What Have the US and Ukraine Agreed to in the 30-Day Ceasefire?

for several hours today officials from the United States and from Ukraine sat opposite each other round a table in Riad in Saudi Arabia and then after hours and hours and hours of talks we got a statement from the US state department and the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio about what they’d agreed today we made an offer that the ukrainians have accepted which is to enter into a ceasefire and into immediate uh negotiations to end this conflict in a way that’s enduring and sustainable and accounts for their
interests their security their ability to prosper as a nation let’s read the runes literally about what was discussed and what was agreed and we’re joined Now by somebody who’s been in many of these meetings in their long career both as Britain’s ambassador to Washington and is the UK National Security advisor welcoming him back to newscast it’s Lord DK Kim DK hello hi it’s nice to be back thank you right so just before we started recording we got the statement from the from the state department so the red of
the meeting and I want to go through that line by line with you as a seasoned Diplomat so you can decode it for us but before we do that just how much do you think was kind of riding diplomatically on this meeting in Saudi Arabia um for the Americans for the American negotiators really quite a lot because of all the troubles they have back home over what’s happening economically and just because they’ve been putting such uh such a wait on on making progress here and also because they’ve put such
extraordinary pressure on Ukraine they had a lot of international criticism over this they’ve now got an excuse which they’ve done to lift those uh that ban that pause on Military Support and intelligence support and that’s kind of crucial because otherwise they were in effect helping Russia yeah and I suppose um before we do our textual analysis that is the main outcome in concrete terms of this meeting that US military aid and US intelligence will be heading back to Ukraine having been stopped for about a
week or so I think that’s right and I think that there will be a lot of people in the US system who will have been really hoping for this because they must have felt in such an awkward position with that pause having been initiated uh and you know if I mean the risk for for them was that when those uh Russian attacks missiles drones whatever came riging in on Ukrainian cities the lack of intelligence and thus the lack of forewarning would have led Ukrainian deaths and who would have wanted that on their Consciousness right let’s dive
into this statement and the first couple of sentences are basically a reset in the Ukraine us relationship after that disastrous meeting in the Oval Office um a few days ago and the first couple of sentences are all about both Nations praising The Bravery of Ukrainian people in defense of their nation and then the Ukrainian delegation reiterated the Ukrainian people’s strong gratitude to president Trump the US Congress and the people of the United States that’s basically trying to that’s that’s making
amends for for two weeks ago isn’t it in the Oval Office that’s trying to draw a line under the Oval Office punch up and it is in a balanced way because the Americans are recognizing as all of us do Ukrainian fortitude in withstanding the Russian invasion for so long and then you have this gratitude which should at least please JD Vance if nothing else yes so then we get on to the like the real meat of the of of what they agreed today and so I’ll read this out in full and then get your take on it
Ukraine expressed Readiness to accept the US proposal to enact an immediate interim 30-day ceasefire which can be extended by mutual agreement of the parties and which is subject to acceptance and concurrent implementation by the Russian Federation the United States will communicate to Russia that Russian reciprocity is the key to achieving peace what I mean that sounds like that sounds like proposals for a ceasefire but only sounds like only proposals yeah um I mean tells me two or three things number one there isn’t a
cease fire unless the Russians agree to it so they’ve got to take this deal this uh Ukrainian acceptance off to Moscow or wherever they want to meet the Russians and say are you okay with the ceasefire too um I don’t know whether there’ll be any Russian problems with this I can’t see any reason why there should be Adam Al TI why because neither side is giving away anything on substance by agreeing to a ceasefire they’re just saying okay we’ll pause while we um talk about whether we can whether we can go further
so you would think on the face of it Russia should be should be okay with that but who knows who knows there may be something that uh that I I’m not thinking of that they will have a problem with but it just reinforces what’s what’s been agreed here it’s been agreed between the Ukraine and the US that this will be their opening position for a conversation that the US will then have with Russia that is not anything that looks like long-term peace negotiations between Moscow and ke absolutely not there is no mention any
there of substance and it’s not even what a called proximity talks when you have one delegation in one room in a building and the other delation other room people shutle between them this is long long distance negotiations at this stage because the Americans have to jet off somewhere and meet the Russians which is why we need to keep all of this in in proportion today right then we get the sentence about lifting the paes on intelligence sharing and security assistance which we’ve already talked about then there’s a sentence that that
