4.25.25 Brian Fitzherbert WOND Radio

Liberty and Prosperity president, Brian Fitzherbert joins Talking with Anne on WOND radio for Fitzherbert Friday. Anne and Brian discuss the current state of the stock market, tariffs, and the prospect for making strategic products in America again.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Good morning, everyone. This is Ann Baker. I'm
talking with Ann on News Talk +1
3 0 Call on line [phone].
And needless to say, it's Friday, and so
it is Fitzherbert Friday with Brian Fitzherbert.
Brian, you know, we're we're still looking at
the stock markets and wondering what's going to
happen.

(00:20):
And I know I'm I'm one I I
listen to economists
on,
the financial
channels,
that are on TV.
And I think to myself,
I can listen to one person, and it
it it makes makes it sound like sound
financial advice to, investors.

(00:41):
And then I'll listen to someone else who
says the exact opposite
and makes it sound like a sound financial
advice to investors.
I mean, it's a crapshoot, isn't it?
How are we to finally come to determine
what, in fact,
our economy should look like, and how do
we push that forward?

(01:03):
Yeah. So
this is always a fun topic for me
because a lot of the narrative, again, that
gets generated by the media
is based off of the perception
of the stock market, which again, everyone focuses
on the Dow, which is 30 companies. And
then there's the S and P five hundred,
which is obviously 500 companies, the Nasdaq, etcetera.

(01:24):
And a lot of it is based off
of that and the investment. But that's only
one leg of the economy. Again, the left
is trying to create this narrative that we're
approaching recession. What is a recession
actually defined?
Two quarters
of negative GDP growth, meaning six months
of no GDP growth, which we're not even

(01:46):
in one month, much less a quarter
or even two quarters to even approach that.
So, again, it's all fear mongering for for
an impact
to what people are going to do with
their investments, their money, etcetera. Now a lot
of people have four zero one k's or
Roth's, etcetera.
And depending on where you are in life,

(02:06):
whether you're thirty years from retirement or you're
retiring this year or maybe next year or
within the next five years, you're going to
react differently
to what is actually going on because
did did you lose money?
Did you did you gain money? Or is
it did you have it in cash? Did
you have it in bonds? Did you have
it in stock? Whatever that may be. And
there's an entire

(02:27):
multibillion dollar industry
of individuals that you're describing that have completely
different opinions.
And, And again, this is why they have
to have certification because if they say something
that,
ultimately is is really bad and they're they're
a professional doing it, then that's that's why
there's,
you know, certification, so there's accountability for that.
But ultimately,

(02:48):
you have to do what's best for you
based on the time that you have and
what your circumstances are. What someone tells you
will probably be something that someone tells me
or that I will disagree with, and I'll
just do my own thing based on my
own information research, etcetera.
And, again, looking at the economy as a
whole, it's not just the stock market. It's
what is the consumer
confidence?

(03:09):
What is the price of goods the price
of goods,
from a CPI standpoint, meaning a basket of
a hundred items, what does that cost for
those hundred items? And yet the left and
and the media tries to focus on eggs,
which we all know what the the root
cause of that was under the Biden administration
and why that
all went up. So all these things

(03:32):
generate frustration. I get it on a daily
basis for people because they're looking the stock
market and like, oh my god, it went
down again. Let me look at my $4.00
1 k balance. Let me look at my
Roth. Oh my goodness. It's going down. It's
down $20. It's down 40%. It's down 5
for whatever it may be.
And the best thing that people can do
is not react on daily gyrations. And, again,

(03:52):
I'll go back to Trump's initial campaign.
What did Trump say he was going to
do? He said he was going to renegotiate
with every country and and have America stop
getting ripped off, I e through
tariffs.
It's not like he did this out of
in a bucket. He's been broadcasting this
for his entire campaign. And even more so

(04:14):
for four decades, he stated his opinion when
it comes to tariffs. Mhmm. And that means
resetting the economic world order if I have
to use that terminology
because he's gotta flip it. And what does
that mean? We have to bring all the
things we've talked about in the past, bringing
back,
manufacturing and investment here in The United States.
That takes time. It takes years, etcetera. But

(04:34):
being able to have a
understanding
of what is the arena going to be.
And right now, we don't know what the
arena is going to be. And, again, I'm
not a financial planner. I'm not certified to
say anything, but I suspect people would make
their own opinions
that, okay, I'm gonna sit tight. Things are
gonna go up. Things are gonna go down.
You know, if I wanna be aggressive, I
wanna buy low and sell high. I'm gonna

