The Opinions - Thomas Friedman: The Global Challenges Facing Trump

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

Times columnist Thomas Friedman says this is a rare moment in the Middle East when “everything is in play and everything is possible." In this episode of The Opinions, he speaks to editor Dan Wakin about the forces brewing in the Middle East, what he expects of the relationship between Netanyahu and Trump and the one gig he would give up his column to try to do.Thoughts? Email us at [e-mail]. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times Opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it. I'm Dan Wakein, an international editor for New York Times opinion. I'm Tom Friedman, Foreign Affairs columnist for the New York Times. Tom, Donald Trump has now taken over the reins as president, and I want to talk to you about the challenges around the globe that he's inheriting. Just this weekend, we saw the release of hostages in Gaza. And you wrote that the Middle East right now faces one of those rare moments when everything is in play and everything is possible.

So let's dig into that a bit and then talk about some of the other challenges that Donald Trump faces on the foreign front. But to start, will you explain what you meant by this being a rare moment? Well, it's really for the whole region because if you look around the horn, first of all, Lebanon is completely in play. They've just produced a new president, Joseph Aoun, and a new prime minister, Nohavsalam, both enormously popular, decent, moderate people who are committed to restoring Lebanon's unity and sovereignty. In Syria, Bashar al-Assad has been toppled and been replaced by a coalition, basically, of Islamists and secular forces. Syria now has a chance, really, to come back in effect from the dead.

In Israel, Palestine, Gaza, you have basically now a ceasefire. finally. And so the first really prolonged end to that war now is on the table. It's begun how long it will last and whether it will lead to a permanent ceasefire is still in play. And then, of course, the wider regional situation is Iran right now is militarily at its weakest point ever since it was, in a sense, stripped of its anti-aircraft system by Israel. And the big question is, will the Trump administration, opt for a knuckle-breaking negotiation with Iran to, in effect, diffuse and eliminate its nuclear program, or will it adopt a more kinetic option? Let me go back to the ceasefire for a second. What has to happen for this ceasefire to hold

and then to succeed as something approaching a peace deal? Well, it's basically a three-part arrangement. The first is this 42-day ceasefire in which some Israeli hostages, both a live and dead will be returned in return for hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners being held in Israeli jails. That's supposed to pave the way for stages two and three of negotiating a final ceasefire, total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and the return of all the other Israeli hostages, dead and alive, and more Palestinian security prisoners returned to the West Bank in Gaza. What would you say Trump needs to do to make this succeed? Well, as we sit here today, Dan, the Israeli press is full of reports that Netanyahu will just do the first stage of this deal and then look to resume the fighting, find some pretext by Hamas. Why is that?

Because one of the far-right Jewish supremacist parties that held up Netanyahu's government has already left the government over this deal. And the other, led by Betzelel Smotrich, the finance minister, has promised to leave if Netanyahu actually goes ahead with a ceasefire and ends the war in Gaza. And reports in Israel, as Netanyahu is essentially told Smotrich to just be cool, Hamas will give Israel some excuse to restart the war. And Smotrich has called for, quote unquote, total victory, whatever that means. Whenever I hear the word total victory, I'm always reminded of the first. fact that we are speaking today close to the 58 anniversary of Israel's 1967 victory and take over the West Bank, and Israel still doesn't control the West Bank after 58 years. So the idea that it will control Gaza in another six months, I think, is a bit of a fantasy. Does Trump have any leverage here,

Tom, in making sure this ceasefire and eventual deal is successful? A good question, Dan. Well, we already saw Trump use his leverage to force Netanyahu to actually accept the ceasefire, which he really did not want to do. But basically, you know, Netanyahu spent a year running circles around Joe Biden. He will try the same with Trump. One can be sure. Will it work? Will it not? I don't.

I really don't know. I think that's one of the big questions. My broader point is that Donald Trump's interests and aspirations in the Middle East, which are for a Saudi U.S. security treaty built around an Israeli-Palestinian negotiation on a two-state solution. That is Trump and America's overriding goal right now is in fundamental contradiction with Bibi Netanyahu's political survival needs, which are to prevent any kind of deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that could be the foundation for a U.S.-S.-S.-Saudi security deal. And in terms of the longer term, I think Trump's approach to Netanyahu will

be very simply, what have you done for me lately? This is all about me in America. It's not about you. I want to win a Nobel Prize, not the Booby Prize, and you are going to have to bend to my will. Well, in your view, Tom, do you think that approach could be more successful than President Biden's? You know, Dan, when I was growing up in Minnesota, I used to go to the State Fair as a young man, and there was a guy at the State Fair who could guess your weight. And as a five-year-old boy, I was just amazed. How can he do it if he got it right. You know, he went something. He got it wrong. You want something. In the middle of these, people can guess your power from a hundred miles away. And this is a brutal and pitiless landscape. And, you know, I have no doubt that Netanyahu's no illusions that

at the end of the day, you know, he will have to submit to American interests. He will do his best to push back. I wouldn't doubt if you'll try to leverage evangelicals in the Republican Party to put pressure back on Trump. But this relationship, I just would not bet on it for the long term in terms of Netanyahu Trump because they're just fundamental structural disagreements. To stay in power, Netanyahu is committed to never allowing the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to be a real partner for peace. And for Trump to succeed in America's regional interests, it requires Israel to open negotiations.

