The U.S. Forced Europe Into a Fatal Billion-Dollar Mistake: Right NOW | Professor Jiang

210 billion euros. That's what the EU is trying to take away from Russia as we speak. They're meeting in Brussels and are discussing what are we going to do with the frozen assets. And then, of course, what is happening in the Caribbean? What's happening outside of Venezuela? The US has been seizing oil tankers and I'm hearing that a strike on Venezuela might be imminent. What is going on? How is this all connected? I've invited a fantastic, fantastic guest on the program. Our last interview was one of the most watched on our channel here. His name is Professor Jiang. He has the Predictive History YouTube channel. He's closing in on a million subscribers on that channel. Phenomenal, phenomenal content. I'm excited that he's spending the next 30 minutes here with us to really tie a bow around what is happening on a global scale. And if we find the time, we'll also throw gold into the

discussion because we're trading at $4,300 an ounce and there's more to it than just a few retail investors buying up the precious metal here. So we'll get to all of this and I'm really excited that he's joining us. Before I switch over, though, hit that like and subscribe button. It means a lot to us. It's a great way to show your support and it doesn't cost you a thing. So much appreciated. And Professor Jiang, it's a great pleasure to have you back on the program. It's good to see you again.

Thanks, Kai.

Yeah, really looking forward to this conversation. I mentioned to you, like, there's a few topics that we need to get through. And as it is very topical and timely, we need to start in Europe. It is happening today. Today, the EU is discussing what to do with the 210 billion euros that it has frozen or Russian assets that are frozen. They're mostly sitting in Belgium right now. Run us through a little bit. Give us the highlights first, but also, like, what do you expect implications to be here?

Yeah, so what I want to say, and I agree with this analysis, is that 210 plus billion dollars, it's a trap for Europe. It's almost like a bomb that's in their hands. It's a grenade. It's a grenade that's going to blow up in their faces. And the reason why is that it sounds like a lot of money, 200 plus billion dollars, that Europe can use to finance the war in Ukraine, especially now that the United States seems to be withdrawing its support. The problem, though, is that you trade in your credibility, right? You trade in your legal credibility in the eyes of investors. And so if they were to go ahead and confiscate, steal that 200. Plus billion dollars, Putin would be extremely happy because what's happened is that the Europeans have basically shot themselves in the face and their banking system, the financial system, has lost all credibility. Investors would flee the eurozone and we could see the imminent collapse of the European financial system.

We also have to remember that the Americans basically wash their hands off the Europeans. If you look at the national security strategy published by the White House, this past week, it's very clear that the Americans are not very optimistic about what's happening in Europe. Europe has basically it's the Americans believe that Europe could at any point implode financially. The fundamentals are all off. This war in Ukraine is lost, but they continue to fight it. So Europe is in a very tough position. But, you know, if they do confiscate that 200 billion dollars, Putin has said this. He thinks. It's the best money he's ever spent.

Now, that's it's a that's an interesting point. Best money ever spent because the EU is like I mentioned it to you as well. Like we have historical evidence, albeit only three years ago when the West took Russia off the Swiss, the Swift system. We've seen sort of maybe the the firing gun or the starting the start guard, like when you have the race take off for a collapse of the Western financial system. People were fleeing the US dollar. The gold price has exploded. As I mentioned earlier, forty three hundred dollars an ounce. Let's get a bit more, I would say dramatic, but granular, perhaps on the collapse of the euro system, if that were to happen, loss of confidence you already hinted at what are some of the other factors and to like, how will this play out? What should we be looking to or forward to?

Yeah, so the first comment I would make is that there's a limit to how much gold and silver can go up because you're buying gold and silver. You're betting that the entire global financial system collapses, and that's a very hard bet for investors to make. So I think. Like the most likely scenario is that investors look for safer currencies, and this can include the US dollar. This could include the Swiss franc, but the euro dollar, as it stands, it's very hard to maintain its integrity. The European leadership does not seem to know what it's doing. Investors feel as though this war in Ukraine is lost, but Europe continues to fight this war. Germany, Poland, Romania, Croatia have all announced the possibility of a draft conscription. So it seems as though the Europeans are going to go all in in this war. And as an investor, you have to look at the future. And quite honestly, the future is not very bright for the Europeans.

