welcome to Navara Live I'm Michael Walker and tonight we are sticking with the biggest story in the world right now which is Donald Trump's trade war continuing um to wreak havoc We're also going to discuss whether the trade war that Trump started with China he could
lose Could China actually win it um in the second half of the show we'll discuss um Parliament being recalled to
debate steel nationalization Um and Donald Trump is proving too right-wing
and for Joe Rogan of all people This is is is not a trade related story It's about a really disgraceful actually uh
deportation that Trump did a while back The Supreme Court have urged he um
change course Um do stay tuned for all of that I'll be joined by Aaron Bastani in the second half of the show I should let you know Um I've got a Cambridge political economist in the first half Uh before we get started though I'd like to remind you that we are currently hiring Come work with us We're looking for um a person uh to work as a live stream producer Um it is a great job Um I'm sure we'll be putting a description uh in uh the well below this video Um so do check that out and apply if you think that you might be an appropriate hire Um even if it was chaotic and completely
unplanned Donald Trump pulled a bit of a trick on Wednesday That's because he ramped up his trade war with China to
nuclear levels But because at the same time he dropped tariffs on everyone else the move was actually cheered by the
financial markets And that's unusual You blow up trade between the world's two
biggest um economic powers and the financial markets say brilliant great
However um we're now 2 days later and reality has very much kicked back in Um
of course whatever happens to US tariffs on the rest of the world ending all trade between the world's two biggest
economies will still do an awful lot of damage and that's been made ever more
obvious as Beijing makes clear it will not buckle first in this high stakes game of chicken And so in response to
Trump's tariffs on or Trump's tariffs of 145% on Chinese goods and China has now
raised their tariffs on the US to 125% And investors are once again getting
jittery about the US economy The dollar is down as investors are switching to gold and movements in the bond market
seem especially significant Um you can see here the yield on 10year Treasury
bonds um and how they've changed over the past seven days So hopefully you'll remember from Wednesday's show yields on
treasuries are the interest demanded by investors to buy US government debt When the government is seen as more risky
that rate goes up What you can see here is that from Monday those rates massively increase and then they spike
again on Wednesday Um then Trump does his Uturn So he goes back to the 10%
tariffs on most of the world and the rates fall when people's sort of confidence increases a bit but they're back up again and they're actually
higher than they were at their Wednesday peak Now this seems very significant as it was fears about a selloff of
treasuries that caused Trump to do his U-turn in the first place Um and now they're being sold off again So why are
investors getting cold feet well partly it's because they've belatedly realized the US government is run by an idiot I
could have told them that a few years ago It's also though the continuing fear of a recession caused by a China trade
war And this interview with Beth Benke founder and CEO of BusyBaby in Minnesota
shows why a recession could be incoming These tariffs mean I I could potentially lose my house lose my
business lose everything within about 3 to four months There are so many small business
owners and so many people are going through it on their own and they're struggling as it is on a regular day Now
you are taking every single one of us and cutting out our legs from under us Zero time to adapt and overcome and
adjust to this I'm happy to look into finding ways to bring some of my manufacturing back to the US but I can't
do it in the course of a day or a week And now I can't even make a decision because everything's changing every 24
hours So for us we're just in this constant state of turmoil and and
depression and despair and it's it's overwhelming and I'm still worried I'm worried for all of our business owners
and their mental health So a trade war with China could put some firms out of business as you saw there And it will
also hit consumers more generally So according to researchers at Yale the tariffs which are currently in place are
expected to raise prices for American consumers by $2.9% overall costing the
average household almost $5,000 a year And the price rise for some goods will
be far steeper Um so this here is from Bloomberg It's a chart that shows some
of the products made by China which the US is most reliant on So as you can see 86% of games consoles sold in the United
States come from China as do 79% of PC monitors um 76% of toys and 73% of
smartphones Um so if all of those items essentially double in price overnight that's not going to be pleasing uh to US
consumers and it will reduce the amount of money they have to spend on anything else Hence the fears of a recession And
meanwhile the rest of the world is trying to set out how they will conduct negotiations with the Trump administration over the next 90 days The
EU's Ursula von Delion has said her favored option would be zero tariffs
between the US and Europe But she's also warned that if talks fail the EU is preparing to increase taxes on the ad
revenue of American big tech So Google Facebook and the like Another country
keen to keep tariffs low is Taiwan and they were due to be hit with 32% tariffs
before Trump's U-turn Their president has said today uh they will be one of the first countries to enter into talks
with the US over tariffs and president lie has said the island nation could import more American liquid natural gas
in return for keeping tariffs low to discuss where the world stands after a
pretty crazy week I'm joined by Yustain Ha Yustain is assistant professor in political economy and development at the
University of Cambridge and author of the future of the factory Thank you so much for joining me this evening Uh to begin was the market relief
Jostein Hauge
well uh it's hard to say what's going
to happen to markets these days Um it's going up and down like you said almost like a yo-yo What I think is
particularly worrying here is that we have one person uh who's making all this
market turmoil I'm not sure if we've seen seen this before It's quite unprecedented that the market reacts
like this based on one person's decisions one person's policies So what I think is uh is dangerous here is that
we have one very unpredictable and as you said stupid person who's quite volatile uh making all this So yes in
some I do think the the relief on Wednesday was a bit premature We saw yesterday that uh the stock markets
especially the US-based stock indices fell again Uh I do think as long as these tariffs stand uh I do think as
long as this trade war between China and the US escalates between these two massive superpowers who uh are the
biggest players on the on the stage of world trade as long as this trade war escalates Yeah the markets are going to
be down and it's going to be a volatile times And in in terms of what sort of
everyone is panicking about at the moment is is the bigger deal the 145% sort of tariffs on China or is it the
