UK Column News Podcast 11th April 2025

Good afternoon. It's just gone 1:00 on Friday the 11th of April 2025. Welcome to UK column News. I'm your host, Charles Mallett, and joining me in the studio today is Patrick Henningson. Welcome to the programme, Patrick. Great to be with you, Charles. And by video link, Mark Anderson from the United States. Now, we will have a full programme today and we'll be covering the push for war with Iran as well as farmers protests and indeed the latest on the pandemic treaty.

But we will start with tariffs. Now, as Keir Starmer tweets about Passover and Rachel Reeves sends out messages about Doncaster Airport, there is a rather bigger economic picture taking shape. And Mark's going to take the lead for us today on that. Over to you, Mark. G'day everyone. After last week's spirited discussion on tariffs. Naturally, since I've covered Congress a lot of years, I had to look to Congress.

And as we'll see here, on the very day, April 2nd, that President Trump gave his Rose Garden speech about emphasising tariffs, a declaration of economic independence, That very day there was a vote in the Senate and The Hill reported on it. Four Republican senators vote with Democrats to undo Trump tariffs on Canada. The thing is, is, as is often the case with the media cartel, their headlines don't always match the stories.

Because as I noted on this slide, what it actually said in the body of the story is that in a 51 to 48 vote, the Senate expressed its sense that it will disagree with Trump's tariffs on Canada. But the vote was on a resolution that does not have the force of law and is just symbolic. Now, of course, I didn't stop looking there.

The Senator, Charles Grassley, a very noted veteran senator from Iowa, the very next day, April 3rd, they issued a press release, he and Maria Cantwell out of Washington State. And as I expected, Congress is trying to throw its weight around and regain its constitutional authority on trade. And indeed, as it states here, Article 1, Section 8, Clause three, if the Constitution delegates to Congress the power quote, to regulate commerce with foreign nations among the states.

So that's internal and external and with the Indian tribes. So Senators Grassley and Maria Cantwell have introduced legislation quote, to restore Congress's constitutionally authorised role in setting and approving, setting and approving U.S. trade policy, according to their joint news release. Now, a quick footnote here is that Congress has long had this

power. And as is the case with the border, Congress is often making new laws when they don't have to. They have existing constitutional authority and existing laws in most cases, and they simply need to enforce or assert those things. And instead they spend a lot of time burning up, a lot of time carrying out onerous and often tedious legislation. That being said, Chuck Grassley had this to say around the time

of that press release. For too long, Congress has delegated its clear authority to regulate Interstate and foreign commerce to the executive branch. Building on my previous efforts as Finance Committee chairman, I'm joining Senator Cantwell to introduce this bipartisan Trade Review Act of 2025. That's the actual name of the bill to reassert Congress's constitutional role.

That's AUS Senate photo. Pretty much everything I'm reporting today is first hand and has not been in the regular news feed except for that Hill item. Anyway, here's the basic thrust of that bill, and we'll be keeping an eye on it to see if it passes. To enact a new tariff, the President must notify Congress of the imposition of a new or the increase of an existing tariff within 48 hours and explained his reasoning.

The president also must provide an analysis of the potential impact on American businesses and consumers of these tariffs. Within 60 days, Congress must passed a joint resolution of approval on the new tariff. Otherwise, all new tariffs on imports expire after that deadline. And the fourth main plank here is Congress could end tariffs at any time by passing a disapproval resolution.

Although anti dumping measures would get special consideration, such as when China over the decades has occasionally dumped hardwoods, lithium batteries, toys, steel, chemicals, things like that. There might be exceptions there. I'm moving forward, of course. The oldest committee in the US Congress is the Ways and Means Committee, created in July of 1789. And they still exist.

Who knew, right? Anyway, the full committee hearing on the Trump administrations 2025 trade policy agenda was held this past Wednesday. I covered it virtually online and I only use the ways and committees own broadcast, not any other news broadcast. And the only witness, the only one to testify was U.S. trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer. I believe that's Jamieson Jamieson Greer.

At any rate, the meeting went on and it had your typical bipartisan split in it. As this next slide kind of illustrates. The party number one was mainly represented by Chairman Jason Smith of Missouri, the Republican and party #2 door #2 ranking member Richard Neal, a Democrat out of Massachusetts. And they had your typical binary arguments, your typical Republican arguments, your

typical Democrat arguments. And a quick observation there is that the absence of independent parties or or non affiliated candidates or non affiliated members of Congress, that is, is very, very clear when it comes to these rather divisive issues because you never get anybody refereeing what's going on. It's just your typical Democrat, typical Republican.

If you had a gym traffic Ant at least someone independently minded even though he was a Democrat, or you had actual numerous third party candidates elected to office, you could get more nuance, you could get more objectivity. But you often don't get that with the media only focusing on your typical Democrat Republican arguments.

But anyway, we have some 2 quick video clips that are pretty far apart from one another, but it gives the range of views that were talked about from the Democrat side and the Republican side. So let's see those video clips, Mr Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to show a slide to everybody documenting where we are with the United States and the US trade deficit. I think this really shows why this is an emergency. If you look at where we are with manufacturing goods, that's in

the red column here. If you look at what has happened to the manufacturing capacity of the United States, we have plummeted, absolutely plummeted. Down here in. 2022 we have such a trade deficit with manufactured goods. This is critical. This is why the president has said this is an emergency. The same thing with fuels and other total goods. We have plummeted in this nation's capacity to actually produce things.

