The EU and Canada Strike Back at President Trump’s Tariffs

whatever they charge us we we’re charging them nobody can complain about that Donald Trump says tariff is his favorite word in the dictionary but what happens when other countries start putting import taxes on American Products we will discuss on this episode The BBC’s Daily News podcast newscast hello it’s Adam in the newscast studio and we’re going to start by talking about Donald Trump’s trade policy because that’s the the thing that’s driving the world news this week so the latest we’ve got on Wednesday is
that the US and Canada kind of backed down on some of the stuff that they were considering on Tuesday however Donald Trump has introduced a global tariff so a tax on Imports of Steel and aluminum into the us so that affects every country that has a steel industry that exports which includes the UK so for the first time the UK is now affected by Donald Trump’s trade policy so we’ll talk about that we’ll also hear about the fact that Canada is retaliating on the tariffs that they are going to experience and on
Wednesday morning the EU announced a huge package of tariffs that it will apply on American Imports into the EU as they retaliate against Donald Trump’s tariffs on them and the US is gearing up for St Patrick’s Day which means there is a visit by the Irish t-shock mial Martin to the White House so I know the ideal person to commentate on that it’s our favorite Irish BBC News presenter in Washington DC Katrina Perry who’s here hello Katrina Hi how are you I’m good thanks are you speaking to us from the White
House lawn I am I am decked out in my green here with the green Fountain over the corner over my shoulder here because it’s officially St Patrick’s Day at the White House even though it’s not actually St Patrick’s Day for a few days yet but this is the day that tishuk the Irish Prime Minister has been visiting president Trump to have a bilateral and then later on to come back and present that glorious bowl of Shamrock marking the connections between the two countries and did trade policy come up
in their little Teta in the Oval Office Oh Yes Trade policy front and center and actually really interesting is you know we’ve seen this with foreign leaders who’ve come to the White House before that the initial sort of opening remarks on what used to be just a C of photos with the journalists turns into a lengthy press conference so the tiak and the president were there for about 40 minutes or so and actually the tishuk left about five or six minutes after that so there wasn’t much time for a private conversation at all um even
though they’ll have a few meetings later but a very different reception to the last leader who was here which was Vladimir zilinski um and did Miel Martin try and kind of fight the eu’s case because I mean Ursula velan the president the European commission she was really quite um she was quite aggressive on on Wednesday morning when she announced that the eu’s retaliatory tariffs on the on the US yeah and president Trump um is quite uh Angry I would say about that and he said he plans to retaliate on those
retaliatory tariffs interestingly though the thuk took a different approach and that he didn’t really jump in at all on those remarks that President Trump was making regarding tariffs and Taxation and relocating American companies based outside of America back to America which would be a big issue for Ireland but president Trump reiterating again those comments that we’ve heard so many times from him how he feels the US is being treated unfairly by the EU and he also said Ireland was taking advantage of the
us as well and he said he would continue levying tariffs mentioned 200% at one time if this continued and he wouldn’t shy away from that so kind of matching the language that we’ve heard from URS Leander liion as well so whatever they charge us we we’re charging them nobody can complain about that whatever it is it doesn’t even matter what it is if they charge us if they charge us uh 25 or 20% or 10% or 2% or 200% then that’s what we’re charging them and uh so I don’t know why people get upset about
that because there’s nothing more fair than that and as supp miol Mar has I mean you know the Irish economy better than I do look at me Ireland splaining to you I do apologize but it’s just help our listeners understand he’s got the double advantage that in the EU trade policy is done by the European commission so if you’re a leader of an EU member State and you actually don’t want to rock the boat in the Oval Office you’ve kind of got a get out from that so you don’t need he didn’t need to
confront Trump on that because well it’s ARS of On’s problem and secondly so much of the Irish economic relationship with the US is is in Services right rather than manufacturing and actually the relationship between the EU and the US in in trade terms and services is much more equal than it is in terms of goods where the EU sells a lot more to the US than the US sells to the EU absolutely and the Tia did point that out because one of the first sentences that President Trump said was you know we’ve got a trade deficit when it comes
to Ireland Ireland’s number four on the list of countries who have the biggest trade deficit if you’re looking at it from an American perspective or trade surplus from an Irish perspective but the th did point out as you’ve said there Adam that that’s on Goods but when you put Services into it it’s a deficit so he was kind of ready with a lot of those lines and when it comes to tariffs as you say that’s not Ireland’s doing that’s an eu-wide thing although the president did single out the
