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00:00Dan Williams is a Middle East reporter for Bloomberg News. He joins us today from London.
00:03Dan, great to see you as always. And let me pick up on something that Lisa mentioned just a moment
00:07ago.
00:07That is the phone calls that the president received yesterday from President Zelensky and President Putin as well.
00:12He had a lot of time to fill as he waited for the events to unfold in Washington, D.C.,
00:15it seems.
00:17But set the table for us for this NATO summit. It's scheduled to start on Tuesday,
00:20and I look at what the goals are as set out by NATO.
00:22Defense investment, defense industry, and support for Ukraine.
00:27What can we expect when that summit gets underway in Turkey?
00:30You noted very well the summary, the agenda for that meeting.
00:33I think it's also worth noting that it's being hosted by Turkey.
00:36Turkey has the second biggest military in NATO after the United States,
00:41and we have a U.S. president who's quite openly looking to draw down the U.S. presence in NATO,
00:48the U.S. contribution, certainly when it comes to Europe.
00:51That's something that's really troubled European powers,
00:54not least given what is perceived as a rather warm approach that Trump has been taking
00:59to the Russian president, Putin.
01:02So they will continue discussions we've seen from previous Trump administration,
01:07the previous Trump administration, previous years in which he's been president,
01:11about burden sharing, how much of the GDP of European partner countries should be dedicated
01:17to defense in order to relieve the really large, dominant U.S. contribution to that.
01:24The bottom dollar is something Trump is always looking at.
01:27I think unstated, but certainly present in the room,
01:30will be the sense that Trump is sore at the inconclusive end to that war in Iran,
01:36the war waged jointly between the U.S. and Israel.
01:40Turkey played that very well in terms of passing messages, being on the sidelines,
01:44openly expressing its disapproval.
01:47And I think the Turks will be wondering, and the Russians, and the Ukrainians,
01:51whether Trump is now looking for an easy win in his terms to close the deal in Ukraine
01:56so he can at least hold that up when it comes to the midterms a few months hence,
02:00when it comes up to his foreign policy legacy,
02:03or whether he might knuckle down on the U.S. contribution to NATO
02:07and see, nevertheless, that as something that's worth preserving,
02:10given what he's discovered about the limitation of U.S. force in that war in Iran.
02:15That's right. And Dan, Turkey has always been an interesting NATO member.
02:18They were one of the OG NATO members, but they've also been a bit contentious.
02:21Remember, we had that issue where they were trying to buy Russian S-500, S-400 missiles
02:26because the U.S. wouldn't sell them Patriots.
02:28That caused a bit of a kerfuffle.
02:30NATO threatened to pull the F-35 program,
02:31but it does seem like they are trying to get back in the fold
02:34and come up with, you know, by hosting this summit.
02:38But I also want to ask you about what you were also talking about,
02:40which is the war in Iran.
02:42When we were, yesterday, we were on the vessel and we were tracking the news,
02:46we were talking about, we saw at least eight ships do a U-turn yesterday.
02:50Four of them ended up taking this Iranian route through the Gulf.
02:53And I'm wondering what the state of play is likely to be in the Gulf for a while.
02:57And if, ahead of this summit, you're hearing any more impetus,
03:01any more willingness from European allies to get involved in either securing the Gulf
03:06or working out some sort of secure system for passage through the strait.
03:10It's far from secure.
03:12And the more pressure there is on them to see a resumption of energy
03:15by shipping companies related to those European countries,
03:18covered by the European countries, core suppliers,
03:20we may see individual efforts to help them out.
03:23What is clear for now is that the strait of Hormuz simply isn't open in any meaningful way.
03:29We are just under three weeks from when that OMOU was signed between Iran and the United States.
03:35The core primary objective there was to reopen the strait of Hormuz,
03:40mutually, jointly, by those warring powers that had individually managed to effectively shut it down.
03:45What we're seeing now is that is not happening.
03:48Now, the shipping industry, certainly when it comes to the insurers backing up those ships,
03:53is extraordinarily risk-averse.
03:55It would appear that some of those ships have received warnings from the Iranian military
04:00to abide by Iranian-defined safe passage routes in the Hormuz.
04:06It could be that mines have yet to be cleared, that threats have yet to be cleared there,
04:10and they're simply not ready to take the risk.
04:13So, in the three weeks since what was treated as a breakthrough interim peace deal between those countries,
04:19we've had, I think, three days in which they exchanged blows, exchanged fire again.
04:23Things are very, very shaky.
04:25It's not what anyone had hoped for,
04:26and it's clear that really there's much work to be done on the strait of Hormuz,
04:31not to mention the other issues of an eventual hopeful peace deal between Iran and the United States,
04:37which would have included, obviously, a satisfactory conclusion to the Iranian nuclear program
04:41and other military aspects and the like.
