do you find that 2025 will be the year of bricks Russia having this initiative both in Ukraine they've been throwing a 20,000 plus sanctions and have been able to withstand it China despite all the claims that they are falling and collapsing the economy in China is stable and seems to be rising and and these two countries are getting closer and closer together Indonesia Nigeria is now a partner country of brics brics keeps on growing and Russia and China seem to be getting stronger and stronger stronger so why would they be afraid of these threats by Donald Trump and do you see this year as being a year for bricks where we see even more momentum go this way toward multipolarity absolutely yes simple answer to your question next question no I'm joking um so uh I mean it's been the year of bricks you could say 2024 was the year of bricks okay as of January 2025 there are now 10 members of bricks and nine Partners the full members of bricks are of course Brazil Russia India China and South Africa along with Egypt Ethiopia Indonesia Iran and the United Arab Emirates the nine bricks Partners which are on the path to full membership in the near future are bellarus Bolivia Cuba Kazakhstan Malaysia Nigeria Thailand Uganda and usbekistan there are three other countries that were invited to become part a partner of bricks that have not officially given an answer and I think they will let let some of them will probably join bricks in the near future especially Algeria is one of them Vietnam might but you know Vietnam is playing a kind of complicated geopolitical game I understand their position they don't want to be they don't want to invite too much backlash from the United States which could hurt them they don't want to be seen as being too firmly in the in the China Camp so they're trying to balance their relations with the US and China to serve their own interests which you know it's benefiting Vietnam it's one of the fastest growing economies it's not getting enough attention it's it's really industrializing very well moving up the value chain and then turkey is the other country that was invited to be a partner who knows what turkey will do turkeyy is one of those countries that no one can ever rely on so brics continues to expand I expect basically I think every year or two there will be more countries invited to become partners of bricks okay currently with the 19 members and partners it already represents the majority of the world population 54.6% nearly 55% of the world population is represented by brics countries this also includes 42.2% of global GDP when measured up purchasing power parody okay that means that two the the two most populous countries on Earth are in bricks China India and China the third most populous country is the US the fourth most is now it's Indonesia which is now a member of bricks throw in Nigeria the most populous country in Africa throw in the second most populous country in Africa Ethiopia which is now also in bricks so throw in Egypt as well so you have the largest economies in Africa the most populous countries in Africa and Bricks Africa is the fastest growing continent in terms of population there are estimates that by the end of the 21st century by 2100 38% nearly 40% of the global population will be in Africa Africa is literally the future of the world these are also this is a continent where there are many country many countries with very fast growing economies and they are they really want to industrialize and they really want to develop better infrastructure and what's also good for the environment is that many of these countries in Africa are going straight to an electrical grid based on solar panels China is the world's leading producer of solar panels solar panels have become the cheapest form of of energy by the way of electricity production even cheaper than creating a coal a Coal Fired power plant it's now in terms of total wattage it's become cheaper to install solar panels and that's that's especially good for some countries in Africa that don't have a very good infrastructure and they're they're to the extent that they have an electrical Grid it's very decentralized there are still a lot of rural areas that don't are unconnected to the electrical grid so if they can connect solar panels it's much more decentralized it's much better to Kickstart industrialization in these countries because obviously the most important thing you need if you want to develop and industrialize your country is you need electricity if you don't have electricity you can't you can't develop so China is providing lowcost technology that is needed for these countries to develop it's it's complete win-win it's a no-brainer China also is helping to it's of course this benefits China as well it's what they refer to as mutually beneficial win-win cooperation China now because there's this idea on the west which is false that Chi that Chinese workers are on starvation wages no one can afford anything it's not true at all if you look at average manufacturing wages in China they've increased by over 10 times I mean they're they're actually much higher than in other parts of of Southeast Asia in fact if you look at obviously Japan and South Korea are a different case but if you take out South Korea and Japan and you look at East Asia and Southeast Asia as a whole China has the highest wages higher than Indonesia higher than Vietnam and even in Vietnam they've also massively increased in recent years much higher than in the Philippines so as you we were talking about earlier China's manufacturing is not so insanely competitive because of low wages it's because all the supply chain is local because the the infrastructure and energy and Telecommunications and transportation is all run by state own Enterprises which can because they're not looking for profit they can reduce the cost of of these services to as low as possible it's because China has very well-developed tech technical workers who are very productive it's because China has automated and and and robot robotized use a lot of robots and and much of this manufacturing however the very low-end manufacturing that is becoming expensive in China so instead a lot of that low-end manufacturing is going to other countries it's been going to Vietnam to IND IIA and it's been going to many parts of Africa to Ethiopia to