Here is the full transcript of a conversation between Judge Andrew Napolitano and geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar on Judging Freedom Podcast titled “Russia/China/Iran Warn US” premiered April 15, 2025.
Introduction and Current Tensions
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, April 15, 2025. Pepe Escobar will be here with us in just a minute from Beijing.
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JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Pepe. Welcome here, my dear friend. Thank you for accommodating my schedule. I know you’re in China and I have a lot of questions to ask you about the Chinese reaction, both political and economic, to President Trump’s tariffs. But before we get there, some background questions on which I want to pick your brain. Do you say there is a divide? What is that? Are you with us, Pepe? All right.
PEPE ESCOBAR: Hello. Yes.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Okay.
PEPE ESCOBAR: Can you see?
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: What was that that you just held up?
PEPE ESCOBAR: 100 yuan bill? Because you mentioned paper wealth. And I’m presenting you and our audience through paper wealth.
Divisions in Trump’s Foreign Policy Team
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: All right. We get to paper wealth in a minute. Do you sense that there is a divide in the President’s foreign policy team between the neocons like Hegseth and Rubio and Gorka and Waltz and the America Firsters like Gabbard and Vance and Witkoff?
PEPE ESCOBAR: There is. And in terms of so-called China policy, it’s an absolute disaster because I would venture to say that none of them understand China. Just to give a little background for our audience, I spent the day today here in Shanghai at Fudan University. I had a seminar with Professor Zhang Weiwei which is among the top three and top five Chinese intellectuals. And our theme was the Russia-China Strategic Partnership. But then of course it extrapolated and we were discussing the US-China relationship.
Our audience was absolutely top of the line PhD students from different areas at Fudan University. And something that you feel in the atmosphere here in Shanghai. I’ve been coming to Shanghai for over 30 years. And you feel in the streets not only the absolutely extraordinary tech development of China, but resilience, resistance, national pride and enormous derision from taxi drivers to academics and diplomats in terms of the so-called China policy or different containment policies of the US.
So this is really a new paradigm. China used to be passive in terms of appreciating the hyper power and not unleashing their fury when they are mistreated. Which is how the Chinese nation at the moment, Judge, is evaluating this new stage of the trade war against China.
US Military Threats Toward Taiwan
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Before we get to the trade war, the Secretary of Defense was in Japan 10 days ago and he looked toward Taiwan and threatened China. How does China react to threats like that? I mean, it is inconceivable, I think, that the American military could defeat a Chinese military effort to isolate or take over Taiwan. And here we have the American Secretary of Defense threatening to do just that just a few miles away.
PEPE ESCOBAR: Yes, exactly. A Secretary of Defense doesn’t know what ASEAN is and what BRICS are. Fantastic. As for his CV, no wonder Hagsett, Rubio and especially Trump here, they are treated with utmost derision in terms of a civilization state 5,000 years like China, which what we were discussing this afternoon with Professor Zhang Weiwei and incredibly smart PhDs from everywhere and they were at the same time they were stunned by how this new American leadership knows virtually nothing about China.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: All right, we’re hoping that the signal comes back. You were telling us that, okay, the new American leadership knows nothing about China. Pick up from there.
China’s Strategic Initiatives and Technological Advancement
PEPE ESCOBAR: Yes. For instance, very few people in the Beltway Judge, including members of Team Trump 2.0, know about how the new Silk Roads were started by China by President Xi in Kazakhstan 12 years ago. In fact, as an overarching Chinese foreign policy mechanism, geopolitical and geoeconomic, and also very few know about the details of the project Made in China 2025.
When Trump launched the first batch of sanctions against China at the beginning of Trump 1.0, these were against Made in China 2025. And what do we see now in Shanghai in terms of Made in China 2025 in 10 high-tech domains. China is already number one in seven and going to ace all 10.
Impact of US Tariffs
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Well, let me ask you this. Who is hurt more by American presidentially imposed tariffs of 145%, Chinese manufacturers and consumers or American manufacturers and consumers?
PEPE ESCOBAR: American manufacturers, consumers and all the American multinationals who delocalized around the world, especially to Asia and especially here in China.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Explain please.
