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hello and welcome to crossfire all things are considered i'm peter lavelle in rapid succession donald trump will attend a meeting of nato leaders and then meet with russia's vladimir putin what can we expect from the donald and much much more on this edition of crossfire. cross talking trump goes to europe i'm joined by my guest mark that he's an international affairs and security analyst we also have krauss he's an independent political risk analyst and in athens we cross to alex kristof for oh he is the director and writer for the duran dot com all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want i always appreciate eric let me go to you first here it's been building up the hype here we have donald trump saying that trade with the europeans is about as bad as the chinese that's a very interesting comment and of course. nato was shaking in its boots its never

had an american president come to one of these annual conference with disparaging words about its member countries in the alliance interesting times to live yeah. trump is making politics interesting again. it's very difficult to predict exactly what he's going to do is that his strategy it is certainly a strategy to keep people off balance and he does have a plan that i think he's going to do is very similar to what he did with kim he's going to come in they're going to cut some sort of a deal and we don't know what it is i don't really what trump can with the russians can give trump would perhaps be a decrease in the role of iran in syria that is within mr putin's gift and it's something he could probably do have any reason to trust mr trump you know he doesn't but he needs to. he wants probably to strengthen trump's position viz

a viz the russian stablish went don't you think that we're back but let me go to alex and in athens you know what eric is bringing up here is briley interesting because if any concession is made then it's considered a piece of it but if you don't want to have some kind of diplomatic parlay you have to compromise it's a very vicious circle alex. yeah it is and i think that trump has been boxed in obviously by by the whole mueller investigation and then everything that's been going on for the past two years but i think he's confident about his trip going to europe and meeting with putin let's not forget he had a rally in montana in great falls montana i believe it wasn't and he was speaking pretty openly about his upcoming trip whether it was to nato or whether was meeting with putin even said that you know everything's going to be fine and we may actually get along so even though he has a lot of stuff domestically that's that's tying his hands up he seems like he's

handling it pretty well he's pretty confident about it i was like is he met he met with kim who is the devil incarnate so i mean by comparison to putin totally different things and marcus is it you know i think number one he thinks this mule reports going to result in nothing ok because if there was something it would have been leaked the number two it's beat didn't criticism of him meeting criticism of meeting putin it's already baked in the worst possible things you could have said about trump these are the either of these two other leaders i mentioned it's already been said yeah i mean first of all it's obvious that the russia gate which has resulted in a big big fat zero the investigation announced with their their biggest single movement forward with the metaphor it's you know they're getting a lot of start you know indictment on obstruction of justice and other charges tax evasion and they admitted that there is absolutely nothing against man a for that has anything to do with collusion with russia or the election they admitted that

openly so that's going nowhere but you know people who are making noise about trying to first of all trump has a great deal of animosity with the european leaders you know we've talked about personal or personal they campaigned openly against him they meddled in u.s. politics they openly and many of them openly endorsed hillary clinton the others use their state media relentlessly to attack trump this is a little bit. payback he doesn't like them and he's making it personal trump cannot stand me may cause a real strong what i think he called her soul as the best friend so she's the leader of the free world remember that that's what the obama people she's lucky she's the leader of germany at this point she's just hanging by a thread and you know for me you know all this hoopla about trump and nato i think . a more rational more sober view of this is first of all he wants people to pay their fair way that's pretty fair but he's asking them to to reimagine the alliance

a quarter of the century after the end of the cold war and the reason it existed in the first and i think if people had an honest discussion about what its role should be because of you know what they would be five thousand bureaucrats to run nato they can't imagine outside of what they have to discussion of its role because it doesn't have a role it is there to keep the western world free of a russian invasion you might as well spend all this money to keep the martians from taken washington please disagree and. secondly there is a very strong economic driver here and mr trump is a traveling salesman and the american arms manufacturers are the strongest export industry and he wants the germans to spend lots and lots of money to keep lochhead but donald in business ok so this is this is a this is this is the puzzle he wants to put together if they spend more money

they'll buy american you just agree disagree completely that nato has no purpose of course its purpose has nothing to do with the cold war and very little to do with russia now i am a veteran of the us military including of nato ops i've seen first hand nato has never been used in state and self defense against the state enemy that that is so the illusion that it is a defensive collective security alliance is. is hogwash it's complete absurdity nato has in the post cold war era nato has become a tool the preferred tool of u.s. global military because because it's already on the it is a political figure if militarily it has no real teeth right it is a political fig leaf to get the european countries on board behind the us the latest us regime change the entry saying they're going to alex i mean the only real meaningful military player in nato one side of the united states is turkey and

