The NdB Sunday Show: (Ret.) Col. Chris Wyatt - “Pinnochio” Ramaphosa, “Prince” Andrew’s Epstein fall, Bozell’s SA mission, 10% tarrifs and war talk

In the latest NdB Sunday Show, Chris Steyn gets comment from US Intelligence Analyst retired Colonel Chris Wyatt on the litany of international companies exiting South Africa or scaling down their operations; the collapse of Tongaat Hullet; the agenda of the new US ambassador Brent Bozell III; President Cyril Ramaphosa’s response to the SONA debate; President Donald Trump’s 10% response to SCOTUS striking down his reciprocal tariffs; the United States being ready strike Iran at “a moment's notice”; the meeting of Trump's Peace Board; and powerful people across the world being toppled because of their links to Epstein, the latest casualty being former Prince Andrew of the UK..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 every morning on 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 (00:02.379)Welcome to the NDB Sunday Show with me, Chris Steyn and US intelligence analyst, retired Colonel Chris Wyatt. Welcome, Chris. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (00:13.784)Chris, hello, thank you very much. It's pleasure to be back once again. Let's get to it. There's always plenty interesting to talk about when we chat. Chris Steyn (00:21.771)Let us start with a litany of international companies exiting South Africa or scaling down their operations. I'm sure you are keeping a list. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (00:35.768)Well, I am, of course, President Ramaphosa famously came in office back in early 2018 on the promise of $100 billion in foreign direct investment will be invested in South Africa in the next, I think he said year or two or three years. But one of the cases he talked about that. And aside from investments by Google and Amazon and a few companies that already had interest there, basically in data centres, which really isn't a jobs creation programme, there really seems to be not the foreign direct investment that he promised or expected and a lot of people have gone the other direction. We've seen the Guinness, of course, pull back from South Africa. We've seen Cartier pull back from South Africa. And now there's talk. We hear that the VW plant in Uitenhage is also supposed to be scaling down, which has been there forever. That's going to be devastating to South Africa. These are foreign-based companies. Now the latest one is the London-based mining firm Jubilee Metals. They confirm they've completed the sale… They've already completed the sale - which I think most people didn't know was even happening…It was kind of quiet - of their chrome and platinum group metals. All their operations in South Africa, they sold it for just $90 million. That's a fire sale in my book. It's worth a lot more than that. It means it's their formal exit from a country where what they've been doing there has been central to the business. Now they're going to focus elsewhere because of the problems in South Africa. And of course, this goes back to…we keep hearing about how the electricity crisis has been solved because there's no load shedding, but load shedding continues or power failures continue. They just call them something else, load reduction. I mean, it's not wide scale like it was, but because of the creaking infrastructure has been ignored for decades. We saw the pylons collapse near Port Elizabeth and people didn't have power for week, 10 days as consequence. Well, it's the high winds. Yeah, there were high winds, but if the towers had been maintained and not rusting away, they probably would have withstood the high winds. Look, this is beyond that too. It's also the rampant crime. It's the kidnapping of people. I mean, South African many respects is becoming like Columbia, where executives and just regular people are kidnapped for ransom. And it's a huge business. It's pretty shocking. I just saw another video yesterday of two young ladies in an upscale hotel in Joburg who, uh, you know, walking out the hotel and you see guys walk in with guns. They're on camera. They point guns and rob them. I mean, this is, it's not even the Wild West. It's beyond that. It's just, it's like New York City… but it's not just a Jubilee. That's also leaving. We've seen other companies like BAIN and Company, HSBC. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (03:00.974)This is a major bank, PNP, Paribas, the Brazilian, the IG Group and Shell among others are all abandoning the South African marketplace. All while being told that the country is going well. We just heard the president give his State of the Nation address last week and then his response to his speech this week. And he talks about, you know, South Africans, if it's on the mend, things are better. I don't know what planet he's living on, but when major international corporations abandon your country and they try to say, well, we're refocusing…banks aren't refocusing, they're dumping risk and South Africa's a risk. Oh, our credit rates improved. Yeah, you're still Junk Bond status and people still give you, you know, the option of getting money from them at 10, 11, 12% instead of four or 5%, which is devastating to your ability to pay it back into your economic growth. And the list goes on and on and on. It's really sad to see this gaslighting by the president country, by the media who carry the water for him. I see…you know, this whole controversy now with the Press Ombudsman and Pieter du Toit and of course, Renaldo Gouws being mentioned in this. And it's funny because Du Toit can do a defamation of character on him and get away with it. And the Ombudsman says, okay. But the funny thing is that if you read News24, they're the place that's spreading disinformation, all the stuff that's going on there, the news they keep going on and on about talking about how great the economy is and what's happening in South Africa. You know, with 40% unemployment, with debt that's out of control, with revenue that's not coming in and now a tax base that's exiting South Africa. Not just the 82 people on average who leave South Africa every day. Most of whom are a huge loss human