The President’s Path: US-Europe breakup

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Because PWC understands your business, we provide you with AI solutions that deliver real impact. Taylor AI for your business at pwc.ie. PWC, so you can. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. This is a very good news. I'm joined by my fellow chief presenter, Simeis Omaskanda, and our White House reporter, Bernd Debuzman. Hi guys, how are you surviving this last news week? I think this whole year has been like 10 years really to be honest, since it's January to know. It's been a lot. I'm ready for the holidays again, if I'm honest. It's been so tiring, but also fascinating if you're someone who enjoys not only US politics, but global affairs, as we all do, and incredibly fascinating to watch what we've seen transpire in Davos, hasn't it? I know you're talking about holidays there, and we've been looking at these images all week, haven't we? Of a beautiful snowy alpine getaway, but no warm fuzzy rendezvous and going on there at all. More even potentially a breakup question, is the US breaking up with Europe? What do we think? I think a lot of people in Europe will be very concerned about the tone and the messaging from the Trump administration, not just in Davos, but kind of this whole year in terms of, you know, where the US stands with the NATO alliance and with its key allies overseas. I think there's definitely a sense of almost betrayal, even though they were been uncomfortable with Trump for quite some time. I think this really just highlighted the tensions there. You know, the conversations I've been having with Europeans, both on air and off air and private, they were frustrated with the tone, perhaps, previously on tariff talks on Ukraine, for example, but this actually felt like what Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister, described as a real rupture. I saw a new level of shock and dismay and new kind of wake-up call sense among the Europeans that I've been speaking to, and that they really understand this as a time to completely recalibrate their, you know, international world order, as they've understood it, post-World War II. And if anything did that for them, it was really obviously the tensions over Greenland. And it's not clear if that is completely diffused yet, because we are, you know, trying to figure out what the arrangements will be for the US and Greenland going forward. But that really has been quite the controversy to watch unfold. rupture really is the word. I mean, we heard Mark Carney use that word, or Slavanderline, used that word as well. We've heard fracture. It's very hard to see how the relationship goes back to what it was. And I think even the interpersonal relationships, with all this leaking of private texts and messages that have been sent between world leaders, that surely must damage how those relationships go on from now, with people are sending these messages. And then President Trump or others put them out there in the public domain, hearing words and seeing a tone used that is a little bit different to what we see from some of those leaders in public as well. And it just feels like the trust personally like that and also between nations is going to be really hard to build back up, regardless of what ends up happening over Greenland. And we're still in a very uncertain place on that, aren't we? I mean, President Trump talking about having agreed a deal on a framework for a future deal with the Secretary-General of NATO, Marquetta. But then we heard from the Danish Foreign Minister, from the Prime Minister of Greenland saying they don't know what's in that deal. They went party to that conversation. They don't have any details. And they don't want any conversations about deals going on that don't have a Danish representation and Greenlandic representation in there. I think it's been fascinating to see the way that Davos and this issue with Greenland has been perceived by European, this is of the United States and by people within the Trump White House. In Mark Carney's speech, without naming Trump, alluded to the weaponization of tariffs. And it's interesting because I don't actually think the White House would dispute that. President Trump says quite often that he's used tariffs to bring Indian Pakistan, for example, to the negotiating table. And so they really see Davos as a win. So you kind of have this very different image of it from both sides of the Atlantic and obviously in Ottawa as well of what exactly happened there. I think it's hard to overstate as well just how much, especially for Americans who might be listening and watching just how much Europe saw this post-war order, international order, US-led order as underpinning really not just their security, but also their economic policy, their global affairs, their foreign policy. I mean, you know, this Katrina, as a European, and I live many years in Europe, I mean, every foreign policy discussion in Germany that, you know, I took part in or watched was always, again, underpinned by the US leading that world order. And so the complete dismay, shock, and sense of the trail, the word used earlier, Bernie, over the rupture of this order is really interesting to watch in the messaging we've seen from world leaders. Of course, some world leaders are handling it in a different way than others. We know that the Alexander Stubb, the finished leader is someone who's quite close with President Trump, and he's kind of been quite firm on the sovereignty of Greenland and Denmark. But at the same time, talked about the need to work with President Trump, so as a Secretary General, Mark Rutte, who apparently, you know, was able to actually broker this agreement with President Trump. But you do really get the sense that for Europeans, they believe that it was not just them, but the US that benefited from this world order and being able to trade freely and having partners around the world in creating a common front, if you will, against China, against Russia, and that the US no longer sees them as equal partners. And I think it is more about partners than, you know, to your earlier point about the US leading that world order. I mean, the Europeans would see themselves and they are as a leading market. And that is, it was a partnership where the beliefs and values were the same. And what we