How so, Peter?

Well, uh, first point is we, we got a, a bit of a, a clue from, uh, Volodymyr Zelensky in the last 24 hours where he told the Financial Times that, uh, Trump, he...

Because he was asked to explain why Trump so favors Putin, and so much more so recently.

And Zelensky said, um, Trump just likes autocrats and billionaires.

He just likes them.

He's been very open about it.

He's said it many times.

I know.

So just tell us briefly, I guess, about Trump's deal with Russia over diesel and the so-called energy ceasefire that he says, uh, Russia and Ukraine have agreed to.

Okay.

Well, there-- so there are two parts to that.

Uh, and this, uh, this is a part of the sudden flurry of panic he seems to have had, realizing that the price of fuel, diesel in particular, is stuck at a very high level and is not in any way coming down as he's looking down the barrel of this, uh, rather punishing midterm election.

And one of the mechanisms he's tried to use to bring down the price of oil, or, or at least says that's the purpose of it, is this deal he's done with Vladimir Putin, which he announced.

The way that Trump has presented it is to say that this is wonderful news, big important announcement.

Uh, Vladimir Putin is going to release diesel stocks to help bring down the price of diesel fuel i- in the world market.

There's all kinds of states that have been, uh, Republican strongholds, in some cases, well, in the case of Kansas, for nearly 100 years, and it's looking to be tight, right?

Yeah

...

so they can do more faster, [laughs] but the essence hasn't changed.

So now that same rudimentary concept is being worshiped.

I'm indebted to-- There's a guy, uh, who calls himself the Honest Broker, who writes a Substack, uh, called-- His name is Ted Gioia, and I'm indebted to him for, um, inducting me into the knowledge.

He said from 2024 that there was evidence o- of thousands of people falling for, uh, this as a, as their one true god.

He points to reporting by Rolling Stone and others, uh, about tens of thousands of people falling for this.

Yeah

Uh, is it only the Democrats that are sort of telegraphing concern over the last few summits between Trump and Xi Jinping?

Uh, no, not at all.

And in the last week, uh, Republican senators, uh, Roger Wicker, for example, who chairs the Armed Services Committee in the Senate, um, John Cornyn, there was Thom Tillis, all of them have been critical of the imbalance in the relationship and the way Trump, uh, elevates Xi Jinping and doesn't seem to adequately, uh, cater to the US national interest.

So it's by no means a Democrat line of criticism.

Um, even Fox News has been, uh, has had reservations about the way he does this.

Remember Trump campaigned to confront China, um, talked, and then talked about the China virus, blaming China for the pandemic, uh, and then talked about how China was the lead country in running unfair trade policy, which Trump said, quote, "Is raping America." So you put that together, and all of that, of course, was MAGA approved, uh, with his current conduct.

The, it's, it's like his promise, no new wars, and then he launches one in Iran.

... because it's, it's significant to say the least.

How is Trump positioned for this meeting, and what might they be discussing?

Well, with the UN leaders week and 130 heads of government in New York for it, it is a kind of index of Trumpian power.

In the case of Zelenskyy, it's what, a, a year and a bit since that notorious meeting where he intimidated him, tried to embarrass him, although more embarrassed himself, in my view, with that, uh, sort of juvenile bullying.

And he happens to be right about it.

From the very beginning of the war, Mr. Pr- uh, I was, I was in a- You're not in a good position.

You don't have the cards right now.

With us, you start having cards.

So where are things at?

And I wanted to ask you a question about whether the prospect of Canada or Australia joining the European Union could perhaps change its modus operandi, 'cause obviously we're nowhere near to Europe geographically, and currently the EU is the world's largest trading bloc, but I'm just wondering if other countries, you know, like Canada, like Australia perhaps join it, does it then sort of become a bulwark, I guess, ideologically against other countries that, uh, you know, wanna threaten the rule of law or the international order or even democracy? Like, does it become something larger perhaps?

It, it's, it's a really good question, and it's a really, uh, far-sighted question.

I'd make a couple of points.

One is that the way things are structured at the moment, neither Canada nor Australia is contemplating full membership of the EU, uh, because of the way it's structured.

Under the Maastricht Treaty, which defines the admission terms for members to the EU, uh, it specifies that it's European members.

And I, I'll just briefly mention the criteria.

They've got lots of detailed criteria involved.

And I guess, are there any downsides to Australia possibly joining the EU, though we realize this is still, uh, down the later sort of consideration, but, you know, I don't know whether it's our sovereignty or trade commitments.

Whether it's, uh, personal devastation or maybe how they were thinking about Americans and their place in the world.

Hmm.

Well, uh, yeah, I was with my wife and three kids living just outside Washington, DC.

