that you can convert an instant as point really. to keep in mind no assets mean to inflation. or. hello and welcome to crossfire where all things are considered peter lavelle the transatlantic relationship is had many ups and downs since its inception after the second world war it is said this relationship is whether these moments of tensions and differences due to american leadership enter donald trump can the transatlantic relationship survive the current occupant in the white house.

rostock in the transatlantic relationship i'm joined by my guest michael maloof in washington he is a former senior security policy analyst in the office of the secretary of defense in london we have been more he is a professor of international politics at city university london and in oxford we crossed about common he is the director of the crisis research institute all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate let me go to mark first in oxford on skype you know mark i'm. these last few programs i keep betraying my age but i can remember a good part of the history of the transatlantic relationship and they've been ups and downs they've been policy differences we can think of vietnam we can think of the illegal invasion and occupation of iraq during the reagan administration it was . the missiles and they've pretty much been resolved those were problems i get the impression now that it's turning into divisions that about values and and what the

position of each in the world because the europeans after all these decades have pretty much tied themselves to the united states and have very limited options and they're not very happy. about it is it's a crisis of ideology and values now not just policy issues mark in oxford but i think it's a mixture of it's a crisis of early as well as a big difference disagreement about what is important and what should be principles between paris on one side and washington on the other shore so it's also about valuables in many ways the atlantic alliance from the late forty's on which was one in which the united states was to create an economic price for security and geopolitical advantage and so the marshall plan on which meant that the worst trade imbalances that were valued. they were going west european economies and initiate expensive states but overall everybody benefited now trump is saying it has to be a cost benefit analysis on that basis and putting america first means america has to come out on top and of course in schools the serious problems to european

industries or finance in general because something that the united states is sort of spent most of the works at all since their actions against iran do sanctions on russia and so on which have a big effect and then also trying. to cuba it's a view of the world which the european and which simply repeated media regards with horns quite for africa and so there's a problem and then supposedly even with the british are supposed to so much united states they find themselves challenge to economically and also challenge to some extent on what is probably perceptible here tropicals couldn't help on tweeting about things in britain that have gone against the grain of british public opinion you know jake if i can stay with stay with me the british isles here. it is actually at the very top of this we have the iran deal with the u.s. withdrew from but it seems to me that that is an archetype of the problems of the transatlantic relationship right now because the europeans are that are being told that they have to pay an economic price when they're staying in the deal in iran it

wants to stay in the deal to i mean it seems you know a bit large on the part of the united states saying well since we don't want to be part of it you shouldn't be part of it and this gets down to really kind of. e.u. sovereignty i'd like to talk a little bit about energy as well but i mean the europeans are being asked to go against their best interests in almost every single way and this is causing a great deal of tension go ahead of london. i think you know you've summarized the position in some respects but i do not think that is a kind of fundamental breach i think the europeans are clearly unhappy the one major diplomatic success if you like they could claim was the iran nuclear agreement and they're very upset at the united states withdrawal from it but on the other hand their ideas about iran and iran's regional power and it ballistic missile testing they don't differ very much so i think they they would appear to be big tactical difference here. and so i would have what i would argue is that that

the at the core of transatlantic relations from the very beginning i don't think there was ever any altruism involved there was always a position of power and a negotiation about power and power distribution so i think what the situation is now is that it's changed and to some extent there's a renegotiation of those relationships and i don't think it's only the united states which is acting much more towards is particular national interest european powers among themselves have always had a tension between the european element and their national interest so i think this is just being exacerbated at this particular time and clearly don't trump played a particular game but i think in the end the levels of interdependence between the european union europe and the united states remain very very high and i think there is a bit of upset here but i don't think there's a fundamental breach well we'll see how the tensions which are

a little grown. bigger michael in washington i mean interdependency i think there's a lot more dependency than interdependency and that's what we're seeing right now and i guess fundamentally can we have a transatlantic alliance coalition as it were carry co-exist with america first and donald trump michel. well it's been it's beginning to erode what we're seeing is an erosion and perhaps a replacement of the u.s. led unilateral world order and i think that the the breaking out of leaving the the iranian deal the j.c. p.o. way was a watershed moment for countries that in a year asia and especially iran as well as in western europe and what we're seeing emerge now is a new geo political shift to a much more multi-polar approach and we're already seeing this just like what you probably saw in st petersburg with with the belt road initiative combined with the

