All Episodes
Previous Next
Feb. 11, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
23:56
What's Trump's Next Move on Ukraine?

With Trump now confirming that he has spoken with Russian president Putin - the first talk between US and Russian heads of state since 2022 - what will be his strategy to fulfill his promise to end the war? Will he exert "maximum pressure" on both sides? Will he hand off the hot potato to the Europeans? Also today: Trump's new steel tariffs - good move?

|

Time Text
Russia's Oil Gambit 00:09:33
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you this morning.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you this morning?
I'm doing fine, trying to sort things out and looking for a spot where there's peace and tranquility.
And it seems like any country I go to where we have a presence, there's not enough peace and tranquility.
I sure hope the determination of the new administration will find those places and encourage it.
But some days I think maybe we're not on the verge of that having a breakout.
So we want to talk about today about Ukraine.
It's been around a while.
Even before the mischief of 2014, we talked about Ukraine and what the Russians wanted to do.
The Russians were going to invade Ukraine, which was all fibs because NATO, with the U.S. encouragement, was getting ready to take over Ukraine.
And I'm just wondering now, Daniel, whether the plan might have been long-term, that maybe their goal was to deal with the minerals of Ukraine.
And that was the strategy, because certainly now, you know, same old story again.
We go in and it's not partisan, it's bipartisan.
Just think of what was going on, you know, back in the 70s.
There was Iraq and all these Syria, you know, and minerals and oil are always in charge.
But to get the American people to go along, why are we doing this?
Why are we invading and thinking that, you know, after a lot of people die and we spend a lot of money, oh, we need to be paid back.
So give us your oil or give us your minerals.
And this is what's going on now.
Our government, our current administration is insisting that we get paid for all our effort.
And I would say it was a risky bet.
We shouldn't have been there.
Take the losses and get out of there.
But no, we're saying you're going to pay.
And that went on with the oil.
We want your oil.
Happened in Syria.
And this is a big deal because over the weekend, the administration came out very strongly that they want payback.
And they want the minerals.
We don't have them.
You know, our monetary system is such our best export are dollars.
Oh, well, that's pretty good.
We're buying stuff.
Oh, yeah, but we buy it with cheap money.
They keep it.
What do they do with it?
They invest in different things.
So we haven't invested wisely enough, even though we have a presence around the world.
It seems like we have to devise some scheme to capture the precious metals, precious minerals.
And that's what's going on now.
There was an insistent by the insistence by the administration that we want our money back.
We invested a lot.
And I hate to even use that term.
It's not investment.
It's something a little bit more negative than that.
Well, you know, Trump is an investor.
He's a real estate developer.
And I think you should know as a successful businessman, sometimes you just have to realize these are sunk costs and you have to walk away from them.
Because I see with this now what we're talking about, and we'll put up the segment of it.
We're talking about a recent interview he did with Brett Baird where he talked about we want the rare earths, he calls them, the rare earth minerals from Ukraine.
We want to get paid back.
We want $500 billion worth of your minerals to pay us back.
And I'll put up that first clip.
Apparently, Zelensky has agreed.
Trump says Ukraine has essentially agreed to allow the U.S. access to $500 billion in rare earth minerals in Ukraine.
So, you know, this is sort of a sad tale in a way because Trump doesn't necessarily deserve the blame for this, but it was the Biden administration that encouraged this war, did everything to push this war.
Even as Zelensky was about to sign a deal very early on in the war to end the war, that's when Boris Johnson from the UK came in and said, no, you guys keep fighting, keep fighting.
The U.S. was behind it.
The Biden administration was behind it.
They thought they were going to take down Russia, so they put them into the situation.
They've lost an enormous amount of their male population now.
And now we want to go ahead and essentially rob them in exchange for that.
Well, let's listen to what the president was saying when he was talking about this in the interview, this first clip.
If we can play that and give it a list.
Here's what he's talking about.
I want to have our money secured because we're spending hundreds of billions of dollars.
And, you know, they may make a deal, they may not make a deal, they may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday, but we're going to have all this money in there.
And I say, I want it back.
And I told them that I want the equivalent, like $500 billion worth of rare earth.
And they've essentially agreed to do that.
So at least we don't feel stupid.
Otherwise, we're stupid.
I said to them, we have to get something.
We can't continue to pay this money.
Yeah, so unfortunately, it sounds like someone is feeding him some incorrect information, Dr. Paul.
And this is reminiscent, if you remember, we talked about it on the show, of Lindsey Graham last year talking about this war is going to pay off.
