Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano - Larry Johnson : How Trump Has Helped BRICS

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Sept. 1, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano

22:59

Larry Johnson : How Trump Has Helped BRICS

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	Hi, everyone.
	Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
	Today is Tuesday, September 2, 2025.
	Larry Johnson will be here with us in just a minute on just how has President Trump helped BRICS and helped the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
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	Larry Johnson, welcome here, my dear friend.
	Before we get to your great work on your sonar 21, your analyses of the president helping BRICS and helping the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and manifesting an ignorance of economics 101.
	Before we get there, I want to ask you a few questions about Ukraine.
	Do you think that the elites in Ukraine, the diplomats, the generals, the senior government officials, even the ultra-nationalists know that their days are numbered and that the war can't go on much longer and Russia will soon triumph and achieve its military objectives?
	I think there are a few.
	Unfortunately, it's not the overwhelming majority.
	When we saw last week that the Ukrainians let the 18 to 21 year olds leave the country, I interpreted that as that they were at least starting to acknowledge that the end game is afoot and they wanted to get the sort of the future of Ukraine out of harm's way.
	That was perhaps one of the considerations.
	But, you know, this is This is like a repeat of history when you go back and look at the end of World War II with respect to Germany.
	You know, it was clear.
	eight months before that that Germany was defeated but they didn't stop and so all they did succeeded in doing was getting more Germans killed and in that case more Russian troops killed as well but but the end game is the end game is here it's just a matter of how quickly it's going to unfold Alistair a crook is of the view that the ultranationalists are so You know,
	we sometimes call them bandaris, we sometimes call them neo-Nazis.
	know the mentality of the people of homies are so powerful uh so ideologically driven that they rest of the elites are fearful to state the truth for fear of personal repercussions against them does that make sense to you oh yeah no absolutely um this you know this emergence of you know we call it the neo-nazis uh whether it was the azoff
	battalion right sector um they embraced an ideology that touted themselves as part part of the Aryan race, a superior race, and portrayed the Russians as inferior, as Slavs.
	And, you know, within that, they'd also include Jews, except they brought in Volodymyr Zelensky, a Jew, to, you know, head up the government.
	So, you know, there's not exactly intellectual consistency with these folks, but they are vicious.
	You know, I can, I remember seeing videos going back four years ago where they would come upon people that they considered undesirables on the street and just beat them senseless.
	And, you know, the police would stand by and watch it and do nothing.
	So, yeah, the physical intimidation factor is at work here.
	Do you think that these ultra-nationalists are rubbing their hands and ready to take over the government of what remains of Ukraine?
	No, not really.
	Yeah, no, I think their game is to try to keep the money flowing as long as possible because they are enriching themselves in the process.
	But, you know, there's going to – Russia has clearly changed.
	I mean, they've embarked on a new tactical approach with the hitting of these key factories.
	They're going after key logistics centers.
	And last week they launched a missile that landed very close.
	It was a precise hit on a military target, but it was close to the British embassy or British consulate.
	And just sending a message that if Britain, France, and Germany continue to try to reinforce the war and keep it going, that they themselves could become targets.
	Were you switching gears?
	Were you surprised that the State Department denied visas to all Palestinian officials, preventing them from attending, I don't know how they can get away with this, preventing them from attending the UN General Assembly here in New York in October.
	Well, it's not just Palestinian officials.
	Anybody that's carrying a Palestinian passport is now banned from coming to the United States.
	So this is shameful.
	This is further...
	You know, this is reminiscent of the kind of thing that was actually done to Jews in the lead up to World War II, preventing them from entering certain countries.
	So now the United States is following in the long tradition of this kind of facilitation of genocide.
	You know, I mean, let's be honest.
	We did it to the Native Americans in this country.
	It's turning, you're saying, okay, we can do it to these Palestinians because they're subhuman.
	They're not real people.
	Chris, put up the B-roll that you have.
	This is the send-off of an armada of 50 ships, which includes a lot of Americans and a lot of Western media bringing medicine and food to Gaza.
	Colonel McGregor has argued that in a real world, in a healthy world, these people would be protected by the United States Navy, but don't expect it to happen to these people.
	No, no, the Navy's too tied up off the coast of Venezuela.
