The EU is all about peace and prosperity, right&nbsp;?&nbsp; Well, it’s not about peace any more because Brussels is determined to continue the war against Russia in Ukraine.&nbsp; It is the USA which is trying to make peace.&nbsp; What about prosperity?&nbsp; Here, too, the Atlantic relationship has broken down.&nbsp; Trump is famously introducing tariffs against European imports to correct the current imbalances.&nbsp; The EU is shrieking that this is unfair, yet it imposes a 10% on American cars while the US taxes European cars at only 2.5%.&nbsp; Instead of correcting this and other obvious imbalances, Brussels elites pretended for a long time that Trump would not be re-elected.&nbsp; The EU was therefore unprepared when he was.&nbsp; Now Brussels is hiking the EU’s own tariffs even further.&nbsp; This may make sense for countries which have a trade surplus with the US but it is highly damaging for countries like the Netherlands which has a large trade deficit.&nbsp; FVD is the only party in the Netherlands to call for the country to leave the EU.&nbsp; This latest nonsense only makes Nexit even more urgent than ever.&nbsp; The EU is a ball and chain, an economic death trap - as Thierry Baudet explained in a recent speech in Parliament.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-pLY_ck-uI">Watch Thierry’s speech here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXel0EQtrqiT1Ff1OUSGzBTH_txjisEbT0JlqWObRbNiayyJXlFurIksN9wL62nvgpwFVI1JteHEyyFdmyRfqUn8tya86adrzjY3gPaMLsNtyi9Y8WCYARl1o2H8ey08HtUHb8Ar?key=djVaYb8w1SNhoEYLQTxlBHdT">You see, there is no diversity in EU trade policy.&nbsp; It is negotiated at EU, not national level and is the same for all countries.&nbsp; This is in spite of the fact that the EU slogan is ‘unity in diversity’.&nbsp; Perhaps it should be ‘diversity is unity’ because the real goal of ‘diversity’ policy – currently being abolished in the USA – is to ensure unity.&nbsp; There is no diversity of political opinions within the civil service, the media or the judiciary.&nbsp; Instead, bogus ‘diversity’ of various left-wing minorities is promoted to ensure complete hegemony of the left-liberal consensus and to attack precisely that section of the population – white, straight men – who are more likely to be conservatives and patriots.&nbsp; Thierry Baudet explained this with admirable clarity in a recent speech in committee.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/Lets-put-an-end-to-diversity">Read Thierry’s speech here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfnZbAoO4sMWnpveia6GK79DGBgM3h1CFuLkl05gK074utonvXo6qMVWwq4CopPRmpZkZQYVZSJKucgOajr0KisDoYvMO06RfrorugXaPA-BYsiBINrg4ZKt-4Sbr0vPFQIL37oEA?key=djVaYb8w1SNhoEYLQTxlBHdT">But what do we make of Trump anyway?&nbsp; He claims to want to make peace in Ukraine but seems determined not to walk away from a war which he says he did not start.&nbsp; (This claim is not quite true since offensive weapons were supplied to Ukraine during the first Trump administration.)&nbsp; Now the ‘rare earths’ deal has been trumpeted as a way of getting America’s money back.&nbsp; In reality, as Daniel McAdams argues, it is no such thing.&nbsp; Instead, it is a game of smoke and mirrors designed to keep America locked in to the war.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/end-the-ukraine-war-with-this-one-simple-trick">Read Daniel McAdams’ article here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfXZz9hTqB--jGrlGBUVCIR3B2loo9MjfzKVXdgUsAPJTdGUJZLbn7MW1k_g0i2PtLV3A0TO_c-9zc-5hxf64AC80PdjHv4EKy71aYKKlUMjOxPAByjUpU1rOgXOlSxA64fp-Tw?key=djVaYb8w1SNhoEYLQTxlBHdT">The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/@ForumforDemocracy/streams">Forum</a> is now live every week (Wednesdays at 4pm) on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.twitch.tv/fvd_international">Twitch</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/FVD_Intl">X</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIsN-V0XCJAE7Q6w1fG5bO3cYynt7zlMN">Youtube</a> and&nbsp;<a href="https://rumble.com/user/FVDIntl">Rumble</a>. You can also follow FVD International on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/fvd_intl/">Instagram</a> and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@fvdinternational">TikTok</a> and of course on our&nbsp;<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/">own website</a>.