But again, I mean, the possibility of all this money going to gold and silver, it's very limited because what do you do with this gold and silver? So I think the most likely scenario is. Possibly investors fleeing towards the US dollar and the Swiss franc.

Interesting. Yeah, no, because you made an interesting point earlier. The US has or is not optimistic about Europe. And I'm in Europe here. Obviously, I'm watching what is going on around us here. But maybe to bring it back to that topic is like, does it feel like the US actually forced the EU into that position? Isn't it the result of what the US diplomacy and politics sort of forced upon Europe? And now they're sort of stepping it back. And it's fascinating. You know, just to this very specific issue now, I'm just curious, like it's almost sounds like a bit of a conspiracy theory that the US was trying to break us or maybe keep us down. So I'm curious what your what your thought process on that topic is as well.

You know, international security strategy. The Americans are very clear about the issues in Europe. They believe that the Europeans wouldn't encourage entrepreneurship. The Europeans. Have a nanny state. A welfare state. They don't protect freedom of speech. Second of all. The Europeans are between Western civilization and the European Emirates. western values uh they're embracing dei they're embracing woke values um and uh the americans feel as as though the europeans have basically decided to rely purely on american muscle uh to carry the day and their europeans don't refuse to set up okay and that is the american attitude and it's complete nonsense okay if you are european you have the americans to thank for all this malaise that you're facing uh the german economy for the longest time was reliant on uh russian cheap energy and the chinese market and and because of uh america's trade war with china that market has been lost to the germans

and also the north stream pipeline was blown up by the americans everyone knows this um it's not public it's not official but everyone knows that it's americans who have the most to benefit from the destruction of the north stream pipeline and that forced the germans to close it down so the republicans are going to be the negotiation center for the south and the west and the west is going to be the antagonist uh with the east uh the west is going to be holding and this is the very important point that they're trying to show this is what is happening in ukraine and uh and they're going to do that in the south stream pipeline because the US is not the only way to get that to work and they don't want to do that in the north stream pipeline this is a struggle for americans it's a struggle in their own economy the most

important problem i've seen在 the united states is the wonderful friendship between the united states and south stream pipeline uh and of course we're talking about it in different places as well so it's a very important thing to benefit of europe the soviet union was gone so why this constant aggression against russia then you have 2015 and 2015 marked a turning point because that's when all these immigrants were flooding europe um these immigrants came from where they came from libya syria afghanistan iraq all these nations that americans bomb and bomb into smithereens forcing their people to leave their homes and make this um arduous dangerous trek into europe these immigrants do not want to go to europe they were forced to go into europe and the europeans under angelo marco decided was let them in um i don't know why she made that decision and conspiracy theorists would say oh this is possibly part of grant

conspiracy to undermine the european union um so if you're conspiracy theorist you have a lot of reason to think that americans are trying to sabotage

europe yeah no is it really conspiracy theory if it really turned out to be true right and a lot of those theories have turned out to be true over the last six years here unfortunately right um which is a problem and europe got too close to russia as well you you just pointed out to angela merkel gerhard schruder he's even on the board of gasprom i think he's been removed or has left since but europe was very very close to russia that was probably a thorn in the eye of the the us as well that we got too close to them is that a fair assumption

or assessment here look look remember the scene in uh trump's first term at the united nations is that germany is too reliant on russian energy he pointed out the north stream pipeline and you will remember the video because um these german diplomats at the united nations with the back just laughing their heads off thinking that this guy is a he doesn't understand geopolitics but then when joe biden came to office he joe biden would be the same thing joe biden said that listen this north stream pipeline is a problem and we will do something about it and the reporter asked him what what are you going to do about it and joanna said well we'll you'll see you'll see it and then it got blown up so um yeah yeah no it's uh the question is like how does this all

