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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: We’re dealing with people that I think are very rational people and they were nice to deal with.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Trump heaps praise on Iran’s leaders, but where does that leave the Iranian people? I speak to the authors of “Stolen Revolution” about the
long history of Iranians rising up for change only to see their hopes dashed.
Then, World Cup fever writer and super fan Simon Kuper joins me on the magic and the madness of the biggest football show on Earth.
Plus —
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELIZABETH ECONOMY, HARGROVE SENIOR FELLOW, HOOVER INSTITUTION, STANFORD UNIVERSITY: When China decides to turn off, you know, its exports, right,
the entire world suffers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: — Stanford University’s Elizabeth Economy speaks with Walter Isaacson about the global giant missing from this G7, Chinese President Xi
Jinping.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I’m Christiane Amanpour in London.
Donald Trump’s public position is that his agreement with Iran is great and better than Obama’s nuclear deal. Here we are.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: On Sunday, we reached an agreement with Iran that achieves everything we set out to accomplish, everything and much
more. Ending the current conflict, reopening the Strait of Hormuz and preventing Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon. That’s what it was
all about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: But nuclear talks have not even happened yet. And a leaked draft of the MOU raises some real questions about which side benefits the most
and whether the United States is any better off than it was before the war.
As it stands, the hostilities will end. The Strait of Hormuz, as you just heard, will open. And Iran looks to get sanctions relief, some immediately
through waivers on its oil exports. Tehran reiterates it will not produce a nuclear weapon, something it said before. While there are no details on how
its tons of highly enriched uranium will be disposed of.
The agreement is meant to be formally signed on Friday. But President Trump said the final language could change before then. And to further muddy the
waters, he added this today. If they don’t behave, I’ll start bombing their heads again.
Here with more detail is the New York Times David Sanger, who Trump called over the weekend after the agreement was made.
David Sanger, welcome to the program. Trump and you spoke. He called you. And you made your report about it. Now he’s spoken publicly, having briefed
the allies. And you are, I think you’re there, following them, or you’ve been watching it anyway. And you just heard his press conference, no doubt.
Just in a word, can you tell me what you think this means for the U.S.?
DAVID SANGER, NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES AND POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY: Well, for the United States, it means a
return to the status quo, right? The Strait of Hormuz was open, Christiane, prior to the war. It was closed as a result of the war. It wasn’t one of
the causes of the war. So, the president is right when he says that we’ll get oil flowing again, assuming that that’s all carried through by the
Iranians. I’m sure it will be, because they want to be exporting again.
But he’s not correct when he says that they’ve achieved all of their nuclear objectives. The only one they’ve achieved so far is a declaration
from the Iranians that they have no intention of building a nuclear weapon. They first made that statement in 1970, when they signed the nuclear, or
ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. They said it again during the Obama-era deal, known as the JCPOA, the agreement to limit their
nuclear program. It’s on the first page of that agreement.
So, everything now hinges on what happens in negotiating the second, much more difficult agreement. And for that, the president’s given up some of
his leverage, because oil revenue will be flowing back into Iran as soon as those ships begin delivering.
AMANPOUR: And, David, you know, certain analysts, yourself included, but I’m just going to quote others right now, and people who’ve been
ambassadors for the United States in that region, have basically said that it’s a very one-sided deal, according to what we’ve seen, and that, in
fact, it could be an MOU of capitulation by the United States.
These are strong words. Others are calling it a major strategic defeat for the United States, because it gives, at least in the leaked document and
the 14 points that we’ve been able to see, a lot of upfront weight to Iran’s demands, including respecting their sovereignty. They said they want
a guarantee of no more war against them by the U.S. or, in fact, Israel, including this issue that we’ve just been talking about, about sanctions
and oil. And the like, and respecting each other’s territorial integrity. How does — how do you read all that?
SANGER: Well, the respecting the territorial integrity and so forth doesn’t cost either side very much to say that. Whether they’ll execute it
on it is another thing. When the president called on Sunday, and I was in London at that moment. I had not expected the call.
He made the argument that the Iranians only get benefits, including the unfreezing of funds and the lifting of sanctions, as they perform on the
deal. But we haven’t seen yet what those benchmarks are set to be. And it seems likely that they will begin to benefit, as I mentioned before, in the
biggest way, which is to say resumed access to the oil markets almost right away, before they have done that 60-day negotiation.
And that leaves the president in a very risky spot because it’s very possible, it’s probable that the Iranians will drag out this negotiation.
It’s an extraordinarily complex one. We learned that when we covered the Obama era negotiation. That took, you’ll remember, a year and a half. We
spent a lot of time together during that time, waiting in hotel lobbies, you know, for people to come out from the negotiations.
And it took a year and a half because of the complexity of dealing with inspection, whether you close all the nuclear facilities, whether Iran can
be allowed to continue to enrich, even at low levels, whether or not the stockpile gets shipped out of the country, which the president didn’t sound
very urgent about yesterday. And that’s all the hard stuff that will determine whether this is in fact better or worse than what Obama
negotiated.
