Transcript
Speaker: Hello, and welcome to Sips and Substance, where we distill politics down to its essence. I'm Justin. I'm here Jonathan over here. lo And this week, we are going on a world tour of foreign policy. So I'm going to hand it off to Jonathan, and he's going to tell us why we're doing this at this moment in time.
Speaker: Yeah. So the the inspiration for this this week is a little bit sad. um A former professor of mine, Joe Nye, who is far more accomplished than being a former professor of mine, he was um was assistant secretary defense for a while and and on and hand to the National Intelligence Council and stuff like that, but also a very important figure in international relations scholarship.
Speaker: He actually coined the phrase soft power, and he wrote extensively on another term that he he championed was interdependence, um basically an approach to the world that says, hey, we're more than just military power back and forth.
Speaker: Right. There's lots of things going on at other levels between countries. And we're going to talk about the stuff that's going on with that in mind today. Also, i had i mean I had a big class with him. It was one of my favorite anecdotes from my Harvard undergrad.
Speaker: We were in big class. It's like a thousand people in Sanders Theater Memorial Church, the intro to IR class. And in the middle, he's teaching away and he just stops and he stares out at one student and...
Speaker: and doesn't say anything. And then the student who was reading a newspaper stopped and looked up and he just pointed at him and get out. He's like, oh, I'll put her away in it away. Nope, get out. Threw him out of the class right there in front of a thousand people.
Speaker: It was tremendous. A little hard power there, but we'll go through soft power um with both hard and soft power in mind when we're talking about these issues.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a little intense. Probably wouldn't be able to get away with that these days. He probably could, but he I don't know that he would anymore. But it is, it's so I don't do that in my classes, but I do, you it said a good lesson that don't let people mess around in class, make them pay attention.
Speaker: if they don't want to pay attention, feel free to leave. Yeah, so we're going to go over the papacy. India versus Pakistan, is Israel versus Gaza, Ukraine mineral deal, the US-UK trade deal, in air quotes.
Speaker: And then we're also going to talk about the trade war that we have with China from the Chinese perspective, just to see just to give us some insight into how each side is reacting at the moment.
Speaker: Before we do, I have a couple beers. I'm continuing sort of my fridge clean out. um This week is Cinco de Mayo week. So I have a couple of Mexican lagers. going start off with a Mexican lager from Gravity Brewing, which is a small little place down the street from me.
Speaker: You won't be able to find that anywhere outside of here. um But it's ah it's a pretty standard Mexican lager. They ah brew a a normal lager and they throw in some... some Corn, so it's a little bit sweeter, kind of balances out the hops. um it's If I had to choose a Mexican lager, it's not my absolutely favorite style, but it's a pretty solid um example of of the ones they do with corn.
Speaker: And then if we go a little bit, I think we're going a little bit longer today. i'll probably need two beers. So I've got the Ska Mexican lager, which I like a little bit better. it's It's not done with corn. It's done with a Mexican yeast strand, I think.
Speaker: um And it's, to me, a little better balanced beer, um a little more crisp. But both of them, solid beers.
Speaker: So our first stop in the world is the Vatican. And as the resident Catholic of the group, I think I'll take over for this one. Yes, i'm I'm going to defer to Justin here because, as he said, he's the resident Catholic. like And despite the fact we're going to be talking about independence and soft power, always like the Stalin quote about the Pope. It's like, yeah how many divisions does the Pope have?
Speaker: um Meaning has an impact in culture and such, but when it comes to international relations, not so much. right um and And also, you know you think about the the Well, I wasn't alive to notice this, but there was mass hysteria among certain elements in this country when John Kennedy ran for president.
Speaker: The idea was, oh, the Pope's going to control Kennedy and the Pope will really be president, and it didn't really come to pass. So in general, i i think I tend to think the Pope is not the be-all and end-all that he used to be, but certainly something to pay attention to.
Speaker: There is going to be a lot of analysis about every little thing that the Pope does. And we're not here to do that. We're not going to extrapolate like, oh, he wore this particular vestment.
Speaker: Therefore, for the next 20 years, he's going to operate in this way. No, that's not what we're going to do. Because we can't do criminal criminology like that anymore. We could do popology. That would be. Yeah, I see your point.
