← Christiane Amanpour Presents: The Ex Files
Christiane Amanpour Presents: The Ex Files
Q&A: Trump drops tariff threat & announces “future” Greenland deal
00:28:40
Loading summary
Transcript41 lines
- [00:03]
A
This is a Global Player original podcast.
- [00:10]
B
So, hello, everybody, and welcome to the bonus Q and A episode of the X Files with me, Christiana Manpour and Jamie Rubin. This is where we answer your questions. So we're going to get started, and this is a late breaking episode. You're going to be hearing this pretty much right after we record it. And why? Because we waited to see what Trump was going to do in Davos regarding the path to conquest that he had set to take Greenland. So, Jamie, I actually watched the whole of the Trump speech at Davos. It was 1 hour, 11 minutes and 47 seconds, something like that. And in the middle of it somewhere, he decided to allow the room to exhale, the world to exhale when he said that I will not use military force. Okay. So then the stock market went up and, you know, everything started to go better. Then afterwards, he had several bilats, and during one with Mark Rutter, the head of NATO, he then also rolled back his threat of tariffs against American allies, who he said would refuse to allow them to acquire Greenland. So he basically peddled back. But we're not out of the woods yet, right?
- [01:20]
A
Not at all. Look, in our episode earlier this week, we talked about the progression of Donald Trump, Trump's presidency, where he thinks he can compel other countries to do exactly what he wants. And after Venezuela, he probably thought he really could do that. The next step was Iran, where he thought he could compel the regime to capitulate and let the protesters win. And he found out he couldn't do that. And I think what he found out here is because the Greenland threat was so dramatic and cut to the core of the meaning of being a NATO member, the European allies finally and convincingly hung together, stayed together and said, this is a red line for us. This is too far. And so he had to bend again. And it makes me believe that this is all a negotiating tactic for him to threaten force in Nigeria, in Syria, sometimes in Iran, and now in Greenland. And I would expect it to come back. And I don't think it's over yet. The arrangement that he's made with the NATO Secretary General are not clear yet if they are, as reported, similar to what the British have on their military bases in Cyprus. You know, that's fine. And the truth is we've already had all the access and need to deploy forces or control and protect the immunities and privileges of American diplomats or soldiers. We've had all that in Greenland. So this is if they technically say that the base on which the US Forces are deployed is territory. That's a legality. Greenland is not going to become part of the United States. That's what Donald Trump's presidency insisted on. Stephen Miller, all the gang were all pushing for it. It's not going to happen without destroying the most important alliance America has.
- [03:21]
B
And even today, after all of this breaking news overnight, the prime minister of Denmark said, okay, so we'll wait to see which way this goes. But again, nothing about Greenland without green and without Denmark. So they are, you know, still not breathing a full sigh of relief because as you say, you know, today's Thursday, tomorrow's Friday. Who knows what's going to happen now? Jamie, we'll get to these questions in a minute. But I watched the entire. Because I had to. And speak before it and after it, the entire speech. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this before. I mean, I've seen a lot of Trump speeches, but he did what he had to do. In the face of, as you say, a united European and NATO pushback over this. We've had Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada, who stood up the day before and got a rare standing ovation for describing the sort of new world order, calling it a rupture, not a transition, and speaking up the absolute need for what he called middle powers like Canada, which is a big country, but nonetheless a middle power, to figure out which way forward. I spoke to the president of Finland after Trump's speech, also putting out that kind of new world order. He called it the triangle of power. So we're going to talk about that a little bit. But I was so struck before Trump's speech, honestly, I can't. I keep repeating it. The prime minister of Belgium said on the stage that we have got to, he used the word appease. Stop appeasing this president, he said. We have now. You know, it's one thing being a happy vessel, he said, and quite another being a miserable slave of this language that the Europeans are coming out with now is much stronger than ever before. Macron said that Europe, France for sure has had enough of bullying. And I think for the moment, it got Trump's attention.