with the Palestinian Authority on that very two-state solution. So something's going to have to give here. And my money's on Trump. I want to make sure that we touch on what the challenges are for the Trump administration in some of the countries that you mentioned. Very specifically, do you think the U.S. should ease sanctions on Syria to give them a chance to start rebuilding? Or how should that happen?

Should it be based on commitment to ensuring equal rights for minorities and women and openness to outside trade, what's your take on sanctions? So, Dan, you know, Trump has nominated three Middle East envoys already over and above his Secretary of State. I'm actually thinking of sending him an open letter as a column saying, since you've got three, I'd like to volunteer to be the fourth. Please don't tell our editor, I said this. Now, I just want to do one thing, not Gaza, not Israel, Palestine. Save that for the others. I would like to be the special envoy for Syria, because Syria is the keystone of the Middle East.

And I think the United States right now should be jumping in with both feet, absolutely bear-hugging the new Syrian leadership, eliminating our sanctions, and doing everything we can possibly do to create the possibility of a very different kind of Syria, which is a consensual balance between Islamist forces there and secular modernist. forces, both Christian and Muslim. The odds are very long, but it is the biggest prize in the Middle East. So let's pivot to China for a moment. President Trump invited President Xi Jinping of China to Washington for his inauguration, and you call that a good idea in your column. The two men spoke on Friday, and President Trump called it a very good phone call. But Trump also has folks in his administration who are very hawkish on China.

So we're taping this on Monday before we've heard about the extent of any tariffs on Chinese goods, but more broadly speaking, should China be hopeful or wary of a Trump administration? Well, it's a good question, Dan, because a little of both.

Trump is not dealing with the China that he dealt with four years ago. I was just in China and explained that China's taken a great leap forward in advanced manufacturing. You know, the last time I was in China, Shame, the Chinese smartphone company, was just a phone company.

I came back and they were a car company. When I was last in China, Huawei was a smartphone company. When I came back, they were a car company. That's the extent of the acceleration in China's move toward advanced manufacturing, particularly around electric vehicles. The Chinese decided that they were going,

to own the EV business. And why is that important? Because if China owns the all-electric EV market, there's a very good chance it's going to own the future of driving. As my colleague and our colleague, Keith Bradshaw said to me, in 10 years, America will become like Cuba, the place you go to visit old gas-guzzling Buick's to see what cars used to be like. So this is a very, very, very important moment. And all the tariffs will do for you is by time. That's all they do. But they don't buy you an EV industry. That takes a strategic investment. So when I hear Trump saying, I'm going to put tariffs on China's EV industry higher than ever, but we're going to go for big gas guzzlers here. That's a prescription for economic disaster.

Tom, people are going to be hearing this episode on the first full day of the Trump administration. And everyone talks about what he's going to do on day one. But I'd like to ask you, what would you like to see on day 366, let's say, exactly one year from now? I would like to see a president who has not overread his actually very slim margin of victory, who understands, I think, what the American people want most and the reason they elected him, that is to bring down inflation, to be a good partner with our trade. traditional allies to keep the world stable, and most of all, to make America work. I just recently visited China, Dan, and I noted that I took the bullet train from Beijing to

Shanghai. It's four and a half hours, and the distance between New York and Chicago. My colleague, who I was writing with Keith Bradshaw, said, you know, Tom, if you put a dime on the window sill here on the train, it'll be still sitting there four and a half hours later when we pull into Shanghai. That's how smooth this train going 210 to 15 miles an hour is. I just took the Acella from Washington to New York. You need to be a gymnast in order to go to the bathroom on the Acella because the car rocks so much as you go down the tracks. Really shame on us that we can't build just basic infrastructure. I think that's what Americans want. They sure as hell don't want four more years of trolling liberals and MAGA chest pumping.

So I hope Trump understands that. If he does, you know, I will support those policies. If he doesn't, I will oppose them. Well, with that, Tom, thanks so much for talking. Dan, always a pleasure. If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. This show is produced by Derek Arthur, Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Vesachadurba, Phoebe Lett, Christina Samuel Luce,

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