The Village Oak Tree

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The Village Oak Tree

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

Terrance Ó Domhnaill

Feb 05, 2025

Transcript

Fáilte

Welcome to The Village Oak Tree once again

I am your host, Terrance Ó Domhnaill.

More chaos everywhere once again this week.

To quote a movie title from 2022, "Everything, Everywhere, All at once"

Once I have brought you the stories and commentary for this week, I ask everyone to stick around through my commercial break, so I can read you another chapter of The Priest, from Michael Campi.

So, come sit you down next to someplace warm and listen to me tell you a little of what the media isn't telling you.

Most of the chaos is coming from the United States this week as Trump has decided to throw tariffs in all directions, starting yesterday.

It was going to be Canada, Mexico and China to start but in a last minute, hail Mary deal, the PM from Mexico averted the tariffs for one month in a deal to deploy 10,000 Mexican troops to their northern border in exchange for the U.S. to ramp up automatic gun smuggling across the border to the cartels.

Canada's Trudeau has also managed to be granted a one month stay of execution. All with the promise of better border security.

Trump has repeatedly told all three countries that he wants them to step up to stop the Fentanyl and illegal immigrations coming across the U.S. borders. His way of enforcing that is to impose these tariffs. I won't talk about that anymore as this is all old news.

What is new news, is that Canada is on the war path right now, setting up their own tariffs on U.S. exports to Canada. Every provincial premier is making speeches about what they are going to do in retaliation, but according to this article from the CBC I found, the first and easiest trade commodity to take the hit is U.S. alcohol. Every province is dumping American booze down the drain, so to speak. They have ordered the removal of all U.S. alcohol from warehouses and retail establishments across the country as part of their first wave of retaliatory tariffs. I guess this was such an easy and cheap target to make their point with.

They have promised much, much more and of course, Alberta's premier is going all out to try and protect their oil revenues from the U.S. tariffs. So far, Trump has set it at ten percent but premier Smith is still throwing tantrums in order to get it back to zero. Good luck with that.

Suck it up Ms. Smith. It's time for Canada to find other markets for their oil and quickly. Maybe China? China is always looking for new sources of oil, if it's profitable for them. I think the days of Canada still being afraid of the U.S. are gone now. There's already talk in Canada of finding new overseas markets for Canadian exports. I hope they get them. It's time Canada got out from under the shadow of the U.S. and show the world that they're here in North America and the store is open for business.

The bad thing is that Canada made the mistake of working with the Americans in the past and built oil pipelines to their own refineries across U.S. territory. So, shutting of the oil to the U.S. could become a very sticky problem as it would cut off their refineries in Canada’s eastern provinces.

The same could be said for central and south America. Panama caved under pressure when the new Secretary of State Rubio went to visit. Another one down and so many more to go. Panama's deal is that they will not renew the Chinese contracts they have currently. In fact, they will be terminating them early so the U.S. can step in and pick up where they left off. Yeah, I don't see that happening. These south of the U.S. Border countries need to learn that if they want to be successful, they will have to remove their economic dependency from the U.S. Mexico gets it now and Colombia gets it now, but how many others need to see the forest for the trees before understanding that the U.S. is not their friend.

In other places around the world, the energy trade wars are ramping up. Norway's coalition government collapsed recently over a fight about their countries energy issues.

The argument that collapsed the government was about whether Norway, who is not a member of the EU, should have to incur continuously rising electricity prices by being part of the EU energy bloc. They can produce enough of their own electricity to take care of themselves and then some. This political party, the Euroskeptic center party, decided to leave the coalition, causing a loss of the majority for the parliament and PM.

Their argument is why should we keep building electric cables and supplying Germany and the EU with electricity, causing the price of electricity in Norway to go up again. It looks like the EU is having more and more splits in their coalition over energy in general with the loss of Russian oil and gas.

To add more pressure, Trump is threatening tariffs on the EU if they don't buy even more U.S. oil and gas from the U.S. Of course, the EU bloc is all in a tither about all of this. They are calling Norway selfish for wanting to keep more of their own electricity, and scared to death of the U.S. as their overall economies are collapsing around them. France is looking into retaliatory tariffs, and I am sure the EU as a whole is setting up some tariffs just in case.

