(Ret.) Col. Chris Wyatt - Trump loses patience with Ramaphosa, Zelensky and Maduro…

In his latest interview with Chris Steyn, US Intelligence Analyst Retired Colonel Chris Wyatt describes how - and why - the US President has lost patience with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and Venezuela's Nicholás Maduro. He says every time Ramophosa had a chance to be diplomatic during the G20, “he mocked or made fun of Donald Trump” and “when you attack him personally or people close to him, you will regret it because Trump doesn't forget when you attack him and he comes after you”. Listing all the measures the US government could still take to “harm” South Africa, Wyatt notes: “At the end of this, whether people like it or not, America is the 800-pound gorilla and South Africa has very little maneuver space here.” Wyatt also gives an update on the US Refugee Programme as Trump stops immigration from 19 other countries “of concern”. Wyatt details the reasons why Trump is “very frustrated” with Zelensky, and why he “has had enough” of Maduro. “People think this guy's messing around…He has a plan.” Wyatt further describes how Trump uses tariffs “as a weapon to affect geopolitical change”..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01.658)Relations between South Africa and the United States have hit a new low. We speak to US intelligence analyst, retired Colonel Chris Wyatt. Morning, Colonel.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (00:13.816)Chris, good morning. gosh. Well, we're going to have a conversation about this one, aren't we?Chris Steyn (00:18.524)Well, your president or the country's president Donald Trump has now wiped South Africa's contribution to the G20 website and South Africa is not invited to the first meeting.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (00:36.172)Yeah, no, it's listen, I've cautioned, I've implored, I've done everything but beg the senior politicians of the ANC not to act like fools this year. Listen, I mean, you can think someone's a racist or white supremacist or a black supremacist or an idiot, but diplomatically, you don't tell them that. You don't tell the emperor is not wearing any clothes. …if the ANC politicians truly believe this, like Ebrahim Rasool and Ronald Lamola and Cyril Ramaphosa, Mcebisi Jones says the same thing recently, but in the past …These folks actually believe that. Keep it to yourself. You know, Chris, I worked in so many embassies throughout Africa, the Middle East and Europe. And the things I could say about the people whom I've interacted with, the things I could say, but you don't, especially not when you're the credited ambassador or you're the foreign minister. It's just bad. You know, they push, they push, they push, they push. And if you know anything about Donald Trump, whether you like him or dislike him, when you attack him personally or people close to him, you will regret it because Trump doesn't forget when you attack him and he comes after you. And you know, they didn't listen. The ANC didn't listen. They continued to poke the bear. In fact, during the week of the G20, what did they do? Ronald Lamola goes on CNN's documentary… The White Genocide, and it calls Donald Trump a white supremacist. Broadcast globally. That's the Sunday as the summit's about to get underway for the business meetings and all this stuff. And then throughout the week, every time Ramophosa had a chance to be diplomatic, he mocked or made fun of Donald Trump. He was asked outside a building in a crowd of people. It wasn't even a question, it was a statement by this guy, I guess he thinks he's a reporter. You will not be bullied. That's not a question. To which he says, no, no, no, we will not be bullied. But a diplomatic response, we will not allow ourselves to be bullied. Diplomatic response would have been, what do you mean? We're a sovereign nation, the United States is a sovereign nation. We have a disagreement about how we're approaching the summit. We'll work this out. That would have been the way to do it.Or when he's sitting there with a guy who's a media executive and he starts, the guy says, I know that… bad things are happening. Very sarcastic comment. And then Ramaphosa, instead of being diplomatic or shutting guy down, just, yeah, bad things are happening. 74 people per day are murdered in South Africa. The infrastructure is collapsing. 82 people a day are leaving the country. Nevermind the US Refugee Programme. That's all separate issue. And they're just mocking the President of the States.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (02:57.07)And that was recorded by the Government Information Service and posted on their TikTok account, intentionally meant to insult the President of the States. Of course, we're going to get to the stage. Eventually, Trump is going to have time to deal with them. And that's what's going on now. You've hit the nail on the head. The first message was all the work that South Africans did for a year to push for debt relief and for for the just energy transition and Ubutnu, all of this turning the G20 from an economic body into a begging bowl of the UN General Assembly, which is what they've done for the past year, which are the real reasons why the US didn't participate in the Leaders Summit. Because it became clear throughout the course of the year that South Africa was hell-bent on perverting the purpose of the G20. So the US finally said enough, we're not gonna do it. Now I know Trump said hyperbole, they're