yes the shanghai cooperation organization and the year asia european union all beginning to come together with its membership forming this separate economic world order bloc that that's actually going to counter and respond to what donald trump has now done i think europe europe as well because of the sanctions are going to read are going to rebel to out as as much as they can and we're going to see that they're going to want to maintain that trade with with with iran as well as with the other countries in that and that region of the world the whole idea because the united states insists upon having the israeli policy interfere with every foreign policy decision it makes it's actually going to it's actually beginning to shift away from that and we're seeing that already you know you know market the it seems that you know there's a perception i've heard this many times is the united states is treating its its

friends worse than its enemies i mean it's centrally going down the track of threatening to sanction european countries and their companies and this is getting i you know i think it's the first time in the in the transatlantic alliance experience where you know sovereignty is really seems to be in and is being infringed upon i mean. threatening companies that you know it be you financial transactions you know it's forcing companies to start trading in other currencies so the the the us treasury department can't go after you i mean is that what you need tell allies are supposed to be worried about from the united states now i mean this is a new dilemma that this coalition this the lion says facing go ahead mark well. as i do remember when it was just natural i had a four hour with all program over the u.s. attempt to prevent the export of those in soviet cast western europe you have a very british companies taking part in that and so the president's the point is

that in those cases quite quickly the common interests and who rode the divisions like found a way around it whereas today we face the prospect of a dog from could easily get wasn't in office who were going to this time he could be remembered it and he continues with these policies he's really challenging the your prison sense of self esteem in the one area where they feel what a great power yes the e.u. is a chip political pygmies that military but it is a trading superpower germany afterwards for small the united states the us a lot of its forms so germany and china for instance and also the countries like japan have an economic common interest in the why that world which trump is trying to unsettle because he was he wants to cut back dramatically the u.s. trade deficit that actually means. to the extent of his key partners as well as a potential geopolitical rival in china so we really have structural changes taking place maybe all these decades of cooperation all the cultural contrasts between

west and the united states in the broader west will somehow to mitigate this but i have a feeling that in the end it will be dollars and cents that yeah you know in today let me go back to you in london i mean the right before trump withdrew from the iran deal we had boris johnson visiting we had it many emmanuelle. mccrum visiting trump as well and i think that they were expecting some kind of negotiation like the allies and friends are supposed to do and they they returned home empty handed in the meantime angela merkel has visited putin twice and gone to china she didn't even go to washington there is a perception at least on this side of the pond is that the united states isn't interested in negotiations it's more interested in dicta do it or else go ahead in london while actually merkel did go to washington d.c. and what we are taught from her more withdraw years along with the crime for example just after mccrone was given

a slightly different kind of treatment i think is a really it is a very complicated question and i think to some extent there's a there's a kind of broad long term shift going on in the kind of global geopolitics and geo economics and i think then there are these kind of tactical transactional isms which trump is championing and i think to some extent trump is being criticized but i in the end he's standing up for what he believes he's the american and he's being any he's keeping his promises let's keep that in mind that we shouldn't be surprising ok he said this on the campaign trail keep going keep going yes and i think what i would say about that to you is is that i think a large part of this is really a sort of tactical power play as much dicked directed at home it is a political base to try to show them that he is standing up for the united states the key thing that he had promised to really that america first was going to do for

them was to basically give them back economic and other home and i don't think actually any of this is going to help that core base at all so in the end effectively it's a big theater and i think the levels of the amounts of money we're talking about here in god to the kind of sanctions on on trade or trade tariffs or whatever is relatively small. it could me but i think ok and i did see it in small now and trade wars usually start small here gentlemen we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the transatlantic relationship say with art. i began this national camera. roughly once they showed some lame for them. uncool videos and so on with the broken string apps. line down more on

