MCMAHON:
In the coming week, France, the United Kingdom and Iran holds snap elections. And the European Union plans to impose new tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. It’s June 27, 2024 and time for The World Next Week. I’m Bob McMahon.
ROBBINS:
And I’m Carla Anne Robbins. Bob first, welcome back. I hope you had a great vacation.
MCMAHON:
Thank you. I did.
ROBBINS:
Let’s start in France. I don’t think you went to France for vacation.
MCMAHON:
No.
ROBBINS:
Oh, tant pis. On Sunday, the French are going to vote for a new National Assembly and this comes after President Emmanuel Macron called snap elections after a major drubbing by Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally in the European Parliament elections earlier this month. And we talked about this last week while you were gone, this is a major gamble from Macron and the polls are not in his favor with his party trailing far behind the National Rally and the left’s New Popular Front. Macron, of course, will still be president no matter what the outcome until the next elections in 2027. But what will it mean for France if this gamble doesn’t pay off for him?
MCMAHON:
Well, it’s hugely consequential by all accounts. And by a lot of the analysis that’s coming in, Carla, especially as the polls continue to show the National Rally doing quite well. One of the calculations of Macron seems to have been that there’s lower turnout in the European Parliament elections. That you have a more sort of dedicated core that’s voting. Once we bring this to the national, people will come to their senses and they’ll vote. They’ll end up coalescing around the centrist coalition, which is what Macron has built to hold onto power.
But you’re seeing a lot of analysts coming in with increasingly sharp language about Macron. Some calling it just an idiotic move, others raising the specter of what Germany did in the early 30s that led to the democratic rise of what became the Nazi party in terms of letting a radical fringe come into government and then exposing the country to risk.
So this is the type of language that’s being raised here. At the very least, or another possible scenario I should say, is that you do get a coalition, if the polls hold up, if the opinion surveys bear out, you do get some sort of a coalition that in which the National Rally is in the driver’s seat. And then you have what the French call cohabitation or cohabitation government in which the president who holds many of the foreign policy, if not all the foreign policy levers, the important ones, has to co-govern with another party movement that is controlling the domestic levers.
And there you get into potential gridlock, especially if you look at the views that Macron’s movement has compared to the National Rally under which the titular head is Le Pen. It’s got this charismatic twenty-eight-year-old Jordan Bardella who would be stepping in as prime minister. And they could do things like for example, freeze or slow down any sort of transfer of new weapons to Ukraine, which Macron has been in support of. Or slow down delivery and raise bureaucratic hurdles against policies that would help in supporting Ukraine’s ongoing battle against Russia. And there’s other things that involve, say, climate legislation in the European Union for example and other things, migration policy.
So there’s concern about that, about gridlock, as well as maybe it doesn’t pan out, the results that come in do not create a real clear coalition. We get a situation like you had in the Netherlands recently where they’ve had to do a great deal of bargaining to come up with a government that has far-right elements, but also technocratic elements. But again, with the French system being a very different one, maybe you’re still looking at a situation of a hung parliament and then you have a new situation.
On top of it, this was supposed to be a moment of great French unity hosting the Summer Olympics. It’s the plum for any country that’s hosting them, especially a country like France. All the preparations that went into that. Those Olympics are on track to roll out at the end of July. It could be rolling out in a time of deep uncertainty about French politics and the French are one of the pillars of the European Union.
So these are the stakes, Carla, and the polls indicate some worrying signs ahead, but we’ll have to see how this pans out. We will have shortly on our site a scene center from our colleague Matthias Matthijs who really sets the table for what to look for in these two rounds. It starts Sunday and it concludes the following week with the coalescing of political movements after the first round.
ROBBINS:
Do we know what the National Rally stands for at this point? They deleted… They had a manifesto that was on the web that promoted closer ties with Russia and called for exiting NATO’s integrated military command. This used to be a hugely anti-Semitic party. Now they’re saying they support Israel. Do we know what they stand for? Are they just covering all this up for electoral reasons and if they actually take control of the government, we’re going to go back to the old Le Pen National Rally. Any ideas there?
