May quickly interjected that her government insists that sanctions remain in place until Russia fully complies with the Minsk process. Disagreement on some issues is natural, she added coyly, but does nothing to diminish the close relationship.

In discussing the fight against Daesh/ISIS and Islamic extremism, May told the GOP retreat that “we must work internationally,” but this apparently doesn’t mean rejecting regime-change. She underscored that such cooperation means not only securing “a political solution in Syria, but challenging the alliance between the Syrian regime and its backers in Tehran.”

May expressed concern that countries with “little tradition of democracy, liberty and human rights—notably China and Russia—have grown more assertive in world affairs,” raising the fear that there may be an eclipse of the West.

That is, she seems to have forgotten, where the Sun sets.

First Step To End Establishment’s Banning of LaRouche?

Jan. 29 (EIRNS)—An excellent article, entitled “Time To Bring Lyndon LaRouche Out of Exile,” by New York attorney Rahul Marchanda has been published by the prestigious journal, Modern Diplomacy on Jan. 28, and also posted by the author to Veterans News Now online journal.

It begins, “Novel thinkers and those with original ideas, coupled with gifts of clairvoyance, are always initially challenged and ostracized by the masses, who are then used by corrupt political leadership to justify horrific actions of exclusion, persecution, and damnation of their enemies. For more than 50 years Lyndon LaRouche has been writing, lecturing, teaching, and warning Americans and the rest of the people of the world, about the exact same issues pertaining to economics, global governance and the agenda of the Oligarch/Plutocrat/Deep State lunatic fringe, who Donald Trump and the majority of America (and the world) are fighting against.”

The article proceeds to detail the illegal operations against LaRouche, calling them a “slow motion assassination” which LaRouche survived. “His enemies and betrayers were allegedly people like George H.W. Bush and the rest of the New World Order globalist/skull and bones secret societies which were beholden to the City of London within the United Kingdom and its crown, rather than the United States of America and its people. To that end, Lyndon LaRouche’s enemies have now been revealed over the past few years especially, to be enemies of the American people….

The author ends his piece as follows: “Now that Donald Trump is President of the United States, perhaps Lyndon LaRouche will be allowed to emerge from forced exile, as his enemies have now been outed and routed, and he should take his rightful place among America’s greatest heroes, thinkers, philosophers, writers, lovers of humanity and the United States of America.”

Lyndon LaRouche is Founding Editor of EIR.

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

American Banker Column Exposes Post-Glass-Steagall Banking

Jan. 27 (EIRNS)—Andre Perron, a partner in a Florida law firm, was given a shot at post-Glass-Steagall banking in a column in American Banker Jan. 26, and scored a direct hit. In the process, though not dealing with Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin, Perron exposed Mnuchin’s claim against Glass-Steagall in his confirmation hearings, as the opposite of the truth.

Perron’s “BankThink” column is headlined, “Think the Wells Scandal Was Bad? This Could Be Much Worse.” The picture he presents: All large U.S. “universal banks” are doing what Wells Fargo was exposed doing. They are selling their depositors securities and even derivatives products en masse, and it is most often the bank’s loan officers, who deal directly with depositors about their savings options, who are doing the securities selling or at least initiating it. The phrase is, “dual-hat” bankers, and they are universal. The difference at Wells Fargo, was that they kept millions of depositors unaware that they were being sold these products; whereas “dual-hat” loan officers in other banks are—whether more or less incompletely and deceptively—telling the customers what they’re being sold.

Writes Perron, “These inextricably intertwined customer duties find their origin in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which was signed by President Clinton in 1999 and repealed provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. The 1999 law eliminated the regulatory wall between insurance, banking and the securities business. This not only enabled the merger of commercial and investment banking, but also motivated companies to link depository services with broker-dealer services, further blurring the line between traditional bank services and investment services.”

It is an historical fact that the Spring 1933 exposure, in the Senate “Pecora Hearings,” of “dual-hat” looting of customers at National City Bank branches in the 1920s, led directly to the enactment of Glass-Steagall in June 1933.