zilinsky always talks about which is the return of prisoners of War and the release of Civilian detainees and it makes you realize that actually there’s a whole lot more that will have to be agreed here other than just a ceasefire at Sea in the air about drones there’s actually a lot of other issues that will need to be resolved and quite emotive ones as well that’s ukrainians saying and by the way if we get into ceasefire talks we start talking about a a durable piece we are going to raise all of these
issues just to give you a regard warning yeah then we get some practicalities both delegations agreed to name the negotiating teams and immediately begin negotiations towards an enduring peace that provides for Ukraine’s long-term security the United States committed to discussing these specific proposals with representatives from Russia the Ukrainian delegation reiterated European Partners should be involved in the peace process that tells us a little bit about yeah that we’re still quite a long way
from a big table with everyone sat around it at the same time it does um and uh tells you two things one that the ukrainians at least are committing to start quickly because you these are not going to be easy negotiations so if it’s a 30-day ceasefire then uh you need to get on with it on day one of those 30 days second ukrainians say we want the Europeans at the table it does not say the United States agreed to that so um that is still up in the air also I’m just thinking that that couple of words where the fact that they both agreed
that they should be working towards an enduring peace that provides for Ukraine’s long-term security now that sounds like maybe a bit of movement from the US on this idea of providing what they call security guarantees the US somehow being involved in Ukraine staying secure and Sovereign for a long time as opposed to just ending the the fighting at the moment yes it does Adam but there is a detached tone to what the US say the US are saying yes we we agree there should be security guarantees unless I mishar it there is no hint in
there that the US will be part of that so it can still be something where the US say that’s Europeans alone yes the US can be in favor of there being security but not in favor of contributing to that security yeah interesting and then we get the last sentence which is about our old friend the minerals deal and they say both countries presidents agreed to conclude as soon as possible a comprehensive agreement for the critical mineral resources so that’s still no commitment to actually when they’ll do it yeah and if
I was Ukraine I would stall on that for as long as possible because why would you give that away until you had seen the color of American money and what kind of peace deal they’re going to propose so I suppose now that we’ve read through all of this together I think this is what one and a half steps forward on quite a long journey yeah look can I say two things about it ad number one yes it’s good to have a ceasefire I think it will be fantastically oversold in Washington and you will find Trump saying essentially
you know pieces on pieces on our door step and I just remember a long dealt with a lot of um of uh trouble spots during my career go back to Bosnia there was a time when the EU would agree with both parties when we were trying to stop the war in Bosnia between the serbs and the bosniacs they agree uh ceasefire once a fortnite and they always broke down cuz one side or other would start shooting and then it all broke down so even the ceasefire can be quite fragile and can break down doesn’t need very much to make it break down if one side
wants it to break down then that’s quite easy to arrange second let’s remember that on the one hand the ukrainians uh want their land back and they want complete freedom to do what they in terms of future orientation you know joining NATO joining the EU any of these things they want that the Russian position is they keep all the land uh they keep um Ukraine can never join NATO and Ukraine has to demilitarize so there’s a vast Gulf on the substance between Russia and Ukraine so know this is just a ceasefire good uh a step
forward one and a half steps forward but you know there’s a long road to go to get a a durable peace I’m intrigued by something you said right at the start of our conversation which was referring to the the the trouble and the turmoil on the American Stock Market and the fact that Trump is getting quite a lot of criticism for his Economic Policy domestically now um because people are starting to to see the effects of it in the US what do you think the the linkage could be between that and this does this
give him an incentive to I don’t know maybe be a bit kinder to Ukraine because that that that helps a deal or do is there an incentive for him to get even more dramatic with Ukraine because it distracts from kind of bread and butter issues in the US I’m just not sure yeah that’s a good question I mean I was thinking of it purely in terms of this may change particularly since Trump I’m sure will as I say massively oversell the importance of this deal it changes the 24 new Cycles in the sense that this