I was correspondent there for The Australian Financial Review at the time.

Um, the...

Well, there's plenty of memories, but, um, the first was the shock at getting the news.

The second was the kids had already left for school that morning on the school buses, was checking they were gonna be okay, and the schools were telling us to relax and the kids were gonna be sent home.

So it becomes an act of self-harm.

So I guess, what are the possible flow-on effects to us?

Okay.

So the reason that this is relevant and the reason it came up, and the reason that Scott Bessent and his Treasury are buying bonds, uh, is first because the US government spends way beyond its means.

Uh, just under 6% of GDP is its annual government deficit.

Uh, its cumulative government debt, as a consequence of years of overspending or under-taxing, depending on how you want it to define it, uh, it's about 125% of GDP.

Once you get over 100% of GDP, it starts to raise eyebrows, lights start to flash for most countries.

Um, so the US is now at 120-- about 125% of GDP.

Yeah.

I think that's why Admiral Cooper-

So again, you know, one bad piece of management begets the next fumble.

Uh, but they've also drawn down, uh, vital assets from Japan and South Korea, US allies, where they've taken air defense systems out of those countries to send them to protect US assets in the Gulf against Iran.

And of course, they've run down their stocks of munitions and notably Patriot interceptor missiles.

Uh, and they've taken some from the Indo-Pacific and taken them to Central Command to feed their war against Iran, which is running...

You'll remember Trump advertised it as a two to four week war.

Well, it's now five months and counting.

Or is it perhaps something else? I mean, is Trump trying to perhaps just punish South Korea for declining to join Trump w- in his war against Iran?

Yeah.

It, it's, it's, it's been a shock to, uh, the region, but also to the world.

Since 1951, the US has formally guaranteed, uh, the security of the Saudis because they wanted to lock down the oil supply from Saudi Arabia to the US, of course.

And then, uh, gradually increased the, uh, security umbrella across the region.

Other Gulf allies built, the US-built military bases, uh, facilities across the region.

And what's now emerged is that the US security guarantee was not able to protect them completely.

The US and its Gulf allies did shoot down thousands of Iranian drones and missiles, but hundreds still got through.

So does that further embolden the Iranians? Does that perhaps even threaten to be, become a new front for the war?

Yeah.

Countries can already do that, uh, using warfare, kinetic warfare.

This is a new type of chaos.

Um, and we've, we've had a, we've had a fair flavor of it through one example is, uh, cyberattacks and, you know, great outages, um, failures online.

This...

AI takes this stuff to a new level.

In fact, uh, couple of weeks ago, I quoted the former head of the Australian Signals Directorate.

Yeah.

So how low are we talking?

Well, we're talking low enough that last Friday when Trump had, uh, threatened more strikes on Iran, that a meeting between Trump and his military chiefs, uh, specifically Dan Kane, the general who's the, uh, chair of the chiefs-- of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the US military, advised Trump at this meeting that although they could continue to, uh, target Iran with missiles and more fire, that it would send their stocks of a range of munitions, but most crucially, uh, Patriot interceptor missiles, to dangerously low levels where they might not be able fully to protect their, their own bases, their own assets, and the bases and assets of the Gulf allies of the US if Iran were to retaliate, which of course Iran would do.

Now, that news was brought to us by The New York Times, Eric Schmitt and Jonathan Swan, and since confirmed by multiple other credible US outlets, uh, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and so on.

We-- look, to be fair to Trump, Samantha, I should point out that going back to the Biden administration, in the last few years of the Biden administration, I was in briefings where senior officials, senior security officials from the US were saying back then they were deeply concerned about the low stockpiles of US missiles and other munitions, and they were, uh, deeply concerned because they could see the possibility of a war, um, breaking out with China Which has done nothing but increase its stockpiles of every type of weapons system and munition, uh, for the last, certainly for the last 13 years since Xi Jinping has been president.

They were deeply worried then, and they had requested that the prime contractors in the defense industry in the US increase their level of production.

Since then, we've seen the Trump and, uh, Israeli war against Iran last year.

That was a brief 12-day exchange, but it still uses large numbers of munitions.

Yeah

Yeah

... of American service members, 16 altogether so far in this war, that, that happened, not to mention the deaths of, uh, the, the murder of people on the streets by ICE agents that occurred last week.

And as you say, what all the polls show is the overwhelming preoccupation and concern of American voters, which is the cost of living and high inflation and how that's eroding their living standards.

Trump glazed over all of those.

Uh, he claimed victory on everything.

Uh, as he likes to say, "I got everything right," and then just spent the next 20-plus minutes talking about electoral fraud.

