Transcription
Good evening. Thank you for being with us on Rush Lair Podcast. I'm saying good evening because you are in very distant Hong Kong where it's already the middle of the night. We're very pleased to have you tonight with us on the podcast.
Uh, just as a short introduction, you're uh one of the world's foremost policy analysts and economists, a uh former adviser to many uh governments including US and Russia. You're a professor at Columbia University, New York, and you're an outspoken critic of UN foreign US foreign policy and uh you have made recently like headlines for your intervention at the UN Security Council.
Um, we'd like immediately to start this discussion by talking about neutrality, which is a topic that is of high interest for both of us, uh, being both Swiss and interested also in Serbia. I reside in Serbia as a writer and Jean-Daniel is a former uh ambassador of Switzerland to Serbia and also president of the the Geneva Council for Neutrality. We seem to have entered recently in a world that is no longer ruled by international law or conventions but more by brute force and colliding empires in this new world that is shaping up. Is there a role to be played by smaller neutral nations uh like Switzerland, but also when we refer to Serbia, we can think of the Non-Aligned Movement that was headed by Yugoslavia and other countries? What is your view on on neutrality in this new context?
>> Well, uh, neutrality uh serves several purposes. First, uh, many countries don't want to choose between uh empires, uh, and they don't want to get into a clash with one or the other, and they don't want to be used as fodder uh for geopolitical gains. So many countries want to be neutral because that's uh their uh the actual position of uh the country, perhaps culturally, perhaps historically, uh, and it's often a very wise decision.
There's a second reason for neutrality that I would emphasize, and that is geography. Uh, countries that are geographically between major powers often uh really need to be neutral so they they don't become battlegrounds. Uh, if uh one major power uh asserts control over a country and then goes up to the border of another great power, given uh the nature of the security dilemma, all of the tensions that that creates, that can lead to war. So buffer states, uh, and neutral states between major powers have played a role for thousands of years, and it's a very valid role. And it is precisely the rejection of neutrality by the United States, for example, that got Ukraine into the mess that it's in right now. Ukraine is the perfect case for a country that is in between major powers and should be neutral, just as a buffer between them. But the US, if you'll permit me to already rant, is so stupid, so provocative, so ridiculous that it said, "We need Ukraine on our side." Well, this was tantamount to going to war with Russia. And sure enough, the war broke out.
And interestingly, recently, Chancellor Merkel said uh that when the US pressed for NATO to enlarge to Ukraine at the Bucharest summit in 2008, that she thought that if she had agreed to a membership action plan, that that would be essentially a declaration of war with Russia. She acknowledged this. Sad to say, what happened was that on the first day of that Bucharest summit, she and President Olland, uh, I think it was Olland at the time, or no, maybe it was Sarkozy at the time, excuse me, but the French president, both said to the US president, "This is not a good idea. Let Ukraine be neutral." But on the second day, they folded their hand and they said, "Well, we won't agree to a specific plan, but we'll agree to the statement that Ukraine will become a NATO member." That actually was almost no better than what she had feared, and it did lead to war in the end.
So my point is, neutrality plays two roles. One is a kind of ideological role that a government may choose for a variety of reasons. And the second is a geographical role to try to remain not a battleground if you happen to be geographically between powers. The great success story after World War II was Austria, because Austria was an occupied country, and uh, in 1955, the Soviet Union wanted to show that if Germany became neutral, they would allow for and enable German reunification. And so they started with a a smaller case, the easier case, which was Austria. Uh, in the Austria State Treaty in 1955, Austria declared permanent neutrality, non-NATO membership, and the Soviet Union, which was occupying Eastern Austria, went home, and Austria thrived afterwards in peace, prosperity, riches, safety. And so that was meant by the Soviet Union to be a role model for what should happen to Germany. But the United States rejected neutrality. Adenauer, the chancellor of Germany, absolutely rejected neutrality. And the result was that they put Europe into a division, a Cold War division that lasted several decades. Terrible move.
So big empires don't like neutral countries. Often, uh, the United States has a kind of uh absolute opposition to neutrality. That's the whole famous expression, "You're either with us or you're against us," of George W. Bush. And this has led to untold trouble that, in my interpretation, the United States stokes.
