TUESDAY, MAY 21, 2019

Volume 6, Number 99

EIR Daily Alert ServiceP.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390

• Trump Warns of ‘Military-Industrial Complex’: British-Geopolitical Complex Wants Him at War, Or Out
• President Trump Tells Fox, There Is Military-Industrial Complex and It Loves Perpetual War
• Executive Orders Against Huawei Are Global Economic/Human Threat
• British Empire Deploys Special Forces to Persian Gulf To Face ‘Iranian Threat’
• London Press ‘Outs’ M16 Operations Against Trump as He Prepares for State Visit
• Collapse of Austrian Government Averted for the Time Being
• Belt and Road Adopts World Bank Loan Standards With Chinese Characteristics
• Standard Chartered Predicts Greater Project Lending Opportunities for Countries Along Belt and Road
• North Macedonia Tests Chinese Locomotive for EU Corridor 10
• Brookings Study Shows, U.S. Infrastructure Spending on Nothing But Repairs
• The World Needs More Energy, and the Developing Countries, Much More

EDITORIAL

Trump Warns of ‘Military-Industrial Complex’; British-Geopolitical Complex Wants Him at War, Or Out

May 20 (EIRNS)—Donald Trump, the first President in more than a century to give speeches on “the American System of economics,” may now be the first President in more than half a century to warn the American population against “the military-industrial complex” while it is trying to push him to war. Even the Iranian Foreign Minister immediately reacted that President Trump had brought out something important.

In Trump’s Fox News interview aired last night, on the question of whether he would hold out against war on Iran, he said, “Someday people will explain it, but you do have a group, and they call it the military industrial complex. They never want to leave. They always want to fight.” This, on the eve of U.S. military and intelligence chiefs giving closed-door briefings to the Senate and House on “secret intelligence” allegedly to show Iran and “its proxies” have started attacking American interests in the Mideast and must be stopped.

The question since President Dwight Eisenhower has really always been, what is that military-industrial complex? As Trump spoke to Fox News, British special forces troops were sent on special deployments to the Persian Gulf to “counter Iranian attacks on merchant ships.” The British deputy commander in Iraq was being corrected by the Foreign Secretary to make clear that the U.K. absolutely considers Iran to be threatening “coalition” forces there. Some London newspapers were admitting in sensational headlines that top British intelligence officials handled memos and dossiers—false ones, the stories acknowledged—intended to destroy Trump’s presidency by branding him a “foreign asset” of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Why? Because he came into office promoting cooperative relations with Russia and China, and avoidance of regime-change “permanent wars.”

The “American military-industrial complex” has, in reality, always been the British-geopolitical complex. In Eisenhower’s time it was the Churchill circles who had owned Harry Truman and the British-Swiss-run Dulles brothers who tormented Ike and JFK. Now it is Trump’s British intelligence enemies who have been completely exposed as having tried to use dirty “intelligence” to force him out in a coup, or force him to war confrontations with the other great powers Russia and China.

Permanent war—perhaps unsurvivable war—or economic and strategic cooperation are at stake.

For half a century only one leading American figure has understood these “facts of London” and relentlessly attacked them, in defense of the American Presidency and at the expense of his own ostracism, prosecution and persecution. That was Lyndon LaRouche while he lived, and still today. His case encompasses the important issues of Trump’s Presidency completely. His exoneration, for which there is now a growing mobilization by LaRouchePAC and by his admirers all over the world, can decide those issues to the advantage of mankind.

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

President Trump Tells Fox, There Is Military-Industrial Complex and It Loves Perpetual War

May 20 (EIRNS)—In his broad-ranging interview aired last night on Fox News, President Trump had some very pointed remarks to make about the existence of a military-industrial complex in the U.S. and its desire to have unending wars.

In the context of discussing policy toward Iran, Trump emphasized that if he had to take on Iran, it would be “economically…. I just don’t want them to have nuclear weapons,” he told interviewer Steve Hilton, “and they can’t be threatening us….”

He elaborated: “With all of everything that’s going on, and I’m not one that believes—you know, I’m not somebody that wants to go in to war, because war hurts economies, war kills people, most importantly—by far most importantly.”

In reponse to Hilton’s asking if he could “reassure people you’re not looking for some conflict in Iran,” Trump replied, “Well, I’m the one that talks about these wars that are 19 years, and people are just there—and don’t kid yourself, you do have a military-industrial complex. They do like war. You know, in Syria, with the caliphate, so I wipe out 100 percent of the caliphate. That doesn’t mean you’re not going to have these crazy people who run around blowing up stores and blowing up things—these are seriously ill people. I don’t want to say, ‘Oh, they’re wiped,’ you know, ISIS. But, I wiped out 100 percent of the caliphate. I say, ‘I want to bring our troops back home.’ The place went crazy. You have people here in Washington, they never want to leave.”

