Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Trump Steering Economy To An Outdated Model: Joe Stiglitz

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Trump Steering Economy To An Outdated Model: Joe Stiglitz · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg pim L Podcast. I'm pim Fox.
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  Speaker 1: Along with my co host Lisa A. Brahmowitz. Each day
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  Speaker 1: we bring you the most important, noteworthy, and useful interviews
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  Speaker 1: for you and your money, whether you're at the grocery
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• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I'm pim Fox, and it is my pleasure to welcome
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  Speaker 1: our next guest, Joseph Stiglitz. Professor Stiglitz was born in Gary,
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  Speaker 1: Indiana in nine Of course, he is a Nobel Laureate,
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  Speaker 1: awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics along with two colleagues
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  Speaker 1: in the year two thousand and one. He is the
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  Speaker 1: author of many books, including Globalization and Its Discontents, and
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  Speaker 1: he joins us here in studio. Professor Stigletz, thank you
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  Speaker 1: very much for being here, and wonder if we could
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  Speaker 1: just start with a kind of anecdotal question having to
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  Speaker 1: do with Gary, Indiana, and we were just talking offline
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  Speaker 1: just a moment ago. Do you believe that growing up
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  Speaker 1: in Gary, Indiana influenced your perspective and your ultimate goal
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  Speaker 1: in learning about the way the world works oh very
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  Speaker 1: much so, uh, and I've actually written about that. UM.
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  Speaker 1: I became an economist because of what I saw growing
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  Speaker 1: up in Gary, Indiana. I had thought I was going
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  Speaker 1: to be a physicist, uh, theoretical physicist. But as I
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  Speaker 1: continued in my studies, what I had seen growing up,
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  Speaker 1: this enormous inequality, discrimination, episodic unemployment, labor strife kept gnawing
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  Speaker 1: at me, and I finally decided, Uh, I wanted to
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  Speaker 1: understand that better. I wanted to come to an understanding
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  Speaker 1: of how we could do better about these problems. And
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  Speaker 1: so that was really what drove me into economics. And
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  Speaker 1: I feel, you know, as I've studied economics, the perspectives
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  Speaker 1: that I bring are so different from those who grow
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  Speaker 1: up in a more privileged life in a rich suburb. UM.
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  Speaker 1: One of the standard views and economics is that markets
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  Speaker 1: work very well, everybody uh is well off, trickle down
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  Speaker 1: economics para to optimality. Concepts like that and UH sort
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  Speaker 1: of Pollyonish view of that uh of of the world.
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  Speaker 1: And I could never share that Pollyanish view because I saw,
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  Speaker 1: UH it wasn't working for the people that surrounded me.
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  Speaker 1: When I was growing up in as far as you
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  Speaker 1: were able to take that experience and then use it
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  Speaker 1: in your understanding of economics, you helped to pioneer something
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  Speaker 1: that has been described as asymmetrical information. In other words,
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  Speaker 1: how do you take information that may produce dissidence or
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  Speaker 1: a lack of conformity in its result? And I'm wondering
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  Speaker 1: if you could talk a little bit about how you
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  Speaker 1: sort of square the circle, so to speak, or or
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  Speaker 1: how do you reconcile a lot of those uh inconsistencies.
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  Speaker 1: The key issue that I faced as I began my
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  Speaker 1: research was too trying to understand, uh, the difference between
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  Speaker 1: the standard view of economics at that time Adam Smith,
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  Speaker 1: the market's invisible hand, uh, every pursued of self interested leagues,
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  Speaker 1: the world to be as if society's well being was
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  Speaker 1: being maximized, um with what I saw growing up. And
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  Speaker 1: that led to ideas about situations where artics don't work
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  Speaker 1: well and uncovering that there had been an implicit assumption
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  Speaker 1: that economists hadn't really recognized for two hundering some years,
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  Speaker 1: which was uh the idea that information was perfect and
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  Speaker 1: that a world in which information is very imperfect, whereas
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  Speaker 1: some people know things that others don't. Is totally different
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  Speaker 1: from uh, a world which information is perfect. It's a
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  Speaker 1: little bit like in physics. Uh. We we talked about
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  Speaker 1: a frictionless world and then a world with friction. And
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  Speaker 1: you would never construct an airplane based on a theory
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  Speaker 1: of a frictionless world. Uh. It just wouldn't make any sense.
