00:00Leslie, I love that you write that the summit has failed its primary objective, which is getting through with no
00:05drama.
00:06There certainly has been no drama. And listening to the president, is he just expressing skepticism over the ceasefire?
00:13Is this just a negotiating contact, a tactic? Or do you believe something has fundamentally broken down and now re
00:21-escalated in Iran?
00:23Look, something is clearly broken down. We've seen U.S. strikes. We see the threat of more U.S. strikes.
00:29They come on the back of Iran's attacks on those ships that we're trying to get through.
00:34But I do believe that all sides still have an overwhelming incentive to try to manage the escalation.
00:43At the same time, Iran feels its power. We know that Trump is not willing to concede a new balance
00:51of power.
00:51So he's using force. But the force is being used, I believe, in a way that's designed to threaten the
00:59other side in order to get a better deal, but not in order to return to full-scale war.
01:05But it's a highly uncertain, unpredictable, and shall we say dangerous situation.
01:10It's also very bad for the global economy, as we've seen.
01:15And, you know, all of this is happening when President Trump is at the NATO summit, meant to be focusing
01:21on transatlantic security, on the problem of Ukraine.
01:26And it is a, you know, it's a clear signal that this U.S. president will continue to be distracted
01:34and focused elsewhere.
01:36And Ruta, the secretary general of NATO, has also, you know, made it clear that Europe is going to, if
01:43he can persuade them, come along and support the United States president.
01:47You make a great point, Leslie. I mean, in a sense, the president was being fluffed up by NATO members,
01:54right, particularly the secretary general, which was when he made these comments about Iran.
01:58The secretary general had just complimented him vigorously numerous times and said that we wouldn't be in this position on
02:04Iran if it weren't for the president.
02:07So at what point do NATO member countries have to take some responsibility if this does escalate again?
02:12Look, there, you know, there are limited things that NATO, Europe, Europe's NATO members can do.
02:20But we know that the president wants to be, he wants to feel that he's supported.
02:26There is a real diversity of view across NATO members on how to manage this.
02:31And also across the publics in NATO member states, which are largely anti-American, certainly anti-President Trump.
02:40So there's a lot of politics to navigate. Root has gone all in on managing this in order to, I
02:46think, get through because, you know, the timeline is such that Europe needs those strategic enablers.
02:53And, you know, if you watch that, as we all did, that press conference between Trump and Zelensky, some of
03:00it seems to be paying off.
03:01Like, President Trump is, you know, favorable. He's signing off on the license for the Patriot missiles.
03:09And so, you know, playing this president tactically is reaping some dividends.
03:17And I know that this is a very controversial thing to say in Europe, but this is a moment.
03:22It isn't to say that America's not coming back in the same old way, but President Trump is singular.
03:29He's not simply a reflective of broader structural trends.
03:32I can tell you that the Chicago Council on Global Affairs has been polling Americans consistently.
03:38And Americans support NATO. They support Europe.
03:42They support trade to a much greater degree than the current administration.
03:47So the underlying sentiment in the U.S. is not aligned with the policies of this administration.
03:53So there is a strong argument for the steps that Ruta is taking.
03:57He's also creating the space for European and NATO members to step up their defense spending,
04:04which is happening to a degree, not as much in the U.K. as I think we need to see.
04:10And it's very interesting that President Trump is now stopping in the U.K. on his way home just before
04:17Britain receives its new prime minister.
04:20And, Leslie, I know with all of the years that you spent in London, you're an expert on both British
04:25and European matters, more so than perhaps anyone.
04:28So it's politics that these foreign leaders are having to play.
04:30But what about the president himself?
04:32He said moments ago in this bilateral conversation with Syria that maybe we'll have to do some things that increase
04:39the price of oil.
04:40He then, of course, went on to say eventually it'd be much lower.
04:42There's enough supply out there.
04:44But surely this is in the front of his mind, midterms to come, and the dissatisfaction of the American people
04:51when prices of oil and energy move higher.
04:53What does that mean for the lasting power of this aggressive stance that the president is taking, again, given what
04:59the political backlash might be at home?
