Trump’s Global Strategy Raises Questions About a New World Order

0:00Ben Meiselas:The complete and utter silence from Russia and China following Donald Trump's announcement of this purported deal with Venezuela tells us something deeper is going on, and I believe it relates to spheres of influence. And I believe that CIA Director John Ratcliffe's visit to Moscow to meet with his counterpart there, the head of the intelligence community there, had to do with spheres of influence. The Trump regime has always viewed the world as being divided according to three spheres of influence. The United States controls the Western Hemisphere, Russia controls Ukraine and all of Europe, and China controls all of Asia with the Middle East and Africa up for grabs.

0:45Ben Meiselas:Marco Rubio at the beginning of this Trump regime said as much. He said the old world order where the US was the only superpower and led organizations like NATO. He said that is done. We are in a multipolar world. Then he said the polls include United States and includes China and it includes Russia. And so when this trip happened by CIA director John Ratcliffe this past week, I believe that he tipped off the Russian head of intelligence about what was going to take place with Venezuela and furthered a pact that existed of you stay out of our hemisphere. We're going to do our part to stay out of your hemisphere.

1:31Ben Meiselas:And Donald Trump, as you've seen, continues to attack NATO. He continues to tap Zelensky along. I'm going to give you interceptors. I'm going to give you interceptor licenses. But then that never happens. And I also think that the message was delivered at this time as well, because it was before the Venezuela deal was announced. And also it's before the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is set to meet in Kyrgyzstan, which is about to take place in the next day or two. And then there's going to be the BRICS meeting that's going to be taking place several days after that in New Delhi, India. And so I think you have this coordination at play.

2:11Ben Meiselas:I also think that what's going on between Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Erdogan, the President of Turkey, is also part of this broader spheres of influence campaign that's taking place, Netanyahu being the proxy of the Trump regime. And I believe that Erdogan focusing more closely on bringing the Muslim countries together, the Arab countries together, with a potential leaning in a direction that would obviously be counter to the Abraham Accords, which was Donald Trump and Jared Kushner initiative. And so I think we have this dynamic at play. Someone who agrees with me, and I want to share it with you, who I think that she's been spot on a few times is Patricia Marins.

3:04Ben Meiselas:She says, the quiet around Venezuela is especially unsettling. Not a word from European capitals, from Beijing, from Moscow, from Brazil, from anyone. The silence feels like indifference and more like a negotiated pact, one that ties Taiwan, Ukraine, Venezuela, and not far behind Cuba in the same unspoken bargain. And so I think that was also what was discussed in a spoken bargain, if you will, when Ratcliffe went over there to Russia. I think one of the main topics as well was Cuba, because obviously Cuba is being helped by Russia and China. And I think the broader discussion was not Ratcliffe delivering a message to Putin saying, you need to stop bullying NATO and you need to stop bullying Ukraine and stop the invasion.

3:57Ben Meiselas:Okay. If you've been following the Trump regime, you know that everything Donald Trump has done was attack NATO and undermine Ukraine. So why would you think that Ratcliffe would be there to deliver that message when Donald Trump's out there attacking NATO and deceiving Ukraine on a daily basis? I I mean, come on, it's pretty obvious, I believe, that Ratcliffe was there saying, look, spheres of influence, here's how it's going to go down. We're going to do this deal with Venezuela where we're going to say we get 65 billion barrels of their oil. That's what we're going to do. Next, we're going to look to Cuba.

4:33Ben Meiselas:We're going to try to unwind this catastrophic and unlawful war in Iran, although they're not going to phrase it that way. Um, Iran is going to be showing up at the, um, BRICS meeting as well as the Shanghai cooperation organization. You have Besant holding off, although he's, you know, too scared to do this anyway, sanctions against China or other allies of Iran. Donald Trump knows that this catastrophic and unlawful war in Iran is crushing him here at home. There's a lot of other reasons why he's being crushed at here at home. He's by far the worst president in American history. His trade war against the world has been another disaster.

5:15Ben Meiselas:Ice and Border Patrol Gestapo, killing people, other disaster, covering up the Epstein files. I can go on and on and on. But Donald Trump wants to act like he's doing deals and he's getting wins. So he did this thing with Delce Rodriguez. We get 65 billion barrels of oil. It's going to immediately fill our strategic petroleum reserves. And it's going to be great. And gas prices are going to go down. I've debunked this like multiple times, but just to go over it one more time, there's no infrastructure in Venezuela at this point to be able to actually extract these 65 billion barrels. It's hypothetical.

