Transcription
Well, everyone, we have a very special episode of Let's Talk with Cyrus Jansen because we are joined by the one and only Professor Jang Ja Chin.
"Thanks, Cyrus."
"And it's such a pleasure to be here, guys. We're actually filming this live in Beijing in your apartment. I'm so grateful that you've invited me into your home." [snorts]
"Well, well, I'm very grateful that you've come all this way. I feel very comfortable in my own house. Absolutely. So, this is my first interview inside my own apartment. So, yeah, this is this is amazing."
"Saying, 'Well, professor, I've been a huge fan of your content, uh, you know, for a while. And and what's so incredible is your amazing rise on YouTube. You know, you've really become, you know, probably the the hottest geopolitical YouTuber, uh, in the world right now. And I think a lot of that started with your very early prediction. You know, you were very famous for making some big big predictions that Donald Trump would win the 2024 election, that he would most likely start a war with Iran. And I want to start our interview today kind of looking back at those predictions. You know, what was the biggest thing that a lot of analysts were missing? You know, why did they miss those stories and how were you able to predict those?"
"Yeah, so what I look for when I watch the news are these anomaly-like things that sort of stand out and don't really make much sense. So, uh, the event that drew my attention is in January, January 2020, Donald Trump ordered the assassination of General Kasam Soleimani."
"Who was the Middle East envoy for Iran, and he was in charge of relations with Iran's proxies, Hezbollah, the Shia militias in Iraq, the Houthi in Syria. So, he was coordinating overall Iranian foreign policy in the Middle East. And he was doing that for the past 20 years, and he was doing it with the cooperation of the Americans because usually when you do foreign policy, you need a peer, a counterpoint to coordinate. And so General Kasam Soleimani never really felt he was in he was threatened by the Americans because, like, why would they, why would they kill him? If they kill him, then the Americans would lose the ability to coordinate policy in the Middle East. So I think that the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, it was an anomaly. It didn't make much sense. But also remember, in that context, if you were to kill a diplomat, that's a declaration of war."
"Right."
"Right. Because if you were to do that, then the Iran would be obligated to declare war on you. So, um, that I think was the biggest sign that Donald Trump was intent on a war against Iran. And it was only because he lost the November, November 2020 election, so that the war was delayed."
"Right?"
"But you could surmise that if he were to come back into office, then he would declare war on Iran."
"Right?"
"So, these two things were linked together. If Donald Trump could win in 2024, then he would most certainly declare war against Iran. So, we're now entering into the, you know, fifth month of this conflict. And I think, you know, what's interesting is is we've had a ceasefire. Uh, you know, we say it's about about a 60-day ceasefire, but we've already seen a tremendous amount of problems, right? We've got Israel is continuing to invade and occupy parts of Lebanon. Uh, that seems to be a red line, you know, for the Iranians. We also see that, you know, there's a big theory out there that potentially the United States is just filling up the oil reserves. Yeah. And that they're really gearing up for a phase two here, you know, potential, you know, ground invasion."
"That's right."
"Um, what are your thoughts on that? And and I guess, you know, you predicted so accurately the past, you know, what is going to happen now in the next in this next phase of the war?"
"So I think the ceasefire, the uh, two-month ceasefire, and this MOU is all a delaying tactic because ultimately, uh, the United States wants regime change in Iran. And to do so, um, they need to accomplish three major goals. Okay. The first major goal is basically to destroy the Iranian economy. And you do that by limiting their ability to export oil to China and to other places. Right? And the goal there is to, um, create as much civilian discontent as possible. That's goal one. Goal two is to launch ground incursions into Iran. And right now, they they have about 60,000 troops in the area. And 60,000 is not enough to actually invade Iran. So the goal is to facilitate civil discontent in the country. Basically, you want to cause a Kurdish uprising in the, uh, northwest of the country. And I think that's going to happen very soon where the Kurds launch an invasion of northeastern of northwestern Iran, backed by American air power and backed by American special forces, and the rest of the troops will be for logistics, for supply, for organizational purposes. So it'll be very similar to what what we're seeing in Ukraine, where it's essentially a proxy war, where it's Ukrainian soldiers who are on the front line, but it's NATO, uh, weaponry, NATO intelligence, NATO special forces, NATO command and control, and, uh, NATO, uh, financing, right? So that's how they want to do the ground invasion. They don't, they don't want to commit that many, uh, American soldiers because each time you have an American casualty,"
"Uh, it's huge news back in America, and this war is already unpopular in America. Okay, so that's, uh, um, uh, part two of the plan, a ground, uh, incursion. Um, and then part three is to dislodge Iran from the Strait of Hormuz. Uh, because if you're able to accomplish that, then, uh, oil could, uh, flow freely for the Strait of Hormuz, and there'll be less stress on the global economy. Right? So these are the three major, uh, pillars of American strategy moving forward. Uh, to destroy the Iranian economy, to, uh, launch strategic ground incursions, not a full-scale ground invasion, but strategic,"
"And limited."
