A (3:04)

In our world, economic coercion is a new threat where you can use technology to threaten people.

B (3:10)

People.

A (3:10)

And China just really put the hammer down and actually threatened to withhold this crucial mineral, the rare earths that are needed in almost every single electronic gear that you need, from cars to batteries to everything. And what they did in threatening to withhold these rare earths, I think actually helps Trump, because Trump's biggest problem is that under Biden, we developed alliances in Europe, in Asia, around the world, world, to work together to deter and contain China. And rare earths, which China is now threatening to withhold, has infuriated the Europeans, has infuriated companies and countries all over the world. And I think this will backfire big time on China. And I would expect China to walk back that threat in the coming days because they had alienated everybody. But all of which is to say that if the United States doesn't work with allies in Europe, in Asia, in the Middle east, around the world, China is going to dominate our world. So this summit is extremely important. Christiane. The problem is that Trump sees everything in economic terms. I have some fly. It must be generated by the Chinese. Every time I try to talk about them, that's interfering with my train of thought. But let me leave it at this. The. The future of our world will be determined whether America's president lets the Chinese Communist Party and its dominance in the world affect us, or will he make the alliances we need to protect us against China militarily and economically and technologically. And so far, it's really a question that's way up in the air. And I'm worried. I'm worried about what Donald Trump will do in a meeting with Xi Jinping.

B (5:04)

What could be the worry? I mean, last time he put tariffs on, and even this time he had to walk it back because Xi Jinping used his advantage, which was the rare earths. Right. So even this time, at the very beginning, Trump had to reassess the amount and ferocity of his action towards China. And last time he did these tariffs on, I think it was agricultural products. But it turned out backfiring against American farmers and American consumers. And it turned out that it forced Trump and the administration into A less than optimum deal, which they then claimed as a victory over Xi. But it was one that caused quite a lot of pain for farmers. Farmers currently are experiencing pain too, in the United States. But here's. It really is a conundrum, and I've just been reading this Foreign affairs article on China. It's headlined China Against China. Xi Jinping Confronts the Downside is by Jonathan Zinn. But as I said in the beginning, it's genuinely a conundrum of how to read China. Xi, of course, has completely reversed the idea of reform that Hu Jintao and others before him had. He came in and said that wasn't working. It's chaotic. I need something that's completely Mao like, with a bit of economic freedom and liberalization, but none of this sort of reform. And so certainly not political reform. But that, as I said at the beginning, Washington and probably others in the world are confused as to how to read him and read the China they're confronting. So this makes for a very difficult ability to make policy. And I wonder if that also plays into Trump's strengths, which are. Or his. His proclivities, which are to potentially have zones and spheres of influence.

A (7:04)

Well, you're exactly right, Christian. This is a difficult, difficult subject. I believe we should just recognize that the Chinese Communist Party, led by Xi Jinping, is not the China of Deng Xiaoping. It's not the China of the last president. It's not reforming, it's not accepting the rules of the game, and it's doing something right now with these rare earths that is showing its true colors. They're threatening to shut down the whole world economy by denying access to this special rare earths that they control over 90% of the production of. And at least the Trump administration is reviving some of the policies of the Biden years, where we get Australia, we get Taiwan, we get countries around the world to revive our production of this capability. So China can't coerce us, they can't blackmail us into agreeing to something we don't like just to get access to the rare earths. So you said what. What would I worry about? Well, Trump cares about economics more than anything. Trade, money, deals. But our relationship with China is much bigger than that. I worry that because of the reason you suggested, Trump sort of thinks, well, as long as I control my part of the world, Latin America, Canada, Greenland, Colombia, Venezuela, I can overthrow the leader there, that Xi Jinping can control his part of the world. And it seems sort of rational on the surface to some, some people. Why shouldn't they control Taiwan? Isn't it a Chinese island? Well, no, it's a thriving democracy. And if they control Taiwan, they would control all of the semiconductor industry. That also makes our world worse. So I think this is the big issue. Will Trump change our policy on Taiwan? Will he soften it? Will he put economics above national security? And will he forget we don't want to live in a world run by an Orwellian Chinese Communist Party where make the rules, they decide about currencies, they decide about economic coercion, they decide about human rights, they decide about liberty. I don't want to live in that world. I don't want our children to live in that world. And if Trump doesn't get his act together and get real allies helping him, that's the direction we're heading.