heard from the sage in Davos time and time again over the few days this week was that those values have shifted and that they can't be relied upon that the US now sort of sees the world through the same lens as European partners do. And not just Europeans, Canada also as well, Bernie, as you mentioned there. And I think there's a sense of, oh, there's some drilling going on in the building there. I hope that's not too distracting. Someone's trying to come through the roof on us. Hopefully not. Hopefully we get to the end of the podcast first. Trying to tell me to shut up, make in that point, but it's kind of left, I think, a little, not a little, a great sense of uncertainty and unease about where do things stand now? Not just the transatlantic relationship with the NATO alliance, both of which are under real threat right now, but a more global rules-based world order where there are international norms that everyone kind of lives by, which make everyone's life better. And it would appear that the US has decided to set its own set of international norms. And America first doesn't mean America first and everyone else second. It just means America first full stop. We don't really care what happens beyond that. And that's very hard for other partners to try and adapt to. And I think even beyond the acknowledgement that things have changed, there's also a sense of shock that President Trump seems to have been dismissive of any benefit in the past, in his interview at Davos, for example, said NATO has really never stepped up to help the United States. I mean, people will remember after September 11th, NATO aircraft helping patrol American skies. He said Denmark kind of sat in the back in Afghanistan when Denmark had one of the highest casualty rates of per capita of any of the NATO countries that contributed to the security mission in Afghanistan. And I think I find it very difficult to see how that relationship can ever really be fixed when he's so dismissive of the benefits of it in the past. I wonder how much Europeans are hoping it can be fixed. I tried to throw a head to perhaps a president who they find in 2028, let's say, easier to work with. And yet at the same time, what did we see China do after the first Trump administration diversify its economy? And now, the trade policies towards China and tariffs on China do not have the same impact. And I wonder if we will see something similar from Europe. I have also seen there are a number of German lawmakers who've been in Washington this week. And they've been posting pictures on Capitol Hill. And I saw one of them in an interview saying, well, on Greenland, Congress has essentially assured us, or the members of Congress we've spoken to have assured us that this won't happen, that this, in other words, would more or less be the end of President Trump's presidency. And I think that's a risky bet for Europeans to take, because I've seen members of Congress here ask specifically, if President Trump were to change his mind and take Greenland with force, would you vote to have him in peach? And they have said, no, we would vote for a war power's resolution. And that is after such a kinetic action against a NATO ally would take place. So if Europeans are banking on the other branches of government in particular, Congress. And I'm not saying they necessarily all are, but if that is a hope that they're holding out, I think that that might be one that would be disappointing to them in the long run. And I think we heard some of the members on that codel from the Hill here to Copenhagen last week sort of try and make that point that, you know, we've got your back. But I think if you're wearing your realistic cap as a European leader, you look at the situation in Venezuela, I don't you, where the U.S. went in there with force and removed the sitting president, you know, you can argue whether he was the legitimate president or not, but he was the president sitting there and they went in, used force, removed him and he's now in a detention center in Brooklyn. Nothing similar like that suggested for Greenland, of course, but it was done without consulting Congress. And again, there's a debate here on whether that showed happened or not. But I think European leaders are, there's been a sense of realism now that it's Trump's way that, you know, he's using his prerogative as president of the United States to do what he sees as being in the U.S. best interest. And there had been a sense when he was reelected from many of the European capitals, you know, kind of bear down, keep the head down, get on through these four years and wait for the next guy or gal to come along and we can reset everything then. But I think what we've seen is, if that's your approach, that's really misguided because of how much President Trump has changed things already and much of it here in the U.S. and in international relations point of view, probably can't be reset, not easily anyway. I think also from the congressional point of view, there's been such limited pushback, for example, in terms of Ukraine, many Republican lawmakers are broadly in favor of aid for Ukraine, which Trump now seems to be using kind of as something of a cudgel to get what he wants on Greenland in terms of, you know, he's kind of alluded to aid to Ukraine being tied to getting what he wants in Greenland with very, very limited pushback from anyone in the Republican party in a position to do something or drive policy. And I just think that's really indicative of where this administration and Congress stand together in terms of foreign policy. It's very reactive rather than kind of shaping the policy in any meaningful way. And that means that the U.S. and Europe might be breaking up, at least in some senses, who are the U.S.' allies, who are the U.S.' partners. And I think what we've seen from this Trump administration is that there isn't the traditional sense of alliances based on values, as you said, Katrina, but based on transactions. And that is really vintage Trump, isn't it? He sees his partnerships abroad through the prism of economic benefit, also national security, we should say, but very much through what benefits him and his administration and what he says is the American people. I think that's really proven by this new board of peace that he's announced as well. Some of our listeners might remember that