"And limited. And the third is to regain control over the Strait of Hormuz. And to do that, um, the strategy moving forward, what America wants to do is first of all, create as much political divide in Iran as possible. And that's what the MOU is structured to do."
"Right? Because if you read the actual, the 14 points of the MOU, it's very favorable to Iran."
"Right."
"It promised to lift sanctions. It, um, promised $200 billion in investment to the country. It, uh, promises to unfreeze Iranian assets in Qatar."
"Right."
"Uh, so this is extremely favorable to the Iranians."
"Correct."
"But there's a point in there that is not negotiable, which is the Iranians demand that Israel withdraw from Lebanon."
"Correct."
"Right. So what I think the structure, the MOU would structure you to do is create a divide between the military leadership under the under the IRGC and then the political leadership in Tehran, right? Because if you're the political leadership, what you're first and foremost concerned about is domestic political stability."
"Right?"
[snorts]
"And you're also concerned about your relations with other powers such as China and Pakistan and Russia. And so you actually are willing to give up Hezbollah, right? If if the only point of contention is Hezbollah, you're like, 'We don't want Hezbollah. Hezbollah is a loose cannon. Let's just focus on economic cooperation.' Right? But if you're the IRGC, you are morally and religiously and politically obligated to protect Hezbollah at all costs. Right? So the MOU is almost structured to be a wedge issue between the IRGC and the political leadership as represented by, uh, President, uh, Raisi in Tehran."
"Right."
"Okay. So that's the first strategy. The second strategy are, um, limited bombing campaigns in southern Iran. And this, this, this is already what's happening today. Uh, these, these past 24 hours, you saw a massive bombing campaign against southern Iran because if you were to launch a ground invasion, that's a place you would do it. Uh, you would send in troops to take over the Strait of Hormuz and then occupy, um, the islands in order to strangle the Iranian economy. The third thing is maybe backdoor diplomacy, where you're applying pressure politically and diplomatically on Iran to come to a political settlement. Okay. So, so we're seeing a lot of these strategies being played out in real time. They're hidden from you, but the goal ultimately is, uh, regime change."
"So, I, I want to talk about that first point, is obviously attacking the Iranian economy, which we've, we've certainly seen, right? The economy has been attacked. It's struggling. I've had on my show Professor Muhammad Randi. Um, who, you know, is a very outspoken voice, you know, for Iran, but he's admitted that as well that that the Iranian economy is struggling, it's been hit hard. But in the history of the United States, you know, launching these air campaigns and conquest around the world, I, I find it very difficult because, you know, the theory in sense works that we can, you know, create, you know, economic instability and the people will revolt up and overthrow that regime."
"Yes."
"But we've actually never seen that play out. Even in, for example, I'm from Florida, and, you know, Cuba, we've always used that tactic, you know, against Cuba. And, and I think what it is, is it ends up hardening the people."
"And it ends up saying, well, you know, we don't want to actually rise up against it. We're actually going to double down and support the regime more. What are your thoughts on that?"
"Yeah, so actually, this, uh, strategy has actually worked before."
"Okay."
"So I would point out the color revolutions."
"Okay."
"Uh, that we saw that started out in Tunisia and then spread out over to Egypt. These color revolutions are very effective. If you actually said these color revolutions, it's State Department, CIA-financed and organized. And so what happened, the State Department, through NGOs such as the Soros Open Society Foundation, they go into a nation-state and they will finance these NGOs that are, you know, helmed by young visionaries who want a democratic future for their country. They will also co-opt private media. And then a lot of these people will be flown into Washington D.C. to be trained on how to promote democracy in their country. And this is, this is like basically the color revolution network."
