By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
Russia and Ukraine exchanged air attacks against one another overnight on Wednesday. The strikes came hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to a temporary pause on energy infrastructure strikes during a call with President Trump. Ukraine President Zelensky saying Wednesday that Putin’s words are quote, at odds with reality, adding he plans to speak with President Trump later this week. Joining me now we have Ian Bremmer, he is Eurasia groups founder and president, Ian. Great to have you on here. I just want you to explain to us how could this war actually end with Trump as president? What is the outlook?
00:51 Ian Bremmer
Um, I think a ceasefire, an actual ceasefire, uh, is plausible over the coming months, but clearly the United States, uh, is prepared to accept, uh, much harsher outcomes than the Ukrainians at this point, and they’re negotiating directly with the Russians over the heads of the Ukrainians and the Europeans. So that’s problematic for them. The issue is the Ukrainians don’t have much leverage and it’s not going to be easy for them to continue to fight, even if they want to. I mean, I would say that, um, their ability just to maintain troop levels to ensure that they can keep more or less the present lines of combat, probably doesn’t last past summer. So one way or the other, the Ukrainians need to get to a ceasefire, but that doesn’t end the war and your question to me wasn’t about a ceasefire, it was how do we end the war? How do we bring actual long standing, sustainable peace between Russia and Ukraine, between Russia and NATO? Uh, and and there I don’t see an answer. There what I see is the Americans trying to engage with Putin and have a rapprochement that frankly is not likely to be accepted by the Europeans and is not likely to be accepted by the Ukrainians either. And that that’s the big change of course that’s happening here.
03:06 Speaker A
And talk to me about how that impacts obviously the United States relationship with Europe. We’ve seen, for example, this big run up in European defense stocks on this idea that Europe’s going to have to increase defense spending because the US is backing down on their defense spending with the likes of Ukraine. Where do you see the US Europe relationship heading off the back of the Russia-Ukraine war?
03:41 Ian Bremmer
Uh, I would say that the US Europe relationship is the one that has probably been permanently damaged by the events we’ve seen in the last two months. I wouldn’t say that about the US relations with the Middle East or with Canada, or with Mexico, uh, or with the Asian allies, but I would with Europe because they’re facing three different challenges from the Trump administration. The first, which everyone is facing is the issue of, um, higher tariffs and a more challenging trade environment and a sharper level of US industrial policy as opposed to promotion of free trade. Secondly, the Americans are actively coordinating and trying to build a relationship with Europe’s principal enemy, uh, Putin’s Russia. And they’re not coordinating in any way, uh, those discussions with European allies. And then third, at the same time, the United States is saying that they consider that the European leaders, many of them, are actually the principal security threat to the relationship, not Russia, not China, not Iran, uh, but rather this, you know, as as Trump calls it, uh, wokism, uh, the liberal mind violence, the, uh, opposition to free speech, um, and the willingness of of Trump and Elon Musk and J.D. Vance, um, to promote euro skeptic forces inside the EU, including the AFD in Germany, which is considered widely considered in Germany to be a neo-Nazi party. So I mean, when you put those three things together and no other countries in the world are facing that constellation of of direct threats to their own ability to maintain their system of governance as the Europeans are, you understand why this feels urgent, um, and why why it feels existential. And that that helps to explain the sudden, uh, pretty dramatic steps that European leaders are taking, which is also being, uh, felt in the markets, uh, as as you mentioned.
07:48 Speaker A
Yeah. My my question for you is right now we’re dealing with this uncertainty that’s happening with tariffs, and during Trump’s first term it caused a lot of volatility in the market. And it seems like perhaps, because we’re in that current chapter, the volatility is ever increasing today because of that. Do you think, because of this bad situation that you so beautifully laid out with our relationships with Europe, that there could be even more uncertainty, retaliatory tariffs that are going to put us in more of a volatile situation that could impact our markets?
08:48 Ian Bremmer
Sure. Uh, I think that some of the purpose of tariffs this time around is more structural. It’s really to change trade flows, it’s to get manufacturing in the United States. That will take a long time to bring about. So it’s not just about trying to get the Europeans and other countries to react in ways the Americans want. It’s an unwillingness to accept, um, a free trade order. It’s a belief, uh, that that free trade order benefited, uh, some shareholders in the United States, benefited, uh, some corporations and banks in the United States, but didn’t benefit the middle class or the working class, and they want to turn that around. Now, that’s one problem the Europeans have, the fact that Trump isn’t going to be constrained by his own economic advisors or by the markets, uh, the way that he was during his first term. His team is much more loyal. He’s not running again for office. He was almost assassinated, shot in the head a few months ago, and is utterly convinced that he’s right on this stuff. So he’s more willing to, if you will, soldier through a level of economic pain, and you’ve already seen that in the way he’s talked about a potential recession, and the way he’s talked about, you know, globalists being concerned about markets. Those are his enemies. Those are enemies of the people, that kind of thing. But the Europeans aren’t just dealing with that uncertainty. They’re also dealing with needing to spend far more money on defense. They’re they’re dealing with the fact that their energy costs are dramatically higher than those of the United States, and they’re going to continue to be at least for the coming year. Um, and of course they’ve got massive productivity challenges. They don’t have the big tech giants that the United States or the Chinese have. Now, they do have a social contract that, you know, sort of takes more care of the average citizen and is expensive, but unfortunately, uh, that system of governance that is more aligned with the average citizen, um, has not led to growth and efficiency. Um, and so that the Europeans are kind of stuck without a model going forward, and that’s a real problem for them.
12:29 Speaker A
Ian, 30 seconds left. Given all of that, are you concerned we’re heading toward a recession in the US?
12:38 Ian Bremmer
Not particularly, uh, but I I do think that this, there’s a far higher chance of a recession than there was a few months ago, and it will be almost purely self-imposed if that’s the case. Um, I I I think that what we’re going to see is a massive amount of uncertainty, almost all of which is being driven by the United States. Usually geopolitical uncertainty and market uncertainty is driven by other countries. This time around, it’s not.
13:27 Speaker A
Right. And the question, of course, is it necessary? Ian, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.