5:50Ben Meiselas:Also, it's very sour and viscous and dense crude that doesn't go into our strategic petroleum reserves. Like the blend literally doesn't work. You'd have to make billions and billions of dollars of investments that will take multiple years to even allow the Venezuelan oil to even get into our strategic petroleum reserves. And then to make that oil accessible more broadly and start to get them into refineries, you're going to have to build refineries and infrastructure. And that's going to take years and years and years and years. And also it's likely unlawful or definitely unlawful in the United States without congressional authorization.

6:30Ben Meiselas:And it's unlawful in Venezuela as well under their constitution. And this whole idea that the Pentagon is creating its own Pentagon Trump company that's going to own a stake in a Venezuelan oil company. And already there's discrepancies, but what Trump said, we have majority control. Delcy Rodriguez says it's 35 % control given to the United States. It's not written down. In any event, as Michael Paul Berg explains, China is owed$10 billion in loans from Venezuela that they never paid back. Russia is owed$3 billion by Venezuela and paid for decades to keep Cuba afloat. Xi and Putin are happy with this spheres of influence model because they made bad bets and got burned.

7:19Ben Meiselas:Trump has yet to figure this out. And so Xi Jinping, he'll be coming to the United States end of September for a day or two. What do you think he's going to be talking about? Of course, he's going to be talking about Taiwan. And what do you think the discussion is here? Why do you think the CIA director's flying in on a military plane to meet with his counterpart there? What do you think is being discussed here? You think it's him saying, you better be careful. You better be careful. We're not out of our weapons here in the United States. We're going to strike back. No, that's not what they're discussing.

7:48Ben Meiselas:I think they're discussing these deeper issues. Here's what we're doing in Venezuela. We know that Ratcliffe had been to Cuba. It's about Venezuela and Cuba. It's so freaking obvious. It's staring us in our face in spheres of influence. He went to Cuba recently to threaten Cuba, and Cuba's being helped right now significantly by Russia and China. So he's delivering the message. Those are ours. This is my opinion, of course. You know, China will not be helpful in Taiwan. Look, we've already moved away the USS George Washington, the main aircraft carrier, the only remaining U.S. supercarrier aircraft carrier in the Pacific has now been moved to the Middle East.

8:30Ben Meiselas:And for the Trump regime, I mean, the horrible conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln was also the perfect cover for them. They also don't treat our military service members at all with the respect they deserve and don't give them the basic supplies and services. But then the Trump regime can say, aha, the USS Abraham Lincoln. You all wanted us to move it. So we moved that away. And now we're bringing in the George Washington. And so now the US isn't going to have an aircraft carrier really in the region that's capable of projecting power. And so China, Taiwan, Russia, Ukraine, Russia's gearing up for its big winter offensive against Ukraine right now.

9:16Ben Meiselas:And then I think you see these battles taking place amongst the kind of midpowers as well. And you have escalation of Netanyahu's rhetoric saying, as it relates to Turkey, I mean, and saying Turkey's the enemy. We're not gonna hesitate to strike Turkey. You have Erdogan in Turkey who just announced the involvement of Turkey in the Mecca pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan saying that, look, We're going to, of course, defend ourselves against Netanyahu. You have Netanyahu striking the airport in Syria, which they claim was being built by Erdogan. And so this is what's happening throughout the world right now.

10:02Ben Meiselas:And you want to know who speaks this way of spheres of influence. Basically, the French MAGA candidate, Le Pen, Marine Le Pen, and she's back. And her quote that she just gave in an interview is, Ukraine is part of Russia's sphere of influence. It's a fact, just like Canada is part of America's sphere of influence. And Le Pen, Marine Le Pen, is the MAGA candidate in France. She was previously barred from the 2027 election on appeal of her. She was convicted in March 2025 of embezzling European Parliament funds. She was banned from office for five years, but that was reduced. So she was actually allowed to run.

10:49Ben Meiselas:And so her guy, Jordan Bardella, who was going to run in her place, gave her the spot. And that's what she's saying. And Donald Trump's attacks of Canada's 51st state, this is the spheres of influence being accelerated. And I also don't think it's a coincidence that this followed and that Donald Trump's acceleration of the attacks on Canada also followed that meeting in Russia. I think this is all being choreographed together and amongst Trump and Putin and Xi. I will remind you that back in February of 2025, Rubio spoke about his views of spheres of influence. Play this clip. So it's not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power.

11:40That was an anomaly. It was the product of the end of the Cold War. But eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi great powers in different parts of the planet. We face that now with China and to some extent, you know, Russia. And then you have rogue states like Iran and North Korea you have to deal with. So now more than ever, we need to remember that foreign policy should always be about furthering the national interest of the United States.

