Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Every day of the past week, explosions in the Gulf have been a testament to the Trump Netanyahu war in Iran continuing regardless of the commentary on NATO nation propaganda media. While Israeli control of US policy may be tested at elections, the war on BRICS continues regardless. The bee in BRICS may be gone within the next 24 hours after US election meddling in the largest country in Latin America, Brazil multipolarity continues to face supreme tests. I'm Afshin Ratansi and you're watching New Order.
172 years. Today British imperialists launch their catastrophic charge of the Light Brigade in Crimea, a lasting symbol of idiotic military miscalculation immortalized by Tennyson. Today NATO nation wars on Russia and Iran are trying to give the Crimean War a run for its money. The Biden Netanyahu war on Gaza was just Nazi style genocide. The Trump Netanyahu destruction of Strait of Hormuz commodity trade has not just impacted the GCC as was designed signed by Israel, but has catalyzed uprisings across Western Europe to compound the Epstein War. Pentagon boss Hegseth was in Israel this week. The gap between oil futures and real oil prices widened as did class inequality. This week after the Crimean Light Brigade failure, Britain continued to press for more war on Russia and then announced it would again go to war in Yemen. Russia, for its part, sent Foreign Minister Lavrov to Tehran arguing for diplomacy. Though Marco Rubio was in India to meet with India's Jaishankar and UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed to discuss energy security, Tajikistan arguably hosted the most important meeting of the week. Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh represented India at the Global south for official Shanghai Cooperation Organization meetings in Dushanbe. On the table were plans for a new SCO bank bypassing the dollar and the Iran Chabaha port network bombed by Trump. Washington Meddling in Brazil's presidential race between Lula and Flavio Bolsonaro didn't appear to overly bother them. All this as the petrodollar is fracturing and commod trade through the Strait of Hormuz burns. New Order Zar Khan will be on later to answer your questions posted on social media. But first, is sanctions boomerang on Western economies? Trust in the US Dollar, hemorrhages and central banks across the Global south hoard physical bullion at a pace not seen in modern history. Joining me now from Boca Ratan, Florida is Andy Schectman, President and CEO of Miles Franklin Precious Metals. Andy Schectman, welcome to New Order. Some opposition Bazis in India criticizing Rubio for not coming to the capital to and Jaishankar having to go to Mumbai rather than Delhi. You've been saying de dollarization though is progressing at pace. How significant if UPI plugs into Enbridge used here in the uae? I should say UPI anyway can be used in the uae.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. It's very significant. I think the world is.
Many countries around the world are asking the very simple question why should we have to rely on foreign banks and the doll based system just to move our money? And to your point, yes, India has UPI, Brazil has pics, China has SIPs. I know. China by the end of June had already reached 192 countries and regions. They signed up all the countries in Southeast Asia under the acronym of ASEAN. 800 million people, twice the population of the United States. China's largest trading partner by far. Africa has PAPS P A P S S Of course BRICS has Enbridge, even Europe is developing the epi. And these countries are building infrastructures to move money without relying on the traditional dollar based intermediaries. And the thrust of the last BRICS meeting was interoperability.
In other words, all of these countries develop their own ecosystem, trade their own local currencies over a system of rails that really does not coordinate, if you will, with the SWIFT system and settling imbalances in gold through a series of multi jurisdictional vaults, including ones in Mumbai, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, St. Petersburg, Moscow, you name it. All of these vaults that are being built and actually actively being built throughout the Belt Road initiative will be in essence the arteries, the veins of all these payment systems that will allow for interoperability to trade with one another in local currencies and relying much, much less upon the DO and the dollar hegemony to move money and to transact trade.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: You see, some critics of multipolarity, let alone those who are for it, were saying, look, the Delhi declaration didn't contain a BRICS currency, therefore this is a bit of a failure.
That's not true, is it?
[00:04:58] Speaker B: No. BRICs don't need a common currency. In fact, I don't think they will do that for quite some time, if ever, to reduce reliance on the dollar. The story is the plumbing. Connect the payment system, settle trade in local currencies, build alternative messaging and clearing networks. The dol, it doesn't have to disappear, it just has to become less necessary. And I think it's a mistake to get hung up on the BRICS currency or even BRICS Pay watch. The infrastructure and the infrastructure are linking payments and exploring connections that are allowing instant settlement on alternative payment networks. They don't need one currency, they just need the systems to talk to each other. And that's, that's why the thrust of the last meeting was interoperability. Build the rails, connect the rails, then you have an alternative financial architecture. And when you talk about the unit, which is a pilot trial confirmed by the central banks of the UAE and Russia recently and the new Development bank in Shanghai, they use the unit to settle a trade, the first one recently between the UAE and India with oil without using the dollar. And I think it's first of all, the unit is designed around a basket that is supposed to be 40% gold backed, redeemable upon demand by the central banks and 60% Brics currencies.