So yes, this is an emergency and this is by all means altogether the right thing to do. If we do not reverse this trend, again, going with the absolute calamitous effect of how we are hurtling towards a sovereign debt crisis, this nation does not exist. And yes, there is short term problems without a doubt, but it's the same thing by taking medicine you don't want to take. If we don't help the body by intervening in doing what is critically important for this

nation, nothing else matters. So This is why how manufacturing has plummeted and This is why we are in a state of emergency. Thank you. Quick footnote, that's Representative Greg Murphy out of North Carolina, Republican. A quick footnote is I contacted his office and I tried to get that graphic so we could get a closer, clearer look at it, and I did not get a response yet. Anyway, we have a Representative Chu Chu out of California, a Democrat, giving the opposing

view, and that's the next video. They are barely able to afford their everyday living expenses. But now they're hearing that the average family will have to pay $4600 a year more because of the Trump tariffs. They are hearing this will be the largest tax increase for the American people in our nation's peacetime history. They are hearing Goldman Sachs

say that we face a recession. The increases will be for food items that the US does not produce domestically like cacao beans, coffee beans, tea and spices and certain nuts. But non food items like clothing, consumer electronics, shoes, cell phones, furniture and household appliances will be especially hard hit as more than 50% of our consumption comes from countries facing tariff increases of 30% or more.

I must point out that there are some items on the list like bananas and cacao beans, which the US can never grow enough of to meet our own demand because of our mostly non tropical climate. In fact, the US produces a tiny number of bananas in Hawaii and Florida, but depends enormously on importing bananas from Guatemala, Ecuador and Costa Rica, all of which receive tariffs. And in fact, the US is the world's largest importer of

bananas. So this shoot first then aim approach is making Americans lives much worse with no actual plan and doesn't make any sense. So that's the opposing view on that. Interesting stuff. Now, an interesting twist. And she alluded to food is that we need to make a distinction between perishable and non perishable goods. In fact, it might make sense for the US to be striving for self sufficiency more in the food area than durable goods because food can spoil or become

contaminated. There's only so much shelf life and your supply chains might have to be dealt with differently. The now we have a, a miscellaneous item here. The shrimping industry in the US, however, is cheering the proposed legislation and cheering the Trump tariffs. They like what they see. And this is out of my rgb.com. It happens to concern the port of Brownsville, where they harvest enormous amounts of shrimp about an hour east of where I'm sitting.

And there's another bill in Congress, as this alludes to House Resolution 2071, the Save Our Shrimpers Act has been introduced there to prohibit federal funding from going to international financial firms that finance foreign shrimp

farms. The Rio Grande Valley, that's Deep South Texas, the shrimp industry here, and the rest of the domestic industry industry, excuse me, hopes that resolution becomes law, quote, in light of the fact that US shrimpers have been brought to their knees by unrelenting waves of cheap foreign exports flooding the market and driving prices down past the point of sustainability. And we have one more item on this.

It's a hard thing to police. We're hearing the US International Trade Commission found last year that imported farm raised shrimp is ultra cheap because, quote, other countries are subsidising their fisheries and dumping their product on the US market, End Quote, according to that Trade Commission. So that's it for now, gentlemen. I have a little bit later on state level trade that adds another interesting twist to this that no one ever thinks about. But now over to you.

Thanks very much, Mark. And supply chains will be something we'll come back to presently, but obviously this is a very big topic. So we're going to extend this theme. So Patrick's going to continue with the tariff story. Well, the previous congressional

speaker there, she said they don't grow much bananas in America, but there's plenty of bananas in Washington, as we will show you shortly. This is this whole story has just completely exploded here. We'll look at this up on screen now. I tweeted this on Monday, April of 7th year, and I predicted that Trump would get pressure from the donor class and that he would then suspend the tariffs that he put on across the board to the entire world. And looks like that's exactly what happened.

And I even quoted him almost verbatim on Monday. I predicted what Donald was going to say. We're postponing the implementation of the tariffs because quite frankly, what we've done is so great. Just the announcement has already had such a great impact in governments are now begging us for a deal. That's what I predicted Donald would say and it's true. So here we are. This is the result. This is a bottle. This reminds us of, you could

say Kevin Keegan's England team. But anyway, it looks like Trump has bottled it. The pressure came and he did cave. Trump announces a 90 day pause on the tariff war, except for China, except for one country. So that's interesting. Now this is where things are going to get a little bit dicey for the Trump administration.

Let's take a look. There's Donald there, I guess he's claiming victory, Charles, But it seems to be anything but because this has started a tit for tat with China that is now getting unbelievably ridiculous. Take a look at this. Consider these two are among each other's greatest trading partners. China's raised tariffs in reciprocal in reciprocation to what the US has done, trying to raise tariffs on all US goods up to 125% as the trade war ramps up. Now, that's in response to Trump

putting on a 40 or 50%. If there's been so many changes in the last 48 hours, it's hard to keep track of it here. But Trump, not to be outdone here he is. The White House says that a tariff rate on most Chinese imports will now be 145%. Where is this going to end? And you know, the whole basis of this, and this is the strange thing. A Trump is called this trade war on a national emergency. And one has to look at the the

predicate for this. One of them was a fentanyl crisis, OK, some fentanyl coming over the Mexican border. They're blaming China for it. It's a bit tenuous, but they're saying that and we'll bring, we'll bring the order up on screen here. This is what the White House published here. And then they're saying, no, no, this is a national emergency because of a, a trade deficit. But The thing is, how could it be an emergency when the United States has had a trade deficit since 1934?