>> Thank you very much, Professor. We understand very much the role of buffer states, because Switzerland became neutral, or let's say its neutrality was recognized at the Vienna Congress in 1815, precisely because we were meant to be a buffer area between the French revolutionaries at that time and the German powers, Austria, Hungary, and Prussia. And when I was consulted by the Turkish mediators in April 2022, before the the trip of Boris Johnson, as I was ambassador in Ankara.
>> Wow.
>> They were also relying on the Swiss credibility as a neutral country to offer advice to a formula for neutrality of Ukraine. But unfortunately, these efforts could not last very long because then, for the reasons you have mentioned, the whole process collapsed. Maybe you know that this year or next year, there will be a referendum in Switzerland on anchoring neutrality in the Swiss constitution in a very strict manner that would prohibit the Swiss government from joining the EU or any sanction, except if they would be accepted by the UN Security Council. The debate is already very fierce, and we have the mainstream media, and I would say a majority of the establishment, which is saying now, "The situation is different. We are not a buffer state anymore. We are fully integrated into the Western system of nations, economically also politically, the democracies versus the autocracies, and we cannot defend ourselves against the looming threat of a Russian invasion, which should already show signs through disinformation and hybrid types of warfare." What would you answer to those people who would like us to join the EU, join NATO, join the Western Defense Community?
>> Well, the first thing is, Swiss neutrality is one of the great successes of history, and it's working. It works. Don't break a working model. The world has very few working models. Don't break one that absolutely works. And by the way, it works for Switzerland, for sure, in economy, in reputation, in role in the world. That's for sure. But it works for the rest of us too, because it's so good to have a strong, smart, rich, intelligent, neutral country to help in the world. Uh, and so, honestly, there already are 27 members of the European Union. You don't need 28. And to just be, especially in the mess that the European Union is in, by the way, that's just another matter. Uh, it could not be more poorly led, I'm afraid, at this point. But that that's even a side note, because even if we're well-led, I would never suggest Switzerland to do anything else.
But I would add just a footnote. Um, who's going to invade Europe more likely, Russia or the United States? No doubt it's the United States. They're already announcing it. Russia says no, we're not. I believe them for a lot of reasons, which is that it would be crazy for them to do so, and they're not crazy. The United States is announcing every day that already Greenland is ours. I'm sorry, Greenland is part of the European Union. I don't know if Donald Trump knows that, but uh, maybe somebody could mention it to him. Uh, it's part of Denmark, and the United States is going to claim it, most likely, just in in a brutal realpolitik way. So, the idea that Switzerland's going to find its safety by joining NATO, are you kidding? I don't know if NATO is going to survive uh any of this, or if it deserves to. In my view, it should have been disbanded back in 1990, as a matter of fact, when the Warsaw Pact was disbanded. Uh, so I see no reason for NATO at all. It's just been uh the uh the way that the United States has tried to achieve its hegemonic aspirations. It's not provided security for anybody and it's destroyed one country, Ukraine. Uh, maybe two, you could say, because Georgia is pretty much in the same situation. The crazy idea of extending NATO to Georgia was also what did in Georgia. So, in any event, please, why would Switzerland even dream of doing something like this? And if the idea is Russophobia, I just hope people could understand a little bit of history uh and a little bit of the reality. And if there is one completely intemperate, irresponsible country that overthrows other governments, that meddles in other governments, that and that now brazenly and openly asserts imperialist ambitions, it's my country, the United States of America, and this is no ally of anybody right now. It's a threat to everybody, I'm sorry to say.
>> No, thank you very much. I I must I must precise that already today, the point is not to join formally NATO for Switzerland, but the point is to be so dependent on NATO for our weapon systems, our defense establishment, our mindset.
>> I know.
>> I know.
>> That it would be like being part of NATO. Just recently, on the 11th of December, one week after Trump released his new national security strategy, our government released its own new national security strategy. They still had the software of the neocon previous era, where they described Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea as the main threats to Switzerland. How could North Korea be a threat to Switzerland? I don't really understand. It seems they are just taking what they receive from these networks that they have. And I can see also from the statements made by senior officials in France, in Germany, Macron himself, who are who are making fear, making people afraid of a Russian invasion. There seems to be the same talking points being used all over Europe to create fear among people so as to justify God increase military spending and maybe also to to help the the governments who are in place to assert their power when they become more fragile. What do what do you say about this incredible power of the, I don't know how you call that, deep state, inter-agency mechanisms, warmongers, whatever you want to name them?