But the pilot, to me the fact that they used oil, and again it's a political signal to me pushing back against the US monetary policy. But to, to choose oil to begin with in the Gulf states is deliberate in my mind. Roughly 40% of the world's seaborne crude oil exports now original originate from BRICS plus members. And so with India and China being the world's second and third largest crude importers and a significant portion of physical oil already flowing, you know, within this block, to me it was, it wasn't coincidental that they used oil on this first trade. It's almost a way of saying, listen, we have the ability to trade with one another outside of your system interoperability for things like oil and we can, if we wish, settle imbalances in gold. And this to me is why you're seeing such a large accumulation by the global south in gold. Building the payment systems, the settlement systems, the vaulting systems, you don't need a common currency. Everything you mentioned the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the beginning, even the Name cooperation, the BRICs, they rotate presidency. Everything is cooperative. There is no forcing, no coercion. And so you don't need a common currency. But what you need to do is take care of and respect your monetary ecosystem or no one will want to trade with you. So build your own monetary ecosystem instead of that of the United States. Use settlement instead of US Treasuries, use it in gold. And I think that is what the plan ultimately is. And they're building the infrastructure little by little. You can see it, it's not an all at once thing, but once it becomes fully mature, it will be very, very difficult to challenge China, the largest
[00:08:03] Speaker A: importer of crude in the world. I'LL get to the possibly violent response to that from the United States and NATO in a moment. But could Trump be putting a spanner in the works here? Because this week this talk between Putin, the United States and Russia about increasing again economic cooperation, I mean, if the US Suddenly allowed Russia to use Swift again, I mean, I don't think it necessarily will be happening anytime that soon. I mean, clearly some Russian business are going to think, well, in the short term might as well be doing some swift payments. And that could lead to a diminution of this amazing progress that has happened since 2022 in de dollarization.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: You could say the same thing about India. You could say the same thing about United Arab Emirates. You could say the same thing about Saudi Arabia playing both sides. Why antagonize the West? There's no reason to do it. But you can see by their participation in all of the meetings and how serious that they take this new union of countries that are finding safety in numbers, building an infrastructure, slowly doing it the right way.
I think they'd be silly not to.
There's no reason to.
The old saying, keep your enemies, your friends close, but your enemies closer. Well, I think there's no reason to antagonize. And if you have the ability to build your infrastructure at the same time, build your economy by being able to use Swift, I think it would be a smart move. It doesn't mean they've pledged their allegiance or that they have derailed the progress. I just think it simply means they're being strategic.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: Just remind us about how seminal event. I mean, if we put aside Mark Carney, former Bank of England governor, now a Canadian leader who stole Venezuelan gold, how seminal the freezing of $400 billion of Russian assets was to this whole project.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: I think it was the defining moment.
People look at the United States and they see what the United States and its Western allies did by taking 400 billion in Russian forex reserves and Treasuries, and they see great hypocrisy. Now, I am not making any comment on the wars in the Ukraine and in Russia or that of Iraq, but we invaded the United states, did Iraq 25 years ago, 24, 25 years ago, under false pretenses, destroyed their country, captured their president, who was subsequently executed by the Iraqi military, destroyed their country, toppled the regime, and we're still there. We went there for wrong reasons and yet there's no consequences. And I think the world says, you know, that could be us. Maybe that's why you see straddling of the fence by India by Saudi Arabia, by the United Arab Emirates, by all of these countries that I don't think they are looking immediately to replace the Western institutions overnight. But the significance is that these countries in the global south are gradually building optionality. They're creating systems where they have more control over their own resources, their own data, their own supply chains, their own strategic industries. And if you see roads that continually get blocked like they did for Russia, well, you don't have to come out and say, we're just going to abandon this road and build our own, but you can build parallel routes. And I think that is kind of what you're seeing right now, is that countries that historically operated separately are increasingly building shared infrastructure, trade, finance, energy, technology, all of it. And the shift isn't happening with the single announcement. It's happening brick by brick, no pun intended. And when nations began building alternatives, the question becomes, you know, what is the common bond that will serve as trust?
