00:00There's growing talk about strain in the transatlantic alliance.
00:03Do you believe the U.S. and U.K. special relationship is weakening now or is it simply evolving?
00:09Where do you see this going, especially in light of this of the visit of King Charles III?
00:14Well, I think that it's not just the the transatlantic alliance that's being challenged,
00:20but also, I mean, we see our Middle East partners are very impacted by this Hormuz Strait closure.
00:27And so we need all of our partners to do more, whether it's Middle East or our our NATO allies.
00:33But the NATO allies have really become they've what they've done is they've enriched their own citizens with very generous
00:41social welfare benefits.
00:43And they haven't invested enough in their defense and offensive capability.
00:49So the the the the military equipment, the training of the troops, getting enough troops and paying them enough that
00:58they can retain them.
00:59These is mostly young men. So there is an effort.
01:03President Trump has been very explicit and forward leaning on this.
01:07But President Obama asked to just less effectively that our NATO allies do more.
01:12We have this huge cooperation with Europe.
01:17The U.S. and Europe have almost two trillion dollars worth of trade annually between us.
01:22It's a huge, beneficial relationship. We share a lot of beliefs and civilizational founding.
01:30But what we see is that they've kind of turned against the U.S. in wanting us to continue to
01:37pay more while they benefit.
01:39And the American taxpayers are just done with it.
01:42They're not going to pay for Europe's wars. They're not going to pay for Europe's welfare system.
01:49We instead need to invest in our own country. Our infrastructure is actually aging.
01:54I was just in the Istanbul airport and it was stunningly beautiful, gorgeous.
02:00But our U.S. airports and we're a richer country.
02:03They just look like they're not very nice. They look like third world airports, most of them.
02:08And so I think that the U.S. needs to do a better job with investing in our own infrastructure
02:14and asking our allies to do more and to be more reciprocal.
02:18Whether it's defense or trade.
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