South Africa so what we're seeing is this process by which these countries and bricks are also technologically developing and industrializing and following a p a path similar to the path that that China followed and with Chinese support they're also being able to follow in the footsteps that that China went in so brics is essentially becoming this kind of new I I wouldn't call it like a new economic I should I should be careful about the words I use here because we shouldn't call it an economic block because brics itself says we are not a block China says we do not want a block mentality they're not trying to divide the world up into blocks it's the US that is dividing the world up into blocks through sanctions and tariffs and saying you either go along with us or you're you're against us this is the George Bush's mentality so brics is providing the economic infrastructure for these countries to pursue alternative Paths of development and financially this is very important because the most important thing that brics can do is to create an alternative to the US dollar denominated Financial system because one of the biggest advantages one of the biggest weapons the US still has is its control over the financial system is trying to kick countries out of the financial system if the US doesn't like their political or economic models this is what the US did to Venezuela to Cuba to Iran to Russia so the US by expanding its use of sanctions and tariffs and sanctioning more and more countries tariffing more and more countries it's pushing more and more countries to seek Alternatives and brics is providing the the alternative the beginning of those Alternatives I I think we're very much still in the early stages of seeing what those alternatives will be but they will come out of bricks so yeah this to answer your question fundamentally I think this year is the year of bricks 2024 was the year of bricks 2023 was the year of bricks and it's going to continue growing and the reason it's going to continue growing it's because so many countries want an alternative this is not new you can go back 2020 2024 was the 50th anniversary of a call for the new international economic order which was made by the formerly colonized countries of the global South when they were seeking to to to decolonize the financial system they had already gotten Independence formally from European colonialism politically on paper but as quame and kruma the founding father of Ghana the anti-colonial leader socialist and co-founder non align movement as he famously said neocolonial ISM had replaced classical formal colonialism and what was the difference formal colonialism was political colonialism neocolonialism was economic colonialism this is why so many countries wanted a new international economic order every year since then the g77 plus China has reiterated its call for a new international economic order and Bricks is providing the potential instit tional support for creating that new international economic order it's still very much in the early stages but but it's absolutely going to in to accelerate its development over time tariffs already proven to backfire on the United States sanctions backfired quite dramatically especially with regard to Russia and have backfired in isolating the United States further from the world while China and Russia has strengthened its Global position quite dramatically Donald Trump came in and to give him some credit he's calling himself a peacemaker he's not saying I want to invade this I want to topple that but even his threats in belligerence around economic War already have all of this proof of not only not working but also creating what is actually a boomerang effect that does the opposite of what he even says he wants to do right American decline is over this is the Golden Age well it's not over it seems like these policies are like to do the exact opposite of creating a quote unquote Golden Age yeah a few thoughts first of all yeah Trump claims in his inauguration speech he'll be a peacemaker but this is basically what every President says I mean there aren't even George Bush didn't go out and say yeah I'm gonna w war everywhere I I I hate peace they all claim to support peace but then they say oh we have to wage this war on behalf of peace right that's what they always say so in the case of trump in his same speech in his inauguration speech he said I'm not going to to wage war and then he said we're going to take over the Panama Canal in complete violation of the sovereignty of Panama which has said that it's not for sale he hinted very clearly at colonizing Greenland which has also said they don't want to be colonized by the US they want independence from Danish colonialism to be independent they don't want to replace Danish colonialism with us colonialism and then in his speech he also invoked manifest destiny which is the colonial doctrine that was invoked by the US colonialists in the 19th century as they ethnically cleansed indigenous peoples and stole their land so I mean saying that he's gonna be a peacemaker is one thing but then in the same time he threatens Panama he claims that China controls the Panama Canal which is completely false but it's part of this you know manufacturing of consent to justify military intervention in Panama and also fearmonger and about and demonize China and in a press conference Trump was asked if he would rule out the use of military force to take over the Panama Canal in Greenland and he said no I'm not going to rule that out so now he's indirectly threatening to invade the Panama Canal invade Panama and invade Greenland he's also threatening to invade Mexico in his speech Trump announced that he's going to declare cartels as terrorist organizations and he's going to send us troops to the southern border and he also hinted at sending in Special Operations forces in Mexico which would be which would be a violation of the sovereignty of Mexico it would be an invasion of Mexico because the Mexican Sovereign government has said that they do not support the US sending troops into Mexico okay so there's all of that element then we already talked about fearmongering about China threatening Iran let's not forget Trump killed kasum sumani and there are a lot of warmongers and neocons and trumps ministration including Marco Rubio who were