00:00You heard Emmanuel Macron with some strong words when it came to both the United States and China,
00:08most notably that explicit decision to no longer comply with the rules of the World Trade Organization,
00:14he says, with those trade wars, those trade tariffs that Donald Trump has been supporting.
00:20When it comes to when you meet Donald Trump, well, we noticed it again on Monday night.
00:24Two weeks ago, there was a fawning NATO Secretary General referring to Trump as daddy.
00:29Monday evening at the White House, it was the Israeli Prime Minister echoing a call that had been made recently by Pakistan
00:36after the U.S. brokered a truce with India in Kashmir.
00:43I want to present to you, Mr. President, the letter I sent to the Nobel Prize Committee.
00:49It's nominated you for the Peace Prize, which is well-deserved.
00:53Well, joining us from Washington, he's a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under George W. Bush
00:58and head of the National Security Council under Donald Trump before a falling out, John Bolton.
01:05Many thanks for being with us here on France 24.
01:08Glad to be with you.
01:10Your thoughts on how to handle this Donald Trump.
01:14Is it the same Donald Trump as the one before?
01:16Well, I think it is the same Trump.
01:20He loves flattery because he sees the world through the prism of what's important for Donald Trump.
01:27And I think Netanyahu's move and full view of the TV cameras at dinner last night to present Trump with the letter nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize was a real coup.
01:39It was evidence of how good Netanyahu is at both flattering Trump and getting press attention for it.
01:48So we don't know much about what the outcome of the dinner itself was.
01:52There were a lot of important issues like the Iran nuclear program and the Gaza Strip to discuss.
01:57But I think Netanyahu did the next best thing.
02:01France doesn't have a king anymore, so he can't do what Keir Starmer did to offer Trump a state visit.
02:08But I think he gave him the next best thing.
02:10And Netanyahu and Trump, by the way, meeting again later reportedly.
02:16Who's calling the shots right now in that relationship, particularly after that 12-day war with Iran?
02:21Well, I think what Netanyahu is trying to do is make sure that he has understanding from Trump that Israel and Iran will do what it needs to do to make sure that the Iranian nuclear weapons program never gets put back together again.
02:38And he wants to continue in Gaza to dismantle Hamas, the stated Israeli objective being the elimination of Hamas as a military and political force.
02:49That's not what Trump wants to do in pursuit of his Nobel Peace Prize ambitions.
02:55He wants to bring peace to Gaza, peace to Iran, peace to Ukraine, peace to India and Pakistan, peace to Rwanda and Congo.
03:03So it's a difficult line for the two of them to reconcile.
03:07And as I say, unusually in Washington, we don't have any real leaks that came out of the dinner last night.
03:14So people are still speculating what, if anything, they agreed upon.
03:18You mentioned that seeking peace on all continents.
03:24Donald Trump telling a cabinet meeting a short while ago that he's not happy with Vladimir Putin.
03:32And he said, quote, we're getting a lot of BS thrown at us by the Russian president.
03:40President, if you're a NATO ally right now, how do you read Donald Trump?
03:46One day he's saying Putin should be back in the G8.
03:49The next he says, well, he's not listening to me when it comes to Ukraine.
03:53Well, as I say, he wants that Nobel Peace Prize.
03:56You know, Barack Obama got one in 2009 and Trump doesn't see any reason why he shouldn't get one.
04:02And I think he's got a legitimate complaint about Obama, who had not been in office long enough to do anything.
04:08I don't know what the reason Obama got the prize was, which is not to say because there's no reason to give one to Trump.
04:14He should get one either.
04:15But he's disappointed in his friend Vladimir Putin, and that's how he regarded him, that Putin didn't give him more of an opportunity to bring at least a ceasefire to Ukraine.
04:28And I think that's reflected in a statement he made, Trump made last night, that we would be providing continued air defenses to Ukraine.
04:38It's not a full-fledged decision on continuing all military assistance.
04:43But I think that was intended as an indication, and that's good news for Ukraine.
