Is the world ready for Trump 2.0?

[00:00:00] There's a storm coming. Around this time next year, if the polls are right, Western governments could be dealing with a grimly familiar face in the White House. A face they thought they'd seen the last of four years ago, along with his chaotic and disturbing style of government. Trump, 2.0, and Democratic politicians across Europe and beyond are weighing up how to deal once again with a US president who seems to have more in common with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

[00:00:25] So what should we expect from a new Trump administration? How dangerous is he likely to be to the basic rules of the international system, and our London, Paris, Brussels and barely in ready for what might be coming?

[00:00:43] The Why? Curve.

[00:00:45] So are you ready for Trump, 2.0?

[00:00:47] No, I think on so many levels it's going to be a scary time.

[00:00:51] But it could be. It isn't certain. We should say that.

[00:00:53] We know what he said he wants to do, though. This whole idea that he's going to be a dictator from Day One.

[00:00:58] Well, just on Day One, so it's going to be a very busy day for him.

[00:01:02] But what do you do a lot of damage in a day? But also, just the control. It's all about trying to grab control.

[00:01:07] That's what he's getting he's focused on, isn't it? So, like, he wants to, you know, they're equivalent of off-com.

[00:01:14] He wants to try and take control of that and have that have a direct reporting to the president.

[00:01:17] So he basically controls the media.

[00:01:19] I mean, it's a scary start. I mean, they always say with Trump, first time around, they said, don't take him literally, but take him seriously.

[00:01:26] Right.

[00:01:27] So, you know, what he actually says he may not do, but on the other hand, you know, he's, he's pretty focused on power.

[00:01:33] So the question is, if he's focused on power, how much is going to be a test of the American system?

[00:01:37] You know, how much of the system can stop him doing, even if he is intent on these things, can he be stopped by the American system?

[00:01:45] Well, and the system didn't prove that resilient last time, as we saw. But, I mean, first of all, you know, he's not actually certain that he will be there,

[00:01:52] but the polls are suggesting it's likely. And I think there's a feeling that this time will be different because he's got a lot of scores to settle.

[00:02:00] This is the awful thing. No, I mean, a lot of court cases don't forget hanging over him as well.

[00:02:03] Maybe he'd be president from jail.

[00:02:05] Well, you know, he might want, is that possible?

[00:02:07] It is technically possible, America, yeah.

[00:02:09] Right. Yeah, so absolutely.

[00:02:10] So how does that change America's standing?

[00:02:13] But I mean, if he's focused on just getting his own back on people, that's one thing.

[00:02:17] And that's sort of like a, well, unless it's on the international stage, that's sort of like a domestic American thing.

[00:02:21] And we can almost say, well, let's just leave them to that, you know, they have fun guys.

[00:02:25] But there's the problem with America. You can't do it.

[00:02:27] It's what it does on this. It's what it does on the international stage.

[00:02:30] Yeah. It will affect everything because they are so powerful, and what they do.

[00:02:34] And many people say this, you know, it also dictates the kind of atmosphere, the theme, the fashion almost in politics around the world.

[00:02:42] And that's terrifying. Yeah, it is.

[00:02:43] Well, and do we just ignore him?

[00:02:46] Do he? Does America become isolated?

[00:02:48] Does he can't ignore America?

[00:02:50] He just doesn't work.

[00:02:51] You know, historically, the last time that happened at all, was kind of the 1920s and the world is a very different place.

[00:02:56] A hundred years ago was a very different situation, you know, whether it's Ukraine, whether it's Gaza,

[00:03:02] whether it's relations with Russia, whether it's relations with China, it all matters.

[00:03:06] Huge. So all of those, the question of military ties around the world,

[00:03:10] and then the question of world trade and what do you have to do to that?

[00:03:12] And then there's the whole domestic agenda, what he does for the climate, as well.

[00:03:16] That affects everyone of course.

[00:03:17] And that, you know, and actually out of all of it, that is perhaps the biggest danger,

[00:03:20] because we all know now that, you know, even, even my brother is sort of, who works for BP,

[00:03:25] is sort of coming round to the way of thinking that, well, maybe there's a bit something in this climate change thing.

[00:03:29] And I feel that when he's turned, that the rest of the world, you know, that's, he's the last one, as far as I can tell.

[00:03:33] All right, okay.

[00:03:34] Apart from Donald Trump, you drill, baby, drill, he literally said that about a week ago.

[00:03:38] This is what Trump says, but again, what Trump says, what Trump does, who knows?

[00:03:41] But the fact is that governments certainly around the world, and certainly in London,

[00:03:45] the Sunak government is looking now, we know actively what it'll be like.

[00:03:51] And of course, maybe it'll be Mr. Starmer.

[00:03:53] And there's the secure music.

[00:03:54] Yeah. And it's very interesting, as it has that relationship going to go,

[00:03:57] but and maybe Kia Starmer will just go, well, okay, this is an opportunity for me to

[00:04:02] alert you a bit further to the right, as well.

[00:04:04] And that's the question, does the world, does the world just move further to the right?

[00:04:07] Yeah.

[00:04:08] Donald Trump is there, because everyone is trying to, you know, cozy up with him,

[00:04:11] and they go, hey, look, we can be populist.

[00:04:14] Well, it's populism, I think, rather than right-wingry, in a sense,

[00:04:16] because it's not traditional republic.

[00:04:18] Well, no, it's not, is it?

[00:04:19] That's true.

[00:04:19] It's a different kind of thing.

[00:04:20] And we've seen it, you know, whether it's.

[00:04:22] With the ill, in some ways, it's the opposite, isn't it?

[00:04:24] It's like anti-free trade.

[00:04:25] Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[00:04:26] It's a different thing altogether.

[00:04:27] Well, let's talk to someone who really knows what is being thought of in some of the

[00:04:31] government offices across Europe and beyond.