the 10% tariffs on everyone else sort of what what what to seems like sort of the the bigger deal in terms of potentially
pushing us into a recession I I think they're both big deals Um
obviously let's start with the 145% tariff on China uh we're talking about a
an extremely steep tariff here on uh the world's most important player in global
trade Right now the 10% tire zone the rest of the world might seem small um
but it also indicates something uh about US and President Trump's willingness to
uh so to speak punish countries many of whom haven't necessarily done anything to the US other than simply export their
products to the US So that's also quite significant and it says something about what the US is willing to do Um the fact
that the US is willing to go after countries that have no quarrel with the US The fact that President Trump is we
knew we knew that he was all about America first and to some extent his predecessors uh were too Uh but this is
kind of now we're really really seeing that president uh President Trump doesn't really care uh much about how
his actions impact the world the world economy and are there some countries that might
be able to take advantage of the situation if it remains as it currently is which is obviously a big if So say I'm thinking of Vietnam or India So if
you've got a situation where there are these just crippling tariffs on on China so China basically can't export to the
United States right now Does that mean that firms are going to sort of supercharge investment in in countries
like Vietnam and India which still at the moment only have 10% tariffs on them because you can sort of produce a
similar cost to China presumably um and and then export to to the US with only a
10% tariff instead of 145% tariff Are there some countries who might benefit from the situation as it currently is
um well I think the first major change we need to talk about is that I think
most countries in the world uh that are not the United States of America is going to try to become less reliant on
trade with the United States of America given how volatile this administration
seems to be Um but you're asking a a very important question here Now up
until very recently up until just a few days ago Vietnam had these reciprocal tariffs slapped on them Will they return
who knows right so we can't say for sure if this situation that has been just
existing for a few days with uh with uh with Vietnam is going to continue We're
not exactly sure what t rates on this booming economy in Southeast Asia Vietnam we're not exactly sure how steep
they're going to be Uh India is also an interesting story because China has
built really good trading relationship with a lot of countries in the world especially the global south but one economy that China has been more
hesitant to build strong relationships with is India So if for example the
United States is somewhat successful in trying to reduce uh China's
competitiveness then maybe India will benefit a little bit However China's
economy is extremely strong on the global trade stage So uh I don't think
and perhaps we'll get we'll go back to that in a few minutes but I don't think uh I don't think in the long term China
is going to suffer severely from this Yeah we'll hone in on sort of the the specific China question who will win
that trade war in a moment First of all um I want your opinion on sort of the rest of the world because obviously now
we're in this situation where officially we've got a 90-day pause um to the so-called reciprocal tariffs um while
negotiations take place And you know countries like Taiwan have said we're we're very keen to enter into these
negotiations maybe willing to do some concessions on say we'll import a bit more liquid natural gas Um the EU I
think are more going for we'll punish you if if you don't sort of make some deal with us Are these negotiations even
real because I mean the reason this 90-day pause happened wasn't to allow
time for negotiations It it was because the the markets were punishing America
So like Donald Trump was looking at the Treasury rate go up He panicked and said "Oh I I I have to U-turn you know I have
to step back I have to back off from this." So I I can't see a situation where in 90 days time I suppose it was
presumably 88 days time now in 88 days that Trump says I haven't signed good
enough deals so I'm going to you know go through this whole rigma roll again where the the market sort of threatened
to to [ __ ] US treasuries Is this now just all for show and the tariffs aren't
going to get risen aren't going to get sort of raised again because Trump now knows what will happen if they do
who who knows you know we know we know a few things about Donald Trump We know that one he loves tariffs so we're going
to keep seeing tariffs Two he's very volatile and unpredictable So we don't know exactly what the level of tariffs
is going to be and three is all about uh America first and I would say American
exceptionalism uh to a larger degree than his his predecessor and his predecessors Those
are the three things we know for sure Um what I would say is I I'm not so
worried about these say for example in Southeast Asia which is a hub of global trade like countries like Vietnam or
Indonesia These countries are now established strong in trade networks and even though they're export quite a bit
to the US they also have other big important trading partners I'm more worried about the smaller countries in
uh in the global south uh I'm more worried about countries like Lissuit countries like Sri Lanka right who have
relied heavily on uh the United States as an import uh destination for their
products right and never really did anything to the United States other than
exporting their products to the United States right they must be extremely worried right now because these are also
relatively poor countries right and if they're put in a volatile uh situation this has you know this has an impact on
real people's lives and will push a lot of people into poverty very fast Uh so
this is extremely reckless I think by by Donald Trump to to simply calculate these tariffs based on the trade
deficits they have with the rest of the world But you know and this is a really important point there is an upside to
these tariffs because the world economy has been dominated by the United States for many many decades And sure some
countries have benefited benefited a bit from this but by and large the United States have made sure that they had have
stayed on top of this uh hierarchy Uh now we the rest of the world are daring
to imagine a world economy where the United States don't have this hegeimotic power anymore that uh the United States
is not the clear world number one Now we can imagine and dare to think about a world economy where uh where the balance
of power is more evenly distributed um across nations of the world and maybe
where we will also see a stronger global south which I'm uh very happy and optimistic about What would that
concretely look like because I mean as you've just said sort of in the near term this trade war is going to be very
damaging for countries in the global south whose development has in part been based on exporting to the United States and some of those opportunities are now
being closed off I mean in the medium or long term how what would a sort of fairer global trade sort of world system