Speaker: But the Catholic Church, it does love its symbols. And I do think that you can read into some things here because there is some very obvious symbolism. And another thing, another caveat I want to mention is we cannot analyze the Catholic Church through the American left-right lens.
Speaker: That is silly. So anyone who says that the Pope is going progressive or conservative because they have this stance, it doesn't make sense. So keep that in mind.
Speaker: So the first symbol that we want to analyze, he chose the name Leo, which in Latin stands for lion, and that symbolizes strength and courage. And based on reporting, he chose that name rather quickly.
Speaker: And there have been a lot of great Leo popes. You know, Leo I, he convinced Attila the Hun to not sack Rome, and he came up with one of the most instrumental Catholic doctrines. You also have the last Leo, Leo the thirteenth And he acted as a pillar of the church during the Industrial Revolution. He tried to guide the church through modernity.
Speaker: As for the other Leos, I don't want to talk about them because the history is not that great. Go look it up on Wikipedia, but it's gotten pretty bad. Let's say it's a mixed bag. Yes.
Speaker: But here is a question, though. are you really surprised that a Pope can come up with a name quickly? Do you really think any of those Cardinals in that thing don't know what their Pope name is going to be if they get elected?
Speaker: Hard to say. but and Human nature says it, at least given it a thought. It's a occurred in the past, what their name is going to be. I imagine that during the conclave, the the first vote, it's, you know, four or five different people. And then they slowly converge onto a consensus candidate. And I think by the,
Speaker: you know say third or fourth round, the future Pope sort of knows what's going to happen. It's not like the movie where it was like this big surprise. so you know, although to be fair, this was kind of a surprise.
Speaker: Yes. An American Pope. That was shocking. I remember when we were texting about it. Oh, who's it going to be? know, I was rooting for the Filipino because coming from San Diego,
Speaker: There's a large Filipino community. I thought that had been really cool. And you were like, no, they're probably going to go Italian. You know, bring it back. Or we both thought could have been Trump.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But an American, that was not in our bingo cards and definitely not on Polymarket. Someone made a lot of money and most people lost their ass there. But this... aspect of choosing a Pope from the quote new world. This is sort of continuing John Paul II's legacy of opening up the church outside of Europe.
Speaker: So what do you think it means that, I mean, again, i don't really know the inner workings of the Catholic church. What do you think it means that we have an American Pope? So reporting has said that they didn't consider his American identity.
Speaker: And I just find that really hard to believe. do think that, i do think that It wasn't the determining factor. i think the church is sort of looking to for for a bridge. You know, you have some traditionalist groups, you have some progressive groups.
Speaker: And inevitably, especially in American politics, you have various schools of thought within the Catholic Church. And I think they were just looking for a consensus candidate. And that was the most important thing.
Speaker: Do you think he'll be able to bridge? I mean, because we, again, make doesn't make sense to talk about left and the liberal and conservative in in the Catholic hierarchy, but it does make sense to talk about sort of progressive and conservative Catholics.
Speaker: Do you think he'll be able to sort of mend some of the gaps that opened up among the last Pope? I couldn't tell you. I think you'll have to like go to like a Catholic news. Come on, you're the Catholic. You're my Catholic.
Speaker: Yeah, that's not for me. I can't in good faith say, oh, yeah, this this is my like good prediction because I don't know. you I would assume. I'm reminded of Justice Souter who recently passed away, right?
Speaker: you know Everyone thought he was going to be this kind of justice, but then the nature of the office changed him. And that could certainly happen with the papacy. Yes. yeah And I do think since you brought him up, we should but send spend a couple minutes talking about Justice Souter because I think he deserves some attention.
Speaker: um As I've said before, he was my all time favorite justice, least through my lifetime, simply because he was unpredictable. And he seemed to really embrace the idea of treating every case on its merits and not through an ideological lens.
Speaker: And he passed away. um Was it this morning? Yes. And but his jurisprudence style has passed away a long time ago. And I think we we're a poorer country for it.
Speaker: And we could use more justices and judges and people at all levels that sort of disdain the ideological lens for what's the best way to look at this. Speaking of which, I do think that him being an American Pope, even if his identity isn't going to drive his decision making, I do think that the world is going to view the papacy through an American lens.
Speaker: And oftentimes perception becomes reality. And even if the Pope doesn't want this to happen, there is going to be a contrast between the U S government and the papacy.