Continuing: “I say, ‘You know what I’ll do, I’ll leave a couple hundred soldiers behind,’ but if it was up to them, they’d bring thousands of soldiers in. Someday people will explain it, but you do have a group, and they call it the military-industrial complex. They never want to leave. They always want to fight.”

Trump explained, “No. I don’t want to fight, but you do have situations like Iran. You can’t let them have nuclear weapons. You just can’t let that happen.”

Executive Orders Against Huawei Are Global Economic/Human Threat

May 20 (EIRNS)—Over the weekend, Reuters reported that Alphabet’s Google has suspended some business with Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. Huawei Technologies will immediately lose access to updates to the Android operating system for cell phones, and the next version of its smartphones outside of China will also lose access to popular applications and services including the Google Play Store and Gmail app.

More seriously, by Monday morning Intel, Qualcomm, Xilinx and Broadcom have all said they will stop selling chips to Huawei because of the Trump Administration’s executive order, according to Bloomberg. German chipmaker Infineon Technologies made the same decision, although calling it a temporary one while it assesses the situation.

There is a potentially large effect on Huawei’s cell phone business outside China. But what is more grave is the effect on its ability to provide Internet services, which are crucial to countries in Africa in particular. “The extreme scenario of Huawei’s telecom network unit failing would set China back many years and might even be viewed as an act of war by China,” Bloomberg quoted analyst Ryan Koontz of Rosenblatt Securities. “Such a failure would have massive global telecom market implications.”

In this situation, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang responded to President Donald Trump’s remark to Fox News that China had “walked away from a good trade deal.” “Perhaps the United States has an agreement they all along had extravagant expectations for, but it’s certainly not a so-called agreement that China had agreed to,” Lu said, and saying, it “tried to achieve unreasonable interests through extreme pressure…. I would like to reiterate that once again, China-U.S. economic and trade consultation can only follow the correct track, of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit, for there to be any hope of success.”

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

British Empire Deploys Special Forces to Persian Gulf To Face ‘Iranian Threat’

May 20 (EIRNS)—Following last week’s remarks by the deputy commander of the Operation Inherent Resolve anti-ISIS coalition, British Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika, that the coalition had not detected any serious Iranian threat—earning him an immediate rebuke from the U.S. Central Command—things are apparently back on track. Everyone agrees.

The British Sun tabloid reported today that U.K. Special Forces are being deployed to the Persian Gulf. The Special Boat Service (SBS) “has been flown to the Middle East as part of a top-secret mission to counter possible Iranian attacks on merchant ships.”

The Express tabloid yesterday added that the two SBS teams will be joining U.K.-registered oil tankers transiting in the Persian Gulf south through the Strait of Hormuz, where they will be monitoring Iranian activity around the island of Qesham, which is home to Iranian naval gunboats. The two teams will collect information as the ships move through the Strait of Hormuz and into the Gulf of Oman, from where they will be airlifted by Royal Navy helicopters operating out of Oman.

Express hastens to add that General Ghika’s remarks last week were due only to the fact that he hadn’t been properly briefed about the “amount of new intelligence he could reveal.” Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has confirmed that the U.K. is now fully onboard and “shared the same assessment of the heightened threat posed by Iran.”

OTHER

London Press ‘Outs’ MI6 Operations against Trump as He Prepares for State Visit

May 20 (EIRNS)—Just two weeks prior to President Donald Trump’s scheduled state visit to the United Kingdom, several London newspapers have decided to sensationalize the role of British intelligence agencies and officials in the “Russiagate” coup attempt against Donald Trump.

“British Spy Chiefs Were Briefed about Dossier on Trump’s Ties to Russia That Contained Lewd Allegations about the President and Prostitutes—Months Before He Even Knew It Existed” is the Daily Mail’s breathless headline. The Daily Telegraph had it “British Spies Got Lurid Memos on Trump.” The Telegraph’s story began, “Theresa May’s spy chiefs were secretly briefed on an explosive dossier of claims about Donald Trump’s ties to Russia before the U.S. President was made aware of its existence, the Telegraph can reveal. The heads of MI5 and MI6, and one of Mrs. May’s most trusted security advisers were told about former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele’s memos on the Trump campaign in the weeks after his November 2016 election victory.”

For the most part, the conveying of the Steele fakeries to and through British intelligence officials and spies is old news, and it was underway for a year before Trump was elected.

