The Great America Show with Lou Dobbs and Jonathan Bass discusses the growing economic and political tensions between the United States and China, the role of China in the world economy, and the impact of the Trump administration on the relationship between the two countries.
00:00:00.000Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Great America Podcast with Lou Dobbs,
00:00:04.200always in the fight for truth, justice, and yes, our American way of life.
00:00:09.240And now here he is, the Peabody award-winning voice of truth, the great Lou Dobbs.
00:00:14.620Hello, everybody, and good to have you join us here on the Great America Show. Welcome.
00:00:19.440And we turn now to American businessman, Jonathan Bass, who has considerable experience
00:00:25.200with global commerce and specifically the relationship with China, a man who I've found
00:00:34.040to be a keen observer of the geopolitics, geoeconomics of the Sino-U.S. relationship.
00:00:45.560Jonathan, great to have you with us. And I just want to start with this great country, China,
00:00:53.020is now having immense economic problems. Unemployment is considerable. We are seeing
00:01:02.100real debt issues with the housing and development sector, the property sector in China. We're also
00:01:11.960seeing defaults. And the Chinese government, the Communist Party, is not standing behind
00:01:20.280those companies who have taken in lots. And by lots, I mean tens of billions of dollars of foreign
00:01:28.400capital to speculate and to drive their economy. It's quite a sobering moment. What do you think?
00:01:37.560You know, when you're talking about the capital, I mean, everyone starts their conversations when you
00:01:42.000discuss China. Well, America is owned by China because they're the largest debt holder of American
00:01:48.660debt with, you know, $1 trillion, where I think Japan is actually our largest debt holder. But we have
00:01:55.560invested over the last 20 years trillions of dollars into the Chinese economy. And in the last couple
00:02:04.760weeks where you see the issue with the Uyghurs and the vote in Congress where we only actually had one
00:02:10.780dissenting vote, we have been able to show that there is unification on the Uyghur issue. But corporate America
00:02:21.800got spooked because the Chinese government came in and told, you know, Intel this, and they backtracked, told
00:02:28.800Walmart this, and they backtracked. Everyone that started to get hit. And those companies, those American
00:02:36.040companies have massive investments that I think exceed the trillion dollars that the Chinese
00:02:42.920government owns in American debt. Yeah, I think that the stranglehold they have on the United States
00:02:51.840is too often overlooked by our so-called elites, whether they be in government, academia, business,
00:02:59.860or finance. And the idea that somehow the United States doesn't have to be prudent, responsible,
00:03:10.020cognizant of all that China is, is so outdated. And they don't appreciate, even though it's staring
00:03:18.220all of us in the face, how dependent we are on China, whether it be for pharmaceuticals,
00:03:23.460pharmaceutical ingredients, whether it be for clothing, whether it be for finished
00:03:27.240electronics, computers, advanced computers, in point of fact. I think people have really
00:03:35.700just turned a blind eye to the power that China holds over the United States right now. What do you
00:03:43.160think? Well, I agree with you. It's, you know, we've lived in a generally peaceful time over the last 20
00:03:50.920years in trade. So guys in the boardroom have looked at always shareholder value and increasing
00:03:58.220profitability and lowest wage dictating where you're going to move supply chain. And we've now
00:04:04.860find that the boardrooms, which they are unprepared to deal with, are no longer looking at what's going
00:04:13.560on on low price labor, low price freight, you know, 11 day transit from Shanghai to LA port. Those are all
00:04:21.920out the window. And geopolitical issues are what's going to be dictating the future over our companies
00:04:28.360and what is going to dictate the new normal. And until they start to look upon how we get to this new
00:04:35.340normal, we're, we're as consumers in America, we're beholden to an inefficient corporate supply chain
00:04:43.360that's dictating from a boardroom. That's looking at the past and not looking at the future.
00:04:49.200And a, and boardrooms that by the way, have shown themselves to be hostile to the U S federal
00:04:57.720government, uh, and the policies, whether of Trump, uh, or, or, uh, even, uh, partially, uh, Obama in that
00:05:06.760administration. But we have now a Republican party that has awakened to the fact that corporate America
00:05:14.380in this country and wall street, uh, are absolutely aligned with China. Uh, they're aligned with open
00:05:22.460borders. They are aligned with diminished American sovereignty. They're aligned with illegal immigration.