So why, six years later, with these being the real concerns of real voters in his country and a war which is again raging and pushing up the price of oil back to- towards where it was earlier in the year, is he talking about this? Well, the two, uh, obvious points are, one, his demand that the Congress pass the SAVE Act, which is currently before it, and which it's shown no interest in passing.

I mean, they may be silly, and they may be a bit vain, but you say they're not just vain and silly, right?

Is this announcement and then very quick back flip that he was going to charge a toll for ships entering the Strait of Hormuz, is this just a sheer act of desperation? Is this just evidence that this war has gone completely out of, uh, Donald Trump's grasp? Uh, was he even serious with this threat to begin with? Because surely that wouldn't have been something that I don't even know if the United States could manage that, actually tolling ships in the Strait of Hormuz

Well, well, that last...

Your last thought there, uh, really is the whole reason that this is so risible.

Who can take seriously now any negotiating position he offers? Who can deal with this? Who can trust or give any credibility to this leader? I mean, this is just a joke really.

If it weren't so serious, w- we would be laughing out loud.

Uh, look, it was a stupid, stupid idea.

A- apart from anything else, uh, by putting a 20% levy on the price of everything coming through the Gulf of Hormuz, uh, Trump was putting a 20% price premium on the oil, uh, flowing through the Gulf, which would directly go onto the price of global oil.

I think, you know, he was sort of saying he's gonna keep hitting them and, yeah, all kinds of threats

You know, why did it anger so many countries?

Different countries, different reasons.

It's an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching across the entire Pacific, capable of reaching Australia, and depending on which p- precise model, capable of reaching parts of the US as well.

But it landed in the middle of what's been known for decades now as the Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, which is a pact, uh, signed by all the Pacific Island countries, plus Australia and New Zealand, and it's a gesture of utter contempt for the Nuclear Free Zone because this is a nuclear-capable ICBM.

It's the second leg of the nuclear tripod that nuclear superpowers deploy.

So two years ago, China tested a land-based ICBM.

Now it's tested a submarine-launched, sea-based ICBM.

The World Cup.

Why do you think this is happening?

It's an extension of the anti-Israel and, in a mistaken connection to anti-Israel, anti-Semitic and Jew-hating, uh, foment that has been running in Australia for...

Well, it's been running everywhere in the world for centuries, but has particularly accelerated since the, uh, Hamas violent raids on Jewish settlements on October seven, twenty twenty-three.

That has inflamed the, uh, the whole anti-Semitic, uh, movement worldwide.

Activists have difficulty striking at Israel itself, of course, so that's why they fall back on, uh, MPs, electoral offices, or Australian companies that are perceived to have, and sometimes the connections to Israel are, are so, uh, attenuated that it's difficult even to, uh, really seriously connect them in any serious way.

But it doesn't stop these people because they need, um...

If you're running a cause, if you're an activist in a cause, your cause needs continuous momentum, needs continuous efforts at enlarging itself in recruiting, demonstrating effects.

You've been following it, and I was wondering what stood out to you, um, this week from the, um, Commission hearings?

You have been reporting on politics for decades, and I wanted to ask you, have you ever seen this sort of nihilism in the electorate before, or is this level perhaps something new for Australia?

Australia?We've seen it bubble up temporarily and in specific locations, but we've never seen in my lifetime, um, the, this degree, this breadth of, uh, as you say, it's not just change in a policy or approval because Hanson isn't just telling people, uh, that we have to cut the number of immigrants, uh, and we have to look after the local population better.

It's much more than that to the point where last week in her speech for her first appearance at the National Press Club after thirty years in politics and repeated invitations, she finally fronted the Press Club.

And the unscripted part of her comments, so in answer to journalists' questions, she broke new ground.

She violated the interests-- she, she spoke against the interests of majorities.

Now, her whole career has been built on singling out minorities and going in hard and criticizing, blaming, and scapegoating minorities for majority problems.

But in, in that speech, her sort of anger, distaste, uh, uh, prejudices and bile over- overflowed the banks of, of her own, uh, political, um, positions to criticize, um, Australian workers who are by far the majority of the electorate, three-quarters of the electorate are employed.

Uh, and that's a big if.

Is that right? Are the, is there any hints as to what each side has said about where they land on those issues?

It remains completely unclear But we are not hearing any hint that there is any agreed settlement on any point to do with that.

N-no settled agreement.

What we do know on the, the nuclear question is that there...

The most sensitive part is that there's 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, near weapons grade uranium, which is buried, uh, not only in a, in a deeper underground vault, but the vault itself has been collapsed by, uh, a rubble that's fallen, extensive debris from the, uh, Israeli and American bombing, uh, last year.

So it's buried deep, difficult to get at, but the US is insisting that it be dealt with somehow, removed.