play out germany just approved 55 billion euros in defense spending just yesterday the bundestag approved it um so so how is this situation in europe going to play out are we going to see the 28 -point peace plan come into action um how do you see this play out professor john

so i think that the problem is that the europeans have lost national sovereignty they have lost um autonomous decision -making uh decisions uh they have lost autonomous decision -making ability and power okay so they are um constrained by american interests remember the american military still controls europe you've got thousands tens of thousands of american troops still stationed in germany um nato is still very much an american -led operation so uh americans want the europeans to go off and fight in ukraine okay and and you have these leaders in uh europe you have starmer in britain macron and france merce in germany they're extremely unpopular the people don't want them around and they're incompetent they don't know what they're doing they don't have any vision they're intelligence operatives um in many ways and so they're going to do what they're told they're not going to represent the people they're not thinking about what's in the best

interest of europe they're just going to do what they're told and third of all this is most important is the idea of some policy where europe has invested invested too much in this war in ukraine and you know the entire uh european strategy is will will win this war against russia and will enforce an indemnity against russia just like what we did in world one and world war ii okay and and and that's the entire strategy and the europeans never imagined the possibility that they would lose the war and all this collateral they were banking on all this land these minerals uh that they had banked on ukraine would be lost and so um you know it's very much a gambler's mentality where you go to casino you've lost a million dollars and you can't leave because you

can't go home and face your wife or your pot committed already so you got to keep throwing bad money after good here right so um so you can't really get out of that situation but out of those 28 points in the peace plan like it read to me like it was written back in march 2022 and it could have been signed in april 2022 as well like are there any points that you say well they're non -negotiable or something that will completely drastically change maybe even the map and the landscape in europe look the reality is

that russia will not agree to a ceasefire russia wants peace russia wants permanent peace and that means resolving the uh ukraine issue and so if you look at a map um the russia basically if it takes odessa the war is over why because if it takes odessa then it controls the entire black sea coast and nato cannot have any naval presence in the black sea so odessa is the key and they haven't discussed odessa but that's what what russia really wants and that's what nato and ukraine won't give up because if russia would take odessa then ukraine would become a landlocked country uh remember that the industrial and agricultural heartland of ukraine is actually in eastern ukraine not western ukraine western ukraine is actually a poor uh resource poor area and so if um if um russia were to take odessa then western ukraine would become a rub state completely reliant on uh european welfare

and generosity so um but unless russia takes odessa then putin knows that the europeans will keep on pressing okay the ceasefire is just meant for europe to prepare for full -scale war and for

ukraine to rearm itself do you see this war ending in 2026 i'm trying to put some time frames around it just to understand like okay where is this ending or do you see full -scale escalation in 27 28 like some people predict here already um i don't see this war any except on the

battlefield um europe will try to reinforce ukraine front lines because it seems as though ukrainian frontlines have collapsed definitely the morale has collapsed you have hundreds of thousands in desertions um the ukrainians don't even know why they're trying to get to the front fighting this war anymore uh the war is lost the russians have high morale and the russian the russians are uh advancing uh pretty widely across the front lines so the europeans will try to reinforce the front line so send in some volunteers and eventually what the europeans will recognize is that the front lines cannot be held so they will reinforce odessa okay so that's how i see the war going like all this i talk of ceasefire negotiate settlements it's a delaying tactic because putin has said this repeatedly where um the americans the europeans will not

stop fighting the war until russia has collapsed fair enough very grim picture um yeah i hope this plays out in a positive way but i'm not sure diplomacy will work here anymore so that's a very frustrating to to witness that here from from a european perspective being in germany as well of course um you you touched on the national security strategy earlier and that's maybe the segue to our next topic here and that's venice zuela and the u.s is really trying to get a stranglehold on latin america of course so countries like china russia don't get access into latin america and venezuela is playing a pivotal role here it is partially financed by china china is buying venezuelan oil for example um what is the current situation here what should we be expecting do you see a military strike in the next 24 hours 48 hours or just shortly here so the national security

