380. JD Vance vs. the UK

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1:48Welcome to another live stream, Restisted Policy Special, which started, the thought for this started when JD Vance started to insult French and British troops, even though he later denied it. Then we had Trump speech overnight, which again, pretty newsworthy. We also So there's a pretty amazing fiscal economic revolution in the German Federal Republic with the new incoming chancellor. And then literally just before we started, Rory was sitting there in his kitchen, flicking through his phone and discovered something breaking news, Rory. What do you just tell us? Well, yes. I mean, let's get into Canada, which I think is the way of opening.

2:36And then we'll get on to those other three subjects. So a quick, quick reminder for people, we've been doing a lot on Canada recently. We've just interviewed Christopher Eland and Mark Carney, who are the two leading contenders, one of whom probably Mark Carney, but one of whom will be the Canadian Prime Minister in five days, and you can listen to that on leading. And why are we concentrating so much on Canada? And we also did quite a lot of the last podcast on Canada. Well, because Canada is not just one of the world's largest economies. You know, it's got an economy almost the same size as the United Kingdoms.

3:06it's got a GDP per capita considerably larger than that of the United Kingdom. But it is of course the US's nearest neighbor. And the reason why we're starting with it is that Donald Trump announced that he would reimpose 25 % tariffs on Canada, 25 % on Mexico, 20 % on China. And people remember, he imposed it 30 days ago. This is incidentally a completely illegal thing. Theoretically, he's supposed to spend 180 days in terms of treating his medical congressional approval, but he just does it. Canada responded, you thought quite well, but they did make a concession, and we'll begin to understand why they made a concession because of the scale of what this is doing to the Canada economy.

3:51Concession was they set up a phantom, or they moved trips to the border. And I think we thought at the time that that probably had been enough for Trump to go away from it. Instead of which, he announced actually it's only a 30 days suspension and it's now being re -enounced. And the impacts of this are unbelievable. So just a few facts. 75 % of all Canadian exports go to the United States. Through 33 % of all Canadian imports come from the United States. 18 % so nearly a fifth of the Canadian economy is connected to exporting from the United States. 2 .4 million jobs in Canada directly connected exporting to the United States.

4:33And if this is kept in place, modeling is unbelievably difficult because there are incredible second and third order impacts. Reuters did an article this morning suggesting inflation will get up to 7 .2%, GDP will contract by 2 .6%, that's a very, very serious contraction. unemployment will go up 7%, but that's just the beginning because you shared a graphic with us, which I think came out of the BBC illustrating how complicated this could be. The 25 % tariffs may be underestimating. If you follow a single bit of piping going into an American car, it'll go from Canada all the way down to Mexico, get a 25 % tariff in Mexico, and then come back again.

5:20Now, to add to that, the story that I was just talking about before we came on, which Shashat Joshi, one of the people I admire greatly, partly because he's been having a good fight with JD Vance about Ukraine, has just tweeted out that America is threatening Canada with expulsion from Five Eyes, which is the intelligence sharing network between Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. It's threatening border changes and according to Canadian Minister, Foreign Minister Jodie, that Trump officials say that they are putting military co -operation and water on the table.

5:57So, military cooperation includes things like continental air defense. And as a result, there are now pretty serious Canadians beginning to write articles saying things like, we must be prepared to defend our sovereignty, not just with military spending, but with a population that is engaged, trained and ready, Peter McLeod calling for civil defense force wherever a Canadian has a role to play. So this is the beginning of something pretty serious over you. Well, when you first told me you read the bait in what your friend tweeted, as my industry actually was all that, so I think you say when you're declaring war on somebody, this five eye, we've talked about the five eyes, these are, and when we talked to David Mcluskey on the from the rest is classified he was explaining how how that helps the all of you know we're all it goes back to the basic idea that intelligence sharing is a stronger way of countries defending themselves and each other and it's been long -standing to just do that and right in the middle of this leadership election that's about to find new prime minister I wonder whether it's a direct response to the fact that Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, who's in the last week of his premiership, so probably a bit gone ho, but I think he's a pretty thoughtful guy, but he said his immediate reaction to the Trump tariff announcement was to say, it's not often that I agree with the Wall Street Journal, but when they say that you're dumbed -on in relation to this, they're absolutely right.