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  Speaker 1: And yet we were trying to construct an economy based
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  Speaker 1: on a frictionless world and it wasn't working very well.
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  Speaker 1: Can you then take that perspective and speak to us
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  Speaker 1: about the current state of let's say, trade negotiations or
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  Speaker 1: trade relationship between the United States and the world. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: we can talk China, you can mention Mexico, Canada, and
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  Speaker 1: so on. But I wonder if you could use that
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  Speaker 1: to describe what do you believe is the current feeling
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  Speaker 1: about these trade negotiations, that they really headed somewhere intelligent
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  Speaker 1: or is this just a political game? Well, I think
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  Speaker 1: the trade negotiations are not going well, uh for anybody.
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  Speaker 1: And the reason that's true is that is really the
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  Speaker 1: blame is I I put in the United States that
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  Speaker 1: uh Trump does not have uh any conception about what
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  Speaker 1: it is that he's trying to do. What is the
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  Speaker 1: problem facing the United States now? He says the problem
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  Speaker 1: is that we import more than we export. We have
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  Speaker 1: a trade deficit, and he attributes that to unfair trade
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  Speaker 1: UH that are taking advantage of us. But the basic
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  Speaker 1: inside of economics is that trade deficits are not UH
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  Speaker 1: based on trade um with any particular country, what we
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  Speaker 1: call multilateral UM. If we buy a little bit less
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  Speaker 1: clothes from China, will buy a little bit more from
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  Speaker 1: Malaysia or Indonesia, and UH it won't make much difference
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  Speaker 1: for anybody. UH. If we buy from somebody that's not
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  Speaker 1: the cheapest, our costs will be a little bit higher. UH.
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  Speaker 1: It will make a difference for Indonesia, but not for
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  Speaker 1: the American UH producers. UH. What determines the overall trade
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  Speaker 1: deficit is we call macro economics. That is spirity between
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  Speaker 1: what we invest inside the United States and what we
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  Speaker 1: save inside the United States. And if we aren't saving
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  Speaker 1: enough to finance the investment, we have to borrow from abroad.
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  Speaker 1: And that borrowing from abroad results in our exchange rate
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  Speaker 1: going up, and that leads to correspond to that will
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  Speaker 1: be a trade deficit. So the problem in the United
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  Speaker 1: States is that we've been borrowing a lot from abroad.
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  Speaker 1: And the tax bill in December two thousand seventeen and
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  Speaker 1: the increase in expenditures in January two eighteen, UH really
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  Speaker 1: blew a hole in our fiscal position. A lot of
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  Speaker 1: people talked about how we're going to have to borrow
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  Speaker 1: that much more from abroad and what does that mean?
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  Speaker 1: That means we will have an even larger trade deficit.
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  Speaker 1: And that's true. No matter what the outcome of any
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  Speaker 1: trade negotiations are, those outcomes will determine which countries we
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  Speaker 1: buy from, but not our overall trade deficit. So no
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  Speaker 1: matter what his negotiators do, uh, it won't affect that
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  Speaker 1: basic economics. Now, where the negotiations do make a difference
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  Speaker 1: is uh particular countries exporting particular goods or importing particularly goods. Now,
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  Speaker 1: this is another area where Trump is really very misconceived
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  Speaker 1: in his economics. Modern economics recognize that we are a
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  Speaker 1: service sector economy. Uh. We are are vibrant sectors are
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  Speaker 1: financial sector, actucation sector, or health sector. Um. These are
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  Speaker 1: among the areas where we're making you know, where we're
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  Speaker 1: really successful. There are other areas where uh, we've moved on. Uh, automobiles, UM,
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  Speaker 1: natural resources. UH. You know, take the presidents talked about coal. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: In all of the extractor sectors together, including coal, UH,
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  Speaker 1: there are about half the number of workers as professional
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: sports people. So if you say we want to have
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: a cold policy, you ought to say we ought to
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: have a sports policy. And you know, if you're talking
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  Speaker 1: about jobs, there twice as many in those areas. There
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  Speaker 1: are five times as many jobs in solar install panel
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  Speaker 1: installation than in the coal industry. So this was not
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  Speaker 1: the case in nineteen fifty sixties. We didn't have a
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  Speaker 1: solar panel. He's keeping looking back at the world as
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: it was seventy five years ago, next, not where we
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  Speaker 1: should be going. We should be going towards the century.
