All Episodes
Previous Next
March 31, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
18:24
Alastair Crooke : Russia Flourishes Under US Sanctions
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
The victors of the war defined the economic structures that we've all had right up until now.
The world order, the economic globalist world order.
And what Putin announced in a congress to industrialists and entrepreneurs on the 18th of March, and he said, listen, the world order, that world order is gone.
It's finished.
It's absolutely over.
You have to understand that in the future we will have sanctions.
Sanctions are not going away.
Sanctions are the means to exert pressure on us to try and make us subordinated in the geopolitical structure.
They're not going to go away.
Don't look to Europe to help.
Don't expect that you will get justice in their courts.
You won't.
The system is rigged.
You know that.
Is what he said to his people and said, look, yeah, this is a problem we have had.
We've had sanctions and things.
Actually, it's not a problem.
It's a gain.
Because what we've done is we've changed the economy and we've made it a sort of internally circulating economy.
Self-sufficient economy with a small wedge at the top which is open for trade with our partners and BRICS etc.
But we are going to be increasingly self-sufficient, not reliant on gas or oil.
We are going to move in this way and that makes us, you know, sanction resistance.
It also makes us bribe and incentive resistance because we need nothing from America.
We need nothing and there are threats of more sanctions.
We've had every sanction under the book.
This is what he said to these industrialists all together.
And he said, look, we're going to go on with this model.
The old order is over.
The old economic order is over.
And he was referring, I won't go into it because of the talk we have on time, but it's going back to a 19th century view of the economy which said that the sort of Adam Smith Anglo model was bound to be self-defeating in the end because it wouldn't provide either enough consumption nor employment for the population.
And it would ultimately be self-defeating.
And what's paradoxical is that's exactly what America is finding for itself now.
That the people who said that, Friedrich List and Witte in the 19th century, We're right.
It has turned out to be self-defeating.
This is why Vance is saying, you know, that actually the reserve currency status, he said, is actually what we call Denmark, it's a disease, it's a curse.
He calls it a curse because it's skewing our whole economy so much, if you like, away from actually making things.
that we don't have the means now.
We don't have a rounded economy and we have an overvalued currency because of the reverse currency, because of the reserve status.
And it is a disaster for America.
And that's why they're looking at sort of either a new Plaza Accord or what they call the Mar-a-Lago pact to try and find a way of devaluing the dollar against other currencies.
But all of that needs consent.
You can't really force it.
And so this is the dilemma that's facing the United States.
I mean, the way the president worships the fact that the dollar is the reserve currency and the way he rants and raves about the imbalance of trade, I often wonder if he understands Economics 101.
I mean, how does the Kremlin react When Trump threatens more sanctions, do they just laugh at him behind his back?
Well, as I said, I mean, Putin said it actually specifically to this group, because these were industrialists and businessmen from across Russia.
Very important meeting.
Key people.
And he said, look for nothing from the West.
Don't expect anything.
The sanctions will continue.
Whatever happens in our talks with Mr. Trump, the sanctions, and we're going into a new vicious cycle of restrictions, trade restrictions and tariffs and things like this.
And he said, don't have any illusions.
It's coming.
The old order is dying.
The West is declining.
And we have the right answer.
And I would say, after I wrote that piece, I noticed that the Indian foreign minister, who's a very sober character, Jai Shankar, was saying something.
He said, listen, you know, India is going to probably re-engage with China.
I think everything can be sorted out with China.
We're going to de-emphasize our relations with the United States.
And we're going to look at things like industrial cooperation with China, restarting the automobile plants and things like this.
And, you know, this is a huge shift for India of all countries, which has been absolutely with the United States.
I mean, but they're seeing this new era of economics and that Friedrich List in the 19th century was right.
Ultimately, this model we've had, the open economy, the globalist economy, self-defeating.
How do you account for Putin's extraordinary patience, both with negotiating with Donald Trump and in fighting the war?
Does that patience have a limit?
Right now, the window is open for Trump to From Putin's point of view, yes. He was very clear again in his talk to the industrialists.
He said afterwards, look, you know, at the moment we've set our sights on those four blasts.
and Crimea, and he says, but you know, if time goes on, maybe we'll need to move the needle on this, i.e.
Odessa, or something else.
And he said this just over the weekend when he visited a submarine base in the Arctic, and he said, you know, about the way ahead, he said, Look, we're close to the point at which we will get them to surrender.
He said words to that effect that they will be finished.
We are going to finish with them, the Ukrainians.
I think this is sort of upset Putin, upset Trump, when he finished his golf round with Lindsey Graham.
and Stubb, the Finnish president, who were both telling him, you can't trust Putin, you can't trust Putin, he won't keep to the ceasefire.
Well, Putin is following the doctrine of Primakov.
And one part of that is what he called, Primakov called, strategic procrastination.
And I think that sort of really sums up probably what Putin is doing.
Strategic procrastination while the military war goes on.
And what he said was, we will soon probably finish them off.
And I think that irritated Trump over the weekend.
And he made some comments about how, you know, I mean, we'll put on more sanctions on Russia if, you know, he's got to treat, he's got to treat, you know, of course, Zelensky is his negotiating partner.
