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Simon Marks joins Matt Frei for the Washington Round-up in a week which saw the trade war between the US and Canada ramp up.
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0:00
I mean, this is a huge catastrophe
0:02
The British government has given five million quid, which you could say is not the biggest amount we've ever given
0:08
but it's something. How much has the American government given? So the American government, and this, Matt, speaks volumes
0:13
about the collapse in international assistance budgets that the United States has at its disposal
0:19
under President Donald Trump. The United States has pledged half a million dollars
0:25
Half a million dollars? I had to do it. When I saw the number, I thought, wait a minute
0:29
There must be a zero missing. Half a million dollars has been pledged by the United States
0:35
And there are missing American citizens, by the way, in Nepal. Half a million dollars compared to the five million that we're sending
0:43
And if you look at what has happened to US assistance to Nepal more broadly
0:48
since Donald Trump came into power, returned to power, $20 million worth of grants intended to assist Nepal's fiscal federalism were cancelled
0:58
19 million dollars in grants for biodiversity conservation were cancelled you know let's just
1:05
dwell briefly on the fact that there were apparently climate change links to this disaster
1:10
with that glacier collapsing i mean all sorts of uh infrastructure projects in nepal have been
1:17
delayed a 500 million dollar project uh focused on roads and electricity lines faced funding
1:24
suspensions and what's described in the literature as political friction. But when the United States
1:30
the country that used to kind of lead the world in disaster assistance, is basically saying to the
1:36
Nepalese, we've had a look down the back of the sofa, we've come up with half a million dollars
1:41
there you go. But the UK is giving five million, which is also not much in historic terms, just
1:48
is staggering and and tells you everything you need to know about the the extent to which the
1:54
trump administration has eviscerated foreign assistance programs and of course the the the
1:59
recipients of those programs are all suffering i mean you look at the ebola crisis for example
2:03
in the democratic republic of congo it's be you can ascribe that in part to the assistance cuts
2:10
that were brought about by elon musk when he was waving his chainsaw around at doge the so Department of Government Efficiency which is not really a US official government department I mean the damage that has been done
2:22
And shut down USAID overnight. Yes, absolutely. And of course, USAID and the Americans, for all their faults
2:28
used to set the standard on the amount of money given. As we just heard from Lord Malik Brown
2:33
they have their inner rears at the United Nations, which has also happened before
2:37
But if they don't pay up, they will lose their veto, which they may or may not like
2:41
I mean, the Trump administration will tell you that USAID still exists, and it officially does still exist
2:48
And Marco Rubio, one of the many jobs that Marco Rubio has on his business card is acting administrator of USAID
2:55
which is, he's permanent, let's be honest, of what's left. But it's a shadow of its former self, and this has huge implications
3:05
whether it's for disaster relief when things like this happen in Nepal, or more broadly
3:11
coordinated programs, priorities, plans, all of that's gone. And let's be clear, I mean, in this country
3:17
we have massively scaled down the amount of money that this government gives
3:21
this Labour government gives to international aid, much more than other European friends and neighbours
3:29
And I guess we partly did that because we thought, oh, well, Trump won't mind
3:33
In fact, he'd rather like that. We like them. He likes the fact that we've given less money to aid
3:37
and spending more money on defence, and we end up falling between every available store
3:41
Yes. And of course, we now know that John Healy may not now go with the 3% of GDP for defence expenditure in the budget, which may irritate the Americans
3:50
So you do end up falling between those those those stools on a continuing basis
3:54
OK, talking about stool falling, I mean, it always it always struck me as weird that Trump would start his second term by saying he wants Canada to be the 51st state of America
4:04
But I guess if you think in hemispheric terms, that kind of makes has there's a certain geographical logic to it
4:09
But this, we just heard it from Michael Ignatieff, this trade war with Canada is now quite serious, isn't it
4:16
Very serious. Now, we know that in Canada, Carney's got 75% support
4:21