“Cross-selling” and “dual-hat” banking are more or less interchangeable terms, and their universality at the biggest universal banks is the context for some egregious tactics which have been the subjects of lawsuits and fines—like “Certificates of Deposit” which are actually tied to bond and derivatives indices and whose interest rates are rigged to go negative. Perron describes some attempts to “make up for” getting rid of Glass-Steagall, by laws in the early 2000s which created rules of FINRA or the OCC, but which have been trampled on. “This apparent conflict of interest exposes the bank to claims of predatory banking practices, negligent supervision and portfolio mismanagement. These conflicts in turn are magnified by the economic power and weight of ‘too big to fail’ conglomerates, which have a focus on the bottom line that inevitably leads to a corporate culture that will violate these ethical responsibilities.”

It is post-Glass-Steagall banking which reduces lending in the banking system—not Glass-Steagall restoration, as Mnuchin falsely claimed to the Senate Finance Committee.

Under Glass-Steagall regulation, commercial bankers will look to turn savings/deposit liabilities of the bank, into offsetting assets by making loans. But if tens of thousands of “dual hats” at the biggest banks are turning deposit liabilities into assets in the securities and derivatives markets, they are “loan officers” only in name, for whom lending is secondary, both for their banks and for their own personal compensation.

How To End NAFTA? Bring the Silk Road Paradigm to the Americas!

Jan. 27 (EIRNS)—Events around the new Trump Administration moves this week against NAFTA highlight that the only way to end NAFTA’s destructive impact, and benefit all concerned, is to break altogether with such economic geopolitics, and join the Americas to the “Silk Road” new world paradigm. In fact, several leadership voices in South America are now calling for a “new orientation” for economic and foreign policy, and looking in the direction of China. In the United States, the same push is seen in resolutions entered into five state legislatures this month, for Congress to reinstate Glass-Steagall, and make way for a shift to development. A legislator in the border state of New Mexico, made that the third state to entertain a resolution based on LaRouche’s “Four Laws.”

As of yesterday, the Jan. 31 NAFTA review meeting, which was preplanned for the three NAFTA heads of state/government, is off. This came about after Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto cancelled his participation yesterday, following a tweet by President Donald Trump, that there would be no reason to meet with Peña Nieto if Mexico refused to fund construction of the border wall which Trump ordered be built in his Executive Order signed on Jan. 25. Trump’s press spokesman also suggested yesterday that Mexico’s refusal could be met by a 20% tariff on imports from Mexico, which would raise $10 billion to cover the wall’s expense. All this was later damped down, as just one of many in a “buffet of options,” by Reince Priebus, Trump’s Chief of Staff.

Trump and Peña Nieto then spoke by phone for an hour this morning, after which they released a “Joint Statement on U.S.-Mexico Relations.” It said, “With respect to payment for the border wall, both presidents recognize their clear and very public differences of positions on this issue but have agreed to work these differences out as part of a comprehensive discussion on all aspects of the bilateral relationship.” Otherwise, the statement says that their respective teams will continue to work together, and that, “The two had a productive and constructive call regarding the bilateral relationship between the two countries, the current trade deficit the United States has with Mexico, the importance of the friendship between the two nations, and the need for the two nations to work together to stop drug cartels, drug trafficking and illegal guns and arms sales.”

Even before the mid-week contretemps, 130 U.S. farm and food-related companies and organizations released their Jan. 23 letter to Trump, stressing their own stake in trade flows in North America. Titled, “U.S. Food and Agriculture Dialogue for Trade,” the signers ranged from John Deere, to Campbell Soup, to wheat, corn, pork, beef and dozens of other commodity groups.

