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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello everyone, and welcome to “Amanpour.” Here’s what’s coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I don’t have to use force, I don’t want to use force, I won’t use force. All the United States is asking for is a
place called Greenland.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: President Trump backs off his military threat to take Greenland. Now, can he negotiate over it? And I asked Finnish President Alexander
Stubb about the rupturing world order.
And —
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOWARD LUTNICK, U.S. COMMERCE SECRETARY: America first is a different model, one that we encourage other countries to consider.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: From tariff threats against allies to going after Fed officials, what does this spell for America’s economic future? Expert and former
adviser for Trump 1.0, Kelly Ann Shaw, gives us her take.
And —
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLIE WARZEL, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: There are young children who were sexually harassed, whose image, you know, was used against their will
in a sexual manner, and we can’t just look away from that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: — “Elon Musk Cannot Get Away With This.” Atlantic staff writer Charlie Warzel tells Hari Sreenivasan about the growing crisis of A.I.-
generated sexual abuse.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I’m Christiane Amanpour in London.
Donald Trump flew to Davos this morning, dissed Europe before he embraced it, called NATO a deadbeat before saying he was 100 percent behind it, and
doubled down on his push to take Greenland. But to a collective sigh of relief, the U.S. president says he would not use force to get it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: It’s the United States alone that can protect this giant mass of land, this giant piece of ice, develop it and
improve it, and make it so that it’s good for Europe and safe for Europe and good for us. And that’s the reason I’m seeking immediate negotiations
to once again discuss the acquisition of Greenland by the United States.
Excessive strength and force where we would be, frankly, unstoppable. But I won’t do that. OK? Now, everyone’s saying, oh, good. That’s probably the
biggest statement I made, because people thought I would use force.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And the threat of economic warfare remains. Is it crisis time for Europe and for NATO? How to deal with a mercurial American leader who’s
upending the longstanding world order? Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, was in the front row for Trump’s Davos speech, and in a new book,
“The Triangle of Power,” Stubb argues that this is a hinge point in history. And he joins us live now from Davos. Welcome back to the program,
Mr. President.
ALEXANDER STUBB, FINNISH PRESIDENT AND AUTHOR, “THE TRIANGLE OF POWER”: Thank you very much.
AMANPOUR: All right. So, are you all relieved? Do you take Trump at his word? The most awful thing that could have happened was, in your view, an
American military seizure or takeover of Greenland. Do you believe that’s off the table now, as Trump says?
STUBB: Yes. And I do think that we kind of had three scenarios, good, bad, and ugly. And the good would be to find an off-ramp and create a process to
improve Arctic security through NATO. The bad one would be to have a tariff war continued. And the ugly one would have been military intervention.
And I took two positive takeaways from the speech. One was he said there will be no military intervention. And the second one was that he wants to
improve Arctic security for national and, I quote, “international reasons.” So, I think we’ve now de-escalated, but obviously it’s not over yet.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, when you say it’s not over yet, what do you mean? Because I didn’t see any plan for de-escalation. I didn’t see the president
suggest de-escalation in his main objective, which was to acquire Greenland. So, how do you think these he said, I’m seeking immediate
negotiations for the acquisition of Greenland.
And then, as you know, he did a sort of what I call a goodfellas thing, you can either do it the easy way or the hard way. Either you agree with us and
we’ll be really grateful or you don’t and we’ll remember. So, what next?
STUBB: Well, I hope we have two processes, one process which already began in Washington, D.C. last week when Foreign Minister Lars-Lokke Rasmussen
from Denmark and the foreign minister of Greenland met with Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. So, that’s a process which
is supposed to last three months. They’re working hard towards finding a solution. And I hope that we can create a second process.
And this is where Mark Rutte, secretary general of NATO, would be in the lead, where we start reinforcing Arctic security. And, of course, as a
Finn, I would be all in favor of that and doing it, especially within the NATO framework.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, let me just take those two points. And I’m going to ask you whether there’s been some miscommunication. The president appeared to
believe, and I don’t know whether you’ve had the opportunity to talk to him in Davos, and that’s what got him all upset earlier this week, that Mark
Rutte and your all deployment of military to Greenland. I mean, I know small numbers and some were just attaches. You guys said it was to do what
Trump wants, in other words, to explore beefing up security. He thought that it was to confront him and stave off a U.S. military intervention.
That’s one issue.
I want to know what you think about that miscommunication. And is it cleared up? The other issue is what you just talked about, the visit to
Washington of the two officials — with the two American officials. Now, after that, the spokeswoman from the White House said, oh, no, no, from our
point of view, this discussion that the Danes and the Greenlanders are talking about is just a discussion on acquisition. And then the Danish FM
had to say, no, that’s not true. It’s a discussion on how to meet everybody’s objective short of acquisition. You know, basically, Greenland
is not for sale and it’s not to be swallowed up. Do you believe the administration gets that, both those points?