MCMAHON:
Well, you raised the central concern, Carla, which is are they being clever enough to kind of distance themselves from the areas that polling and other information has shown that really hurt them? It should be noted Marine Le Pen has moved vigorously to distance herself from extremist elements of the party in some ways in very credible ways. However, there are clear pro-Kremlin aspects to this movement that should not be dismissed and I think that’s going to be really one of the closest things to watch. And again, it could be manifested in just simply being a bureaucratic obstacle to helping Ukraine or to any sort of extra support for Ukraine or Ukraine’s accession to the EU. Just through that prism of policy alone, we could see concern.
They tend to get most of their support not through French citizens who are fired up about their support for Russia by any means. It’s really anti-immigration or concerned about immigration being out of control and this slogan “France for the French,” including jobs and social welfare and housing and things like that, that would be a way for the party to coalesce around tightening rules for French citizenship. That’s what seems to be the party’s a real slogan that is galvanizing people to turn out.
One other thing I should mention, Carla, is that it’s an interesting time to have an election like this for France also because it’s the summer recess period. And there have been indications…Financial Times had an interesting report that many French are not going to be coming back from holiday to vote. So they have proxies. They have a way of allowing proxies to vote for them during these elections. That adds another element of uncertainty as well. And I’m not sure whether it’s going to be uncertain terms of vote counting or whether or otherwise. But you have this unusual period of time, very rare to have a vote in July in France. And so that further adds to this question of turnout. Will you get this higher turnout above 50 percent? We’ll have to see.
ROBBINS:
And are we overlooking this leftist coalition? I think Macron was thinking that he would be able to split the left, get some of the leftist parties to support him, and they surprised him because they… And this is a really diverse coalition of parties that have absolutely very little in common. Hard to imagine they could actually govern together. Should we be paying attention to them or are they just really not part of the calculation of the fact that they’ve peeled off votes from Macron?
MCMAHON:
To me, that’s one of the overlooked parts of the coverage. So far, they have been mentioned obviously because they do have a pretty reliable 27, 28 percent support. So let’s say a solid quarter of the vote goes to this New Popular Front and this is four main parties, Socialists, something called France Unbowed, the Greens, and the Communists. And there are some pretty radical ideas on the fringes of this party as well…This front as well.
And so will they be going to the mat to reduce the pension age to sixty? Remember this was a big battle that Macron had in raising the pension age and one of the things that’s made him unpopular. Will they be able to take steps that would stop inflation energy prices and what would that mean for the French environmental movement and so forth? So it’s very interesting to watch whether this movement, how it performs, and then to the extent to which they might be willing to work with Macron’s movement to come up with some sort of a governing majority. I’m especially interested in that, but again, the consistent polling at this point does show this, the National Rally looking to be poised to take over. They are polling it more than a third of the vote at this point.
ROBBINS:
Of course, a lot of that has to do with the structure and the way that runoffs work and all that, but that’s why we all want to read this piece that Matthias is going to post on our website here.
MCMAHON:
Exactly, exactly. It is going to be very helpful to kind of help you connect the dots and understand what to look for and then what to look for this weekend versus the follow-up week. So hold on, Carla, we have a lot of interesting things percolating on the European front.
ROBBINS:
Which means let’s cross the channel to the UK through the Chunnel, on a boat.
MCMAHON:
I’d love to.
ROBBINS:
Where the Brits are also holding snap general elections next Thursday, July 4th. I keep thinking of King George coming out on the stage in Hamilton. I’ll be back. The polls there are even grimmer for Rishi Sunak and his conservative party I think, than they are for Macron. How would a Labour government differ from a conservative one in the UK?
MCMAHON:
[hums “I’ll Be Back” from Hamilton]
Okay, sorry, I couldn’t resist. Yes, this is a very interesting race in some ways really bucking the trend of far-right populists emerging all over the place in Europe. Because Labour is strongly, and I mean strongly, polling well ahead of the Tories who have made a mess of things in all sorts of ways. And it should be said Rishi Sunak himself inherited a mess from Boris Johnson. He has not helped himself in sort of the way he’s handled a number of things.
