no way and trudeau always been very outspoken about that but i think when push comes to shove they need us more than we need them they know that trump is a grand master at bargaining in negotiations and this is all part of it i believe ok we'll get lost steve we'll go back to that but i. think it on the whole you're right but i think the u.s. in the trumpet ministration is underestimating the options others have in the world are limited ads that are ours to react to some of the things we have said here because there's a very real possibility there could be a real trade war but i don't think we're there yet it depends on how everybody reacts ok in not just two words donald trump is good with words but see about actions let's go to alister go ahead yeah i don't quite buy this story that. you know the trump is really having a go at trying and all the rest of it i think it is part of a negotiating process and i think we have to bear in mind that there are two things going on in the background firstly we've got midterm elections coming up later this

year good point secondly there seems to be an ongoing battle within the white house between the established intelligence services it seems to me and donald trump and maybe that the military on his side and so there is a sort of turf war going on which actually is all about geopolitics and i think we've got to look at all this sort of talk about you know trade wars and all the rest of it in that context what we saw over north korea i mean can get very very aggressive threatening to you know new rocket man and all the rest of it and then the next thing we know they're talking and they're going to meet in singapore and then it's off and then it's on again i think there's this story is going to run and run and run now i'm not actually wildly pessimistic about what trump is is doing i think that there are talks going on which we're not privy to. between

america trying to and also america and russia on trade now when it comes to the e.u. i think that's a slightly different thing because the e.u. is the one protectionist bloc yeah i think america is protections as well but i certainly don't see russia and china being protectionist and this idea that by putting up trade barriers or tariffs that you can reduce your create deficit that to me is a complete misnomer because the trade deficit is comprised of the excess production of money within the economy and this is why you get the twin deficits effect and this is why if you get one country turning to save more than the other country you want to turn to get a trade deficit so it's those are where the imbalances start from and i think that's something that really needs to be addressed and i just hope that behind all this rhetoric that either donald trump or his advisors actually understand this

point and know when to leave i'm going there to find i would draw and i'm glad you brought that up because you know i'm going to syria right now is just in the word steve said announcer just said here there are so many dimensions to all of this i'm worried about the law of unintended consequences because china isn't the european union there are very very different scenario you want to you want a job and even after steve spoke go ahead i think there's a strong misunderstanding about what a trade deficit here is the trade deficit is not necessarily a bad being it's not a win or lose type of situation when you have to trade deficit that means that one country is purchasing more goods from the other country. they are from the first country and it's not necessarily a bad see both sides have to have yet to engage in trade alone and the issue with with china is that. yes they ate purchase less from the u.s. because they g.d.p.

per capita there on average is about ten thousand dollars whereas in the u.s. it's fifty two thousand dollars so as americans we purchase we have a lot more purchasing power and we purchase a lot more from china than they do from us and we when we get good there's no losses there ok let me go back this diva in new york. how much of this is this political because we already heard them mention the mid terms being mentioned here is this something the donald trump needs to serve up to his base because as we've pointed out here is based in the process could be damaged i mean it's a delicate balance isn't it go ahead steve. it's a very delicate balance when you look at the state so that where the farmers are is and the hurt that they're feeling in many respects and could feel down the road but in that case trump is a promise to use federal funding that's available to to to bail out if you will the farmers who promise that they will not suffer i don't think he needs this

politically for the midterms right now i think he's riding on the tax cuts he's looking to make the. individual cuts permanent he's looking to pass that legislation prior to the midterms he's also has the summit coming up june twelfth or eleventh time if you will you know if you want to get technical with north korea and he's talking about a summit with putin so i think he has enough accomplishments and he's doing enough things to to to satisfy the base and motivate the base heading into the midterms but this is something i've known donald trump to interview him and to you know and to have a relationship in that respect with him since the early eighty's and then it was sports but when it matured from sports this is something that has always been on his mind the way we're treated unfairly whether it's a nato whether it's through trade whether it's with bad deals and he what he was he ran on fixing these things he is fixing these things and he's going to fix these

things it's one big negotiation and we have yet to see where it will end up we don't know where it will end up you know one day there's no tariffs there's no trade war next day he's going he's putting tariffs on it's all part of a grand scheme he keeps them guessing. ok guys how we are right steve let me go let me go back to the for a let me go back to sarah but you know it cuts both ways steve ok markets investors don't like unpredictable unstable situations and i think this is the environment we're in and on top of it the kind of rhetoric that's been used against china i don't think is a very good negotiating strategy with the chinese go. ahead of. this chinese this is not how they negotiate this is they see this type of maneuver as a slap in the face and the way china negotiates is five making conciliatory measures going back and forth and this is something that is going to take to