Europe can ill afford to make demands of anyone these days. I watched another YouTube video, Surviving Lily, made by a young woman from Austria this week. She talks about the economies around Europe from the consumers perspective and it is looking grim over there.

Of course, the consumers in the Americas are all going to be feeling the pinch as well. Mexico and Canada have dodged a bullet for a month, but the threat is still there. Europe is looking on with trepidation.

In an article I found in the CBC, the European Secretary general of NATO, Mark Rutte is downplaying all of this trade war stuff as just spats but other NATO countries are worried. Will Trump and the U.S. come to their aid if they need it? Some are worried that Trump will cherry pick whom he decides to help due to the amount of defense spending they put up. Once again the fear of the Russian bear is a shadow over western Europe.

Just this week, my wife went to Costco ( An American retail warehouse company) and she came back saying that, for a Monday morning, she watched as hundreds of people were buying pallet loads of products in an effort to hoard up against future price increases and shortages. She said the store people were already marking the prices up on the shelves. Expect this to get worse all over the world everyone.

China on the other hand is taking this all in stride across the ocean. They are setting up retaliatory tariffs and have filed a lawsuit with the World Trade organization, the WTO, as they claim that the tariffs are illegal, according to an old trade agreement. As it states in the news article, this is largely symbolic as the WTO has no teeth to fight anyone in a trade dispute but the lawsuit makes China look like the better poised business partners in all of this. China can afford to take the high road in all of this for now.

Trump's biggest issue that he isn't saying too much about, is the massive trade deficit the U.S. has with everyone they trade with. This has been largely caused by the U.S. manufacturing that has mostly left the country in the last few decades so the only thing the U.S. has to trade nowadays is the service industry, the military weapons and some technology. The U.S. imports way more than they export. Trump thinks these tariffs will fix that and bring back U.S. manufacturing. Keep thinking that as the U.S. economy takes a nosedive. Trump says, "There will be some pain." You think?

The technology exports are a double-edged sword because in order to manufacture that technology to export, the U.S. has to import the raw materials to create that technology. Which are now tariffed.

Canada is one of the largest exporters of raw minerals to the U.S. Now that there might be a twenty five percent tariff on everything from Canada, the U.S. is now threatening Ukraine with cutting off the war money unless they give the U.S. their raw rare earth minerals and other ores. In other words, Trump wants Ukraine to use their raw mineral resources as repayment for the money the U.S. sent and may send in the future to fund the war and take care of the country as a whole. Especially now that Trump has shut off all foreign aid and now, USAID.

This could be a problem as all of that raw ore from these so called rare earth materials is located in eastern Ukraine, now occupied by the Russians. Who are not inclined to make any such deals.

There is a strong rumor in the news feeds that this is also the reason Trump wants Greenland. If Trump can annex Greenland, and Canada, then muscle Ukraine into giving up their raw ores as collateral for all of the money the U.S. sent, they won't need China anymore. And with Canada under the wing, so to speak, the U.S. can just take what they want without having to pay for it.

Trump has shut down this government office (USAID) in its entirety now and shuttered the doors, so to speak. Some talk show people, like Larry Johnson, have said that USAID was a front for the CIA so, maybe that's not such a bad thing. Meanwhile, NGOs across the world are scrambling for money as they had put the majority of their financial eggs in this one basket, thinking it would always be there. Oops!

Trump has shut down or fired the heads of a lot of government agencies this week and everyone is sure that there will be more to come soon. The speculation that the infamous Project 2025 is underway is all over social media right now. Musk is bragging about the billions he is saving the American taxpayers. Yeah, right. I'll wait to see it to before I believe it.

Given what Elon Musk's DOGE people did last Saturday, makes a body wonder if that may be true. Musk's people walked into the U.S. treasury and took over. Apparently, the new head of the treasury let them do it. As of now, Elon Musk's people have gained access to every American's private financial data as it is related to the U.S. treasury.

