding with Israel to sow division will be held to account again.
00:28:35.000The regimes in the Middle East who know what the future looks like, a future that is largely reliant on American technology and Israeli technology and American oil and Western economic development, it is not reliant on solidarity with a country in Iran that wishes to destroy them, a government in Iran that wishes to destroy them.
00:28:58.000Again, this is why what has happened with oil is the single greatest untold story in modern American politics.
00:29:05.000Back in the 1970s, in 1973 to be precise, there was the Yom Kippur War.
00:29:09.000This is when Israel fought yet another war of near extermination, which Arab armies attacked Israel unprovoked, trying to destroy the state of Israel and wipe the Jews off the map.0.57
00:29:21.000However, their failure led to the Saudi royal kingdom deciding to impose an oil embargo against the United States for the U.S.'s support for Israel in the late stages of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
00:29:34.000And that had significant economic impact on the United States for a full decade.
00:29:40.000And the reason they have radically changed is because America is now the leading producer of oil and liquefied natural gas on planet Earth.
00:29:49.000On planet Earth, we control the means of production, we control the means of distribution.
00:29:55.000We are in control of what is going out of the Strait of Hormuz via Iran, we are in control of what exits Venezuela.
00:30:27.000Began in 2016 from a Louisiana terminal initially built to receive imported gas.
00:30:31.000Because gas compresses when cooled, large LNG tankers can hold enough energy to power 70,000 homes for a year.
00:30:37.000Basically, you take the natural gas, which is a gas, and then you liquefy it, you turn it into liquid, and then you ship it, and then it is turned back into natural gas on the other end.
00:30:44.000Well, within two years, from 2016 to 2018, U.S. LNG export volumes had more than quintupled, exceeding a trillion cubic feet.
00:30:52.000The biggest buyers were South Korea, Japan, and Mexico.
00:30:55.000Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and energy markets shifted because the Europeans wanted to get off of Russian gas.
00:31:02.000France, UK, Spain, Netherlands, they all bid up prices for LNG cargoes to draw them away from Asia.
00:31:23.000What are Turkey and Egypt really, really close to?
00:31:26.000All of the oil producing countries of the Middle East.
00:31:28.000Instead, we are shipping LNG all the way from here to there.
00:31:31.000That's how dominant the American oil and natural gas industry is.
00:31:36.000U.S. output has helped keep global prices much steadier than in 2022, even despite the Hormuz closure.
00:31:43.000South Korea, Spain, Italy, France each bought at least 50% more U.S. LNG in March than they did in February before fighting broke out in the Persian Gulf.
00:31:50.000So, again, one of the things that's been happening is that as the Strait of Hormuz has been closed by Iranian terrorism and then by us blockading the Iranians, it turns out the U.S. crude oil exports have been rising precipitously because, again, we are the dominant producers.
00:32:06.000And look at this this is U.S. crude oil exports weekly dating back to 2016.
00:32:12.000We are almost up to 7 million barrels per day in crude exports.
00:32:19.000We have totally shifted geopolitics because of.
00:32:22.000Of our capacity to innovate because of our natural resources that we can access.
00:32:25.000By the way, it is not just the presence of natural resources that makes a country rich.
00:32:30.000Venezuela has the biggest oil reserves on planet Earth, but they've been barely able to produce 1.5 million barrels of crude per day because they nationalized their oil industry.
00:32:40.000So here's the thing America is economically, in terms of natural resources, in terms of tech, blowing all of our opposition out of the water.
00:32:49.000Yeah, we got lots of problems here, but we are blowing everybody out of the water, economically speaking.0.63
00:32:54.000If you've got a buck, you are not investing it in China.
00:32:56.000You are not investing it in the Europeans.
00:33:04.000And that is because of our free market system, because of the innovations, because of our private companies, which are unbelievably efficient.0.98
00:33:12.000The only thing that could threaten this is if dolts, economic dullards, decide that somehow all of this is bad.0.76
00:33:20.000And what really needs to happen is that we need to penalize companies for their success.0.82
00:33:24.000Again, we have totally shifted geopolitics.