And so, they have really reduced the levels of inflation, but the country’s, safe to say, is in an economic malaise and Labour is preaching consistently under Keir Starmer, who must be said is sort of a bland candidate. But is seen as a very solid figure and a figure to be leading Labour out of its long time out in the cold of fourteen years or so to what his incoming would-be foreign secretary, David Lammy, has been calling it progressive realism. And what is that? Part of it is improving ties with the European Union. There is not going to be a new de-Brexit-ing effort or an effort to come back into the EU anytime soon. First of all, the EU has no appetite for that, but both Labour and the Tories are certainly not interested in that. Lib Democrats we should say, which is likely to run as the third biggest party in the country have been interested in that. But Labour is not going to be reviving any sort of EU candidacy. And understanding that the EU was this major market that Brexit was a huge contributor to this malaise that has been setting in this is slow growth, but also a sense of institutional failure.
The National Health Service is under major stress. There are incredibly long lines of people trying to get treatment in the country. There’s cost of living concerns that housing prices are going up. It’s just this sense that something has to change and people are going to be taking out their concern against the incumbents and long-time incumbents are the Conservatives in the UK. And so, Labour comes in preaching sort of calm competency. Continuity in many respects on foreign policy, you’re going to see by all accounts support for Ukraine. And as I said, trying to mend ties with the European Union. They’re calling for recognizing a Palestine as a state among other policy areas.
And then, it’s trying to shore up investment. You’re seeing in a sense a little bit more of a pro-business approach than we’ve typically seen in Labour in terms of handling of the economy, trying to balance the budget, maintaining the current tax rate and trying to spur investment. Basically, trying to get the country out of its funk and just using some of the wins that a strong mandate can give a new party. And again, the polls are consistently showing Labour will do quite well and could have what’s been called a supermajority, although that’s kind of an overblown term.
ROBBINS:
I think we tended to move on from this election. I spent a lot of time thinking about it because everybody knew it was going to happen at this point. It was going to be a blowout. I mean from the moment that Rishi Sunak stood there in front of Number 10 and got doused, completely inundated by the rain.
MCMAHON:
The symbolism was very strong. Yes.
ROBBINS:
That said Macron is going to be pretty much a lame duck after this election. Olaf Schultz is a lame duck after the drubbing his party took in the EU elections and who knows what’s going to happen in the American elections. So the leadership, EU, NATO Alliance, Europe, future, all of these things are very much in doubt at a period of time when the Ukraine war is still going on.
So a lot is going to fall on Keir Starmer’s shoulders. I mean you described him as bland in the first place. He certainly is reorienting Labour. They’re not Jeremy Corbyn’s party in any way, shape, or form. He says he’s committed to Ukraine. But is this guy going to provide the strong leadership because even Rishi Sunak was pretty strong when he was out there and appointing David Cameron as his foreign secretary. Does he have the chops to provide the leadership for Europe even if he’s not in the EU? Does he have the chops to provide the leadership for the European part of NATO either? I think that’s a really big question we have to think about.
MCMAHON:
Yeah, it’s a really good point, Carla. I think a number of analysts have said for starters, you have to consider what Starmer has done to revive Labour. Labour was in a really bad way after the 2019 elections. Jeremy Corbyn was considered just kind a toxic leader of the party in a lot of ways. And Starmer set about restoring and rebuilding the brand and gets a good deal of credit for that. He hasn’t sparkled so far in the debate stage necessarily, but people who’ve encountered him out in the public and in various other guises are impressed by him. So we’ll have to see.
He’s got a long record in legal areas, so he brings a legal background into it. Maybe it’s just a calm efficiency and sort of restoring some calm to UK political scene is a good starting point. Continuity on foreign policy, I’m not sure how much he’s going to come up with this Global Britain promotional language that Boris Johnson’s administration had. But it could de facto be a case where for the reasons you said UK emerges as this sort of stable source at a time when NATO and the G7 for example, and the transatlantic alliance need that, but it’s unknown and so it adds uncertainty.
It is a really unusual year in which you have these French elections that we just went through. You have U.S. elections wrapping up the year, which could result in a major shift in U.S. focus and potentially return to the America first policies of Donald Trump. And then you have the UK, all three of these taking place within five months or so. That’s unusual and it’s all a big lesson. First of all for civic students and people just interested in the world to follow how these major democracies with very different systems nonetheless strong, important leading democracies, how they sort of set about to choose their leadership, deal with their governance issues and then see whether they can play a role in the world stage. And Starmer could be somebody poised a step forward.