exterminating people and white genocide and all that stuff, but don't look at what Trump says, look at what he does. And throughout the year, they participate in these events until it just became too much and they just quit going. They had enough of it. So you poke the bear enough and you're gonna get it. So he scrubbed the website, everything's gone. If you go to the G20 official website, there's nothing there except that, sorry, we're experiencing technical difficulties, Miami 2026. And then they have a US site dedicated to it. And there's Trump standing there looking like the original gangster saying, the best is yet to come. Then Ramaphosa punches back. He has a meeting with…he talks to the country. And instead of just being diplomatic, he attacks America. Then he says, … this relationship's important to us, what really matters. No ambassador for a year. No trade representative. We have a trade representative. Jameson Greer is a trade representative. He talks to every country. Nobody in Washington for that. They keep gaslighting the public in South Africa and the world saying they have a delegation. They don't have a delegation. They keep saying they tried to reset the relationship. They never tried to reset the relationship. They're not talking to Washington. They're attacking Washington publicly all the time. What did they expect to happen?Chris Steyn (04:46.908)No Chris, Trump is probably not finished with South Africa. What do you think he's likely to do next?Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (04:53.39)Oh gosh, this is, this is, I'm going to feel like Siener van Rensburg/Nostradamus if I start making these predictions… uh, there's a lot of things can be done. You know, a few months back, there was a, a, a, uh, academic from Stellenbosch University earlier this year who went to Newsroom Africa and that academic, uh, falsely claimed that United States had put, United States had sanctions on South African. So I did a video in which I said, that's simply untrue. I named the academic. I'm not doing here. I want to get in an argument with this person, but I said, I said, that's not true. There are no sanctions. We have no sanctions since Apartheid on…By the way, you forgot about those, you? We put sanctions on them. Anyway, but there haven't been any sanctions on South Africa. This is nonsense. The only thing the United States has done is we have ended our handouts because South Africa's abrogated property rights. South Africa is in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which they're signatory, even under the ANC. They reasserted that. And they're also violating the Section 25 of their own cConstitution with Expropriation without Compensation.And I don't care whether it's targeted white, black, or brown people, it's targeted South Africans and it violates the Constitution and it violates international agreements. And so, you know, that's when this all kind of went sideways and it just, it's gone from there. It just, you know, what's Trump going to do? All he did was end foreign aid. That's our money. We have no obligation to give it to people. We shouldn't give it to people that aren't living up to the same ideals that we have. And the ANC is not living up to the ideals the United States has, especially when comes to private property rights. But what will we do next? You know, the point I was getting with that academic was that there are no sanctions. There can be sanctions. Trump can ban US businesses from doing business in South Africa. That would be devastating. There are tens of thousands of South Africans who make a decent living by working remotely for American corporations in South Africa. If Trump banned it, it would be devastating to South Africans. That's one of reasons why he probably hasn't done it. Also, the Swift banking system. It could sanction politicians in South Africa. It could sanction the ANC. It could sanction the government. Embargo is pretty serious. That involves military shifts. We could ban trade to South Africa. We could do so many things. Not we, the US government. I'm not doing this, but the US government could do so many things to South Africa to harm it. Today the world is very different. It could make it very difficult. It could even get very abusive and offensive in the cyber realm. The US has incredible cyber capabilities. In fact, we're the ones that notified South Africa's Reserve Bank that their site had been hacked because they didn't know it.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (07:18.294)So anyway, look, I hope none of this comes to fruition. But in the meantime, Trump is likely just to have fun with things like the G20. I mean, the reason why Trump did that, I guarantee you reason why Trump didn't invite them to this first meeting is because Ramaphosa went into the press, then he gave a speech, we are founding members of the G20 and we will attend fully and participate fully. Really? Guess what? No visas to come to the DC for the first meeting. That was predictable.And the next time they say it, it's just up the ante. At the end of this, whether people like it or not, America is the 800-pound gorilla and South Africa has very little maneuver space here. And they need to quit acting as a proxy for Tehran, Beijing and Moscow because it's not working very well. if they think, you know, this woe-is-me the whole year. Oh, the US, the US target us with tariffs. No, Donald Trump put tariffs on 90 countries. You're not special. You're not special. Stop claiming victimhood. You weren't targeted. You were one of 90 countries and you're one of the few who didn't send a trade delegation representative to negotiate these things down. Switzerland got hit with a bigger tariff than South Africa. Does anybody South Africa mention it? Switzerland, Switzerland, where people hide their money or used to hide their money. 