PEPE ESCOBAR: Well, this is a, I would say this is a turbo capitalism process that started decades ago when the American oligarchy, let’s put it this way, and I’m being very diplomatic, decided to delocalize American manufacturing to East Asia, to the Asian tigers, and later on, especially to China and then later on to India or Vietnam for instance, or both.
So obviously American productive capacity in terms of a capitalist power was completely hollowed out and transferred abroad. So expecting that American multinationals can relocate to the US whole factories, chains of production in a matter of what, weeks or months and start producing in the US is absolutely absurd. This is going to take for each of these factories and these chains of production three, four, five years at least.
And China has already way beyond that. And in terms of trade partnership, the US-China trade relation is a fraction of Chinese exports and Chinese global trade. China trades with the global south and the global majority as a whole. Do you know what President Xi Jinping is doing this week? I’m sure you and our audience knows he’s doing.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: He’s in Vietnam, is he not?
China’s Regional Diplomacy
PEPE ESCOBAR: A mini tour of southeast Asia.
Judge 3 Top Southeast Asian nations now. Malaysia. He left Vietnamese going to Malaysia. Why? Because all the 10 members of the ASEAN association of Southeast Asian nations, who is their number one trade partner for each and one of them? China. It’s very simple. This afternoon, for instance, we were discussing China is because of this circus dementia on the tariff issue, they’re going to get even closer to their neighbors in ASEAN in the south, to their neighbors in Central Asia, to the West.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: All right, Waiting for your Internet to come back to us.
PEPE ESCOBAR: Is it back? Yes, it’s back.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Now to their neighbors in the west is where you were their neighbors in the West.
Iran and BRICS Strategic Partnerships
PEPE ESCOBAR: And of course West Asia at the moment is a theater of war, which for the Chinese is a terrifying prospect because trade potential trade partners in West Asia are very important. And the most important for them is Iran. Iran happens to be a BRICS member, a Shanghai Cooperation Organization member, and they have a strategic partnership with China. Which brings us back to the zillion dollar question of if there’s going to be a Zionist attack against Iran. It will be a Zionist attack against three top BRICS because they all have interlocking strategic partnerships.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Will those three top BRICS use their militaries to resist a Zionist or American or joint attack on Iran?
PEPE ESCOBAR: Iran will. Russia and China? It depends. It’s a very complex question. Including the provisions in the Russia-Iran Strategic Partnership signed end of January in Moscow and ratified by the Duma in the past few days. Very, very important. What we know for sure. If there was an attack, Russia would find ways to help Iran. What Putin describes, it’s a beautiful euphemism in fact, military technical measures and the Russians are very good at that kind of thing.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Would the Chinese find military and technical measures with which to aid the Iranians in an attack by the US Or Israel?
China’s Response to Potential Conflict
PEPE ESCOBAR: Nobody can answer this question with certainty, Judge. The Chinese are not a warrior nation, first of all very, very important. But they will find endless ways to help the Iranian economy, depending how much the Iranian economy would suffer after such an attack because they are their main partner in West Asia.
And it all comes back to the overarching geopolitical and geoeconomic development of China which is embodied in the new Silk Road, the Belt and Road Initiative. So if there was an attack like that would be against Eurasia integration, against the Belt and Road Initiative by China, against the Russian notion, which in Moscow is called Greater Eurasia Partnership, that’s the official denomination, and against leaders of the global south and the global majority.
Of course, for the moment we are in the negotiating stage in Oman. So the first one was not so bad, actually much better than many of us expected. The second meeting is going to be next Saturday in Oman between Witkoff and Arakshi, the Iranian foreign minister. So at least they are talking. And here in China they hyper appreciate all that, but they don’t expect any negotiation coming from the US and the memes that you see around Shanghai and all over China. Judge, in terms of it’s the title of my latest column. A tariff wielding barbarian could never expect a call from China.
Trump’s Diplomatic Expectations
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Well, that was going to be my next question. Will Donald Trump wait in vain for a call from President Xi?
PEPE ESCOBAR: Would you mind if I ask you this question? Judge?
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: I wouldn’t mind. It’s always a happy conversation with you in my opinion. In my opinion he will wait in vain. It would be like waiting for Godot who never showed up.
