403. Trump's Gulf Billions: Saudi, Sanctions, and Ceasefires

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1:29Welcome to the rest of the politics of media, Alistair Campbell. And with me, Rory's shared. And before we get going, Rory, we have some exciting news. We are going on tour. Again, very exciting. Yep, we're on our way to Glasgow, Manchester, Bournemouth London for a brand new run of the rest of this politics live. And I think it's fair to say last year we were somewhat taken aback by the interest, by the numbers that turned out. So hopefully we have the same this year. Really exciting. And obviously highlight last year. O2 was very, very strange and extraordinary. But strange as moment was you getting somebody shout out more as you went through one of the little slides on the tax take.

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2:45And we hope to see as many of you there in November as possible. Right then, Alistair, let's get on with today's show. Okay, well look, when I started the week, I thought we would kick off possibly with the UK and immigration. But I think we should do that in question time. Not least because we've had lots of questions on it. I think we should focus the whole episode today on foreign affairs, foreign policy, but starting with Trump in the Gulf. Because there is so much going on that kind of relates to that visit. Lots of talk of different ceasefires, business deals, who's in and out in geopolitics.

3:13So let's stick with Trump. And I think one of the things you said to me over the weekend, which I struck is that it is partly this week a story of three conflicts and three potential peace deals, all of them involving nuclear arms states. So Israel's got a nuclear weapon and it's conflict with Gaza, Russia, obviously got a nuclear weapon. It's conflict with Ukraine and India and Pakistan both with nuclear weapons were the conflicts over Kashmir. And as I thought about it over the weekend and we can get into this in more detail, I was really struck by two things. One is how each type of conflict comes from a very different type of nationalism and would have to have a very different type of solution.

3:50And the second thing is how much all of them are a product of populism and a new world of populism which drives this kind of conflict more than it probably would have done in the past. But anyway, back to you first on the Trump visit, which is a maybe a way of bringing it down to work. Yeah, so he's just landed. We are speaking on Tuesday morning. He's just arrived in Riyadh. Both of his terms now, his first visit has been to the Gulf, not to Europe, not to Latin America, not to China, but to the Gulf. And I think we're going to hear a lot about business. And I think there's a very interesting story developing, which I think could become a problem for them.

4:23It's focusing around this plane, the gift from the Qataris to Trump. But actually it's the interlinking of political, personal and professional commercial interests. You taught last week about that. Well, a couple of Trump boys being out there sort of seeding the ground. Yeah, this is an amazing gift. So the idea is basically it's a sort of Air Force one plane with the most unbelievable amount of electronic equipment, which costs $400 million. Of course, everyone terrified that actually the plane's going to be potentially full of stuff that could spy on the American president. He's moving around a people of calculated, it takes three years to do all the tests to remove all the equipment that could be dodgy and probably cost more than the cost of the plane.

5:02And a couple of things in that. I mean, straight after inauguration, he said, I'm thinking of making my first visit to the Gulf. It depends how much they pay. You know, last time they gave $400 billion. So I'm thinking maybe this time $500 billion. And I'll make my first visit to Saudi Arabia. And sure enough, Saudi Arabia has offered investment of much more than that. UAE's offered over 10 years, over a trillion and Qatar has offered this amazing $400 million plane, which we're told Trump apparently is intending to use while he's present. And then he's intending to give it to his presidential library.

5:33And that I think every library needs a plane. Absolutely. Because the library has to fly all over the world. Exactly. It's pretty not sitting there with the bookshelves because they're not sure there's going to be much on the shelves. I think he's going to be using it, isn't he? I can remember Jimmy Carter, when he was president of America, having to give up his peanut farm, because people were so worried about the potential for a conflict of interest. I think I write about it. He gave up his farm. This is a level of, I mean, how is it anything but corrupt? And the fact that yesterday he got challenged on it by, I think it was somebody from ABC who immediately condemned us fake news and all that stuff.