pharmaceutical industry as something he said the whole pharmaceutical American pharmaceutical industry is on the island of Ireland of course it isn’t but Ireland is the third biggest export of pharmaceutical products in the world and that is one place that Ireland is kind of exposed because the president has often talked about as he did today about American companies in Ireland making these pharmaceutical products and then reselling them back to Americans essentially so he feels that America is being penalized on the double so there
was a lot of talk about that pharmaceutical industry but um it was all done in a very kind of nice kind of way and all of the president’s IR directed towards the EU now I can hear darini David Chief economics correspondent coming into the studio looking to see where she can turn the knob to hear you better Katrina because you’re coming out of a speaker hello darini hello hi can you can you hear Katrina by the way not really okay well why don’t me and Katrina keep talking while we work out you can hear Lady hear
so Katrina we can talk about the economic situation in America I’m checking my stock broking app not that I do a lot of stock broking but actually it having been R for the last few days has gone a little bit green because it looks like the American Stock Market has kind of stabilized stabilized a lot lower level than it’s been at for the last few months but it does look a bit more stable today yeah just about and obviously we’re many hours away from the markets actually closing so anything can happen
between now and then but you know there is an inflation statistic out today showing that that’s kind of stabilized and if anything that figure reducing ever so slightly so that’s good news president Trump asked about that today and said it’s very good news um so you know will that lead to prices coming down who knows but it’s a it’s one good step so I think that’s probably assisted the markets a little bit and also now that these tariffs have been levied that uncertainty that was there there’s some
bit of certainty in terms of they’re in place now and there seems to be a bit of a dayon between Canada and the US in particular of course the Canadian Prime Minister foreign minister and mayor of Ontario going to have talks this week with the Commerce Secretary Howard lutnick uh so again an indication of at least a temporary stability on that matter um darini I’ll get you to talk about the UK and the EU response to to Donald Trump in a second but I just think with your many years as an economist and you did global trade for a
while do you want to just put in in proportion in perspective what’s been happening this week both in terms of like American Trade policy and the effect of that on the American economy and the world economy well Kina says anything can happen right and that seems to been the Mantra of this week and what we’ve seen is of course that strange dance going on uh between the White House and the rest of the world quite honestly but uh Mar ruia put it quite succinctly today when he talked about why is it that the Trump Administration
is putting these tariffs on uh steel and aluminium and on the rest of the world and this is not the first time we’ve been in this particular dispute and they said well it’s about unfair practices by the rest of the globe so there’s perception from America and it’s sometimes an argument that other countries have made when it comes to Steel making in particular the likes of China have subsidized their industry and yeah that means they can produce more cheaply and you know people lose market share and they get annoyed by that but
it’s more than that because these are what are called strategic Industries because particular time we’re talking about defense steel is very important to the defense industry steel is very important uh to the travel industry as well so you want to have a regular reliable supply of it and not just sort of you know say okay our competitors do it better and more cheaply so we’re just going to leave it to them to do and that is one of the reasons why you’re seeing this kind of protectionist nature coming
back the other of course is this whole notion about um bringing jobs back to America and beefing up America’s industry now we heard Katrina there talking about uncertainty are we feeling less uncertain when we look at the way the White House was behaved over the course of this week not really I I think that is the big key thing at the moment because when we look at what’s happened stock markets and you’re absolutely right and I’m really sorry about this for your own personal finances but stock
markets are doing a lot less well than they were at the time of the election and there is that muttering on Wall Street of trump session this idea that that uncertainty itself is Weighing on businesses is Weighing on consumers um I’ve come from talking to the uh guy who runs Barnes & Noble right the book chain in in the US and it was interesting to hear him say actually business is going quite well for them because in uncertain times people want to bury their heads in a good book get away from the world but
