🚨 Global Powers UNITE! 🚨
Investigative journalist Pepe Escobar joins Judge Napolitano to break down the powerful warning issued by Russia, China, and Iran to the United States. 🌐
🎙️ Deep geopolitical insights
⚖️ Candid analysis by Judge Nap
🕵️ Real truths the mainstream won’t tell you
⚠️ Is the U.S. pushing the world toward a new cold war? Nuclear tensions?
🔍 Don’t miss this explosive conversation on BRICS, military alliances, sanctions, and global power shifts.
💬 Drop your thoughts in the comments — Is the West ready for this challenge?
👉 Subscribe for more uncensored geopolitical truth bombs! 🔔
#PepeEscobar
#JudgeNapolitano
#RussiaChinaIran
#Geopolitics
#USForeignPolicy
#BRICS
#WorldWar3
#ChinaNews
#IranNews
#RussiaNews
#TruthUncovered
#GlobalWarning
#WesternMedia
#CensoredNews
#ForbiddenNews
#DeepState
#NewWorldOrder
#MilitaryTensions
#ColdWar2
#UnfilteredTruth
Investigative journalist Pepe Escobar joins Judge Napolitano to break down the powerful warning issued by Russia, China, and Iran to the United States. 🌐
🎙️ Deep geopolitical insights
⚖️ Candid analysis by Judge Nap
🕵️ Real truths the mainstream won’t tell you
⚠️ Is the U.S. pushing the world toward a new cold war? Nuclear tensions?
🔍 Don’t miss this explosive conversation on BRICS, military alliances, sanctions, and global power shifts.
💬 Drop your thoughts in the comments — Is the West ready for this challenge?
👉 Subscribe for more uncensored geopolitical truth bombs! 🔔
#PepeEscobar
#JudgeNapolitano
#RussiaChinaIran
#Geopolitics
#USForeignPolicy
#BRICS
#WorldWar3
#ChinaNews
#IranNews
#RussiaNews
#TruthUncovered
#GlobalWarning
#WesternMedia
#CensoredNews
#ForbiddenNews
#DeepState
#NewWorldOrder
#MilitaryTensions
#ColdWar2
#UnfilteredTruth
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Transcription by CastingWords
00:30Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
00:37Today is Tuesday, April 15th, 2025.
00:41Pepe Escobar will be here with us in just a minute from Beijing.
00:46But first this.
00:48While the markets are giving us whiplash, have you seen the price of gold?
00:52It's soaring.
00:53In the past 12 months, gold has risen to more than $3,000 an ounce.
00:57I'm so glad I bought my gold, it's not too late for you to buy yours.
01:03The same experts that predicted gold at $3,200 an ounce, now predict gold at $4,500 or more in the next year.
01:12What's driving the price higher?
01:14Paper currencies.
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02:16Pepe, welcome here, my dear friend.
02:18Thank you for accommodating my schedule.
02:22I know you're in China, and I have a lot of questions to ask you about the Chinese reaction, both political and economic, to President Trump's tariffs.
02:32But before we get there, some background questions on which I want to pick your brain.
02:37Do you sense there is a divide?
02:42What is that?
02:47Are you with us, Pepe?
02:51All righty.
02:52Hello.
02:53Yes.
02:54Okay.
02:54Can you see me?
02:55What was that that you just held up?
03:00100, you won, Bill.
03:01Because you mentioned paper wealth, and I'm presenting you and our audience through paper wealth.
03:07All right.
03:08We'll get to paper wealth in a minute.
03:09Do you sense that there is a divide in the president's foreign policy team between the neocons like Hegseth and Rubio and Gorka and Waltz and the America Firsters like Gabbard and Vance and Whitcoff?
03:28There is, and in terms of so-called China policy, it's an absolute disaster, because I would venture to say that none of them understand China.
03:42Just to give a little background for our audience, I spent the day today here in Shanghai at Fudan University.
03:48I had a seminar with Professor Zhang Weiwei, which is among the top three and top five Chinese intellectuals.
03:57And our theme was the Russia-China strategic partnership.
04:01But then, of course, it extrapolated, and we were discussing the U.S.-China relationship.
04:07Our audience was absolutely top of the line.
