How EU is pivoting away from ‘toxic’ Trump & closer to China — Fareed's Take

[0:00] Here's my take. I was recently in Shenzhen, the heart of China's industrial machine, [0:06] talking to one of that country's legendary businessmen. I asked him about the Iran war, [0:12] and his response surprised me. He said, quote, for us, Trump's attack on Iran is less consequential [0:19] than his threat to attack Greenland. When he did that to America's oldest allies, [0:25] I knew that Europe would not follow America's approach to China, unquote. In the U.S., [0:32] Trump's periodic insults hurled toward Europe tend to get treated as routine tantrums, part of the [0:38] reality TV show that is now the White House. But in Europe, the accumulation of abuse has reached a [0:47] tipping point. Daniel De Petris recently wrote in The Spectator, a conservative and usually ardently [0:54] pro-American magazine, the war in Iran has forced Europe to grow a spine. European leaders are no [1:02] longer interested in dropping to their knees and groveling to stay on Trump's good side. [1:08] Europe is moving from words to actions. The EU's Rearm Europe Readiness 2030 plan is to invest some [1:15] 800 billion euros in defense in the coming years. The old model was that America took care of European [1:23] security and Europeans spent generously on American arms. Now, Europeans want more of their money to stay [1:30] at home to build European firms and supply chains and thus gain strategic autonomy from Washington. [1:39] The same logic is spreading beyond defense. The European Payments Initiative is building a continent-wide [1:45] alternative to Visa and MasterCard. European institutions are seeking alternatives to SWIFT, [1:51] PayPal, and other U.S.-dominated financial platforms. France has moved gold reserves from New York to Paris. [1:59] Politicians in Germany and Italy have debated whether their countries should do the same. [2:05] European governments are looking for alternatives to American software, [2:09] fearing that U.S. firms might one day be ordered to cut off critical services. [2:13] This can all be dismissed as posturing, but let's remember Europe is collectively the world's second [2:20] largest economy with the second most widely used reserve currency. Its actions matter. Perhaps the most [2:29] revealing change is on the European right. Anti-Americanism used to be a doctrine of the left. [2:35] Paris intellectuals, student radicals, anti-war parties. The right was instinctively Atlanticist. [2:42] And Europe's populist right once saw Trump as its patron saint. But Greenland, Iran, and Trump's general [2:50] contempt for Europe have made him politically toxic across the political spectrum. The Washington Post reported [2:57] that figures such as Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, Georgia Maloney, and Germany's AFD party have all [3:05] been distancing themselves from Trump and American policy. Even in Hungary, J.D. Vance's speeches for [3:12] Viktor Orban may have hurt Orban's electoral prospects. It goes beyond Europe. In Canada, Prime Minister Mark [3:20] Carney has explicitly set out to reduce his country's dependence on the U.S. market. He has already signed more than [3:28] 20 economic and security deals, including with China, to grow exports beyond the U.S. [3:35] Canadians, for their part, are buying less American and vacationing less in the U.S. Europe and Canada are not [3:42] about to embrace China. They have serious conflicts with Beijing over Ukraine, subsidies, electric vehicles, [3:48] critical minerals, market access. But both will play nicer with China where they can. They will hedge. [3:56] They'll deal with Washington when they must, Beijing when it suits them, and others whenever possible. [4:02] A recent foreign affairs essay by Chinese scholar Da Wei argues that for Beijing, the great new [4:09] geopolitical fact is there is now a deep Europe-America divide ready to be exploited. In Asia, America's [4:19] allies have been hit harder than anyone. More than 80 percent of the oil and gas that passed through the [4:24] Strait of Hormuz went to Asia. Now many countries on that continent are reeling from their worst energy [4:31] crisis in half a century, perhaps in history. As a result, American allies like Japan and South Korea [4:38] have had to go hat in hand to adversaries like Russia and Iran to negotiate for enough fuel to keep the [4:45] lights on at home. Adding insult to injury, they have had to endure abuse from Trump, who has denounced [4:52] them because, despite never having been consulted, they have not eagerly jumped to join America's war. [4:59] Many of them are now in talks with Beijing about energy security and green technology. [5:05] One of the recurring questions about Donald Trump's foreign policy has been, [5:09] How permanent are its effects? Could the United States recover from the loss of trust with its allies? [5:17] As we can see, countries have started making long-term policy shifts, and these will soon take on a life [5:25] of their own. They realized that they had entrusted their security and well-being to Washington, [5:31] and it has