Has the Trump-Zelensky relationship thawed?

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0:30No bouncing between tabs. And best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Try for free today at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day. But what policy changes should investors be watching? Washington Wise is an original podcast from Charles Schwab that unpacks the stories making news in Washington right now. and how they may affect your finances and portfolio. Listen at schwab.com slash Washington Wise. That's schwab.com slash Washington Wise. Hello, I'm Julian Warwicker.

1:15Thank you for downloading the BBC's World Tonight podcast for Tuesday the 28th of July. 18 months ago, Presidents Trump and Zelensky had the most public of rows in the White House. Today, another meeting and warm words on both sides, what's led to a thawing of that relationship and what might it mean for the Russia-Ukraine war. The world governing body for football, FIFA, is floating the idea of private companies getting involved in the running of the game. It sparked furious condemnation from, among others, the new Prime Minister Andy Burnham. And why a well-timed click of the fingers has led to allegations of cheating in the usually sedate world of village cricket.

1:54You're listening to The World Tonight with Julian Warwicker. Meetings at the White House between Presidents Trump and Zelensky are always eagerly anticipated, partly because at a time of war, there are always key issues to discuss. But also, just in case, there's a repeat of the scenes from February last year. You've allowed yourself to be in a very bad position, and he happens to be right about it. From the very beginning of the war, Mr. Brown, I was arrested. You don't have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards. I'm not playing cards. Right now, you don't have the playing cards.

2:27You're playing drugs. You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War III. You're gambling with World War III. Well, there was nothing like that today. The two men met behind closed doors, so there were no television cameras in the room. But in a post on social media, accompanied by a picture of both of them smiling broadly, Mr Zelensky said it had been a good meeting. The two had discussed Ukraine's need for more air defence missiles to fend off Russian attacks, he said, as well as ways to reinvigorate the diplomatic process. President Zelensky was in Washington to attend the funeral of the Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of President Trump and a staunch supporter of Ukraine.

3:12One of Mr. Graham's final acts before his unexpected death had been to visit Kiev and secure cross-party support for a package of sanctions that targeted countries buying Russian oil, gas and other exports. Now, all this comes at a time when there's talk of improved relations between Washington and Kyiv. President Trump has announced plans to give Ukraine a license to produce its own Patriot missiles, and he praised Mr Zelensky after the recent NATO summit in Turkey. And there's been a change of heart from one of President Trump's online allies too, the MAGA influencer Laura Loomer, once firmly on the Kremlin's side over the war in Ukraine, says she now takes a very different view, something she acknowledged when speaking to President Zelensky a few days ago on a surprise trip to Ukraine.

4:02One of the big conspiracies or forms of propaganda that I believed, and I'm Jewish, you're Jewish, we share that in common, is that Ukraine is a country full of Nazis. And I really oppose sending my taxpayer dollars to Ukraine because I was under the belief that you had an army, the Azov Battalion, full of Nazis. Laura Loomer, who's still in Ukraine, says a White House source has told her that presidential envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will soon visit Kiev for the first time as part of a renewed diplomatic effort to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. So if there is a thawing of relations, what's the military context for it?

4:42Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery spent three decades in the US Navy and is now senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Well, look, I think in general, President Trump likes winners, as he calls them, and he sees that Ukraine under President Zelensky has certainly done much better over the last two years and is maintaining a stable front and inflicting quite a bit of pain on Russia. In Trump's vernacular, Zelensky has some cards, and I think as a result, Trump takes a more positive attitude towards meeting with President Zelensky. So the man who famously had no cards now has a significant hand to play, does he?

5:21He does. He has a mid-range strike card, a long-range strike card, and an ability to adapt on the very front line with really smart drone iteration and counter drone iteration capabilities. So, yeah, he has quite a few cards. And when you're on the front line, and I know you've been there in recent months, what do you see that tells you something is different now? For about the last year, you've been able to see that they're not going to lose militarily. You know, they're not going to see the kind of ground that Putin wants to declare victory to grab all of the Donbass. The military resilience is strong.

