Geopolitical Economy Hour

France is in revolt. Mass protests against Macron, austerity and war brought 1.6 million people onto the streets in a single day, as students, teachers and the CGT unions push France toward a general strike. Is this the end of neoliberalism in France, and can the movement stop the far right? I am joined by Aymeric Monville, French essayist and political philosopher, to explain why France's crisis is really a class struggle. Over the years, Macron has handed capital around €1 trillion in gifts while doubling military spending for the war in Ukraine and leaving school roofs leaking. The wars in Ukraine, Iran and Gaza, however, divide the French left. Aymeric argues that the European Union and the euro deindustrialised France, and the rise of Marine Le Pen against Mélenchon's La France Insoumise will decide the direction France takes.

What happens when a defeated president still controls the world's most powerful military? In this Geopolitical Economy Hour, Beijing-based American commentator Einar Tangen joins me to unpack Trump's crushing midterm defeat and why the US is in free fall, as China sees it. Meanwhile, Trump is not retreating and has made Stephen Miller, a man with ties to white power groups, his chief of staff. Einar explains why an angry Trump, checked at home by a Democratic Congress, will turn to foreign policy, where his power is still largely unchecked, as Iran braces for a possible nuclear strike. We discuss JD Vance blaming the Iran war for the Republican defeat, the MAGA split as Tucker Carlson courts young white men, and the leadership battle facing Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer. At the same time, Xi Jinping and Beijing are managing a reckless Washington, and China cannot afford a US collapse.

Is Western democracy anything more than a managed oligarchy? As the 2026 US midterm elections become the most expensive in American history, I am joined by economist Michael Hudson to ask who really rules in the West. From Poland's constitutional crisis to Elon Musk's half a billion dollars for the Republicans, Hudson traces how oligarchies from ancient Rome to Washington have let everyone vote while making sure those votes don't count. We discuss AIPAC and campaign finance, how the wars on Russia and Iran are driving austerity across Europe, China's alternative of public banking, and the founding of the United States as a slaving oligarchy. It is very difficult to call capitalist societies democratic.

A so-called "Blue Tsunami" swept the 2026 US midterm elections and delivered a stinging rebuke to Donald Trump. But will the Democrats actually do anything with their victory? Professor David Gibbs of the University of Arizona joins to look beneath the surface. Gibbs argues this was above all a vote against war, as Americans connected Trump’s Iran war to soaring fuel and food prices. Yet the Democrats, he warns, are just as pro-war as Trump, deeply entwined with the CIA and the military-industrial complex. We ask whether the new progressive and DSA wing, from Abdul El-Sayed to Zohran Mamdani, can break that consensus or will simply be co-opted. The so-called “Brahmin left” that focused on identity politics instead of economics has abandoned working people. If the left fails to mobilize the working class, the right will do it instead.

Is Ukraine on the brink of collapse, and can Trump, Putin or Europe still end the war? Alexander Mercouris of The Duran joins me for the first time to step back from the daily news and analyse the Russia-Ukraine war as a whole. Alexander explains why this war is unlike any Russia has fought before. It carries an element of civil war over the Soviet legacy, and it pits Russia against NATO and the entire West without a single great power ally. We discuss how the West provoked the war through NATO expansion and the death of the Minsk agreements, as well as how Biden’s plan to break up Russia differs from Trump’s hope of winning it as an ally. Europe, however, after the collapse of its left, is gripped by war fever amid deepening economic stress. As Ukraine’s resistance breaks down, Russia will have to decide whether to cross the Dnieper. Meanwhile, the West faces an ugly peace, with a conflict set to outlast the war.

Is Narendra Modi trying to subvert Indian democracy? Across India, protests are erupting against the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls, which has overwhelmingly struck Muslims and minorities off the voter lists. Seema Chishti, Indian journalist, joins me to explain how the BJP government is working to control elections in time, space and people through “one nation, one election,” delimitation and mass voter deletions. We trace the real Gujarat model of winning power through Hindutva polarisation and governing for Adani, Ambani and big business. We also look at the economic damage it has left behind, from demonetisation and the GST to privatised education and health, sharply rising inequality and youth unemployment. Chishti explains how Gen Z and the Cockroach Janta Party have broken Modi’s aura of invincibility.

Is liberalism the monster of our age? A week after the conference Geopolitics in a Time of Monsters, I am joined by Pascal Lottaz, host of Neutrality Studies, to reflect on what its speakers learned. Pascal explains why thinkers across the political spectrum converged on liberalism as the root of today's chaos, a chaos visited upon the world from the North Atlantic and now turned against Western populations themselves. We examine why Europe's elites serve a transatlantic ruling class over their own people, why the European Union has become a war project beyond reform, and how moralism and expert rule have hollowed out Western democracy.

Is Netanyahu finished, or has Israel’s Uniparty of genocide already won? Mouin Rabbani, Palestinian analyst and co-editor of Jadaliyya, joins me to break down the 2026 Israeli elections and why they do not change much for Palestine. Netanyahu and Likud lost their majority, but Gadi Eisenkot, a core member of the genocide government until 18 months ago, clearly lost too. Palestinian citizens of Israel turned out in record numbers and won 19 Knesset seats, only to be accused of being bribed by Qatar. Rabbani also believes that a renewed US-Israeli war on Iran is inevitable and imminent. Israel, a US proxy that could not exist without Washington, requires conflict and war to sustain its essence as a settler colony. In the US, however, the Israel lobby enforces American foreign policy rather than making it.

Will Trump attack Iran again? The US-Israel war on Iran looks set to return, and Saudi Arabia is losing its war in Yemen. Laith Marouf, founder of Free Palestine TV joins me to explain why Trump held back on Iran strikes even as Netanyahu demanded them. Without its Gulf bases, the US must now strike Iran from Cyprus, Djibouti and Diego Garcia, and it is still waiting for a third aircraft carrier. Laith argues the Iran war is coming whatever the outcome of the US midterm elections. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia was forced into Yemen directly after its proxies failed, and Ansar Allah, the Houthis, now hold nearly all of Taiz and are moving on Aden. We also discuss the Saudi, Turkish and Pakistani delegation's trip to Tehran and why the Israeli election changes nothing for Gaza and the West Bank.

Capitalism's last line of defense is that it innovates best. But what if China has already proven otherwise? Recording live from the Global Governance Initiative conference in Xiong'an, China's brand new city south of Beijing, I am joined by regular guest Warwick Powell. We report on our visits to the energy giant Huaneng and to China Mobile, already trialling 6G, and Powell explains why the "overcapacity" Western media decry is in fact abundance. Meanwhile, monopoly capitalism, built on rents rather than competition, now blocks the very innovation it claims to champion.