Two experts have told Euronews that Trump's bellicose rhetoric towards America's allies is playing to Russia's advantage. Aiming to do deals on trade deficits and raw materials in exchange for continued military support is the best policy given the circumstances Europe faces.
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00:00We're just a few weeks into the new White House administration, and already Donald Trump
00:12is making good on his promises to gut U.S. federal agencies and apply tariffs against
00:18Mexico, China and Canada, although there is a negotiation around them.
00:22The EU is bracing itself to see what's next.
00:25For the Europe Conversation, I catch up with two experts who say the only people profiting
00:29from these actions are adversaries of the West.
00:35David Salvo and Rachel Dean-Wilson, both co-directors of the Alliance for Securing Democracy at
00:40the German Marshall Fund.
00:41David, you're an expert in Russia, and Rachel, an expert in U.S. policy.
00:46Thanks very much for joining us on the Europe Conversation.
00:48Rachel, can I start with you and ask you a little bit about tariffs?
00:52We have a wait-and-see policy in Brussels at the European Commission at the moment.
00:56Of course, there is preparations for the very likelihood that tariffs will materialize.
01:02What do you recommend?
01:03What would your advice be to the EU in relation to that, and what are the purpose of the tariffs,
01:08do you think?
01:09Yeah.
01:10I mean, I would look at what's going on now with tariffs, right?
01:12Look at kind of the opening bid with Canada, Mexico and China, and how that went for pointers
01:19for Europe on how to maybe negotiate and address this.
01:24Negotiate being the key word here.
01:25I think if we know anything about Donald Trump, it's about a deal.
01:29And so you should view kind of the opening tariff discussion as an opening discussion
01:34of a deal.
01:35And what do you think the point is for Donald Trump to apply tariffs, given that there is
01:40a strong consensus that this will impact Americans the most?
01:45It is a tool that he has expressed great love for.
01:51And I think it's something tangible that it's easy for him to explain.
01:56And that is easy to put out there as a starting negotiating tactic.
02:03I can't make the economic case for tariffs.
02:06And I'm not an economist.
02:07I don't think I could if I tried anyway.
02:10But I do think it is, from a messaging perspective, an effective tool for him.
02:17Is the message also Donald Trump saying to the European Union, we're not allies in the
02:21way that we have been in the past, that basically separating the two sides?
02:26I wouldn't go that far.
02:27I think we all understand that the president has certain views on what an alliance means.
02:33We saw this in his first administration with the notion of collective defense and the need
02:37for European allies to spend more of their budget on NATO and defense.
02:43I don't think necessarily that tariffs are a signal that he doesn't care about the alliance
02:50himself.
02:52I think the Europeans are probably taking it that way.
02:53And I understand.
02:54So this is not going to tell them not to take this personally.
02:56And I suppose tariffs, they really pale in insignificance when it comes to the existential
03:01crisis on the continent of Europe now, the war in Ukraine, Russian interference, and
03:06so on.
03:07Where do you think Trump's mind is at when it comes to that, protecting allies, being
03:12there shoulder to shoulder?
03:14I think Trump would love for the war to go away tomorrow.
03:18I think there's no utility in war raging in Ukraine for the United States.
03:25That is full stop.
03:26He also thinks that the war in Ukraine is, first and foremost, Europe's responsibility.
03:32That doesn't mean that the United States is going to immediately abdicate any sort of
03:36responsibility for supporting Ukraine.
03:38And in fact, there are signals that there are back channel discussions with Russia to
03:41see just how serious Russia is about negotiating.
03:44I think that message is probably being heard loud and clear at this stage.
03:48But what would that look like to you?
03:50Because a lot of people are saying there's no way that Ukraine will not be occupied to
03:55some degree, particularly in the east, Crimea and so on, that there may be some sort of
03:58frozen territory there, and then potentially security guarantees for unoccupied territories
04:02of Ukraine.
04:03But what do you think that the United States might want to extract from that?
04:07Because we've heard the conversation around raw minerals and what Ukraine might be able
04:12to provide for the United States.
04:14I think you just identified it.
04:16I don't believe that the administration sees much beyond that in terms of what Ukraine
04:22can provide the American people or the American interests.
04:26I mean, Trump himself has said many times, like, what do we care about Ukraine?
04:31Who cares?
04:32You know, it's not – this is not in our immediate interest.
04:35But there are.
04:36There are real economic and technological and all sorts of derivatives of, like, the
04:41raw mineral, raw material that Ukraine has that is probably at the forefront of the administration's
04:48thinking.
04:49Now, I also think that war is bad for business in many respects, too.
04:53And if we want to have sort of a Europe whole, free and at peace with a trade relationship
04:58that is beneficial in both directions, it's probably not advantageous for there to be,
05:03you know, a years-long war raging on the continent, too.
05:07Rachel, looking at the administration so far, there's been huge – I think people are
05:12quite shocked at what's happened in relation to staff at the FBI, the CIA, the Treasury,
05:20people's private information being handed over to people associated with Elon Musk,
05:24who is an unelected official.
05:26I mean, what does this mean in terms of the implications for citizens of the United States,
05:32the security of the United States, privacy and so on?
05:37We are still figuring out what it means.
05:39But the bottom line is Elon Musk has this special status, and so he can work a little
05:48outside of the government by also being associated with it.