6:11But we're talking about, this is more than a gift. I mean, I've been with prime ministers and presidents when you exchange your gifts. And it's usually some sort of antique thing. You know, I'm allowed to keep because the value is over a thousand pounds. Yeah, or a watch, isn't it? Exactly. Well, I remember Joss Brown when he gave us a horse and we didn't quite know what to do with that one. But a plane, this thing's called a flag palace. So there's that. There's a business of the horse. I mean, the horse is literally the worst possible gift. And if anybody's thinking of bribing world leaders, golf leaders often give horses.

6:40And the problem is, if you're really serious about accepting the gift, you've got to move the horse over to the United Kingdom. Then you've got to have a stable for it. You've got to feed it. It's a really expensive. You can't allow it. You're allowed to keep it as your, if it's a race horse, you can't race it. And this is the, it's actually basically, this is what the Burmese story of the White Elephantist, which is that it's actually so expensive looking after the White Elephant that you've been given, you bankrupt the whole kingdom. What did you do with Joss Brown's horse before we get that to the I honestly can't remember.

7:05I can't remember. You didn't kill it. You didn't kill it. You didn't kill it. You were just an idiot. You were just stored in the foreign office. No, we didn't kill it. I think we must have given it a stable somewhere. Somebody worked out that this plane, if you remember the fuss of Kierstarr and his freebies, this plane would pay him. I think it was like 21 million pairs of the spateacles that he got grief for. Anyway, let's go to the, the serious start. I'll tell you, there's one thing that immediately comes to mind and this sort of relates to to Gaza as well. You get the feeling that Trump and Wicoff, his special envoy, are losing faith in Netanyahu.

7:37It's really interesting that the series is going to Saudi, he's going to Qatar, and he's going to the UAE. Israel is not that far away. He's not going to Israel. The Wicoff, it seems, has been the one who's been directly dealing with Hamas to get this hostage out. The last American nationality hostage he was released yesterday, not involving the Israelis. The other thing that's fascinating, this dropped out in Trump's bilateral with Mark Carni, the Canadian Prime Minister, when he suddenly announced, we're stopping bombing the Houthis in Yemen. Because the Carni thing was quite a big news of itself, it sort of went under the radar.

8:10But when you drill down into the detail of that, again, I think it's a bit of a hit on Israel because essentially the deal they've done with the Houthis is that the Houthis have they say they will still be targeting Israeli -linked ships. So this feels to me like there's a bit of a move against Netanyahu, and the Americans taking this over on their own terms. Yeah, I think there's a number of them, isn't there? So as you say, the US negotiated directly with Houthis without Israel. They've been negotiating directly with Hamas without Israel. He's been praising Erdogan, he's starting talks with Iran when Netanyahu has actually been pushing for strikes against Iran.

8:56He's talking about lifting sanctions on Syria when Israel is very, very clear they do not want sanctions lifted on Syria. And he's talking about a strategic defense partnership with the Saudis, which again was only supposed to happen once they've normalized relationships with Israel. So I think you're absolutely right. There's a sense that Trump and Whitcoff are no longer prioritizing Netanyahu's concerns but but but but but but. That is still quite a long way from them pushing ahead with a peace deal with Gaza. And there there's been some very, very interesting things. I mean, again, it's probably Trump just trying to create headlines, but he made a statement about considering recognizing Palestine as a state.

9:41There's a lot of ifs and butts there. Number one, extremely unlikely he would ever do it. I mean, that is very, very aggressive from Netanyahu's point of view. Secondly, he hasn't really described what he's, I mean, if what he's saying is at the end of a peace deal when the Palestinians have done all the right things, we will eventually recognize the Palestinian state. Then that's no different ready for more people to talk about Gaza. But if in the very strange situation and it is important to understand Trump is pretty unpredictable and peculiar to be seen with the terrorists, he actually were to announce the recognition of the state of Palestine.

