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Starmer's plan to boost UK economy will take some time
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from the Adriatic Sea.
How is Europe’s policy on Ukraine going to change if Trump arrives in the White House?
Well first, it is not going to change its fundamentals. You should know that the very first thing done by the newly elected European Parliament was to take a very strong and very broadly supportive resolution with very strong support for Ukraine. So what's going to happen is that, yes, Europe will continue that particular line, that it might be necessary. I think it will be necessary to further increase the financial support, the support that Europeans is already substantially higher than the Americans. But if the Americans diminish, reduce, stop, whatever Trump is going to do, then Europe clearly would have to step up even more.
How does Prime Minister Starmer's “renewal plan” make it possible to sort of make Britain great again?
Well, it's early days. It's clearly going to be economic policy that is somewhat more sort of interventionist in different ways. I think the important thing is that he wants to have a new start relationship with Europe. I think that's going to take some time, but I think it's going to have some effect. But, I don't think we will see any dramatic steps in the next few months anyhow. So it's early days.
Why Trump really wanted JD Vance as running mate
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
How did JD Vance, who once called Trump “America's Hitler,” become his VP pick?
Well, of course, that isn't exactly what he said. He said that he goes back and forth between thinking that Trump is either a cynical asshole like Richard Nixon, who could actually be good for the country, or he could be America's Hitler. How come no one's actually reporting the actual quote? And it's because the media's freaking horrible is why. And because the algorithms promote stupidity and fake news, and disinformation. But the answer to the question is because Vance is really smart, very aligned with Trump. He's very, let's say, situationally ideological and wants to win, doesn't bring a lot of votes for Trump, but Trump doesn’t think he needs them. Last time around, when Trump was running and picked Mike Pence, he was looking for an establishment figure that would get him more votes and that would make Trump seem more approachable and attractive to a larger group of voters. Trump now thinks he can win the election either way, so he's picking the person he really wants. That's what's going on.
Will the EU reelect Ursula von der Leyen as president?
Almost certainly, yes. There are still questions about where exactly she's getting the votes for. She can't afford to lose a lot of people from the parties that, in principle, support her in a secret ballot. But there aren't good options for her, and everyone I talk to in positions of leadership in the EU thinks that she is a layup there.
Why did Orbán choose to visit Russia and China despite knowing it would upset EU leaders?
Well, mostly because he wants to portray himself and not just in the six-month rotating chair of the European Union, but more broadly as the person who can represent the Chinese and the Russian view, that gives him more leverage, especially if Trump becomes president. That’s why he went to Mar-a-Lago right after NATO, saying, I'm the one in the EU that knows what these people are saying. I'm the person that can connect with you. It's not like he's trying to leave the European Union. He needs their money, but he wants to position himself more strongly and as the outlier, that's the easiest way for him to do it.
That's it for me and I'll talk to you all real soon.
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UK's new PM Starmer aims for closer EU ties
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from the Adriatic Sea.
How will the new UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer reset relations at home and abroad?
Well, I think overall there's going to be a lot of continuity in terms of foreign and security policies. They've already sent the defense secretary to Kyiv to say that if anything, it's going to be even stronger support. But in terms of Europe, it’s going to be a new nuance and new attempts. The new foreign secretary, David Lammy, has already been to Germany, he's been to Poland, he’s been to Sweden, and he's talked about a European pact, foreign and security issues, cooperating more closely. And he's been invited to a meeting with all of the foreign ministers. So that's where we are likely to see, some change in the months and perhaps years ahead.
How did Macron survive the snap election in France?
Yep, that remains to be seen. There was, of course, a surprise result in the sense that the extreme right came in third after first the left, which has some extreme element, and then President Macron's coalition. But it's a hung parliament. There's no clear answer who's going to govern. So, we'll have to wait and see what's going to be the governance of France. I think the emphasis has shifted from isolating the far right to isolating the far left and see some sort of stable government can be made out of that. Very much an open question.
Why replacing Biden would be a challenge
Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group's head of research and managing director for the firm's coverage of United States political and policy developments, shares his perspective on US politics from Washington, DC.
What we're watching in US Politics this week. The big question is, will the Democrats replace Joe Biden after a disastrous debate performance?
