The next chapter in American politics has begun, but is it going to be any less crazy? The Spectator’s Americano podcast delivers in-depth discussions with the best American pundits to keep you in the loop. Presented by Freddy Gray.
Freddy speaks to Jacob Heilbrunn about China, Trump and America's foreign policy.
Air Force One is in the air as I write, whizzing from Beijing back to Washington – and Donald Trump leaves China with many questions unanswered. There were warm words on both sides and plenty of friendly symbolism in the President’s big summit with Xi Jinping. But the fundamental great power tensions remain – over trade, technology, and war and peace in the Middle East and Taiwan. Washington and Beijing agree that Iran should never have a nuclear weapon – though it remains unclear the extent to which China will help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Its closure hurts the Chinese economy, of course, but China has significant energy reserves and Xi knows that the pain spreads around the world to his advantage.
I long took for granted that US opinion polls break down respondents into white people, black people and Hispanics. But I’ve come to look askance at this convention. Reporting on political views by race now seems perverse. It implies that a citizen’s primary identity is grounded in skin color, and it reifies a way of thinking about the American people that is regressive, divisive, inaccurate and downright un-American. I was reminded of this recent point of annoyance when the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana congressional map that none too subtly contrived to create an additional majority-black district. (The district in question drizzled and blobbed diagonally from one northern corner of the state to the far southern one like a trail of ink on blotting paper.
Donald Trump flew to Beijing this week and wants three things when he sits down with China’s President Xi Jinping: a tariff truce that survives his own courts, Chinese pressure on Iran to end the war that never seems to end and a photograph that makes him look victorious. Xi has problems of his own. But he has watched four American presidencies from Zhongnanhai, the walled compound beside the Forbidden City where the Communist party leadership rules, and he knows the value of silence when his counterpart is talking himself into trouble. Trump’s approval rating is the lowest of his second term. What Xi wants from this meeting with Trump is recognition: two great powers, two systems, meeting as equals Trump has obliged Xi noisily.
As President Trump travels to China today, his original plans for the visit have been upended. He wanted to arrive as a triumphant conqueror but increasingly resembles a supplicant. Will he strike a "Two T’s" deal – a grand bargain that trades Taipei for Tehran? Trump has periodically voiced his irritation with China, but at bottom he respects – and even admires – President Xi Jinping as the kind of tough guy that he can do business with on a variety of fronts. The most important one has become Iran, which is threatening to increase its nuclear enrichment program and successfully defying Trump’s threats to blow it into oblivion. China is Iran’s biggest backer. It previously pushed Tehran into ceasefire talks with Washington.
22 min listen
Freddy is joined by Josef Palermo, who formerly worked for the Kennedy Center, to discuss the historical building and whether its cultural and ethos has been ruined by the Trump administration.
Despite the hype surrounding China’s artificial intelligence capabilities, progress remains heavily dependent on theft and smuggling. The Chinese Communist party (CCP), meanwhile, is determined to maintain tight control. That has become increasingly clear ahead of this week’s Beijing summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. The Chinese leader is determined to lead the world in what he terms an "epoch-defining technology." He appears confident that Trump, preoccupied by his war against Iran, has limited options to counter Beijing’s increasingly brazen activities. Last month, the White House accused Beijing of "industrial-scale" theft of know-how from American AI labs.
26 min listen
Freddy is joined by Geoffrey Cain, author of Steve Jobs in Exile, to discuss the significance of China has a global player in international conflict and what could come from Trump's visit to Beijing next week. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
It has been a choppy 12 months for transatlantic relations since Friedrich Merz was sworn in as chancellor of Germany a year ago today. Fittingly, he is marking one year in office by dealing with the fallout of a spat with Donald Trump which has resulted in very real consequences for German – and potentially European – defense. On Friday, the Pentagon announced that 5,000 American troops would be withdrawn from German soil over the coming six to 12 months. Additionally, contrary to an agreement struck between Merz’s predecessor Olaf Scholz and Joe Biden, no new intermediate-range missiles would be stationed in Germany in the immediate future.
Venezuela’s deposed president, Nicolás Maduro, never enjoyed the charisma or genuine popularity of his predecessor, "El Comandante" Hugo Chávez. So all the murals, billboards and installations dotted around Caracas urging the release of the 63-year-old statesman – along with his wife Cilia Flores – from American captivity, don’t exactly feel like a grassroots effort. "Bring them home!" reads one mural, evoking the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas. Meanwhile, a stopwatch installed in Caracas’s Bolivar Square counts how long it has been since the presidential couple were abducted by the US army in early January.
Last Saturday evening, the American media class descended for its annual jamboree of back-slapping at the Washington Hilton. Protesters outside waved signs reading "Death to tyrants" and "Death to all of them." The atmosphere inside was more jovial. Donald Trump was attending the dinner for the first time since becoming President, along with most of his cabinet and senior officials. We were expecting him to give the assembled media a good roasting – and some of us were looking forward to it. Attendees had to show invitations to get into the hotel, but there were few ID checks and no screening as we went to the pre-parties thrown by the major news organizations. Only when we walked into the main dinner hall did we pass through metal detectors.
