MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on how the Philippines is already cutting America out of key deals as America is weaker than ever. Wildgrain: Wildgrain is offering our listeners $30 off their first box - PLUS free Croissants in every box - when you go to https://Wildgrain.com/MEIDAS to start your subscription. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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there's very little consistency with anything donald trump is but if you take a close look the one thing that seems clear is he is attacking and weakening our alliances and strengthening our adversaries let me give you another case in point with these tariffs you notice that the 25 tariffs Well, that's what our allies get hit with. But the 10% tariffs, those are for our adversaries, right?
So less tariffs on our adversaries. As some have said, the administration is demented. But I think there is something deeper going on here. You take a look at the ripple effects. For example, the president of the Philippines has now offered a deal with China. You want to talk about deal-making. It's deal-making that weakens the United States' geopolitical interests.
And I'm going to show you this first, and then I want to show you what Marco Rubio was saying about the Philippines. And you can see how China is outmaneuvering Donald Trump quite easily. But either Donald Trump is the biggest idiot ever, which may be the case, or he's playing right into the hands, intentionally,
and maliciously, in terms of our geopolitical interests, right into the hands of China. So take a look at this. The Philippines president offers a deal to China, stop sea aggression, and I'll return the missiles to the United States, the Typhoon US missile system. So the Philippines president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., offered at the end of last week on Friday to remove U.S.
missile systems from Philippines if China halts what it called aggressive and coercive action. The U.S. Army installed these Typhoon mid-range missile systems in the northern Philippines in April last year in the Biden administration to support what the longtime treaty allies described as a training for joint combat operations.
Now, however you feel about it, this was part of a geopolitical arrangement of the United States and frankly of NATO. in Asia as also part of America's support of Taiwan and in an effort to try to check the growth of China, which was also building a lot of bases in the nearby areas. This is what the US geopolitical policy was or geostrategic policy was.
But now one of the things that we're learning is that Trump's new Pentagon appointee on Southeast Asia has argued for negotiating a, quote, cooperation spiral with China, whereby the United States will unilaterally, quote, remove U.S. military forces or weapons systems from the Philippines in exchange for CCG executing fewer patrols. One of the things that's being asked, can the U.S.
and China forge a cold peace right here? Well, the interesting thing about this is that it undermines everything Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at his confirmation hearing. What's interesting, if you listen to Rubio in the clip I'm about to show you, it actually kind of echoes what the Biden policy was in a prevailing view.
amongst international strategists, those in the State Department, those in the Defense Department, that what you have to do is to kind of check China's expansion, you have to make your own kind of maneuvers. Military bases, military maneuvers, and diplomatic maneuvers, U.S. aid maneuvers, to various countries and then, you know, enhance kind of military support.
But already America's so weak, Philippines is going to China. Hey, can we do a deal? Let's make a deal, Xi Jinping. As America's Pentagon official who has to report to Hegseth, Pete Hegseth, who's never led any military thing before, really, other than a nonprofit, which pushed him out. but never led a large organization. This is what's going on. Here's what Marco Rubio said.
Secretary of State Rubio, let's play this clip.
Let's leave Taiwan out of it for a moment and say it's the Philippines. In the last 48 hours, there's this massive, I don't even know how to describe it, but this massive ship that the Chinese have built that's like headed towards the Philippines and the Philippines feels threatened by it. Rightfully so. We've seen this on a daily basis with the harassment and so forth, but on a daily basis.
If God forbid there is some miscommunication or some inadvertent conflict emerges there and we have obligations to them, the impact that will have on the entire globe, the impact that it will have on the entire globe is enormous and that includes Europe. So they have a selfish vested interest in seeking for the Chinese to curb their behaviors.
I would also point to the Europeans that what the Russians have done with Ukraine would not have been possible without the assistance of China. whether it's the sharing of technology or aid in evading sanctions or selling their oil in secondary markets. The Chinese have been hidden, but clear to everyone watching, partners in the Russian endeavor.
So when you see that, you can see how Trump's actual policies undermine what Rubio is saying. But that's what Trump wants, right? Trump will have his attorney general, Pam Bondi, at the confirmation hearing say, we're going to respect the rank and file FBI directors and FBI staff. Everybody's going to get due process.