39% tariff. But guess what? Now they have a 15% tariff because they negotiate with Trump. They opened their market up to us for things that they would not let in before. The Swiss had protected their market from US goods. Now we can get the things in there. We've lowered 15%. What is South Africa? They've lied about America and lied about Trump and insulted Trump in every turn. Every senior official… if they won't give us the money, the foreign aid, then we won't give them minerals. Dude, we buy the minerals. You want to cut your nose off and spite your face? You don't want the hundreds of millions of dollars we use to buy your minerals? Go ahead. That's a good move. You used to have 19 ferrochrome smelters and you're talking about beneficiation of minerals, smelting them and getting the value out of them. Guess what? You got two left and they're about to close. Okay, good luck with that. I like that plan. Geez.Chris Steyn (09:23.984)Now Chris, meanwhile, the blame for Trump's heartline stance against South Africa is still being laid at the door of some Africana organisations.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (09:36.43)Yeah, it is. And individuals, in fact, it's really being laid the door and let's not dance around it. know, Ramaphosa spoke Sunday and he basically this, you know, in early December. And he said that, you know, there's some people in some organisations and even talk about people abroad. And he said, but we're talking about AfriForum and Solidarity and members of the Democratic Alliance who for long had relations with politicians in the states to learn from them and also to push for continued assistance for South Africa.Look, I mean, this is a convenient boogeyman.… Trump has become a convenient foil for the ANC to blame for their failures. Just like Zanu-PF blamed America for its failing economy, lying about America having sanctions on Zimbabwe. There are sanctions on Zimbabwe, haven’t been anything since Zanu took over in 1980. There are travel restrictions against human rights implicated Zanu members, ZanuPF, and also against State-owned enterprises that profit from oppressing the population.Just like that, this is what the ANC is doing. They're talking about how other people are to blame. But the reality is this, this relationship has been poisoned since 2002. And I keep telling people this, and it frustrates me to no end that people aren't listening and don't do their research. In 2002, the South African government refused to sign an Article 98 waiver for the International Criminal Court. The irony is the International Criminal Court Rome Statute was written by American lawyers during the Clinton administration as a consequence of Bosnia and Rwanda and these genocides taking place there. So we wrote the thing, but then it was twisted and perverted in a way that it didn't protect our soldiers and our politicians from ludicrous claims that would be hauled before courts and arrested. So there is a section in that law with the Article 98 waiver, which a country would promise not to extradite people who aren't signatories to the treaty. South Africa refused to sign that. And for a while we could do no military training or assistance or exercise with South Africa. It was banned because of that.That started this in 2002 already, and it keeps building and building and building. The 75% tariffs on our poultry, the ban on our pork imports, the quotas on our car imports. We can only send so many cars per year to South Africa, but the Chinese flood the marketplace. That's not reciprocity, that's not fairness. And the list goes on and on. The five months that we politely, diplomatically, Ambassador … approached the South African government to ask what was going on with the Lady R.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (11:56.364)Why are you bringing a sanctioned Russian, you know, arms dealer to South Africa? Can you tell us about that? They ignored them completely as if we don't matter for five months. And then finally, Rubin went, went public and it forced the South African government to do at least a pretend investigation, claiming nothing happy. But people live in Simonstown. They overlook that. I've stayed overnight there. You can look down and see what's happening. People took pictures of video. So in those whole list of things, training Chinese fighter pilots in South Africa to shoot down NATO aircraft and using former NATO and American pilots to do it. You know, running Chinese Communist Party ideology clinics and the list goes on and on and on. And it just gets worse and worse and worse. The provocations have been there. This is not Donald Trump. That's the message I want to get across. This predates Trump and they just ignore this. In February of 2024, while Trump was fighting for his legal existence and all these cases were against him and he's running for office simultaneously, a Democrat Republican in the House of Representatives introduced a bill to review the strategic relationship with South Africa because we were tired of people, you know, taking a dump in our front yard, not to be graphic there, you know, crapping or, you know, tinkling in our cornflakes, so to