[00:04:34] Dr Andrew Gore Thorpe, he's a historian in the United States at Leiden University,

[00:04:38] in the Netherlands.

[00:04:39] He's written widely about this, and he joins us now.

[00:04:41] So Andy, I mean, I guess the first question is, I mean, if he was to win the vote,

[00:04:46] the popular vote, would he still be able to take office?

[00:04:49] Because there is the whole thing about the 14th Amendment,

[00:04:51] which, if you've been engaged in insurrection, that supposedly disqualifies you.

[00:04:56] But then, you know, Donald Trump doesn't seem to follow the rules,

[00:04:59] and seems to find his way around just about anything, doesn't he?

[00:05:02] Right. So this matter with the 14th Amendment, a few states have ruled that

[00:05:07] Trump is ineligible to appear on the ballot, either in the Republican primary

[00:05:11] or in the general election way to this year.

[00:05:12] And that's going to go to the Supreme Court, ultimately,

[00:05:15] and I think it's quite likely that they'll rule in Trump's favor.

[00:05:18] So I don't see, I mean, you know, anything can happen, I guess.

[00:05:21] But I think with this Supreme Court, they're not likely to rule against it.

[00:05:25] So that's maybe not so much of a threat.

[00:05:27] There's other court cases that are unfolding against Trump to do with

[00:05:31] the January 6th insurrection, the stolen documents case.

[00:05:34] And I mean, I do this for a living, and I lose track of all the court cases

[00:05:38] against Donald Trump.

[00:05:39] But if any of them found him in prison, I mean, would people still vote for him?

[00:05:43] Because at least several are more criminal, aren't they?

[00:05:46] In terms of felony?

[00:05:47] Some of them are criminal, and they carry incredibly serious penalties.

[00:05:51] And, you know, yeah, I tend to think that if he runs in prison,

[00:05:56] then he will lose the election.

[00:05:58] I think there's enough polling that shows that even Republicans say that if he's

[00:06:02] convicted, they're not going to vote for him.

[00:06:04] But the thing is that these cases are not guaranteed, or even, I would say,

[00:06:08] likely to come to a conclusion before November.

[00:06:11] They keep getting pushed further and further back into the long grass

[00:06:14] by Trump's various legal machinations.

[00:06:17] So my, you know, gut feeling is that that's not going to stop him

[00:06:23] contesting and possibly win an end for this election.

[00:06:26] If he does get pushed back, I mean, is it true that he can just give himself a pardon

[00:06:31] for these things?

[00:06:32] Yeah, so this is somewhat contested in constitutional law because it's not

[00:06:36] happened before.

[00:06:37] This has never been that president like Trump before who felt the need to pardon himself.

[00:06:41] But I think that probably again, with this Supreme Court, and they're the ones who will

[00:06:46] make the decision, I think it's quite likely that Trump would be able to pardon himself

[00:06:50] or essentially just ignore law enforcement and continue merrily about his business.

[00:06:55] So there's this strange situation where Trump could get elected president in November,

[00:07:00] get put in prison in December, and then pardon himself in January, on something like that.

[00:07:05] Absolutely extraordinary.

[00:07:06] So that doesn't say, you know, that sets a very bad precedent by the president,

[00:07:10] doesn't it? I mean, for lawlessness, I mean, in general, in general, you'll be going,

[00:07:14] well, look, if the president can do it, I can do it.

[00:07:16] Well, yeah, good start.

[00:07:17] Yeah, I mean, it's frankly insane, you know, to use a word that I don't use lightly.

[00:07:23] And Trump's lawyer has actually recently argued in court that the president is able to order

[00:07:29] seal team six to go and kill his political enemies.

[00:07:32] And that there would be, there should be no legal ramifications for that.

[00:07:35] They say that the only thing, the only mechanism to hold a law breaking president to account

[00:07:41] is impeachment. We know impeachment's broken.

[00:07:43] Republicans won't impeach and convince Donald Trump. So they're essentially saying that the

[00:07:47] president should be able to get away with anything. So if you imagine that a president enters office,

[00:07:52] having just received for this blessing that he can do whatever he wants and the legal system

[00:07:57] can do nothing about it, then you start to understand why so many Americans are so worried

[00:08:02] about what Trump might do in a second time.

[00:08:05] And not just Americans, because this thought experiment that we're putting in place here is

[00:08:08] saying, okay, in January, after the election, Donald Trump is put in place, he's sworn in,

[00:08:18] and then Western governments, the government in the UK, Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Canberra,

[00:08:24] look at this and go, right, we now have to deal with a person in the White House whose

[00:08:29] decisions affect all of us is Donald Trump. I mean, is there a sense that they're ready for this?

[00:08:35] I mean, I think it's really difficult to get ready for it. They're not ready for it.

[00:08:38] There's two reasons it's difficult to get ready for it. One is that Donald Trump is so

[00:08:43] unproduced, born in a ratchet, so in a way, you can't really know what he's going to do, right,

[00:08:48] or exactly how he's going to pose a challenge. But then the things that he's announced that he's

[00:08:53] going to do or plans to do, they strike at the heart of the Western alliance to such a precise

[00:09:01] degree, that I just don't see how there's any precedent.

[00:09:05] and post-war history in the Western alliance of how we would cope with these things. So Trump's talking about withdrawing from NATO. That would be such a cataclysmic event for Western European governments. And I'm not really sure that they can kind of see, it's like the event horizon of a black hole. They can't see beyond it at this point because it would be such a massive event that would change so many things. And how do you plan for something like that?

[00:09:30] So we believe that the places like Russia and China and Iran, they're all colluding in some way

[00:09:39] or other, whether it's overtly or otherwise. And then we've got the West fighting against the

[00:09:45] axis of evil, or whether it might have been called only China. It's not even a visage, but yeah.

[00:09:50] So where does America fit in that? Is America as against those regimes as America has been in the past?