(04:56):
make some money. There's gonna be a few
millionaires,
few retirement millionaires made in this period. If
you wanna do that, I suspect all kinds
of things that people will want to do.
But I would say
that if you're not familiar,
if you're not trained, if you don't have
an advisor or or anything like that, trust
your gut, whatever that may be. Because ultimately,

(05:17):
what affects all of us, the invisible hand
of the economy, all of us making individual
decisions
on an on an hourly basis, on a
daily basis, weekly basis, impacts the economy.
And again, it's not just the stock market.
It's not just,
CPI,
consumer price confidence, and the index on the
basket of goods. It's not just the labor

(05:38):
pool. It's not just the productivity.
It's
debt. It's interest rates. It's everything that Trump
is, you know, he's he's raving on Powell
for. And, again, Trump's trying to find leverage
where he can because I suspect he's not
gonna fire Powell. He's just gonna let Powell's
term expire, which I think is next year,
and just appoint someone

(05:59):
that he thinks would be more,
productive for this time, even though it's an
independent agency.
But again, it's always the cost of money.
It's the invisible hand that's interacting
with the economy that we're all doing on
a daily basis. Making a decision to go
to the movie theater or not, or going
to the grocery store, whether or not you're
gonna buy that extra item,

(06:20):
how aggressive we get with trying to find
coupon. All these kinds of things that we
make
ultimately impact the economy. And what I'm saying,
again, Trump's been on and off is almost
a hundred days. He's gotta fix Joe Biden's
mess, and he's doing a lot of things
that are having daily impacts,
quote, unquote, narrative scary impacts that the media

(06:41):
and the left are trying to to do
to stop him from being successful. And like
I said, the tax cuts job act, part
two will likely come out of congress in
May. They'll probably pass it by July 4.
It's gonna be retroactive.
You're going to see a reaction
in the market and in the economy and

(07:02):
in the labor force and in the CPI
probably by August, September when we get back
into the rhythm of things. Right? Restart the
school year, the academic year, it's after summer
vacation, all that kind of stuff.
And then by that time, Trump has been
probably sealed quite a few dozen
probably multiple dozen deals,
with countries to corner China and put maximum

(07:23):
pressure, take an apex position on China to
make them bend because China is who we
have to
Oops. We lost you.
China is who we have too.

(07:44):
Yeah.
Brian, if you're listening Brian, I think you
might have to unmute.
How about now? That's it. We got it.
So Yeah. China is listening to what's going
on here in The United States. That's for
certain.

(08:04):
And they're hoping to, come out on top.
But, what do you think is happening
in China, in a
country
where really they don't have enough housing for
the middle class. They, make, slaves
of Uighurs and others who don't believe in
communist rule.
What do you think is actually happening in

(08:26):
China
that's going to have an effect, good or
bad, on, The United States economy?
Yeah. Look, China views themselves as the ultimate
end goal. They view things in hundred year
plans
or more on how to get to their
goals. They don't want,
a competitor like The US, and yet they're

(08:47):
solely dependent on The US consumer to get
there. What I imagine with all this tariff
talk with Trump that they're like, oh, maybe
we can outlast them. You can't outlast The
US. You need the consumer. And what they're
going to do is try to try to
reinforce which we see Xi Jinping doing by
visiting Vietnam, by visiting
Korea, and other neighboring countries in the in

(09:08):
The Pacific
to not do business with The US or
not bend to Trump's
tariff demands, whatever that may be, to try
to reinforce
their allies or their geographic block
to deal with us. That's what I think
they're doing. And their biggest mistake is that
they think that they're in a better position
than The United States, and they're not. They

(09:30):
may think that because they have a trillion
dollars of our debt, they have some leverage
that, hey, we build and buy everything from
China.
And what they're realizing now is, guess what?
Countries like India, countries like Vietnam,
countries like South Korea,
etcetera, etcetera, can also be competitive
in this environment if we take this from

(09:51):
a national security standpoint that we can't rely
on China for medications,
for masks, if you believe that they work,
that we learned during during COVID. All these
things, consumer goods that are that are made
in China
under
child labor, under environmental,
environmental

(10:12):
circumstances that we would never tolerate here, as
well as safety
environments we would never tolerate here. So, again,
Trump's gotta reshuffle this, and China's trying to
figure out how to react,
not just to Trump because they're like, oh,
Trump's only here for four years. Can we
can we last for four years? What are
the determinations that we can make?
You know, what happens if JD Vance takes