speak. And so they said, no, we need to look at this. And also there was a clause in there to potentially sanction senior ANC officials. And that was before the GNU. So obviously it would become the GNU after that. That was renewed. That bill never went anywhere, but that bill was, it was bipartisan, Democrats and Republicans. It was renewed this year by a Republican in the House. And now another bill similar to it in the Senate has come out. They've gone nowhere in Congress like many bills. But the point here is that this is not Donald Trump. They want to make it about Donald Trump and that's a losing battle. And what gets me is that either stubborn or stupid. We both knew Neil de Beer, wonderful person. Neil, I sat down with him. I think I've told you this story before. Maybe some of your listeners have heard it, viewers. And early this year I met with him in Gordon's Bay. He was frail, but full of energy and life. And I said to Neil, said, Neil, you know, I'm trying to analyse this as intelligence analyst. And I look at the indicators and to me it can only be one of two things: They’re doing this intentionally because they want to play the role of martyr and victim. They think it's going to curry them favour in the Socialist world and in Tehran and Moscow, but they're not their true friends. Beijing is different. Beijing has higher tariffs on South African imports than the U.S. does, even now with 30% on lot of the products are higher than that in China. They're not their friends. Either they think they're going to get something from that or they're dumb. They're dumb as a box of rocks. And Neil sent me that, that lovely South African… accent and he said, Chris, you know, I know these people. I've known them for a long time. I was with them.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (14:24.418)I have to tell you, they're just that dumb. I don't know if that's true, but that's what Neil told me.Chris Steyn (14:31.9)Maybe he was just being funny again. Well, Trump is also clamping down on refugees and letting in only Afrikaners from South Africa.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (14:43.948)Well, Chris, that's also a partial truth and a fake news story. Trump is not only letting in Afrikaners, that's a fairy tale. He has now stopped immigration from 19 countries of concern. They never should have been allowed to immigrate here. That's true. And he's also put a pause on asylum cases because of the fraud that's been going on there and a review of that. And most strikingly, he's ordered a review by USCIS, the Customs Migration Service, to...look at all 233,000 refugee people or people who granted refugee status during the Biden regime. And there's a reason for that. Because we found out with the Afghans that over 80,000 were never vetted. Of course, I said that as it unfolded in 2021. I said, look, I said, look at this. These people are pouring in this country….we had 168,000 Afghans get in this country in three weeks. I said, that's insane. There's no vetting going on here. Where are they going to? Where are they getting data from?But as far as the second piece, that's all true. As far as the second piece, it's fake news. It's not true that Afrikaners, the US Refugee Programme is not for Afrikaners. And I'll say this clearly, and I refer people, I always give the receipts, za.usembassy.gov. That's where people go. What are the standards? You must be a South African national living in South Africa who is an Afrikaner or a racial minority and suffering from past unjust racial persecution or a legitimate fear of future persecution. That are, those are the standards. That's the bottom line. It's been that way since February 10th. And there are Coloureds and Indians who've come to America under this programme out of the few hundred that came over early. And there are even a few black South Africans who are married to white South Africans who are being called vile names like, know, coconut and idiotic things like that. Those people who are also eligible for the programme because of their spouse. And I don't know any who have arrived yet, but I'm aware of a few who've been interviewed or being processed, and are either on the verge of approval or have been approved and awaiting travel. So the programme is not for Afrikaners. It is not an Afrikaner programme. And yes, I know Trump says that, but what Trump says and what he does aren't the same thing. Trump loves hyperbole. He loves, it's the best, it's the biggest, we're going to be so great, the greatest economy ever. Okay, great. That's lovely. Let's look at the data. Okay. And when it comes to Refugee Programme, look at the data. There isn't much data out there, but I've interviewed more people who've come over than anybody on the planet.