[00:09:59] Or is Trump going to go, well, you know, I don't think Putin's about blocking, you know,

[00:10:04] I'm actually taking some inspiration from him and some of the laws I want to pass. Where does

[00:10:09] America fit now? Right. So you have this situation in America now where the politics is so polarized,

[00:10:14] the two parties have such completely different ideas where Iran policy should be run, that a

[00:10:20] single election can lead to a really massive change in the orientation of American foreign policy.

[00:10:26] Everything that we've seen before about where Donald Trump's places himself in this context

[00:10:31] that you're talking about, tells us that he believes that the autocratic states, the dictators,

[00:10:38] like Xi Jinping, like Vladimir Putin, are his kind of people, that these are people that he can work

[00:10:45] with. He can kind of treat them as peers and cut bills with them. And that is a way of looking at

[00:10:51] world politics, which is very unusual in recent American history. Most American presidents see

[00:10:58] the democracies as their natural friends. They see democratic leaders as the people who are like

[00:11:03] them and the ones that they want to cut deals with. But it seems that Trump thinks that through

[00:11:09] his own kind of, you know, the art of the deal, right, this thing he trades on what he supposedly

[00:11:14] amassed a negotiator that he can go to Moscow or can go to Beijing and cut some sort of deal

[00:11:21] that's just going to sort out all of these problems. When you consider that in reality,

[00:11:26] he's incredibly naive and inexperienced in international affairs. He doesn't really know

[00:11:31] what he's talking about. All he wants to do, and we saw this, for instance, with his dealings

[00:11:35] with North Korea in his first time, where all he wants it to do was just have a big press conference

[00:11:41] where he could make a speech and say, "We've solved this problem and now everything's fine,

[00:11:46] and you know, we can get on with our why." He's not fundamentally a serious person, and he gets,

[00:11:51] so he gets his lunch guests eaten by these guys. They just take him for a ride, and so he has bad

[00:11:59] instincts, and he has bad implementation of his instincts as well.

[00:12:04] But if we take Trump one, there was all that fear as well about what would happen, but he's

[00:12:09] the people who surrounded him by and large didn't, I mean, it wasn't a cataclysm. There

[00:12:14] wasn't-- I mean, there were things where, as you say, there were some ridiculous things went on,

[00:12:18] but he didn't withdraw from NATO. Yes, he certainly ended the Iran deal, but it wasn't

[00:12:24] absolutely madness, because he has a lot of advisers. It wasn't the same thing happened this time.

[00:12:28] And that choice on the Iran deal might not have been a bad decision either, by the way.

[00:12:32] That's arguable, but yeah.

[00:12:33] Yeah, and so I think this is a really key question, because it is indeed the case that in his

[00:12:38] first time, many of the things that Trump said he was going to do he didn't do, and people around

[00:12:44] him seem to have stopped that from happening, so like John Bolton supposedly headed off several

[00:12:49] of them attempts by Trump to withdraw from NATO. The thing about a second Trump term, which might

[00:12:55] be different, of course, we don't know, but which might be different, is that he's unlikely to have

[00:13:00] that same caliber of person around him again in a second term. And at the moment, there are a lot

[00:13:06] of efforts underway in various U.S. conservative think tanks. Some of them kind of upstart think

[00:13:13] tanks that have grown up specifically to produce people who have the same policy views as Trump,

[00:13:19] who are essentially planning the staffing of the next Trump administration.

[00:13:23] And one of the ideas that's been floated around here, and that Trump himself is endorsed,

[00:13:28] is to actually change the way that the human resources law operates in the federal government

[00:13:34] so that he can sack many, many more people in these federal agencies and put his own people

[00:13:40] in charge of them, and not just in charge of them, but also on the second, the third,

[00:13:44] the fourth rung of the bureaucracy. And his idea with this is, you know, the big problem that Trump

[00:13:50] had from his own perspective in the first term was that he didn't really understand how the

[00:13:55] government worked, and he wasn't very good at pulling the levers of the government and getting

[00:13:58] it to do the things that he wanted it to do. So the idea isn't a second term that he, you know,

[00:14:04] has a plan for how to do that. Now that might not work, you know, I don't know, but this time he

[00:14:10] seems to have a much clearer idea of how to implement his agenda. I do, if I can add, though,

[00:14:16] I do think that there's one limiting that I actually place more faith in, which is that we

[00:14:22] also noticed in Trump's first term that he was incredibly concerned with economic indicators.

[00:14:28] And I mean, you guys remember how he would just talk about the stock market all the time,

[00:14:32] and that was kind of his measure of how well his presidency was going. If the stock market's

[00:14:38] high, then everything's going great. Now, something like withdrawing from NATO, for instance,

[00:14:43] is going to crash the stock market. It's going to crash economic indicators. It's going to,

[00:14:47] you know, the same as trade agenda as well. So I tend to think that the thing that limits Trump

[00:14:53] from taking extreme actions is actually that he wants to just be a good steward of the economy.

[00:15:00] And ultimately, there's a limit to the disruption he wants to cause because as soon as that starts

[00:15:05] feeding back into the things that he cares about, he might back off from it.

[00:15:08] Well, I admire your faith in the stock market as being a good indicator of the health of an

[00:15:12] economy. Because, I mean, you could say, well, people investing in American shares, Michael,

[00:15:19] well, this is good. This is sort of like an American first approach. It's going to be good for American

[00:15:22] companies. And so these businesses might win out of it. I mean, money's still got to go somewhere.

[00:15:28] So, you know, there's an argument both ways on all of that. But you were talking about the

[00:15:32] idea about him taking control. And yeah, I guess this idea that the Federal Communications

[00:15:39] Commission would come under his direct control. That's something that he said he wants to do.

[00:15:42] That's the sort of thing you're talking about, isn't it? Which is scary because then he's got

[00:15:46] basically the media under his control, which sounds very dictatorial.