AMANPOUR: Yes. I mean, I wonder what your gut instinct is on that because President Trump is making all sorts of claims that it is much better and
much bigger and all the rest of it. We know that it was Prime Minister Netanyahu who tried to persuade him or did persuade him to pull out of the
JCPOA and who’s now been left out of this final negotiating process and is not happy about it.
And President Trump is even using some — I mean, I haven’t really heard him say this kind of thing against an Israeli prime minister. I haven’t
heard other U.S. presidents say it either, but not very complimentary to what is their specialist relationship, either their most special
relationship, that with Israel. So, where do you think that part of it is going to stand?
SANGER: Well, Christiane, when the history of this whole past four months is written, I think one of the most fascinating parts will be how tied
together Netanyahu and Trump were at the beginning of this process. It was Netanyahu and the head of the Mossad, David Barnea, who convinced the
president to come in and join the attacks, lead the attacks.
They briefed in the Situation Room, the Israelis did, that the Iranian government would collapse in a few days. There was a whole plan about how
the Kurds would come in and begin to attack the government, how they might replace the current government with a previous Iranian hardline president,
but one they thought that they could control, President Ahmadinejad. None of that came to pass.
And so, you have to wonder if at this point the president’s view is that Netanyahu led him down the wrong path.
AMANPOUR: And we will wait to see. Right now, it is being described exactly as that of a strategic defeat for Israel or for Netanyahu and one
for President Trump as well. But as you say, let’s wait and see where the negotiations go. David Sanger, thank you so much.
Now, despite encouraging the Iranian people right from the get-go to rise up at the start of the year, President Trump has lost interest apparently
in toppling the Iranian regime. Listen to what he told reporters yesterday about the Iranian negotiators.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think they’re smarter. I think they’re very smart. I think they’re far less radicalized. And I think they’re really good. They love
their country. You know, you talk about regime change, nobody will say that, but I guess that’s, look, their one set of leaders is all gone. Their
second set of leaders is all gone. Their third set of leaders, a little bit gone, but for the most part and frankly, I think that’s regime change, I
think they’re going to behave much differently. I think they see a different way of life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Now, this is in stark contrast to many analysts’ assessments that the Iranian regime left in place is more hardline and more militarized
than before. For those hoping to see a more democratic and free Iran, it’s a grim yet familiar cycle as those hopes are crushed once again.
In their new book, “Stolen Revolution,” journalist Yeganeh Torbati and Bozorgmehr Sharafedin trace the arc of history since 1979, following the
stories of six Iranians who’ve seen hopes raised and dashed in that time, and they’re both joining me now. Welcome to the program.
BOZORGMEHR SHARAFEDIN, CO-AUTHOR, “STOLEN REVOLUTION”: Hi, thanks for having me.
YEGANEH TORBATI, CO-AUTHOR, “STOLEN REVOLUTION” AND IRAN CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Thank you so much, Christiane.
AMANPOUR: Can I just ask both of you to start out? Let me ask you first, Yeganeh, how you react to what Trump just said and about those still in
power in Iran?
TORBATI: I think President Trump seems to sort of be painting a different picture than what we see in reality on the ground in Iran. You know, we
still are waiting to kind of see how these changes in Iran’s leadership play out. As you know, Christiane, Iran’s history can take lots of
unexpected twists and turns, but certainly we can’t say that there is regime change in Iran.
What we can say is that, as you mentioned, the people who are in charge now, I mean, we’ve seen a long sort of decades-long trend towards the
military gaining more and more power inside the country, and that has been accelerated over the last few months.
And certainly, you know, we’ll kind of see how these negotiations go, but I expect that it will be quite difficult for the group of people who are in
power now to kind of make some of the most serious compromises on the nuclear program or on other issues.
AMANPOUR: And, Bozorgmehr, what is your view on this? Because, you know, we said the Iranian people were encouraged to rise up, take over, as Trump
said, after the war. And yes, perhaps Trump is dealing with people like Araghchi, who’s the foreign minister, and Ghalibaf, who’s the speaker of
the parliament, but also tasked with essentially running this part.
But there’s also the IRGC, who have made their voice very, very clear, and made their views very, very clear. And frankly, there have been organized
protests inside Iran against this deal with the United States by the hardliners. So, what do you think, given the title of your book is “Stolen
Revolution,” and we’ll get more into that, what do you think immediately will be the political manifestation of a post-war Iran, vis-a-vis the
people of Iran?
SHARAFEDIN: So, I think for the Islamic Republic, it’s going to be a difficult task to sell this deal internally, because it’s — for the
hardliners, we see that they are very critical of the deal. And for them, it doesn’t make sense for the Islamic Republic to make a deal with the U.S.
only a few months after they killed their leader, the supreme leader.