So, this means that anyone, anywhere in the world who has ever received money from or gave money to the U.S. government has lost their privacy to Elon Musk. He now has everyone's social security numbers, addresses, phone numbers and financial transactions and he is not, nor are his people, federal employees in the normal sense.

Which means that if they wanted, someone in this crew that took over the treasury databases could sell that personal information to some not so nice people. This also means that Musk now has complete autonomy to stop any federal money going to any entity, for any reason without any congressional or court interference.

Basically, he has hijacked the U.S. treasury worth, as someone said this week, six trillion dollars. You have to know that Trump is in on this somehow, without saying anything. By being quiet about all of this, means that he is complicit, if congress should decide that a crime has been committed here.

The internet is all over this in fear and outrage, but once again, everyone is asking, where are the democrats while all of this is going on? Aren't they the other half of the government? They may not be the majority but they aren't a super-minority either. They are only down by four votes in the house, as I recollect.

With all of this chaos happening in Washington D.C. this week, others are wondering what about the rest of the country? With all of the federal treasury tied up in foreign wars and possibly theft by Elon Musk, the rest of the country is suffering from a lack of everything. I found a report from a reporter about the train wreck and environmental disaster in East Palestine, Ohio a couple of years ago.

In February of 2023, a Norfolk Southern train derailed and spilled toxic chemicals everywhere at the crash site, causing all manner of health issues for the people and life in general in the area. The cleanup is still ongoing.

The article talks about how the lobbyists for this company, and many others in similar industries are able to convince congressional lawmakers to look the other way when it comes to being responsible for cleaning up their messes and compensating those people who were affected by the spills. They convinced lawmakers to not pass any meaningful laws that would prevent such spills in the future.

As the article further explains, with Trump and his promises of more deregulation in the near future, what does this mean for the safety of everyday Americans?

We saw that on full display last weekend when a military helicopter T-boned an American Airlines plane as it was on approach to the runway, killing all of the passengers and crews of both aircraft.

At first, there was outrage as Trump blamed the accident on DEI. Then after a little investigating took place, it was found that, due to funding cuts at the FAA, there weren't enough air traffic controllers on duty that night to manage one of the busiest air spaces in North America. This is what you get when you don't spend taxpayers money on infrastructure and safety measures.

It makes you think how many other super busy airports are having the same manpower shortages? Are we dodging airplane bullets by sheer luck and the skills of overworked traffic controllers?

The same can be said for America's trains. How close is the U.S. to another huge environmental disaster? Have some been averted due to the skills of train operators and their track workers? We will probably never know as the lobbyists will pay off their politicians to make sure any accidents are covered up.

I found another article about the United States this week, from an independent writer I have sort of followed over the last couple of years. His name is Umair Haque, and he is a professor, and prolific doomsayer. He is rather famous in independent media circles for his insights on the failure of empires. He has written extensively about the collapse of the British empire, especially about the effects of Brexit on the British economy.

His latest article was published in Medium.com, which is a rarity anymore since he started his own website publication several months ago. In this article, he writes about how the U.S. is undergoing its own style of Brexit from the rest of the world under Trump and the MAGA party. He says, with the Brits, the collapse took several years but, the U.S. will go through their own version within a few short months.

He is a noted economist and is usually pretty spot on with his predictions, so, I wonder, is he right? He's not the only famous economist predicting the end of the empire very soon but, to predict an American style Brexit? With all of the chaos going on right now, I am inclined to be a believer.

With multiple renowned economists predicting an end to the U.S. empire very soon, I am listening and preparing as best as I can.

In overseas news, the honeymoon between the new government in what used to be Syria and Israel is now over. A new militia has cropped up and taking issue with Israel’s occupation of southern Syria. Will they become strong enough to do some damage to the IDF occupying the area? Time will tell. Something else to watch for as Israel and Turkey are a becoming a little more tense with each other over the Kurds.

