Good morning everybody. Wow, what a crowd, what a crowd. Mr. Vice President, we're so happy to have you here this morning. This is obviously the highlight of our Munich Security Conference meeting in Washington, DC.
I hope not. I hope not.
It is the highlight, it's really a great honor to welcome you here this morning. Actually for those of you who have not been regular participants in Munich, this is the third time already that Vice President is participating in a Munich Security conference event. When you came to Munich last February, your speech kicked off a pretty controversial debate about fundamental values --
Sure.
Unlike anything we've ever had at the Munich Security Conference. And actually, we published a brochure, a copy of which you'll have by the way out about the speech and the reactions to it from around -- from around the world.
Right.
This intense debate about how fundamental values, how the freedom of speech, the rule of law should be interpreted and applied continues to this day.
Sure.
But when we prepared for this meeting with your team yesterday, we agreed and they agreed that today we should try to focus on current challenges of foreign policy which confront us together. So, thank you again for making yourself available. We don't have a great deal of time. So, I'll not come up with a long introduction.
And I just want to get us started. The first time you came to Munich, you were still a Senator from Ohio. What I associate with Ohio is the Dayton Agreement 30 years ago in 1995, I was at that time actually the German negotiator. So, I actually lived in Dayton, Ohio for one entire month.
That's great.
And this -- and why is this important? Because it was through US intervention, it was through US intervention that peace was brought about in Europe, in the Balkans, at that time. Um, so if I may, let me ask my first question, um, about the US and Europe. A distinguished former US diplomat, Richard Holbrooke wrote almost exactly 30 years ago in a Foreign Affairs article that the United States is and should remain a European power.
Today, 30 years ago, my question is do you think that the United States should continue to see itself as a European power in Munich? Remember you actually said and I quote, "We are still on the same team." Are we? And what does that mean for the US presence in Europe and relationship with Europe? First question?
Sure, well, first of all, thank you and I'm sorry, my microphone apparently is broken, but we have -- we have another one, so that's good. So, everybody can hear me now, right? Everybody can hear me? Great, good. Um, yeah, so -- so first of all, um, thrilled to be here and thrilled to have this conversation.
I've been looking forward to it. And yeah, I do still very much think that the United States and Europe are on the same team. And I think that this is, you know, sometimes I've been criticized as a hyper realist, right. I think of foreign policy purely in terms of transactional values, what is the America get out of it? What are the -- you know, rest of the world get out of it? And try to, you know, focus so purely on the transactional value of it that we ignore sometimes the humanitarian or the moral side of it. And I think at least with Europe, that's actually not a full encapsulation of my views because I think that you know European civilization and American civilization, European culture and American culture are very much linked and they're always going to be linked.
And I think it's -- it's completely ridiculous to think that you're ever going to be able to drive a firm wedge between the United States and Europe. Now that doesn't mean we're not going to have disagreements. And of course, you know, you brought up the speech earlier, it doesn't mean that Europeans won't criticize the United States or the United States, won't criticize Europe.
But I do think fundamentally we have to be, and we are, on the same civilizational team. And I think obviously there's a big question about what that means in the 21st century. I think, you know, obviously the president and I believe that it means a little bit more European -- European burden sharing on the defense side.
I think that it means that all of us, frankly, on both sides of the Atlantic have gotten a little bit too comfortable with the security posture of the last 20 years. And that frankly, that security posture is not adequate to meet the challenges of the next 20 years. So, there are a lot of ways in which this alliance will evolve and change in the same way that the alliance evolved and change from 1945 to 1975 and from 1975 to 2005. I do think that we're in one of these phases where we're going to have to rethink a lot of big questions, but I do think that we should rethink those big questions together.
That is a fundamental belief of both me and the president. And you know, you mentioned this is my third time speaking with the Munich Security Conference Group. Obviously, the first couple of times were in Munich and I always remember very fondly of course that the very first time it was as a United States Senator representing Ohio.
And I'm glad you got to spend a month in Dayton. I love Dayton, it's kind of the closest big city, if you can call it a big city, to where I grew up. But on that first panel, I was on that panel and also David Lammy, who at the time was a lowly member in opposition and of course now is the great Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom and he and I have become good friends.