STUBB: Well, the first point is that I think it was a misunderstanding. You see, we are working on something called Arctic Endurance, a mission
which has eight different training exercises with American troops and Americans in the lead under the NATO umbrella. And the eight countries that
sent troops there, they went on a reconnaissance mission which was agreed with us. So, I hope that misunderstanding has been, you know, parked
elsewhere.
And for the second question, as far as the process is concerned, that’s what I mean when I say that, you know, we’re not out in the clear yet. Now,
there’s a negotiation process with the Danes, with the Greenlanders and with the Americans. And I’m hopeful that we’ll find solutions. Of course,
as a Nordic, it is for Denmark and for Greenland to decide about their own destiny.
AMANPOUR: Exactly. I’m going to come back a little bit more to that, the economic part of it. But first, I was also struck by the president saying,
I mean, he said it a lot, but his view that Europe is essentially nothing. NATO is essentially nothing without the United States backing and support.
So, then you said — or before you said that in answer to a question unequivocally, I believe Europe can defend itself. Do you actually believe
that? And how?
STUBB: Well, I mean, remember that I come from a country which has one of the largest militaries in Europe. We only joined NATO less than three years
ago. So, we have conscription, obligatory military service. We have one million men and women who have done that. And remember that our military
trains only in Arctic conditions. So, we basically have the strongest Arctic military force in the alliance.
Secondly, we have 62 F-18s. We just bought 64 F-35s. We have long range missiles, air, land sea. And we have the biggest artillery in Europe
together with Poland. So, if I am asked the question as the president of Finland the commander in chief, can Finland defend itself? The answer is
yes, we can. And we have done it before.
So, I do not under any circumstance want to reduce the deterrence effect of one of the largest and strongest militaries. There’s a reason why we became
NATO members so quickly, and that is because NATO wanted us and America wanted us as well.
AMANPOUR: And let’s just say the worst had come to the worst and that, you know, the president didn’t back off his military threats and there was a
real threat of NATO going to war with itself. Then the whole thing would have collapsed, according to the Danish prime minister, according to many
people, no more NATO. But others were saying, people with a lot of experience, well, we don’t want to trash NATO no matter what happens. And
somehow, we would form, I’m just going to say it myself, a rump NATO without the United States or some alternative that looks like NATO, but the
U.S. isn’t in it. Was that ever realistic?
STUBB: Well, I look at different scenarios, but I don’t deal with almost what I would call utopian hypotheticals. What I think the United States is
telling us is that Europe, take more responsibility for your own defense, take a stronger stance in NATO. And that has many different elements. One
of the elements is that we are increasing our defense expenditure to 5 percent. Another element is that we are increasing, therefore, our
capabilities. And I think it’s in the vested interest of the United States to stay engaged in NATO.
But I fully also understand the American president and the American administration, that they have been carrying the biggest burden, the
biggest share of NATO’s defense. And now, there’s a shift in the burden sharing. And as long as we keep on doing that slowly and surely, we’ll be
just fine.
So, I always — you know, I’m a little Finnish in these things. Calm down. Take a sauna. Take an ice bath. We’ll sort this out.
AMANPOUR: OK. I’m going to come back to the sauna diplomacy in a minute because it’s caused some sarcasm in Russia. But let me just ask you about
this, because, look, 2025 was the year of NATO and the 5 percent and et cetera. 2026 appears to have started with the year of unrestrained military
intervention. Might makes right. The United States does what it wants. Western Hemisphere is mine. All the rest of it.
You have spent a long time in Trump 1.0 and now, appeasing this president, trying to do some of the good things he says needs to be done, but also
trying not to, you know, ruffle any further feathers. So, I’m going to play for you what both the prime minister of Canada and of Belgium said on the
stage just before the president’s speech.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK CARNEY, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules-
based order is fading. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.
BART DE WEVER, BELGIAN PRIME MINITER: Until now, we tried to appease the new president in the White House. But now, so many red lines are being
crossed that you have the choice between your self-respect. Being a happy vessel is one thing. Being a miserable slave is something else.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Oh, I was quite taken by the strength and the emotion of those last words. You know, wouldn’t stand for being, quote, “a miserable slave.”
And I just wonder, from your perspective, has Europe had enough? Denmark seems to, you know, be chafing under what it considers to be a bit of an
insulting and hurtful description of it by the U.S. president. It can’t defend itself. It can’t defend, you know, Greenland. I mean, let’s we all
keep saying Denmark was one of the first to sacrifice hugely for the United States after 9/11 as a faithful and able NATO member.
But what do you make of the what appears to be, you know, the straw that seems to be breaking the camels back in Europe now?
STUBB: Well, I mean, I have to admit that obviously the claims of Greenland have ruffled quite a few feathers here in Europe, to put it
diplomatically. Having said that, I don’t like the word appeasement or slave, because that’s not what the transatlantic partnership is all about.
