Why is Trump now handing over billions to Iran?

0:00Jon Sopel:Apple Vacations, where your story starts. The Splash into Savings event from Apple Vacations is here. Now through June 25th, save up to$150 on vacation packages, plus instant savings at select resorts in Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and top U.S. destinations. Use promo code JUNE26 for these limited-time offers. Start planning today at AppleVacations.com or contact your travel advisor. Apple Vacations, where your story starts.

0:32Jon Sopel:This is a global production. Donald Trump wrote the book The Art of the Deal. Maybe it's time to update that with The Art of the Capitulation. Even Trump's closest allies are telling us what they really think of his deal with Iran. Donald Trump has absolutely achieved sweet f***ball in this war with Iran so far. I do have concerns about the memorandum of understanding now that we see it. And the terms about what's in it and also what's not in it suggest to me that it does smack of the kind of appeasement that our administration rejected. But my message is don't we have defeated their military.

1:15Jon Sopel:Don't suddenly come in with massive buckets of cash to let them rebuild and become a threat to America again. You know, we criticise Obama for sending plane full of$150 billion in cash. I'm hearing a$300 billion number. That's concerning to me. And the batting order of voices you heard there was former Vice President to Donald Trump, Mike Pence, ally of Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Republican Senator Tom Tillis, not exactly giving a big thumbs up to Donald Trump's memorandum of understanding to end the war in Iran. Yeah, when your friends are calling it the worst foreign policy blunder in decades, imagine what your critics are saying.

1:57Welcome to The News Agents.

2:05Jon Sopel:It's John. It's Maitlis. And last night, in the setting of the Palace of Versailles, a sort of treaty was signed. Because let's face it, Versailles has such a great record of signing peace treaties that go really, really well in the long term. Maybe they should have done it somewhere else. A cafe down the road or a little brasserie would have been far better than being actually in Versailles to sign this memorandum of understanding. But that is what happened. And European leaders who were there applauded because that's what they do. and realistically what they have come out with is next to nothing.

2:43Jon Sopel:What's going to happen is that for the next 60 days, the Strait of Hormuz will be open. Well, it was open before the war started and that Iran is going to get sanctions lifted against it. So who's won? There is only one winner in this. It's Iran. Yeah, a little later in the podcast, you're going to hear from Poland's Deputy Prime Minister, Radek Sikorsky, who was asked directly from John, why all the G7 leaders have to sit there clapping and applauding at something that they know is provably false. And the reaction is quite interesting. I guess it takes us to the very heart of how Europe has to deal with Trump, even when the reality is staring us in the face.

3:28But I think it is worth going through some of the reality that we now know from what is not actually a peace deal on paper, but a memorandum of understanding. The conflict was 110 days and the accord has got 14 points. And it is worth going through some of those bit by bit, because you'll remember, for example, how strongly Trump advocated maximum pressure on Iran when it came to sanctions. He really talked about the cost to Iran of the US naval blockade. And now it turns out that America is going to actually pay for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. They are restoring the pre-war status quo, but they will also release what amounts to tens of billions of dollars of Iranian foreign assets.

4:24and they will waive sanctions now to permit Iran to sell oil. So just imagine if that had been put on the table before Trump originally fired his first shots, that you will end in 110 days by reopening something that was already opened and lifting sanctions on possibly your greatest foreign enemy and paying them more to help their supplies get through.

4:53Jon Sopel:Look, you know, Donald Trump wrote the book The Art of the Deal. Maybe it's time to update that with The Art of the Capitulation, because what we have seen is Donald Trump at the outset of this promising that the ballistic missile program would end. Nothing about that in the deal. It would stop the foreign funding of Hezbollah and Hamas. Nothing about that in the deal. Human rights. Nothing about that. What about the protesters? There was going to be regime change. Nothing about that either. Donald Trump has absolutely achieved sweet fuck all in this war with Iran so far. And in the end, as you say, Emily, America is paying a price for it.

5:33Jon Sopel:It's lifting the sanctions. It's it's unfreezing the Iranian assets. And all we've got is the Strait of Hormuz open for 60 days. Let's be clear about that. Iran is saying that after the 60 days, they will put tolls on ships coming through the strait. I mean, what on earth has been achieved here? There's also this question of the$300 billion reconstruction fund. Now, on the one hand, you know, Trump sort of says, well, you look at what we did. We caused a trillion dollars worth of damage. That's just, you know, part of what we want. And if people want to invest, that's fine. But actually, just look at it more closely, right?