00:33:26.000China is weaker because of our oil industry.
00:33:29.000The Middle East, we don't care about it as much because of our oil industry.
00:33:34.000We need a better class of commentator who understands basic economics.
00:34:50.000The people who, here's the reason this matters is because this particular podcast ended with Joe Rogan calling to nationalize the oil industry.
00:34:58.000So the United States oil industry is dominant, planetarily dominant.
00:35:02.000The reason why prices have gone up is because Rogan himself said it.
00:36:54.000The reality is that if you want supply to go up, what you do is you create new markets and you broaden out the production to new markets.0.99
00:37:04.000You have an incentive structure for people to pump more.
00:37:08.000The reason the United States is globally dominant, the reason why everybody else is having their oil prices doubled and our oil prices are up like 20% is because we are dominant.
00:37:18.000Remove the profit margin, and what you'll get is an inefficient industry incapable of supplying oil even to the domestic population.
00:37:24.000Take a look at countries that have done what Rogan is talking about.
00:37:29.000It is deregulation in the oil industry that has led to our global dominance.
00:37:34.000But this sort of conspiratorial nonsense, you know, you can just sit there and you'll solve the oil problems by having, yeah, government bureaucrats will do a great job.
00:37:45.000Again, there is this completely idiotic idea that is predominant among people who never studied Econ 101 that the best way to relieve a pricing problem is to constrain supply.0.97
00:37:59.000The opposite of how you relieve a pricing problem.0.99
00:38:07.000By the way, what you actually need to do is add refinery capacity, more deregulation, more private companies in the business.
00:38:16.000One of the big problems that happens when the price is artificially depressed is that people stop drilling because it becomes more money to drill than it would to leave the oil where it is.
00:38:28.000You think the government is going to make this stuff more efficient?
00:38:31.000We spend the last couple of decades completely reshifting the entire geopolitics of planet Earth based on private industry in the United States doing things.
00:38:38.000Like fracking, doing things like freeing up LNG.
00:38:43.000And the solution is to nationalize the oil industry.
00:38:45.000Again, this sort of stuff, it sounds funny and it sounds cute, but the reality is it destroys America's capacity to win.
00:38:54.000This is not just true in oil, it is true in AI.
00:38:58.000America right now is dominant in the AI industry.
00:39:40.000Of data centers that are able to compute all the data and spit out answers for you.
00:39:44.000And yet, there's been an ongoing effort in the United States to undermine the very thing that will allow us to dominate for the next century.
00:39:51.000There's a brand new Gallup poll out, and it shows Overall, would you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose, or strongly oppose the construction of a data center in your area to support artificial intelligence or AI technology in the United States?
00:40:48.000Meanwhile, Utah residents, according to CNN, want to vote in November to oppose a massive AI data center development, one that will provide tens of thousands of jobs, presumably.
00:40:59.000The Utah project was approved by Box Elder County Commissioners on Monday, despite protests from community members.
00:41:06.000Shark Tank investor Kevin O'Leary says the project will boost the local economy and that increasing America's computing and energy production capacity is crucial for national security.
00:41:31.000So, relative to the size, the physical size of the project, which, as you noted, is multiple times the size of Manhattan, and the power draw at peak, this data center, your projections, will consume about as much energy as New York City does.
00:41:48.000But New York City provides almost 5 million jobs.
00:41:52.000And this project, by your own description, would provide about 2,000 jobs.
00:42:55.000And the kind of jobs that Tucker is constantly talking about preserving, agricultural jobs, manufacturing jobs, are some of the least space efficient jobs in America.
00:43:06.000And then Kevin O'Leary talked with Tucker about losing to China.
00:43:08.000Tucker seems pretty blase about losing to China, as it turns out.
00:43:47.000The problem with China, from my perspective, is that it surveils its citizens and it limits their ability to say what they think and to oppose existing power.
00:44:18.000Tucker can live in a cabin up in Maine that costs multi-millions of dollars, or he can live in a beautiful house in South Florida that also costs multi-million dollars.
