Latest / The Fourcast / Ukraine war: how Trump and Putin want to change the world

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Ukraine war: how Trump and Putin want to change the world · The Fourcast

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Welcome to the forecast. Now, Lenin once said that there
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are decades in which nothing much happens, and then there are
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political weeks in which decades happen.
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Well, this seems to be one of those weeks.
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Yet again, the Trump administration, on week three of
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its second iteration, is coming up with extraordinary stuff
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almost every day. Last night we had that
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unbelievable press conference in the Oval Office between actually
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not really a press conference, more of a kind of fireside shot
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between King Abdullah of Jordan and President Trump, in which
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Trump seemed to yet again recommend extraordinary
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solutions to the current Middle East crisis.
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And then today we had Pete Hexes, the newly minted defence
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secretary in Brussels, at a contact meeting of major defence
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ministers, saying very, very clearly to his audience, you
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could have spent 5% of your GDP on defence.
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We will not permit Ukraine to become a member of NATO.
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Our priority is not Europe, it is Asia.
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Now, we all knew that these things were kind of in the mix
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of the Trump administration, that they were thought about,
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they were hinted at. But here he is, the new guy in
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charge of defence, in charge of the Pentagon, saying them very
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clearly indeed. You could hear the jaws drop
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around the room. Lots to discuss.
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I'm so happy that Lindsay is joining me again, our
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international editor, Lindsay Hilsum.
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How are you, Lindsay? Well, I'm like you, Matt.
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I'm sort of reeling and I part of me just, you know, dreads
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waking up every morning because I think, what on earth are they
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going to hit us with today? Let's talk about what they did
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hit us with today, which is this sort of very clear iteration of
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where America sees the future of NATO and especially Europe's
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commitment to NATO. Again, not a massive surprise
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there. But to hear Pete Hexif, with his
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sort of film star looks and chiseled jawed, exactly the kind
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of Defence secretary that Donald Trump always wanted at the
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Pentagon, outline this stuff in such clear terms was quite
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sobering, wasn't it? Yeah, there was no diplomatic
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language. I mean, let me look at what he
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said. The United States will no longer
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tolerate an imbalanced relationship which encourages
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dependency. In other words, that's the
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dependency of Europe on America for for defence.
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And now that is the way it's been since the end of World War
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2. So we are overturning a lot of
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recent history here. And it's very clear 5%.
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Well, no European country is going to spend 5% on defence, by
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the way, nor does America. But there were another couple of
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things. He was very clear about the way
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the Trump administration sees the world, and this is it.
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Our American enemy is China, and our resources need to go into
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deterring a war with China. Your problem as Europe is
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Russia. Your problem is Ukraine.
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So you pay for Ukraine. You're the ones who are going to
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counter Russia. That's not really our problem.
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The other thing he said, which I thought was really interesting,
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was when he got onto Ukraine, he said that Europe had to, you
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know, be providing the bulk of the defence assistance to
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Ukraine. And he also ruled out Ukraine
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joining NATO. Now hang on, That's something
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which at the beginning of a negotiation between Ukraine and
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Russia, with the Americans and the Europeans also in the room,
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you would expect to be up there as a bargaining chip.
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You have given away one of your main bargaining chips even
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before any negotiations have started.
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OK. I think what's really
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interesting as well is that, and there seemed to be a
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contradiction here, didn't there, Lindsay?
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Europe, you have to pay for the bulk of your, the bulk of your
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European defence. That can no longer be us.
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But we, the United States, are also forbidding NATO from
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allowing Ukraine to join your club, which is now going to be
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financed by you. I mean, do you think there might
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be a little bit of a contradiction there?
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Well, NATO is, yeah. I mean, there is a contradiction
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in there. But, you know, NATO is a
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transatlantic alliance, isn't it?
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And so it's seen as having, you know, is is not just Europe.
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It's seen as as having the other side of the Atlantic as as well.
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But, you know, when did contradiction ever bother Donald
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Trump? I don't think it ever did.
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This is what he wants and this is what he's going for.
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Maybe what he's getting at here is not so much that there's
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something specific that he wants, but if there's a specific
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way in which he wants to be seen to be operating.