B (9:22)

Okay, so two issues there. Number one, many articles and analysts are basically declaring ahead of this visit that Asia is caught in the middle, I. E. Allies in Asia caught in the middle of the US Rivalry with China. But also the Foreign affairs article says the Chinese economy's ability to weather the Trump trade shocks. I added the word Trump, but they're talking about American administration trade tariffs, et cetera, endowed Beijing with newfound confidence. So even though perhaps the Chinese economy is not going as gangbusters as it was years ago pre Covid, it's apparently able to withstand these and play hardball in economic policy and trade policy that allows them to withstand and maybe to see through. Do you still have a fly there?

A (10:16)

Yes, I do. That Chinese fly is spying on us. No. Look, I'm not worried that China is going to overtake us economically. What I worry about is that they are a ruthless Chinese Communist Party. They've cracked down in ruthless ways in Xinjiang. They've cracked down and violated the Hong Kong agreement. They broke the deal with the world that said Hong Kong could have its own way of life, its own system, and they broke all that. So as soon as they can, they're going to break the rules. That's what they've shown. And if we don't have those rules, it's going to be the might makes right, the law of the jungle. And China's engaged in the biggest military buildup in mankind and allied with Russia, which has a huge military. I don't want China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Putin allied with the world with each other and threatening our world. And if Trump doesn't get his act together and make clear who our allies are and help them confront China, they're ready to Japan doubled its defense budget. Germany doubled its defense budget. We have the allies, we just have to work with them.

B (11:24)

Trump is, he, he, he, his first trip or his first stop in Asia was Malaysia, where he had basically gathered a whole sort of peace signing ceremony to sort of big up the, what he calls the peace agreement. But it's kind of a ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia. But even there it's not, it's not fully ended. It's not, you know, there's still military on both sides of the line and they've got to figure that out. But they wanted to, you know, do something to show that he's, you know, that he's, he's working on these issues. Then he goes to Japan, as you mentioned, a big ally, and he's gonna meet the new Japanese prime minister. The first time ever that they got a female prime minister. She's considered right to far right, a little bit like Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister in, in Italy. She, her name is Sanai Takaichi and she's in the mold of sort of, you know, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. So I wonder what she might have Something very important to say to Trump about maintaining this alliance, don't you think? Probably more so than the, the Koreans who are strong allies, but, but politically a little bit dicey right now and very upset because of what Trump's been doing in terms of tariffs and ice raids on Korean workers, South Korean workers in Atlanta in all sorts of factories.

A (12:50)

Well, you're right. This meeting between Trump and the new Japanese prime minister, she is a tough minded woman, as I understand it. And Japan is crucial. Even under both, all of their governments, they've been increasing their defense budgets. They're saying they're going to meet the 2% of gross national product early. So Japan can be a great ally of the United States. Japan can help us weather the rare earths problem. You know, China actually imposed a blockade on Japan for the rare earth thing. And that was the first warning sign like the, you know, the canary in the coal mine of what this danger was. And so Japan and the United States, Australia, they just announced a big deal on rare earths. We've got to realize that it's not just military equipment and military capabilities, it's also crucial technological capabilities like rare earths, like critical minerals, like semiconductors. All of those things are now elements that China will use in its confrontation, confrontation with us. Unfortunately, Trump thinks he can charm his way through to Xi Jinping. That ain't gonna work.

B (13:59)

Trump does believe in the power of his own personality and certainly the power of his relationships and also the power of being able to wield U.S. economic and other kinds of influence. But it is interesting that you say charm, and it's very true, won't make its way through to Xi Jinping, but it's also not making its way through Vladimir Putin. I think President Trump, and he admits it, thought that it really might work. But he says, as much as I have conversations with Putin, and they're always decent, pleasant conversations, nothing gets done. He doesn't follow through, he doesn't listen to what I'm saying. So I know some in the US Administration and maybe analysts as well, think that Trump could sort of inveigh against Xi or prey upon him to help sort of push Putin towards ending the Ukraine war. Helping to end the Ukraine war. I mean, what should Trump say to Xi about this? Is there a chance in hell that that's going to be, you know, certainly not going to be something Xi does just because he wants to be nice and friendly to the United States.