might for a while displace the economic turmoil at the top of the of the charts and he will claim it’s a huge personal success for him and his administration so uh it’s a bit of good news when mostly there’s bad news around for him and bad news that won’t go away quickly in terms of how he now behaves that’s a that’s a big Known Unknown because everything he said so far suggests that his idea of a peace deal amounts to Ukrainian capitulation but we haven’t had very much detail from him so I’m still I
still think the you know the jur is essentially out on quite what the Americans will will put on the table or suggest and then you have the Brits and the French supposedly working on some ideas as well so I think there’s all play for on that but so far to the extent Trump has spoken on the substance here it has looked a pretty bleak offer for the ukrainians and and just before I let you go to to continue your evening Kim and we’ve got uh some news from the Reuters news agency saying that Donald Trump’s special Envoy Steve wickoff is
going to visit Moscow to meet Vladimir Putin at some point in the very near future and I suppose that that will be the first kind of actually no it’s not I was going to say it’s the first we’ve already had the first contacts cuz Rubio met lavro but I suppose this is this this feels a bit more like the rubber hitting the road in terms of negotiations and it’s interesting for one other reason um Adam which is that initially a guy called Keith Kellogg who is a retired American General was meant
to be the envoy and The Negotiator on Ukraine Steve witkoff on the back of his success with Netanyahu I don’t know him but everything I read he’s a genuinely uh rather than self-advertising tough cookie sending him off to meet the Russians and especially if he meets Putin um seems to me a very interesting move and suggests to me also that he has become The Negotiator of choice for uh the Trump Administration really whatever whatever theater or whatever issue but that’s interesting because that’s not
somebody being sent to Moscow to kind of cozy up to the Kremlin is it this guy doesn’t do coing up from what I read um Kim thank you very much for your time tonight thank you it’s a pleasure so Kim talked a few times there about the turmoil on the financial markets in the United States that is something I discussed a couple of hours ago with the BBC’s economics editor fisel Islam and fisel is here hello hi Adam I’ve just had a marketing email from my banking app saying are you sure it’s true is it
not a scam it says investing has never been simpler which is not the case today is it if you’re trying to invest in America no because the stock market well it’s uh it fell very sharply yesterday really pretty Punchy Falls and it’s not just a oneoff that we’ve now seen it basically approaching a correction as we call it and it’s not you know it’s really pretty starting to cons concern the markets and I think the key Dynamic here is that there was always an assumption that there would be a self-restraining
factor that the markets the one thing that Donald Trump would listen to apart from his own Instinct and when they go down he thinks he’s got a problem and he tries to half reverse a very visible thing you can see it on a graph and it’s a red line it’s unarguable I mean I wouldn’t entirely exclude the possibility that you could start arguing about what the real value of The Da is but like you it is unarguable it has gone down uh in particular those tech stocks and in the NASDAQ and I’m sure
we’ll come on to the specifics of the Tesla share price which fell 15% yesterday it’s bounced back up a little bit today but um but yeah you know that that is that real it’s not the real economy but it is a verdict of sorts on the profitability of American companies and in saying potentially pretending that he doesn’t care about that as a metric that he doesn’t care if the US goes into a short-term recession because it’s for the greater good over the long term he has communicated a higher pain
threshold than we had realized and the markets had realized then business had realized and that has spooked everybody and just explain what you you mean by that uh about what what Trump has has conveyed in the last day or so so he he gave he gave an interview uh and he specifically was asked you know aren’t you concerned about the markets aren’t you concerned about the prospect of a recession some very smart realtime assessments of the US economy suggests that it is Contracting right now and he essentially said no I’m not I want you
know the Chinese look at this over a 100 years why are we obsessed with quarter to quarter movements in share prices and then results of companies which is a very different message than we’ve had from him before so it must have been very purposeful and and the the rationale behind it was to say everyone’s assumption I literally heard this from a Fortune 500 top American Business leader whenever the stock market goes down it’ll stop Trump from doing things that are too quote unquote crazy well he’s saying but if he becomes
untethered from thatte Unleashed therefore where is the limit to this trade War escalation and those comments follow his comments at the weekend where he appeared to not rule out a recession as well and that had a massive effect on the markets the day before yes again showing a higher pain threshold on the economy and on markets than had previously been realized in fact what’s happened is that President Trump as candidate Donald Trump as candidate president Trump says a a lot of stuff that sounds concerning economically for