5:56I think the big shift in the last few months has been the effectiveness of their middle range strike campaign against Russian logistics and command and control. And then in addition, there's these long-range strikes against fossil fuel refining, production and delivery, and even defense industrial-based targets throughout the breadth of Russia. So that's mainly about decision-making, isn't it, by those at the top? It is. I have to say the former Minister of Defense, Fedorov, really emphasized the development of these drones, both as Minister of Defense and previously as Minister of Digital Transformation.

6:30And the military has developed an adaptive warfare strategy. We see a lot at the lower levels, a lot of Western style thinking, you know, decentralized execution, accountability. I see a lot of good things going on in the Ukrainian military. One sign that President Trump is warming towards the Ukrainian cause is that he's agreed to allow Ukraine to produce their own Patriot missiles. How much difference does that potentially make? as much as I like that decision, that's not going to produce a missile before, say, 2028. The missile's being co-produced to Germany, maybe late 2027. The Ukrainians need a solution right now.

7:11And I think President Trump would do well to direct his air force, the United States Air Force, to rapidly allow the software upgrades so that the F-16s can use some of the extended range attack munitions we've given them to do time-sensitive targeting to strike Russian ballistic missiles before they launch. That would reduce the impact of Russian ballistic missile launch capabilities against Kiev and Lviv and save civilian lives. Is Zelensky asking for that? I mean, do we know he's put that on the table and said, I'd like you to deliver that? I think this is one of those things where the Ukrainians are just starting to understand what the capability of these.

7:49They just got these weapon systems. So it's only Americans kind of observing this who've known how to use these weapon systems for decades that probably have that kind of insight. But I promise you, no one's a better advocate than President Zelensky for Ukraine getting the right tools. He'll be a champion of this soon enough. I don't want to put words into your mouth, but is it fair to now say that you don't think Ukraine will lose this war, but they probably won't win it either. Is that fair? That's exactly how I'd say it. I know they won't lose, but I can't describe to you how they would win without President Trump really dropping the sanctions hammer on the Russians and forcing the Russians to make concessions.

8:29Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery speaking to me earlier, we're listening to that from Washington, is Laura Rosen, a veteran foreign policy journalist, former foreign policy reporter for Politico and for Foreign Policy magazine. She now writes and reports in the diplomatic newsletter on Substack. Welcome, Laura. Today, US senators announced this agreement to move forward with major sanctions legislation against Russia. That's a reference to the Lindsey Graham bill. How significant is that in your mind? Well, I think symbolically it's important, as Mr. Montgomery was just saying, because until now, Trump has really resisted putting sanctions on Russia And, you know, he always wants to be the neutral arbiter.

9:16He really wants to negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war. But he got on board this bill, not just in honor of his late friend Lindsey Graham, but because it gives him the language of it gives him two things. First of all, it gives him very broad ability to waive the sanctions if there's a national security ground. And secondly, it gives him the ability to impose tariffs on countries he determines are facilitating sanctions evasion. And we've seen Trump use other thin pretexts to impose tariffs on countries that he has non-Russia-related disputes with, like on trade policy and regulating American tech companies and etc.

10:05So we can see why it's desirable for him on that front. When you look at the detail of this bill, realistically, how much difference would it make to the Russians? Well, it would make a difference if Trump let them go through. But, you know, the five biggest importers of Russian energy that this would allow sanctions to be imposed upon, China, India, etc. A lot of them, like they have the choice of getting their energy from Russia or the Middle East. And so there's a tension with the Trump policy on Iran, which has led to severe restrictions on the importing of Middle Eastern energy. And so they don't want a huge spike in energy prices.