04:44To judge from the funeral over the weekend for the slain supreme leader of Khamenei,
04:49the Iranians are very, very defiant,
04:52and it could be that this will also be front of mind for Trump when he walks into that NATO
04:57summit in a few days,
04:58the way he's been treated, the way his country's been treated by a country that he claims to have beaten
05:04on the battlefield.
05:05And he has actually expressed resentment during the war for some NATO powers in Europe that he said
05:11either didn't deliver assistance or came through too late.
05:14I wouldn't be at all surprised if that is also given expression, at least on the sidelines of that NATO
05:19summit.
05:19Dan, let me rip up the script here.
05:21It's going to look like I'm obsessed with President Trump's phone log,
05:24but he had another call yesterday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
05:26We learned about that from the Prime Minister's Twitter account.
05:29And at the conclusion of a statement congratulating the U.S. on the 250th anniversary,
05:33it reads, Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump agreed to meet in the U.S. in the near future.
05:38Subsequent to that, Axios spoke with President Trump briefly, by phone again, I should add.
05:46Fourth of July, there were a lot of calls going on, yeah.
05:48The President said, we get along very good. Netanyahu knows who the boss is.
05:53Talk a bit about what we can expect when this meeting takes place.
05:55It sounds like it wouldn't take place until after the NATO summit concludes here.
05:59But that Netanyahu knows who the boss is is something that stands out to me.
06:02And, of course, I don't think they've met in person since, what was it, February of this year?
06:07Yes. They had a record number of meetings in the first year of this Trump administration.
06:13The pace has dipped a bit, not just because they were jointly running a war that would have kept them
06:17at home,
06:17but it would appear, given the mood music, certainly from the White House in the last two months or so,
06:22that there has been something of a souring on the part of the U.S. president on this ally.
06:28Perhaps the personal rapport remains strong, but nonetheless there is disappointment,
06:31certainly on the American side, at the outcome of this war.
06:34Maybe it's not as it was sold by the Israelis in preparation for the war.
06:38I think both allies were looking for a tidy four- to six-week campaign,
06:42at the end of which the Iranian regime would fall organically internally and they could declare victory.
06:47That didn't happen.
06:48Now, this meeting will probably happen next week.
06:50It's a risk for Netanyahu because, on the one hand,
06:52he wants a good photo op with the U.S. president to be able to convince his electorate
06:57that this alliance, this relationship, is back on track.
06:59However, the U.S. president is a bit of a wild card, as we've seen, as you noted.
07:04He speaks off the cuff, including to Israeli journalists, in a way that he wouldn't speak publicly.
07:09Maybe he hasn't even spoken to the Israeli prime minister, candidly, in that way.
07:13And there's a chance that he might take the opportunity to put Netanyahu in his place,
07:18to remind Netanyahu of the failings of that war in Iran.
07:21Again, coming after the NATO campaign, Israel is a significant partner, certainly in this war,
07:26an equal partner to the waging of the war.
07:29It's not a NATO member.
07:31It's had something of subsidiary relationship with NATO in the past.
07:34I think what Netanyahu will try to do ahead of the Israeli election in October
07:38is re-establish his prestige in Israeli eyes, given his relationship with the U.S. president.
07:43Maybe even argue that Israel should be deemed an ally on a level with the NATO allies.
07:48I think he will be happy enough if there are smiles in the White House, if the friendship
07:53looks to be on track, and there is nothing off script from the U.S. president that could
07:58get chins wagging back in Israel about the state of their relationship.
08:02Dan, before we let you go, we've got about a minute, just a little bit over.
08:04The president will be taking his new Air Force One to this summit.
08:08The Qatari jet.
08:08The Qatari jet.
08:10I have heard rumor that there are lie flats in the press cabin, which was not the case on
08:14the old plane, but I can't confirm that yet.
08:15But I did want to check in with you about how those alliances are going, not just with
08:20Israel, but with Gulf allies and regional allies whose lives have been made harder by
08:26this conflict between the U.S. and Iran.
08:28There was some reporting earlier this week.
08:30There's been a bit of a hard breakup between the Saudis and the Trump administration.
08:33How are the Qataris, UAE, Omanis, how are they all feeling about President Trump and
08:38the U.S. administration at this time?
08:40Well, for much of the Middle East, I won't name specific countries, but obviously when you're
08:44more centralized, tend to be more autocratic than democratic, you can very tidily shift
08:51policy and shift public messaging.
08:53You don't necessarily have to wonder about a public backlash, a domestic backlash, a backlash
08:59during an upcoming election.
09:00So when it comes to those other Middle East allies, they're certainly reorienting themselves
09:05to what appears to be certainly a defiant Iran.
09:08And I think potentially a triumphant Iran, given what Iran managed to weather in this
09:13war against the world superpower and Israel, they will also quietly behind the scenes be
09:18reassessing alliances potentially with Israel itself.
09:21If the U.S. is drawing down, I think some of those countries will be looking to Israel
09:25quietly as a partner in the future.
09:27However, if you note that many of them sent delegations to the funeral over the weekend
09:32of the Iranian supreme leader, it would suggest they're playing all sides.
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