So, I still think that this European alliance is very important, but I think that for it to be important and for us to be real friends with each other, I think that we are very much real friends, we've got to talk about the big questions and I know that's an important part of what this entire group does.
So, I'm glad to be here.
Great, thank you so much. And I think the message has arrived in Europe that we need to carry a significantly larger share of the burden.
Sure.
As you know, we are all trying to spend more, some are spending really a lot more, others are lagging behind a little bit, but we're moving in the right direction I think. Um, let me -- let me turn to a really concrete urgent issue; Ukraine. The Trump Administration from what we have seen in the media, etc., seems to agree with most of us in Europe that unfortunately Russia does not seem to be really willing to end this military confrontation.
Um, if that's the assessment, if that -- if that's our collective assessment, could you talk a little bit about US strategy going forward? We -- we all want this war to end, and let me say as a very personal comment, I think the Trump Administration did the right thing by starting this process of talking to the Ukrainians, talking to the Russians, but the Russians seem not to be interested in the kind of quote/unquote, "Deal," that could be offered to them.
So, talk to us a little bit about how you see the next steps.
Yeah, so, let me say a couple of things about this. First of all, I appreciate your kind words about the administration. Obviously, I think it was the right thing to do for us to start the process of negotiation. I think for too long, the Russians, the Ukrainians, have been fighting. Obviously there's been a lot of people dying on both sides.
There have been a lot of innocent loss of life and our view is it's absurd that you've had this war go on for so long and the two sides aren't even talking constructively about what would be necessary for them to end the conflict. And I think that you know, one of the things that President Trump has always been very good at, and he's gotten a lot of criticism, unfair criticism in my view, from both the American and some of the European press is what I would call a strategic realism or a strategic insight.
In other words, you don't have to agree with the Russian justification for the war and certainly both the president and I have criticized the full scale invasion. But you have to try to understand where the other side is coming from to end the conflict. And I think that's what President Trump has been very deliberate about is actually forcing the Russians to say here is what we would like in order to end the conflict.
And -- and again, you don't have to agree with it. You can think that the request is too significant and certainly the first peace offer that the Russians put on the table, our reaction to it was you're asking for too much, but this is how negotiations unfold. And I wouldn't say, I'm not yet that pessimistic on this.
I wouldn't say that the Russians are uninterested in bringing this thing to a resolution. What I would say is right now the Russians are asking for a certain set of requirements, a certain set of concessions in order to end the conflict. We think they're asking for too much. OK. And then obviously the Ukrainians matter a lot there.
They're the other side there, they're the other party at least to the direct conflict, and we have to ask what is the Ukrainian -- what are the -- what do they need in order to bring this conflict to a successful completion? And we're going to continue to have that conversation. Now, what the president has said is that he will walk away if he thinks he's not making progress.
And I think that you know about once every four or five weeks, you will hear some American official or sometimes multiple American officials say this is a week where we need to make another step. And in particular, the step that we would like to make right now is we would like both the Russians and the Ukrainians to actually agree on some basic guidelines for sitting down and talking to one another.
Obviously, the United States is happy to participate in those conversations, but it's very important for the Russians and the Ukrainians to start talking to one another. We think that is the next big step that we would like to take. And why does that matter? The reason it matters is because, again, I mentioned the Russians, but also the Ukrainians have also been sort of they've -- they've put a piece of paper in our hands that says this is what we would need in order to bring this conflict to a successful resolution from our perspective.
And there's a big gulf, predictably, between where the Russians and the Ukrainians are and we think the next step of the negotiation is to try to close that gulf. We think it's probably impossible for us to mediate this entirely without at least some direct negotiation between the two. And so, that's what we focused on. But I'm not yet a pessimist on this.
I mean obviously, you know, the Russians and the Ukrainians are not there yet because the fighting is still going on. You know the Ukrainians have said they would agree to a cease fire, a 30-day cease fire, we appreciate that. What the Russians have said, again, you don't have to agree with it, but it's important to understand where the other side is coming from.
What the Russians have said is a 30-day cease fire is not in our strategic interest. So, we've tried to move beyond the obsession with the 30-day cease fire and more on the, what would the long term settlement look like? And we've tried to consistently advance the ball. One final point I'd make about this.
