John Micklethwait

Thank you, Francine.

Mario Rubio, Secretary of State, thank you for talking to Bloomberg.

You've just made this rather remarkable speech where you talked about the destiny of Europe and America always being intertwined.

You talked about an alliance which has stretched all the way culturally from Michelangelo to the Rolling Stones, a first, I suspect, for a Secretary of State, but a culture that has bled and died together.

But the very common theme of your speech was the need to share the burden, the need for Europe and America to do things together, which was slightly different from the vice president last year.

Were you kind of offering a carrot where perhaps he was offering a...

You seem to see a parallel between the Cold War, which I think I would argue that America beat the Soviet Union because it had a common idea and it had allies on its side.

You're now in a struggle with China.

As people say, you've often been a hawk on that subject.

You're in a struggle with China.

Do you think you absolutely need Europe to be able to

Do you worry from that perspective, the fact that, especially in the recent period, various sort of allies, Mark Carney has just been to Beijing, Starmer has just been to Beijing, Mertz is about to go there.

Do you worry that they're beginning to drift off too much in that direction?

So you think the rupture that many people have spoken about is illusory, that hasn't happened yet?

The place where that's being most obviously tested at the moment is Ukraine.

You see all these numbers from the front where the Ukrainians do seem to be doing better in terms of what's happening to the Russians.

Do you think Ukraine or do you think Russia is still winning that war?

Or where do you where do you place it militarily?

If Ukraine loses the war, it's going to be a disaster for the transatlantic relationship because Americans will say the Europeans didn't provide enough arms and...

Europeans will look and remember the meeting in the White House and Zelensky of Trump and they will blame them.