look like we can we can obviously talk about say trade blocks and things like that
emerging between countries in the global south which we're already starting to see But let's talk about immediately
what's going to happen to the directions of global trade right and China obviously is a really important player
because China has been building trade relationships with the rest of the world very successfully uh now for uh for way
more than a decade Um for example if you look in African countries 52 out of 54
African countries export uh um have a stronger trading relationship with China
than they do with the United States this was not at all the situation 15 20 years ago Um so we'll see a shift in trade uh
where China becomes more central uh where many countries in the south will negotiate more with China I also think
we'll see that European countries will start negotiating and building stronger trade relationships
uh with China I think we already saw Spain has indicated that they would like the European Union to pivot away from
the US and more in the direction of China Uh let's move on specifically to
this question of who would win this trade war if it continues to to escalate So stay with me Ystein the US China
trade war shows no sign of calling The Americans now have tariffs of 145%
against Chinese goods and China has slapped on 125% tariffs in return And
neither Donald Trump nor Xiinping look ready to back down So if this trade war continues who will come out on top the
Chinese government has put forward an image of confidence This was the message released by their Ministry of Finance on
Friday morning as they announced their final tariff hike So they say even if the US continues to impose higher
tariffs it will no longer make economic sense and will become a joke in the history of the world economy At the
current tariff level there is no market acceptance for US goods exported to China If the US continues to play the
tariff numbers game China will ignore it However if the US insists on continuing to substantially infringe on China's
interests China will resolutely counterattack and fight to the end So
they're sort of saying 125% is is the last time we're going to raise a tariff because 125% we're not going to be
importing anything anyway So it'd be ridiculous to say "Oh now it's going to be 145 Now it's going to be 175."
They're saying there isn't really much difference between these these numbers anymore But they are saying that if if the United States uses a different
measure uh to try and attack China they will attack back Um the Americans though
claim that if the Chinese fight to the end it's them who will lose So Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant summed up that
argument on Wednesday when the tit fortat was still just getting started Exports to the US are five times our
exports to China So you know they can raise their tariffs but so what
and speaking on Thursday Donald Trump responded with a joke to this question Mr President China retaliated today by
reducing the number of American films that can be shown there What's your reaction to them now targeting cultural
exports from the United States i think I've heard of worse things
Professor Justine Hogga who should be more relaxed about the US China trade war um Trump or Xiinping
um well obviously given the the size of the tariffs here right uh the way we're
seeing the tariffs escalate these are steep tariffs right from both countries obviously started here by by the US We
should be clear about the trade war being started by the US this time around Um now the US is slightly more dependent
on imports from China than uh than the
the China is dependent on imports from the US from that perspective sort of purely from a mathematical trade
perspective the US certainly has reason to uh be more worried This is going to
impact both economies Let me be clear about that But uh we've already seen that it's impacting the US economy worse
Uh consumer confidence in the US is extremely low right now Uh the support
for Donald Trump even among Republicans even among people who voted for him is
extremely low right now uh consumers in the US are going to suffer Uh businesses
in the US are going to suffer You know big corporations like uh Ford like
Walmart like Apple like Tesla in many ways they have been made by China So uh
you know China over the past few years have become completely integral to US supply
chain for US consumption uh and so on So um the
US you know to sum up the answer to your question although this is going to impact both economies negatively uh
Trump should be worrying much more than she because this is already damaging the US economy heavily and the US is going
to be the biggest loser here Yeah let's let's just get some clarity on this because I think this is sort of somewhat confusing to understand because the
American position is it's the country who exports the most who is the most vulnerable because sort of their
opportunities to to sell goods and make profits will be damaged more because China exports more to the US than the US
exports to China You're actually saying it's the country who imports more who could be more vulnerable You said there
the United States is more reliant on Chinese imports than China is reliant on American imports Can you sort of cash
that out how should we be thinking about this well both uh both the country that
exports so if the US imposes tariffs then both you know the the US as an
importer should be somewhat word and China as an exporter should be somewhat word I do think though the degree of
tariffs and the scale of tariffs matter here you you know the US could have uh arguably and have arguably in the past
imposed tariffs in a more strategic manner to try and revive American manufacturing alongside subsidies etc
But here the scale of the tariffs is just so massive uh and I had a look at these uh these figures just before I I
came on to talk with you uh Michael and uh we've seen that the dependence uh
that China has on exporting products to the US over the years has gone down So
out of the China's entire export basket uh around 11% uh of products go to the US That's a
high number but it's lower than it used to be Now on the US side out of all the products that they import uh around uh
15% come from China right so from that perspective it's clear that uh the US is
going to suffer more but we also have to consider that China's role in trade goes beyond just these numbers China is
involved in practically all global supply chains for goods right uh and the
US needs to consider that when they start this kind of trade escalation uh escalation with China Now another
thing here to consider is you know what is what is go what is the goal here for the US to start this trade war Trump has
said it reducing trade deficits Okay fine Uh you want to reduce the trade deficit Uh maybe that's going to be
healthy for the US economy although they manage fine with the dollar as the reserve currency to to to manage that Is
it to bring American manufacturing jobs back really does the US want all the
manufacturing jobs that we've seen uh uh that we've seen in the East Asian production ecosystem and the Southeast
Asian production ecosystem You know I think we all seen these memes about uh workers in East Asia and Southeast Asia
being replaced by American workers These are not the manufacturing jobs I think really that the that the United States
