The President's Daily Brief - PDB Situation Report | February 22, 2025: Is A Shooting War Coming In Mexico? & Peace Talks Over Ukraine Begin

Episode Date: February 22, 2025

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: Mexico is ramping up its fight against drug cartels, deploying thousands of troops into cartel strongholds. Is the country on the verge of an all-out shooting war with these powerful criminal organizations? Senior National Security Fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies Todd Bensman joins us to break it down. U.S. and Russian delegations met in Saudi Arabia this week to discuss potential pathways to ending the war in Ukraine. What came out of the talks, and is a diplomatic breakthrough possible? Steve Yates of the Heritage Foundation shares his insights. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Beam: Visit https://ShopBeam.com/MIKE and use code MIKE for up to 40% off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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All right. Let's get briefed. We'll start things off today with the latest in the fight against Mexico's drug cartels. Now, as Mexico's government sends thousands of troops into cartel territory, could it be on the brink of an all-out shooting war with these powerful criminal organizations? Senior National Security Fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies, Todd Benzman, well, he helps us answer that question. Later in the show, delegations from the U.S. and Russia were in Saudi Arabia this week, working toward ending the war in Ukraine. We'll be joined by Steve Yates of the Heritage Foundation, but will give us his insights on the negotiations. But first, today's situation report's spotlight.

Mexico's decades-old hugs-not-bullets policy toward drug cartels is rapidly being challenged as President Claudia Seinbaum faces pressure from President Trump to take more aggressive action. In a dramatic shift, Shinebomb has been forced to deploy 10,000 troops to cartel territory along Mexico's northern border, with a focus, at least ostensibly, on taking on transnational criminal organizations and halting fentanyl production. Now, this marks a significant departure from previous efforts that focused primarily on stemming illegal immigration. But with cartels already ramping up violent responses, could Mexico be on the verge of a full-blown war? Todd Benzman, Senior National Security Fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies, joins us to break down the implications

of this escalating situation. Todd, thanks very much for joining us here on the Situation Report. Great to be here. Thank you. There's so much to talk about here, both from the Mexican perspective and from the U.S. perspective in terms of taking on the cartels and what that could mean. But you've written recently some very interesting articles. And you touched on something that I think is very emotive. I suspect a lot of people are landing on the fainting couch over the list. But you've written a recent piece talking about the way in which currently were dealing

with deportees. Talk to me about that. Sure. This all started when the deportation by error began. You may remember that we sent a couple of military flights. I think they were C-17s to Columbia. And that president turned the planes around and kind of got into a kerfuffle with Trump over that. Trump said, oh, it's going to be 50% tariffs it looks like on you if you don't take them.

But the main complaint by the Colombians was that, you know, you've got them cuffed and shackled like, like, you know, their animals or something. And, you know, that's humiliating. And we just can't have that. And then, you know, just a couple days ago, Chief Border Patrol agent, Mike Banks put a couple of videos out showing Indian deportees being flown back to New Delhi chained and cuffed. And I mean, the whole country of India just lit up on fire over this thing. And they're still mad about it going on and on and on about like how dare they cuff and chain people. And all of liberal America is now picked up on it. And everybody's like, you just, this is cruel and terrible that you're doing this.

And so I thought that we needed to just address this and remind Americans that why we do that, why we, that there's a very good. reason for that. It was just a few years ago. You may recall the Del Rio Migrant Camp crisis, Del Rio, Texas, 15,000 Haitians under the bridge there, just ahead of the midterm campaign season. It had to go. You couldn't have Democrats running in the midterms with that thing raging under the bridge. So they decided to do good old-fashioned Trumpian tactics and bring the Haitians back to Port of Prince on aircraft. So they didn't restrain them, and those Haitians rioted at 30,000 feet, tore the planes up, completely destroyed the planes on the interior while the pilots were at the control

behind a very thin locked door, you know, those pilot cabinets, cabins. They landed and wouldn't get off, and they had to be dragged off. Then they boarded another flight and tried to hijack. it. And this went on several more flights back in Texas as they were on the runway. They got the message on their cell phones and just rioted on the flights. Then they mutineed on the buses that were on the way to the Laughlin airfield, seized the drivers and threw them off, took the bus to control of the buses, three, four, five of them escaped. I mean, it was they didn't restrain them as the problem. And they learned.

under the Biden administration, you've got to restrain people who do not, desperately do not want to be on these flights. And there's only two or three ICE officers and a couple of pilots hiding in the cabin. And that's why we do it. You do it for that reason, even if they're not criminal aliens. Were the deportees after those incidents during the Biden administration? I mean, did the Biden administration restrain using cuffs or shackles as we? We want to tell you, as you're calling them, for subsequent flights? Of course.