things aren't going to well in that direction i mean the interesting thing is is that you know if we look compare russian defense spending to american defense spending american defense spending is to make a lot of people a lot of money a russian defense spending is to protect the country ok and i tend to agree with with eric right here that this is a money making enterprise nato go ahead alex and let's not forget that the people in the e.u. the leaders of the european union and the governments there have been have been skating by without having to allocate any of their of their budget torts the nato spending and towards nato defense i mean i think you only have eight countries that fill that per cent down to goal and we have if there's a we want to that means greece and why is it out now one hundred fifty billion in debt what does it or is there a spend money on nato like other countries and they're afraid of their nato ally turkey ok not only that but because the deal signed with germany to bail them out include strictures that they have to purchase arms from germany and france. ok they

are obligated by the contracts they have signed for their for their bailout deals to buy weapons that they do not need from germany you know you think that the trump a juggernaut i think i need to copyright that because i'm using it a lot now is this is this a way for nato to reimagine itself its gives its been given an ultimatum by donald trump the leader of the alliance by far with that make european members of nato reassess russia's threat i think that. they have been it's they have been amazingly successful in keeping the europeans onside you'll notice that these sanctions were renewed with no protest from italy we don't know what happened behind them we don't know what happened behind closed doors it russia is not the number one issue for any european state they all have their own problems right now

so thus far there just has not been the political courage to break now at some point trump is going to push his luck a little too far with the europeans and they may have to up on their hind legs with that be something bad it would be an excellent thing it is something i have been waiting for personally for the last twenty years frats has become a and appendage of the united states into the paris mint. and at some point yes we would expect that nato and we would need to the fundamental problem here is it is hard to justify hundreds of billions of dollars of military spending to waste terrorists in the desert where is russia can provide a credible threat if you want to ignore all the evidence and just look at the military power of russia then yes you need hundreds of billions of dollars weapon an airplane programs so russia provides a really useful scarecrow yeah ok let me go back to alex in greece.

is. what role did what does putin get out of this meeting with trump because that's for me a wild card ok i mean i would say that the russians have continued to practice much to the chagrin of a lot of people strategic patience with the west particularly of the united states now we're going to see it on display go ahead alex well i think putin gets some breathing room i mean i think we've just passed eight years of obama and the tension between the u.s. and russia was was ratcheted up to a cold level twelve and so i think by meeting with trump he's going to get some breathing room maybe trouble give some concessions on sanctions maybe something will be toned down a little bit maybe some of the rhetoric of course government to government rhetoric i don't think the media's going to ever let up on put in our russia but he gets some breathing room and i think he's already scored a couple of victories i mean it's being held in helsinki that's close to russia it's not being held you know closer to the u.s. trump is coming out to see putin so i think he's already scored some victories and

i think it's showing that putin is a player that russia is a player and i think we're going to give mark the last forty seconds on this block here what would a successful summit mean mark yeah well one european diplomat observed mislead a foreign policy that a no new summit would be a win for them but they are scared. an expletive if you are going to do with it i mean putin has already first of all trump had said russia should be back in the g. eight that without asking russia if it want to do he should i'm going to just you know i don't care if they didn't ask and secondly he is but he seems to be willing to discuss the situation in crimea which is absolutely unprecedented you have made screaming about isolating russia you have merkel who is like a deer in the headlights and then suddenly you have the leader of the free world. it looks to me he he might want to be friends with putin but he's showing his he's

intense hatred for the rest we don't know we're going to get a jump in here gentlemen we're going to go to a short break and after that short break well. continue our discussion on some real news stay with r.t. . across europe municipalities are taking their water supply back from private companies to me to people this will simple song alone even some company guests will else with so they can find a private companies to take over the utilities many by the telescope was allowed to miss you guys who got booked but it was on the going to go by been this is. just because. of where you remember the live bill locals are ready to stand up for the basic human right of access to water it's about water but it's also over much more and more it's about to hurt and the redistribution of color was to purchase their

debt downwards we want all. right we're all set to start in five. years how's the signal. he's not going to talk about. just maybe right after the morris explores what do you put it there. to say black people know. how to illustrate. welcome to sophie and tell him se sherrick not said today we've got lots to talk about in our program and our gas to. the rocket.