He's got to treat him as a negotiating partner.
Which is, of course, precisely what Russia will not do.
Treat him as a serious negotiating partner.
And it doesn't matter what Zelensky says or thinks, because he doesn't make the decisions.
It's probably not his decisions to go on firing, you know, missiles and rockets deep into Russia.
It's the Kabbalah, Here's President Trump expressing that disappointment in President Putin.
Chris, cut number nine.
And I was disappointed in a certain way.
Some of the things that were said over the last day or two having to do with Zelensky, because when he considers Zelensky not credible, you're supposed to be making a deal with him, whether you like him or you don't like him.
So I wasn't happy with that.
But I think he's going to be good.
And I certainly wouldn't want to put secondary tariffs on Russia, but if they were put on, it would not be very good for that.
I would think that the Kremlin's eyes would just glaze over comments like that.
I mean, Donald Trump threw, not physically, but emotionally, threw Zelensky out of the White House, and now he's criticizing President Putin for saying Zelensky's not credible and not even lawful.
Two statements that most of the world accepts.
I think, first of all, that Trump was just venting after his golfing round.
I'm being sort of barracked by this Finnish president and Lindsey Graham's about how unreliable in and I don't think they'll treat it terribly seriously.
I think what I as I say, I think what probably Trump was that over the weekend Putin said we'll we're about ready to finish them off the Ukrainians.
But what it does show when he talks about, you know, he's his your Negotiating partner.
Of course, Zelensky isn't a negotiating partner because he has no interest in a ceasefire or in resolving it.
His interest is in trying to keep alongside the Europeans and hoping the Europeans will keep the war going with money and putting troops in if there is a ceasefire.
But he has no interest in what's more, He's not in charge of this.
It's the cabal, the extreme nationalist element that supports it, won't let him make a deal.
So, I mean, does Trump see that and understand that Europe is also intent on blocking this and on undermining Trump's attempt?
They do not want to see normalization between America and Russia, because they've just embarked on this program, this crazy program, for war with Russia.
Europeans rearming, Germany rearming, all of them, France, Germany, Britain, all of them are saying, you know, we're preparing for war with Russia.
I mean, it's silly, it's quite impossible to happen, but they're serious about thinking this way.
This is their sort of vision, their tunnel vision that they have.
The only way out of their crisis.
Because the crisis, they see the system breaking up.
I mean, fundamentally, then what happens to them?
They're out.
They're finished.
The elites fear that they are finished.
And you can see why.
Because, you know, the middle classes of Europe are becoming impoverished.
I mean, it's not just a small proportion of Europeans that are below the poverty line, it's the middle classes now are below the poverty line.
The newspapers are full of the stories, well, full of them, stories about how they can't afford holidays, they can't afford to go out and eat, it's too expensive.
And yet, you know, our governments are spending all this money on other projects and now want to have a military increase the size of their militaries.
There's a real, I mean, growing, if you like, clash coming within Europe between, you know, now it's the 60 to 70 percent that are feeling that they've moved into poverty and are depressed and are angry and resentful for what's happening.
And so they don't know what to do.
They have no way out.
And they see the only way out from this is to, you know, the only remedy, the old remedy, start a war, get a war going, get people, you know, to go behind the flag and come together and fight a war.
And so, you know, we are in deep trouble there.
Before we go, I'd just like to switch gears for a moment.
As you know, raging in the United States as we speak is the issue of free speech.
The president has dispatched plainclothes police wearing masks to snatch people off the streets.
Non-Americans, but people lawfully here because of the speech that they have expressed.
It's not a speech calling for violence.
It's a speech supporting the Gazans and often supporting a Palestinian state, which of course has been the public policy of the United States, never acted upon, but the stated public policy of the United States since 1948.
I think the root cause of this suppression of free speech is the following.
Chris, Cut number 11. The
ultra-progressive left and radical Islam.
It must be resolutely fought by civilized societies to safeguard their future.
This is why we must all commend President Trump's decisive actions against antisemitism and we must pressure other governments to do the same.
And we must pressure other governments to do the same, acknowledging the pressure that he and his colleagues have put on President Trump.
So, free speech for thee, free speech for me, but not for thee.
Exactly, yes.
And it's very much, in Europe, free speech is being curbed everywhere, not only in terms of anti-Semitism, but just as one example, there was a BBC producer who had some,
he was talking on a WhatsApp group to friends about some incident with his child, she's only five I think, at a primary school and he had a dispute about the change in the headmaster and he'd been complaining about this and he found six policemen on his door doorstep the next day saying,
you know, this is unacceptable, this is hate speech, you can't, you know, criticize the headmaster of the school.
And they took him away and he ended up in the cell for the day.
This is, you know, this it's really a serious crackdown, particularly in the UK, on free speech about anything, whether it's abortion or Semitism, no one can really speak out without it becoming what is called a criminal hate speech, which can end up with you spending a long time in prison.
So, yes, this is coming.
Dark and perilous days are coming.
Alistair, thank you very much.
Thanks for your time.
Thanks for your analysis.
Thanks for your great piece on Russia, its economy and the balance of power.
Look forward to seeing you next week, my dear friend.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Judge.
Of course.
▲
Export Selection