strategy it's very clear

it presents something called the trump corollary and the idea of that is that trump will now enforce the monroe doctrine and the idea of the monroe doctrine is the western hemisphere belongs entirely to america america is responsible for protecting the western hemisphere from foreign influence and trump has been clear that russia and china have been interfering too much in the western hemisphere i think like this goes back to the trade war with china so um trump imposed these sanctions on china and china responded by refusing to buy american agricultural products thinking that it would hurt uh trump's electoral prospects and and then trying to start to buy soya beans beef from brazil from south america china imports a third of its food from south america so china needs that market access and what trump is saying is that you know you're going to play this game then we'll play this game right trump is a

gorilla so what's trump saying is that you're going to play when he negotiates, he's going to negotiate to the end. So what he wants to do is cut off China's oil and food supply and force China to the negotiating table. What Trump is really after is, in 2026, he's going to have four meetings with the Chinese president. In April, he's scheduled for a state visit to Beijing. What he needs to do is resolve this U.S.-China trade war. And the reason why is America is $38 trillion in debt. And if he looks around the world, if he talks to his advisors, there's only one source that can absorb all this debt, and it's the Chinese consumer. So Trump wants to say to China, listen, when you first entered WTO, you agreed to liberalize your financial markets. You agreed that your Chinese consumers would buy more from the West. And you have reneged on all this agreement.

So hey, you either agree to liberalize your financial markets and let Chinese consumers buy more from the West, and let Chinese consumers spend more money, or we will embargo you. And that is what's underlying this conflict in Venezuela.

Very interesting picture, because it covers a lot of topics that I want to discuss with you in more detail anyway. Because Trump said that very openly about China having to stimulate its own economy so it can actually buy more. He actually said that almost word for word here about six months ago, pretty much right after he came into office. So right around that time. Can China even fulfill those, let's say, promises or statements? That's the other question we talked about six months ago as well. That China was a bit in a, I think we said deflationary spiral, perhaps. So maybe we'll start there and then we come back to Venezuela. But can China even fulfill those requests that the U.S. has or the West has towards them?

Look, China is first and foremost focused on protecting its national sovereignty. It knows what happens when you start to let in Western bankers. They come and they become parasites. They steal resources from you. They bankrupt you. They promise you all this easy credit, all this easy money. You become addicted to easy money, just as like China, the Chinese became addicted to opium 150 years ago. And the Chinese know exactly how that happened and what happened. And so there's no way that China would agree to liberalize its financial markets. So the only place for negotiation is the Chinese consumer. The problem, though, is that because China is in the deflation spiral, this means the Chinese consumer is not that optimistic about the future. You're not optimistic of the future. You're not going to borrow money, spend on money. OK, so that's a sticking point.

That's exactly the thing. Like borrow money like China is stimulating, though, like they're throwing money at the economy. The real estate market is struggling. That's what we're reading here in the West, of course. But that money is not seeping into the West. And now the China also like coming back to the war. It's interesting how all this comes full, full, full swing or full circle. China said, well, we're not even going to buy your chips anymore because that China sovereignty, perhaps like Huawei here has really good technology now as well. They caught up quite well to the Blackwell series. And I can really. They're trying to like frame this like is this like are we in a what you call is like a non no win scenario for for both sides here and it's just escalating and they're just pushing each other higher and higher, perhaps there's one out.

OK, this is what I think is most likely to happen. Chinese consumers spend money on education. So if it's possible that the Chinese government agrees to lend money to Chinese consumers to send their kids to United States and Europe. To study abroad, then Chinese parents might make that sacrifice. You know, Trump has talked openly about welcoming 600,000 Chinese students to America for undergraduate. That's twice the number right now. These parents can afford it. But Chinese banks would be willing to make loans, personal loans to these parents or send their kids abroad. So I think that might be a solution. I'm not I'm not sure that Chinese consumers would go for it, but that is possibly an out for both sides. And Trump would agree to not allow Taiwan to declare independence, and that might be the deal that they strike. OK, but I think they will strike a deal. It's just a question of what the specifics are.

