- 7 months ago
King Charles to the rescue? The president of the United States was wined and dined with all the pomp and circumstance of a state visit to Windsor Castle. We asked: honour guards, fighter jet flyovers, and celebrity royals – was it all part of a charm offensive aimed at wooing Donald Trump, whose worldview appears more aligned with far-right figure Nigel Farage than with Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer?
For over a century, the so-called "special relationship" between the UK and US has often felt like a mismatch. But as Starmer prepares to sign major deals on technology, defence, and nuclear cooperation, just how mismatched is it today? Trump’s stance on global affairs – appeasement of Russia over Ukraine, unwavering support for Israel’s destruction of Gaza, and his aggressive approach to tariffs and trade – has pushed the UK to quietly edge closer to Europe. Yet in practice, is Britain becoming more – not less –dependent on the United States? Produced by Antonia Cimini, Aurore Laborie, Ilayda Habip and Charles Wente.
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For over a century, the so-called "special relationship" between the UK and US has often felt like a mismatch. But as Starmer prepares to sign major deals on technology, defence, and nuclear cooperation, just how mismatched is it today? Trump’s stance on global affairs – appeasement of Russia over Ukraine, unwavering support for Israel’s destruction of Gaza, and his aggressive approach to tariffs and trade – has pushed the UK to quietly edge closer to Europe. Yet in practice, is Britain becoming more – not less –dependent on the United States? Produced by Antonia Cimini, Aurore Laborie, Ilayda Habip and Charles Wente.
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
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NewsTranscript
00:00so king charles to the rescue the president of the united states wined and dined with all the
00:07pomp and circumstance of a state visit to windsor castle second one for trump we'll ask about
00:15honor guards flyovers of jets and celebrity royals rolled out to woo a trump whose worldview
00:22aligns more with the far-right's nigel farage than with labor prime minister keir starmer
00:28for more than a century that special relationship between britain and the u.s has always been a
00:34mismatch but as starmer gets set to sign deals on tech defense nukes just how much of a mismatch
00:42trump's appeasement of russia over ukraine his steadfast support for israel's demolition of gaza
00:47his hardball approach to tariffs and trade have the uk drawing quietly closer to europe but in
00:55practice is britain becoming more not less dependent on the united states today in the
01:02france 24 debate we're looking at that royal treatment for trump and with us from windsor
01:07in berkshire just west of london france 24 correspondent benedict pavio thanks for joining us
01:15you're welcome from london talk about the royal treatment yes we will in a second from london
01:23richard johnson senior lecturer in u.s politics at queen mary university london thank you for being
01:29with us good evening pleasure to be here jeremy stubb chairs the association of british conservatives
01:36in paris how are you good evening and in a previous life he reported from london journalist
01:42pierre tran covers a changing defense industry right here in the french capital how are you
01:46good good a reminder that if you're on the go you can listen to the show wherever podcasts
01:52are streamed uh benedict pavio uh i'm gathering it's dinner time soon uh where you are
01:59it is dinner time soon for uh some very a lovely brochette to use a french word of dignitaries
02:09who will be here of course uh besides the king and queen camilla and kate and william and president
02:17trump and his wife uh melania there will be the british prime minister keir starmer uh also uh along
02:24with his wife victoria and as as the tradition also and apart from some very big tech bosses who will be
02:31there the tradition is that there be political opposition leaders uh and can be bad enough the
02:37leader of the conservative party uh will be there but there's an interesting person who's actually for
02:43the first time boycotting this banquet and that is the leader of the liberal democrats ed davy who wants
02:49to make a point without disrespecting he says the monarch and he hesitated long and hard but he has
02:54decided boy got the banquet he wants to draw attention to what is happening the humanitarian crisis
03:00in gaza um and therefore he's decided not to attend and that is certainly a first for him and quite
03:07unusual all right we're looking at those images uh from uh earlier in the day benedict and uh
03:13it's quite a sight because all this is happening far very far from the public eye
03:19yes it's very close to us physically geographically a very spectacular and that is one of the many things
03:28uh that is recognized throughout the world of not just the soft power uh of the royals the british
03:34royals and of course we know uh the great admiration that uh during his first term and before and
03:41afterwards uh president trump had for the late queen three years uh of course uh since she left us
03:47um and also the great friendship uh that he has as he reminded us on air force one last night
03:52for now king charles of course he knew him when he was already prince of wales and there's a great
03:57respect uh for the united kingdom not least also because he had a scottish mother he owned some golf courses
04:03and invests uh in in the uk um and also of course without talking specifically yet in the debate about