And then Donald Trump fires any FBI agent who had anything to do with investigating January 6th insurrectionists and terroristic acts on January 6th and Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. So Trump pardons All of the January 6th insurrectionists, they get treated like heroes. But then law and order, the FBI, they get fired. My point, though, here is that Pam Bondi said the opposite.
So my point about Marco Rubio is that Marco Rubio said one thing and then the policy was undermined.
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Now, how else was the policy undermined as well? Let me give you other data points. So Donald Trump's recent press conference, he says that he's going to put tariffs on Taiwan. Taiwan's our ally. So Trump's talking about putting worse tariffs, more damaging tariffs on our ally Taiwan, while then having this cooperation with China against Taiwan.
uh... the philippines and against uh... taiwan here listen to a trump says here play this clip plans put together in particular very near future we're going to be placing tariffs on far production of computer chips semiconductors and pharmaceuticals to return production of these essential goods to the united states of america they left us and they went to taiwan where which is about ninety eight percent of the chip business by the way
And we want them to come back. And we don't want to give them billions of dollars like this ridiculous program that Biden has. Give everybody billions of dollars. They already have billions of dollars. They've got nothing but money, Joe. They didn't need money. They needed an incentive. And the incentive is going to be they're not going to want to pay a 25, 50, or even 100% tax.
They're going to build their factory with their own money. We don't have to give them money. They're going to come in because it's good for them to come in. They're giving them money. They don't even know what they're going to do with it. I had people tell me, we have no idea. We don't need money.
And then when Donald Trump was asked about DeepSeek, which is China's AI that really destroyed America's AI industry, was so far more advanced. One would look at China's foray into AI as a direct economic attack and assault on U.S. industry. One would think, did China steal? Did China take the billions and billions of dollars in development from U.S.
AI companies and basically appropriate it for their own use, undercutting U.S. interests? But Donald Trump's like, actually, you know, maybe a good thing. Here, play this clip.
This is very unusual when you hear a deep seek, when you hear somebody come up with something. We always have the ideas. We're always first. So I would say that's a positive. That could be very much a positive development. So instead of spending billions and billions, you'll spend less and you'll come up with hopefully the same solution under the trumpet.
And remember how I said before that, you know, the U.S., internationally as kind of the quote unquote leader of the free world. It was post-World War II exercised in a lot of ways. So one of the ways it was exercised was through aid, supporting other countries, building bridges, alliances, and the other way was military. Now the United States is pulling out all of its aid.
We're attacking everybody, threatening countries. Donald Trump's arbitrary, capricious, malicious mind. You don't know what's going to happen one day or the next. Threatening everybody, saying America doesn't need anything. We don't need allies. We don't need anybody. I mean, you couldn't be weakening us more if you tried. That's why it feels intentional. And also from a military perspective,
We are enhancing the power of China. We are enhancing the power of Russia. We are weakening Taiwan. China may not have to fire a single shot with all of the kind of former American allies. They just start making deals with Xi Jinping because... They can't rely on America and America is so weak. They see the writing on the walls.
Look, even the president of Mexico, the very popular and powerful Claudia Scheinbaum at the G20 summit a few months back, she was not supposed to meet with Xi Jinping. She met with Xi Jinping, took photos with Xi Jinping. Why to send a message? We could try to find other power structures outside of the United States if you force us to.
But even without Claudia Scheinbaum, I mean, the head of the president of Panama, Peru, Honduras, Colombia, all had state visits with Xi Jinping over the past Five, seven, eight years, Panama established strong relations with China during Trump's first term. China's giving billions of dollars in aid.
They're giving statements about respecting sovereignty of nations, the types of statements that used to emanate from the United States. And what's Trump doing? Just acting like a blabbering fool. That's my point. My thesis here is that either he's the biggest idiot and moron ever, which could be true.
The most incompetent, dumbest, you know, I'm not trying to name call, just trying to be objective. Or this is intentional to help China, to boost China, to help Russia. China and Russia are talking. They're making deals with each other. Russia and Iran are talking. They're entering into alliances. and America's breaking all of its alliances.
So if you wanted to execute a plan, how do you weaken America? It's this, and this example in the Philippines is a perfect exemplar of it. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 4 million. Thanks for watching.
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