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The Weekly Forum - 2 May

30 April 2025If you watched&nbsp;<a href="https://the-free-foundation.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a6b3044a9fe8889c822d11c16&amp;id=86fecce969&amp;e=90926ddd9a">today's Liberty Report</a>&nbsp;you would have heard how quickly today's focus for the second story we covered changed in less than an hour. Dr. Paul sent me over a story around 7AM on how the now-infamous "rare earths minerals deal" between the US and Ukraine would finally be signed - for absolute sure this time! - today.&nbsp; When I got into the studio about an hour later I clicked on the story to begin preparing our clips and my notes. Imagine my surprise (!) when the headline had changed to suggest that the Ukraine government aircraft had turned around mid-flight back to Kiev because no deal would be signed today. Then when I went to prepare this write-up for you tonight&nbsp;I was only partly surprised to see that in fact the "deal"&nbsp;<a href="https://the-free-foundation.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a6b3044a9fe8889c822d11c16&amp;id=a773905ed8&amp;e=90926ddd9a">had been signed after all</a>. The "minerals deal" was billed as a miraculous breakthrough, an amazing journey from the dramatic confrontation between the US president and vice president and Zelensky in the Oval Office just weeks ago, to the point where President Trump can raise high his trophy: the signed minerals deal for which an enormous amount of US diplomatic effort has been spent! But the deal signed today in no way resembles the original "rare earths" deal touted by President Trump just a few weeks ago. Recall that when first launched this "deal" was a way for Ukraine to "pay back" the United States for $350 billion in assistance as calculated by the Trump people. The number is only accurate if one goes back to the US-backed coup in 2014, though,&nbsp;and, ironically, through the first Trump term (where for the first time offensive weapons were provided), and past the Biden&nbsp;largesse&nbsp;after Russia's launch of its "special military operation" in February of 2022. And it was a payback in the "rare earths" minerals said to be so critical to our technological society that had heretofore been supplied by "adversaries" like China for which many in the Trump foreign policy team were preparing to target as soon as they solved the Ukraine issue. The genius negotiator Trump was to secure the "rare earths" minerals from Ukraine that would for certainty be withheld or forbidden when the real strategy of "confronting" China was put into place. But it's all kabuki theater. First off, Trump people dropped the demand that US aid to Ukraine to the tune of a third of a trillion dollars needed to be paid back. That was the backbone and rationale of the deal in the first place. No, just days ago it was determined that we would start with a clean slate with Ukraine. Once again - as with the "Liberation Day" tariff war - maximalist demands were made, proved incredibly disruptive, and then were inexplicably reversed suddenly days later. "Just kidding." And now that the "minerals deal" was finally signed today to great fanfare, it turns out that it was not about "rare earths" minerals at all. As&nbsp;Energy and commodities columnist at Bloomberg Javier Blas reported, after looking at the radically restructured "rare earths" deal&nbsp;<a href="https://the-free-foundation.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a6b3044a9fe8889c822d11c16&amp;id=9050bad9ee&amp;e=90926ddd9a">posted on X</a>, the "deal" is primarily about "oil, natural gas and a bit of aluminum." He added, "And the critical minerals? Rare earths?" Even the supposed harsh terms&nbsp;<a href="https://the-free-foundation.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a6b3044a9fe8889c822d11c16&amp;id=896c1ac9de&amp;e=90926ddd9a">turns out to be a paper tiger</a>:- The US has no say under the agreement on when or what gets extracted in Ukraine - Both countries invest equally into an 'investment fund' - No debts for past aid are acknowledged - The US will not see a single dollar from the investment, in the best circumstances, for 10 YEARSWe've seen this movie before. Stealing oil from Syria and Iraq with negligible benefit to American citizens that was initially touted as a way to pay them back for our financing regime change wars. But only the well-connected Beltway parasites were well-paid. The ludicrous "rare earths minerals deal" is a microcosm of how absurd the Trump Administration's policy has been on the US/Russia war through proxy Ukraine in the first place. As longtime analyst Brian Berletic - with a solid track record of accuracy -&nbsp;<a href="https://the-free-foundation.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a6b3044a9fe8889c822d11c16&amp;id=d334d1d599&amp;e=90926ddd9a">wrote last week</a>,&nbsp;"Today, the US government is attempting to play the role of a frustrated mediator trying to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia, when in reality this was always a war between the US and Russia." Perhaps driven by hubris and a slightly concerning obsession with vainglory, President Trump is desperate to be able to take credit for "solving" a completely fictional Ukraine/Russia war. Any doctor worth his salt would tell you that there is no way you can treat the disease if you misdiagnose the symptoms, but here we are with an Administration hypnotized by the neocon-created fantasy of a sudden attack - without antecedent - by Russia on its neighbor as a blatant land grab mixed equally with a desire to express bestial cruelty.&nbsp; The only way they can sell this neocon fever dream is to reimagine Russian President Putin as a kind of golem-like figure who suddenly wakes up in the morning and decides who and how many to kill that day. In fact this entire chapter of post-Cold War US foreign policy is defined by a desperate search for relatively easy dragons abroad to slay while sharpening our fangs to take down rival number two, Russia, with an eye on rival number one, an ascendant China.But something happened on the road to unipolar victory: through the bad joke called NATO, the US threw everything in its arsenal short of nuclear weapons at Russia in Ukraine and it lost. In a United States thankfully defended by a wonderful geography of two protective oceans, it may be hard for our fellow citizens to understand what an existential war may look like. Indeed, even WWII was a kind of crusade to save Europe from its own excesses. We were never threatened by Hitler or any of his riff-raff. Jews were totally safe in the US. Russia on the other hand came to know up close and personal the murderous intent of the Nazis, and for the Soviet Union it was a matter of life and death - and we are talking tens of millions of lives - that savage Hitler with his view that Slavs were&nbsp;untermensch&nbsp;to be eliminated must be defeated. Life or death. Americans have not faced that since, arguably, the Civil War. So here we are in an absolutely AI kind of artificial reality where the early Trump 2.0 Administration is expending extraordinarily amounts of&nbsp;political, diplomatic,&nbsp;and other multi-layer efforts to maintain a fiction that Trump can wave his wand and remove animosity between Ukraine and Russia when all the time it was the US who was at war behind the shadows. As the process becomes increasingly less attuned to the reality on the ground - thanks in large part to a reverse Walter Durranty-level fantasist&nbsp;called "General Kellogg" who for some bizarre reason continues to dominate the debate with his asinine "plan" published with neocon&nbsp;<a href="https://the-free-foundation.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a6b3044a9fe8889c822d11c16&amp;id=f87a3a28fd&amp;e=90926ddd9a">Fred Fleitz</a>&nbsp;last April -&nbsp; Trump's chimeric admonitions to his Russian counterpart to "just stop shooting" belie a kind of desperation that is doomed to fail. And he knows it.&nbsp; Russia is fighting for its survival. Neocons are surfing on Ukrainian blood to fulfill their fantasy to somehow revenge a wrong they perceive their ancestors faced more than a hundred years ago, in the time of the Tsars, in the land between today's Russia and Belarus. That's it. That's the war. So how can President Trump square this ginormous circle and escape the traps and spider webs woven for him by all the neocons he has again hired to direct his foreign policy?&nbsp; Ron Paul is often dismissed as&nbsp;jejune&nbsp;for his&nbsp;bons mots&nbsp;that "we just marched in we can just march out." However in systems analysis many times it turns out that the simplest solution is the best solution. President Trump can end the war in Ukraine in a day (as he once promised) by simply announcing that it is not his war and he will no longer have anything to do with it. That means no shuttle diplomacy with absurd plans, no more Witkoff trafficking in Kellogg's gilded turds. Simply a recognition of reality: literally no American who voted for Trump to save them from Biden's inflation and woke tyranny could give a flying fornication who rules Ukraine or how it gets along with Russia. Polls back this idea as well. To win Ukraine, Trump must wash his hands, Pontius Pilate-like, of the whole affair.&nbsp; The neocons who have again steadied their swagger in Trump 2.0 love to revise the "peace through strength" mantra, as if they are the heirs of Reagan. But the real strength that brings on peace is the strength to stand up to all the Beltway neocons and desktop warriors and say, "enough." "This is not my war and I want to have nothing to do with it. Americans elected me to bring jobs to Middle America, not to pursue a crusade for the bloodthirsty neocon elite who fantasize&nbsp;of using American might to right all their perceived historical wrongs." America first is the real and only&nbsp;solution to the Ukraine problem.Daniel MAdams is Director of the&nbsp;<a href="https://ronpaulinstitute.org/">Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity</a>.