04:10PhD students from different areas at Fudan University.
04:15And something that you feel in the atmosphere here in Shanghai.
04:19I've been coming to Shanghai for over 30 years.
04:22And you feel in the streets not only the absolutely extraordinary tech development of China, but resilience, resistance, national pride, and enormous derision from taxi drivers to academics and diplomats
04:43in terms of the so-called China policy or different containment policies of the U.S.
04:49So this is really a new paradigm.
04:52China used to be passive in terms of appreciating the hyper-power and not unleashing their fury when they are mistreated.
05:03Which is how the Chinese nation at the moment, Judge, is evaluating this new stage of the trade war against China.
05:14Before we get to the trade war, the Secretary of Defense was in Japan 10 days ago, and he looked toward Taiwan and threatened China.
05:23How does China react to threats like that?
05:28I mean, it is inconceivable, I think, that the American military could defeat a Chinese military effort to isolate or take over Taiwan.
05:41And here we have the American Secretary of Defense threatening to do just that, just a few miles away.
05:51Yes, exactly.
05:53A Secretary of Defense doesn't know what ASEAN is and what BRICS are.
05:58Fantastic.
05:59As for his CV, no wonder Heg said, Rubio, and especially Trump, they are treated with utmost derision.
06:10In terms of a civilization state, 5,000 years like China, which what we were discussing this afternoon with Professor Zhang Weiwei, an incredibly smart PhDs from everywhere.
06:24And they were, at the same time, they were stunned by how this new American leadership knows virtually nothing about China.
06:38All right, we're hoping that the signal comes back.
06:48You were telling us that, okay, the new American leadership knows nothing about China.
06:54Pick up from there.
06:54Yes, for instance, very few people in the Beltway, Judge, including members of Team Trump 2.0, know about how the new Silk Roads were started by China, by President Xi, in Kazakhstan, 12 years ago, in fact, as an overarching Chinese foreign policy mechanism, geopolitical and geoeconomic.
07:20And also, very few know about the details of the project Made in China 2025.
07:27When Trump launched the first batch of sanctions against China at the beginning of Trump 1.0, these were against Made in China 2025.
07:38And what do we see now in Shanghai in terms of Made in China 2025?
07:43In 10 high-tech domains, China is already number one in seven and going to eighth and soon all 10.
07:53Well, let me ask you this.
07:57Who is hurt more by American presidentially imposed tariffs of 145%?
08:06Chinese manufacturers and consumers or American manufacturers and consumers?
08:12American manufacturers, consumers, and all the American multinationals who delocalized around the world, especially to Asia and especially here in China.
08:22Explain, please.
08:24Well, I would say this is a turbo capitalism process that started decades ago.
08:32When the American oligarchy, let's put it this way, and I'm being very diplomatic, decided to delocalize American manufacturing to East Asia, to the Asian tigers, and later on, especially to China.
08:47And then later on, to India or Vietnam, for instance, or both.
08:53So, obviously, American productive capacity in terms of a capitalist power was completely hollowed out and transferred abroad.
09:01So, expecting that American multinationals can relocate to the US whole factories, chains of production, in a matter of what, weeks or months, and start producing in the US is absolutely absurd.
09:20This is going to take, for each of these factories and these chains of production, three, four, five years, at least.
09:28And China has already way beyond that.
09:33And in terms of trade partnership, the US-China trade relation is a fraction of Chinese exports and Chinese global trade.
09:45China trades with the global south and the global majority as a whole.
09:50Do you know what President Xi Jinping is doing this week?
09:53I'm sure you and our audience knows.
09:56He's doing a tour.
09:56He's in Vietnam, is he not?
09:59A mini tour of Southeast Asia, Judge.
10:02Three top Southeast Asian nations.
10:05Now Malaysia.
10:06He left Vietnam and is going to Malaysia.
10:09Why?
10:10Because all the 10 members of the ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations, who is their number one trade partner for each and one of them?
10:20China.
10:21It's very simple.
10:22This afternoon, for instance, we were discussing China is, because of this circus dementia on the tariff issue, they're going to get even closer to their neighbors in ASEAN, in the south, to their neighbors in Central Asia, to the west.