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In other words, Donald Trump never gives away anything for
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free. There's got to be a deal
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involved. Call it the out of the deal.
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I hate to reference his book, but there we go.
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And so everything is transactional.
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That is the new modus operandi. So we will help you and you've
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got to help us. But what can Ukraine possibly
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help America with? I mean, there's not an awful lot
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they've got to offer, you know, turnips, radishes, potatoes, you
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know, cold world. America's Got plenty of that.
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You know, the the Donbass, which is full of minerals is occupied
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by Russia at the moment. So maybe that's maybe someone
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came out with the bright idea of rare earth metals.
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We don't really know and it's not really really been explained
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probably. But I think the the gist of all
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this, what we're getting is that you know everything is done in
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return for something else. Yeah.
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But if you say what is the Ukrainian point of view on that,
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what Zelensky says is we are the ones who are standing up for the
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free world, so we are fighting your battles.
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That's what Ukraine would say, that it is young Ukrainian men
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and women who are losing their lives, holding the line between
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a free, democratic Europe and a rapacious, aggressive,
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autocratic Russia. But the reason that doesn't work
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with Donald Trump being autocratic, that's not really an
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issue for him, is it? It's all about interests and
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what he sees and what Pete Hegseth has expressed today is
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that the major rival in the world that America sees is
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China. So I think we're back into the
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spheres of influence issue and we were discussing this a couple
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of weeks ago. When we looked at his attitudes
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of Greenland and Panama and Canada, he seemed to be sort of
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cutting out a sphere of influence, which was the Western
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Hemisphere. And then seeing China as you
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know, Asia and Eastern Hemisphere, the rival, and then
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Russia and Europe. That's in a sense, maybe he's
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even saying that Europe is Russia's sphere of influence.
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So he, Donald Trump, is not concerned by that and doesn't
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see it as a core American interest anymore, which is a
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major overturning of the world order.
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But, and it's so interesting that when he contrasts what he's
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been saying or his administration has been saying
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to what Joe Biden used to say, which is the world is divided
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between, you know, the axis of democracy and the axis of
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autocracy. These two are, you know,
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colliding spheres, not of geography or of political
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influence, but colliding spheres of values, these value systems
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that can't coexist peacefully, easily with each other.
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And Trump is saying, you know, forget about the value systems.
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There's geography, There's power, you know, and values
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don't really come into that much.
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And as you say, that is a fundamentally different way of
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carving up the global cookie. Yeah, No, that's exactly how he
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he sees this. And I don't think he has a
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problem with Vladimir Putin and Russia having a sphere of
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influence. The interesting thing is that he
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does have a problem with Xi Jinping and China, and that
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seems to go back to trade. So he has a pretty sort of basic
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attitude to trade, which is that we, the Americans, need to
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export more than we import. That's pretty, I say that was a
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pretty kind of 19th century view.
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It's it's not what most modern economists would see as the key
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to prosperity, but that is how he sees it.
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So he's very fixated on this trade imbalance with China.
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And that seems to be the thing that that energizes him.
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But China obviously is trying to extend its influence across the
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world. And this is one of the
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interesting things. So China has its Belt and Road
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Initiative, which is a series of investments and aid projects and
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loans across, you know, across Asia and, and further W US, the
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US under Donald Trump and under Elon Musk has just dismantled
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USAID, which is probably the biggest, a soft power asset that
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America has. So in these countries where
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China is extending its influence, investments in aid,
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the Americans are suddenly pulling back.
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They're suddenly withdrawing. I want to talk about the Middle
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East, but just quickly on China, something that I think also the
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administration doesn't really allow any room for, is that the
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reason why China is so competitive a trade?
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It's not just that they've, you know, they subsidized their
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industries, you know, which has always been a bit of a gripe
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both in Europe and in the US. It's not just there, you know,
9:27
the, the trade barriers aren't there.
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The tariffs are still relatively low.
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They're also really, really good at producing, you know, electric
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vehicles at a fraction of the cost, you know, of what we do in
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Europe on the United States. So China has been working for 25
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years on developing electric cars.