(10:32):
over and just continues Trump's order for another
eight years? That's a twelve year picture that
China's gotta look at. Can they can they
make circumstance? So China's figuring out or trying
to determine what can we do that can
damage The US because as long as
we don't do a lot of full blown
assembly
or parts or anything because China is notorious

(10:52):
for counterfeit parts, not using the right material
Right. On engineering drawings, all that kind of
stuff. But we still buy
raw materials.
You know, rare earth metal materials, all that
kind of stuff from China, then we go
and do our own thing. And they've tried
to put an embargo on that,
with regard to some of that material, which
again, we're gonna have to find other allies
that can provide that. Hence, why Trump tried

(11:13):
to leverage that with Ukraine,
by making a deal,
as part of the peace agreement that he's
trying to foster with with Zelensky and Putin.
All these things. I mean, there's so many
there's so many pieces on the board, but
China ultimately,
to your initial question, they're trying to find
a way to get maximum leverage. I mean,
sad to say, the Taliban

(11:33):
figured out, oh, we're just gonna wait out
The US and The US, voter will get
upset and eventually they'll pull out. And that's
what they did. So for twenty years, women
had rights in Afghanistan. And then the minute
we pulled out, obviously, Taliban took over, women
were no longer educated, and their rights were
taken away. And it's back to the way
it was twenty years ago. And we spent
all this blood and treasure trying to fix

(11:54):
a place like Afghanistan that sadly,
we lost so many so many young men
and women
in a perspective that is that's not positive.
So again, there's all these political and psychological
tactics that I'm sure China is is employing,
and Trump's
gotta make a decision at some point

(12:14):
when to bring down the hammer that cripples
them completely.
And I suspect they're doing that. I don't
know whether we're we're gonna be able to
do that. It seems like for decades, we've
allowed Confucius centers
where, nationalist
Chinese students would be able to come in
and learn, from the best and brightest
professors having to do with
technology,

(12:35):
etcetera.
And we didn't stop it.
And they brought home the treasure that they
received
from the brilliance of our professors here in
The United States Of America. They brought that
home and put that into their industries.
We've got Chinese students themselves who I don't
care how much China pays to allow these

(12:55):
students to come into our country. They are
enemies of our state. They are
everything of our national security
is at risk. When we allow
these Chinese students to come into our country.
I think that should be stopped immediately,
particularly
knowing that the police departments that the Chinese
have set up in our country

(13:17):
to follow Chinese nationalists who may not have
returned to the country as they should have,
and that literally we allowed
these Chinese police departments in our cities.
I'm astounded,
and I am praying to God that Donald
Trump has already
gone in, closed them down, and is considering
how he can close down Confucius centers and

(13:40):
sending all these Chinese students back to China.
Yeah. And it's a little it's a little
deeper than that. Truthfully, in Trump's Trump's, you
know, he's very understanding
of reciprocal circumstances,
hence the tariffs, and it will be with
other things.
I suspect that he and Besson and a
handful of others, Rubio,
are putting together a plan

(14:02):
to replicate exactly what China does to prevent
The US from doing certain things.
Like for example,
you can't buy land in China as an
American Right. As an individual. Yet, you can
do that here in The US where they're
buying up farmland, and people are making a
lot of money off that. Because they're just

(14:22):
they're not even looking at property or the
farm. They just want the land. They'll just
bid up the price and here, I just
want it.
Same thing with what you talked about, the
education, the Confucius centers, etcetera.
And again,
he can even make the case that, hey,
China. Guess what?
Once you finally do come to the table
and you realize that you're wholly dependent on
The US consumer for probably 60% of your

(14:43):
economy and your GDP,
and when we don't buy stuff, you know,
cool. Guess what? If we don't buy goods
from China, guess what Americans are gonna do?
They're gonna save money or they're gonna pay
off debt, so win win. But ultimately,
what's gonna happen is they're gonna have to
come to the table and Trump should just
flat out say, guess what, China? If you
don't meet our safety regulations in terms of

(15:03):
factories, environment, etcetera, we're not doing business with
you. If you don't meet our environmental
factors,
if you don't meet our,
child labor laws or anything else that doesn't
match, that obviously they take advantage of from
a commitment. It's a human rights violation. You
can go down that route too. And just
play that game. China will do nothing but

(15:24):
collapse.
And again, it's gonna be tough. You gotta
buckle up, and it's whether or not the
American people can get behind Trump for an
extended period of time for him to do
this to outlast China because we will. They
will crumble long before we will.
It's just whether or not we have the
appetite to really go toe to toe and
finally put this to bed once and for

(15:44):
all.
I don't see
that happening. Not not certainly not in my
lifetime.
But I
do you think there will ever be punishment
accrued to the Biden administration and all the
evil that,
that took place
under the Biden administration. I mean, people say,
what? What what are you talking about? Well,

(16:05):
I can talk about a balloon
that we saw in Alaska that was allowed
to to go all across
our entire, north northern part of our country
over military
installations that wasn't brought down until, I think,
it went off the coast of South Carolina.
I can tell you that I think that's
treachery, and I can tell you that it
is our,

(16:26):
top officials from Biden on down who, in
fact, allowed that to happen. And I believe
too that,
patriotic Americans
wanna see the punishment,
the reckoning
that should happen to all of the people
who are involved in the Biden Harris administration
who are part and parcel of this?