You will know, Christiane, that I’m very pro-European, I’m pro-American, and therefore, by default, I am pro-transatlantic partnership. But there
are elements in this friendship that I think are holy and territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence is one of them. We support each
other on each other’s security.
But also, what Mark Carney was saying there, I fully agree with him. I think we are looking at a world change in the world order, a little bit
similar to the one that we saw after World War I, World War II and the Cold War. And these orders, they last for two decades, four decades or three
decades. And it’ll probably take five years for the new order to be built.
And I think the big tension here is between two things. One is multilateralism. That, for me, is the liberal world order, international
institutions and norms. And the other one is multipolarity. And that, for me, is deals, transaction and sphere of interest. And that’s why I think we
have a lot of Europeans who are in this first camp of multilateralism, whereas the American administration is driving multipolarity. And we’re
trying to make these two things meet. And that’s what diplomacy is all about.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, your book is called “Triangle of Power: Rebalancing the New World Order.” And you’ve just talked about multilateralism, et cetera.
How does this actually shape up? How does it shape — how does it take shape? We see a lot of European countries and others who see a rather, I
don’t know, people call it a bullying United States, using the tariff as a weapon, not for trade, but for just about anything.
How do you — and we see them cutting deals and, you know, shifting towards China a bit more, towards India a bit more, towards here, there and
everywhere, trying to sort of maybe America proof themselves. How do you think, then, this takes shape? What is rebalancing the world order?
STUBB: OK. I think the rebalance will basically be what I have now started to call a little bit the rectangle of power. So, we have the United States,
which is very focused on the Western Hemisphere and a lot of transactions. Then you have the Global North, which has the values of the Global West,
liberal international institutions, et cetera.
And what’s going to happen is that there’s going to be a lot of countries from the Global South jostling for a position. And if we can convince a lot
of the countries in the Global South to say that the multilateral institutions are the ones that give us stability, then we will win the
game.
Because transactions, usually they stop somewhere. But in order for that to happen, we need to reform the international institutions like the U.N.,
which means that countries that don’t feel that they have agency or say in these institutions get it. That’s why I’ve called for a reform of the U.N.
Security Council, doubling the members to 10 with representation from Latin America, Africa and Asia. There are many different things that we can do
because I don’t think we should go back to this world of spheres of power.
AMANPOUR: Well, it is something that President Trump likes talking about hemispheres and who owns what and all the rest of it. I just wanted to go
back to your sauna diplomacy. Take an ice bath. Keep calm. As you know, Kirill Dmitriev is the special envoy for President Putin for all manner of
things, including apparently Ukraine. He talks to Special Envoy Witkoff and Jared Kushner. He said, stops primitive approaches, golf, sauna,
negotiation, poison pills do not work. Strategic thinking, partnership and focus on peace do.
So, your reaction to that and most particularly, you know, Trump again in his speech was sort of drawing almost parallels, equivalences between
Zelenskyy and Putin, Russia and Ukraine. What’s your hope, you know, forgetting this, getting some kind of peace deal?
STUBB: Well, my first observation is that I don’t usually take issue with Russian information wars and propaganda. So, I will leave the tweets of
this particular gentleman to their own. I am more optimistic about the peace process. Why? Because now I feel that Ukraine, the United States and
Europe are on the same page.
We’ve been working on somewhere between five to seven documents, the key documents, 20-point plan, security guarantees, prosperity plan, for
instance. And I feel that we got new momentum into these negotiations when Jared Kushner joined in and started making things practical. So, that’s
what gives me hope.
What does not give me hope is that I don’t believe that Russia is negotiating in good faith. I know that Jared Kushner and Witkoff are going
to Moscow tomorrow, so we can be hopeful about that. But the truth is that Russia is not winning this war. Their economy is in shambles, zero growth,
interest rates 16 percent. If inflation goes at the rate at which it has begun this year, it’s going to be 30 percent. They are out of reserves.
On top of that, they will not be able to pay their soldiers when they come back from the front if there is a peace agreement. From a military
perspective, this has been a failed mission for Russia. They have only gained less than 1 percent of territory in the past 1,000 days. They’re
talking about taking over villages in Ukraine, which they haven’t succeeded. And what has been the human cost? The human cost has been over
one million dead or wounded Russian soldiers. So, there’s going to have to be a lot of explanation going on in Russia.
But we need to turn the narrative here in the West and understand that Russia is not going to win this war of attrition. Actually, Zelenskyy has
all the cards he needs.
AMANPOUR: Yes. Well, that you’re going to have to persuade President Trump because he keeps saying the opposite. And as a reporter, I have seen and
witnessed what you are actually saying, that it’s not winning right now, Russia.
