needs to just say the radio was the latest edition of the big. book. geysers by that'll survival. when customers go buy your data. then now well we do some work. that's undercutting what's good for markets it's not good for the global economy. hello and welcome to crossfire all things 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 sloboda 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 is shaking in its boots it's 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 in yeah . the trouble here is making public. trysting 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 what 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 anti russian establishment don't you think that way back but let me go to alex and in athens you know earlier what eric is bringing up here is really interesting because if any concession is made then it's considered a piece of it but if you 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 don't feel like he met he met with kim who is the devil incarnate so by comparison to putin totally different things and marcus is it you know i think number one he thinks his mule reports going to result in nothing ok because if there was something it would have been

leaked the number two it's being dinned criticism of him meeting criticism and 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 you know they're getting a mob start you know indictment on obstruction of justice and other charges tax evasion and they've made it 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 a best friend so she's the leader of the free world remember that to 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 that run nato they can't imagine outside going 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 take in 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 alliances. is hogwash it's complete absurdity nato has in the post cold war era nato has become a tool the preferred tool of us global military because because it's our home that's a fig leaf 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 will invade the interesting and the good alex i mean the only real meaningful military player in nato outside 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 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 a lot of there's a lot of that means greece and why is it around one hundred fifty billion in debt what i do is right there are 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 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 the 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 clear 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 i mean with nato 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 and grace. is. 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 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 putin 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 did i'm going to just you know i don't care if he 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 what's going to get a jump in here gentlemen we're going to go to a short break and after that short break. we'll continue our discussion on some real news with her to.

see a. little. 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 is our 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 yet at the atlanta 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 neo nazis 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 in a coup did they add lend to council invite to speak to them you are. is a neo nazi he has a band the right neo nazi he was the co-founder of the social nationalist party and another just are going to and he was also the leader of the self-defense forces of them i 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. speaker of the house congressman he's already met with the canadian part. 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 and 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 fascists 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 even alex it seems to me that this in a way pleasing to trump's hands as he goes to nato and talks to vladimir 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 board 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. in ukraine conservatives and moderates but today and in the united states they call anyone who's for open borders who is for traditional family values whatever they call them. well i mean not just yet this is anything that's

a political term that is so misappropriated in the west and overlooked in a country like ukraine we're going to have any of these fine media actually thank our team for covering the story first as i said lannes or gallagher the only right you have mary and i know it's always a backhanded. you know this headline doesn't come. as i remember has been banging on about this before 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 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 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 to stem a red tide in november yeah. even trump's economic team is as neo liberal in clueless as it is 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 state history 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 quickly isn't where it never happens very good now it's me go back to you in greece here i tend to 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 i've said he has this envelope in his pocket on the back of it he's got all of his campaign promises and he checks them off as 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 it's a politics of motion he's doing it again. yeah you 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 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 to once you do not have. a market in the.

american dominance which you've got with obama who could spin the worst policies with this caring and sharing language putin trump 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 europeans are going to gradually have to come to the understanding that no you cannot rely upon the americans for everything that we are in france we are on our own. be a good thing which should be an excellent thing i think the area era 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 and the ottoman empire if this was not a gentleman i want to give mark the dissenting voice here go ahead yeah first of

all trump's apocryphally 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 he 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 it 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 trumpet ministration wants to 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 are to have that trial as it. 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 electro flip side nobody trusted to be terrified of peace ok ten seconds later i mean basically trump is going to negotiate with mr putin they're going to come up with some kind of a deal truck is going to announce a great new step forward 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. across europe municipalities are taking their water supply back from private companies to me to people this is the simple song alone even some company elsewhere

though they invite private companies to take over the utilities anybody tell us they're all. allowed from us you guys who got. to go by been this is us to quote them out. for you man but then left the locals are ready to stand up for the basic human right of access to water it's about water but it's also over. it's about to hurt and the redistribution of. their date downwards the one dollar. seventy four does not suppressions. seven thousand pilings. to join judges. eight hundred sixty nonstop days of. the russian w.b.

. and a russian stuff. show you how. long the crimea bridge was built. witnessed the construction moving you need to transport. that will help the crimea the. most of those you know what google for more familiar quite a bit but it's clear. i. believe. that.

a woman who was allegedly exposed. in the british town of amesbury in hospital. meantime remains in critical condition. coming to europe with protests also expected in the u.k. . the mother. a six hundred million dollars lawsuit against canadian police alleging. similar cases involving aboriginal women . as the world cup final phase goes to touch the quality of women's football in russia. is spectacular.