04:10the special relationship but the historical uh relationship and of course uh not least i might throw in there
04:17the fact that the united kingdom is one of the uh has permanent seat on the un security council
04:21but there are possible controversies which we may come on to for example about gaza and the recognition
04:27uh that the united kingdom will have for the palestinian state uh like france and other
04:32countries and that could be a controversy and also last night we had that flashing just to set the scene
04:37and sorry uh besides the process some that were happening in london that are actually very much more
04:42muted than they were during the first time but of course flashing up jeffrey epstein virginia
04:47and president trump on the castle i gather um that it was some people who actually hired a room and
04:53who managed to do that four people were arrested and that was quickly stopped but possible controversy
04:59maybe tomorrow uh we will see and some more difficult subjects when we turn to politics but
05:05today it was ceremonial it was grand it was 1300 soldiers it was a fly past it was spectacular
05:09all right yeah most protesters in the grounds though behind walls as it's behind high walls
05:13most protesters kept at bay even though some managed to rent as you say that hotel room from which they
05:18projected those images of the of the trumps with the late jeffrey uh epstein uh remember last week
05:25there was the firing of the former labor minister and european commissioner peter mandelson uh who who was
05:32uk ambassador to washington this after it appeared that his relations with epstein were uh uh much uh tighter
05:40than originally stated on its front cover satirical magazine private eye put the uh awkward timing front
05:50and center uh there you see on the left uh keir starmer saying uh goodbye uh we will don't want peter we
05:58don't want anything to do with a friend of a pedo and on the right he's saying welcome president
06:04uh trump richard johnson uh you're in the capitol uh where the the walls aren't as high what's the mood
06:11well politically for uh this labor government what they are trying to achieve with this uh state visit
06:21is to help donald trump enable the labor government to deliver on its plans for growth
06:28uh this was the main promise that the starmer government made uh when they were elected last
06:35year and so far that gold has been fairly elusive and so the united states poses both a a threat
06:43and a potential uh advantage for the uk so the threat is that the there's this tariff threat that
06:50every country in the world is potentially facing um and is indeed facing at at the moment but then
06:57there's the opportunity the united states uh poses which is uh in terms of greater investment uh in
07:04areas like tech and in defense the problem for keir starmer is that donald trump is very unpopular in
07:12the united kingdom he has uh a 19 approval rating which i should add is actually higher than the prime
07:19minister's own approval rating at the moment so he's in good company there uh but it does mean that
07:25particularly for keir starmer's labor supporters um being seen to be so close to a much reviled
07:34political figure from the labor perspective as donald trump puts keir starmer in a tricky position
07:40trump can help him achieve some of his goals which might be able to help him improve his popularity
07:46uh overall but the the means for doing that which is a relationship with donald trump
07:53could have some short-term uh political uh blowback for him all right so in case of pick your uh druthers
07:59keir starmer uh making a full use of uh uh trump's penchant uh for uh uh rubbing elbows with the royals
08:08again putting uh king charles front and center you could also say the prince and princess of wales
08:15william and katherine uh were there to greet marine one when it landed at windsor this morning
08:21uh with vanity fair magazine pointing out that uh kate's burgundy dress was by amelia wickstead
08:29and her hat by jane taylor fax i did not know uh uh jeremy stubbs your reaction to those how far
08:37does soft power get you and and and and the kind of display we're seeing at windsor today well this
08:44is undoubtedly the display of soft power at its maximum and if this doesn't work then soft power
08:52no longer counts for very much with the united states from the uk point of view and this they're
08:59playing all their cards at once here if this doesn't work that's it and the question is will
09:05donald trump who who loves the king who enjoys being with the king will he continue to give a
09:13little bit of an aura to keir starmer keir starmer has been doing i would say much better on the
09:19international stage so far than domestically he wants to capitalize on this but now it's
09:24he's gonna you know his stock's gonna go up or it's gonna go down and way down and could this happen
09:30during the visit itself we will know much more by tomorrow evening after the talks at checkers when
09:37the serious subjects come out when the serious subjects come out uh at this point in time pierre
09:43trend your reaction to all this regalia that we've seen looks impressive i see the um the costume effect
09:50you know the uh the soldiers of the uh the good old days um yeah i harking back to the past works
09:59yeah yeah yeah i mean there's a very notion of royalty you know it's this um bring back the good old days
10:09benedict pavio uh we can roll images of the 2019 state visit the first one by donald trump
