Can Trump make the world peaceful again? | Danube Lectures

Thomas:

Can Trump make the world peaceful again? This is the question of this edition. My name is Thomas.

My first guest this week is a prestigious politician and political knowledge maker and giver, Robert Wilkie, chairman of the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute. Formerly, he was Secretary of Federal Affairs in the USA. Thank you very much.

Robert Wilkie:

Thank you for having me. It’s a great pleasure.

Thomas:

We will discuss many things, many problem areas of U.S. national security issues. First of all, I would ask the most important thing. When President Trump promised before he got elected that he would manage all the security issues—namely, he named the Ukrainian war first, but he also mentioned the Gaza situation and I would name the Pacific problem as the third one—we saw not only one day or 100 days, but many months since he was installed as president, and these promises are unfilled now. What is the reason for that?

Robert Wilkie:

First of all, I think the president started with a look at the world that was very different from his predecessor. His predecessor blamed all the problems of the world on the United States. You saw that in the form of his ambassador to Hungary, who raised ugly Americanism to a new level.

You saw the immediate changes here when President Trump removed that ambassador and brought in a new way of thinking and a way of dealing with Hungary that honored your history and honored your place in the world today.

That’s exactly what he’s doing on the world stage. But he had to start with the concept: one, America is back. Two, we will deal with the world through strength, not through retreat. That means policy has to be flexible.

For instance, he has given the Russians chances to engage in a ceasefire. Zelensky has agreed to all three. Putin has not. You see the ratcheting up of pressure and the continued flow of American weapons into Ukraine.

In Gaza, because Hamas would not stop—even though the president had offered them a way to stop by returning the hostages back to the Israelis—they didn’t. He knew that the Iranian pipeline was still moving. The Iranians and their proxies were disrupting international sea lanes, affecting the United States. He helped the Israelis and removed, as far as we can see into the future, the Iranian nuclear threat.

So what does that mean? It means we have a flexible American foreign policy that understands our economic power but also buttresses that with the kinetic power of the armed forces of the United States. That’s a message we’re sending to China. We certainly sent it to Iran. Even the IAEA reports that they don’t see a way forward for the Iranians in developing a nuclear weapon for as far as they can see into the future.

With Putin, I think it has come to the point where sanctions will start flowing in the near future, even more severe than they were at first.

Thomas:

That’s exactly the question I wanted to ask. If we start with Russia and continue with other countries, you mentioned diplomacy came first. We saw many gestures made to Mr. Putin, even by Mr. Trump.

You say there will be a time when the window of negotiations closes and there will be the next step—the pressure. I would be very interested if you can name some of the tools of pressure. Is it sanctions only, or a little bit more?

Robert Wilkie:

It’s a combination of things. To use an old Cold War term in the United States, it’s a flexible response.

First of all, the president is not going to let Ukraine fail. He is not going to let that nation fail. But in order to get to peace, he has put on the table the potential to remove the Russians from the world banking system. He has told Europe no longer to buy oil and gas from Russia—buy it from us. We have our own energy independence now. We’re the world’s number one producer of oil and gas again.

He has warned nations around the world that doing business with Russia will cost them. Those are the things on the table.

We’re already starting to see gas lines in Russia. We didn’t see that in the first two or three years of this conflict because Putin has been able to cocoon his population—or at least the two population centers he cares about, St. Petersburg and Moscow—from the ravages of war. That is starting to evaporate.

The fact that he’s lost ten times as many dead as the United States lost in all of Vietnam, my father’s war—and we were there ten years—says that’s an incredible price for having gained very little territory. Now we see him moving to typical Russian tactics: attacking civilians, schools, hospitals.

But he crossed the line last week. It’s the first time since 1949 that NATO has engaged Russians on NATO territory.

Thomas:

You mean the drone attacks?

Robert Wilkie:

The drone attacks. He’s testing. He’s constantly testing. He’s a great actor because if you look at all the red lines he’s drawn since this conflict, they’ve all been mirages. They’ve been bluffs.

The notion that he could take on Poland in his current condition is fairly laughable. But that negates something you know in Hungary better than anyone in the West, possibly with the exception of Poland and the Baltics. That is the traditional regenerative power of the Russian state. They can absorb incredible hardships.

The only difference is this is not the Russia of 300 million. This is a much reduced state. We’ll see how long he can sustain a force in the field at the casualty rate he’s sustaining.

Thomas:

The big question is whether Moscow can be pressured by economic sanctions to the negotiation table or not, because many analysts say Russia has reserves and behind Russia is China, a big consumer of Russian energy, so he can continue the war. Can Russia be forced by economic tools to come to the negotiation table?

Robert Wilkie:

That’s up to us. That’s up to us to pressure the Chinese. It’s something on the table to put tariffs on them if they continue to buy Russian oil. There’s a bill in the United States Senate that has 92 sponsors out of 100 that would put 100% tariffs on the Chinese if they continue to buy Russian oil.

That’s another element the president can unleash. He has told the Chinese, you have to talk to the Russians.

China is watching how we behave. China is watching how we deal with Putin. They had absolutely no fear of Joe Biden, but they are watching now because Donald Trump, if you look at his first term—I was there—he killed 300 Russians in the Syrian desert. Putin stayed in his box. Didn’t say a thing.

