WEBVTT - Former US State Department Special Presidential Coordinator Amos Hochstein Talks Trump Agenda& For 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:07.120 Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:10.200 Let's build on the conversation. He's ten years younger without 0:00:10.240 --> 0:00:13.240 a tie. Amastok Staying the former Senior Advisor for Energy 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:15.200 and Investment and must welcome to the program. 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:16.160 Thank you, it's great to be here. 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:17.760 Good to see you're seeing happy. We can get into 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:19.800 that a little bit later. This came from Javier Blasts 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:21.520 just in the last week. Can I have read the pace? 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:24.560 What Ukraine has is scorched earth. What it doesn't have 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:28.360 is read. Surprisingly, many people, not least US President Donald Trump, 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:32.560 seem convinced the country has a rich mineral endowment. It's 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:34.400 a folly. What's your view on all of this? 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:38.199 Well, first, I think Javier has done a lot of 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:41.240 research into this rare earths. I've never seen any evidence 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:45.120 of rare earths in Ukraine. There probably are critical minerals 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:49.600 which are different from rare earths in Ukraine, but not 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:55.520 at a stage where they've been identified and there's been 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:59.840 any exploration drilling, not in any of the commercial quantities 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:02.520 that you are aware of. There may be, and there are, 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:04.920 you know, I'm sure there's some data there behind some 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:08.039 of this that suggested there is, but to get from 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.920 a green field from a discovery to a production can 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:15.120 take many, many years. It's not a This is not 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:18.039 expanding existing deposits. 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:20.039 So I think this is. 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:24.000 A worthwhile conversation to have with Ukraine about how to develop. 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:25.160 Their mineral resources. 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:28.560 We should talk about how to redevelop their gas resources, 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:32.039 how to develop their green power resources. Ukraine I believe 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:35.280 can be a major supplier of power to Europe. Critical 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:37.880 minerals I think is going to be regardless of how 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:40.440 this turns out, is going to be many years away 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:40.840 when it. 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:43.240 Comes to all these commodities. Wasn't a discussion like this 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:46.319 on the table when you were working in government under Biden. 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:50.120 This has been under the discussion since I was working 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:54.120 government in Obama administration, so this has been many, many years. 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:58.640 We've always wanted to see Ukraine develop its resources because 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:02.120 that will give them economic boost, that will allow them 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:06.200 to be more independent from Russia and to grow their economy. 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:10.960 The corruption was the issue, right, but the resources were there. 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:13.880 The issue is we shouldn't be taking the revenue from it. 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:16.520 We should want them to have the revenue so that 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:19.519 they can invest in the country, so that the Ukrainians 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:21.600 across Europe that had to flee can come back and 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:24.800 they can rebuild a country, a military security apparatus and 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:25.760 a future for their people. 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.000 You mentioned corruption, so I'm reminded of an opinion piece 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:31.320 you wrote in twenty twenty when you left the supervisory 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:33.440 board of NAFTA Gas. So you've done a lot of 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:35.800 work in Ukraine when it comes to this sector. Do 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:40.160 you think the corruption has gotten better since then? Tackling 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:42.359 the corruption not really. 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:48.400 I think there's a lot of corruption predates Zelenski. It 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:53.720 was a corrupt society before the Maydan Revolution. The idea 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:55.959 was let's make it better. I think it did get better, 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:58.960 and then some of those efforts stalled. There's been a 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.800 tradition government when there's a little bit of stress to 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:07.079 go and use that moment to rob the kitty from 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:12.000 state owned enterprises. That's a problem that sort of ebbs 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:15.640 and flows. I think it continues with the state control 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.640 and during the war. It's hard to criticize during a 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:22.919 war when you're having your city's bombed regularly, how you. 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:25.440 Don't do that. So there's a lot of temptation there. 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:28.680 But I think it's a systemic issue that the international 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:29.600 community should tackle. 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:32.959 Just ignoring some of the more heated rhetoric around the 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:36.640 Ukraine Russian War because of the lack of accountability of 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.680 where funding is going. Do you think that there is 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:43.760 validity in pushing back unjust how much the US and 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:48.360 even European nations are contributing to the Ukrainians in this 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:49.480 Ukraine Russian War. 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:51.640 You guys separate a couple of things. 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:54.920 One is, we need to support Ukraine because another country invaded. 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:56.720 You can argue whether or not the. 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:00.320 Words that Zelenski used before the invasion were smart or not. 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:01.600 Was it good or bad? 