[00:15:50] Right. I mean, there's still a lot of federal law that governs how the FCC works that I think

[00:15:55] would limit to some extent what he could do in that realm. I mean, something he tried to do in

[00:15:59] his first term was to really bring outlets like the Voice of America, much more directing under

[00:16:05] his control and to push not just a pro-America angle at these kind of quasi state media outlets,

[00:16:13] but more of a pro-Trump angle. And to get the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe to kind of

[00:16:20] support and populist movements abroad and things like that. I think the agency is that I worry

[00:16:25] much more about been under his control, customs and border protection, and well, the Department of

[00:16:31] Homeland Security in general, the State Department and the Defense Department. Because many, many times

[00:16:36] in his first term, things that he wanted to happen didn't happen because there were professionals

[00:16:42] in these agencies who pushed back against them. I mean, one example to take immigration is that

[00:16:49] Trump was floating all kinds of ideas in meetings with Department of Homeland Security officials,

[00:16:54] like, can't we just shoot refugees in the legs? Can't we put an alligator-filled moat of the border?

[00:17:00] And I mean, some of these are ridiculous. It's tempting not to take them seriously. But then you

[00:17:05] look, for instance, the family separation policy, which the administration did push through and did

[00:17:10] stay operating for a couple of months to see the kind of damage that he can do. So I think the

[00:17:17] more that he gets the foreign policy agencies under his control, the less people there are to tell

[00:17:23] him what's a bad idea and what's a good idea. And that weakens that dynamic you talked about earlier

[00:17:28] were the so-called adults in the room stop him from doing very negative things.

[00:17:33] Well, there isn't a lot of it. It's going to be whatever Sean Hannity's been talking about as

[00:17:36] well, hasn't it? You know, I mean, he goes down that popular road and the talking heads on

[00:17:41] Fox News or wherever. I think have a lot of sway with him, don't they? Because he sees that

[00:17:46] they have got the, you know, if they've got an audience, if they're rating, however, lose

[00:17:50] Chris the idea, if they're rating, then that translates into if he can then turn that into

[00:17:53] reality. What a winning combination that is. Right, exactly. I mean, this is something that

[00:17:58] we saw in the first Trump administration. You know, I would argue that Fox News became, in a way,

[00:18:04] the closest to a powerful state media outlet that any American president

[00:18:10] wasn't as ever had access to but it wasn't just that Fox News was willing to endure kind of propagandize around everything that Trump did. It was also like you said that it became the way that the base talks to him. It became the way that the kind of right wing media figures and populism could really influence Trump and he often judged the success of what he was doing against what Fox News was saying. Now at the start of this Republican primary, it looked

[00:18:40] briefly like the Murdoch media empire might endorse Ron DeSantis and I think maybe that could have had a

[00:18:46] foreign decent is to turn out to be such a kind of terrible campaigner and just do a really bad job running his campaign. But now that Murdoch empire is firmly back in Trump's camp. It's firmly again just defending everything he does trying to push him these bad ideas. And I mean people are even talking about Tucker Carlson might be his his vice president nominee.

[00:19:08] And you know which it's not too accurate. I don't think because you know, I don't think Trump's going to take on somebody who's much more charismatic than him. And you know, has his own in the back of Colson. We should add for those who don't follow us media. That closely very controversial, host of TV radio and highly controversial figure. But entirely from within that media world. He hasn't been a politician. No exactly. You know, he's he's he became one of the strongest media figures that was pushing

[00:19:38] Trumpism and America fast. And that often deviated from what the actual real Donald Trump was doing. I mean, you see this also with Steve Bannon, who was also a very prominent figure in conservative media and actually came into the Trump White House. And it's his first year.

[00:19:53] And then he left in quite a disaffected state because Bannon didn't like the fact that there were other power centers in that White House. You know, there were the Wall Street guys. There were the traditional national security guys.

[00:20:05] Bannon just wanted it to be all America fast all the time. And Donald Trump, you know, whatever you might say about him and I believe me, I have a lot of things to say about him. He's not the most ideological, consistent person.

[00:20:17] I think that he's not as ideologically consistent as Tucker Carlson as Steve Bannon. So these people have an uneasy relationship with him, but they're constantly trying to push him towards what they see as true Trumpism.

[00:20:30] So with all this, with all this happening there, Andy, and this is being observed, and I guess now thought about in London, Berlin, Paris and other places.

[00:20:40] What, how can they deal with what you're talking about? What will might be coming down the line? What are the kind of ways in which they could take on Trump or deal with Trump? Is it a question of isolationism?

[00:20:52] They simply back off and try and say, well, America's left the playing field and we have to do things on our own. I mean, what are the ways they should be thinking about it?

[00:21:01] At what point does diplomacy do you throw away diplomacy? And that is just ridiculous. We want nothing to do with you.

[00:21:06] Right. So I think that the first thing that they should do and that they will do is that they will try to sell Trump as hard as possible on the status quo.

[00:21:14] They'll try to convince him that staying in NATO at the current level of commitment is in America's interest. So the coalition government in Germany will go to Trump and say, look how much we've increased defense spending.

[00:21:25] Look, we're doing what you want us to do. So you should stick with us and not really rock the boat here.

[00:21:31] If and when that fails, then eventually you will reach a point where I don't think that countries will go for isolationism, but they will start seeking purely bilateral benefits from Trump.

[00:21:44] They will say, basically, if we're entering this more kind of situation of anarchy where these multilateral institutions like NATO and breaking down or the global trading order is breaking down, we need to make sure that we come out of this scramble as top doc.

[00:21:58] So we need to try to get close to Trump, suck up to Trump, make sure that we get preferential treatment and trade matters, make sure that he recognizes our military contributions, you know, has been adequate or above adequate.

[00:22:14] You're going to see, you know, no country in the world, I think, can fall to say, oh well, you know, we just can't care what the United States thinks anymore. We don't care what the United States thinks anymore.

