Speaker 1: Joining us right now. Thrilled and I'm really honored that
Speaker 1: we could have him today. Is someone with a global perspective.
Speaker 1: His initial acclaim with the Bush senior administration on Northern
Speaker 1: Ireland Richard Hass. Of course, I'm going to say, really
Speaker 1: the reinvigoration of the Council on Foreign Relations, he is
Speaker 1: with Center view. Ambassador Haas, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: I think we forget that Soul, Korea is thirty five
Speaker 1: miles from the Demilitarized Zone the DMZ. How does the
Speaker 1: tension of North Korea and South Korea fold into the
Speaker 1: shock of government collapse and tests in Seoul?
Speaker 2: Good question, Tom, Good morning. I think the issue is
Speaker 2: whether North Korea, which is obviously watching what's going on
Speaker 2: in South Korea with say more than a little interest,
Speaker 2: whether they see this as a moment of some opportunity.
Speaker 2: This is in North Korea remains the most militarized country
Speaker 2: in the world. You've got two large conveys armies or
Speaker 2: raid against each other. You still have more than twenty
Speaker 2: thousand American troops there. North Korea obviously and also has
Speaker 2: a missile and a growing nuclear force. So that's the
Speaker 2: danger here that they would see this as some a
Speaker 2: moment of opportunity to exploit, and I would expect and
Speaker 2: hope that South Korean and US forces would be at
Speaker 2: a higher level of alert just to try to deter
Speaker 2: any such thing.
Speaker 1: June of twenty nineteen, President Trump meets Kim John Un.
Speaker 1: We all remember that moment. What if that happens again,
Speaker 1: What is the signal to South Korea if the President
Speaker 1: elect reducts is June of twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: Look, the South Korean relationship with President Donald Trump was
Speaker 2: one of the worst relations between an American ally and
Speaker 2: the United States. The President really pushed hard about why
Speaker 2: wasn't South Korea doing more to pay for US troops?
Speaker 2: There concerns about the trade and balance and so forth
Speaker 2: so much, and by the way, and threatened to pull
Speaker 2: US forces out of South Korea. So if you were
Speaker 2: to once again ratchet up the pressure, I think the
Speaker 2: most likely reaction would be that South Korea would think
Speaker 2: very seriously, indeed about developing nuclear weapons of its own
Speaker 2: if it came to lose faith in the United States.
Speaker 2: And that's the sort of thing that, among other things,
Speaker 2: could cause a real crisis with China. So there's a
Speaker 2: lot of potential dynamics.
Speaker 3: Here, Richard, how concerns should the average American be here,
Speaker 3: the average just observer in the West be about South Korea.
Speaker 3: This martial law news over the last couple of days
Speaker 3: really caught I think everybody by surprise. How concerned should
Speaker 3: we be about the stability of that part of the world.
Speaker 2: It did catch everybody by surprise, including everybody in South Korea.
Speaker 2: The good news is it went nowhere. You had the
Speaker 2: declaration of martial law. The National Assembly met almost immediately repudiated,
Speaker 2: public opinion repudiated it. The president back down very quickly.
Speaker 2: So to me, the larger story is a good one
Speaker 2: about the resilience of South Korean democracy and institutions some
Speaker 2: forty plus years since South Korea joined join the ranks
Speaker 2: of the democracy. So I don't think we should be concerned.
Speaker 2: I actually think the big loser here is President Yun,
Speaker 2: and he'll obviously face now an impeachment challenge, and I'm
Speaker 2: not sure if he survives. Is what he said in motion.
Speaker 2: He was unpopular before this, he's far more unpopular now.
Speaker 2: He's lost a lot of legitimacy. But I actually think
Speaker 2: it's a good day for South Korean democracy.
Speaker 1: It is not quiet December. We welcome all of you
Speaker 1: across the nation in your morning commute. Bloomberg surveillance, too much,
Speaker 1: international relations, it seems, were focused on Paris, and of
Speaker 1: course on what we see in seoulon with this, Richard
Speaker 1: Haas coming up, Arderchild Friedman and the currency markets, and
Speaker 1: we're looking forward to economic data here in twenty minutes, Paul.
Speaker 3: Richard, let's move over to what we're seeing in Ukraine here. Boy,
Speaker 3: there's so many dynamics here, so many ebbs and flows
Speaker 3: here with an incoming US administration here, how do you
Speaker 3: think this is going to play out over the coming
Speaker 3: months in Ukraine?
Speaker 2: Actually, uncharacteristically, I hope you're all sitting down there upbeat.
Speaker 2: I actually think over twenty twenty five, while the battlefield
Speaker 2: will continue, I think attention's going to move to the
Speaker 2: negotiating table. The person Donald Trump is appointed Keith Kellogg,
Speaker 2: retired Army general. He was Mike Pence's National security advisor,
Speaker 2: but he's been appointed to be the point man for
Speaker 2: Ukraine and Russia. What he's recently written about the subject,
Speaker 2: I find incredibly sensible, is potentially first going to Ukraine
Speaker 2: saying We'll continue to provide arms, but you've got to
Speaker 2: be willing to negotiate in good faith and base the
Speaker 2: negotiation pretty much on a ceasefire in place, and I
Speaker 2: think the Ukraine government has come around to that if
Speaker 2: you listen to what mister Zelenski's saying. And then the
Speaker 2: question is whether they can bring Russia around. But to me,
Speaker 2: it's all good news. There's a focus on negotiations. No
Speaker 2: one's talking about throwing Ukraine under the bus and very quickly.
