The MeidasTouch Podcast - David Frum Reacts to Trump Failed Trade Wars

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on how world leaders are beyond furious at Donald Trump’s behavior and Meiselas speaks with David Frum from The Atlantic who just launched The David Frum Show with The Atlantic and Frum shares his observations. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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World leaders and people throughout the world are absolutely furious at Donald Trump and the Trump regime. It seems that every day Donald Trump just wakes up and then he'll make a post that's just incredibly offensive against the sovereignty of a nation, whether it's Canada, whether it's Brazil, whether it's Japan. This morning he's posting about Brazil after the leadership in Brazil said it would be a big mistake if you're tariffing us, we run a trade deficit with the United States.

And then Donald Trump then posted, Brazil is doing a terrible thing on their treatment of former president Jair Bolsonaro. I have watched as the world has, they have done nothing but come after him day after day after day. And then Donald Trump talks about we're the hottest country in the world right now. And the great people of Brazil, they should want to be hot too, just like we are hot right now. And people are looking at this and they're like, what the hell are you are you talking about? You know, tourism is down in the United States massively. I think this is one of those big stories that are not getting enough attention. We're seeing that tourism may be down twenty nine billion dollars this year as people just are in traveling. I think the number could be even more than that.

And if you just anecdotally speak to people in different countries, they'll tell you they had trips plan. They're canceling trips. They were thinking about buying real estate in the United States. They have no plans on doing it while Donald Trump is in is in power right now. And then remember when the Trump regime said they were going to do 90 deals in 90 days and they had Peter Navarro, I guarantee you 90 deals in 90 days. They basically have done zero deals in 90 days. They have two somewhat frameworks of a deal, one in the UK and, you know,

and another one in Vietnam, but those aren't really deals. That's the loose frameworks or social media posts. They didn't do a deal with China. We just gave here's what Peter Navarro said earlier in the morning. He was the guy who said 90 deals, 90 days. He goes, I'm super happy though with the progress. This is what we wanted. This is what we wanted here at Playlist Club.

I've always wanted to ask you for the last 90 days about your comment on April 7th, when you said 90 deals were possible in 90 days. We're almost up. And I just wonder, was your thinking at the time that it really was an aspirational number or are you kind of disappointed in two for now? I'm happy with the progress we've had because every country that we run a major deficit

with is fully engaged. I think what we're learning from the negotiations is simply, Carl, how difficult it is for these countries to give up the advantage they have over us. And so therein lies the tale. I think the negotiations are proceeding well. And by the way, the tariff revenues are coming in and really helping this country. The tariff revenue is a tax on American companies, on our importers. And he keeps, did he hear what he said?

He thinks a deficit is a tariff by another country against the United States. Fundamentally, it's based on the most ridiculous thing that all of a sudden, if you enter a deal with Vietnam, Vietnam is going to start purchasing all of these American things with all of the wealth that Vietnam has. And also, I mean, we're seeing headlines like this. India proposing retaliatory duties at the WTO against the US tariffs on autos. Japan drawing hard lines in its trade negotiations. I did a whole video on that. I want to bring in right now, though, David from from the Atlantic.

He's got a new show on the Atlantic, the David from show. It's on YouTube. It's on Spotify and Apple, it's on video, wherever you get your podcasts from David, I noticed that you were posting this morning that you were at an airport recently, I think either going to or coming back from Toronto and you're like, where, wait a minute, I'm noticing something very different here. And then in your conversations with some of your friends, they're saying, yeah, people are incumbent. So I know it's anecdotal, but there's a broader thing I want to talk to you about. Well, I'm born in Canada. I live in the United States.

I crossed the border 20, 30, 40 more times a year. I flew. I crossed it just yesterday. I flew from Toronto into Washington, D.C. So at Pearson Airport in Toronto, there's a giant hall for people bound for the United States, just the United States, not the rest of the world, just the United States. The hall can potentially hold hundreds and hundreds of people. And a lot of the times I've been there, there have been hundreds and hundreds of people. The last few times, there have been dozens and dozens. I flew on a Sunday afternoon, which is when you fly, if you had business, first thing

Monday morning, as I did, there may be two dozen people. I mean, I appreciate it. You go through much faster. But it's a sign that something is seriously wrong. And as you said at the beginning, there's a lot of data about how Canadians are avoiding travel, other people too. And while tourism is not the biggest industry in the US economy, the mistrust and dislike of the United States that is expressed by the lack of tourism is being felt all across the economy You know you wrote two articles here, uh recently that I think are you know intertwined with this So yes tourism big deal, but then you also layer on that

What's one of the major causes of why tourism is down? It's because donald trump's attacking all these other countries He's attacking their sovereignty saying he wants to annex them. He declared a trade war against the world. Your recent article is why Trump is losing the trade war. And he's focused when you come to think about something like Vietnam, why'd we do a fake trade deal with Vietnam, which to me, isn't really even a deal. It's because Trump's building a resort in Ho Chi Minh City. They like, they bulldozed all of the land there and like went over cemeteries so Trump could

get properties. That's crushing us. Tell us why you think Trump is losing the trade war against the world as he's enriching himself. Do you remember that old Norm MacDonald comedy sketch about Germany in the 20th century that the Germany fought a war and who do they fight a war against the world? And you might think it would be close, but it would be difficult, easy, but it was close. in the 20th century that the Germany fought a war and who do they fight a war against? The world. And you might think it would be close, but it would be, that would be easy, but it was close. This war, the trade war is against the world. And it's unlike the German war against the world

and the Norm MacDonald joke. It's not close. You know, when you listen to someone like Peter Navarro, he is as useful on the subject of trade and tariffs as Bobby Kennedy Jr. is on preventing disease. That is, Bobby Kennedy Jr. is making disease more, and Navarro is destroying the American economy.