wants back Uh let's look at another clip of of Donald Trump from that same sort of I
think it was a cabinet meeting with cameras in it that we showed a clip of earlier with the joke Um this is again sort of Donald Trump speaking on
Thursday about the China tariffs We would love to be able to work a deal Uh
they've really taken advantage of our country for a long period of time They've ripped us off beyond anybody
Nobody How people stood for it sitting in my position is not even believable
And we're talking about many presidents not just a couple Uh but they did and uh
all we're doing is putting it back in shape We're resetting the table and I'm
sure that we'll be able to get along very well I have great respect for President Xi He's been in a true sense
he's been a friend of mine for a long period of time and I think uh that we'll end up working out something that's very
good for both countries I look forward to it So a couple of things to note
there Trump sounded relatively open to negotiations with with China So I want to know how how seriously you take that
Um first though can I get you to comment on sort of his more I suppose sweeping
claim which is that China has been ripping off the United States for for years for decades What do you make of
that how do you respond to that idea that that he is just writing a wrong which has been done to to the US by
China my my answer to that is very clear
Absolutely not Uh absolutely not Um you
know if if anyone's benefited from from this trade relationship it's it's been
the US Sure China has benefited in some ways but you know if you look at the the company the foreign company that's made
the most profits from uh from China's integration into globalization it's it's
Apple an American company right uh and similarly you know if you look at Tesla
where is the largest factory for this American electric vehicle it's in Shanghai China Right This is deemed the
most productive uh Tesla factory in the world right now Um American consumers
have benefited tremendously uh from all these cheap uh goods coming
uh coming into their country access to a tremendous amount of u of cheap consumer
goods and as have uh people in the rest of the world like like you and I So uh
you know America has come very very well uh has come very very well off this
integration of China into uh into the global economy you know and sure China
has managed to use the trade relationship with the United States to benefit themselves but this has been a a
struggle you know a lot of long hours with uh low wages for a lot of people uh
in China uh to basically serve American consumers and also in large part
American firms So you know and this is why these t tariffs are going to hurt America because China has has served the
American economy uh massively for decades now I mean whatever happens with the with
the trade war you know so if if it escalates if it sort of dampens down to some degree a consequence of everything
we've seen over the past sort of especially the past 5 days is that global markets investors have lost a lot
of faith in in the United States basically as a rational actor I suppose um many people suggesting this could
sort of lead to a move away from the dollar as the global reserve currency Um
can I get your thoughts on I suppose one whether that's likely and two sort of who that would benefit is that something
that China would celebrate
um I if if China strengthens its position in the world economy uh even
even from financial terms and even in terms of a change in in currency hierarchies that would look to benefit
China Um but I would you know I would uh I think
a lot would have to happen for the US dollar to lose its position as the international reserve uh reserve
currency This is the US dollar has been the international reserve currency for many many decades uh I don't think we're
likely to see uh the strength of the dollar or let's say the position the strength of the dollar might go down but
the position of the dollar uh I think as a as the international reserve colonistry will will remain If that
that's not the case we're talking about a complete restructuring of the international economic order in a in a
very unprecedented way So I I've I've made quite you know sweeping statements
about how I think the the world trade is going to be shifting away from the US and I stand by that but I do think that
still think that the US dollar will remain a very important currency in international trade for a few years
People in the people in the comments are saying there's two Michael Walkers tonight So I'll let you go and and give them some variety in a moment Uh before
I do that uh could I find out from you what you think are sort of the key
moments we should be looking out for in terms of how the US China trade war develops what are sort of is there a
moment where this could further escalate what could lead to some kind of deescalation
we simply have to uh we we we and this is probably what Trump likes that
everyone follows his every single move every day and and you know he
unfortunately uh has a lot of power uh into determining the direction of the world
economy So what he does will dictate a lot here I think China's you know China
has has turned out to be a more predictable uh predictable trading partner Uh so
it's it's uh and they are more clear about what they want So I don't think it's too
difficult to predict exactly what China is going to do But um you know as more time passes we will see more clearly
where Trump is going to go Uh but again you know we know three things about Trump We know that he is uh loves
tariffs We know that he is uh volatile Uh and we know that he doesn't really
give a crap about uh if he sort of flushes the world economy down the toilet right those are the three things
we do know Uh but he also cares about how strong support for him is So you know he probably isn't uh fond of seeing
uh stock markets going down He probably wants to retain some support among the the Republicans for him So you know
he'll have to manage this much better in in the months to come Ystein Hower thank
you so much for joining me this evening Great to speak to you Thanks for having me Michael I really
enjoyed it Aaron welcome to the show A lot has happened since your last show on
Tuesday Um what have you made of what's happened since then been been very dramatic
What do I make of it it's interesting I've spoken to two friends Michael and um both in in in business One said he's
been on a few earning calls in the last couple of days and people aren't worried about markets but that's not the thing
that matters whether the footsie goes up or down within reason Obviously they're worried about the investment environment
Um and if you are Gaty sovereign wealth fund or
Singapore sovereign wealth fund or Norwegian sovereign wealth fund or a major investor or an asset manager
you're not going to allocate large amounts of money anywhere when there is so much volatility and you have no real idea
what's what's going on Now the big problem for those guys is that that doesn't change after 90 days even if
there is some kind of resolution here This is the Trump modus operandi I think people forgot how bad he is with this
stuff right i mean we saw it you know it was really bad during COVID There's a reason why Joe Biden beat him right even
though his numbers actually were very impressive 6 12 months out from that that election in in in 2020 Um so I