10:39And of course, West Asia at the moment is a theater of war, which for the Chinese is a terrifying prospect.
11:07Because trade, potential trade partners in West Asia are very important.
11:12And the most important for them is Iran.
11:15Iran happens to be a BRICS member, a Shanghai Cooperation Organization member, and they have a strategic partnership with China.
11:25Iran, which brings us back to the zillion dollar question of if there's going to be a Zionist attack against Iran, it will be a Zionist attack against three top BRICS, because they all have interlocking strategic partnerships.
11:41Will those three top BRICS use their militaries to resist a Zionist or American or joint attack on Iran?
11:55Iran will, Russia and China, it depends.
12:00It's a very complex question, including the provisions in the Russia-Iran strategic partnerships signed end of January in Moscow and ratified by the Duma in the past few days.
12:14It's very, very, very important.
12:15What we know for sure is, if there was an attack, Russia would find ways to help Iran.
12:25What Putin describes, it's a beautiful alphemism, in fact, military technical measures.
12:32And the Russians are very good at that kind of thing.
12:36Would the Chinese find military and technical measures with which to aid the Iranians in an attack by the U.S. or Israel?
12:49Nobody can answer this question with certainty, Judge.
12:53The Chinese are not a warrior nation, first of all.
12:56Very, very important.
12:57But they will find endless ways to help the Iranian economy, depending how much the Iranian economy would suffer after such an attack, because they are their main partner in West Asia.
13:12And it all comes back to the overarching geopolitical and geoeconomic development of China, which is embodied in the new Silk Road, the Belt and Road Initiative.
13:24So, if there was an attack like that, it would be against Eurasia integration, against the Belt and Road Initiative by China, against the Russian notion, which in Moscow is called Greater Eurasia Partnership.
13:40That's the official denomination.
13:42And against leaders of the Global South and the Global Majority.
13:46Of course, for the moment, we are in the negotiating stage in Oman.
13:50So, the first one was not so bad, actually, much better than many of us expected.
13:54The second meeting is going to be next Saturday in Oman, between Witkoff and Arakshi, the Iranian foreign minister.
14:01So, at least they are talking.
14:03And here in China, they hyper-appreciate all that.
14:07But they don't expect any negotiation coming from the U.S.
14:11And the memes that you see around Shanghai and all over China, Judge, in terms of – it's the title of my latest column.
14:20A tariff-wielding barbarian could never expect a call from China.
14:25Well, that was going to be my next question.
14:27Will Donald Trump wait in vain for a call from President Xi?
14:33Would you mind if I ask you this question, Judge?
14:40I wouldn't mind.
14:41There's always a happy conversation with you.
14:47In my opinion, he will wait in vain.
14:51It would be like waiting for Godot, who never showed up.
14:54He will wait in vain for a call from President Xi Jinping, the Politburo, the academics, Professor Zhang Weiwei, which is extremely well-connected.
15:06He was discussing this this afternoon.
15:09And once again, this is the academic elite of China.
15:14Fudan University is one of the top universities in humanities, in history, philosophy, for instance.
15:21They are, if not number one, number two.
15:22And they are – it's a mix of being stunned, appalled, and at the same time, predictable, because they understand the circus, world wrestling federation aspect of the Trump administration.
15:35But there is something that they simply cannot accept, which is China being mistreated and treated with extreme disrespect.
15:47China, either the government, the Communist Party, or their investors, their wealthy residents, owns about a trillion dollars of United States debt, U.S. bonds.
16:03What are they going to do with it?
16:05That's a weapon that they can use against President Trump, is it not?
16:09Yes, it is, Judge.
16:11And did you see what happens when the Japanese started to use it, when the Japanese started to move the bond market?
16:18Well, the tariffs went away, or they went away everywhere except China.
16:22Exactly, Judge.
16:24The American oligarchy freaked out completely.
16:31And obviously, they picked up the phone.
16:33They called Donald Trump and said, you have to stop this now because we are losing money, and a lot of money.
16:40So if the Chinese do that, it's going to be even worse.
16:42Okay, Japan has more U.S. treasured bonds than China, but we are talking about almost, in the case of Japan, it's nearly $1 trillion.