PEPE ESCOBAR: Absolutely, absolutely. And this is what the not only from President Xi Jinping, the Politburo, the academics, Professor Zhang Weiwei, which is extremely well connected, he was discussing this this afternoon. And once again, this is the academic elite of China. Fudan University is one of the top universities in humanities, in history, philosophy, for instance. They are, if not number one, number two.
And they are. It’s a mix of being stunned, appalled, and at the same time predictable because they understand the circus, World Wrestling Federation aspect of the Trump administration. But there is something that they simply cannot accept, which is China being mistreated and treated with extreme disrespect.
China’s Economic Leverage
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: China, either the government, the Communist Party or their investors, their wealthy residents, owns about a trillion dollars of United States debt US Bonds. What are they going to do with it? That’s a weapon that they can use against President Trump, is it not?
PEPE ESCOBAR: Yes, it is, Judge. And did you see what happens when the Japanese started to use it, when the boat, the Japanese started to move the bond market?
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Well, they went away or they went away everywhere except China.
PEPE ESCOBAR: Exactly, Judge. The American oligarchy freaked out completely. And obviously they picked up the phone, they called Donald Trump and said, you have to stop this now because we are losing money and a lot of money. So if the Chinese do that, it’s going to be even worse. Okay, Japan has more US Treasured bonds than China, but we are talking about almost. In the case of Japan, it’s nearly $1 trillion. In the case of China, if I’m not mistaken, is around $850 billion. That’s a lot of funds.
If they start unloading this via, they have direct connections with traders in Wall Street. The Chinese can pick up the phone and call their favorite traders in Wall street and say, okay, go for it. But this would be, I would say, the nuclear option. The Chinese are extreme.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: This would force the American government to raise the interest it on these, not only on future bonds, but on bonds that are already out there when they’re rolled over, most of them have a short shelf life. This would drain the American Treasury.
China’s Strategic Options
PEPE ESCOBAR: Absolutely. But at the moment, Judge, they are still not thinking about this possible nuclear option, which they are safeguarding it. If their need, they need to use it. They are talking about the opportunity that China has to expand even more their trade footprint all over the global South. The global majority, from their neighbors here in Asia to Africa to Latin America.
And guess what? European Chihuahuas are sending a delegation here in June to propose a better trade deal between the European Union and China. Can we all believe that?
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: What is the, if you can put your finger on it, the consensus about Donald Trump, whether we’re talking cab drivers or academics.
China’s View of the US Administration
PEPE ESCOBAR: A joke, a circus ringmaster in a Chinese way. The really hardcore Trump denomination at the moment, all across Chinese social media, Weibo, everywhere is “barbarian.” And when a Chinese with 5,000 years of history calls a European or an American or Western a barbarian, that’s the lowest of the lowest. So this is not good for the American president.
But they keep treating Americans royally. There are a lot of American tourists here in downtown Shanghai or around the big towers here. I’m in the heart of the business center and American businesses everywhere, American businessmen, you hear American accents everywhere, continue to do business here. And American residents here, many of them are absolutely appalled because they know that their business will end up suffering, of course.
But the bulk of the Chinese and here in Shanghai, to feel the spirit of Shanghai is amazing. This is electric, electric in a New York style stance. And the electrification that we used to feel in New York in decades past, now you feel it here. Even walking in the streets, it’s an absolutely fascinating phenomenon. And you can feel it that you are in the capital of the future and in the capital of the big superpower of the future. You know, you feel it in your bones and you feel it in the air.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Wow. Let me ask you about another of your fields that you examine closely, and that is the Kremlin. What is the Kremlin’s reaction to Donald Trump’s experimentations with tariffs?
Russia’s Strategic Patience
PEPE ESCOBAR: Well, it’s that famous metaphor which is attributed sometimes to Sun Tzu, sometimes to Lao Tzu. I am by the side of the river and I’m watching the river flow, and sooner or later, the cadaver of my enemy will be floating by. That’s the Russian observing, not necessarily literally, of course, but they know that maybe there will be the cadaver of a unilateral order floating by the river sooner rather than later.