capital wise, going to New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Japan, UK, United States, Canada. But now you also have this drain coming from refugees. It's not good. This is not a good look. These international companies are leaving South Africa for reason, because of crime, of outrageously priced electricity, because of the kidnappings, because of the corruption that's involved. And also, let's just be honest about the thing that no one wants to talk about. The requirement to adhere to racist legislation, forcing foreign companies to give 30% of their equity to someone because they're black. Not because they're bringing something to the table, not because they're competent, not because it's a strategic alliance, but because they're black. That's not a recipe for success. That's a recipe for disaster. And contrary to the president's argument that BEE Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (05:21.122)Black Economic Empowerment is working. No, it's not, but BEE is working. Black Economic Enrichment for favored cadres is working very well, and that is part of the problem. Anyway, that's sad to see all these companies leave South Africa. You know, it could be so much better, it just isn't. Chris Steyn (05:37.773)And now we've seen the collapse of Tongaat Hullet, a 134- year-old company. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (05:47.342)Well, Chris, this one's particularly distressing if you follow South Africa. South Africa has some of the most iconic brands in the world and biggest names. Sappi, the South African paper producer, is another one I'm waiting to see when they collapse and fail at some point. Tongaat Hullet, which of course has been around…the antecedent roots of this go back to around the 1840s, 1850s. So it's even older, but the Tongaat Hullet, of course, is 130 years old, as you said. This is really a sad one. There's no reason for it. There's no reason South Africa can't be incredibly profitable selling sugar. I mean, that's the whole reason why people from the Indian subcontinent were brought to South Africa in the first place was to cut the sugar cane and work those plantations. This is an iconic industry that should be successful, but it's collapsing for various reasons. And now I see today that the government's announcing that they're going to intervene to save Tongaat Hullet. Well, you know, that's like coming to fight the fire after the building is burnt to the ground…there ashes and the Fire Brigade goes, okay, we're here to put the fire out. Dude, the building is gone and it's too late. It's not the only situation. The ferrochrome smelters in the country, the 18 or 20 or so that existed just a decade or so ago, or 20 years ago, we're down to the last one and it's about to go bankrupt. Oh, we're coming with a strategy to save it. Frankly, Chris, it reminds me of the Foot and Mouth Disease. 18 months after the fact, we're here with the vaccinations. Well, it's too late. It's everywhere now and the entire herd is affected. South African beef prices are doubling, tripling in some places and nobody wants to buy your beef abroad anymore because of what's happening. It's not just beef, it's lamb, it's all sorts of things. This is another disaster ignored. This is a problem when you lack real leaders. You know politicians can be leaders, but oftentimes they're not. They're not leaders. They sit around and wait for disaster to develop or metastasize, and then they jump in like they're gonna save it. People with vision see these things before they happen. And I could have told you this was gonna happen. And I've already told you a brand that's gonna look for Sappi at some point, some point down the road, this iconic brand is gonna be in trouble. The automobile industry, I've always said that they've enjoyed an artificial advantage because the United States allows South Africa to participate in the African Growth Opportunity Act, thereby making BMWs and their parts and things like that cheaper to ship to America than the ones coming from Europe. So we bought them because the Europeans, they have a tariff and the South Africans didn't. But once that artificial advantage is gone, you can't compete. It reminds me of the Multi-Fibre Agreement. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (08:05.42)That's something the World Trade Organisation had in place decades ago. It expired around 2005 or 2006, if I remember correctly. And the Multi-Fibre Agreement was a deal where if you manufactured garments, clothing, you could bring material in, source material from different places, bring it to one country, assemble it there, and then get these advantages and avoid the quotas that were placed on, you know, so the countries didn't swamp other countries with their textiles. As a consequence, Southern Africa had a massive textile industry, an artificial one because they enjoyed this huge advantage where they could ship more shirts, more pairs of blue jeans, more clothing into the United States, into Western Europe, into Japan than the Chinese could do or the Vietnamese could do because they had quotas and they had constraints. So these Asian companies from Taiwan and China especially built all these factories in Lesotho, even in Botswana and in South Africa as well. And as soon as the Multi-Fibre Agreement expired, two, 300,000 jobs in South Africa disappeared within six weeks as these Chinese companies closed their factories because they were no longer competitive because of the abysmal work ethic in Southern Africa, because of the absences from work, because of people going to HIV funerals for a week all the time, and all the other reasons. This is long before load shedding became an issue. So there are systemic problems in the South African economy that are causing all these problems. And it's really sad to see an iconic name like Tongaat Hullet go away. It's really, really unfortunate. Chris Steyn (09:25.037)Chris, the US ambassador, Brent Bozell III is taking up his post. What do you think he has on the agenda to discuss with our president, Cyril Ramphosa? Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (09:38.328)Well, I the first thing would be, may I be accredited? There's a lot of speculation that South Africa will not accept his credentials. My suggestion to the government of South Africa is let's not play silly games. Brent Bozell has done nothing to warrant not having his credentials accepted, he is perfectly acceptable. And historically our ambassador to South Africa has almost always been a political appointee. So that's nothing unusual in and of itself. So let's just go ahead and accept him as ambassador. If you don't like what he has to say, you don't want to deal with him. There’s a simple way to deal with him. You don't invite him to your cocktail parties and he can't come to cocktail parties, ge can't schmooze with other folks. He can't get anything accomplished. All he can do is host people at his embassy from other diplomatic missions, go to public ribbon cuttings things like that. And you can, you can just cut him out. But what do I think his agenda is going to be? Well, I think that, if he gets a accredited, which I expect will happen, I don't think South Africa is going to deny him. Although a lot of people speculate that… If he gets accredited…and he, he actually, he's in South Africa now actually becomes the ambassador in effect working there then I expect that he will very strongly push for meetings with DIRCO. He'll very strongly push for meetings with President Ramaphosa as frequently as reasonable, because Ramaphosa's got lots of responsibilities, not just to answer with the American Ambassador, to try to effect change. But he will just be beating his head against the wall. Ramaphosa's made it clear that the racist policies of the ANC will stay in place. Black Economic Enrichment is not going away as long as the ANC is in power. Even though they're just a plurality party in this government, they're going to keep it up. And even if it means attacking their coalition partners like the DA and Freedom Front Plus, they don't care. This is essential to them. Enriching your friends is more important than enriching all South Africans, which is really sad to see. And they get away with it because the average person doesn't understand how that economics works. It's not complicated, you know, supply and demand…It’s not rocket science. It works. People want something, it becomes more dear, the price goes up. People don't want something, it sits there. You can't sell it. It has a shelf date, then you’ve got to sell it. You reduce the price. And then people buy what they want and they don't buy what they don't want. It's as simple as that. But the problem is that it's just really sad to see that this is... I keep saying like the 40th time today, it's really sad to see it because it is. It breaks my heart to see what's happening in South Africa. But Bozell will push President Trump's views. But a lot of people seem to think that this is a major issue for the president. It's not. Look at what Trump has done in South Africa. Virtually nothing… Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (12:04.494)despite the endless string of insults, the mocking by Ramaphosa of the president of the United States, the appearance in the Oval Office lying to the president of United States, and then the media in South Africa carrying the water, spreading their disinformation or misinformation, lying about things. To this day, to this day, Chris, we still have all the media house in South Africa putting quotation marks around the term refugee for people who are legal refugees. Frankly, that's insult to the United States sovereignty. Every time that Ramaphosa and Lamola talk about South Africa as sovereign country, they're correct. It can do what it wants, but so is the United States. And we're adhering to our law, which by the way, conforms to international standards for refugees. And every time they put quotations around it, because it hurts their feelings that these white people couldn't possibly - and by the way, they're not all white. We've talked about this, white, some black, coloureds, and Indians have come over here - it hurts their feelings and sensibilities because they live in gated communities where they're catered to, and they've got domestic help, and their life is wonderful. They don't understand that other people don't live that way and other people are victims of persecution. And the media carrying the water, they live in a fantasy world. It's really sad. So, Bozell will carry the water for the president because that's his job. An ambassador is the personal representative of the head of state, in this case, the president of the States. And mission number one is to carry the mission agenda of the president. And number two is to represent the nation. And that's the reality of it. So we'll see what happens. I think that Bozell, he's pretty smart when comes to media…He’s been exposing fake media for decades with his media analysis company. I've seen much of what he's done over the years. And I suspect that he's pretty astute. And the only reason he would come out with the guns firing is if Trump told him to. And I don't think that's going to happen initially because Trump hasn't come out with guns firing. All he's done is suspend foreign aid and then open a refugee programme up. And despite all the insults, all the attacks, all the undermining of our national sovereignty, hosting a terror, state sponsor of terror in a naval exercise, and then blaming it on the Chinese in your own waters, shipping helicopters to a sanctioned warlord in violation of UN norms, talking about the rules-based international order while you're violating on a daily basis. Trump could have done so much to South Africa, and he's done virtually nothing. But that's not the narrative being put in South African media and by South African analysts. Trump's aggressive, America's attacking… Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (14:24.014)…attacking South Africa. You people are living in a fantasy world, You need to back off of the tik. Stop taking tik. Stop drinking shibuku because it's affecting your judgment. Anyway, I think that Bozell, we'll see how it goes. I'm curious, I think as are you, Chris, to see how it comes out. But I don't think it's gonna be quite the way that most people are expecting. They're thinking that Bozell's gonna come here with both guns blazing. And I would be surprised to see that..Read more:.The NdB Sunday Show: Ret.) Col Chris Wyatt - Cyril "Stalingrad Presidency", Steenhuisen’s "missed mission" - and refugee drama.Chris Steyn (14:47.405)Meanwhile, Chris, what did you make of the State of a Nation Address debate and President Ramaphosa’s reaction to that debate? Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (14:57.981)Well, the State of the Nation Address we discussed last week, it's a fantasy land. Fair enough. I mean, you know, heads of state get up and tell these fairy tales in every country, but I mean, some are just bigger whoppers than others. I mean, I was watching Pinocchio, I mean, Ramaphosa’s nose grow by the moment when he gave that speech last week. Now, the responses to it are predictable. You watch people listening to tghe speech last week, even his own party, people are sitting there with looks of disbelief, but many of the things he said, the applause was tepid. And this week, there was actually an amount of applause for people responding. I see the Freedom Front Plus’, Corné Mulder’s comments were treated pretty fairly by the press and even favourably in some cases, which kind of surprised me. Then of course, MK and EFF were very unhappy and they express that and that's fine. But what's interesting about Ramaphosa's response is that he chose to stand up and use his Stalingrad Defense. know, they talk about Zuma’s Stalingrad, but he's like, BEE, we will not change. You know, it's not right that white people have advanced. Dude, what planet are you on? You know, here's a fascinating story that's tied to that, Chris. You see this past week, UCT came out with a story talking about how the black middle class has grown. Well, fantastic. I'm so happy to hear that. That's wonderful. The mark they're using is 75,000 Rand in family income annually. Okay, that's not a lot of money, to be honest, but okay, 75,000 Rand. So your middle class is South African, if you have that according to them. Oh, let's accept that. They looked at 2012 and they looked at 2024. In 2012, 61% of white households, whatever the heck that is, White households had 75,000 more. Okay, that's not bad. That means it's slightly over half the people are middle-class. And black households, it was just 29%. Well, that's not good. That's a low figure. Well, here we come jump forward to 2024 on the data and 41% of black households are now in the middle-class. That's fantastic. I'm really happy. I wish it was 70% or better. And they're crowing about this and saying, transformation is working. Well, you're right. It is working because transformation is not about raising the boats of everyone, rising tide lifting everyone, it's about racial revenge and impoverishing the white population at their expense for everyone else. And what I mean by that? Well, they talk about how it's working and they mentioned that the white population, now if the white population had gone from 61 to 70 or 72% while the black population lifted, that would mean that the pie is getting bigger and it's larger the economy and more people benefiting from it and everyone's getting better off. Well, for many people, that would be great. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (17:23.95)But they don't even focus on this. The focus of the story is about how the black population is increased to middle class. But the white population, now only 41% of white households are making 75,000 Rand per year. Now bear in mind that 75,000 Rand per year in 2024 is not 75,000 Rand in 2012. Inflation has eviscerated that. And with the exception of the weak dollar, because the policies Trump is pushing, South Africa's currency has gained against no currency. They keep talking about how the currency is strong. It's not strong. It's strong against the dollar. But you know, so is gold, so is silver, so is betting on sporting events. Everything's stronger against the dollar under Trump the past year. But it's not strong against the yen, not strong against the Euro, against the pound or Swiss franc, only against the US dollar. You know, it's, his, his response to this was to double down on Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment and it's going to stay, it's here to stay. And then he attacked his coalition partners. I mean, this is ridiculous. Why are you in a coalition? Because they have no choice, with no choice, without the DA, this whole thing falls apart. Even with the other eight parties, they can barely hold it together with the 50% they need. They have to have the DA, the DA wants to be in government, they're desperate in government, they have to have the ANC, so they have this marriage of inconvenience and they have to stay in it. Because if the DA leaves, the government collapses, they have to start all over and try to form a government. And in reality, it would be most likely that the ANC government. Despite John Steenhuisen's claims, there'll be no Doomsday Coalition. The ANC is not gonna bring Jacob Zuma into this government, that's a disaster. He'll eat them from the inside. They're not gonna bring in the EFF as long as Malema's in charge of it because Ramaphosa hates him, as do most cogent, lucid people in the country of South Africa. So that's not gonna happen. There's not gonna be this Doomsday Coalition despite John Steenhuisen’s claim how he saved the country from it, which he didn't do. What's most likely gonna happen is a plurality government in which the ANC can accomplish nothing because they can't get enough votes to pass a legislation, which by the way, I said is likely to be one of the better outcomes for South Africa based on the elections in 2024. Because if you have a government that can't pass legislation, then they can't take away your liberty. They can't make the government bigger. They can't imprison you. Anyway, Ramaphosa's response to the State of the Nation address, response is, was predictable, but a bit surprising that he attacked his coalition partners openly. And also he attacked white people. He attacked white South Africans. And that's where I was going in this with his comments earlier. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (19:48.77)You know, we can't have this where white people profit. Dude, what are you talking about? A third or nearly half of the white families now live below the poverty line as a consequence of your policies for the past dozen years. And yes, more black people being rich, but not enough. And it's not success when part of your population, whether black, white or brown, is now demonstrably poor. You're crowing that? Do you not care about your entire population? Very disappointing. And anybody who thinks lucidly, objectively… about what he said, should be disappointed with what Ramaphosa has had to say in his responses. Chris Steyn (20:23.927)To your president, SCOTUS striking down Trump's reciprocal tariffs and his response. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (20:31.874)Well, geez, I gotta be honest with you. I kinda expected this to happen. And I know that the administration expected it; they've been preparing this for long time. What Trump did when he put these reciprocal tariffs out there is he tried to level a playing field and people like, and this is against South Africa, he’s attacking us, he's aggressive. No, he's not. When you impose a 70% tariff on our poultry to prevent it from getting in your country and there's nothing wrong with our poultry, when you ban our pork products, the best pork products in the world to protect your pork industry, when you put quotas on our goods and services, all while receiving preferential access to our marketplace of no duty for 1800 goods and services, plus the general system of general agreement tariffs and trade…another 5,800 products, get to our country duty free. Basically, almost anything you sent to America was duty free while you're charging outrageous rates to us to keep us out of your marketplace while letting the Chinese flood your market with automobiles and so on. When you're doing that, that's hardly fair. When the Europeans are charging 10% tariff on every American car shipped to European Union country, plus Value Added Tax, that makes a car from America as much as 39% more expensive. We charged 2% tariff. Trump was trying to level the playing field. Now, did he go overboard? Yeah, I think you can make that argument, Trump went a little bit overboard with some of these tariffs, but it was a political tool to achieve things. And the countries negotiated with him have worked out deals that are favourable to the United States or at least balanced with what was happening from abroad. But the courts have decided that a law passed in 1977 by a Democratic Congress signed by a Democratic president, James R. Carter, that that law, that the president used it unconstitutionally. The problem is that that law delegates the authority to the president of the States to do this. And what the court argued, the Supreme Court of United States, SCOTUS, what they argued is that the president has overstepped his bounds, he doesn't have the authority, but the law gives him that authority. So frankly, the only decision that the court should have reached is whether the law is constitutional. Does it violate the tenets of the Constitution, which is their job, to determine constitutionality, not to legislate from the bench. They've effectively legislated from the bench by basically saying, well, he can't use this law. But here's the part about it that proves that this judgment is suspect. And I'll be very clear about this. There's no mention about a remedy here. There's no mention about the billions and billions and billions of dollars collected in tariffs over the past several months, since August and even before that. So what happens now? Do we have to refund hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs? Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (22:53.792)Is it a non-issue? What will happen now is that it'll either die like that, no one will pay any of tariffs back, or some group will get together and claim that they have legal standing. They'll sue the administration and it'll spend two to five years in courts and this will be a dead issue. So the fact that they didn't address that issue shows to me that this is not a legitimate ruling in my view. And at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter because the administration's had months to prepare for this. There are at least three other federal laws that give the president the authority to impose tariffs. So he signed executive order last night under section 122 of the Tariff Act of 1974, which predates the 1977 Act. And he put a global 10% tariff. So every country in the world has 10%. So in some respects, good news for South Africa, you just went from 30 to 10%, at least temporarily. Look, this is the problem with courts, you and people are gonna say, you know what you're talking about? Supreme Court's ultimate authority. No, they're not, and they're not without flaws. In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court in a landmark decision called Plessy versus Ferguson set the stage for South Africa's Apartheid legislation. That wasn't the intent. But what they determined is that you could have separate accommodations, separate but equal. So Plessy versus Ferguson was the landmark historic case in 1896 over Louisiana streetcar situation, I think it was. And it said that you can segregate black and white travelers or hotel guests or whatever, as long as they have separate and equal accommodation in the same facilities. Well, that's unconstitutional. Our 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which granted citizenship to the former slaves in this country in 1868, guarantees equal protection under the law for everyone. It's called the Equal Protection Clause in that constitutional amendment. So therefore, that's not equal protection. They argued that it was. Well, in 1954, a new Supreme Court, Brown v. the Board of Education to Pica, Kansas, overruled that judgment, but 56 years of people being segregated unconstitutionally in this country. The court gets things wrong. And in this case, they got it wrong. Another case they got wrong is a 1972 decision in Roe versus Wade, which gave the federal government an authority that doesn't exist in our constitution to regulate abortion. And as a consequence, for 50 years, over 50 million American children were eliminated in the womb of women in this country. 