>> Look, the tragic thing is the United States has so deeply meddled in the politics of Europe uh and it has uh systematically over decades uh vetted the politicians that they could trust or that they they I mean the US deep state would trust. Put them on committees, gave them fellowships, boosted their standing, uh supported their parties, and the ones that dared to have an independent view, they would have of course tried to destroy. And so part of what we see is the generation of politicians that made it through the United States filter. Let's say this has been very active. It's it's not even a mystery to those of us who watch this. There are so many commissions and committees and the Marshall Fund Group and the Atlantic Council and so many groups to join if you play the game. If you love the United States, if you hate Russia, if you hate China, uh, if you use this unbelievably superficial, wrongheaded rhetoric, then you get promoted to be the vice chair, and then you preside over this process. You get to go to Davos. You get to do all these things. And if you don't, well, believe me, people are going to have words that this guy shouldn't rise in the party. This one doesn't belong. Keep this one out of the cabinet. And the United States did this for decades. And this is the class of politicians in Europe right now. They made it through this uh labyrinth created by the US. Now, it turns out the US is now led by a pretty thuggish guy and a pretty thuggish regime right now. And so, they're having a little bit of doubts inside. But who is this group? Who is sorry, who is Von der Leyen? And who is Charles Michel? Who are these people? Well, they made it through the US gauntlet and they can't even voice a full sentence in favor of Europe's own interests right now. Even if the United States brutally invades another country, they say, "Oh, well, yes, that's interesting. We don't know. We'll wait to hear the explanation from the United States about this." They can't take one independent view.
Now, I also happen to have the personal and professional experience that 36 years ago, I was part of the uh economic advisory team for President Mikhail Gorbachev. And starting 35 years ago, I was part of the economic team for President Yeltsin. And I can tell you, 30 uh 32 years ago, I was advisor to Ukraine President Leonid Kuchma. So I'm not taking sides in this. I've been there from the beginning. I can tell you categorically, we could have had peace for a century had we behaved ourselves. What did Gorbachev want? He wanted peace from Rotterdam to Vladivostok, a common European home. What did Boris Yeltsin want? I sat across from Boris Yeltsin. Talk to Boris Yeltsin. He wanted normalcy. He wanted good relations with Europe, good relations with the United States. You know what he got back? NATO enlargement. NATO enlargement. NATO enlargement. And by the way, they cheated on these guys completely, because when Germany needed the Soviet approval for reunification, it was all promises to Gorbachev, from Hans-Dietrich Genscher, from James Baker III, from Helmut Kohl. By the way, from February 7th to February 10th, 1990, they laid it on thick, every hour. "We will never take advantage of you, Mr. President. We won't expand NATO. We won't even expand NATO to East Germany, much less to Eastern Europe." Uh, Kohl told this. By the way, all of this is denied by all of these neocons afterwards, but it's all in writing. It's all in documents. It's all in memoranda. It's all on videos. And they lie to this moment. They say, "Oh, we never promised anything. These were just trial balloons." This was part of German reunification. Absolutely. And the US and the Germans lied about it all, I'm sorry to say.
So then they say, "Oh, you can't trust, you can't trust Russia." Come on. If anyone actually, you can't know this if you read our newspapers. That's what's so sad. But if you just keep your eyes and ears open, you will know that the US completely cheated on NATO enlargement. The US bombed Belgrade for 78 straight days. NATO in 1999 bombed Belgrade, made a color revolution the next year. In 2002, abandoned uh the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty unilaterally, invaded Iraq on completely false premises, tasked the CIA to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, used NATO to bomb Libya to smithereens and then create 15 years of civil war, and then funded the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine, and then uh voted for the Minsk II agreement to end the war while privately saying to the Ukrainians, "Don't bother. Don't don't defend uh the treaty that you just signed." And then we're told, "Oh, it's Russia that can't be trusted." This is this is the bizarre idea. And by the way, just as we're speaking, the US is trying to overthrow the government of Iran. And how do they do it? Okay, they they squeeze the hell out of the economy. I can tell you all the tricks of the trade. They destroy the economy. They send the real spiraling into collapse. Then people in desperation go out onto the streets. They stoke those protests because there are CIA and Mossad agents all over the place. And then Trump says, "We have to protect the good people of Iran," who he's just sent into impoverishment by. I think they're going to bomb them sometime soon again. And this is a game. It's purely a game. It's a game of overthrow. And and then the audacity is to say, "Oh, you can't trust the Chinese. You can't trust the Russians." When's the last war that China was in, by the way? It happens to be one month. Uh, I can tell you, it was uh 47 years ago, in February 1979. Actually, one month, January mid-January to mid-February 1979, for one month. The United States has been in non-stop war all the time. So we're just deluded by propaganda in of the security state. And I I'm counting on the Swiss to be smarter than that, because they're very, very smart, and uh, and they know what success is, and they should understand not to be swept up in this propaganda mill that comes out of Washington.