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You'll be surprised to know, Matt, because I actually did
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look at cars when I was living in China in the mid 2000.
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And it was fascinating because the Chinese brands, Cherry and
9:57
Geely and all of these things where we see, I know the names,
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they were coming up at the same time as European car
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manufacturers were in big trouble and they took a bet on
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electric vehicles and they've also took a breath on solar
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panels and wind turbines and so on.
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The Chinese know that the future is not in oil.
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They know that there is a green future.
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And they have made sure that they are in the forefront not
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just at the technology, but of the mass production.
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And America has never done that, and nor has Europe, to be
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honest. So now suddenly Europe and
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America waking up to the fact that the best electric vehicles
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and the cheapest electric vehicles are Chinese and they're
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grumbling about it. And the Chinese, not without
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reason to say, well, how long you could have invested in that
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25 years ago and you didn't. Yeah.
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And actually the people are suffering most as a result of
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that are probably the Germans in the German car industry, which
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is causing all sorts of headaches.
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But I think to just to finish car analogy, I think we're
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veering all over the M25 of our podcast at the moment.
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Let's go back to the lane, to the lane that is the Middle
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East, because I think this is the other thing that had both
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our jaws dropping yesterday, you know, in collective unison.
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I mean, there he was, a President Trump with King
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Abdullah, you know, in the Oval Office in front of a beautiful
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crackling, roaring fire. And yet again, he came up with
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his idea, not, yeah, this thing that he said at the weekend, if
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all the hostages aren't released, you know, by noon on
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Saturday, all hell will be unleashed.
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First of all, just on that quickly, did you, have you got a
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sense of how many hostages that you're talking about?
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Are they talking about all the hostages from phase one of the
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ceasefire deal or two, are they talking about all the 77
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hostages still thought to be in Gaza?
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It's so confusing. The first stage of the ceasefire
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deal is supposed to go up to March the 2nd.
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By then, 33 hostages are supposed to have been released.
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16 have been released so far on Saturday.
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Three more are supposed to be released.
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Supposed to be right. That's the plan.
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Supposed now Hamas has said it's not going to do that because
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they say that Israel is holding back on delivering essential
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aid, particularly prefabricated houses and tents, into the Gaza
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Strip. And there is some evidence that
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there's truth in that, that the aid agencies say, yes, aid is
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going in, far more aid and some tents and so on are going in.
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But there have that be reading interviews with truck drivers on
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the border saying no, the Israelis are stopping many of
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the trucks which have sheltered materials in and bulldozers for,
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you know, for destroying rubble and so on.
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So it's not a it's not a straightforward situation where
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1, you know, one side is breaking the deal and the other
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hasn't. And just to add, both sides,
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Hamas and Israel and Israeli, not negotiators, but a
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delegation are in Qatar again. So we're we're on a knife edge
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here. But then Trump comes in and
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says, you know, all hell will break loose if all the hostages
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aren't out by Saturday. Well, hang on.
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There was never a plan for all the hostages to be out by
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Saturday. It was only supposed to be 3.
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So once again, he's added a level of confusion into an
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already very delicate situation. But, you know, the other thing
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is that it was Steve Witkoff, you know, his his Middle East
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envoy, who he dispatched the region, fellow New York real
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estate mogul who helped to broker the deal in just before
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he was inaugurated that we're now seeing, you know, the, the,
13:28
the, the proceeding of and maybe Trump didn't actually read the
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fine print. It's quite possible when he said
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the other day, I don't see whether should be coming out in
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drips and jabs, first two, then 4, then three.
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I mean, that was always part of the deal that he presumably
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allowed his bloke to put the signature to.
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So maybe he just, it's quite possible in Trump world that he
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just hadn't read the, the fine detail and the fine print.
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And therefore just thought, as many people have said to me,
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they thought it was a bit ridiculous that we should wait
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for these people, these hostages to be released in, in, in
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stages. But that is the nature of the
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deal. OK, So let's we don't know
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what's going to happen on Saturday.
