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What is really behind the TikTok wars? According to Arnaud Bertrand, our guest this week, it’s less about Palestine content and more about good, old-fashioned American colonialism and hypocrisy.

Bertrand, a French entrepreneur and political analyst based in Malaysia, who lived in China for eight years and has debated China with the likes of Adrian Zenz, reflects on the hypocrisy of the American government, which claims to respect the free market, but actually intervenes in business in order to ban a company for simply being Chinese:

“This is the kind of stuff that Cuba would get accused of,” he explains, “talking about the evils of communism, like appropriating enterprises. It’s ironic that the United States government, which presents itself as this bastion of entrepreneurship, free market, where the government doesn't meddle, is doing exactly that.”

“If [the Tik Tok ban] goes through, it sets a very worrying precedent because basically what it's saying is that, if as a non-American tech company, you make it big, then basically we're going to try to colonize you. It's digital colonialism.”

The fairness of the free market, Arnaud explains, is reserved only for American companies. Beyond that, the government steps in for control.

“It completely destroys the incentive for any country. It's already so hard to succeed given the odds on how dominated the landscape is by American VCs and American tech companies. If you're one of the lucky few that finally make it, then you're forced to sell to the Americans. It's definitely not right and that's a precedent that I don't think should be set.”

The irony is that the crackdown on TikTok has brought Chinese people and American people together as Americans are migrating to the Chinese platform Red Note.

Subscribe to hear the full interview with Arnaud Bertrand on the myths the West tells about Chinese culture, China’s roll in the Ukraine-Russian War, and the claim that China is engaging in a genocide against the Uyghurs.

Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Trump’s Creative Excuse for Hiring “Very Stupid Person” John Bolton

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This week, US officials announced that Israel and Hamas have finally reached a tentative ceasefire after over a year of genocide in Gaza. The deal separates the agreement into phases:

“The giant loophole in this deal is that it comes in three phases. A permanent ceasefire comes in the second phase. The first phase is a limited prisoner exchange, and so Hamas has very little reason to believe that Israel will go into this and actually see it through to the end of the three phases.”

And here’s another trick: this quote isn’t from this week – it’s from our interview with Nathan Thrall in May 2024 regarding the ceasefire deal that was never implemented. But when Gazan writer Muhammad Shehada, who is based in Copenhagen but with family still in Gaza, read through the agreement announced this week, he noticed a striking similarity.

“I started reading through it,” he tells us, “and I looked up the May 27th deal. I read the whole text: word-for-word identical, one hundred percent, not a change. There's only an appendix of elaborations.”

So we’re having onto the show former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy and Muhammad Shehada to analyze why this deal is back, whether it will actually signal an end to the mass killings in Gaza, and what really happened in the negotiations between Trump and Netanyahu.

“Could this then lead to a quid pro quo down the line where Netanyahu gets something from Trump that will be horrific for Palestinians, such as expanded theft of West Bank land?”

Daniel Levy also discusses “Bloody Blinken’s” terrible track record as Secretary of State, which has become a pressing matter as Blinken is now having journalists dragged out of press briefings for challenging him on his complicity in the genocide in Gaza. Muhammad Shehada discusses the Biden Administration’s false history of ceasefire negotiations, and shares what it has been like to lose so many friends and family in Gaza.

This week’s interview is free to all viewers. Thanks for your support of Useful Idiots and independent media.

Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: Biden’s Ceasefire Joke