World Leaders Outmaneuver Trump as New Global Alliances Take Shape

0:00Ben Meiselas:World leaders are declaring checkmate and they are taunting Donald Trump about his defeat to his face, but he is too busy posting deranged memes renaming Lake Ontario at 2 a.m. in the morning to realize the gravity or he simply doesn't care because his sole priority is to do quid pro quos that enrich himself. You want to see why I'm saying world leaders are declaring Checkmate Exhibit A. China's President Xi Jinping will be visiting Kyrgyzstan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting next week, and then he will be going to Egypt for an important meeting with Egypt's president. Let's talk about it.

0:48Ben Meiselas:The Chinese president will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit before traveling to Egypt, the first state visit in the country in 10 years. At the same time we've seen over the past week, military exercises between China and Egypt taking place, a clear sign to the United States. There is a new superpower in town in the Middle East, in my opinion. China's President Xi Jinping will attend the SCO summit. We know that there will be meetings there as well with the leadership of Russia, as well as the leadership of Iran. Then Xi Jinping will head to Egypt on a trip from August 30th to September 3rd.

1:38Ben Meiselas:And think about it. He only wants to spend one day in the United States when he meets with Donald Trump later in the month. I think that's going to be sending a message as well. At the SCO Summit to be attended by member states, including Russia and Iran, she will discuss deepening cooperation as well as major international and regional issues, the foreign ministry spokesperson says. The Chinese president will hold talks with his counterpart in Kyrgyzstan and attend various state events during the trip. In Egypt, she will meet with Al-Sisi for talks aimed at making a positive contribution to safeguarding peace and stability in the region is how they are framing it.

2:20Ben Meiselas:And this is at the same time that China's J-16s faced off against Egypt's airplanes, the Rafals, in combat drills as the United States continues to pretend under the Trump regime it controls the Strait of Hormuz, while it does not. And I think a notable aspect of this is that the aircraft from China flew more than 6 ,000 kilometers, 3 ,730 miles over nine hours to reach Egypt, crossing four countries, according to a report by state broadcaster CCTV, not specifying which four countries in the region were flown over and you had these military drills between China and Egypt right there. And a message was clearly being sent.

3:10Ben Meiselas:What was the United States doing? Vis-a-vis Egypt, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant made the following announcement. Treasury promised to sever every economic lifeline Tehran has left. And finally, and the threat of the Iranian regime. We also warn that Iran's enablers cannot continue to enjoy access to the U.S. dollar and the global financial system. So Bank Miser, UAE, decided to find out the hard way. And today, we're taking the first step and holding it accountable for its continued egregious support of the Iranian regime. So what's going on there? Remember, at the beginning of the week, Treasury Secretary Besant said, this is economic D-Day and by Friday, we are going to inflict so much pain on any country that does business with Iran.

4:01Ben Meiselas:You wait and see, we mean business here. Well, China immediately responded and said, we're going to keep on doing business with Iran. They put out statements through Wang Yi, their foreign minister. Russia put out a statement right away saying, we look forward to meeting with Iran's leadership at the SCO, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting that's taking place in Kyrgyzstan. And we are looking forward to talking about expediting the$25 billion in nuclear capabilities and nuclear programs in Iran, in addition to the Bushir nuclear power plant. Pakistan, the mediator between Iran and the United States, said that we do not support any unilateral sanctions on Iran.

4:44Ben Meiselas:So Besant announced these sanctions against Bank Miseur. And so as Brett Erickson explains, in perhaps one of the most embarrassing displays of taco throughout the entire war, that's Trump always chickens out, he always backs down, he makes these bold threats and backs down, Treasury Secretary Besson's threats to take action against all major financial institutions that do business with Iran turned out to be nothing but yet again the Trump regime caving. The reporting indicates that the U.S. will be cutting off US dollar and correspondent banking to the UAE's branch of Bank Mesor, Egypt's second largest bank.

5:23Ben Meiselas:Now that may sound powerful. Egypt's second largest bank is getting sanctioned, but the United States didn't even sanction it. It can still legally conduct business. The Trump regime literally only cut off the dollar clearing and correspondent bank access to a single branch, a clear indication that the world can receive that there is no hope whatsoever that the United States will ever make good on its threats. And Donald Trump posting at 2 a.m. along with his top advisors, weird AI videos of himself dancing over a sign that says Lake America. But while Trump is doing that, again, world leaders are saying checkmate.

6:04Ben Meiselas:China's Xi is also saying, you know what? I'm not just going to stop at Egypt. Maybe on the way back to, we'll see the timing all of this, we'll do a big meeting with India for the BRICS bloc meeting. The BRICS bloc asserting itself more as the Trump regime attacks NATO. BRICS, of course, stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and a lot of other nations have been joining. Xi is likely to visit India with a big delegation for the first time in seven years. So the first big visit to Egypt in many years, the first big visit to India in many years right there. China's president Xi Jinping likely to attend next month's BRICS summit in New Delhi with a large delegation.

