Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello, I'm Stephen Carroll. I'm in Brussels, where many of Europe's biggest decisions get made.
And I'm Caroline Hepke in London. We're the hosts of the Bloomberg Daybreak Europe podcast.
We're up early every weekday, keeping an eye on what's happening across Europe and around the world.
We do it early so the news is fresh, not recycled, and so you know what actually matters as the day gets going.
From Brussels, I'm following the politics, policy and the people shaping the European Union right now.
And from London, I'm looking at what all that means for markets, money and the wider economy.
We've got reporters across Europe and around the globe feeding in as stories break.
So whether it's geopolitics, energy, tech or markets, you're hearing it while it happens.
It's smart, calm and to the point.
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Chapter 2: What reassurance did Secretary Rubio provide to European partners?
Just because you've, I mean, remember, I serve under a president that's willing to meet with anybody.
I mean, to be frank, I'm pretty confident in saying that if the Ayatollah said tomorrow he wanted to meet with President Trump, the president would meet him, not because he agrees with the Ayatollah, but because he thinks that's the way you solve problems in the world and he doesn't view meeting someone as a concession.
Likewise, the president intends to travel to Beijing and has already met once with President Xi. And in this very forum yesterday, I met with my counterpart, the foreign minister of China. So we expect nation states to interact with one another. In the end, we expect nation states to act in their national interest.
That in no way runs counter to our desire to work together on things that we share in common or threats we face in common. But I don't think visiting Beijing or meeting with the Chinese is on the contrary. I think it would be irresponsible for great powers not to have relationships and talk through things and to the extent possible avoid unnecessary conflict.
But there will be areas we'll never agree on. And those are the areas that I hope we can work together on.
So you think the rupture that many people have spoken about is illusory, that hasn't happened yet?
There's no rupture. I mean, even as I speak to you now, there are US troops deployed here on this continent on behalf of NATO. There are still all kinds of cooperation that go on at every level from intelligence to commercial and economic. The links remain. I think there is... a readjustment that's happening. Because I think we have to understand that we want to reinvigorate.
This alliance has to look different because the world looks different. This alliance has to be about different things than it's been in the past because the challenges of the 21st century are different than the challenges of the 20th. The world has changed and the alliance has to change.
But the fundamental thing that has to change is we have to remind ourselves of why it is we have an alliance in the first place.
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Chapter 3: How does Rubio describe the historical ties between Europe and America?
This is not just a military arrangement. This is not just some commercial arrangement. It is what holds us together in the first place as an alliance is our shared civilizational values. The fact that we are all heirs to a common civilization and one we should be very proud of.
And only after we recognize that and make that the core of why it is we're allies in the first place, can we then build out all the mechanics of that alliance. And then everything else we do together makes more sense.
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?
I think that's a difficult war to say anyone is winning. The Russians are losing seven to eight thousand soldiers a week. A week. Not wounded, dead. Ukraine has suffered extraordinary damage, including overnight, and again, to its energy infrastructure, and it will take billions of dollars and years and years to rebuild that country. So I don't think anyone can claim to be winning it.
I think that both sides are suffering tremendous damage, and we'd like to see the war come to an end. It's a senseless war. In our view, the president believes that very deeply. He believes the war would have never happened had he been president at the time. So we're doing two things. Obviously, we continue. Look, we don't We don't provide arms to Russia. We provide arms to Ukraine.
We don't sanction Ukraine. We sanction Russia. But at the same time, we find ourselves in a unique position of serving as probably the only nation on earth that can bring the two sides to discuss the potential for ending this war on negotiated terms. And it's an obligation we won't walk away from because we think it's a very unique one to have. It may not come to fruition, unfortunately.
I hope it does. And I think there are days when I feel more optimistic about it than others. But we're going to keep trying because that is, in the end, this war will not be solved militarily. It will be, in the end, it will come to a negotiated settlement. We'd like to see that happen as soon as possible.
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.
That would ignore reality. Look, Ukraine, first of all, they deserve a lot of credit. They fought very bravely. They've received extraordinary amount of support from the United States to the tune of billions of dollars that pre-exist the war. In fact, Ukraine probably wouldn't have survived the early days of the war had it not been for American support.
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of shared civilization values in the alliance?
It's a hard concession for Ukraine to make for obvious reasons, both from a tactical standpoint and also from a political one. And so that's kind of where this thing is narrowed. And, you know, we'll continue to search for ways to see if there's a solution to that unique problem that's acceptable to Ukraine and that Russia will also accept.
And it may not work out, but we are going to do everything we can to see if we can find a deal. There are like I said, there are days like last week where you felt we made some pretty substantial progress. But ultimately, we have to see a final resolution to this to feel that it's been worth the work. But we're going to keep trying.
And our negotiators, Steve Woodcoff, now Jared Kushner is involved, have dedicated a tremendous amount of time to this. And they'll have meetings again on Tuesday in regards to this.
A country with which you've had a long interest, Cuba. You mentioned it obliquely in the speech, talking about the Cuban missile crisis. How long do you think the regime can last without oil?
I think the regime in Cuba is hard. Look, the revolution in Cuba ended a long time ago and in failure. Cuba's fundamental problem is that it has no economy and its economic model is one that has never been tried and has never worked anywhere else in the world. It doesn't have a real economic policy. It doesn't have a real economy.
Put aside for a moment the fact that it has no freedom of expression, no democracy, no respect for human rights. The fundamental problem Cuba has is it has no economy, and the people who are in charge of that country and control of that country They don't know how to improve the everyday life of their people without giving up power over sectors that they control. They want to control everything.
They don't want the people of Cuba to control anything. So they don't know how to get themselves out of this. And to the extent that they've been offered opportunities to do it. They don't seem to be able to comprehend it or accept it in any ways. They would much rather be in charge of the country than allow it to prosper. Is there any kind of off-ramp for the regime?
I mean, previous ones, when you negotiated with Venezuela, you said if they agreed with various things, it would be possible to continue.
There is.
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Chapter 5: What parallels does Rubio draw between the Cold War and current geopolitical challenges?
About to start consensual telephone call with Dr. Daiwa Zhang. China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside. I'd never seen that much evidence in my entire career, and I don't think we'll ever see that much evidence again. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life.
And that's a unicorn. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau from Bloomberg Podcasts starting on February 13th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.