So it's taking them, you know, over, I don't know, something like 8090 years to work out this this so called emergency here. So he's invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 in order to ram this emergency through. But globalisation been going since the 90s pretty much full steam. So it's not as if this was a surprise. But nonetheless, they're carrying on with this right now. Let's take a look here. There is the Donald. And so this is what the the line

is here. You probably heard this. Everyone's heard this. They're ripping us off. They're ripping us off. We're getting a terrible deal. Donald's been saying this actually since before he became president here. But are they really ripping the US off? Let's take a look at the facts. No, actually in actuality the US is ripping everybody else off by exporting their Fiat dollars in exchange for actual valuable

goods. This is the advantage the US has had because they have the world reserve currency. This allows the US to deficit spend by the tune over $2 trillion per year. And with that 2 trillion they're able to fund their military industrial complex. They're able to project power globally, power and influence globally effectively run a global empire on. In the US dollar system, the US has been running a trade deficit since 1934. Fact.

And the deficit is roughly the amount of government spending versus how much they produce. So there's a deficit there. It's almost mathematical as an equation. the US deficit is not caused by other countries ripping off America. It's caused because the United States has gone through the process of offshoring its manufacturing. It used to be an industrial power, but now it's a financial power. It's A to financialize its economy. Guess who's an industrial power?

China. China's doing what the United States did back in 1890. And that's the golden years that Trump and his team keep harkening back to. So this conversation, just the more you look at it, it just doesn't add up. And we go on exporting dollars in exchange for debt, props up the US dollar as a world reserve currency, as we said earlier. And here's the key point. This is essentially A corrupt system which allows the US to pay for all of these wars on its national credit card.

This is what it comes down to. It's not about other countries ripping off the president here. And you know, when Trump and this is the so tariff fallacies. This is the the tariff chart. This is the the calculations on this was totally arbitrary and completely bogus. He's been panned by the pundits for this year. He's even getting panned by the financial press on this fortune. Some of these are generally pro conservative, pro Trump publications. Here. Trump's tariff formula used the

wrong value in its calculations. Conservative think tank says this whole thing was rigged. They're talking about this entire tariff Furago. The formula the White House used to calculate it. It's recent tariffs is based on an error that roughly quadrupled the rates from what they should have been. So, I mean, this is a serious problem here when we're talking about competency of the Trump administration. He's the businessman. He's known as the billionaire, the money maker, the deal maker.

How could he get the economics and the numbers so horribly wrong? We'll continue here. More tariff fallacies. There he is again. He's still angry. He's saying we'll correct the deficit with money raised from tariffs. That's the claim the Trump administration's making. But actually punitive Tariffs deincentivizes trade with the US, meaning less revenue. A recession is coming now because of a lack of confidence. Inflation is moving in, meaning

less affordability and demand. And no immediate quote, cheap US made goods to replace the expensive imports. We're looking at 5 to 10 years away from the United States becoming reindustrialized. Even if they had all of their eggs and their ducks in a row on that score. So second fallacy, it worked in 1890 when the US had tariffs and no income tax. This is the basis of the whole gambit here from the Trump administration, at least the

public facing pitch. 1890 the US again, as I said, had an industrial economy and the US ran massive trade surpluses back then. This is why their foreign policy became more aggressive because they needed markets at that time for their products. So they're having a de inflationary period and they needed to expand. That was the beginning of the US empire 2025.

However, we have a financialized economy and the US is offshore to its manufacturing mostly for the better part of 30 years, but actually in reality even before that. Okay, now, so for some trade tariff realities here. And some realities, let's just lay it on the table. Tariffs have further triggered inflation, fact recession, stagflation, collapse in the bond market. Arguably, this is where the pressure came onto Trump from some of his billionaires who have all of their money in long

place on the stock market. The stock markets have taken a beating, not just in the US, but internationally. Here, a rise in the cost of living. That means lower living standards wiping out gains from trade. So buying cheaper imports, selling advantage goods, that's the normal gains from trade that the US would normally have in this very delicate balance of a global trading system. Trump is just basically taking a Wrecking Ball to this in the course of a week or two.

Unbelievable and unprecedented here. Fewer US goods means more expensive at home is, well, more expensive to export. So no significant trade in the trade balance. This is what the experts are saying. It's not going to be a big difference in the trade deficit. The result is going to be less trade, less trade both coming in and going out. So this is a contraction of the economy. This is what Trump has done by disrupting the economy. This is why a lot of people are really going crazy in the

analytical world here. Stock market crashes, trillions have been wiped out on market cap. And, and here's the main point, further wrecking the US economy, wrecking the world trading system. It might not be ideal for the the United States, but the United States didn't have goods to export. And that is not the fault of China or anybody else in the world. What they're trying to do is punish everybody else for their problems. And this is not going to go down well for future relationships

here. And we'll just move forward and see. OK. And this is a good point here. And we'll bring this Next up on stage. Americans need a little history lesson and I'm sure even the British know this. The Boston Tea Party, December 16th, 1773, no taxation without representation. Mark Anderson did a great job in showing that the issue of the congressional authority, Trump is one man is trying to basically levy taxes effectively here, but really also messing with the entire global trade