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play. welcome back to cross like we're all things considered i'm peter we're discussing the transatlantic relationship. we're going to go back to michael in washington one of the interesting questions that have arisen that is it has been given is isn't it much coverage is the energy

politics and energy security that includes the the u.k. the rest of europe the united states and interestingly and importantly russia here and germany is very much in the center of it with the north stream pipeline the second one that's going to be being built and the americans are pretty perfuse slee against this pipeline because they want to import or export to europe very expensive ellen g. and the germans are recent resisting it and they could face sanctions as we talk announcements could be made this is a very important issue because germany and the european union are actually defacto being denied the ability to determine their energy security it's the u.s. wants to dictate that go ahead michael. well it has to do with russian dominance of it and that's the problem and the u.s. as you point out is a johnny come lately to this new in wanting to ship l.n.g. or liquefied natural gas but the problem for the united states is it only has one port in louisiana that can export and secondly most of the european countries

except those along the coast have any elegy capabilities the countries that really really need this kind of gas there are much much more internally and and certainly germany as well but the pipeline structures that exists right now and are being built. up with russian dominance if. yeah well it's what irritated the near cons here in washington and certainly the trumpet ministration so it's a johnny come lately effort and i i don't think it's going to sixteen and they need natural gas now because when it is not all that far away and that they have to have a reliable source and you're going to you're going to see more and more of these countries integrating themselves apart from the united states because of this activity and energy is just one aspect of that whole geo political shift that we're that we're seeing emerge at this point you know let me go back to oxford martin again if it gets down to being able to make sovereign decisions i mean i mean i

don't think you have to be very ideological or very partisan dick the question well why should a country that's on the other side of the planet determine your energy policy when you have a neighbor that wants to provide energy at a reasonable price and your companies are involved in a joint venture to build that pipeline i mean i don't see how threatening that possibly could be except for you want the market you want the market share i get that i get that that's fine ok but it should be the europeans that ultimately make that decision mark in oxford where i was exhausted also the united states would like to weaken russia. position by weakening the state revenue by cutting its own schools of energy but as the austrian president front of elam's said the great problem is that ellen g. is only a moment when energy prices are high but actually because you can go long term contracts with russia to receive gas you get the gas well below the price which is what i have also you have this is a one time but it's almost impossible to have

a two contradiction in order to make up what you have to create a high revenue stream to russia which makes russia stronger. but if you try to you will sue and buy provisions for that round the room do you push your prices are actually the position of the countries that you are also those who are suspicious of strong and also you may. to do costumes. more attractive so it actually is not a very clever. ok energy let me go back to change gears and i talk a little bit about nato you know ever since the end of the advent of the cold war in the warsaw pact we've had nato when the soviet union came to an end they took decided to stick around and look for a new mission for itself unfortunately in two thousand and eighteen i guess that mission is to defend against russia but the european countries don't really want to pay for their defense they kind of like having the u.s. pick up the tab term trump says you got to pay more and they still don't do it so

it's kind of hard to convince publics that russia is such a threat we don't want to pay for your own defense except for poland wants to spend two billion dollars they have american troops there well why don't they just give the two billion dollars to the germans and the germans can do it form ok i mean there's a lot of possibilities there ok again countries that want want to have secure borders particularly visa vi russia they don't want to pay for it so what how do you square the circle there go ahead in london. well i think in germany actually there are quite strong pressures from various sides of the political spectrum to to strengthen german military power and also its kind of much more independence stance on a number of global questions so i don't think there is an unwillingness on the part of many of the european powers with of nato to increase military spending to two

percent which is what they're actually committed to under ground zero of the i'm sorry there's a lot of research there's a lot of resistance to pick a to reach that two percent of g.d.p. i mean they've been talking about it for years and they're still not doing it ok what only four countries out of the out of the entire block actually do that ok i mean they still resist doing it so. that doesn't cut water with me no they want something for free and then if they don't get it for free they don't want to pay for a bed that's not michael you but you work through the defense department. you know well i see that the us this is more on economic betterment between europe and and russia because there is a they have a major dependency there but the whole military concept is basically evaporated in favor of more economic opportunities such as in dealing with iran dealing with china dealing with with with russia i mean it's expanding and and nato as you pointed out is still an entity trying to find

a new mission and they went to afghanistan for a little while they're still there but you know it's still it's it's on life support frankly and the europeans for for itself is looking internally to have its own defense mechanism and the french are pushing there pretty much and i think the germans because of what trump has been doing it and the way has been bludgeoned in them i think they're they're beginning to reexamine that concept but they don't see the threat that that the neo cons and trying to do from from russia from china or from or from iran as truck does ok let me go back to you in london because he didn't get to really finish your point there i mean take do you think that there is the political will the european union for all of its problems is one of the richest places on the planet i mean it's not like it doesn't have resources has plenty of resources unfortunately a lot of them are wasted but they're still relatively rich why should they decide.