12:05Ben Meiselas:In February of 2026, before the U.S. got involved in the catastrophic and unlawful war in Iran, but after the U.S. invaded Venezuela, Rubio says the old world is gone. We live in a new era of geopolitics. And this language is exactly the language that Putin uses. And the kind of Orban, Le Pen, that whole right-wing, far-right-wing leaders in the MAGA style around the world, they all speak like that. I mean, here's what Rubio said. The world is changing very fast throughout the universe. The old world is gone, frankly, though, the world I grew up in. And we live in a new era of geopolitics. And it's going to require all of us to reexamine what that looks like and what our role is going to be.

12:55And we've had many of these conversations at private with many of our allies. We are our allies. And we need to continue to have those conversations. And I think Saturday, hopefully, and the media's live there when we'll see them.

13:06Ben Meiselas:And then Rubio also said a few days after that, February 15, 2026, We in America have no interest in being polite caretakers of the West's managed decline. And again, this is the approach. This is exactly, these are the words that Putin uses. Here, play this clip. For we in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West's managed decline. Because previously, right around that time period of March of 2025, Lavrov basically said the following. He said, Rubio recognizes multipolar worlds where countries' power is defined by its strength. Smaller countries are second rate.

13:56Ben Meiselas:We will want other Ukrainian territories where ethnic Russians live. You got to pay attention to what all these people, you know, what they're saying, how they're behaving, what international meetings are taking place. And that's what leads me to believe that's what Ratcliffe was actually doing there in Russia. should also note when Donald Trump was asked about what was going on there. Trump's like, I hate to let people down, but it was just fairly routine what was going on. Fairly routine. Here, play this clip. Can we put something to rest here? Because the speculation is crazy. The CIA director, ours, is in Russia.

14:43Rumors are saying Putin is going to test NATO resolve all the way to speculation that is crazy he's going to strike england all the way to this is maybe the u.s telling them about the iranian sanctions saying we're serious about them can you tell me why our cia director flew in the middle of the night to meet with the russians well none of the above he's there and you know very sort of semi-routine i hate to disappoint people

15:11Ben Meiselas:and obviously you know trump lies about everything but i do believe these were part of conversations to say, hey, let them know, here's what we're going to be doing in Venezuela. Here's what we're going to be doing in Canada. Obviously, you know, the U.S. can't so obviously go after, you know, Ukraine. But I think this is part of a plan that Trump and Putin have had for some time. I think this idea of tapping Zelensky along further about these interceptor licenses, when Putin called Trump on July 4th, in my opinion, that 90-minute phone call focused on that plan as well. Putin summoned Lukashenko, the leader of Belarus, recently.

15:56Ben Meiselas:And I believe that there's a high likelihood that you may see a northern front open in the invasion of Ukraine as we head into the winter. And I think the US has set this up for Putin so that it's been choreographed in a way that Putin has what he wants right now going into the winter. Zelensky doesn't have the interceptors, doesn't have the licenses, out of a lot of defensive capabilities. We've seen movements right along the border and in other areas that Russia controls, building out the ability to project deeper and deeper strikes into Ukraine, lots of more ballistic missile launchers. You know, we've been seeing that set up.

16:41Ben Meiselas:Russia's really ramping up its Shahid drone production, really ramping up its ballistic production for this winter. Ukraine doesn't have a lot of resources to defend itself. So that's what I think Trump delivered for Putin, in my opinion. On the other side, Venezuela, Cuba, I think that's being set up as well. And then as it relates to China, you have Xi stopping by for really only one day right there. And I think that the US attack on South Korea and saying, we support, Trump saying, I support Kim Jong-un, Trump's refusal to give Taiwan weapons that they need over there. I think that's the delivery for Xi.

17:28Ben Meiselas:If you follow how Donald Trump has basically did what he did to Ukraine, but he's doing that to Taiwan right now. That's the gift over there. I think the silence from the European countries and the midpowers over what Trump's doing in Venezuela is acknowledging that what I just described is really what's at play right here, but they're doing everything they can to cement their relationship with Canada and elsewhere for them to unite and prepare for what they see is coming in the coming months, which is a real, this idea that you have this world at war. And so you have Prime Minister Carney, he's going to be speaking in front of the European Union Parliament for their State of the Union.

18:16Ben Meiselas:He'll be there the next day. He's their honorary guest. So that's the dynamic to me that's at play at these meetings. You tell me what you think. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Thanks for watching. Before you go, our book, WTF America, is available for pre-order now. It's the story of how we got here and how we fight our way back. To pre-order, scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Let's do this.

18:56Thank you.