system here. So this is a drawing made by a fifth grade student. So I would I would direct the Trump economic team to this fifth grade student just to remind themselves. And we bring an irony alert in here, Charles, that the Boston Tea Party originally was to bail out the British East India Company. Parliament wanted to maintain that ability to tax the colonies, but it was really about bailing out the

corporations on that. They had a huge balance of payments problems with the British government at the time. But this is another key issue. European markets were very weak at the time due to debts from the French and Indian wars, among other wars at the time. Does this sound familiar? It certainly does. And so you have all these monopolies back in the day, back in the late 1700s, and it created a situation. And that was only a 2% tax, Charles, and it was enough for the colonists to rebel.

And look at what they're throwing now on imports and exports, these tariff wars. It it dwarfs even what was going on back then. So we can learn a little bit from history. And again, note the irony alert. So a lot of Trump fans are saying this is just 3D chess. He's escalating to de escalate, right? Or or 6,000,000 D chess, as it's now being called, escalate to de escalate. But is it really or are do they actually know what they're doing?

And you know, to be very critical here and we'll show you a video clip in a second. The every millionaire I've spoken to or who I follow has made an absolute killing in the last week. They have absolutely, they have put short positions down. They've made tonnes of money. Working folks I know have had their retirement savings slashed by 20 to 30%. It's been an absolute route again for the middle class and surely not going to be good for the working class. And Donald Trump is the man of

the people. He breached the like Boris breached the red wall. Donald Trump captured the Rust Belt and got all those blue dog Reagan Democrats back. So listen to this. This is from the White House, just I believe yesterday. This is Trump with the famous Charles Schwab of Charles Schwab brokerage fame here. And they're boasting about how much money that they made in the last week. Watch this. This is Charles Schwab. It's not just a company, it's actually an. Individual.

He made, he made two and a half million today and he made 900 million. You know he's in financial. I've always been. So there it is. I mean, right straight from the horse's mouth. They absolutely rinsed it, these guys. I mean, not it's kind of like insider trading, but on a galactic scale. And he was even tweeting out things like whoever runs his Twitter account. Now is a good time to buy, you know, when the stock market was

at its absolute low. So this is like dog whistles to Wall Street. Plus there is a a ticker symbol for one of the Trump this is as well that went out on another Trump account and it's kind of a free for all. So anyway, let's look at the wrap up on this here. We'll bring this up on stage right now. Trumps real agenda. OK, the golden age of America. He's once wants to bring us back to McKinley 1890. Let's look at the reality. This is the this is the real

agenda. Trump is trying to force down the value of the US dollar in order to refinance $9 trillion in U.S. debt. OK. That's the number one priority. And they're not really articulating that to the public very clearly. And that's part of the problem. That's actually the core. So the world has to suffer for US domestic fiduciary

responsibility issues, right? So increase external revenue claims Trump in order to pay for massive tax cuts, probably for the rich like in 2017. So a lot of a loss of Internal Revenue and totaling 4 trillion over the next 10 years. So that massive tax cut, is that really going to get paid for with with with the tariff and trade balance? It doesn't look like it will. It's it's, it's, it's debatable. The signals don't look good right now anyway.

Massive deregulation, massive privatisation and so incentivizing direct investment. But this is a problem. This is also why the cost of living is so high. And This is why China has the edge. They have state run utilities they're able to control and subsidised the cost of energy. This is why they're an industrial powerhouse because they have a hybrid mixed economy just like the United States did back in the late 18 hundreds. And again, Trump and his team need a history lesson.

They seem to be cherry picking American history here. But not to be outdone here, allowing for wild levels of Washington insider trading. Listen, what what we're showing you is just the tip of that iceberg. And then here bypassing Congress, as Mark pointed out that key issue earlier, the power of the purse on living tax. This is a huge problem. It's really putting the power into the hands of one man. So this is ultimately weaking Congress with one person rule.

This is an autocracy. Fair question. Main .0 sum policy trying to control who trades with who etcetera, like with Russia, like with India and Russian oil Nordstrom pipeline, it is a result of 0 sum foreign policy here. And So what are we really looking at? And this is the big fear. Effectively, Trump is trying to sanction China through tariffs, to isolate China, to build an Iron Curtain like they've done with Russia economically. How did that work out with

Russia? Russia's got projecting 3% growth, Europe's projecting 0% growth. So Russia's beat that beat this system outperformed the US and Europe and China. Arguably is is is set to do the same, Charles. So I mean, that's the main takeaway here. This is hard foreign policy done through economic policy. And I don't know if this is going to end well for for Trump. Well, we, we obviously, we shall see. It's certainly gone very well for the billionaire class who have made money at every turn.

And as we see consistently, you invoke the emergency and then you watch the money roll in so that there is some capital to be made. But but of course, the, the idea that Trump is standing tough against China is something that can be sold to a certain extent. I wonder also about the, you know, if we're moving a few steps closer to to central bank digital currency with a, with a, you know, accelerating of the collapse. But more to talk about in extra

certainly now with all this in mind, economic conditions are certainly unfavourable for farmers in the United Kingdom. And there's been a lot out on social media recently. I spoke on Wednesday about protests, a wheat strike. Now we've got farmers to action putting out a note saying that they are going to be saying no to labour.

