this is "gps, the global public square." welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria. today on the program, an exclusive interview with the chancellor of germany olaf

schultz. on putin's war in ukraine, on whether ukraine and russia should start talking about a peace deal and about the future of europe itself. ♪ ♪ >> and chevron ceo mike worth on the present and future of oil which still powers our world. also, just where did covid come from? the so-called lab leak theory just got new life this week. we'll follow the facts with dr. lena wynn. >> but first, here's my take. we are often told that america is deeply divided, that polarization makes it impossible for us to make any progress in policy, that our country is so internally conflicted it cannot

project unity and strength to the world, but on the most important policy issue confronting policymaker, the problem is closer to the opposite. washington has embraced a wide-ranging consensus on china that has turned into a classic example of group think. to watch tuesday's hearing held by the new house select committee on china was to be transported back to the 1950s. members of both parties tried to outdo each other in their denunciations of china as mike gallagher did, the party is an existential threat to the united states and blaming it directly for every problem in america from drug use to covid to unemployment, and since unemployment is currently at a more than 50-year low. one could dismiss this extreme rhetoric as the usual congressional grandstanding, but it creates a dynamic that makes rational policy difficult. consider what happened a few

weeks ago. the president of the united states in what can only be described as a panic, ordered the u.s. military to shoot down three balloons. they were probably private weather balloons similar to hundreds of such objects in the sky around the world that pose though threat to anyone. the source of balloons used by hobbyists and meteorological clubs can cost as little as $12. the missiles used to should the down the objects cost $400,000 each. the shootdowns were ordered, of course, so that no one could claim that joe biden was soft on china. china is a serious, strategic competitor, the most significant challenger that the united states has faced in many decades. that is all the more reason for washington to shape a rational and considered foreign policy rather than one forged out of

paranoia, hysteria and above all, fears of being branded as soft. whenever policy is made in those latter cirque stannes, think of vietnam and iraq, it turns out badly. in 2003 when senate minority leader tom daschle tried to make the case for more diplomacy before going to war with iraq, dennis dennis hastert selected he was giving comfort to the enemy. they dared improving relations with beijing in similar terms. six years ago before donald trump came into power one would have described the u.s.-china relationship as difficult, perhaps strained and yet manageable with regular dialogue between the two nations at the highest levels. when washington confronted china on issues like as currency manipulation, and espionage, beijing would make an effort to address the charges.

today u.s.-china relations are a mess. china continues to do things that alarm washington, but there's no discussion between the two sides. beijing is supporting russia economically and diplomat beingly with its war on ukraine, would that support to include military assistance, russia would gain armaments transforming the war. nancy pelosi's 2022 visit to taiwan gave the liberation army a golden opportunity to practice a multi-day long blockade of the island and the most likely military intervention in the event of a crisis while kevin mccarthy to visit taiwan, they would use it a pretext to practice a longer and more complete cutoff strategy showing taiwan that it could be isolated at will. most troubling of all, china has embarked on a serious program on nuclear modernization. for decades, beijing took the position that its small nuclear arsenal hovering at just over

200 warheads was an adequate deterrent. the chinese routinely referred to the doctrine. today beijing's warheads are estimated to 400a and china has tripled that. they abandoned threaties with te u.s. >> two of the three arsenals on the planet are closely allied with their missiles likely targeting the united states. how much of this was inevitable? it's hard to say, china has grown in power mightily since 2000. back then it accounted for almost 4% of global gdp, today that figure is about 18%. its military expenditure is growing faster. xi jinping is a far more aggressive figure than his predecessor, but it is also true that u.s. policy has changed. today we have a strong

bipartisan view of the allegedly existential danger posed by the chinese communist party which implies that regime change would be the only solution to this problem, but has this comfortable consensus created a more secure word for americans and others or are we moving down a path that takes us towards decades of armed races, crises and perhaps even war? go to cnn.com/fareed for a link to my washington post column this week and let's get started. ♪ ♪ just days after the one-year anniversary of russia's invasion of ukraine, german chancellor olaf schultz traveled to washington to meet with president biden. the war and its ripple effects were topics one, two and three on the agenda the white house publicly announced.

right after he left the white house schultz agreed to sit down for an exclusive interview with me. chancellor schultz, pleasure to have you on, sir. >> thank you for having me. >> so the leader of the german opposition says today why is olaf schultz in washington? what is he doing there? i thought i'd give you a chance to respond to him. >> i already told the parliament what i am doing here. i am talking to the president and this is not the first talk. i was here one year ago and we met quite often and we have a lot of phone calls and we have conferences when we speak together and this is part of a permanent dialogue of the two nations of the president and me and it is also a sign of a very good friendship and cooperation of the two countries. >> how does joe biden strike you as a leader. you met many leaders all over the world. what strikes you about biden?