"And, um, they're very open about this. You can go online and there's lots of news reporting about how effective these color revolution playbooks are. And, you know, and, you know, Brian Berletic of New Atlas, he's talked a lot about, uh, this playbook. And also, like, if you look at these, uh, governments in these past 20 years, what happened in Libya,"
"And Syria, it's it follows a very similar pattern where the United States finances these, um, rebel groups, and then, uh, the Americans will insert special forces to lead these rebel groups. And then, um, there's a heavy American bomber campaign against Libya and Syria, which then allows for regime change. This has proven very effective for the past 20 years."
"Iran is a different case because Iran, it is a cohesive civilization state."
"Correct."
"They're very proud of being Persian."
"Right."
"Also, they've been under sanctions ever since 1979. Ever since 1979, they knew that they would eventually confront the great Satan. They knew that eventually America would want regime change their government. So they've been preparing at least for 20 years, right? Because in 2003, when the United States went into Iraq, and the Iranian people were were able to see what happened in Iraq, they knew that eventually America would come and do the same thing to Iran, which is like, they promised democracy, but all they want is chaos, right? So the Americans went into, uh, Baghdad in 2003, and they promised democracy to the people. And at first, the people were very enthusiastic. But, uh, then Paul Bremer goes into Iraq and issues, uh, Order Number Two. And Order Number Two is the de-Ba'athification of the nation. So if you belong to the Ba'ath Party, you can no longer work in government, in the military, and in the police force. And that's like the entire elite, right? That's the entire bureaucratic elite. And so you basically make the country dysfunctional. And this is what's led to the sectarian violence that's plagued the country for the past 20 years. So the Iranians know perfectly well what the Americans intend. They know exactly how the Americans will go about regime change, and so they've been preparing for the past 20 years. And as we've, as we've seen for these past few months, the the strategy has been very effective at repelling the Americans. So, you know, as we're entering in this, this fifth month here, you know, I think we've, we've established that this MOU is really, you know, buying some time for a larger escalation, like, like you mentioned, uh, do you think, you know, how would you judge Iran's response over the last five months? Do you believe that they're in a stronger position now? Have they been able to, you know, withstand the United States forces, you know, as far as military-wise, you know, have they exceeded your expectations? Did you think they've done better than they, than many thought would happen? I mean, we again, you know, just for context, we, we, I think a lot of people in America thought this would be like Venezuela, you know, very simple war. Let's go in one or two weeks, you know, we're going to just get this and we're done."
"Well, the entire American strategy was predicated on that Iran was will be like Venezuela, right? So the idea is on the first day they go in, they kill the Ayatollah, and then the Iranian people will rise up and overthrow the regime, and American air power will come in to support these pro-democracy protesters, and then, uh, the Iranians will sue for peace. The Americans will be able to establish a very pro-American regime in Tehran."
"Right."
"Okay. That was the entire strategy going in, and everyone, especially Donald Trump, were surprised by the fierce Iranian response. First of all, uh, the regime has proven to be much more cohesive and resilient than Americans could possibly imagine because they killed, like, I think up to, like, three tiers of leadership, right? So not only they kill the top leadership, they but they killed the replacement, and then the replacement to the replacement. So it's really incredible the death of Iranian, of the Iranian backbench."
"Correct."
"Right. So, so that's really surprised the Americans. Donald Trump has said he's surprised that the Iranians chose to close the Strait of Hormuz, right?"
"And they chose to attack the GCC nations, correct? Uh, like Qatar. And he was like, 'They can't do that.'"
"So the, the entire American strategy, I think, was based on hubris. It was just based on contempt for the Iranians. And so I think that the Iranians have surprised everyone."
"Correct."
"Okay. And I think that, um, in the first month, I would say the Iranians have clearly won this war. But then the ceasefire happened, right? And you have have to ask yourself, why would the Iranians agree to the ceasefire because they were clearly winning the war, and they were clearly putting a lot of strain on the global economy."