They smartened up. That's what you do. And was there any coverage? Was there any coverage from the media at the time? Was there any outrage expressed when the Biden administration started doing that? Nobody even knew. The only reason I remembered it is because I wrote a book called Overrun, and I have a whole chapter dedicated to that camp crisis, and I put it all together.

and, you know, I actually found one of the pilots on the first flight who showed me his cell phone photos of what happened in the interior of his cabin while he was hiding on the, in the controls. And the Washington Examiner did a couple of stories about the mutinies on the buses, et cetera. So, you know, I was able to kind of put this whole thing together. That's why they do this. it's for officer safety. If a Democrat administration did it, now a Republican administration did it, but now there's outrage. Well, Todd, it almost sounds like you're saying there's a double standard here.

There's a little bit of a hint of hypocrisy in all of this. Of course, you know, nobody even really remarked much on the fact that the Biden administration of all administrations was doing air deportations of Haitians. didn't really talk about that. Nobody, because it was the Democrats doing it. Yeah. Well, let's move from that. I wanted to touch on that because it is fascinating. I think it's, again, not that we need more examples of, you know, how coverage occurs between different administrations. And certainly when we're talking about Trump, you know, we kind of know what's coming down the pike in terms of media coverage and sort of the sense of outrage that you may get from the progressive side.

but let's look at the battle against cartel. Let's start with on the Mexican side of the border. Now, President Scheinbaum, Claudia Scheinbaum, in reaction to, in part, in reaction to pressure, you know, from the Trump administration over tariffs, agreed to send some 10,000 troops or deployed 10,000 troops, in addition to those that are already there, to the border on the Mexican side. But from your perspective, is the Mexican government's curious about this, or is that just a bit of theater to try to appease the Trump administration? Well, you have to remember that the Shinebaum administration and the Amlo administration before her for six years had an official policy. I'm not making this up. This is their term called Hugs Not Bulls toward the cartels. It's the beauty of that term of that phrase is that it's so self-explanatory. They just did not want to confront the cartels militarily. So now here comes Trump, and he's like, we're going to wipe them out.

And he's using terminology like that, hyperbolic kind of Trumpian terminology. We're going to wipe them out. We're going to destroy them completely. It's all-out war. So, you know, how are you going to do that? Well, you're not going to use U.S. troops. They're going to use Mexican troops to do that. And the way you get them to do, to change from hugs, not bullets, to bullets, not hugs,

is to put a 25% trade tariff on all Mexican exports, which would send the Mexican economy very quickly into recession and really hurt a lot of her patrons. Claudia Shinebombs, you have the business elite. of Mexico. So she had to do something to comply. First, stop all the illegal immigration. And next, her mission, her agreement is that they are going to kinetically attack the cartels and they're going to stop the fentanyl. They're going to dismantle the cartels, quote unquote. That's the official readout in the State Department and White House documents about what Mexico is supposed to do. They totally don't want to do that.

But, you know, they've got to show a few scalps here pretty soon just to keep those train tariffs off. Todd, it sounds like what you're saying is they'll take, you know, some steps, but really the only reason they're doing it. Let's just say their heart is not in it. But, you know, Trump's out there saying, well, that's a nice economy you got there. Mexico would be a shame if anything bad happened to it. And so they're going to play ball to a certain extent. I do expect there to be some kind of fireworks in Mexico.

They did deploy the 10,000 troops. They've got them in starting to fan out in between the cartels and their money on our side, drug trafficking. And you have to remember that the cartels were making billions and billions of dollars for the last four years on human smuggling, bringing people in. That's dried up completely now. That's gone. That spigots off. That fire hoses clamped shut. So they've got only one thing.

And that's the drug trafficking, the fentanyl trafficking to keep going. And so they're going to fight. I expect they'll fight. Yeah. No, you're raising a really important point in which you said, look, it's all about the money, right? And they have various revenue streams. And now one of their key revenue streams, certainly over the past handful of years, as you noted, is going away, right? With the crackdown on migrants moving across the border, which was a big part of the cartels business. So, yeah, I believe you're absolutely what. They're going to do whatever it takes prevent losing another revenue stream.

And that would be the narcotics trafficking. Todd, I'd love to pick up on this when we come back and what we have to do now is we have to short break so I'll ask you not to go anywhere and then we'll be right back with the PDB situation report. We've all been there, right? Tossing, turning, struggling to get quality sleep. I get it. When you don't sleep well, it's not just about feeling tired the next day.

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Book direct at choicehotails.com. See you on the roof. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining me again is Todd Benzman, Senior National Security Fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies. Todd, very much thank you for sticking around. Let's move our perspective now to the U.S. side of the border. With the designation of foreign terrorist organization, I think we're already seeing increased involvement from the U.S. military.

