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- [00:04]
UBS Narrator
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- [00:38]
Emma Nelson
You're listening to the Globalist, first broadcast on 3rd April 2026 on Monocle Radio. The Globalist in association with U. Live from London, this is the Globalist with me, Emma Nelson. A very warm welcome to today's program. Coming up, Rallying regional leaders, Emmanuel Macron's trip to Japan and South Korea becomes a moment to unite against Donald Trump and his insults. We'll assess a tour which consolidates France's influence in the region. Also ahead in the next 60 minutes, from aviation fuel supplies at risk of drying up to calls to stay at home, the effects of the Iran war begin to bite. But what can the world do to keep moving? We'll go through the newspapers, find out what diplomatic gift the Bosnian football team has been given.
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Frank Auman
And it's so lowly priced cacao that there's no money in it. And you know, when an industry has to be supported by the government all the time, that means that there's something wrong.
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Emma Nelson
We celebrate the world's first chocolate producer to grow and develop his own single variety cacao. That's all coming up on the Globalist. Live from London. First, a look at what else is happening in today's news. President Trump has threatened to wreak even greater destruction on Iran unless its leaders do, in his words, what they know they have to do. The American Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, has asked the US army chief of staff, Randy George, to take immediate retirement. And the four astronauts on board the Orion spacecraft have left Earth's orbit and are now heading to the moon. Stay tuned to Monocle Radio throughout the day for more on these stories. But first, bar a minor kerfuffle involving some mean personal remarks made about him and his wife by Donald Trump, France's President Emmanuel Macron has enjoyed a rather productive week. From signing a roadmap on critical minerals and defence cooperation with Japan to dinner with K pop stars in Seoul, the French president has married both hard and soft power strategies during his trip to Asia. This week, while watching Mr. Macron's movements are Jonathan Femby, journalist, author and former editor of the South China Morning Post. And from Busan in South Korea. Robert E. Kelly is professor of Political science at Busan National University. The time has just gone two minutes past three in the afternoon. A very good morning. Good afternoon to you, gentlemen.
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Andrew Muller
Good day.
- [03:25]
Robert E. Kelly
Thank you for having me.
- [03:26]
Emma Nelson
Jonathan, if we can begin with you, we just deal with these Trump comments from yesterday. They were a minor distraction, but they did sting.
- [03:34]
Jonathan Fenby
Yes, they obviously they were rather personal and including him, Trump adopting a full French accent to make Guy Macron. And it was particularly based on the episode where Macron's wife was seen to shove him as they were leaving a plane on another state visit. And the accusation is that Macron is pushed around by his wife, which Trump voiced at the end of a lunch at Mar A Lago. And this obviously didn't go down too well. Macron shrugged it off as being inelegant,
- [04:21]
Emma Nelson
but this therefore then at this point is a shrugged off as being inelegant. But Robert, bringing you in now. He uses this moment of Trump's personal insults to highlight the fact that France and indeed Europe bring stability to Asia at a time when it is absolutely needed.
- [04:45]
Robert E. Kelly
Yeah, I think a lot of us who work in US Foreign policy were really sort of shocked at what the president said. I mean, it's just another in the long, long list. And I thought that the French president's response to it was about as best as you could possibly expect. He really rose above it. And I would just say by in passing, sort of when it comes to his trip in Kore, that's going to go over really well. Right. I mean, when Donald Trump says this kind of stuff about the Koreans, when he sort of shoots his mouth off about sort of Korean free riding and stuff like that, the Korean press never really quite knows how to respond. They kind of pull back and dance around it and stuff like that. So I imagine that Mark Crawl came off as kind of smooth in his response. But to your larger point, yeah, I mean, the United States is not a particularly reliable counterparty for any kind of meaningful negotiation. I would argue, I think that NATO is probably a dead letter under Donald Trump, and I would imagine that that extends out to East Asia. I think that's why the South Koreans are talking about self reliant defense and stuff like that, because nobody knows that the Americans are going to stand behind their alliance commitments now.
- [05:37]
Emma Nelson
So staying with you, Robert, how important a moment is this for the three nations, for France and for Japan and for South Korea?
- [05:45]
Robert E. Kelly
Well, I think in the long term, if Europe's going to be meaningfully connected to it's going to be a sort of security player in Asia. It can't just be sort of the individual states, it can't be France and Germany and so on. It's got to be some kind of larger European collective. Right. I mean, this is something I think that the Europeans really learned from Donald Trump, that he can play against one another as long as the European Union is not thickly integrated and can't really speak with one voice and stuff. It gives Trump some room to sort of maneuver and play countries off against one another. And you know, quite honestly, France and Britain and Germany are all too far away to act on their own out here. I mean, it's great that Macron was out here. It's nice that you have some interaction, but I think the two sides are going to engage each other more thoroughly. You've got to see a greater collective effort on both sides of Eurasia.
- [06:24]
Emma Nelson
Jonathan, what's your view on this? The idea that it is important, as Robert has just said, for Japan and South Korea, that part of the world to be very meaningfully connected, but it has to be done with Europe as a whole.
- [06:38]
Jonathan Fenby
Yes. Well, of course the French would say that Macron is in a sense acting as a pathfinder path, trailblazer for Europe, for larger Europe. But then you come back to the old ode question of how united Europe really is. There is at the same time an awareness that if they are to follow up on the kind of path laid opened up by Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister, in his speech at Davos, which was that middle sized powers need to get together in a world increasingly dominated by the United States and China. If you ally that with Macron's longstanding pursuit of of or pursuit of strategic autonomy for Europe, then obviously linking up with Japan and South Korea is an absolutely essential part of this. And I think the trip recognized that
- [07:45]
Emma Nelson
the instability of the United States notwithstanding, there are key issues which unite the Europeans and the Asians. Isn't there because we have China with its military expansion in Asia, especially in the South China Sea, and threats that it makes to the likes of Taiwan. Taiwan. But also we have the issue of trade as well, which is an incredibly important connective element when it comes to Europe and China. But it has to be treated very delicately. Robert. We will try and get Robert back in a moment, but in the meantime. Right, let's go back to Jonathan and ask you the same question. That focus that Europe and the Asians must have.