Speaker: I just don't see any way around that. you know, yes, there's Trump right now, but Trump is only going to be president for four more years. This is a young Pope. He's 69 years old right now. So conceivably, you know, knock on wood, he's going to be there for at least 20 years.
Speaker: So that's at least five presidencies. And again, you're going to have two pillars, you know, the church and the state and the rest of the world is just going to look at America through those two lenses.
Speaker: To conclude this segment, it does make me a little bit uneasy that he chose the name Leo because this indicates that the church wants to project strength and courage during uncertain times.
Speaker: And my opinion is if the Catholic church feels the need to do that, the world really is in crisis and yeah know we're we're going to go through the various stops in the world during this episode, but you know the Catholic church has seen a lot of shit in 2000 years.
Speaker: And so I just think that's, it should make everyone uneasy that the church is saying, e this this is not a good time for the world. Well, I'm not quite as in on that as you are. Cause don't think, you know, the catholic the mean the Catholic church has been crying about any number of issues for as long as I've been alive.
Speaker: So, I do think that, yes, we certainly have issues. um But like I said before, I'm guessing knew what name he was going to pick before before he suddenly got inspiration divine inspiration when he was chosen.
Speaker: um as as As impressive as it is to be insane and inside the ah the the church, and the Sistine Chapel where he was named, I'm sure. that There's plenty of inspiration to be found. But but I, again, i think it'll be interesting to see what impact, if any, he has on American Catholics and way he might be able to bridge sort of the gaps between them.
Speaker: um But again, remains to be seen. So our next stop in the world is the Kashmir region. so So why do we care about this India-Pakistan conflict?
Speaker: And you know according to J.D. Vance, we shouldn't. But I think anytime you have two nuclear powers, in conflict, it should make everyone a little bit uneasy. And we want to make sure that things deescalate.
Speaker: Yeah, I think a good rule of thumb is whatever J.D. Vance thinks, maybe we should at least examine the opposite position. And because here we should care quite a bit. Because yeah, the they are two nuclear armed pout states, and they are two states with diametrically opposed religious groups as well, and a long history of hatred.
Speaker: And not a history of moderating their religion, but a history of recent history of their religion becoming more extreme. So I think we should pay attention to this quite a bit, um because who knows what's going to happen.
Speaker: Let's hope cooler heads prevail, but they haven't so far. Right. And these are very large countries. I don't think people understand the scale of these two countries.
Speaker: Pakistan, you know you look at Pakistan on a map you compare it to America and you're like, oh, okay, Pakistan looks small. There's 250 million people in Pakistan. In India, there's 1.4 billion. so So for those of you who aren't familiar with the Kashmir region, basically you can blame the British here for their expertly drawn borders.
Speaker: ah They're the best border designers of all time. But That whole region was a British colony, and then the British decided to break it up based off of, as you said, ethnic and religious lines.
Speaker: To be fair to the British, and we don't want to give them a free pass for their colonization efforts, because really not not really a high watermark for the world, right? But there was really no way for them to pull out of India without breaking it up.
Speaker: Sure. right Because with the breakup, there were I believe it was over a million people were killed during the the the separation. It was very bloody. And if there wasn't a breakup, probably more people would be i Probably most of the Muslims, since there's a lot more Hindus and Muslims in India.
Speaker: right um So, I mean, like the one thing that the colonization efforts did is kind of keep them from... keep the the two religious sides the fanatics on both sides from killing each other as much as they might and as much as they seem to be inclined to do right now um but yeah so once you had the partition as it was called right um The area Kashmir, which is up in the in the Himalaya Mountains, um bordering between India and Pakistan and also China, who also plays a role here.
Speaker: Even claim a little bit of it. Yes, they took ah their rewards with China and India and I think with Pakistan, but i'm not I don't remember all of that off the top of my head, but it's very indetermined who has what.
Speaker: And so there's been a lot of conflict over this. um One of the main reasons is a lot of water comes from that area. And it's very important to both countries, especially important to Pakistan, because these water the the Indus River flows right down into Pakistan and basically allows the country to live.
Speaker: Yeah, so so that's one of the bright spots, I think, the Indus Waters Treaty, which basically says to both countries, hey, water rights, everyone everyone has access to water. And that's been one of the main stabilizing forces in that region because there've been a lot of conflicts that have broken out, but the Indus waters treaty has been the pillar that keeps things from spiraling out of control.