the globe you know maybe there’s a rationale back home but for the globe generally and then everybody sorts of tries to cope with with it and says oh no it won’t really happen oh no it’ll be fine oh they won’t really do retaliation oh it’ll be delayed and everything’s basically starting to happen as he said it and so it makes you think European Union okay that’s going to happen too um spread to farm products you got seal and aluminium imminently so yeah you know you you start to think okay so actually what he
said we should take note of and think and assume more that it is going to happen than it’s not but it’s interesting in the first thing you’ve gone to in your explanation of this is Trump’s comments about his um tolerance of economic pain the first thing you didn’t go to was tariffs which is the really obvious thing he’s been doing but supp that is a factor too yes but they they’ve been sort of hokey kooking on this the whole time haven’t they they’ve been like all on half off put back on
again today they’ve just been doubled against Canada for seal and aluminium based on something that’s happened with electricity there’s a certain sort of random movement to it all obviously the uncertainty in and of itself it’s a cliche about the economy and markets but the uncertainty is a factor here and you can see it have a real world tangible impact in for example the trade data where it’s clear there’s been stockpiling in America from mainly companies of the sorts of goods that they feel may be tariffed trying to
get them in before the tar come in get them in across the border there’s a lot of gold in there there’s uh computers there’s phones there’s cars that just costs money you know the world economy has run on very quick turnarounds you don’t want stock hanging around in ports or in warehouses it’s all about just in time just in sequence delivery when you have this sort of intervention it all goes up in the air um and just unpack a bit the episode that has just occurred before we started recording this this
episode of newscast on on Tuesday afternoon at about half past 4 which is this Canadian electricity thing just take us through what’s happened there so the uh the provincial premere of Ontario uh Doug Ford has been pretty robust on what he can do constantly sort of threatening the US you know really sort of muscular attempt to say there will be consequences essentially you rely on Canada Canada and the US have a very integrated economy you rely on Canada on this you threaten us with totally unjust tariffs we will return serve as it were
and he’s done that with not an import tariff but an export tariff so he’s charging for the export of Canadian electricity which go to three states uh New York Michigan and another one that I’ve forgotten but it goes to those three it’s not not across the whole of the US but it’s but it’s focused in the Northeast um and that would increase the bills of Americans by about $100 so that’s material um and and president Trump in a sort of furious truth social post has hit Back and Double those
tariffs on steel and aluminium to 50% and also decried the idea that that they are kind of messing with basic American Safety why would you do this on electricity yeah so so you know oh sounding pretty tense I just Googled while you were talking the neighboring states of Ontario and I got I narrowed it down to Wisconsin or Minnesota but then Jack who’s producing this episode says it’s Minnesota okay um yeah so that’s that that’s another stage in the kind of the trade war between the US and Canada what are potential next
stages for that because that seems to be that’s heating up that’s not cooling down no and also we have Mark Carney waiting the wings as PM designate not entirely sure when he actually becomes prime minister weird isn’t it yeah but he he well something to do with King Charles and the governor general but at this point I will definitely we will defer to the our Canadian version of newscast of the front burner Front Burner but they um uh he he he is a markets man he’s a man of the sort of multilateral system so he knows about
negotiations and he knows what triggers markets and he knows what triggers inflation so he’s he has like Doug Ford been extremely robust yes Canada is smaller yes Canada will hurt from these tariffs from the US but Canada has the capacity to really focus the mind of certain American people of American businesses of the stock market Focus its efforts on those things that are material for inflation and ultimately Focus the mind of Congress so much of I mean almost all of what Trump has been doing has been executive fat you know executive order
it a lot of this stuff really has to be legislated for so how much of Congress how many of the Senators are up for this a massive trade war with their Northern neighbor their key Ally and then even even more significant could be are there more sort of skeptical voices within the administration doesn’t sound like there are right now but I noted and I have I haven’t tracked this but I certainly I noted at an earlier stage the likes of Elon Musk had not tweeted hugely about tariffs right we know from the Tesla
results day that they have said that tariffs are a material impact for their profits and revenues because they obviously they have parts from China from Canada and from Mexico so there are Business Leaders that are deeply concerned but I think the basic picture is this Adam which is this Canada US axis this trade war that many had hoped Would S solve itself through rationality is getting deeper it’s entrenching and you can see a pathway of escalation for example Mar well I was going to say what’s the what’s the next