quite honestly that may mean that things aren’t going that great as far as the American economy is concerned and Katrina how does Donald Trump deal with this economic uncertainty because I I mean a classic American president would be looking at the econ economic numbers and getting a a bit worried but Donald Trump is not a classic American president indeed he’s not and he seems to be braving it out I mean he’s talked about well or at least refused to rule out the notion of recession happening in the US
this year which gives everyone the Jitters the concept of that you know when he talks about the impact of these trade Wars and the leving of tariffs and retaliatory tariffs and so on he talks about how oh well there’ll be a little bit of disruption or a little bit of pain but it’ll be worth it in the end so I mean remember with President Trump he is an expert marketeer and he definitely likes to sort of set the tone and set the narrative so I think he’s trying to be sort of positive about these extreme
negatives in a way in the hope that that will filter down to the American people who elected him as we’ve said so many times on this notion that he would reduce the cost of living that he would improve the economy you know that he would reverse um what people thought was a bad situation under Joe Biden of course things weren’t that bad they were just quite bad at telling the American people about it um and that hasn’t happened yet and the big question for president Trump and more so for the elected Republicans on Capitol Hill is
how long are the American people prepared to kind of wait for things to get better and definitely if if we’re into a situation where we’re in a recession that bodess very badly for The Wider Republican party um and darini just in terms of what’s been happening in the UK today because of course the UK is affected by these steel and aluminium tariffs cuz they’re on everyone that makes an export steel what did you make of K starmer’s response to this this afternoon well it’s interesting isn’t it
because our uh strategy here in the UK is to sit back do nothing cross our fingers and hope that Trump will remember that we’re going to have this new economic Arrangements somewhere on the horizon um but it is interesting to watch that happen at the same time as the EU and Canada are taking a very different stance now there is a reason for that we are far less reliant on America as a customer of our Steel our steel making industry is much smaller as proportion of our economy it’s 0.
1% of our output right .1% of jobs in this country not to say it’s not important but it may be one of those areas that the government’s thinking we’re not going to war go to war on this we’re going to sit back wait and see if actually that visit to the White House is going to pay off that trade deal that you and I have talked about in the past right for our whole adult lives for our whole adult lives and beyond that as well when we’re babies we’re were talking about it uh it looks quite different this time around because
obviously they’re talking about tech and the likes but remember in the dim and distant past they were talking about bringing down tariffs now it’s more about avoiding tariffs being extra tariffs being imposed it’s a whole new game now and it’s very much you know cross your fingers and hope although I mean Trump we it’s such a cliche to say he’s very transactional but but we’ve seen examples in the last few days of him him backing down so as Katrina was alluding to the the where where the
mayor of Ontario threatens to put a 25% sirar charge on exports of electricity to three American states Trump then threatens even higher tariffs they both back down so it’s not all escalate escalate escalate is it I mean the art of the deal he seems to enjoy that engagement that kind of conflict out there on the playing field so you hear you know and we’ve heard this before as well by the way the EU weaponizing the likes of Harley Daves and motorbikes and Levi’s je Bourbon and bourbon as well U all of which I’m hoping is not going to
affect you but you know these are things that have been weaponized before because I know it hits and hurts in Republican hotlands right in America uh but we’ve seen as you say the way that Trump has reacted to previous moves is this going to really you know it’s a gamble right is this going to actually prod Trump into respond and go actually back down or is he going to double down and say EU as we’ve just heard him say I’m not very happy with you right now those retaliatory tariffs coming in April
guess what they’re going full steam ahead um and Katrina I know you’ve got a go cuz it’s a busy news day there but you know I always love to end with with a philosophical question for you and last week on newscast we were talking about the the Shake Up of the federal government and you were talking about how that’s affected house prices in Washington DC because so many public servants are losing their jobs my philosophical question for you today is how is the American system coping with Donald Trump um doing all these things
just by himself because normally trade policy is a thing that is shared between the White House and Congress he’s just doing it all himself and also I’m then throwing in things like the fact he did a car advert for Tesla on the White House lawn where you standing yesterday that’s quite unusual it is quite unusual it’s one of the most bizarre moments I think I’ve ever seen here at the White House um it kind of felt like you were watching a second secondhand car salesman ad or something with the president installing