I see that the way they are trying to sell the deal is that this is going to give the Islamic Republic a breathing space to rebuild its offensive and
defensive capabilities to get ready for a full-on confrontation in the future. So, that’s the — from the Islamic Republic perspective, it seems
that they think that this is a good deal, because they can regroup and rethink their strategies and plan ahead for the future. But I think for the
Iranian people, the outcome is quite disappointing, because in the eyes of many Iranians, the war didn’t start on February 28. It started from
January, when thousands, maybe millions of Iranians came to the streets, and President Trump told them to remain on the streets because help was on
its way.
So, for — in the eyes of many Iranians, they were expecting this military campaign to be a way that they will overthrow the Islamic Republic with the
help of Americans. So, in the question of — on the question of the regime change, in the eyes of many Iranians, the regime hasn’t changed, only it
has changed to a worse version of itself.
AMANPOUR: And just to quote, according to human rights organizations, “Iran has executed political prisoners at a rate of one roughly every other
day since March 18.”
Now, Yeganeh, I want to get to you and Bozorgmehr on your book, which is a fascinating take, because you take a number of people to illustrate what
you call “Stolen Revolution” as the title, and how through decades, and it’s not just this regime, but for many, many years before, they have
basically had their resistance crushed.
So, Yeganeh, tell me how you decided to use this, you know, format to tell the story since 1979. And I’m particularly interested first in your
examination of Mehdi Karroubi, who is really very compelling in your storytelling. Tell us who he is and why you picked him as a key point
person in this story.
TORBATI: Yes, Mehdi Karroubi is a really complex and fascinating figure. You know, he is a Islamic cleric, who kind of is sort of on the left,
politically, but very much believes in Khomeini’s vision of an Islamic state, and joins his movement, is jailed under the Shah many times, treated
quite badly in prison, but remains committed to that movement.
And as a result, when the revolution does succeed in 1979, he rises to positions of great power. He eventually becomes Parliament Speaker at the
end of the 1980s, early ’90s. And also, throughout the ’80s, he takes on a role of sort of spreading wealth to the poor in society. And that often-
meant confiscating properties from the rich and from the people who are associated with the past regime.
After Khomeini dies, he is sort of cast out of power by Khomeini’s successor, Ali Khamenei, and his allies. And he then and many of his allies
on the left sort of begin to rethink some of their principles, and pushed along by this baby boom generation of young people in that era who wanted
something new and something different from their government. That kind of results in the reform movement of the mid to late 1990s. And Mehdi Karroubi
plays a key role in that and kind of rises back to power doing his second stint as parliament speaker in that era.
And so, sort of we kind of follow his story. He eventually runs for president in 2009. He becomes one of the imprisoned, under house arrest
leaders of the Green Movement in 2009. And his story kind of shows the narrowing of Iran’s political system. It also through him, you know, we
don’t sort of turn away from the mistakes that he also made in the 1980s, and the ways in which some of the steps that he took, the institutions that
he helped to create, then were the same institutions that oppressed him and his allies later on.
And so, we just felt like he was a really interesting, complex character to really show the entire arc of the Islamic Republic.
AMANPOUR: And indeed, I covered his presidential campaign along with Mousavi in 2009. And they were trying to unseat the much more hardline
Ahmadinejad. And they believed in the end that actually that election had been stolen from them.
So, Bozorgmehr, the Green Revolution, how close was that to actually bringing Iranian people their ability to overthrow, whether or not it’s get
rid of the regime, but change the regime’s, you know, very, very hardline attitude, certainly, you know, for a long time before that, and most
particularly in the in the Ahmadinejad era before the 2009 uprising?
SHARAFEDIN: Yes, I think it was very close. In the eyes of many, the Arab uprising started from Tehran in 2009 with the Green Movement, because it
was the same in nature. It was a youth movement that wanted something more. They wanted to live in a democratic society.
But what happened that it failed, but while we see in many other Arab nations, it succeeded. I think the energy was there. But the leaders,
Iranian leaders, in this case, Mousavi and Karroubi, they were not ready.
And we see that pattern a lot in Iran’s history, that the Iranian leaders are always one step behind the people. So, in the Green Movement, many
people came to the streets and they were ready to create a fundamental change, but it seems that Karroubi and Mousavi were not ready to utilize
that street presence the way, for example, Egyptian leaders managed to make the most of Tahrir Square demonstrations.
We see, I think — I believe we see the same pattern in the Reform Movement itself. After 1997, when Khatami was elected as the president, the energy
was there. He was elected with 20 millions of votes, but he was more cautious than the voters. So, that’s why that opportunity was also lost.
AMANPOUR: That’s so interesting, he was more cautious than the voters. Yeganeh, you know very well that many of the opponents of this regime,
inside Iran, outside Iran, never believed in reform. They said it’s just a joke, it’s just a ruse, there’s no way of reforming this particular system.