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End The Ukraine War With This One Simple Trick

Speech to the Home Affairs Commitee of the Dutch Parliament, 24 April.Today, we are discussing the functioning of the civil service. I would like to use my speaking time in this debate to criticise the so-called ‘Diversity Policy’ which, according to reports in De Telegraaf, among others, is being continued, and even stepped up, by this government.&nbsp;When I asked oral questions about this a few weeks back, the minister confirmed that this is indeed happening.&nbsp; He said he did not see any conflict with Article 1 of our Constitution, which states precisely that everyone has equal rights.&nbsp;However, that is my main objection to this policy: favouring one group, say ‘women’, automatically and inevitably means disadvantaging the other group - in this example, men.&nbsp;Any form of ‘positive’ discrimination against one, always and everywhere means ‘negative’ discrimination against the other.That is unjust and fundamentally wrong. In the United States, we see that President Donald Trump has put and end to this.&nbsp; I am going to table a motion calling on the government to do the same in the Netherlands.&nbsp;But there is a bit more to say about it.&nbsp;This whole diversity discourse is not really about real diversity - diversity of ideas, of characters, of personalities. You never hear anyone say that there are too few climate sceptics working at the Dutch public broadcasting corporation, or too few supporters of Geert Wilder’s Freedom Party or Forum for Democracy in the judiciary. You never once hear anyone complain about the decidedly left-wing orientation of our universities.&nbsp;No, apparently people don't think ‘real’ diversity is that important at all. Could it secretly be about something else?&nbsp;The civil service is also predominantly left-wing, according to numerous surveys. Certainly the Civil Service, the carousel of Directors-General. I don't think any of those people are in favour of a the Netherlands leaving the European Union, for instance, shall we say. Or unvaccinated. Or against the war in Ukraine.&nbsp;But nowhere do we see a word about that kind of diversity.&nbsp;No, the ‘diversity policy’ is always about LGBTQI+ people, about immigrants, about Muslims, about women, and so on.&nbsp;In the plans now before us, even 50 per cent of top managers must be women, and at least 13.8 percent of employees of foreign origin, and the quotas are undoubtedly going to be expanded further.&nbsp;Chairman, what do all these groups actually have in common?&nbsp;What they have in common, according to all statistics, is that they are on average significantly more left-wing than the one group against which discrimination is practised: the heterosexual white male.&nbsp;Seen this way, so-called ‘diversity policy’ - and here it comes - is actually about uniformity.&nbsp;It is about making the agencies it affects even more leftist.&nbsp;That is the actual agenda.&nbsp;And all kinds of so-called ‘minority groups’ are to further push away the heterosexual, white man, the ‘authoritarian personality’ as Theodor Adorno called him, the hard core of right-wing Holland.&nbsp;That's what it's all about.&nbsp;And I was actually wondering if the minister is aware of that.&nbsp;

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Let’s put an end to ‘Diversity’

FVD International’s director, John Laughland, was delighted to be invited for a long interview with the conservative news outlet Nieuw Rechts (New Right) in Utrecht last week.&nbsp; The conversation turned mainly on East-West relations, specifically Russia.&nbsp; John insisted that ‘Russia’ was nothing but a pretext, or a cudgel, with which to beat European and American conservatives.&nbsp; We saw this with Russiagate (2016-2019) and the first Trump indictment in 2019; we have seen it again in Europe with the cancellation of the Romanian election earlier this year and the ongoing threats against Hungary.&nbsp; Russia is ‘the other Europe’, a mythical space either of infinite possibilities (as during the Enlightenment when French philosophers imagined it was a blank slate they could draw on) or of strange, dark and dangerous demons which loom over us, as during the Cold War and now.&nbsp; These various fantasies dangerously distract attention from a very important reality, which is that Russia is by far the largest country in Europe, both in terms of surface area and population, and that it is not going to go away.&nbsp; We are going to have to live with it, one way or the other.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQfy3f2rF0U&amp;ab_channel=NieuwRechts">Watch John’s interview here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcSzjBjQQJbPALhpAXWzYBk0UIFC4TgKkI-vbCCPqyW6joTLCyJHUzI2o3RwGpG9SRS_3iAuAMdT6WDd0iEYctzpLm5M6Y0O8dwF8OI5AdCb1huf7qBB4Y7m0XjG7bf1Sk9U3jndw?key=2v6476oxA-OOsOlyhsjPCQ53">Is Donald Trump a globalist or a sovereignist?&nbsp; Eric Verhaeghe, editor of&nbsp;Le Courrier des Stratèges in Paris, thinks he is the former.&nbsp; FVD International is honoured to publish an English translation of his article.&nbsp; Verhaeghe argues that sovereignists in Europe are wrong to welcome Trump’s policies.&nbsp; He claims that those policies are designed to increase American dominance over the rest of the world and not to permit the emergence of a multipolar world based on mutual respect and sovereignty.&nbsp; This article was then the subject of a subsequent debate between the author and various commentators including John Laughland.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/Trump-is-a-globalist">Read Eric Verhaeghe’s article here</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJjxzta98Ks&amp;t=270s">Watch the debate between Eric Verhaeghe, John Laughland and others here (in French)</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdDxff8R-vG_xD3wbUlRXv8hCbgVgNwear-BkL3eEAEmXls7T3NNlMfUhSdd9VUFiohzE1J-RO3aTALvu-pZU7_mVF0NDs20Fq5jNX2Q_0DDxNzQ_P2_Yy6ZrySJG57QyjCitng7g?key=2v6476oxA-OOsOlyhsjPCQ53">And what about the Pope?&nbsp; The man who, when he was elected, said that Rome had gone to the other end of the earth to find its bishop, always portrayed himself as an outsider - including by choosing a name which no other Pope in the last 2,000 years has ever taken.&nbsp; But what is so new about this?&nbsp; We have had ‘outsiders’ and progressives in politics now for generations; why is it suddenly interesting to have that inside the Church?&nbsp; John Laughland gave an interview to RT on the day of the Pope’s death to explain that it is not the role of the supreme pontiff to do new things but instead to breathe new life into old things and to make sure they are handed on intact to his successors.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tPcNmeWxkw">Watch John Laughland's interview here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeQuBOXbXtagleCBFZTv27U-MZG8qTEtZdzQjwqxmlvkWY2qi4rIP-AqCMlnlA1uVDnShAEpmDUnVP8jRqF_cefVv5d487stBOYD-wepXjyWykCdrl29by8s1vxYSUDGsdrSJaDIQ?key=2v6476oxA-OOsOlyhsjPCQ53">We discussed the papacy on The Forum this week with Marc Fromager, former director of Aid to the Church in Need, and the conclusion was pretty negative for poor old Francis, may God rest his soul.&nbsp; As Donald Trump makes his way to Rome, let us pray that the next pope Makes the Church Great Again!<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKd-5jSso5Y&amp;t=19s&amp;ab_channel=FVDInternationalhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKd-5jSso5Y&amp;t=19s&amp;ab_channel=FVDInternational">Watch The Forum here</a>