I think it probably wouldn't surprise anybody in the room, but there are a lot of people watching who are not in the room is, is a frustration that we've had, frankly with both sides, is that they hate each other so much that if you have an hour conversation with either side, the first 30 minutes are just them complaining about some historical grievance from four years ago or five years ago or ten years ago.
Look, I understand it. I understand that people don't fight wars against each other without a lot of grievance and a lot of problem. But we're trying to, as much as we can, play a constructive role in advancing the peace conversation forward. What I'll say just to echo something that President Trump has said many times, but I think it bears repeating is our strong view is that the continuation of this conflict is bad for us, it's bad for Europe, it's bad for Russia and it's bad for Ukraine.
We think that if cooler heads prevail here, we can bring this thing to a durable peace that will be economically beneficial for both the Ukrainians and the Russians and most importantly will stop the end of the -- of the destruction of human lives. I think people underappreciate this about our president here in the United States is, he has a genuine humanitarian impulse about this.
He hates innocent people losing their lives. He hates even soldiers losing their lives in unnecessary conflicts. He just wants the killing to stop and that will -- that will continue to be America's policy. But obviously, as all of you have seen, we'll navigate that policy and react as the parties bring their grievances to us.
Great, thank you very much. If I can just offer two footnotes to that. I think for us, Europeans living as neighbors of Ukraine, and if you wish also as neighbors of Russia, we have begun to understand that what we're looking at here is not just the defensive war by Ukraine against the Russian aggression, it is also a confrontation that puts at risk all of European security.
In other words, it's indirectly our defense also, it's not just Ukraine. And this is why we're so desperately interested in seeing that this comes to an end, hopefully. And -- and I think the real trick for negotiations and for a conclusion of this is going to be that it's going to be lasting and not broken in the next three, six or nine months, again.
Let me, Mr. Vice President, since we have so little time, there are so many issues. If I -- if you allow, let me -- let me turn to another issue; China. That's a key, as we understand, a key challenge for the United States, for your foreign policy. It's also of tremendous interest for -- for us in Europe.
So, the United States has defined China as the key strategic challenge going forward for coming probably many years. This has also been the -- the justification, the reasoning, when American staff members of yours tell us the United States must do -- must be much more present in Asia and will therefore need to reduce their presence, their strength, etc., in Europe.
But now there are some signals in the media that you, that the United States government, that the White House might actually be interested in a strategic deal with China, maybe even including on Taiwan. Could you talk a little bit about the China strategy of the Trump Administration?
Yeah, so I haven't seen those reports that you mentioned a strategic deal on Taiwan. So, I wouldn't speak to that. I certainly say that would say that there has been no conversation between our governments about a strategic deal on, on that particular question. What we have talked about, of course, is that we cannot absorb the producer surplus of the entire world.
That has been the role of the American economy for the past 30 years, in some cases vis-a-vis Europe. And by the way, we don't blame, for example, the Germans for pursuing a policy that makes their exporters strong. We just wish that American leadership had pursued a policy that made our exporters strong because now we find ourselves in a very precarious place.
When I say we, I mean the entire West, I mean the NATO alliance, I mean the United States and Europe which is that we become in a world of hyper complicated, hyper globalized supply chains, we find ourselves more and more reliant on countries that may not have our best interests at heart. And even if they're halfway decent trading partners, it's still a little bit risky to put all of your eggs in one basket economically.
And what the president has said is we must rebalance the global economy, vis-a-vis, China. We cannot absorb hundreds of billions of dollars, close to $1 trillion per year in annual surplus, most of it coming from the People's Republic of China. And what that's going to mean in the rebalancing is that we think that the PRC is going to have to frankly let their own population consume a little bit more.
They've held consumption levels down in order to increase these massive exports. It means that American manufacturers are going to have to be treated more fairly in some of these global trade deals, it means we're going to have to cut some new trade deals with some of our friends in Europe, but also with some of our more adversarial nations.
But -- but that also, you know -- we have to be careful here because while we want to rebalance global trade, and that has certainly been the explicit goal of our policy. We also want to make sure that we do this in the right way. And yes, you've seen media reports that the Chinese reached out to the United States.