actually stonewall our relationship with china and have a really negative intact it also hasn't helped the stock market every time there's an announcement out potential trade wars the stock market goes way down and also companies both in china multinationals in china that were way down what was a well. known well you know how many many times have we seen the stock market go way down it did then it would back up ok but this is proving my point steve ok we have these really good extremes going on here the markets are down the stock market is doing very very well everybody knows that but when we made the announcement i think it dropped two hundred fifty points again this predictability that's the issue i'm trying to highlight here and also here what they what two hundred fifty points with all due respect today's market of twenty five thousand two hundred fifty points is nothing so are you staying home where are you i don't really care either at the edge worried a reaction ok we're going to jump in here we'll continue our shouting out the guy

thing when he got out but after a short break we'll continue our discussion on trade or stay with r.t. . to. compensate anything he was. to say. you can't fire you know it won't be another election until twenty twenty and he's gliding into twenty eight so you probably won't even lose many representatives of support in the in this election and this year.

that. kid. can do it on their own stand on the most from that are equal when its own citizens are what he calls a stance move on. don't. tell him the old. man

is only. welcome back across the uk were all things considered i'm peter bell to remind you we're talking about potential trade wars. ok let's go back to alison i want to reach a few words a quote here from jeffrey sachs of a very well known economist particularly in east. in europe and russia not for the best reasons i'd like to point out here described donald trump as isolating america indeed he declares him a cycle paths treed war how do you react to jeffrey sachs calling the president the united states a psychopath i think psychopath is

a bit over the top i mean he is i know he didn't get elected on the basis that he was like the other politicians but he is a politician and you know he behaves rather like one just maybe a little bit differently he hasn't spent a lot of time studying the book on the art of diplomacy you know he's got his own way of doing things and i think that's fine with you know we will get used to it is not there's not a problem i think the other thing is that what we see in the headlines of course you've got a press which you know having been accused of fake news and all the rest of it i mean they're not all that kind to the man they never were they're never on the same page as donald trump to begin with so an awful lot of what we hear i think we've got to take with a bit of a pinch of salt the feeling i get is that there is a lot of communication actually going on between donald trump and president xi and also to me a putin i don't know this for certain but it just this is the way things work you

have back channels and so the idea that. this public slanging match if you like you know on the one hand it's going to be ten percent tariffs on twenty five percent tariffs on something else and then china responding i think this is really for the public if you like and as i said earlier you know we are in coming up to midterm elections that i think is very very important so you've got all this sort of stuff going on but i think at the end of the day. things get sorted out in the background and i'm quite optimistic that this won't degenerate into something really serious i think there are other things that do worry me however that's really over. the isolationists of america it seems to me that the rest of the world is actually growing quite well without america america will grow well on her own because she's putting in massive budget stimulus and that budget stimulus i think which current which will coincide with china's purchases of roll materials with the way the

european union is beginning to take off i think that's going to lead to big inflation problems down the road now that might if you like put an extra spin into this if you like trade tariff type thing because they did this this is bound to increase protectionism i think in europe and also possibly in america ok then what is the role of the world trade organization in mean in again this is western driven the rules were conceived by the west of china did join in a lot of people said took advantage of it that's a different topic and subject and program itself here but it seems to me when we have so many of these large economic blocks or powers squabbling among themselves then the whole point of having the world trade organization is really quite meaningless and what about nafta and what about. if if it breaks it happens what kind of relationship is the u.k. going to happen to have with the united states these of the the european union i

mean what i'm saying is that it gets very very complicated there are so many different angles and different dots that connect here and then you have the largest largest economy in the world and yes it is china in the middle of it all going to. the world trade organization was created based on the presumption that the world was with the system a free trade and the u.s. was leading that it illogical effort and now the u.s. is moving away from it and so you know it has become less relevant in a way particularly for american politics tension only for the u.k. and else. where and i don't know that it's necessarily going to be something that people are able to ignore entirely certainly the tariffs that our president is attempting to impose on china as well as other countries will be questioned and possibly rejected by the world trade organization i don't think that it's

necessarily going to become a thing of the past the world trade organization that is i think that sound how there might have to be some reorganization of it either that or the u.s. will have to go through another area logical change again to where it's treaty trade but that's not their direction that we're moving in currently you know if steve you know the united states has a long lineage of protectionist. strategies that presidents have deployed in to grow and industrialized the american economy i mean it's been a big plus being very selective here but you know again there's the historical thing and i mentioned the beginning of the program is that after the second world war germany and japan later south korea were really given really sweetheart deals by the united states to grow their economies for geopolitical reasons of course during the cold war no one denies that but the cold war has been over for