But I want to ask you then, what would you also say to President Trump, as a European leader, when he says we get nothing from you? Certainly, from
the British perspective, they say, hang on a second, he’s got Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands, those are ours, you know, he gets to use them for
American, you know, big, big bombers. He’s got the Ascension Islands, also ours, we let them refuel there. There’s a special station north of
Scotland, which is an early warning system to protect the United States from Russian missiles and this and that.
So, they, Brits, think that the U.S. gets a lot. What would you say, when he says we get nothing from you, and you are nothing without us?
STUBB: Well, I think Finland the United States has a very strong bilateral relationship, where we give a lot to each other. We are, of course, a new
NATO member state, but we are now responsible for the northeastern flank of the alliance. We have the largest military in NATO at this part of the
world, together with Poland, and then, of course, Turkey.
On top of that, we have the strongest Arctic force in the alliance. We have thousands and thousands of American soldiers who come and train with
Finnish soldiers. We have just bought, as I said, 64 F-35s, a $10 billion deal with the United States. We have just sold 11 icebreakers, which the
United States desperately needs. We have just forged a defense cooperation agreement with the United States. On top of that, we work on technology. We
work on critical minerals.
So, I think there is very much a mutually beneficial relationship between the United States and Finland. So, I feel that we are quite in a good place
on that front.
AMANPOUR: OK. And one last, you know, 20 seconds. Will you be the European official envoy for negotiations with Putin and Russia on Ukraine?
STUBB: We’ve been talking about having a special envoy from the coalition of the willing or from the Europeans for over a year. I don’t see that in
the cards. I think we have a really good negotiating package right now with the Ukrainians working with the Europeans, with the Americans. So, I’m
quite happy where we are.
But the truth is, at some stage, someone in Europe needs to start having also a dialogue on the highest level in Russia. And I hope the sooner we
get into a peace and a peace process, the sooner we can do that. And, of course, I say this from a very realistic perspective. No matter what
happens, Finland will continue to have a 1,340-kilometer-long border with Russia. And we always want to get along with our neighbors, even if the
situation is difficult right now.
AMANPOUR: Right. OK. President Alexander Stubb, thank you very much for joining us from Davos. Now, if NATO has been spared a war within, have allies dodged Trump’s threat of economic warfare over Greenland? He never mentioned it
during his Davos speech, other than this way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They have a choice. You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no, and we will remember.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: But this week began with Europe in shock over his threatened tariffs on countries that refused to help him acquire Greenland. Trump also
threatened France specifically with a 200 percent tariff on its wine and champagne over its refusal to join the president’s board of peace.
Europe, though, has a threat of its own in the Middle East, the so-called bazooka, a retaliatory measure that would impose tariffs on about $100
billion of U.S. imports. Kelly Ann Shaw was a White House trade adviser in the first Trump administration, and she’s joining us now. Welcome to the
program.
KELLY ANN SHAW, FORMER WHITE HOUSE TRADE ADVISER: Thank you so much for having me.
AMANPOUR: I heard you earlier this week talking about the anticipation of what President Trump might say to Europe face-to-face after all the
threats. You pretty much thought that he would move away from the military and towards negotiation, and that seems to be where he is. Is what he said
today what you expected?
SHAW: It is. I think that his remarks were very broad in terms of everything that he covered. But with respect to Greenland in particular,
taking that military action off the table, I think, was a step to try to lower some of the temperatures. But clearly, Greenland is the number one
topic of conversation at Davos this week. I have been in touch with a number of folks who are on the ground there, and they said that they expect
this to come up in every single conversation.
So, this is the time to resolve things. I think a few days ago was the time to try to bring the issue to the table in the forefront. And now, we’re
seeing the president try to chart a very straight path in terms of negotiation.
AMANPOUR: All right. So, you explain to us then how what a negotiation would look like. Look, we start with the fact that the Danes and the
Greenland say we’re not for sale, nor are we to be swallowed up. You have the Europeans saying the same, but you’re also having everybody say, hang
- The United States has a really good deal over Greenland. It can pretty much go anywhere, anywhere, anyway, anytime. It can do essentially what it
wants. I could read you something in a second if I could just find it. I will. But nonetheless, it does give the U.S. a lot of access.
So, given that, where do you think this goes? Because President Trump says he wants to acquire it. And he used what I call the goodfellow script, we
can either do this the easy way or the hard way.
SHAW: Sure. Well, I spent a lot of time with the president and the senior economic team in the first administration negotiating with several
different countries, many world leaders. And I can say the ones that are the most successful are the ones that meet the president at the core of his
issue. And in this case, he is specifically raising issues related to national security, to potential threats both now and in the future from
Russia and from China.
And those are the concerns that the United States has, particularly given that Greenland is the largest island on the planet outside of a continent.
And Denmark, who is currently in control of Greenland, may not be equipped militarily to adequately defend a landmass that is predominantly in North
America.