Biden was not sharp in Thursday night's debate, seeming every bit of his 81-year-old. Slurring his speech at times, rambling, making confusing comments about what he was going to do to Medicare. And Donald Trump was able to exploit that, having being high energy, his normal blustery self. Biden was unable to push back against any of the outright lies that Trump was telling and was unable to land any punches, even on Biden's best issues, which include Donald Trump's personal character. So now there's a panic setting in among Democrats, and the question is, can they replace Biden and how would they do so?
It's going to be very tough to push aside the sitting president of the United States and leader of the Democratic Party. Probably what has to happen is that Biden himself has to make the choice that he's too old and can't do the job and makes a decision sometime in the next 3 or 4 weeks that he is going to step aside as the presidential candidate the way Lyndon Johnson did in the 60s to help the Democrats avoid a contested convention. In the wake of that, he probably would have to endorse a successor.
The most likely successor is Vice President Kamala Harris, who's the first African-American and first female vice president in US history. But she's not much more popular than Biden is, which leaves him with a number of untested options of sitting governors, including California Governor Gavin Newsom, who did not perform that well in a debate against Ron DeSantis late last year and has the baggage of being a very liberal governor of the most liberal state. And Gretchen Whitmer from Michigan, who has low name recognition among the public but is considered a moderate Democrat in a swing state who can appeal to moderate voters. There's probably other governors that would be in contention, like Governor Pritzker from Chicago, Jared Polis from Colorado, Andy Beshear from Kentucky.
But they also face the challenge of not being very nationally known, not having great fundraising networks, and never having done the grueling challenge of running for president of the United States. When you are under scrutiny 24 hours a day, every aspect of your background is going to be looked into. You've got to be a good retail politician, a good public speaker, and have the ability to consolidate Democrats and tap into the massive fundraising networks that are necessary to run as the president.
So not a lot of great options for Democrats right now. Former President Donald Trump remains ahead in most swing state polls and suggesting he probably should be considered the frontrunner in the race for now. But this question of the pressure that's going to be on Biden over the next several weeks is not going to go away until Biden has a very strong public appearance that makes people less worried about his age. Lots of baggage going into the August conventions for Biden and a real headwind for his campaign.
Macron's snap election gamble will have repercussions for France and EU
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from Tabiano Castello, Italy.
Did French President Emmanuel Macron make a grave mistake by calling for parliamentary elections now?
Well, remains to be seen. I think it should be seen also in the run up, in the context of the run up to the 2027 presidential elections, they’re going to be the real crucial ones. I think he faced the prospect of a slow death in the National Assembly and deciding that this was the only option where he had any possibility whatsoever, of recovering some strength, if that's possible. Now, France is facing a very difficult choice between the far-right, a resurgent far-right, which had roughly 40% of the vote in the European elections, and a far-left, which is equally destructive in different ways, and the center ground having lost out considerably.
So a couple of weeks to go before we get the final results. But it's a big gamble that will have profound repercussions, not only for France, but for Europe as a whole.
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Putin's rare North Korea visit will deepen ties
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Will Putin's rare visit to North Korea strengthen anti-West alignment?
It's deepening the relationship. There's no question. He hasn't been in North Korea in decades. And I mean they call it the Hermit Kingdom. It's completely totalitarian. It's incredibly poor. But they have a massive military and they've been providing an awful lot thousands and thousands of train containers, of weaponry, of ammunition, of artillery. And those containers haven't gone back empty from Russia. And there's been a lot of sense of technology that's been transferred. The interesting thing will be whether or not, this leads to more provocative North Korean behavior vis-à-vis the South and Japan, because they think they can get away with it because they have coverage from Russia. And will they start coordinating diplomatically, in response to the NATO threat, in response to, you know, the way that the war in Ukraine is going? Be interesting to watch. It's not what China wants to see, but that is certainly a piece of what happens when a couple of states considered pariahs and rogues by the West, are developing a real alliance.
Is escalation of war between Israel and Hezbollah inevitable?