- [08:30]
Jonathan Fenby
Yes, there is. The trade is obviously important also practical matters. Macron signed a number of agreements in Korea and with Japan, notably on nuclear and rare earth development. And that is extremely important. Trade is not a major irritant at the moment in France's relationship any way with Korea and Japan. But as you rightly say, it underlies the whole relationship. But this is more about geopolitics and trying to get Japan and South Korea under their new governments or new presidents, prime ministers to line up with Europe in an association of, however informal, of middle sized powers. And as you rightly said, it's going to have to rise to the level of the EU as a whole, rather than just France acting as a pathfinder on its own.
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Emma Nelson
I believe we have. Robert, A bag.
- [09:46]
Robert E. Kelly
I am sorry, sorry, sorry.
- [09:49]
Emma Nelson
It's a pleasure. Jump in on that point, please, Robert.
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Robert E. Kelly
Yeah, I think for, for the Asian end of that. I would also point out too that, that, you know, both South Korea and Japan are kind of middle sized ish powers for the Europeans to negotiate with too. And it would help a great deal if Japan and South Korea could sort of work together if the Indo Pacific sort of liberal democracies could work together, you know, Australia, you know, the Philippines and so on. I mean there's are, there are Asian partners out here, but they too are sort of of this middle ish size. And traditionally the United States has kind of acted as sort of like a hub, if you will, sort of connecting all these spokes. And it's kind of an open question of whether or not you can have all these sort of like middle ish, large ish powers, you know, 10 or 20, if you will, sort of scattered across this wide geographic space, organize themselves. Right. I mean traditionally the Americans have kind of resolved what we call the collective action problem. And I'm not really quite sure who would do that. Right. One clear European voice I think would make that easier. But I mean, I think that's a challenge for both sides of the, of the community.
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Emma Nelson
Finally, Robert, just coming back to you about. We've talked about the hard power and you know, the, the, the geopolitical alignment, but you know, to have Emmanuel Macron going to a dinner with K pop stars and what have you. There is this rather delightful charm offensive which is being, which is very successfully spreading around the world from the likes of Japan and South Korea.
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Robert E. Kelly
Yeah, the Koreans, they love K pop, man. My students, they love it. They're all listening to it all the time. My daughter's watching it on Netflix all the time. Yeah, it's, it's really successful and that's actually a great way to sort of like build the relationship between Korea and its various neighbors without all of it being, like you said, sort of hard power and trade statistics and stuff like that. Right. I mean, ultimately those kinds of relationships require the social interaction of people and ideas moving back and forth across borders. And Korea is contributing now in a way that didn't, you know, even just 20 years ago. So it's nice to have sort of like social globalization rather than all of it just being about, you know, force and sanctions and so on.
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Emma Nelson
ROBERT E. Kelly Sorry, Jonathan Jumping yeah,
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Jonathan Fenby
just, just to add to that, as well as k pop. And Mrs. Macron is said to be very keen on BTS in particular, who signed an album for her. The Macrons also were treated to a state dinner catered by a Michelin starred chef from Korea and even served champagne grown by a Korean who operates in that area of France.
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Emma Nelson
Soft power excelling Jonathan Fenby and Robert E. Kelly, thank you both very much for joining me on the Globalist. It's what, 1312 in Bangkok? 7:12am Here in London. Now, keeping the lights on in a global crisis is nothing new. We have, after all, weathered major economic shocks such as Covid and the current war in Ukraine. Restrictions become more prevalent. And this is what we seem to be seeing as reactions to the war in Iran. From free bus rides in Australia to cafe curfews in Egypt, societies are now having to compromise. Well, joining me on the line from Bangkok is James Chambers, Monocle's Asia editor and in the studio, our senior news editor, Chris Chermack. Good afternoon, James. Good morning, Chris Hello, Emma.
- [13:11]
Jonathan Fenby
Hi, Emma.
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Emma Nelson
Good to have you with us. Now, Chris, let me bring you in very quickly. There is a sense here, isn't there, that in the last week or so, the last two weeks, that governments are feeling as if they have to step up, that there is a recognition that the effects of rising fuel prices and shortages are being felt?
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Chris Chermack
There is absolutely a recognition of that. And James obviously can talk about the Asian side where it is especially acute. I would say what you're seeing here in Europe at the moment is more weak warnings rather than actual measures. So you had energy ministers from the European Union meeting this week, you had the energy Commissioner Jorgensen warning that this is going to be a long term impact, not a short one. Even if the war were to say, end tomorrow. And so the EU is sort of preparing rafts of measures, you're seeing the same thing here in the uk, whether that is subsidies for the rising gas prices, the rising petrol prices that we're seeing, or also you're starting to see warnings from airlines. For example, you had Ryan o' Leary of speaking about the possibility in the summer for Ryanair that there would be cuts, potentially cancellations of flights. And you're starting to see some warnings from ministers as well, saying maybe think about cutting back on your trips in the summer. So in the case of Europe, because they weren't as directly exposed to oil and gas out of the Middle east, they get their sources from elsewhere. They also have a good amount of renewables. They're not feeling the pinch just yet, but it will come in about a month or two. And that's what you're seeing, the warnings from European ministers.
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Emma Nelson
James, let's move to you. What Chris has just said is that things are being felt much more acutely and immediately where you are. We have, you know, for example, in the Philippines, we have a national fuel emergency and there's almost a sort of a stay at home order happening in Vietnam.
- [15:05]
James Chambers
Yeah, it seems like the Philippines has been the hardest hit. Is quite shocking, I guess, how quickly those measures came in. And I guess they're one of those countries that would probably find it quite difficult to negotiate free passage through the strait for their tankers because they're closely affiliated with the us and actually we saw, you know, China actually coming to the rescue and sending oil tankers down to the Philippines, and they're meant to be having this big dispute over the South China Sea. So lots of things being shaken up in this part of the world. And as you mentioned, Vietnam, I mean, the government quickly moved there to get rid of fuel tax to keep prices down. And it comes at a very difficult time because, I mean, here in Thailand we are close to the Songkran holidays and this is the hottest time of the year. This is, you know, this is summer. And so, you know, temperatures are getting up in the 35, 36, 37. It might start feeling like 60, apparently, which is. Which sounds a bit drastic, but it's not the time to be turning down your air conditioning and there's only so much you can do by just wearing a few, you know, a T shirt instead of a suit. So it is difficult here to speak about what's happening in Thailand. I mean, the government tried to bring in a price cap on fuel that was quickly removed because they just couldn't afford to fund it. And so prices shot up from about 30 baht per litre to over 40 now. And the front page of the Bangkok Post today is all about it. It's all related to Iran. It's all related to fuel. And the latest measure the government is trying to do is to concentrate on the margins that the refineries are charging on this petrol. So they're still trying to look at it, but there's not much they can do now.