00:05:29.980Uh, and they turn again, a blind eye to the collateral damage as a result, whether it be the
00:05:35.580American middle-class or the hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths as a result of the drug traffic
00:05:44.300across that Southern border. Uh, and by the way, crossing that Southern border, uh, the second largest
00:05:51.100group of illegal immigrants are Chinese. Uh, this is, uh, this does not appear to me to be in any way,
00:05:58.140an accident or a coincidence. This is part of a plan as the Chinese continue to buy a farmland in this
00:06:05.540country, to buy whatever technology or, uh, advancement, uh, they can, they proceed. And right now
00:06:13.580their investment in this country is enormous and their influence in this country is enormous.
00:06:19.240You know, eminent domain is a word we should start to use when it comes to Chinese assets in America,
00:06:27.040because we have to start to look at what our national security assets that we sold them for,
00:06:33.840for boardroom gain and long-term laws. But that's one thing, the food issue Lou is a tremendous issue
00:06:42.640because what China is doing right now and what they did, the proof is always in the pudding and their
00:06:47.920behavior. What they've done with urea in stopping the export of urea to Canada and to Australia.
00:06:55.920Urea is one of the main components of fertilizer. And so what they're trying to do is control the
00:07:02.040mineral production of fertilizers, which dictates our production of food. And that's what leads to
00:07:08.680the conflict that's going on right now between Algeria and Morocco. Sub-Saharan Africa, Sub-Saharan
00:07:18.120Morocco has 75% of the world's reserve of phosphates and Algeria is the number three world recipient of
00:07:28.200Chinese military equipment. And we are being baited by the Algerian by the Polisario to actually go in and
00:07:38.840give the Sahara to the Algerians, which is actually giving a gift to the Chinese government. Now Trump,
00:07:48.440on his last move on Friday, recognized the Sahara and actually supported it and issued an accord to put a
00:08:01.320consulate down in the Sahara. Right now you've got guys like Senator Inhofe, who are trying to block the consulate from
00:08:12.600being built in the Sahara. But what they don't see is 75% of our ability to produce food over generations
00:08:21.320to come, we're going to hand that over to the Chinese government. So is Inhofe right in fighting it? Or was
00:08:29.000Trump right in recognizing it? And I tend to believe that Trump was right in recognizing it.
00:08:34.920Trump, in addition to that, looking at the new Middle East and trying to create alignments that are
00:08:44.120rational and proportionate and equitable, in every turn he understood the threat posed by the Chinese
00:08:54.520communists. He understood that Xi Jinping means to hold dominion over not only the Pacific and Southeast
00:09:04.680Asia, but indeed to be the major, major power in all the world. It is insufficient to call what he is
00:09:15.640trying to create a superpower. It will be the superpower if he succeeds, don't you think?
00:09:21.480Yes. And you have to look, Lou, at what he did since COVID began. They took down in the first three months, over 800
00:09:32.920crosses, shut down churches, attempted to shut down the 26 synagogues that are in China. They're imprisoning
00:09:43.880the Uyghurs, Muslims, and whether it's from organ harvesting, re-education, they're making the Nazis look like
00:09:55.640kindergarten teachers. What Trump saw is the way in Xi Jinping's desire to become emperor of the world.
00:10:06.600And his goal as getting his power from the heavens was the way he was going to rule.
00:10:12.600And if we have to look at what he did just in those five months that we went into COVID, he wants a godless world.
00:10:21.560And a world run by the Chinese is going to be a far different world to wake up to than the world run by the United States of America.
00:10:31.560And just ask the people of Hong Kong right now who are adjusting to a one system government. And that one system is obviously the Chinese Communist
00:10:45.720system of government and their influence now, their total control of Hong Kong. This happened without so much as a peep
00:10:55.880from Europe, from the United States. It's it is absolutely stunning to me, Jonathan, that the national
00:11:05.480left wing corporate media doesn't even take cognizance of the the threats that are being that are imposed
00:11:13.720now on Taiwan, the threats of invasion. I mean, it's raw rank and absolutely undisguised.