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.400 Nothing gives you the right to invade another country because 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:07.600 you don't like what the leader said. Can't You just 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:10.400 can't do that. So they invaded another country and we 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:14.040 should support it. And they invaded Georgia in two thousand 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:16.120 and eight, and if we didn't intervene, they would control 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:19.600 all of Georgia today and Ukraine. So you got to 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:22.640 stop that then, I think one hundred percent. And we 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:24.680 talked about this already in the Biden administration. There's a 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:27.239 lot of concern about where's this money going and who's 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:29.760 in control of it, And this came up in many 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:32.040 conversations with Zelenski with his peap. 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:33.599 Top people about our concerns. 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:35.760 So what you should do is tighten the controls on 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:39.080 the money and put the oversight in place so that 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:41.960 you know where the money is going. But you can't 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:44.760 do it while also saying, well, because of that, we're 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:46.320 going to allow the Russians to take a whole bunch 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:48.560 of territory and win the war. So it's a really 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:50.680 tough balance. But you know, government's hard. 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:55.200 When you left the government, where was the Ukrainian situation 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:59.239 in terms of how much territory Russia had taken and 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:03.039 this sense of the balance of power at a time 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:06.160 where it seemed like Russia was making some inroads. 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:09.640 So Russia was making some inroads, but largely the confident 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:11.720 had been frozen for a long time. Where Russia makes 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:14.320 a little bit of inroads, then Ukraine makes some inroads 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:18.279 somewhere else. On a netnet basis, Russia was making more 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:22.320 inroads than he was losing, but it wasn't massive amounts. 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:24.080 Of territory, so it was largely frozen. 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:29.440 But that was in order to get to a negotiation. 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:32.080 I agree with the Drum administration that enough is enough. 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:34.279 Let's get to a negotiation. I think you have to 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:36.160 force both sides to come to the table, and you 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:38.880 got to force some tough choices by both sides. 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:40.200 Need to make some tough choices. 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.239 Freezing the ward place and saying, okay, we're done, let's 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:46.400 call this a border is really tough because hundreds of 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:48.719 thousands of people have been killed to do what just 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:52.120 to allow for the parts of the country to go away? 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:56.440 And then what is there a disarmed Russia on the 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:58.520 other side, I don't think so. So they invade again 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:01.520 in two years, in four year. So you have to 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:04.880 create a negotiation that has both sides at the table, 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:08.359 that allows for some kind of resolution that both sides 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:09.680 don't like, but that. 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:10.200 Ends the war. 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:13.159 Some people might the argument that the current president, President 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.600 Trump is attempting to shock the Europeans into action. Can 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:19.040 you walk us through your experience with the European allies? 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:20.400 How frustrating was that? 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:24.560 I think for us, For the United States, it's always 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:26.720 a bit frustrating. I think we like to go a 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:30.000 little bit faster and we want to do things more 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:34.080 aggressively when it comes to areas of conflict and negotiations. 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:36.880 On the other hand, on the economic policy we tend 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:40.240 to go a little bit slower in the environmental issues. 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:44.320 We were as a green pro green administration, were frustrated 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.920 by how far sometimes the Europeans would go without thinking 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:51.000 through the consequences of where they were going, and then 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:53.960 they would suffer the consequences which affects us and they 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:56.560 create high water marks that we then have to deal 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:58.560 with our constituencies of why didn't you're dealing with the 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:00.680 Europeans and it's a bad and so we say, well, 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:02.760 wait two to five years, you'll see why we're not 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:04.960 dealing what the Europeans are doing. So I think there's 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:08.120 always been frustrations there. We tried to do trade policy 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.320 with Europe in the Obama administration, the Biden administration, the 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:15.640 Trump administration, now the again very frustrating, very difficult to 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:18.040 do it. So it's built into the system. But at 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:21.160 the end of the day, these are our allies and 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:24.160 we have to recognize that the argument with them is 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:27.320 our This is the argument inside the family versus the 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:29.560 arguments with others which is outside the family. 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:31.640 But don't almost sometimes need to maybe shake them up. 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.640 You were part of the Obama administration telling Germany not 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:36.040 to go ahead with Nordstream too. 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:39.440 Yet they did it, yes, and if they didn't do it, 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:42.840 large parts of why their declining economy is now would 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:46.880 have been avoided. They bought in to the argument of 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:51.120 your heroin dealer, the first hit is free, and after 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:53.760 that you pay a big price, and some of that. 