We're going to actually profit by it.
We're killing a bunch of Russians, and we're going to steal a trillion dollars worth of Ukraine's wealth in the process.
Neither of those things are true, but unfortunately, someone is telling the president that, and he seems to believe that we can recoup our losses from this.
Yeah, I think this is rather premature, like there's peace and prosperity over there, and we're just making a business deal.
But how are they going to deal with Russia?
They're already players in the eastern part, and there's a lot of minerals there.
There's more than half of the minerals, you know, precious earths, is in Russia's hands right now.
And Russia's, you know, if we, not us who believe that we shouldn't even be there, but if the NATO and the United States decide, well, if Russia is going to give us trouble, we're going to just have to face up to it.
And they're still pretending that, at least the people in Ukraine, the Ukrainians, you know, in a way, every once in a while they admit they're losing, but most of the time they're saying, well, all we need to send us more troops for Europe.
You know, and everything will be okay.
But this is not like it's the first time this happened.
And Trump really is right in the middle of it.
He didn't start the war over there.
But it was the, you know, the military-industrial complex is not wholly owned by Republicans or Democrats.
There is a coalition.
And that's a coalition like that, which is so powerful and influences spending.
That's why, you know, this effort for efficiency in government has to deal with policy.
I'm not making sure you don't spend too much money for hammers and saws.
That is not going to answer.
Even though I believe it's possible, because what's been recovered so far is so outrageous.
It will galvanize the American people.
Okay, go ahead, go ahead.
If we have to get rid of it, we'll do it.
But right now, it's in flux.
Well, Zelensky is the quintessential scammer, scam artist.
That's what he is.
And he may have just been scamming Trump.
Hell yeah, yeah, you can have the minerals.
You can have them, no problem.
Realizing that he doesn't have control, as you point out, a great majority of these rare earths and other sources of the mineral wealth in Ukraine are in the eastern part that are controlled by Russia.
So he doesn't even control these.
He says, okay, whatever.
You can do that.
But Trump is obviously serious about this because if you put up the next clip, he's sending his Treasury Secretary to Kiev to talk about this deal.
So they're serious about it.
They think this is a serious deal.
And you alluded to this earlier, Dr. Paul, when you said, this kind of reminds us of what they said about the Iraq war.
Remember, this is going to be a cakewalk, piece of cake.
And by the way, it'll pay for itself.
We're all just going to take to oil and get paid back.
Well, how did that work out?
And the same is true with this, Dr. Paul.
Go on to the next one.
Here's a very good explanation by Nastieva.
And he said, rare earth balloon popped.
De facto, Ukraine is not an undiscovered island somewhere in the world ocean.
It was part of the Soviet Union, which was always a major world power in extractive industries.
The fact that very little of the wealth in metallic ores, tungsten, has been commercially exploited in Ukraine has good reasons behind it.
Namely, the Ukrainian deposits are found in rock formations that are very difficult and expensive to mine commercially.
So these aren't just things kind of hanging around in baskets.
Pick them up and take them home.
These are hidden deep in these rocks and very expensive to get out.
Who's going to pay for that?
Trade Tariffs and 50 Countries 00:10:28
Yeah, and it follows a pattern.
It's almost like that's the way you do.
You get a powerful country, you have an empire, you have control of the currency, you develop the weaponry, and then you go out and you conquer lands.
And then you get paid for it.
But I think the Romans did this a little differently.
Even the soldiers were rewarded, and it lasted longer.
This isn't lasting longer.
This is short-lived because we are facing up to the bankruptcy and we no longer will be able to continue to do this unless the current effort by the new administration is very, very effective.
And, you know, people like David Stockman, what he writes about it, plain English and says, make a deal, have a PC, and get out and re-establish a foreign policy which is quite different.
And that's what I'm looking for.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, someone I listened to, Alex Christophero, has a great show, and he makes a good point.
He believes that there are two factions in the administration right now.
There's one faction that says, Trump, this is not your war.
You didn't start this war.
It's not your war.
You don't have any business trying to finish it.
You're only going to have failure getting involved.
Stay out.
Stay away.
Sunk costs.
And then there's the other faction, the traditional conservative types who want to go in there and keep going and keep moving this.
So you don't know exactly who he's listening to.
Maybe he's listening to both sides.
But it's interesting to see.