>> he is very informed about international relations. i think he is one of the most skilled presidents knowing how things are running in the world which is important in the times that are becoming more dangerous and we see a lot of changes, and he is really a good man looking at the transatlantic partnership which is so important for europe and also for peace of the world and for nato, and i think there is something which we have in common looking at the people you in the united states called middle class, and i think it is important that we don't forget about their perspectives and their lives and their hopes and so i like him. >> you were talking to president biden. you must have one fronted the reality that the war in ukraine does appear to have settled into something of a stalemate. neither side is making major

advances. the russians seem to have made some advances. where does it go from here? >> looking at the situation which looks like what you explained to us, we have to understand where you are coming from and it was the idea of russia that the whole country in a very short time and they did not succeed. they had to regroup the troops from kyiv where they started their invasion and now it is an aggressive war in the east of ukraine and russia never expected the strength of ukraine, of the people and the braveness and how they defend their country, and he never expected what he is not accepting a nation and altogether and on the other hand, he misjudged the unity of

europe, of the united states and all of the friends of ukraine and the permanent supply of weapons we give to the ukraine and so they were able to defend their country and they will be able to do it in the future. it is very difficult to see what happens next in ukraine and there are things that are absolutely clear, we will continue to support ukraine with financial humanitarian aid, but also with weapons. >> but if this continues for years, ukraine, as a country will be destroyed. its economy is already down 40%, 50% depending on what estimate you look at. is there a point at which you have to start negotiations and is there a deal to be had where, you know, ukraine gets some kind of security guarantees from nato, perhaps eu membership and in return it accepts the reality that it is not crimea back and

it is not getting some parts of the donbas back? >> there will be no decisions without the ukrainians. we will not take decisions instead of them. we support them. >> should they -- would you encourage them to take these? >> we told them that they can go for membership in the european union and they are working to -- to -- to make progress in all of the criteria that are important for this. i think they know that we will -- that we are ready to organize a certain way of security guarantee for the country in times of peace to come, but we are not there yet, and to my view, it is necessary that putin understands that he will not succeed with his invasion and his aggression, and that he has to withdraw troops. this is the basis for the talks and if you look at the proposals

of the ukrainians, it's easy to understand they are ready for peace, but there must be something done and this must be done by putin. >> next on "gps," more on my exclusive interview with the chancellor of germany olaf sholz. >> no one expected that we would one year ago that we would economically survive a situation where there is no gas supplied to germany and many parts of europe from russia anymore, but we did. maybe it's perfecting that special place that you want to keep in the family... ...or passing down the family business... ...or giving back to the places that inspire you. no matter your purpose, at pnc private bank, we will work with you every step of the way to help you achieve it. so let us focus on the how. just tell us - what's your why? ♪ >> tech: when you have auto glass damage, trust safelite. my customer really relies on his car's advanced safety system.

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the whole world looked at it and was struck by what an extraordinary statement it was, but the action has not really followed. you talked about $100 billion that was going to be spent and an increase in defense spending and something like 8 billion will be spent this year. is there -- what is stopping you from making your actions match your words? >> first, we will supply weapons to ukraine and give all of the necessary financial aid and we are not the strongest support of ukrainian continental europe and we will continue to be. 14 billion euros that we have spent to support ukraine in the last year yeaand this is also d to weapons and working with the united states and other friends in delivering successful weapons for the defense of ukraine. the last decision was about

coming together with the united states and we were supposed to say when woe discussed rocket launchers and similar weapons to ukraine so we delivered in this case and the second is that we made us independent from the supply of gas, coal and oil from russia. no one really expected one year ago that we would easily, economically survive a situation where there is no gas supply to germany and many parts of europe from russia anymore, but we did in increasing the capacity of lng imports from the western port of europe and also building new ports in the northern shores of germany for a longer time, we used coal plants also using nuclear plants which were running out, but we increased

the possibility for them to produce electricity, and so we made it, and nothing of what some people expected happened. there is no economic crisis in germany. there is no -- there is no gas shortage or something like that and -- >> all the more reason to spend more on defense now. >> there is also social stability. >> yes. we spent altogether 200 billion to stabilize our economy and save for the pockets of the normal people that they can survive a situation of increasing prices and increased prices for energy which we are seeing that they are going down again, and also we started with investing more in our defense and it is absolutely clear that we would go to 2% with gdp as it was agreed with nato.