00:44:27.000But it turns out that there are lots of people all over the United States who need jobs and don't get to live in the forest and actually, you know, would like greater productivity and better products and cheaper products and better services.
00:44:38.000But Tucker, sounding very much like Rachel Carson, says data centers are a scar upon the earth.
00:44:45.000Literally, nobody has taken 20 minutes to explain how this is going to be great for you and me.
00:44:53.000We're getting higher power costs, of course.
00:44:55.000There's probably nothing uglier on planet Earth than a data center.
00:45:19.000The environmental movement, where are they?
00:45:23.000The environmental movement is very much opposed to the data centers because they believe that it is going to actually create energy facilities that must be created.
00:45:31.000And Tucker Carlson, environmentalist, in the name of destroying America's technological future.
00:45:37.000And of course, in the end, what it comes down to is everyone who Tucker disagrees with is a bad person.
00:45:45.000Reflects the character and the predispositions, the biases of the people who made it.
00:45:51.000So if this machine, this technology, AI, is being created by people like Sam Altman or the Google guys.
00:46:00.000You can expect that, well, I don't know.
00:46:03.000Programs built by some of the least trustworthy people in the world probably shouldn't be trusted.
00:46:09.000So it's likely not a huge surprise that AI is often caught lying, manipulating results to hide the truth from people who use it, which itself is an indication of consciousness, is it not?
00:46:35.000And in the end, it is defeatist demoralization ops nonsense that puts America in a losing position vis a vis our chief geopolitical enemy, the Chinese.0.96
00:46:43.000The way that you lose to the Chinese is you destroy your energy capacity by doing things like nationalizing the oil industry, you regulate the crap out of the American economy, and you fight against every aspect of AI in order so that China will win.0.95
00:46:56.000It's the only way that China can win.1.00
00:46:58.000Fortunately for China, they have friends who will do that sort of work either through actual complicity or through just unbelievable stupidity.0.98
00:47:05.000Well, joining me on the line to discuss the negotiations currently happening between the United States and China is Christopher O'Day.0.95
00:47:11.000He's an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute, former international investment management executive, and authority on capital markets, political economy, and public finance, and the security implications of infrastructure finance and governance.
00:47:22.000Christopher, thanks so much for taking the time.
00:47:37.000Is one we're actually doing quite well at, and that's conceding the power of commercial shipping and commercial logistics infrastructure.
00:47:46.000There's been a lot of news coverage over the last few years, particularly in policy and more technical publications, but it's starting to seep out into the broader press about how many seaports China is involved in.
00:48:02.000And the involvement is typically owning and controlling terminals that load and unload containers.
00:49:03.000And now they go around and they offer this service to basically build your loading dock for you if you're a country.
00:49:11.000That's achieved through what they call a concession.
00:49:15.000And it always sounds Complicated, but it's really the same as buying a hot dog stand, a license to sell hot dogs at the beach.
00:49:22.000You pay the government for a license, and that's basically what's happening with these concession agreements for ports.
00:49:28.000So, when you read about this or people talk about it, don't be put off by all of the talk about the financing arrangements and involvement of all the big financial firms that get into these deals.
00:49:41.000It's really a very simple thing where a government is cutting a deal and making what I believe is essentially a treaty, calling it a concession contract with the Chinese to come in and run their supply lines.0.53
00:49:52.000And that is a very, very powerful piece of leverage.0.73
00:49:56.000And for people who are familiar with local politics, for the local politician, it's a great deal because the core of these arrangements is revenue sharing on the container fees.
00:50:08.000So before you had maybe no port or a very badly operating port.
00:50:13.000After you have a state of the art seaport running, moving containers in and out, generating jobs, generating the need to hook up road and railroad networks.
00:50:24.000And best of all, you're getting a revenue share, whereas before you didn't have any of that money.
00:50:30.000So, this is a very, I think it's actually quite a clever strategy.
00:50:35.000And the Chinese have been pursuing this through their state owned companies for really since the founding of the PRC in 1949.