Speaker: So in the show notes, we have a lot more detail if you wanna look into it, but I think we've covered the main aspects ah so far. So what happened for this particular conflict?
Speaker: Well, there was a really gruesome terrorist attack where you know men were separated based on the religion. you know There's been reports that they actually inspected genitalia to see if you were circumcised.
Speaker: They made you recite some Muslim prayers to see if you're Muslim or Hindu. And then they executed the Hindus and apparently one Christian. So obviously horrific.
Speaker: And from India's point of view, they believe that the Pakistanis are basically providing cover for various terrorist groups. you know, there isn't strong evidence to support this, but the Pakistani intelligence services, the ISI, they have a very mixed record. And I'm sure a lot of Americans remember how bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan near a military um training academy for years at that compound.
Speaker: And so there's been a lot of suspicion to say the least. Yeah. And I think, I mean, it's sad to say, but this is kind of par for the course for what goes on between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, right? There are terrorist attacks. There's attacks, there's responses across the border.
Speaker: um People are killed on both sides. And in terms of the the horror that goes on with these, this particular incident was not exceptional in the number of deaths there were.
Speaker: right What has been exceptional is that the Indians are basically at the point where like, that's enough. And I think what we're seeing is, again, as I mentioned before, like very hard line religious fanatics ah um in the government.
Speaker: Hindu nationalism is a big thing now with the government in India, whereas before they were more likely to be be restrained and have restraint in their responses. um At this point, they're not so they're not so inclined to do that.
Speaker: And as you just talked about, the the Indus Waters Treaty, one of the first things they've done ears cut off water, right? They're telling Pakistan, you know, we're not going to give you the water anymore.
Speaker: And then they attacked into Pakistan, which usually they don't. Usually they keep attacks back and forth in the Kashmir region. Attacks are wider and the water is threatened in Pakistan, which is a huge problem. If they do actually cut off water, millions of people will end up starving in Pakistan.
Speaker: Yeah, so it's definitely a terrible sign that the water treaty has been suspended. As we mentioned earlier, this has been one of the constants during all the conflicts where that was sort of off limits. And so for this to now be on the table as sort of response is a pretty massive escalation on part of India.
Speaker: One thing that I find really interesting is in this situation, modern world that we live in, the information space is almost as important as the actual military space.
Speaker: So we've seen a lot of footage from the Russia-Ukraine war. We've seen a lot of footage from the Israel-Gaza war, and that drives public opinion. And it in that public opinion is driving a lot of the decision making. So if you can show military victories by showing planes being shot out of the sky, that's going to drive up a lot of support.
Speaker: It's going to drive up nationalism. And so far what we've seen is there's been a lot of fake news, so to speak, where they're showing footage from the Russia-Ukraine war and saying, oh look at what's happening here.
Speaker: And I think it's really good to find some trustworthy OSINT guys, so open source intelligence folks, because they're really good at pointing out this fake news nonsense and saying, oh, no, this is actually when a a chemical explosion occurred in Beirut.
Speaker: Or they could say, oh, this was a Indian train exercise from two years ago that went awry. Finding those people is really important in order to combat misinformation in the information space, I think.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's i mean particularly useful when we seem to have a president that responds to the latest last things he's seen on TV, right? um So yeah, hopefully we're we're keeping, we're cutting through, I imagine we are with our intelligence services.
Speaker: um So that's that's not going to be an issue with our policymaking. But it does raise the question of, well, if J.D. Vance is wrong, and we think he is, what should we do? And if you think about this in a world of interdependence and soft power,
Speaker: We should be in a position where we can use our influence of both sides to talk them down. um It would be a great opportunity to nudge both of them away from China, except we're kind of throwing all that away by cutting off foreign aid and having tariffs um just unilaterally imposed.
Speaker: So it puts us in a bad position to be somebody that can help with resolve this crisis when we need somebody to help resolve this crisis. we are We put ourselves in the worst position we could be in as somebody both sides are going to respect and trust to work out an honest compromise.
Speaker: So you mentioned how we're not getting involved, but you know who is getting involved? China. The Pakistanis have been very clear that they have at least some support from China.
Speaker: They are bragging about how their jets made in China how they're doing against the Indian jets. And we actually had the largest dogfight since I think like World War II, right? There was 125 jets in the air.