00:11:21.960They are threatening invasion. They are threatening the United States itself. If it's so much as protests,
00:11:29.320uh, the building of those artificial islands and any, any, uh, interference in their control of
00:11:37.400navigation across those sea lanes, uh, that are critical to 70% of the world's trade, uh, on those, uh,
00:11:44.840and the South, uh, South China sea, uh, your thoughts about just the lack of response, uh, on the part of
00:11:53.960the United States, but also Europe. You know, we, we have to look at history to determine the future.
00:12:00.280It's our only lesson. I know everyone wants to cancel history right now. It's in mode, it's in fashion,
00:12:06.520but you, you just take the 1936 summer Olympics in Germany. IBM had sold the counting mission,
00:12:17.240the X, sorry, they leased the counting machines that counted the Jews, uh, gypsies, Christians that
00:12:26.040were put into the concentration camps. They didn't sell them because they thought they were going to have
00:12:31.080a long run of, uh, milk in it for the money. You had Ford that was in there. You had all corporate
00:12:38.280America that supported the 1936 summer Olympics by the world supporting the Olympics. It gave Hitler
00:12:47.560the power and prestige of doing what he did. Had we backed out of the 1936 Olympics, had Europe backed
00:12:56.520out, had we shown a line in the sand, a true line in the sand against what they were doing,
00:13:03.480it would have had a definite different impact toward the future of World War II. What I'm fearful of
00:13:10.120is as Xi Jinping comes out of this, the closing ceremonies at the end of February and walks into his
00:13:16.200March 5th communist party meeting, which I think happens every twice, every, uh, 10 years or something,
00:13:22.440or, you know, once every 10 years, the people's Congress meeting in Beijing, we are going to
00:13:29.000bring a more emboldened, uh, powerful Xi Jinping. And we could have had a moment where the world
00:13:38.200stood up and said, you know what, we don't support what you're doing to the Uyghurs. We don't support
00:13:43.000what you're doing to the Christians in China. We don't support what you're doing in Hong Kong,
00:13:47.240nor Taiwan, nor Ethiopia, nor Algeria, nor Iran, nor Afghanistan. We are on the other side of this,
00:13:55.480but we're so concerned about getting toilet paper that we're throwing the rest out the window.
00:14:01.960Yep. I think you're exactly right. And think about, uh, the, the posture of the United States.
00:14:08.520Uh, president Biden has said that we won't send our diplomats, which is precisely the kind of, uh,
00:14:14.840uh, psyops response you would expect from the left these days, uh, rather than substance to,
00:14:21.960to use a ruse, a ploy like that, that disguises perhaps to most Americans, the fact that we are
00:14:29.880sending a corporate America. We are sending, uh, those who want to, uh, go to China. We're sending our,
00:14:38.280uh, our top financiers to China. Uh, they're going to all be there for the, uh,
00:14:44.280the Olympics. And as you point out, the only thing missing will be those diplomats who will not be
00:14:50.840missed by anyone. Uh, but guess what? NBC will be covering the Olympics for all the world to see.
00:15:01.080And that will be the ultimate statement that we make in acquiescence, uh, and in compliance
00:15:08.600to the communist Chinese party. It is an outrage. And as you say, we do have a moment here where
00:15:15.640we could make a difference. And the difference we're making is not in the interest of the United
00:15:20.040States or Western civilization. As you know, NBC, they're going to put production value behind this.
00:15:26.840They're not going to go out and film the Uyghurs in camps being burnt up and gassed and reeducated.