Of course, we're going to sit down and talk to them. I'm not going to divulge too many details or prejudge the negotiations, but we want to rebalance trade in the interests of American workers and the interests of American manufacturers. That is our policy. We think that we can do that while preserving at least an open dialog with the PRC and with a lot of other nations all over the world.
But -- but that that doesn't mean the old way of doing business is going to be stable or that it's going to persist. It simply cannot. It was not sustainable ten years ago, it was certainly not sustainable four years ago and we're very, very committed to changing it. But we're open to having conversations with both, again, our friends and more adversarial nations about what that rebalancing ultimately looks like.
And people have to remember, you know, Liberation Day, which was where the president announced these, this -- this fundamental change I think in the global trading system, that was almost exactly 30 days ago. So, we are in the early innings of a very significant shift. I think that shift is going to really inure to the benefit of both the United States but also of Europe.
But it's fundamentally -- it has to happen and it's going to happen under President Trump's leadership.
All right, I think it's great if there are beginning discussions between you and the Chinese. Could you expand a little more on what would your expectations be for an EU US successful discussion of these trade issues? Is there any message that we can take home to our friends in Brussels? Um, because that's also from our point of view, obviously a very urgent issue.
Yeah, so it -- to put it very simply, and we've obviously had great conversations with a lot of our European friends at the very senior levels between the president and heads of state between me and officials in European governments, but also with trade representatives and also the very nitty gritty technical details of a trade agreement.
So, these conversations are ongoing, but I'll throw a few general principles out there. I think the first is that, again, America wants its exporters, and by implication, its workers to be treated much more fairly. We want American markets -- and sorry, excuse me, in the same way that American markets have been open to a lot of European goods.
We'd like a lot of European markets to be open to American goods. Now there's an agriculture component to that. There's a value-added manufacturing component to that. We think that we have in both the software, but also the more harder technology side, we have some great defense technology firms where on the one hand we have our European friends saying we want to actually build up our defense, we want to do more burden sharing.
But on the other hand, it seems like some of our European friends are less open for business if the people selling software and hardware are American firms. Well, we think that's inconsistent. We think that we have some of the best military hardware and software in the world, and we think part of being good allies is, yes, we obviously want the Europeans to take a bigger role in the continental defense.
But we also think that there are a lot of great American companies that they can work with. And so, again, this doesn't have to be a zero sum dynamic. This can be a very synergistic relationship. But the fundamental principle is, we think that most nations, most nations in the world, have been way too hard on American exporters and American firms.
We want to make the entire world a little bit more open to the products built by American workers. We're obviously biased. We think that they're the best in the world and we think that we can have a much better trading relationship with a lot of our European friends if they -- if they just dropped some of those, both tariff, but also non-tariff trade barriers.
There are regulatory barriers, there are -- sometimes you have an official at the Ministry of Defense completely disconnected as far as we can tell from a -- from an actual law or regulation who will just say we're not buying American products. Sometimes you have officials in Europe who will say, well, we're going to penalize American technology firms in a way that we would never penalize European technology firms.
We just want a little bit more fairness, or to use the president's favorite word, reciprocity. And, again, with -- with Europe, we think that's a very, very easy conversation to have. We hope our European friends agree.
Great. I get signs from my friend here that we're quickly running out of time. I'll try --
I'm having -- I'm having fun.
OK.
And let's -- we can take a few more questions.
OK, great, wonderful.
My team over there is very nervous. You guys can't see them behind but --
We'll be -- we'll be -- we'll be brief.
Please.
So, thank you very much. Um, we've heard that there is, in coming days or next two weeks, a Presidential trip to the Middle East coming up.
Sure.
Among the many unresolved issues of that region is the issue of Iran and their nuclear ambitions, etc., etc. Could you talk a little bit about the region? Um, I mean, there are so many unresolved issues. The Gaza issue, but also Tehran. What would we -- what would your expectation be? What would the goal be? Would you go for zero enrichment by Iran?
Some people have suggested that, or are we looking at a -- a replay of the earlier agreement that was reached ten years ago?