10:17and all the attention on palace protocol back then when the 93 year old queen the mother of king
10:25charles uh at the time uh greeted uh the president compare if you will not so much uh uh the the
10:35ceremonies because obviously we know those are different but the mood
10:38night and day of course it was a different world back then uh that may seem like an exaggeration but
10:50i think we've got much more divisive publics and citizens who are very worried about
10:57the cost of living whether it's in france in the uk in the united states
11:01social media has a very big role to play in that divisiveness and that is recognized
11:08uh very much uh the stunts that we witnessed last night uh with the jeffrey apstein thing these are
11:14things that police have to uh and intelligence services have to deal with but the mood of the
11:19people i was thinking earlier on so you see behind me um american flags and british flags union jacks
11:25most of the day there were more media and police here it gives me no pleasure to say but that's the
11:33reality and that is reflected in polls that say that a lot of british people actually um are not happy
11:41and feel quite uncomfortable at seeing this british prime minister yes not just courting some say just
11:47going too far uh in this courting of a u.s president what we understand is that the white house clearly
11:54and the president himself wants very much these images beamed around the world and also back into
12:01the u.s of the united kingdom pulling out the stops and he has a genuine affection for the country for
12:10the history i think there is a good rapport between the british prime minister and we will see if that's
12:15worn out tomorrow but i would expect that is the case we'll watch carefully the toasts that are made
12:19tonight i understand the king has drafted his uh toasts several times and it'll be a seven minute
12:25toast and that will be important but that some people feel deeply uncomfortable and what we saw
12:32actually is much bigger protests which may seem to contradict what i'm saying but first to stand here
12:38to see no security barriers for an american president to come and do a state visit and yes because of
12:44security behind closed walls but not see an enthusiastic crowd here for a u.s president
12:51i think that's quite staggering when we stop and think about it in the light of of history but that's
12:57this reality uh here in september 2025 yeah and everything carefully stage managed jeremy stubs
13:05there is that moment when there's a private conversation it's possibly already happened between uh
13:11uh donald trump uh and king charles uh how does it work is king charles uh groomed on what to say or can
13:21he speak his mind we know he's a environmentalist uh that he loggerheads with donald trump on more than
13:28that issue well he probably knows better than anyone what he should say in the circumstances
13:35he knows that he is in a sense the ultimate ambassador for the country and since he's become
13:42king he's been prepared to play down a little bit some of his uh own personal causes and he knows
13:51how important this is for the for the government the government will no doubt have told him it's very
13:55important but he won't have been he won't have needed to be told he's an expert at this kind of thing
14:02more than probably most of the other people who are there uh of course he cannot say anything though
14:07on the issues that are the most important for the country he can only in a way be nice
14:15to the big powerful man from across the water and in a way crave his indulgence
14:23and of course richard johnson the speech that will be read that seven minute speech that benedict
14:29pav hugh was telling us about that's one that will have been uh looked over as some say even
14:36perhaps written right by the prime minister's office yes every word will have been combed over
14:43this is maximum diplomatic niceties here we may be looking or listening i should say to hear if
14:52there's a particular rhetorical flourish or a little bit of a particular sign as to where
14:58uh these leaders think the direction of travel between the the these two countries is going but
15:05generally speaking this is not going to be a an opportunity for um controversy this isn't like
15:14out of a a film where uh there's a great kind of uh going to be a great challenge against uh uh to say
15:22the united states i mean we're just not going to see something like that i didn't want to just come
15:26in on on i think particularly benedict's points about the protests if i may which is that uh there
15:33is a certain degree of um inconsistency or almost hypocrisy we might say among british political
15:40leaders when it comes to reactions to trump versus other heads of state i mean in the past decade we've
15:46had heads of state from non-democracies or semi-democracies or countries with serious human rights
15:52questions um we've had uae kuwait qatar china xi jinping has been given a state visit to the uk
16:00the pro level of protest the level of boycotting that our um political leaders are currently
16:07expressing against trump is much was much much lower against those and i think part of that is because
16:12the united states looms so large in the british public's psyche uh we are so influenced by american
16:20culture and i also think it's not irrelevant to say of course our language uh similarities is very
16:27important here where british people can follow american politics and feel much more invested
16:33american politics and even there i say in france where of course there have been enormous political