00:15:33.320They're not going to go, you know, out into dormitories and factories, and they're not going
00:15:38.520to go show how people are being fed in these factories or these lockdowns, these extreme
00:15:42.600lockdowns where people's doors are welded shut. They're going to show what they want to show for
00:15:48.840production value. And the, the, the danger of all of that is that we will start to put forth what I
00:15:58.920call the John Wayne effect of China. John Wayne, Charlie Chaplin made the world look at American
00:16:06.520through a different lens. Now they've got NBC. That's going to make the world look at China through
00:16:12.120a different lens and not a truthful lens. And there's where the danger lies. But, you know, to add to that,
00:16:18.600that everything that's going on right now with COVID in China, and it's spread quickly,
00:16:27.080may be that God will take care of shutting down the Olympics. If he didn't leave it to humanity,
00:16:33.560they may actually have to shut it down. I mean, I think two days ago, China started turning back
00:16:38.440American airplanes, because they called them full of COVID, and sent them back to America. So, you
00:16:44.440know, it's, it, we're in an, a very precarious position where I think the big are looking to get
00:16:53.960bigger with China. Oh, yeah. And the small are going to be put out of business. This, this supply
00:17:00.520chain issue has really impacted independent and small retailers, and has benefited the major,
00:17:10.200bigger retailers, the bigger retailers have grown significantly by leaps and bounds, and they've put
00:17:17.720all of the small, you know, retailers out of business. So we're talking about big box stores, we're
00:17:23.560talking about Amazon, we're talking about what is one of the largest, just, just our retail
00:17:30.440businesses are the largest market for Chinese goods in the world. Well, I mean, you take Walmart alone
00:17:37.720is what $590 billion, which equates the GDP of Michigan and Louisiana, and then throw in another
00:17:44.840state or two, you know, you out of a $19 trillion economy, you know, you've got 500, almost $600 billion
00:17:53.080in one company's hands. So that which accounts for 13% of the exports of China.
00:17:59.640Yeah. And now, I had always been told that Walmart account was the third largest export market alone
00:18:08.920for Chinese products. When you now look at, and that was before the surge and the market power of
00:18:17.480Amazon, the United States now has to be easily the number one market, and number two, and number three,
00:18:25.800as you break down the various sectors of our economy, it add to, you were talking about the debt
00:18:31.480that's held by the Chinese, that's less worrisome to me than some others might consider appropriate,
00:18:38.280because I think that is some, in some ways, a countervailing force to the fact that China is
00:18:45.960holding hostages against America now. We were mentioning Walmart, Home Depot, all of the big
00:18:54.600box stores bringing in all of those exports from China. We're utterly dependent upon. Big Pharma is
00:19:01.320utterly dependent on China. But interestingly, we not only have that dependency, which makes us vulnerable,
00:19:08.680but we have major corporations, whether it is Tesla, whether it is any one of the major companies,
00:19:18.280Apple, certainly foremost amongst those in technology, that's actually held hostage by China,
00:19:25.720because their production, their intellectual property is in the is in the hands of the communist
00:19:34.200Chinese. And, and no one wants to acknowledge that reality. What do you think, Jonathan?
00:19:39.800I mean, Trump tried so hard with TikTok to recognize the threat and try to explain to the American people
00:19:49.800the threat that TikTok wasn't an app. TikTok wasn't some program that was going to tell you where your
00:19:58.200favorite pastrami sandwich that your restaurant was. TikTok is an algorithm that can pick up every part of
00:20:09.400your life in understanding your likes, your dislikes, what your impression by, how you're motivated, how you're
00:20:16.280saddened, everything. And they could use deep fake to actually change the mindset of people.
00:20:24.28010 people in a room could be impacted in 10 different ways off of TikTok. And Trump realized that it wasn't
00:20:33.560about, you know, the pastrami sandwich. It was who and how they were going to message to change the thought
00:20:43.320in direction and trajectory of the American public. And they're very successful at taking a long game.
00:20:50.520And we keep losing it because we keep standing up for the boardroom
00:20:56.360and instead of the people, and we need to start to stand up for Americans, citizens, world citizens,
00:21:04.120and protecting world freedom as opposed to going down a road of, you know, all of us becoming Uyghurs.
00:21:14.520Exactly. And I have to tell you, I am amused at the farcical limited minds of Hollywood as they try to
00:21:24.520grapple with the woke, the woke movement in this country, talking, spewing utter nonsense that they,
00:21:33.400as they do about politics, the, the neo-Marxists that make up the leadership of the Democratic Party,
00:21:41.880and, and saying they just simply, we have to, you know, be something quite different than we are,
00:21:48.920as they do business with the Chinese on an unprecedented level now, whether it's in production,
00:21:55.080whether it is in the actual distribution of movies, they can, you know, for example, AMC
00:22:00.680theaters, the largest theater chain in the United States is Chinese owned. And, and meanwhile, they're
00:22:08.200selling out to Chinese communists who are defying everything that they say they stand for. These are
00:22:17.080some of the most ignorant people in this country, those people running Hollywood right now, because
00:22:22.760they are simply in it to get bigger, as you said, to make more money. The Chinese have more money,
00:22:29.080and therefore the Chinese will win in Hollywood. But you're watching them take control of the content
00:22:34.920of American movie making. We are watching. They dictate the actor. Absolutely. They dictate the
00:22:45.400producer, director. And they scare the hell out of everyone. The Wall Street, those financiers, some of
00:22:54.440the wealthiest people in the world, sit on Wall Street and are scared to death to come out against
00:23:00.680anything that China does, any policy. We're talking about supply chain disruption. That isn't what we're
00:23:07.080really talking about. What we're really talking about is the craven American business community,
00:23:13.480corporate America, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, who sent American jobs to the
00:23:20.200cheapest foreign labor markets, played wage arbitrage with the future of millions of Americans. And guess what?