welcome back to crossfire all things considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing some real news. ok gentlemen let's change gears here i'd like to discuss highlight an article that i read in consortium news dot com by daniel and so on the topic title corporate media is about peace on ukraine's neo nazis and i know we talked a bit a little bit about this last week but i thought it was very interesting that his articles are very good review on how western media push this narrative that these are freedom fighters in ukraine that there was no coup and now we have some of the main broadsheets foreign policy washington post the atlantic council of all people

backtracking on it i mean eric what does that mean to you i mean when you begin to spawn a narrative which just doesn't work anymore then the. seas in ukraine have become so egregious and so open that you simply can't hide it anymore they're not trying to hide the people and the council is for god sakes the mouthpiece of the of nato but who did they and lending council invite to speak to them. is a neo nazi he is a band the right neo nazi he was the co-founder of the social nationalist party and another star going to and he was also the leader of the self-defense forces of the my don which of course went on to seize buildings and kill policemen and fought the new regime into power on the streets of kiev he is now the speaker of the route of the number three person in the ukrainian government he met with the u.s.

beaker of the house congressman he's already met with the canadian parliament justin trudeau and he is a neo nazi there's no question about it. here's what the deal is you know with these ukrainian groups which are funded and armed by the ukrainian government they're all even doing children's outreach and indoctrinated into the army into the military military the parallel police force right they've started attacking roma camps they've started anti-semitic attacks things that can't be covered up here is the blunt truth when these fascist right we want to call them ultra nationalists you want to call them the extreme right wing when these bad they're right fascist militias that are integral to the e.u. craney and regime getting into and keeping power when they were just killing ethnic russians so vox east ukrainians and communists in east ukraine it was all fun and games that's what they were there for and no one in the western media or

governments cared they applauded them on ok we're going to know who they're getting to go to alison it seems to me that this in a way please them to trump's hands as he goes to nato and talks to flatter me or putin is that if the the the the the lid is on the jar about what's really going on in ukraine there's not much reason for donald trump to go to bat for ukraine after all he says that well the russians in crimea like being part of russia i mean is that kind of a way for him to kind of take that off the table a bone of contention go ahead alex that i think it is a bone of contention and going back to what we're talking previously about nato and some of the leaders of europe who trusted who trump does not like let's not forget that ukraine was i think the biggest dole yet for the hillary clinton campaign and clearly was behind hillary clinton he was outspoken about it but going back on the market showing to look at it you know exactly going back on mark's point real quick let's not forget that that three four years ago the fake news media was calling

real neo nazis in ukraine conservatives and moderates but today and in the united. they call anyone who's for open borders who is for traditional family values whatever they call them. well i mean that's just yeah that's. that's a political term that is so misappropriated in the west and overlooked in a country like ukraine we're going to i don't have any of these fine media actually thanked our team for covering the story first as i had lancer gallagher the only way you have mary and i know it was a backhanded. you know this headline doesn't come. as i remember has been banging on about this for we have on this program. but you know i've been very should thank you ok i want to thank you for something else you are an expert in economics and political risk the little terms as you could win a trade war it's easy now russia and united states and china are going to head to

head from what i understand though that the exports from china to the united states is only nineteen percent of their total exports i mean is this all political is this all domestic politics here is it is that the midterms you can win a trade war the same way you can win a nuclear war. it's mutually assured destruction the economies are simply too integrated there are too many components going into american products and american the entire global supply chain has been very much indeed created and you have some sorcerer's apprentice is here playing with hand grenades now i don't know to what extent they're faking but if they push it too far you're going to cause a depression ok but the politics is always today an immediate mark is this about american domestic politics and trumps. hope this stem

a red tide in november even trumps economic team as neoliberal and clueless as that . understands that no one except possibly for russia or china wins out of this you're not going to recover american jobs in the rust belt with the trade war you'll you'll gain some with steel and lose something with auto manufacturing right and there's always a blowback this is all about domestic politics this is this is all about showing that he's doing something about the problem of globalized trade to the rust belt workers in pennsylvania michigan and wisconsin that helped get him elected the chinese know that that's why they've targeted their counter tariffs specifically against. this trade i'm going to turn in this game perfectly but in the long term i disagree russia and china are going to win this trade war as are other countries