[00:22:25] Every country will seek a close relationship with that administration. And what is kind of worrying about this is that this leads them to, in a way, a kind of legitimization of Trump's approach.

[00:22:38] Oh, thank you. You abandoned your beliefs, don't you? So, I mean, a great example of that would be if he comes in and he's almost said this, that the situation in Ukraine, I mean, he said, oh, that can be solved in a day.

[00:22:49] He says, you know, I just want to stop the fighting. I want to stop people being killed. And from that you sort of think, well, that's him saying, well, okay, let's just call a ceasefire.

[00:22:59] Let's let Russia keep what it's got. And let's stop funding Ukraine. And the West is not going to accept that. Well, Europe can't eat the EU can't accept that, can it?

[00:23:09] No, I mean, I think that the EU will not be happy about that. The UK will not be happy about that. But they have at the end of the day quite limited tools to do anything about this.

[00:23:19] I mean, it's not just the fact that America is materially much more important in providing support to Ukraine, but it's also the American leadership, which has been exercised by the Biden administration.

[00:23:31] It brings together all these disparate allies with different agendas and gives them a plausible diplomatic and military route to achieve the goals that they want to achieve.

[00:23:45] And if you take that away, then Ukraine gets in trouble really quickly. And of course, I mean, you're all doing what Donald says, basically, you know, it's like he will be motivated by that because he'll be showing his strength, because everybody has just fallen

[00:24:00] into line with the approach that's going to take this. We don't have the resources. Yeah. So he's right. He has got the power.

[00:24:05] Right. Exactly. So, yeah, it's for him. It gives him those moments that he craves where he can fly to Europe or Kiev or Moscow and sign some agreement and then say, look, I did something big.

[00:24:16] I Donald Trump changed the reality of the world here. And for a lot of voters back in America, that will be a stronger argument. You know, people who don't necessarily know the details of these conflicts don't understand how it feels.

[00:24:29] Don't understand how it fits into the broader context that you asked about earlier with China and Iran and other countries.

[00:24:36] But for European countries, the countries that are here on the doorstep of Russia on the doorstep of Ukraine, these are incredibly consequential things.

[00:24:46] You know, if Trump does do this, if he does withdraw support from Ukraine, then you're going to be forced in people in Europe and the UK going to be forced to really, really think hard about how do we reconstitute some kind of security in the absence of an American commitment.

[00:25:03] I think the situation for Britain is particularly difficult and interesting because the obvious route to European security without America is obviously through some sort of cooperation, some sort of cooperative mechanism.

[00:25:18] And the EU is the most obvious vehicle through which to do that. But the UK's politics towards Europe are very, very complicated right now.

[00:25:28] That could change a lot under, for example, the Kiyostama government, I guess.

[00:25:31] Yeah, I mean, I do. It could actually bring on, you know, reinitification of the UK into Europe, couldn't it? If we see this sort of dramatic change.

[00:25:37] Then we give you another one as well then, because I mean, it's terrible, isn't it, to think that, you know, the global shift that would happen towards America and some of these battles that are being fought right now might be just given away.

[00:25:47] Because one man has decided that that's the approach. What about another thing that we might not be prepared to abandon climate change? He's not a big believer in climate change.

[00:25:55] Do we just all fall into line and say, well, you know, it was a nice planet while we had it. Let's just make the most of it while it's still here.

[00:26:02] Right. And I mean, that's true. Donald Trump is not a big believer in climate change. And there's two main ways that that's going to play out.

[00:26:10] So one of them, which is really important. That's where he's domestically. The US is the second largest emitter of fossil fuels. So what it does at home is really important.

[00:26:19] The Biden administration had this really strong agenda of investing in domestic clean energy industries and trying to build out the infrastructure for the green transition, which actually has led to many, many more manufacturing jobs appearing in the US as well.

[00:26:36] So it's to me like a bit of an open question. What's Trump going to do with that part of the agenda? Because it strengthens American manufacturing. That's supposed to be something that he likes, but it does it in service of this kind of new economy that he dislikes.

[00:26:51] But if he were to take an axe to that, that would really, really undermine American leadership on this issue. And the other thing that we can expect him to do internationally is to, of course, withdraw once again from the Paris climate accords.

[00:27:04] And if he does that, he's really, really setting back global cooperation in pursuit of the green transition and trying to combat the effects of climate change.

[00:27:15] His policy towards China is also really important to watch.

[00:27:18] I was going to bring that up because China, I mean, he was famous for being very hard

[00:27:22] line on China and yet at the same time he's expressed some appreciation for Xi Jinping.

[00:27:27] But he's also said 60% tax on all Chinese imports.

[00:27:31] Yeah.

[00:27:32] So I think that Trump's policy towards China in his first time is sometimes a bit misunderstood.

[00:27:37] So he was incredibly strong or let's say incredibly harsh on trade issues.

[00:27:43] So he started this trade war with China.

[00:27:46] He talked a lot about the balance of payments.

[00:27:48] He really wanted to put a lot of tariffs and harm Chinese manufacturing.

[00:27:52] But he was actually at the same time, very, very weak and did not confront China on security

[00:27:58] issues or on human rights issues.

[00:28:00] Because he doesn't care.

[00:28:01] There's a book by Josh Rogan, who's a conservative columnist with one post about Trump's China

[00:28:07] policy.

[00:28:08] And he quotes a few things that Trump said to his staff about China in the first administration.

[00:28:13] One of them was, "I don't want to hear a word from you about Hong Kong or Taiwan or

[00:28:17] the weakest."

[00:28:19] And he also said, "Hong Kong, sorry, Taiwan is like two meters away from China.

[00:28:24] It's 9,000 miles away from us.

[00:28:27] If they attack, there's not a bleeping thing that we can do about it."

[00:28:30] And he was really, really not strong on maintaining U.S. security alliances in the Pacific.

[00:28:36] I mean, if you remember, he was constantly talking about, "We're going to withdraw troops

[00:28:39] from South Korea. We want Japan to pay more for our troops to be there."