Now, a couple of things that we're looking at is that some indicators, if we're reading the tea leaves, now for the first time ever, this Ramstein group, which is the donors and supporters of Ukraine meeting in Germany, the U.S. has said for the first time, we don't want to chair this meeting this time.
They held it every couple months.
They give it over to the U.K. You guys, you guys can do it this time.
Who knows what it means?
It may mean something.
Now, go to that next clip, which is that our Secretary of Defense, who has now been confirmed, Pete Hegseth, he went to Germany, but he's not attending, according to himself, he's not attending the Munich Security Conference.
He would prefer to interact with American troops.
Here he is training with green berets.
I think it's actually pretty neat.
Just this photo stirs a little patriotic pride because you remember what Austin was like.
He had those 12 masks on and that space helmet on.
And here you see here's a real guy working out hard.
And he said, I would much rather go talk to troops than go to cocktail parties.
So he's skipping an important event, Dr. Paul, where they're going to talk about Ukraine.
Although I will say, Chris Rossini poured a little cold water on this, our friend and colleague, if you put the next one on, and he's absolutely right, Dr. Paul.
He said he commented about that last photo saying, I have nothing against Hegset doing this, but U.S. troops have no business being in Germany.
That's not defending America.
Hopefully, Doge gets to this.
Bring them home.
And he is right as well.
Boy, let's hope so.
You know, they say that we are going to conquer the land.
Relatively peaceful conditions will evolve.
We will be partnerships in this.
Can you imagine the odds of that ever happening?
Well, even if they got close to a partnership, do you think there would be a dominant partner?
A bankrupt country that has nothing that depends 100% on our money?
And already this was partially settled in the election.
The Ukraine issue was up there.
They could attack that military spending where it was a little more politically risky to go into the Middle East and start talking this way.
But they did that.
And I'll tell you what, there would not be a partnership.
There would be a dominant partner.
And it's just to me, since nobody seems to learn a lesson from this, you know, that we talk about it, we know about it, we know how rare war should be.
The founders try to protect us against it.
Over and over, we keep doing this.
And it to me is a sad tale.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, there's another little topic that we wanted to talk about, Dr. Paul, today.
And that's something I'm sure you've got plenty to say about.
If you can put that next one, and this is from Reuters.
This just happened overnight.
Trump, that's actually not, it's just a clip, Dr. Paul.
Trump raises tariffs on aluminum and steel imports in the latest trade war salvo.
So he raised aluminum tariffs, Dr. Paul, to 25% from 10% and a few other aspects of it.
He targets downstream steel production for tariffs.
He's substantially raising the tariffs on aluminum imports.
What do you make of this, Dr. Paul?
Doesn't sound good to me, but what do I know?
No, I thought Adam Smith and a few others explained it to us.
But they always go back because it looks simple.
In the short run, certainly a lot of people benefit until it doesn't work anymore.
Until somebody does it to us.
And they didn't waste any time in doing it to us.
Oh, okay.
It's only a strategy.
Now, say, come back and Canada caved in, Mexico cave in.
They're now helping us and obeying what we tell them to do.
So it's going to be, you know, hunky-dory and it's going to work out.
But I think that the whole thing is that they believe in this protectionism in a fallacy that said that you have to have a balance of payments and balance of trade.
You know, if we spend $1,000 in your country, you have to spend it back here.
Well, what if they spend it to another country and keep the system moving?
And the example I used recently in the program that I think is such a good example.
What if our 50 states were 50 countries and we want to have balance of trade with every state?
Can you imagine what kind of trade we had?
What if you didn't have a unified currency and people doing this and protect?
Okay, you can't come.
There's been times when one of the big issues, which has to be settled always with a court, is how do you do it with the water?
But there's still private stuff going on with water that they could do it in.
But the whole thing is, is this whole thing that they can do this and be able to get people to go along with it?
That is the biggest surprise to me and also the most annoying and delaying efforts.
But you can't balance the payments because what people don't realize is if we're so foolish, we consumers, that we like tennis shoes and clothes and things.
I've been looking more at labels.
I'm guilty.
I have Chinese products in my house.
Oh, no.
But what if there was somebody in my family frugal?
Or what if the person had given me a gift for frugal?
Oh, this shirt is $50.
Oh, but this same thing for $25.
So I buy the shirt for $25.
That means I have the shirt.
Yeah, and I have $25.
A bonus.
And then they say that's dumb.
People say that's dumb.
That's how countries get rich.
But most countries who complain the most are not admitting.
I remember especially when the car business was so chaotic.
The cars were so bad made in America that it was natural.