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  Speaker 1: So his focused on the old world, on the industrial
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  Speaker 1: world of the nineteen fifties, means that we're not reshaping
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  Speaker 1: our economy towards the century. Is there a political obstacle
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  Speaker 1: to get these kinds of things done that you describe,
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  Speaker 1: whether it be the shift from coal and the jobs
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  Speaker 1: that were in the coal industry to let's say solar
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  Speaker 1: just as an example of solar industry, Is there a
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  Speaker 1: political obstacle? Because you've also written about the money that
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  Speaker 1: influences elections very much. So um. Uh the problem is
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  Speaker 1: the existing interests. UH don't want to give them up.
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  Speaker 1: And UH they looked to government for subsident ease, for
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  Speaker 1: a monopoly power. Uh. We need There is an important
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  Speaker 1: role for government, but it's for facilitating a transition to
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  Speaker 1: the new economy. Uh. It's for helping people get the
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  Speaker 1: skills that they're going to need in the new economy.
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  Speaker 1: You know. That's the role of the government has traditionally played.
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  Speaker 1: Back after World War Two, we had to move from
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  Speaker 1: agriculture to a manufacturing economy. And after World War Two,
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  Speaker 1: we had the g I Bill, which said that everybody
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  Speaker 1: who had fought in the war, which was virtually every
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: young man and a lot of women, could get as
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: much education as they were qualified for. That was essential,
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  Speaker 1: not only as a basic sense of opportunity, but it
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  Speaker 1: was actually essential for the transformation from the of the
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  Speaker 1: United States from agriculture to manufacturing. Today, we need to
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  Speaker 1: do a similar transformation for manufacturing to a new service sector, innovative,
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  Speaker 1: non leach based economy, and government isn't there to help us.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, the trunk government is focusing on back on
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  Speaker 1: coal and all those other industries that we ought to
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  Speaker 1: be moving away from. UH. So we need the help
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  Speaker 1: of the government not to protect the old industries, but
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  Speaker 1: to help us move into the more dynamics sectors where
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  Speaker 1: will be a lot more prosperous and a lot healthier.
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  Speaker 1: I want to give you the opportunity to speak about
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  Speaker 1: the essential environmental industries that could be created or are
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  Speaker 1: being created, because this is a topic that you've done
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  Speaker 1: a lot of work on. Yeah. Well, I, as I mentioned,
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  Speaker 1: solar panels have the opportunity potential creating so many more
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  Speaker 1: jobs than the coal industry. And at the same time,
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  Speaker 1: we know what coal does to our health, the particular
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  Speaker 1: till it matter, the pollution, UH, not to speak of
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  Speaker 1: the global warming, and the impacts of global warming we
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  Speaker 1: are now realizing are much greater than when I began
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  Speaker 1: studying that matter twenty five years ago. I was on
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: the Governmental Panel and Climate change UH and UH we
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: looked at the climate change at that point we said
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  Speaker 1: it's really serious. But we made a mistake. We did
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  Speaker 1: not anticipate how fast things were going to change and
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: how bad they were going to be. The dimensions of
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: this the extremes of weather. UM, you know, the United
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: States lost about one to two percent of GDP just
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: last year in the hurricanes. These are weather related events,
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  Speaker 1: and there's absolutely no doubt that climate change global warming
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: is leading to more severe weather events, whether it's the
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: hurricanes or the drawings, the fires that have affected afflicted California. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: we're already paying an enormous price for that. So if
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: we can make a little bit of investment in moving
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  Speaker 1: to these more dynamic, pro environmental green policies, I think
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  Speaker 1: it will stimulate our economy, but it will also help
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  Speaker 1: protect us against the ravages that we are already beginning
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  Speaker 1: to face. In about thirty seconds, what would you like
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  Speaker 1: young people to take away from your perspective about economics
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  Speaker 1: and what they can achieve. I think they should take
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  Speaker 1: away that, Uh, we can have as prosperous a world
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  Speaker 1: in the future as we had in the past, but
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  Speaker 1: it will not be done by the market on its own.