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I have a feeling, Lindsay, and maybe I'm wrong, that actually
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Hamas is walking back some of its threats about not releasing
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the hostages. That's what I'm hearing as well
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and that. They will be and then the three
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people will appear on a stage. And let's say they do appear so
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they can go found this and also the Palestinian, the
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Palestinians who are being held in detention, who would also be
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released as part of the same, as part of the same stage.
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But the other thing that I find really interesting is that
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Trump, by throwing spaghetti at the wall the way that he's done,
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and quite a lot of that seems to be sticking, has opened the door
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to stuff that no one thought was possible and that even Bibi
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Netanyahu didn't think, you know, he could get past, you
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know, as prime ministers. So first of all, you know, he's
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now been saying, well, actually maybe or some of the people in
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the cabinet would say, well, maybe we should have all the
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hostages released on Saturday, all of them, all 77 that are
14:59
still there. Then there are people are
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saying, well, you know, maybe he's got a, you know, maybe he's
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got a point here about Gaza being emptied of his people and
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being turned into a real estate project.
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I mean, this is the sort of wildest dreams of, you know,
15:13
extremists in the Israeli cabinet being uttered by the
15:16
president of the United States. And I think opening the door to
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these scenarios that until now we're seen as kind of very
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weird, extreme, magical thinking is in itself very dangerous for
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the deal and for the future of the Middle East.
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Yeah. Look, Mara Garza, who would ever
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thought of it? You know, we could have a golf
15:36
course in Jabali, a refugee camp.
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It is ostensibly insane. The one thing about which I
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think you have to say that President Trump is right is that
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it is uninhabitable. The Gaza is an appalling place
15:52
and the idea that people are going to live in rubble and in
15:55
these conditions for the next 10-15 years is impossible.
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He doesn't add why it's in rubble because his allies be
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Israelis have bombed it to smithereens and nor does he you
16:09
add that there are other plans by the Arab countries to try and
16:14
rebuild in by incidentally by there's an Egyptian real estate
16:18
mobile who might sort of model himself on truck.
16:20
He's coming up with ideas for rebuilding Gaza.
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But the main thing is what most Arabs say would be ethnic
16:28
fences, which is removing 2,000,000 Gazans from the Gaza
16:33
Strip and sending them to Egypt and Jordan.
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Now you've just talked about from not being a details man.
16:40
I don't think he's the history man either, is he?
16:43
So just take Jordan and poor King Abdullah sitting there
16:47
yesterday. He Jordan has taken waves and
16:53
waves of Palestinian refugees 19481967.
16:58
They even fought a war against Palestinian militants in 1970
17:02
Black September. You and I remember this one that
17:06
and that was because the Palestinians had gained so much
17:09
power and there were you know, they were you know, they were
17:12
fighting Israel from Jordan. Jordan was trying to stop them
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and so they started fighting King Hussein, King Abdullah's
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father. So you have all that history.
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And so King Abdullah is is so aware of how potentially
17:28
unstable his country could be. Half of the 12 million
17:31
population, more than half are Palestinian.
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You inject another million. Oh, sorry, I've forgotten about
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the Syrian and Iraqi refugees that Jordan has also taken in.
17:43
And now they want you to take another million or so,
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presumably including some people from Hamas, because you would
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not be able to separate them out.
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How dangerous would that be for the monarchy, for the Hashemite
17:56
Kingdom? The the likelihood of overthrow
17:59
and turmoil is great. You now inherit a million people
18:03
from Gaza, many of whom are highly educated, unbelievably
18:07
pissed off, you know, with the state of the world, with a
18:11
grievance. And you put that minority into
18:14
your relatively sleepy kind of country.
18:17
You know, that will create ferment that I don't think even
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King Abdullah in his kindest moments would welcome.
18:24
You know, the same thing in Egypt.
18:26
You know, do the Egyptians really want a million?
18:30
Of course they don't. I mean, I know this time, we
18:32
know from our Palestinian friends who are in Gaza who've
18:34
had to move to Cairo to escape the fighting, that they they
18:38
have a very limited existence there.
18:39
They're not allowed to work. The kids aren't allowed to go to
18:42
school. You know, they're living like
18:44
the the lowest form of refugees in Egypt.