	I mean, we're right nicely tied.
	Yeah, yeah.
	No, we can't be concerned with protecting people because we're not going to be the war department we're going to go to war with people in hopes of getting my nobel peace prize says donald trump sorry i just you know this is getting more this is like a mony python skit on on some sort of hallucinogenic drugs uh that uh just the contradictory messages that trump is sending but but again this flotilla to try to bring actual relief
	uh to the the people of palestine uh it's going to be stopped by the israeli navy and they may even kill a few of them uh but you know we're waiting for the other countries in the world to shut down trade, economic commerce with Israel across the board.
	And I put on that the BRICS countries.
	They too could do something and they're not doing anything.
	How important to U.S. markets are imports to the U.S. from India.
	Yeah.
	So if you heard Trump yesterday, oh man, this India, boy, we're such an important market for them.
	And I said, really?
	You know, I'm trying to think of all the Indian imports that I've ever had to consider buying.
	And so I looked it up.7% of Indian GDP.
	It's $131 billion of trade, which sounds like a lot of money, except the Indian economy is $4 trillion in size.
	So in other words, $131 billion is sort of a rounding error.
	It's not essential.
	It's not critical compared to...
	And the diesel runs the trucking industry in India.
	So, you know, what India is sitting looking at is realizing, you know, if they got cut off from that cheap supply, the inexpensive supply of oil from Russia, it would be very damaging to their economy.
	Now, you know, they can find other markets where the items that they're currently trading with the United States, they can go elsewhere.
	They can make that up, maybe not 100%, but it's not going to hurt them financially.
	And here's Donald Trump.
	You know, he apparently believes it.
	So either he's just flat out ignorant, ignoring what he's being told, or his aides, his assistants, they're lying to him.
	They're not giving him the truth.
	Look, it took me five minutes, 10 minutes to figure this out.
	It took a little longer to write it up.
	But, you know, you would think that people at this policymaking level would say, okay, we have the leverage.
	For example, with Mexico and Canada, like in Canada's case, if we cut off trade with Canada, that would hit a quarter, 25% of their gross domestic product.
	That would be serious damage.
	In Mexico, it's an even higher number.
	So yeah, we're looking at President Xi, Prime Minister Modi, and President Putin as best buddies.
	And they're in Shanghai, literally as we speak.
	This isn't live, but it's just a few minutes old.
	Yeah, well, that's actually from yesterday, but you notice they're all laughing.
	Now, this is where it gets great.
	Firstly, a lot of memes have come out.
	So one of them said, man, can you believe how dumb Trump was to impose those tariffs and they're laughing it up.
	The other one was they're laughing saying, can you believe that Macron's married to a dude?
	So it's just, but here they are, China and India, the two, the largest countries in terms of population in the world, with Putin.
	who has the fourth largest economy.
	So there are three of the four largest economies in the world right there.
	And they are not yelling at each other.
	They're laughing.
	They're smiling.
	And they recognize we've got to cooperate.
	And this is what was so powerful about this shanghai cooperation organization how has trump's ignorance of economics 101 helped substantiate solidify bricks there's there's president preseshkian of uh iran right there correct How has it helped solidify the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and solidify BRICS?
	Trump's rants and raves and rails against BRICS.
	I believe he's helping them out.
	Oh yeah, no.
	you'd say there was still a ways off.
	What has happened, both as a result of Joe Biden's policies, but now under Donald Trump, particularly with the tariffs, what's fascinating is when you look at the countries that have dependence on the United States for trade, none of them are BRICS countries?
	None.
	The countries that are dependent on the United States for trade are, you know, really, they're not consequential nations.
	So once you step back and realize now that the BRICS countries and the distinguish between the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS, Shanghai Cooperation is basically China and Russia along with the former republics of the Soviet Union like Tajikistan, Kurdistan, Turkmenistan and Belarus.
	So Kazakhstan, those are part of the SCO.
	And it was born for initially for a security arrangement in that part of the world.
	But now it's expanding.
	And the SCO part with my left hand and the BRICS part, they are starting to merge and meld and come together.
	Because you notice at this conference.
	other countries were invited including iran as you pointed out with pezhskin standing there turkey armenia azerbaijan pretty sure i saw president lula of brazil there no lula didn't lula didn't make this one uh he was unable to get there.
	The ambassador for Brazil was sent.
	Okay.
	I saw the Brazilian flag and a grey-haired man and I assumed that it was Lula, but Brazil was represented.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	And so what we're seeing now with BRICS and one of the things that she announced is the establishment of a development bank.