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  Speaker 1: We are going to have to have an active government policies,
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  Speaker 1: progressive policy UM and the strategy of blaming others, whether
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: it's immigrants or foreign trade or UH, that is not
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  Speaker 1: going to bring America prosperity. What is going to bring
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  Speaker 1: American prosperity is investing in our future, not our past,
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  Speaker 1: but our future, and UH creating the kind of progressive
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  Speaker 1: environment that says, UH what we tried to achieve seventy
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  Speaker 1: years ago. UH. Secure retirement, housing for all, healthcare, education
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  Speaker 1: for our children, jobs for all. These are all things
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  Speaker 1: that are within our grasp. We are a much wealthier
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  Speaker 1: country than we were seventy five years ago. The question
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  Speaker 1: is can we deploy that wealth in ways that will
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  Speaker 1: benefit all of us? Thank you very much, Thank you
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  Speaker 1: very much for being with us. UH. Professor Joseph Stiglets,
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  Speaker 1: Nobel Lauria, Professor of economics at Columbia University and the
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: author of Globalization and Its Discontent. Thank you very much
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  Speaker 1: for your time. Thank you. The topic now is Sears.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Sears Holdings, hundred and twenty five year old retailer filed
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: for bankruptcy protection. It has been settled with billions of
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: dollars in debt, this as it struggled to adjust to
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: shifts in online consumption. Noel Hibbert, our director of credit
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: research for Bloomberg Intelligence, joins us now to tell us
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: how did this happen and what's next? Alright, No, I
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: have an idea how it happened. But I want you
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: to explain how did it happen that Sears ended up
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: saddled with all this debt, never mind the strategic issues
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: having to do with competition in the retail world. How
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: did it end up financially in this position? Boy, I
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: think those two items are definitely not mutually exclusive, right,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: So I think you know when not to go too
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: far back into the way back time machine. But when
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Eddie had kind of brought Kmart out of bankrupt you're
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: talking about Eddie Lampert, the fund manager who basically owns
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Sirius correct so vias e s L investment fund. He
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: had brought Kmart out of bankruptcy and then leverage that
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: series back in oh five, and back then he had
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: a new way to run retail, which was basically to
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: not invest in it, right, So, don't invest in capital expenditures,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: try and cut back on employees, and do all these
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: things to basically maximize cash flow, which is a great
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: short term strategy, but it's not how retail works. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And so through the accrual of that over years, they
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: just you know, it worked for the first four or
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: five years, and then they started lose money. And lose
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: more money and lose more money, and the way that
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: they funded that loss was to basically borrow money. What
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: does Eddie Lampert want to do now with his holdings
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: in sears given that they are in bankruptcy protection, because
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: there's a discussion about buying a large portion of the
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: company's store base. Yea, and I think, you know, for
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: if I'm in Eddie Shoes, I think that that makes
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: the most sense, right. I mean, to the degree that
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: you've got four or five stores somewhere in this you know,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: nine plus store portfolio that are actually profitable and that
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: you can build around, you start to think sort of
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: the adjacent pockets of value that you're trying to maximize
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: any credits trying to maximize here, right, which is stuff
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: like Ken Moore or the services business, or the autoparts business,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: or speaking specifically to Eddie Lamport and his DSLF fund,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the Sritage real estate spinoff that they had a few
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: years back, Like, those are all things that you need
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: to try and preserve the value of. And if you
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: just let this thing sort of wind its way down
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: into a liquidation, you lose that. So in order to
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: kind of keep the value attached to some of those assets.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: The thing you need to do is sort of find
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: a store base that you can build around. No, given
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: the attempts in the past to revive Sears, is this
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: an attempt to just get through this holiday shopping season
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: rather than a big strategic rethink about what they do
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: and how they do it. So, I think that's really
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: going to come down to how contentious the court proceedings get. Right. So,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: I think if if he can't get enough creditors to
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: sort of play along, uh, then it will be very,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: very difficult to sort of rebuild anything out of this,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: and you end up sort of in a Toys Rus
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: situation where you've just got too many conflicting interests in
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: the courts. No longer it drags on the heart it
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: is to resuscitate whatever is left of the retail business.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: I think if he can leverage his position as the