>> when? >> we are starting with this and we are not spending a billion. we are spending quite a lot because we already have the highest defense budget in the european union to be very clear as germany, but we are going to increase this, but it is not that we are going to a shopping mall and saying i want to buy this or this, and it is even different as we would buy some cars or trucks which you can ask companies to do and you will have them right the next day or two or three or six months' time. in many cases, we have to make the increase starting their production and delivering this to us and this is the idea behind 200 billion that was approved with a two-third majority and that we can take now the decisions that are necessary for the long-term supply of our army and that will

be about tanks and it will be about air defense and it will be about am negz. my idea is that we have to change the way that we are dealing with the defense industry and we need -- this is also a lesson that we learned from ukraine and the war that the russians started against ukraine. we need a permanent supply. so the main weapons we use should be produced permanently. this is also for all of the necessary maintenance and this is also for munitions. if we do so, this will increase our capability, but it will increase also the security because as we see in the difficult situation that we must be able to increase the production so it is easier to increase the production that is already ongoing as to start newly because this will happen two or three years later and this is also the answer. when we, in this year will make all of the agreements with the

defense industry about the things they will deliver to us, we will, in some days take some years. the united states will not be coming to germany just in the next day. >> more in a moment with chan chancellor scholz including china which would be on president biden's agenda with him. is the chancellor reading to get tough with a key trading partner? we'll have that next. ♪ experience the exhilaration of the performance line at the invitation to lexus sales event. sometimes you're so busy taking care of everyone else you don't do enough for yourself, or your mouth.

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there was more than $300 billion in trade between the two nations last year according to reuters. germany's own finance minister suggested the strength of the relationship may actually be dangerous saying that his country should learn from what has transpired from russia. i asked the german chancellor about the berlin-beijing relations as part of my exclusive interview. >> chancellor, i want to ask you about china. the european union, europe has been very closely allied with america and its position on russia. do you and germany believe that you are in exactly the same place as the united states with regard to the china policy? >> we all are very clear there should be no circumhweighing of china, and as far as we will see

they are not jicircumweighing a we ask them not to deliver weapons to russia and we are telling them in the bilateral talks and more publicly that they should not. >> what do they say to you when you say that. >> publicly they say they will not deliver weapons and it is necessary to say what it is -- on. >> can you imagine sanctioning china? >> i think it would have c consequences and we are in a state that it should not happen and i am relatively optimistic that we will be successful with our request in this case, but we will have to look and we have to be very, very cautious and let me remind you that one thing happened when i went to china and spoke with xi jinping, he

agreed that the two of us should publicly say that the use of nuclear weapons should not happen in this war and it made it feasible that in indonesia and bali we were able to agree in the speech and the language where we say these weapons should not be used and this is very helpful because it helps not to make it much more difficult to -- to escalate the war to something like this and if you hear all of the words about nuclear weapons before and afterwards it is really a change. so we have to be very clear with our position in this case and we are, altogether and we have to work intensely that we have a lot of countries supporting a world which is not revisionist, which is not -- we are just accepting borders and this is

the real change coming from the russian border and it is not just a european question. it is a question for the whole world that russia is not accepting agreements that have been made with the united nations that have been made in the conference on security and europe and others, and the other activities that we had in the past that there should be no change of borders by force and when i discussed countries in asia and the south of america, i think many agreeded to to that the general assembly. many agree with this view even if they do not vote in favor of this voting of the assembly, but they understand that this is a threat also to them, and if we

continue to talk to our friends over there, i think it will be helpful for forming a world that is popular, but better world and not more dangerous. >> xi jinping says vladimir putin is his best friend. he said that many times. is it your sense that there's a personal bond between the two of them? >> i think they know who they are, and that is why they also cooperate. they have a common history and the way their political history goes, they are on completely different paths, but we have to make very clear that changing borders by force is not acceptable. >> chancellor scholz, you are very kind to have given us the time. it is an honor. >> thank you. >> next on "gps," as the energy crisis continues i ask an oil