- [05:12]
A
I certainly hope so, because let's be absolutely clear, this action by Trump, this continued threat to literally take Greenland by force, to use Don Corleone Godfather language about what they want from the people of Greenland and the government of Denmark has already done severe damage to the NATO alliance. It's cast doubt on America's leading role in NATO and America's leading role in the world. You know, there are great scholars who are, including Mark Carney, who gave a very thoughtful speech, who are describing how the world has now changed into, you know, balance of power, realpolitik. There's China, there's Russia, there's the United States. And the alliance structure, the post World War II order that the United States created to our benefit and to the benefit of the people of Europe and Asia is over. I think that's overstating it.
- [06:12]
B
Me, too.
- [06:12]
A
I think. I think that it's certainly damaged. And I can see why these middle powers, like Canada, like France, like others, are looking for other options if the United States continues down the course that we are going. But since they did show some metal and they did stand up to the bully, to the mad king, as it's being called by Tom Friedman and others, and we called it that earlier this week. You said deranged. I said mad. I think that the other issues in the world, the China, the Russia, the Ukraine, the Latin America, are going to start to take over again. And it's only Greenland, really. That has been this threat to NATO. Remember in the first term, he was threatening to just give up on NATO and not pursue Article 5, and he was talked out of that. And this time he's threatened to invade a NATO country and he's being talked out of that. So NATO is tough to destroy because it's not just about leaders. It's exactly treaties and peoples.
- [07:15]
B
Yeah. Okay, so now let's get to the questions I'm going to ask. The first one, because it's right here in front of me. This is Siguros on Instagram. Does the fact that Trump repeatedly referred to Greenland in his speech as Iceland not raise some flags regarding his mental state? And I do believe we counted. He talked four times about Iceland. When he was talking about Greenland, I honestly thought there was a new threat to Iceland that somehow had passed my radar and I hadn't figured it out.
- [07:43]
A
Look, I don't cover the White House. I don't watch everything Donald Trump says. I try to keep my mental health a little sound by avoiding that and trying to interpret every little nuance of his behavior and misspeaks. I think people who do cover him are at risk of sane washing him in the sense that they read and listen to these speeches and they try to find the logical train and then they report that and they don't tell the world that sometimes there isn't a logical train and sometimes there are these massive flubs. You know, whether that's a question of his mental or physical health. I'm not a doctor. I don't know. I think what's important here is that President Trump went to Davos and alienated our friends. Let's face it, it was a bad day for the United States of America. Our friends don't like us as much and our enemies are happy rubbing their hands together.
- [08:42]
B
You know, of course, the Trumpies are spinning this as just, you know, great and that he's going to get his whatever he wants, whatever they call it. Just regarding this, I did watch the whole thing and I'm not a sane washer. And I was stun, the complete fabrication, the insulting by name of allies, Macron, who he then imitated the voice and the accent and complained about his aviator sunglasses. The guy had an eye infection or an eye problem. Carney, who he went at, and others by name, it was uncomfortable to watch. And then again, attacking Europe, you're nothing without the United States. This, that and the other, just so much. And about Greenland, Jamie, you know, the point here obviously is potentially, I would think, to try to embrace the Greenlanders, right? But no, it's nothing but a block of ice, just cold and poorly located as if there were no people on Greenland. You know, Jamie, I don't know whether you remember when we were together, I went to, well, I did a big report on the Diego Garcia part of the Chagos Islands, and we're going to air a bit of that on my CNN program this Saturday because it shows what America, in this case, the, the UK carried out its orders, basically depopulated Diego Garcia for the Americans so they could have their military base there. And to this day, even though Chagos has been, you know, deemed to go back to, you know, its rightful owners, so to speak, there's no plan to rest, pay restitutions or to resettle the Diego Garcia people. So there's, you know, Diego Garcia, which is a US Military base in the Indian Ocean. Why don't you ask the next one?
- [10:41]
A
Absolutely. Is this truly a turning point for NATO allies and middle powers, as the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney and others have said this week at Davos? This is Katie on Facebook asking, if so, what are the key strategies they will need to employ to be successful in navigation navigating this new world order?
- [10:58]
B
Well, I'm just gonna say that I don't know. But certainly the president, Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland, who's very thoughtful, he's written a new book, as I said, the Triangle of Power, talking about the new World Order. Carney said, mark my words, this is not a transition, this is a disruption. And they're both talking about more multilateralism. But of course, multilateralism is what the US has been running away. It doesn't like the un, it doesn't like any of the wto, any. Anything but NATO. He kind of likes NATO. Now the eu, he doesn't really like. Although I don't know because he said, you know, we love you, we love you. Europeans, I'm 100. European, Scottish, German, 100. 100. I mean, the whole thing, Lord above. But I don't know, Jamie, you know, what would it look like to have a new world order that's not just a sphere of influence? Or maybe they're talking about a sphere of influence order, I don't know.