6:49Ben Meiselas:India is hosting the September 12th to 13th summit where Xi's presence would be watched less for the BRICS agenda than for what it signals about Beijing and New Delhi's efforts to stabilize relations between them. And you'll see major growth there in that relationship. At the same time, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post got their hands on classified information or classified documents by the US intelligence community, just showing how Putin sees US as weakened by Iran war and how China sees the US weakened by the Iran war. And we've also reported how former, I guess current, but the US is not really a good ally anymore.

7:36Ben Meiselas:How countries in Asia that were allied with the United States see the US weapons shortage as the US security umbrella collapsing in asia we also saw the same thing in europe the u.s security umbrella collapsing there as that's going on we know that canadian prime minister mark carney will be addressing the european union the day after the state of the union he will also be a guest the first time you have a foreign leader being invited as the guest of honor at the state of the union where you have Ursula von der Leyen giving the speech September 16th. He will give a speech the following day. And of course, we've been talking about new alliances like the Mecca Pact, of course, in the Middle East between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey.

8:32Ben Meiselas:And we're seeing other alliances growing there as well that we've been covering here in the Midas Touch. I want to bring in someone who knows a lot about this and has an incredible amount of knowledge. I want to bring in Susan Rice. Susan Rice, of course, was the 23rd United States National Security Advisor under former President Obama. She was the 27th United States Ambassador to the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, also under Obama. She served as the United States Ambassador to the UN from 2009 to 2013. And she was the United States National Security Advisor from 2013 to 2017.

9:13Ben Meiselas:And I want to talk about all of this. I want to talk about all these major international developments as I believe world leaders are declaring checkmate over Donald Trump as this catastrophic and unlawful war has demonstrated that the Trump regime unable to handle even the most basic of things, especially now we're in six months since Trump launched this catastrophic war. All right, let's bring in Ambassador Susan Rice. Ambassador Susan Rice, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, former National Security Advisor, both under the Obama administration. Ambassador Rice, great to see you. As always, we are approaching and we are in basically six months into this, what I believe to be a catastrophic war in Iran, a catastrophic war we should never have been involved in in the first place.

10:05Ben Meiselas:I want to get your reflections of where we are right now when it seems like every day from Donald Trump and his regime, there's a new lie. We control this, we control that. We're winning. It's amazing. It's great. It's the best. This is what we want. What do you assess the situation at now? Well, sadly, Ben, I think your assessment is very spot on. This has been a strategic failure that has been enormously costly to the American people. Obviously, first and foremost, we've lost 18 American service members, men and women. We've had over 500, some say as high as 750 wounded. And Americans are paying for this every day and in their daily lives.

10:54It's really extraordinary when you think about it. Americans were already paying an additional$1 ,100 per average family as a result of Donald Trump's tariffs. Now, on top of that, the Iran war is costing American families on average another $1 ,200. And when you look at what's happening to prices of gas at the pump, you know, up over 38%, diesel fuel up 50%. And then you add in the direct cost to the American taxpayer in terms of, you know, the defense budget, over$100 billion already spent, they're asking for another$73 billion. This is money that could be used to lower housing costs, provide healthcare support, lower the cost of food and everyday necessities.

11:47And it's all going to a war which was ill-conceived in the first place, had no clear objectives, has been an abject strategic failure and an extremely expensive one. Yeah.

12:02Ben Meiselas:And I always emphasize to my audience when I make this next point first, we should never have been in this catastrophic war in the first place. Then I make the next point, which is observing the execution of the war and the idea that the U.S. was a superpower that could project strength. Just seeing how the war was executed appears to have been done on all aspects. Also, just in a catastrophic way from the execution of it, from day one, slaughtering little schoolgirls in Manab. And that's what gets a lot of attention, But there was also Le Mare in a volleyball hall where little girls were playing volleyball.

12:46Ben Meiselas:And that was even to this day still being covered up by the Trump regime. But then running out of munitions as well, running out of the interceptors, running out of the THAADs, the way our interceptors were even being used at the time to shoot down drones where we'd be using five million, $11 million missiles in batches of two to strike down a$50 ,000 or$200 ,000 Shahid drone. And you're looking at it and you're just saying, what is this? What are we even doing here? There's that aspect of it, too, from your assessment and from all of the experience you have. What were you seeing there with just the execution of this war?