the virtues of the various different models of Tesla and uh you know talking about how great Elon Musk is of course we’ve heard him say that many times but yeah he is going alone this is what he said he would do but at the same time you have the uh members of the House and Senate up on Capitol Hill trying to agree some kind of funding budget to keep the government open beyond Friday the House of Representatives managed to do that because president Trump now has incredible power over the party and people who were kind of refusing to to
tow the line in the previous Congress have all fallen in his step this time but not out of the woods yet the Senate still has to agree that deal and that needs the agreement of some Democrats and of course they have pledged not to give any assistance to this President whatsoever um the issue of housing did come up in the Oval Office earlier actually because it’s a major issue in Ireland uh huge housing crisis and homelessness crisis there and president Trump said oh that’s a crisis I’d love to have in this country that means
you’re winning that means you’re successful interesting right Katrina before you go are you going to add something to the newscast playlist that we’re doing this week in honor of the king having his own playlist on Apple oh my gosh W on the spot on the spot you put me on do you want to email it in afterwards like we’re on like 1990s local radio email it in afterwards we do requests text text it in exactly oh why don’t you WhatsApp us on 03301 123 9480 we’ll be doing guess the secret sound
next um anyway chares and can you play a request for me and all the girls in my class yeah exactly although we’ve got quite strict copyright rules uh so anyway Katrina I’ll let you go and and scratch your head about that but thank you very much okay talk soon bye um darini I’ll give you some time to think about what your playlist entry is going to be but is there anything else we should think be thinking about the British economy today is there anything else I mean do you have any space to think about
anything else you know in terms of bandwidth mentally and the rest of it look you know this is quite an important month for the UK economy we’ve kind of forgotten about that it’s got pushed into the Shadows doesn’t it but we have got the spring statement coming up and you know Rachel Reeves was who watching this with some trepidation thinking hang on a minute I’ve already got issues when it comes to trying to balance those books in the way I want to and finding the money I want for public services
this could make my predicament even worse what we’re seeing going on at the moment and I suppose I mean it’s already a tricky job for the office of budget responsibility to forecast growth next year the year after 5 years out 10 years out I mean I suppose things being so unpredictable in the world make that job even harder which which means the kind of the ultimate numbers that Rachel Reeves will be judged on and will be judging herself on are kind of presumably all over the place well this is a really strange thing right Adam
because I I know you’re a big fan of OB B the OB books autographed collection of books somewhere I’m sure but their forecast they have to give her a preliminary forecast so she can work out how to react to get the numbers to add up right that forecast was closed at the beginning of this month and now she comes back with her measures and they finalize their forecast right so how do you cope in a world where as we’ve seen hour by hour minute by minute POTUS in the White House is changing his mind on trade policy trade
policy which directly influences the UK and our well-being as well it’s a hugely difficult bouncing at but I suppose that’s the argument for having the the headro as they call it isn’t it this the money left over at the end of the parliament that means you’ve got a bit of a buffer for for things happening in the world and that’s why you might want to cut some things that people don’t want cut even though you could actually still there’s still a bit of headro room in the budget totally and you know this
is a really I mean I talk about uncertainty all these four costs never pan out as we expect and Chan after Chan in fact the obr are often too optimistic about what’s happening often hour I mean I mean goodness knows right now they’re probably not feeling that optimistic but um what we’ve seen Chancellor after Chancellor do to get that headro is to go oh five years time three Whatever Whenever my rules apply I’m just going to trim those spending totals a little bit Jeremy Hunt did it M and then it
comes near the time and in reality they pile the money up a bit more so we’re going to have some possibly quite worrying headlines coming out of this but you know don’t get too bogged down in there on the other hand those welfare changes we’re likely to see detailed in the next few weeks and it’s going to be interesting because you’re telling people and we have had a huge problem with the welfare Bill exploding but you’re telling people if you can work we want you to work go and look for a job
here’s a question when I talk to Business Leaders they are saying National Insurance contributions going up if job creation that’s we’re thinking about now and that’s probably where we’re going to see the AXS fall it’s all very well saying people get off benefits find yourself a job but if you’re seeing unemployment rising at the same time that’s a pretty hard one to square right to actually find those well as in as in employers because it’s more expensive to employ somebody now employers aren’t