- [11:56]
A
Well, well, look, some very thoughtful people are now examining what it means since the United States has apparently, at least under this administration, given up the post World War II order that we helped create, the so called rules based order in which big countries and small countries have the same rights, in which NATO is hanging together, in which US, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand. We're all allies. We all defend each other. Under President Biden, Under Secretary Blinken, who I worked for, Tony Blinken, liked to come up with this word, variable geometry. And it sounds kind of goofy, but what it basically says is that, look, with the United States continuing this role, what we need to do is create different groupings for different purposes. Sometimes it's about trade, sometimes it's about critical minerals, sometimes it's about rare earths, sometimes it's about military force, sometimes it's about the use of force, defense treaties, all of the different possibilities. And you have to be variable. Sometimes there's four quadrilateral, sometimes there's three trilateral. So that idea is what Mark Carney adopted and said the Canadians need to use variable geometry without assuming that the United States, our closest friend and neighbor, is with us. And so we need to work with other middle powers. Now the real pessimists, guys like Bob Kagan, who you know and I know well, believe that this really is the end. And now what's going to happen is we're going to return to the Pre World War II, World War I, realpolitik, balance of power world in which Germany and France are going to be fighting for their own spheres of influence, in which Japan is going to be seeking its own influence in Asia, in which China doesn't accept that Japan and South Korea get to dictate their own terms in which the United States is no longer the country that ensures stability and ensures that the existing states are protected as they are. Something that we have been doing since post World War II. And remember, George Bush Sr. Famously defended Kuwait because it was a small country invaded by its larger neighbor. According to the pessimists, all that goes out the window now. What's really weird, and I'll stop now because as you know, I could go on forever on these things. Donald Trump praised Mark Carney for making deals with China. And I found that odd. And that cuts to the core of what you said last week and what I think we need to think about. All the serious analysts believe the real danger to our world over time is a kind Chinese Communist Party.
- [14:46]
B
Let me jump in there.
- [14:47]
A
And Trump hasn't any longer done anything about it.
- [14:51]
B
So you'd be very happy that I actually keep saying that when I talk to any Trumpies, I say he's, you know, you've all identified China, even, you know, Obama administration and others, probably the Biden administration too, as the place to pivot to and to deal with. Right. The biggest challenge. So I asked Kellyanne Shaw, who was a trade representative, trade Advisor for Trump 1.0 and really thoughtful woman, and she basically said last night when I asked her, you know, he's always talking about China. You've all told me about China, told us about China, but he's never saying anything. Like he says to the allies, to Xi Jinping. And she reminded that actually Xi and Trump had gone into a one year detente and that they're going to try to work their things out, try not to attack each other and then we'll see what happens. She says maybe in the short term Trump is not, you know, in my words, pissing all over China, but in the long term this is going to get more tricky. And Jamie, this kind of goes to Kate on Instagram, sort of adjacent question, does the UK's approval of China's mega embassy reflect strategic realism or a dangerous underestimation of Beijing's security and influence risks? So take that plus the idea that when this 12 months is out, whenever that started, we may see a different posture from Trump towards China.
- [16:12]
A
It's possible that that's part of a deal. Remember, the deal was created because China had us by the short and curlies with the rare earths that they were able to shut down the economy and Trump needed to prevent that from happening. And maybe there was a one year detente. I don't think so. I think this is a much larger Problem that in his effort to have a sphere of influence for the United States in the Western Hemisphere, he's essentially ceding a sphere of influence to China in East Asia and perhaps beyond. But I want to be absolutely clear about this. I haven't changed my view. I worked in the government the last several years. I read and learned an enormous amount about what China's up to in the world, and it's extremely dangerous. And let me give you a concrete example. I met with the top diplomat in France when I was based in Paris, and he told me that he spends a good third of his time working with regional parts of France where the Chinese are infiltrating France and trying to gain a foothold inside France by persuading politicians to do their bidding, by buying into real estate, by basically, you know, causing threats to France. This is a country that normally, you know, sees China as potentially, you know, not an adversary, but not the same way as the United States. Chinese Communist Party is a dangerous institution that has led to the biggest military buildup of mankind with strategic nuclear forces, with military forces. If the British government thinks that they can control the Chinese spies and infiltration at their embassy, they're dreaming. I'm surprised that MI5 is. Is going to let that happen. And I bet it's more of a temporary thing, and that over time they're going to put more and more controls on the Chinese.