7:28This is a, you may be a smart guy, but this is a very dumb thing to do. And the other thing I saw was on Fox News of All Places, a reporter explaining how this was going to put the prices up for ordinary Americans buying the things that they like to buy. Whereas Trump, the post -truth president who likes to lie more than he likes to tell the truth, constantly saying this is all going to be paid for by the country that we're putting the tariffs on. No, it's not. This is going to be paid for in Italy in the prices and also in terms of the rise inflation as you say. Let's just, because we're going to get into this more.

8:07One of the things I've been reflecting on a great deal because we just talk to Michael Wolfe as an interview for leading which will be coming out soon, who is a friend of yours who's written four books on Trump and had this incredible access to being out loud -spend seven months in the White House in the first Trump presidency. And his general tendency has been to downplay the threat from Trump, and to say he didn't actually do that much damage. First time, and he's largely about entertainment and news stories, there's not really a consistent policy threat. I want to push back against this because I think Tariff's is a good route into this, and then we'll move on to J .D.

8:46Vance and Allies and NATO and Ukraine. So Trump has been saying that tariffs is one of the most beautiful words in the English language for many many years now. In fact, he's on the record praising tariffs back in the late 80s. I've just reading a great book at the moment called America First about America's more than 100 year remanstred in the American right with authoritarian dictators, in particular with Germany in the first and second mobile. And in that book, it describing Trump's foreign policy in 2016 says that Trump believed that American allies mooched on the United States. I would suggest exploited it.

9:29That there was no US national interest investing in alliances in Europe and Asia. That Ukraine belonged firmly within Putin's sphere of influence. And that dictators like Putin were worthy of emulation. And again, I would suggest that's pretty consistent. That's eight, nine years ago. It doesn't look like he's changed very much. In fact, actually, he's got, he's more on that track now than he was. And I guess one of the, I'm gonna finish here, but one of the paradox is, is given all these beliefs, maybe the surprising thing, isn't so much why he's doing all this stuff now. Maybe more surprising is why he didn't do more of this stuff in 2017 to 2021.

10:12And the answer is probably that he was surrounded by people who thought that a lot of the stuff he was doing, saying was mad and they were trying to stop him, where he's now surrounded by people, like Speaker Johnson, Vance, who was so sitting behind him in the Congress last night, like Elon Musk, like the cabinet who are basically to do their toll. He's now feels involved and empowered. But I thought I didn't, I was part of me said, should I stay up and watch his call respite? And very much larger part said no, go to bed. So I haven't watched the whole thing. And I am only 99 minutes long, Alistair.

10:49I know. I mean, we're talking Castro levels here. I mean, we really are. But this all goes into the thing about it's all about me. I mean, any self -respecting politician knows that if there's one thing other politicians can't stand is having to sit there for a very long time listening to somebody else talk at them. And he went on and on and on and on, loving the drama, loving the theatre. Didn't actually say that much that was consequential or newsworthy. And it was pretty tribal and one of the Democrats got got kicked out. But just to go back to why we first thought maybe we should do something today.

11:27And in fact Fiona, my Fiona said the other day, so the trouble with these, with Trump at the moment is that you guys, us and the Mooch and Katty, you're doing these podcasts and then they go out the next morning and like so much stuff has already happened and it sort of feels like that, but we were actually thinking that we should do something about JD Vance and what he said in yet another Fox News interview about Europe where he basically said, we said this on the main podcast that went out this morning. And by the way, I should tell people we're going to delay question time because we're going to put this is out going out live now Members are members can already see question time because it goes out with the main podcast But we're going to put this out on general releases it were overnight tonight and then question time on Friday So I'll remind people of that at the end, but the thing about Vance He did this interview with Fox News Where he said the thing that I mentioned on the main podcast well the trouble with the Europeans is that you know they say one thing in private and they tell you they want to sort out Ukraine and get a cease -fire, but then they stand up in public and say, you know, I love you, there's a lensky in blah blah blah.

