>> european and u.k. medicines regulators have concluded there is a possible link between the oxford astrazeneca vaccine and where blood clots. they insist the risk of the coronavirus is greater than the risk of death from clotting. the number of virus deaths in brazil has dipped slightly from a record high of 4200 announced on tuesday. another 3800 deaths were reported on wednesday with 92,000 new infections. as he has throughout the pandemic, president bolsonaro continues to play down covid-19. an expert and a the use of force has testified at the trial of the police officer accused of killing george floyd.

she said derek chauvin used inappropriate deadly force. >> do you have an opinion to a degree of reasonable uncertainty for how much force was reasonable to use on mr. floyd was handcuffed and not resisting echo >> yes. >> what is that opinion? >> my opinion is no force should have been used once he was in that position. >> the u.s. has agreed to withdraw all the remaining combat forces deployed to fight against isil. talks with the iraqi government did not settle on a timeline. some soldiers and coalition forces will stay to train and advise the iraqi army. the u.s. is resuming palestinian aid to the tune of 35 million dollars. american funding was stopped by the former president. the plan includes $150 million

to the u.n. agency for palestinian refugees. the package is part of an effort to repair u.s. ties with the palestinians that all but collapsed during the tenure of the former president, donald trump shared 12 more pro-democracy protesters have been killed by the approach -- by the military in myanmar. it says the worst -- the military is said to be targeting more real areas such as this town north of mandalay. 600 people are known to have been killed in violence following the coup on february 1. up next is the bottom line. more news after that. i will see you then. ♪ >> i am steve clemons and i have a question.

what does the united states look like these days if you are on the outside looking in? let's get to the bottom line. [speaking foreign language] -- ♪ ever wondered how your country would look from a totally different perspective? that is what we are doing with the united states. gun violence, inequality and race, far-right populism, america's retreat from the world, everything is on the table with our special guest today. he served as a french diplomat for more than three decades. he served as france's ambassador to the unit's dates, united nations and israel. and he was the french negotiator on the iranian nuclear issue. let me start. you took this tweet down but there was a tweet you issued once that i found very compelling. it said after brexit, after trump, a world is collapsing. your response to that was, the content was right. maybe the framing was wrong.

i look at that and say, that was a world collapsing. my question is is that world m back? >> actually, i was right on the substance. i was not right as a diplomat to say it. it was not criticizing donald trump shared it was simply that i realized on the eighth of november 2016 that all the western world, the u.k. and the u.s. and i was thinking of my own country was facing a global crisis. 40% of our citizens against the system. they consider that e system is rigged. gli do not think it has changedn any way. >> part of the framing of donald trump as he me in structurally was what -- is the administration has come in and they have taken the helm of foreign policy and economic policy.

i guess the question is, it is america what in your sense? >> actually, any country at any moment is america first or france first. interest of your own country.he the problem was that when trump was saying america first, actually it met america alone. basically, alliances do not matter. we are simply defending our own interest without taking care or caring about allies, arteries, about history and so on. with joe biden, what we are expecting is it will be america first, but it will be america part of the community. a community of democratic nations, nato and the other emerging organizations and the u.s. as a stakeholder of the humankind. >> you and i had a conversation with a group of people once.

we were talking about american power, chinese power, european power in the world and it came up that power is often like the value of a stock in stock market. it is the value of future expectations. if you look at the power of america and what people thought about its future, it did not feel as robust as china where you look at -- we know china's future returns, what china is becoming, how it is growing, what it is going to be. how would you advise a government like the bided administration to to -- the biden administration to turn that around? >> i think it is very important to not underestimate american power. i am personally -- i do believe the u.s. will remain the first power in the world for the coming decades. there are so many assets in this

country. so much creativity from the universities to the business community. the second advice would be not overestimate china. i do believe right now, people are making china a sort of a monster, which would not commit any mistake, which would not face any problem. actually, china has its own problems. first, a democratic disaster. china is going through a democratic transition in 20 years that we went through in one century. there are social problems. you have the death of the state companies and so on. china is not going to dominate the world. china is a country which is a powerful country, but really,

the u.s. will remain the main power in the coming decades. >> as you look at what american we use that powerful -- that power for, if you look at hong kong and china gutting the trappings of hong kong's democracy, you look at the treatment of uighurs, which the united states has called genocidal policies against the uighurs and you look at these aspects, we have seen secretary of state tony blinken the with the chinese. those foreign policy and human rights and trading going on. china is involved with global health and climate change. you have always been an interest driven commentator on foreign policy. how do you get the equilibrium right between hard-core interest and values you care about whether they are human rights, whether they are how we work together on climate change, how