18:47
That makes them very upset. You add another million of the
18:50
same ilk, you know you're going to get a very rest of minority
18:53
inside Egypt so. Yeah, but let me add something
18:55
else to that. Because the main domestic enemy
18:59
of the military LED government in Egypt, now Hamas is an
19:04
offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
19:06
So why would President Sisi agree to bring all these people
19:10
in where it would be inevitable? That would add to the
19:14
destabilisation of of the country.
19:17
So he's not going to do that. And also, these are two
19:20
countries, Jordan and Egypt, which have peace deals with
19:25
Israel. So from an Israeli point of
19:27
view, although Netanyahu is going along with Trump's idea of
19:32
forced displacement promises, is it really so beneficial to
19:38
Israel to have two countries on its borders?
19:41
They're directly on its borders, which had peace deals, which
19:45
would inevitably no longer have peace deals that would all go go
19:50
up in flights. But you know what's so
19:52
interesting about this? You know, I was talking to
19:53
someone in in Israel just at the weekend, not a fan of the Prime
19:57
Minister, not an extremist, but she was saying that the number
20:01
of people in her kind of political corner, you know who
20:06
until a few years ago still believed vaguely in the two
20:09
state solution? A number of those people,
20:11
including her who thought, you know what?
20:14
If all those people could just move to Egypt or Jordan,
20:16
wouldn't that be wonderful? And it's a sort of combination
20:19
of, you know, magical thinking again, that someone waves the
20:23
wand some, you know, the Trump ferry waves the wand.
20:26
Then these people can just be moved, even though they know,
20:29
you know, in the kind of recesses of their mind that this
20:32
is so unworkable and unpractical and probably will never take
20:35
place. But they're desperate enough to
20:37
make that wish, you know, to to utter that wish.
20:41
And at the same time, of course, because when you live in Israel,
20:44
as you and I know you see so little of Gaza, you know, unless
20:47
you look for it on the Internet, you're not going to find
20:50
pictures of the destruction. You're not going to hear tales
20:53
of the suffering. It's out of sight and out of
20:57
mind, even though it is literally 20 minutes down the
21:00
road. And I think that but that, but
21:03
that, but that combination of things.
21:05
But that combination of things, Lindsay, I think allows people
21:08
even in Israel, you know, to think, Oh, well, you know, maybe
21:11
this is something worth pursuing.
21:13
And I just think that's the problem with these Trump
21:15
policies, that they're they're thrown out.
21:17
You know, I can see why he's likes the idea of them because
21:19
he's you can take the man out of real estate.
21:22
You can't take real estate out of the man.
21:24
And so he sees it from a very narrow point of view.
21:27
But for the rest of the region, the this loose talk, yeah, about
21:32
Gaza has enormously damaging consequences if you carry on
21:36
with it. It's enormously damaging it
21:38
also. It's basically saying the
21:40
Palestinian people do not exist. It is erasing the Palestinian
21:43
people, you know, not just wiping them off the map and
21:46
making them go somewhere else. But saying you don't exist as
21:49
Palestinians and you know, where you live is of no is of no
21:54
concern. And then, you know, and
21:55
obviously you never have a homeland.
21:57
And then you would then after you've cleared Gaza, what you do
22:00
next? Well, clear the West Bank,
22:02
obviously. And you know, job done.
22:04
So from the Janet, from the Palestinian point of view, they
22:07
would see this as a genocidal policy, even though it's wrapped
22:11
up in as being, as being real estate.
22:15
But that's what it is from the American point of view as well.
22:17
So I wonder how many of the people who are working with with
22:21
Trump think it's a great idea to send American soldiers there
22:25
because I'm not quite sure how else.
22:26
I mean, how else do you do it? I mean, he, he saw, he says
22:30
we're going to occupy it, we're going to own it, we're going to
22:32
cherish it. How are you going to?
22:35
This is a man who says he doesn't want foreign
22:38
entanglements and wars, and now he seems to suggest that he's
22:41
going to start. One, But you know what, I
22:43
wouldn't be surprised. He just assumes wrongly, that
22:46
most of these people want to leave the Gaza Strip.