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russia's war in ukraine has created a global energy crisis, and it has led companies around the globe to re-start nuclear reactors and boost oil production in order to fix a short-term crunch. men while, the consequences of claim at change are getting worse and worse. is there a way to provide people the energy they need today and at the same time tackle the issue of climate change? i am joined by the ceo of chevron mike wirth. mike wirth, welcome to the show. >> thanks, fareed. >> so when you look at the price of oil now around $83, $84 a barrel it is where it was before russia invaded ukraine and most people said the war is going to cause severe constraints on

supply once china re-opens they will consume $2 million a day and they stopped doing covid. how come it's still at $83 a barrel? >> the fear was, and prices ran up on the concern that russian supplies would come out of the market. that hasn't happened. russian crude is in different places and the policy of both the u.s. and the eu has been to keep those supplies flowing to try to impact the price at which that oil trades. so the fact that prices are largely the same as what they were before because supply and demand is largely what it was before the war, there are risks that china and demand were to increase and we'll see in terms of how the recession in the u.s. would play out and the risks on the demand side of the two biggest economies. >> i want to ask you the big question that people look at

with despair. if you go back to 1980 and the energy use was 90% fossil fuels, roughly. if you look at it today, 40 years later, it's about 80%. a lot of people would say you're the problem, that the oil, that the fossil fuel industry has gotten all kinds of subsidies and has laws written and has been given benefits and mounted a campaign of misinformation. so i want to give you an opportunity to -- why do you think it's been so difficult to wean us off fossil fuels when you know that they are causing climate change? >> well, the first thing is, fareed, demand has increased since 2000. i'll just go back 20 years, not 40 years. demand for oil and gas has increased by a third in the world in just the last 20 years despite the concerns about climate, despite tremendous investment in wind and solar and tremendous growth in renewable

power. >> and why do you think that is? >> population is growing. there's a middle class today that continues to grow and everything that a middle class lifestyle requires is dependent upon energy, light, heat, mobility, space heating, space cooling and mechanized agriculture and the things that the emerging economies rely on for a better standard of living all require energy. >> most of this increase in demand has come from the -- the emerging markets and the developing -- >> and the fastest growing demand and they're met by the energy sources that work best in the countries and there is no one solution and there are many different solutions that they're seeking. >> do you believe that climate change is real? you want to do something about it? you said you don't know anyone who disagrees with what the biden people are doing with the inflation reduction act. what would you do to try to

stop, you know, the trend lines and they look really bad. what would you do? >> i would encourage -- there are three things that you talk about the energy transition that really matter. scale, speed and solution. so scale, the energy system is enormous to keep the lights on, to keep the trains running and the consumers of energy tend to be long-cycle capital investments, airplane, ships, factories. you know, cars. electric vehicles are the fastest turnover of the energy concerning system and they last 20 years so the scale is enormous and growing every day. >> just so people understand, if you're building an airline, it's going to run for 40 years and you need to know the fuel that you use will be around for 40 years. if you're buying a plane today you don't retire at two years from now because you want to

decide that you want to run on a different fuel, your business requires them to run for decades to amortize the claim. >> when you get to speed, the introduction of technologies is governed by economics and demand. we've seen when coal came into the system to go from 1% of demand to 10% it took 60 years, and it was a much smaller energy system and both oil and gas, it took 1% to 4%. weave seen 40 million invested in wind and solar just from the last deid and it is 3%. so the governs speed,s and that being brips me to the third point which is we need all solution, we need solar, wind, oil and gas. we should be able to make it affordable, reliable for

national security purposes and make it ever cleaner. >> what do you say to somebody like an al gore who would say the problem is we are still too reliant on fossil fuels? the only way to stop to break that dependency is to force these oil companies to produce less or by taxing them or by regulating them and that part of the problem is that we have an easy addiction to your product and we need to end. >> to force the energy system will take the quality of life back and it will move society in a way that society doesn't want to go. so what we have to do is find ways to move forward to encourage all of these technologies to compete on a global basis and to exclude the 80% of what runs the world economy today and say that no, you can't use that is -- that's not what -- that's not what

progress looks like. everybody wants i'll call energy system a and 80% fossil fuels and the same as it was decades ago. it wants to switch to system b, but system b is 1% or 2% built. we are getting an example of what that could look like by watching europe right now and some of the concerns of the crieses and the worries about energy security. we need to seek an orderly transition which is stability in pricing, stability in supplies. we can't create economic chaos and pain on individuals or they will lose interest in an energy transition if the cost is too high. >> 30 years from now, will that number -- 80% of energy is worldwide is fossil feel. where will that number be? it it will be lower than 80, but still a substantial portion of the mix. >> mike wirth, good to have you on. >> good to be with you. >> next on "gps qw" where did t