ROBBINS:
Well, we will see the first test of all this because the NATO Summit, big anniversary summit is on the 9th, which is just a few days after the British election and after Macron’s second round.
MCMAHON:
That’s right. The seventy-fifth summit taking place right in Washington, DC will be a chance for presumably a Starmer-led government to step out for the first time. And that will be very interesting.
Carla, I want to take us back to the EU if I could. Next Thursday, July 4th, European Union plans to impose provisional tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Now based on the EU’s initial findings from its anti-subsidy investigation on China, tariffs are going to range anywhere from 17 to 38 percent depending on the company. This is on top of existing 10 percent tariff EU has on all Chinese electric vehicles. So with this action Carla, are we on the precipice of a new trade war?
ROBBINS:
It’s too soon to predict a trade war. And for that we may have to wait for the outcome of our own presidential election. Former President Trump has suggested he’d impose a 10 percent tariff on most imports and a 60 percent tariff on pretty much everything coming from China into the U.S. if he’s elected. So we’ll have to see about that one.
MCMAHON:
And we should know Trump continues to consider tariffs a tax on the other side as opposed to on the U.S. side, which is where they hit the most.
ROBBINS:
Yes. And he also says that trade wars are easy to win. So what can I tell you?
MCMAHON:
Okay.
ROBBINS:
So on these particular tariffs, the Chinese and Europeans say they’re interested in negotiating on EVs. And the EU tariff process has many staps for comment and review before the final tariffs, which if they’re decided on will kick in November. And for now, banks are going to guarantee these duties before they’re actually collected. But this is a serious business here. This is a serious focus of politics and a serious focus of concern. And there are very strong constituencies on both sides of the issue in Europe.
Labor unions and European auto part makers in particular worried about losing their market and their jobs and France has been championing these tariffs. Some French and Italian car makers are less dependent on the Chinese market and they’re really worried about getting squeezed out. Germany and as well as big automakers know Volkswagen, BMW, Tesla export cars to China and they build them in China. And they buy auto parts from China and they’re pushing back hard on the other side and they’re worried about getting squeezed on both ends.
The Chinese also are threatening to retaliate. They’ve announced an anti-dumping investigation on European pork imports. And they’ve also already opened an investigation into European liquor, which could squeeze the French. And it’s not good to rile up European farmers. So we’ve seen that as well. So there’s all these cross-cutting pressures going on here.
So why is anyone even willing to take this on? There’s no question that China’s EV industry benefits an enormously from what the commission called unfair subsidization, which is causing a threat of economic injury to EU producers, purchase subsidies, tax rebates, and below market loans and equity. And there’s also no question that China’s making a major push into the European auto market with significantly less costly cars. In 2020, Europeans imported $1.6 billion worth of Chinese EVs, and by last year that number had increased sevenfold to $11.5 billion. And the commission is predicting that without some attempt to level the playing field, the Chinese could have 15 percent of the market by next year.
So they’re worried about getting squeezed out and they have very much, on the top of their mind, the memory of how China’s cheap imports wiped out the European solar panel industry. And that’s what they’re worried about. And at one point the EU did try to fight back on that front. They tried to impose 11.8 percent tariffs on solar panels from China. And the Chinese threatened to impose a tariff on wine imports and the growers were up in arms and the EU backed down and guess what happened to the solar panel industry? And it’s yet to recover. So we’ll see what happens whether these tariffs actually fully kick in.
MCMAHON:
And we’ve heard reports that there are so many solar panels floating around that people are using them to build fences in their farms. These farmers that you were just referring to before, some of them are using cheap solar panels to shore up their fencing.
ROBBINS:
Is that right? That’s not an urban legend, not an agricultural legend?
MCMAHON:
That was a report in the FT, which I tend to take as gospel whenever they report on these things. But it does get to that other interesting aspect, which is solar panels, electric vehicles, all these are supposed to be part of this new green future that these lower emission and alternate energy sources and so forth. And yet because of the way the world is wired right now and the different systems and this enormous Chinese industry and capability to produce these, we are in this difficult space where you just kind of painted a really troubling picture, Carla. So does China turn to other markets to send its EVs? Are we going to see EVs popping up in other continents first?