6:14We don't know who's funding this. It might be the Gulf states. The Gulf states certainly didn't ask to get involved in the bombing of Iran and receiving bombs on their own territory themselves. So why should they now feel that they are obliged to pay for the reconstruction? But more, just imagine what we're saying. We're saying, could everyone now come in and reinvest in a country that still remains, presumably, a primary enemy of America? I mean, a reconstruction fund traditionally is once you have removed a regime, right? Once you've toppled the leaders and you need to rebuild Europe. Completely.

6:49Or even Iraq. You know, you say we've taken out Saddam Hussein. Now let's try and put the country back together again. This is our pledge to you for your new life and your new beginning. There is no new beginning here. There is no new life. There's the same regime in place. So essentially Trump is now inviting countries around the world to invest in a country that actually they're still kind of politically at war with.

7:14Jon Sopel:Right. Also, didn't Donald Trump have things to say about American foreign policy and nation building? And this is what he's now trying to do in Iran. I mean, it's his history repeating itself. It is worth going back to Donald Trump in 2015 when he was talking about the JCPOA, the tortuously negotiated deal between Iran and other US and others, including Britain, of this deal that would stop Iran getting a nuclear weapon. This is him back in the day. He dealt from desperation and he shouldn't have been desperate. First of all, we're giving them billions of dollars in this deal. So Trump was a massive critic of any money going to Iran at a time when, frankly, Iran had made their pledge to let in nuclear experts to kind of see that they weren't enriching uranium in a way that they had promised not to.

8:05Right. So that was part of the deal that Obama had got. Trump hasn't got anything more than just this off repeated phrase. We're not going to make a nuclear weapon. And so just back to the money. Right. So all these states start sending money because they're calling it reconstruction. But we're not hearing the IRGC say, oh, yeah, that's going to schools and hospitals. Right. There's nothing that stops the money going in, frankly, to the IRGC being spent on drones, on missiles, on on more armament with which to then presumably hit whichever targets they fall out of favour with.

8:39Jon Sopel:Look, the greatest strategic and geopolitical failure here is that the aim was to stop Iran being the disruptive regional superpower in the area. And that was going to be because there was going to be regime change. They would stop their ballistic missile program. They would stop funding all these terrorist groups, whether in Lebanon or in Gaza or in Yemen. And that would be Iran taken down a peg or two. You have now got the Gulf nations absolutely bloody terrified of what Iran is going to do next. You have got the regime in place. You have got Iran under no obligation to stop supporting these other, you know, these other groups outside of Iran.

9:23Jon Sopel:And Iran has never looked more like the regional superpower. America came and tried to destroy it. And Iran has emerged stronger. Yeah. And the people who are really furious with Trump's turnabout, his capitulation, as you called it, is Israel, because they have been locked out the negotiations on this memorandum of understanding. They weren't given an opportunity to review the text. And the harshest words in the last three weeks, I think, have been between Trump and the Israeli prime minister Netanyahu. In other words, the people that he went into it to try and help, which I think we understand now, this was Trump sort of, you know, doing a solid for Netanyahu, who said we need to be able to clear out Hezbollah from Lebanon.

10:10Now Trump's so angry about what Israel's been doing in Lebanon, they've locked them out the whole process. So they've kind of made an enemy of the person that, you know, was in Trump's pocket to start with.

10:19Jon Sopel:There is something that is so utterly predictable about what the trajectory of this has been. Donald Trump is all in. I'm all in. We've got to attack Iran. We've got to stop their nuclear program. We've got to stop their missiles. We've got to stop them doing this. We want regime change. We want a whole new Iran. And it's time for the American, the Iranian people to rise up. All of that he wanted until the moment that the Strait of Hormuz gets shut. Oil prices go up in America and his popularity ratings start to tank. At that point, he says, oh, sorry, B.B., you're on your own now. I don't want to have any part of this.

10:54Jon Sopel:We need to make peace here. And you have to make peace as well. To be fair, he called out Netanyahu and what he was doing in Lebanon in a way that few other leaders around the world have dared do. I think we should just play that clip maybe, where he talks about why he's bombing entire apartment blocks just to find one person. I'll tell you what, Israel's fighting Hezbollah too long and too many people are being killed. And you don't have to knock down an apartment house every time you're looking for somebody because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses And they're not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you.

11:25He's spelling out what I think loads of people around the world think about Israeli actions in Lebanon, quite frankly. But what this does mean is that if Netanyahu decides that he doesn't need Trump anymore because Trump is not endorsing him, then he goes off and does what he wants in Lebanon. And suddenly the whole MOU, the whole understanding, the memorandum is over. And Iran decides that they can do what they want to do with the Strait of Hormuz again.