12:31And then he went on, they've got this absolute obsession that if they have this minerals deal with lots of American companies in their sort of, you know, digging and scavenging and foraging and what have you making money, why on earth isn't that a security guarantee? So I enter a truck for a second. Yeah, yeah. In truck for a second. Well, there are two answers to that. One is, of course, there are American miners all around the world. There are American miners in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That doesn't mean that the United States is getting involved in 150 insurgencies in Democratic Republic of the Congo.

13:05Secondly, presumably all that matters is there a ability to extract the minerals from the grounds. So most of these minerals, or a lot of them, are actually in the bit controlled by Putin. Correct. So actually, in effect, all that has to happen, as Putin has to say, go on, filibutes, keep extracting the minerals. And presumably, there's no reason for the US to get involved at all. If all their interest in is protecting their mining assets, they don't care at all whether it's the Lensky's and Office or Putin's and Office. Correct. So Van's thing goes on. And I think Van's is an interesting character.

13:33I have read his book, Hillbilly Elegy. It is very interesting. He did come from an extraordinary poor background. but I think he's become pretty repellent human being. And he went on to say that this would be a better security guarantee than the idea of 20 ,000 soldiers from some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 to 40 years. Well, there's only two countries that are on the record. Others have indicated that they might take part. But there are only two countries that have actually said we would put quotes boots on the ground. That is the United Kingdom and France. So not surprisingly, people like the Shadow of Defense Secretary, people like Johnny Mercer, former veteran, lots of soldiers, people like that guy who was nickel.

14:25Joe was a John Nickel who was the that was taken hostage. Yeah. The pilot who was who was taken hostage. So a lot of very angry soldiers out there. And I had a front -page of the British newspapers, as Dick's press. Waterwall absolutely vile about Vance. And I had, as you know, a couple of very good friends who were in special forces and they were absolutely livid. And one of them just sent me a very, very short message of all the places that he had fought in alongside Americans in his nearly 20 year career. Let's dig into this a little bit more. But just to follow this story through. So, Vance then followed on this communications horror by making it even worse.

15:11He then came out and said, I didn't mention the UK or France. Now, so then the question is, so who is it you did mean? Who is this random country? It hasn't fought a war. And 30, 40 years. So I was thinking back to my time in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Afghanistan between 2010, 2017, any one time, the UK had about 10 ,000 soldiers on the ground. France had about 4 ,000. But get this, Germany had 5 ,000, Italy had 4 ,000, Canada had 3 ,000, the Dutch had 2 ,000, the Poles, the Australians, the Spanish, the Danes, the Romanians, the Turks had about 1 ,000 each, the Bulgarians, the Belgians, the Norwegians, the Czechs had over 500.

15:51In Iraq, the South Koreans had 3 ,600. The Ukrainians had 1 ,600 helping the Americans, Japan had troops in the ground, so. And the actual numbers of people we deployed was much bigger. Britain deployed 137 ,000 individual personal deployments because remember we were there for 20 years. So you have 10 ,000 there at one time and you have to keep rotating them in and out on six month rotations. So the question then for J. DeVance is given that over 50 countries came in to back the United States when the United States was attacked after 2011. It must be Luxembourg. Luxembourg and Börer. It's Greenland.

16:34It might be Greenland. Well, the day's had trips on the ground. Luxembourg contributed. I think that if you really pen Vance down and try to ask in which country he means, he's really stuck because there were more than 50 countries on the ground. But this is what is so annoying about the way that the media ecosystem works in America. I mean, what does Vance actually do? He sits on the sofa and listens to Donald Trump and tries to get him right out of the Zelensky. He checks his Twitter feed probably at four hours a day, looking at his Twitter feed and gets into spats with people like you and other Medihass and other journalists.

17:08And then the other thing that he does is he does interviews with Fox News. And I think this is one of the reasons, and by the way, JD, if you're listening, would love to have you on the podcast. One of the reasons I think they don't, they get, they make mistakes, is because they're always is doing these interviews with people who just agree with them. So there's one point in that interview. I watched the whole thing again last night. There's one point in that interview where they talk about everything that Biden and the Europeans try to do to stop stop Putin invading and the interviewer says and he's still invaded and the guy starts laughing and then vanstars laughing.