16:37changes going on in france the last couple of weeks and the level of attention in the british media
16:41has been so much less than say for example the uh the assassination of charlie kirk in utah
16:47and part of that is about the difference of attention that our our um our public and our
16:52political class give to the united states and that's partly why you've also seen such mobilization
16:59um against trump yeah the greater attention to what happens uh in the united states from the british
17:06public some uh accuse the u.s of uh greater meddling inside of uk politics last saturday uh there was
17:17the biggest far right rally in london in decades a rally whereby video link elon musk who's no longer
17:24in donald trump's cabinet but still the world's richest man who controls uh the social media x called
17:32for the ouster of kirk starmer's government ellen gainsford has more
17:36it is my pleasure to bring from his majesty the king a fresh display of the special relationship at a sensitive time for kirk starmer the british prime minister has recently faced an embarrassing cabinet reshuffle and questions over his judgment regarding now sacked
18:06last weekend saw the biggest ever far right march in the country with over a hundred thousand people protesting in london at an event organized by far right activist tommy robinson
18:17and time and time and time again every time they think they beat us down we come back stronger look at these crowds man
18:27london's mayor sadiq khan says the u.s president is partly to blame
18:33president donald trump and his coterie have perhaps done the most to fan the flames of divisive far-right politics around the world in recent years
18:43u.s influence was on show at the march tech billionaire elon musk voiced his support by video link championing tommy robinson while calling for the downfall of the british government
18:55and many protesters expressed support for the political influencer charlie kirk whose assassination has exacerbated political division in the u.s
19:05the ceo of the british chapter of kirk's organization turning point claims support for donald trump is also on the rise in the u.k
19:14i think the feeling of trump's changed over here so back in 2016 when maybe social media was less prevalent i think people certainly had an opinion of trump thanks to the media
19:23now a lot of people have seen him online and i'd say actually his fan base is growing over here
19:28starmer himself has sold his conciliatory nature towards trump despite their political differences
19:35as a way to protect the u.k from u.s tariffs a technique that so far has proved only moderately successful
19:43jeremy stubbs um is there meddling by the far right in u.k politics in the u.s from the u.s uh the thing is the u.k is open to that
19:57right now uh there is a wide open door whatever the british public may think of donald trump the
20:07politician who's riding high in the polls and who if there are elections tomorrow will be prime minister
20:13is nigel farage who is a kind of epigone of of mr trump so there is to put it in economic terms almost
20:20there is a market for this kind of thing and one notices that it is very very different from other
20:28countries in europe like like france in particular and uh so hang on it's 16 percent support benedique
20:37says uh for for trump in that poll and yet you're saying uh nigel farage uh who's aligned himself with
20:46trump could be the next prime minister exactly according to the polls and the people obviously
20:52who are are suffering the most are the leaders of the labor and the conservative party my own party
21:00you know we've been forced out into the background and farage is taking the center stage uh we don't know
21:07if that effect will last of course but as i say that there is this porosity in british politics
21:15to ideas coming from the united states very different from anything we've seen before i would
21:21say richard johnson you agree broadly i would yes i mean part of the farage trump i just added one sort
21:32of caveat to the farage trump story there so last year nigel farage made a great deal about his
21:40closeness with donald trump and was going over to the united states and some people even wondered if
21:45he would actually stand for parliament in the general election of july of 2024 over here because
21:51that would be a distraction from him being able to spend time following donald trump in the american
21:56election but what's quite interesting is that since trump has won that election farage has put in a bit
22:04of distance between him and trump and that's exactly going to that point about the polling differential
22:10if you look at trump's approval rating sort of 15 to 19 percent among the british public
22:16nigel farage's reform uk party is about 30 percent in the polls and so what that means is that there's
22:24actually a chunk of people who either don't like trump or are undecided about trump and the british
22:30public who are supporting reform and as nigel farage wishes to build out his coalition
22:35uh and quite frankly to win over uh more kind of traditional tories more traditional conservatives
22:43then i think he's going to downplay that as some that association with trump i'll also say farage
22:50does not want to align himself with tommy robinson and some of the kind of uh uh the street level uh racism
22:59uh that was in in evidence uh over the over the weekend uh because that's very off-putting to the
23:06potential voters that he wants to to build into so farage is trying to go more mainstream and donald trump