13:30Well, all of the consequences that you've described are absolutely accurate. And I would add that on top of the enormous depletion of our munitions to a dangerously low level that has left our forces in the region vulnerable, but also leaves our allies and our interests in Europe and Asia vulnerable, our bases in the Middle East have been largely damaged to the extent that they're not habitable. We have had to walk away to a large extent from our core military bases in the Middle East. And those that remain are getting still attacked by the Iranians with relative ease. And as a result, as you said, of our loss of interceptors, which are so grossly depleted, we've left ourselves extremely vulnerable.

14:22So, but the thing, Ben, that you said at the outset is one I think really needs to be emphasized. You know, before this war began, the world believed, rightfully so, that the United States was the greatest, most powerful military in the world. And here we joined in a war with Israel, another extraordinarily competent military, against a middle power adversary. And we have utterly failed to achieve our objectives. If the objective was regime change, that hasn't happened. If the objective was to end somehow by the use of force, Iran's nuclear program, that hasn't happened. We are status quo ante on that.

15:05While their Navy and Air Force have certainly been degraded, we made big hay out of the importance of taking out their missile program. Well, yeah, we probably knocked out a lot of their missiles, but they have been able to reconstitute their launchers and to continue using their missiles, their drone capabilities. They now control the Strait of Hormuz and are using that control in a way that is detrimental not only to our interests, our economy, our allies in the region, but to the entire global economy. We have, in effect, given Iran, through this conflict, another nuclear weapon in the form of its control over the Strait of Hormuz.

15:43And this is one they are prepared to use. They never had an actual nuclear weapon previously. They still don't, but they have the wherewithal and the knowledge and the stockpiles to build to one. And as a result of this war, if you're looking at this from the Iranian perspective, whereas before they were happy to be on the cusp of a nuclear weapon, from their vantage point, they may well have assessed by now that it is in their interest to race to get to one so that in the future they're not vulnerable in the way to attack that they have suffered in the last six months.

16:19Ben Meiselas:You know, I remember once upon a time you'd have these characters in armed conflict like the Baghdad Bobs who would be so outrageous in their propaganda. It became almost the punchline on SNL and in movies here in the United States. or there would be movies like The Dictator or whatever these movies were that would mock the behavior of the kind of Kim Jong-un style authoritarian abroad. Watching every day Donald Trump's behavior, posting memes of himself as a pirate boarding Iranian ships or these bizarre our memes that he posts of himself saying like my ship now, my boat now, and just the behavior.

17:09Ben Meiselas:And then the barrage of lies, just every single day, every sound utterance syllable is like a lie about it. And it's so easily disprovable what he said, but they keep on going. They have certain reporters that they utilize who push this stuff out every day. People aren't buying it, but it just to me as just not as not a political way. It just, it pains me because it just makes me feel like weak. And despite the fact that I think that, you know, Trump's the worst person to be anywhere near the oval office, he's still the commander in chief. I don't like that. It's just the reality. So if you had someone in that position though, you're like, dude, just behave like a grownup.

17:52Ben Meiselas:Like why are you doing this? And, and Iran, I believe is seizing the initiative and they're talking and behaving publicly. We could say what's going on behind the scenes, but projecting to a geopolitical community, the type of rhetoric of let's get together, world uniting, you know, multilateralism that we used to use and Trump speaking the way we used to say that the other side used to behave. Well, rhetoric aside and memes aside, and I I don't dispute that they are childish and grotesque, often laughable and make him look like a laughingstock, sadly, which is very detrimental because, as you mentioned, he is our commander in chief.

18:39But I also think you have to add to that the repeated extraordinary threats of, you know, inflicting World War II style catastrophic damage on Iran only to walk them back and rinse and repeat. I mean, the bluster, the threats, the lies, of course, they're all horrible and they all serve to undermine the perception and the reality of American power globally. So when you take the failures that I described in terms of the execution of this conflict, this war, and our inability to achieve any of the varying objectives that have been stated, the world is looking at this and seeing the United States and Israel throwing the military kitchen sink at Iran and failing.

19:26And if you're in China or Russia, sadly, they may look at that and see themselves as strengthened and emboldened and question our willingness and ability to use force when necessary, when it directly serves our national interests or the national defense in the Asia theater or the European theater. So it's more than the lies and the bluster and the memes and the threats. It's the real perception of a weakened American deterrence and calling into question the credibility of our military power. This is a case, sadly, when the threat of the use of force had proven more effective than the actual use of force.

20:19And the ramifications of that, I think we will be living with for quite a while.

20:24Ben Meiselas:Yeah, talk to us about that because, you know, as a national security advisor, as an ambassador to the United Nations, every word when the U.S. speaks, especially at the presidential level, but certainly at the national security advisor level, at the defense secretary, you know, at these positions, how we speak, we would always kind of carry through. If you're going to make a post and make a threat and say, we're going to do this on this date, we would do it. You know, or there would be some explanation about why we didn't. But the fact that, to your point, there's this Ponzi scheme approach now over the threats.

