Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai-US trade and this is a topic I have sort of stayed away from here recently because it's delicate; I don't want to wade in to something I don't fully understand, especially while negotiations are going on. And look, full disclosure. I'm a Thai-American, okay? I want what is best for the alliance; I want what's best for my home country America, the country of my birth; I want what is best for my new home country where I am naturalized, Thailand. I want what is best for all of us, okay? For that reason, I want to leave it with the pros to figure out what's going on with regard to Thai-US trade. On a certain level, I understand Trump's position. The United States has kind of gotten a bum deal on many trade relationships. I would urge Mr. President, to maybe look at the fact that Thailand isn't necessarily one of those. Thailand has been a really staunch ally of the United States especially in this region, and especially when you understand the history of it, you understand that this goes beyond trade, that Thailand has been a staunch even when we were not in the best position we could have been in geopolitically, Thailand stood by us. And the US-Thai Treaty of Amity has held for nearly 200 years. I think it's important to note that. And in many ways, America helped Thailand especially in the aftermath or coming out of the so-called colonial era, us Americans helped Thailand come out from under a lot of outside undue influence and not in a particularly self-serving way. If you understand the history of that, there is one guy in particularly Francis B. Sayre, S-A-Y-R-E, I've discussed him in other videos on here. He, along with a number of other folks came down here and helped Thailand in many ways to sort of get around and get beyond the colonialism era which Thailand on her own navigated out and away from and maintained her own sovereignty all throughout that era. One of the only countries on Earth that ever was able to do that. It is one of the reasons I became so fascinated by Thai history and probably one of the reasons I ended up becoming Thai.

But the point of this video is, these Thai trade negotiations have been going on; I have been kind of staying away from that. Frankly, I have got other things to do. Thai politics has frankly caught my attention here recently, so I have been kind of keeping an eye on that.  But then old Thaksin decided to just start barging into that conversation as well, by the way, apropos of nothing.  He doesn't hold a political office. It's my understanding he is not supposed to really be involved in all of this stuff but here we are. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Thaksin joins Thai Ministers in fine-tuning response to Trump tariff threat. Now if you go out and sort of do some research in the ether of the internet, Trump had a deadline. It has now been pushed back to I believe August 1, so we are still kind of in this limbo. Things are still ticking along. It's my understanding the trade envoys are talking, they are in active discussions, and they are proceeding positively. I do go into some deeper analysis, some further deep dive into this stuff in our paid news service, Integrity News Service. You can email us at [email protected] if you want to get on the mailing list to be in the paid news service and see some deeper information on that. I do videos on that, long format, long form content - 30 minutes or more. Another thing while I am talking here is quick plug for Pancake Palace. My better half and I started up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok. As the name implies, there are pancakes; it's kind of a breakfast anytime kind of thing. We've also got American diner style food, we've also got glass bottled Cokes for those who like that, I love that. We have got cheeseburgers, hamburgers, chilli bowls, buffalo wings, pork chops; all of that good stuff. If you are interested, Pancake Palace, link in the description below. 