because this is going to do is it's going to make other countries increasingly move away from the dollars of currency it's going to speed up this whole process because they're going to quit what is it and who are it never happens very good now it's that me go back to you in greece here i can do think it's more political it's a feel good topic and remember this is what trump said on the campaign i need to stress this over and over again as this envelope in his pocket on the back of that he's got all of his campaign promises that he checks that he goes along he's very fanatical about them and i think i think at the end of the day it's erik's pointed out i mean you know what really wins a trade war in the short term maybe we can talk about the dollar later but i mean trump's going to that it's a politics of motion he's doing it again. know no one knows how far trump is going to take this or how far china is going to retaliate but you know it sure makes for

a good speech when trump goes to you know those rallies and he fires up the base so i think you know he's definitely we've definitely seen a u.s. president that is going through a list of promises that he made however controversial they are however it detrimental they may be to the u.s. or to the world but he's checking them off or at least he's he's pretending or saying or acting like he's checking them off and it's rallying up the base and it's rallying them up for those two thousand and eighteen midterms you know one of the things that i've been thinking about is we were eighteen months into trump's presidency and he changed the world enough and american politics enough that he's already created a legacy because the democrats and the liberals they're just hoping you put in one of their guys and we go right back to where we were a nightmare of eighteen months that will be four years and they'll go back and i think i think they're deceiving themselves because i think trump not.

specifically and maybe not any one of his specific policies but he sent a new tone in tenor politics particularly in the western it's wonderfully non hypocritical at least who once you do not have. a little game are going to. american dominance which you've got with obama who could spin the worst policies with this caring and sharing language putin trouble comes out saying we are the biggest dog on the block and we're going to bite and he is. he has torn away the veil and my point is again that's the europeans are going to gradually have to come to the understanding that no you cannot rely upon the americans for everything good we are in france we are on our own. be a good thing which should be an excellent thing i think the area of american had good money which was not necessarily particularly good for americans as it's coming

to an end and this is going to be a very difficult and very disruptive process if you look at nineteen fourteen the end of the all the in the ottoman empire if this was not a gentleman i want to give mark the dissenting voice here go ahead yeah first of all. about just about everything he said on foreign policy he's attacked syria he was adamant time and time again about the us role in syria and aiding jihadi is bombing the country and so i think. he attacked hillary clinton for saudi arabia and he's if anything even further at least pushed hillary over on muhammad bin solomon's bed so he could make room for himself in there he's continued democratization regime change programs that just came out this week that he is pushing his administration towards over military regime change in venezuela.

just a kind of thumb in the air here it looks like the north koreans are pushing back on the presumption that they're going to do exactly what the trump administration wants this is what you do is it is just part of the parlay because i think it is i think it's part of the parlay where everyone's fighting out there the americans are going to find out that they're dealing with a a negotiating partner that knows what it's doing one minute you're alex a tough negotiating partner but i think more interesting that you're going to see the liberal establishment mainstream media yet jump in joy they aren't at that trial as the trip has been able to seal the deal with north korea and it's not turning out so smoothly as as he was you know proclaiming it to be and so i think you're going to see the mainstream media actually happy about this outcome even though i think we have a long long way to possible. i don't know right now is it everyone's electorate left and nobody trusted it and they're terrified of peace ok ten second set up i

mean basically trump is going to negotiate with mr putin they're going to come up with some kind of a deal trump is going to announce a great new step forward a new victory for american interest in keeping america safe and his electorate is going to love it's going to announce the new trump order john that iran it's also that we have you know many thanks and i guess here in moscow and in athens this is the end of our broadcast segment stay with us for the extended version on our you tube channel see you next time and remember cross talk rules.

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so you will both be. looked at as your most used those do you know that. the people most of us are not what i mean. we're never going to read what was not. really a local superman film and we can see that from the from the right. if you go in with a formal review. oh boy if you move in with the big one was in the bottom of most of the woman he pulls over with one more room to move forward to get to.

be the case says one woman exposed to the nerve agent and not be chalk this week has died another person still remains in a critical condition. proration join england france and belgium in the world cup semifinals after edging a nail biting penalty shootout against hosts russia. despite the loss russia fans celebrated long into the night and gave their team a hero's welcome back in moscow after they defied all expectations to reach their last eight.