Speaker: And it was really interesting because the jets were all flying in their regions. they They never crossed the border, so to speak. Well, was a very modern dogfight, right, where they're not you're not mixing it up. like It's not like if you're used to, if you watch like the Midway movie and the planes are right, that's not what happens. They're shooting missiles at each other from far away.
Speaker: As I was saying before, and as you said there, it's a good chi time to push things away from China. But since we're not, China's happily stepping in and using it as an opportunity to and in expand their influence.
Speaker: So we'll we'll see what happens. I do think it's a bad sign that the water use is suspended. But the fact that the jets are fighting on their side and just launching air to air missiles from across the border, that's probably a good sign.
Speaker: Even though you know some of the jets are getting destroyed, at least the border is being respected to some degree. But we'll see what happens. And then one thing to think about what the the treaty the water treaty violation, that's the kind of thing that India could then go back on without really giving anything up, and just going back to the status quo. So maybe they're thinking about it as a bargaining chip. Let's let's hope.
Speaker: And let's hope that somebody in our government is thinking, you know what, maybe we should try to convince these two nuclear powers not to go into all-out war, because that would be ah that would just be bad news for everybody involved.
Speaker: So now we're gonna go back and we're gonna land in Kyiv. We're gonna talk about the Ukraine mineral deal that was just unanimously passed by the Ukrainian parliament. So earlier on, you and I were discussing how we were effectively strong arming Ukraine.
Speaker: yeah And the mineral deal that was initially proposed was pretty outrageous. we were We claimed that we gave them 500 billion in aid and that Ukraine had to effectively give us that amount back.
Speaker: We cut off intelligence, we cut off weapons, and it wasn't looking good. We effectively threw them under the bus. And I'm sure a lot of our viewers and listeners remember how the White House press conference got out of hand.
Speaker: when JD Vance, in my opinion, spoke out of line. That that's was really inappropriate for a vice president to do that. Well, I don't think you're the only one who thinks that way. The deal that we we recently struck right was much better than that, but is still strong-arming Ukraine. We are basically requiring them to give us profits from their mineral ah for their mineral wealth to offset costs for us to help them.
Speaker: um Again, still a shakedown, but not quite as bad of a shakedown. But in terms of what this actually does, We're again, just completely oblivious to the ramifications of this.
Speaker: Here we have an ally and we're again, we're still telling them, even though a little less offensively than before, that we're only gonna support you as long as you pay us. And we're not even gonna guarantee to support you.
Speaker: We just want you to pay us. and If you understand at all interdependence and soft power, you're going to know you get a lot of goodwill from supporting one ally amongst all your other allies. They're like, oh, okay, our ally can be trusted.
Speaker: But when we don't, all of our other allies are thinking, we can't really rely on these people. We need to do something um to figure out an alternative for us.
Speaker: right If we were paying any attention to how the world interacts, we would eat all these costs and direct any and all profits the Ukraine's getting from their their minerals to rebuilding Ukraine like the Marshall Plan.
Speaker: We got so much goodwill from the Marshall Plan and... so much benefit out of having Europe be strong and an ally with us that we should be more than happy and excited to do that again with Ukraine.
Speaker: But we're just looking at the short term gains and what we can get out of helping you. We're not going to help you unless it's in our best interests monetarily and immediately. And it just completely misses the picture of why you have allies and what how how how this relationship can benefit everyone involved.
Speaker: Yeah, and I don't even see the short-term gains here. Well, I mean, Trump gets to be the tough guy, right? Sure, sure but I mean, like, the actual pragmatic effects here, Well, yeah, because there's no money until the war is over.
Speaker: Not only that, but the Russians control a large amount of those natural resources. So what's the plan to get them out of that region? It just is very large. It's largely symbolic, in my opinion.
Speaker: Sure. It's basically we're showing people we're not a reliable ally for no real benefit. I will say that Ukraine has played the cards really well here because i do think that the reality is they are a small fish in a big pond.
Speaker: You have Russia killing hundreds of thousands of their citizens, and you have America with all of its wealth and military might basically calling the shots.
Speaker: And We all know Trump's attitude towards the Russians. It's more Russian than previous presidents, to say the least. that That's a very generous way of putting it. Yes. But the fact that even Trump and a lot of these anti-Ukraine hawks, if you want to call them that, they're starting to see the writing on the wall that Russia is not negotiating good faith.