"Correct."
"Uh, and if the global economy were to collapse, then you would have inflation in the United States. You would have economic collapse. The private credit bubble, the AI bubble would both collapse at the same time. You would have massive discontent. The Democrats would sweep the midterms. Donald Trump would be impeached. So all the Iranians had to do was hold out until, I would say, July."
"Right."
"Right. But they signed, they agreed to the ceasefire, and you have to ask yourself, why is this happening? I think it's because there's been so much global pressure on the Iranians to come to a peace settlement, especially from East Asia, uh, China, Japan, and South Korea, because these economies are completely dependent on energy from the Middle East. Um, especially from Iran's Islamic allies, like Pakistan."
"Correct."
"Uh, because they're also under a lot of strain as well. So basically, there's just this global demand, uh, global pressure on the Iranians to open the Strait of Hormuz and to come to a political settlement with the Americans as soon as possible. And I think what this tells us is the world is not interested in justice. It's not interested in honor. It's not interested in fairness. The world is just interested in economic stability and prosperity."
"Correct."
"And so the Americans are behaving like bullies. And the Americans and the Israelis have shown they don't care about the rules-based international order. They don't care about respecting, uh, a nation's sovereignty. They're behaving like thugs in the international system."
"Right?"
"But the world has come to the conclusion that you cannot negotiate with thugs."
"Right?"
"The Americans and Israelis are going to do whatever they whatever they want. You can't do you can't do anything about it. So let's apply pressure on the Iranians because the Iranians are actually reasonable people."
"Right?"
"And so I think this has been completely unfair to the nation-state of Iran. But I think that because of this dynamic, the Iranians are under a lot more pressure than Americans to come to a political settlement. And so I think the dynamic of the war has changed due to the ceasefire."
"That's an interesting point because, um, you know, we actually asked Professor Morandi that very similar question, and he actually gave it a very similar response that, you know, due to a lot of pressure from the eastern countries, you know, China, uh, you know, Japan, and other allies that, you know, that, and also to to make Iran seem like, okay, we're, we're willing to play ball here, right? We're willing to sit down and have a conversation and come to this. Now, let's talk a little bit about this potential ground invasion. You know, like you said, it's, you know, it's a limited one. And I don't think you're going to see hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops in there because that would be certainly very unpopular in America, but also, you know, probably catastrophic for America. I would assume a lot of lives would be lost if they actually went that route."
"That's right."
"So, what, what is the, what is the feasibility of this, you know, as far as, you know, supporting the Kurds, you know, trying to get some uprising, limited air strikes. Is that, is that going to be effective in this next round that we, because we, I think we're now all believing that we are going to see more conflict in Iran in this year."
"Right?"
"So, um, the first thing to understand is the Americans want to fight this war as cheaply and as quickly as possible, right? So that's the entire mentality of the establishment in Washington D.C. where they really believe that, you know, like, we take out the Ayatollah, um, the war's over. So the Americans are looking for like, a very easy, uh, one-step solution to this quagmire that they're in."
"Correct."
"Right. So they're, they're always going to pick the easy path. And so a ground invasion in the mind of Donald Trump, um, has to be quick, lethal, and effective. And so maybe he's thinking to himself, if I send in special forces to steal the enriched uranium of the Iranians, that will end the war. Maybe if I send in a task force, an, um, Marine Expeditionary Unit to take over Kharg Island, right?"
"That will end the war."
"Right?"
"Or maybe if I, you know, dislodge the IRGC from Hormuz, that will end the war. They're not thinking about like a four-year ground incursion that is systemic, uh, that is strategic, and that is viable. Okay? They're not thinking in those terms. They're just thinking like, you know, what is one thing I can do really quickly or one strike that will end this war. Very similar to Venezuela. Okay? So, that's point one, right?"
"Point two is you're forced to use ground forces just because of the economics of war. M."
"What I mean by that is they tried one or two months of aerial bombardment, and that's extremely expensive, especially because you're using, uh, fighter planes like the F-15 that cost about $90 million. So if one gets shot down, uh, that's a lot of money. But even if they don't shoot, shoot, shoot these things down, you're expending a lot of money on munitions to blow up mountains."
"Right."