That said, quoting directly from this article from the Bangkok Post. "Thaksin Shinawatra, the de-facto leader" - really Bangkok Post, can you stop with this. I am kind of mad at the Bangkok Post and the coverage of Thaksin directly, because they seem to be kind of implicitly adding some luster or something to it. He's not the de facto leader of Phue Thai, or maybe I should say he shouldn't be. It's my understanding he is not supposed to be involved with politics. He came back, supposedly served his prison sentence - that is being adjudicated now, as we have discussed in other videos. His “hospital stay”, there seems to be questions as to whether that was warranted and he may have to go back and redo that. Well we will see, but it's my understanding that the sole reason for him to come back was to not be involved in politics and as I have discussed at length in other videos, for people that don't really get this, everybody from across the political spectrum here in Thailand bent over backwards in 2023 and frankly the last two years to accommodate him and to try to bring everybody together and reconcile so that we could put roughly the past 20 years behind us all, and that's what we are trying to do. And let me be clear, I lived here through the turmoil that he contributed to, directly in some cases, specifically in 2010 I was here when this city saw serious turmoil and he with his “buddy at the time” Hun Sen, who he has now “broken with” because Hun Sen leaked a phone call of him and said that he was faking it when he was wearing his neck brace and arm brace, which I discussed, kind of compared to Bill Murray in the movie Wild Things, where he's wearing a fake neck thing because he's trying to con the insurance agents, but whatever. I was here for that, and his comments and things did cause serious damage here in Bangkok, frankly directly. He would say stuff and then people here would get upset and the next thing we've got a fire breaking out somewhere or something. It was bad; we all wanted to reconcile from that. Everybody across the spectrum, everybody that knew anything about the past was like okay, let's get him back in; everybody can sit down, and we can reconcile and move on. He didn't seem to want to do that. It seems like the only thing we have seen consistently since 2023 and the creation of the coalition government, at least from the "Core" Coalition Party, have been policies pushed by the World Economic Forum, have been policies that would put us under a digital currency system that would have tracked and traced all of our money and put us into an inordinate amount of debt that we didn't need, which by the way, Paetongtarn herself cancelled that program, or postponed further handouts, probably because it was bad fiscal policy. But that being said, I mean these were the things that got pushed in and on top of it, we have seen nothing but further political discord emanating from one specific place. That said, and again, I get a little mad about the way that they call him the de facto leader and things like this in Bangkok Post and stuff. He's a civilian, he's chiming in. When you guys cover Jatuporn, you don't call him the de facto leader of the red shirts because that is not really what he is. He is just a guy talking; he has a history; he is a known entity, but these things are sort of added on when discussing this particular individual, and I ask why. Quoting further: "..of Thailand's ruling Phue Thai Party" - yeah, ruling? Even the press is saying that their majority margin in the house is "razor-thin". I question whether it's even actually there. As we have discussed in other videos, parties like UTN and the Democrats which are extensively part of the Coalition because their Executive Boards say so, their rank-and-file membership does not seem to be in lockstep with their Boards. Meanwhile there are other parties within the “Coalition” - I call it the “Rump” Coalition now - again I am not so sure that that razor-thin majority that they keep claiming is actually there. But that said, let's keep going: …"is taking a more proactive role in shaping the country's response to deal with the fallout of President Donald Trump's threat to impose a steep 36% tariff on the exports to the US." Well how is he taking a more proactive role? In an untoward way? In a way that he shouldn't? And if he's allowed to take a “more proactive” role, why can't anybody just take a “more proactive” role? What does that mean? And with regard to Trump's threat on this 36% tariffs and stuff, I have got to be honest, and I go into deeper analysis on this in our paid new service again, I won't get into that but [email protected]. I find it really odd and paradoxical that we are seeing tariffs imposed when what is called the Triffin's Dilemma applies to the US dollar and the US's current sort of geopolitical and economic position or geo-financial if you want to look at it like that insofar as a country with the reserve currency under the notion of Triffin's Dilemma has to hollow out their internal economy and see manufacturing occur in other places so that they can benefit from the manufacturing, from the economic output, and then that country basically just gives them, in the case of the US sort of pieces of paper or ones and zeros on a computer in the form of “currency transfer” and that's the relationship. To my mind, injecting tariffs into that very delicate type of structure can create volatility, let's put it that way. Now again, it is my understanding, Thailand and the US are talking this out and they have been, and there has been constructive dialogue. I think it's hopeful and telling that the deadline for Thailand has been pushed back notwithstanding Trump's bluster. And look, when you understand how Trump negotiates and Trump's negotiating style, negotiating strategy, these are the things he does. So when he is saying "oh 36%", let's see what the final deal looks like. This is part of his initiative, part of his negotiating style to come to a deal; the Thais do things kind of differently. I think it will ultimately work out; we have got 200 years of a great working relationship. I have frankly no doubt that ultimately, some sort of deal will be struck that will be mutually beneficial or at least something that both sides can live with. But with all that said, I don't see what Thaksin has got to do with any of this. Quoting further: "Thaksin, father of suspended Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra..." - yeah, that is another one. He is the father of her. Do we ever hear about the father of any other Prime Ministers suspended or otherwise? Quoting further: "...participated in a high-level meeting in Bangkok on Friday that included senior economic advisors and the Ministers of Finance and Commerce." Again, why? Quoting further: "The agenda included finalising additional concessions to offer Washington in a bid to reduce the proposed tariff and formulating measures to shield domestic industries and farmers from the potential economic impact, according to local media reports." The other thing is, “well, he is a great businessman and things.” Yeah, some time ago. Frankly everything I have seen that they have brought forth in this ruling Core Coalition Party has been bad for Thailand, not least of which was going into a bunch of debt at a time we didn't need it to have imposed upon us a Digital Currency System that would track and trace all of our transactions; it was so-called money that could be turned on and off and would have an expiration date and we the country, were supposed to go into inordinate amounts of national debt to finance it. So the notion that this person has some kind of amazing genius at business and finance, I find that notion spurious to say the least. That said, quoting further: "Finance Minister Pichai Chunhavajira, who heads the task force negotiating with the US.." - and this is the guy I want to hear from. The actual Finance Minister, the guy that is heading up the negotiation. I don't care about the father of the suspended Prime Minister  -  quoting further: "... after the meeting that the government plans to make slight adjustments to its proposal framework in hopes of securing a more "competitive" tariff rate compared to neighbouring nations." Sounds like a pretty the good plan to me Mr. Pichai.  Sounds like you are doing your job. Again, I don't know why we need these outsiders who are apropos of nothing injecting himself into this process. Quoting further:  "Mr. Pichai said he is ready to travel to the United States for talks if needed." Well great. Good, go. I would be happy to see that and I think it would be a good thing. It sounds like that person is on the ball and he's doing these negotiations.

My question is what is this outsider who has nothing to do with anything within the government and who is merely at this point the father of the suspended Prime Minister, who by the way is suspended from being Prime Minister on a 9-0 decision from the Constitutional Court to take up the case, and on a 7 - 2 decision to suspend her in light of a call where she had an inappropriate communication with a foreign power regarding a border dispute here in Thailand. What does the father of that person have to do with anything in the trade negotiations between the United States and the Kingdom of Thailand.