do you get that equilibrium right? >> first, i think the bided administration, we have -- the biden administration, we have to build a stable relationship with china. there will not be a -- in asia somewhere because first, you have the intensity of the economic relationship between the u.s. and china. there will not be a decoupling between the two countries. most of the asian countries do not want to have to choose between us and them. the third element also is that china is not an ideological threat to us, the free world. there is no chinese communist party in europe. there is no ideological -- so it will be a complicated balance to

find. there will be containment. there will be engagement. as for the human rights, it will be a problem. the u.s. will have to find how not to go too far, being faithful to their values. i am going to sound a bit cynical, but i don't think that the biden administration will allow the human rights issue to undermine the relationship. the americans -- the administration knows that china is not going to change its policy, human rights policy. it is not going to become a western democracy in the coming decades. the u.s. will have to have a

relationship with china. >> would you frame that -- but i am listening to you, i am thinking of the relationship with saudi arabia and the jamal khashoggi issues. joe biden said he would not deal with the crown prince. saudi u.s. relations are largely on track. is that a similar case in your mind? >> you can go beyond that because china is i think 20 times more important to the u.s. then saudi arabia. and you have also a democratic administration and a democratic administration during the first six months are the first year, usually it is keen on defending human rights. after a while, if we remember brezinski, and after a wild, the administration is obliged also

to take into account the core k ality of the world. >> and of the issues you dealt with both at home in france and also when you were ambassador in the united nations and the united states was our allied efforts on terrorism. any people think terrorism hijacked and distracted the foreign policy as tablet spent from a lot of other threats. how would you frame those years that may be are continuing in which terrorism domestically inside france, against the united states and other of our allies was such a prominent feature of our security policy? >> i think it is a question of course for the american foreign policy and also the french foreign policy. we are deploying soldiers, several thousand soldiers in africa to fight terrorist groups . at the end of the day, like you

in afghanistan, the question may be involved with the french in africa, is it possible to win a war against terrorism this way? is there a military solution in our fight against terrorism or we may be doomed to spend decades fighting, killing people and seeing other people taking their place. i think what we could have with the biden administration and it is something i do hope would be the diplomacy. i do not say negotiation with terrorists, but simply going back to the roots of terrorism and working with local governments. lol governments are the first

victims of terrorism. how can we work with these governments instead of sending our soldiers? i think we can learn a lesson from our involvement. it does not work. >> speaking of brezinski, former national security advisor when president carter was around, but a very prominent national security commentator. he would critique america's forever war in afghanistan or what the french were doing in africa today as relics of a neocolonial past. that we have delusions of imperial grandeur that we are continuing to deploy indefinitely, driven by inertia. how would you respond to brezinski if you? -- to brezinski if you were sitting across from you? >> he was an impressive analyst.

i share his sense of view -- his point of view. i am not sure it is colonial. i think it was -- it has been a mistake to think we can solve with our soldiers a lot of problems. i think there has been an excessive militarization of foreign policy. first of the u.s. of course but also in sense with france. you know the saying. if you have a big hammer, every problem looks like a nail. i do think it is something which could be said of american foreign policy. i wish to add also french foreign policy. we need diplomats and maybe we need less soldiers. >> let me switch tracks for a moment. since you have less washing -- since you have left washington, you have become a sought-after commentator. you appear on tv networks.

people follow your tweets. they come with the insight and raw honesty about america that i think we are not used too whether it is about race after the george floyd murder, whether it was about inequality in this country. i want to get a sense as you look at this nascent -- this nation from an offshore perspective and you look at issues of identity and tension and the divide in the nation made so much worse by the pandemic, i would be interested in your notions of what is wobbly and what is strong. >> first, i live in the u.s. i decided to live in the u.s. so it means i love this country. from you again, i said it -- for me again, i said at the beginning of our interview. the fact is i am struck how the americans, how the united states

are facing the same problems in very comparable terms to european countries and especially france. most of the issues, you have national circumstances which are quite different. the fact of the u.s. is a country of immigrants much more than france. but again, you have the rebellion of some of our citizens against the systems. and you have also the communities, which are rightly so, which are really asking for the end of any discrimination. that is a common fight in western democracies. my dream would be that western demoacies work together, really admit that they have common failures and try to solve this issue or to face this issue.