the board of peace was initially supposed to be part of the Gaza ceasefire negotiations as phase two of the ceasefire negotiations. And the Trump administration or president, Trump had invited a number of countries to join this board of peace. And if you look at the countries that have signed on in that extraordinary kind of image from Davos of that signing ceremony at the board of peace, they were not the U.S.' traditional allies. I was just looking at a list of the countries and just to name a few. Bahrain, Morocco, Armenia, Azerbaijan, of course, the president having solved the conflict between the two. Going on to Hungary, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Paraguay, who have had partnerships with the U.S. but again, haven't been the bedrock allies that the U.S. has had in the past. And in fact, Europe has said they have to think about signing on and come to a conclusion that involves all of Europe. This is the president's path with Bernd Javuzman, Sumi Somiskanda, and me Katrina Perry. PWC, so you can. You're listening to the president's path. I think Europe is also very alarmed because some of the invitations, for example, inviting President Putin or inviting the president of Belarus, which is in many European capital scene as something of a Russian satellite state, at least from a security perspective, that must really sting at a time when presidents of Lensky and other European leaders have been trying to bring themselves together with the U.S. to form a united front with regards to Ukraine. I think the messaging to Europe by inviting Putin and the president of Belarus, for example, must be really, really quite damaging for the broader effort in terms of Ukraine. So it's kind of undercutting Europe's own messaging on Ukraine. I thought that was really interesting listening to President Zelensky's speech in Davos on Thursday, and he made a lot of the same points that President Trump had made and makes frequently about, you know, Europe not stepping up to the plate enough, not being strong enough, not looking after matters on its own doorstep enough, looking too much to the U.S. for all of that. And President Zelensky making those exact same points really harsh words for Europe, when ordinarily he's kind of cozying up to Europe, is he? I mean, we see all those meetings warm embraces and so on, but you could really see his frustration that here we are, a fourth year looming of this war, this Russian invasion of Ukraine. And as he sees it, nothing has changed, you know, Europe comes together to a point, but then doesn't move on from that. So it freezes Russian assets, but can't agree to allow that frozen Russian money to be used to defend Ukraine was one point that he singled out, and really urging them to kind of stand up to the U.S. and stand up to President Trump and look after matters there. And I think a lot of that frustration is because of what we continue to see in Ukraine, but also because of President Putin being invited to that board of peace switch. You know, talking to some people is what has caused the European nations to not sign up to it. It doesn't reflect that they don't want to help rebuild Gaza or move to a more peaceful situation there and the humanitarian crisis, but there are just so many question marks over this board of peace. And, you know, where the money goes, who's funding it, the fact that President Trump himself is basically the head of it, not the president of the United States, but Donald Trump himself, and that he has singular veto power over what that board of peace would do. And there are just a lot of questions that the Europeans say they need answers to before they can look further on that. And for Zelensky, I think it's kind of interesting to see that the Greenland situation plays against him in a certain regard. I mean, senior Kremlin officials have made the point that if Greenland is vital for the national security of the United States, then using that same logic, the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine are vital to the national security of Russia, which really, again, kind of undercuts the message coming out of Kiev in terms of defending Europe, for example, from Russia. And even the board of peace, I mean, there's now this suggestion that some of those frozen funds of Moscow's could be used to pay their billion dollar payment into the board of peace, which is, again, it's kind of like a spider web of interconnected issues here. But he spoke about all of that, didn't he? He was like, it's outrageous that Russia is allowed to decide how it's going to spend its Russian frozen assets, or at least things that can. And he mentioned Greenland as well. What did he say? I have it here in front of me. Everyone turned attention to Greenland, and it's clear most leaders simply are not sure what to do about it. And it seems like everyone is just waiting for America to cool down on this topic, hoping it will pass away. But what if it will not? What then? And I think he's really hit the nail on the head there until this week, at least, where people were waiting for the U.S. and President Trump to kind of move away from that. In fact, we were hearing behind the scenes that that advice was being given by some people in the administration to representatives from Greenland and Denmark sort of, you know, this will go away. The president will move on to something else. And clearly he hasn't. And it was really interesting, you know, to your point for any of that, how all those threads kind of came together with Zelensky's speech at Davos this week. And I think a lot of people, at least before January, had assumed the issue had gone away. I mean, before the raid to capture Maduro and Venezuela, this had really seemed to kind of leave at least U.S. public debate for a few months. I mean, Donald Trump didn't come up with this Greenland idea, even this administration. And it just seemed to have kind of wafted away as has Panama. And then it just comes, comes back. So I think for the Europeans, it's really not a safe bet to assume that just because he's not talking about something on a particular day or a particular week that he's not thinking about it, that it's not going to come back down the line. And a real sense of frustration to both of your points that Ukraine wasn't one of the dominant topics at Davos. You know, this was an opportunity