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- [00:04]
UBS Narrator
Craft matters in small ways, like how a coffee is brewed, and in not so small ways, like how your money is cared for. Which is why for 160 years, UBS has elevated banking to a craft, tailoring unique strategies that combine human expertise with the latest technologies, all happening across 24 time zones and and 12 key financial hubs. With you at the heart of it all, UBS advice is our craft.
- [00:38]
Emma Nelson
You're listening to the Globalist, first broadcast on 20 March 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.
- [01:14]
Donald Trump (quoted)
Coming up, we don't need anything from Japan or from anyone else, but I think it's appropriate that people step up.
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Emma Nelson
Donald Trump throws down the gauntlet to Japan during the prime minister's visit to the White House. Can Sanae Takaichi keep the US president on side? Also ahead in today's programme, EU leaders meet in Brussels for a summit dominated by Hungary's veto on a 90 billion euro loan for Ukraine. We'll look across a packed agenda. Our man in the Balkans will look ahead to the weekend's elections in Slovenia.
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Andrew Muller
And we learned that at least one member of the US Administration could stand no more of this nonsense.
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Emma Nelson
Andrew Muller's here to help us make sense of the last seven days in what we learned. That's all coming up on the Globalist, live from London.
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Richard Lloyd Parry
Foreign.
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Emma Nelson
Look at what else is happening in today's news. A number of Gulf nations are coming under attack from Iran. The United Arab Emirates says its air defenses are having to respond to incoming missiles and drones. Venezuela's President, Dely Rodriguez has replaced her country's senior military commanders, a day after she brought in a new defense minister. And a federal arts commission whose panel was handpicked by Donald Trump, has approved the final design of a commemorative US Gold coin featuring Donald Trump. Stay tuned to Monocle Radio throughout the day for more on these stories. But first, the strange, if charming partnership between the US President and Japan's prime minister was put to the test in public this week as Sanae Takaichi found herself listening to Donald Trump mocking Japan about its 1941 attack on Pearl harbor during the Second World War. Furthermore, President Trump urged Prime Minister Takaichi to step up as he pressed allies for more support over the war with Iran. Well, from Tokyo, I'm joined now by Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia editor for the Times newspaper. And in Washington, D.C. the reporter and journalist H.J. mai, a very good Evening to you, Richard, and a very good morning to you, H.J. thank you for joining us on the program.
- [03:18]
Richard Lloyd Parry
Hello from Tokyo.
- [03:20]
H.J. Mai
Hey, good morning from watching.
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Emma Nelson
Thank you very much indeed. Now, let's begin with this atmosphere. H.J. let me come to you. There was a sense of awkwardness between these two, these two leaders, wasn't there?
- [03:32]
H.J. Mai
Yeah, to some degree. I mean, you already mentioned it, you know, when, when Trump was asked about why he didn't inform allies ahead of the US And Israel striking Iran, you know, now over two weeks ago, you know, he referenced Pearl harbor and that the Japanese know more about surprise attacks and that clearly, you know, was an interesting moment, you know, and was a little bit uncomfortable, at least for the Japanese delegation in the White House. But, yeah, I think overall it was what we, you know, there were a lot of questions for the president on also domestic issues, but obviously the situation in Iran and, yeah, I mean, I think it was very much, you know, what going into it, what do you expected that you have Japan a close, very important ally to the U.S. you know, and the Trump administration and the White House asking for support. I mean, clearly, you know, there's this issue of the Strait of Hormuz being, you know, practically closed and, you know, a lot of allies are struggling, especially a country like Japan. And obviously, we have global oil and gas prices increasing, which hurts the global economy. So I think it was an interesting setting yesterday, but I think overall they actually had a nice relationship and accord in the White House. Besides this one moment about Pearl Harbor, I think it was, yeah, that took the air out a little bit.
- [04:57]
Emma Nelson
And unfortunately, it is the one thing that makes the headlines, isn't it? I mean, Richard, was what happened in the White House what we expected, as HJ Suggested?
- [05:08]
Richard Lloyd Parry
I think it went far better for the Japanese side than they might have expected or feared. And I don't think the Pearl harbor moment was particularly awkward, actually. I think they were probably quite glad that that was the worst of it. I remember that quite by chance, just by an accident of timing, because this visit was planned weeks ago, Sanae Takaichi became the first US Ally to face Donald Trump face to face since the world unanimously turned down his request to send military ships to the Straits of Hormuz. Now, we know he doesn't like being refused, and he had on social media, rather in the manner of a child in the playground who has asked for some sweets and been refused, put out this message saying, well, we don't need your sweeties anyway. I've got all the sweeties I want. So you might have expected when she arrived that he'd been a terrible temper and taken it out on her, but it really wasn't like that. I mean, the Pearl harbor thing was something no other American president would ever have said. But by Donald Trump's standards, it wasn't that bad, really. And the rest of the tone of the utterances on both sides were really very warm. And they spent a lot of time talking about harmless things like the cherry blossoms that Japan is giving to the United States for Washington and things like that. So I think Takaichi will fly back to Japan having breathed a sigh of relief.
- [06:49]
Emma Nelson
It's interesting, isn't it, H.J. that when you listen to sort of a sigh of relief, the way that Richard describes the meeting, that it went much better than expected. What does that say about the context and the setting for Trump's audiences with international guests? That there is always a sort of an element of jeopardy in every encounter now?
