The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: America's security guarantee is tested, while Canada's AI strategy comes up short

Episode Date: June 5, 2026

Iran and the U.S. remain locked in a dangerous standoff over the Strait of Hormuz that could drag on for weeks. How does this end? What pressure points could force either side to negotiate in good faith? Meanwhile, Iran continues to strike American allies across the region without a meaningful U.S. military response. What message does that send about the credibility of America's security guarantees?In the second half of the show, Rudyard and Janice examine the government's new AI strategy. Filled with promises of sovereignty, privacy, and transparency, it may sound reassuring on paper—but where is the plan to counter the growing power of the tech giants that control this technology? Talk of sovereign AI and stronger privacy rules is meaningless without a strategy to compete with companies that are increasingly viewed as strategic assets of the U.S. government.And while Ottawa talks about AI, it continues to ignore the deeper reforms needed to unlock growth: tax reform, regulatory reform, and stronger competition policy. Canada cannot build an AI economy without first addressing the structural barriers holding back its broader economy.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Iran's strategy is drag this out virtually to the point of pain as long as it can. What that tells me, they believe they still have time. Yeah. Welcome to the Friday Focus podcast for the 5th of May 2025. I'm Roger Griffiths in studio with my co-host Janice Gross Stein. Hey, Janice. Good morning, Roger. It's a beautiful sunny.

It's been a scorcher of a week here in Central Canada and a nice respite from a slow start to the spring. and now it seems like we're in summer. We are. Let's start the show, unfortunately, as we've had to for the last number of weeks, just catching our audience up on the events of the Iran-Israel-U.S. war. I guess the latest news as we record Friday morning is a seeming indication, demand from the Trump administration that an agreement be signed in Geneva, no less. next week. Are we starting Janice to run out of time here? Is there a scenario where this,

for either protagonist, has to be brought to some kind of step change, to move out of this stasis of a ceasefire that's not really a ceasefire, which is causing, obviously, big repercussions for both Iran and the United States, or could this go on for weeks? This can go on for weeks, rather than. You know, what's the deadlines here? I think that's a really great way to think about this. When does this absolutely have to come to an end? When Iran cannot store the oil on tankers that is taking out of its wells?

That's really the deadline here, and why's that? Because if it can't store the oil, it has to turn off the oil wells. And once you do that, it can't. can be a few years before you can restart them. And the cost of doing that are just huge. How many more rusty tankers can Iran find at this point? Because it's offloading oil into cargo island. So estimates, there's no consistency here,

but it's weeks at most a few more months. So there is that hard stop. But Janice, a few more. months out, we would be seeing, by every indication, oil at $150 to $200 a barrel jet fuel, drying up in Asia. There are now shortages of plastic bags and other plastic products in Japan. There's a lot of analysis to suggest literally the next few weeks could see that hockey stick chart emerge of world energy prices skyrocketing as the reserves that were either floating in the water or sitting in people's tanks. Those tanks have been.

drawn down and interestingly a bit like the Iranian problem that we have a problem which is you can't draw your tanks all the way down it's a bit like your plumbing system in your house you have to have pressure in the pipes you can't empty your pipelines of of oil so we're hitting so-called tank bottom two and roughly if you believe again a lot of different analysis out there but roughly in a schedule that corresponds with the Iranian so That's what we do? I mean, how do these deadlines that clearly lie out there, in some cases, maybe weeks

in the future, not months, impressed back on this moment? That's exactly right. So what we're seeing, right, your big picture, when you look down from the top and you abstract from the details, is a classic competition in risk-taking. Who can hold for them longer, although both sides face fundamentally the same problem? Who's going to blink first, right? What you saw this week is Iran absolutely refusing to blink. There was a ceasefire negotiated, by the White House between Lebanon and Israel,

left Hezbollah out of the story. Iran sent the message to Hezbollah. No way do you agree to this? And there's no ceasefire, right? So it's a mistake to think that those two fronts are separate. They're not. They're completely integrated, which really says Iran's strategy is direct. this out virtually to the point of pain as long as it can. What that tells me, they believe

they still have time. Yeah. The strike on Kuwait was interesting because one, it showed, I thought, that Iran is willing to counterpunch and take big risks in terms of the ability for a strike like that to either draw the Gulf states in on the side of the United States more explicitly, militarily, but simply to escalate in the face of what, I guess, they perceived as American escalation, which were a series of attacks on an Iranian island and some other radar and other installations that the U.S. Navy said were in a kind of threatening posture. Unfortunately, we had a fatality at the Kuwaiti International Airport. Dozens of people injured.

What does it say when the U.S. president responds to that by saying, well, the ceasefire is only off if an American is killed. What does that say to the security guarantees that all the Gulf states have spent tens, possibly hundreds of billions of dollars, seemingly acquiring by buying American weapon systems, by staging American military bases on their soil? Here is a death, a fatality, a strike on their national airport, and the American's response to that is, we're not going to do anything until an American dies. Yeah, that was a stunning comment. absolutely stunning comment because everywhere around the world, everywhere around the world, but obviously, first and foremost in the Gulf States, what is the value of an American security

guarantee? What is it? If it only means we are going to get involved militarily when an American dies, when an American soldier dies, then it's not only the Gulf States, it's Japan, it's South Korea, it's all of Europe that heard that comment. And that to me is one of these moments where all of America's allies have to question the value of an American security guarantee under this precedent. Yeah, I'm glad we both picked up on that because it was an aside, but I think it told a lot about where this America First agenda is. at internationally, and I think you're right, it has broad implications across the Gulf and internationally.