"Right. So the economics of war compels you to use ground forces because I have to say this, okay, but human lives are a lot cheaper than fighter, fighter planes."
"So they want to continue this war, they have to use ground forces. That's point two. Point three is the American doctrine of war to use proxies. So what they need to do is convince the Kurds, convince the Iraqis, convince the Saudis to commit ground forces against the Iranians. They also want to maybe stir up some ethnic tension in Balochistan, which is in the southeast corner of Iran, right beside, um, Pakistan. So that area is Sunni, and the government in Tehran is Shia, right? So there's always been this, uh, religious conflict. They also might want to bring in, uh, Azerbaijanis in the in the north, right? So the American strategy is always to use proxies rather than to use their own forces. So I'd be very surprised if you saw a massive American ground invasion into the country. What I think will happen is that once the weather becomes cooler, maybe in two months' time, you'll see, uh, special forces embed themselves into ethnic tribes in the country, and you'll see, uh, maybe limited ground attacks against Iran, basically trying to target the oil infrastructure of the country, trying to dislodge the IRGC from the Strait of Hormuz, and trying to stop as much ethnic tension in the country as possible."
"Let's talk about the, uh, the Strait of Hormuz specifically because I think you mentioned earlier is that Donald Trump was very surprised that they were able to actually close that."
"And everyone told him, told him they would do it, and he didn't listen."
"Yeah."
"I mean, and that was something that Professor Morandi had a really interesting, uh, insight on one of our live streams. He said, you know, before February 28th, we, we never, you know, really thought about that a lot, but now after February 28th, we're going to be thinking about that every day of the future. You know, that we have that leverage point. You know, we, we see the United States with, you know, arguably the largest and most powerful navy in the world, but Iran has been very effective in using speedboats and much smaller vessels to, you know, really put the entire world economy at hostage with that Strait of Hormuz."
"Do you see, you know, that, you know, is, is the United States ever going to be able to stop Iran from that leverage point?"
"Okay, so before the war started, I made two comments about the Strait of Hormuz. The first comment is, if Iran were to be attacked, the very first thing they would do is close off the Strait of Hormuz because that is the point of maximum leverage over the Americans. Okay, that's the first comment. Second comment is, there's absolutely nothing, nothing whatsoever the Americans can do about it, right? And we know because of Operation Prosperity Guardian, where due to, uh, what was happening in Gaza, the Houthis closed off the Red Sea, three national shipping, um, and told the Israelis, you either stop this genocide in Gaza, or we will block off Red Sea shipping. And so in response, the Americans sent this massive naval force, uh, flotilla to the Red Sea called Operation Prosperity Guardian. And this was like a massive undertaking. And the Americans went and they blew up a lot of mountains and did no damage to the Houthis at all. And the Houthis, by the way, have two things. They have speedboats and they have drones. But it is a nature of asymmetrical warfare that if you are committed and you, um, are cohesive and you are conducting guerrilla warfare, there's very little an empire can do about this. And so what Operation Prosperity Guardian convinced Iranians is, well, we can easily close off the Strait of Hormuz, and there's absolutely nothing the Americans can do about it."
"Um, you know, I was watching these YouTube, uh, meetings, conferences, where these like five-star admirals and generals were talking about Operation Prosperity Guardian, and they were saying how they were completely surprised by the versatility, the flexibility, the resilience of the Houthis. They also said, 'We have absolutely no solution here. We don't know how to deal with this.' And the third thing he said is, 'Well, just keep on doing this.' Right? So, we know you send in these massive warships against an entrenched enemy with drones. There's nothing you can do. You can't actually hurt them, but you don't know what else to do. So, you'll just keep on with this strategy even though you are not, even though you know it's not effectual. Okay? And so, what this, what this tells me, and this is really, really important to appreciate, is the military bureaucracy has become dislodged from reality itself. They don't care if they win the war or not, right? Because they don't suffer any consequences. If you are the Iranians, and you were to lose this war, well, the entire elite would be replaced. Your children, uh, your grandchildren would lose social mobility in the country. And quite honestly, a lot of people will die in the process, right? So look at, look at, look at Iraq. The sectarian warfare has killed millions of people, right? So for the Iranians, this is like a life and death struggle, right? The Americans. The worst that can happen, maybe 10 years from now, when this war is totally lost, Congress will call these generals before Congress in a congressional testimony, and they'll shout at these generals for two hours, and that'll be it."