- [07:10]
H.J. Mai
Yeah, I think. I mean, this obviously all goes back to the really explosive encounter that the president had last year with Ukrainian President Zelensky, where he basically went into a shouting match with Zelensky and then basically threw the Ukrainian president out of the White House. And since then, yeah, it has been a challenge, I think, for international leaders to come to the White House. You never know what type of Trump you get. And I think there have been international leaders who have handled it better than others. And I would agree that the Japanese prime minister handled herself very well. But at the same time, she reminded me a lot when German Chancellor Friedrich Merz showed up and basically took a back seat, she let Trump have the limelight. I think during the Oval Office spree where journalists ask questions, I think maybe there were two questions to the prime minister. The rest was all for the president. And so I think there is this constant. I think there's some certain nervousness what type of Trump you get. But I think by now, people have understood that he wants the limelight, that you have to let him talk, that you chime in if you have something important to say. And I think she handled it very well, just like several other recent visits. Just earlier this week, we obviously had to leave of Ireland here, which was obviously not as big a deal in terms of international status. But I think people have really. And international leaders in general have understood that. Let Trump speak. Chime in when you can, but take a step back and just nod along if you can.
- [08:59]
Emma Nelson
And this second federal approach, Richard, that HG Is talking about there, how much does it sort of Take over or to what degree can you separate this from the other issues that she was there to talk about? Because there is clearly an issue to do with the United States and Japan and their relationship with China, but also Tokyo has committed billions of dollars in, In. In US Investments, and so there is a big, big amount of financial and social and cultural and military interest between Japan and the United States that needs to be sorted out.
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Richard Lloyd Parry
Yeah, I mean, before Donald Trump was elected, at various points, often on the campaign trail, he has spoken in rather alarming terms about the U S. Japan alliance, because as he said Today, there are 45,000 troops, a lot of bases. It's a big military investment. And he has frequently said, this is too expensive, we have to defend them, but they don't have to defend us, which is broadly true. The suggestion being that he might want to change that arrangement, draw down some of the troops, contribute less, maybe even bring the Japan U. S. Alliance to an end, which would be an enormously consequential thing for Japan, for the whole region. But successive Japanese prime ministers have always managed to head this off, and the way they've done it is by sucking up to Donald Trump, something shocking. I mean, they're not the only ones, but. But they identified very early on that that's what you have to do. I remember Shinzo Abe, who is Sanae Takeichi's mentor, the late Shinzo Abe, even before Donald Trump had entered the White House, about a week after the election, he flew over to New York and turned up at Trump Tower with a gold golf club to give Donald Trump, which went down very well. A subsequent prime minister presented a platinum samurai helmet because you have to go one up from the gold golf club this time. I'm not sure what Takaci gave him, apart from a lot of cherry blossoms, but she did, in her remarks before the dinner, begin by congratulating Barron Trump, Donald Trump's son, on his upcoming birthday and commenting on what a handsome boy he was and how it was obvious he got it from his father. I mean, this would be comical. It would come across as kind of mocking anywhere else, but with Donald Trump, it seems it's what you have to do, and it does the trick.
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Emma Nelson
Richard, staying with you for a moment, how does all this go down in Japan?
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Richard Lloyd Parry
People, I think, don't like Donald Trump here. Generally, they see him as crude and vulgar and unpredictable. But I think like many people, they accept that he is a fact of life, and the best thing that their politicians can do is to handle him and get on with It I mean, I think it's very clear as it is in NATO as well, that any suggestion that Japan would contribute military force to the war on Iran, apart from the legal and constitutional difficulties, which are very real, I think that would cause great unease and excite a lot of opposition from the Japanese public.
- [12:23]
Emma Nelson
Richard Lloyd Parry, age editor for the Times on the line from Tokyo and HJMI, Washington, D.C. reporter on the line from Washington. Thank you so much for joining us on the Globalist. 8:12am in Brussels, 7:12am here in London. Now, there has been no movement from Hungary's Viktor Orban, nor indeed from Slovakia's Robert Fitzo on allowing a 90 billion euro loan from the EU to Ukraine to go through. The money is needed by Kyiv to maintain its resistance against Moscow's full scale invasion of the country. Well, the blockage came during the first of a two day conference held among EU leaders in Brussels. Following the events is Nina Dos Santos, international broadcast correspondent and former CNN Europe editor. Good morning, Nina. Welcome back to Monocle Radio.
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Nina Dos Santos
Good morning. Thanks for having me.
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Emma Nelson
Now, the purpose of the summit was to focus on competitiveness. What went wrong?
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Nina Dos Santos
Oh, lots, as usual. This was one of those big EU summits where in theory it was informal. It came after multiple sort of other inform formal retreats to try and shape EU leaders thinking. But really they didn't manage to get over some of the big impasses. As you said before, technically on the agenda it was about how to restore Europe's competitiveness in terms of its economy, deal with those existential knotty issues like migration. But really more urgent matters were the ones that took up most of the oxygen in the room. That obviously included the spike in oil prices thanks to the strife in the Middle east and the war in Iran, how European leaders did not want to get involved in Donald Trump's action in that part of the world. And also that thorny issue of giving 90 billion euros worth of money to Ukraine that it really badly needs. And Viktor Orban ended up being the thorn in the EU side on that.
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Emma Nelson
Well, tell us a little bit more about this because this is something that last week before we went into this conference, there were the sort of sounds coming from Brussels that the 90 billion euro loan would go through, that there would be persuasions, you know, successful persuasions on the sidelines. But this is clearly not the case.