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Emma Nelson
Indeed. And James, just asking you what businesses are able to do to keep moving because just because there is indeed there is this now wide reaching global crisis when it comes to fuel. Business cannot stop, people cannot stop.
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James Chambers
That's. That's right. I mean, and here a lot of people rely on parts. This is the most popular vehicle here is a pickup truck. And that just shows how much, you know, small businesses rely on, you know, just moving things around with these petrol vehicles.
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Emma Nelson
So, James, I fear your line is letting us down, so let's bring Chris in on that point. The idea that just listening to what James was saying in Bangkok, the most important means of transport around here is a pickup truck in Thailand. But when it comes to the way that governments try and keep the world moving, when you have warnings from the EU energy commissioner saying prices are going to be high for a very long time, there'll be more critical products, it's going to get worse. This is a big warning shot to businesses now, isn't it, to say do something about it? It is.
- [18:04]
Chris Chermack
And that's why you're starting to see warnings, particularly from the airlines. As I say, they're the ones that are the most worried when it comes to Europe and sort of where Europe's exposure is on this, the jet fuel side is one of those aspects, because when it comes to some of the other sides, Europe's energy mix has actually allowed businesses to continue relatively as normal. But airlines are warning. And also one of the things, of course, that they're trying to do, again to point to Ryan o' Leary of Ryanair, is to pass on the blame. They're warning they're going to have to start bringing in either fuel surcharges or in the case of lower cost airlines, they might just have to cancel flights because they don't want to raise prices. And his point, literally Ryan o', Leary's, was blame Donald Trump for this. So you're starting to see this shift of blame, if you will, here in Europe as additional measures start to come in.
- [18:58]
Emma Nelson
And this additional issue when it comes to the long term here, when the Russian full scale invasion of Ukraine occurred, everybody said we need to rethink the way that we actually fuel our lives and we need to think about more green energy and this and that. And one wonders, just how much has been done given the fact that what, four years later a comparable shock arrives. And we have the British energy minister saying, well, we've got wind farms coming on stream and this, that and the other. And then we have the Germany economic minister today calling for a rethink of our country's opposition to nuclear power. Because there is this long term knowledge that if you are too reliant on fossil fuels that energy shocks can be profoundly destabilizing.
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Guy Delaunay
Absolutely.
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Chris Chermack
And you're seeing a wide mix of responses in Europe when it comes to what to do about this energy shock. Because, yes, we have been here before with Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine that led to some changes in Europe. There have been some changes. It's important to say, if you look at, say the UK, 42% of its energy in the first quarter came from wind, only 16% or so from gas. That's up in the case of wind from about 33% last year. So you're seeing a benefit in the UK from that. But also, of course, part of the problem was the response to the Ukraine, Russia war for many countries was to shift to diversify to the Middle east as well. So that's what you're now seeing a response to and saying, okay, well, it can't be fossil fuels, it cannot be oil and gas anymore. We have to diversify elsewhere. And then the question becomes, well, where do we diversify to? We've already diversified our energy mix from oil and gas. That's why, as I say, Europe is not as exposed as say, Asia is, which gets about 30% of its oil from the Gulf. But then you're now seeing a wide divergence of responses. Germany, Italy are talking about returning to coal or at least not phasing it out as quickly. Even Germany might bring back nuclear. That conversation is being had again. But at the same time, yes, you're seeing an increase in wind, you're seeing an increase in solar in renewables, of which the EU already gets about 50% of its power. It's important to say so. It is interesting what's happening. Just final word on that. Spain is among the biggest transitions on that. They now get about 70, 75% of their electricity from renewables compared to 15% in 2019. So you have seen shift shifts.
- [21:29]
Emma Nelson
Chris Chermak, senior news Editor, thank you so much for joining me in the studio. And thanks also to James Chambers, Monocle's Asia editor, who joined us on the line from Bangkok. Still to come on today's program, Take me to America.
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Frank Auman
I really want to see Statue of Liberty.
- [21:46]
Emma Nelson
I can no longer wait. Take me to United States. That musical treat was a Bosnian football national team. They have become ambassadors for their country and they've been given rather a nice treat in return. Stay tuned to find out what it is a little bit later.
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UBS Narrator
CRAFT is a matter of perspective, a unique outlook, an obsessive attention to detail. With UBS's Chief Investment Office Houseview, we're focused on identifying the latest investment opportunities and market risks to help you achieve your financial goals. So you get the big picture broken down into thought provoking insights. Deliver daily and curated by over 200 globally connected, locally active analysts, UBS banking is our craft.
- [22:41]
Emma Nelson
07:22 Here in London. Let's have a look at today's newspapers. Joining me in the studio is Zoe Grunewelt who's with the Westminster editor at the lead. Good morning, Zoe. Happy Easter. Thank you for coming in. How's your Easter looking?
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Zoe Grunewelt
Quiet, a little bit of work, but I will see my family on Sunday and have some roast lamb.
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Emma Nelson
Excellent. Yes, I think that's on the cards for many, many people in this part. Right. What have we spotted? We have Pam Bondi was thrown under the bus yesterday by Donald Trump, but done in a rather elegant way.