I don’t know whether you have a comment on that, but I’m really interested in your view on why, not just from 1979, but even before, under the Shah,
even going all the way back to the, you know, to the constitutional revolution, back at the beginning of the 20th century, Iranian regimes and
leaders, whether they’re monarchist or not, or secular like Mossadegh or whatever it is, have apparently never been accountable to their people.
They just have not had that kind of popular legitimacy.
And every time there is a — you know, an uprising, they get crushed, and obviously in the last nearly 50 years as well. Do you see it that way, and
do you have an answer for why?
TORBATI: You know, I think that requires sort of maybe a historian or sociologist. I think it is true that over the last 100 plus years of
Iranian history, we’ve seen this repeated kind of aborted attempts at greater freedom, starting from the constitutional revolution, going through
Mossadegh’s movement, through 1979, which, you know, we document in the book, and many others have as well, that there were elements and large
parts of that revolutionary movement that wanted greater freedoms and believed that getting rid of the Shah would bring them those freedoms
politically. And instead, what they got was greatly curtailed freedoms and eventually very, very, very restrictive political space as well.
And so, I think, you know, what we sort of try to trace in the book is the fact that the Iranian people keep trying in different ways, and they turn
to different methods, whether it’s first voting, you know, in 1997, voting in this very unexpected way, really for the first time for a candidate that
was not openly favored by the supreme leader.
We took the system by surprise. Then when that was stymied, you know, they turned to peaceful street protests, and they vote again in the green
movement. And then over and over in the last 10 or 15 years or so, we see round after round of protests. And, you know, I don’t expect that impulse
to go away.
AMANPOUR: Yes. So, Bozorgmehr, finally, you don’t just, you know, focus on leaders and the like, but also on ordinary people. For instance, the story
of Hila Sedighi, a teenager who you report was trying to organize poetry nights, only to have it shut down over and over again. But she keeps
pushing. Eventually, one of the bureaucrats signs the permit and tells her, I’m lighting this fire both for you and for me. It’s a small act of
resistance, obviously, from her, but also from him.
So, tell me about that and where you think the people of Iran are going to find themselves now in post-war Iran. Do you think this regime will
understand that they need to respond to the people’s needs or else get kicked out?
SHARAFEDIN: Yes, I think the way I see the Iranian society is like a frozen river. So, because on the surface, we see this ice and we see the
political system is very, very rigid. But deep inside, we see a flow, a stream, a very strong stream of cultural and social life. And I think Hila
Sedighi represents that and that culture that how Iranians in deeper layers of the society are fighting for freedom.
In the book, we didn’t want to limit ourselves to the political level because the full Iranian experience, it also includes the cultural and
social and also economic layers of the Iranian society, which we explain in the book.
Hila represents that social and cultural parts, that how she tries social and also economic layers of the Iranian society, which we explain in the
book.
Hila represents that social and cultural parts, that how she tries really hard to find some freedom in the cultural space. She goes through
negotiations with many government officials to create some safe space for creating culture. Of course, she is disappointed over and over. But as we
see and as we see in her personal life, she comes back and only fights stronger.
And I think that shows the spirit of the nation, that whatever is the result of their attempts, if it’s failure, they will come, they will go and
reinvent themselves and come back again.
AMANPOUR: And in 30 seconds, Yeganeh, obviously one of the biggest was women, life, freedom. Do you have hope for Iranian women?
TORBATI: I think, you know, we point out in the book that although women, life, freedom failed in its political efforts to unseat the regime, it had
a lasting and huge social impact, possibly more than any other movement we’ve seen in Iran’s modern history. And I think that shows you the
strength of the Iranian women’s movement and their willingness to keep fighting for what they believe are their rights.
AMANPOUR: Yeganeh Torbati and Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, thank you both very much.
AMANPOUR: Well, for something different, the World Cup is well underway in North America, and it has been a most unusual tournament so far.
For the first time, the competition is playing out across three countries, the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. One of the countries, the U.S., has, as you
know, been actively bombing a competitor, Iran, and many fans and even some participants have struggled to get visas. On the pitch, it’s been full of
thrills, though, including a hat trick from Lionel Messi for Argentina, which made him the World Cup’s joint top all-time scorer, and a thrilling
performance from Cape Verde, where their 40-year-old goalie kept the Spanish team at bay for the entire match.
Let us bring in Financial Times columnist Simon Kuper, himself a football superfan and author of World Cup Fever. Simon Kuper, welcome back to our
program.
SIMON KUPER, AUTHOR, “SOCCERNOMICS”: Hi.
AMANPOUR: So, you’re in Paris, I think, where you’re based. What is your initial commentary on the World Cup? Is it as exciting as you thought,
less, more? Tell me.
KUPER: I’m going to Philadelphia tomorrow, so I’ll start the real thing. I think that after some rather small-time gains, people are now getting very
into it. In the last 24 hours, Mbappe, Messi, Haaland, three of the greats of football, have put in brilliant performances. And I think that whereas
this World Cup started under a cloud of Donald Trump and Gianni Infantino, and the terrible ticket prices, and the rejections, as you say, of some
officials and fans who wanted to come in, now I think the — people are starting to forget about that and really enjoy the football, which is
probably as it should be.