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Nina Dos Santos
No, that's right. Well, remember that the EU already wanted to give this money to Ukraine back in October. Then in December, eventually, after some awkwardness from the usual awkward prime ministers inside this gathering of EU nations, that is Robert Fica of Slovakia and Viktor Orban of Hungary, they eventually capitulated back in December and agreed that, okay, as long as this money that was technically supposed to originally be frozen assets, that are Russian frozen assets, sitting in a clearing house in Brussels, the Belgian Prime Minister had some issues with using other people's money. And eventually the EU came to a solution where they would lend money against this money. And eventually Hungary and Slovakia capitulated and then waved that through. Now, when it came to the last minute rubber stamping of this particular agreement, Viktor Orban was the one who just would not, not budged. Various EU leaders over the course of the sort of fraught many hours that yesterday's summit entailed, which went on, by the way, well into the early hours of this morning, tried to play good cop, bad cop to assuage him. They tried to flatter his ego. President Zelensky of Ukraine was also online from Kyiv and was very tough. But on the other hand, he may well no longer be a problem after April 12th. Some of them are calculating. What they're realizing is that he may well lose their next election in Hungary, or even if he doesn't, the issue of Ukraine may no longer be a political football. So eventually, even though he wouldn't sign on, they agreed that they'd kick it into the long grass and revisit it at future upcoming summits.
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Emma Nelson
So we have the Hungarian election less than four weeks ago, but if we step back and look at the wider context, I mean, you mentioned the fact that several EU leaders made their frustration with Viktor Orban clear. The EU has gone as far as to accuse him of betrayal of the whole principles.
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Nina Dos Santos
That's right. Friedish Merz, the German Chancellor, was very tough after this, saying never before had he seen such outright disloyalty and that it undermined the unity that the whole European Union project was built upon. And also Antonio Kosta, the former Portuguese Prime Minister, who is at the helm of the EU Council, European Council that convenes these summits, also said that Viktor Orban had basically crossed a huge red line. But I think the reality is, is that they have other issues that are more pressing now because Ukraine has just been given an $8.1 billion loan for the International Monetary Fund. That'll tide it over for a bit longer. It will remain solvent, it believes, until at least May. That gives the EU some breathing space. And then there's also the issue of those high energy prices that the EU is getting battered for. And that sucked up quite a bit of oxygen in the room as well. What we saw was 10 countries, no less, giving the EU a lot of pressure to amend their carbon pricing system. This is the ETS to try and push back or at least temporarily water down some of those penalties on carbon emitters just to alleviate the price pressure that's being caused by the oil price spike. Thanks to the strife in the Middle east and the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz. They weren't lucky because this is a signature EU policy that's been around for about 20 years. But it does again just go to show that irrespective of the fact that Germany is one of those big countries that, you know, has the biggest say in the room, let's face it, these meetings and is very invested in these kind of green policies, there is pressure from no fewer than 10 EU countries to try and water down some of those green, some of those green policies to reflect the fact that inflation is coming and to reflect the fact that energy costs are really, really high.
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Emma Nelson
Nina Dos Santos, international broadcast correspondent, former CNN Europe editor thank you so much for joining us on the Globalist. Still to come on today's programme, I'm
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Lars Bavanger
Lars Bewanger, Monocle's Oslo correspondent and I'll be summing up the trial of the Norwegian crown Princess's son. And also look at her latest comments about links to Jeffrey Epstein and will Norway gain economically from the Iran war?
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Emma Nelson
From Lars a little later on Monocle Radio.
- [19:07]
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 delivered daily and curated by over 200 globally connected, locally active analysts. UBS banking is our craft.
- [19:43]
Emma Nelson
Let's continue now with today's newspapers. Joining me now is Gaurana Gurdic, who's Monocle Security correspondent. She's on the line from Zurich. Good morning, Gurana. How's Zurich looking today?
- [19:53]
Garana Gurdic
Morning, Emma. Well, we have some blue skies and it should be a nice and sunny day, albeit a little, little bit on the chillier side of things. So we are not yet in the kind of firm springy weather. I think it was 2 degrees basically when I woke up.
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Emma Nelson
No one's jumped in the body yet?
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Garana Gurdic
Not yet. I think we'll have to wait for a couple of months yet.
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Emma Nelson
Okay, no problem. Well, while we do, let's have a look at the papers. Well, look, let's have a look at the ongoing developing events in the Gulf. We have the Financial Times talking about the fact that Iran has resumed missile strikes on Gulf states. This morning Kuwait says a refinery is attacking attacked by drones. And we also have the issue that the. I think we've just seen that the International Energy Agency is recommending people work from home where possible to reduce oil demand. This is where security suddenly reaches absolutely everywhere in everybody's sort of daily lives, doesn't it?
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Garana Gurdic
Absolutely. Everything everywhere and all at once is the popular movie Goes. But where I was focusing my attention was at really good reporting from the economy, which has actually compiled a lot of research that some of my American colleagues from different think tanks over there have assembled and who all warned that Iran war could actually very quickly drain American military power for years. Because this opening phase alone, and we are just approaching the full three week mark, has actually made it the most intense opening of any air campaign in modern day. So if you compare it to the first days of NATO's intervention in Libya, which was exclusively air, right, because the Obama administration there was very reluctant to commit any boots on the ground, this is much greater. So in first couple of days around 5,000 munitions fired, around 11,000 in first two weeks. And the issue is not just scale, it's sustainability. Because the United States is now burning through all of the high end weapons in very large numbers. And these are not going to be easy to replace. And of course they're going to pose a very uncomfortable question over what you use in the Middle east that can't then be used in Ukraine or potential contingency in the Pacific.
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Emma Nelson
Indeed. I mean this article goes through just the absolute cost of what is being used here. It says that the cost of replacing the first four days worth of munitions is between 20 and 26 billion US dollars. But that's not the thing. It's the issue of scarcity, isn't it that they cannot make them or procure them as quickly as they can fire them.