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Zoe Grunewelt
Yes. So Donald Trump has announced that Pam Bondi will be, who is of course the Attorney general will be transitioning to a role in the private sector. That is she's no longer going to be serv serving in his administration. We're not quite sure what that role is. Obviously. Bondi led the Justice Department during Donald Trump's second tenure. Famously overshadowed by the handling of the release of the Epstein files, which she was responsible for. She is the second Trump administration official to be cut from the post in recent weeks. The other one also being a woman, Kristi Noem, who is ousted as Homeland Security chief in March. Bondi. Trump did praise Bondi on social media. Bondi then said she'd be working tirelessly to try transfer her work to her deputy and that the job had been the honor of a lifetime. But of course, the job that she's transitioning to hasn't been revealed, which makes it think that maybe there is naturally one in the works. This has sort of been a long time coming. Her handling of the Epstein files was rather bungled. Obviously, when she came into office, she promised she would release them. She also said that there was this particular client list she'd released that turned out never to exist. And then when she did eventually release the files, she forgot to redact a Lot of information that was important and purchased to survivors, but also kept a lot of crucial information about potential perpetrators and, you know, details that might have helped investigations redacted. So she kind of irritated everyone with her handling of this, especially Donald Trump.
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Emma Nelson
Right. So the way that this is being covered in the United States is quite interesting. The New York Times has decided to have a look at how late night chat shows have, have, have, have, have covered it because obviously there is, there are serious ramifications for this in terms of shifts at the top. But Jimmy Fallon had great fun with this last night and he said that President Trump is on a bit of a firing spree, then adding, ironically, the only staffer who has immunity is our Robert F. Kennedy Jr. So he's the only one who's not been chucked under the bus. But there is that more widespread issue, isn't there? That is Donald Trump suddenly turning this into an episode of the Apprentice and getting rid of those who he doesn't like anym.
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Zoe Grunewelt
It does feel like there's a little bit of a revolving door going on of firings and replacements and that, you know, is quite different from his first term in office. Obviously there's been many departures in the first year of Alone, but since then we've seen Trump, you know, sorting out his team and it really feels like MAGA is starting to divide around him and there's lots of splits in the camps about his handling of the Iran war. There's also splits over Epstein. It's a difficult coalition to keep together anyway, but especially when you've got two issues, one of transparency of this government and the other about foreign intervention, that is something that's absolutely going to split the MAGA camp. And I think Donald Trump is struggling to keep it together.
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Emma Nelson
Okay, let's move to a British story. So we have the right wing populist political party Reform, which is doing pretty well in the, in the polls. It seems to be giving the mainstream parties a run for their money, at least. The difficulty that they have is actually finding spokespeople, potential members of Parliament who actually have any kind of values whatsoever that we would espouse as human beings.
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Zoe Grunewelt
Yes. So there's been a particular controversy this week where Simon Dudley, who was the former head of Holmes England, he's a developer who was appointed as the kind of housing spokesperson for Reform UK. And this is part of Reform UK's attempts to professionalise the party. They want to be seen as a opposition in waiting. They want to be seen as full of credible, you know, people who understand industry, understand business. Unfortunately, Simon Dudley, who had been taken on as the spokesperson for housing, was embroiled in contra controversy after he made some appalling comments in an interview with a magazine called Inside Housing and where he described building safety regulations that were introduced after the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, which we will all remember as a really horrific moment in British history. He called these regulations as regulation which is not working. He also said that it was a tragedy, but everybody dies in the end, which is an appalling thing to say because this wasn't just, you know, people dying. This were people who had raised the alarm time and time again and what they saw were potential safety hazards in their building. And then eventually that building caught on fire and over 70 people died, including children. It was such a horrific stain on this country and has caused a mass reckoning of building regulation since having made these comments. Since then, Simon Dudley has been sacked. But people are reeling over the fact that he would say this in the first place.
- [28:05]
Emma Nelson
And this is something that raises a wider question, doesn't it? Insofar as when you have the likes of Donald Trump making unpleasant remarks of Emmanuel Macron about him and his wife, or any kind of, you know, the terrible things he said about the former head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, when he died, and then you have reform talking about, you know, everybody dies in the end, when 70 people perished horribly at Grenfell, that idea of what happens to the way that politicians speak and then the way that the world then picks up on that, that do we ever dare to go back to a time when people actually speak with a little bit of dignity?
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Zoe Grunewelt
I think that's the thing. And I think you see it particularly on X, which is a political platform that a lot of these kind of right wing figures use. Politicians, there is a definitely a coarsening of public debate, but it's turned into a callousness and a cruelty. And I think you're absolutely right. That shapes the way that people speak. It shapes the way people interact with politicians, it shapes the way that we think about other people and their value. And I think that is something that is very much coming to define this particular breed of right wing populism, which is that it is very cruel, it is very callous. You know, it doesn't fall on ceremony or politeness. It's getting crueler and darker. And I think what you see here is a culmination of that, where, you know, for the bottom line and profit and slashing red tape, you can say something so demeaning cruel about a group of people that suffered.
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Emma Nelson
Right, let's have a look at a final story about. Well, it's a quote attributed to Mark Twain, isn't it? Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. Mark Twain said that, I think in 1897, which is the subject of our final story, I believe was still alive when this thing, when Twain actually said this. And this is about a tortoise called Jonathan.
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Zoe Grunewelt
Yeah. So this is a tortoise called Jonathan. He's a giant tortoise. He's the world's oldest, oldest tortoise and he's 194 years old, which is pretty old. He's now lived long enough to fall victim to being in a crypto scam. So news outlets including the BBC, the Daily Mail, USA Today all falsely reported that Jonathan had died because there was a fake post on X saying he died. This poster basically said that he died and then was kind of asking for donations to a cryptocurrency scam. Obviously this was picked up by major news platforms who reported it as if it were, as if it were fact. Luckily it has now been established that Jonathan is not dead. He's still alive, he's still eating his bananas. The, the, the, he's from St Helens and they said, you know, he's still got a healthy libido, he's still, he's still going on, on and on. Sorry, St. Helena's is where he lives then Ireland. But yeah, it's, it, it's quite extraordinary and I think it shows you quite a lot about not only the sophistication of scams, how potentially a lot of these mainstream news outlets aren't quite picking up on them quick enough, but also that even the world's old, oldest tortoise can fall victim to them.