10:15That would be a very, very major issue for Israel because in particular, it would mean that the settlements would become very, very difficult going forward. Every future settlement would be happening in a Palestinian state against the explicit interests of the United States. And Israel is so dependent on the US. 69 % of its arms and ports, for example, comes in the US, but it's much more than that. Really, the entire project of Israel, the entire project of settlements would have been unimaginable without American support. And therefore, there's a real limit to what Netanyahu can do to challenge Trump, not least because the Democratic Party, particularly younger members of the Democratic Party, turning very strongly against the Israeli position, he needs Trump.

10:56The other thing, again, yesterday, he literally just dropped it out when talking about something else. Because of this style he has of sort of, you know, we've compared it to reality TV show where he's the camp and we'll see this over the next four days in this gold visit. The cameras will be on him all the time. He will be throwing out all sorts of, you know, angles and distractions and you could try and keep your focus on the big picture. But it was in one of these pool sprays where I think he was talking about something to do with health. And he suddenly talked about lifting sanctions on Syria.

11:27When we interviewed Al -Sharah, the president of Syria, he was very clear with us that, you know, that was the big goal, getting America to lift sanctions on Syria was the big goal. And there's now even talk, there was an American congressman who, a Republican congressman who visited Syria last week, who met Al -Sharah, who met lots of the big players, and who did an interview with the Jerusalem Post, he wasn't, you know, he's going right into the heart of the debate. And saying, we need to take a risk on this guy. Now, you and I got flak and still get flak just for talking to the guy. Okay. If you're the president of America and you suddenly decide, yeah, we are going to take a risk on this guy.

12:05And suddenly sanctions get lifted on Syria. I mean, again, how does that go down with BB and crew? Just remind people, the issue here, of course, is that Al -Sharah was the head of Al -Qaeda, Syria. And before that, it had been part of Al -Qaeda, Iraq. And from the point of view of Israel, he is seen as a dangerous terrorist taking over a country. Next time, Israel has been conducting lots of bombing campaigns. It's seized territory and it's supporting the droves and it seems to be trying to essentially weaken and balkanize the country and making it clear that they need to get rid of Al -Sharah.

12:43And they've been putting a lot of pressure on the State Department, particularly on market Rubio and some of these system sectaries under him, not to lift those sanctions and Mike Wolts, who was the National Security Advisor, seemed to be pretty much on that side. Let's hold a hard line on this. And to continue to sort of play devil's advocate, one of the things that's happened since we talked to Al -Sharah is firstly, the atrocities connected with the Al -Awaite communities where there were attacks by the Al -Awaites against the government and then government militia attacked Al -Awaite villages and killed a lot of people.

13:15That was one series of issues. A bigger set of issues is that we talked to him a lot about the Constitution changing power and it's becoming increasingly clear, I think, that he's holding off really pushing ahead with elections or thinking about democracy. And most disturbingly of all, he has brought in foreign fighters into quite senior positions, including an Uzbek al -Qaeda activist who he's put in effectively as a minister. So you can see why the concerns are not just from Israel, they're also coming from more liberal voices. They tried in Damascus, for example, I had a friend in Damascus yesterday who was complaining that they'd just been on a bus where militias had tried to make the men sit at the front and the women at the back so the men can look at the women and there'd been actually basically a protest by the Damasins and it hadn't happened.

14:06All that's happening in the background. But it's very interesting, as you say, that Trump, and this is, I think, the final part of the story, why is he then doing it? Well, he's doing it because he's clear he doesn't want to put any money up and because the Saudis have made it very clear they want sanctions lifted, the Catries have said they want sanctions lifted and the Turks have said they want sanctions lifted and all three countries have said that if he lifts sanctions they will basically pay for stuff. Can't have a pay for some servants. And they've already had permission to start paying some to civil servants.

14:38So the Republican Congressman, his name is Marlon Stutzman from Indiana and I got the feeling, I don't know this guy and I don't know whether he's close to the Magalot or not. But it was very interesting that he was, because we talk a lot about how you kind of have to flatter Trump to get his attention, to get his ear and he's set this meeting with Al -Shara in the context of Al -Shara's willingness to sign up to the Abraham Accords, which is all about normalization of relations with Israel. And when you think about what their historical, traditional view of Israel is, I thought that was very, very interesting.