>> But precisely, precisely. You're talking about something right now that I think is of interest for for all of us. You're talking about the propaganda. You're talking about uh media campaigns. Something that has happened, I think we can trace it back to COVID, is the somehow slow destruction of the actual public debate in the West in general. There used to be a vivid, vigorous debate between, let's say, let's put it like this, left and right, against West and East. And people were able to dis to to debate and have like engage political discourse. This has been replaced, it seems, in recent years, by just accusations. Uh, if you're not part of the good crew, you get cast out. Now, I think you are a very interesting um example of something that is seems to be happening. You are very in demand on various platforms, podcasts, and everything, yet you're not a guest on, let's what we call now, the legacy media. But your videos are watched by millions, which would indicate that like there is a a growing uh distancing between, I hate the word, but like the elite, or like the governing media, political elite, and the actual people. You have a platform, you have a name, and you have reputation that obviously people want to hear in a time where otherwise they are fed more and more lies by governments. I say we we can trace it back to COVID, because you talked a lot about COVID recently, but also because it seems to be uh propaganda that is running on fear, like be be afraid of COVID, be afraid of this, be afraid of Russia, be afraid of China. And I think that a person such as yourself, and also Mearsheimer and Emmanuel Todd in France, and other people like that, are running a platform on rationality and prudence, that just see how the world really is. But there is something very concerning at this, I don't know how to call it, the death of the public debate. How do you see that from your own point of view?
>> I've I've been amazed at uh at what has happened. Of course, uh, governments tell lies, and the United States government tells lies by the day, and that's been true all my life. After all, uh, in in my youth, it was the Vietnam War, and the Pentagon Papers exposed all of the lies. But there was a time, actually, even when the New York Times liked to show the government's lying. Uh, those are days that are long, long gone now. Uh, and what's happened, as I've observed it, for example, I used to be on the mainstream media anytime I wanted. But, by the way, you know, just a television shows or uh 700 words in the New York Times. It was completely routine. An op-ed in the Financial Times. If I sent something in, I'd expect that they would run it, and they and they would run it. Now it's impossible. Absolutely impossible. Uh, if you know something, it's even more impossible. You know, if and I've watched in amazement, the day that I got kicked off of uh mainstream media was one moment. Uh, it was the day that Nord Stream pipeline was blown up.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> And and I said, um, you know, I think the United States uh blew up the pipeline. They said they were going to, and I think they did. Oh, I could watch, I couldn't hear what was in the guy's ear, but I watched his face freeze. He was listening to something, and what no doubt what he was being told is, "Get that son of a off the air." And uh, they they cut me off, and then the anchor ranted at me about me for five minutes. "What does he know? He's an ignoramus. He's this. He's that." It was stunning to me. Now, that was on the TV side. On the newspaper side, the New York Times coverage of the Ukraine war was so absurd that you couldn't even read it like an adult if you knew anything. But the key idea, and it's in Europe, too, was the the invasion in 2022 was unprovoked. Unprovoked. Unprovoked. So that word became the meme that, you know, Putin just because he thinks he's Peter the Great and wants to recreate the Russian Empire, suddenly invaded. And you say, "Excuse me, there's 30 years of history of this. Do you understand this? The war itself has been going on since February 2014." Well, I could not get a word in on this in the New York Times, which was my newspaper for basically 60 years of life. And I finally called the, and they ran, I don't know how many times they've run, you know, stories by me about me and other things over the years. So, I called the editor of the uh comment section, the opinion section. And I said, "Please, what is this unprovoked? Can I go through the history with you?" This is so it took about six months to get a call. And uh, we had the call with the editor and the person who does the Russian editing, who was someone I knew for again 30 years, by the way, going back to the days in Moscow when I was advising and so on. And they would not listen. And I sent them documents, and then they said, "Mr. Sachs, we respect you, but um, we have a difference of opinion." They wouldn't engage in anything, even if the document was there. So, I went back and I said, "Please, just let me have 700 words one time. I don't