thing Canada could make more expensive so that American consumers notice and then can be angry with Donald Trump about potach for fertilizer which is essential for their farmers and then the big one which again they’re just generally bewildered in Canada you know the deficit is caused by exports of energy and oil the trade deficit the trade deficit so the problem the ripping off of 200 billion that you talks about much of it is literally Canada sending subsidized crude oil that is that is straight to the
refineries of the Midwest and then straight on to the Gas Stations of the Midwest where i’ imagine you’d find a high proportion of trump voters so you know when this is really serious now it gets and so Canada Canada could either stop sending the oil so that those those petrol stations run dry or it could stop subsidizing the oil so that the oil becomes the petrol becomes more expensive or I suppose it could send the oil I don’t know to us yes I think you need to pipelines that take a bit of time but but certainly that’s
what they’re suggesting already they’re leaning that in that direction to to have east west pipelines rather than this clearly this would be very damaging for Canada’s revenues fiscal revenues for its exports but yes that is the direction of travel indeed um I looked back over the chat I had with Mark Carney about six weeks ago you hardly ever mentioned that and he said that he’d well it turns out to be quite a good scho quite a historical document yeah exactly no so he said he he’d um he’d ask for the subsidies back so you
see I’ve just mentioned two examples there now clearly the power is on the American side but the ability to cause Mutual damage is there the re the rationale on both sides is there Trump doesn’t think president Trump doesn’t think that tariffs are going to damage America or cause inflation in America so he’ll carry on on the Canadian side this robust approach is proving extremely popular at a time when you expect an imminent election you have the ingredients there for deep entrenched trade tension that escalates for the
next few weeks and that’s before the idea that the scope spreads to the European Union and just just historically that is so mad because there were never really two closer neighbors than the USA and Canada in in the last 50 hundred years we we should step back and say I mean their economies entwined president Trump negotiated a trade deal with Canada that’s been blown up now um the NATO allies they have combined in the part of five eyes but do not underestimate the extent to which for Canada you know maybe if it was just
about trade and tariffs you could come to a negotiation but when you hear and they’re taking it very seriously now it’s no joke for the Canadians when you hear the president repeatedly say we’re going to use economic power to coers them into becoming the 51st state or to invite them or to suggest that they become the future state they’re taking that really seriously now I mean how can you actually negotiate with someone who says even jokingly we’re going to Annex your country I you can’t you can’t have can
you have a can you have a negotiation it sort of it takes the shackles really off the Canadian response she’s like are the Canadian people going to say oh you should just you know give Trump that little bit give him a win how can you give him a win you know have off a bit of Manitoba I don’t know some island off they’re not going to do that right so so you’re in a very trixy position um you mentioned Elon and you mentioned his company Tesla I mean Tesla stock has become one of the biggest kind of
casualties of this whole market movement hasn’t it yeah there’s a couple ways to look at this it is now halfed in value since its peak but it actually doubled in value since since the actual election of trump so that was the so it went up uh marched up the hill on the assumption that musk would benefit from the inside track of government um and now all of that has gone so it’s half it’s more it’s half than Val lost 1550 % yesterday it’s back up a little bit as we speak today um but it’s still well well down
and that is a combination of the fact that in Europe certainly in January we’re not sure that that’s continued to February there were significant Falls and sales in Europe as he intervened I think is probably a fair word to say light word to say in European Politics the German elections very very you know you know in a very forthright manner um but we’re also now seeing protests in the us you know Tesla was valued hugely more than any other car company Valu like a tech company so that was partly
because of the brand the brand appealed to a certain demographic that were bothered about you know climate change you know can you imagine an experiment in trying to uh you know experiment on that demographic than what we have seen in terms of Elon Musk and there are questions you like a reverse Jaguar Rebrand well well well this may well be why Jaguar I thought there might be uh some sort of Market uh window for them you’re also now seeing other EV manufacturers electric vehicle manufacturers so Kia and postar Chinese
and Korean uh the other way around actually Korean and Chinese they are starting to put out sort of cheeky viral Guerilla advertising aimed at Tesla drivers saying you know change your change your EV comes at a time when other companies have caught up with the technology so it’s a very delicate time for them fisel thank you very much pleasure and that’s all for this episode of newscast which we were recording at about 6:30 on Tuesday evening we’ll be back with another one very soon bye-bye