Now I, I urged a note of caution on Wednesday because I felt that there is a huge potential for a backfire effect as the government are very, very able to spin this sort of direction as being that the farmers are causing trouble and indeed that they're not entirely necessary. And of course that was to do with the fact that a lot more wheat is being imported this year. In any case.

And just to illustrate the point I'm making, Farmers Weekly here advertising or at least reporting that Daniel Zeichner, the Defra minister, was blocked from getting out of a meeting in Tavistock. Now I'm sure it didn't last very long, but it's very easy to see how that sort of thing could be spun in a particular way to make small land owners and small farmers seem less relevant then of course they they really are.

I think the central issue here is that continually going to government to routinely and almost ritually abuse farmers and indeed the supermarkets is very much barking up the wrong tree. Why on earth would they change their behaviour? What's in it for them? And just to illustrate the the sort of lack of care in this regard, I should just point out the Groceries Code Adjudicator is the one man band that is supposed to arbitrate over the relationship between producers and supermarkets.

So consider that he is incredibly under resourced and also that the entirety of the Defra budget for this year is 2.4 billion, which would take the National Health Service only five days to dispose of. So the the message really in so far as UK column is concerned is absolutely to adopt what Julian Rose describes as the proximity principle.

And this really should be an opportunity for farmers to be looking for markets elsewhere there and dealing with people that are able to meet whatever type of shortfall. But obviously with with with all the enormous uncertainty concerning the tariffs and trade, this would seem a time that farmers really have an opportunity to be providing a degree of self sufficiency that that actually is not there at

the moment. And to control parts of the market that they're absolutely not died down, shutting out supermarkets and indeed government in the process. So something we will definitely follow but but it remains to be seen how that story will be spun now.

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grooming in libraries. And he's now looking for financial assistance in defending against two federal defamation lawsuits filed against him by a school librarian in Louisiana. So there'll be details of this in the show notes. Tomorrow in Glasgow, there's going to be the Stand for Peace Scotland, Glasgow Peace Walk. So please do get along to that if you're able.

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last week. And this is an article by Fiorella Isabel about the censorship, effectively censorship through frozen assets by banking. Also up on the UK column website now is the Scottish People's COVID-19 Inquiry. All the various videos are there. And then today being live streamed from Cambridge, the Sense and Sensibility Conference about the origins of the Russian Ukrainian war.

And among the speakers there are Major General Bakshi, who of course has been on Auk Column Symposium, but also Brian Lucy, Morgan Edwards and George Galloway. And I should remind you that if you haven't yet got access to the recording of our event in Cheltenham on Saturday, then you're absolutely missing a trick. So please do go to the website and get your access to the to the live stream there, which is very much still available.

Yesterday, the second part of Brian's interview with Carl Schwartz went out as follows. The first excellent one about what was known leading up to the events of the 11th September 2001. And that was concerning sort of asbestos response felt in emergency responders. And Part 2 which came out yesterday is dealing with the the aircraft reportedly involved in in that day, but but evidence substantiating the effects of a controlled demolition.

Now that takes us back to Mark and really on a related theme,

Mark, but the the situation with trade in certain parts of the states. A very interesting thing, gentlemen, about trade that's never discussed is that individual states, especially here in Texas, have their own trade deals, their own trade policies, and even send trade delegations to other nations. This first slide is very illustrative of that. Of course, Texas and California are the ones individual states with the longest coast. California has the Long Beach and Los Angeles ports where

trade goes in and out. If you haven't seen those ports, they have to be seen to be believed. The massive amount of stuff that goes in and out of there. Texas is right behind them, especially out of Houston and Brownsville. Anyway, this slide illustrates that illustrate, excuse me, that the state of Texas has a Taiwan office and Texas trades with nearly 220 foreign markets. It has a Japan office and it trades mainly with Mexico, Canada, the Netherlands, China and South Korea.

And there's an interesting part as it shows here, Article 1, Section 10 of the US Constitution quote no state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage keep troops or ships of war in time of peace. And then I emphasise the main part or enter into any agreement or contact with the other state or with the foreign power and that's without the consent of Congress. So the states are carrying out quasi autonomous trade policies

of their own. One has to wonder and talks about how that might harmonise or and different trade policies going on. And we have a couple other slides that will kind of drive this point home to try and figure out or at least consider the issue of state, individual states having trade policies with regards to what Trumps

doing at the federal level. If we could look at the next slide that it shows a little bit more about this with regards to Michigan and California. Michigan has nearly 200 foreign markets and its main trade partners are Canada, Mexico, China, Germany and Japan. And California has over 225 foreign markets, its main trading partners being Mexico, Canada, China, Japan and Taiwan. Now, by foreign markets, that doesn't mean just individual nations, it means regional

organisations and different institutions that are involved, different players that are involved in the trade schematic. But the, the main point here, gentleman, is that Michigan, California, Texas, and several other states, they send trade delegations to other countries. There's that constitutional measure that I just showed that says that they really ought not to do that without explicit congressional approval.