22:50
I mean, getting back to your point about rubble, yes, it is
22:53
unlivable at the moment. You know, there are no
22:55
pipelines. There are no water lines, there
22:56
are no electricity lines. There are no buildings.
22:58
It looks like Dresden after World War 2, but Dresden was
23:02
rebuilt, you know, and the people who lived in that rubble
23:05
still called it home. Berlin, you know, where, you
23:08
know, where I come from was rebuilt.
23:09
It was 80% destroyed. It was rebuilt and inhabited
23:13
because people are attached to bits of earth, even if the
23:16
buildings that are on top of them have been reduced to
23:19
rubble. And I suspect especially for the
23:21
Palestinians who already had to leave or the the parents of the
23:24
people living there now had to leave back in 1948 in the
23:26
so-called Nakba, 750,000 of them.
23:30
Yeah. So they know what it's like to
23:32
be displaced once, whether you like it or not.
23:35
Gaza is and was their home. And at the moment, that's
23:38
probably where they want their home to be.
23:40
And also the other point is, who do you ring if you're in
23:43
Washington on the Palestinian side?
23:45
Yeah, it's quite, it's difficult for him to go over the heads of
23:48
the Ukrainians because Zelensky is an international political
23:51
superstar. He's got a number, He's got a
23:53
name, he's got an address. You got to talk to the guy and
23:56
you meet him, you know, at the opening of Notre Dame and things
23:59
like that. The Hamas leadership is in
24:02
hiding or dead. You know, the Mahmoud Abbas in
24:06
Mamala doesn't speak for the Gaza Strip, even though he might
24:08
think he likes to speak for the Gaza Strip.
24:11
So who on, you know, who do you ring on the Palestinian side
24:14
these days? Who is there to stand up for
24:16
them that Trump might actually, you know, look in the eye and
24:20
say, let's have a discussion? No.
24:21
And that's the problem because the head of the Palestinian
24:24
Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, he's 88, he has not subjected himself
24:29
to election for since 2006. I think before that.
24:34
He doesn't, you know, he does not.
24:36
He speaks for the Palestinian Authority and people, but he
24:40
doesn't really. And people don't have any faith
24:42
in him and they don't have any faith regarding authority.
24:44
And that is the problem, that there is no leadership which
24:49
speaks for the Palestinian people.
24:51
And that is partly because of the weakness and corruption of
24:54
Palestinian leadership. That's partly because Israel has
24:56
not allowed a leadership to emerge, because there was no
25:00
Senate leadership. And you and I talked before
25:02
about Marwan Barghouti, who is a potential leader who has been in
25:06
prison since 2000 and, and two, but no, there, there isn't
25:11
anyone. And that is what enables Trump
25:14
and Netanyahu and people just to talk over over the heads of
25:17
Palestinians. But one other very interesting
25:20
thing in the last couple of days, Trump is very keen on his
25:25
friend MBS, the sensible leader in Saudi Arabia.
25:28
And the Saudis are hopping mad. And this is because Netanyahu
25:33
made a joke on the television about, oh, maybe, you know, the
25:37
parties can go and live in Saudi.
25:38
They've got plenty of land. This is not a joke you make.
25:42
And on Saudi TV in the last few days there has been fury about
25:47
Netanyahu. We have called him a Zionist,
25:51
called much worse than that. He is a Zionist.
25:54
But I think insult and you know, they have basically called him
25:59
an important, impossible, stupid man with mental problems.
26:03
I mean, all sorts of things that don't normally get said on on
26:05
Saudi television. And that obviously is with the
26:08
acquiescence the leadership because it doesn't happen in
26:10
other way. So this dream that Netanyahu had
26:14
that he could extend the Abraham Accords, which brought Israel
26:18
into an effective arrangement of peace with UAE and other Gulf
26:22
countries, would extend to Saudi Arabia.
26:24
That is off the cards at the moment.