Netanyahu visited the U.S. this week and during a press conference yesterday, Trump reiterated his call for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. He says that all of the richest countries will pay for the repatriation of the Palestinians to other countries. I don't know who he is talking about as no one has any money to do this and no one wants to deal with over two million Palestinian refugees. Jordan and Egypt are still saying a firm no but, with Trump's bullying tactics, I wonder how long they can hold the line? Trump was asked if the Saudi's were still holding out on the deal between them and Israel over a Palestinian state and Trump gave an emphatic no. So, what does the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia actually say about this? They are standing by Palestine. They are condemning this statement by Trump and are saying that there will be no deal with Israel unless there is a two state solution. So, there we have it as of today. The Saudi kingdom is standing on the side of the other Arab nations in the region against the west.

That's going to be very interesting to see. As I said in the beginning, more and more countries around the world need to stand up to the mafia don. The U.S. is not as formidable as they used to be anymore. It's time the rest of the world to take stock and step away from the Americans before they do something bad. They will anyway but the damage needs to be minimized. Like putting a computer virus into quarantine.

The U.S. needs to come to terms with the new reality that the world is moving over into a multipolar system. They need to either accept this or be left behind. So far, they're being left behind, kicking and screaming like a spoiled child on the playground that other kids don't want to play with because of their bad behavior. China, Russia and Brazil and some of the other BRICS members are setting the more mature example for the rest of the world to follow. They're sitting back and watching. Playing with this spoiled child on a limited basis until this child can learn to behave like a more mature player. Eventually, this spoiled child will either learn to get along with the other kids equally or be sent home with no more toys.

That’s what I have this week as everyone around the world is watching the chaos unfold in Washington D.C. Whatever the U.S. does touches a large portion of the world, which is a bad thing. We have another week ahead to see what other chaos will be unleashed across the developed world from Donald J. Trump and his mafia family of enforcers headed by Elon Musk. Sláinte

This is the part in the podcast where I play my advert seeking donations for my work and advertise my book, Fugitives in a New United States. Here in Substack, you can become a subscriber, free or otherwise, which is always appreciated. I have a donations page on my website at www.crann-na-beatha.com if someone wishes to show their appreciation but can’t afford the minimal subscription price in Substack. I also have a donations tab at The Village Oak Tree podcast page at rss.com. I accept any small donations in most currencies from around the world. No minimum amounts set. I realize that very few people want to subscribe to prevent their inboxes from being flooded with too many emails from Substack writers. If you like to cherry pick what you want to listen to or read, I post all of my articles like this one on my website in the blog section for free. This way someone can read only the ones they want without sorting through emails.

Thank you for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed it and that you'll return again to talk about the world we live in.

Please like, subscribe, reply and share the videos or audio podcasts, however you watch or listen. The goal here is to resist the people who want to take our freedoms away from us. I appreciate everyone around the world, no matter who or where you are. Together, using independent media like this, we can resist the authoritarian oligarchs in the west.

As I say good bye this week, I wish to leave you with this Irish blessing as we go about our lives and try to stay warm in the meanwhile. "May we find the will to resist those who try to put boots on our necks." Slán go fóill.

References:

EU energy policy row triggers government collapse

An attempt to tie Norway to the bloc’s ‘dysfunctional’ energy market was too much for a coalition party

From RT News

New Syrian resistance faction begins operations against Israeli occupation forces

The group also announced it would carry out operations against 'the terrorist gangs' led by former ISIS and Al-Qaeda warlord Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was appointed as Syria's transitional president this week

From The Cradle.co

Zeteo

Trump Said East Palestine Wouldn't Be 'Forgotten.' Will He Remember?

In February 2023, donning his signature red “Make America Great Again” branded hat, Donald Trump addressed the small town of East Palestine, Ohio. "You are not forgotten,” Trump assured a crowd of leaders, emergency workers, and the media just weeks after a train derailment and chemical burn devastated the community. Joined by then-Ohio Senator JD Vance, Trump handed out pallets of his so-called “Trump Spring Water” to residents…

3 days ago · 185 likes · 14 comments · Prem Thakker

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The Village Oak Tree

A commentary and discussion with the occasional guests about current news from around the world, veterans affairs and other topics. Some controversial.

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