one common element i see everywhere also in terms of -- i believe we are at the end of the cycle, which means the end of the neoliberal area. -- neoliberal era. you had reagan, clinton and obama in sense. and you had thatcher and blair. the idea that taxes are bad. the state is bad. and that free trade is always positive. i do think that our citizens have been telling us everywhere in the streets of paris like in the u.s., enough is enough. we have in a sense to change our ways. what is striking for me is to see that the biden administration little by little is shifting into this new

direction. in a sense, it is quite exciting. as usual, the u.s. are the first one to show the way. >> you did see -- you did tweet, what is wrong with socialism? is that your comment on broad redistributed policies, health care policies, this debate about socialism in america? are you saying that is what worked for france? >> every country has its -- the word socialism is part of the irrational fears of the society. it depends what you are putting behind the word. i love the u.s. what i'm going to say is part of my love for instance as a european and not as a frenchman, there is something i cannot

understand, that you do not have a socialized health care system. your health care to be frank, i have and if fitted from -- i have benefited from the education of nurses and doctors in america and their talents, but it was awful. the cost, the bureaucratic complexity and so on. that is an example. all european countries have a socialized health care system. it costs much less. your 7 -- you are spending 17% of your gdp on health. we are spending 11%. that is a good example were socialism quote unquote, because even the u.k., which is not a socialist country, has a socialized health care system. that would be a good example where socialism whatever you call it, it is not that bad.

>> one of the other things i would like to turn to is iran. going back to the henry kissingers to the brezinskis, they would talk about states having defining challenges. sometimes certain challenges are very large and defining for that era. i feel like china is one. i ran maybe another. i would like to get your insights because right now, we have gone through a whiplash where the obama restriction negotiated along with the french, along with the british the jcpoa, the joint plan on iran's nuclear program. donald trump took the united states out of that. what are your insights not only as an observer of the u.s. side of that but of iran's gain in this? >> to be frank, i am quite worried. again, the nuclear deal with iran was a compromise.

it was only to handle the nuclear issue. i think that one of the mistakes of the obama administration in 2015 was not immediately after this deal to address the other issue of concern raised by the iranian behavior, terrorism, missiles, ballistic activities. so trump when out of the agreement and now, the question is how to go back to it. it is not easy. the iranians feel aggrieved. and rightly so in a way. the iranians are entering a presidential campaign. on the american side, it is not possible simply to go back to the agreement because the u.s. cannot ignore the worries, the

concerns expressed by israel. they also cannot ignore the other issues of concern. it is a very complicated equation. i am not sure that both sides will succeed to go back to a negotiation, to the negotiation table. for a lot of iranians, they may be able to say why are we going to make concessions to the u.s. if in 2024 trump is back and will inflict us new sanctions? it is one of this very difficult issue where diplomacy is key and you may know that europeans are trying to be the group between tehran and washington. to be frank, we are at the mercy

of an incident. ready to try to derail any idea of a new reit -- of a new deal. in iran, the u.s. is the symbol of the revolution. >> one of the questions i have about france, germany, a lot of our allies in the world is that they saw america kick them in the teeth in the last few years and hug a lot of complicated people like dutere in the philippines, kim jong-un in north korea. what is the state of the relationship out there? we have seen president macron talk about the need for a european defense capacity driven by the europeans and not the americans. i'm interested in whether those relationships are entering a new

phase or whether you think they can snap back to the close coordination and mutual trust that used to be. >> unfortunately, i think europeans are in a denial. basically, their dream is simply to snap back. for the europeans, the american leadership is quite comfortable. if the europeans were following mccrone, the french president saying we need to have some european strategy, what does it mean? in complete terms for the europeans. for eastern european countries like poland or the baltic states, it will mean they would be worried about losing the american military. with the russian behavior, they can be rightly worried and they prefer to have the military to

the french or british military. as for germany, italy and spain, which are spending 1.4% on defense, it would mean spending more money on defense. having a biden administration, finally administration toward europe, it is a comfortable pretext. i hope for the europeans to tell president mccrone let's go back to usual -- back to business as usual. >> we appreciate your candor and fascinating perspectives on america. thanks so much for writing us. what is the bottom line? it is always fascinating to hear how the rest of the world looks at the united states.

the four years of the trump administrations america first policies did turn the world upside down. today, nations have serious doubts about american leadership. any would like to go back to the good old days but what is done cannot be undone. china and iran will be skeptical about working on long-term stuff. i guessed was right. it would be great if the united states and allies could become cold eyed about their interests and priorities and set aside their delusions and distractions and help build a more stable world. let's face it, delusions and distractions almost always beat reality and that is the bottom line. ♪ ♪

>> a footballer from spain traded battling opponents on the fitch for fighting fascism at home and abroad. footballing legend introduces -- warrior who used his beloved game to help himself and others survive the horrors of a nazi concentration camp. football rebels on al jazeera. >> there is no channel that covers world news like we do. we revisit places.

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- hey, i'm valerie june. ming up onreel south. - it's clear that the are hundreds of slave cemeteries in most of our counties. - [valerie] attered across virginia, historic african american gve sites have been long forgotten. - [crystal] i think it's important to know where you come from, good or bad, but i don't know it's a priority for a lot of people. kind of one of these things, either you care about it or you don't. - [valerie] uncovering these cemeteries allows us to discover more than the past, an important step towards american reconciliation. witnessunmarked, up next onreel south.