even care if it's in print. Just put it on your on your website. There's no limit to it. Let me have 700 words about why the war isn't provoked." This went around again another month, and then finally the editor said, "Okay, give them 700 words." So, I wrote up something. They edited it. It was in the, you know, in the formatting that it was, and the junior editor said, you know, "It's going to run later this week." And I was so proud, you know, I called my family. I got 700 words in the New York Times about this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then the guy sends me an email. "Mr. Sachs, we're so sorry. We're not going to be able to run your piece. It seems someone else is going to make an argument like this uh in the coming weeks or months, and um, we think that it would uh, we we don't want to, you know, anticipate this other column." You just can't even make this stuff up. And now the paper is completely impervious to any kind of reaction. I know I know the senior reporters for decades. I you know, these are I've grown up with them. I'm professionals. I've advised dozens of governments. I've been part of this for decades. And they will not answer a word. It's a wall right now. It it's been taken over somehow, in some way I can't really explain, but it's a wall. It's not a discussion. It's not an analysis. It's not, "Let's go out and discuss these things." It's a wall. And if you if they report something, I know a lot about what's going on in the world, and I write to the report, write to the email address of the reporter. Reporters say, "Excuse me, it's not exactly." You don't hear back. So, this is the the way that it is right now. We've stopped the discourse entirely on those mainstream platforms. And it's shocking how bad the.
>> How how bad it is. One thing is to shut up people who think differently by not allowing them access on the mainstream media or platform. And the other thing, which we see, which we have seen recently, is the beginning of shutting down at all, even people who are appearing on YouTube channels, who are writing books. My former collaborator, Jag Bo.
>> Of course. You've heard the story of.
>> Shocking. No, he's one of the most, one of the most erudite, knowledgeable, experienced, detailed professionals in the world, and he's being stopped. Yes. And outside of any sort of due process, with very limited possibilities of appeal that may take years until there might be a decision. So this is this is this reminds us not even of McCarthyism. This reminds us of the Inquisition.
>> I know. No, it's it's it's absolutely amazing um what's happening and hard to for me. Of course, Europe is the big disappointment because I've known how I've known known that the US has its very dark side as an empire. I've known that for a long time. But Europe surprises me. Uh, even the pluralism you would expect naturally within Europe, that okay, in this country it's okay, in this one not that. Also is closing ranks. It's it's very dismaying, very dismaying.
>> Thanks God, in Switzerland, we we have really a very fierce debate in Zurich between the two main outlets, one of them being totally on the NATO line, phobic since the middle of the 19th century with a very great consistency. And uh, and the other one, which is a weekly for which I have a column, which is anti-European, a bit to the extreme, I must say. But but at least there is this debate in the German part of Switzerland uh where they open their their their editions to people like Jag Bo, John Mearsheimer, also, I don't know if you have an approach already by the Weltwoche.
>> Oh, I've had I've had some occasions. Yeah. Very, very good.
>> Um, if if we want now to draw to a close, I think uh this year of 2026 has started with like enormous amount of very shocking news. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. Uh, I don't want to go into it, but like there's Greenland, there's Venezuela, there's Gaza, there's like it's everywhere on every front, and every morning you wake up and you you open your phone not knowing what you're going to what's going to happen, what Trump said or didn't.
>> Um, I I just watched House of Cards, which is already 10 years old, which is very interestingly announcing the future. There's a very good quote by the fictional President Underwood saying, "Welcome to the death of the age of reason." Um, and I think we're very much in it. Um, and in this in this age of reason that is disappearing, that's like this sort of stable world. I think what most people feel today is like, what is going to happen in six months, in in five years? We have no idea. Like, there's these empires now saying international law is useless. Force is the only thing that matters. We will just grab whatever is is uh is in our interest. Not looking on the sides, not looking ahead, not looking back, just like here and now. How do you see? Are you basically a pessimist, an optimist? Do you have any reasons to to to feed those uh those positions right now? How do you see the world shaping up in let's say five years or 10 years?