Speaker: And the fact that Ukraine has been able to push America in that direction by accepting a deal that's not particularly great, I think that's wise for them to do that.
Speaker: Yeah. But again, i mean, any deal you make with Trump is only as good as today. Right. Yeah. So who knows how long it's going to last? mean,
Speaker: I'm not very optimistic on Ukraine's future immediate future. let's Let's hope I'm wrong. and Neither am I, but at the same time, when Trump got elected, I think It was one of the situations where Ukraine just screwed.
Speaker: We're going to just completely abandon them. And and so yeah here here we are in May. And you know what? think Things we were not the worst case scenario. So i think that's something to celebrate. And hopefully we can at least move in the right direction. But maybe I'm just too much of an optimist here. Let's hope. Yes.
Speaker: and So the the next cruising around all the all the wars in the world um brings us to the Israel-Gazo conflict next. um And not a whole lot has changed there, um except that Israel's ramping up the pressure again.
Speaker: and They've cut off all... All incoming aid, including food for the last, I think, couple months now, basically resorting to medieval siege tactics. We're going to starve you out and not caring that the main people who suffer from this are the civilians, specifically children.
Speaker: Right. Not eating isn't good for children. um odd Odd to think that, but that's the way it is. um And they're preparing to launch a major offensive. They're calling up reserves. um They maybe want to take over all international aid and make sure everything goes through them.
Speaker: um And we're more or less cheering them on and supplying them more weapons. um So, again, puts us in a very weird spot.
Speaker: Yeah, especially since even though the initial ceasefire was agreed upon during the Biden administration, I don't think we can doubt that the Trump administration helped get that over the finish line.
Speaker: Oh, certainly. And even if Hamas violated that ceasefire. That's debatable whether or not they did or who who violated it first.
Speaker: But the reaction from Israel, and I think, is a bit over the top, to say the least. we We've talked about this before, where where's the strategy? You know, what what is the long term solution here?
Speaker: And there still isn't one. If you believe that the Israeli government is going to go full annexation, and take over the West Bank and Gaza. Okay, but they don't have the ability to do that, right? So there's no plan. Well, I don't know. I think they do have the ability to do that.
Speaker: they At this point, they still don't have quite the political will to do it. um But one of the reasons why they're even considering things like that is that we're just not involved in the way we should be, right? Right.
Speaker: They are the minor ally in this relationship between us and them. And we're basically letting them dictate what's going on there. And you might think, oh, you know, it's their issue, right? We should let them take the lead. And in a lot of regards, we should.
Speaker: But it's this is blowing up all sorts of political stability in the Middle East, right? If they ended up kicking people out of... Gaza, right? They're going to go into Egypt, and that would cause all sorts of instability in Egypt.
Speaker: If they annex the West Bank, where are they going to go? The Palestinians would have to go to Jordan. It would cause all kinds of problems in Jordan, and all of our alliances with these countries would be threatened because Israel is making these these nations...
Speaker: potentially unstable. right And by backing them, it kills our credibility as an honest broker in the area. i mean, if you're Egypt or Jordan or Syria or whatever, are you going to trust the United States to be an honest middleman when you're trying to negotiate with Israel?
Speaker: Not if you're paying attention, right? um the The only thing you can say that we've done is like, we've declared victory over the Houthis, which, yay, but it that doesn't help with the major issue of the day, which is we're not, we don't have any sort of control or handle handle over what's going on between Israel and Gaza. We're letting Israelis do whatever they want.
Speaker: And because Israel has no real strategy and Netanyahu's only approach is I need to keep the ri the the far right wing happy so they stay in the government so I don't go to jail.
Speaker: This is where we are, where we're at. On to happier things. We're talk about the US-UK trade deal and we're going tie that into the trade war with China.
Speaker: So we have this amazing deal, according to Trump, and this deal isn't finalized yet. We are basically only talking about high level agreements here.
Speaker: And the way I see it is the fact that we're touting this as some major policy win is really assign a sign of weakness. you know, the British account for like, what, 3% of our trade, something along those lines.
Speaker: And there's, it's fairly balanced trade. There's not like there's some massive trade imbalance that we have with the UK. Yeah. So the the fact that they feel that they need to trot this out, that they have this amazing win right now, really shows that we're not in a good negotiating position position for China and every other country that we've just enacted all these tariffs on.