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Emma Nelson
You've us an idea in our heads about libidos and 194 year old tortoises that I think may stay with us for the rest of the day. Zoe Grunevelt, Westminster Editor at the lead. Thank you so much for that. You're listening to the Globalist on Monocle Radio. Now here's a look at some of the other stories we're keeping an eye on today. President Trump has threatened to wreak ever greater destruction on Iran unless its leaders do, in his words, what they know they have to do. His warning comes hours after experts on international law have warned of serious violations by the US, Israel and Iran. They've highlighted Mr. Trump's rhetoric and conduct of war. In particular the American Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked the US Army Chief of staff, Randy George, to take immediate retirement. It's understood Mr. Hegseth wanted someone in the role who would implement his and President Trump's vision for the Army. General George has been nominated by the previous president, Joe Biden, and would have usually remained in post until next year. Year and the four astronauts on board the Orion spacecraft have left Earth's orbit and are now heading for the moon. They successfully completed the critical engine burn that will now propel the capsule on its journey. This is the Globalist. Stay tuned. 07:32 Here in London. Time now for our weekly roundup of the news seen through the eyes of Andrew Muller. Here's what we learned.
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Andrew Muller
We learned this week that it was that happiest time of year for the compilers of whimsical news monologues. We learned, yes, that it was CPAC week.
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Frank Auman
Oh no.
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Andrew Muller
Oh yes. Cpac, the Conservative Political Action Conference, is an annual gathering of the finest minds and deepest thinkers in American conservatism, which could be more snappily and indeed accurately rebranded as Crankstock. The lucky host city this year was the Texas settlement of Grapevine. And yes, there was a great deal of wine ing. They were raisin hell, is that anything?
- [33:16]
Frank Auman
Just get on with it.
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Andrew Muller
We learned, however, that this year that the usual object of setting PAC's glassy eyed veneration, US President Donald Trump had found other, perchance better things to do and that the responsibilities of headlining had therefore devolved to US Secretary of Health and man, who in a more logically ordered world would be screaming at the bins outside a betting shop. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Who wowed the crowd with some illuminating, heartwarming and above all, absolutely believable anecdotes about the boss.
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Emma Nelson
He has encyclopedic molecular knowledge on these.
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Andrew Muller
This wide range of very, very eclectic interests. Well, quite. Golf, the Village People, fake gold, homewares. He's basically Isaac Newton. But we learned that RFK2 had once himself been very nearly as skeptical.
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Emma Nelson
You know, I basically drank the Kool
- [34:09]
Andrew Muller
Aid, which, to be fair, would not make the rankings of the top 10,000 or so weirdest things. Kennedy may have drunk over the journey. But we learned that though President Trump may indeed appear to the untrained eye to be some sort of bloviating buffoon who not a single private corporation in America would hire for fear of bankruptcy, HR lawsuits and meetings being derailed by 30 minute improvised disquisitions on the depravities of windmills, this was very far from the case, you know.
- [34:37]
Chris Chermack
Now I know exactly.
- [34:39]
Emma Nelson
He's the opposite of a narcissist.
- [34:42]
Matt Wolf
He's an empath.
- [34:43]
Emma Nelson
You will see that every time he talks about the Ukraine war, he talks
- [34:49]
Guy Delaunay
about the casualties on both sides, but
- [34:51]
Andrew Muller
especially the Russian side. Right, Bob? We learned anyway that whatever criticisms one may legitimately have of the commander in chief generally, one still could not complain that operations in the Persian Gulf were not going according to plan. Because there isn't one. We learned, or at least very strongly inferred this from the President's address to the nation, which could have been an email.
- [35:22]
Frank Auman
When this conflict is over, the strait
- [35:25]
Emma Nelson
will open up naturally.
- [35:27]
Andrew Muller
It'll just open up naturally, we learned, yes, that operation. It'll all somehow be fine, don't worry. Remained figurative and literally run aground in the Strait of Hormuz, the pinch point through which the fuel which may well be supposed to be keeping your lights on three weeks from now is presently not passing. And the closure of which by the Islamic Republic of Iran in circumstances of war has come as an immense shock to nobody apart from the President of the United States and his Secretary of Defense. Though we learned that Pete Hegseth for it is he did have a plan which was that someone else should deal with it. There are countries around the world who
- [36:03]
Matt Wolf
ought be prepared to step up on this critical waterway as well. It's not just the United States Navy.
- [36:09]
Emma Nelson
Last time I checked, there was supposed
- [36:11]
Andrew Muller
to be a big bad Royal Navy that could be prepared to do things
- [36:14]
Robert E. Kelly
like that as well.
- [36:15]
Andrew Muller
It would be tempting to suggest that we learn from this that Hegseth has absorbed his understanding of the Royal Navy's present capabilities from Horatio Hornblower novels. But some of the those are quite thick and don't have any pictures. Also the occasional three syllable word. We learned, however, that while the world watched what in many respects looked like a 21st century remake of the Suez Crisis of 1956. Member or members of Transatlantic alliance embark on harebrained Middle Eastern adventure to seize a vital waterway. France and Britain issue a 12 hour ultimatum that all fighting must cease within
- [36:56]
Emma Nelson
hours of its exploration. Britain's warplanes are winging their way to Egypt and its bombers attack five key cities, including Cairo.
- [37:03]
Andrew Muller
Other member or members of Transatlantic alliance wonder aloud what on earth they think they're doing. United States was not consulted in any
- [37:11]
Matt Wolf
way about any phase of these actions,
- [37:13]
Andrew Muller
nor were we informed of them in advance.
- [37:16]
Matt Wolf
In the circumstances I have described, there will be no United States involvement in these present hostilities.
- [37:23]
Andrew Muller
Someone was contemplating posterity. We learned that Eric Trump.
- [37:27]
Frank Auman
Oh, no.
- [37:28]
Andrew Muller
Apparent custodian of the ticking parcel that is his father's legacy, was delighted to share with an agog planet a preview of the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library to loom a characteristically tasteful and restrained 50 stories over Miami.
- [37:44]
Emma Nelson
Also featured what appears to be recreations of the Rose Garden.
- [37:48]
UBS Narrator
He paved his presidential walk of Fame. And then, of course, his controversial $400 million White House ballroom. And did we mention the theater featuring a giant gold statue of Trump with his fist raised in the air?