What will. Because these nations don't necessarily trust each other tremendously, you could say that is the case, at least from the Western perspective, between China and India. But to me, that asset is gold. And that is why you're seeing these parallel networks spring up that will, according to the last meeting, the BRICS meeting, focus on interoperability using gold as the trusted denominator. And I don't know, this is something that I think was catalyzed by the weaponization of the treasury market and many countries out there, including those that have always been traditionally Western allies, saying, ho that could happen to us. And so we better find, you know, another team to work with. At the same time, we don't need to sever ties with the west. But it would be very silly for us to expect that we couldn't at some point end up on the same end of those sanctions. So I think it was very, very big.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: And I use the term de dollarization. I know it's a term you don't like. Actually, just briefly before we go to the break, why do you prefer de treasurization as a term?
[00:13:01] Speaker B: Well, because I think it's, you know, the dollar isn't really in danger of disappearing anytime soon. It's used too much in global trade. But. But to save and hold your wealth in dollars is like holding a melting ice cube. And I think treasuries are the real issue. Not only were they weaponized, but you can see through the fiscal irresponsibility of this administration, where fiscal year 2026 ended September 30th with another 2.2 or 3 trillion in deficit spending. Adding to the debt, we took in over 5 trillion in tax revenue, spent over 7 trillion. Doesn't work. So when you look at fiscal irresponsibility coupled with questionable foreign policy and in fact weapon the Treasury, I think many of these nations are seeing the wisdom in holding assets like gold that have no counterparty risk if held in their own possession. This is why India, in my opinion, brought back most of their gold from the bank of England, which gave great strategic liquidity by keeping it at the bank of England, which will give direct access to the London Metals Exchange or the London Bullion Metals Exchange. And they brought it home in favor of lack of counterparty risk. Not only that, it's doubled the performance of the 10 year treasury over 25 years and pretty much well near 10 x'd over the last two.
So I think what it truly is is a realization that holding Treasuries right now really may not be the best thing either for your finances or for your long term strategic goals. This is to me very obvious.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: Andy Schectman will continue after the break. Keep watching New Order.
You're watching New Order. Andy Schectman, we were talking about all the progress being made on detreasurization, as you call it. Obviously the big question all around the world is what are the consequences going to be if Trump, Netanyahu aided and abetted by NATO nations, if they relaunch their war before or after the midterms, what will be the impact? I should say gold prices haven't gone up massively.
In fact, they've fallen by a quarter 25% since the beginning of the year. What is the effect of more violence in this region?
[00:15:28] Speaker B: Well, I think when you focus on gold prices, to me it's focusing on the wrong thing. That's what they want you to focus on.
And when you talk about war and inflation through energy shock, that should be very good for gold. In fact, they want us to believe that it's not. Now you take a look at the amount of gold that has been delivered under the COMEX market, where in my 36 year career, no gold, nothing stood for Delivery. Less than 1% of contracts ever stood for delivery on COMEX. It is an exchange that has traditionally been built to offset risk. A farmer plants a field of wheat in April, sells the forward production to the baker who needs it for his bread in September. He's happy to pay a price, he's happy to sell a price. They meet in the middle. Less than 1% of contracts ever stood for delivery. Or a company like mine, who may have 2 million ounces of silver in our warehouse. We will sell 2 million on COMEX so that we're market neutral to the fluctuations in the price. No one's standing for delivery. It's used to offset risk. With that in mind, as the price has gone down. We have seen over 19 million ounces of gold stand for delivery this year on COMEX for 24 straight months since President Trump won the election. Every month, billions and billions and billions. About 5 billion this month, in the month of October, 81 billion so far. Who's doing that? Over 17, almost 18 billion in silver has stood for delivery this year. Look at the amount of gold that the central banks are buying. Look at the amount of gold that China is buying. And silver, they're price insensitive. And so they want us to believe that just because the Federal Reserve, because inflation may get tougher and interest rates may not be able to be lowered, that well, gold can't do well in that environment. And I would argue normally when interest rates go higher, it is indicative of a strong economy. Everyone's chugging along and spending and that steam, that energy, pushes inflation higher. So you gotta raise rates to cool things down. That's not the case here, as we've documented. This is fiscal irresponsibility.
