An Important Assessment by Director of Russia's Foreign Policy Planning Department Alexander Drobinin During His Interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda

How to react to the hegemon

Alexander Drobinin

Before, during and after the BRICS Summit, Russia’s engaged with many nations in conversation about how to deal with the hegemon’s Trade/Tariff War, and during his interview Mr. Drobinin outlines what it explains and advises. Much of what follows won’t be new to avide Gym readers and followers of the Hudson/Wolff chats. However, it’s the first time to my knowledge that Russia has publicly provided its advice. The line of questioning the Komsomolskaya Pravda interviewer pursues helps the narrative to unfold prompting readers to ask themselves if it was planned:

Question: More and more experts have begun to sound the alarm: the once prosperous American economy has become a colossus with feet of clay. Do you agree with this formulation of the question?

Drobinin: To say that the United States has problems is to say nothing. America is in big trouble, as befits a major power.

Last summer, the national debt of the United States exceeded $35 trillion. This year, the U.S. trade deficit is more than $918 billion. (17% more than in 2024). Of these, about $295 billion is with China. The negative balance of trade in goods with the European Union is $235 billion; with Mexico, $171 billion; with Vietnam, $123 billion.

American historians and political scientists draw parallels with Britain, then an empire in the mid-20th century. Since World War II, its sovereign debt has fluctuated between 200 and 270% of GDP. At that time, it was one of the highest in the world.

In the United States, this figure has now reached 124% of GDP. A dashing misfortune is beginning! Trump's Big Beautiful Bill will increase debt by at least $5 trillion. This is despite the fact that D. Trump went to the elections under the slogan of reducing the US debt.

The rapid accumulation of public debt and the hyper-deficit of foreign trade are visible signs of a change in landmarks.

In the middle of the last century, after two world wars, the role of the leader of the capitalist world passed from Britain to the United States. Now the picture is changing again. A serious challenge for any U.S. president (and for the world outside the U.S. an increased risk) has become the following trend: Americans are increasingly resorting to non-economic methods to overcome their economic and financial difficulties.

And this problem is no longer American, but common. A problem that affects or will affect everyone.

Question: Nevertheless, the United States continues to build its foreign policy from a position of strength. It turns out that Trump is bluffing, waving his sanctions and tariff baton?

Drobinin: Tariffs, like sanctions, are one of the last means of maintaining hegemony before the use of military force.

It is not because of the good life that US President Donald Trump is raising trade tariffs. Otherwise, you would have to put up with it or use force. Uncomfortable choice. The point of tariff and sanctions measures is to preserve the US-controlled global system and force everyone to play by American rules.

By raising trade tariffs, the Americans want to increase the cost of access to their market for goods from other countries in order to stimulate the revival of their own production.

Such a policy is unlikely to work in normal (non-war) conditions, since American (and any other) capital is accustomed to minimizing costs by moving production to countries with cheap and motivated labor.

In fact, the political power of the United States is going into conflict with national capital, which has long become transnational.

Question: Do you think she could have behaved differently?

Drobinin: There is an alternative course of action. It could include the adoption of the principles of sovereign equality and indivisibility of security, the abandonment of the policy of sanctions and tariffs, the end of the blocking of the work of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, and agreement to the redistribution of voting quotas to the IMF.

It is necessary to recognize the multipolar reality, to rely on taking into account the interests of other states and constructive cooperation with them, to start a dialogue with our people and elites about the impossibility of further prosperity of America at the expense of external expansion.

Question: But Donald Trump suggests that those who want to avoid the imposition of tariffs come to an agreement–-that is, he keeps the door open for a deal?

Drobinin: In July of this year, Donald Trump announced his new proposals on customs duty rates on imported goods from a number of countries, which will come into force on August 1 (the European Union, 30%; South Africa, 30%; the Republic of Korea, 25%; Kazakhstan, 25%; the Philippines, 20%; Cambodia, 36%; Canada, 35%; Mexico, 30%; Brazil, 50%; etc.).

This is an invitation to a deal on American terms. The target countries must agree with Washington by August 1. Otherwise, the rates set by Donald Trump will work.

Question: And what choice do potential victim countries have? And is there any?

Drobinin: Victim countries have several response strategies. On the surface, there are two.

The first is suitable for large trading players—China, the European Union or, for example, Brazil. It consists in the introduction of retaliatory tariff measures–-not necessarily mirror ones. Involvement in tough bargaining with the United States will follow. The potential outcome is a trade deal that more or less reflects the current balance of power and interests. But all participants will certainly have an unpleasant aftertaste.

The second strategy will be forced to be chosen by small countries: accommodation or least resistance. They, in fact, are forced to agree to the new rules of the game. The United States will rub its hands, but its partners will remain a clear loser.

What both strategies have in common is the continuation of the game by the rules set by the hegemon. That is, maintaining oneself in the Western trade, financial and economic system on less favorable terms.

Question: I am sure there is a third option...

Drobinin: And, indeed, there is. I am talking about an evolutionary strategy. It is based on the understanding that the current round of coercion is not the last. Others will follow.

Everything is logical: since the American system in its current form is not self-sufficient, it will continue to demand sacrifices on the side. At the same time, there are no signs of the Americans' readiness to negotiate on an equal footing.

Under such conditions, the right long-term strategy is to create parallel macroeconomic contours, outside of American control and coercion. Transfer of trade to national currencies, expansion of the range of participants in independent settlement and depository mechanisms and systems for the transfer of banking information, the creation of new investment platforms, sovereign insurance and reinsurance mechanisms.

BRICS and many other countries are doing this. This is a difficult, but more reliable path to the future. [My Emphasis]

Yes, it is a War, and winning wars requires strategy and sacrifices. That’s the third way proposal. The present must be toughed-out while the new systems are put in place for the future pathway to be possible. And the best chance for such a strategy to succeed is for as many nations as possible to stand together and take the same path. One point in favor is the fact that the reported GDP of the Outlaw US Empire contains many items that aren’t productive, that are actually costs and non-contributors whatsoever, such as the many types of rent and economic overhead costs with healthcare being the most negative—its expenditures are counted as a positive to GDP when they’re actually a negative, and thus must be subtracted twice to gain a more honest GDP figure. What that means is actual debt to GDP ratio is over 2:1 and growing—200%+—which is why the post-war British GDP was cited.

As Hudson outlined in his 1972 Super Imperialism, the Outlaw US Empire’s salad days should have come to a close then, but the world was still too weak and dependent on the hegemon for its well-being, so it meekly followed the tack the US system made at that time and has followed until very recently—the break seems to have occurred with the massive banking fraud and subsequent financial crisis in 2008-9 and the failure of the Georgia Color Revolution, which prompted a quick redirection of Imperialism by the Empire, which led to the rape and plunder of Libya.

The Outlaw US Empire’s debt issue acts like dry rot on a house’s foundation—it weakens it until the house collapses. Yes, it’s possible to fix the rot before it reaches a critical amount, but that would require an abrupt alteration of policy by US Imperialists that’s very unlikely to happen. Yesterday, I noted what the Ford CEO had to say about the future of his business, which will likely die because as a result of US policy and that of Neoliberal Wall Street Parasites, which are essentially one and the same. Since the policy won’t be changed, the world just needs to follow the third path outlined above and they will prevail.

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