(16:47):
Yeah. So I'm gonna, kinda give an answer
that you gave in your opinion with regard
to China. Unfortunately, I don't think anything criminal,
in terms of accountability will transpire. But I
think that,
Tulsi and Hegseth and a handful of others,
Kash Patel, Dan Bongino,
they're gonna find the individuals that were tied

(17:07):
to this, the chain of command, the approval
process, etcetera,
and they will lose their jobs.
I think that's realistically the best scenario. Unfortunately,
in in my version of the world, it
would be not only just you lose your
job, you lose your pension,
you get criminally prosecuted.
And by a jury of your peers, you
get found guilty, and you spend in, you

(17:29):
know, prison for the rest of your life.
And of course, that takes time. That takes
a lot of, effort and and resources to
do that. But, unfortunately,
my view is that the reality is the
best case scenario is they lose their job.
Maybe they lose their pension or an impact
to their pension, but I think that's the
best we we've got right now given the
circumstances, unfortunately. It shouldn't be that way, but

(17:50):
it is. Yeah. We should have,
legislation
which touches on all the criminal acts that
were done over the last four years and
prior to that as well, whether whether Democrat
or Republican.
And we need to hold people's feet to
the fire, and we need to when found
when found guilty
of acts that border on the treasonous,

(18:12):
these people need to pay a price.
We need to see it. I mean, we,
we're talking about Donald Trump. We're talking about
some of the evil things that have been
done,
by previous administration.
We're talking about him trying to fix it.
Well, people need
to give him a little bit of time.
They need to give him a little bit
of space.

(18:33):
Because right now, we've got,
judges
who are there to stop Donald Trump
and his agenda from going any further.
We've gotta find the right judges. We've gotta
find the Supreme Court judges who are willing
to, once again, look at some of the
legislation,
look at some of the evil deeds that

(18:54):
were done over the past four years of
Biden and before then as well, and hold
people responsible.
If we don't do that, if we don't
start picking up people, putting them
behind bars until they bail themselves out and
then are are held for trial,
if we don't start seeing that,

(19:15):
we're gonna be very disappointed in Donald j
Trump. And, you know, people already are. They
listen to him, and he speaks for hours
and hours and hours, quite frankly. I like
that. But he speaks
forever
and sometimes says the same thing. But people
who love him believe what he's saying is
so. And perhaps

(19:35):
as teachers know, you need to say something
at least three times before it even begins
to penetrate the skulls of the students before
you. But Donald j Trump, being the narcissist
he is,
sometimes will go off the trail, and he
will begin talking only about himself and how
wonderful he is and that nothing could be
done without him. Well, we've got news for

(19:57):
him. He's put in place really good people
in this administration.
Let them do their jobs in the very
best way possible and hold people responsible that
they have found to do bad things, crimes
against the country, national security crimes.
Let them do it, but don't let Donald
Trump get up there and say, oh, it's
all about me because he does it every

(20:19):
time he goes on air.
Yeah. What I'll say is that it hasn't
been a hundred days yet. The American people
gave him four years to fix this Yeah.
To affect change and improve this. Give him
his four years and
carry judgment
in 2029.
Yeah. Yeah. We are we are all looking

(20:39):
forward to that. We're we're looking forward to
to things,
that become obvious to us that, in fact,
all the things that he promised are coming
true. So,
we we do have to give him time.
You know, I figure by the end of
this year,
things should be should be working again as
they're supposed to, and people should be held
responsible. And we're gonna be seeing criminal trials

(21:01):
and all the rest of it, but, I'm
gonna give him the time.
I think,
he's on the right track. And, Brian, as
always, I always think you're on the right
track, my friend.
So,
please have a wonderful weekend, Brian. I will
talk to you soon, and, take care. I
love you. Give my love to Catherine and
Luke, and, thank you for being on the
air. You're brilliant.

(21:23):
Absolutely. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. Take
care.