think a lot of people who maybe supported him didn't necessarily vote for him because they're not US nationals
but supported him um perhaps had a bit of time for some of his criticisms of various things woke identity politics
whatever people who want to trigger the libs are kind of realizing that actually
really big things are at stake and they could lose their pensions or their business could go under or you know best
case this year's earnings aren't much to talk about maybe next years and maybe the year after Um I had another friend
as well who was you know quite positive about Trump
Um not anymore Not anymore because I think I think lots of these people thought it was just talk and they liked
the culture warry social attitude stuff but they thought in the economy it was just talk And you know we we saw this
really with Bill Aman Michael we played a few clips of Bill Aman You know he's uh big investment guy He's you know head
of an investment fund in the US He was involved in you know culture war stuff with Harvard University over Israel Gaza
big backer of um Trump He's a CEO I think of Persian Capital Management And you know we saw Bill Aman a few months
ago saying this is going to be great for the stock market We're going to see it go to record highs which stock market did really really well under Trump 1.0
This is a different kind of Trump with Pete Navaro Far more propositional with
what he wants to do with US trade re-industrialization He said all of this by the way these people never thought
he'd actually do it Um and I think that's the that's the story of the last four or five days These people didn't
think he'd actually do it And I think many of them probably regret voting for him and they you know they would have voted for Camala Harris They whine about
the the woke stuff or whatever over a glass of pen noir in their Californian mansions but fundamentally they they
don't want to lose lots of money and that's ultimately what this man may represent for them Although he can
course correct I think he will course correct I think I think he's learned a very big lesson the hard way
Yeah And what's your read on like where the the specific trade war between the US and China will go i mean because some
people were sort of reading what happened on Wednesday as aha this is a bit of a pivot So before there was this
sort of kind of arbitrary plan where you just put tariffs on everyone because you don't want any kind of trade um deficits
Um but there were lots of people who were saying it would actually be sensible to have a bit of a trade war with China so long as you shore up your
own allies So people were seeing you know maybe this is a strategy that makes sense I sort of looking at how reliant
America is on certain Chinese imports I I can't see this trade war continuing at this level I think there has to be some
kind of of stepping back from it I don't know what you think No that's right It's really important to
say as well Michael the US has been waging a trade war against China for quite a while We saw um you know major
tariffs in regards to um certain goods We've seen you know debates since
actually right since they joined the WTO there's been a conversation about the Chinese currency being undervalued We
saw the chips act under Biden We saw IRA A big part of that was fundamentally about de-industrializing Europe and
re-industrializing the United States to be competitive in leading edge technologies like semiconductor
manufacturer lithium-ion batteries etc etc The US was doing this And by the way that was a really clever strategy It was
really working The US was re-industrializing under Biden It wasn't creating many jobs because modern
manufacturing doesn't create many jobs But if you actually look at quite a few important indices for for man
manufacturing output things were going pretty well um under the Biden admin Now
major deficits were being used lots of debt was being um added to the to the to the US ledger You might say well it
wasn't worth it actually It's not real growth etc But there was a strategy there and it seemed to be working you
were making the European Union um dependent on US exports of liquid natural gas as well Look there was a
real strategy there Re-industrialize try and undermine China's edge in things
like you know um semiconductors and whatnot and try and um return leadership
of those technologies to the United States Now was it working sufficiently well not really China was surviving
those things And so you can see why even a Democrat president again I don't agree with this policy formula just to be
clear but you can see why a Democrat president given all that might have escalated things Michael I totally get
that You double down on the chips act You increase tariffs on Chinese EVs You increase tariffs on Chinese PV sales You
increase tariffs on certain goods from China Why on earth would you place a
tariff on South Korea Japan these are your biggest allies in East
Asia It makes no sense Why on earth would you put massive tariffs on Vietnam
now to some extent you might say well that's because you want to re-industrialize US heartlands But there's a geopolitical element as well
which is you're trying to tear away Vietnam from China You want them in the US sphere of influence I I I I
fundamentally think that Trump is undermining decades of US statecraft Personally I could be wrong of course We
we're all we're all wrong about lots of things lots of the time Um but I'll finish with this If you look at GDP by
PPP so not nominal GDP and you might say well that's the way we should measure things but GDP PPP the United States is
about 15 its economy is about 15% of global economic output China's about 20%
of global economic output Azan and Africa between them are about 10% The
bricks are about 35% So if you add Azan which is East Asian countries mostly smaller ones plus the bricks plus um
which of course includes China plus Africa you're looking at something like 45% of global GDP The US is
15% Right i'm so I'm not even talking about South America I'm not talking about Europe I'm not talking about
Australasia The idea that the Chinese economy could be crippled because of tariffs to an economy which is only 15%
of global GDP again PPP not normal GDP I think seems somewhat shortsighted
and the big the big deal here Michael is the Europeans the Europeans including Britain the EU Norway etc is about 21%
of the global economy so it's actually a larger share of the global economy by this particular measure than the United
States now if the US can somehow tear Europe away from Chinese imports
Okay now you're talking That requires incredible statecraft and it would require the Europeans to swallow a hell
of a lot of inflation They just did that because they withdrew from dependence on Russian energy They're not going to do
the same thing right away with Chinese consumer durables and electronic gadgets
So my instinct tells me this is worse for the US than it is for China That
said it's not good for China and it may prove disruptive in terms of the
domestic political context Who knows there are lots of um known knowns and
unknown unknowns and I think there's lots of unknown unknowns particularly on the Chinese side but at face value I
think it's I think it's a worse set of circumstances The United States sometimes we have a Friday night debate