Speaker: Yeah, i think that the that's i think that's a great point. And the other point to make is that even with this deal, right, the 10% baseline tariff is still there. So everything for American consumers from the UK is all 10% more expensive. So if you were planning to buy that Rolls Royce, Justin, you better fork out an extra 10%.
Speaker: Now I can't afford it. Well, yeah. The fortunes of war, right? But yeah, and I think that's the major, I agree with you. The major takeaway is here, this deal is not much at this point, but it's, oh, we need something that we can show a win.
Speaker: So here we go. um and Whereas what we ought to be doing is realizing this is art one of our closest allies and has been for over 100 years.
Speaker: And we should be aligning with our closest ally if we're really going to fight a trade war versus our adversaries. But we're not doing that at all. We've blown up the entire international trade system, not understanding the interdependence of all these economies.
Speaker: If we screw with everybody else's economy, it's going to have a real impact on our economy. Now, Trump thinks he's smarter than everybody else, um which I guess includes Joe Nye. um because he doesn't think smart soft power matters at all and interdependence isn't real.
Speaker: But we're going to find that it is, especially if we take a look at the trade war from China's perspective. the The most interesting thing, I think, that i guess a place to start is that despite what Trump has told us about tre tariffs and everybody else caving in and kissing his ass and all that, China's holding out.
Speaker: They're not giving in. They're waiting for the U.S. to blink. Because we are going to blink. We're already blinking. Today, Trump said, hey, you know what? We could maybe reduce these tariffs down to 80%, which is still absurd and ridiculous, but it's dropped down 65% from where they are now.
Speaker: And China sees this and they're not going to give in. And why would they, right? There's absolutely no reason for them to give in because they know that they can win this.
Speaker: I think it's useful to delve in a little bit into why they're resisting. other than they why do they Why do they want to resist and then why do they think they can win? One of the things that to to think about when you think about why China is resisting is the concept of face.
Speaker: but Losing face in Chinese culture is more much more important than it is in American culture, even when you think about Trump. Trump is a guy, he's never going to apologize, never going to back down.
Speaker: Well, in China, it's even more important. Xi cannot afford to look weak. His entire political system is built around his strength. And if he were to back down in the face of Trump making threats and demands of him, it's going to call into question the entire Communist Party system.
Speaker: And he's just he cannot do that. And the other aspect, right, is Chinese nationalism. Like, we're fairly patriotic in this country. And, and you know, Trump tries to gin up the patriotism, um especially in the MAGA types, and bordering on, if not fully embracing jingoism.
Speaker: But Xi has turned nationalism into a weapon that he uses to stay in power. Right. He's you. They use nationalism to deflect away from any domestic problems.
Speaker: And the ultra nationalists are basically turned loose on all of Chinese China's enemies. And once you've unleashed them, they're hard to wrangle. It's hard to control them. And it's hard. It would be very hard for Xi to say, you know what?
Speaker: We've been saying China first and China this and China that. and we're not going to give up to the Americans. But yeah, why not? but it's just It's just not going to happen. Xi cannot afford to lose face, and he cannot afford to back down in the face of a threat to China as a nation, as viewed through this nationalist lens, especially since a large part of what Xi is saying sort of basing his approach to governing on is the nationalist interest in taking back Taiwan.
Speaker: Well, if we back down from the United States here, it causes a real problem when we say we need to stay and stand tall against the Taiwanese and move always towards combining China and making one China again.
Speaker: It's just both of these policy issues or these aspects ah just argue against China giving out at all, right? Yeah, I think a lot of people might be shocked if they hear me say, we cannot win this.
Speaker: America has a history of being able to leverage its hard and soft power to a great degree. So why do I say that we can't win this?
Speaker: And I think the evidence can be traced back to COVID. And if you look at how the populations reacted to COVID, That's a pretty good indicator of how we just cannot win.
Speaker: And what it really boils down to is that the threshold of pain that the Chinese can tolerate is much, much, much higher. If you look at how China responded COVID, well, you got put in a concentration camp.
Speaker: You got locked into your apartment until you got better. In America, people were complaining about wearing masks. And you know what? We can discuss... you know whether or not that was violating our freedoms.
Speaker: But that's not the point. ah point Those discussions don't even get to happen in China. Right. And that' that's the point, right? Their tolerance for pain is just so much higher.