ROBBINS:
Well, certainly not in the United States because if you recall, President Biden recently imposed an even larger tariff, 100 percent tariff on Chinese EVs, but also on solar cells, semiconductors, and advanced batteries. And that really is a case of overt protectionism. And the Chinese haven’t threatened a response on that, certainly on the EV front. Because we as it is, don’t import any notable numbers of Chinese cars. We barely import any Chinese EVs. And he wants to keep it that way. That’s what we refer to as protectionism.
But you raise a very important point here, which is there’s a lot of tension here. Do we want to develop our own industry? Do the Europeans want to protect their own industry and develop it up well? And you have the urgency of wanting to have more green cars out there. And the European Union Commission is also investigating other green industries so that the Chinese may or may not be dumping on the European market. The Chinese have had softening demand inside their own country, certainly want the Chinese to be pushing forward with green industry. They have an enormous amount of production capacity. And if they don’t have as much demand at home, where else are they going to sell it? They’re going to sell it in wealthy countries.
So the tension’s there, and you’ve got the politics of it as well. You want people to support green, but people have to have jobs. So balancing that is always going to be very, very hard. And as much as we’re going to probably hear tonight…Tonight, Thursday is the first presidential debate between President Biden and former President Trump probably hear some talk about tariffs and about China there. President Biden has not lifted many of the tariffs that President Trump put on China as well, so he’s not much of a free trader himself.
MCMAHON:
Yeah, the term industrial policy, while it might not get mentioned at the debate, is very much seen as a very real lever now for certainly both major parties in the U.S. as well as increasingly Europe. And I did mention the UK is looking at increasing its industrial policy as well.
ROBBINS:
Maybe we’ll have a little one of those drinking games, whether anybody mentions the word industrial policy, the debate tonight.
MCMAHON:
Might be a dry night for that, Carla.
ROBBINS:
Bob, yet one more election.
MCMAHON:
Okay.
ROBBINS:
Iran, which is holding another unplanned election this Friday, and that’s following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month. Elections, as we all know are tightly controlled by the religious elite in Iran. And there was a field of eighty candidates which was narrowed down to an approved six candidates, five conservatives and one reformist, and now two conservatives have dropped out. So we have four conservatives and one reformist going to the polls here. Is this a real race and is there any chance that people will get a choice? And if they do, is there any chance that there’s going to be a change in the status quo in Iran?
MCMAHON:
All valid questions and there’s some nuance to the response. So I’ll start out by recommending listeners to mini scene setter that our colleague Ray Takeyh has put it up on CFR.org, just kind of scoping out whether these elections matter or not. The bottom line is yes, but which is you’re going to likely see a person, president, emerge who is very loyal to the regime, loyal to the supreme leader. Iran is set up as a theocracy where the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has ultimate authority over everything, but the president runs the day-to-day affairs of the government.
And as we’ve seen a not-too-distant past under President Rouhani can come up with new initiatives and can sometimes push back against the “system” to try to get through reforms. One of the things we’ve heard on the campaign trail, such as it is in Iran is the return to any sort of nuclear…revving up the nuclear talks with the West and the west being the U.S., European Union. And then you add in Russia and China to those talks. But this is the deal that was supposed to be lifting these really crushing sanctions that Iran is still dealing with in exchange for Iran freezing its nuclear program. It has unfrozen its nuclear program after the Trump administration backed out of the deal. And it has been eager though to see an easing of sanctions. Raisi kind of paid lip service to that, but never really moved vigorously in that direction.
And now you have emerging as the lead candidate so far, if you can believe some of the messaging, the polling the way state media reports on things, two major hard line candidates and the one reformist candidate have regularly emerged among leading polling. And that would be Saeed Jalili, a familiar name. He was the former chief nuclear negotiator actually, and former secretary of the Supreme National Security Council is said to be the favorite of Ayatollah Khamenei. Although Khamenei has been fairly muted so far. He’s actually critical of a nuclear deal and is repeatedly said Iran can withstand U.S. sanctions. He’s big on building ties with Russia and China.