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The Weekly Forum - 25 April

<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/04/cea-chairman-steve-miran-hudson-institute-event-remarks/">Le Courrier des Stratèges</a>14 April 2025Calling Trump a globalist will be seen as highly provocative by all those who, for at least the last ten years, particularly under the influence of propagandists like Steve Bannon and General Flynn, have been convinced that Donald Trump is an enemy of globalism and a supporter of sovereignty. They promised us that Trump would never wage war and that he would wave a magic wand and bring peace to the world. The reality is a little different, and we set out to decode it step by step. First episode: what “discreet” vision of world order guides Trump's policy?Of course there is the ideological battle over the question of protectionism, which is unfolding chaotically and being resolved on the trading floors. On the one hand, there are the supporters of tariffs, who see these compulsory levies as an instrument of sovereignty and re-industrialisation. On the other, the enemies of tariffs are keeping score, watching stock market indices plummet, along with growth forecasts, as Trump erects more and more tariff barriers.I have said enough times before that, whatever the ultimate benefits of tariffs, they will provoke an immediate, predictable and well-documented mess (<a href="https://lecourrierdesstrateges.fr/2024/02/11/un-protectionnisme-comme-en-suisse-pour-sauver-lagriculture-francaise-vraiment/">which we've been predicting for a long time in our columns</a>). Trump and his entourage can be criticised for never having warned the Americans of this minor ‘turbulence’. On the contrary, on 20 January, the new President proclaimed that America's ‘golden age’ was beginning that day. Subsequent events show how he lied by omission. The golden age may come (although I doubt it very much), but it will definitely be preceded by difficult times that were not predicted.But the purpose of this article is not to take a position on the merits of protectionism. I leave it to everyone to make up their own minds on the issue. What I am interested in is sifting through another lie that is widespread in European sovereigntist circles: that Trump has broken with globalism and is a defender of the sovereignty of nations.&nbsp;These facile slogans, spread across Europe, including France, by the Bannon and Flynn networks (it would be interesting to know the sources of income of certain influential figures in France who are obsessed with promoting Trumpian policies, in defiance of the most obvious evidence), are fuelling great hopes in our country among the masses of people who have been downgraded or made precarious by globalisation. After decades of being crushed by a globalist doxa, there is a huge appetite for revenge and a blossoming of anxieties about the future which drives people to support the first huckster who comes along promising improvements.&nbsp;Against this backdrop, soup merchants have invented Trump as the white knight of the downtrodden and the disenfranchised. This white knight is supposedly there to restore peace in the world, to reduce American domination and to make possible fraternity between all the sovereignists of the world, unjustly trampled underfoot by a small group of globalists. It is this mythology that I would like to dismantle today.&nbsp;The question of reindustrialisationThe belief that Trump is a hero of sovereignty is based on a foundation of truth, unfortunately mixed with confusion and multiple ambiguities that muddy the waters.&nbsp;First point: Trump is an advocate of the ‘reindustrialisation’ of the United States and the rebalancing of American trade. These two issues are as central in France (unlike many of its European neighbours who are still industrialised and net exporters of manufactured goods, such as Germany and, to a lesser extent, Italy) as they are in the USA. This similarity no doubt explains the sympathy that Trump can inspire in many working-class French people.&nbsp;Incidentally, Trump works the same mythology as many French people on these issues. Because, when it comes to reindustrialisation, there is a long way to go: while everyone can agree on the formal principle of developing industrial employment, there are very few advocates of this principle who want to see a factory set up at the end of their garden, and even fewer who dream of working in that factory. As for the simple reasoning of calling on immigration to fill these new industrial jobs, it arouses hysterical anger among a large number of sovereignists, lulled by the (fabricated) idea that the little people are an aggregate of wonderful, hard-working, coherent people who will spontaneously cooperate in the success of the government's project, without needing an outside workforce to succeed.&nbsp;Five years have gone by since COVID, and we at Le Courrier des Stratèges are well placed to know that there is often an inverse relationship between dithyrambic sovereignist declarations and the ability of those who spread them in every discussion to act on them. Unfortunately, many sovereigntists tend to compensate for their existential sluggishness by making vehement declarations, without actually doing anything, about their commitment to France's recovery.If his policy were to work, Trump would undoubtedly come up against the same difficulty: how many of his WASP voters, who are so virulent against Latin American immigration, will be prepared to work in the factories he wants to reopen?&nbsp;In the meantime, the declaration of intent feeds the sympathy of people angry at globalism and the feeling of belonging to the sovereignist international.Bilateralism versus multilateralismAnother confusion is leading many sovereigntists in Europe to see Trump as a hero in the fight against globalism. This confusion stems from the fight against multilateralism.&nbsp;In the minds of many sovereigntists, this ‘system’ of international relations known as multilateralism appears to be the very quintessence of globalism. In particular, it encompasses ‘regional’ mechanisms such as the European Union, where diplomacy is no longer conducted between states in exclusive relations, but through bureaucracies and special treaties, as is the case in Brussels through the European Commission and the European Council, immersed in its goldfish bowl of committees - ‘COREPERs’ and various groups and agencies.One of the bodies where this multilateralism has been deployed over the last few decades is the World Trade Organisation. It has conducted numerous rounds of negotiations, dominated by the United States, gradually to reduce tariffs across the board. As soon as he came to power, Donald Trump decided to crush this legacy and reintroduce protectionism, calling on each of the world's almost 200 states to negotiate a more appropriate tariff individually.