Jonathan Savage recaps House Speaker Johnson's address to Britain's Parliament
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Transcript
13 segmentsJohn Mounce filling in for J.T. And history has been made. It's a minor bit of history, but we'll take whatever we can get. Joining me now is Jonathan Savage, live from London. And Jonathan, our House Speaker, he has just made it. Mike Johnson has, for the first time, he's made an address to Britain's Parliament. This is the first time that's happened? So, Mike Johnson. talking to parliamentarians in a committee room, even though it was not the grand chamber or anything like that, it was still historic. And he came, I suppose the timing was a little bit unfortunate because it came after possibly the biggest transatlantic rift. that we have seen in a very long time. Mike Johnson told MPs that he'd come to London to calm the waters. He said that our countries had worked through disagreements before and will do so again. He talked about the shared history. He talked about how they've always worked together on security and how the UK and the US all face common threats from the likes of China, Russia, and Iran. Is there legitimate concern that this could actually result in some sort of a... permanent rift between the United States and NATO because the, I guess the ideas they are seeing what we're doing as being aggressive towards Greenland and that, of course, would violate the provisions of what we want out of NATO. Of course, they absolutely see this. They're looking at this and thinking, look, we're all meant to be on the same team. We're all meant to be on the same site. We all have a stake in making sure that Greenland is not encroached by adversaries, and we're all willing to step up and defend it. And last week, several countries sent a small number of troops there on reconnaissance missions, which President Trump interpreted as a message to him rather than as a message to China and Russia. And it was after that that he decided to put tariffs on those eight countries, including the United Kingdom. It is interesting that Donald Trump, as much as he talked about, he's not ruling out military action, he does revert back to the tariff thing, which has been right now, you know, under some scrutiny in the United States, but whether or not he can even levy tariffs. And I know that's before the Supreme Court right now anyway. Yeah, I mean, from the European perspective, they're taking him at his word. They are taking it very seriously. And they are considering what they could do in response. Will they issue counter tariffs? to the United States. Will they throw, for example, the European Union United States trade deal out of the window completely? Will they go further? Will they use an anti-coercion instrument called the trade bazooka, which has never been used before, which could impose sanctions on the likes of President Trump, and prevent US access to the European Union single market? So they're taking it very seriously. They're talking tough, but they are very concerned about what this will mean in the long run. And U.S. markets are concerned, too, because we saw a drop yesterday. I think at one point, was it 800 points or something like that that the market dropped because we're concerned over the possibility of tariffs and how that could affect trade. That's right. And what?
A lot of people are saying European leaders in particular is that trade wars are no good for anybody. Tariffs are no good for anybody. The tariffs that President Trump is putting on these eight European countries, they get paid by American importers. The way they'd harm Europe is that fewer people would be importing European goods, particularly German cars, Italian luxury goods. These are the kind of things which are at most risk from a loss of trade between Europe and the United States. I saw a report about French wine is also going to be a problem. And there's a lot of people who are concerned about the lack of French wine if the tariffs go into place. So maybe that's another one that people are concerned about. Yeah, maybe. There's a pretty good Californian wine out there, too, if it comes to that. But, yeah, I mean, the United States is the European Union's largest trading partner by a very long way. So ensuring that they have good relations is really important. However, this point of sovereignty, this point of one ally taking the territory of another ally without permission, without invitation, that is being seen as an absolute red line, the kind of thing that European leaders now think that they have to stand up to. Well, it's one of those things. It'd be sort of like if I decided I really liked my neighbor's house and I wanted my neighbor's house and I went over and said, I'd like to buy your house. And he said, well, I still really want to buy your house. Donald Trump is really insistent that he'd like to buy his neighbor's house. And they're saying it's really not for sale. So I don't think we've gone all the way to, we're just going to take the house. But he is really, really making a hard offer for he wants to buy the house. And I guess maybe that's, you know, being a real estate developer, maybe that's kind of what's in Donald Trump's mind. Well, maybe I can extend this metaphor a little bit. Let's say you want your neighbor's house because you're worried about your security. You're worried about getting burgled. And your neighbor says, no, you can't buy it, but I'll let you put as many security cameras. I'll let you decide what fences I've got, and you're still not satisfied. That's probably an extension of the metaphor. That's a good way of looking at it. Jonathan Savage, live from London. Thank you so much for joining us this morning, Jonathan.