11:51Jon Sopel:So undoubtedly, Israel is a loser in the longer term if this MOU becomes the sort of settled piece. The other big losers in all of this are the Gulf states. The GCC are terrified at what has happened, are appalled. They have put all their kind of defence in American hands. American equipment, American funding, American help. And America has shown itself to be powerless to defend them. And so you're going to see the Gulf states now looking elsewhere. And so that means that America's influence in this region is going to decline. And it's, you know, it's hard to exaggerate. You know, I don't want to kind of people say, oh, my God, Emily and John have got Trump derangement syndrome.

12:36Jon Sopel:It is hard to look at this as anything other. And I so wanted this to succeed because the Iranian regime is brutal. It's hideous. It treats its citizens awfully. It's a disruptive force in the region. And yet it's hard to come to any other conclusion that they have come out on top in all of this. Look, if you take the long view, he clearly thought that Iran was going to be as easy as Venezuela. So the question that I would ask now is what happens to Cuba? Because at one point we thought that that was where America would head next. in this sort of missionary zeal ticking off of places he didn't like, making Marco Rubio king of anywhere a bit naughty.

13:22He's done Venezuela and he clocks that up as success. I mean, I think that's a complicated picture we probably have to return to at some stage. Iran is an absolute mess and the Gulf states are in a more delicate position now vis-a-vis their relationship with America than ever before. does it maybe save Cuba from American invasion for for a couple of months because he's lost his appetite now I mean that's actually what you would be praying you'd be praying that it's done enough to kind of put him off but maybe the opposite is true maybe he thinks he needs to clock up a win because everyone is telling him like frankly spelling out his face that he's a complete loser now we will be back in just a moment with Radek Sikorsky the Polish foreign minister and deputy

14:06Jon Sopel:Prime Minister.

14:36Jon Sopel:5-star reviews so you can hire with confidence. Bumtack. We know homes. Hire the right pro today. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. The Splash into Savings event from Apple Vacations is here. Now through June 25th, save up to$150 on vacation packages, plus instant savings at select resorts in Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and top U.S. destinations. Use promo code JUNE26 for these limited-time offers. Start planning today at AppleVacations.com or contact your travel advisor. Apple Vacations, where your story starts.

15:23Jon Sopel:Well, we're joined in the studio now by the Polish Foreign Minister, Radek Sikorsky. I saw that Donald Tusk, your Prime Minister, sat down with George and Amal Clooney, and all you get is us. So apologies for that. Look, let's start with why you're in London and the signing of a Polish-British defence understanding. What is that? Our treaty has already been signed. It's called the Northolt Treaty, which is where the Polish Squadron 303, which had the highest number of scores during the Battle of Britain, was stationed. and we're very pleased by this enhanced relationship in the security field with the UK.

16:04Jon Sopel:So what does that, but what does it actually mean? Does it mean, I mean, we're all in NATO, so what difference does it make if there's a Polish-British treaty on defence? Well, it's more specific.

16:19It updates our previous agreements and it encourages our militaries, our defence companies to get together to cooperate. You'll have seen we're talking a lot about defence spending here at the moment. We lost the Defence Secretary John Healy last week. He left with a very strong message to the Prime Minister that he wasn't spending enough on defence to keep the country safe. How do you view what's going on here? Well, I wouldn't dream of interfering in your politics. But I can say that Poland has had a super law that guarantees the military 2 % for 20 years. We're actually now spending 4.8 % of GDP on hard defense and another percentage and a half on civil protection and other measures.

17:12Napoleon Bonaparte, I know, is a controversial figure in this country. But he said that a country that does not feed its own army is destined to feed a foreign one, something that we in Poland have learned to our cost many times. So, and you know, the closer you are to Russia, surprise, surprise, the more countries spend on the fence. So we're not spending enough. uh we have all made pledges originally uh at uh in at the wales nato summit and most most recently at the hague uh last year as european allies in nato we have doubled our spending since trump won but it's not enough the u.s is withdrawing certain capabilities from europe literally today and from the contingency plans.

18:08And they are telling us honestly that we have to step in and defence is expensive. I mean, look, there are very specific criticisms that came from John Healy, which were that Keir Starmer had made a pledge at Munich. He'd made a pledge in the Commons. And then the timeframe for that spending on defence was getting pushed further and further. And it wasn't actually mooted to come in until 2034. So, I mean, very specifically, you're not interfering in our politics because we are NATO. We are all NATO. So what we spend directly affects how Poland feels as well. I'm just trying to get a sense of whether you think that there has been a...