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: largest creditors, so of the five billion dollars in change
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: of debt that the company has, he's half of that.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: If he can leverage that position somehow into buying or
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: securing I guess, uh, you know, sort of relie from
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: other creditors. And I think there's something he can do here,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: because again I think it's not just about SEARS itself,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: but it's about sort of how do you preserve uh,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: you know, value. So ken Moore would be a great example,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: whereas you know, there's some value attached to ken Moore
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: if you have a still solvent SEARS, but if you're
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: in insolvency, you're only bidding for intellectual property that maybe
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: worth very very little to third parties without a SEARS. No,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: based on what you know from these kinds of negotiations
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: between creditors and debtors in chapter eleven bankruptcy, can you
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: tell us what the tone or indeed what kind of relationship,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: if any, do you believe would exist between those two
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: groups at this point. Well, that's going to be an
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: interesting dynamic because I think the only real big third
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: party creditor that we know about right now is fair Home,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: who is involved with Eddie and e S. In terms
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: of both on the equity side and on the credit side.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: They're going to be one of the largest creditors going in,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: and they obviously got hurt pretty substantially, not only on
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: their equity exposure, which they've largely ex exited excuse me, um,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: but also in the eight percent notes, which is their
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: biggest piece, which are trading you know, call it low teens.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: And that's obviously paper that they owned at par right,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: So they're pretty substantially impaired. So figuring out where they're
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: going to be in this is going to be a
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: big part of it. If they choose to make it contentious, um,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: then this this will probably have a pretty challenged ND.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Is this why they couldn't reach a resolution out of court? Well?
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: I think, uh, I guess there's probably a different number
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: of different ways to sort of play that one my
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: you know, tea leaves or you want to phrase it,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: would be that it more came down to you need
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: assets to restructure around. So if you think back to E.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: S L's proposal from a few weeks back, which basically
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: envisioned recapitalizing the entire balance sheet, um, but it also
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: meant moving a lot of the assets that remain off
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the balance sheet. Uh. You know, the board is probably
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: looking at that and saying, if we're going to restructure
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: around anything, we can't do it without ken More, we
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: can't do it without the real estate, etcetera. Uh. And
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: so you know they might have been having a half
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: an eye towards their own liability if this thing went
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: into a chapter eleven and what happened if they had
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: just pretty much shipped all the valuable assets off the
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: balance sheet and into E S l um so. So
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: I think there's a couple of dynamics that play there.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: I want to thank you very much for sharing your
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: information and experience with us. Noel Hebert is our director
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: of credit research for Bloomberg Intelligence. Speaking about Sears Holdings
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: filing for bankruptcy, President Donald Trump said that he is
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: sending U S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to meet
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: with Saudi King Salmon to discuss the fate of a
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Saudi dissident journalist who disappeared after entering the Saudi consulate
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: in Istanbul. Here to tell us more about the situation
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: is Ali al Ahmed. He is the founder and director
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: of the Institute for Gulf Affairs based in Washington, d C.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: And joining me here in studio is Toby Harshaw, Bloomberg
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Opinion editor. Gentlemen, thank you very much for being here.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Ali al Ahmed. Maybe you could just describe what do
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: we know at the moment, what we know the moment
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: is that the Turkish government has the fault proof that
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: Mr was killed inside the consulate, and we know the
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: identity of the killers H. And it's absolute no doubt
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: that the Saudi team, the fifteen member team, including two
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: members of the conference bodyguards, were involved in the crime. UH.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: And the Turks are waiting to negotiate some kind of
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: a deal between them and the Saudis. And I think
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: you meet the Americans because this is now becoming an
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: international incident and the King's nephew and governor of Mecca
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: is an Ancora beating with President Arregon to come to
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: a solution or two an exit out of this UH,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: out of this crisis. MR is dead and he was
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: killed in a very horrifle commander, I would say, is
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: the style murder. So we'll see what happens. Hang on
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: just a second because I want to bring in Toby Harshaw,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Opinion editor, to comment on this. Toby, why should
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Americans pay attention to the disappearance of a Saudi dissident journalist? Well,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: I think we should pay attention to the disappearance of