Under the 20 years of NAFTA, degraded patterns of trade enforced by City of London/Wall Street circles, imposed food-import dependency and hunger on Mexico, while warping the export potential of U.S. food production capacity. Mexico in the 1980s was 80% self-sufficient in food, with an intent to be 100% self-sufficient; but under NAFTA, has become barely 50% food self-sufficient. At the same time, Mexico, while dependent on imported staples (corn, beans, wheat), was made into a source of cheap fruit and vegetable exports to the United States, displacing thousands of American farms. With spring planting and livestock decisions pending, U.S.-based farm-related operations are agitated.

A top-down policy shift to development policies in the interests of all—of the sort advocated by Lyndon LaRouche for decades, in his repeated calls for U.S.-Mexico cooperation in high-tech great development projects—is the only recourse from these otherwise destructive measures.

Soros Targeted in Europe

Jan. 29 (EIRNS)—Supposedly by “accidental leak,” the website of the Dutch Finance Ministry on Jan. 24 published data on speculative grand style “short sales” that George Soros has done against the Dutch ING Bank, at the bank’s expense. The affair dates back to 2012, but its revelation stirred up speculators internationally, so that the information was taken off the website later in the day.

Was this an accident, or was there more behind it? The short-selling methods of Soros and collaborators among hedge funds against Europe’s financial institutions, are justifiably blamed for much of the orchestration of the crisis of 2007-2008.

Soros is directly under attack in Macedonia and Hungary at present, newswires report. Macedonia’s Republika journal reports that on Jan. 16, a domestic campaign was launched to look into Soros’s dealings with NGOs and political groups in the country. This refers to the Open Society and Otpor, which have been active in the Balkans for several years.

Shortly before, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced that his government would “use all instruments available” to neutralize and disband the Soros-funded NGOs in the country. Szilard Nemeth, chairman of the parliamentary group of Orban’s Fidesz party, has announced the elimination of all NGOs in the orbit of Soros by this Spring.

Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, who is being hit by corruption charges coming from various NGOs, and who has had difficulty finding partners to form a new government majority after the December elections (which featured heavy losses for his VMRO-DPMNE party alliance), demanded that Macedonia be “de-Sorosized.” He charges prominent critics of his government with being on the Soros payroll, and their names were publicly exposed on Facebook.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Russian Foreign Minister Met with Syrian Political Opposition

Jan. 27 (EIRNS)—TASS quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on his meeting with Syrian opposition this week, and prospects for Geneva talks, indicating how Russia is attempting to move the process despite all problems. Referring to upcoming United Nations-sponsored Geneva Syrian peace talks Lavrov said, “It is pleasant that the announcement of the Astana meeting forced our colleagues in the UN to declare a new round of talks,” Lavrov said. “Although this date has been again put off from Feb. 8 until the end of next month. We are convinced that passivity of our counterparts at the UN who did not hold any talks rounds since April is unacceptable,” he said.

On this week’s Moscow meeting, Lavrov said that while Russia presented a draft constitution to the opposition and Syrian government, it was only to promote discussion and not to force it upon anyone.

“The draft Constitution attempts to bring together and find shared points in those approaches that were outlined to us both by representatives of the government and representatives of the opposition, including all those present here, over the past several years,” Lavrov said. “We are convinced that it is time to stop arguing round and round the subject and it is necessary to focus on discussing specific issues that were outlined in Resolution 2254, including the work on the Constitution.”

He added, “No one is going to argue with the Syrians themselves about these sovereign issues for Syria.”

Representatives of the Riyadh group of the Syrian opposition were invited, according to Lavrov, but refused to come. “We invited the representatives of the Riyadh group to Moscow, they said they would come, but later said that they should contact with us independently, and not part of progressive democratic opposition forces,” Lavrov said. “The Riyadh group has said it is only possible to sit down for the talks after the cessation of hostilities. Once that the military actions have been terminated and a cease-fire established, there should be no … excuses.”

The Russian minister commented on the Jan. 23 meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan with Syrian “armed opposition” groups. “We view the Astana event as an important and a qualitatively new step towards settlement because now these processes involve armed opposition groups, which have not participated until now in contacts with the government and, as a whole, in the processes related to negotiations on the country’s future,” he said.