23:13is not that helpful for him politically in britain in doing that all right so it's kind of the the same
23:20conundrum that we're seeing here in france for the far right do you uh try to make yourself more
23:25mainstream or do you double down on the white nationalist message well you can see how um
23:31there are certain cabinet members or well the previous cabinet members who are moving towards the
23:40right and um the uh the home home affairs uh home secretary as was um each reform
23:52home is towards the right and it's the rise of the far right on both sides of the channel
23:58certainly in paris certainly in france um and yeah you can see that on the other side of the channel as
24:07well you know the worrying thing with the saturday uh demo was what a hundred plus thousand whereas
24:15previously um it was perhaps tens of thousands or if that you know thousands but um yeah and how much
24:25how much of that is again that opening to uh to ideas that come from the united states the united states
24:30uh which didn't come empty-handed for this state visit before the banquet there was a flyover a joint
24:38military display by the british and u.s air forces a flyover of f-35 fighter jets made in the u.s of a
24:48pierre tran and uh at a moment where we're trying to talk about uh a european defense that would include
24:55uh britain more of what the french president loves to talk about strategic autonomy
25:00uh is uh is this a bit of a bear hug by the uh by the united states well let's see so uk is a so-called
25:11tier one contractor on f-35 it's what it means is big money so uk uh companies british companies led
25:22by bae systems um maybe 15 15 of the f-35 budgets that's a lot of money so the national audit office
25:35which is the parliamentary sort of watchdog the financial watchdog reckons that uk has made something
25:42like 11 billion pounds out of f-35 so it's it's a big arms um deal um the french like to call it the
25:52spy plane because the f-35 has all this software and to use the software you need the approval from
25:59the the maker who's in the united states yeah that's kind of the the um yes the the big talk was um you
26:07are being controlled by the u.s basically because um actually you know the the thinking is there isn't
26:16really this switch this american switch it's more you rely on a u.s industry and therefore white house
26:26approval for upgrades spares service maintenance all that good stuff just to keep the thing flying
26:34so there is a form of um you know industrial uh control and and the u.s of course its control uh
26:43being uh made obvious with the war in ukraine and uh wavering over whether or not to keep the supplies
26:51going as the uk tries to discreetly tiptoe into embryonic plans for an eu-led european defense fund that
26:58weans itself off u.s made military hard and software the guardian newspaper uh reporting this uh
27:05wednesday that france has proposed limiting the use of uh british produced military components in that
27:12150 billion euro fund uh jeremy stubbs if you're britain do you look towards the continent or the united
27:20states when it comes to defense and security you've got to look both ways and that is the balancing act
27:27here uh britain uh is economically more reliant on the european union than on the united states
27:37and it needs to keep sweet its relationship with europe at the same time i think it's still the case
27:43that british leaders see themselves as in some way uh second-tier ambassadors for europe in the united states
27:54and that is particularly the case at the moment where i think that one of the issues that will be
28:00discussed discreetly tomorrow at checkers is how far donald trump can be persuaded to turn against
28:09vladimir putin and give some sort of backing to a european defense force in a sense that is one of the
28:16prizes that keir starmer is after despite all of these great parades and meals and so on that is one
28:24of the things at stake and he's trying to do something that very often british leaders in the past have done
28:29as well and benedict pavio there's uh suspense when it comes to uh uh thursday's uh uh sit down between the
28:38the u.s president and the british prime minister at uh the uh country uh retreat of pm's uh checkers uh
28:46we don't know whether they'll be taking questions from the likes of you
28:54well um they i have been told and assured by downing street that they will be taking questions but you
28:59know we see what happened of course very different setup in alaska where suddenly president putin spoke
29:05first and then president trump spoke and then suddenly uh the room was aghast because it was
29:12two statements and no questions hopefully that won't happen tomorrow can i just come back very
29:18briefly about the political parties it is deeply worrying not just for the conservative party after
29:2314 years in power but also for the labor party that in the polls we were concentrating on how well
29:30for the moment uh for the last five months nigel farage's reform uk was doing but the
29:35the tories and the labor party together are polling less than 40 percent so there is indeed a vacuum
29:41about defense may i remind you alas that the f35 jets did not british and american uh fly because of
29:50weather problems so we had the red arrows which was fantastic um as far as defense and i could even
29:57say as somebody who's half french half british i have been aware all my life of how
30:04hesitant stroke nervous stroke unhappy here in the united kingdom any talk of a european army that exists
30:14that was part of the brexit vote that is part of an the uk independence sovereignty what you will that