AMANPOUR: Yes, and what matches have stood out for you? You just mentioned the three who’ve just really done unbelievably.
What about lesser-knowns, like I think Bosnia held their opponents to a draw, Iran held their opponents to a draw. I mean, they’re not lesser-
known, but they’re less high-ranked. And Cape Verde, tell me about that goalie. It’s an incredible story.
KUPER: Yes, Vozinha, he plays in the second division in Portugal. He’s 40 years old, and Spain were attacking the whole game, I should expect, from
the team that were the bookmakers’ favorites to win the World Cup. And they couldn’t even beat Cape Verde, playing his first World Cup with a team
drawn heavily from its diaspora, a lot of players from Rotterdam.
And it’s the first real Cinderella moment we’ve had so far. I think the whole world loved it. And the U.S. State Department is now even trying to
bring the goalkeeper’s mother into the U.S. so she can follow the tournament there.
AMANPOUR: Well, wouldn’t that be nice? And was she not allowed before?
KUPER: I think Cape Verde is one of those countries that it’s very difficult to get visas for Donald Trump’s USA. And so, there are whole
countries that have not really been able to get any fans.
AMANPOUR: Right. And we heard about the Somali referee whose life’s dream of being a referee at a World Cup was, you know, fell victim to the visa
program. But as you say, you know, all these horror stories and fears and ticket touts and all the high price for the tickets, et cetera, you know,
they play a big part in the run up. And then, as you said, you know, people start getting into the games.
But how do you compare all the pre sort of discomfort around this World Cup to other World Cups?
KUPER: Well, this World Cup did start under this cloud of ugliness with, I think, the lowest points of the last few months with Gianni Infantino,
president of FIFA, giving Donald Trump this made-up FIFA Peace Prize just before Trump attacked Iran and Venezuela. And I think that that was a kind
of cheapening of football in the World Cup.
But it was the same four years ago before the World Cup in Qatar. This is the third geopolitically turbulent World Cup we’ve had. In 2018, the host
was Vladimir Putin in Russia. So, it’s becoming a sort of norm of modern World Cups that they happen in places with enormous political problems and
darkness. And then the football lights, it’s all up.
AMANPOUR: Do you think, you know, you’ve studied this for a long time. Do you think that is paradoxically a good and positive thing, or is it
enabling those very, you know, more darker corners of political life? I mean, it could also bring a sort of an openness to some of these countries.
I mean, not really Russia, because then they completed their invasion mania by their full-scale aggression against Ukraine a few years later.
But Qatar — what do you think the U.S. might look like after this? Because soccer, football has not been a huge thing in the U.S., has it, like much
of the rest of the world?
KUPER: It’s grown over the last 30 years. The first U.S. World Cup was 1994. I think popularity of soccer as a sport for fans is on a par with
baseball. It’s about third among U.S. sports. But I don’t think the World Cup changes the world. I don’t think it changes countries. But leaders like
Trump and Putin always think it will do them favors. It will burnish their aura. But in fact, the World Cup is often used against leaders.
And so, in Qatar, NGOs used it to highlight Qatar’s abusers of migrants, of building workers, for example. Vladimir Putin had to let hundreds of
journalists into Russia. And also, there were a lot of scenes of ordinary Russians hugely enjoying hanging out and dancing and singing with foreign
fans, which is not a very Putin-esque scene.
And similarly, in the U.S., it’s not just given a platform to Trump. Much more so far, it’s given a platform to Zoran Mamdani, mayor of New York,
who’s very fluent in the language of football, who’s led the charge against high ticket prices. You’ve seen a lot of — you’ve seen even American
police officers, there are videos all the time of them dancing with foreign fans, a guy in Boston juggling a ball for Scottish fans who applaud and hug
him.
So, we’re seeing a different U.S., a U.S. that doesn’t have the kind of Trumpian message of we hate the world. We’re seeing much more joyous
interaction between Americans and foreigners than is part of the Trump rhetoric.
AMANPOUR: Yes. And it’s actually really lovely to see because we’ve been so, you know, bull-versed and bulldozed by this rhetoric, as you mentioned,
for the last, you know, at least more than a year.
But tell me a little bit about your football mania, can I call it that? You started, let me get this right, you started watching the World Cup
basically since 1978. You’re an eight-year-old child in the Netherlands and you’ve attended every World Cup tournament since 1990. So, how has the
actual game evolved? What have you noticed in all your years of World Cup attendance?
KUPER: Well, when I first went, there were three teams from the British Isles in 1990, England, Ireland, and Scotland, and two from the whole of
Asia, and I think two from the whole of Africa. So, what’s happened in the last 36 years is the World Cup, it used to be a kind of European-Latin
American duopoly, and now it really does include the whole world. So, you have Cape Verde, you have Senegal, you have Haiti.