&nbsp;It is easy to understand the logic behind Trumpism. In the old system, the United States remained dominant, but its power was counterbalanced by the collegiality of nations. In the one-on-one confrontation, America is stronger and can exert direct pressure.Paradoxically, many sovereigntists, who denounce the weight of NATO in post-Soviet wars, applaud this return to bilateralism, which nonetheless enshrines American hegemony more than ever. But this paradox can be explained by a misunderstanding, or even a misinterpretation. Many sovereigntists confuse globalism with multilateralism, and believe that the battle to be waged should be against multilateral institutions rather than against America's global hegemony. It is because of this confusion that the same sovereigntists denounce multilateralism while calling for it to be strengthened within BRICS.&nbsp;In reality, the real subject of globalism is none other than the American desire to transform the planet into a global market in which US companies will be dominant. But the cognitive infiltration carried out by Bannon, Flynn and a few others has succeeded in making people mistake a regionalisation technique (multilateralism) for globalism itself. And confused minds are convinced that the fight against multilateralism is a fight against globalism.&nbsp;Why Trump is an out-and-out globalistHere we come to the heart of the Trumpist ‘misunderstanding’. In reality, although Trumpism is hostile to multilateralism, it is nonetheless a form of globalism, i.e. a doctrine that considers that the United States should perpetuate its global domination and fully assume it. Quite simply, in Trump's mind, American hegemony in multilateralism is economically costly and must be corrected by a forced reorganisation of trade relations between countries.&nbsp;To understand this, we need to reread the speeches made by Stephen Miran, an economist appointed by Trump to chair the Committee of Economic Advisers. A graduate in economics from Harvard University in 2010, Miran has theorised about protectionism, with arguments whose lack of precision takes your breath away.&nbsp; If you have any doubts about Trump, you may find it useful to read&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/trump-tariffs-economost-stephen-miran-1d8f31f2?mod=Searchresults_pos1&amp;page=1">the Wall Street Journal's portrait of Miran in January 2025.</a>&nbsp;Miran gave a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/04/cea-chairman-steve-miran-hudson-institute-event-remarks/">speech</a> at the Hudson Institute *** Today I’d like to discuss the United States’ provision of what economists call “global public goods,” for the entire world.&nbsp; First, the United States provides a security umbrella which has created the greatest era of peace mankind has ever known.&nbsp; Second, the U.S. provides the dollar and Treasury securities, reserve assets which make possible the global trading and financial system which has supported the greatest era of prosperity mankind has ever known.&nbsp;Both of these are costly to us to provide.&nbsp;This is the change in the United States' globalist vision. Until now, America has taken the view that it naturally played the role of world policeman, and that one of the natural attributes of this role is to provide the world with a reserve currency. Army and currency: these were the two mainstays of American domination.&nbsp;I'll come back to the contradictions inherent in this belief in a later paper.&nbsp;In the meantime, Trump's protectionist entourage leaves no doubt as to his desire to change things: the fact that the dollar is a global reserve currency is very costly for America, because it leads to an rise in the value of the currency and therefore to higher export prices for American products. For the team in power in Washington, this is the main cause of the country's de-industrialisation, and its increasing dependence on China.&nbsp;To remedy this, the Trump team intends to reconcile the preservation of the dollar as an international reserve currency (to ensure American domination) with a negotiated depreciation of the currency, through an agreement similar to the one negotiated by Reagan in 1985. At the same time, Trump intends to make those who profit from a strong dollar and thus from the loss of competitiveness of American industry pay by imposing tariffs. &nbsp;Here again, Miran's reasoning is perplexing: this economist knows that retaliatory tariffs are more harmful than beneficial to the US economy. He believes that America should use its political clout to prevent its trading partners from retaliating against US tariffs!This is the hallmark of true Trumpist globalism: it consists in unilaterally imposing on other countries a world order in which America can protect its economy but its partners cannot.&nbsp;Trumpism: exacerbated American economic dominationThose who saw Trump as a vigilante capable of imposing other rules of the game on the global balance of power have therefore misunderstood his intention.&nbsp;Admittedly, Trump does not share the multilateral vision of the globalists. But neither does he intend to renounce the prerogatives of the United States. His intention is to strengthen them by demanding legal privileges for his country, and a kind of tax on the reserve role that the dollar plays today.&nbsp;Given the negative externalities that the status of reserve currency produces, Trump intends to make the rest of the world pay to reimburse him for the alleged prejudices he is suffering.In this sense, Trump appears to be the bearer of a new form of globalism. In his mind, American domination should be exercised directly over the rest of the planet, through a system of bilateral relations which will be just as powerful as the current multilateralism. Trump's pressure on Greenland is a case in point.&nbsp;In short, Trump is proposing a different kind of globalism, one in which American domination can go as far as sanctioning European companies for pursuing internal policies which run counter to the ideological orientations of the American President, as we saw in the case of the letter sent by the US embassy to French candidates for American public contracts.