necessarily in the mood to hire loads of people coming off the benefit system totally I mean higher full stop and particularly at the lower end of the income scale because we know that’s where these changes really tend to hit as far as employers are concerned and what’s running through many Minds at the moment is well I can squeeze my profit margins I can put my prices up or I could just cut back on the hours I give people perhaps not expand my business perhaps not hire as many people and that is a problem when you’re trying to get
the welfare build down and get people back into work there’s all those things to think about in the background leaving of course is all of this going on there external forces that you can’t really control and we’ve had enough of it I mean know 5 years on from covid right shock After Shock where do we go from here darini thank you very much what’s your entry for the playlist you’ve had plent of time to think about it now oh I went for Katy Perry Firework why why not that’s the question why not okay I’m
going to be down with the kids then okay because we’ been talking about bbon and all I can think about is bourbon and Jack Daniels uh I’m goingon to go for B song by shabui I actually don’t know that song I’ll will go and play it and then hopefully we’ll be able to play 10 seconds of it at the end of the week summer of 2024 you want to give a little no nobody wants that okay nobody wants that no karaoke today dhini thank you right that’s trade policy let’s now talk about War and Peace and
specifically what is the reaction to the talks that the US and Ukraine had in jeda and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday where they both agreed that they would pursue a 30-day ceasefire with Russia and that the US would restart its intelligence sharing with Ukraine and also its supply of military aid we can chat now to somebody who’s been on newscast before it’s Christopher steel who is the former head of the Russia desk MI6 he’s the author of unredacted Russia Trump and the fight for democracy and he’s now a
director of orbus business intelligence and he is the person who has read War and Peace in the original Russian and he’s here now hello Chris hello there Adam um so well let’s just get your reaction to what was happening when we were recording the the last episode of newscast last night with the the news out of jeda that the US and Ukraine seem to be back on the same page yeah I think the ukrainians have turned it round quite spectacularly really um given that the uh argument in the Oval Office only
happened 10 days ago or something 12 I think it was 12 12 was it all together um but essentially what they’ve done is um they’ve agreed to this temporary ceasefire which given that the Russian army is making some small gains at the moment is no bad thing for them and they put Russia on the back foot now and it’ll be very interesting to see whether Putin politically is able to accept a ceasefire in this current situation well because it’s already been ruled out hasn’t it by the by the spokeswoman from
the Russian foreign office last week yes but I I suspect that she might be thrown under the troler bus at some point if necessary uh there’s going to be a lot of pressure on Putin and the Russians to do this and I think they have been outmaneuvered the ukrainians oh how so well the ukrainians from what I understand have always been since Trump was elected uh aiming to basically portray themselves as willing to compromise and willing to sign up to a peace deal and to show up Russia for not being prepared to do that so to call
their Bluff and I suspect that’s where we are now and so do you think we might be in a world where there’s a bit of a Vibe shift and so actually it’s gone from from Trump pressurizing Ukraine to now Trump and Ukraine will jointly pressurize Russia and actually this whole conversation in a couple of days time could feel very very different in terms of who who Who’s pressuring who now it certainly could but I I would underline that the fundamental issues here aren’t going to change if there’s a
ceasefire everyone would welcome a ceasefire of course not least ukrainians who are losing a lot of men at the moment but I think fundamentally it’s about what sort of sequencing then there thereafter takes place particularly actually whether um one Russian demand which America seemed to back and perhaps has uh backed away from now was that there was to be an election in Ukraine a presidential election certainly before the negotiations were drawn out for an actual peace treaty the Americans seem to have changed their position on that
and that’s quite significant oh so actually this idea of the last few weeks that Trump is kind of signing up to everything that Putin is asking for turns out to be less true as weeks go on certainly in this regard and you wonder why that H is where somebody like Rubio has stepped in and perhaps surreptitiously managed to switch the sequencing I don’t think Trump is exactly on top of all the details um but it’s going to be interesting to see how the sequencing pans out and it’s going to be very interesting to see you know
you know what concessions the Russians are prepared to make when they think they’re on the front foot I mean other others of us don’t believe that they are their attrition rate is still massive 1500 a day killed and wounded and in the dbass they not made much progress at all in recent weeks um Marco Rubio used this phrase that I remember from the brexit days about the ball now being in Russia’s court now that the ball’s gone over there like what what do we know about the Russian decision-making