15:11So this stuff is moving and you mentioned the Turks there. The Turks who have now seemed to resolve this long standing decades along fight with the breakaway Kurdish party, PKK. Yesterday when they were announcing it there was the Turkish Foreign Minister and who was standing alongside him, our friend the Syrian Foreign Minister who helped get the interview with Al -Shara. So what you're seeing are these moving parts into the middle of which flies Donald Trump with, as you say, nobody quite sure what he's going to do and how he's going to do it. This is a very, very, very important week for all of these relationships and right now could change, but right now it feels to me like the Israelis will be feeling unhappy and vulnerable.

15:57The Saudis will be feeling very strong and very powerful, detour the Qataris, detour the Emirates and the Turks and the Syrians. And we have to watch Iran. I mean one of the central things that may come out of this visit to Gulf and again the White House keeps throwing out different messages. I suspect it's unlikely to be a major resolution of Gaza. It's certainly going to include statements about new relationships with Saudi on defense and AI. In fact, he's bringing with him a loss of the sort of central villains. I think Elon Musk is on the plane. Zuckerberg, Samolman are all turning up. But Iran is going to be very important.

16:36And the Iran story is again very, very interesting because traditionally when people try to understand why UAE had become close to Israel, why Saudi was considering becoming close to Israel. The story was that they were relying on Israel to work with them against Iran. Iran was their common enemy. And the high point of that was about sort of 2015 when the world recorded conversations from a UAE minister apparently calling for the US to bomb Iran. Fast forward 10 years, they seem to be much less worried about Iran. Partly because Iran has been revealed to be weaker than it was. Partly because they no longer think that the fundamental threat posed by Iran would be against them.

17:21They don't think Iran is likely to drop a nuclear bomb on Riyadh. They think they're more likely to drop it if anywhere on Israel. And also because Mohammed bin Salman seems to have totally changed his view from a much more confrontational attitude towards China, these broker deals with Iran. And so I think it's going to be interesting to watch. And it's also going to be particularly interesting to watch UAE, which was a bit of an outlier and a little bit more skeptical about Iran. Will they come together if Trump pushes ahead with the deal? This morning the head of UNRA, which has been declared to the PNG by Israel, but the head of UNRA, has come out and essentially said that the Israelis are using starvation as a weapon of war.

18:03And of course the Israelis are dismissing it, but there was some, I don't know if very much of the news you watched last night. There was some unbelievable footage on ITV and Channel 4 that I saw. I mentioned last week that the girl who was looking at pictures of herself when she was healthy, but there were, they were in a hospital with these babies that were, you know, using kids like this in Africa where their eyes are popping out, the ribs are coming out through the skin. It was absolutely horrific. I still can't for the life of me understand why it's not being called out more than it is, including by our own government and by the American government and by the French and by the Germans.

18:39I mean it is, it's just gone beyond anything that I think we every imagined was going to happen with the international community not getting stuck in and really trying to resolve it. Interesting things happening in the British Parliament and some of my former conservative colleagues. I saw that more on the race in fact kind of Brexit, those who conservative colleagues coming out now, very strongly critical of Israel. And I saw my Appritzschard and Nicholas Soames and others saying recognise the state of Palestine and I've got it wrong and all that stuff. I mean Nicholas Soames I think has always been wrong in that side, but Pritchhub was more of a surprise and there have been other MPs what's helping me from the Tory party saying we want you to speak out more about this.