[00:28:43] So I think in his second term, you're probably going to see once again this really massive

[00:28:49] focus on trade issues, which has a spillover into the security realm because China views

[00:28:55] this aggressive trade agenda as part of a security effort by the U.S. to suppress its

[00:29:01] rise and suppress the development of its own power.

[00:29:03] But I don't think Trump's not interested in defending Taiwan.

[00:29:07] I don't think he's not interested in the wingers.

[00:29:09] So there's kind of this weird dichotomy to his China policy, which I think people don't

[00:29:14] talk about that much.

[00:29:15] Well, let me pick up on that, because one of this whole thing, and you mentioned it,

[00:29:18] is the economics that lies behind Trump and his suggestion or his feeling that he is guided

[00:29:23] by, for example, what's going on on Wall Street.

[00:29:26] I mean, the position of America at the moment, coming out of a period of high inflation and

[00:29:32] relatively high interest rates and moving, it seems in the right direction, is Trump

[00:29:37] actually going to inherit, if he gets into the White House again?

[00:29:41] An economy that's really going in the right direction, is he going to, in fact, have a

[00:29:44] kind of Clinton boom type thing, in which case, a lot of this may be, I suppose, his

[00:29:50] riding on success with more money to do things, and where America goes well in economic terms,

[00:29:56] most of the world does too.

[00:29:57] If that does happen, that will be very similar to the story of his first administration as

[00:30:01] well, you know, inherited an economic boom that began in the aftermath of the Great Recession,

[00:30:07] economic growth in the US was high, unemployment was low for most of his administration, and

[00:30:12] so the COVID pandemic.

[00:30:14] The same thing could happen again now, but I'm not an economist, but all the economists

[00:30:19] I read say that the US seems to have avoided a hard landing from its inflation problem,

[00:30:24] it seems to be on a path to growth.

[00:30:26] Now, I do think that, again, with the caveat that I'm not an economist, that the US fiscal

[00:30:32] situation seems to be more constrained than it was previously, that post-Great Recession

[00:30:38] and period of incredibly low interest rates seems to not be a situation that we're going

[00:30:43] to return to.

[00:30:44] So there are still choices to be made now, as we know, the way that republic administrations

[00:30:49] have made these choices since Reagan is that when faced with the choice between guns and

[00:30:54] butter, they don't choose, they just choose both, you know, they usually pass large tax

[00:30:59] cuts and also high defense spending, and I think that's probably where you will see

[00:31:03] Trump's fiscal policy go in a second term.

[00:31:06] He'll try to trim some spending, but I think an underappreciated part of Trump's political

[00:31:13] brand and what led to his success is that he's not the sort of Republican who out, get,

[00:31:19] you know, trimming or privatizing social security, he's not the sort of Republican who talks

[00:31:25] about trimming or privatizing Medicare or Medicaid.

[00:31:29] He recognizes that his base voters really rely on these welfare programs, and that makes

[00:31:34] him very different to many of the Republicans that came before him, this kind of Paul Ryan

[00:31:39] style conservatism, which was all about, you know, fiscal austerity and getting the budget

[00:31:44] balanced again.

[00:31:45] That's not Trump, you know, in his personal life, in his political life, Trump said, I

[00:31:49] can have it all guy, right?

[00:31:51] He doesn't make hard choices like that.

[00:31:55] So actually, if you accept the continuation of those large social security programs, there's

[00:32:01] actually not that much fat to trim from the federal budget, you know, those programs

[00:32:05] make up so much of it.

[00:32:07] So, you bring Congress along with him on this, because I mean, it's a general election,

[00:32:11] there will be a new Congress.

[00:32:13] And the likelihood is if he succeeds, I guess, Republicans will, but the kind of Republicans

[00:32:18] on the Hill will be the kind of people who would back that.

[00:32:21] You mean the kind of people who would back.

[00:32:23] Well, what Trump, what you were saying about Trump's economics, are you not the Paul Ryan

[00:32:28] style?

[00:32:29] Right.

[00:32:30] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:32:31] Because the Republican party is becoming much more Trumpified.

[00:32:33] You find hardly any Paul Ryan conservatives anymore.

[00:32:36] I mean, Ron DeSantis used to be a Paul Ryan conservative.

[00:32:40] And then when he wanted to seek the Republican presidential nomination, he went full Trump.

[00:32:46] So the Republican party has really changed.

[00:32:48] And you know, it's often not appreciated that Trump moved its economic policy somewhat

[00:32:53] to the left of what came before it because he's not targeting these big entitlement programs.

[00:32:58] And there are congressional Republican party, but absolutely continue to go along with what

[00:33:03] he wants.

[00:33:04] So, you know, I think that you're going to see under Trump, this continuation of a kind

[00:33:09] of big spending fiscal policy, but in an environment where it's a bit harder to do that because

[00:33:14] interest rates are higher.

[00:33:15] Well, I mean, arguably America has had this soft landing if it does a venturate because

[00:33:20] they have borrowed so much, the so much public spending, which is not being seen in the

[00:33:24] rest of the world.

[00:33:25] So, you know, a lot of economists say that's actually what's contributed for them getting,

[00:33:28] you know, this easy path out of this, this hefty inflation.

[00:33:33] But they can't go on forever.

[00:33:34] And if he keeps on spending, maybe we'll reach a point, but the saving grace obviously

[00:33:38] has been they've got the reserve currency in America.

[00:33:41] But I just wonder whether if he becomes a less stable player, if America becomes a less

[00:33:48] stable country or less stable economy, whether that's strengthened in the US dollar as the

[00:33:53] reserve currency might start to dissipate.

[00:33:55] And we start seeing people spending money that's previously been spending in US dollar

[00:33:58] spending in some other currency like the euro or the one or whatever else, you know,

[00:34:03] or whoever else wants to come out.