And there’s something lovely about that. Of course, the World Cup should belong to everyone and it’s watched enormously all over Africa and parts of
Asia. And so, it’s great that it’s now really the world’s party. The Western Europeans plus Argentina are still the best, but the
internationalism of the World Cup, the openness to all is new.
AMANPOUR: Yes, indeed. And I’ve just been told that actually the Cape Verde goalkeeper’s mom, who we were just talking about, there is news that
she has been confirmed that she will be attending the next match. So, that’s great.
Now, the next match for England is tonight, after this show airs, before it airs in the United States, and Team England will play its very first match
against Croatia. Tell me what you predict.
KUPER: It’s folly to predict individual football matches, so England are a strong team, stronger than before. Logically they should win. Croatia’s
star player Luka Modric is 40, which is amazing that he’s still there at 40, but football matches really go to form. That’s part of the joy of the
sport. It favors the underdog.
But I’ve just written a piece in the Financial Times saying this might be the best England since 1966, which is the only year they ever won the World
Cup.
AMANPOUR: But why? Tell me. I haven’t read the full article, and our viewers won’t have done yet, but I’m directing them to your article, or the
super soccer fans. Why do you think so?
KUPER: Essentially the English embraced European football, so whereas the country Brexited from the European Union, the English over the last 30
years have said, you know what, the continental Europeans play better, they have the short passing game, it works, and they’ve adopted it, and the
English have really gone for it in a scientific way. They have data analysts, they have the best physical trainers, they plan their corner
kicks, too minutiae.
So, it’s become a very professional, scientific, and European set-up in the England team, which some might say would be a nice model for the U.K. as a
whole.
AMANPOUR: And just finally, because there’s always very dark corners, we’ve talked about some of them, but there’s quite a lot of conversation in
Mexico, which is one of the host countries. It’s basically done a huge amount to refurbish and, you know, really make the place look good, beefing
up all its resources, but also there’s a spotlight because they’re highlighting the more than 130,000 people who’ve gone missing in the drug
war there.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says the World Cup will show the world who Mexico is. What does the world see and what should the world see about
Mexico?
KUPER: Well, the government always wants to show the face of a kind of welcoming country with good infrastructure where you just go on holiday and
invest. But it’s right that a lot of Mexicans have been protesting to find out what happened to these enormous numbers of people who have disappeared
in the drug wars. Some leave with some government complicity.
So, it’s an example of how governments try to use the World Cup, but often ordinary people use it against them. So, we’re seeing a lot of Mexican
argument be conducted around the tournament.
AMANPOUR: Simon Kuper, thank you very much indeed.
AMANPOUR: Now, as we’ve said, leaders from some of the world’s most powerful countries today wrapped up their three-day G7 summit in France,
focused on tackling major wars like the ones on Iran and Ukraine. But hovering overhead, the uninvited rising superpower, China.
For more, here’s Elizabeth Economy, senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution with Walter Isaacson.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. And, Elizabeth Economy, welcome to the show.
ELIZABETH ECONOMY, HARGROVE SENIOR FELLOW, HOOVER INSTITUTION, STANFORD UNIVERSITY: Thanks, Walter. Great to be here.
ISAACSON: President Trump and our Western European allies are meeting for the G7 Summit this week. Tell me how the Iran deal is going to affect the
relationship between the U.S. and its G7 allies and affect the region.
ECONOMY: I mean, you know, it’s great news. Obviously, the U.S. and Iran have a memorandum of understanding. They’re supposed to sign the deal later
this week, on Friday. And, you know, it leads to a cessation of hostilities. There’s a plan for longer-term negotiations around two months
that will hopefully lead to a new agreement on the part of Iran to halt its nuclear weapons program. And, of course, this is going to open back up the
Strait of Hormuz.
So, I think, you know, from the perspective of this meeting, the G7 meeting, having President Trump arrive, be able to announce that a deal has
been reached, is all a positive. And the Europeans, I think, are interested in figuring out how they can support the deal moving forward, beginning
with, I think, working to clear mines from the Strait of Hormuz.
So, I think it’s a good beginning for the G7 meeting to, you know, start off with this deal. And certainly, for the region, which has been battered
by this war over the past four months or so, this is very welcome news.
You know, of course, there are skeptics, you know, about the durability of this deal. We’ve had ceasefires before. But I think there’s a fairly strong
commitment, at least on the part of the United States, to try to make this stick. So, you know, we’ll hold on to some optimism, perhaps, until proved
otherwise.
ISAACSON: Hovering over this week’s G7 summit, of course, is China. What is the differences and what are the alliances or the alignments of Europe
and the United States when it comes to dealing with China?
ECONOMY: You know, China has been sort of occupied a fairly central position on the G7 agenda for, I’d say, about five years now. And there are
really two sets of issues where you find the United States and the other G7 partners in fairly close alignment. You know, one is around sort of trade
and investment, where all these countries face similar challenges from China’s economic model. And that’s true, whether we’re talking about
China’s economic coercion.