16:51In the case of China, if I'm not mistaken, it's around $800 and $150 billion.
16:57That's a lot of funds.
16:59If they start unloading this via their, they have direct connections with traders in Wall Street.
17:05The Chinese can pick up the phone and call their favorite traders in Wall Street.
17:09They say, okay, go for it.
17:10They always, but this would be, I would say, the nuclear option.
17:17The Chinese are extremely...
17:19This would force the American government to raise the interest.
17:23It pays on these bonds, not only on future bonds, but on bonds that are already out there when they're rolled over.
17:30Most of them have a short shelf life.
17:33This would drain the American treasury.
17:37Absolutely.
17:38But at the moment, Judge, they are still not thinking about this possible nuclear option, which they are safeguarding it if they need to use it.
17:51They are talking about the opportunity that China has to expand even more their trade footprint all over the global south, the global majority.
18:03From their neighbors here in Asia, to Africa, to Latin America.
18:09And guess what?
18:10European chihuahuas are sending a delegation here in June to propose a better trade deal between the European Union and China.
18:20Wow.
18:21Can we all believe that?
18:23No, exactly.
18:23What is the, if you can put your finger on it, the consensus about Donald Trump, whether we're talking cab drivers or academics?
18:34A joke.
18:37A circus ringmaster, which is what, this is, this is the expression that I used in my column.
18:44Uh, circus ringmaster in a, in a Chinese way.
18:49Uh, the really, really hardcore Trump denomination at the moment, all across a Chinese, a social media, Weibo, everywhere is barbarian.
19:00And when a Chinese with 5,000 years of history calls an European or an American or Western, a barbarian, that's the lowest of the lowest.
19:11So this is not good for the American president and for, but they keep treating Americans royally.
19:19There are a lot of American tourists here in, uh, in down, let's put it in downtown Shanghai or around the big towers here.
19:26I'm, I'm in the heart of the business center and American businesses everywhere, American business, man.
19:32You hear American accents everywhere doing business, continue to do business here.
19:37And that red American residents here, many of them are absolutely appalled because they know that their business will end up suffering, of course, but the bulk of the Chinese and here in Shanghai, uh, to feel the spirit of Shanghai is amazing.
19:52This is electric electric in a New York style sense.
19:57And the, you know, the electrification that we used to feel in New York in decades past.
20:03Now you feel it here, even walking in the streets.
20:06It's an absolutely fascinating phenomenon and you can feel that that you are in the capital of the future and in the capital of the big superpower of the future.
20:14You know, you feel it in, you feel it in your bones and you feel it in the air.
20:18Well, let me ask you about another of your, uh, fields that you examine closely, and that is the Kremlin.
20:28What is the Kremlin's, uh, reaction to Donald Trump's experimentations with tariffs?
20:36Well, it's that famous metaphor, which is, uh, attributed sometimes to Sun Tzu, sometimes to Lao Tzu.
20:46I am by the side of the river and I'm watching the river flow and sooner or later, the cadaver of my enemy will be floating by.
20:55That's, that's, that's, that's, that's the Russian observing, uh, not necessarily literally, of course, but they know that maybe there will be the cadaver of a unilateral order floating by the river sooner rather than later.
21:14But at the same time, Judge, they are involved in this immensely complex negotiation of trying to solve the Ukrainian riddle.
21:25And at the moment, the mood in Moscow and the mood in the Kremlin is relatively, relatively upbeat.
21:33You don't know what's going to happen next.
21:35You know, Steve, uh, Whitcoff said, uh, just the other night, it may have been last night, uh, on Fox News, that he met with President Putin for five hours.
21:44Now, Whitcoff is not a professional diplomat.
21:47Five hours is a long, long time to be negotiating with Vladimir Putin.
21:51And the negotiations were on other bigger matters than just the Ukraine war.
21:59This is right up Donald Trump's alley, who notwithstanding, uh, the ignorance he manifested, uh, by imposing the tariffs, nevertheless understands the benefits to the world of a reset, a commercial reset, as well as a political and military one between the United States and Russia.
22:19Absolutely correct.
22:21A commercial reset, a geopolitical reset, and spheres of influence.
22:26Uh, there's no question that Putin explained to Whitcoff in detail, five hours.