It prodded people to do it.
That's what the purpose is, is to show that if people, if the market is choosing other products, if they'd rather buy products in Texas than New York, maybe New York ought to do something.
Fortunately, in the country, people in New York can facilitate their problems by just moving out.
It's not so easy around the world.
But it makes no sense whatever to realize that it's an enhancing thing.
If you have the unbalance of trade, it's a message.
It's sort of like, and there's a lot of guilt here in the administration and elsewhere.
You've got to have low interest rates.
And almost every, maybe Grover Cleveland might have been the only president that said, let it run.
But no, low interest rate.
Sure, you and I can go out and buy a house and have a low interest mortgage.
And what do you mean nobody benefit?
But then what happens if more and more people do it?
Then what happens if too many houses are built?
And what happens when there's a collapse and then the house becomes less valuable?
So it's that tariff will be an illusion.
It will be false information.
And if there's any good, it will be temporary and it will not be representing a freedom of choice.
Matter of fact, I like to talk about tariffs and all this nonsense as a personal issue that we shouldn't have all this mischief and rules and regulation.
We ought to have sound money and your right to spend the money you earn any place you want if you're not involved with violence.
And that would give you the information.
And that's why, whether it's tariffs, international trade, or whether it's at home with the interest rate, once you mess around with interest rate, you don't know how much the savings are.
You're guessing at it.
And somebody said, well, what would you do if you were in the Fed?
How would you learn how to pick the right interest rate?
Well, I would tell them you can't possibly do it.
Admit, I don't know, you don't know, nobody knows, and it's all a bunch of malarkey pretending next week.
And they, pins and needles is a major, major announcement by the Federal Reserve on a particular day, you know, every six weeks, I think.
And pins and needles and trillions of dollars, change here, because half the people know what it is, and the other half think they know what it is, and it happens.
Stopping Waste, Fraud, Abuse 00:03:48
And there's one little phrase in the discussion session afterwards.
Oh, he didn't say that before.
That is so far removed from the marketplace.
Yet, hardly anybody blinks their eye.
But I want to suggest that, you know, it's been a couple years now that I've suggested that we really don't need the Federal Reserve.
Is that a little radical?
You're talking yourself out of a job.
They're almost going to give you the chairmanship.
I'd rather go and talk to young people so that if I were to be the chairman, I'd want everybody around me to know what I was doing and for what reason.
Exactly.
Well, I'm going to close out, Dr. Paul, and thank our viewers for watching the Liberal Report on YouTube, on Rumble, on X, wherever you watch it.
Please subscribe wherever you are watching it and give us a thumbs up or a like and help share the show and spread it around.
We appreciate you watching, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
Well, one thing I have been involved in over the years is trying to stop the spending and balance the budget, have sound money, and maximize our personal liberties and let people take their own chances and make them responsible for their mistakes.
And they can't go begging and pleading and pressuring others to take care of their mistakes.
But overall, I do think, and I agree with all this activity about waste, fraud, and abuse, because this system that I'm complaining about is ripe for increasing all the waste, fraud, and abuse.
And just finding out where it is is a job and a half.
But to tinker with it and just say, well, if we have this rule, we can find out all the answers.
Finding out as many answers and abuse because this will help mobilize the people.
You don't believe in it.
Already, USAID has revealed so much.
People are becoming furious.
The Democrats don't even know what to do because they can't possibly believe this is bad stuff.
But my message is that there's something more than waste, fraud, and abuse, because that's what government is: wasteful, fraudulent, and abuse, because they only exist most of the time by taking away the freedom of the individual in our country that was meant to be ours, individuals.
We were supposed to have the control.
So my argument is that we get into these messes, whether it's foreign policy, monetary policy, or corrupt government, is that our policies are flawed.
Whether it's monetary policy, doing dumb stuff and pretending we know what interest rates are or foreign policy when we think that we can tie this over by invading a country and saying, you pay us for us.
You know, we want your money.
And, oh, by the way, we hear you have some minerals.
The policies have to change.
And it's not complex to figure out what kind of policy we should have.
To me, it's non-aggression.
You're not allowed to tell people what to do.
And you can't hurt people, no aggression at all.
And under those circumstances, if people lived within that range, and the founders were quite cautious about their magic pill, and this is what's going to happen.
And they say it's going to work if people remain a moral people and they follow these fundamental rules that have been spelled out for 6,000 years, emphasizing natural law.
And people do know when they're stealing, cheating, and killing unnecessarily.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
Export Selection