Yeah, so there are a couple of issues with the earlier agreement. The JCPOA --
Right.
As -- as it's called here in the United States, and I assume in Europe, but here -- the two big issues with that agreement are number one, the enforcement or the inspections regime was incredibly weak. And I don't think that it actually served the function of preventing the Iranians from getting on the pathway to a nuclear weapon.
That's one thing that must be different. And then second, yes, we believe that there were some elements of their nuclear program that were preserved under JCPOA that, yes, they weren't nuclear weapons. Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon, but allowed Iran to sort of stay on this glide path towards a nuclear weapon if they flip the switch and press go. And we have to think about this not just in terms of Iran, which again the president has said this, we think that there is a deal here that would reintegrate Iran into the global economy.
That would be really good for the Iranian people, but would result in the complete cessation of any chance that they could get a nuclear weapon. And that's what we're negotiating towards. And as the president has said, that's Option A, and Option B -- if Option A is very good for the Iranian people, and -- and even, um, you know some of the folks, the leadership in Iran, Option B is very bad.
It's very bad for everybody and it's not what we want, but it's better than Option C, which is Iran getting a nuclear weapon. That is what is completely off the table for the American administration, no ifs, ands or buts. Now there are a couple of other things that are worth thinking about because this is not just about Iran.
If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, which country then next gets a nuclear weapon? And then when that country gets a nuclear weapon, which country after that? We really care, not just about Iran, but about nuclear proliferation. And the president said this in an interview a few weeks ago, it's one of these things that in the -- in the maelstrom of the media, the signal and the noise, this was very much signal but it got lost in the noise.
The president hates nuclear proliferation. I hate nuclear proliferation, and I think that the president would be very open to sitting down with the Russians and the Chinese and saying, look, let's get this thing in a much better place. Let's reduce the number of nuclear weapons that are in the world writ large.
That's obviously not a conversation for tomorrow, that's a conversation, God willing, for a few years from now. But there is no way you get to that conversation if you allow multiple regimes all over the world to -- to basically enter this sprint for a nuclear weapon. And we really think that if the Iran domino falls, you're going to see nuclear proliferation all over the Middle East.
That's very bad for us, it's very bad for our friends and it's something that we don't think can happen. So, without -- without prejudging the negotiations, I will say so far, so good. We've been very happy by how the Iranians have responded to some of the points that we've made. We've been very happy that some of the intermediaries and some of the folks who are in the room, the role that they've played, the Omanis in particular have played a very positive role and we're very grateful to that.
So, so far we're on the right pathway, but this is going to end somewhere. And it will end either in Iran eliminating their nuclear program, their nuclear weapons program, they can have civil nuclear power, OK? We don't -- we don't mind that. But what -- let me ask this basic question, which regime in the world has civil nuclear power and enrichment without having a nuclear weapon?
And the answer is no one. No one right now has a civil nuclear program with their entire enrichment infrastructure that can enrich to the 90-plus percent needed to get to fissile material and nuclear weapon. So our -- our proposition is very simple. Yes, we don't care if people want nuclear power, we're fine with that.
But you can't have the kind of enrichment program that allows you to get to a nuclear weapon and that's where we draw the line.
Great, I think we -- most of us would totally agree with that and especially, I think, speaking on behalf of a non-nuclear country with the goal of maintaining the nuclear nonproliferation regime that's very important.
Yes.
That allows me to turn to my next, or last question, on NATO, because most people don't understand that the fact that we've had NATO under US leadership for the last 70 years, that has been an essential instrument of international nonproliferation.
Yes.
If we had not had the US nuclear presence in Europe, I would be prepared to give you the -- at least two, three, four or five countries in Europe that would have gone nuclear if they had not had this reassurance.
Sure.
So, NATO has played a big role in nuclear nonproliferation. In six weeks? time we have a NATO summit coming up. And, again, there are many, many issues. One will be the continuing issue of defense spending. As we mentioned earlier in our discussion, Europeans are doing more, but we've also listened to -- to the demands coming out of the administration that are even more ambitious.
So, could you talk a little bit about your level of expectation? What would be your desired outcome of that NATO summit in terms of defense spending, in terms of how much Europe will need to do on its own in order to relieve the United States more in Europe?