[00:34:05] Yeah, lack of confidence in the US spreading in the economics fair.

[00:34:07] Do you think that's that's option?

[00:34:09] Yeah.

[00:34:10] So, I mean, I think this specter has been around for quite a long time and it hasn't come to

[00:34:13] pass it yet, there's no alternative credible alternative to the US dollar as a global

[00:34:19] reserve currency right now.

[00:34:20] Although, you know, you see small scale efforts like China and Iran and Russia try to trade

[00:34:25] among themselves in other currencies.

[00:34:27] The big scale.

[00:34:28] Yeah.

[00:34:29] And and make these small steps away from that.

[00:34:32] I think that this kind of I mean, the thing is it's often the case with the collapse of

[00:34:37] empires or the collapse of international monetary orders that they happen very quickly.

[00:34:43] You know, it's like that famous saying about going bankrupts that it happened very slowly

[00:34:47] and then all at once.

[00:34:48] And I think that we don't know exactly when we're going to approach that tipping point.

[00:34:53] Do you think that's a case to think he could be the first step in the, you know, in the

[00:34:58] end of the of an empire, you know, as is America going to lose its way to all of this?

[00:35:03] I think that if we look at what he's talking about during the second time, the thing that

[00:35:07] is most likely to bring about that kind of rapid change are his international economic

[00:35:12] plan.

[00:35:13] So right now, Ali is talking about a 10% tariff on all imports and with China.

[00:35:19] You know, I think you said earlier, 60%.

[00:35:21] He talks about different figures, you know, up to kind of a hundred percent.

[00:35:25] If he were to mount this kind of sustained attack on the international economic order

[00:35:30] and actually go through with it, you know, so put those tariffs on everybody at the same

[00:35:34] time, which is something he tried to do in his first term, you know, he went after Europe

[00:35:38] and the UK and Japan and China all at once, then that can have a, I think a really, really

[00:35:45] profound de-globalizing effect on the international economy.

[00:35:50] It can do a walk to convince other players in the international economy that American

[00:35:55] protectionism is really here to stay and they have to seek their future on the assumption

[00:36:00] that some other type of system is coming into play.

[00:36:04] And I think that that could be the beginning of a process of that kind of collapse of American

[00:36:11] economic hegemony and a movement more to a world of closed off economic blocks that

[00:36:18] are more separate from one another and not raise

[00:36:20] one another. Yeah, feels like we're going that way anyway, doesn't it? That's 10% tariff on

[00:36:24] everything is going to do nothing though to American trade. It's just going to put prices up for

[00:36:28] American citizens, I think, which would probably be enormously unpopular for him. So I wonder

[00:36:32] whether that's just another example of something he backtracks on. Just one other thing that we

[00:36:36] haven't talked about. I mean, we talked about human rights in terms of his view on human rights

[00:36:40] in China, for example. But what about human rights in America? There's only two genders,

[00:36:46] I sort of agree with him on that. But you know, people don't. But you know, the idea that,

[00:36:52] for example, teachers should be able to carry concealed weapons in schools and things.

[00:36:57] The stuff that just seems abhorrent to the rest of the world, which just could become

[00:37:01] the normal way of life within America. And you're just thinking, if you've got human rights abuse

[00:37:06] in America, how does the rest of the world deal with that? Yeah. I mean, so to me, there's two

[00:37:10] things going on here. So one of them is a continuation of what we've called the culture wars for the

[00:37:16] last couple of decades. So no, it's the case that in America, there are just many people with

[00:37:20] values that are very different to the values that we typically have in Europe on issues like guns,

[00:37:26] for instance, a one of the ones that most apparent to us. And I think that Europeans have

[00:37:31] confronted that in the past. I mean, if we think that's the George W. Bush administration,

[00:37:36] that was really a time when we were confronted with this president who was kind of caricatured

[00:37:40] as a cowboy who clearly embodied very conservative values that were not values that Europeans endorsed.

[00:37:47] And he seemed to back torture, for example. Right, right, right. And, you know, so Europe and

[00:37:53] America in the past have had to deal with this and they found a way to rub along. I think what's

[00:37:59] different about Trump is that he is the first president in post-war American history, although

[00:38:06] we all have American history, who is so explicitly opposed to the basic values of the constitution.

[00:38:12] He's so ex, we opposed to America's democratic process. And if he, you know, we look back on

[00:38:20] what happened in 2020 and the insurrection, if he continues in a second time to try to undermine

[00:38:26] American democracy in such a strong and powerful way, then that presents the Western allies with

[00:38:32] a really, really new situation that, you know, the leader of their supposed democratic block

[00:38:39] no longer believes in democracy and how can you credibly hold up the values for the rest of the

[00:38:45] world while taking leadership from that person. And it also has domestic implications as well.

[00:38:51] There's all sorts of movements across Europe in the UK. I mean, here in the Netherlands,

[00:38:56] hit welders, the far right populist leader, just won the largest vote show in the last election.

[00:39:03] He basically, you know, opposes the banning of Islam in Dutch society. It's an incredibly

[00:39:08] extreme opinion. And Trump's success emboldens these movements. It emboldens the movements

[00:39:16] elsewhere in the West that challenge the democratic and the liberal basis of Western societies.

[00:39:21] So that's the scary thing, isn't it? So the question is, do we find that

[00:39:27] Western governments, the world over, just start to move in this in this same direction, that his

[00:39:32] his the power and influence that he has is so strong that governments everywhere else go,

[00:39:38] we saw it with Bolson, our own Duterte in the Philippines in Brazil, a lot of people in our

[00:39:43] country think this way too. Let's just roll over and accept it. Right. And I think that to an extent

[00:39:47] that has been happening ever since 2015, 16 that, you know, these movements have become much stronger.