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Trump is a Globalist

For the last decade, the West has claimed to uphold the ‘rules-based international order’. In reality, of course, it makes up the rules as it goes along and then applies them as it likes. Take, for instance, the plan to confiscate hundreds of billions of euros belonging to Russia. Quite apart from the danger to the European banking system which such an assault on property rights would represent, what rules are being applied here? Apparently the West has suffered damages as a result of the Ukraine war and so the seizure would be a sort of compensation. But, as Pepijn van Houwelingen pointed out recently, the same thing could be said about the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq which caused huge flows of refugees into Europe (not to mention horrendous deaths in Iraq).&nbsp; By the logic of rules, US or UK assets should be seized. But the mere suggestion of this is so obviously ridiculous that the notion that the West abides by any ‘rules’ is, in turn, simply absurd.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/the-hypocrisy-of-international-law">Read Pepijn’s speech here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdsuIcVh4GxgEzWhgeb6exyVsjqbHKB4auhBnYLeMUr4cU30YB67mGi8184uSP2TiN75nsemNJXbM3q4sRHH3q6Woi4BcvQTLxEdYnkX-N4BFX7rn2DzFXJVji6K5GwOjQYGGGF4w?key=EAtb7qm8QcApA3-fY1MpmPZJ">While we are on the subject of double standards, what about Extinction Rebellion which threatened to throw butyric acid into shops across the Netherlands? Such an action would constitute a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population, with the goal of causing disruption and fear. Inhaling the acid can cause irritation to the nose, throat and lungs. Towns targeted by this threat have left it up to the shopkeepers themselves to take the necessary precautions, offloading the fear factor onto the working population. At a time when the security services are contemplating banning right-wing political parties for allegedly causing a lack of confidence in the democratic system, does XR not qualify as an immediate threat to the state of law? And what, if anything, are the forces of law and order going to do about it?<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/is-extinction-rebellion-a-terrorist-organisation">Read Pepijn’s questions here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXewPzPXLtWg6GKxZ9ckEPPYk3HDuLICfBioJHoBiXgSb3Ktu0XyhizJwiEWLMmQM4LDJVcmzhrMSOts8gsJ8Gq6E2Vvs1n1qN4s-FsHdOoQav1RQmgo9QEeZumrDY86tdSVz61HiA?key=EAtb7qm8QcApA3-fY1MpmPZJ">When faced with the dire state of the world today, the question is often put, ‘What can we do about it?’ Thierry Baudet addressed it forcefully in a speech given to The Patriots network in Amsterdam on 15 March, when he said the political change comes not from politics but instead from meta-politics – clubs, media, parallel societies, commercial links and so on. Luckily history gives us some examples of meta-political activity which have been strikingly successful, as Professor Hei Sing Tso of Hong Kong has kindly laid out for us in an exclusive article for us.<a href="https://fvdinternational.com/article/metapoliticians-and-stratagem">Read the professor’s article here</a><img src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeM8CafPQyKBSc4cAsugk1xkBVA60pIReu7hqvzyVk7PRIRyUjPGG9MD2d-cRzBYsA6gYIr0SuFAmuHVrHbIpn0pr2IP_hd35bArWJlC2BQvUAn2aB0tHO89cAp7wWAfZvH2RbH?key=EAtb7qm8QcApA3-fY1MpmPZJ">Does Britain control America? Churchill boasted that Britain would be the brain to America’s brawn but it seemed like a vain boast at the time. On The Forum this week, we hosted Kit Klarenberg, Alex Krainer and George Szamuely who think there might be something to it after all.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkticqEkVXU&amp;ab_channel=FVDInternational">Listen back to The Forum here</a>

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The Weekly Forum - 17 April 2025

11 April 2025Once again, the radical climate action group Extinction Rebellion (XR) is in the news, this time because of their plan to bombard shops in several Dutch municipalities with butyric acid, a caustic and pungent-smelling substance which can cause respiratory and other health problems.&nbsp;In one Dutch city, people became unwell in late January after the action group threw this substance inside a clothing shop.&nbsp;XR seems to want to dismiss the action as a ‘joke’.&nbsp; Municipalities take the announcement at face value but in several cases they put the responsibility for safety measures on the shopkeepers themselves.This is unacceptable. FVD MP Pepijn van Houwelingen has put down parliamentary questions to the ministers of Justice &amp; Security, the Interior and Economic Affairs.You can read the questions below.<ol><li>Are you aware of Extinction Rebellion's intention (now dismissed as a supposed ‘April Fools’ joke’) deliberately to cause a stench nuisance in several cities on Saturday 12 April and to bombard shops with butyric acid, a caustic and pungent-smelling substance which can cause respiratory problems and other health complaints besides panic? &nbsp;</li><li>Can you provide an overview of all known actions by XR (and affiliated organisations) in the past 5 years in which damage has been caused to infrastructure, property or people, as well as the detection and prosecution actions taken? &nbsp;</li><li>How much economic damage has been suffered so far as a result of the actions of XR (and related organisations), including disruption of traffic, business operations and shop closures? Can you break this down by sector and year? &nbsp;</li><li>What is your opinion of the fact that in some municipalities the responsibility and possible extra costs for limiting damage as a result of the announced actions are being placed on the entrepreneurs, who have been informed by means of a letter from the municipality that they themselves have to weigh up the risks, possibly deploy extra security and take “appropriate measures”? &nbsp;</li><li>Do you share the view that it is unacceptable that the government is failing in its primary task of enforcement and protection, and that responsibility is being shifted to shopkeepers, citizens and small and medium enterprises? &nbsp;</li><li>Are you willing to have XR as an organisation investigated for its structure, funding sources, networks and links to possible extremist or foreign influences, given its radicalisation and increasing law-breaking? &nbsp;</li><li>Do you agree that the right to equal treatment is at stake when the government treats some demonstrations more harshly than others, and if so, what steps are you taking to correct this inequality? &nbsp;</li><li>How do you explain that in their threat analyses, the Dutch security services AIVD and NCTV mainly focus on right-wing and ‘anti-institutional’ extremism - movements which rarely commit criminal offences in the Netherlands - while left-wing radicalisation, which is regularly accompanied by violent actions such as those of XR, receives scant attention? &nbsp;</li><li>Can you answer these questions separately and within the timeframe set?</li></ol>

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Is Extinction Rebellion a terrorist organisation?