Let's talk a little bit about the president's particular situation, because he is once again, you know, always kind of kicking the can forward. You know, ideal is coming by this weekend. How many times have we heard that? It's clearly starting to lose credibility, increasingly in the face of Iranian intransigence, in this case, the Iranian seemingly willingness to counterpunch when punched. What do you think is going on in the White House now? And do you think that this talk about a signing ceremony in Geneva, I mean, again, it sounds preposterous.

But at the same time, surely he is under pressure to understand that there are deadlines and that the Iranians are allowed to play this out. The closer it gets to the midterms, the steeper the cost of him to restart the war to try to degrade the Iranians more to bring them back to the table on more favorable terms, time is working against him not only economically, Janus, but clearly politically. So is there a possibility that this talk about Geneva isn't just another can-kicking exercise? Oh, no, look, I think it has no credibility. I really don't.

I would give that no weight whatsoever. Yeah, but I guess I agree with you. I don't think there's going to be a signing ceremony. But in the escalation of the rhetoric about the culmination of these negotiations being ratcheted up by this president this week and coming out of last week and now reaching this crescendo of like a formal signing ceremony in Geneva, are we at a point where we're starting to see a consensus about extending the ceasefire breakdown and the part of the White House, the decision makers, the U.S. security blob, as they call it. Look, I don't think so for the poem. It is in some ways a fascinating situation, a bizarre way. You have two parties that don't want to go back to war. And that's why we've had this gray zone infused with theater

that bears no relationship to reality. The Iranians do not want to go back to war, but neither just Trump. And so it almost, when I listen to these comments that are coming out of both sides, first of all, I don't believe any of it. I think we start there. And secondly, we have to look at what the unforgiving pressures are on both of these to force them to do something they really don't want to do, which is make concessions to the other, because that's where we're really going here. What is it for Trump? You would think it's the midterms. You would think that, but look, Roger.

What he did this week on tariffs is that the president who's concerned about the midterms, worried about inflation, worried about what voters are going to think. You know, everybody around him says, kind of a wink or not. Oh, he says he doesn't care about midterms, but of course he cares about the midterms. You can't get in his head. You've said that before. I certainly can't. But you would never expect this kind of behavior in June from the president who understands

or what three months away from interns. It's a summer driving season. That's right. Energy costs up. Another strange set of remarks out of the president in the last 24 hours or so, he indicated that he would be happy to meet with Iran's supreme leader and that if he met with him, he would be respectful. And I thought it was a kind of interesting, because,

one story, and you're familiar with this, and I think there's some credence to this, is that Trump, what's happened to Trump here is that he and other real estate developers who've been at the forefront of this war, like Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff, are kind of deeply perplexed by the Iranians. It's like oil and water. They know that the Iranians can make a deal, that there will be aspects of that deal that would be good for the Iranians, maybe the release of funds, sanction relief down the road. But, you know, the president wants the uranium. So what's the 400 kilos worth?

$25 billion, $100 billion. Surely we can come to a deal here, gentlemen. This is like a building on Park Avenue or something. But the Iranians don't play that way. Play that way. So now he's engaging in this kind of language of almost like homage and respect to this dawn that I guess he now, this kind of mafia dawn in Tehran,

that he seems to now be wanting to be respectful towards. Like, what do you think that all is? First of all, let's just talk about the practicalities of that for a second, and then go to why I think he makes these kinds of comments. And really, I don't know at all. So practically, we know that Most of a Hamini was badly injured. He has been in hiding. Trump killed his whole family. Killed his children, nieces, nephews, father. Everybody. And he hasn't come out of hiding and there's big debris. Is he alive or is he dead?

I think he's alive. But where would you meet him? And how could he travel? He lost a leg. We know that for sure, right? So what world is this in now? What's going on in Trump's head? And every time I go there, I'm annoyed with myself afterwards

because I've given up on doing that. But there's, you captured it. These guys are tough. They don't give in. I'm really surprised. I thought they would give in. These guys are tough. I respect tough guys.

That's whom I respect. I respect guys who don't grumble. Oh, wow. I'd like to meet this guy. Sorry. Maybe no more complicated of that. Let's just end this segment. There was a vote in Congress that basically required in terms of the resolution,

the withdrawal of American forces from the region. the end of hostilities against Iran. It passed the House with some Republican support. It probably would, we'll face a much tougher climb in the Senate and then ultimately the President can just veto it. He said it was inconsequential. Was it inconsequential? No, it's not inconsequential for a number of reasons. First of all, Congress does have a constitutionally mandated role here. And only in Donald Trump's world is that inconsequential. But beyond that, Rudyard, it tells me something. Who are these Republicans?

There's some traditional Republicans. I don't know what you want to call them centrist Republicans, but they, when an outrage is particularly offensive, they in the past would vote with Democrats. But there's more than that going on here. There are Republicans who are now voting with Democrats, who lost primary challenges, who were not embedded any longer at the heart of Trump's circle of fear in the Republican Party. They have nothing to lose now when they vote against the president.

These Republican voters that we saw in the House, and there's some in the Senate too, right? Yeah. They will use their voice until the midterms and in the lame duck session. This is a different, we're beginning to see a different Congress that Donald Trump is not used to managing. Right. Well, Janice, let's say goodbye to our complimentary listeners and viewers. Going to join Monk donors on the other side of this short break. It's a breakdown Canada's new AI strategy, the good, the bad, the ugly.

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