And so, I think those are the issues that the president is going to want to hear addressed from his counterparts in Europe and from the Danish
government, as well as the Greenland people. That’s really at the heart and soul of his concern. But I don’t know exactly where this goes. The
president has said he wants total control in this very broad term. We’ll see where this ultimately lands.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, that that that agreement I was reaching for 1951 between the U.S. and Denmark, where U.S. would be able to construct, install,
maintain and operate facilities and equipment in Greenland station and house personnel control operation of ships, aircraft and waterborne craft
and vehicles. That’s just a little of what the U.S. gets. It’s a lot.
And others have said that. Yes, yes, the ice is melting. Yes, there will be a threat. But the threat of China, etc., is a two decades away. That is not
an immediate threat and that NATO is well aware of it and is well postured to, as you heard from President Stubb, to defend all NATO territory.
So, given what you’ve just said that — and what president says, control of Greenland is what he wants. Some people ask him, is it why? You know, why
with all this ability to do what you want there? He says, perhaps it’s psychological. You know, and he said it today on the stage. When you own
something, you’re more incentivized to defend it. Not if you rent or lease or stuff like that.
I mean, OK. OK. for a real estate point of view, I understand that you want to be an owner, a house owner, not a renter. But is it worth the complete
disruption that we’ve been witnessing just to get ownership over something you can already control?
SHAW: So, I think a couple of things. So, one, I don’t think this is just a threat that is 20 years from now.
AMANPOUR: OK.
SHAW: I mean, if you look at China and I worked on Greenland policy during the first administration, when the administration was joking about putting
a Trump hotel on Greenland. But behind the scenes, we were having real substantive conversations with Denmark over some of our national security
concerns.
And that’s because China has created this concept of a polar silk road. It is working very closely with Russia through joint exercises, as well as
setting up infrastructure along the northern sea route to try to capture what it thinks is the future of trade and the future of military, which is
all about the Arctic and the high north. And they also have aspirations when it comes to Antarctica as well, which we can talk about. But these are
things that China is doing. They have four icebreakers. They are not an Arctic nation. They have no Arctic territory. The United States only has
three. And thanks to Finland from the conversation just earlier, we will be stepping that up in terms of our capabilities. But there are real and
present threats here today which are only going to escalate in the future.
So, in terms of how to resolve that, I think there are a number of things that can be done. In the first administration, we were looking at things
like strengthening investment rules, trade rules, all the way up to something much more formal like a potential statehood or a part of a free
association of states. But everything in between was on the table.
And I think now the issues are more national security, less economic, but they’re still there. And I do think that these are negotiations that are
going to span many months as opposed to just the next few weeks.
AMANPOUR: Yes, I’m sure you’re absolutely right. And for sure, China is considered the biggest, let’s say, challenger to the West. But you see what
Western leaders are doing. Prime Minister Carney of Canada, he went into a whole new chapter of cooperation with China, launching a new strategic
partnership, relaxing Canada tariffs on China’s EVs. Britain here has just approved a controversial build of a mega Chinese embassy in London. Others
could follow.
And the Chinese vice president was at Davos, is at Davos. And this is what he said about being, quote, “a credible and reliable alternative” to U.S.-
centric trade.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HE LIFENG, CHINESE VICE PREMIER (through translator): China is committed to fostering common prosperity with its trading partners through its own
development and making the pie bigger for global economy and trade. We never seek trade surplus. On top of being the world’s factory, we hope to
be the world’s market, too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, I mean, they’re very clear. And it’s probably, you know, hard to hear them positioning themselves as credible partners for those who
are concerned about the United States. But, Kelly Ann Shaw, I’m sure I was I’m always intrigued by President Trump when he speaks about President Xi,
for instance, or China. He praised them today on the stage and then in his other bilat and others that were televised. He does. He’s not going after
President Xi.
And, you know, we know that China is heavily all over Venezuela, over the southern, you know, South America, et cetera. And not much mention of that
during the Venezuela operation. So, what did — how do you think this president, this administration is actually dealing with China?
SHAW: Yes. I think it’s a great question. And look, I think from the U.S. perspective, China is the single most significant adversary or competitor,
depending on which way you slice this. But right now, we are in this period of a detente. And this is a constructed one year, 12-month period where the
United States and China are going to refrain from effectively going after one another, not just on the rare earth issue, not just on tariffs. But
overall, you can see the Trump administration not specifically targeting China in any way, shape or form other than in these third countries where
you’re seeing some of this dynamic play out.
But that said, long-term, I think that the United States and China are heading for a much more difficult path. And so, once we get past this 12-
month mark where the U.S. is trying desperately to diversify in terms of critical minerals, rare earths and processing, and China, for its part, is
trying to diversify away from dependence on the U.S. for the A.I. race. We’ll see where we are next November when the two leaders again have to
renew that deal or not. But I think long-term, both sides are aware that this is not going to necessarily end that well.