Even though metapolitics is a basic and powerful tactic which originated in Europe, I think we can learn and borrow stratagems from metapoliticians in other continents. In this article, I will introduce three prominent metapoliticians from North America, South America and Asia respectively. Most people think that metapolitics is conducted before real politics, taking a long and slow approach for a cultural transformation ahead of electoral success. This is very similar to the “Yin” approach of Chinese cosmology and wisdom. Recently, some European thinkers have started to blur the boundary, suggesting that metapolitics should also be connected with political practice. I will also discuss this from the perspective of stratagem.Olavo de Gravlho, Guru of BolsonaroismOlavo Luiz Pimentel de Carvalho (1947-2022) was a Brazilian professor, philosopher, writer, essayist, and journalist. As a prolific author, he wrote more than 40 books, more than 44 courses, tens of thousands of pages of handouts and articles, starred in a film; and, for 14 years, taught his Online Philosophy Course known as “COF” weekly ( totaling more than 570 classes).He received his philosophical training through his self-taught studies and began his career as a journalist at the Folha da Manhã S/A company at the age of 17. Olavo later got a journalism job in São Paulo for Jornal da Tarde. He was an essayist and columnist for several publications: Folha de São Paulo , Bravo!, Planeta, First Reading , Jornal do Brasil , Jornal da Tarde , O Globo , Época , Zero Hora and Diário do Comércio .Still in the 70s, Olavo gave up his journalism job and started working as a freelancer. During the 1980s, he worked for several magazines, such as Nova, Quatro Rodas, Cláudia, etc. These were publications about public and private administration, economics, politics and various other topics.The first philosophy course taught by Olavo de Carvalho outside of São Paulo was in Rio de Janeiro and he also taught courses on History of Philosophy and Thought and Current Affairs in Aristotle at the Casa de Cultura Laura Alvim. In 2002, Olavo de Carvalho created the website Mídia Sem Máscara (MSM, Media Without Makeup), with the aim of combating the left-wing bias he saw in the mainstream Brazilian media. He was also the creator of the internet radio program called True Outspeak.In 2009, Carvalho founded the Online Philosophy Course, in which he delivered hundreds of lectures containing original insights in epistemology, metaphysics, the philosophical method, political science, and modern philosophy. He intended to establish a right wing, nationalist, hegemonic doctrine by means of videoconference, articles, tweets, and Facebook posts, etc.&nbsp; His social media accounts attracted many followers. Brazilians from different walks of life were interested to attend his online classes.Olavo had developed personal relationships with members of the Bolsonaro family before Bolsonaro’s election. The future President adopted the philosopher’s ideology. Indeed many students of Olavo had been recruited to the government and formed a group known as Olavists.&nbsp; Olavo even directly appointed two ministers. The first was Ernesto Araujo as Foreign Affairs Minister and another as Minister of Education. There were other followers appointed too. Olavo had turned down a government post offered to him and started to distance from Bolsonaro later since he had disagreed with some of the President’s policies and decisions.&nbsp;Masahiro Yasuoka, Mastermind of Showa EraMasahiro Yasuoka (1898-1983) was a Japanese philosopher and Scholar. He had been&nbsp; active before World War II as a conservative thinker from the standpoint of Japanese-ism.&nbsp; He was trained in traditional Chinese thought and was keen to arouse the Japanese Spirit of the people.&nbsp;In 1927, Yasuoka established a private school known as Kinkei Gakuin, teaching Oriental political thought and wisdom.&nbsp; It gained supporters among military, government and business circles. In 1931, he also set up another school for farmers, creating an education movement.Later Yasuoka founded a right-wing group known as Kokuikai (National Ikai Association” with the aim of “reforming national politics based on Japanese ideas”.&nbsp; It became the headquarters of the new bureaucrats. This group attracted public attention when some members were appointed to the cabinets of two prime ministers.As early as 1922, Yasuoka published a book on “Yangmanism”.&nbsp; Through the circulation of this book, he met many friends in politics, military and commerce. This formed a base of his connections. Throughout his activities, Yasuoka had been friends with many military officers and politicians of Japan, in particular those from the Japanese Navy. During World War II, in 1944 he was even appointed as an advisor to the Ministry of Greater East Asia.After the War, the Allied forces ordered that his private school be disbanded.&nbsp; Yasuoka himself was also removed from public office. In 1949, he founded the Shiyukai (later the National Shiyukai Association) to train the next generation of leaders by publishing the journal “Shiyu”, and to promote classical Eastern thought through lectures around the country and radio talks. Since 1950, he maintained connections with the political and financial world and acted as informal advisor to Liberal Democratic Party politicians, so as to preach about the study of Oriental leadership wisdom and to spread Oriental thought based on Yangmanism. In 1958, he formed the New Japan Council and became involved in the movement to revive the old Japan-US Security Treaty.Most importantly, Yasuoka had close relationships with most post war prime ministers of Japan. They always asked him for guidance and coaching when facing critical problems in policy and leadership. He was known as a “spiritual leader" and “instructor to the Prime Minister”. While he devoted himself to study of Oriental classics and training of talented people, he continued to have influence in political, financial and government circles as a “conservative elder”, earning him nicknames such as “the greatest mastermind of the Showa era”.Irving Kristol: Godfather of Neoconservatism&nbsp;Irving Kristol (1920-2009) was the pre-eminent communicator of the ideas attached to the movement known as neoconservatism in the United States. He played an influential role in the intellectual and political culture of the latter half of the twentieth century.After graduation from university, he became a journalist.&nbsp; For the next decade, he worked as a writer or editor with relatively small, relatively liberal ''opinion-moulding'' magazines - The New Leader, Politics, Commentary, The Reporter, Encounter - that shared a resolute anti-Communism. Kristol was the executive vice-president of the publishing house, Basic Books, from 1961 to 1969, and co-founder and co-editor of The Public Interest from 1965 to 2002. He was the founder and publisher of The National Interest from 1985 to 2002.Apart from writing and publishing, Kristol was an educator. He had a weekly class at the N.Y.U. Business School, where, as Professor of Social Thought, he lectured on ''Capitalism: Its Defenders and Its Critics.'' In 1973, he joined the American Enterprise Institute, and thus started to develop connections with the business and corporate world.Kristol saw possibilities in ideas as well as people. He was a mover and shaker who tried different ways to help young people. A young author helped by Kristol said,&nbsp; “Now I'm working on a book about political economy. Irving has certainly shaped my thinking, pushed me along in that direction.” Kristol also played the role of 'facilitator''. He got a job for a person in that magazine, another one to write an article, this one to teach in that university.&nbsp; As a great mentor of the right people to the right people, he was indeed the centre where neoconservatives met as a network.Kristol also joined some civil organizations in action. For example, he had joined such friends as Midge Decter, Norman Podhoretz and Jeane Kirkpatrick on the board of directors of the Committee for the Free World, which sought to arouse the West to the Soviet threat behind terrorist attacks, ''liberation'' movements and anti-American campaigns all over the world.For actual politics, Kristol worked behind the scenes. He is not interested in any government job but he had contacts in the American Enterprise Institute, company bosses, authors found in The Public Interest, Commentary and the American Spectator.&nbsp; Further, he exerted influence through former colleagues and students who have found their way into government and even the White House. “'I don't pick up the phone and tell them how to run the country,'' says Kristol, ''but I will occasionally pick up the phone, and some people return my calls.''Education-Connection-GovernmentWe can learn three lessons from these metapoliticians, First of all, the use of education. Olavo launched online courses, Yasuoka set up a private school while Kristol taught business students. Apart from publications reaching the masses, there is further advantage in the use of education. Through teaching, students can interact deeply with the metapolitician so that trust and confidence are built up. Some students may even enter the government later so that they can influence policies and politics in favour of the metapolitical struggle. The second lesson is the value of connection. Metapolitics is not political philosophy. A metapolitician does not just read and write at home. He needs to go out in the real world for connection by different means. Yasuoka founded and participated in some organizations and movements. Also, he engaged with readers of his book on “Yangmingism” in order to expand his reputation and friendship in military, government and business circles. Kristol was similar in joining and participating in some civil organizations. Further, his teaching in business school and working for an enterprise think tank broadened his influence in the commerce sector. We can see that Kristol did more by being a mover or shaker or facilitator in deploying different right persons in a variety of posts of the society for disseminating the influence of his ideas. This requires social and communication skills.Thirdly, these metapoliticians exerted influence in government by different means. Through close relations with the Bolsonaro family, Olvao could directly appoint two Ministers and other high rank officials of the Brazilian government. This is very impressive. In post-war Japan, Yasuoka was the spiritual teacher of several Prime Ministers who always sought the master’s guidance and coaching at critical times. In the latter half of last Century, Irvin Kristol could phone different officials of the government if necessary. All three metapoliticians did not serve any official posts in government but distanced themselves from actual politics. They preferred to work behind the public scene.&nbsp;&nbsp;Stratagem PerspectiveTraditional Chinese Stratagem originates from I-Ching, also known as Book of Change. According to I-Ching, the cosmos is made up of two forces, Yin and Yang. Yin means moon, soft, weak, etc, while Yang refers to sun, hard, strong, etc. However, Yin and Yang are not just opposite but form a dialectic wholeness. Yin gradually transforms to Yang and vice versa. Yin and Yang both have a seed of the opposite inside. The opposite seed will germinate slowly and complete total transformation. This cosmology can also be applied in the context of metapolitics.Basically, metapolitics is a long and slow strategy, focusing on subtle change of culture as precursor for actual political struggle. This is the Yin part while actual politics is the Yang part of the process. Hence, metapolitics should not be limited to reading, writing and publication. Metapolitics should promote germination of the seeds of actual politics even before complete cultural transformation. As we can see above, education-connection-government tactics used by the three metapoliticians can be very useful for bridging the Yin and Yang of the process. I have the following two advices for metapolitical practitioners. Firstly, political, social and diplomatic skills should be also be cultivated for success of these tactics. We do not just sit, write and publish. Education, networking and direct influencing government require practical wisdom. Secondly, even though metapoliticians should engage with government, they need to stay in the Yin sphere, that is to keep low profile and work behind the scene, waiting the coming Yang era, that is the new cultural hegemony and political success.