But at the same time, Judge, they are involved in this immensely complex negotiation of trying to solve the Ukrainian riddle. And at the moment, the mood in Moscow and the mood in the Kremlin is relatively, relatively upbeat. We don’t know what’s going to happen next.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: You know, Steve Witkoff said just the other night, it may have been last night on Fox News that he met with President Putin for five hours. Now, Witkoff is not a professional diplomat. Five hours is a long, long time to be negotiating with Vladimir Putin. And the negotiations were on other, bigger matters than just the Ukraine war. This is right up Donald Trump’s alley, who, notwithstanding the ignorance he manifested by imposing the tariffs, nevertheless understands the benefits to the world of a reset, a commercial reset, as well as a political and military one between the United States and Russia.
Spheres of Influence and Global Reset
PEPE ESCOBAR: Absolutely correct. A commercial reset, a geopolitical reset and spheres of influence. There’s no question that Putin explained to Witkoff in detail over five hours. Look, we’re going to have a sort of Yalta 2.0. Sooner or later, it’s going to be you, us and the Chinese, and we’re going to define spheres of influence.
We know our spheres, our spheres of influence very well in the post-Soviet space. We don’t want to infringe on your spheres of influence, let’s say in the Atlanticist nexus or even in the Americas. But you have to respect our spheres of influence. And in terms of China, you have to respect China in Asia. China is the big Asian superpower, and you have to respect that. The only leader in the world who can tell that to Trump directly, for the moment, indirectly, via Witkoff, is Putin.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Right?
PEPE ESCOBAR: Absolutely.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: The neocons reject that. I mean, that’s the core of their existence, is that America must be dominant and Chinese influence and Russian influence must shrink. So Trump is turning a battleship or an aircraft carrier 180 degrees on a dime because he’s dealing with an establishment, those neocons, his Secretary of State, his Secretary of Defense, his director of CIA, his national security advisor, his people closest to him. He’s dealing with the heart and soul of neocons.
The Deep State Challenge
PEPE ESCOBAR: Absolutely, Judge. And he’s dealing with the heart and soul of the neocon silos of power all across the deep state, in every different area of the deep state. And they are over… And they won’t let go. And they won’t let go of exceptionalism in terms of the Americas, the Monroe Doctrine, they will never let it go. And of course, unilateral domination and what we say go our way or the highway. You cannot do our way or the highway with both Russia and China.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Got it.
PEPE ESCOBAR: And maybe some of these silos are starting to read the tea leaves. And Trump, we can even say, Judge, that his domestic challenges coming from these silos in the deep state, they are even more hardcore than his international challenges, which from the point of view of the American system are this triad, what I call the new Primakov triangle: Russia, Iran and China, updating what Yevgeny Primakov at the late 90s said was the beginning of the RIC, India at the time.
Nowadays, Iran is much more powerful and significant than India. India is still on the fence. They don’t know if they’re going to be a colony of the Anglo-Americans or if they’re going to be part of the Eurasian integration. Not even the Indian elites know where they’re going next.
But this new Primakov triangle with Russia and China and also let’s say they’ve got Iran’s back. The war, or the overall framing of the war by Trump so far is against these three, which happens to be three BRICS and the top three BRICS in terms of importance. But the deep state and his enemies inside the deep state, they see these three as total threats against American domination. So they must be smashed geoeconomically and geopolitically.
It’s absolutely impossible. And many of these silos are imposing on Trump: You have to destroy China geoeconomically, you have to destroy Iran militarily. And any accommodation with Russia, no we going to say how much you can accommodate with Russia.
Closing Remarks
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Pepe Escobar, my dear friend, I misspoke earlier when I said you’re in Beijing, you’re in the heart of the Chinese commercial development in Shanghai, where more construction goes on there in that city than in most countries in the world. Thank you very much, Electric Night. Thank you very much for accommodating our time, my man. We’ll talk to you again.
PEPE ESCOBAR: Nice pleasure. You know that? Very funny. Judge, do you know that my server on my VPN at the moment is called USA for China 3?
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Wow. I would say only in America, but it wouldn’t make sense. Thank you, Pepe. All the best, my friend.
PEPE ESCOBAR: Thank you, Judge. All the best. Thank you. Cheers.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Wow. Fascinating conversation with a very eclectic and brilliant thinker. Coming up later today at 2:00 this afternoon, Colonel Douglas McGregor at 3:00 this afternoon, Colonel Karen Kwatkowski at 4:00 this afternoon. Not sure where on the planet he is. Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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