So, when you see Prime Minister Carney and others trying to make inroads with China, it does still give the administration pause, even though you do
hear the president say nice things about Xi now. I think long-term, it’s a different story.
AMANPOUR: Yes. I mean, they would argue that it’s because of the threats they get and the bludgeoning they get from the United States. But I want to
ask you about tariffs. I’ve spoken to many officials over here, including the head of the WTO, who they believe that Trump tariffs are not about
trade. They’re about a bludgeon about foreign policy, about getting his way.
So, now that I don’t know what you think, probably not. You probably think differently. But the Supreme Court is presumably going to rule on it. What
do you expect to be the result? And where will Trump tariffs land, you think, legally?
SHAW: Yes. Well, let me start with the tariffs themselves, because I actually do agree with some of that. But not all of it, you’re right. I
think the president uses tariffs for all sorts of purposes. Some of them are about leveling the playing field, this idea of your tariffs are too
high, ours are too low, we need to make them reciprocal. Some of them are about incentivizing certain strategic supply chains, like for steel,
aluminum, semiconductors. And some of them are just about pure foreign policy goals, like we’re seeing with Greenland, like we saw with those
tariffs that are in India for purchases of Russian oil, tariff threats on Brazil and other nations that are totally separate from economics.
So, we’ll see what the Supreme Court does. We ultimately don’t know. It’s in their hands. I have every confidence that the administration intends to
replace these tariffs with other types of authority. And I think they have a lot of different levers to pull from. But the story is going to be the
same for the rest of the Trump administration, regardless of what authority he’s ultimately using.
AMANPOUR: And finally, about the Supreme Court. As you know, they’re hearing arguments in the case against Lisa Cook, who is a governor on the
board of the Federal Reserve Governing Board. Trump made a move to fire her, and the Supreme Court allegedly looks a bit sort of skeptical about
that. But also, in the room was the Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who’s also, you know, under investigation by the DOJ, threatening a criminal
indictment, and he’s pushed back very significantly against that.
I guess my question to you is, all of this is unprecedented. How does that serve America in terms of its economy, in terms of its growth, in terms of
its credibility at home and abroad?
SHAW: I think, look, the president and the administration are trying to take a generational swing at both the global trade and financial systems.
And they’re also doing it on the domestic policy front as well. So, these are massive swings. And I think you mentioned before, these tariffs rocking
the boat, causing disruption with the NATO alliance. I think it is disruptive, but it is not destructive. Meaning, I fully expect the NATO
alliance to remain intact.
I fully expect investors to continue to pour in money to U.S. treasuries. I expect companies to come and invest in the United States. These are
unprecedented times and unprecedented tactics, to be clear. But the administration is hoping to land this over the next three years, and I
think ultimately history’s going to judge whether they were successful or not.
AMANPOUR: Kelly Ann Shaw, trade adviser to Trump 1.0, thank you so much indeed for being with us. Now, the British government is launching a formal investigation into the social media platform X after the site’s A.I. chatbot, Grok, was
being used to generate and spread nonconsensual sexual images of women and children. Despite extensive backlash to the abuse of imagery, Elon Musk and
President Trump have claimed that any attempts to regulate the site would be an attack on free speech.
Our next guest, The Atlantic staff writer Charles Worzel, tells Hari Sreenivasan why Elon Musk cannot keep getting away with this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARI SREENIVASAN, INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Charlie Worzel, thanks so much for joining us.
You wrote a piece recently in The Atlantic, and you said, Elon Musk cannot get away with this. If there is no red line around A.I.-generated sex
abuse, then no line exists. And I wonder, what got you so upset about this? You’ve been somebody who’s covered technology companies and trends for
years. Why does this feel different?
CHARLIE WARZEL, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Well, I think in some ways it’s very self-explanatory, right? This chatbot, Grok, which is hooked into
Elon Musk’s X, it’s built by xAI, his A.I. company that is also integrated with formerly Twitter, now X. It started to generate these images of people
in bikinis, or people in cellophane bikinis, so it was, you know, see- through, et cetera. People then started putting — you know, asking the chatbot to put pictures of, you know, seemingly children in there, and it
started to become this tool that was, you know, hooked into this social network, and it was used to viralize and weaponize this type of harassment.
We’ve seen this since the arrival of generative AI. We’ve seen that there is a problem with these undressing apps, right, with people taking photos
of people and putting them in these compromising situations against their will. We’ve also seen problems with trolling and, you know, a lack of
content moderation on platforms like X under Elon Musk, and even on Facebook and other places. We’ve seen message boards like 4chan that have
these, you know, awful people on them who just want to cause chaos, who just want to hurt people, who just want to troll.