a long time and and it's time for the europeans to maybe you know in every sense pay their own way ok nato trade and all that i mean i could i understand the logic of donald trump in doing this here the united states is very benevolent to these this part of the world because of geopolitical reasons not because we're all by on like each other no is good solid geo political reasons but those reasons are evolving and changing and everybody has to pay their way we all know what's happened to the middle class the working middle class in the united states and it's if it's not suffering it's gone ok that's why trump was elected go ahead steve well i. i don't know that it's gone i think it was suffering and i think that that's that's one of the reasons our trip was elected but you're absolutely right and americana end is are fed up with the scenario that you just portrayed there they realize what we had and why we had it but there's no reason to really have it

anymore and what i'm talking about basically and donald trump's terms is that america keeps getting screwed and gets the short end of the stick whether it is funding in nato whether it is in trade deals whether it is in funding the united nations no matter what it is or the paris accords that we dropped out of it's always the united states that bears the brunt of the burden of the cost when there are other countries that can well afford it and don't pony up what they what is their fair share and this is all part of the thinking all part of the the mind set of donald trump and it extends to these trade deals and trade in general and that's why you're seeing what you're seeing and his base loves it and so do the american people they love it they don't they don't want confrontation but they don't want to get stepped on any more those days are over ok ok also let me go to alastair i agree with along with steve there sad to say but it wasn't you know if this is not just state to state these are corporations and what we saw over the last thirty

thirty five years is western companies moving their production outside of the country making huge profits not being repatriated i mean the reason why we have these policies is not to you know the president has fast track ability who wrote all those bills i'm have a pretty good idea who did it work it wasn't politicians i can't remember the last time any politician actually wrote legislation was always a lobbyist go ahead alister an exit or. do you know absolutely right about lobbyists and i think lobbying is appalling and i'm looking forward to bricks it so there's no more lobbying in brussels as far as we're. i just want to sort of go back a little bit and you know i think this sort of concept that germany and japan got sweetheart deals after the war they got financing yes but i don't think we should rubbish the effort that those two countries all of those two greed their recovery.

i mean it was fear that it was very you know and not only that but the big difference the big difference between between germany and japan and america was germany and japan when they borrowed they borrowed to invest in production in more efficient production in production which people actually wanted to buy in the case of america they expanded credit really not for production but for excess spending rather like italy today if you like a worse think that not quite as a bad example. so you know in a sense i think you know i think i think to sort of you know blame the the germans and the japanese for being successful in the post-war years i think actually misses the whole point on and why i might die not dismissing hardworking germans and hardworking japanese and really hardworking south koreans or i'm not dismissing that ok please so what is right so you're not only. pointing a gun we're rapidly running out of time sorry you want to jump in that's the point

of the program go ahead i know that the u.s. is necessarily getting the short end of the stick i mean as you mentioned. multinationals american multinationals have gone overseas at least produced in china and other countries. at a really low cost a huge amount of profit in export back to the u.s. and other nations so i don't know that our free trade policies have necessarily been you know against our own interests ok. ok let me let me go to steve if you're if you know if it works well where. is all of you disagree and that's van tacet i let me go to our store real quick and then i'll go to steve go ahead ouster . ok now i think the point actually that sarah was making is right i mean where apple fans made in america i designed them maybe but basically they're made in eastern asia so you know trade is global and if you start throwing spanners in

the works then basically consumers will pay and the rate of inflation in america will increase if don't trump introduce his trade tariffs it's really as simple as that ok steve i'll give you the last word of the program go ahead how is this making america great how is this making america great forty seven because kevin mccarthy the majority leader of the of the house is backing donald trump on his tactics in the terrace he points to canada for instance and says look at they treat our dairy products look at our wines which can't go on their supermarket shelves so it becomes a matter of pride it becomes a matter of being treated fairly the optics of being treated fairly as well a very important here don't overlook that ok well i'm going to end on the note here and probably controversial for all of you you know i don't tend to see the united states as a victim in the world very often ok so let's keep that in mind and we'll see where

this is going to go we've seen the past trade wars are bad for everyone that's it many thanks and i guess in new york and in exit or and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t. see you next time and remember. four men are sitting in a car when the fifth gets shot in the head. four different versions of what happened one of them is on the death row no way he could have done it there's no possible way because. well let's do not shoot around a corner.