- [18:07]
B
Do you remember when you were at the State Department with Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State? Wasn't there some moment during a meeting where everybody had to stop and there was. Chinese bugs were found? Am I misremembering?
- [18:20]
A
Well, yeah. The funniest one was we were at the women's conference in Beijing, and this was a conference for women. Hillary Clinton spoke there, a famous statement, human rights or women's rights, et cetera. And Madeleine was in her room and they had bugged the whole place. And she turned on a channel and for some reason it showed a picture of the Chinese buggers with their headphones on listening to her.
- [18:48]
B
All right?
- [18:49]
A
And so every major. You know, I remember Ash Carter. I think he passed away. The Defense Secretary used to say that when he went to China as Defense Secretary, he basically removed all of his electronic equipment. He never traveled with any electronic equipment because the Chinese would literally place bugs inside his computers and his telephones. They are ruthless in their spying, they are ruthless in their goals, and we need to be as ruthless as they are. Reciprocity, it's a simple word. What the Chinese do to us, we do to Them, if they do less to us, we do less to them. They don't operate on reciprocity. They just take, take, take and take.
- [19:33]
B
Okay.
- [19:33]
A
Too long we've been allowing that to.
- [19:35]
B
Happen just on reciprocity. Reciprocity on a different issue, which is Greenland. Former MI6 Sir John Sawyers was on the radio earlier this week. I mean, he was. Was fit to be tied. I've never heard him so angry. Former, you know, UK ambassador to the UN as I said, MI6. He basically called Trump's attitude, whether the threats of military or tariffs, reckless and abusive. And he also said if it happened that Trump were to take over Greenland, this. It was just so incredible. He went all the way back to the Soviet Union. Your face has got awfully big. You're right in the.
- [20:15]
A
I don't know what happened.
- [20:16]
B
Fix it while I'm talking. He said, we will not recognize it. Just like we did not recognize the Soviet takeover of the Baltics during the, you know, ussr. I'm like, holy crap. He is equating an American intervention, slash occupation to what the Soviets did in the Baltics and how the west responded. We will not recognize it until, you know, there's a new order. He said it took 50 years, but. But we never recognized it.
- [20:45]
A
I think it's a very good idea of his, and I think that it's something that Europeans could get behind. It's like you said, another ambassador suggested they have attaches and consulates post it there. I mean, all these things need to show. But so far, Trump has blinked. He blinked on Iran, he blinked on Greenland, and it tells me that he really thought after Venezuela that he could do whatever he wanted. What do we got left here?
- [21:15]
B
Well, we're going to go to Iran. We've got not much time. But just say Taryn on YouTube said, why are other countries not doing more to collectively push back against Trump's threats and invasions? And as we've discussed, Taryn, I do believe that is exactly what happened over the Greenland and particularly the fury about, you know, being threatened with more tariffs that caused Europe and NATO countries to just push back. And as Jamie and I have just said, Trump has. Has changed his posture. No military threat. He said it. And no tariffs. He said it. Let's see what actually does happen. Should we do the last one, Jamie?
- [21:47]
A
Yes, go ahead. Why don't I read it and then we can both discuss it. And I don't know why my head is so big, but I'll have to look at that. I know, but I don't Know what made it do that?
- [21:58]
B
Sit back a bit.
- [21:59]
A
Maybe I am. I am government of Iran.
- [22:03]
B
Just never too much of Jamie's big head.
- [22:06]
A
Ah, sweet. If the government of Iran does fall, what will the future within the country look like?