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (17:02.894)And I've also have insight based on people that go to these interviews and their places. The other thing is a lot of people running around saying, listening to US news, misleading people saying, no one's going to this thing. Only three people came and it always take…this is utter nonsense, Chris, utter nonsense. I can tell you unequivocally that the first resumption of flights that took place, I believe was the 24th of November or something like that, already had 70 South Africans who came over, rivaling the number of people leave every day on their own for volition going around the world. And that number is picking up and that's the number of people flying every day. That doesn't include the thousands who are getting interviewed in multiple locations around the country for the programme. It's very disheartening to see this still being falsely presented as an Afrikaner programme. it's very disheartening for me. This is not directed at you or BizNews, obviously, but directed at the the legacy media in South Africa who intentionally don't take the time to bother to check the facts. I mean, a journalist should be looking for facts and looking for the truth. If you're to have Op-Ed, that's fine, but it should be backed up by something. It can't be just your opinion. It has to have actually something behind it. Otherwise, everybody's got an opinion. You just have a space. You might as well go on a Sub Stack and publish something there or Reddit. So it just frustrates me to know when the people don't want to the truth about the programme. And what is happening, Chris, is tragic. South Africans are leaving South Africa in record numbers. Why? Because of what's happened. And it's really a sad thing to see. It breaks my heart. Last night, I used AI to create a song about standing in the queue. It almost kind of brought me to tears as I was broadcasting live from my audience, I made this song last night about standing in the queue, thousands of people, and that's what's going on. I would hope that the conditions would improve and people wouldn't want to feel the need to leave South Africa or would want to go back at some point. But I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon.Chris Steyn (18:53.478)President Cyril Ramaphosa is not the only world leader that President Trump has lost patience with. There's the Ukraine’s Zelensky.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (19:04.332)Well, yes, … Zelensky is a person I lost patience with several years ago. A man who precipitated the conflict. He did start it. Obviously, Vladimir Putin started this illegal conflict, but his actions directly contributed to it. He is in some ways, I feel, proximate cause for where we got to. Look, I understand where he's coming from. I wouldn't want to become a vassal state of Russia, but that's what Russia wanted. And instead of talking to them and trying to string this thing out and maybe reach some conciliation with them on some level, he was obstinate and it's predictable. Russia has invaded Georgia, Russia has invaded Azerbaijan.… The list goes on and on. Russia has fought war after war since the dissolution of Soviet Union. Again, it's near abroad. In addition to that, it's attacked its neighbours. It undermined Estonia's banking system by attacking it. Cyber attacks a while back to try to destabilise the country. This is highly predictable and Volodymyr Zelensky is just being a tool. Um, and Trump has lost patience with him because the guy is, is adamant. He wants weapons… over a million people are dead, Chris, a million people are dead. More than that. Seven, 8,000 people dying every week. I mean, that's more than we had combat deaths in 20 years fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. More than we had as a country fighting those wars that many people are dying every week there. It's insane. And it seems like nobody wants to end this war. Oh, some people do. But among world leaders, the only one that seems to want to do it is Donald Trump. The Europeans have not tried to en the war. They're happy selling weapons giving to Ukraine. Here you go. Here's some more tanks. Here's some artillery. Here's some air defense. And yes, we're guilty of giving them things too. But that was the previous administration. And yes, Trump has provided some weapons and given us some authorities. But that was to give them a carrot to come to the table. Trump is very frustrated with him. But you know what? No one else has made even an effort at all. And I don't want to see Ramaphosa going there, you know, I'm here to that was nonsense. That trip was nonsense. All that trip was about was going to Poland and showing up with automatic weapons and 70 people when you only sent a dip note that had six people on the list and then being denied access plane. They're racist. They're racist. Racist. I mean, people haven't seen who's on the plane. You try to get off the plane with 70 people and you said there were six people coming and you have … weapons. What are you sending it? Army of mercenaries to Poland? You know, that's that's what came out of that.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (21:18.99)So look, he's the only one trying to end the war and I don't know if he can end the war. And the bottom line is what I've said since the invasion happened in 2022. The only way this war ends is Ukraine is defeated, which doesn't seem likely. Russia's military is inept. Or they can cede territory, which they don't want to do. That doesn't seem likely either. So I don't know if Trump can make it happen. But you're right. He's not the only one. He got Nicholas Maduro, another person Trump has had enough of.Chris Steyn (21:39.932)I was just going to ask you closer to home for you. Trump is threatening military strikes.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (21:47.078)Yeah, no, you're right. He's definitely threatening. He wasn't threatening. He was just making it obvious. He was going to threaten. Now he's threatening. Yeah. Yesterday at the cabinet meeting, by the way, what an amasing meeting with like Trump or not his entire cabinet, every cabinet member, every secretary or minister in the South African vernacular, every single one of them was at the table. Even the small business administration… was there, you know, is insane. The Director of National Intelligence was there.