There are questions about how to do that, and it's completely unsettled.

Mm.

Mm.

Uh, it is a sign that he very much thinks North Korea is relevant and in play at the moment.

And the reason that North Korea is in play is that the new bromance between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un has put it in play.

North Korea had becomeIt has, it's, it's had phases of being a pariah state.

Since 2017, when North Korea conducted its sixth, uh, biggest and most intimidating nuclear test, plus, uh, demonstrated its first successful launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, since that time, 2000...

And it also announced that it had acquired the ability to build a thermonuclear device.

Since that time, it's been a, an international pariah.

Mm

As dumb, and I'm gonna quote here, "As a bag of hammers." So how dumb are we talking about? And are they dumber than many previously thought?

Well, um, thank you for going to that, uh, that, uh, uh, very concrete simile.

Yes, dumb as a bag of hammers, and yes, dumber than we thought.

But I, I'll just point out briefly, Samantha, that the other qualities that Geoffrey Robertson attributed to Putin are not mutually exclusive with being dumb.

It's possible to be, uh, evil as well as dumb, for example.

Um, and dumber than we thought, yes, because as these two wars drag on, the Putin now in its f- Putin's war now in its fifth year invading Ukraine, and Donald Trump now in his fourth month in Iran, or attacking Iran at least, i- exposes their failures more glaringly day by day.

They both, they both find themselves in the peculiar situation of having started these wars, and I should say unprovoked.

Is this just an- another example in your mind of Trump failing to learn, uh, from, I guess, the wisdom of others, let alone not learning from his own mistakes?

Yeah.

Uh, there's already a big gas pipeline that runs from Russia to, into China.

It's been running for about six or seven years now.

It's called the Power of Siberia 1.Putin is now pushing hard to get a second massive gas pipeline.

The first one supplies around 10% of China's, uh, total natural gas needs.

And another, another one, Power of Siberia 2, imaginatively named, would deliver about the same or a bit more gas from Russia.

Putin is sweating on this deal.

Mm.

Mm.

Uh, there's a lot of media excitement about this trip and the prospects for a big trade deal, and Trump talks that up himself.

We in the media are, are often accused of having short memories and, you know, I'm pleading guilty, guilty as charged here.

But in this case, I, I, I did take the, um, take the opportunity to check the, the record.

And in Trump's first term, when Xi Jinping, same two men, agreed to a big trade deal, hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese commitments to buy US products, Xi Jinping didn't deliver.

According to the Peterson Institute of International Economics, which is a credible Washington think tank, the Chinese government ended up buying 51% of what they had promised to buy, 51.

The fentanyl side of things, Xi Jinping has been promising US presidents, including Obama, Biden, for years, that, uh, China would stop the flow, curb the flow.

Yeah.

Uh, tell us about how Germany and Japan, how both of them have risen to become, you know, these upholders of democracy when, of course, their history was, was quite the opposite.

Two parts to the answer really, Samantha.

The, the longer term one is that after World War II, like Japan, Germany was reduced to a very pacifist but also a sort of penitent state.

Japan and Germany alike really internalized the lessons of, uh, their fascist experience and their expansionist experience, their quest for global dominance.

They really learned those lessons.

They learned them the hard way, and they spent the post-war, uh, decades a couple of-- doing a couple of things.

Both Japan and Germany made themselves into model international citizens for the last 75 years.

Yeah.

So what say you, Peter? Is this a strong argument for us considering carefully developing our nuclear capacity? 'Cause like you say there, yes, there is no moral equivalence between the United States and Iran, but obviously many would agree the US is behaving under Donald Trump in an incredibly erratic and, and sometimes frightening way.

Yeah.

I find it unlikely that Donald Trump will launch a nuclear war.

Uh, he, he has said many times, and people who've worked for him have told me privately that his greatest single, uh, fear is nuclear war.

But, uh, we have to look at it now from a broader perspective.

Uh, there is a case that Australia should look at the question of its nuclear protection, nuclear deterrence.

Australia decided that it would move towards acquiring nuclear weapons in the 1960s, and to this day, there are concrete footings In the bush at Jervis Bay on the New South Wales coast, where they started to build a nuclear reactor that was going to be, uh, manufacturing plu- uh, uranium and plutonium for that program.

But what do you say, Peter, to that one?

That's huge.

Uh, another one is that, uh, China has given Iran access to its proprietary and military-grade GPS system.

So the world has a few different GPS systems.

There's the US-based one, which we in Australia use, and most countries in the West use.

Uh, the Russians have got their own one.

The EU has their own one, Galileo, and the Chinese have their one called the Beidou system.

The Beidou system has been around for a few years.

Yes.