Speaker: Now, I do think that we could win a trade war if we got the rest of the world to go against China. And that's what... That's been the strategy for many, many years across various administrations.
Speaker: Even the Trump administration, the first one, they tried to get Chinese manufacturing to move to Vietnam. They want to use Vietnam as a way to isolate China. Japan and South Korea on our side, that was that would also be great.
Speaker: The Europeans on our side, also great. You may recall this whole thing with Huawei, back in, I think it was like the late 2010s, early 2020s, where America basically said, hey, you cannot use China for 5G.
Speaker: And you cannot ah use Huawei devices in America. And that that worked out really well. But now, based on our current position, that's probably not going to work.
Speaker: We've hurt all of our other allies. And From their perspective, why would they work with America on this particular issue? Europeans, they're they're not as, i don't want to say Sinophobic, but they're much less concerned about China than we are.
Speaker: Well, and there's no there's there's not even an opportunity for them to work with us because we have a trade war with them at the same time. We have a trade war with literally the entire world.
Speaker: Right. And to think that that's going to help us beat China, especially i mean when when you mentioned, you know, that China's. capacity for pain. There's a phrase that's ah an old Chinese saying, we will eat bitterness.
Speaker: We don't have that kind of saying, right? We have elections. They don't have elections. that We have short-term thinking. They have long-term thinking. One of the famous ah Chinese books on warfare is by Sun Tzu, and he's got a phrase, if you wait by the river long enough, you'll see your enemy floating by dead.
Speaker: And that's an important aspect of Chinese thinking, right? They also have total control of the media and social media. So How we think we're going to win when we have very little capacity for for pain in this country.
Speaker: We voted for Donald Trump because inflation was a little bit high. What are we going to do when there aren't you don't get toys for Christmas, even though Trump tells us two was good as good as 30, right? Yeah. right um We're in a trade war with everyone.
Speaker: So we have nobody on our side. And China sees this. They see that we really don't have an option, even though we announced this great trade deal with Great Britain. China can read as well as well as you and I can.
Speaker: And they can see as well as we do that there's nothing to that. And it's just very minor and ah minor trading partner. We have a real problem if we think we're going to be able to stand up to China and endure the the pains of a trade war longer than they can.
Speaker: And don't get me wrong, right? I want America to win a trade with China. Oh, certainly. we're just not but We just can't the way we're going about it. So, I mean, hopefully we're wrong, right? It would be great if we could...
Speaker: make sure that the Chinese influence throughout the world was degraded. Because at the end of the day they are not a good government. They are a totalitarian country. And in all honesty, some sort of trade reckoning with China can be a good idea, right?
Speaker: But the way we're doing it is just not. It's just, you can't think you're going to defeat... one of the other largest economies in the world without the help of your friends, right?
Speaker: Countries are enmeshed in terms of their economics. If we divert divorce ourselves from the interdependence we have with all our allies, China sees this. We're now on an island and we're just not in a strong position.
Speaker: And we don't need to be there. We've done it ourselves. That's the most that's the most disturbing part to me is we put ourselves in this position of our own accord. And here we are. so I think that's a pretty good place to wrap up. you know I always hate wrapping up on a you know down note, but it is what it is. and We've, in a way, brought this on ourselves.
Speaker: and i think it's really important that yeah we recognize all these various problems in the world, and we recognize America's place in all these conflicts.
Speaker: If we step back, if we isolate ourselves, Even if it's not our fight, someone else is going to put their influence on it.
Speaker: And then what are we going to do, right? If you have the power, you should use that power. You shouldn't just walk away willingly. And to just kind of wrap up with, again, the themes from from Joe Nye, it's like the world is an independent interdependent place, right?
Speaker: Even if we think, oh, it's not our problem, everything is so interconnected these days that one way or another, The ramifications are going to ripple down to us. Right. So do you want to just be on the receiving end of whatever else happens in the world?
Speaker: Or do you want to try to be able to control or influence the events? And I think, you know, previous administrations have all taken the point, the perspective that, hey, let's try to influence things.
Speaker: This pulling back, this isolationism, this America first, that's just it doesn't bode well. Let's say that. So with that said, make sure you tell your friends about this podcast, like, subscribe, and we'll see you next week.
Speaker: Bye-bye.