A (15:05)

We need to remember some basic facts. They are providing a lot more military help than the world thinks. They claim they are not sending weapons, maybe they're not sending finished weaponry. But let's be clear, without China's help, Russia could not be conducting the war it's conducting right now. That means China's help economically through military technology, through co production agreements, through providing Russia all that it needs to keep the war going. Xi Jinping wants Vladimir Putin to win this war. The only thing we've ever been able to get him to do was to signal the dangers of using nuclear weapons. And we've talked about that in the podcast earlier. And Xi Jinping, like any rational person, wants to avoid the possibility of a nuclear weapon. But if anybody thinks that Donald Trump can persuade Xi Jinping to persuade Putin to finally recognize that he can't win this war, I think they're smoking something.

B (16:06)

My recent interview with the former NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, who's out promoting his new book, which is called On My Watch, is really revealing because he's very open, he's very self reflective and he says that he could have done more to persuade Western allies, NATO allies, to provide more military help to Ukraine much, much earlier on, including right after, just as he became secretary general in 2014, after the first Putin invasion and annexation of Crimea. So I think there is always a lot of 2020 hindsight and, and it's clear that the Europeans are stepping up hugely now to really make sure that Ukraine gets what it needs. And again, I mean, it doesn't take a genius to see that we are in a state of massive volatility all over the world. It's not just in Asia or in Europe, but as we've been talking, also in Latin America. And when we come back, we're going to talk about why the U.S. defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, is trying to silence journalists. And our recommendations are still to come. We want to just relay the table, so to speak, reset the table. About the U.S. secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, first of all, he calls himself Secretary of War. They have renamed the Pentagon as the Department of War and indeed pressured some journalists, maybe all journalists, but not all journalists are doing it to call it the Department of War. So this is all sort of happening out there. Let's just talk a little bit, Jamie, about Hegseth, just very briefly before we go into his relationship with the press, etc. So as we know, he came from Fox News, he had a tour of duty in Iraq. He rose to the rank of major, which is essentially quite a middling rank, but nonetheless, he was there. Since he's been at the Pentagon, he's fired a whole load of generals, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and others. He summoned all the generals, admirals and global commanders who service America's forces all over the world to a sort of a pep talk and a dressing down at the Pentagon. And now he's silenced the press or he's trying to the mainstream press by forcing them to make a, I would call it a pact with the devil, if you like. As a journalist, I would say that to give up their independence for the price of staying in the Pentagon press pool. And journalists, including cnn, FO and all the major journalistic organizations have said, no thanks, we'll do it from the outside. This is big, isn't it, Jamie? I mean, when you have this massive military, America's the biggest military in the world. It has so much power and it affects so much all over the world. And the Secretary of defense is acting in this way is difficult. It's just a bit dangerous.

A (19:06)

Well, absolutely. I find that appointment, the one that scares me the most, this jumped up major who failed in all his previous jobs is now the Secretary of Defense. It's a bit scary. And so I think what's happening is that people are figuring out how to work around him. But unfortunately, right now, the policy that is most real in our part of the world now almost a dozen attacks on boats and people in the Pacific, in the Caribbean, in this so called attempt to overthrow Venezuela is going on. And Hagseth's incompetence and failure to lead properly has led, as we've talked about, to a resignation of the commander. Any other real secretary of defense would have told the president that this war is extremely difficult, if not impossible to justify legally murdering people on boats based on your own assessment that they might be drug smugglers.

B (20:10)

Well, you know, I was just reading today, been at least at current counting, eight boats blown up, around 30. I think people have been killed. And I just, ugh, I just saw this horrible, gruesome report of sort of mutilated bodies washing up even on the shores of Trinidad, which is where we spent our pre. That's true, you know, our pre engagement holiday. But it just.

A (20:41)

I almost proposed to you in Trinidad, but I waited for Tobago.

B (20:45)

You did, you did. And then we had to get the ring made smaller in Trinidad. So there is a Trinidad piece to this. But Jamie Hegseth is quite front and center in this particular policy and certainly providing the resources and the assets, the military assets. But it is, as everybody has said and you have said, Trump went from trying to negotiate and being transactional with Maduro to essentially Rubio taking it over and he doubling down, allying with the current Venezuelan opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, who believes in regime change because to her, Maduro stealing the election that she won. Had he not stolen it, there would have been regime change and certainly Rubio is running this operation in terms of strategically.