night but um I agree with you 100% there So we're going to go on to our next story Uh if you'd like to support our
work you can sign up at [Music] navarmedia.com/support The House of Commons will sit on Saturday for the
first time since 2019 for an emergency debate on the reationalization of British steel The bill will give Kstarma
power to direct steel companies in England and it will be used to stop Chinese firm Jing uh from closing
Britain's last two blast furnaces in Scunor The GMBB union who represent many
workers in the plant have welcomed the move And so they say the business secretary must be given huge praise for
acting decisively to safeguard this vital industry and the thousands of jobs that rely on it The Guardian has a bit
more information about the plant in question So they say Scumorp is the last remaining steel works capable of making
steel from iron ore and so is seen by some people as strategically important for the UK However Jingier last month
said it planned to close the plants to blast furnaces putting 2,700 jobs at risk It has since refused to pay for new
raw materials with coal and iron ore deliveries to Immingham Port not yet paid for The government had offered £500
million in financial support to switch the blast furnaces to cleaner electric arc furnaces but Jingier had requested
much more talks this week are thought to have stalled when Jingier bulked at the conditions attached to the offer to pay
for new raw materials Um so I mean some people are s suggesting this could be somewhat related to the tariff war
because there is a 25% tariff on um steel exo exports from the UK to the
United States but obviously British steel has been on a bit of a downward spiral for quite a while now Um Aaron
obviously you know if if the government do reationalize British steel it's not really from sort of any enthusiasm about
nationalization is because the the private firm that owns it uh doesn't want to run it anymore essentially that
they seem to think it's not profitable So they're simply saying we're not going to buy any more of the raw materials This is closing down Government are
coming in as a last resort to to take it over Um what's your reaction
i mean the the the the story of the British steel industry Michael is quite um extraordinary Um in the 19th century
Sheffield one city produced about 80% of global steel one sitting uh at the at
the apogee of the industrial revolution Modern steel manufacturer actually starts with a gentleman believe I
believe called Henry Bessmer um who makes major innovations in the opening decades of the 19th century which makes
it a really um commercially viable technology modern steel Uh and yet now
Britain is absolutely nowhere on this stuff Absolutely nowhere And that was not an iron law of of of history and
politics Um you might say well we've got expensive energy we would always struggle to produce steel Well we've got
lots of coal um and it's abundant and it's cheap and we shouldn't be using
coal for electricity um and as part of our energy grid We should be using it to make steel at least for now um at least
the next decade or two You also need steel by the way if you want energy transition Uh so I don't really see why
we kind of a successful energy um steel industry in this country You look at some of the other big players Japan
South Korea they don't have particularly cheap energy So um yeah there's no iron
law here By the way as well South Korea the amount of ship building South Korea does extraordinary amounts of ship building they make I think more than the
United Far more than the United States It's not a big country It's what 35 million people These are all industries
that the U the UK gave up on because of neoliberalism and and adopting basically the mantras of Margaret Thatcher and
Tony Blair gave up on them Now it doesn't mean if those guys hadn't been on the scene that Britain would have a world beat be beating you know um steel
manufacturing industry and ship building It could have There's another world where those industries were managed in a
different way between the state and the market and they were very successful They were competitive They created lots
of good jobs There is a world where that was the the case It's political failure for the most part Um and in terms of
these two last blast furnaces that we have in uh in Scunthorp I think really
if you're spending 60 billion pounds a year on defense spending Michael 60 billion That's before Karma's latest uh
splurge you know it's wild to be spending all that money on F-35s and Trident etc and not have a single
domestic steel foundry Now I know many of our listeners viewers don't really care to to hear those arguments but I
think that's why they will be nationalized ultimately because you cannot conduct warfare national
self-defense without a domestic steel industry And if we lose this and I I don't mean electric arc furnaces I mean
blast furnaces like this These are the last two in the country in Scunthor
Without that um ability you you you basically can't do um wartime rearmament
You can't do it So I think that's why they ultimately will be nationalized Um I I personally would nationalize them
anyway There's probably an argument actually for very low tariffs on imported steel from other parts of the world This is something we can do We're
no longer in the European Union Um to at least keep some capacity going Uh but
it's interesting when you talk to people about this stuff why can't we have a world-class steel industry in this country and you don't you don't get a
good answer Like we've got lots of really smart people We've got a history of making the stuff Got lots of coal You
tell we got lots of knowhow You tell me why we can't You tell me why we can't
And I think part of the answer is that we've basically lost confidence in making anything in this country We don't train people to make things in this
country anymore Well you know what maybe all the all the intelligent young people that we currently direct towards finance
um and towards other industries in the quoteunquote service sector maybe actually we need a massive rethink about
where we send our smartest people I would submit it should not be into the financial service industry It should be
into things like aerospace steel manufacturer energy life sciences healthcare That
that's what I would argue for Um but we are where we are and and I think
reationalization will happen which is a good thing but it'll happen for for reasons that the left generally speaking
isn't very positive about which is sort of you know you only take it over once It's a lossmaking business whereas you
know maybe be nice for the state to sometimes take over something when it's doing kind of well so we don't just get the losses But there we are Um I I think
one of the reasons we couldn't have it is because Margaret Fer thought that all heavy industry was too unionized So she wanted to destroy it in favor of service
sector jobs which were less unionized right the political strategy was partly just to destroy organized labor to to
de-industrialize especially the north of England But then I suppose you could also talk about sort of the model of capitalism and training etc But I agree
with you on that as well The US Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to help return a migrant they wrongfully deported to a notorious