radially reinforced rammed earth bricks is what they really are. this more than seventy houses about a hundred and forty people with families living here. it's really a way of forming same as. the sun's coming in and heating their house and being stored in massive walls. sagebrush is the natural environment here but as we're containing the sewage and and using to plant stuff to process the sewage we create our own little way system here.

alice stein is getting international recognition with the help of israel at least in the world of zoos i'm in bills it was dismissive to do it looking like you know this this is my complicity is going up to the study hall maybe you know john you know about the telescope and they should be the only palestinians who gets the most help from his jerusalem counterparts i don't think there's some of those who in the world under the oak vision could not only could do this. and that is a lot at that age to have this lady in the muscle that you had i not going to compete in the doesn't seem to do more in the middle sauced don't piss off.

a spokesman for the u.s. led coalition in syria and iraq says it's impossible to know how many civilians died during the rocket campaign that follows amnesty international's report accusing the coalition of possible war crime. sanctions and the energy supply is top the agenda is beyond me putin visits vienna on his first foreign trip since starting his fourth term as president. also had america's ambassador to israel give some less than diplomatic feedback to journalists covering the i.d.f. use of extreme force against palestinian protesters in gaza. i am.

a very warm welcome this is r.t. international and i'm neki aaron great to have you with us this hour now our top story this spokesman for the u.s. led coalition against eisel says that accurate figures for civilians killed in lanka will never be known. as far as how do we know how many civilians were killed i'm just being honest no one will ever know anyone who claims they all know is lying when this comes after amnesty international accused the us led coalition of committing potential war crimes during last year's operation to liberate the syrian city of raka from islamic states more now from us to see a church. this international report dubbed war and they have nation devastating tolls on civilians in iraq to syria is a very highly critical analysis of the airstrikes that were carried out by the u.s.

led coalition that involved britain and france on the city of raka from june to october twenty seventeen in their fight against isis and this amnesty international report talks of decimated families and neighborhoods says that not enough was done to protect civilians and that some of the attacks resulted in violation of international humanitarian law and indeed talks of potential war crimes as a result of the these strikes the report finds that hundreds of people died and thousands were injured despite the coalition saying they did everything they could to minimize casualties. we did everything we could in our intelligence assessment in our planning to minimize to the maximum degree possible any chance of civilian casualties the coalition's claims that it's precision air campaigns allowed to bump islamic state out of iraq while causing very few civilian casualties do not stand up to scrutiny on the ground in iraq we witnessed

a level of destruction comparable to anything we've seen in decades of covering the impact of wars you know when you're fighting an enemy. uses noncombatants as collateral damage you know it's very difficult when the when you fight it we like that you to completely avoid. any casualties of war like that but i can tell you we have a process that we go through. this to minimize you know civilian casualties at all costs well amnesty international interviewed one hundred twelve civilians in as many as forty two locations of airstrikes for this report and some of their focus was specifically on four families who had lost very big numbers of family members in these airstrikes they look at one family that lost as many as eight members and one airstrike another lost sixteen another family lost eighteen and a fourth family that lost as many as thirty nine people in those airstrikes and of

course while we know the coalition says that in this case as others they did all they can to minimize casualties and in these kinds of scenarios according to them this is inevitable according to amnesty international that is just not good enough and they have called for investigations and justice for the victims of those strikes we spoke to international law attorney jennifer braden and richard becker of the antiwar aunt's a coalition they told us washington's investigations into civilian casualties have been inadequate. i do think that this is one comment that should have been really unfolded more there should have been given in more detail on how is that how is that that we can't count the victims why wouldn't we be able to what is happening that we can't count the victims when you've seen an air strike up in close in person can level a house and these are these are very serious airstrikes and so there might be bodies that aren't found there might be people that aren't found and even of the limbs or bodies are parts they are found in of course this is very unfortunate and

difficult especially during a time of war but it is a very disconcerting statement if he doesn't explain the meaning of that the fact that they're not going to know how to identify what they found in the rubble where airstrikes of that magnitude are concerned i remember in the first u.s. war on a rare that after the war was over are collin powell who was then the chief of staff i believe of the u.s. military was asked what about civilian casualties you said that's not a number we're interested in that is in fact a confession of woke workarounds and they're saying again well we'll never be able to know what they don't want to know that's why they're not able to know they don't make any effort and they cover up what is obvious to the rest of the world that in fact the vast majority of the civilian casualties are being caused by their bomb and u.s. britain france and other allies. he was in syria while the u.s. led campaign to liberate iraq was ongoing these are some of the report was filed by

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