22:33Look, we're going to have a sort of Yalta 2.0 sooner or later.
22:39It's going to be you, us, and the Chinese.
22:42And we're going to define spheres of influence.
22:45We know our spheres, our spheres of influence very well in the post-Soviet space.
22:52We don't want to infringe on your, uh, your spheres of influence, uh, let's say in the Atlanticist, uh, Nexus, or even, uh, in the Americans.
23:04But you have to respect our spheres of influence.
23:06And in terms of China, you have to respect China in Asia.
23:09China is the big Asian superpower.
23:11And you have to respect that.
23:12The only leader in the world who can tell that to Trump directly, for the moment, indirectly via Whitcoff, is Putin.
23:21Right.
23:22Absolutely.
23:23The neocons reject that.
23:24I mean, that's the core of their, uh, existence, is that America must be, uh, dominant, and the Chinese influence and Russian influence must, uh, shrink.
23:31So Trump is turning a battleship or an aircraft carrier 180 degrees on a dime because he's dealing with an establishment.
23:46Yeah.
23:47He's dealing with the heart and soul of neocons.
24:03of power all across the deep state in every different area of the deep state.
24:18And they are over and, and they won't let go.
24:22And they won't let go of exceptionalism in the, in terms of the Americans, the Monroe Doctrine.
24:30They will never let it go.
24:33And of course, unilateral domination and what we say go our way or the highway.
24:40You cannot do our way or the highway with both Russia and China.
24:46Got it.
24:47And maybe some of these silos are starting to, you know, read, uh, the tea leaves.
24:54And Trump, we can even say, Judge, that his domestic challenges coming from these silos in the deep state, they are even more hardcore than his international challenges, which from the point of view of the American system are this triad.
25:14The, what I call the new Primakov triangle, Russia, Iran, and China, uh, updating what the Evgeny Primakov at the late nineties said was the beginning of the RIC, India at the time.
25:26Nowadays, Iran is much more powerful and significant than India.
25:31India is still on the fence.
25:33They don't know if they're going to be a colony of the Anglo Americans or if they're going to be part of the Eurasian integration.
25:40Not even the Indian elites know where they're going next.
25:43But this new Primakov triangle with Russia and China, and also, let's say they, they've got Iran's back.
25:51Uh, this, the war or the, the overall framing of the war by Trump so far is against this tree, which happens to be three bricks and the top three bricks in terms of importance.
26:06But the deep state and his enemies inside the deep state, they see these three as total threats against American domination.
26:16So they must be smashed geoeconomically and geopolitically.
26:19It's absolutely impossible.
26:21And many of these silos are imposing on Trump.
26:25You have to destroy China, uh, uh, geoeconomically.
26:28You have to destroy Iran militarily and any accommodation with Russia.
26:33No, we going to say how much you can accommodate with Russia.
26:38Pepe Yaskobar, my dear friend, I misspoke earlier when I said you're in Beijing.
26:43You're, uh, in the heart of the Chinese commercial development in Shanghai.
26:48Where more construction goes on there in that city than in most countries in the world.
26:53Thank you very much.
26:55It's electric.
26:56Thank you very much for accommodating our time, my man.
26:59We'll talk to you again next week.
27:00Nice pleasure.
27:01All the best.
27:02You know that, very funny, Judge.
27:03Do you know that my server on my VPN at the moment is called USA4China3?
27:09Wow.
27:13I would say only in America, but it wouldn't make sense.
27:16Only in America.
27:17Thank you, Pepe.
27:18All the best, my friend.
27:19Thank you, Judge.
27:20All the best.
27:22Cheers.
27:23Wow.
27:24Fascinating conversation with a very, uh, eclectic and brilliant thinker.
27:29Coming up later today at two o'clock this afternoon, Colonel Douglas McGregor at three
27:34o'clock this afternoon, Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski at four o'clock this afternoon.
27:39Not sure where on the planet he is.
27:42Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
27:47Boy I can just read more.
27:48I'll check out.
27:49I know.
27:50You can YouTube.
27:51I'll see you soon.
27:52I'll see you soon.
27:54Let me ask you soon.
28:02Bye-bye.
28:04Bye-bye.