05:52I think there have been already some lines that he has gone up to or crossed.
05:59There's discussion of lawsuits from different federal employees around some of the actions
06:03that have been taken.
06:05And that's one of the really interesting things about this period of time is that we are seeing
06:10a lot of these questions are going to be playing out in the courts.
06:15And so we've seen a Trump administration, the Department of Government and Officiacy,
06:21this outside department that Musk is heading, and inside the Trump administration through
06:27executive action and executive orders, really testing the bound of executive power.
06:32Rachel, I want to ask you about USAID.
06:35Elon Musk said he's putting it through the woodcutter.
06:37It's one of the most important organizations globally when it comes to the United States
06:41because it helps people in poverty, in war zones, in natural disasters, whether it's
06:46global warming, whether it's the Haitian earthquake.
06:50And he wants to end it all.
06:53Yeah, I mean, this is a great question.
06:55It's one of those situations where they just brought a hammer to something that we kind
07:00of need a chisel for.
07:02There is an overwhelming feeling that there is bloat in the federal government.
07:07I think that's true.
07:08I think you could go through any agency and pick out programs that don't need to be there,
07:12that we should not be spending taxpayer money on.
07:15In fact, in one of my previous jobs on the Hill, we would do a pork barrel spending report,
07:19right?
07:20And it was to go through to identify somewhat ridiculous projects that the federal government
07:24was funding.
07:26So this has long been just kind of a byproduct of a large government.
07:30So I think there is a reasonable desire to cut back on these government agencies.
07:40That's not – we've just seen a whole halting of something like USAID, where there are,
07:46as you said, very important programs for everyone around the world that are coming out of that
07:52agency.
07:53Would you have Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, depriving the poorest people
07:58of the world, people who are starving, homeless, suffering, whether it's climate change or
08:04natural disasters or war, stealing money and food out of their mouths?
08:08Yeah, I can't.
08:10I don't know.
08:11I don't know.
08:12I can't speak for Elon Musk, but I do know that one of the most popular things that Trump
08:16is doing in a general sense – again, I think if you go deep on any one of these policies,
08:23you get more resistance and pushback.
08:25But in a general sense, it is very popular to cut down on the size of the U.S. government.
08:29What's unfortunate, from a moral standpoint, is that there are these humanitarian programs
08:34that have had longstanding bipartisan support in the United States, and I think if you told
08:38most American citizens that we have a tiny fraction of the U.S. federal budget that is
08:45going to supporting HIV and AIDS health programs in Africa or providing food and clean water
08:54in real conflict zones, I don't think you would get much opposition to that.
08:58And that's why Republicans and Democrats have long supported this in Congress, right,
09:03and administrations of both parties.
09:05So from a moral standpoint, this is obviously horrible.
09:09From a practical, sort of pragmatic standpoint, too, this is just abdicating American leadership
09:15all over the world.
09:17So if the Trump administration's view is we want to lead peace – we want to achieve
09:22peace through strength, this is not the way to do it.
09:26What we're doing is we're alienating people, we're opening the doors to America's adversaries
09:30to fill in these leadership vacuums all over the world – in Latin America, in the Middle
09:35East, in Southeast Asia, like it's – in Africa, China and Russia are the ultimate
09:41benefactors of this policy, not the American people.
09:45And just on Russia, because you're obviously an expert on Russia, the problem with the
09:49CIA and the FBI laying people off and sort of diminishing their roles and degrading them
09:55in lots of ways, the way they – you know, it appears that, you know, the Trump administration,
09:59some of them are – they may be in government, but they still somehow are attacking government
10:03or agencies of the government.
10:05But what are the implications for security of the United States with a Russia that has
10:09already been interfering not just in America but all across Europe and all across the world?
10:13I mean, this sort of instability in American institutions, this sort of chaos, it's exactly
10:19what Russia wants and it's exactly what they exploit to amplify discord, to amplify polarization,
10:28to attack American leadership.
10:30This only plays to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping's advantage.
10:35It's what they want.
10:36They want democratic instability.
10:38They want a weak, distracted, internal turmoil in the United States specifically because
10:45it means we take our eye off the ball on our global responsibilities and Russia and China
10:51can prey on that.
10:52And David, final question to you.
10:54You know, we're talking about how Vladimir Putin is probably happy with the situation
10:58with, I suppose, Donald Trump in the United States, you know, reverting or becoming more
11:02isolationist in some ways.
11:05But the relations between the EU and America are also going to make him happy because there's
11:10nothing worse than the West being at loggerheads right now.
11:14You said it.
11:15I mean, if an alliance is divided, that plays to Russia's advantage.
11:19I mean, Vladimir Putin wants a divided alliance because it opens the door for Russian – more
11:27like-minded parties and politicians in Europe sort of wondering, well, if we can't get
11:34along with the United States, why don't we turn east again?
11:36Like, why don't we get Russian energy back here?
11:39Why don't we remove sanctions on Russia and have more normalized economic relations?
11:45We can't trust the United States anymore.
11:47That's exactly what Vladimir Putin wants.
11:49OK.
11:50David Salvo and Rachel Dean-Wilson from the German Marshall Fund, thank you very much
11:53for joining us on The Europe Conversation.