The United States is getting sucked into a conflict in the Middle East, central banks are desperately trying to keep inflation under control and the world is facing an energy shock that may cripple the global economy. There are lots of ways the world looks very similar to the early 1970s. And yet, it is now clear that there is also one significant difference between now and then. Whereas half a century ago, the oil cartel OPEC was rising in power, with Tuesday’s shock decision by the United Arab Emirates to quit the group, it is clear that it is falling apart. In reality, the US is taking back control of the fossil fuel industry – and that is of huge geopolitical significance.
The alleged gunman from the White House Correspondents' Dinner has been named as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen. He was arrested at the scene armed with a shotgun, handgun and multiple knives. It later emerged the suspect sent a note to family members before the shooting, apologizing to parents, colleagues and bystanders for what he was about to do. He wrote: "I apologize to everyone... who suffered before I was able to attempt this, to all who may still suffer after, regardless of my success or failure." He added that he may have given "a lot of people a surprise today" and, although he did not name President Trump directly in the writings, he did criticize him and mentioned targeting the administration.
The Pentagon has become concerned with the British government's attitudes toward its special forces. Freddy speaks to Richard Williams and David Davis MP about the historical significance of the special forces relationship and how America is now considering withdrawing the invitation to participate in and benefit from this combined military machine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
“I can’t imagine that there’s any profession that is more dangerous,” Donald Trump told reporters just hours after the shooting incident at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, DC. This is true enough. Violence against US presidents is, unfortunately, nothing new. Everyone knows this long and bloody history all too well. It includes the killing of John F. Kennedy in Dallas in 1963; the two assassination attempts within days of each other on President Gerald Ford in 1975; and the attempt on Ronald Reagan’s life, when he was shot and seriously wounded at the Washington Hilton hotel – the same venue at which Saturday’s attempted shooting took place – in 1981. Even so, Trump stands out for the growing number of attempts on his life.
The war in Iran has revealed plenty about America’s ability to inflict damage on its enemies, Tehran’s capacity to resist pressure and Washington’s broader tendency to get itself stuck in the Middle East – a region several US presidents planned to extricate from. The conflict has been paused since April 7 due to a ceasefire that Trump extended earlier in the week. But it is nonetheless revealing a gradual systemic shift in the so-called international order that has been bubbling beneath the surface for years. The movable object is none other than the transatlantic alliance which, through NATO, has bound the United States and most of Europe into a single security construct.
Washington’s problems are not hidden. Many of them simply go unaddressed. On Capitol Hill, “open secrets” persist because Congress has chosen to look the other way. Ask almost any staffer on Capitol Hill, and they can tell you which offices to avoid, which members have a reputation and which situations are quietly tolerated because confronting them would be politically inconvenient. Rumors are not just whispered behind closed doors; they are broadcast to virtually anyone dialed in to the right frequency. Leadership hears them. Colleagues hear them. The press often hears them too. And still nothing happens. Awareness is not the problem. The blatant absence of accountability is.
In the 19th century, the geographer and explorer David Livingstone was scathing of what he described as "easy-chair geographers" – authors and mapmakers who produced maps and treatises about the non-European world without ever leaving their learned society or personal office. Donald Trump is a latter-day armchair geographer. Or judging by photographs repeatedly released by the White House, a president comfortable convening meetings in the Oval Office with large maps displayed by his desk. But whether it is a case of acquiring Greenland or blockading the Strait of Hormuz, maps can be poor substitutes for in-field knowledge and understanding.
Has the dustup between Washington and Tehran come to an end? "They’ve agreed to give us back the nuclear dust that’s way underground because of the attack we made with the B-2 bombers," Donald Trump proclaimed on Thursday evening. "So we have a lot of agreement with Iran, and I think something’s going to happen, very positive, very important." Trump indicated that he himself might fly to Pakistan this weekend to participate in negotiations with Iran. Trump’s response to the spate of bad news he’s encountered has consisted of a mixture of bravado and defiance If Iran were to hand over its enriched uranium stockpile, it would represent a startling development indeed. No previous American president, whether George W. Bush or Barack Obama, came close to accomplishing that goal.
Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has said "there is something demonic" in the "political culture" of the United States. He made the remark on The Spectator’s Edition podcast when discussing Donald Trump’s row with the Pope over the President's decision to go to war in Iran. Following J.D. Vance’s comments earlier this week that the Pope should "stick to morality," Williams said that he feels "slightly sorry" for the recent Catholic convert – "with just a hint of schadenfreude." The former archbishop observed that Vance appears to be "floundering" in his arguments. "People who look to the Catholic church for a strong lead on issues of morality tend to mean one kind of morality only," Williams said.
If you read the New York Times or watch the foreign policy establishment’s “best and brightest,” you will be told, with imperious certainty, that America is losing the war in Iran and was stupid to begin it. The conspiratorial wing on both the right and left add that it is all the Jews’ fault, although they usually remember to mutter they mean “Israel” instead of all Jews, a gossamer cloak over what they really mean. If, on the other hand, you watch Fox News or read blogs by conservatives or military analysts, you will be told with equal certainty that America and its ally, Israel, are actually winning – and winning decisively. So, who is right? The answer, of course, is Carl von Clausewitz. What that old Prussian says goes to the heart of the issue.