>> Well, of course, like everybody else, I'm very worried right now, and um, I say that the United States is no longer a constitutional order. Uh, because uh, it runs by decree. Uh, and we happen to have a a I believe a psychologically unstable uh leader, and a legislative branch that has disappeared from sight. Uh, and a president who is ready to assert an emergency uh any day on any issue to be able to issue an executive decree, and a Supreme Court that uh we can't rely on to defend the basic constitution. We'll see whether it tries to or not, but so far it has not acted to limit Trump's uh uh declarations of authority in any material way, though lower courts have, and it remains to be seen how things will unfold in the United States. Um, but this is very dangerous because Trump is himself a dangerous person, and the US deep state is inherently dangerous, but it has typically faced at least some control by presidents and by the legislative branch, and now those constraints are gone. So that's the uh dark side. Uh, Trump has threatened uh, I think seven countries directly and vulgarly uh in the last 10 days. Uh, of course, Venezuela, he's attacked Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Canada, Nigeria, Iran, and I'm sure I'm missing a few because I may be a few out.
>> And then Greenland, of course, and Denmark, excuse me. And I'm sure that in addition to that, I'm missing some because I I haven't been on the news for the last couple of hours because I'm in Asia. So these are wild threats. Uh, that are not uh purely performative. Uh, the United States uh abetted a genocide in Gaza. This is not, we're not playing games. Uh, it has attacked Venezuela. Uh, it is uh, I think on the verge of attacking Iran again. It bombed Iran last June. I think it's on the verge of attacking Iran again. And that's no joke, by the way, because uh, that is probably the single biggest powder keg region in the entire world, surrounded by nuclear powers, and Iran is a country of nearly 100 million people, and it's not Venezuela, uh, and it's not a case where the other great powers are just going to stay away. Uh, and it has hypersonic missiles, and it has many other things, and it's it's extremely dangerous. So no one can be an optimist in that regard to say, oh, this is just words or this is, don't worry about it. Of course, we should be deadly worried about it.
But I also have a different view from uh the mainstream Western uh media, which is the idea that, well, now it's just three dangerous empires: the US, Russia, and China. I don't view it that way. I do not believe that Russia is a threat to Europe. This is a maybe a long story, but I absolutely do not believe it because I know the history of how we got to this mess that we're in right now. And it wasn't Russia's provocation. And I know, by the way, from many different uh points of view, that Putin absolutely wanted good relations with Europe, and he was basically uh pushed back every time. So I also have that same view with China, uh, which is that I do not believe China is out to threaten the world. It is out-competing the world right now because it's got amazing production systems. It's doing a very good job. Uh, it's making a lot of green technologies. Uh, it is lowering the costs of solar power dramatically. It's producing the best electric vehicles in the world. That's what China is doing. Not threatening us, not threatening the world. And in this regard, this is why I'm more optimistic. I don't see the world just descending into a war of empires. I see the United States dangerously flailing around. I see Europe unable to think coherently or to speak honestly right now. By Europe, I mean uh, of course, Britain, and uh, France, and Germany, to start with. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Uh, but for the rest of the world, where I work uh non-stop, India, China, Russia, Brazil, uh, throughout Latin America, they don't want a world where the law of the jungle reigns. They don't want to destroy the UN like the US does. They actually would like rules of the road and peace. And that's why I'm optimistic at the same time.
>> It's not that everything has completely disintegrated. It is that our corner of the world, the Western world, uh, is in a deeply neurotic state of affairs, which, by the way, I attribute to one thing: which is that the rest of the world's catching up. And the West, which dominated for so long, is having a very psychologically difficult time distinguishing other places catching up from other places attacking us, which is a completely different thing. So China, China's what China is doing is trying to make up for lost time, not by war, but by economic success, technological advance, export growth, and so forth. And I think the US is in a state of neurotic panic over this. And Trump is evidence and chief of this kind of weirdness.
>> Wow.
>> Well, thank you very much.
>> I think I think this is a perfect note to finish this conversation, which has been already taken already too much of your time. Thank you so much.
>> No, it's a it's a pleasure. Thank you for what you're doing, and really a pleasure to speak with you. I appreciate it. We hope.
>> Thank you so much, Professor, and hope to speak to you very soon again.
>> Let's do that. Thanks a lot.
>> Thank you.
>> Bye.
>> Bye.