00:50:44.000They had to make all sorts of arrangements to get their own supplies.
00:50:48.000And they first started with the old common turn countries in what's now called the global south.
00:50:54.000They've kept a lot of those relationships and they've just learned how to build after the 1956 invention.
00:51:02.000By an American, an impatient American truck driver, wanted to move his trucks, his containers on and off faster.
00:51:09.000So that's the hallmark of America speed up the pace of commerce and revenue generation.0.67
00:51:14.000The Chinese took that technology and they ran with it because the need to have the ability to handle containers required just massive amounts of rebuilding of infrastructure or building of new infrastructure.0.97
00:51:28.000And that is what the Chinese have exploited.0.97
00:51:30.000So, in effect, we all hear about how they reverse engineered products, cars, solar panels, et cetera.1.00
00:51:37.000Really, what they've done is reverse engineer the whole concept of conquest.0.77
00:51:41.000And so now the Chinese are in a position in about 110 port sites around the world where they've achieved the kind of goals you would used to get from military conquest, which would really be in the areas of economic influencer control and political influencer control.0.85
00:52:00.000And they've done that through this infrastructure program, not the Belt and Road.0.87
00:52:04.000The Belt and Road is something somewhat different.
00:52:07.000It factors into this, but they've been working on this commercial shipping tied to their manufacturing and export economy.
00:52:15.000They've been working on that for decades, since the late 70s, early 1980s, long before Xi came on the scene with the BRI.
00:52:23.000So they've basically now got the situation where they have all these long term seats at the table because these contracts run from 20 to 40 years.
00:52:32.000And it's very difficult to get them out of there.
00:52:35.000The US is starting to try to do that, but it's a real uphill battle.1.00
00:52:39.000So, the Chinese have basically installed what I call the operating system of the global economy.
00:52:45.000All these containers and the ports and everything is running just like your smartphone.
00:52:49.000It's running 24 7 and it's running in the background.
00:52:52.000So, while they're in China and we're seeing all of the popping circumstance and the big meetings, and they're going to talk about chips and they're going to talk about tariff rates and things like that.
00:53:03.000In the background, the real battle for control over the world is who's going to control.
00:53:10.000All of this commercial shipping and logistics, really the supply line.
00:53:14.000So it's not a matter of one supply chain for a particular product.
00:53:18.000China basically has installed and runs the supply platform itself, and they're starting to use that power already.
00:53:26.000So it's a very dangerous situation that the U.S. is in.
00:53:30.000And I guess the military would call it kind of classic asymmetric warfare because we have a big, powerful navy, and we can use that in certain situations, but we're really, I don't think, going to go around and start invading or militarily taking over any seaport anywhere in the world, blowing up the infrastructure.0.99
00:53:50.000Already there installed, running this.0.99
00:53:53.000And any place where they're operating, it's very dangerous or impossible for the U.S. Navy to go dock there because of the digital and cyber surveillance risks.
00:54:01.000So they're fighting at the level of kind of getting again the direct economic and political relationships.0.99
00:54:43.000And so they are sort of relegated to doing the thing you're talking about, which is to say that if the United States were bright, if we were to act in a self interested way, we would be trying to dismantle precisely this infrastructure that you're talking about.
00:54:56.000And you've seen the Trump administration do some of that, most obviously in Panama.
00:54:59.000Where there were concerns specifically about the Chinese companies controlling the in ways and out ways from the Panama Canal.
00:55:07.000In other words, decline for the United States is a choice.
00:55:10.000President Xi suggested that we are in a Thucydides trap where China is rising and the United States is falling.
00:55:15.000And what I have suggested is that actually what we are watching right now is not a Thucydides trap.0.86
00:55:20.000We are watching a window closing for the Chinese because they have serious problems that are actually developing for them internally and externally.0.53
00:55:28.000And so the possibility of conflict is arising from.
00:55:32.000Desperation on their part, increasing desperation, it is not arising from the idea that they're on the verge of overcoming the United States globally.
00:55:39.000Well, I would agree with parts of that.