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Garana Gurdic
That's absolutely right. I mean for the past over four years we know since the full scale invasion that Russia launched against Ukraine, the name of the game has always been about defense industrial and technological based capability to actually address the need of the battlefields to actually move at the speed of need. And here is really where the strategic problem emerges. Because neither in the US nor in Europe, defense industry is geared for this kind of sustained consumption. So production lines are still slow, procurement cycles take too long and actually in some cases there aren't even new orders in place and when they will be put. Now, we've heard from the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of War that he wants more allocated towards this war effort. But you know, even if this is something that there is funding allocated now, it will take years, not just months, to ramp up things really dramatically.
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Emma Nelson
Okay, let's move to an article in the Financial Times. There is an interview with the new Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Rob Yetten, and he's basically telling everybody to step up and do their job properly.
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Garana Gurdic
Well, the. I think that the proper headline should have been how not to win friends and influence people in the eu because the opening to that article was just to basically call on his fellow European leaders to just do a better job, like be better. I don't know. As a fellow millennial, I guess he probably was trying to be a little bit too casual, but this is indeed one of his first big interviews. What I took from it was this kind of really can do attitude that Europe really needs to stop complaining and start delivering and that we've spent way too much time admiring different problems and global shock shocks, especially when it relates to say, the decline of transatlantic relations. But that he sees Netherlands at the center of EU politics. He basically centered Netherlands role as one of the founders of the European Union and actually as a bridge between France and Germany, the famous EU locomotive that isn't necessarily doing all that great these days days in terms of their cooperation and some of the differences that they have. So it's a real kind of change of, I would say rhetoric as well that is coming from the Hague because usually the Netherlands was opposed to a lot of the kind of reform language and so on. And here it sounds like he is not blaming the EU necessarily. He is pointing the fingers at national capitals and he said sees his role as one of these sort of propellers of change for Europe to be an actor rather than a playground.
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Emma Nelson
Okay, let's move on to an article in the Guardian. And it sort of ties in a little bit about the calls for the European Union to be an actor rather than a playground. There was a definite moment last month when Greenland could have become a location for conflict involving the United States. And I think it was always talked about in quite a sort of non, non, sort of like quite theoretical terms. But it appears that behind the scenes there were genuine preparations for conflict being made.
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Garana Gurdic
I mean, I found this report remarkable. And this was via Guardian, but from a Danish broadcaster that basically put together a story that points to Denmark actually preparing for a possible US move on Greenland following everything that happened in Venezuela. And what this whole reporting is about is Copenhagen taking no chances, sending troops with explosives to disabled runways and even flying in blood supplies in case of conflict. I mean, again, we are talking about a NATO ally responding to a potential contingency from another NATO ally. And European allies were also quietly brought in. There were multinational forces, forces we saw that move to the island. Not that many in number, but again, the symbolism and the whole idea was really to raise political and military cost of any potential US Action. So truly an extraordinary moment to think that a NATO country is preparing defensive measures against the United States.
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Emma Nelson
Garona, let's touch briefly on something lighter. Saturday Night Live, the stalwart of American weekend fun is coming to the United Kingdom. That's right.
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Garana Gurdic
You guys might get, I don't know, the British version of Domingo or, you know, the cowbell or, or something along those lines. Yeah, it's launching this weekend. So at least something good about transatlantic relations. At least, you know, when it comes to cultural exchange. So what we hear in the reporting, and there's been plenty of it, given that it will be be on tomorrow, Tina Fey, the famous anchor of the Weekend Update will be opening there, kicking things off in London. But yeah, the format is familiar. You have live audience, weekly host, musical guests and then there should be some fast paced humor we were promised, but with a British twist. So I don't know, I should ask you, Emma, how you feel about that? Is this something that the British people wanted and you know, like they finally had their calls answered or is this just, you know, kind of a try to squeeze out some money out of the global entertainment?
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Emma Nelson
Well, I don't know what you said, but I'm not entirely sure about this. I don't like being interviewed. It's a funny thing. I think the issue for us is that if it's funny, we'll run with it. But also is something like this actually answering a call that we didn't realize that we needed answering that actually we do need some proper international comedy. And in an age I don't know about about you, but when we hear about all these things coming from the United States with the likes of Stephen Colbert being, you know, coming to the end of their time, you do actually think that there needs to be a sort of a bit more of a fight put up. I don't know what you think. Guarana.
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Garana Gurdic
Yeah, I mean, I think also you're absolutely right that there are some of these pressures now with a lot of the stand up and in general late night comedy feeling that the kind of political pressure increasingly. So we've seen, of course, Colbert, but then what happened to Fallon and so on. So there are numerous examples, especially under the present administration in Washington. But I also think there is a bigger sort of cultural question over, you know, culture meets culture when it comes to humor because I think in a lot of these reports and there are sort of longer commentaries where actually people are I think rightly wondering whether the format translates because American late night comedy has a very particular rhythm. It's kind of faster, it's more overtly, I would say, political. And again, some of the reporting says that British comedy tends to be a little bit more understated, I would say, or drier. So this certainly will be an interesting experiment.