04:49I think a wise decision if he carries through on it.
04:52Trump keeping both allies and adversaries off guard with these switches and changes that we see in rhetoric, is the United States' position in the world stronger or weaker since January the 20th?
05:12Well, I think it's confused because Trump doesn't have a philosophy, doesn't pursue a national security grand strategy,
05:21doesn't really even do policy the way we typically understand it.
05:26So I think that it's disconcerting for American allies that, as exemplified by his tariff policy, it gets hard to have confidence in the steady judgment in the White House.
05:41It may be unnerving to our adversaries, but I think they see what's going on and they know how to flatter him as well or better than some of our allies.
05:52And what about U.S. soft power?
05:55Last week, it was the State Department announcing that it was shuttering USAID.
06:01The Lancet Medical Journal reporting that could result in 14 million deaths, similar to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict by the year 2030.
06:13All that aid money that won't go to those most in need.
06:16Is that what the United States is about, or was this a smart move?
06:20Why has he done that?
06:23No, I think it was a mistake.
06:25I think ultimately, there are any number of reforms and changes that could have been made at USAID.
06:31I'm an alumnus of USAID from the Reagan administration.
06:35So I believe that there's a U.S. interest in having a bilateral foreign assistance program.
06:42I think those statistics by The Lancet are nonsense.
06:45And I think that it's just unfortunately that Trump doesn't, nobody bothered to explain to him what the value of an effective USAID would be.
06:56I think it will come back in some form or another and may actually cost more in total to shut it down and then set it back up again than if it had simply been reformed in the right direction.
07:08And what about international institutions?
07:10You're an alum of USAID.
07:12You're also an alum of the United Nations right now.
07:15Where do things stand regarding when it comes to, you heard Emmanuel Macron in his speech before the House of Commons saying that the United States is explicitly making a claim that it no longer is complying with, for instance, the World Trade Organization with its tariff policy?
07:35Well, that's a trade issue is a matter of dispute.
07:41I would have, by the way, I'm not an alumnus of the United Nations.
07:44I was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
07:47So I'm yet another alumnus of the State Department.
07:52I think the U.N. is functionally broken in its key political institutions.
07:57And I'm not sure how that's going to be fixed at any at any foreseeable time in the future.
08:04And as far as the World Trade Organization goes, I think some of its rules are badly designed.
08:10I think we've allowed China to take advantage of it over the years.
08:14And it's in need of significant fixing as well.
08:18I didn't know France cared so much about the World Trade Organization as France.
08:22After all, it's a member of the European Union, which has competence to deal in trade, not the government of France.
08:28Well, the French president was discussing the fact that right now he was making a call to the British saying,
08:37we have a system where we find ourselves dependent on the whims of these tariffs
08:46and also on the fact that on algorithms made in China and made in the United States.
08:52Well, that's France's problem, honestly.
08:58I mean, Macron, I don't approve of Trump's tariff policies at all.
09:02I think they're a big mistake.
09:04But I do get a little tired of the French kicking us in the ankle to express their dismay.
09:10I'm not sure that's where the majority of the French people are, but Macron gets a thrill out of it.
09:15It's no wonder he doesn't get along with Trump.
09:17He doesn't get along with Trump?
09:21I don't think so.
09:23I've heard Trump in private give expression to his views on Macron.
09:28And right now in the United States, how are things going where you are in Washington,
09:37where we began this conversation talking about this issue of how to handle Donald Trump?
09:43Is it now all the power in one person's hands?
09:45No, certainly not.
09:48The Constitution remains strong.
09:50The courts remain strong.
09:52The Congress has not been as assertive as it should be.
09:55But that's been a problem beginning 125 years ago, in my view.
10:00I think Donald Trump is going to cause damage, as he did in the first term.
10:05But I think it's still clearly repairable.
10:09It's just too bad.
10:10We're going to have to put up with his erratic decision making for another three and a half years.
10:16John Bolton, many thanks for being with us from Washington.