00:23:29.400Those American workers, their families lost and lost big. And we are seeing this come home
00:23:36.520as we are now dependent on factories and production facilities spread all over principally Asia
00:23:44.840that are just not working because the Chinese also just happen to own the vast majority of container
00:23:53.560ships bringing all of those goods to America. And that reality is escaping nearly everyone, it seems,
00:24:01.960in Congress, in the Senate, and the White House. They see it as just a benign, competitive moment.
00:24:11.880The White House and our State Department under the current administration is more concerned
00:24:21.320with a green revolution. And will Xi Jinping commit to, you know, carbon neutral by 2060 or 2050? And,
00:24:33.960oh yeah, he'll sign that. Okay, give him what he wants. Everything is being dictated by this green
00:24:40.360initiative, which is unrealistic because they're not going to withstand an agreement. China has never
00:24:47.800agreed. They didn't agree to phase one and live up to it. They have not agreed and committed to any of
00:24:53.240their issues. But going back to the shipping containers, there's about 53,900 shipping containers
00:25:00.600on the water right now. The Maritime Association made an agreement to change the engine types from bunker fuel
00:25:09.240engine types to diesel and natural gas. And they were supposed to do this in 2020. Now, the 15 largest
00:25:16.520container ships owned by the Chinese emit as much pollution as 780 million automobiles, which is nearly the population of
00:25:27.320automobiles in the world. So even if you electrify all those 780 million cars and forget what coal
00:25:35.720production is going to do to generate that electricity. But even if you electrify it, you've only taken care
00:25:41.880of 15 container ships. There's 53,900 left. So we're heating our waters at the tune of four nuclear bombs
00:25:50.440a day. And our icebergs aren't melting from the top. They're melting from the bottom. I call it the
00:25:56.840Titanic effect. Hollywood created the Titanic movie. And you all learned one thing from watching Titanic,
00:26:04.680is that 90% of the iceberg is underwater and 10% is above water. But if you open up your computer
00:26:12.280and you look at any of the melting icebergs in the North Pole or the Arctic, they're crashing into
00:26:19.320the water. That means the 90% has melted away. And why is it melted away over the last 20 years?
00:26:26.120Because of globalization. And globalization is at risk right now. And their plan has to be changed.
00:26:36.760You know, one other point that I wanted to add to what you said was, when we look at
00:26:42.920our politicians, we consider the Israelis to be the most sophisticated on the intelligence side,
00:26:48.680on the technology side and everything. They basically gave their port to the
00:26:59.320Shanghai International Port Group for $1.7 billion. That was the cheapest investment
00:27:06.440that China ever made in intelligence gathering. Because they now know every container,
00:27:13.400what's included in it, what military, what technology, what they're shipping to which country they're
00:27:21.640shipping it from, which is Israel, and to. And you're carrying, you know, more than 18,000 containers
00:27:31.240out of that port. And these Israelis, who are the smartest in the intelligence game,
00:27:39.720gave their black book to the Chinese for $1.7 billion.
00:27:47.320It's stunning how stupid the Chinese make just about everybody in the world look. I frankly can't
00:27:54.520think of that exception. So I'll say just about everybody, but I think it's everybody in the world.
00:28:01.800They are outworking us, they're out thinking us, and they're out maneuvering us. And when I say us,
00:28:07.800I'm talking about the United States, I'm talking about European nations, and I'm certainly talking
00:28:12.920about Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and certainly Africa. It is stunning what they've managed to
00:28:20.440achieve in the last 30 years. And they've done so because the West has become indolent, unimaginative,