A (21:39)

But do you remember you used to tease me, Christiane, for being a bit of a slob. Look what I just did. I spilled water down my shirt.

B (21:48)

Oh, God. At least it's water and not coffee. Oh, my God. That's trying to bat the fly away.

A (21:55)

Exactly.

B (21:56)

No doubt I'm going to be nice. I have no idea why you just spontaneously threw water all over yourself, but there we go. There we go. Can we just go back a little bit to the press? Because really, America's a democracy. The Pentagon is one of the most integrated and weirdly speaking, democratic institutions. Very, very balanced it has been in terms of diversity and all the rest of it. And like many American political and military and other institutions of state, has an embedded press corps. It's something that I've never understood and don't like because you can be a military correspondent or a foreign affairs correspond or chief political correspondent, but it doesn't mean to say, let's just take the UK that you're embedded in number 10 with the Prime Minister or at the foreign office. With the, with the. What do they call it here? It's not Foreign Minister, it's the Foreign Secretary. Foreign Secretary. There you go. Or with the Defense Secretary, so it appears more independent, the press coverage here. You. Jamie, when you were in the State Department, you had an embedded press corps, but do you think you would have ever done or gotten away with doing what Hegseth has tried and has successfully done? The Pentagon told each and every organization that they must agree with the draconian new rules. That is, can't report or publish anything without our permission is basically what it boils down to. All the mainstream organizations, including center left, center right, Fox, cnn, msnbc, everybody, newspapers, radio stations, public television and radio, et cetera, have said no. And they've left their offices, but the very conservative, very right wing have stayed.

A (23:40)

Would I have ever done that? I mean, that's easy. Not in a million years. Remember when we went to Lisbon on a NATO trip? And the difference between our approach to journalism and theirs is I knew you were a very, you know, strong willed journalist who didn't always write or say what we liked, but I believed in the right of journalists to do their job. And on that trip, when we were heading to Serbia, we had to give the Serbian government a list of all of our journalists. And when they saw your name, they tried to ban you from the trip. And they said, we can't give her access to Serbia through your plane. And so I did what, what a normal Assistant Secretary for Public affairs would do back then, especially one under Madeleine Albright. Some people may have tried to work their way around it, but I, using my own, you know, gumption, even without checking with Madeline, I sent our ambassador into the Serbs in Belgrade and said, excuse me, either you approve all the journalists we take on our trip or we're not coming.

B (24:48)

That's how we met and that's how we were married eventually.

A (24:52)

And of course they backed down and you came on the trip and that's where we met. But the important point is that's the difference between believing in the right of free expression, believing in the freedom of the press, such that you want to make sure that every journalist is treated fairly compared to what Hegseth is doing is basically trying to turn this into what the Russian Communist Party used to do.

B (25:22)

It was the US Government's Balkan war crimes tour that was the basis and the situation for our courtship. Some people do it different on, you know, that's what it was. War criminals in the Balkans was what brought us together. Now let's just quickly revert back to the Hegseth thing, because I think part of it is also not just to control the message and to be able to have, you know, whatever you call the Pravda. It's also happening in the White House press corps as well, but it's also to contain leaks. But don't you think those who are worried, from inside the Pentagon, wherever the administrators or military forces, military leaders, will seek to leak even more if they think that this is now happening and they can't get the stories out because the press are being muzzled?

A (26:13)

Yeah, I think you're right. I think the way to think about this is one of the great institutions in our country is the American military, and they, by and large, believe in all the rules and modes of thinking and operating that make up a democracy. They're trained, they're brought up. Their whole military experience is based on civilian control of the military because they live in a democracy. And in that democracy, they recognize that freedom of the press is a crucial right of all journalists. And what I like to say, whenever we say freedom of the press, I like to remind people that it's not just the freedom to say what you want, it's the freedom for people to listen. And that's how democracy works, is if you hear all points of view, fairly stated, honestly stated, the citizenry is educated, and it learns. If they're being forced to only hear one thing, either they'll believe it, which would be a disaster, given the way these extreme organizations speak, or they'll just turn off and not pay any attention. I want my fellow Americans to be paying attention to government, to want to know what's going on. So I think you're right. The military will find ways around this. You know, they'll take them on aircrafts, or they'll invite them to bases, or they'll talk to them privately. This will fail as a policy of muzzling the press. And it might just do what you said is make, you know, the honest, serious military officers, civilian and uniform, operate with more willingness to, you know, walk up to the line in terms of helping journalists.