50 million children plus… Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (25:12.558)…over a 50 year period. Whether you believe in abortion or not, or whether it's a right or it's whatever you want to call it, that's the truth of the matter. And the real truth of the matter and the argument I always had against that was less about abortion and more about the overreach of the federal government. And in the Dobbs decision two years ago, this court agreed that the government overreached. The federal government does not have that. In fact, the 10th Amendment to the Constitution explicitly states that any power not enumerated in the Constitution to the federal government falls explicitly to the sovereign states themselves and every state can decide what that law is and abortion is one of those things. So, you know, the same thing here, the court can right itself. And in this case, I think they've gone wrong. Not a constitutional scholar, but I certainly know the constitution. I supported and defended for decades in my life and I've read it through and through. And to me, the court has overreached here. But I'm not worried about it. Trump has got other options. He's already pushed one, he's got more. If they go to court, it took a year to get this thing to resolve. If they go again, they won't take cases up the Supreme Court until later this year, unless it's an emergency case, which means they won't even review it until next year. So another year down the road if they strike this one down and he'll use the next one. So the tariffs are here to stay until countries start treating the US fairly, or at least in the view of the presidency. Chris Steyn (26:25.911)Chris, the world is waiting when the US is going to attack Iran. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (26:33.966)Well, let's see, it's 6.35 in the morning, 6.38 this morning, Chris. No, I'm not trying to be a smart dog. It's a fair question. It's a very good question. I mean, we have two carrier strike groups in the Gulf. We have more combat aircraft reconnaissance aircraft, electronic warfare aircraft in the Middle East than any time since 2003 when we went into Iraq. And frankly, I think there's more now than there were in 2003 at this stage, going all the way back to the Gulf War in 1991. There's a huge amount of stuff there and we've got to dispute with the Brits over the Chagos Islands and what's happening there with our ability to our B-52s flying out of Diego Garcia. So apparently they can't be used. When is he going to do it? Well, I will say this. They're ready. They have a plan. It's been in place for long time with multiple options. You know, Friday seems to…Trump likes to lower the boom on people. It's ironic because yesterday Supreme Court lowered the boom on Trump with her negating his tarrifs, but he was ready for it. So it wasn't a friends and family only Friday from his perspective, but usually that's when something big comes out of the Trump administration is on a Friday. Nothing happened. It's pretty quiet this morning over the weekend, but that doesn't mean it's going to last. I can't predict and I don't have any inside information. What I can tell you is United States has the ability to strike Iran on almost a moment's notice undetected at any moment and they're in position to do it and they're prepared and the Iranians are still playing this silly game. They've been playing for 40 years, pretending to negotiate, pretending to be cooperative when they're not. They're hardening their nuclear facilities right now. They're moving resource around. They're dispersing their leadership to different locations so they can't all be taken out at once. They're trying to implement alternative communications methods. They are prepared for war. And quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised that sometime in very near future, we see them firing missiles at Israel. That'd be the first thing they do, retaliation. And then, of course, the United States will start pummeling Iran. My hope is that if this does happen, it's short-lived - and that it doesn't affect the Iranian people to a major degree. I would hope that it's confined to the leadership of this theocratic terror state and that these people disappear from the planet, either in leg irons for prosecution or whatever the case is. This is a very bad situation. You know, peace is breaking out all over the Middle East. The U.S. is withdrawing its troops from Syria. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (28:52.654)And Gaza now has this situation where billions of dollars have been committed to rebuild the place and 20,000 troops from seven countries have already agreed to come in along with the 12,000 police force. These are positive signs, but only if Hamas is disarmed, but that's the plan. So while peace is breaking out, the Iranians are being obstinate and we are on the cusp of a war. I don't know when, maybe it won't happen. You know, many times we put troops, I've been out there with operations and we didn't pull it. I was supposed to go into Rwanda during the genocide. We had a warning order back in 1990s. I was in the Aviation Unit in Germany with attack helicopters and transport helicopters. We were supposed to go to Rwanda. We briefed, we trained, we prepared, we rehearsed, and it never happened. While 850,000 people were slaughtered in the Clinton administration, and Kofi Annan sat by and pretended nothing was happening. Yeah, well, they always have missions in place. So we'll see if it happens, but I don't know if it's gonna happen, but I do know this. It can happen. And the United States is prepared. The Iranians are preparing, but we'll see if they're prepared well enough for what's coming their way. Chris Steyn (29:54.871)What is happening with Trump's Peace Board? Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (29:58.318)Well, the Peace Board is something I just briefly touched on a moment ago, and this is his alternative to the UN Security Council, I suppose. His argument is that the UN is useless at ending conflicts. And let's look at the history. I think he has a point. The DRC conflict is not over. It's been going on since 1960. It has. had times when it's calmed down, but it's been going on since just 1960. One could say it wasn't going on for a while, but...in my view, it always continued because of a rapacious government that preyed on its citizens and attacked its own people under a head of state that was there for years. And then we have this conflict that started in 1990, it's never really gone away. That hasn't been ended. Look what's happening in the Sahel. Has the UN done anything to end the terrorism and the attacks in the Sahel? Nothing. What about Somalia? And the African Union hasn't been able to end Somalia. That hasn't happened. Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al-Shabaab in Somalia. You know, Cyprus has a...calm peace agreement and it’s…there's no war, but that's never been resolved since that war was kicked off by the Turks back in the 70s. We've got we've got UN observers in Israel that have been there for decades and maybe you could argue that's working, but I think that's even questionable. They don't stop conflicts between other states, you know. So what exactly is the role of you in here? I'm not trying to beat the UN, but I'm trying to make the point that Trump is making where he's coming from. Whereas he comes into office and he negotiates a deal for peace in the DRC. And yes, we can argue if it's been broken or if it's going to be lasting. That's a whole different argument. But at least he gets an agreement. The UN has no agreement. They just keep sending billions of dollars there. And by the way, hundreds of millions of that's our money. We are the largest funder of peacekeeping operations and our money goes into fruitless wars that the UN doesn't resolve. And the list goes on and on. So his Peace Board met for the first time on Thursday, this past week, and many countries involved. But…you know Americans closest allies are sitting on the sidelines. So they're making an effort to make themselves relevant because their feelings are hurt because it's Donald Trump that thought this up, not them and not the UN. They put their faith in the UN, an organisation which has had some success with culture and with medicine, but it's also had many setbacks and it's never been successful at peacekeeping or peacemaking. And that's one of its biggest problems. It doesn't do peacemaking. You know, part of the reason why the SANDF went to the DRC recently, part of their deployment was for peacemaking… Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (32:16.216)…peace enforcement, but their soldiers were sent without equipment, unprepared and chased away by a band of rebels who are better equipped and better disciplined than your own troops. That wasn't a UN mission, but that's the sort of thing that happens. And then the UN forces don't get it done. The negotiators don't get it done. Trump, he uses weapons at his disposal. You don't want to cooperate. Here's another one. What has the UN done to end the conflict in Sudan or South Sudan? Nothing. What has the AU done? Very little. For that matter, what has the ANC done? They're all worried about a genocide in Gaza. What about the genocide in Sudan in Al Fashir? What about the murder of black Africans there by the Arabs from Sudan? Not a peep. Not a thing. Ramaphosa mentioned it passing in his State of the Nation address, but where has he been for the past years while this has been unfolding? The past four years when I've reported on this endlessly. The United States has just sanctioned the leaders of the RSF, the Rapid Support Forces, in Sudan. Has the ANC done that? Has the ANC stood up and demanded that in the AU? Has the ANC taken Sudan or the RSF to the International Court of Justice? No. Yeah, so Trump's Board of Peace is out there in addition to its formation and over a dozen countries coming to this. Mostly, by the way, Arab countries and Middle Eastern countries and Arab and Muslim countries for the majority have come to this because they want peace. And they get a say in this, but they've also agreed to provide money. The US said initially 5 billion, now the US is gonna give 10 billion, plus these other countries offered 7 billion, so that's what, 17 billion right there for the projected 50 to 60 billion to rebuild Gaza…that’s off to a good start, that's upfront money. On top of that, we've got a promise of 20,000 troops and 12,000 police from seven countries, and it's not the US. So we'll see what happens and how that is laid out and who controls it and what the rules of engagement are and what cooperation we get from Israel or not get from Israel because it won't succeed without cooperation from Israel. But Trump's Board of Peace, which I'm not saying I'm in favour of it or opposed to it, but I am saying that all things being equal, if you look at it, it's off to a good start. I it's pretty impressive. We'll see if it's sustainable, if other people want to play. The European Union sent a representative, but the European countries don't want to play. Of course, they're busy arming Ukraine and killing Russians and Ukrainians by selling their weapons from the defense industries and getting rich off the war in Ukraine. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (34:35.832)…trying to a cake and eat it too. So we'll see what happens..Read more:.The NdB Sunday Show: (Ret) Col Chris Wyatt - Zuma & Epstein, Israel & SA , Trump & Iran - and Fikile’s “Cold War”.Chris Steyn (34:39.829)Lastly, Chris, powerful people across the world are toppling like dominoes, resigning, being questioned by police, being prosecuted because of their links to Epstein, the latest casualty being former Prince Andrew of the UK. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (34:59.928)Well, the Prince Andrew arrest is interesting because it's tied to Epstein, but it appears the arrest is not because of anything sexual or salacious. It appears to be that this guy gave up state secrets. He shared classified information. It appears with Epstein. What is going on there? My goodness. Talk about not being able to trust somebody. And it's not just him. I've seen these emails where his former wife, the Duchess there, Sarah Ferguson was, I love you so much, Jeffrey. What was going on with this creepy looking dude, Jeffrey Epstein? You know, this is very disturbing. And while we're talking about that, Norwegian, former Norwegian prime minister is implicating this. He was detained. He might've been arrested recently. I'm not sure the reporting on that, but the list goes on and on. Now we have Pritzker, not the governor, but his brother who ran a major corporation, a billionaire. He's stepping aside. Look, this is funny. It's like watching people who want to fire a cannon at Donald Trump and he's standing in front of the cannon. I saw someone with a political cartoon and Trump is smiling and the cannon has the Epstein Files painted on the side of the barrel and they light the fuse and it blows up. It blows back on the people who are crying about the Epstein Files being released. Remember the Democrats didn't release any Epstein files for the four years of the Biden administration. They had all this stuff. They continued to investigate millions of documents. The Trump administration was criticized when they came in office by Right-wingers, especially saying, well, where's the, where’s the transparency? What's Trump hiding? He must be in the files. Well, Trump has released files six times now, even called on Congress to pass a law, which he signed into law to release the documents. Then they're never satisfied. There's redactions. Of course there's redactions. You cannot expose sources and methods and you cannot leave the victims' names in there. But it's rich and powerful people. Well, it is rich and powerful people. And for the most part, they're Europeans and Democrats in America. There are exceptions. There are other people but those are the people most heavily involved in this. It's comical watching Hillary Clinton testify in Congress about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and she deflects and tries to blame Republicans for a witch hunt when her name is all over the thing. Look, being named in the Epstein files doesn't mean you did anything wrong. You know, this guy was rich and powerful. People gravitate towards the rich and powerful at coffee shops, at... Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (37:15.832)…cocktail parties, you pass around business cards, someone puts in a day planner, someone writes a number down, you offer someone a meeting to facilitate a deal, it doesn't mean you had anything to with what was happening in the islands. Even some people went there, had nothing to do with it. But the people that keep stepping aside, many of them continue the relationship after he was convicted of sex, soliciting sex from a minor, prostitution from a minor. That conviction… …now Trump, if you look at this, it's funny because we've got video evidence of Trump calling this guy out back in 2006, 2007, 2008, which the media keeps hiding. Trump was a guy. Look, I'm not defending Trump. I'm just saying that's the truth. He called him out back in 2015. They asked him a question before he got elected to office because he ran for the election 2016 about Epstein. And he said, oh, this thing is very real. Why don't you just ask Prince Andrew about it? That was 2015. Why don't you ask Prince Andrew about it? He knows all about it. That's what he said. So he knew there was dirt on Prince Andrew. Look, there's going to be more powerful people that fall as a consequence, and they should, Chris, they should. These people exercised incredibly poor judgment. This guy was a convicted sex offender, and not just, you know, someone that committed sex offense, but a sex offense against a minor, a particularly heinous offense. And that's the one we know about. I mean, he should have been toxic and radioactive. Everyone should have stepped away. But instead, Sarah Ferguson is professing her love for him after this conviction. What kind of sick person is she? What kind of kid, what does she do to raise her kids if that's how she behaves with other adults? It's pretty terrifying to see what these rich and powerful get away with. Now remember for years, there was whole conspiracy theory in America about Pizzagate and how these wealthy people were trafficking and having sex with minor children. And all these people were dismissed as Right-wing conspiracy nuts. I didn't pay much attention to it, but gee, look what happened, Chris. Maybe it's not Pizzagate, but there was a vast global cabal of people who were committing heinous sexual offenses against minor children on a remote Caribbean island and the world looked the other way. But the bottom line at the end of the day is that these people won't suffer. I mean, it's embarrassing for Mountbatton, the former prince, to be arrested. But if he goes to jail, it's going to be for giving away state secrets and abusing his positional office, not for the sexual stuff, because they can't prove that. And for the Prime Minister, former Prime Minister Norway, this is particularly embarrassing. But what it does say is that all the people who love to do the smoke screens Trump this, Trump that. Gee. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (39:38.37)You still want those Epstein Files released? You still want to see what's in them? Now I want to see, because it's very interesting, all the nasty, wealthy, connected, rich people and the things they've gotten away with for all these years. Chris Steyn (39:50.483)Indeed. Thank you. was US intelligence analyst, retired Colonel Chris Wyatt on the NdB Sunday Show with me, Chris Steyb Thank you, Colonel. Colonel (Ret) Chris Wyatt (40:01.966)Thank you, Chris. Boy, I can't believe we're still talking about these Epstein Files. I guess we'll be talking about this for years to come, but have a good week ahead. Chris Steyn (40:09.239)Thank you, you too.

The NdB Sunday Show: (Ret.) Col. Chris Wyatt - “Pinnochio” Ramaphosa, “Prince” Andrew’s Epstein fall, Bozell’s SA mission, 10% tarrifs and war talk

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