	So a place where people can go get loans to do infrastructure projects in their countries.
	They no longer have to go hat in hand to beg the United States or IMF or World Bank for money.
	no no no now they're going to go to something where the u.s has no control and no veto And by that, we mean at the United Nations, along with the United States, that England or the United Kingdom and France get a veto over UN Security Council decisions.
	Those two countries are no longer relevant.
	They shouldn't even have a seat at the table.
	They should get an occasional representation as their turn comes up, but they shouldn't be in a place they can veto anything by contact.
	By contrast, India with 1.4, 1.5 billion people and the third largest economy or second largest economy in the world.
	So yeah, they should be at the table.
	You have addressed the UN Security Council.
	Are the members treated equally or do the five permanent members lord it over the others?
	Well, they tend to lord it over the others, or at least some do.
	The French representative was particularly obnoxious and disdainful of everybody else.
	Live down to every French stereotype, every negative French stereotype you've ever heard of.
	So tell me a little bit more about BRICS.
	Do they need SWIFT anymore?
	Do they need the Western bank clearing system?
	No.
	Do they need to trade in dollars anymore?
	I mean, if the answer to both questions is no, and I think it is, you can explain in a minute.
	These are devastating blows to what Trump has been.
	claiming he's going to establish, which is U.S. financial hegemony.
	Yeah, you know, when we start talking about international financial transactions, people's eyes tend to glide this over.
	So let's, you know, just make it simple.
	It's like, okay, you've got a Harley Davidson motorcycle.
	You no longer want to ride it.
	You're going to, and I want to buy it.
	So the way we do it in the States is I either I wire you money, send you money through Zelle.
	I send you a check or I send you cash.
	Okay, so Brazil and China, China now wants to buy all of Brazil's coffee beans.
	Now, in the past, when Brazil wanted, when China wanted to do that, they'd have to go to a bank and tell their bank, okay, go out and buy, you know, let's say it's going to be $4 million for the coffee beans.
	they'd have to go out and convert the Chinese currency into a And so those dollars would be purchased.
	And then that money would be wired usually.
	And then when it was wired, it was sent bank to bank.
	And one bank sends another bank an email.
	That was Swift.
	Swift is simply an email system.
	And, you know, the Bank of China would say to the Bank of Brazil, Yes, we're sending you four million US dollars.
	It's coming out of this account.
	It's going into this account at your bank and it's on such and such date.
	Now, you know, all that information.
	That was old.
	Now what's happening is China and Brazil are exchanging their currencies direct.
	They're not having to go buy dollars.
	Now, this is a subtle change.
	It's not a dramatic break yet.
	But what it means is that the demand for U.S. dollars is sort of the lubricant for international trade.
	That's going away.
	And so you've now got China and Brazil doing that.
	You got India and Russia doing that.
	You got India and Brazil doing it.
	So they're all now starting to trade in each other's currencies.
	They're no longer having to go out and seek money on the U.S. dollars on the international financial market.
	And they're certainly not using SWIFT anymore.
	How does the removal of U.S. dollars from these massive international trades harm the U.S. economy or the U.S. dollar?
	So when you've got a big supply of dollars and low demand for it, the price goes down.
	So it's a double-edged sword.
	Yeah, we've got if the U.S. dollar is at a low price, that means.
	That means anybody that's producing something in the United States that's sold overseas means your product's much cheaper for the foreigner to buy.
	So they'll buy more of it, which may actually help your industry.
	So, you know, let's look, California wines right now.
	I bet you Europeans are buying those things up right and left or some of the other countries with an inexpensive dollar.
	On the other hand, if we're having to buy anything from overseas, that means that price is going up.
	It's getting more expensive.
	So this lower, weaker dollar can actually fuel inflation and kick it off at a In the worst cases, we saw it in the Weimar Republic in the 1920s.
	I saw it firsthand in Argentina in 1984, where you got so much currency circulating, not enough demand for that.
	The demand was for dollars that inflation kicked off in Argentina back then.
	It was a thousand percent annual inflation.
	It's just unbelievable.
	Wow.
	Larry, thank you very much.
	I appreciate you letting me take you to these economic areas, but I've been, I encourage everybody to read Sonar 21.
	because larry does a lot of research and he reproduces the results of the research late at night, East Coast time, and it's always there for you first thing in the morning, which is when I see it.
	Thank you, Larry.
	We'll see you Friday with McGovern as long as he's not in jail.
	I'm only kidding.
	He had a little run-in with a U.S. senator, but they ended up shaking hands.
	That rebel rouser, Ray.
	You gotta love him.
	Thank you, Larry.
	All the best, my friend.
	All right.
	Thanks, Judge.
	Thank you.

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