10:48They're going to have to pick their battles. And so we've seen that tension, including, you know, on Patriot interceptors, you know, what goes to the Middle Eastern allies and what goes to Ukraine. So that remains a problem here. I mean, he clearly is very frustrated with the situation in Iran at the moment, although he might not publicly say so. Is that playing into a greater willingness on his part to engage with Ukraine, do you think? I think it's more what you were hearing earlier that, you know, Ukraine's shown that it can hold its own. It's been showing tremendous use of the ability to use drones in warfare, including now something that the U.S.

11:29wants to learn from them. Middle Eastern countries are trying to learn from them. They can shoot down incoming missiles for a lot less money than the material the U.S. is using now in the Middle East, which we're running low on. So I think that's part of it is that Ukraine's, you know, so impressive on the battlefield. Yeah. And there's been no Russian movement. There's been no Russian movement or willingness to come to the table. And I think Trump is frustrated by that. OK. Thank you very much, Laura Rosen in Washington. Now fresh from the Men's World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico Football's world governing body FIFA has a new plan for the future of the competition It's discussing the creation of a new company With stakes held by private shareholders Which would run the World Cup and other top competitions It sparked strong condemnation from UEFA and Europe Who are saying the proposal crosses a line Football's soul and governance are not assets to trade, they say And the new Prime Minister Andy Burnham, a keen football fan, is not impressed either.

12:34On X, he wrote, football does not belong to investors. It belongs to the people who fill the stands and who stand on the touchline week in, week out, rain or shine. Well, Miguel Maduro is a lawyer and former chair of FIFA's Governance Committee and joins us from Portugal. Miguel, welcome. What's your view of this plan? I think it's one more example of the risks that result from a systemic conflict of interest that is at the heart of FIFA. That is, FIFA is both the regulator of football and the main commercial actor in that market. And what this highlights is the extent to which FIFA is prioritizing its commercial activities and its profit maximization over its role as regulator of the football system.

13:20This role as regulator would require to take into account the interests that go well beyond profit maximization, such as making football accessible to all the fans, promoting competitive balance, athletes' well-being. And unfortunately, that's no longer the case because profit maximization, the commercial dimension, has taken over the dimension of a regulator of football and to act on behalf of all the ecosystem of football. And this is simply one more example of that. This plan would need to be passed by a vote of FIFA's 211 member nations. Could you imagine that happening? Yes, unfortunately, yes.

14:01I'm not even sure that it will need to pass through that. It might be depending on what exactly will be in question. It could be a decision by the council. But it is well known in the governance of FIFA the extent of the power of the president of FIFA and the lack of appropriate checks and balances. And in reality, that is linked to that dominance of the commercial activities of FIFA, because it's through the maximization of the profits and revenues of FIFA that basically the president gets more money and uses this money to feed and keep in place a system of patronage that supports his power. And that's why FIFA, for example, has already announced that they will give 20 million to each football association.

14:52Many of them will be bought that way. I was about to raise that with you because the Infantino argument is that, yes, all member associations would be able to access up to 20 million dollars. That's a one-off capital to fund development, they say. And Mr. Infantino adds every nation should benefit from the riches football creates. What's wrong with that argument in your mind? Well, in theory, there's nothing wrong with that argument. But the reality is twofold. First, in developing its own competitions and events, FIFA cannot be concerned only with that idea of maximizing revenue to then distribute it to the football associations.

15:31It needs to make sure, for example, that tickets remain accessible to all the fans. It needs to make sure that the calendar of events is such that the well-being of athletes is not put into question. It needs to make sure that there's not increased imbalance in the competition between teams, for example. And it's no longer doing that because everything is focused on simply maximizing revenues. And the second problem is that even if this money is given to the football associations, we don't actually know how it's being spent by football associations. And in many cases, we have evidence, we found out that is not being well spent.

16:09And in some cases, there's even questions of lawfulness on how that money is being used in many national football associations. OK. Thank you very much for coming on, Miguel Maduro, lawyer, former chair of FIFA's Governance Committee.