30:23is how that is perceived i'm not saying what i personally believe i'm saying what is perceived
30:27here what has changed and what president putin wasn't expecting as many expert commentators have
30:33pointed out is that it has united europe i use that in the advised term not the eu but europe therefore we
30:41have seen this british french cooperation which actually frankly if we were to believe the tabloids
30:48it has actually always existed but it has become strengthened and we've seen president macron we've seen
30:54kia starmer very much leading
30:59the encouragement to try and get actual proper sanctions from president trump and security guarantees to
31:06do with ukraine so what the invasion by ukraine uh sorry the invasion of ukraine by russia has done
31:14it's united europe and this is where we're seeing slow quiet movements and an evolving position i think here
31:24about what european defense the reality is that since the end of the second world war all these countries have not been
31:31spending enough on defense they have been over relying on the united states and i think everybody
31:38now whether it's some populations but certainly the leaders recognize and have been forced to the table
31:43of pledging more of their gdp on defense that is the real world pure real threats um the increase well
31:52sorry the defense cuts uh in europe uh came after the uh fall of the berlin war they call that the peace
32:00dividend so that's where the the big uh defense cuts up to then it was pretty hefty spending
32:08is there a change in the last year the last two years when it comes to britain's attitude towards
32:14uh european defense as benedique points out the bilateral relationship with france that never went away
32:21the um so so so the two um countries uk and france uh have their own seats in the security council
32:31there are two european countries as nuclear powers the french are very proud of the fact that it's all
32:39home-built stuff whereas the brits uh rely actually on um us uh nuclear war not the warhead sorry but the
32:48uh the missiles the tried missiles all that good stuff they they bought in all that stuff uh from
32:54polaris um and uh courtesy of uh mr john f kennedy so no so there is a dependence of technology with
33:05the on the us and then along comes ukraine and um sorry mr vladimir putin actually and that's where
33:17there's a shift and that's um that's more recent so when monsieur macron the french president went on the
33:26state visit to mr starmer one of the things that came up was increased closer tighter british french
33:39nuclear cooperation um there was some already in the 2010 lancaster house treaty there was a separate
33:49treaty specifically on um closer nuclear cooperation so richard johnson does the visit of donald trump
33:57uh sort of kill the momentum for that shift towards uh closer ties with france closer ties with other
34:06uh europeans that are trying to boost their own uh military complex no i don't think it kills it off
34:15for a couple of reasons the first is jeremy's point that the um the united kingdom has always had to look
34:22both ways it's had to look both to europe but also it's had to look beyond not just to the united states
34:28but historically it also used to look even more out to the commonwealth and there are still some
34:34vestiges of that you can see that for example in in orcas which has created some consternation in france
34:40so it's a constant push and a pull um on on on on that uh respect um but the second point is that trump
34:49is not going to be particularly upset if europe takes more responsibility for its own collective defense
34:58indeed that really is something that trump has been saying since he was first elected president
35:04in 2017 is to say that uh the united states uh needs to pull back and the europeans need to step up
35:13and so uh actually if there's a political move within europe to take more responsibility and greater
35:21autonomy for defense then i don't think that's something necessarily the united states um would uh
35:27okay so entirely regret so donald trump doesn't mind uh the uk uh making and buying european when it
35:34comes to its own defense uh but it's a different story when it comes for instance to tech uh announced
35:42that the white tide banquet uh inside of the u.s delegation behind the walls where benedict is
35:49standing tech titans like open ai boss sam altman and there you see him the uh chief executive of uh chip
35:55maker nvidia uh jensen huang uh and there uh it's very much richard about buying american
36:06absolutely and of course the united states is going out to bat for its own um its own interests and
36:12economic interests and uh an economic cooperation with the united kingdom don't get me wrong i'm not
36:17saying that the united states is uh is saying uh please britain don't don't buy american but i think what
36:23they are are saying is particularly when it comes to um troops on the ground when it comes to uh
36:32investments uh supporting countries that are uh within the kind of uh danger zone with with with russia
36:42the united states is saying look uh european countries including the united united kingdom uh this is on
36:48your doorstep and we're looking for you to take responsibility uh uh more on that uh with with
36:55respect to to tech i mean this goes back to the point i made at the very start of the program which
36:59is this this visit is part of the british labor government's growth agenda project where they know
37:08that the success or failure of this government will ultimately rise or fall on the basis of whether they