[00:39:52] They often very explicitly copy their language or their issues or, you know, the topics they

[00:39:58] talk about from Trump. So it definitely is the case that if he is successful, that enormously

[00:40:05] emboldens illiberal forces in Western societies. And let's also not forget that there are also

[00:40:10] often the same forces who do not want to stand up for this, you know, liberal international order

[00:40:16] that we all supposedly believe in and support. They're the people that don't really want to defend

[00:40:20] Ukraine, that the people who don't really want to defend Taiwan. So there's huge foreign policy

[00:40:25] implications for this. And it's almost like the identity of the West is in the balance. And this

[00:40:31] election in November is going to go a long way to determine which way that balance shifts.

[00:40:36] So, Andy, as we draw this to the conclusion now, do you think, you know, the answer to the original

[00:40:40] question, do you think Western governments outside the US are ready for what might be coming?

[00:40:47] Do you get the sense that they are making plans, that they are taking this all on board? Or is there

[00:40:51] a kind of denialism going on, a kind of sense that no, no, Joe Biden will be a back, it'll be fine?

[00:40:57] Or are they taking it seriously? Yeah, how is that? How's that first meeting between Donald Trump

[00:41:01] and Kiyostana going to go, for example? So I no longer believe that there's denialism. I think

[00:41:05] there was denialism. But when you look at the facts that Trump is cruising towards winning

[00:41:09] the Republican nation, you look what's happening in his legal cases that I just don't think

[00:41:14] the denial is any longer an option and people are no longer doing that. But I think that the

[00:41:19] extent to which they can prepare is quite limited because Trump is so erratic. You don't know which

[00:41:24] way he's going to come out on lots of different issues. You can cling to the hope still, like we've

[00:41:30] talked about that the adults in the room will stop him from doing these things or he'll back off

[00:41:35] from them because of the economic implications. So I think with Trump, you have to watch and

[00:41:40] see what he says on the day. But everybody is going to be, everybody is, I can tell you putting

[00:41:45] together their plans to woo Donald Trump to make the case to him that he should continue to support

[00:41:52] the things that we care about and failing that. He should at least continue to support my country.

[00:41:58] Now, for Kiyostana, it's kind of difficult because Kiyostana comes from the section of British

[00:42:04] politics that Trump doesn't like. I mean, you know, the UK, I think, would be much better place

[00:42:10] to get your treatment from a Trump administration if it had still a conservative prime minister,

[00:42:15] if it had like Boris Johnson or somebody like that, because we know that Trump makes these very

[00:42:20] kind of snap summary judgments about people depending on whether he sees you as part of his

[00:42:26] political project or he sees you as opposed to that political project. So I think, you know, although,

[00:42:32] I mean, I can say this, I'm independent, I won't be able to win this, this UK general election.

[00:42:38] But also, I think that will put quite a tricky position vis-a-vis America of Trump lines.

[00:42:44] Yeah, well, look, if you want to communicate with Donald Trump, if you want to try and

[00:42:47] influence him, the answer is obviously get yourself in the morning on Fox News.

[00:42:52] And who knows, it sets his decision for the, you know, is it key in the day to be preparing

[00:42:56] it even as we speak. I think thank you so much for being with us. Frightening prospect might not

[00:43:02] happen, but at least it's good to know what might happen if it does. Thank you so much for having

[00:43:05] me on, it's been a pleasure. Yeah, so yeah, it's, I mean, it's interesting. He's did. He's got,

[00:43:09] he's got a newsletter, by the way, on sub-stack called America Explained. Yes. So do you want to

[00:43:13] hear more about that? And sounds like you've talked about it. I mean, it is a grim prospect,

[00:43:18] isn't it? What might be coming down the line? Tell you about another grim prospect. I mean,

[00:43:22] this is going to be a subject dear to your heart, you know, the end of life. Lovely.

[00:43:25] I've got a few years to go. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, you never have. Yeah, I mean, it has been a

[00:43:32] subject that's been, you know, addressed a lot lately, but has been for forever. What do you do?

[00:43:37] You do know you're serious, what was it about? When someone is seriously ill,

[00:43:40] shouldn't they just be able to decipher themselves that they were in their life? Is it a basic human

[00:43:44] rights that you should be able to as desired when to end your life and be allowed to have people

[00:43:50] help you do it, which is the key, because I mean, anyone I suppose can top them sort of potentially,

[00:43:54] but to do it in a way which is not unpleasant, which is somehow, you know, humane,

[00:44:01] should it be a fundamental human right? We're able to do that. But the counter argument

[00:44:05] always being that if you there is a legal right, and in many countries now, that is true in the

[00:44:09] Netherlands, parts of the United States, Belgium, you cannot for this, is there a risk that people

[00:44:15] will be forced into, not forced into it, but kind of, you know, so and so it's a bit old and,

[00:44:21] you know, a bit of a waste of time, not much quality of life.

[00:44:23] Right. So you're saying real relatives make that decision or talk, just make that.

[00:44:27] Yeah, well, relatives, I think is the suggestion that people could be pressured into it,

[00:44:32] made to feel useless. And that somehow, if you were able to make sure that people didn't live

[00:44:36] lives or suffering, that they can keep living. So you know, helping the living rather than helping

[00:44:41] them to die. I hadn't thought of it that way. I mean, to me, it was just a black and white thing.

[00:44:46] If you want to die, you're going to struggle. You surely should be able to make that decision

[00:44:50] for yourself, but if you get a lot of people are concerned by others, that's what people are

[00:44:54] worried about. And you know, much as one might say it wouldn't happen, the chances are it would.

[00:44:59] But let's talk about the rights of that grim subject, but something that needs to be addressed

[00:45:04] and very much is being talked about at the moment with a prospect of new legislation.

[00:45:07] Yeah. Well, I look forward to that one. Yeah.

[00:45:09] Well, it's important, it's important stuff.

[00:45:13] We don't avoid important stuff. That is what we're here for on the white curve.

[00:45:16] Thanks for listening this week. We'll catch you next week. Bye.

[00:45:18] The why curve.

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