16:58Now, Europe and America's insatiable demand for cocaine has global consequences. In South America, an entire nation, Ecuador, has gone in just a few years from relative peace to one of the world's highest murder rates as local drug gangs with links to international cartels battle for control of the trade in the drug produced in Colombia and Peru. Caught in the middle, the country's citizens, of course. Our senior international correspondent, Orla Guerin, reports now from one of the most dangerous places in Ecuador, the city of Duran, a battleground for the gangs. We'd just arrived at the scene of a killing.

17:39There are four police cars, about a dozen or so armed police officers here. There are some local people standing, looking on. And just in front of me, there's a motorbike on the ground and beside it, the body of a man.

18:10We've met one local man here who is willing to speak. In fact, he says he wants to speak on behalf of the community, but he doesn't want to be identified because of fears of retaliation. His words are spoken by a BBC colleague. We're used to this by now because it happens every day here. You might just step outside and catch a stray bullet, You can't go out and chat like before. Criminals are like ghosts. They just pop up wherever they please.

18:51The police are moving forward now quickly. They believe there are weapons hidden and they want to get hold of them. All they found was some ammunition and two handguns, one of them rusty. The police captain leading the search is John Charles Bustamante. He says he can only trust the officers right beside him. We've had many, many bad people inside our unit, inside the state, inside the politics. We've had many, many guys that are corrupted. And they're in the pay of the gangs? They are paying the gangs. What happens to local people if they speak out against the gangs? They killed them. They killed them?

19:35Yes, they killed them. I'm sitting inside a narrow, one-room, breeze-block house with tin on the roof, and I'm with a gang leader who has told us to call him Jonathan. He says he's 37 years old. Four of his gang are here with him. They're all armed. We're sitting here and you have a handgun, which is actually pointed in my direction. How many people have you killed? Well, until now, about eight, I think. I don't remember well. He tells me the police are not a problem. He has four of them on his payroll.

20:18Whenever they're going to do an operation, they call me. They tell me to hide things and to get out of here. When they arrive, they find nothing. Do you have to pay a lot for that?

20:31Of course we pay a monthly rate. It depends. You pay$1 ,500 or$2 ,000 a month. The cocaine that you're selling is killing people. Do you ever think about that? You can't really hide the truth. As you know, drugs kill, they hurt humanity, and most of all they hurt teenagers. How can we root out something that cannot be rooted out? That was Ola Guerin reporting. Well, around 70 % of the cocaine reaching Europe and the United States is funneled out of Ecuador. That's according to the country's president, Daniel Noboa. Only a few days ago, hundreds of kilos of cocaine were seized by the authorities from an Ecuadorian banana boat, which had docked at one of Italy's commercial ports.

21:14Well, Michael O'Sullivan is former head of the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre on Narcotics. That's Europe's anti-drug smuggling agency. and he told me first about the scale of cocaine trafficking into Europe. It's a tsunami of cocaine over the last two or three years and the main driving force for that tsunami is finances. The level of disposable income in Europe and Europeans who have enough money who have made cocaine a social drug part of the whole social scene and as a result the market has increased hugely and the Colombians and other South American countries see the market and are more inclined and get more money for coke by sending it across the Atlantic to Europe.

22:04All of the major criminal gangs, and I would go as far as to say all criminal gangs, are now involved in importing. And if they're not importing it, they're certainly distributing cocaine. Why? Because of the profits, because of the low risk involved. You talk about the low risk involved. I mean, low risk because people don't think they'll be caught doing it, presumably. Well, low risk as distinct from kidnapping and bank robberies and shooting people, low risk from the point of view of, let's say you have minor criminals who were heretofore broke into houses and maybe petty criminals. Now they will buy cocaine and sell it to people from all walks of life in all sections of society and make profits.