05:02I mean, there's so much in here.
05:03And, first of all, I have so many friends and colleagues in the U.K., especially at Chatham House, who
05:08are far more expert than me on the U.K., but you're right.
05:10I spent 20 years there, still a home.
05:14And on the oil price, I mean, let me just say this.
05:17This president knows that oil prices come and go.
05:21And the midterm elections, you know, people are talking about them, frankly, I think more in Europe than in the
05:26United States in certain ways.
05:27They're a very long ways off when it comes to the price of oil, even to the rate of inflation,
05:34which is, you know, not good right now, but it's many months to go.
05:38And I think President Trump understands that.
05:41He knows that he has some room to play.
05:43Of course he can see that the American public is not supportive of the war on Iran, that they don't
05:48like the impacts on the global economy,
05:51that they don't like the way in which the war is rolled out, and Congress is, you know, slowly, possibly
05:58going to assert itself a bit.
06:03But there is room for the president to play, and he will continue to manipulate that.
06:09And he's not one to back down.
06:11I think he would like to back down, but in the face of Iran's attacks on those ships,
06:16he is going to continue to play a degree of hardball tactics, regardless of what advice he gets from those
06:25people around him.
06:27So, Leslie, what would be a win here?
06:28What would cause the president to decide not to strike Iran tonight, for example?
06:32What does he want?
06:35I think he would like to see some concession, some communication.
06:40But to be frank, that, you know, the window is so short between now and tonight, given he's in Europe,
06:50that it's hard to see what could be delivered in the short term in order to get the kind of
06:56visible concession.
06:57Remember, this is a president who wants to not only have a real concession, he wants a very visible concession.
07:05So it's very difficult to see what gets delivered on that very short timeline.
07:09I think right now he would like to escalate in a manageable way in order to drive a more serious
07:17negotiation in the days and weeks ahead.
07:21But again, you know, we're attributing a level of thoughtfulness and strategy and sequencing that we haven't seen coming out
07:33of this administration,
07:34in part because, you know, there are capacity problems, as we all know, but largely in part due to the,
07:42you know, the personality and the instinct of the sitting U.S. president.
07:48Unfortunately, everybody is suffering the impacts.
07:51Leslie, it is a market, though, that has gotten used to the president speaking in terms of escalation and then
07:57quickly backing off of it.
07:59We've seen in the past, he threatened something and then says we had some conversations and everything's OK and I'm
08:03calling off the strikes.
08:05And I wonder about that mechanism of markets as a check on this president.
08:10We saw it in full force after Liberation Day.
08:14And if this is a market that has decided to react less because it does see the president as bluffing,
08:20does that in turn kind of create this feedback loop where it lessens the president's pressure to back off any
08:26of his most serious threats?
08:27Or is that that concern about what oil prices are doing, again, to get back to that conversation, still a
08:33threat for this president?
08:34Well, first of all, I think it is it's a threat, but it's not a short term threat because he
08:39can see the fluctuation.
08:40We've also seen, you know, markets can calculate and, you know, this far better than I do.
08:45They can calculate the workarounds that are that are being taken such that the impact on a number of individual
08:53states and on the market in general isn't perhaps what we anticipated it would be at the start of this
08:58war.
08:59And I think there probably is a calculation, as you've said, they're sort of baking in a President Trump factor,
09:06that this is a volatility that is short term and could quickly change.
09:12And so how much do you read off of that or as opposed to other underlying fundamentals?
09:18So I think therein lies a dilemma in part for the U.S. president, but he's not solely driven by
09:25the short term price of oil.
09:29He's clearly, you know, looking, I think, at this point to ensure if he can, I think it's a hard,
09:35hard ask for this president to achieve.
09:37But if he can, he'd like to shift the balance of power so that Iran doesn't continue to have the
09:44upper hand on the Strait of Hormuz.
09:46And that is a fundamental dilemma that's been created, quite frankly, by the United States and Israel, by Netanyahu and
09:54President Trump in launching those strikes without a very clear plan or a calculation of the eventuality that the Strait
10:01of Hormuz would become weaponized.
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