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Emma Nelson
Garana Gjrdic on the line from Zurich. Thank you so much for doing the pay per view for us. You're listening to the Globalist on Monica Radio Video. Now a quick look at some of the other stories we're keeping an eye on today. A number of Gulf nations are coming under attack from Iran. The United Arab Emirates says its air defenses were having to respond to incoming missiles and drones. Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed suggestions that Israel dragged the United States into a war with Iran. There have been questions about whether the two allies are in lockstep over the conflict after President Trump criticized an Israeli strike on an Iranian gas field. Energy prices have surged across the world after the attacks on gas and oil plants in the Gulf. The cost of gas in Europe is now more than double the level before the war began. In other news, Venezuela's president Delsey Rodriguez has replaced her country's senior military commanders a day after she brought in a new defence minister. It's the latest change at the top of the Venezuelan establishment since the US Military captured the former leader Nicolas Maduro in January. And a federal arts commission whose panel was handpicked by Donald Trump has approved the final design of a commemorative US Gold coin featuring Donald Trump. Federal law states no living president can appear on US Currency. This is the globalist. Stay tuned. Now Slovenians go to the polls on Sunday for parliamentary elections. They'll have to choose from no fewer than 18 candidate lists, but the big two are Prime Minister Robert Godd, centre left Freedom Movement and the right wing SDS party of the former prime Minister Yanis Jansa. One is a critic of Israel and supporter of liberal democracy. The other is an ally of Viktor Orban, who defunded Public Service media the last time he was in power on as monocle's man in Slovenia, Guy Delaunay, now reports the two leaders are playing completely different tunes.
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Guy Delaunay
It might sound unlikely, but the accordion has become a symbol of this weekend's parliamentary elections in Slovenia, which may or may not be good news for the busker who plays here in Ljubljana's pressure and square, whatever the season. Because his instrument of choice is the prime image on a poster for the right wing opposition SDS party and the slogan says vote SDS so you'll grand son will still sing Slovenian songs.
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Tony Kaiser
Being from this alpine countries, accordion is one of the basic instruments which is giving identification for us.
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Guy Delaunay
Tony Kaiser is the foreign policy spokesperson for the sds.
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Tony Kaiser
I think it's to bring the awareness of people that we are Slovenians first, then Europeans and then people on the globe focusing back to our roots, because the tree without the roots will fall very soon.
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Guy Delaunay
The SDS is one of the main protagonists in Sunday's elections. Its leader, Yanez Jancher, is looking to return to power for a fourth term as Prime Minister. His main rival in the polls is the current Prime Minister, Robert Golub. He leads the centre left Freedom Movement. Both parties have support bases which will never see 50 again. So they've been doing all they can to appeal to the young voters who may hold the key to the outcome.
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Emma Nelson
There are not a lot of clear information, so I'm trying to clarify it by myself and that's quite a problem for me.
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Garana Gurdic
I think it's also important that, yes, we stay true to our roots, that Slovenia will still stay Slovenian.
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Emma Nelson
I personally am just looking for which party will try to balance everything a little bit, but will still be good on the social issues.
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Guy Delaunay
Both the Freedom Movement and the SDS have promotional stands here on Pressure and Square. They're doing a bit of last minute voter outreach, but it could be that the SDS has the edge when it comes to the youth vote.
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Igor Bergant
What we saw with Jansha, what he was doing doing in the last four years, is that he invested heavily in motivating first voters.
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Guy Delaunay
Igor Bergant is one of the best known news presenters on Slovenian television.
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Igor Bergant
So he got extremely popular, especially in rural areas where he was practically every day he was taking selfies with young people. So it may for the first time be the case that young voters would play a really important role role and that young voters would actually vote. Right.
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Guy Delaunay
If Slovenia wakes up next Monday morning and it looks like Yanis Jancza is in position to become Prime Minister for a fourth time, what will that mean for the country? How might it change?
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Igor Bergant
Well, a lot of people would wake up with a shock. He's leader of a Democratic party, but he's quite authoritarian. He's been very close to Viktor or Orban. They differ on many views, especially when it comes to, let's say, Russia and Ukraine, and also in an approach how to deal within the European Union. But there are also quite striking similarities. What he doesn't like is free media, which he says is too far left leaning. He doesn't like NGOs. He's got a completely different position position towards Israel and Mr. Trump compared to the present government.
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Guy Delaunay
As the polls approach, there's been controversy. It follows the release of COVID recordings which imply corrupt practices by leading figures on the centre left. The Freedom Movement has directly accused Yanez Jancha of deploying a private Israeli intelligence agency and undermining Slovenia's democracy by working with a foreign power.
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Urska Klakochar Zupancic
I don't think the people like the narrative that is being spread by the opposition parties and especially they don't like the interference into our sovereignty and independence.
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Guy Delaunay
Urska Klakochar Zupancic is the speaker of Slovenia's National Assembly.
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Urska Klakochar Zupancic
I'm talking about the recordings. I'm talking about the brutal campaign that we have been faced with in this election. I believe that this is probably the most brutal campaign ever because we have been faced with interference of the para security from other countries and hate speech, insults and misinformation, abuse of information. So it's been quite hard, I have to say.
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Guy Delaunay
Naturally, SDS spokesperson Tony Kaiser insists that the important thing is the content of the recordings wrong than how they were acquired.
- [36:59]
Tony Kaiser
We are being confronted with the biggest scandal in the last 35 years, basically discovering that this country is being captured by the systemic corruption. And this is not only worrying, it's basically putting everything on the decision where we will go from here. And this, I think it's going to be really serious consideration for the people at the elections. Now the Sunday,
- [37:28]
Guy Delaunay
It's hard to tell how much impact the controversy will have on the polls. But in a tight race, even the smallest factor could make a big difference for Monocle. In Ljubljana, I'm Guy Delaunay.
- [37:47]
Emma Nelson
That was Monocle's man in Slovenia, Gaider Launi. You're listening to the Globalist. It's Friday, which means it's time for Monocle's Andrew Muller to make sense of what we learned this week.
- [38:07]
Andrew Muller
We learned this week of continuing evolution in the thinking of US President Donald Trump.
- [38:13]
Petri Bourzoff
I can't wait.