So, you know, for example, when Australia called for investigation into the origins of COVID, and China started to boycott a lot of Australian goods
coming into China. So, these countries have developed sort of an anti- coercion platform around which, you know, they will work together to support countries that are facing economic coercion from China.
Certainly, we’ve seen over the past just two or three years, efforts on critical minerals and rare earth elements, and efforts to develop alignment
on exploring new sources of mining and refining of these rare earths, because there’s too much dependence on China in this space. So, that issue
of supply chain dependency is, I think, another area where there’s alignment within the G7. And we’ve seen sort of new arrangements emerge.
And then I think in terms of trade defense measures. So, China’s export of its overcapacity is a, you know, a source of very serious concern for all
the G7 members, right? We’ve seen it in the clean tech space and solar panels and batteries and EVs. And we’re going to see it across, you know, a
whole array of other technologies and products. So, alignment, again, around tariffs, around export controls, on investment screening.
So, there’s a lot of work to be done in aligning our policies around these areas and sort of cooperting together. So, not just even aligning, but
cooperting. And then I think the second area where the G7 has sort of focused on China has been in terms of China’s role on the global security
front.
And here, of course, China has been, you know, sort of an economic lifeline for Russia in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. And, you know,
that’s been very problematic. And also, China’s sort of destabilizing behavior in the Indo-Pacific. That’s another area where the G7 has taken
note and has sort of called out that, you know, sort of negative action by Beijing.
And, you know, frankly speaking, the whole sort of emerging axis of China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran is something that I think greatly concerns
the G7. So, I think both in terms of the economic space and the security space, there’s general alignment within the G7 that, you know, they need to
develop a set of countermeasures to sort of respond to what is a growing and really challenging threat that China is posing.
ISAACSON: Well, you talk about reducing the dependency on China for supply chain, for rare earth minerals, sometimes talk about de-risking, which is
there’s a risk if we rely too much on China. And yet, if we proceed down this path, doesn’t that make it harder to kind of wean China away from its
alliance with Russia and Iran?
ECONOMY: Well, I don’t think so. I mean, I think there’s sort of two separate issues, really. You know, China depends on Iran and Russia really
for natural resources. It aligns with those countries on political grounds more than, and security grounds more than necessarily on economic grounds.
And so, the issue of de-risking is actually something that China itself does. China has been de-risking, you know, its own economy for a decade or
more, right, diversifying, you know, we’ve seen it diversify, for example, its sources of energy extremely successfully, right, in terms of both, you
know, from clean energy to, you know, oil and gas from many different sources to nuclear power. China’s been doing this very aggressively. It’s
been de-risking its supply chain across, again, a whole array of critical technologies.
Xi Jinping is essentially, you know, the Chinese leader is essentially trying to create fortress China. You know, he talks all the time about the
need for China to have, you know, independence in, you know, its food security, in its energy security, and in its technology security. So,
that’s been China’s approach for its own economy for a very long period of time.
So, really, it’s the United States and, you know, other advanced democracies just playing catch up in many respects to what China has
already been doing, and recognizing the risks that come from this over- dependence.
And, you know, frankly speaking, we didn’t even realize this, I think, until COVID, when we became acutely aware of our dependence on China for
the personal protective equipment, right, the masks and the gloves and the ventilators that we needed, and they were in such short supply. And we saw,
to some extent, China weaponized those things, right.
China can use things like this PPE, like its control over active pharmaceutical ingredients, right, the precursors that we need for so many
of our drugs, and, as you mentioned, the rare earths and critical minerals, right. When China decides to turn off, you know, its exports, right, the
entire world suffers. And so, I think it’s — you know, it’s really imperative, frankly, that we begin to develop alternative sources for these
goods.
ISAACSON: Well, let’s talk about the Belt and Road Initiative. Exactly how does that get countries to align with China, and do the — does the West
have a suitable counterpart?
ECONOMY: Well, so, Belt and Road Initiative, you know, began as a sort of hard infrastructure play back in 2013. That’s when Xi Jinping first
announced it. And at the time, it was really about connecting some lesser developed Chinese cities and regions to external markets through
infrastructure investment, so ports and railroads and highways.
It has evolved since then to include, you know, the digital Silk Road, which is all about, you know, subsea cables and the digital infrastructure,
4G, 5G, data centers, right, e-payment systems, satellite systems. There’s the Health Silk Road, which sort of came to fruition during COVID, export
of Chinese, you know, medical technology. And then the Green Silk Road, which is about the clean tech space.
You know, does the Belt and Road enable China to get countries to align with it? I think there is not evidence really, for example, in U.N. votes,
that, for example, countries that receive the most investment from China necessarily align with China on issues that are important to China in the
United Nations. We haven’t seen that kind of alignment emerging.