37:14can get the economy growing and whether they can spread that growth across the country and so the
37:20united states offers some possibilities both in terms of tech investment and also in terms of
37:26defense uh procurement and investment to both grow the british economy and also to help secure jobs
37:34in britain uh in parts of the country that are the so-called left behind or the de-industrialized uh parts
37:42the country on the uh sort of more peripheral fringes and in the north and the midlands as well
37:49when it comes to we talked earlier the concept when it came to defense of strategic autonomy jeremy
37:53stubbs tech and the artificial intelligence race uh how will this make the united kingdom much more
38:02dependent on the united states in the years to come well if the aim is to create um the sorts of
38:09exchanges and mutual investment that will come to fruition as we've just heard it the key word is
38:17growth uh in maybe even in military terms starmer needs to get certain conditions from trump that
38:26will enable the country to make enough money to spend on defense and one of the things of course is
38:32tech and this visit is time to coincide with the announcement of a huge investment by microsoft and
38:37other tech giants in the united kingdom which is a rare ray of of good news in another way of
38:46bleak landscape so all of this schmoozing of president trump is in a way a message saying
38:53don't hit us with tariffs that are too high make an exception of us we already know that apparently trump
39:02has given the uk lower tariffs but it's not clear yet if it's really a better deal because there's a
39:09question of quotas etc there's still a question of steel there's and it's still 10 percent more than
39:14before it's 10 more than before but it's a better situation arguably than europe we don't know that for
39:23sure yet but this is one of the things that's supposed to be clarified one hopes in the course of this visit
39:29uh yeah the uh um uh sam altman and his uh and his ilk in those white ties at the banquet well
39:38they're no friends of elton john or paul mccartney or kate bush or a host of other british pop icons
39:45who are sick and tired they say of ai stealing and profiting uh from their uh work uh benedict
39:53benedict uh again the the the the arrival of trump with in tow uh those tech titans uh
40:03how does that going down where you are
40:09well mostly what we're getting is these announcements of as your guests have been saying which has got to
40:16do with the creation of jobs so that uh you know is is good news uh and it's huge investments i mean
40:25we're talking about uh 32 million pounds for example that is nothing to uh sniff at so from that point
40:33of view it's good but once people start realizing and there is a fear here in the united kingdom across
40:37the general population and in other european countries and indeed across the planet about how
40:44many jobs really are going to be dispensed with uh because of ai so i think that the full implications
40:51of that that are being point well some of the implications that are being pointed out by kate
40:55bush and elton john have not completely filtered down but there are you know there are unions and
41:01there are people and workers who are who are worried and that is at a time when they're already uh
41:07struggling i you know could talk about lots of businesses that are that are that are struggling what
41:13of individuals that are that are struggling so i think it's still the big unknown and yet we're
41:19told about many of the health or other advantages but often one hears about you know more job cuts
41:25because ai can replace this person doing that job so i don't think uh yeah we're not it's still the
41:32unknown still still the unknown richard johnson um we began by talking about soft power and king charles and
41:40uh princess uh katherine who when you look at britain uh who's got more soft power king charles or paul mccartney
41:53that's a it's a good question i mean they're both uh kings in their own way really um i look i i think british
42:00soft power does matter and i think it matters actually particularly for donald trump he is someone who has
42:08uh great affection for the united kingdom he's of course himself half british the son of a british
42:16immigrant to the united states but also someone who in his adult life has had uh long-standing uh
42:22commercial ties his golf courses of course in in scotland and royalty and celebrity are two things that we
42:33know donald trump has absolutely loved and has always wanted to associate himself with both uh now
42:41but also long before he was a political figure and so i think it's perfectly sensible and reasonable for
42:50the british public to try and roll out the stops on that and actually uh it's if you're trying to lobby trump on something uh
42:57uh going through an unconventional route like a uh like top flight celebrities like elton john or
43:04sir paul mccartney um is not necessarily a bad route because i think trump's ears might pick up if he was
43:11told that actually uh elton john has a message to you not least given that uh trump has used elton john's
43:17music so much on the campaign trail as long as he doesn't give an earful to those uh uh tech titans who
43:23were with him on inauguration day uh many thanks uh richard johnson for being with us from london
43:29benedicta pavio reporting uh from windsor pierre tran i also want to thank jeremy stubbs thank you for
43:35being with us here in the france 24 debate
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