Well, Trump has already left the door open in terms of education. Like, well, he cut it off early on, but then he opened the door right away again. It's like, of course, we're happy to have Chinese students come study in the U.S. Like, again, that was almost verbatim what he said. So I think the door opens. The door is open. They just need to be willing to do it at the end. Right. So it's it's really interesting.

Look, look, look, Chinese students, the most of the U.S. higher education system would collapse. OK, many, many American students are recognizing that going to college is a stupid deal. You spend, you know, tens of thousands of dollars a year to, like, drink beer and watch football games. You can't do that at home. So, you know, if they need to resolve this issue, they need to get more and more Chinese students into America. And. And they need to do it very quickly. It's also possible that you will have an increasing number of U .S. colleges in a shop in China. They will charge U.S. dollar tuition, but it'll be a lot cheaper experience for Chinese students. So I think there are some workarounds.

Well, it looks like there's a like I kind of like that because I like the positivity that you're sort of spreading here, that there is actually a possibility of a solution here and through education, because that's how peace is being brokered. And that's just how it works. I like that. I like that positivity here, Professor Zhang. But coming back to Venezuela, unfortunately, which is a bit more of a darker topic, how do you see this situation resolved? Like, U.S. is very close to a strike. Is China willing to step in on the behalf of Venezuela, perhaps? I haven't heard much personally and I haven't researched that topic in too great of a detail. But has China made any announcements or said anything like, if you do this, we will do that?

OK. So China imports 80 percent of U.S. dollars. China imports 80 percent of Venezuela's oil. OK, so 80 percent of Venezuela's oil goes to China. So China's basically Venezuela's biggest customer. China is what props up the Venezuelan economy. China has been very explicit. China said that even though we support Venezuela, we will not intervene either economically or militarily in Venezuela because China respects the Monroe Doctrine. OK, so China here is very explicit. As to what will actually happen. I think that Trump has already announced that he's going to embargo the Venezuelan oil shipments. That is basically a declaration of war. The problem is, like, how do you actually enforce that? And what will enforcement actually look like? Trump has also said that he will launch airstrikes against Venezuela. So he will launch airstrikes. The question then is, how serious will these airstrikes be? Because remember, a few months ago, Trump ordered Operation Midnight Head.

And it was, you know, a couple of stealth bombers dropping buster bombers on an empty Iranian facility. And it was mainly just about face and showing that America does have the capacity to strike Iran. They informed the Iranians beforehand to avoid casualties and escalation. And I think that we might see a similar situation in Venezuela where both sides are playing chicken. You know, both sides are, you know, huffing and puffing. But they don't want to go to war because no one benefits from going to war. Right now, America has assembled 10 % of its naval force in the Caribbean. That's 15,000 Marines. That's not enough to launch an amphibious operation against Venezuela. Especially because the people of Venezuela are united against the possibility of American invasion. You have guerrilla warfare everywhere. These airstrikes don't really do anything. Except galvanize the people, galvanize the nationalism of people. So I think that there will be conflict.

But I think this conflict will be managed to avoid escalation. And a lot of it will just be huffing and puffing because ultimately both sides benefit from coming to an agreement. But they need to, you know, huff and puff and show off and play chicken before they come to that actual agreement in order to save face.

What would the U.S. need to hear from Maduro to sort of say, okay, we're happy. Let's move on. Let's put an end to this conflict. What would they need to hear?

Right. So I think Trump is thinking of the bigger picture, which is he wants to enforce Monroe Doctrine. So he wants the entirety of South America under control. So Venezuela, it's for show. It's to show what could happen to nations who defy the Americans. Okay. So if Venezuela falls and Cuba falls. Okay. So what could happen to Venezuela and Nicaragua would follow and then possibly other nations as well. So from Trump's perspective, he needs to show that he is capable of militarily attacking Venezuela. But at the same time, he wants to show that he's generous and open to negotiation. So what I think will happen is that maybe in a six -month timeline, you will have escalation and you will have some erratic and sporadic behavior in that Trump is launching airstrikes. But they're not directed against Venezuela. They're directed against Colombia and Mexico. They sort of miss Venezuela. They aim for Venezuela and they hit Colombia and Mexico.