process because it seems to be it’s just Putin sits by himself and decides yes it is and I think one of the problems with decision- making in Russia in the last few years has been that Putin’s living in a bit of a bubble and that his courtiers because that’s what I think they are take him news that he wants to hear and they don’t bring the difficult news to him I think they’ve distorted the progress they’ve made in Ukraine all the way along and the performance of their their Armed Forces so there’s a
problem in transmitting real information up to the leadership in Russia these days and that leads to bad decision making and bad governance so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if um if Putin is not fully in the picture as to what the actual situation on the ground is in Ukraine and maybe also the political situation internally in Ukraine where I think ironically uh zalinski who’ been losing quite a lot of support because of the rout with Trump has actually gained it again and people have gone back behind him all the opposition people
like poreno the former president how will we know what the Russian position actually is will they find ways of kind of signaling to the world what they actually want or will this all be done behind closed doors and be incredibly secretive you’ll see hints of it but for example we’ve received indications in recent days that lavro the foreign minister is being marginalized now from this process and the key figure on the Russian side is this K Demetria who you may have heard of who runs their sort of national investment Sovereign wealth
fund and that probably him and Wick are the two key players now yeah yeah um and Steve wickoff is going to go to Moscow at some point in the next few days so actually an American official on Russian soil that’s a big change from the last few years isn’t it well he’s been before of course he went a couple of weeks ago to secure the release of a a prisoner what we would call a hostage in common English um and it’s very strange because he has no particular knowledge or expertise on Russia whatsoever um he’s a
property developer gold budy of of Trumps and in fact even within the Trump Administration is is focused on the Middle East and yet he has been brought to the four above Rubio it seems in terms of negotiating with Moscow above Waltz The National Security advisor and particularly above Kellogg the general Who was appointed as the Ukraine Envoy who seems completely marginalized as far as I can tell um and you you talked about Russia’s position being actually relatively weak and you talked about just the number of men
they’re losing on the battlefield what are other things that lead you to the conclusion that that their position is weak I think their economy is weak and I think that if you look at even actually I think the sanctions that we’ve imposed are beginning really to bite I’ve seen some figures about oil exports in the last couple of weeks which indicate that oil exports from Russia have significantly Fallen by maybe four or five million barrels a day uh which is pretty significant that’s about 20% 15
20% of their exports so there are indications that sanctions are biting I think the Russian economy is in a bad situation there’s also talk about nabul who you’ll know is a central bank chairwoman who’s a very competent technocrat uh about her actually either losing control of policy or or leaving office so I think there’s quite a lot going on under the surface in Russia also I think the trade with China has declined which is remarkable given that axis of of political Alliance that we’ve
seen oh what’s going on there with with tra trade with China because they’re meant to have like the partnership with no limits so maybe there is a limit and it’s about how much China’s willing to buy from Russia well I’ve never believed it’s a partnership with no limits it’s americanist partnership that benefits China and what China is afraid of I think are two things one is secondary sanctions and two is getting out in other words sanctions that are designed to hit Russia but end up being applied
to people who do business with Russia correct so if a if a chinese bank is is moving Russian money around for example they could get sanctioned by either the EU or America or both that’s quite a sign significant sort of stick if you like over China but I also think there are issues relating to North Korea and China and Russia where the Chinese are not at all happy about the role North Korea is playing in in Russia the troops or indeed that Russia may be trying to stir up unrest inside the Korean Peninsula which is not in China’s
interest just going to your point about the the weakness of the Russian economy isn’t it a case of that if the Russian economy collapses more slowly than than support for Ukraine collapses then Russia can keep going for quite a while that’s true but of course because it’s not on the verge of instant economic collapse is what I’m getting at it’s not but I think that the the social problems in Russia as well are very profound um there a lot of the young male population particularly the well educated
populations left the country to avoid the draft and you’ve got significant problems of troops going back to their settlements and their hometowns with PTSD and all the other things there’s been a massive increase for example in the murder rate in Russia since the war started huge increase of something like uh 900% and this is all the sort of social Fallout from the war and it’s suppressed in in Russia in terms of the media and in terms of what even our media can see and cover but it’s there and it’s very significant I think in the