"Right?"
"That's the extent of the consequences for losing a war for America."
"What, which Americans suffered because of the loss of, uh, Vietnam? I mean, because of Afghanistan, because of Iraq. Americans have been losing wars for the past few decades, and there have been actually no consequences. But the military-industrial complex has gotten wealthier and wealthier over these past few decades. Go to Washington D.C. Go to Fairfax County. Go to Alexandria. They're filthy rich."
"Right? So, so it's a perverse situation where America is incentivized to fight wars and continue fighting wars even though there's no clear path to victory."
"So true. And, and so, uh, scary at the same time. You know, when we think about, uh, you know, our addiction to war in the United States and what our, you know, military leaders are doing, but also our president. You know, you mentioned something there, right? You said if we fast forward 10 years and we're looking back, you know, you know, America is going to lose this war. Uh, I mean, do you think that we're at a point now where we're on the path where America is going to lose this war in Iran, or have they already lost this?"
"So I don't think it's possible for America to win this war anymore. And it's really only a question of how badly will America lose this war because it's entirely possible, like you have a Vietnam situation where you've invested half a million troops because it's some cost fallacy, right? First, you have to send in 5,000 troops, and then it becomes 10,000, and then before you know it, it's like half a million. Same thing happened in Vietnam when they sent about, you know, 2,000, 3,000 Marines to capture an airbase in Vietnam, and that, that was it. That that was the entire goal, where we'll just capture this airbase and then we'll leave, and then like, you know, a couple of years later, you're like, half a million."
"Right."
"Right. So as long as America is able to extricate itself from Iran, America will be fine. But if it's stuck with a ground incursion and it's stuck in in the sunk cost fallacy mentality, and you have mission creep, then America will be forced to use a national draft, and this might instate a civil war in America. So America cannot win this war. It's only a question of like, how badly do you want to lose this war."
"Um, let's, let's fast forward to 2028. Do you think that Donald Trump will still be president of the United States?"
"I, I actually do think he will be president of the United States in 2028. I don't know how he will do it. There are multiple paths that he can take in order to be president again. So the first is basically to declare war, to have congressional approval for war, in which case he has the Emergency Powers Act, and so he can suspend the Constitution and elections. And, you know, he talked about about this with Zelensky, right? I'm not sure if you remember, but Zelensky was visiting the White House about, um, a couple of years ago, early on in Trump's second term, and they were at the White House, and a reporter asked Zelensky, 'Why did you suspend the Constitution? And like, will you ever leave office? And when, when will there be elections?' And Zelensky is like, 'Well, we're at war. So therefore, we have to suspend the Constitution. Therefore, we can't, we can't have elections.' Now, Trump's like, 'Wait, wait, wait, you guys can do that, right?'"
"And then like, 'Yeah, we can.' Do you like that?"
"He's like, 'Yeah, I do actually.'"
"Right? So, so I mean, it's, it's in his head. I mean, like, because Trump, regardless of what you think of Trump, he speaks his mind. He's not capable of like subterfuge. Okay? He, he's not going to think one thing and say another thing. He's just going to speak his mind, right? So, I, and so that's one possibility. But another possibility, which I think is much more likely, is, um, so in the Constitution, there's something called the 22nd Amendment, uh, which prohibits anyone from serving for more than two terms, and it is possible to serve no more than 10 years as president of the United States. Okay, that's, that's the 22nd Amendment. Nowhere does it say that you, that you cannot run as a vice president in 2028 and then have the president resign, and then you become the president. That's a loophole in the Constitution. So I, I can see a scenario where, and I think I think this is, this is a very possible scenario, where Don Jr. the son is the VP ticket, and his father is the vice president. And the, the Democratic side, you have Obama running for the Democrats, and this would be like the epic matchup of the century, Obama, Trump in 2028. I think it is a possibility."
"Wow. That would be, that would be the epic matchup of the century."