And we recently on the PDB talked about involvement from the CIA, use of MK9 Reaper drones for surveillance. What, from your perspective, is the likelihood that the U.S., I'm not talking about liaison relationship with Mexico. I'm talking about unilateral action. Based on your experience, the U.S. under the Trump administration could start taking unilateral action against the cartel. So that is a big point of discussion and debate about whether that could happen or will happen. The way the administration talks about it is that they seem to be like aching for a fight, really spoiling for a direct fight, but I don't think they're going to do it. I think they're going to try to

avoid it. That is a very tricky challenge to bilateral relations between the two countries. There's a lot of at stake on our side with doing that too, but I do think that there is an elevated risk, though, that if the cartels feel cornered enough, that they would attack people, personnel targets on our side of the border in frustration or anger or lashing out or whatever because they are very cornered right now. We are setting the table to corner them and hurt them every possible way we can short of direct kinetic activity. Now, we are moving into place. You'll see like in the Washington Post and New York Times right now stories about like, oh, well, with so few people crossing the border illegally, you know, why do we have all

these troops down there? They're just not thinking about this the right way. The reason why we have, I think, troops down there, including moving the 10th Mountain Division into Fort Wachuka, Arizona, light infantry famed light infantry force, not far from, you know, the Mexican border is because they are incredible, they present a credible retaliatory threat should the cartels start to get interested in that sort of thing in the coming months. We also have moved in what's called littoral combat ships from the U.S. Navy into the Gulf of America now. I've got to get used to that.

I mean, it's the Interior Department, even official change, name change, so whatever. Who am I to disagree? And also, you know, we're putting spy planes, a lot of spy flights. We're clearly setting the table for something. We're repositioning CIA assets in Mexico to dramatically ramp up counter-narcotics, counter-cartel, operations, meaning infiltration, possibly kinetic action down there, but certainly a whole lot of intelligence providing to the Mexicans. We also have the Green Berets down there now, just moved in to start training Mexican naval infantry forces in what they call non-conventional

combat. So why wouldn't the Mexican cartels lash out at us? We're the ones. We're the is causing all this trouble. So now we have a way, we have the means to strike back at him if necessary. And I don't think that they would hesitate. If we lost a couple of border patrol agents, I mean, you think Trump's going to not go in? Talk to me about the logistics. When we talk about naming a cartel as a foreign terrorist organization, what does that allow for the U.S. government to do? Well, it really emphasizes the full range of powers and disciplinary power that we would put against like ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Anybody that does business with them, we can charge them with material support for terrorism, a bank, a bank

executive, Crips and Bloods on the streets of Chicago or Oakland. or something potentially. You could really mess up and foul up their operations, their drug-moving operations if you throw some terrorism charges at people there and here, you can also freeze their assets, block their access to banking systems and financial institutions all over the world. The cartels are everywhere. They're in 40, 50 different countries operating. And so this really allows the United States to go in and the Treasury Department and really

muck things up for them and isolate their ability, isolate them from the groups and other people and institutions that are that they use to do business around the world. So we'll see to what extent they were able to do those things, but they have the arrows in the quiver for that at least. Okay. So it really expands the playing. field in terms of what resources they can bring against the cartels at any given time. I think it's fascinating because I think when people hear that, oh, it's a foreign terrorist

organization designation, right? And there's always that comparison. Well, it could be like ISIS or Al-Qaeda doing battle. The problem is we're talking about significantly different beasts in a way from an operational perspective. So the cartels already have significant resources and personnel on the ground inside the U.S., right, as a result of years and years of developing their businesses or criminal organizations. And on the Mexican side, we operate much like a paramilitary operation as opposed to a criminal organization. I mean, they're extremely well resourced and staff. So I think it's interesting because I'm hearing out there, I'm hearing, you know, a lot of people, not allowed, but I'm hearing people talking about how, yes, we should, just take out the guards.

I don't think it's as easy as people are imagining. No, it's not. We have fairly recent case study of this with the presidency of Philippi Calderon of Mexico. We went to war, called it, said, we are, we declare war on the cartels militarily. And for six years, they did full combat operations all over Mexico and barely put a dent in the drug trafficking. And we were, the U.S., they had us helping them with intelligence, just kind of like now, like they're preparing to do now. So I kind of see a little bit of a replay. They're going to have to do something different.

I think the designation is different. The will of the president, of the U.S. president, to really isolate them as something that's different as well. and we could actually suppress fentanyl. I mean, this is really a lot of this is about fentanyl. And honestly, if I were the cartels, I would be like, you know what, if their big issue is fentanyl, we'll just stop doing fentanyl. And, you know, we'll keep on with heroin and all the other good stuff, but just not

fentanyl and let them claim a win. But who knows how this is going to turn out? It is a wicked homeland security problem. Those cartels are brilliant at warfing and surviving like cockroaches and rats in a nuclear winter. We saw that with Calderon in it from 2006 to 2012. And by the way, I covered that war for four years on the ground in Mexico. So I know what I'm talking about with that.

