Ukraine has struck a deal. Will Putin abide?

0:00 Speaker 1 With us this morning is Victoria Coats, who was Deputy National Security Advisor to President Trump during his first term. Well, miss Coats, give us an update. What do you think is going on with some key spots with I guess Ukraine.

0:16 I mean they just made a big deal in the Ukraine. What does it mean to the world and to the United States.

0:25 Speaker 2 Well, great to be with you, John, And yes, the so called minerals deal with Ukraine is a very big deal for a couple of reasons. For starters, you know, we’ve had China start to cut the United States off from these so called rare earth minerals that are so critical to high tech manufacturing, and China controls a lot

0:46 of them. So that’s a real problem for US being able to continue making all of our high tech stuff. And it shows you the kind of blackmailk China is capable of. But in this case, Ukraine can provide some of those and then and also you know, it is an opportunity for the United States to help Ukraine with

1:04 reconstruction in a way that’s not just writing them a check, but a mutual investment, which I think is much better for the US taxpayer. So I would have liked to see Ukraine put their hands up right when the Chinese started threatening about cutting us off from their rearers, and so a month ago it would have been nice if

1:25 Ukraine had said, hey, America, because you know you’ve had our backs, we’re going to reach out to help you. Now.

1:30 Speaker 2 It took a little bit longer, but we won’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. It’s great that it’s established. It gives the US an interest in Ukraine going forward. So I think it’s a win win for both of.

1:41 Speaker 1 Us, understood. And if it’s United States property, I guess nobody’s gonna invade the Ukraine from Russia.

1:53 Speaker 2 Well, I think it will certainly give Putent pause. And you know President Trump has been saying, you know that if he weren’t, Putin would be on a rampage right now trying to take much much more Ukrainian territory. Their former president Medvedev threatened to disappear Ukraine overnight last night over this deal because he doesn’t like it. But I

2:14 think it’s sends absolutely the right signal that the United States has invested in Ukraine, and anyone who wants to attack Ukraine will also be taking on the United States.

2:25 Speaker 1 How are we going to make peace in near future?

2:28 Speaker 2 Well, I hope so. I mean, I think the President and the Vice President have been very clear that they want this to end. Nobody else is talking about ending it, so I think that’s important. But they’ve also been clear that they’re not going to do this in perpetuity, that if they can’t make some good progress, if Russia’s not

2:46 serious about it, that they can’t just be spending all their diplomatic capital on some kind of endless and unproductive negotiations. So I think the balls kind of in Russia’s court will see if they start to make sincere noises about trying to get to a piece deal.

3:06 Speaker 1 I ran, is there any sanity? Are we ever going to have any sanity from that area of the world.

3:14 Speaker 2 Well, it’s hard for me to see a lot of sanity coming out of this administered. This regime rather in Tehran, which has been implacably hostile at a state of war against the United States and Israel for fifty years, was a chance of death to America, death to Israel. You know they mean that, And so you know, I don’t

3:36 blame the President for a minute for trying to get to a diplomatic solution. It would be nice if one were possible, And you know he tried this in the first term as well to get to a better deal than the Obama era nuclear deal that was the failure, so he can try. I think again, you don’t want

3:57 to get into an endless doom loop of Iranian diplomacy because every day they get is another day for them to rebuild their air defense that Israel took out in October. Every day is a day for them to enrich yet more uranium and plutonium at weapons grades level. And so the president’s patients, again as with Russia, should not be infinite.

4:21 And one really important point, John, is that there are folks running around saying that any strike will inevitably lead to a massive regional war in thousands of US casualties. I just historically don’t see the evidence for that. You know, Israel’s done this twice over the course of the last forty years in Iraq and Inspheria. No war and no

4:43 nuclear proliferation has resulted. So I think Israel has also spent the last fifteen months trying to prevent a regional war which we all thought was going to break out with has a law and potentially Iran itself, so Israel doesn’t win a war, and if the United States also doesn’t want a war, we want to stop around from

5:03 getting a nuclear capability that should be doable without a massive conflict.

5:09 Speaker 1 Are what are the country keeps you up at night?

5:13 Speaker 2 Well, I have to say I am increasingly worried about South Korea. We’ve had some very bizarre political gyrations with you know, the Prime minister a couple of months ago declaring martial law that seemed like a totally irrational thing for a rational person to do, and has led, of course to his impeachment and all sorts of other problems.

5:32 And what’s emerging is this might have been a Chinese false flag operation that they persuaded him that a North Korean offensive was imminent, so he took an action which made sense to him at the time, but was completely bizarre to everyone else and led to the disruption of his government. Now we have the threat of a much

5:53 more pro North Korea left wing candidate coming in, which of course would be great for China. So I’m worried. We’re seeing China start to make the moves against the key American ally in Asia and somebody, for example, that we’re really going to need on six G because we’re working on that at Heritage. Of what this US LED

6:14 six G look like. Samsung, the great South Korean telecommunications company would be central to that. Is this China trying to circle around Samsung so they’re not available to US six G. That’s just one of many examples of why this is bad.

6:31 Speaker 1 Understood. Well, we covered three different countries and we understand, and thank you for the update for the American people. Anything else you want to say to the American people on a Sunday.

6:41 Speaker 2 Morning, Well, I think I just tell them to hold the course on the teriff issue with President Trump. I think we might see some really good deals in coming weeks with major countries UK, India for example. This could actually turn out pretty well, So I would urge everyone not to rush to judgment on that just yet.

7:03 Speaker 1 Thank you so much, and God bless you, God bless America.

7:06 Speaker 2 Thank you, thank you, John