salivating over the possibility of a war in Iran and they think this could be the moment because you know they've decimated Gaza they've done damage to although not destroyed Hezbollah and they think that that Iran is weak they think which would be another disaster but it would also be disaster for Iran so finally getting getting back to this this question about you know tariffs and and what can Trump do again I think this is all Bluster it's all part of his strategy of trying to threaten other countries to force them to to sign a deal he thinks that it's that simple he thinks that the US is as powerful today as it was in the 80s and 90s it is not a lot of people around the world can see that the US is significantly in Decline and he thinks that the US has all this leverage like I was talking about earlier the US really has two points of Leverage one it has a very big Market for consumption so yes tariffs can be used to say okay you're not going to get access to the big US market but there are other growing markets including China 1.4 billion people including India 1.4 billion people I mean the US market is still important but over time it's less and less so okay and then the other threat he has is the military and yes the US military is still very powerful that's a major threat the US spends more on its military than the next nine largest military Spenders in the world combined or the rest of the world combined after them however just because you spend a lot of money doesn't mean that you're spending it productively we know that a lot of this spending in the US which is over a trillion dollars the official military budget is almost 900 billion but in reality there are economists who point out that if you factor in for instance veteran spending because veteran spending is not included in the military budget if you factor in nuclear weapons spending which is under the department of energy if you factor in other things related to Transportation that's used infrastructure used by the Pentagon in reality the US military budget is well over $1.5 trillion doar and and growing every year but a lot of that spending is completely unproductive it's basically corporate it's it's basically government handouts to Big corporations to the military-industrial complex to the Beltway Bandits these big contractors north of Grumman LED Martin Ron you know the stock prices of the military-industrial complex have actually grown faster than the S&P 500 as a whole so if you've invested in this in the military industrial complex you've you've gotten very wealthy so they they benefited from it but does it actually mean that the US military has this technology that actually works that it's that it's good look at the the F-35 I mean the US spends billions and billions of dollars on some of this technology that doesn't even work but it benefits the military-- industrial complex so what we're seeing in Ukraine is the result of that the US has given Ukraine at least tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons there are some people who estimate over a hundred billion dollars worth of weapons and Military assistance and another assistance and Ukraine is losing badly all of NATO has been supporting Ukraine flooding Ukraine with weapons with the most advanced technology and Ukraine is losing badly against Russia so do they think they can take on China and Russia I mean at some point when you drink your own Kool-Aid it becomes even dangerous for you as well so I think Trump can continue the Bluster continue the threats but at the end of the day what it's going to show is the US is actually not as powerful as a lot of people think it is and the real danger the last note I'll say is the what the real danger is is this pushing when when push comes to shove if this becomes world World War I or some kind of nuclear conflict or whatever that's the real danger of course and the US thinks that it could win that war but it would be devastated in the process as well and no one wins a nuclear war everyone loses you're muted sorry about that yeah no that's why I'm glad you brought up the Trump uh belligerence and uh chess thumping and militarist uh you know um dog whistling around pivoting back to the Western Hemisphere the the Monroe doctor adding in Greenland Canada nice dreed meat for his base especially um who believes that expansionism in Canada is this whatever uh Ultra liberal state that needs to be re needs to be incorporated into the US Colony yep into the US one really brief note I forgot to mention you mentioned the word expansion in his an ation speech Trump used that same word he said we are going to expand our territory us terit literal Imperial expansionism it's textbook Imperial expansionism well I'm glad you brought it up because in many ways Ben I I see that as one of course dangerous and uh could uh there could be of course new war threats emerging and especially for those countries in Latin America which seriously do not need any more militarist intervention in their lives uh very much so a a danger but at the same time it almost smells like a a pivot that indicates defeat the weakness in some ways because I've been thinking about this i' been like well the United States Empire cannot do it all it cannot try to weaken Russia defeat Russia strategically as the Pentagon says contain China uh the break up multipolarity and then re pivot back to the Western Hemisphere and uh extend out as far as they can into Latin America and take military send military forces to Greenland to establish Independence all of this feels uh very D I say unrealistic not to say that it can't happen but to say that uh they uh there might be limits to this overreach that this this kind of smells like and and in some ways it it feels like a reorientation of Empire rather than any kind of As Trump would call it a shift toward peace well a few thoughts we were talking about how the the US is in decline in some serious ways I think that's obvious however what happens when a significant power is in Decline they often lash out what happens when a bully feels threatened they try to Target weak people and that's what really concerns me you know the US can have Trump can have all this Bluster bravado about China and Russia he knows that the US cannot take on China and Russia and I think at the I do think that there will be some