- [38:04]
Andrew Muller
We did not learn of any provision for any books, though are going to hope slash assume that the bathrooms will be lavishly decorated with boxes of stolen classified documents. Documents. But. As the dogs of war continued to chase their own tales, we at least learn definitively whose side God was on. And we learn this from a just absolutely normal ceremony in the White House convened by the President's irreproachably sane and in no respect, obviously completely off her rocker spiritual advisor, Paula White.
- [38:39]
UBS Narrator
And Mr. President, no one has paid the price like you have paid the price. It almost cost you your life. You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused. It's a familiar pattern that our Lord and Savior showed us. But it didn't end there for him and it didn't end there for you,
- [39:01]
Andrew Muller
which is why he is now at liberty to protect the world from the prosperous aspect of weirdo religious fanatics having nuclear weapons, which would obviously be terrible. Am I right?
- [39:14]
Guy Delaunay
Yeah.
- [39:15]
Andrew Muller
For Monocle Radio, I'm Andrew Muller.
- [39:23]
Emma Nelson
Thank you, Andrew. You're listening to the Globalist on Monocle Radio. 8:39am in Sarajevo, 7:39am here in London. Now, qualifying to play for your country in this year's football World cup finals is considered by many to be quite an achievement. But if you are a member of the Bosnian team, you have further reason to be pleased as punch. The whole team has been promised diplomatic passports. Well, to tell us more, I'm joined now by Monocle's Balkans correspondent, Guy Delaunay. A very good morning to you guys.
- [39:58]
Zoe Grunewelt
Guy.
- [39:59]
Guy Delaunay
Good morning, Emma. And good morning, everybody.
- [40:01]
Emma Nelson
Let's talk about the Bosnian football team. They have gone absolutely bananas. They made sure that Italy didn't qualify for the World cup for a third occasion. But it's also brilliant news if you are Bosnian and you like football.
- [40:12]
Guy Delaunay
This is true. And the scenes in Sarajevo, I rather wish I'd been there because I do tend to when one of the teams in this region has got a big match, I tend to try and be in a city in that country to experience the atmosphere. And had I been in Sarajevo on Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, I think it would have been an experience I would never have forgotten. Because this, this is hard to credit. I mean, we're used to seeing football teams coming, you know, through cities, having the civic welcome everybody, cheering do all the rest of it. But at 3 o' clock in the morning in Sarajevo, immediately after the match, tens of thousands of people gathering, music, flares, cheering and then the players themselves appearing on a balcony of one of the buildings in the center of the city above the eternal the Flame, to express their joy with their fellow Bosnian and Herzegovinan football supporters. What do you think of that?
- [41:10]
Emma Nelson
It's marvellous. And it's even better if you were due to take an exam that day.
- [41:14]
Guy Delaunay
Indeed it was, because everybody went bonkers, including the authorities. So straight away, the Education Minister of Sarajevo, Canton, said, we're scrapping all the tests and all the exams for today. They're out of the window. So they were all gone. And it wasn't just the school children who got away with it. The workers at the municipality, or anybody for that matter, who fancied visiting the municipal offices that day, they were not going to go be there either. They didn't start work until midday. I mean, I think everybody was forgiven everything on Wednesday in most parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, I think.
- [41:50]
Emma Nelson
Excellent. Good to hear it. Now, the wonderful thing that is happening to the team is not only do they get to go to America and play the World Cup Final, but the foreign minister has said that the team is the country's best, they are the country's best ambassadors. And in a wonderful moment of soft power, are these guys going to get diplomatic passports?
- [42:10]
Guy Delaunay
This is what Elmern Konakovi says. He says we are going to give the players and the coaches of the Bosnia and Herzegovina men's national football team diplomatic passports, as they are our country's best ambassadors. Now, I have to be quite clear here. I'm not sure whether Elmer Konakovi actually has the power to do this, but. Or whether he's just doing a little bit of posturing here, but having made the promise, he's going to have to follow through on it or end up with egg on his face, I would say. But I think it's a fair point because can you think of anything great that comes out of Bosnia and Herzegovina? It's a country that's got a lot of problems. It remains deeply divided following the wars of the 1990s. People, schools don't necessarily always get on, even in normal Times. And if I'm trying to. If you play that game of 10 famous Belgians, well, try that again with 10 famous Bosnians, you're going to struggle. And probably the best known Bosnian of all time was actually a footballer who played for Sweden rather than his home country. So it's a pretty tricky one to think of. So, yeah, we're talking about passports, we're talking about our country's best representatives. Why not the Bosnia and Herzegova men's national football football team?
- [43:24]
Emma Nelson
And in terms of the good that it actually does for the country itself, because the Bosnian team is not without its political problems, is it?
- [43:32]
Guy Delaunay
It's not. I mean, we can call it political football, literally, because just for the uninitiated, and I know Monocle Radio listeners are fairly well sussed on these things, but Bosnia is divided down the middle into two different entities. They're called regions, you can think of them as. And in one of these entities, you have a majority who are ethnic Serb, and in the other one, it's sort of split between ethnic Croats and Bosniak Muslims. When you will look at the Bosnian national football team, generally, the people who have played for it have been Bosniaks. The Croats have tended to play for Croatia, the Serbs have tended to play for Serbia. But what's interesting with this particular team, yes, the majority of the player are indeed Bosniaks, but you've got quite a number of Bosnian Croats in the team. Even a Bosnian Serb is on the team as well. And the coach himself, he's a right old mix. So Sergei Babares, his father's a Serb and his mum is half Croat and half Bosniak. So he couldn't be a better representative for the country if he tried. And you have got these celebrations now, which are actually emphasizing the possibilities of. Of the team pulling people together. So two of the players, Harris Tabakovic and Nikola Katic, are from the same small town, Stolac. Tabakovic's Bosniak, Katic's Krat. And there's a poster of the two of them standing together in their national team jerseys. And the slogan underneath says, football connects us the most. Well, it's a nice thought.
- [45:04]
Emma Nelson
Monocle's Guy Delaunay, thank you so much for joining us on the Globalist.
- [45:12]
UBS Narrator
I can eq, EQ and AI. Three components key to the craft of innovation at ubs. Because to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving age, you need a partner with decades of experience, endless passion for the work, and a finger on the pulse of leading technologies, bridging human expertise with Artificial intelligence, all to elevate you. Ubiquitous. Yes, banking is our craft.