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: all journalists. UM. I think that given the tremendous support
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: that the Trump administration, particularly the President and Jared Kushner,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: have given to the Saudis, which UH many people saw
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: as them giving the green light, for example, to their
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: attempts to isolate Cutter, Um to continue prosecuting this disaster
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: of a war in Yemen. Um that you know and
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: and support for for Mohammed bin Salman, the Prime Prince
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: really runs the country. UM that we need to look
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: at that policy and think about whether we have to
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: be more critical. Well Ali al Ahmed, the President said
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: that he spoke earlier with the King of Saudi Arabia
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: and described the conversation that the king denied any knowledge
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: of whatever may have happened to us. He says, quote
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: our Saudi Arabian citizen, Do you believe that that is
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the contact content of that conversation? But I'm not sure.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Obviously I was not listening in. But I would want
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: to say that this is the greatest involved with him
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: and of an American president ever in any issue relating
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: to Saudi human rights violation. So you give Mr Trump
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: his his due. He has been the most spokes UH.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: You might not like his position, but he has spoken
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: about it more than any American president all the Americans
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: in fact combined that that's the reality. I followed all
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: the Americans. The President the States was on Saudiast, So
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: this is surprising and maybe refreshingly. So I of course
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: King Salmon might not have been aware of it because
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: he's he's not he's not that healthy, especially because he
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: has a publement with his you know, amnesia son. But
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: definitely it is done by people in the Royal Palace
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: close to him. He doesn't know, he doesn't know, but
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: you cannot believe the politicians in general, especially the partic one. Uh.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: The reality is Mr Trump, I think also will use
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: this to gain some some some favors with the Drawing
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: family and and or maybe in terms of having mb
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: as the conference deliver on his promises that he he
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: failed to do in terms of investing in certain projects
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: or delivering certain policies in the region. So I really
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: think this is going to continue because it's not about
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: the killing of jamaatoc Alon, which is deserving obviously, but
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: it has to do with other policies that the Mohammed
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Salman is carrying out. And I think Mohammed Salman is
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: what I call is growing his own wings. He wants
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: to be more independent. He's carrying his own vision. He
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: wants to do things without America's support or approval. And
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I think that you will see that coming uh in
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: the next few weeks, with maybe changing into oil production
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: and realigning his position in the region. There's ira is
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: a bit of warnum in which the US supported from
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: the Obama administration time. Mr al Ahmed, just quickly, do
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: you have separate intelligence information other than what the Turkish
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: government has released or said in concerning the fate of
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Mr Kashogi. My my sources in Turkey, and he heard
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: the video, he heard the audio of the killing, and
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: so the collaborating videos that that puts the killers in
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: in in that space of time, in the council that
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: during the form Mr Kashov entered and after he was killed,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: So everything there. I I know the individual who who
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: actually watched it. He is close to the government, but
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: he's a friend of Jamal Kaso and somebody I know,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: so he actually saw it. So I'm not I have
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: no doubt my additional information separately, and I hope the
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: US government will contacts us. We have information on the
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: team that we have obtained through our own sources in
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: the country through the Palace. We have more information that
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: we we have we we owned right now, Toby Harshaw,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: just to come to you for thirty seconds, what would
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: this issue due to US Saudi relationships visa v arms sales? Well,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: as you know, the Congress has been tossing around the
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: idea of boycotting or putting limits on arms sales to
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: study Arabia based on the civilian casual Louis and Yemen.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: I think this could you know, obviously put to give
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: more support to that and put a lot of pressure
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: on the White House to actually join in. Thanks very
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: much for being with us, gentlemen, Toby Harshaw, Bloomberg Opinion
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: editor and Ali Al Ahmed, founder and director of the
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington, d C. Thanks for
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: listening to the Bloomberg P and L podcast. You can
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, or
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm pim Fox. I'm on
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Twitter at pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at Lisa Abramo
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: wits one. Before the podcast, you can always catch us
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: worldwide on Bloomberg Radio.