Yeah, so I think there are two -- there are a couple of different components to this. So, so first of all, what the president has said is he'd like to see five percent spending on defense in NATO. And he thinks that that is consistent with what our European friends are telling us about how much they fear some of the threats in the world.
And, you know, given unfortunately that a lot of European militaries have not kept pace over the past few decades, there's a bit of catching up to do. And so, that is the goal that the president has set. Obviously, the European countries are going to make their own determinations, but that's what we think is a reasonable goal.
But it's really not just about the spend itself, it's also how the money is spent. And it's again, there -- there is this fear that we have when we look at some of our European friends, and I made this point at the first Munich security conference I ever went to that. When I looked to Germany 10, 15, 20 years ago, one of the things that the Germans were very good about is that they were -- they had kept the industrial strength of their economy consistent with the first world standard of living.
But now what we see in Europe is a lot of our European friends are deindustrializing at the very moment where we're all seeing the hard power underpinning, or the economic underpinning of real hard power requires very strong and powerful industry. And so, it's not just spending money, as important as that is, it's making sure that the same economic engine that powered first world living standards, is actually geared towards producing, God forbid, weapons of war if those weapons of war are ever necessary.
And so, I think there's both an economic component to this that's completely divorced from the spending levels. And then, of course, there's the spending levels too. But what we really want, and we really care about Europe being self-sufficient. I gave an interview a couple of weeks ago where I actually tried to, to make the point that yes, we're going to have disagreements with Europe and Europe will have disagreements with us. Sometimes, you know, I would -- I would harken back to 2003 United States policy in the Middle East.
I frankly wish we had listened to our European friends, but I think this is an area where we're fundamentally right. And I think it's gratifying to see so many of our European friends recognize that and recognize that Europe does really have to play a bigger role in continental defense. I think we're all aligned on it. It's just a question of getting there and most importantly getting there quickly.
There is a glimmer of hope in our country in Germany, as I'm sure you've seen, we've eliminated the so-called debt brake.
Yes.
Uh, when it comes to defense spending. So, there is now the opportunity for the incoming new government in Germany to spend significantly more. In other words, I think we're -- we're in good shape in terms of responding to what you've just said. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the end of this wonderful discussion.
I'm really grateful to you that you allowed this to be a Q&A session.
Sure.
We could continue this, I'm sure, for the rest of the morning, but I know you have other things coming up. May I simply conclude by saying that we hope, very much, my team and I, that you will be willing and prepared to continue this young tradition that the United States at major Munich Security Conference events, will be represented at your level.
You are not the first Vice President of the United States who has come to the Munich Security Conference, but we are extremely grateful that you came in your new position. Please come again to Munich next year. Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President.
Thank you. Thank you. So, if I may just say a few things in conclusion, first of all, I appreciate the kind words and I appreciate the invitation back. I wasn't sure after February whether I'd get the invitation back, but it's good to know that it's still there.
Well, we thought about it. [Laughter]
Second of all -- second of all, since you brought up Germany, I wanted to, of course from the president, issue our congratulations to Chancellor Mertz. And I know that we'll have a conversation with him in the next couple of days, but we're looking forward to it. And the final point that I'd make is, is, you know not -- not to rehash what's in that in that document.
But one of the things that I said in that speech that didn't get as much airplay, but I thought was just as important, is that everything that I said there applied as much to the previous American administration as it did any government in Europe. And I -- and I think that this -- I mean this from the heart and as a friend that there is a trade-off between policing the bounds of democratic speech and debate and losing the trust of our people.
Every single country, and we're all going to draw the lines a little bit differently. Every single country says there are things that are outside the realm of political debate. I understand that, I accept that, and I'm fine if one country is going to draw those lines a little bit differently than the United States.
But I think all of us, including especially the United States, we have to be careful that we don't draw the lines in such a way that we actually undermine the very democratic legitimacy upon which all of our civilization rests. And I think that is fundamentally the point here. It's not Europe bad, America good.
It's that I think that both Europe and the United States, we got a little bit off track, and I'd encourage us all to get back on track together. We're certainly willing and able to participate in that work and I think all of you all too. Thank you. God bless you.