Yeah. No, I was down there for Paul in and out during those years of his administration. And it was horrific. The violence was on a completely another level. and eventually the public just said that we've had enough, right? I think part of the change in approach to the cartels, going back to managing, which most administrations in Mexico over the years have done. They just, well, we just manage the problem, right?

Try to get the violence down to almost an acceptable level and just allow them to do their business because they knew taking them on head on, well, you know, you got what you got during the Calderon administration. If you could get Shinebom's cooperation, I would. argue the most effective way to go about this is in a liaison relationship, right? Is to use the Mexican Marines, which are probably the most trusted institution in Mexico at this stage of the game, given how endemic some of the corruption is. But, you know, I worry that, you know, it's more of a show, as we talked about earlier, on the part of the Mexican government, to basically

to try to keep Trump from pushing the tariffs. You know, and so I agree with you. They'll have to get a couple of scalps here to show that we're making some progress. But I think your phrasing is absolutely right. Their heart's not in it because they grew up and watched what happened during the Calderon administration. Everybody remembers that. And I'll also just add that I don't think the American electorate is going to tolerate American soldiers coming home in body bags from Mexico. Yeah, that's a demo right there is a striking image. But again, it's, you raise a really good point. I hadn't thought about that, but from a business perspective, you're right,

if you're a cartel and your revenue stream is being threatened, then you adapt. And you say, fine, we'll just, you know what, frankly, stop the fentanyl. Because they're going to come up with another new synthetic drug. They always do. To your point, they adapt very. quickly. How do you, from your perspective, take on the cartels in a meaningful way to try to accomplish the objectives of the Trump administration? Well, I just remember George W. Bush, you know, making a decision in Iraq when the chips

were down. You might remember in about 2005, 2006, we were loot taking a lot of casualties, and George W. Bush came under tremendous pressure to pull the troops out and just wave the white flag and go home. And instead, he put 30,000 more in. So, I do believe that all organizations can be wiped out militarily. Maybe that, you know, that may be the solution that, you know, you got to put those 30,000 more in instead of waving the flag and retreating like Calderon did. You know, Hamas over in Israel is kind of similar. or they were very good at morphing and surviving down in the tunnels and all the rest of this. And all they have to do to win is survive.

That's it. They win the war. If they come out as a governing force of Gaza, and the Israelis didn't wipe them out. So you have to be either fully committed to take the losses or not. And maybe, I mean, I'm not optimistic. honestly, I think maybe the best outcome is, you know, we'll stop the fireworks if you just quit fentanyl. Go ahead and send us your heroin and meth, just not the fentanyl. So it's maybe good for business, for cartel business with Trump in office to just shut that one drug off and let the

Trump administration call a victory. I take your point. I, you know, and it, And I agree with you in terms of being pessimistic. You know, the problem, if they go that route, again, it's all about moneymaking. And so they will move into a different synthetic drug. They will find a new bit of gear that they can move across the border. But I agree with your sort of that pessimistic stance. And in part because, you know, look, we're both old enough to have watched whatever you want to call it, the war on drugs and how, unfortunately, how ineffective it's been through a number of administrations.

We'll be able to tell somewhat if it's working if the prices go up for everything. So, I mean, but, you know, all during the Calderon War 2006 on, you know, we didn't really see much fluctuation in the cost, meaning the supply was still pretty steady all the way along. A lot of people died, but the money still and drugs kept rolling both ways. I mean, it's really a wicked problem to do. And again, let me just repeat, you know, as gratifying as a lot of Americans would feel if we sent the Navy SEALs in to just waste everybody, you know, I wait till the body bags start coming back.

People are going to be like, wait, what? you know, we're having all these funeral, military funerals in Mexico. So it's going to happen to Mexicans, and the Mexicans, their heart's not really in it. Well, Todd, I'd love to have you back on. We've got a lot more we could look and talk about. And I'd love to kind of dig into more issues related to immigration policies as well. So I hope next time we'll give you a call, you'll pick up the phone and you'll join us again on the situation report. but Todd Benzman of the Center for Immigration Studies.

Listen, thanks very much, man, for joining us. Coming up, delegations from the U.S. and Russia were in Saudi Arabia this week. Perhaps you read about it, pushing for an end to the war in Ukraine. What's at stake in these high-stake negotiations? Well, a lot. And we'll be joined by Steve Yates of the Heritage Foundation. He'll help us break it all down. Stay with us.

Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. U.S. and Russian delegations were in Saudi Arabia this. week, perhaps you read about it, for talks aimed at ending the ongoing war in Ukraine. Now, the discussions come as both sides push for a resolution to the conflict, but the process, well, has raised eyebrows, particularly with the Ukrainians being excluded from the talks. Well, they did not get an invite. Meanwhile, President Trump had some sharp words for the Ukrainian leader, labeling Zelensky as a, quote, dictator without elections, end quote, and placing much of the blame for the war squarely Hans Zelensky's shoulders. Now, is this a sign of shifting

U.S. priorities in the conflict? Or is it just the latest salvo in political rhetoric? Well, let's answer that question. Steve Yates from the Heritage Foundation is joining us now to provide insight. Steve, thank you very much for coming back on the Situation Report. You're a real trooper, I'd say. Well, I'm happy to be back. We'll see whether I can help. Well, if you can't, then we're going to have a very, very, very short interview here. All right. Let's see. Let's start with. I'm fascinated by this situation. I have never, and I don't know that anybody else has ever seen such important, significant negotiations kick off in this manner. But talk to me about the discussions in Riyadh that just took place between the U.S. and Russia. From your perspective, you know, obviously Ukraine was missing.

Obviously, NATO allies were missing. But, you know, give me your view from the 30,000 foot level. Well, it's definitely different, but we are in unprecedented times and circumstances in any number of different ways. I have kind of noted the Riyadh location as being interesting also in a number of ways. Obviously, Secretary Rubio arrived there and was talking with various folks, about things that were not just Russia-Ukraine-related, and having that sort of great power conversation there couldn't have gone unnoticed by Tehran. And so it's also a signal of where things may be going with regard to the broader Middle

East, revival of notions of Abraham Accords, elements, maximum pressure towards Iran, et cetera, et cetera, we shall see. But that's sort of some of the preamble to the main. horse that was sitting across the table with Russia in Saudi Arabia. It's definitely true that Ukraine wasn't present, but Keith Kellogg has been in Ukraine a lot, and he has a lot of experience having been in Ukraine before going back to the White House as a special envoy this time. And Vice President Vance, Secretary Rubio, Secretary Hexeth, all had been through Europe. And so it's not as if they haven't been a part of conversations. They were not

in this room, but it's also be really fair to say that the bases have not been touched. Now, we do have the conversation in Riyadh. It's kind of hard to tell what exactly was transacted. It sure seemed to me to be kind of a temperature taker, a scene setter. It seemed like the president asked Secretary Rubio, give me a sense of, are the Russians really willing to deal on some of the terms that we've talked about. Is there kind of a stable landing place here to reduce tensions and pick up where we are? And just acknowledging that we aren't where we were in 21 and 22, that there's been three years of a war of attrition that's been grinding along. And so we're not really looking at optimal outcomes. We're looking at the outcomes we might work with now,

kind of said. And it seems like Secretary Rubio told the president that we've got some something to work with, we shall see. At least that's the impression the president has hinted at. Well, you know, look, I would argue I'm going to take a sort of a, you know, devil's advocate position here. We can get a peace deal any day of the week as long as we're okay with giving Russia what they want. And that seems to be, at least for now, Putin, I mean, through his mouthpiece, Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister who was present in Riyat, seems to be their position is that they, they're talking as if they believe that they have completely all the cards in the deck. So they're saying, look, first of all, you know, having any discussion about Ukraine

being in NATO is off the table. Second, you have to renounce, you know, the 2008 NATO summit agreement or promise that, you know, Ukraine and Georgia could eventually be in NATO. And you can't have peacekeeping troops from other nations in Ukraine, you know, at the end of any, you know, a peace deal. They just keep layering on, you know, their demands as if, you know, that's the starting point. And so I'm a little concerned. I think a lot of people are concerned that, you know, we may be so keen, so eager to get a peace deal that. we're willing to go along with this. And I'm not sure that that's really a good idea. I also don't know. And I know that I take your point. Rubio has said that, well, of course Ukraine will be part of the

discussions down the road, right, as will our NATO allies. But typically, if you've got an invaded country and you're going to sit down to the negotiating table to talk about the future that invaded country, you might have somebody from the invaded country involved, you know, from the outset. And again, I'm sure there's some discussion going on in the background. It doesn't seem that way after the past day or so of back and forth between Trump and Zelensky. I'm not putting as much of a sugar-coating on this as I think we got from, certainly from Wittkoff and Mike Walts, who were there in Rio. Yeah, well, I think there's pieces of this that I think are worth kicking around.