21:06Ben Meiselas:It's going to be on this day demolished. We're going to destroy you. It's going to be over. Then the day happens. And then he announces a fake deal that Iran and nobody else in the world even knows what he's talking. Actually, we did a deal. We're going to I mean, it's just the damage that that does could be worse than almost anything we you know, you know, that that may be out there. I mean, that is a death by a thousand strikes on the United States credibility. Absolutely. And while these threats were horrific and many of them have executed, would have entailed the commission of serious war crimes.

21:41Obviously, nobody wanted to see any of that happen. But the bluster, the threats and the walkbacks in rapid succession as a matter of predictable course is really damaging to our credibility. And frankly, on the flip side, you know, are, you know, when we do make a commitment, when we do make a deal, whether it was the original Iran nuclear deal, whether it was the U.S.-Canada-Mexico trade agreement or many other commitments we've made, this president, even when they're his own deals, his own commitments, as in the USMCA, he's willing to turn around and blow them up. And so if you're an adversary or an ally trying to assess whether, you know, if you make a deal, if you get an agreement with the United States that it's worth the paper it's written on, you really have to question it.

22:33And that, too, is enormously damaging to our standing, our strength, our security and our credibility. Yeah.

22:40Ben Meiselas:And Prime Minister Carney essentially said that, you know, you really can't even do a deal with these people. I think it was Warren Buffett who said you can't do a good deal with bad people. The premier of Manitoba, Wab Canoe, echoed that. And that seems to be the sentiment. And kind of like what kind of deal can you do with the United States now? We did Kuzma. He tore that apart. And look at the behavior of them even right now after the weekend where we learned all about, you know, and this is Donald Trump's own admission, the bad faith tactics of the U.S. tried to change the terms. Trump said, yeah, I did it when he was asked by CNN.

23:19Ben Meiselas:But then even the behavior afterwards in Lake Ontario to Lake America. I mean, it's all ridiculous stuff, but it speaks to how could you even work with these people? How do you how do you have a rational conversation? And when you turn on Fox or you turn on all these networks and you hear what the MAGA people are saying, if we just keep on forcing ourselves onto them, If we just do this, they will back down and they will say, I submit. And that seems to be the approach to everything. If we just keep on attacking and behaving this way, other people will eventually roll over and say, I guess I give up.

24:00Ben Meiselas:I mean, but that's what they seem to be suggesting. Yeah, but countries that have a strong sense of national interest and national sovereignty and pride, whether China, Iran or Canada, are not going to take it lying down. They're willing to endure pain to maintain their independence and their sovereignty and their stability. And, you know, Donald Trump doesn't understand the concept of national interest, I think in large part because for him, the national interest is to a great extent self-interest. But most countries operate on the perspective of national interest and are willing to do what it takes to secure their national interest, even if it means enduring tariffs from the United States or, in the case of Iran, a relentless bombing campaign.

24:59Back to the Canadian situation, though, I think people underestimate the Canadians' resolve and anger and determination to stand together and stand against these unfair, unjust tariffs from the United States. But the real victims of this in the United States are you and I and American consumers across the board, because these tariffs are taxes on the American consumer. And as I mentioned earlier, tariffs in general have already cost the average American family eleven hundred additional dollars a year. And that's going to go up as the tariffs go up. And, you know, it accomplishes nothing. And Canada is not going to bend.

25:47They are our friends. They are our allies. They have been our closest partner. It's the longest peaceful border in the world. And Donald Trump is trying to turn it into an adversary. And I'm afraid he's well on his way.

26:03Ben Meiselas:Canada also attacking NATO countries. And, you know, I think a reporter asked him the other day, why are you attacking our allies? And why are you hoisting up the adversaries? And his response was to say, you know, Xi Jinping is going to be showing up to the White House in September. And whenever I'm with him, we always talk about we always talk about how Canada is the most difficult person, the most difficult country to deal with. And so even in answering the question, he answered his own state of mind about what's going on. But like Canada has a plan. I mean, I mean, Canada has its own plan now with the EU and the middle powers united.

26:44Ben Meiselas:it. China has a plan. I mean, we see the BRICS block and we see the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting that's going to be taking place, the BRICS that's going to be taking place soon as well. And then you have Trump out there again, just like there's, there also is no plan and no strategy, it seems, other than to suck up to the authoritarians who see him for what he is, I believe, as weak, while we alienate our allies who are actually the strong powers in a post-World War II architecture that we built, and we're ripping it apart under Trump. Yeah, it's America alone. And America alone will always be weaker than America with committed, reliable friends and allies.

27:27And when you push them away, when you engage in threats and economic warfare against them, whether it's Canada or Denmark or the larger European NATO allies, it comes back to haunt you because trust has been broken and trust is a very, very difficult thing to rebuild.