18:48very grateful for what successive British governments have done for Ukraine. You have done the right thing and led others and been a good example to follow for others. And Ukraine appreciates it. And it's one of the reasons why Ukraine has been able to resist Russian aggression. And what I can say is that Putin might not wait for us with the timescale. Remember, I'm a former defense minister myself. It takes time to create new capacity to manufacture equipment and ammunition. new systems sometimes take even a decade so we feel there is urgency Ukraine has given us till the end of the decade to rearm as long as Putin is bogged down in Donbass he's been fighting there for 13 years he can't launch any other he might do something reckless but we've got four years but he cannot launch another war but four years is not eternity

20:04Jon Sopel:OK, but let me just kind of frame it slightly differently. Do you think Europe, Western Europe, is doing enough at the moment to meet the challenge, meet the urgency of the challenge posed by, you know, the twin effects of Vladimir Putin seeming to be more aggressive and Donald Trump wanting American forces to retreat? Well, Putin is waging hybrid war against us. And the methods that they used against your prime minister's home are very similar to the methods they use in Poland. We've had an assassination in Poland two or three days ago. And it looks and we have a suspect. And as you know, you've had the Litvinenko, the Skripals and so on.

20:50so his capabilities are less but his intent is is worse than many people thought and remember a sick man with a gun is still a man with a gun as he seems to be maybe even losing in ukraine he might do something desperate uh and uh and we should uh and that's why we need to stay vigilant

21:17Jon Sopel:So let's talk about that. Do you think he is losing? I mean, we've seen today astonishing pictures from the Moscow area of oil refineries on fire and, you know, kind of a massive drone attack from Ukraine on the Russian capital. I think if we were talking on the eve of the Russian invasion and we described the correlation of forces in the theater as they are today, I don't think we would have predicted that. Ukraine has won the battle over the Black Sea, a country without a navy, and Ukrainian exports are reaching international markets. Ukraine has denied Russia air superiority over its territory.

22:01The Russians can drop bombs or launch missiles, but they can't fly over Kiev. And in the strikes, the Russians are hitting civilian targets. Ukrainians much more smartly are hitting Russia's refining capacity and they are knocking out around 20%. That's not counting today's strikes. And this is affecting Russia's ability to wage war and also Russia's finances. We have, as the EU, we have extended a 90 billion euro loan to Ukraine. Hungary has just unblocked another 7 billion euro financing for military assistance, which means that Putin has to recalculate whether he can afford to carry on with this war for another two years.

22:58It sounds like we actually owe a lot to Ukraine. When there is all this discussion about EU access, accession, what do you think? The Ukrainian army is the biggest and the most experienced army in Europe on our side. And yes, they have earned their status as a candidate for the EU through their valour. But of course, entering the EU is a more complicated business with every passing decade because the body of European law grows. But should it be expedited? It should be expedited while Ukraine fulfills all the criteria. So we've just... I mean, should they leapfrog, for example, Albania or Moldova or...

23:44Well, the Balkans is unfinished business. But remember, Ukraine is a country at war. There are issues. There was corruption in the past. We have to be sure that that's been extinguished. Some chapters will be difficult for some countries. You know, it took Poland seven years. How long would you like to see this? It's impossible to predict because it depends on the speed of Ukraine's introduction of European norms inside Ukraine.

24:17Jon Sopel:Britain is about to celebrate. I don't know whether celebrate is the right word to use. An ignominious anniversary, 10 years since we left the European Union. And suddenly the music much more now from British politicians, from Andy Burnham, who might be the next prime minister, or West Streeting, who might be the next prime minister, that we need to completely rethink our relationship with the EU. Is the door open to Britain if it wanted to come back? Of course it is. The original Rome Treaty said that every European country can apply. And my definition of a European country is a country whose majority territory is in Europe.

24:56So obviously you can apply.

24:59Jon Sopel:But I mean, given the turmoil that has been caused by Britain with the decision, the referendum to leave, the aftermath of that, I mean, if it applied, what would be the level of welcome? it's up to you to choose from the menu. And each dish on the menu has a price tag in terms of pooling of sovereignty. So today you are less integrated with the EU than Turkey. You're not even in the customs union. If you wanted to be a member of the single market, there is no going around being subject to the judgments of the European Court of Justice. If you cannot agree to that because of your own politics, you will not become a member of the single market.