And obviously, the relationship between Trump and Zelenskyy was never good. And I don't think it's going to end up good. There is this substantive issue of we are fighting for democracy, but right now, Ukraine is not entering into an election cycle. And so there's going to be some bumps and bruises there for sure. I also just don't take the first round. I see this is sort of like a heavyweight match where we're going to have multiple rounds. And so there's been jousting and floating of ideas and things that happened in the course of the campaign of things getting tossed out.

there's been exploring of where things might go through the transition. So I think there's a lot of kicking the tires in multiple directions going on. So I don't take the Riyadh meeting as the beginning of even the really much more than just the first stage of where are we. After three years of Joe Biden, not talking with Putin at all. And we can argue whether you should or you shouldn't. But if it's sort of to your point to a degree, if you're going to be, get a durable peace deal? How are you going to get it if you don't have any talk directly with the Russian side? So this might just be a different way of inchworming toward where this

sit down might ultimately get, but I think they would have been foolish to imagine that you're going to go to Riyadh sit down and come out with a victory that's durable. This is at best a temperature take for how to... Oh, yeah, no. I don't think there was any thought that this was anything other than, you know, okay, let's, you know, let's at least open the door and let's start having these conversations. I agree with that 100%, right? And I also agree that, look, I mean, I appreciate the speed with which they start the process because I think it creates, you know, potential for movement in a variety of areas. I think it created opportunities for ideas that otherwise wouldn't have happened. Look, in a previous administration, under the Biden administration,

A, there was no variety conversation, right? It was just all, it was sort of that unrealistic world that said, you know, well, you know, Ukraine has to get all their territory back, including all the way back to 2014, right? Nobody, nobody cared a crap back in that day that Russia took Crimea, right? You didn't see a bunch of people walking around the streets of America, you know, waving Ukrainian flags and saying they stood with Ukraine. And you do have to have these conversations. But I guess my point being is, and I think, again, that speed with what you do this, right? Typically in government, it would have taken a year just for them to sort out who was going to sit at the table and in what seat, you know, and where the conference room would be, you know, located. So that's all good.

There has to be the recognition, perhaps, that, you know, there is compromise on both sides, right? I just, I've said this for several years now. I see no scenario where we get a deal that includes Crimea going back to Ukraine. It does strike me as if Putin is at that negotiating table right now thinking, I got what I want, plus now I got an open feud between Zelensky and Trump. Well, I don't disagree on that front either. I mean, it just is definitely, when there's rifts on your opposition side, you probably have net advantage. We'll see how all that rolls forward. But there's also this issue of the NATO versus not NATO issue.

I mean, really before the first Trump term was over, Trump and his team were not advocates for Ukraine joining NATO. And there was a debate about is this provocative? Now, I'm not a super fan of blaming the victim if the victim is provocative. victim is provocative to an aggressive neighbor. But there is a certain logic to what's the net gain and what's the net risk in doing so, especially if you have Europe that's not ready, willing, and able to step up the way they should. And so I think that was part of the calculus on NATO. I do think that there's going to have to be security assurances for Ukraine, and they're going to have to be

better than what the early con, the nun luger promise was, if you give up your nukes, well, I will protect your derodory. That didn't happen. It's going to have to be, it's, it can't be what Putin says that no European forces, no NATO forces can be there. And so he's free to say what he thinks he's gotten at this stage. I think this is, this is verbal jousting. I, look, I don't think that they're going to get to a conclusion. under the shortened timeline. I agree with that. And I also think that, you know, maybe Putin is drawing some lines there. And he probably thinks, look, I can get that concession that they won't be part of NATO, but, and I'll give up the demand that there be no peacekeeping troops

in Ukraine. Because I don't see how we get forward without that, at least being an aspect of a peace deal. If you'll stay with us, Steve, I apologize for having to take a quick break. But stick around, and we'll be right back with more of Steve Yates from the Heritage Foundation. Welcome back to the BDB Situation Report. Joining me again is Steve Yates, a senior research fellow for China and national security policy at the Heritage Foundation. Steve, thanks again for sticking around and for being here on the Situation Report. Let's shift our focus slightly.

We've been talking about Ukraine and Russia and the dialogue that just took place in Riyadh. And I think your points are spot on, right? This is an opening salvo. People are testing the waters. I think, you know, Rubio has talked now about let's get our diplomatic situation back to normal. It's staff the embassies in Moscow and Washington and go from there. Let's try to move this thing forward. But let's shift from that part of the world because it's interesting. I think sometimes it almost appears like we can't multitask, right? And so we always have to focus on one thing. Meanwhile, China, Xi Jinping, the Communist Party of China, are sitting over there probably immensely enjoying all the chaos that's going on around the world in a sense while they continue to march forward and what they view as their eventual arrival at the top of the food chain. So give me a quick rundown if you could. What's the latest from the region? From the sort of Indo-Pacific or Asia theater looking back in the direction of what's going on with Russia and Ukraine and also the Gaza and broader Middle East situation, certainly China thinks at some level there is advantage when America is distracted or spread thinly.