This is lack of trust globally that I think is manifesting itself in selling of Treasuries and purchasing of things like gold to remove counterparts.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: And yet the price goes down just
[00:17:40] Speaker B: as good, if not better performance.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: And yet the price has gone down.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: It's done so with great leverage. So what they do is they lever the price down on the Western system that trades at 30, 40 times leverage and then stand for delivery at subsidized prices.
This is exactly what they're doing. If you told me that the west who realized late that the Global south was really, really trying to accumulate metal, then I would have no problem in believing that they are involved in suppressing the paper price to the only place the price is set on comex and standing for copious amounts of delivery, which are so far outside of what is normal. It's 4ft of snow in the hottest place on earth in July.
It doesn't happen. And yet it's happening. And no one's asking who the hell is standing for all this delivery, for all this gold. Look at China. The second, first and second quarter after the price got destroyed in silver, they imported more silver than in the history of the country.
These countries that are smart enough to see what's happening are using the Western price and the suppression of it to stand for delivery, physical delivery. Which tells me that at some point, and in particular when you look at the new vault vaulting system and settlement system in Hong Kong, that first quarter next year will go live with same day settlement yuan priced contracts that the ability for the west to continue to suppress the price in dollars is coming to a rapid end. And it's almost like all of these countries are rushing to accumulate using the distortion in the price.
Beat them at our own game, I guess is what they're thinking. Let's beat them at their own game.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: And so it is those leverage options that are giving that volume false price. I mean you particularly, I mean people know about the terrible massacre in Minab in Iran, the double tap, triple tap perhaps Tomahawk missile strike. The Tomahawks need silver, zinc, batteries.
You believe there may be something even more sinister as regards silver and black rock?
[00:19:41] Speaker B: Well, the military industrial complex, yeah, you're right. The military industrial complex, if I had to guess, would be the ones that have held down silver forever. There's massive amounts of silver and high tech weaponry like the Tomahawk Cruise missile, like F35s, like stealth bombers. And it's not just in the United States, it's sold all throughout the Western edifice through NATO. And they create these weapons, they need tremendous amounts of silver. And it's not even about the price getting away from them that they're concerned about. It's that rising price creates too much demand. People will run to the assets that are are taking off in value nowadays or in price. And so they suppress the price in order to build high tech weaponry. And I believe that to be 100% true, no question about it. And you look at who is behind the military industrial complex like blackrock, and you look at a massive institution like JP Morgan. They're the custodian of the world's largest Silver Trust. In SLV. J.P. morgan, who paid a $920 million fine to the Justice Department, the largest they ever handed out for manipulating the metals market somehow is the custodian of the world's largest silver trust. There is no question in my mind but that it is the Western military industrial complex that has tried forever to hold it down. But here again look what's happening in China. For the last year They've had a 12% premium on the western price to entice any trader who would be willing to send over whatever isn't nailed down at a huge vig. Now arbitrage opportunities like that never last very long. Cause the traders rush to, to fill that void. Not this time. It's still there because they're saying, if you're dumb enough, go ahead, we'll take it, give it to us. Here's the extra dollars that we're choking on through the trade imbalance. We'd rather have the silver. All of these deliveries across the globe are signaling one thing, and that is that the physical metal itself is worth far more than the paper price that is being used to accumulate it. And I think that's true here, even in the United States right now, with not only silver being classified a critical mineral on pulp publicly. What I am trying to also say is that at the exact same time, there was an executive order that President Trump put into place at almost the exact same time in March of 2025 that named Gold a strategic metal. And so you have the United States that have classified both gold and silver. Gold less. Here it is. It's Section Executive Order 14241, Immediate Measures to Increase American Metal Production Production. Section 2A explicitly names Gold, along with uranium, copper and potash, as minerals covered by the order, although Trump did not formally designate gold as a critical mineral under the official U.S. geological Survey classification. Silver is gold was done so quietly under an executive order.
[00:22:25] Speaker A: So when you look at the sanctions on that Hong Kong exchange coming just as you were, just as you said that.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Well, they're all accumulating it, all of them.
[00:22:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: So sanctions usually the method. Obviously there's been a rise in food prices, fertilizer prices, helium medical equipment prices.
