across 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 christopher 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 yeah. trump is making politics 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 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 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 and 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 visa the russian stablished but don't you think that we're back but let me go to alex and in athens you know what erick is bringing up here is really interesting because if any concession is made then it's considered appeasement 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 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 it was one of these like things in markets 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 and 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 them start you know indictment on obstruction of justice and other charges tax evasion 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 of 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 a 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 of what 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 lock in 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. 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 fulfill 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 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 would 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 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 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 anonymously to 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 wanted to 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 we're going to get to 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 stay with her to.

that sort of steer clear.

of corruption is everywhere in our culture now since i do we still have high road over the employment and we still have a lot of the bitterness you know especially in the head of the land so i would say that our success story is a house it's a story once again because we have achieved the body to gave the money to go jump in but we didn't do that we didn't succeed in achieving the economy goals. myself to saying all of us well those jobs back to america by imposing saraf equal . this trade picture and move toward a post china extraction you know where as private equity extracts well using leverage china's but extracting wealth using leverage trade shenanigans so this is just the reverse of that. as i hear some people's voices starts to make

a little more sense people don't understand that this guy actually understands more than people are giving him credit for. 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's about face 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 erick what does that mean to you i mean when you get a response narrative which just doesn't work anymore then he. sees in ukraine have become so egregious and so open that you simply can't hide it anymore they're not trying to get the land the council is for god sakes the mouthpiece of nato but who did they and lending council invite to speak to them you are. andrei peruvian. is a neo nazi he has a band the right neo nazi he was the co-founder of the social net. nationalist party and another has interesting we're going to have to 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 in darfur international territory they are into the military military 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 and they don't know who they're getting to go to alex and it seems to me that this in a way plays into 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 trump does not like let's not forget that ukraine was i think the biggest delegate for the hillary clinton campaign and clearly was behind hillary clinton he was outspoken about it but going back and. 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 in the united states they call anyone who's for open borders who is for traditional family values whatever they call them nazi well i mean i just yeah 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 i don't have any of these fine media actually thank our team for covering the story first as i had lands in calgary where the only way you have marine that i know it was a back handed. and you know this headline doesn't come. on our t.v. as i remember has been banging on about this before we have on this program. but you know i've been for you should thank you ok i want to thank you for something else you are an expert in economics and political risk the legal terms that if you

could win a trade war it's easy now russia and i'm sorry 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 and immediate mark is this about

american domestic politics and trumps. hope to stem a red tide in november even trump's economic team is neoliberal and 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 aggression is history going to hurt 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 they're going to do quickly isn't for it never happens very good now it's let 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 that 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 that 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 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 drums for his didn't see 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 is wonderfully non hypocritical at least to once you do not have. a market on 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 overt military regime change in venezuela not

entirely and. 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 is libya is it is this 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 interestingly you're going to see the liberal establishment mainstream media yeah jump in joy they are good at 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. let's test this is no marriage now is it everyone's electorate left i'd never translated it and they're terrified of peace ok ten

seconds there i mean basically tribe is going to negotiate with mr putin they're going to come up with some kind of a deal trouble is going to announce a great new step forward a new victory for american interest in keeping america safe at his electorate is going to love it's going to announce the new trump order john that a guy writes a holiday we have here 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. or you will be and. that is your last years plus. she doesn't get with the

people most of. what i mean. i make if it was not. with. the lady i look she's going from a week in which he has enough to buy you. that you're in the family to be. home with you most of the baby but it was in the but almost nothing to do with money for something going on while you move it was a defense. i

think more do can is an outstanding person because he took on the most powerful agency in his county for you and me to stay if you look at some of the analogies. marc was the day that when he was five. going to be in the sheriff's most contentious critics say he is the first time i noticed something wasn't right in fleeced work pretty much when i first started the corruption in palm beach county is not something that you can smell if. it's. a wing it wasn't what i wanted to deal. we've had more shootings in this county then some states have had collectively to gun went to his website began featuring comments about this family the sheriff might. wash you like

a bug you know i wish you'd stop then you should stay on the left and stuff i believe what i'm doing ok you know it's your funeral. p.b.s. and critics in this house. i snuck out of the united states. into russia political. men they know.

the u.k. foreign secretary resigns as if third minister to quit in twenty four hours over the government's plan for a soft brags that. u.k. politicians blame russia for a naughty child poisoning incident and amesbury even though police have made no link to moscow. a journalist who helped whistle blower ad words snowden expose the n.s.a. secrets is branded a crown land poppet all because he has attended a cyber security conference and russia. china the world cup and her is it semifinal a showdown we need some rising stars of women's football here and the country can i call. it which. right.