longer term and I thought it was significant the other day there that that um big drone attack on the apartment blocks in Moscow because then you think well hang on if you’re the ukrainians and you’re trying to pressure Russia to uh accept a ceasefire in the air well then a quite dramatic attack in in the homeland of Russia uh is quite a good argument for why you should sign up to a ceasefire in the air yes and one of the things which Ukraine has done very well in recent times is both the Drone Warfare itself but also strikes within
deep inside Russia of things like oil refineries and other facilities so that’s been a real success story for them independently actually of the West I think they probably got a lot to our armed forces in drone technology and these longdistance strikes right last question and it’s a process question what’s your take on just how these negotiations seem to so far be being conducted it seems to involve lots of people going to Saudi Arabia and not necessarily the people that you want to have face-to-face negotiations meeting
face to face what’s your take on just how it’s kind of being choreographed at the moment I think the fundamental problem is the Americans don’t really have a plan and it looks as though perhaps we’re trying to backfill that in Europe particularly people like Jonathan pal the National Security advisor and others in Europe uh having to come up with a plan basically to to get the Americans off the hook in that regard I think that it there’s a there’s a sort of undue haste on the part of trump to
get some kind of ceasefire and deal without actually thinking it through properly that’s my big fear that this is really quite chaotic and it’s being made up as we go along let’s see if I’m proved wrong I hope I am but I suspect that that is what’s happening aren’t these things always made up as people go along not entirely I think that you know whether you look at different plans that we’ve had Northern Ireland peace process and other things there was a clear road map there and I don’t think there is a
clear road map in the case of Ukraine in this particular instance and it’s interesting listening to people talking about a potential peace settlement you need a road map for for that being implemented and enforced and people having confidence in it as well you can’t you can’t just say here deal done let’s all walk away well as we were saying just earlier the sequencing is is a key part of that and there’s a fundamental disagreement over the sequencing before they even begin and if America’s changed its position over
sequencing without actually vocalizing that properly then that shows you the degree of uncertainty and and and Chaos that could come about I hope it doesn’t but there’s a risk of it certainly and last last question I promise you mentioned this guy Jonathan Powell who is the UK National Security adviser brought in by kir starmer last year uh very very well known at Westminster because he was Tony Blair’s chief of staff and very effective at that job um do you buy this briefing that actually it was Jonathan Powell going to ke and
kind of instructing zilinsky and the Ukrainian government how to get out of the hall they were in I certainly think that happened yeah I certainly think his advice would have been taken very seriously I dealt with Jonathan pal when I was back in government many years ago and he actually at that point had a direct um dialogue going with a guy who’s was the chief of the presidential Administration Russia at the time soan and who’s now the mayor of Moscow so he has quite a good deal of experience of dealing with Russian
and and not just Putin people underneath Putin who are still significant in the system and I suspect he’s a very good networker and he’s kept in touch with people and he’s able to bring a wisdom and a sort of cool head to this which some of the others like wickoff just don’t have the background or the hinterland if you like of being able to do I mean I don’t know Jonathan Powell but I’ve interviewed him a few times when he was doing jobs out of government and he has this amazing way of giving
one-word answers to questions which as a journalist you expect I don’t this is not a subtle way of saying you’ve been talking too much don’t worry I mean it’s just like you’ll say what do you think about this and you’ll say bad or good or it’s got potential then you’re like all right so he doesn’t give a lot away but he but he gives straight fairly straight answers and that that’s always important I think in negotiation and of course he was involved I think in the in the
Northern Ireland process as well heavily heavily yeah Chris thank you very much thank you and that’s all for another jam-packed episode of newscast but just before we go to save my cultural blushes I of course know shabzi and his song AAR song brackets Tipsy close brackets which was dar’s contribution to the newscast playlist I just didn’t know that that was the name of that song and that was the name of the artist because I don’t know about you but I listen to a lot of music while I’m running and when you’re listening to
music streaming it doesn’t tell you who you’re listening to so you can hum along to the song but I have no idea who it is that’s my defense anyway we’ll be back with another episode very soon bye-bye for