which is astonishing in modern democracy for his standing up against Donald Trump
4:26
What's the support in America for Donald Trump picking a fight with the Canadians Oh I think the cratering I mean Donald Trump cratering approval ratings are across the board There is no single issue where you can find the president anything other than underwater
4:44
And that includes his pet initiatives like mass deportations. It includes his handling of the economy. It includes his handling of foreign affairs
4:52
In no survey on any single issue does he come out with a plurality of support from the American voters
5:00
And picking a trade war with Canada is bad enough. I mean, he's already sparked, you know, Susan Collins of Maine, the beleaguered senator there
5:08
She's going out of her mind because there's so much trade done between Canada and Maine
5:12
and the agricultural community in the United States deeply opposed to this trade war, of course
5:18
So he's antagonizing real voters and important Republicans who he needs to bring over the finishing line
5:25
if his party is to retain control of the Senate and the House of Representatives in 60-odd days' time
5:31
But also to do it in such an infantile way, you know, this grabbing a map of Lake Ontario
5:38
scratching its name out with a ballpoint pen, writing in Lake... I mean, crayons and colouring books. I mean, just ridiculous
5:47
And any American going shopping this weekend, filling their car with gas at garage forecourts all over the country
5:55
paying through the nose on the six-month anniversary of the president's decision to wage a futile war
6:02
against Iran. There's no rebounding from that by waging a trade war on Canada. Let's talk about the
6:08
other war. It's not really a war. It was more, you know, an intervention, if you want to call it that
6:13
at the beginning of the year, the nabbing of the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, who is
6:18
languishing in a Brooklyn jail cell. Today, we learn that Venezuela's oil, or at least a fifth
6:25
of it, now belongs to America. 65 billion barrels of Venezuela's proven oil reserves has been
6:32
secured. Majority US control, President Trump announced yesterday. And look, Venezuela needed
6:40
US assistance and Western assistance to get Pedevesa, its state-owned oil facility
6:46
really pumping again I mean I been to Maracaibo which is the heart of the event I sure you have been there as well And you look at the state of those offshore rigs and you see
6:58
pools of oil polluting the water because they've all fallen into disrepair. And that's from
7:03
decades. I mean, not just Maduro, but Chavez before him. So there's no question that they
7:08
needed US investment, but they didn't need US expropriation. And that's what this is. How many
7:14
wars have you and I covered where people have said it's an American war for oil and America has said
7:19
absolutely not it's not a war for oil this they admit was a war for oil it's staggering okay
7:25
finally Dolly Parton let's just listen quickly we can't there's nothing quick with Dolly but let's
7:32
listen to some of her best hits and then we'll have a few words of reflection I always dreamed
7:36
that I was going to be a big star I didn't even know what the term actually meant I knew that I
7:41
going to travel, that I was going to be important to people. This is of course my wants and desires
7:48
I'm sure, but that I was going to be rich and that I was going to be famous and that I was going to
7:53
be loved a lot and that I was going to get to love people. I'm proud of every year I've lived
7:57
What if somebody once said age is mind over matter? If you don't mind, then it don't matter
8:02
and I don't mind. It's not up to me to tell them not to do it because who am I to tell anybody what to do
8:12
I mean, I look like, you know, the town tramp and that's how I patterned my look after the town tramp
8:18
So who am I to tell somebody else how to dress or what to do? I interviewed her once before Donald Trump became president during the financial crisis
8:25
She was great. I mean, charming, gritty, all of it. What do you think she would say about Donald Trump
8:33
Well, I don't think she would say very much about Donald Trump. She didn't ever attend or appear at any political rally
8:40
Instead, she spoke in what she would argue were common sense terms about politics
8:46
When she was asked once, you know, about Black Lives Matter, she said, well, of course, Black Lives Matter
8:51
All lives matter. Everyone's equal under God. Everybody has rights, you know
8:55
So she would not actually have said anything about Donald Trump. And that's why she matters, because she reminds Americans that they can be united around principle
9:04
and not necessarily tribally constantly divided by polarised politics
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