"Yeah. Yeah. But, but look, I mean, if you just look at the, at, at these two past years, the corruption of the Trump family has just been staggering, right? It is possible to pay him a certain amount, amount of money, and you will get a pardon from him. And this is what a lot of these cryptocurrency billionaires have done. They've basically bribed, bribed the Trump family to invest in their companies for free. And this is has allowed a lot of political favors from Trump. Also, you look at a lot of like this stock market betting, right? It's weird, very weird how, you know, Trump declares war, and the stock market, oil prices go up, then Trump family comes in and shorts it, right? Then Trump's like, peace, the, the oil goes down, and then, and then Trump family profits. Okay? So if in 2028, there's a Democratic administration, the first thing they're going to do is go after the Trump family and investigate them to death. That's, that's the only, that's the only thing they will do, and that, that's the only thing that the voter base will want. So Trump has basically, um, dug himself a huge hole. And if, if he were to ever to leave office, he knows he's dead in the water because this is exactly what happened, um, when he left office in 2020, 2021. The Democrats launched warfare against him. They tried to bankrupt him. They tried to remove him from the ballot. They, they raided his house in Mar-a-Lago. So they know exactly what will happen."
"Let's, let's, if we're sitting here in Beijing a year from now, what do you think that we're going to be talking about in regards to the Iran war? How do you think this, in the next, if you can give a prediction, in the next 12 months?"
"Yeah. So, I think a year from now, things will be a lot worse for the global economy. So, rather than us talking about the Iran war, we're instead we might be talking about the economy, how the global economy has collapsed. So there's been, uh, quite a lot of movement that suggests that the global economy is heading towards collapse. The thing that I'm, I've been watching these past few days is the Japanese have carried, have canceled the yen carry trade. Uh, I'm not sure if you're familiar with, with what that is, the yen carry trade. So what the yen carry trade is, this, because of deflation in the Japanese economy, the Bank of Japan has been trying to print as much money as possible to create liquidity in the economy. So what they've been doing is they've been lending money to Japanese corporations and banks at zero interest."
"Correct?"
"But because these are companies, and they're only interested in profit, what they do is they take this money and then buy U.S. Treasuries, which pays 5% interest, right? And this, this, this is what's called the yen carry trade. And if you think about it, it is this massive, um, liquidity from Japan to the United States. So it's really Japan subsidizing the American economy. Correct. And this is has what's allowed for, you know, huge increases in the stock market, huge increases in the American economy. But because of this war in Iran, uh, because of this overall economic malaise in Japan, the Japanese yen has been under a lot of pressure. And so the only way to relieve this pressure is for the Bank of Japan to raise interest rates. But if you raise interest rates, that forces the repatriation of capital from the United States back into Japan. Basically, you basically cancel the yen carry trade, right?"
"And if that, and so in the long term, this means problems for the Japanese economy, but it also means that eventually the American economy will, the bubble will burst. Okay? And right now, there are two major bubbles in the American economy. They are the private credit bubble, and they are the AI bubble. And, and actually both are are interrelated. And so, uh, the AI bubble, it's completely propped up by liquidity from overseas, primarily from Japan, from the GCC. As we know, the GCC is under a lot of, uh, pressure because of this war. They're no longer able to export oil. Japan is also a lot under a lot of pressure because they take this oil and and transform it into manufactured goods to export around the world."
"Right?"
"Right. So the entire global economy is now under a lot of stress. And so you, you, we're seeing a lot of very powerful institutions like the Bank for International Settlements come out and say the AI bubble is about to burst, which means, okay, and this is really important, they're about to engineer a financial crisis in America, right? They're about to pop a bubble in which case people's attention turns away from the war in Iran and towards economic collapse around the world. And so that's what we'll be talking about in, in a year's time. How in a year's time, you have massive unemployment. You have stock market collapse around the world. You'll have companies going bankrupt. It'll be very expensive to fly. There'll be energy lockdowns all around the world. And that, I think, will be the big story of 2027."
"Well, professor, uh, this has been an absolutely fascinating chat. I just want to say once again, thank you so much for inviting me to your home and thank you so much for spending time with me today."
"No, just always love learning from you and I know our guests as well. Uh, for everybody, we're going to put all the links to Professor Jang's, uh, social media so that you can follow along. And make sure you drop us a comment. Let us know what you think."