26:27
What I didn't understand is how no one in Washington can see
26:31
that problem. I mean, for Trump himself, as he
26:34
dreams of the Nobel Peace Prize, which I'm absolutely sure he is,
26:38
you know, part of the scenario, part of the path towards that
26:41
big, you know, shiny piece of metal on the mantelpiece was
26:44
peace in the Middle East. And that does involve the
26:46
Saudis. And the deal was always Saudi
26:48
Arabia would do it, you know, have bilateral relations with
26:51
Israel. But and they keep saying this,
26:53
this has to involve, you know, some kind of dignified horizon,
26:58
a, a sovereign state for the Palestinians that clearly isn't
27:03
on Trump's agenda. And what I don't understand, and
27:06
I'd love to know, you know, Trump's answer to this is have
27:09
you just written off the Saudis? Do you not care anymore?
27:12
Do you not care about the Nobel Peace Prize?
27:14
I think you should care about the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr.
27:16
Trump, because you're so close to getting it.
27:18
You know what is going on there, because there's no way the
27:21
Saudis can sign up to any of this, or indeed the Jordanians
27:24
of the Egyptians, because they will be seen complicit in the
27:27
ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
27:29
And there's a sort of, there's a rhetorical ceiling, or rather a
27:34
flaw to what you know, everyone, you know, pays lip service to
27:37
the Palestinian 'cause even if they don't really believe in
27:40
making huge sacrifices for it. But what the Israelis are doing,
27:44
what Trump is doing, is trampling on that rhetorical
27:47
flaw. And I think that could be a real
27:48
problem. So just finally and very briefly
27:52
a question to to you and me, where do we think realistically
27:56
this ends in the next couple of months or, you know, by the end
28:00
of the year? Look.
28:01
Nothing is ending. The Middle East question has
28:05
been with us. You know, like the Bible says
28:07
about the poor forever. And I don't think that Trump is
28:13
going to solve this problem. It is not going away.
28:17
I think that the people of Gaza will live in misery.
28:21
And I'm really sorry to say that I hope there is some kind of
28:25
rebuilding. But I fear that Israel is going
28:27
to go back to war and start fighting them again, not
28:29
necessarily immediately, but in the near future, because that is
28:33
how Benjamin Netanyahu will keep his coalition together.
28:37
I fear that Hamas will strengthen again because I think
28:42
that more and more young men will be get angrier and angrier
28:46
and see no alternative. And the only way I think that
28:50
that can change is if there's a real concerted and unified
28:55
position from the Arab countries, which there has never
28:58
been led by Saudi Arabia. But at the moment I think that
29:04
the Israelis are riding high and I think that Trump is at the
29:07
peak of his powers and yet what he has suggested is not a
29:12
solution. I think what Trump has set in
29:13
motion is a, is an, a chaotic process of fragmented
29:19
realignment, which makes the world a fundamentally not just
29:23
transactional place that's too good a word for it, but an
29:26
opportunistic environment where, you know, we've gone from being,
29:29
you know, the petting zoo to being a jungle basically.
29:34
And and that's, you know, that is really quite dangerous.
29:37
It's dangerous for the Middle East.
29:39
It could be very dangerous for Europe.
29:42
God knows what's going to happen in Asia.
29:44
But you know, if you don't know, if you don't really know what
29:47
the Americans want, and yet the Americans still wield an awful
29:51
lot of power, you know, the power to exercise power or the
29:55
power to withdraw their power and their protection.
29:58
I think we, you know, we're living in a very brave and
30:00
rather dangerous new world, a rather a dangerous world where
30:04
we need to be brave and we may not be that.
30:07
Brave If the Americans can seize Gaza, why can't China seize
30:14
Taiwan? Well, of course.
30:16
Wrong with Russia seizing or trying to seize Ukraine?
30:20
And we haven't even talked about Greenland and the 51st state of
30:24
the United States, Canada, and, you know, the Gulf of America
30:27
instead of the Gulf of Mexico. I mean, to be honest, for us
30:31
journalists, you know, wherever you look at the moment, there's
30:33
low hanging fruit in terms of stories.
30:36
We'll leave it there. Lindsay.
30:37
Lindsay Hilson, thank you very much.
30:39
That's it from the forecast. We will be back soon.
30:41
That's a promise.