00:55:43.000Certainly, this is a capability that they have that the U.S. does not possess that gives them a certain amount of advantages and influence with many, many countries around the world.
00:55:56.000And I think looking forward, reasonably, you would expect that they would utilize that leverage to offset exactly the types of weaknesses that you've.
00:56:07.000To say that they have done a very good job building this network of highly influential port and terminal concessions is not to say that China has some sort of, as you, I guess, would gather from reading all the press coverage going into the summit meeting, that China is about to overtake the United States in any really substantive way.
00:56:32.000It does give them the ability to, it's really, as I said, a capability to kind of.
00:56:38.000Battle and fight the United States by turning a number of countries in their favor because of that kind of supply line and economic and job dependency.
00:56:50.000Now, whether that does anything to relieve the deeper problems that they have, with about a third of their local governments are bankrupt, they have a terrible social or non existent almost social welfare system, they have a closed financial economy, basically controlling a currency manipulator.
00:57:54.000Meanwhile, over in Los Angeles, the Democrats have decided that Spencer Pratt is a real threat, clearly.
00:58:00.000And they are trotting out as much propaganda as they possibly can.
00:58:05.000So, LA mayoral candidate Nithya Raman, who is now trailing both Spencer Pratt and Karen Bass, it's unbelievable they might re elect Karen Bass as the LA mayor.0.89
00:58:25.000But I also think it's a very real thing that we should take seriously and we need to grapple with, and we need to offer it an honest response, a response that's rooted in actually solving these problems.
00:58:36.000Otherwise, people will turn to fascism, to mini Trump, which is who I think Spencer Pratt really represents.
00:58:48.000What exactly does Spencer Pratt say that is fascist?
00:58:50.000He says that we should not allow crime to predominate in LA and that homeless people ought to be.
00:58:57.000Put an involuntary commitment if they have serious mental illness.
00:59:00.000They should not be allowed to just abuse drugs openly out on the street and all the rest of it.
00:59:03.000TMZ put out a bit of a hit piece saying that actually Spencer Pratt is not living in a trailer where his house is burned down.
00:59:10.000Actually, he's been staying at the Hotel Bel Air for more than a month, and his wife and kids are staying in Carpentaria, which is just north of LA.
00:59:17.000Well, Spencer Pratt pointed out, Madhu, the reason that I have to live in a hotel is because my house burned down.
00:59:27.000So, this idea that anyone's like, oh, he's at a hotel.
00:59:30.000I'm at a hotel because these psychopaths are messaging me every day.0.98
00:59:33.000They're going to kill me because Nithya Raman is calling me a fascist because I don't want people to have their kids next to drug addicts at the park or stepping in human poop when you get your matcha.0.99
00:59:49.000So these psychos here, I'm a fascist.0.99
00:59:52.000And then they literally, like, if you would like to see the death threats, I can send them all offline where people are like, I'm going to hire people to kill you.0.98
01:00:01.000So, yes, unfortunately, now I have a security team.
01:00:04.000And they will not, even if I wanted to stay in the Airstream, would let me because there's 360 unobstructed views since there's no houses.
01:00:12.000So you can literally snipe me out from any part from 300 yards away easily.1.00
01:00:19.000Yeah, meanwhile, Karen Bass, she is making compelling cases to why she should retain the mayoralty in Los Angeles.1.00
01:00:25.000Her case is you cannot succeed in life without teeth.
01:00:29.000This is a thing that is happening right now in America.
01:00:33.000How many people who are unhoused that you meet have no teeth at all?
01:01:22.000What's worrying me now is that his social media is now taking on a violent turn.
01:01:28.000And that worries me because when you do that and when your messages are so hateful or when you demonize people, then you do provoke people who are unstable and you can jeopardize people's safety.
01:01:44.000Yeah, those ads, those AI ads, that's the real cause of violence in America today.
01:01:49.000Not the Democratic Party that continues to cheer violence in America today.
01:01:52.000All righty, coming up, we'll get into Sweden.
01:01:55.000So, you know, you keep hearing over and over and over again that we need to be more like Europe.0.92