used this dependence to squeeze them hard. So they've decided to buy insurance to protect [5:39] themselves from an unreliable America. And who can blame them? Yesterday, President Trump cancelled a [5:46] U.S. delegation scheduled trip to Pakistan for a potential second round of talks with Iran, [5:52] claiming there was infighting in the Iranian leadership and that nobody knows who is in charge. [5:57] On the other side, the top Iranian negotiator has questioned whether the U.S. is, quote, [6:01] truly serious about diplomacy, unquote. This all comes amid a fragile ceasefire between the United States [6:08] and Iran and the continuing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by both sides. Joining me now to discuss [6:14] this stalemate is a man with deep expertise in military strategy and tactics, retired U.S. Navy [6:21] Admiral William McRaven. He has a new book out, Duty, Honor, Country and Life, a Tribute to the American [6:29] Spirit. Admiral, welcome. Always a pleasure to talk to you. I want to first ask you, just so that people [6:37] understand what is the situation, as far as you can tell, and you are on the outside, at the Strait [6:44] of Hormuz. Because, you know, in a sense the Iranians say that they have blockaded it, and the Americans [6:51] say, no, no, no, we have blockaded it just outside the Strait of Hormuz. There are reports that Iranian [6:57] tankers are getting by through a very intriguing scenario where they essentially hug the coastline of Iran, [7:06] which is not international waters, and then they hug the coastline of Pakistan, which is the next [7:12] neighboring country, and then hug the coastline of India all the way to get to an Indian refinery. [7:19] Is that plausible? And as far as you can tell, what is the state of play? Are all ships blocked? Are [7:27] non-Iranian ships blocked? How would you describe it? [7:30] Yeah, well, first, Fareed, great to be with you. Let me say at the outset, however, that [7:34] I think you know I'm not a big fan of President Trump, but I am very happy, very happy that he and [7:40] the First Lady and the members of his Cabinet and the members of the White House Correspondents' Dinner [7:44] are safe, and that the Secret Service and law enforcement just did an incredible job on a very [7:50] chaotic situation. So very thankful for that. You know, to get to your question, I mean, the fact of [7:56] the matter is, we're at an impasse here. You know, from the Iranian standpoint, you talked about coming [8:01] to the table. I don't think the Iranians want to come to the table, the negotiating table, until [8:06] President Trump lifts the blockade. And of course, the blockade really is about blockading, you know, [8:11] any and all cargo oil that is coming into or out of Iran, and frankly, globally. So Trump feels like [8:19] the blockade is his leverage. And of course, the Iranians won't come to the table until the blockade [8:24] is lifted. If I were advising President Trump, I would say, look, take this opportunity to expand and [8:31] open the ceasefire, make it go a little longer, tell the Iranians that you will lift the blockade [8:37] if they will open the Straits of Hormuz. I think that would get them to the negotiating table. [8:42] Once they are at the negotiating table, then you have time to be able to deal with all the other [8:48] issues, the enrichment of the uranium, etc. But until you can get them at the table, then I don't [8:53] think, you know, we're going to make much progress here. And so lift the blockade, because you can [8:59] always flip a switch and put the blockade back back in play. So in a sense, you know, [9:05] isn't it fair to say the Iranians are betting that they can take the pain more than the Americans can. [9:11] And I don't know, historically, it seems to me when we've been in these situations, Vietnam, [9:18] Iraq, that that's a you know, when for the for the country involved with the regime involved, [9:23] it's existential, they are willing to take more pain than than the United States for whom it is [9:29] not as existential. Yeah, absolutely. You know, Maureen Dowd had a great piece in the Times this [9:36] week, where she talked about the O. Henry story, the ransom of Red Chief, you know, where a couple of [9:41] hapless crooks kidnap a 10 year old boy, and then they find out he's more trouble than he's worth, and [9:45] they have to return him and they have to pay $250 to the father. I think we are in a very similar [9:51] situation right here. When we talk about escalation dominance and who holds all the cards, you know, [9:57] it's difficult to say we hold all the cards now. The fact of the matter is, the Iranians can [10:01] hold the Straits for Muz at risk because of the fast attack boats. They still have the drones. [10:07] They still have a fair number of ballistic missiles, but they can also hold the Bab al-Mandab at risk [10:15] through the Houthis. So the Iranians, I think, can put up with the pressure a little bit longer than [10:20] President Trump can because the global economy is suffering greatly, as you pointed out in the [10:25] first part of your piece here.