We also have a lot going on domestically. And so they might feel like these are times of opportunity to maybe seek some advantage with President Trump and the new team. However, I think that they're a little bit concerned about the new administration because it's not necessarily as predictable as they might have had with previous administrations. And they aren't completely sure that if they poke the bear, the bear might not swat back in certain ways. So they know that there's an initial wave of tariffs. Maybe they can negotiate a way or act in ways that get round two of that conversation. but maybe the tariffs go up or target other areas. They also see this Doge effort, which is a real distraction in the United States.

But if the Doge stuff is serious about making our Pentagon manufacturing supply chains more timely, more productive at lower cost, it means we have more lethality as Secretary HECF likes to focus on going out there. And we've got things we can sell to our allies and partners that would challenge the stuff that China's got coming to. down the line. It doesn't affect today, but it certainly affects the horizon. So it's a mixed bag for them. They do like us bogged down and distracted, but I don't know that they're sitting as pretty as we might imagine. They've got pressure at home on their economy. Their peripheries a little bit wise to what they've been up to on encroachments. Prime Minister of Japan and Prime Minister of India came and had amazingly positive meetings in Washington in terms of the opting. and the sort of issue briefs that came out of there.

So there's a little bit for Beijing to sit back and think, what exactly is the lay of the land here or this new team? From your perspective, what's the weakest aspect of the Chinese regime at the current time? Well, I think it's their domestic economy. We have a lot of people who are great experts that have partial visions in, but it's like people in the dark being able to describe a different part of an elephant. No one's got clear, transparent, verifiable visibility into what the nuts and bolts of the Chinese economy really are. There's a property bubble that's awfully. You can see videos of

huge multiplexes of high rises getting demolitioned. They've got a changing population curve where they're not having kids, not marrying, going later in life. How do you have this mass manufacturing economy? If you don't have humans to go in at low wages, to do that stuff. And then there's sort of the political tension. Xi Jinping, as leader of China, has opted for control and stability rather than growth and openness, which was the old ethos of reform and opening under Deng Xiaoping famously. And I think some elements of the Chinese populace are getting sore by that and don't really

want this picking a fight all around the world. They want to take care of schools and bridges and jobs for the United. the future at home. You know, that'd be a strange calculus if he says, okay, I'm opting for stability, but not growth. Talk to me about the U.S. efforts to bring back manufacturing or, you know, other supply chain concerns and logistics, at least find options instead of being so reliant on China. And in part, I'm asking that question because I had a very interesting conversation, not too long ago about the U.S. dependency on China and India for key pharmaceuticals. Yeah. That pharmaceutical question is front and center. It's really, really big and important

and urgent. And India is definitely a part of that. That is not bringing things back to the American shore, but it's certainly better than being overly dependent on the People's Republic of China and quality control issues there. But there's a couple of big umbrellas. Now, both of those state visits I mentioned of the, I guess they weren't full state visits in the protocol sense, but both of those prime ministerial visits from Japan and India talked about investment in the United States,

joint manufacturing. There was a lot under the umbrella of this AI infrastructure initiative that's up to a trillion dollars. it was rolled out before these visits happened. And you've got Japanese, Indian, and other allied equities that might be able to do more in the United States. Or we recognize, especially like on our defense supply chain, that's an area where India has a lot of growth potential that we could do some things where we're not ready to accelerate the

manufacturing lines in the United States, where we can manufacturing some things out of Korea, Japan, India, other places to fill some things. some of these gaps on a nearer timeline, and they're open to that. And then there's a lot of training that we can do for their militaries here in continental United States and areas where we collaborate in technology, software, and hardware. So I see that manufacturing at home as a serious initiative. It's one of those things that's an aircraft carrier turning slowly. the Japanese investment to save U.S. Steel and Pennsylvania is a down payment. Maybe that can be replicated in other areas where the Japanese investor profits some. A community is saved,

and an industry is saved in different parts of the U.S. If you replicate that among good, reliable, willing partners, we've got a bit of an American revival, and it changes the political coalition behind it. So some of the elements are there. I think the energy, piece is absolutely central to this. So having Doug Bergam push that we're going to be extracting on federal lands and maybe tribal lands, looking again at Alaska as being really a state of the United States where we're going to fuel America and fuel our allies so they don't have to rely on the Straits of Malacca and Southeast Asia to have sort of resilient supply chains for energy. These are the building blocks that I see coming together. But we're at the front end. It's going to take

years of investment and co-development. Yeah, interesting, though. The way that Washington works, as you know, so we don't have years, right? We have, I mean, there's two years until the midterm elections. And if history tells us anything, it's likely that we could lose, see, the Republicans lose the House, which could chase dynamic in terms of what can be accomplished. You mentioned, you know, the aircraft carrier turning slowly. the Pentagon, which you also mentioned in terms of realigning defense spending.