19:15So there's clearly a movement within the conservative party which is interesting. On what's happening just to remind people effectively now for over two months there has been a blockade on food going in. And medication. And Smotch Rich, who was of course on the far right in Etnais coalition is calling for a permanent occupation of Gaza. The current plan seems to be not quite a permanent occupation, but it is that Israel will mobilize four to five divisions, involves calling up 70 ,000 people, put them back into Gaza. Effectively segment Gaza into at least three different sections, try to move the population to new, white area settlements in the south, so sort of I don't know, new tentative settlements in the south and then contract with the US military contractor to bring in supplies.

20:03They're talking about bringing 60 trucks a day. That's about a tenth of what you would need. And it's really mad because the UN has systems in place, which it's been running has an enormous amount of experience about how to deliver that aid. The idea of trying to bring in a tenth of the amount was completely untested people while moving two million people at the same time is an absolute recipe for disaster. And the problem unfortunately seems to be that although as we've said Trump seems to lost interest in Etnais, he's not really stopping him from doing it. And I don't think there's any sign that he's actually going to do anything to intervene.

20:43He's not going to impose sanctions on Etnais. No, he's going to hear a lot about Gaza though and these meetings that he has in course, you know, the Saudis, the Qataris and you are coming in from different perspectives. They all frankly don't want the whole region to be beset by conflict and they don't want to be picking up the tab the whole time. And they don't want the Palestinians leaving them. And the one thing people don't talk about is that none of these countries want more Palestinians in their country. They're all of the media and this is incredibly important. I know it's hard and sometimes I'm a bit maybe a bit too critical because it's very, very hard to get in there.

21:13I'm assuming that the footage that I saw last night was I don't know whether it was people on the ground or is stuff that was filmed by the people there. I don't know. But I do think there is a we fell victim to this, I think. We were very much trying to be fair to both sides on the one hand or the other hand. And I think that one of the narratives that the Israeli propaganda machine has been very effective at pushing, particularly on people who maybe haven't followed this closely over the years, is that this whole thing kind of started October 7th, whereas actually what we see more and more of, particularly from the Ben Gavir and Spotridge and we talked about the Louis Thru documentary on the settlers, is that in a way that they seize this opportunity horrible though it to drive this agenda of annexation and essentially to wipe out the Palestinian occupied territories which in the interview the settlers wouldn't even call Palestinian occupied territories.

22:05And you know, there's a documentary that's been made by an independent basement productions who make very, very good films. They've spent months and months documenting the death of doctors, medics, nurses, etc, working garser and the sort of systematic destruction of healthcare facilities. And the BBC has been sitting on it now for months and every week coming up with different reasons why they can't show it. Trying to relate it to the film where, remember there was a documentary before and one of the kids that was featured it turned out that the dad was a senior member of Hamas. Because of that, sitting on this when all the fact checking's been done and I do think there's there is this sort of double standard here and I'm only mentioning the BBC because it happens to be sitting there but I think you then look at the way that America, America, some of the American media covers this.

22:57So I think if when you see those pictures of those kids and that again there was Fritches last night of these young kids screaming, holding these pots, four guys stirring what looked like rice or something in these in these pots and these kids screaming to get near them and then food flying. It was actually the report to use the word feeding frenzy and it's the first time I've ever fully understood what that means. They were in a frenzy because they could see food there. So then you see stuff like UK lawyers for Israel which is as it says on the tin, these are British based lawyers who essentially support Israel and they've made there rather astonishing claim that the blockade might be good for the people of garser because the garsers had a bit of a obesity problem and also that it might even lead to greater fitness which will help life expectancy.

23:46There are no cigarettes going through for example. I mean, they're sick. That is sick. I'm sorry, I don't know whether they've apologise but they should. So there's Trump there. Let's hope he does get the message that actually he does have a responsibility for some of this going on. I don't think he'll feel the responsibility but I think equally the Saudis, the Catris and UAE will make it very clear that they are not going to pay for the reconstruction of garser under the current situation that they're not into the idea of somehow funding it if it's under a partially Israeli occupation. Should we take a quick break though maybe after the break come back and expand this conversation to talk also about Ukraine and Kashmir and how Trump plays into that and how populism and conflict play into those things.

24:29Cool.