B (28:00)

And we know in real terms, certainly about the Venezuela, that the southern commander's resignation, which we talked a little bit about last time, was due in part to his relationship and his demands of the Defense Secretary Hegseth, to be able to do his job properly in this regard. And he was essentially, you know, sort of shown the door. Nonetheless, as we know, Hegseth still, at least overtly on a lot of issues, maintains Trump's admiration because he looks like the part that Trump believes, you know, he was a military. He was.

A (28:33)

Doesn't look like it to me.

B (28:34)

Well, it looks like it to Trump and to the FOX News band. So that's it. We are going to take a break and we're going to come back with our recommendations. So stay tuned, as they say. All right, so we're back, final part of our episode with our recommendations. And Jamie, if you don't mind, I would like to just recommend first and it's not self serving, even if it might sound like it. I hope it's a bit more of a public service. I took part in a podcast called Changing the Ovarian Cancer Story. I am a three time survivor. I have it for the third time. But I'm on a great regime of immunotherapy and it's got it under control. So I thought it'd be a great idea to talk with my oncologist, you know, and be public about diagnosis, about women listening to their bodies, about the improvements in treatments and about saying to people sometimes, like for me so far anyway, cancer is probably a permanent condition but really can be managed. So I would like our listeners, our viewers, whoever thinks that they may need to know a bit more about this. It's called ovarian cancer has often been referred to as the silent killer amongst women because symptoms are very, very hard to detect and often they're caught too late when it's too late to actually do anything about it. So I want to do that. And I'm sorry if I gave you a scare, Jamie and I gave our son a scare, too. But this has been going on for a few months now. So.

A (30:10)

Well, yes, great thing that you're being able to use your opportunity to help other people pay attention to it and get diagnosed early. If I may, I'm going to go back to foreign policy for a minute here. So, you know, you recommended House of Dynamite and I went and saw it. And I know everyone has their different view of this, but I thought it was brilliant. Kathryn Bigelow did a great, great movie about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and what I know about government operations back then and now. That was great. This was also great in its own way because it showed the dilemmas at the highest level of government about this great question of what would happen if an accidental missile was launched at the United States and we didn't know who did it and whether it contained a nuclear weapon. What would you about it? And what I liked about that was how realistic the dilemma was. Shown to people who work in the White House, work in the Pentagon, work in the President himself, all of that. So I followed your recommendation. But of course I have my own. One of our crucial strengths is the dominance of the US dollar in the world. That gives us incredible power. Power to borrow money, price stability, power to impose sanctions in dollars. And, and that is an advantage America has that I fear we are squandering. And if we mess this up, that will be one of the biggest self inflicted wounds of the modern era. Our dollar supremacy in international markets is crucial. So Lael Brainard, who formerly was the head of the National Economic Council under President Biden, was a member of the Federal Reserve Board, happens also to be married to one of my friends, Kurt Campbel, you know as well. But Lael is a brilliant economist in her own right and she's written an article in Foreign affairs about the dollar and the threat to the dollar. And I think, you know, it's economics can be very difficult for people to get their head around. But I think we can all appreciate the fact that the dollar is so dominant in the world helps American foreign policy, economic policy, sanctions, average Americans, limits the effect of our huge debt, makes sure that prices are stable. And I sure sure hope and pray that this administration's erratic economic and trade policies don't damage the dollar's dominance. And I want people to read and understand it because it's extremely important.

B (32:56)

That's it for this episode. So thank you all for listening. Make sure that you follow our feed so that you never miss an episode. And remember, you can watch our episodes on YouTube as well. You just search Christiana Monport presents the X Files on YouTube and subscribe to our channel. You can also listen for free of course, on Global Player. Download that from the App Store or go to globalplayer.com so we will see you, JB and I will be back with you for the bonus Q and A episode that drops on Thursday. We answer your questions, of course. Keep them coming. We love hearing from you. Let's just remind you of the email amanpur podlobal.com or find us on social media. Amanpur Pod. All right, Jamie, bye.

A (33:39)

Goodbye from New York. Carmela's kitchen.

B (33:42)

Okay. And goodbye from the other side of the pond. Good old Blighty.

A (33:50)

This has been a Global Player original production.