And this confuses everyone. And the reason why Trump is doing that is, one, he's trying to leave the room open for negotiation with Maduro. And second of all, he's trying to show all of South America, I can hit anyone, anywhere. You know, I'm crazy. Okay. And third is that he's trying to enforce the Monroe Doctrine and warn off Russian or Chinese terrorists. Okay. So that's a very important intervention.

Okay. Fair enough. And maybe one last question, and that's a very pointed one, but could this escalate into something bigger? And I do mean World War III here. Does it have the potential? I'm quite positive based on what you're saying that this is just a small storm in a water glass, perhaps. But I'm curious what your take on it is and whether I'm interpreting it the way you're seeing it as well.

You know, that's a great question. Look, from a game theory perspective, we should not expect the escalation to happen. We should expect it to increase more than two airstrikes. Okay. I think Trump may launch some minor airstrikes against Venezuela, and then this will lead to negotiations, which will lead to a peace treaty where basically Venezuela agrees to become a kind of vassal of the United States. So if nothing happens, and I think that's most likely to happen, but in geopolitics, there are always a possibility of a conflict somewhere else. Okay. So maybe, you know, Trump is facing a lot of resistance. In America, maybe there's some riots going on. Trump needs to distract American people. So he launches an amphibious invasion of Venezuela. Okay. Or possibly the conflict between Israel and Iran heat up. It's possible that, you know, his advisors, his donors pressure him to do something. Okay. So it's a dangerous game. I think that peace will prevail in the end.

But you're right in that something unexpected could happen. And this could escalate. Okay. It's possible that that American pilot he's, you know, breaking into Venezuela airspace and the Venezuelans accidentally shooting down. Right. Because you have Wagner forces in Venezuela. You have Cuban forces in Venezuela as well. It's possible they might want an escalation. So there are some unknowns, a lot of unknowns here. And things could escalate very quickly. But given the situation as it is, I don't think things will happen that way.

Perfect. That's a positive note. We'll end on. Professor Jung, we'll take the positive here. Really appreciate your time. Like absolutely insightful. This is probably the best 30 minutes I've spent here on this channel the last two, three weeks easily. Really great content. If our audience doesn't know you for any reason whatsoever yet, where can we send them to follow more of your work?

Yeah. So I'm a substack, predictive history substack. And that's where I write on geopolitics. And so I try to cover as much breaking news as possible. So for example, this weekend was this tragic shooting in Australia, which affected the Jewish diaspora. And I did a lot of research and I wrote an essay explaining why I think this happened and what it could lead to. So I do a lot of analysis. I just don't report the news. I try to give you the background and the context to the news.

No, fantastic. And we've just seen what that context and background is. Really, really fascinating. What is going on around the globe? Right now, Professor Jung, tremendously appreciate your time. It's great to catch up with you again. Can't wait to do this again in 2026 because there's so much going on. I'd love to have you back more often. Absolutely. So tremendously appreciate it. Thank you so much. And enjoy the weekend. Happy holiday season. Really hope you have a wonderful time and can't wait to catch up next year. So we're looking forward to that and everybody else. Thank you so much for watching. I tremendously enjoyed the conversation here with Professor Jung. Really insightful, connecting a lot of dots, a lot of moving parts. Here around the globe, whether it's in Europe, in the US, Venezuela, China. Lots going on. And I hope you found this insightful. If you did, hit that like and subscribe button. It helps us out tremendously.

Bringing guests like Professor Jung here onto the channel. Much appreciated. And in the meantime, we don't see each other again. Merry Christmas, happy holidays and all the best for 2026. We'll be back with lots more here. So stay tuned.