And these are very massive trade deals that Texas, California, Michigan, and these other states have with these other nations. And I'm bringing this up mainly as an awareness thing. How much has the Trump administration and Congress of the US Congress, which I talked about earlier today, how much

have they considered this? And how much will the Trump policies collide with or maybe harmonise with or maybe be neutral regarding all these state trade efforts that are at least constitutionally questionable, especially having such large amounts of trade going on with individual states acting as if they're separate nations. So it's just an awareness thing. It's a constitutional thing. It's another piece in the puzzle to consider. I'll leave it at that for now, but it's a very interesting

topic at that. Mark, thanks very much. And I think we might have time to come back to that in extra.

We've now moved back to the UK where we are in effect hotting up the case for, I would say, potential war with Iran. News today put out by Defence Science and Technology laboratories that they're, they've had a critical advancement in the U KS defence capabilities. What you're actually looking at is a fake picture of a fake hypersonic missile that doesn't yet exist. But nonetheless they're talking about it as though it does.

They say that this might be ready by 20-30, part of a joint UKUS project, and this gives them opportunity to hark back to what was happening last year being put out by Defence Intelligence where the suggestion was that there was an inextricable link between what was going on in Russia, Ukraine and indeed Iran's support of it. So this is a shaping operation certainly in people's minds, to sow the idea that that state threat from Russia is absolutely synonymous with state threat

from Iran and therefore that something has to be done about it. And we see that the British forces broadcasting surface here by its Forces News is again pumping up exactly the same story about this hypersonic, what's being called a successful test. But of course, it's still five years away from being a reality.

And I think interesting to note that they conclude the article by saying Brazil, China, France, Iran, North Korea and Japan are among other countries with plans or programmes devoted to hypersonic weapons. Of course, what they completely failed to mention is that since 2018, via its Kin Zhao system, Russia has had a hypersonic capability. And this is one of the things that that is not.

To be talked about because it clearly highlights the fact that the UK is not only well behind Russia, but supposedly it destroys the narrative that Russia is actually presenting a state threat. Because if it really were, as I've asked before, why on earth would it not be doing rather more than it is as we sit there and supposedly build up our various arsenals? So a question to be asked there.

But that obviously the authorities not, not to be deterred in so far as the building of a narrative and indeed the intelligence that's supposed to support that goes. And we look at the country policy and information note on the government's website on Iran. Now this says November 2022. This is actually the most recent document. And rather remarkably, it refers back to statistics on military capabilities that are first of all, not put together by this country.

They're American statistics and they go back to 2019. And that is the information upon which we are supposed to be deciding what relationship Iran has with the United Kingdom in terms of state threat. Now, I've shown this slide before, but this is Hamish Falconer, minister for the Middle East and North Africa. And he has stated that it is regressively true that Iran's nuclear programme has never been more advanced and it threatens international peace and

security. And this has been bandied around absolutely up and down the place. There's been debates on this in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, but there is not one shred of evidence with which they can substantiate this. So I think it bears a lot more scrutiny. But we'll just go to look at the former ambassador for Iran 2000 and two, 2006, Sir Richard Dalton, who spoke on Newsnight recently. And this is what he had to say.

How seriously do you take this from President Trump? I do take it seriously. The risk of a war between Israel and the United States on the one hand, and Iran on the other, has never been higher. And that's because it's been Israel's aim for many years to strike Iran, and they've always wanted to attract the United States to their side to do it because of limitations in Israel's capabilities, particularly in sustaining a long war. This is chiefly about weakening Iran as a state, Iran.

And of course, President Trump, President and Mr Netanyahu know this, knows this does not have a nuclear weapon and does not have a military nuclear programme. And that has been the consensus of U.S. intelligence agencies in the US National Intelligence estimates for the last 22 years. So let us hope that on this occasion the Americans adopt A more reasonable position than has been sketched out for Iran hitherto.

Some hope I think we might say, but nonetheless he he is quite right to point out that there is no intelligence to support this position and yet politicians banded around absolutely Willy nilly, never with any comeback on this.

And it is therefore pertinent and coincident that a carrier strike group is about to depart Portsmouth towards the end of this month to go towards the Mediterranean and then on to the Indo Pacific. And we'll just listen to what Luke Pollard, Armed Forces Minister, has to say about this

and why it's happening. From the bridge of our flagship HMS Prince of Wales, I'm proud to announce that our Carrier Strike Group, made up of key Naval, Air and land forces from Britain and our allies, will depart from Portsmouth at the end of the month On its 2025 global deployment, codenamed Operation Highmast, it will engage with more than 30 countries stretching from Italy to Japan and from South Korea to Australia. This isn't just any mission.

With nearly 4000 British personnel accompanied throughout by a Norwegian frigate and auxiliary ship, we're leading a multinational task force of 13 nations in a demonstration of integrated deterrence across the globe. For periods, the Carrier Strike group will come under NATO command, strengthening the bedrock alliance of our national security. Naval power remains vital to upholding the international rules based system that underpins our security and prosperity.

Through Operation High Mast, we stand firm with our allies against those who challenge the international order, reminding the world that threats in one region affect every region, that the security of the Euro, Atlantic and Indo Pacific are

fundamentally indivisible. Fundamentally indivisible I think are the words to concentrate on there because soon it appears that the state threat from Iran will be fundamentally indivisible from that posed by Russia and that seems to be the messaging that's going on here. There's a couple of other points to draw out of that. It's it's referring referred to as operation high mast and not exercise. Therefore there is a suggestion there inherent that there is specific potential for kinetic

action. And of course, interestingly he's actually they're defying the the naming convention there. An operational name should never have anything to do with the operation itself, but naming it high mass would seem to be in breach of that. Also, of course, initially it's going to be under the command of the NATO exercise, which means that should the carrier strike group be engaged at that point, that would of course trigger Article 5 and A response from

all NATO members. So I think that's something that absolutely people should be bearing in mind. It's also said to have a cargo of, or at least the capability of up to 24F35 fighters. And if you've listened to Tim Davis, the former fast jet trainer and pilot with the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force talk about the F35 capability against Russian air defence, then you would know that having 24 F 30 fives on board is not much to write home about.