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:56.320 I went to Journey before the Ukraine War five months 0:07:56.360 --> 0:08:00.400 before and said, something's wrong. You're you're in trouble, and 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:04.560 they insisted that they weren't. When the Russians were playing 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:07.080 a game of filling their storage in the winter from 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:09.760 their own storage instead of from Russia, I said, how 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:13.000 is it possible your pipeline's empty but your storage is filling. 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:16.000 What took the Europeans so long to see the intelligence 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:19.280 that the Biden administration was seeing, and that Jake Sullivan 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:21.760 was openly telling the press from the podium. 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:23.720 We shared all the intelligence. 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.360 I think sometimes they had the exact same intelligence we 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:28.760 had on the invasions. We knew, we were saying the 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:31.720 invasions coming on this day, on this week, on this day, 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:32.400 at this hour. 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:35.119 They refused to see it. No, this is just an exercise. 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:39.320 I think sometimes being the neighbor, you kind of can't 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:43.800 see us being an ocean away, we see it with 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:46.800 clearer eyes. We've missed plenty of intelligence, so I don't 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:49.280 want to you know, we've we had nine to eleven 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:51.520 that people were training inside the United States and we 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:55.000 didn't see it. So I think they were just too 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:57.680 close to the Russians and always making the excuses for him, 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:01.160 and that was the problem with and others that were 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:02.000 making the excuses. 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:03.400 No, he doesn't mean it, and. 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:05.280 I think we have to learn a lot of lessons, 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:07.360 and Europe has to learn more lessons, but I think 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.400 they have learned a lesson. They don't want this war 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:13.080 to end this way because they're worried that this war 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:15.320 it doesn't end here. In five years from now he 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:16.360 invades another country. 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:18.520 I wanted to finish on this because we could talk 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:20.880 to you all day. I mentioned this a couple of times, 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:23.040 and I was half joking but semi serious. Of course, 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:25.840 ten years younger without the tie. I've said this a 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:28.400 few times. There are some really really smart, intelligent people 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:30.960 that work inside our administrations here in the United States. 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:33.120 We spoke to one last week secretly best some of 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:36.760 the Treasury. I worry more and more as years passed 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:38.960 by that those kind of people want to go into 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.120 US government. I consider you part of that. The lead 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:45.760 sing another at am I really talented, intelligent individuals. You 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:47.840 might disagree with them on their politics, but when it 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:50.720 comes to policy, they've thought things through. Do you worry 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:51.360 about that too. 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:55.079 I think it's getting harder and harder to come into government. 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:57.880 I mean, obviously, the hours are terrible. The stress is 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:01.000 why your family time is terrible. I've seen so much 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:05.080 damage to people's families just by making the choice, especially 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:06.040 if you're at the White House. 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:08.240 Or at senior levels in the government. 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:11.880 And the problem is if you're not already wealthy, it's 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:15.640 becoming even harder because the income is relatively lower and 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:18.439 I get it, it's higher than the average American salary, 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:21.280 but it is lower relative to what the earning potential 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:24.000 is for the people that are in those jobs. And 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:27.320 the stress on it and the amount that it costs 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:30.760 you to manage your life the government doesn't pay for. 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:32.439 And the scrutiny. 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:34.920 I mean, I have protesters outside my house yelling that 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:37.760 I'm accusing me of genocide, going after my daughter and 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:41.839 putting her on Instagram, my thirteen year old that comes 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:44.079 with the job and it's not like the Secret Service. 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:45.320 Was there to help me or the cops. I mean 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:46.800 they're just standing there watching. 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:51.840 So what you get, the blowback that you get and 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:55.520 is in to manage your life is really really difficult. 0:10:56.160 --> 0:11:00.800 The process for confirmation by the Senate is out of control, and. 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:02.559 For relatively low level positions. 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:05.760 So to come and be an assistant secretary in some 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:09.960 random agency, you are now supposed to hire lawyers and 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.120 accountants and to do a forensics auditing of your life, 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:16.120 of your personal life, of your financial life. 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:17.720 I mean it's too much. 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:20.960 And so I worry that outside of it being you know, 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:22.400 I made a lot of money, so I'm going to 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:24.319 go into government and play with that for a little bit. 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.480 And that happens at both parties. I worry that that 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:31.320 it gets harder and harder to get good people to 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:31.720 come in. 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:33.440 I think a lot of people share that worry. Almost 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:35.199 as good to see you, to see hipee. We'll catch 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:37.360 up again soon, Amaso stain there. They form a Senior 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:39.880 Advisor for Energy and Investment to President Biden.