for European leaders to come together and to discuss the future of Ukraine as those negotiations are going on. And we should say, as Russia has continued to strike energy infrastructure in Ukraine, we have people literally freezing in the winter. This is something obviously we've been covering on the BBC, but President Zelensky is also very much trying to draw attention to. And you know, who is kind of adding to that criticism of the, let's say, lethargy of the Europeans, although you should say, of course, the European Union is a block of countries with diverse interests and diverse needs. And it was California governor, DeGavin Newsom, who really in a few clips was really berating Europeans in a way that some Europeans really bristled at when he said, you know, he brought some of those out, what he calls signature knee pads, to Davos where he said, this is for European leaders or business leaders who continue to kneel down to President Trump. And I saw a few interviews where he said, why do you keep looking to the US? Why don't you stand up to President Trump? Of course, European leaders would say, well, look at what's happening in your own country. But Gavin Newsom, of course, as the governor, California and one of President Trump's loudest and most vocal critics and someone who has kind of taken on the image of the face of the anti-Trump opposition can say, well, he has been doing so all along. But it was interesting to see kind of the mixed reaction to his very harsh words to European leaders who were clearly dismayed and upset by this rupture in this relationship. It was sort of the theme running through Mark Carney's speech, the Canadian Prime Minister as well earlier in the week, wasn't it, where he was kind of saying, the old world order is dead. It's over. It's not a time for nostalgia. We have to move on from here. All of us small and middle powers have to come together and build our new world order. And he talked about how, you know, he's been going all around the globe trying to get new partnerships for Canada and primarily on trade, of course, because of everything that's happened with various tariffs and who knows what's going to happen to the US/Mexico Canada trade agreement that's up for renegotiation this year. And President Trump has said he doesn't care if it's signed one way or the other or not at all. And you know, Mark Carney really making that powerful pit of, we are not powerless. We don't need to look to the US. Let's form our own big block. So what's going to be interesting for me to watch in the days, weeks or maybe hours ahead, the pace things are moving at the moment, is how much of that talk that we saw in Davos this week actually translates into action. Does that tough talk putting it up to President Trump and what he needs administration are trying to do, whether the other countries actually stick with that? I mean, it's interesting because both Carney and Newsom do a certain degree when they're making those comments. It's also for a domestic audience. I mean, Carney's speech was very, very well received in Canada and many Democrats and Newsom supporters, the people that hope maybe he takes a run in the next presidential election. It was also for them, but that doesn't necessarily mean, even if it was well received, that translates to any sort of action whatsoever with other countries that have their own domestic concerns. I mean, I think it's kind of a stretch to think that it's a very complicated thing to redo the world order. And I think that's a kind of a long-term project that many countries just don't have at the moment. They don't have the time. And as proof of that, you saw real anger and frustration in Brussels over the fact that the European Union, that lawmakers actually decided to delay the ratification of the AmeriCorps or trade agreement, which would have been a trade agreement, or still would, is intended to be a trade agreement between the European Union and South American countries. And now that could delay the ratification of this trade agreement for several months. And I saw a number of European lawmakers saying, look, if we want to walk the walk and talk the talk, we have to be able to agree on trade agreements where we can create our own kind of world order, if you will, our own trading agreements, where we're not dependent on the US. And if we can't get that done, this only makes us look weaker. And when they decided to pause the EU-US trade agreement as well, I mean, it's unclear now what happens there because they paused the EU-US trade agreement because of that threat of tariffs from President Trump, whereas the Mercasaur one now has to go through a hearing about the legality of it. There's questions, and I've been speaking to some people in the European trade sector about how quickly could it be unposed? Should they wish to do so? And the other big question is, is it worth the paper it's written on now, if some sort of geopolitical situation arises that President Trump is going to say, I know we have a trade agreement, but actually I'm going to slap on 10, 25 percent, extra tariffs, is there a merit in even doing a deal in the first place because it's not that beneficial for the Europeans that particular EU-US trade agreement? No, and I think the big question going forward will be the Europeans concerned about the weaponization of tariffs, whether that works both ways. I mean, if they think that holding trade and economic issues over the US's head might be effective so far, it really hasn't been, I mean, I think in the future, that's a big test. Well, lots more for us to watch and keep an eye on on the coming weeks. I think our time's up for this week. Hopefully, the drilling is over as well, but if not, you'll be here next week with all of us. No, we'll see you guys so far anyway. Okay. Bye. Bye. So that's a wrap for this week. Do join us again on the President's path where every Friday we look back at President Trump's week and what it means for America and the world. And just a reminder, we are now part of the explanation feed from the BBC, so do follow and subscribe to the explanation feed so you never miss an episode. And as always, if you want to get in touch, please do. We love to hear from you. You can drop us an email at [email protected]. Thanks so much for listening. Bye-bye. 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