- [45:48]
Emma Nelson
Now. We're Good Friday today, which means that the Easter weekend is here. And this is a time when chocolate really does have its moment in the spotlight. But last year's record cocoa shortages and price spikes have left the industry with quite a lot of challenges. Now, one man, Frank Auman, is the founder of Chocol. It is the world's first chocolate producer to grow and develop his own single variety, cacao. And the business is headed, headquartered in Paris. It actually provides the hot chocolate chocolate in our hot chocolate in Rue Bachemont. Frank came around to the Monocle bureau in Paris to talk about the state of the industry. To Monocle's Laura Kramer.
- [46:27]
Frank Auman
What the Romans did 2000 years ago was that they actually found a sweet apple that they liked and they started to apply a technique that's called grafting. Taking branches from the tree that has a sweet, nice fruit, and you paste them onto other trees that might have small, gnarly, sour apples, and then those branches grow and become the new tree. So you make kind of like a copy of the tree and so you get the same good flavor. And that's how farmers through thousands of years have developed varieties. So an apple variety would be Granny Smith or Golden Delicious. In wine, of course, we have Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir, etc. All these are varieties never been done in cacao. And that's how it's been. The beans sit inside a thick pod and when you bite into the beans, they're all bitter. You need to first ferment, dry, and then roast and do it all properly before you can taste. We actually went around to look at a million trees in Honduras with 32 engineering students and one French geneticist, and we tried to find the sweet apple, so to speak, the good flavor. So it took some time. And finally we did actually, we sent to chocolate makers in Europe, got really good feedback on the first variety that we called Mayan Red. But it took us a year. It cost a lot of money. We totally had to go from scratch in this process. And then it took some time before the trees started to go into production. In some places the production was very low, so we had to do a second round of grafting for yield this time and so forth. So it's been a long project now before we got into production.
- [47:54]
Zoe Grunewelt
And how have the last few years been? Because we've heard that the production has been deeply impacted climate. The industry in general has faced some challenges in previous, previous Years, especially in terms of yield.
- [48:05]
Frank Auman
Yeah. And that is because the economic reality is that it's so lowly priced cacao that there's no money in it. When I was just in a cacao conference in Amsterdam and all of the people were there, almost all of them were sponsored by some government to go there. And you know, when an industry has to be supported by the government all the time, that means that there's something wrong, there's not a profit in the system. And therefore people have not invested in farming. And that's why cacao is very vulnerable to, to the climate and the climate changes. Because normally you build a farm with irrigation and shade and all these kind of things. So you're resilient to the place where you, where you produce and you can produce a decent amount of cacao on your plot. But there's been no investment in that. So also in 2018, we actually made this investment in a 100 hectare experimental farm. We tried to figure out how can we actually do a better way of farming cacao. So we. A long crazy project where we, where we took this cattle farm and made it into a cacao forest with lots of shade trees and windbreakers and we have irrigation, of course, and it's really great. I think that's the future of cacao. So differentiation, get more money into the system and then do more modern farming. Lift it up to another level that would be good for everybody.
- [49:21]
Zoe Grunewelt
And just in terms of numbers, how many farms are you working with?
- [49:24]
Frank Auman
Right now we are working with around 200 smallholder farmers. And then we have two farms of our own. We are in a process where we can see that we are going to run out of beans unless we make more farms. Right. So our focus is now to say, okay, over 20 years we built a model, we proven it, we making money, and now we want to scale it. So I'm looking into how to scale it.
- [49:49]
Zoe Grunewelt
And what started with the Mayan red, How many varieties do you have now? How many products?
- [49:53]
Frank Auman
Products, yeah. So we have three varieties that are developed. Every variety takes, you know, 10 years now basically to develop. So it's not, it's not that easy to do. I have more in the pipeline. I love it. And actually I would love to, to do more of that also outside of Central America, Colombia, Peru, there's a lot of places where they have very interesting wild cacao. No. So. So it's easy to find flavored mother trees that you can make copies of. I really want to do that. But we have these three varieties now that we are selling to in selected markets now again, in order to ramp up this thing that will eventually completely change. Chocolate might take some decades, but it will eventually. We have focused on London, Paris, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, and it's going great there. I mean, I think we in London we had like a 25% market share in the ultra premium segment after three years. That's pretty amazing.
- [50:52]
Zoe Grunewelt
That's incredible.
- [50:53]
Frank Auman
Yeah.
- [50:53]
Zoe Grunewelt
And it's been a success also here too, because you are now in some of Europe's finest establishments. Is there a market that you'd really like to get into?
- [51:01]
Frank Auman
I think we are focused on Europe because we know Europe. As an entrepreneur, I knew that one should combat the intuition of trying to do everything at once, not everywhere, and just chase every opportunity across comes up and just try and focus. Right. So I think we will focus on Europe and the major cities to start with and then from there it will sort of spread out to the countryside as well a little bit. So rather than having an ambition of going to sort of a favorite market, I would say the ambition is to gradually penetrate the ultra premium market and from there, as we build more and more farms, you know, get more and more volume, actually get it out sort of in General, I guess. B2C. Not necessarily us doing B2C. We're B2B now, only and exclusively, but. And somebody else could do that. That was fantastic. Maybe I would love to have a flagship store here in Paris.
- [51:56]
Emma Nelson
And that was Frank Oman, who's the founder of Choco, joining us in the Paris Studio. You're listening to the Globalist. It's 2:53am on Broadway. I think the lights might be out temporarily. 7:53am in the West End. Again, nothing happening there either, but thankfully Matt Wolf, the theatre critic of the International New York Times, joins me in the.
- [52:23]
Matt Wolf
In the cd I'm up even when Broadway is dead.
- [52:25]
Emma Nelson
Are you, are you, are you a 24 hour?
- [52:27]
Matt Wolf
Oh, yeah. I never sleep. I am the walking city that never sleeps.
- [52:31]
Emma Nelson
I love this. Right, Matt, thank you so much for bringing the much needed energy to the 2:54am sit as it is now on Broadway. What's happening in the world of theatre apart from everyone'?