17:42Yeah, he's still invaded and the look is sort of terrible. And but let me just brief history lesson for anybody who wants to hear these things and and please feed this back to JD events. 1990 to 1991, first Gulf War, 302 fatalities, including 47 British personnel, 53 ,000 British troops involved. Bosnian War, 59 British fatalities, out of 2 ,400 troops who were there as part of Unprefer. Kosovo War, actually that was a casualty wise, was the NATO casualties were fairly low. We had 4 ,000 troops there alongside 7 ,000 American troops. They talk about every wall they've ever done as though it's all about them.

18:28There were 40 ,000 NATO troops. Most of those countries that you said there. Afghanistan, 457 UK military, 457 casualties. 400 killed. For 47 deaths. Death, death, death. Out of 900, we had 150 ,000 overall. 9 .5 ,000 Lippie. Iraq 179 British soldiers killed out of 140 ,000 that took part. And then you go through Operation Desert Fox, Sierra Leone. We had a soldier killed, I can remember it, vividly. We had a soldier killed in combat in Sierra Leone. And if you go to Sierra Leone these days, people will say that that was the British essentially say. And then you go into Libya, and then also Operation Prosperity Garden is going on now.

19:16So there are British forces is smaller number alongside Americans right now in Yemen. Yeah, so I mean, I think the other thing is to bring it down to individuals. So like almost everybody who was in Afghanistan or Iraq, I knew people who were killed, and I knew many people who were permanently injured. and they did so alongside Americans. Some of them were killed by Americans in friendly fire accidents. So I remember at the beginning of 2003 in Iraq, Lance Corporate Matti Howe was killed when the US aircraft fired on the blusen miles. I was in Afghanistan when Stephen Farrell, who was the New York Times journalist, was freed by a British operation in which Corporate John Harrison was killed.

20:13And one of the things that never really came off in Parliament is that Prime Minister's read out the names of soldiers. So I remember my first Prime Minister's question watching David Cameron's say, I'd like to pay tribute from 40 Commando to Corporal Stephen Curley. But what they don't really tell you is who these people were. So Stephen Curly was a mountain warfare specialist. He was an amazingly inspiring marine. He had saved another soldier at huge risk to his own life. He'd been killed by a bomb in a small alien sanguin on patrol. And so we're talking here about hundreds of British and European lives.

21:01So to be I saw the head of my bodyguard teams in New Zealander mounting the general purpose machine gun, trying to keep Shia militia back from coming over our fence line. So these are wars in which the US relied on 70 or 80 years of goodwill. American power, martial plans, all American development assistance, since its military integration to call on other nations to come to its aid. It was solidarity about an attack on the United States in 911. Right, that attack was not that al -Qaeda attacked Denmark or Norway, or Ukraine, Ukraine deployed into Iraq to help the United States. And what Vance has done is such an astonishing revelation of his profound ignorance.

22:00His insecurity, his silliness, his complete... is complete unsuitability for the role of ice -present. I cannot think of any vice -present in American history who would have been stupid enough to insult allies who gave lives in that way. But above all, for somebody who served in the military, an unbelievable contempt for the service of hundreds of thousands of soldiers who deployed and left their families to back the United States. Well, let me tell you, I've just looked up Johnny Merce's Twitter feed. This clown as Vance needs to check his privilege. I read his book, Making the Mistake of Finding Him Quite Interesting, as did I.

22:43By his own admission, he spent his time in the Marines' quotes, writing articles and taking pictures. Perhaps if he'd got his hands dirty serving his country like so many of his fellow American and British veterans chasing his own country's crazy foreign policy ideas. He might not be so quick to dismiss their sacrifice. And I think this will run, I suspect if this is getting any play, it probably won't be because they just move on to the next chapter in the Trump reality TV show. I suspect a lot of Americans will be really, really out. A lot of American military will be angry about this. Of course, it's essentially saying, and you tie it, you imagine if you're Canadian today, you tie it in with what you said about the five eyes.

23:19They're basically saying, unless you are part of our gang now, America 2025, nothing you ever did counts, didn't count for anything. So he tried to backtrack and said, I didn't mean Britain, I didn't mean France, as you say, ridiculous, who did you mean then? But actually, if you watch the interview in its totality, there's a level of arrogance and hubris that is really overwhelming. And if these people at any sense, they've maybe be governed a bit more and start talking a lot less. Well, it's very weird because America, the America that I knew when I began my career, very briefly in the military and then joining the foreign office, bent over backwards to make allies feel valued, even when America had more troops on the ground, even when it was spending more money.