to step up and it really stiff their complaining about the united states and trump why don't they just go with a lonely it's not as if they don't have the the resources to do it go ahead. but i think going it alone is probably on viable for any major power or block today that interdependence which is built. he's very very dense the networks which are financial economic political security intelligence as well as people to people ideas in every respect you look at the interdependencies of of major global pillars they are very very great they're not going anywhere you can try to shake them up you can rearrange them a little bit you can renegotiate relations and i think that's what a trump is trying to do and some other powers are trying to do as well but i don't think you're going to get rid of the i don't think europe wants to or can go alone britain is finding itself look at the position we're in now negotiating a briggs's deal look how difficult it is to try to do anything meaningful with that

because in the end you cannot just divorce yourself from a global economy and so on what you can do is try to create a sort of national conditions under which you can control the effects of globalism and i think that is what is effectively happening on a worldwide scale because the people of the countries within like the united states and elsewhere as well they're suffering from the effects of inequality they're suffering from the fact there's unemployment because of technological change and innovation and i think people like donald trump are effectively misleading their own electorates by calling for america first and i don't think they're going to solve any of those problems but in the end that is where the pressure is really coming from and i think that is not going to go away and that is going to lead to a degree of national level of control so i think there's going to be a renegotiation of the card a global market ok which allows for me to morrow meeting all of you so it's pretty

pessimistic or you just said big it sounds like all these organizations are a straight jacket you're in it and you can get out and there's one hedge of man that will determine the rules that mean that it's a essentially what you're saying mark i mean i think that there is a political will in division i think that there could be much more. polarity i think there could be a lot more equality in it but i don't see the political with the europeans can moan and groan all they want but they're fat and happy with the situation the way it is and trump is going the us is going to be but snipe at them and they won't be able to do much about it go ahead mark when you also lose a pro we will talk about your parents who do we mean there is the network elites of people here involved in government and so on who come with the old order and in a sense there are trump shaking it up but also they can't imagine leaving it but then we've seen whether it's the proves how did election even the also from elections on huge popular and rest including in germany with. the downsides of

globalization. so i think there is a crisis of the west and in a way it's something which the elites in the. struck me that nato has just held its first meeting in its new purpose who courtrooms and the only more sociology that i respect is social buckets and all that any organization that moves into a brand new purpose built headquarters will go bust within a few months and one fears that we have this kind of institutional inertia that we can't really imagine of the architects of the previous decades is seeing its foundations by the very popular consent which after all was the basis of the democratic. ok my goal in watching the last forty seconds of the program goes to you go ahead. you know i think what we what fundamentally what we're seeing is that the erosion of that unilateral world order and it's big and it's beginning to catch up to riyadh reality is beginning to catch up to the europeans just like with three

some may she she's doing brecht's said of course that she look to the u.s. as an alternative market but because of sanctions now she's going to be looking more and more toward china and i think you're going to see that wave increasing in the coming years simply because we have this new multi-polar emerging. that is kind of just isolate in effect isolate the u.s. unless it stops it's. bad people over the head all the time well we'll see we'll see if america first can co-exist with a transatlantic alliance that has existed since the second world war seems pretty incompatible to me but we'll see that's all the time we have gentlemen many thanks so much to my guests and watch in london and in oxford and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t.c. a next time and remember.

we have no idea what safety is doing on vacation but she will be back on air in september. most people think just stand out in this business you need to be the first one on top of the story or the person with the loudest voice of the biggest raid in truth to stand the news business is just the dance the right questions demand the right answer.

questions. this is. the church secret indeed just like priests accused of sexually abusing children can get away with it quite literally i like to call this the geographic solution so what the bishop needs to do then he finds out that the priest is is a perpetrator is simply moves him to a different spot were the previous standards not the highest ranks of the catholic church conceal the accused priests from the police and justice sussan to that it has not been as the i intend. to do this yet in. this. case both. first.

of all those doubts. don't at all so document on the first take. the. nearly. eight hundred eighty. two most rigid. groups or some of the sheen you know. if they were a. group of torture i mean that what. we've heard. this morning have all that.

for headline stories this hour a french position leader reacts furiously to finding his name on a list of suspicious twitter accounts forcing him to declare he is not a russian. couple and reels from the shock suicide of an immigration party politician who claims she was raped by a muslim guy last year also ahead. but i know that. two palestinians are killed and more than two hundred injured in the latest flare up on the israel gaza border so winter's open fire after rioters hurled explosives

through the fence.