His camp is focusing its criticism mostly on a main candidate General Mohammed Ghalibaf who has a pretty impressive resume in the Iranian system as far as things go. He’s the current speaker of the parliament. He’s already run for president twice unsuccessfully. He’s a former longtime mayor of Tehran, has been a commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He’s got security chops. He has spoken a little bit more moderately about returning to nuclear talks, for example, but has also been quick to point to his role in suppressing student protests in ’99, in 2003, for example, to try to show his bona fides. So those two are kind of duking it out. They’re kind of casting criticism at each other. Ghalibaf has also been enmeshed in some pretty high level corruption charges that he denies, but they are persistent.
The reformist candidate is interesting. The consensus is that Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian has been allowed to run to help try to boost turnout numbers. The regime likes to have higher than 50 percent turnout numbers to show its legitimacy and it has been polling much below that. Parliamentary elections early this year got something like 41 percent by official counts. Unofficially, those were said to be even much lower. People are not keen on turning up to vote for hardliners who are curtailing their freedom such as they are, especially those who really crack down on the so-called hijab protests.
And I’d say a quick thing about that, which is Pezeshkian in particular has spoken out in terms of the government should not be in the business of policing women’s headwear. And he’s been saying things that would resonate more with seemingly public interest in Iran. We’ll see whether that results in the turnout. And with him emerging to the fore, which would pose an interesting dilemma for the regime, I think, Carla in response to your question. Which is these elections could be interesting if you have the one reformist candidate emerge at the very least in a runoff. Iran hasn’t had a runoff in about twenty years for president. So that is worth watching as we get into the final day and as this podcast airs, the voting will be taking place in Iran.
ROBBINS:
Is there any chance that they would let the reformists win? And is there any sense that there is excitement because there is reformists? It’s been a long time since they let a reformist run and he’s saying the right things, particularly on the issue that brought all those people out into the street because of the Mahsa Amini protests.
And will there be a lot of people going out to vote for the reformists because they think there’s a chance they…Or at least as a protest vote, maybe a potential, and would the government let him actually win?
MCMAHON:
That’s the tantalizing point. I should also note the former foreign minister, Javad Zarif, is in his corner championing a return to nuclear talks where Zarif was a very prominent figure you’ll recall. Zarif who speaks idiomatic American English and is known very well to American audiences, but still has said all the right things to also be in line in lockstep with the regime.
So that does raise the question…Now, we’ve had experiences in the past where the regime has not been happy about the emergence of independent minded or moderate figures. The 2009 elections, two of the lead candidates who were seen as more moderate were put under house arrest… Have been, I believe ever since then. For example, that the vetting that you referred to earlier, Carla, they did not allow certain prominent figures who’ve held big positions in government from even running, including previous President Ahmadinejad, who is no reformist by any means.
ROBBINS:
No reformist, he.
MCMAHON:
But again, there was this…In a very odd way, you have the Macron gambit going on in France and even calling elections…Is the regime allowing this reformist a gambit of sorts to get turnout higher going to backfire in terms of him emerging, and then they have to suppress it in risk protests? Which Iranians have been incredibly courageous in coming out into the streets when they feel like their rights are being violated. So that remains a tantalizing question.
The general sense is that one of the two hardliners I mentioned is going to be the one who emerges. We had two candidates, two hardliners who dropped out just in the last twenty-four hours as a gesture towards trying to consolidate support for those in the lead. And the regime would like that to be all wrapped up after one round.
ROBBINS:
And the reformist candidate, he’s a doctor, right? And, I think one of the things-
MCMAHON:
He’s a heart surgeon. Yes, indeed.
ROBBINS:
One of the things that not only is he said that the government should be imposing this enforcement, this horrible enforcement of the headscarf requirement. But he also challenged the regime’s narrative on Mahsa Amini death. It’s extraordinary that they let him run. So we’ll have to see what happens with that.
MCMAHON:
Well, Carla, we’ve talked our way into the Audience Figure of the Week portion of the podcast. This is the figure listeners vote on every Tuesday and Wednesday at CFR_orgs Instagram story. This week our audience selected “Ukraine Hits Thirty Plus Oil Refineries.” Is this tactic of Ukraine’s making a difference in the war, Carla?