jail in El Salvador The case of 29year-old Kilmar Abrego Garcia had
shocked much of America and the world and the man who had the right to be in the United States and who has an
American wife and son was picked up in March and deported to a Salvadorian jail
The White House went on to admit he had been sent wrongfully but refused to allow him to return As this report from
early March explained tonight the Trump administration acknowledging this man was inadvertently sent to a notorious
mega prison in El Salvador because of an administrative error Lawyers for the Salvadorian man Kilmar Armando Arbrego
Garcia identified in these prison video screen grabs by his US citizen wife are
petitioning for his immediate return They say Abrego Garcia was removed against a 2019 judge's order preventing
him from being sent back to his home country The White House though acknowledging the oversight unapologetic
It was an administrative error The administration maintains the position that this individual who was deported to
El Salvador and will not be returning to our country was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang Briger Garcia's
family says he's no gang member and have heard nothing about his condition for weeks saying this has been quote a
nightmare So that position from the American government that the man was wrongfully deported but that he still um
couldn't come back that was challenged in a federal court in Maryland and on April the fourth a federal judge ordered
um that he be returned Um that decision was appealed by the Trump administration but the Supreme Court has now also ruled
that Abrao Garcia must be returned The court said in an unsigned order with no
noted dissents quote "The order properly requires the government to quote unquote
facilitate Albrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure his
case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador." Uh so like I said this is
breaking right now Uh and this was a unanimous order by the Supreme Court 9
to zero The fact the court came to a unanimous decision that Trump was wrong seems significant given he appointed
three members of the Supreme Court So what happens now well Trump has never appeared too fussed about what judges
tell him to do But if he were to attempt a standoff with the American legal system it's unclear that on this issue
it would work in his favor Joe Rogan and Constantine Kissing spoke about a
similar case on a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Show So both of them supported Trump last November but this is their
take on the shocking case of a gay Venezuelan makeup artist wrongly deported to an El Salvadorian prison
31-year-old makeup artist falsely deported to El Salvador prison Lawyer says immigration
attorney say uh a gay Venezuelan makeup artist seeking asylum in the US was wrongly detained as a gang member and
deported to El Salvador A case becoming a flash point in the debate over the Trump administration's deportation of
hundreds of migrants to a notoriously inhumane El Salvador mega prison
man So again this is it's hard to know what's it's hard to know what's real and
what's not real but if it is real this is [ __ ] horrible But if you think about it Joe like I say if you're rounding up hundreds of people mistakes
are going to get made because everyone's human And you then have to have a system I think that allows you to amend and
make adjustments for that Absolutely Yeah Absolutely And it can't be bury your head in the sand and pretend it didn't happen No Yeah And this is the
trouble with government The incentive structure is all wrong Like to admit that is now embarrassing
That's crazy Right So the mistakes like that have to be corrected if you want
reasonable people to be on board with you Correct Yeah Correct If you want you know compassionate people to be on board
with you you can't deport gay hairdressers seeking asylum That's [ __ ] crazy And then throw them in an El Salvador prison That's that's not
even his country right you deport people back to their country right it's nuts
So that case was was a slightly different one but to the same prison And you heard there sort of the the people
in that conversation so Constantin Rogan sort of saying if a mistake is made you have to correct it Um whereas Donald
Trump was saying in the case that we began this segment with oh we did deport this this father um mistakenly It was an
administrative error but they still can't be returned As I say the Supreme Court have now overturned that decision
Um will Trump do a standoff given that even his fairly right-wing supporters
think he's in the wrong um Aaron what's your what's your take on this i I think we're going to see more of this Michael
Um we saw it a little bit with a a debate on Joe Rogan with Douglas Murray that there there is a real tension
really right now over the individual liberty stuff free speech stuff the idea
of um the state being a necessary evil that classical liberal kind of view of it which I think Constantin and Joe
Rogan probably have Not that they have the same politics I think Joe Rogan is quite leftwing on some things actually
you know he's he favors singlepayer healthcare model for instance but there is an instinctive libertarianism there
um in his politics I think you know there is a huge tension in the Trump project and coraling the right around it
and more besides in so much as you're talking about free speech um and then you are literally arresting student
activists at various universities across the country who have the right to be in the US who are studying in the US for
writing something down for an opinion not even for a protest in in certain cases Okay those people are now being
arrested and yet their right to free speech should be protected under the first amendment It's the same with
regards to due process and the right to appeal etc These are all um sacrosan liberties for anybody who cares about
freedom But at the same time Trump doesn't doesn't really believe in that stuff And his political style is his
idiom is that of a strong man His project is that of a strong man Um you know Marco Rubio saying I can't find
people quickly enough to throw them out that that is not somebody who particularly cares about due process and and making sure you're getting things
right even if your project isn't particularly praiseworthy at least by by you know the conventions and norms of
fairness and impartiality getting things right which which they're not doing so I think there's a massive tension there
Michael within the right um and look for a while because of their resistance to perceived left-wing project of wokeness
and high inflation etc there was this beautiful moment where it all crystallized and Trump could get an
electoral majority I don't mean electoral college I mean a majority of Americans which Republicans hadn't got
um since 2004 Since 2004 elections it's the first time since 2004 Republican candidate got a majority of votes in an
election Not majority of the population but a majority of people that voted uh in in in the most recent presidential
election And I I think it's going to be quite hard to hold that coalition together uh when you have these really
really strong tensions of people that want centralized and coercive authority and people that believe in in civil
liberties And I still whatever you think of the American right um broadly speaking I still think they tend towards