- [38:13]
Garana Gurdic
Interesting.
- [38:15]
Lars Bavanger
Tell me more.
- [38:15]
H.J. Mai
See where is this?
- [38:16]
Andrew Muller
Knew you'd be intrigued. We learned that President Trump had reconsidered the view he held of the United States allies as recently as January, I. E. That they were a burden, an impediment, a tedious sack of whining ingrates, just a colossal pain in the knackers all round.
- [38:34]
Donald Trump (quoted)
We have never really asked anything of them. You know, they'll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan or this or that, and they did. They stayed a little back, a little off the front lines. But we've been very good to Europe and to many other countries.
- [38:50]
Andrew Muller
But we learned excitingly that said US Allies were now vital strategic partners.
- [38:55]
Garana Gurdic
Tonight, President Trump renewed calls for countries that rely on oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz to send warships to secure the shipping route, the strategic waterway now largely blocked for oil exports.
- [39:08]
Andrew Muller
We learned, however, that the response from said vital strategic partners was broadly analogous to the one any of us might expect from our own circle. If we whimsically took a big old kick at a hornet's nest, elicited the response which might be broadly expected from hornets which had had their nest kicked, then turned around and cried, come on, lads, who's with me? Which is to say that as of this broadcast, nobody seems to seems all that keen to get involved. As we learned, or at least inferred from the President's inability to name so much as a single member of his proposed coalition of the grudging numerous countries
- [39:44]
Donald Trump (quoted)
have told me they're on the way.
- [39:46]
Andrew Muller
Crucially, none of them appear to have stated where they are on the way to. We continue to learn anyway of the importance of the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf pinch point, which is also somewhat annoyingly, on balance, the entrance to and exit from a goodly proportion of the world's energy fields. We learned that despite the exhortations of the US President, the owners, insurers and crews of oil and gas tankers remained unaccountably reluctant to sail what are essentially enormous floating bombs through a shooting gallery. But we learned that also among those vexed by the pettifogging insistence of sentiment sensitive seafarers, in focusing on the negative was US Secretary of Defense and almost tragically obvious fall guy in waiting, Pete Hegseth, the only thing prohibiting transit in the straits right now is Iran shooting at shipping. It is open for transit should Iran not do that. In much the same way, for example, that the Little Bighorn river was opened for forwarding by General George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry, if only Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and the warriors of the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho nations had chosen to cheerfully wave them through. Yes, thank you. We are aware that this is not a strictly accurate precis of the events of June 25, 1876, but it just about holds as a comparative illustration of the perils of hubris for purposes of satirical commentary, as all reasonable people will agree. But somewhat surprisingly, We learned that at least one member of the US Administration could stand no more of this nonsense. We just learned, get this, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, has just announced he's resigning. We've still got that chorus about former UK Minister of State for Health and Secondary Care, Will quince, quitting in 2023, right? Play that, but with someone saying Joe Kent over his name.
- [41:52]
Emma Nelson
Joe Kent, Joe Kent. You're tired of Joe Kent.
- [41:58]
Urska Klakochar Zupancic
What are we gonna do?
- [42:00]
Emma Nelson
Surely not.
- [42:02]
Andrew Muller
For we learned, if you'll forgive the leaden sarcasm, which, to be honest, if you're still listening, we'll just take as red, that the outgoing director of the National Counterterrorism center is maybe not quite the decent, principled, yet humble whistleblower we might have hoped would take the stage circa this point in proceedings.
- [42:19]
Emma Nelson
He is as MAGA as they come. Donald Trump endorsed both of Mr. Kent's failed runs for Congress. Kent is an election denier through and through. He peddled the fringe conspiracy theory that the FBI instigated the January 6th insurrection. He's appeared alongside far right militia groups and associates with white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
- [42:41]
Andrew Muller
We learned, anyway, that we were not alone in surmising that Joe Kent might not be any great loss to the counterterrorism field generally.
- [42:49]
Donald Trump (quoted)
I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security.
- [42:53]
Andrew Muller
Because whether we agree with President Trump about anything else, we can surely get together on the proposition that the last thing you want in someone in that role is weakness on security. And we, for one whimsical news monologue, tremble for whichever bungling clown, trousered idiot gave Kent the job when Donald Trump gets hold of them. President Trump picking former Washington state congressional candidate Joe Kent to be director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Trump announced the nomination on Truth Social, saying, as a soldier, Green Beret and IA officer, Joe has hunted down terrorists and criminals his entire adult life anyway. We did, however, learn of a potential new role for someone with Mr. Kent's expertise in subterfuge and camouflage. We learned that farmers in India had been driven to inventive desperate measures by crop thieving macaques.
- [43:46]
Garana Gurdic
And in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, farmers have found a unique Way to tackle the money menace and save their crop.
- [43:53]
H.J. Mai
Well, they are trying to save against the monkeys and farmers are dressing up as bears.
- [43:57]
Andrew Muller
Yes, we learned that the small holders of Uttar Pradesh, weary of involuntarily feeding the local monkey population, had resorted to shambling about their paddocks in bed costumes, which are, upon reviewing the footage, frankly, not all that convincing. But then, monkeys aren't that bright. Don't like it? Write to the editor. That's right, you can't. You're a monkey. We hoped to learn anyway more about the thinking behind this adoption of ursine disguise and accordingly contacted the Uttar Pradesh Farmers Union, but they've been a bit slow responding. We will in due course send a follow up asking them. To explain the big pause.
- [44:49]
Richard Lloyd Parry
Taxi. For what we learned.
- [44:54]
Andrew Muller
For Monocle Radio, I'm Andrew Muller.