22:48It is easier for them to sell cocaine, which you can buy really as easy as ordering a pizza, than to go and commit crime. The all walks of life point is interesting because there was a time, wasn't there, when this was seen as the preserve of rich European party goers, but no longer. Absolutely. And particularly during the recession years of maybe 2007, 2008 and 2009, in a lot of European countries, you couldn't buy cocaine. the dealers hadn't got the cash to buy it the market simply wasn't there but now there is not just younger people but there's people whether they are tradesmen or lawyers or doctors or all sections of society they just don't say anything wrong with it and you have reasonably successful people who are using coke and i see from a lot of the treatment agencies they would say a couple of years ago, maybe 5 % of people presenting themselves at the treatment centres were for cocaine, where now it's close to 50%.

23:49You referred initially to this tsunami, that was your word, of cocaine coming from South America to Europe. Why isn't there a more effective way to stop that happening? Back in the day, you could get maybe in the mid 90s, you would have a yacht that could only take a ton of cocaine whereas now the whole dynamic has changed that you have a number of criminal groups that come along and order multi-ton shipments they might order five tons so you won't put that on a yacht so effectively it has to be put on the larger ship and they will get go-fasts well in the past they would try and have it drop into Antwerp or into some of the other European ports.

24:30But now they're meeting the mothership out at sea in large GoFast vessels, which could take one, two, three tonnes. They are buying increased amounts of cocaine to get a better price and to sell it at greater profits. So they are making huge inroads. But the main challenge to preventing drugs is education, it's rehabilitation and it's law enforcement. It is not just the job of law enforcement. Nobody's ever going to arrest their way out of a drug problem. Right, because I mean it struck me that you can talk in great detail about the process whereby these drugs come from one place to another. You know that, clearly a lot of other people know that who are trying to stop it.

25:13So why isn't the process of stopping it more effective? The process is very effective. There are lots of drug barons, drug lords locked up. There are lots of seizures. There was a seizure by the Spanish about a month ago. they took 30, 3-0, 30 tonnes off a vessel, 30 tonnes of coke. Last year, I think in Antwerp, there was about 70 tonnes of coke taken. So that's half a year that Antwerp was the biggest port with the biggest amount of cocaine seizures. So it just shows you the volume that's coming in. The seizures are increasing. The police activity, law enforcement activity is increasing. But unfortunately, the market is there.

25:49It is about trying to get people not to buy cocaine. Michael O'Sullivan. The headlines so far on The World Tonight, emergency workers in southwest Japan are racing to rescue those still missing in the aftermath of a powerful earthquake. President Zelensky has thanked Donald Trump for what he described as firm US support after a meeting at the White House. And tomorrow, Andy Burnham will give a speech at a care home in London in which he will say he wants to overhaul what he's calling the broken social care system in England. He's invited the Conservative leader, Kemi Bedanoff and the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey to meet him on Thursday to discuss how to find common ground for reform.

26:31Now being out caught on the cricket field ought to be pretty straightforward. You hit the ball, it goes into the hands of a fielder and your innings is over. But this is cricket so things aren't always that simple. Now forgive me if you're a regular listener to Test Match Special because you'll be well versed in all of this but sometimes there is a doubt over a catch? Did the batter actually hit the ball? Was there just the finest of touches, a thin edge, as they say? And if so, was there a sound to help the umpire make the right decision? Now, those questions are at the heart of an investigation which has been launched by the North Yorkshire and South Durham Cricket League.

27:10They're looking into allegations that a fielder for the Saltburn team clicked his fingers in an attempt to trick umpires into thinking there was an edge off the bat and the suggestion is that it's happened several times in different matches. Luke Kempner is part of that aforementioned Test Match Special commentary team. I take village cricket very seriously having played village cricket for many many years. I sort of understand cheating when there's higher stakes but this is village cricket. You're excited all week, you give up your entire Sunday, you know often when you're at sort of my level you would go on, You'd bowl, you'd be hit all around the ground, you'd bat, you'd get about less than five runs and that would be your day finished and it would cost you about eight quid.