the latter particularly the American populist right I don't mean the organizations and the politicians I mean
I mean just people um watching that debate for instance yesterday between um
Joe Rogan and Douglas Murray and a third third person
um a comedian you know it was very obvious to me that the style of Douglas Murray was really at odds with the folk
politics which underpinned a lot of of Trumpism for better and worse you know Um I'm a free individual I can I can say
what I like There don't have to be consequences Well sometimes you shouldn't just be able to say what you like around you know polio vaccines
actually Uh but you know broadly broadly speaking free speech is a good thing And I watched that and I looked at Douglas
Murray and he came across as sensorious and and Hectoring and I and I'm thinking these guys these guys do not belong
under the same political tent They really are in different worlds And I think on a lot of issues Michael um
right to protest like I say first amendment free speech Israel
um I think you're going to see time after time tax cuts for the rich which will happen right at some point Um uh
allegedly these tariffs are going to pay for capital gains tax to be abolished Allegedly I mean although these tariffs
aren't probably going to be around for much longer um I think on a lot of these issues you know that that that Trump
coalition is really going to fray The good news of course for for Trump and Republicans is that the the Democrat
party don't have an alternative They don't have an alternative And I wouldn't I wouldn't be that surprised if Kamala
Harris ran again in the next election I really wouldn't be that surprised who who have they got you know maybe Gavin
Newsome maybe somebody will emerge in the next three years you know a lot can change but I think right now that's the
best asset that Trump has is is the is the caliber or rather lack of caliber when it comes to the political
opposition I was just looking at the favorability ratings because I was thinking surely like Donald Trump is taking a hit after all of this and he is
you know his favorability ratings aren't great compared to other US presidents but still 45% of people have a positive
um sort of image of him in the United States You compare that to Karma 29% of
Britain's hold a favorable view of the prime minister 46% are unfavorable Now you know I'm not a big fan of Karma but
that does seem unfair to me right you know you can completely crash the global economy You can deport a bunch of people
um due to an administrative error all all the other nonsense he's done And still 45 to 52 that's not bad is it
that's more popular than I think a British prime minister has been in about a decade
Yes it is popular There's a few things to say about that Michael So for instance with the market panic people are worried about the markets and you
know all that red No lots of lots of working-class Americans don't care about the stock market They don't have
pensions and trackers and you know what do they have in the US they have trackers You know they don't have
delayed deferred wealth tied up in pensions which are you know indexed the stock market I mean many people do but
lots lots of people lots of regular people don't in the kinds of states that Trump now counts on Um I think the big
problem for the with the Trump alliance Michael is less the quantity of people but what they would view as the quality I think elite Americans in business in
technology who did back him are having really serious second thoughts about it I think Bill Aman was just a classic
example of that Elon Musk I mean Elon Musk Michael this was another clip from last week Elon Musk is talking about
wanting an open um free market for labor between North America and Europe I mean did you actually listen to anything
that Donald Trump said like he wants to disintegrate the idea of a common economic zone across North America let
alone join one with the European Union So I think I think he might struggle with elite support more than you know
workingass support of the kind recently by the way that we we encountered We did a great documentary Richard Hson went over there talking to regular Americans
who backed Donald Trump asking them why No I agree with you He's not lost those people so far Quickly on
Star Um it it's kind of crazy I did see one poll which which basically showed
that I think the majority of the public um now now thinks that Labor is enacting
austerity which is as bad as what happened under the tries and the Liberal Democrats I mean that strikes me as
possibly the worst political messaging outcome imaginable I mean your your
whole line is that we're better than the Tories and the Lib and the Lib Dems because those guys did austerity but now
a majority of the public thinks that what you're doing is just as bad By the way it isn't It just just isn't I'm not a fan of what they're doing but it just
isn't Um and that's because for months Labor have been telling the public how bad things are how they're going to cut
things how this is necessary and it has to happen But you were voted on a platform of
change right um and so I think actually in a way Michael I
think the Star government how they're governing so far it's almost like an experiment to see how can you become as
unpopular as quickly as possible I'm being serious It's it's hard to imagine
a better experiment here You saw it with the changes with regards to funding for grooming gang um reports in various
local authorities this week Every week there's a new comm's screw up Every
single week Uh and look maybe things change We had a we had some good data today on GDP monthly growth of 0.5% Just
one month I always say that For better or worse it's just one month But it's that's a that's a good data point for
for for the government But so far it's really like they've tried it's tried their hardest to get less than 100 seats
in the next election By the way if they carry on like this they will I I find it hard to believe they will carry on like
this So I think people probably get a new leader before that happens But you saw in a bi-election yesterday them
losing to a reform candidate one part of the country I think the swing was like 25% odd and in London they lose to a
green candidate similar swing And you know your vote is going to be nibbled on by all sides It's going to be nibbled on
by reform by the Greens by the Lib Dems by the S&P by apply Camry It's a real
problem for Labor And I I I I don't I don't see a plan So I'm not surprised at the polling numbers but you're right
It's pretty amazing that they're so much worse than Trump's I mean Trump's might have potentially
Trumps will be a bit worse after this week because people you know will have seen uh I mean there might be a number
of people who sort of think that their pensions have gone down now that the stock markets have tanked or whatever but we'll see In any case they probably
won't go lower than than Karma So that point will remain Uh Aaron thank you so much for joining me this evening Oh it's
just been great to be reunited with you Michael And the first half of the show with just was uh a Michael Walker
masterass Lmet Oh thank you very much You're too kind Aaron You're too kind Um thank you everyone for tuning in as well
Come back on Monday for another live show at 6 p.m Um have a great weekend Um
you've been watching Navara Media Good night