Thom Hartmann: Broadcasting live today from Barcelona, Spain, where I will be keynoting at an environmental conference. It’s called the NOW conference, tomorrow, and then doing the same on Friday in Madrid.

And interesting, the European press looking at President Obama going over to China, and, you know, all the right-wingers in America are hysterical about how deeply he bowed to the Japanese Emperor, as if that was the most important thing that happened on his trip to Asia. The European press tends to, you know, at least what I’ve been reading, tends to be looking more at the fact that basically Obama was asking for things, and got nothing except happy talk; that the Chinese basically said, you know, “It’s our way or the highway, and no, we’re not going to change our currency, and if we do, it will be cosmetic”, and I think that there’s a broad consensus here that the US is screwed, and that there’s nothing we can do about it, because thirty years of Republican policies, three consecutive Republican presidencies, have spent us into bankruptcy, and two trillion of that is held by the Chinese.

But I wanted to get a real expert on this, our old friend, Eamonn Fingleton. He has been on the programme a number of times, the Irish journalist, the former editor for Forbes and the Financial Times, author of numerous books, including what was one of my BuzzFlash books of the month, and you can still find the review over there, buzzflash.com, "In the Jaws of the Dragon". If you haven’t read this book, you should run out and buy it today, it’s absolutely brilliant. “In the Jaws of the Dragon: America's Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Hegemony” and his website is unsustainable.org

Eamonn Fingleton, welcome to the programme.

Eamonn Fingleton: Thom, delighted to be with you.

Thom Hartmann: And great to have you with us. You’re still living in Japan, right?

Eamonn Fingleton: I’m back in Japan. I was in Europe last week, but I’m back here, and up to speed on Obama’s trip to these parts. As you say, the story of the Emperor is really just a diversion. The real story is trade.

Thom Hartmann: Well then, tell our listeners, I mean, first of all, I’m curious how the Asian press is dealing, particularly the Japanese press, is dealing with, you know, what happened with Obama’s visit to China, and second, here we have kind of a three continent, people in continental America mostly are listening to the programme; and also what you, if you were advising President Obama, what you would have told him to do differently. If we could take those in that order.

Eamonn Fingleton: You know, if I may, I’d like address the last point first. Basically, Obama should have told the Chinese that they needed the United States more than the United States needs China. So if American goods are not getting a fair shot in the Chinese market, then the United States should start getting tough, basically, and the Chinese understand that sort of strength. But they will exploit the sort of weakness and sort of kindness that Obama in the event conveyed to them.

Thom Hartmann: But here’s the problem, Eamonn. He would not be, you know, if President Obama said that to the Chinese, it would not be the Chinese to whom he would really be speaking. If would be Hewlett Packard, who when Carly Fiorino was president, moved eighteen thousand workers, cancelled, killed off eighteen thousand jobs in the US and hired, you know, twenty, thirty thousand in China. It would be, I mean, I can give you a long, long list, you know.

Eamonn Fingleton: Sure.

Thom Hartmann: It would be transnational corporations who don’t give a damn about the United States, other than the fact that they have their logos here, they have their names on things here. Many of them no longer even incorporate here, so that they can avoid paying taxes here. He would be going up against the largest and most powerful corporate powers in the world, and in the United States, largely uniquely amongst countries, you know in South Africa rewrote their constitution, IBM and two other companies, I forget which ones they were, offered them some lawyers to help write the constitution and they wrote into their constitution that corporations have human rights. And here in the United States, corporations have human rights. So we’ve got thirty six thousand lobbyists in Washington DC, and we’ve got politicians who are wholly owned subsidiaries of these same transnational corporations. So it’s really not China that he would be challenging, is it?

Eamonn Fingleton: Well, you’re right of course, Thom that the lobby, the trade lobby in Washington is extremely strong, but Obama does have some room to confront them. He could bring the issues out in the public arena; he basically so far has ignored trade. If he were to say exactly what you said just now, that in itself would make it a big impact politically in the United States, and as you well know, most ordinary voters in the United States are skeptical, to say the least, about the trade policy that has been pursued over the last thirty years.

Thom Hartmann: Well, we’ve had no trade policy for the last thirty years. It’s been let the multinationals, let the transnationals run the show, with the World Trade Organization, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades, and whatnot, and this is what it’s produced. But I just have this strong suspicion that what was going through Obama’s mind, was if he tells Mattel that they’ve got to start manufacturing toys in the United States, rather than in China, not to pick on Mattel, but just to pull a name off the top of my head, particularly since I saw a big story in the papers here about how American, I guess it’s shoes, actually, have a high lead content for babies in the US, coming from China. If he was to tell Mattel that, next year, guess which party is going to get their funding, it’s going to be the Republicans.

Eamonn Fingleton: That’s understood, but what I’m saying is that he could go public in a much bigger way on the trade issue.

Thom Hartmann: In other words, he needs to do an FDR. He needs to actually start kicking butt.

Eamonn Fingleton: Right. Let me give you some numbers that he could have put out there in the public domain, and didn’t. China’s current account surplus which is the widest measure of trade, and the most reliable measure, was 9.9% of GDP last year, and that is a phenomenal figure.

Thom Hartmann: It’s about equal to the growth of their GDP, isn’t it? Aren’t they growing at about ten percent?

Eamonn Fingleton: You’re right. So, they had a current account surplus of four hundred and twenty six billion dollars last year. Ten percent of GDP. That is a record for any country in history, four hundred and twenty six. By comparison, Japan had a big figure as well, but it was much smaller than the Chinese figure by a hundred and fifty seven billion, 3.2% of GDP. And the American figure, by the way, was a minus number of seven hundred and six billion dollars, which represents 4.9% of GDP, minus 4.9%. So there are numbers there that he can throw out into the public domain, without necessarily turning off Hewlett Packard, etc. It seems to me that he should be leading the discussion, basically.

Thom Hartmann: Yeah, and he needs to be, and you know, people like you, with your brilliant book. We’re talking to Eamonn Fingleton, your brilliant book, “In the Jaws of the Dragon”, laying out how exactly how we're being basically, we Americans, you’re an Irishman. Actually, I would say many Europeans have been played for suckers by a coalition of Asian countries. We just have a few seconds; I'll let you riff on that.

Eamonn Fingleton: Sure, well, I think that some countries in Europe are more concerned about this than others, but as for my own background, I lived in the United States for several years, and of course write almost entirely for an American audience, so I’m voicing the American audience point of view.

Thom Hartmann: So you get it, you get it, yeah. Eamonn Fingleton, Irish journalist, former editor for Forbes and the Financial Times, author of numerous books, including “In the Jaws of the Dragon”. Get this book and read it. His website unsustainable.org Thank you so much for being with us, sir.

Eamonn Fingleton: My pleasure Thom, thank you.

Thom Hartmann: Thank you.

Transcribed by Gerard Aukstiejus.