What happened on X from, I think it was around December 30th to, you know, very recently, was the combination of all these things. It was like taking
4chan and hooking it up to a popular social network that politicians, celebrities, brands, maybe you, I used to post on this network. And it was
being used to intimidate and harass at scale. It basically turned child sex abuse material and just normal, not really revenge porn style sexual abuse,
into a meme. And that was something I think was unprecedented.
SREENIVASAN: I want to read a statement that Grok or X’s safety team, they posted. It said, quote, “We have implemented technological measures to
prevent the Grok account on X globally from allowing the editing of images of real people and revealing clothing such as bikinis. This restriction
applies to all users, including paid subscribers. Additionally, we’ll geo- block in jurisdictions where such content is illegal. The ability of all users in those locations to generate images of real people in bikinis,
underwear, and similar attire in Grok on X.”
So, are the measures that they’re taking sufficient? Do you see any evidence that it’s actually happening and restricting any of this type of
material from existing?
WARZEL: I think that the measures are beginning to be sufficient or more sufficient. It happened basically over a series of steps, right? At first,
X decided that it was going to disable the ability for image generation for people to basically prompt the chatbot, right? This was the weaponized,
viralized thing. At Grok, put her in a bikini. It disabled that, which sort of added one small, small layer of friction.
SREENIVASAN: Yes.
WARZEL: Then the platform said, OK. we’re going to make image generation a paid feature. That in itself was somewhat disturbing because then it
essentially makes non-consensual A.I.-generated revenge porn a paid feature on the platform.
After, I’d say, three or four days of more and more pressure and outrage, finally, they took these restrictions. There are now many, many fewer
instances. I have not really been able to find instances of this being abused in the way that it was. But if you go to other forums, right, there
are Reddit pages, there are other — I won’t, you know, describe where they are, in other corners of the internet, you see people trying as a group to
jailbreak Grok and these image generators, trying to get around all those guardrails and trying to figure out the best way to prompt a chat bot to
put someone in these types of compromising situations.
I think that the problem has been addressed for now, but it took basically two weeks of some of the most heinous stuff that I have seen on the
internet as a product feature for this company to act.
SREENIVASAN: And one of your concerns is that while this might have happened in the backwaters of the internet, this was right in the kind of
main bloodstream here, and it’s just weaponized the scale of how fast this information could spread. Am I right?
WARZEL: Yes, it becomes a meme and it becomes a culture, right? There’s a lot of — there’s always been a problem with, you know, women and
vulnerable people being harassed on X and across the internet, and there’s always been a problem with women and vulnerable people being in all
kinds of places, and some of that is just the chaos of tons of people being networked together. You’re going to get bad actors, and it’s a whack-a-mole
problem, right?
This was a different order of magnitude because it became a game that people were playing, and Elon Musk has said for a very long time that he is
this free speech maximalist. Now, he doesn’t practice that in his actual running of X, but there was this feeling, as there is always when there are
these trolls and harassers on the platform, that this is just — you know, if you’re going to make a free speech omelet, you’re going to have to break
some eggs, right? This is just what it looks like in practice. That is fundamentally not the case. That argument is actually wrong.
Because as you saw with this, when people were trying to call out this behavior, when people were trying to flag politicians or, you know, other
tech companies who could pressure Elon Musk himself, there was an army of trolls who are using this feature to silence women, to basically bully them
off the platform.
SREENIVASAN: Several countries have decided to push back on what happened over these couple of weeks. Indonesia, Malaysia, they’ve suspended the A.I.
bot. Australia, Canada, France, Malaysia, U.K. have kind of investigated the creation of all these sexualized deepfake images. California is looking
at an investigation whether or not the Grok bot basically violated the state laws by facilitating the creation of non-consensual sexual images.
And I wonder, are any of these things going to be enough of a consequence for Elon Musk or Grok to change the way that they roll out product
features?
WARZEL: The bans are, you know, interesting, right? People can obviously get around them with VPNs or things like that. I think that when it comes
to legislation in the government or people like California looking into this, I think what is important in this sense is that people in power or
who can put pressure on these companies care enough to look into it to threaten that action, right?
There needs to be some kind of feeling of consequences because what’s happened right now is — and I wrote this in the piece, this feeling of
this culture of impunity, this crisis of impunity right now in the second Trump administration where Donald Trump sort of sets the standard for how a
lot of different institutions and politicians and executives and people with power can behave. And there is this feeling that there are no
consequences. There’s too much going on. There’s too much chaos. The zone is so flooded that basically if you can just hang on and not apologize and
just move forward, it will get buried by the next avalanche of bad news or outrage or what have you. And you can just kind of keep going and making
money and doing the thing that you wanted to do.