And frankly speaking, in many countries, there have been a lot of popular protests around Belt and Road projects. So, even as though many of those
projects are welcomed, certainly by leaders, there’s a lot consternation at the local level. Why? Because China often has exported its own labor to do
the projects, which means local communities don’t benefit.
Often the governance around these projects is not very strong. So, no social impact assessments or environmental impact assessments.
Deals are struck in a non-transparent way, right? So, you know, a lot of local people may believe that their leaders are pocketing some side money.
And then sometimes the quality of the projects is not particularly high.
So, even though the, you know, infrastructure support is much needed and again welcomed, because oftentimes Western companies are not willing to go
in to do this kind of work, you know, the projects have not been uniformly successful. About a third of them have either been canceled or stalled, run
into very significant difficulty.
ISAACSON: Well, you talk about the difference — yes, go ahead. Yes.
ECONOMY: Yes. I was going to say that being said to your point about, you know, does the West offer a comparable, you know, sort of a competitive
kind of project? No. And there have been a number of efforts in the past couple of administrations, in U.S. administrations to do that. And I would
say none of them has succeeded. And, you know, we tried working with partners and allies to do this, but it’s very difficult.
Again, you know, if you’re looking at the Chinese priority areas of mining, of digital infrastructure and of clean tech, they really dominate. And, you
know, you’re looking at, you know, going into mining in places where Western companies just haven’t wanted to go. There’s just too difficult to
do that. But Chinese companies, heavily subsidized, you know, are in it for the long-term, right? And they don’t mind the conditions and they don’t
mind working, you know, in very challenging conditions. And so, they have a long-term strategy that is paying off and we’re facing the consequences.
That being said, I think it’s important to recognize that despite all of the attention that Belt and Road gets, if you look across the world, China
is the largest source of investment in none of these regions. So, you know, Europe is the largest investor in Africa. Japan is the largest investor in
Southeast Asia. And the United States is the largest investor in Latin America. So, it’s just our kinds of investment are different. We don’t tend
to do the high-profile infrastructure projects.
ISAACSON: Well, the U.S. has retreated a lot from global leadership. You’ve talked a lot about Belt and Road. We’ve pulled back on both foreign
investment, but obviously USAID. Likewise, relationships with our NATO allies. We’ve pulled back on that. To what extent does that help China? And
to what extent are they successfully capitalizing on that?
ECONOMY: I think that’s a really — it’s a really important distinction to make. Certainly, the Trump administration has withdrawn the United States
from its traditional position as, you know, the most important sort of global provider of public goods. We have, you know, stressed our — you
know, certainly our NATO allies threatened to withdraw from NATO, threatened to invade Greenland.
We have taken our political model off the table as a sort of source of competition. We have a non-ideological foreign policy. So, we’re no longer
interested in promoting ourselves as, you know, a democracy that no longer matters to this particular administration. That’s not a — we don’t
consider that a selling point anymore.
So, we — and as you say, we’ve, you know, basically shuttered USAID, which is, you know, meant that we’ve taken ourselves out of this space of
providing aid to some of the world’s, you know, poorest and, you know, most impoverished countries. It was a really important source of assistance for
these countries and frankly, an important source of U.S. soft power.
So, we’ve definitely taken a step back. I think our reputation globally has clearly suffered. That’s evident from, you know, an array of global public
opinion polls. You know, our reputation is sinking, is almost sunk, whereas, you know, China is, you know, rising a little bit.
But the truth is China has not been able to capitalize, I think, very effectively. And the reason behind that is, it promotes itself as a
stabilizing force in the global economy and in the global system. But again, countries look at what China’s doing in terms of the export of its
overcapacity. That’s not stabilizing for other economies.
When China weaponizes its control of rare earth elements, it’s not stabilizing for other countries. You know, when China undertakes sort of
its military assertive actions in the Indo-Pacific, not stabilizing, supporting Russia and Iran, not stabilizing.
So, it hasn’t sort of undertaken what it has promised, which is to be a stabilizing force in the global economy, in the sort of global security
arena. And frankly, it hasn’t stepped up to fill the vacuum that’s been left by the United States in terms of the provision of global aid.
So, you know, initially China, you know, went to a few countries and said, oh, we will replace the United States for this, you know, million or $2
million program. But it has made very clear that it is not planning to replace, you know, what the United States used to do with USAID.
China’s overseas development assistance is a fraction, a tiny fraction of what the United States traditionally has provided globally.
ISAACSON: Elizabeth Economy, thank you so much for joining us.
ECONOMY: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And finally, the streets of downtown Cairo are awash. That’s thanks to a new Egyptian government initiative to reshape public spaces,
from traditional folk performances, painting, music, and acrobatics. You can see a huge part of Cairo’s cultural makeup from just one street. The
Art Street effort to revive cultural life creates open space for residents and tourists to enjoy, while emerging artists get to showcase their work.
That is it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. And remember, you can always
catch us online, on our website, and all-over social media. Thank you for watching, and goodbye from London.
END