Nothing's inevitable. It's looking more likely by the day. I've been very concerned about this second front. I didn't think it was going to open up in the early months because Israel is a small country and they've got a lot of people, a lot of forces that are fighting on the ground in Gaza. But as the war in Gaza, I don't want to say wraps up because I don't think that's going to happen, but at least winds down and becomes less about taking and controlling and rooting out Hamas in across all of the territory, and is less military intensive in terms of troops, then the Israelis can move a lot of those troops up to the north. And I think that is increasingly likely in part, because you have 100,000 Israelis that are evacuated still. And the Israeli leaders say a lot, you know, they got to get them back for the school year. That's September. It's coming up soon. And secondly, because Hezbollah is increasingly engaging in strikes against Israel and most recently, really invasive surveillance drone, you know, intervention, including the port of Haifa. So it's really showing off to the Israelis that we're going to hit you hard. We're going to make this really hurt. They're a hell of a lot more powerful militarily Hezbollah is than Hamas. So if this happens, it's going to be a lot bigger deal in terms of the impact and the casualties.
Will President Biden's new citizenship plan bolster his campaign?
I guess a little bit in the sense that it's an issue that is top two for most voters, inflation and the migration issue. And, you know, he has been taking a harder line on number of migrants coming in. So now he's offering the spouses that don't have citizenship, but their spouses do, you know, are going to have improved treatment. That's a give, especially in a lot of states, where you have lots of those people, and states that he needs those votes. Every vote matters. Is it really gonna help his campaign at the end of the day? This is a tough one. On balance, I think that, Trump does better on this issue in the same way Biden does on abortion.
Macron's call for a snap election in France is a huge gamble
What happened in the European Parliament elections? Why is President Macron calling for a snap election in France? Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from Berlin, Germany.
What happened in the European Parliament elections?
Well, there was a shift, no question, but not the fundamental shift to the far-right that quite a number of pundits have been speculating about. If you look at what's been the sort o, the governing coalition, if you might use that phrase, of the center-right DPP, the Social Democrats, and the liberals Renew, they used to have roughly 59% of the seats in the European Parliament. They now have 56% of the seats in the European Parliament. It is a shift, no question about that, but hardly a fundamental one. And I don't think you will see much of a shift in policies resulting out of that.
Why is President Macron calling for a snap election in France?
Well, of course, even if there wasn't the major shift in European Parliament, there was a significant shift in individual countries. And, most dramatically, it was in France where President Macron suffered a very significant setback with the far-right, combined, getting roughly 40% of the electorate. Well, he decided this can't go on. So, he dissolved the National Assembly, called for new elections, got to be, sort of, in the early July, the decisive round. It’s a huge gamble. He might not have had much of a choice, but it’s a gamble anyhow. Will we end up with some sort of cohabitation between President Macron and elements of the nationalist right to France? Remains to be seen, but highly likely. Or will he succeed to mobilize those that are against this development in the country? That also remains to be seen. But that, of course, is going to have a fairly fundamental impact on what happened, not only in France but in the rest of Europe as well.
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Will Biden's immigration order help border control...and his campaign?
Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group's head of research and managing director for the firm's coverage of United States political and policy developments, shares his perspective on US politics from Washington, DC.
What we're watching in US Politics this week? It’s immigration.
This is a big political liability for President Biden. It shows up as one of the top 2 or 3 issues, most of the big polls. And Donald Trump has a big advantage over him right now if you believed polls. So what Biden did this week is announced an emergency order that would restrict the number of people who would come to the United States seeking asylum in cases where border crossings breach over 2500 a day. This has been a pretty common occurrence, with border crossings at that level for the last several years. Last year there were over 3 million people who entered the country from abroad, both legally and illegally.
And it’s the illegal border crossings that's gotten Biden really in the most political trouble and has been at the heart of President Trump's political campaign since he first came down the golden escalator in 2015. So the big question is, does this hold and will it make any difference? And, you know, this is likely to be challenged in court by immigration advocates who want the number of asylum seekers to stay high so that people can get refuge in the United States.
But if the courts do uphold this, it should make a significant difference in the number of people crossing the border. The question is, does it come in time to help Joe Biden make a case that he's actually doing something about immigration in a way the American people want to see? Interestingly, this action is very similar to a deal that the Democrats struck with Republicans in the Senate earlier in the year, which was, of course, struck down when President Trump said he didn't really want to do anything to help Biden's reelection campaign.
So immigration is going to be an ongoing theme with this campaign. Biden took big action this week, and the numbers should help us see whether or not this makes any difference.
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