What a tariff is, is the equivalent of picking up a hammer and hitting yourself in the head. And he's saying to the world, we will not stop hitting ourselves in the head unless you all agree to hit yourselves in the head. You know what people are saying? We don't want to hit ourselves in the head. Tariffs are bad for the person imposing the tariff. You don't hurt the foreigner with the tariff. You hurt yourself.

You make your people pay more. You have higher taxes. You have higher costs. The big bill that Trump just passed, which is supposedly a tax cut bill, includes $2 billion in revenues from tariffs, which are imposed on working people and middle-class people. But it's an especially vicious tax

because most of the costs of the tariff, only a small part of the revenue from the tariff or the cost of the tariff goes to the government. And as you put a giant tax on people, collect a little bit of revenue for the government, and most of it is just pure waste. It is just lost to the whole US economy and the world economy. As we take a look at some of the changes that are happening in really the world order, I

mean someone like you has who's been steeped in politics your entire career to watch in a very short period of time, it seems a world order that was known before changing with the United States taking an increasingly pretty weak and isolated position in all of this. You see all the moves that are being made, whether it's Canada and the European Union forming defense alliances. Even though Donald Trump was at that NATO summit, they really relegated the US position to talking about limited topics and they didn't really have them in some of the other sessions.

Australia and Japan didn't even go up to the NATO conference. They didn't want to be around Donald Trump. Now we're seeing meetings between China, South Korea, and Japan at the minister level, something we would never see before. It seems that things are, let me get your perspective on what you're seeing. And do you think it would have happened this quickly? And what are you observing?

Well, let's compare two great powers, United States and China. Chinese economy is nearly as big as the United States, not quite, maybe it will never catch up, but it's up here. But United States is surrounded by wealthy and technologically advanced like-minded countries. So America's bulwarked by Europe, by Great Britain, by Japan, by Australia, by Canada, by Mexico.

It is surrounded by friends. America's borders are secure. Americans don't have to worry about their immediate neighborhood. Their immediate neighborhood is safe. China is surrounded by enemies from Vietnam to India. And enemies, by the way, it's May, it's not like they're victims,

they have provoked these enemies. And they have no friends. So obviously it's much better to have wealthy, powerful friends. But Donald Trump sees that as a problem. And of all the many cases of bad behavior, the one that is actually most dangerous is the one that sounds silliest, and that's Greenland. The United States is not in fact going to invade Canada.

Trump threatens, but it's not going to happen. But the United States easily could seize control over most of the territory of Greenland. There are only what, 50,000, 80,000 people who live there. The only military forces on this vast near continent are American. It could very easily do it. But if it does, it will be committing aggression against NATO ally Denmark. It will create a question. Does the NATO treaty defend against aggression by one NATO country against another NATO treaty? It leaves NATO dead. Denmark will have to withdraw from NATO and NATO just collapses. So Greenland sounds dumb and silly and petty. But it's actually the thing that is the stupid little brick that could pull down the whole architecture of American security. You know, when I even read, though, how the idea of annexing, conquering, taking over

Greenland is so normalized by something like, you know, the New York Post, and this is how they reported about it. Yesterday, they wrote, by connecting the US to Greenland, which Trump has vowed to annex one way or another, its flight demystified the Arctic island for ordinary Americans. Greenland is not some inaccessible fantasy land. It is, in fact, closer to New York

than it is to Denmark, which colonized Greenland. And so you see this, and it's very much the language of of Vladimir Putin. And I think even discussing the idea of annexation that the U.S. is whether it's done or not. When Trump says we're going to make Canada the 51st state, when he says we're going to annex Greenland, that gives a green light,

I think, to China to say, OK, well, then we're going to annex Taiwanland, that gives a green light, I think, to China to say, okay, well, then we're going to annex Taiwan. And it gives a green light, right? Something that needs to be stressed about that article in the New York Post. Some of your viewers may say New York Post, so what? The person who wrote that article was a former US ambassador to Denmark. That's someone whose job it is to help not just explain the American point of view to Denmark, but Denmark is a country, it's a smaller, it's wealthy and successful, but it's small, it's easy to lose sight of its imperatives. That person's job is to come back and remind Washington policymakers, you know, this is an important friend and don't take

them for granted. And instead, she's putting her effort into advocating aggression, invasion, attack, annexation. And as you say, what it does is it legitimates aggression everywhere. Because And as you say, what it does is it legitimates aggression everywhere. Because one of the things that the world's dictators, Putin's China, and their talkers inside the United States, the Tucker Carlson's, always want to say is America is no better than anybody else. Who do you think you're fooling?