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Metapoliticians and Stratagem

Speech to the Foreign Affairs Council of the Dutch Parliament, 10 April 2025&nbsp;Mr Chairman,&nbsp;From the letter sent by the government to the House of Representatives on 4 March 2025, it is clear that the government is not unsympathetic to the confiscation of Russian assets by the Netherlands. The government writes, ‘It can be argued that the aggression of the Russian Federation has disadvantaged the EU and thus also the Netherlands in particular.’&nbsp;&nbsp;Under international law, this is obviously highly controversial because it would mean that a country which is not (formally) a party to a conflict can start confiscating assets from one of the warring parties if it believes it has been harmed by the conflict.&nbsp;Would it therefore not be conceivable - no, indeed, completely logical - if countries (including our country, by the way), which suffered disadvantages from the illegal American aggression attack on Iraq in 2003 - just think of the refugee flows this caused, an attack for which, we now know, there was no justification because the weapons of mass destruction were never found - started confiscating American assets? No, this minister will surely be against that.&nbsp;Does this not demonstrate very well the hypocrisy of so-called “international law,” or the so-called “rules-based order” which globalists are so fond of flaunting? Should we not recognise that this “rules-based order” has nothing to do with “international law” and is merely “our order” that serves “our interests”? At least that is how it is viewed in much of the world, and rightly so.&nbsp;The showpiece of this so-called “international law” is, of course, the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Hungary, quite understandably, has recently announced it is going to leave the International Court of Justice. The United States, quite rightly, wants nothing to do with it.&nbsp; Indeed, in February this year, President Trump announced sanctions against the International Criminal Court and anyone who helps the court, for example by detaining prisoners.&nbsp;My first question to the minister, are not the Dutch and the Netherlands also affected by this? Specifically, are President Trump's sanctions therefore also directed against the Scheveningen prison, a Dutch prison, where the court's suspects are incarcerated? Does this not mean that the presence of the international criminal court in the Netherlands is contrary to the Dutch interest? Not only because the international criminal court is the jewel in the crown of a globalist hypocritical so-called “rules-based order,” in which only those are arrested and tried if it happens to be politically convenient - so Duerte is, Netenyahu is not - something that as a country you should not be proud of but ashamed of, but also because, with Trump's imposition of sanctions against the ICC, Dutch interests may be directly harmed. This is quite apart from the fact that wanting to try world leaders like Putin for war crimes is precisely a danger to a peaceful international order because it seriously impedes the maintenance of relations and the start of peace negotiations with, in this case Russia. Also, the willingness of the Netherlands to take Netanyahu to task now that this can't be helped, the relationship with Israel is under pressure? How is the Dutch interest served by this? Can the minister explain? And shouldn't all this mean that the Netherlands, following Hungary's lead, should also decide to stop recognising the International Criminal Court?We look forward to the minister's response.

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The Hypocrisy of International Law

Forum for Democracy International

Leader of FVD and Member of Parliament of the Netherlands

David Engels is a Belgian historian and is a research professor at the Instytut Zachodni in Poznan.

Director of Forum for Democracy International

Diana West is an award-winning journalist and author of Death of the Grown-Up.

Max Denken is a Polish-American former university lecturer and TV producer, and since his retirement author of over 100 articles and one book.

Václav Klaus is the former president of the Czech Republic.

Member of the Executive Board of the Vaclav Klaus Institute.

Member of the European Parliament for FVD.

Eric van de Beek is an independent journalist.

Stefan Korte is a foreign policy adviser who worked with Bundestag members from the AfD.

Authors