… Then they all went around the table. Some of them were sucking up to teacher, you know, Oh, sir, Mr. President, we're so grateful to have this wonderful team. You're the best ever. Yeah, that was a bit annoying. Uh, but yeah, no, you should have watched it. There's about four or five ….like that, but most of were on the table and did what Trump said. All right. Tell us what you've been able to accomplish so far in the 10 months we've been in office. Well, Mr. President, we've done this, this, this, and this. We've done this, this, and this. It was insanely amazing….transparency. If the American people want to know what the Trump administration is all about, all you have to do is watch that one cabinet meeting. It's all right there. It was just absolutely amazing. But Trump has had enough of Maduro. He's had enough. And this is going on. And I don't know if the approach he's using is the right approach. I mean, he's targeting these drug runners in the Caribbean and blowing them out of the water. I don't know that that's right approach. Interdiction might be a plan. You interdict these folks and then arrest them. I'm not sure why they're doing it this way. But the point is that he is prepared. The Gerald Ford carrier strike group is in the Caribbean now. We don't usually keep a carrier strike group in the Caribbean. It's kind of our backyard and we don't usually keep one there. And he said yesterday in that cabinet meeting, yeah, we're doing these strikes at sea and we're going to be doing them on land. Whoa, doing them on land. There's no equivocation. Trump said, so get ready for, know, know, Tomahawk missile strikes into Venezuela. I mean, I'm not predicting it, but I mean, why not? It's pretty much what he said. So get ready for it. Trump is going to is going to do attacks, but I think it might be something a little less, a little, a little less dramatic like that, but more provocative like, you know, a SEAL team or Delta Force team going in and taking out a drug site or something like that. What authority do we have? Well, that's a whole can of legal stuff. You and I aren't going to get into that. We're not lawyers. But the bottom line is that Maduro, from news reports, currently Maduro claims that Trump basically all but told him, he needs to resign. And he's not going to do that. But Venezuela has been on this very dark path for a long time. You know, we have 606,000…Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (24:07.116)…Venezuelans is living in this country under Temporary Protected Status because it's unsafe for them to live… That's half of the people in this country under temporary protected status. Now, Trump has been suspending a lot of countries like Somalia's TPS for some Somalis. Also, he did it for Sudan and several other countries, but he hasn't touched it for Venezuelans yet. That's the tip of the iceberg. There are a couple million Venezuelans in this country and many here illegally, but that's those who have status. Venezuela is a major problem, and not just for us, but for all of Latin America.But Trump also kind of hand it with Columbia. So don't be surprised if we do a land strike against Columbia too. I mean, I don't mean to laugh, but this is crazy. People think this guy's messing around. Look, he's 79. He can't run for office again. He has a plan. He's laid it out and people are just laughing and mocking him thinking he's silly. The tariffs are not about the things Trump says about. It's not about raising tax or money for the US government. The tariffs are about geopolitical change. Trump has used it as a weapon to affect geopolitical change. We've talked about this before about Denmark refusing to protect the Arctic Sea and protect Greenland. Now they're doing it, spending $900 million buying ships and building a naval base there to do their job to protect their territory, which they were refusing to do, while Russia and China are sniffing around there. And then also Panama stopped offering the canal zone to a Chinese port operator after we lost 30,000 lives building that canal. And so they backed down after threats in Colombia who was trying to stand up to Trump and be a fool after agreeing to take their illegals back on a flight. The US flew down there. They rejected it and told him to turn around. And then they called Trump on the golf course and he said 50% tariffs today, 100% next week. And then within an hour, that president backed down, the C-17 turned around and went back. The point is the tariffs aren't about the things Trump says. They're about affecting political change. And they work. I mean, when you're the 800 pound gorilla, you can do this. And maybe it's a bully, whatever. But you know what, these countries are acting in a bad fashion and for the past 30 years we've just sat around and taken it. And we got a new sheriff in town. And whether you like him or not, that's who he is.Chris Steyn (26:11.024)Thank you. That was retired Colonel Chris Wyatt, U.S. Intelligence Analyst speaking to BizNews about President Trump losing patience with President Ramaphosa and a couple of other world leaders. I'm Chris Steyn. Thank you, Colonel.Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (26:27.544)You're very welcome. Thank you

(Ret.) Col. Chris Wyatt - Trump loses patience with Ramaphosa, Zelensky and Maduro…

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