But this really, as I say, suggests that there is that linkage between what we're told about Russia and indeed what were to be told about Iran. So it's a very clear sort of telegraphing of, of intent, at least what people are supposed to be believe. Well, as you know, our Article 5 is not an automatic reflex, especially if you happen to be out of area. So it seems like the British Navy having difficulty of fielding more warships than they

have Admirals at the moment. It's a bit of a Cassius bell lie or bait as it were. And so that's a little bit worrying when you think about it strategically. Militarily, I can't see how they could make a big impact in any conflict versus the adversaries which they claiming to be opposing there. But just quickly on the Iran issue here, I'll bring this up on screen, Charles, if the United States attacks Iran, that's just a little summary

there. It's a couple years old, but 2024, I think US bases and troops deployment in the immediate vicinity of Iran. So all those would be targeted in a matter of minutes. So this is a huge number of target lists that doesn't include Israel as well as a Cyprus, which may or may not be included in that if they believe that that's where the origins. Even Oman and Saudi Arabia are on that list because they've got US bases.

They're not saying anything about the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain or Kuwait and Iraq for that matter. So, you know, there will be a blowback or a price to pay for the US. And I, I might add to Charles that to what the Trump administration are proposing for Iran, that they, they basically dismantle or that the US is allowed to destroy Iran's civilian nuclear programme and eliminate all of their missiles. So the demilitarisation of Iran.

And if they don't comply, the US will launch a pre emptive tactical nuclear strike and a decapitation operation as it were, to take out the leadership. So it's regime change, destroying the country and so forth. These aren't negotiations.

And I I want to warn people just a little less less lesson of history that shades of 1914, the Austro Hungarian Empire imposed a huge stringent demands on Serbia at the time by which Serbia complied with all but one of those and they still Austria, Hungarians still declared war on Serbia. So it that's what's happening here. the United States has issued a declaration of war. There's only a question of when

they're going to attack. These are not negotiation negotiations and this can't be seen as any kind of acceptable state craft unless you're talking about the rules based international order where he who has the power and the money makes the rules. And unfortunately, I believe that's where we are right now. So something to to think about

there. But just a note that Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington this week and there he is with Donald Trump, looking at pictures of Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. So some people who like to talk about narcissists and power hungry oligarchs would get a chuckle at a photo like that. But last time Bebe was in Washington, it looked like they're plotting to cancel the ceasefire in Gaza. That's what eventually happened. Now we have a full blown resumption of that conflict in

the carnage there. What exactly were they planning on this trip to Washington? And it could very well be a joint strike on be run. At that point, all bets are off trials. Absolutely, yeah. And again, more to talk about an extra.

But on the theme of things that won't go away, we're back to mark with the pandemic treaty. Thank you. I'm continuing, of course, to follow this very closely, the intergovernmental negotiating body that's working on the treaty. The talks resumed this past Monday and they conclude today, April 11th. But I confirm pretty much it appears that the withdrawal of the US from The Who system meant it literally meant that no US participation was seen for the first time ever.

There were no delegates this this past week concluding today from the US at the pandemic talks. And we're keeping in mind that the 78th World Health Assembly, the 19th through the 27th of May is coming up. Now, it's also fairly clear, I talked to James Roguski briefly last night and looked through a whole bunch of WHO literature from about a year ago and recently. And I'm staying here with this slide.

I'm saying stay tuned. And I, I took this photo during the deliberations, like my congressional report in the Ways and Means Committee. I took those online photos virtually, but to get us as much first hand stuff as possible, I took this photo here. There's Tadros, the director general and a couple other top officials. And what I was able to distil out of this, I watched some of the dry, tedious deliberations. I'll tell you it is.

It is a cure for insomnia. But the inter intergovernmental negotiating body as of yesterday was reportedly 80 nations shy of its needed consensus to finalise the treaty. But there are the talks today and Raguski pointed out and I saw other indications that there might be additional pre World Health Assembly talks that could be called. They could be organised to try and move things along. So Ding Dong, the witch's dead cannot be pronounced yet.

She's still alive. We'll just have to keep a close eye on it. But The Who funding cuts led by the US that are troubling The Who right now that I reported on last week, that is a bit of dead weight on The Who and it is creating some problems with them getting everything they want regarding the pandemic treaty. But we'll just keep a very close eye on this. It's a very critical time. The treaty has kind of been delayed and fallen out.