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where did covid-19 come from? it's a question the world has been asking for three years now. the debate around it was ignited this past week as the united states' energy department concluded that a lab leak in wuhan, china, was the likely source. there remains a divide both within the intelligence community and among scientists over the true origins of the pandemic. will we ever know the real answer? joining me now is dr. lena wynn, a professor at the george washington school of public health and the author of lifelines, a doctor's journey in the fight for public health. welcome, lena. i want to first ask you what do

you make of this assessment from the department of >> well, frankly, fareed, i don't know what make of this assessment. because we don't know what exactly the department of energy found. according to cnn reporting, it seems like they are saying that there is a lab in wuhan, the chinese cdc in wuhan, that was conducting research into coronaviruses. well, we already knew this. and what we're missing now is a link between the samples that were being studied an the individuals who may have gotten infected because of it. and whether that, in fact, is covid-19 and the department of energy assessment was made with low confidence and there are four other intelligence agencies within the u.s. that came up with a different assessment, thinking that the zooanotic origin, the animal to human spillover is more likely.

and so i think at this point there is circumstantial evidence on both sides but there is one thick that the intelligence community has found and in fact has been unanimously saying since early on, which is that this was not intentional. this was not a bio weapon or something that china or scientists or whatever politicians or political leaders were trying to do. >> that is so well put. because it is -- it struck me, i was one of those people who was confronted with the evidence, what little that we have, said look, it appears that a lot of diseases that we've been seeing, sars, mers, avian flu, seem have zoo origins and most of the cases seem to be animal to human transmissions out in the wild and so it seemed plausible that this one also came this way. but in either event, you're saying it is absolutely clear it was accidental? >> that is right. and that is what the intelligence communities have

found, that is also what virologists have found as well. and so we're looking at two possibilities. one is that there was some kind of lab mishap. and that is possible because lab mishaps have happened before. it is happened here in the u.s. where for example in 2014 federal health officials found that there were unlabelled vials in an unsecured storage area that turned out to be smallpox. the cdc has made mistakes when it comes to the anthrax bacterium or pandemic influenza. so we've had lab mishaps. last year in the netherlands there was also a lab mishap involving polio and a lab worker got infected with polio there. so this is something that certainly can happen. but at the same time, you're right, fareed, that three out of four new or emerging diseases come have zoonotic origins. so we need to look at the effect of climate change, deforestation and the wildlife wet markets and what the contribution is there. and my point here is that we need to shift the question, we

may never definitively know the answer of what exactly caused covid-19. so if we think there are two possibilities, both of which are likely, then where are we not working to prevent both of these things from happening in the future? >> one of the reasons we'll never know is the chinese government is not cooperating and is, if anything, feeding a certain amount of false information or incomplete information. and there is a question that people have which is should there be accountability for the fact that the chinese government has not been very forthcoming from day one, from the origins of the virus and that may have contributed to the faster spread. what do you say about that? >> i'd say that it is a really complicated issue. because on the one hand, you're right that the obfuscation on the part of the chinese community party has been totally unacceptable. the chinese government didn't

allow a world health organization expert team to enter the country more than three years into the beginning of covid, it is like trying to investigate a murder after three years. and the initial evidence may be gone. and so what they did then and also the lack of containment initially was really wrong. but at the same time, if we're threatening sanctions and reparations and even criminal liability as some politicians in the u.s. have suggested, that is not going to make china cooperate more. we don't want to worsen the prospect of global collaboration which is what we need to tackle future pandemics. >> and so your fundamental point in "the washington post" piece, which i thought was terrific, is that we need to understand that the real reason we're seeing the rise of so many of these kinds of viruses over the last 30, 40 years, really starting with aids, is that human beings are living in ways that are more dangerous. we're living closer and closer to wildlife. this urbanization is making that

happen. climate change is exacerbating it. one of the things that i worry about is factory farming where you have, you know, tens and tens of thousands of chickens and pigs in fairly unsanitary conditions and that is what makes the next pandemic quite likely. have we learned any lesson from covid? >> i think we've learned some lessons as to whether we've implemented these into practice is less clear to me. we definitely have recognized the importance of surveillance and i think we're seeing more early surveillance including using wastewater. i think that is a very good thing. we've seen the impact of global collaboration and how we as the world of scientists have come together to, for example, create these vaccines and deliver on treatments in record time. i think those are all very positive things. but what i worry about is that public trust is really eroded and in public health. and that is everything. and i really worry that in the

discussion about the origin of covid, that people have hitched on to various theories as part of their political identity which is really not how science is supposed to work. >> leana wen, pleasure to talk to you. >> thank you, fareed. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i'll see you next week. ♪ let's be more than our allergies! zeize the day. with zyrtec. new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today. sometimes you're so busy taking care of everyone else you don't do enough for yourself, or your mouth. but eventually, it will remind you. when it does, aspen dental is here for you. we offer the custom dental treatments you need, all under one roof, right nearby.

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