ROBBINS:
I’m not sure anyone knows. The Ukrainians appear to be doing some real damage to Russia’s refining capacity. Some assessments say 10 to 15 percent has been taken out in the first quarter of this year. That said, there is a vigorous debate about how much that is actually squeezing the Russians. Foreignaffairs.com has been carrying a particularly interesting dialogue among analysts. Supporters of the strikes are arguing that the strategy is putting a squeeze on Russian in the refined oil exports in revenue.
Critics are saying, “Yeah, but it’s so small in comparison with how much money the Russians are raking in that it doesn’t really matter.” There’s no question in my mind that it’s done a lot for Ukrainian morale, not least because they’re using their own home-built drones to do it. And because they’ve been conducting this campaign despite Washington’s pretty fierce objections. They can do it themselves. And Kamala Harris told Zelenskyy face-to-face at the Munich Security Conference, “Don’t do this.” Jake Sullivan told him, “Don’t do it.” And they went ahead and did it. And I suspect…I don’t know what Zelenskyy said back, but I think he said, “I’m going ahead.”
Their argument at the time was…the administration’s argument at the time was potentially drive up global oil prices, which it hasn’t done. And provoke the Russians into doing something even crazier. And knowing Zelenskyy, I think his response would be, how much crazier could the Russians get?
MCMAHON:
Right. How much more can they pulverize Kharkiv than they already have?
ROBBINS:
Yeah, but this was one more case of the Biden administration’s arguing for self-deterrence. And this has been this constant, constant tug between Ukrainians and the Americans. And increasingly with the Europeans on the side of the Ukrainians. Zelenskyy is now pushing the U.S. to allow them to use longer range army tactical missile systems—these are these ATACMS—to hit air bases deeper in Russian territory. And these are these air bases that are using by warplanes that are dropping these massive guided bombs, most recently on Kharkiv killing four people or more over the weekend.
The administration, we’ve heard this so many times, said that this would be too provocative. But we also know that the administration’s decision to allow Ukraine to use HIMARS to hit troops and missiles closer to the border has made a major difference for the city of Kharkiv, which was on the verge of falling just a few weeks ago, and we talked about it.
So the war is still going on. Russia’s still making gains in other parts, but Kharkiv is standing, Zelenskyy is pushing saying, “Self deterrence makes no sense because the Russians are doing everything they can to decimate Ukraine.” And we’ll see how much further the administration is willing to go. Whether hitting the refineries will make a major difference. We’ll have to see. Zelenskyy is clearly liking the sense of empowerment and the negotiations go on.
MCMAHON:
And quite a juicy topic that might be discussed maybe behind closed doors at the upcoming NATO Summit you mentioned too, Carla. But yeah, very interesting audience figure. Thank you, audience members.
ROBBINS:
And in the NATO Summit, which we of course, we’ll be talking about, Zelenskyy is not going to be offered a clear schedule for membership. He will be offered a new NATO headquarters, whether they call it a headquarters, which was going to coordinate training and support and…Which makes a lot of sense, but he’s not going to be offered a schedule for negotiations on membership. So that too, is…We’ll see how much he reacts publicly about that. It’s a tense time.
MCMAHON:
That’s our look at The World Next Week. Next week, Carla and I will be on hiatus, but we will have our annual summer reading episode with Deb Amos for you to listen to, so please stay tuned for that. Meanwhile, here’s some other stories to keep an eye on. Our year of elections continues as Mauritania holds its presidential election. The Tour de France holds its 111th tour starting in Florence, Italy. And, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meets in Astana, Kazakhstan.
ROBBINS:
Please subscribe to The World Next Week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a review while you’re at it. We appreciate the feedback. If you’d like to reach out, please email us at [email protected]. The publications mentioned in this episode, as well as a transcript of our conversation are listed on the podcast page for The World Next Week on CFR.org. Please note that opinions expressed on The World Next Week are solely those of the host, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.
Today’s program was produced by Ester Fang with Director of Podcasting Gabrielle Sierra. And special thanks to Kenadee Mangus and Emily Hall Smith for their research assistance. Our theme music is provided by Markus Zakaria, and this is Carla Robbins saying so long, and I hope you all have a great July 4th.
MCMAHON:
This is Bob McMahon echoing that and saying, be careful and goodbye.