His face going about a year ago, May 2024, they were working on it and it kind of got sidetracked and shelved for a while. So they're by no means having an easy time at this. And anything that we can do to contact members of Parliament, local officials, members of Congress, depending on where you live, would be very important

right now. And so we'll just keep a close eye on it and see if they have another negotiating meeting prior to the World Health Assembly or if they wait for the World Health Assembly. That's the main question right now. So back to you guys. Indeed Mark, thank you very much indeed. And as you say we need to keep our eye on it and where possible act certainly at the local level to to push back on on that. Now other organisations that need to have an eye kept on them

number among them the BBC of course. And they've just announced, or at least revealed the fact that the statue on Broadcasting House by Eric Gill, which was damaged a couple of years ago, has been repaired, restored and is now covered in a protective glass case. And now the, the, the story here really is that Gil himself, a well renowned sculptor of the 20th century or sculptor, was also a paedophile. And it's not to suggest that there should be any sense of revisionism to this.

The building is of course a Grade 2 listed building and therefore they're limited in terms of what they would be able to do, certainly without planning consent. But the point is, is this necessarily consistent the BBC in so far as the way they deal with other subject matter. So just look at the treatment of this. This is what the chief executive of Historic England who's been sort of involved in the project says.

And he describes it as being in line with our approach of encouraging thoughtful, long lasting and powerful reinterpretation of contested statues and sites, which keeps their physical context but adds new layers of meaning and understanding. Now it's hard not to interpret that in light of the sorts of things that are going on in the education system with with regard to what children, what's being normalised to children in terms of sexuality and all kinds

of sexual perversions. This would seem to add weight to that narrative. And as I say, we're the question to be asked here is, is the BBC being consistent, especially where other statue removals are concerned? And of course this is how they reported on the removal of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol during the highlight. What sort of the sort of high point of the Black Lives Matter

protest back in 20, 20? They described it as being a largely peaceful demonstration where of course actually quite a lot of people were injured. And then we've got their absolute failure to deal properly with people that have worked for them such as Rolf Harris, Jimmy Savile and of course most recently Hugh Edwards.

So I think the BBC at least can be accused of substantial hypocrisy but also a certain degree of recklessness because they point out in the article that they are not condoning the behaviour of Gill. They're trying to make a degree of separation between the man and the artwork. But therefore what they are certainly not doing is in any way condemning the behaviour. And also in putting a glass case around it, they are recognising that it remains vulnerable.

And of course, inherent in that statement is the fact that they feel like they're doing something wrong. Now I think we'll have more to say about that sort of thing in extra. We're a bit Bush now, but we're

we're now going to go into space. Indeed. So this of all the stories here, this is a feel good story in a certain way. You might get a little bit of a smile out of this, but there he is. There he is. This is the little Green Man in Kiev and what's going on here? Zelensky tries to arrest an International Space Station cosmonaut who is in space and Zelensky seeking a 15 year gaol term for this quote draught Dodger believe it or not.

So he he did everything but serve him with papers up at the the ISS here so waited for him to get up into space before well this week they put that through in the Ukrainian judiciary there. Let's take a look at this here and this astronaut here, this is a XI Zubrezki there. And you can see he is the one there on your left hand side and he's there with another Russian cosmonaut and AUS astronaut, Johnny Kim. So he's up there. And so he's found himself in the crosshairs of Zelensky.

He little did he know that the little Green Man had a beat on him from the moment he took off the Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan. But there you are. So Zelensky, in his mission to find warm bodies for the trenches in Ukraine, here, he is always looking for conscripts these days. Zubrinsky was among the numerous Ukrainian military personnel who rejected the new government in Kiev, we're talking about 2014, and continued their careers in

the Russian armed forces. So he's kind of a defector of sorts who is based in Sevastopol, so in Crimea. So he made that jump when the referendum happened in Crimea, as did many others. So he applied for the space programme in 20, 2017 and was confirmed as a flight engineer for the Soyuz Ms 27 mission last August. And by Russian reports, he is among their most promising astronaut, young astronaut candidates in years.

So highly decorated here. And Zelensky basically put out an arrest warrant for him as a draught Dodger. But that's interesting, Charles, that Zelensky would be chasing draught dodgers because we only have to look at this interview here with none other than Petro or Pyotr Poroshenko, who claimed that his successor, President Zelensky, was himself a draught Dodger. And we have checked the background on this. It is true.

In fact, Zelensky, we don't have the video with us, but there are videos on social media where he's kind of boasting that he's not going to be serving in the Ukrainian military while they were being trained by NATO at the time. This was after Maidan in 2014. So Zelensky, the draught Dodger is chasing astronauts that he claims are draught dodgers. I think that's just about the best thing I've read all week.

Absolutely. Once a comedian, yes, I mean, one wonders where that story is going to go. Why on earth are we even to be made aware of it? It's extraordinary. But that is perhaps a suitable note upon which to draw the news to a close.

But not before I remind you to make sure that you do go back to look at the Part 2 of the Carl Schwartz interview with Brian from yesterday pertaining to the events of September the 11th back in 2001. And I think really significantly what was known before and in the immediate aftermath that has been so, so heavily suppressed. And also, again, a reminder really to catch up with what happened in Cheltenham at our UK column on location event where of course, Patrick spoke, among

others. It was very, very well received and I really would urge you to access the live stream if that's something you haven't already done. But otherwise, it just remains for me to thank Patrick very much indeed for joining me in the studio today. Thank you, Patrick and to Mark for joining via video link and we will look forward to seeing you again on the news on Monday. Thank you very much. And extra. Sorry and extra Patrick, thank goodness you're here.

Yes, for those of you that are members, please stay on the line and we'll be back in a few minutes for Extra. Bye bye.