Speaker 2: I think the pressure is going to be on Vladimir
Speaker 2: Putin to meet Ukraine halfway. So I don't think it's
Speaker 2: crazy optimistic to say in twenty twenty five by the
Speaker 2: end of that year, so a year from now we
Speaker 2: could be seeing real progress diplomatically. I'm actually optimistic about it.
Speaker 3: Richard, how do you think how would you characterize the
Speaker 3: relationship today with President LEC. Trump and Putin? Is going
Speaker 3: to be constructive? Is can we move the ball forward
Speaker 3: on a number of issues? What's that relationship like?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the right question. The atmospherics have often been good.
Speaker 2: The substance who knows, Look, you've got Ukraine be probably
Speaker 2: the first early test we'll see if mister Trump can
Speaker 2: persuade Putin to dial down his relationship with North Korea.
Speaker 2: That'll be a second test A year after Donald Trump
Speaker 2: resumes his presidency because and re enters the Oval Office,
Speaker 2: the new starred Arms Control Framework PAUL is set to expire,
Speaker 2: So we're going to learn there as well. Can the
Speaker 2: Trump administration and Putin? Can they extend the nuclear arms
Speaker 2: agreements that have been so central to international stability? So
Speaker 2: there's any number of issues. So I'm not in the
Speaker 2: predictions business, and I don't think there's any way of knowing,
Speaker 2: but we're going to have some pretty early indications, beginning
Speaker 2: with Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Richard Hass, look at your work with the consult Foreign
Speaker 1: Relations and your ability to write prodigiously about this. Let
Speaker 1: us stop and go back to really an important work.
Speaker 1: Foreign policy begins at home. How are we doing, Richard Hass,
Speaker 1: how we doing in building out our domestic structure to
Speaker 1: project internationally?
Speaker 2: If I were still a professor, I give us a
Speaker 2: pretty low grade. I'm not sure I give us a
Speaker 2: passing grade. We're extraordinarily divided, which makes it increasingly difficult
Speaker 2: to be consistent and reliable either for our friends or
Speaker 2: against our flos. We're also been unsuccessful at tackling many
Speaker 2: of our domestic challenges. Just take two. One is the
Speaker 2: border situation, and if people in this country see real
Speaker 2: problems here at home, they don't have the bandwidth, they
Speaker 2: don't have the focus on the rest of the world.
Speaker 2: The other something you talk a lot about on your
Speaker 2: program here, which is the deficit and debt. And again
Speaker 2: we'll see whether we have the collective will to tackle
Speaker 2: to tackle that. It's interesting the numbers that have brought
Speaker 2: down the French government running a deficit to GDP ratio
Speaker 2: about six or so percent. Guess what, that's where we are,
Speaker 2: and our cumulative debt is essentially now what equal to RGDP,
Speaker 2: So we're in serious water. So I think there's real
Speaker 2: issues about our focus, our political consensus, and also just
Speaker 2: the resource availability for the United States to play the
Speaker 2: kind of role in the world that we have for
Speaker 2: what eighty years now, and that I would argue has
Speaker 2: served us in the world pretty well.
Speaker 1: You were a young laded oberman. There's a photo out
Speaker 1: of Paul Sweeney of Barnier. I think he couldn't shave
Speaker 1: he was so young. In Pompadou, which harkens back to
Speaker 1: folks in nineteen sixty two in the collapse of another
Speaker 1: French government. Richard has a question I asked our Stephen
Speaker 1: Coe earlier, should we get ready for a sixth French Republic?
Speaker 2: A good question, but the problems to me aren't so
Speaker 2: much mechanical tom as political. So you have the left
Speaker 2: and the right voting down the Prime minister, and all
Speaker 2: this comes against the backdrop of I think mccrome, mishandling
Speaker 2: French politics, calling for map elections when they are unlikely
Speaker 2: to result in anything good. But the real question is
Speaker 2: what is the left and the right willing to vote for?
Speaker 2: So it's the issues, not just Barneer. The issue is
Speaker 2: not mechanical like it was with the Fourth Republic. The
Speaker 2: real question to me is do you have a consensus
Speaker 2: in France to take some difficult decisions about spending, taxation
Speaker 2: and the rest. Sounds familiar, I expect, and I don't
Speaker 2: think that can be fixed mechanically with rewriting the rules
Speaker 2: of French politics. And you couldn't rewrite the rules in
Speaker 2: any case quickly enough we're get approval of them. There's
Speaker 2: no figure like de Gaulle who could ram it through
Speaker 2: the French political system, so I think we're pretty much
Speaker 2: stuck with the Fifth Republic.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for the time. Richard Hass, of course,
Speaker 1: with cent of you partners, can't say enough about his
Speaker 1: work with the Council on Foreign Relations and Foreign Affairs
Speaker 1: magazine as well.