24:10I remember when I was deployed, my first posting to, sorry, not my first posting, my second Composting to Montenegro that the Americans came into CS and they said We're very pleased you're going to Montenegro and We're very sorry that we don't have more people on the ground there. We're very sorry that we can't Share much more with you. We're so grateful for all you're doing and even at the time I thought they're Blowing smoke they probably do have a lot more assets a lot more information that we do in Montenegro But they at least pretend it right they they gave us a lot of credit it. And then I remember a few months in a large American coming up to me on the street and saying, I hear you haven't got a good evacuation plan.

24:54My evacuation plan was supposed to be that I was supposed to walk 40 miles to the Albanian border if something went wrong. And he said, I've got two black core helicopters at the airport. And if you're ever in any trouble, here's my number and I'll get you out, right? So that was the America that I knew where There was no doubt, of course, that the United States had the kit, had the money, had the influence, but they've bent over backwards to be gracious and courteous towards their allies. And this is reversing at all. But this comes from the top. So what's the advance in those meetings with Trump?

25:30This is what Michael Walser says. He's playing to an audience of one. He wants to be the guy that Trump likes, respects, listens to, is influenced by. And so he's sold his soul. We know that from all the things that he used to say about Trump that he now sort of, you know, is unsaid. But I also think it says something about Trump's personality that, you know, it's the only thing about if you're really strong, you don't need to say you're strong. If you're really rich, you don't need to keep saying that you're really rich. If you're really powerful, you don't need to see, if you're really clever, you don't around saying I'm really clever.

26:05Trump is actually unbelievably insecure about what other people think of him. So, look, I had my closest experience with the American military was when I went and I've talked to you this about before and I went and worked at NATO, shape headquarters in Belgium under the general West clart was the guy in charge of what have you. And that was absolutely multinational. I mean, you know, the top guy was American, the second guy was a Brit, the third guy was a German, the Italians, as you say, went right down Turks, all sorts of people there. And the Americans in there, yes they're brash and yes they're American or why have you, but they could not have been more welcoming,

26:49solicitous, helpful, and not sort of throwing their weight around the whole time. And I think what we've got is the reason why there's a lenski meeting sort of offended so many people, they just look like a couple of bullies throwing their weight around. It's also unbelievably stupid of the United States because I think Vance is focusing on the fact that the U .S. in these engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan had more manpower and more kit and more money was doing more of the fighting. And that's absolutely true. When I was surrounded in my compound in Iraq, in the end, it was an American AC -130 that he's specced a gunship coming down from Baghdad that got rid of the people attacking up position.

27:33And we were very reliant on the Americans for the gestics for air support and all this stuff. But do the counterfactual. Imagine if America had gone into Iraq and Afghanistan alone. Imagine how quickly those interventions would have collapsed in the global consciousness. Everything that people hated those interventions for, It would have been within a few weeks or months if America was there alone doing all the killing alone, doing all the occupational alone, facing this full insurgency alone. Bush, Obama, all these people understood that these coalitions, the willing were absolutely vital for suggesting to the world that what America was doing, fighting terrorism or what was doing fighting, Saddam Hussein, was not just an American selfish interest, but it was about global security, it was about democracy, it was about human rights and all this other stuff, which may be questioned now, but will not be possible if the US tries to do any intervention in the future because it will find itself doing it to learn and to learn, it will be much weaker.

28:41Look, what happened over Syria when we often say that that was maybe when Putin and decided the West was weak, I'll do, I can really move into Syria, I can do whatever I want, and that probably made it, getting away with that made him think he could get away with Ukraine and my view. But one of the reasons for that was a good Barack Obama felt that to do it alone as the United States would not be effective. So these guys are basically thinking, you know, they can do whatever they want because they're America. And you know, I was Fiona and I were watching, I mentioned on the main podcast the Norma Percy series on the Middle East and the final episode Trump is in part of it and of course he's there basically saying I'm a great deal maker I'm gonna make a great deal.