- [44:58]
Emma Nelson
Thank you, Andrew. You're listening to the global.
- [45:05]
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- [45:40]
Emma Nelson
It's 8:45 in Oslo and we get some Norwegian news now. I'm joined now by Monocle's Oslo correspondent, Lars Bavanger.
- [45:46]
Garana Gurdic
Good morning, Lars, Good morning to you.
- [45:48]
Emma Nelson
Right, tell us what's happening.
- [45:51]
Lars Bavanger
Well, it's been quite a momentous week in terms of the royals. Again. We keep coming back to them. I. I feel on these chats of ours. Yesterday saw the end of the marathon seven week trial of Marius Borg Hobie. He is of course the son of the Norwegian Crown Princess Metamarit. Now the prosecution and defense have both summed up the entire case against him and the prosecution is basically wanting him to be sentenced to seven years and seven months in prison for alleged rapes and various other allegations of violence in close relationships, plus some other minor issues as well. The defense say he should be found not guilty in all of these most serious allegations or charges, rather that he also claims he's not guilty of and served just over one year in prison because he has admitted to some of the lesser charges. But now we're just going to have to wait for a couple of months before the judges have come to their conclusion and will give us the answer to how long he will be spending in prison.
- [47:08]
Emma Nelson
How long? How is this being treated in Norway? Is this being seen as a scandal associated with the royal family or A much bigger trial involving the treatment of women and social questions.
- [47:24]
Lars Bavanger
It's become much bigger than the involvement or his relationship in the royal family. Of course he is part, part of the royal family. He's not a royal, but he's part of the family simply because his mother is the Crown Princess and his stepdad is the Crown Prince. But it has certainly thrown a lot of light on and created a lot of debate around what constitutes rape. So all of these four allegations have involved women that he has had casual relationships with. One night stands, if you like. And they've the claim in all four cases, the claims have been that they haven't been asleep or otherwise incapacitated while he has performed sexual acts on them. He claims that he thought they were awake. They claimed that they were definitely not awake and cannot remember anything from this. Now the defense have said that to find him guilty they're going to have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he was fully aware that they were asleep. So it's really created a debate around all where, where do you draw the line? How do you, you know, how much do you ask the partner whether they are awake, that they had, it has to be said, they had had voluntary sex before and sometimes after the alleged rapes as well. So it's been a lot of debate around this. And of course the law in Norway has changed since these alleged acts took place and we've now got something called the, the act of consent. So you have by law now to either verbally or in other ways before you have sex with someone. So all this has been up for debate and there's been a lot of focus on that and less on the fact that he is part of the Royal family.
- [49:15]
Emma Nelson
Indeed. And Marius Hobby denies all the rape charges and most serious charges of violence, it has to be said. We also have problems though in terms of reputational damage to the Royal family with the Crown Princess. Mette Marriott has not been seen since, when was it? January, because of the connections to Jeffrey Epstein, the paedophile.
- [49:36]
Lars Bavanger
So yes, she was. In the latest release of Epstein files, it emerged that her contact and relationship with him was much, far more comprehensive and closer than has had been previously said by the palace and by her. Now, this morning, just about an hour ago, a 20 minute interview with her and her husband, the Crown Prince, was broadcast by the state broadcaster nrk in which we hoped to get answers to all of those questions that we've been wanting answers to since she's simply put out a statement early in January that or late in January, rather that she she regretted her relationship with him and her thoughts were with the his victims. Now this 20 minute interview that I've just been watching gave some answers. She, she was very tearful when she about his victims. She said she wish as she never met him. She is ashamed that she didn't realize earlier that he was just trying to exploit her for her name and title. What we didn't get an answer to was when she had googled him, she had said in an email to him that I googled you and I agree it doesn't look good. Now we want to know what is it that she found that didn't look good. Did you know he was a sexual predator, a sex offender? She says not. And she said in this interview she cannot remember what she googled and what she found. This was in 2013. So we still don't know answer to some of the most pressing issues here and I don't think this case is going to go away. Whether she will give any more interviews to explain this more fully, I doubt it.
- [51:30]
Emma Nelson
A very quick mention please of Norway's relationship with the the oil and gas prices caused by the Iran war. What's happening in Norway?
- [51:41]
Lars Bavanger
Well, every time there's a war that affects the price of oil and gas, Norway stands to gain because Norway is a major gas and oil producer and exporter. The rule of thumb is that a $10 increase in the price of oil can increase Norway's state annual revenue by about 10 billion euro. Now, of course this is embarrassing, you could say, for the Norwegian state. But also in the longer term, the world economy will be affected by this and Norway has other exports like aluminium, fish that will be affected by the global economy taking a big hit because of the raised oil prices. So in the long term, this is not good news for Norway either.
- [52:31]
Emma Nelson
Las Bava Vango, Monocle's Oslo correspondent, thank you for joining us on the Globalist. Now an annual report on world happiness has crowned, guess who? Finland as the happiest country in the world for a record 9th year in a row. They attributed this to the country's wealth, welfare provisions and higher life expectancy. Well, to join us, Monocle's happiest man in Helsinki is Petri Bourzoff and he's going to explore. Petri, a very good morning to you.
- [53:05]
Andrew Muller
Good.
- [53:06]
Petri Bourzoff
Good morning, Emma. I'm always happy to hear your voice, but I'm super happy on this morning because I live in the world's happiest country.
- [53:12]
Emma Nelson
Now, are you generally a happy man? I've met you I know you quite well and you always give the impression that you're fairly happy, but you're a professional fellow and you're not going to be grumpy on the radio. But genuinely, how happy are you, Petri?