The names are named here: MI6 chief Alex Younger and his predecessor, Sir Richard Dearlove; MI5 Director General Andrew Marker; and the chair of the government’s Joint Intelligence Committee, the late Sir Andrew Farr—named for the first time. The fact that Steele had headed MI6’s Russia Bureau came out. And the Mail’s account, in particular, reports that Steele’s memos proved false and were not repeated in the Mueller report.

Why the multiple London stories appear sensationally now, is not known. However, Trump is scheduled to meet the Queen and the outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May within two weeks; and Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche has suggested that the White House should demand apologies for precisely the British intelligence attempt at a coup, so “luridly” splashed on the London pages today.

Collapse of Austrian Government Averted for the Time Being

May 20 (EIRNS)—Accomplices of the Russiagaters in Europe, which have tried to armtwist the Austrian government away from its pro-China and pro-Russia orientation, rejoice at the destabilization of that government one week before the elections for European Parliament. When this Austrian coalition government took office in December 2017, it was the first in Europe to write a commitment, if limited, to the New Silk Road into its government program.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) did not, as was widely expected, dismiss Interior Minister Herbert Kickl of the FPÖ and risk the walkout of three other FPÖ ministers from his coalition government. But Kurz is definitely going for early elections sometime in September, expecting his own party to gain more seats in the Parliament. The European Parliament elections on Sunday, May 26 will show whether the ÖVP will benefit from the video affair and whether the FPÖ will suffer—which would be seen as a prelude to the formation of a new ÖVP coalition government with the Socialists (SPÖ) after the early elections in Austria. There are also rumors that Kurz may still end the coalition after the European elections and replace the FPÖ cabinet ministers with non-party experts in a transition government until the September elections in Austria.

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

Belt and Road Adopts World Bank Loan Standards with Chinese Characteristics

May 18 (EIRNS)—With the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) winning over more leaders and nations on the basis of its new—and also flexible and cooperative—infrastructure project investments; China has adopted a new policy outline which makes BRI credit more transparent as well. At the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in on April 25-27, attended by 39 heads of state and more than 100 countries, China’s Finance Ministry introduced a “Debt Sustainability Framework” outlining exactly the conditions under which state and private banks and funds would underwrite project loans, and when they would be on concessionary terms.

This “Framework,” a document of 15 pages full of debt affordability indices and the data which would underlie them, was presented by Finance Minister Liu Kun on April 25, the opening day of the Second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing. It categorizes the ability of developing countries (or industrialized ones, but designed for the former) to assume additional project debt and repay it over the long term. Liu said it was “based on similar standards used by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund,” according to the South China Morning Post.

Clearly the new Framework is World Bank criteria “with Chinese characteristics.” Liu said the framework document would be a guide for assessing the debt risks of countries involved in the BRI, by classifying their potential liability (for overindebtedness) as low, medium or high. But, he said, “It should be noted that even if a country is assessed as being high risk, or even in debt distress, it does not automatically mean that its debt is unsustainable in the long term,” nor that it should be denied credit. “Judgment” must always be used.

Going further, Yi Gang, the governor of the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, said at the same announcement that long-term debt sustainability decisions should involve indicators such as the effects of improvements to infrastructure, of people’s living standards, of greater productivity, and of poverty reduction.

Standard Chartered Predicts Greater Project Lending Opportunities for Countries Along Belt and Road

May 20 (EIRNS)—Standard Chartered Bank is predicting that Beijing’s recent announcement that it will adopt internationally recognized best financial practices, such as used by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, will lead to more infrastructure projects in countries covered by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), reports South China Morning Post.

Currently, Standard & Chartered serves Chinese clients’ project financing needs in 45 markets across the Belt and Road. It rejects the argument that China is plunging nations into debt traps, and as SCMPnotes, it expects continued business growth this year.

Kelvin Lau Kin-heng, a senior economist for Greater China at Standard Chartered, told SCMP that the BRI programs “will not be hampered by debt trap concerns.” On the contrary, they will be bolstered by the announcement made at the April conference, encouraging practices to “ensure debt sustainability.” Should the U.S.-China trade conflict persist, he adds, “China will need more investment and trading partners elsewhere. Emerging markets in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa are the top choices.”

SCMP reports that Standard Chartered last year took part in financing and advisory roles in close to 100 Belt and Road projects, over half of them in transport infrastructure, up from 50 in 2017. The total financing raised by the bank and other institutions in these projects was $20 billion. Currently, the bank is hiring tens of Mandarin-speaking bankers to serve clients with financing needs for projects in Africa, United Arab Emirates, India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.