kind of end to the proxy war in Ukraine I I was saying that even if kamla Harris won I thought there was going to be some kind of and because Ukraine is losing badly NATO is losing badly now the question is what it will look like maybe Trump does get some kind of deal in which Russia maintains control over the dbass and Crimea and Ukraine doesn't become part of NATO Europe would not accept that they would not sign that deal so maybe it just becomes a a frozen conflict like the Korean War and and there's no formal end to it it's just a cation of hostilities who knows I do think that Trump actually does want to end that conflict to focus more on countering China I don't think in the next few years I hope I'm right I don't think there will be some kind of us China war it would just be absolutely crazy and catastrophic China has made it as clear as possible they do not want a war they do not want a proxy war of course the economic war on China will continue the tech War in China will continue that's totally bipartisan Republicans and Democrats however what my real concern is is that Trump and the neocons around him like Marco Rubio in particular they're going to be focusing on solidifying us Imperial control over Latin America over the Western Hemisphere as a whole and that's what all this is leading to right and the US already has at least one military base there are different numbers go around but at least one big US military base on Greenland they they can Trump can just say okay we're going to colonize Greenland the US military is going to take over Greenland and Greenland doesn't have a local military that could defend them so I mean that that's a very real possibility and that's something that would be very scary because it's just blat on blatant 19th century style colonialism he he's talking about militarily invading Mexico that's another very serious concern Marco Rubio being picked as Secretary of State I think is a very clear sign that a big priority is going to be trying to colonize essentially Latin America to reassert Imperial control over Latin America when Trump was president the first time Bolivia was targeted in a us-backed coup that over through Bolivia's democratically elected socialist president AO Morales and then Elon Musk famously said we will coup whoever we want Elon Musk is now he has an office in the white house he's a senior member of the Trump Administration they're saying we want to colonize Latin America it belongs to us they're invoking the Monroe Doctrine they're invoking Manifest Destiny and what concerns me is that again if you're a big bully you you're going to go after weaker people who can't defend themselves China and Russia can defend themselves Latin America cannot defend itself against the US military the US military is by far the most powerful military in the Western Hemisphere so that's what really concerns me when Marco Rubio was when Trump was president the first time in 20 Marco Rubio asked Trump to invade Venezuela and if you read Mark Esper's book I published a video and an article about this at geopolitical economy.com Mark esper who was Trump's defense secretary he wrote in his Memoir that Trump repeatedly asked about the possible the possibility of of an invasion of Venezuela as he asked if it was militarily feasible now Russia did send some planes to Venezuela as a sign of support and as a sign to the us that they shouldn't you know invade Venezuela but if the US invades Venezuela I don't think I mean symbolically Russia provided that but I don't think Russia is going to militarily intervene to help Venezuela so that's what really concerns me is that the US is just going to go full-on colonialist I mean the US has always been imperialist in Latin America organizing coups and regime change operations the Biden Administration did it the Obama Administration did it but if they just go full on 19th century style colonialists and say we're just going to take over we're going to take over the pan Canal send troops I mean it was in 1989 when the US also it was it was Ronald Reagan who and then then and then going into later uh George Bush one invaded Panama and overthrew the Panamanian government and arrested the Panamanian leader M Ora so I mean there's a precedent here if they invade Panama there's talk of invading Venezuela there's talk of invading Cuba and with Marco Rubio Not only would he not oppose that he would be strongly cheerleading for all of those policies and he will be every day in Trump's ear Whispering about hey we should we should take over Venezuela Trump said it he said in a in a rally in North Carolina at a a GOP Republican party event he said when I was President we came so close to taking over Venezuela we we could have taken it over he said he and then he said we could have taken its oil but it's not just about the oil he said we could have taken over Venezuela I mean this is just straight col straight up colonialism and the and the Biden Administration recognized this ridiculous puppet edmundo Gonzalez as the supposed president of Venezuela he's not the president Nikolas Muro is the only real president of Venezuela and and Ed Gonzalez he's tweeting from Washington he just tweeted today is January 23rd he tweeted yesterday oh I'm I'm in Washington the the weather is really cold but I'm working hard what you're not working hard you're you're just waiting for the US to overthrow Maduro so you can be put in as a puppet on their behalf so you can follow orders from the state department so that's that's that's my real real concern and that's what keeps me up at night is that I think we're going to see an explosion it's not new it's not bipartisan but we're going to see a massive escalation of us medling and colonialism in Latin America and and the real targets are going to be Cuba Venezuela and Nicaragua and also Mexico in Panama now but Mexico I I really think that the that Trump is going to send troops into Mexico it's going to basically be an invasion now he'll say oh they're just Special Operations forces they're not you know tens of thousands of troops but that's still an invasion because the sovereign government of Mexico has said you cannot send troops here we are a sovereign country do not militarily intervene and then what they're going to try to do to Venezuela Cuba and Naga that really keeps me up at night