He killed Soleimani, the world’s greatest terrorist, and the mullahs stayed in their box. So he has a track record of acting forcefully. China is watching because that will dictate in some ways how they deal with Taiwan in the near future.

Thomas:

We saw one or two weeks ago the Tianjin meeting, the summit of the Shanghai Security Organization. It’s a little bit contradicting what you are saying, because if China is watching Trump, at the same time they are signing what looks like an anti-Western coalition forming before our eyes. What was the message of Tianjin?

Robert Wilkie:

That’s the new axis of evil. It’s an open one, but we’ve dealt with that before. We drew a line in Western Europe. We told the Soviet Union we would never recognize their acquisition of the Baltic states, which gave those nations hope.

You had the Warsaw Pact. You had friendly nations to the Soviet Union like Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam. We dealt with that then. It’s not something new.

What you had there was the new axis: Xi, Putin, the mullahs, and Kim. The mullahs are in an incredibly reduced state right now, courtesy of Israel and the United States. Putin is not in a position to do much to help China. He will become a vassal if he keeps going down this road.

China has to make a calculation. Xi is not stupid. If Putin becomes too aggressive, China must decide: do we cut him off or go down with him? I think Xi is too smart to let Putin drag him down.

Thomas:

Would India join an anti-Western alliance?

Robert Wilkie:

The history of India since the British departed in the 1940s is just what you saw. They have played both sides of the divide for decades. That’s nothing new.

They were not in the picture with what I call the axis of evil. That was Xi, Putin, the mullahs, and Kim. Modi is not going to fully align with that. He has too much at stake with the West.

But I will say this. If you’re going to impose tariffs like this, you have to impose them on the greatest malefactor, and that’s China. I wouldn’t have done it just on India. I would have said the big message is to China.

Thomas:

Could Hungary switch from Russian energy to American?

Robert Wilkie:

Russia holds a Damocles sword over any nation that buys energy from it. Putin can cut it off whenever he wants. With the United States, it’s cheaper, better, cleaner, and you won’t have the threat of America cutting off supplies to its friends.

With Trump, you have the ultimate businessman in the White House. That’s the message we’ve been sending throughout Europe and to Hungary too.

I think it might happen. You know how close he is to Mr. Orbán, particularly culturally. I don’t think you’ll see the same pressure tactics here that you would see elsewhere. But I do think there will be outreach to Hungary to say: cut him off. You’re better off with us than with him controlling the spigot.

Thomas:

Is there any point at which Washington doesn’t back Israel further?

Robert Wilkie:

That’s not happening. If Israel didn’t exist, the United Nations would go out of business. It’s the only permanent agenda item on the Human Rights Council. Forty percent of UN General Assembly resolutions in the last ten years have been about Israel.

The president has offered Hamas what he offered Putin. They rejected it. He has condemned Macron and Starmer for attempting to create a Palestinian state out of thin air, which only gives terrorist sustenance.

The support for the state of Israel is going to be there. We see a new level of deterrence from Israel: if you harm Jews, you will die. It doesn’t matter where you are.

Thomas:

Can Israel reach its war goals: eliminating Hamas and bringing back the hostages?

Robert Wilkie:

I have hope they can. The bottom line is they have to eliminate a terrorist threat the way they eliminated Hezbollah and the Iranian nuclear threat.

I always go back to what Golda Meir said: if someone tells you over and over again he wants to kill you, believe him. The Palestinian Authority is corrupt. It pays people to kill Jews.

The Israelis will do everything they can to rescue those hostages. For those who say you can’t kill an idea, we did a pretty good job eliminating Adolf Hitler’s state structure. There’s no National Socialist Party ready to take over Europe now because we dealt with it.

They have to eliminate this threat, and they have to do it quickly. Then we’ll see what happens after that.

Thomas:

What is the American perception of Europe? What is the future of Europe?

Robert Wilkie:

The new Europe for America is in the East. The center of gravity is no longer traveling from Paris to Berlin.

There are as many Sharia courts in Birmingham as there are common law courts. European elites have turned humility into humiliation when it comes to protecting the legacy of the West.

Europe is the font of what has been good about this planet for 3,000 years. It began in the Judean desert, went to Athens, Rome, London, and to the United States. A thousand years ago, Hungary stopped by itself what would have been a catastrophic invasion of Europe.

You look at France or Germany under Merkel. They brought in people who fundamentally believe you are an infidel. That’s not everyone, but it is destroying the West.

America dealt with this at the beginning of our country with the Barbary pirates. They told American sailors, convert or die. Thomas Jefferson said no. He sent the Navy and Marine Corps in 1803 and destroyed Algiers. He said if you harm Americans, the United States will take care of you.

This is not new. It is insidious now because it is destroying the foundation of Western society, aided by people who dislike themselves, who engage in national self-flagellation.

That’s not happening here. Here, people are proud of their history, proud of their religion, proud of their connection to the church, and say we will defend it. We need more of that.

I always say the two most lamentable words in the English language are “too late.” We have a little more time, but for Western Europe, that time is running out.

Thomas:

Mr. Wilkie, I leave it on that sentence. It’s a little bit pessimistic, but it was a pleasure to meet you.

Robert Wilkie:

It’s a great honor to be here with people who understand what’s important.

Thomas:

Thank you very much. And dear viewers, thank you for your attention. We see each other next week. Bye-bye.