- [52:43]
Matt Wolf
Well, I was awake and up last night happily at the National Theatre for a new play called the Authenticator, which is by Winsome Pinnock, who is a remarkable black British playwright now in her 60s, who really is kind of the doyen of black British writers in this country. She had a play at the National a couple of years ago called Raucous and Blue Lights, directed by Miranda Cromwell. And the two have re teamed for this play, the Authenticator, which is nuts. It's set in a stately home that has been inherited by an eccentric artist called Fenella Har. And she employs two. She's white and she employs two black academics to authenticate these hidden diaries that have been found on the premises. And what ensues is a kind of ghost story and also absurdist comedy about cultural appropriation, the legacy of enslavement and the wildest set Emma that I have seen in many a year, where the top of the set lowers, trapdoors open, things come up from beneath the stage, walls move. It's just the most. The set is like being in a theme. So the production addresses really weighty themes, but in the most playful and delicious way. And what was really nice about it is it arrived totally unheralded.
- [53:56]
Emma Nelson
I can tell you're really excited about this play and it's really nice to see that when you have the National Theatre, which is obviously, you know, on the south bank here in London, it is, you know, the great symbol of British writing and performance. And how often do we talk about things happening in the West End and that fear that new and difficult but challenging work is not being seen.
- [54:20]
Matt Wolf
That's exactly right. And the other thing is so much stuff, and we'll get onto this in a minute. So much stuff arrives with a lot of advanced ballyhoo. You come to it thinking what you might already, you know, have to say about it. But with this, I arrive knowing nothing. And there's something very exciting about a blank slate. And then the production unfolds and you go, that was a wild ride. It's also 90 minutes, so it's short, and you're out in time for drinks and dinner.
- [54:46]
Emma Nelson
And don't we actually love that?
- [54:48]
Matt Wolf
Oh, do we?
- [54:50]
Emma Nelson
It's good fun, right? Something that you're quite tired of, and I can't believe I'm asking you this question is which Shakespeare play do you never want to see again? Matt Wolf?
- [54:58]
Matt Wolf
Well, I never want to see Romeo and Juliet again. And yet for some reason, people keep putting it in my way. And the current production, which is actually a rather good production, directed by Robert Eich at the Harold Pinter Theatre, I tabulated, is the sixth Romeo and Juliet I've seen within the last four years. And they've all been sort of starry to varying degrees. We had Tom Holland on the West End a year or two ago, the attraction. And he obviously, the attraction here is the Juliet The American actress from Stranger Things, City Sink. And the trick of this production is not new to Rob Icke. He directed the same play 14 years ago, without stars, but with the same devices. There's a digital clock counting down the time across the four days of the Lovers Dance with Death. There are sliding doors, moments where you are shown what might happen if such and such hadn't taken place when it did. And then at the very end, spoiler ahead, just when you think everyone's about to expire, which also spoiler ahead is how the play ends, you get an alternate vision of Juliet in old age. Juliet with a baby.
- [55:58]
Emma Nelson
Hmm. Okay, just a very quick question, because we have but 30 seconds. The fact is, is that things like Romeo and Juliet that sort of pop up the whole time on the British stage, is that because everyone's doing exams on them? Or is this just a British thing? Or does the rest of the world play Romeo and Juliet ad nauseam?
- [56:13]
Matt Wolf
Exams have something to do with the familiarity. Has a lot to do with it. And also, there is, and this is to the young actors credits. There is a whole school of young actors, British and City Sink, American, who want to test their mettle on Shakespeare. They're young and unproven, and this is a great way in which to try it.
- [56:29]
Emma Nelson
Matt, we have to talk about the Olivier Awards. They're coming up in the next couple of weeks. What should we be looking out for?
- [56:34]
Matt Wolf
Well, yes, they're happening on April 12th. This is their 50th year. Very exciting. And they'll be at the Royal Albert Hall. Huge fun on the red carpet. Lots of exciting frocks. But the big thing is, who's gonna take home the gongs, the two front Run the Musical, which I think is probably going to sweep, and also the Bridge Theater's wonderful revival of Sondheim's into the Woods. But there's also, you know, there's some wonderful plays represented. The gorgeous Old Vic revival of Arcadia, Bryan Cranston and All My Sons with Marie and Jean Baptiste. So it's a nice kind of range of work, and I think it'll be interesting to see. Do the Oliviers decide to parcel the winners out amongst quite a few shows or to give one or two shows all the prizes? And I hope they take the former because it allows for many more to emerge victorious.
- [57:21]
Emma Nelson
Tell me a little bit about what this says about the British theatre scene at the moment, because when you have Paddington, Sondheim, big names, that suggests that there's a desire for a bit of comfort here.
- [57:34]
Matt Wolf
Yeah, but Also, the thing about Paddington is musicals like this don't come along very often. It's probably not been since Matilda, which was what, 20 years or so ago, that there's been a new British musical that has really taken the town the way Paddington has. And think I and I think that the Oliviers are going to want to reward that because this is a once in a generation achievement. Sondheim, of course, who passed away a few years ago, is as loved in Britain as he is anywhere else in the world, including America. He's arguably more loved here and this is one of the first major productions of his work since he passed. So I think there will be an equal reason to award both. But obviously you can't have a tie in all these categories, so one or another will emerge.
- [58:14]
Emma Nelson
A triumphant Matt Wolf, thank you so much for joining me in the studio. And that's all the time we have for today's program. The warmest of thanks to the producers, Chris Chermack, Hassan Anderson and Ryuma Takahashi. Our researcher was Annalise Maynard. Our studio manager was Christy o', Grady, with editing assistance by Mariella Bevan. And the warmest of thanks to all my guests as well. After the headlines. There's more music on the way. The briefings live at midday here in London. Hope you can join me for that if you can. And the Globalist comes back at the same time on Monday, too. But for now, from me, Emma Nelson, a very happy Easter weekend. Goodbye. Thank you very much for listening.
- [59:25]
UBS Narrator
With ubs, you have a truly global partner incorporating new technologies, innovative approaches and unexpected opportunities, leading you to insights that help answer the questions that matter. Delivered with passion, care and unmatched expertise. Because it's about rising with the dawn each day, knowing that we can do even better. That's what banking is to us. Not just work, but a craft. UBS advice is our craft.