- [53:24]
Petri Bourzoff
Well, I mean, to make this serious for at least a second with you, Emma, the thing is, I mean, I may be happy in the sense that people usually, when they think of the word happy, sort of jolly, cheerful. I'm, you know, most of the time, you know, unless I haven't slept properly. But this report actually doesn't look into that sort of happiness, actually. Not at all. It looks at life satisfaction. And then I think that, you know, there is an element, I mean Finns always downplay this. Finn's always said, oh no, no, we're not the happiest at all. But I mean there is an element of truth, I think I here, because if you look at it through the prism of, of life satisfaction and not jolly, as you know, everybody knows Finland is a cold and dark country. We're not smiley all the time. But if you look at it through the lens of life satisfaction, then, you know, I think most Finns are quite satisfied with their, with their lives and you know, to put a personal note on it, I'm pretty satisfied as well,
- [54:21]
Emma Nelson
which obviously makes me happy. I mean it is this difference, isn't it, the satisfaction with life. It is serious, it is serious issues, isn't it? The country is stable, the country is wealthy, there is good welfare provision, there is a higher life expectancy and, but as a result, but, but the Finns themselves aren't necessarily the jolliest of, of, of people and I'm, you know, I, it's really difficult to do this interview without sort of playing into the, dare we say it, the stereotypes and the tropes when it comes to Finns.
- [54:55]
Petri Bourzoff
That's correct, that's correct. I, I, I get this, I, I, I get this a lot and that's absolutely, that's also, I have to say it's very seasonal, Emma. I mean, I remember last time you were here that was kind of mid winter, so it was bleak and dark and cold and all that. But you should come back in the summer and just sort of like mid June, mid July, go out in Helsinki, go to the many body that we have, go, go swimming, go to the sauna, go to outdoor terraces, the parties and you will see everything almost, well, not everybody, but most Finns smiling in, in the, that sort of, the sort of the shallow understanding of happiness, happiness way. And then they will be satisfied as well. And you know, the factors that you mentioned. Indeed, if you look at, you know, the simple one, not simple, but just basic things like, you know, free education on all levels. So even universities are free. The fact that I think the levels of corruption are amongst, if not the lowest in the world. You can actually trust that the authorities have your back, you know, the Social Security networks. If I lose my job, I know that I'm not going to take much of a hit in terms of income for a couple of months, things like that. Then the work life balance, I mean, I, I usually stop working at around 4pm and then I get these 8pm emails from London and I don't know how to, how to react to them. And then, you know, closeness to, closeness to nature. I mean wherever you live in Finland, you have either a forest or, or the sea. I mean, I'm looking at the sea right now. I'm going to go for a swim and sauna tonight. All those things combined, I, I think it starts to add up and you start understanding why Finns are fairly satisfied with their lives.
- [56:28]
Emma Nelson
It's a nice thought to have when you, when you real. Actually if you live in a world of extremes. Which is what, what, which is what Phil, Finland does actually offer. I mean, we've spoken about the temperature being -26 during the day. We've talked about in the past the fact that actually the last time I believe I was in Helsinki, it was in the, it was the end of May and everybody was ragged, exhausted because no one had been to bed for months because it was permanently light. And so is this sort of stoicism, this acceptance of the, of the extremes of life without actually don't necessarily create happiness because that, that comes from an external influence, but actually create an inherent sense of joy. People are just generally in awe of the, of the complete extremes that they experience every day.
- [57:10]
Petri Bourzoff
That's. I, I think you have a really good point there. And when I would say almost like Finns have learned how to manufacture happiness also because in the winter, you know, as you said, it's cold, it's dark, you kind of have to make yourself happy. You have to make an effort to go and see your friends because otherwise you're just sitting at home and watching telly, you know, you have to. And the authorities as well, you know, the city of Helsinki organizes all kinds of nice events in the wintertime to get people out and about. So it is, I think it is partly also because of the condition, not instead of, you know, not despite, but because of the conditions that Finns are happy and satisfied.
- [57:47]
Emma Nelson
So just tell us what lessons we can learn from other countries because I mean, dare we say it, that you've got your external threats, you've got, you know, the neighbours, Russia. Russia are causing lots and lots of problems. So what can we all learn from a little bit of Finn?
- [58:01]
Petri Bourzoff
Well, yeah, that's the thing actually looking at, I mean this year I wasn't, I was expecting Finland kind of do maybe drop to number two, number number three because of the Russia threat. But I then, then again, I mean the fact that we joined NATO a couple of years ago actually has given us an increased sense of security. So even though, you know, the threat is, is larger than it has been before, also the, the sense of security and the security provisions that we get from NATO has, has increased. But when, when it comes reasons, I think some of these things can be copied, but there's a lot of things that cannot. A lot of these things are also, you know, societal. Finland, we're 5 million people, pretty much everybody knows everybody. The income differences between the richest and the poorest are amongst the lowest in the world. And just sort of culturally I think there's a lot of factors but then I mean in terms of the politics, things like free education, Social Security, safety nets, all of those things, the work life balance, those are things that are actually decisions that we as humans and the societies make. And I think there, Finland can maybe teach a lesson, lesson or two.
- [59:06]
Emma Nelson
Petri Boots of Monocle's Helsinki Happy correspondent. Thank you so much for joining us. That's all the time we have for today's program. The warmest of thanks to all my guests to the producers, Angelica Jopson and Tom Webb, our researcher with Annalise Maynard. Our studio manager was Christy o' Grady with editing assistance by Mariella Bevan. I'm Emma Nelson. Goodbye. Thank you very much for listening. The Globalist is back on Monday, so have a great weekend.
- [59:37]
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