- [22:14]
B
Okay, so to start with, this has been preoccupying the world for 47 years. It is shortly going to be 47 years since the Islamic revolution that brought these ayatollahs to power. Most people hope that it would look like at least the, you know, initial parts of the Arab Spring in that people would be empowered and a system would change. Many people now don't believe that to be the case. They think that unless something is incredibly well managed, unless there is an organized opposition, unless there's a transition, that it could just be a religious takeover replaced by a military takeover, I. E. The irgc, the Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guard Guard Corps or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, whatever, irgc, those are the people who keep this regime in power. And talk has been had of America talking to some of these people or trying to figure out whether it could make a deal with them a la Venezuela. I think the other very bad case scenario would be that Israel and others which do not want to see a unified threatening Iran would do a Syria that is continue to work towards the fragmentation of Iran, which is not fragmented, but they would try to fragment it and try to separate its ethnic parts and its religious parts in order to make it less of a threat. Nobody's really talking, as I say, about the power and the will of the Iranian people. And that has to be encouraged and that has to be protected. Because Iran, if it does turn out to have a proper transition from whatever happens, is a huge powerhouse and a force for good. Absolutely. 100. The people of Iran are super smart. They're not. They have a completely different and unique education system in that part of the Middle East. It's all about critical thinking. It's about science. It's not rote. It's not just learning, you know, by heart through a state sponsored curriculum. It's very. They're very intelligent people and they are hugely tech savvy. A huge and long thousands of years of culture and civilization and have been at the forefront over history of so much change for good. Unfortunately, this last 47 years has shown the bad side of the regime and the desperate side of people who've been fighting and struggling against it for so long. How do you think it'll look, Jamie?
- [24:46]
A
Wow. Well, I think you obviously know the people of Iran better than I do. My only concern here is that I think that if it changes the government, it's going to change as a result of a violent revolution. That's the problem, a truly violent revolution where the people rise up, face down tens of thousands of Iranian government officials from the Basij and the irgc, the military who are killing them, threatening to kill them or willing to kill them. And then in the middle of that bloodbath, it'll turn and the people will win out because the military will stop being willing to fire. But there will be so much blood on the streets that I think, unfortunately, it will take a long, long time to recover from that bloodbath. What results from that? I agree with everything you said, that the Iranian people have, especially the diaspora, have sp all over the world and become the most successful people, as successful as any immigrant group, whether it's doctors, lawyers, architects, technologists, et cetera, academics. So I think the Iranian people all over the world will rush home to try to help their government. I really do believe that. And as you said, the culture has been around so long, so I'd be hopeful. But I would say that I fear that it would take many years to restore some semblance of normalcy after the bloodbath that would be required to overthrow the regime.
- [26:27]
B
Unless there's malign interference, too.
- [26:30]
A
Exactly. But look, the next moment for all this is not the streets, probably it's the death of the leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and the power struggle that's going to go on after that. And that we don't know what sparks people's willingness to go out in the streets. But I think that's what it will take to change the regime saw, and.
- [26:53]
B
We know this time what happened, and that's, for the moment, snuff. But Jamie, the US Is sending a lot of military assets to that region. Maybe in two to three weeks, we'll know what it wants to do with it. And that's when we're going to reconvene because I'm going to be away in Australia for the next two weeks and I'll be doing some really special guests from Australia. So Jamie and I will be back in a couple of weeks. Thank you for listening to this bonus episode, the Q A episode of the X Files with me, Christiana Manpour and Jamie Rubin. And don't forget, if you have a question for us that you want us to answer next time in a few weeks about something in the news or whatever it is, don't forget you can use all the major social media platforms our handle is at Amanpur Pod. Or you can email us@amanpod global.com so our next episode will be out on Tuesday. Wherever you get your podcast, this will be me in Australia. Australia as I said. Remember, you can always listen for free on Global Player. You can download that from the App Store or go to globalplayer.com and important to note, you can always watch all of our episodes including the bonus ones on YouTube. Just search Christiana Monpour presents and subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode. So Jamie, I'm going off to Oz into Alia to watch a lot of tennis and it'll be fun I hope down under still standing when I get back and we can dissect what's happened in the you know then. But for now, bye bye.
- [28:19]
A
Goodbye from Austria and have a good time Down Under.
- [28:22]
B
Thank you.
- [28:36]
A
This has been a Global Player original production.