What should we expect? I mean, are you surprised that bond prices, yields have not gone up even more because of what's been going on? And what is going to happen as these uprisings continue right across Western Europe as the working classes, so they just can't afford to live anymore?
[00:23:06] Speaker B: Well, I think that's what you're seeing. I mean, that's what you're seeing in Paris and that's what you're going to see here. And you're right, I mean, yes, yields should be much higher. And you could argue that there is a form of stealth yield curve control going on where through shell proxies, maybe in the Cayman Islands, Treasuries are being purchased because who in their right mind would hold a long duration.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: And who is that Scott Besant buying secretly? I mean, there's some in the financial brain saying it's China secretly buying. In fact, Britain publicly, I should say, is the biggest buyer of treasuries. But everyone else Seems to be selling well.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: I mean, look at Britain and the United States. You're talking the two drunkest guys at the bar leaning on each other at the end of the night so they don't fall over. I mean, it's. Why would one broke nation buy the debt of another broke nation? The whole thing is silly. And that's why the countries that are de treasurizing in favor of gold see it much more clearly. What it is is desperate acts at the end of a system, at the end of a monetary system that is gasping for air. Quite frankly, I think anyone that would be holding long duration treasuries is as dumb as a mud wall because inflation is going to eat away at that. You look at the people brought on to this administration, like David Zerfos, who was just brought on by the Treasury. His whole thesis is financial repression, which is to keep interest rates below the level of inflation to eat away at the debt. Debt. Trump just said we're going to use inflation to eat away at the debt. Steven Mirren, the architect of the Mar A Lago accord at the Fed, he says the dollar is too strong. We have to weaken the dollar. It's killed our exports, it's killed our manufacturing.
They're telling you, they're telling you that they're going to let inflation eat away at the market. And yes, rates should go much, much higher. Problem is we're so far indebted that if they allow rates to go much higher, the whole system implodes. They're caught between Iraq and a hard place.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: Well, Wednesday is a great day. Andy Schectman, thank you.
[00:24:58] Speaker B: Pleasure is mine. Thank you.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: Social media questions. Signed now through Zahra Khan. Buy gold? No, I have no idea. Go ahead.
[00:25:10] Speaker C: Fun fact. My name does mean made of gold. Zar Xaver, but we have a lot of familiar names this week. June RTCB has asked if Trump has made a deal with Russia for diesel. Will he keep the agreement or betray them?
[00:25:23] Speaker A: While once more keep your enemies close, sir, as Andy was just saying there, the fact is that the United States kills negotiators while they're in negotiations, as we saw in Iran. And in any case, obviously the Russians are going to be wary of it. How are they going to pay for the diesel that goes onto the global market? Sanctions waivers have not been issued on banks. So how will Russia pay? Of course it'll go through Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, the very cities that Andy mentioned. And why is the license expiring on 7 April 2027, Sy Hersh famously explained that Ukraine needs this diesel desperately for its own military. And Ukraine is desperately buying oil and energy and diesel from Russia to try and kill Russians.
[00:26:08] Speaker C: And Paul Champagne has asked why did Obama offer to loan Ukraine money in Russia and EU's background?
[00:26:14] Speaker A: Why did he Obama, the butcher of Libya who murdered Gaddafi 15 years ago this week gave $5 billion to CIA cutout NGOs in Ukraine, the most corrupt country in Europe, just before the coup in Kiev in 2014, to sabotage the Minsk agreements and to kick off this war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people. Why is Obama not being held to account?
[00:26:38] Speaker C: And finally, Raghunandan9290 has asked India, friends with the US but not allies, what
[00:26:44] Speaker A: sort of friend is it? Rubio doesn't bother to go to Delhi as I mentioned earlier. And he said on Tuesday the India US trade deal is 99.
Trump said pretty close. It's been eight months and there's not even the cut of the tariffs on India from 25% to 18%. And Trump anyway said, oh, Modi has to spend $500 billion in the USA and stop all Russian purchases. That's never going to happen. And a congressional US Commission on international religious freedom has been saying a country of particular concern is India.
So clearly the United States cannot be trusted by India, some might say.
[00:27:20] Speaker C: Thank you for those answers, Ashwin. One more week to get more questions for you. I'll be back.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: Thank you, Zahra Gold Khan.
And follow us on Xewardortv to ask your questions. Here's hoping this week's headlines are about diplomatic breakthroughs rather than another escalation. See you Sunday.