And I think what — the reason I wrote this piece, the reason I’m so mad about this, the reason why I do think that it’s great that, you know, some
lawmakers are looking into this, is that this was such an egregious example of somebody running a company so recklessly and hurting all these
vulnerable people that I think this is a moment for us to kind of freeze on something like this and say, people need to suffer some kind of
consequences for this. There are young children who were sexually harassed, whose image, you know, was used against their will in a sexual manner.
And we can’t just look away from that. We can’t just say, oh, you know, it’s a bug. This is something that we just have to deal with in the age of
generative A.I. And if we, as a society, do give up and just let them run roughshod, I think that we’ve crossed some kind of line. And I don’t think
we can claw it back. We can’t. We basically then have said we’ve ceded these platforms to chaos.
SREENIVASAN: A statement from Elon said, I’m not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok, literally zero. When asked to generate
images, it will refuse to produce anything illegal as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country or state. There
may be times when adversarial hacking of Grok prompts does something unexpected. If that happens, we fix the bug immediately. Have they fixed
all of these bugs?
WARZEL: Well, to be fair to X, they have fixed plenty to try to, you know, respond to some of this outrage as it has really reached a fever pitch. But
the idea that Musk is separating in his mind this idea of like what Grok is generating versus what it’s generating when it’s being adversarially
hacked, you can’t do that as the owner of a piece of technology because there is no technology that reaches a certain level of prominence that
isn’t adversarially hacked.
This is the table stakes of creating a technology that you deploy out to millions of people is that you have to play this game of whack-a-mole. You
have to have teams of people who are willing to protect the users from people who are going to try to break the technology.
SREENIVASAN: At the same time that this is happening or was happening, the Pentagon announced that Grok would be integrated on quote every
unclassified and classified network throughout the Pentagon systems. Should we be concerned on a structural level that a software, let’s just look at
it as a software company, rolls out something to the public that’s so bad and at the same time it’s going to have access to every military secret
that we have?
WARZEL: I don’t look at it and say Grok is bad, right? Grok is a bully or Grok is a sexual deviant or something like that. It’s all about the
parameters. It’s all about what the people who are programming these models, like the guardrails that they’re instituting, the ways that they
are being prompted behind the scenes to respond, right? And Grok is being prompted to respond in a racier manner, in a sort of no holes barred, no —
you know, no censorship manner.
And so, my worry is with the people who are in charge of that company. They are making these decisions. Elon Musk, other people at xAI are making these
decisions to have their large language model behave in a very specific way. And that is extremely concerning when you start thinking about the ways
that, you know, it could be integrated with the Pentagon.
SREENIVASAN: You know, when you broaden this out, there was a U.K.-based nonprofit called the Internet Watch Foundation. And in 2024, they found 13
instances of A.I. generated videos of child sex abuse. In 2025, they found 3,440. And that’s before we have the stuff with Grok that we’re talking
about.
If this trajectory continues, I just wonder in ’26 or ’27, what percentage of what’s generated by A.I. goes from, oh, look, you know, it’s funny cat
videos to this stuff?
WARZEL: The truth is, it’s going to go up if we let it. That number is going to go up. If as a society, as a, you know, culture in places like
Silicon Valley, the people who make these tools, the politicians, the watchdogs, et cetera, the press, everyone, if we allow it to, if we let
these instances slip by and people don’t lose their jobs, or these companies don’t face significant repercussions, and I’m not talking about
slap on the wrist, it’s going to go up.
And it’s going to go up in a way that is incredibly concerning if you are a person with a conscience or a parent or, you know, like truly anyone who
has a sense of moral compass, because I’ve been in these communities to report on them. A great like psychological turmoil to myself and watched
these anonymous people bring up innocent photos taken from Instagram and say, hey, can you put this person in this thing? A daughter, a son, you
know, a younger person, what have you. It’s disgusting. It’s despicable.
And if we do not draw the reddest of red lines around this A.I. generated nonconsensual sex abuse material of minors, but also just, you know, people
of age, if we do not culturally just say, this is poison, this is cancerous, this needs to be excised, this behavior needs to be treated the
same way we treat that material when it’s not A.I. generated and it’s out in the world.
If we don’t do something about that, that number is going to go up. And real people are going to be devastated by that. And I just think that those
are the stakes of this entire scandal.
SREENIVASAN: Staff writer at The Atlantic, Charlie Warzel, thanks so much for joining us.
WARZEL: Thank you for having me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And the stakes are high. And finally, a sweet harvest after a bitter loss. This strawberry farm just opened in Oman after its Palestinian
owners lost their farm to the war in Gaza. The Al Ghul family used to grow their fruit in Beit Lahiya, exporting them to Jordan and Europe. But after
October 7th, vast tracts of their farmland were destroyed and occupied by the IDF. Today, with sheer determination and perseverance, new punnets of
strawberries have successfully emerged in their Barker Garden. The manager says, quote, “God willing, we’ll reopen this project in Gaza.”
That’s it for now. Thank you for watching, and goodbye from London.
END