You think you've got ideals, you've got nothing. You're just another dictatorial, imperialist regime. And the best answer has always been America's friends. When I was young in Canada growing up, we knew anti-Americans would say, America, there's no difference with the Soviet Union. And I would always answer, to believe that there's no difference between the Soviet Union and the United States, you have to believe there's no difference between the level of freedom in Canada and the level of freedom in Poland. And we all know it's a lot freer in Canada than it is in Poland. So obviously the big neighbor is not the same.

So it was the testimony, it's the date. So when people slur the United States, it is the testimony of Denmark, it is the testimony of Portugal, it's the testimony of South Korea, it's the testimony of friends all over the world who says, no, we benefit from American protection. We value American friendship.

They are friends, they are partners. They're richer and stronger than others, yes, but they're friends, they're partners. You can trust them. And when you undermine that, you not only encourage foreign dictators, you encourage those at home, like the Tucker Carlson's, who want to destroy the American system of democracy by defaming America's place in the world. You know, by now people say you prefer to Trump as taco. Trump always, you know, chickens out. And you look at the deadline, July 9th,

90 deals, 90 days or else. And pretty much no country's budged than what does Donald Trump do on his own. Well, I really meant August 1st. Actually, I never said 90 deals in 90 days. That never happened. And look, it has has we discussed in the beginning of this interview, that is having a very negative impact on our trading relationship, on our tourism. More fundamentally,

though, when it comes to issues of war and peace as well, and life and death, someone like Putin sees Donald Trump saying two weeks, there's two weeks that or else, weeks this, two weeks that, or else. And then Donald Trump never does the or else. And so it just seems that it's like, okay, I got it. Trump's not going to do anything. Putin's just, I'm just going to give Trump a call. What'd they talk about last week? I'm doing movies together.

Putin put an announcement saying we talked to Trump about movies and cultural exchanges and Donald Trump said it was a wonderful idea Here's Trump this weekend on the tarmac saying I'm very disappointed. I'm very disappointed. Here's what he said this past weekend You said you had a strategic call with Salensky the other day. What strategy did you just it was a good call He's being hit very hard as I said he would he's being hit very hard and I was very disappointed with my call with President Putin. I was very disappointed. And for a while now Donald Trump's been saying two weeks, two weeks, two weeks with Putin and I'm going to do sanctions.

But then behind the scenes you have this guy, Elbridge, Colby, and at the Pentagon and others who have been defunding Ukraine, who without telling Ukraine, without telling our NATO allies, without telling the G7, congressionally appropriated money and weapons, it is not going to Ukraine. And so after that phone call between Trump and Putin, what Putin do, he attacked Kiev worse than ever before and escalated things to say f you this is what I'm going to do and The world is taking note of that right now, and I mean we're even seeing in Poland for example They're calling for urgent air defense because you know they're thinking this could be a lost cause

We're next where this is headed. What do you make of it all well? Let's the worst let's not forget the worst thing Trump did which is in the spring his administration cut off the flow information For Ukrainian air defense targeting and that cut off cost lives of dozens and maybe hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers I'm Ukraine is a brave democracy fighting for its life It should be able to count on help from not only the United States But all of America's friends and partners and Trump has has been very obviously switching sides. And all this two-week stuff, it's not just about chickening out. It's in direction. That there is a, the United States is flipping from being a Ukrainian ally in this war to being a Russian ally. And all the commotion

is designed to distract from what is actually happening and how appalling it is. And it leaves a much more dangerous world in many ways. You know, Donald Trump often talks about the world as if it was sort of a mistake that after World War II, the United States had to Germany. You don't need such a big army anymore. Leave it to us and to Japan. You know, that Navy, you don't need it. Leave it to us.

You guys concentrate on beautiful cars and beautiful cameras and bettering your people. And you want to have universities and highways and healthcare, good luck. Leave the security to us. Everybody will be better off. That was not a mistake. That was the plan.

The United States would provide the security. The Allies would help underwrite it. And the whole world would be safer. And Europe would not have to fear major war. A world in which the United States would cross is a world in which everybody needs nuclear weapons. And to use the Trumpian language for the Magas, the United States would get rich.

The world would get protected. And also, you know, in my view, with the richest nation in the world. And as you pointed out, once you are the richest nation in the world, not to screw working class people, though, also not to screw people who form the backbone of the country as the richest nation in the world. So he's taken away our wealth. He's screwing over working class and hardworking people. He's screwing over our allies. These are the types of conversations that I know you're going to be having in depth, detailed conversations with some great guests on the David from show.

It's going to be on the Atlantic YouTube channel and wherever you get audio podcasts, whether it's Spotify, Apple or anything else, you can check out David from there. David, thanks for this enlightening conversation. I hope you come back. Let's chat more. Thank you. Bye-bye. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to six million subscribers.