You know, there's a big push right now by Doge and others to shift the focus so that we are spending more on hypersonics and cyber capabilities and also shipbuilding. Yes. Are we, I mean, how much are we behind the curve when it comes to sort of our naval capabilities as it compares to China? Well, unfortunately, we're wildly behind the curve. Our main advantage is that our technology is better, and our fighting force is proven, trained, combat experienced, and ready.

And for every one of our quality platforms and divisions, China is going to lose 10 times that amount in crap when they go into conflict because they are untested, don't have quality control, et cetera. but they have quantity, and that quantity is definitely getting out there. But America has stood in its own way on everything from submarines to surface vessels to aircraft. And that's where, you know, I think we have this unique moment where I might hope for the

impossible that Doge and Hegsseth with a new mandate can really do what people my entire lifetime have talked about but never succeeded in doing, which is. is shortening these timelines for manufacture, hold things under budget, actually put things out into the world on time for us and for our allies. Yeah, we've stopped processing. We've stopped building terminals, even just the ship building facilities themselves have atrophied into oblivion as we've allowed a lot of that to go overseas. And so that's where politics in the United States misaligned priorities, a belief that you

can globalize these things and not have consequences for our defense supply change is wrong on all counts, and now we have to play catch up. Okay. And then, of course, and I'm being mindful of time, but I'd like to shift for our last conversation because we haven't even touched on Taiwan, which is interesting because it wasn't that long ago when Taiwan was prominently in the headlines, right? You couldn't swing a dead cat without hidden another article or headline about it. about Taiwan and the threat from China. But again, we're all raccoons chasing the next shiny

tinfoil balls so we can't focus on more than one thing. Where are we with Taiwan? Well, in some ways, we are where we've always been. It's just people dive in and out of the movie. The movie's still going when everyone has stepped out to get their popcorn and come back into the theater. So there's still coercion campaigns underway by China where they're doing what people call gray zone operations, whether it's by sea or air. Cyber attacks are constant. It's probably the most attacked geography on the planet per capita. And so that just persists. There has been some marginal progress in that those two visits I talked about, there were joint statements with Japan and India that they said the usual about wanting

differences across the Taiwan's trade to be settled peacefully, but also they said free of coercion. So that free of coercion is a nice little twist. It's just rhetoric. But it's just rhetoric. But it does hit the bull's eye on what China has gotten away with without even getting a rhetorical knuckle wrap. And so there's at least been a little bit more acknowledgement that China's crossed a line a bit with its coercive campaign. It's done it against Japan and the Philippines too. And the major powers of the world are starting to talk in ways that are making this more than just

the politics of, is Taiwan a part of China, which is the way the CCP likes to keep it. Taiwan itself is facing what everyone else is. I mean, Prime Minister Modi's in D.C., that was tariff day. Cross-the-port tariffs were coming out, right? Well, he had to smile and accentuate the positive in the U.S.-India relationship. Well, Taiwan's got a bit of that, too. They're in a really important part of our technological supply chain. A lot of our R&D gets actually manufactured there, then comes back into big-name brand industries

in the United States, and the Trump administration is talking about tariffing the middle of that supply chain. Now, I understand why. I hope it's just negotiating stuff because I just don't think tactically, it's a great move to tariff the middle of a supply chain when we have equities on both other ends of it. So hopefully that picture is more fulsomely conveyed. But Taiwan's sort of on its good days, they have a little less threat from China, but they've got this tariff challenge coming on the other end. Besides the tariffs and trade, do you see any significant changes between,

the Biden administration and the Trump administration as far as the U.S. policies towards Taiwan? I think just more broadly, they're going to be looking to accent, so sort of follow the Japan and India models of how are they investing more in the United States, how are they co-manufacturing more in the United States, how are we making this beyond just imports, exports, and trade lawyers talking, but a broader economic strategic relationship. And if they're doing that, that's a little bit more than happened during the Biden years. And frankly, I think it would be for the good of the order if they do that. Okay.

Well, Steve, listen, we're out of time, but I want to thank you very much for your insight. Like, I look forward to the next time we have a chance at chat. Steve Yates, senior research fellow for China and National Security Policy at the Heritage Foundation. Thanks again, Matt, for joining us here on the Situation Report. All right, well, that is, as I mentioned, all the time we have for this week's PDB situation report. Look, if you have any questions or comments or you have humorous anecdotes, even a limerick or two, do people still do limericks? I don't think so. Please reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com. Look, the highlight of every week at PDB headquarters secret compound,

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