North Macedonia Tests Chinese Locomotive for EU Corridor 10

May 20 (EIRNS)—The North Macedonian national railway operator, MZ Transport, has begun testing the first of four Chinese manufactured CRRC Zhuzhou electric locomotives it has ordered for hauling freight on the major north-south corridor between the Serbian and Greek borders. This has been one of the bottlenecks for establishing efficient rail transport between the Greek Port of Piraeus and Central Europe along Transport Corridor Ten, reported Railway Gazette yesterday.

The four locomotives cost €8 million and were ordered in January 2017 and were financed from a €50 million loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. They replace the ancient ASEA/Rade Koncar electric locomotives, which date back to when Macedonia was part of the Republic of Yugoslavia. With a maximum speed of 120 kph these new locomotives are able to haul trains of up to 1,600 tonnes and are the first Chinese electric locomotive design to be compliant and certified under the Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSI) making them interoperable within the railway system of the European Union.

MZ Transport has been operating two CRRC manufactured electric multiple unit (EMU) and four diesel multiple unit (DMU) passenger train sets since 2015.

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Brookings Study Shows, U.S. Infrastructure Spending on Nothing but Repairs

May 20 (EIRNS)—Attrition/deterioration of basic economic infrastructure in the United States is double the previously estimated rate of $100 billion/year, if a new Brookings report based on Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data is accurate. The report finds that most investment in America’s basic economic infrastructure is simply repairs to crumbling existing systems and structures; and the cost is borne overwhelmingly by states and localities. Federal investment in new, high-technology infrastructure platforms scarcely exists.

The report is not released on the occasion of another dam collapse (this one in Texas), but it could be. The findings:

• Real infrastructure total spending (all government levels) fell by $9.9 billion from 2007 to 2017, and by $30 billion compared to the brief and “green” spurt in 2009 due to the post-crash American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (“Stimulus Act”).

• In that decade spending increased on infrastructure operation and maintenance—repairing attrition—and fell on new capital projects. The former rose by about 15% to $166.5 billion. The latter fell by 16% to $174 billion.

• Some 77% of the total public spending on infrastructure—the sum of the two amounts above—was by states and localities, less than one-quarter by the Federal government. This is consistent with more repairing and patching, less building anything new.

• Total spending as a share of GDP fell from 2.7% to 2.3% during the decade 2007-17, and Federal spending, at about $70 billion/year, fell to about 0.3% of GDP, a historic low.

• Total spending on transportation infrastructure, the largest category, fell by $4.2 billion or 1.4% over the decade.

Thus, the discussion at the Democratic leaders’ meeting in the White House with President Donald Trump on May 15, if it again concerns $2 trillion in spending over a decade or longer, will be equivalent to a budget for patching holes, and not more.

The World Needs More Energy, and the Developing Countries, Much More

May 20 (EIRNS)—The International Energy Agency (IEA), in its “World Energy Investment 2019” report, confirms the statements ofEIR and others, that the world is experiencing an energy drought, a critical part of its great deficit of basic economic infrastructure. While the 130-page report—released May 14, covering both “oil and gas” and electric “power” sectors—put the focus on the collapse of investment in “renewables” demanded by the “Paris protocol,” a close reading shows the lack of investment in the whole sector, and worldwide. In addition, the report details an astonishing energy divide, with the developed countries getting 85% of global energy investment, while the majority of humanity is left with just 15%.

World energy investment (effectively reflecting useable supply) essentially plateaued in 2018, showing no increase from the previous year, while global demand “grew at its fastest pace this decade.” After declining for the last three years, investment stabilized at $1.8 trillion, with power investments at $775 billion. “Expenditures in renewable energy declined,” not for lack of trying, but mostly because of cost reductions. “Nuclear power investment edged up as new grid-connected plants in 2018 grew threefold, 80% of them in China.”

Although it is not emphasized, one graph (page 23) stands out as to its implications. Graphing the investment dollars with the population dollars (income levels), the IEA shows that 42% of the energy investment dollars went to countries with 16% of the population, while 45% of the world’s population (including India) saw only 14% of global investment dollars. Investment in Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, has actually declined by 15%, from a decrease in “fuel supply.” The middle sector (including China), with 41% of the world’s population, received 44% of global investment money.

Reflecting a growing trend in the industry, “nuclear” power is included in the report under the “renewables” sections. In line with that, is a report in World Nuclear News, of a “declaration” calling for nuclear power to be addressed at the upcoming Clean Energy Ministerial 2019, to be held in Vancouver May 28. Signed by 40 “associations” representing 80,000 workers in the industry, the two-page document was presented May 14 to the International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP). While fully accepting the “decarbonization” fiction concerning climate change, they nonetheless demand that nuclear energy have a seat at the table, calling for a “doubling public investment in nuclear-related R&D and innovation within the next five years.”

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