Nippon Television’s Washington correspondent Masuda Lisa reports about the interview to Alexander Gray, a deputy assistant to former President Donald Trump and a senior fellow in national security affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council.　

In the wide-ranged interview, Gray commented on the Biden administration’s handling of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and possible foreign policy directions under a second Trump administration. And he spoke about the US-Japan relationship in light of Japan’s push to upgrade its defense capabilities, Prime Minister Kishida’s visit to the United States, and the passing of Prime Minister Abe; diplomacy between the United States and North Korea; and the America’s role in checking China, which he says is the greatest security threat to the United States.　The following is the transcript of the interview.

Q    Have you met with President Trump recently?
A    Yeah, I got to see the president with a group of people maybe three months ago, and he’s doing great. And, you know, really, I think he’s focused on getting through some of the legal issues and then focused on the campaign and, you know, giving his message to the American people.

Q    How was the former president feeling about the election and trial?
A    You know, the president, I think, is always a naturally optimistic person. And so I think he’s got a great attitude despite everything that he’s going through on the legal side. He’s got a really incredibly upbeat and positive attitude, which was great to see.

Q    Did he talk at all about Japanese Prime Minister Kishida’s visit to the US?
A    You know, I saw him before that visit and before he met with Aso-san. But you know, I—my experience with him has always been if there’s an alliance that he speaks positively about and a kind of issue set that he’s positive about, it’s the US-Japan alliance. I mean, I think because he had such a wonderful experience with Prime Minister Abe and he saw such positive developments in the US-Japan alliance, I think his impression of the relationship is just so positive.

Q    Speaking of Prime Minister Abe, you also mentioned at the press conference at the FCCJ that the relationship between Japan and the US was helped dramatically by the “personal relationship of trust” between him and President Trump. Unfortunately Mr. Abe is gone now, so if Mr. Trump were to be reelected, do you think the US-Japan relationship would be different?
A    I think there’s going to be a lot of continuity in the relationship for a number of reasons. I mean, one is when President Trump came into office, you know, he was obviously new to public policy. He didn’t have a foreign policy background like some of our presidents. But he—because of the relationship that Prime Minister Abe cultivated, I think it started over time to transcend just their personal relationship, and it became about President Trump’s understanding and commitment to the alliance and a big part of that was Prime Minister Abe’s—his ability to kind of personally impart the importance of the alliance to the United States. So now I think with President Trump, it’s bigger than just one person. And I think the second thing is when you look at the folks who I personally think will be around President Trump at the senior level, the cabinet level, it’s people who have long experience with the alliance, who are great friends of Japan. And so I feel very confident that we’re going to have a lot of continuity, not just between where we are today in the alliance, but really kind of picking up from the progress we made under President Trump the first time.

Q    So there’s not going to be a drastic change?
A    Well, you know, look: I don’t speak for the president. I can’t predict what’s going to happen. But I think we have to look at what happened last time to make good predictions about what’s going to happen in the future. And you know I would never pretend to speak for President Trump. I think that’s the worst thing you can do as someone who worked for him—is ever think you’re going to speak on his behalf. But we can look at the policies that he implemented from 2017 to 2021. And, you know, unlike other elections, unlike with previous presidents, we have a track record to judge. You know, most American elections, you’re guessing about what a candidate might do. He’s actually done these things, and the relationship that he built and the security alliances—not just in Japan, but across the Indo-Pacific that the Trump administration built—I think speak for themselves, and there’s nothing that’s changed in the Indo-Pacific that would change the president’s—I think would change the calculus that animated him his first time in office.

Q    Last month, Prime Minister Kishida gave a speech before Congress in which he said that right now “the international order is facing new challenges.” And he said, “I want to address those Americans who feel the loneliness and exhaustion of being the country that has upheld the international order almost single-handedly,” and, “The US should not be expected to do it all unaided and on your own. Japan is with you.” What did you think of the speech and of those lines in particular? How did people around President Trump feel about the idea of supporting the international order? 
A    Well, let’s take the last question first. I think the phrase “liberal international order” has gotten a bad reputation in the United States, because some of its proponents have twisted it to mean something that I’m not sure it was ever originally intended to mean and probably is something that most Americans would not support. And so I think when you look at the years of George W. Bush’s presidency, you look at the Iraq War, you look at kind of 20 years of Middle Eastern wars that Americans were fighting on their own, and, you know, I think most Americans feel there wasn’t a lot of gain for our core national interests from those conflicts. And you look at a lot of the globalization and the free trade agreements from the 1990s, the 2000s, the 2010s, particularly as it relates to China, a lot of Americans do not have a positive view of what a liberal international economic order has meant for our economy and for American jobs and American workers. I think that colors how Americans perceive that phrase. 
To me, and I think to a lot of people who have worked in foreign policy and national security, it’s “How do we take that phrase, ‘liberal international order,’ and match it with America’s core national security interests?” I personally think we have a core interest in making sure that using force to solve territorial disputes like we’ve seen in Ukraine with Russia, or like China is daily threatening to do in Taiwan—that is a core American interest, to prevent that from happening. I think we have to align those interests, which I hope most Americans, if it’s presented the right way, would agree those are core interests. With things like our position on trade—our position on trade. China is a fundamentally unfair, unfree trade actor on the global economic stage. And so I think one of President Trump’s great accomplishments is helping the American people fully understand China’s role as a predatory economic power. 
I think to your point about Prime Minister Kishida, I think what he’s speaking to is a lot of Americans have taken these data points and become disillusioned with America being the sole enforcer of that order. And so what I’d like to see—and I think President Trump did this is first time—I think he will do this in his next time—is focusing our attention on those core interests and communicating to the American people why those core interests matter to them. And I think President Trump is committed to kind of core—if you look at his first term, I think he’s committed to the core alliances, the core kind of international security bulwarks that have underpinned our posture since 1945. Where I think he makes a lot of the foreign policy elite in Washington uncomfortable is he’s willing to publicly criticize some of those institutions that aren’t living up to their founding purpose. And I know that makes people uncomfortable. But frankly, it’s better for those institutions to have someone who’s willing to force them to change than to just let an institution fail before our eyes.

Q    I think when Prime Minister Kishida gave his speech, what may have been on his mind was Taiwan. Do you think that the prime minister’s speech to Congress may have helped change the minds of Americans who were feeling concern about the United States’ role in foreign disputes like that? Or do you think it had no effect?
A    No, I think it’s important that a key American ally tell the American people that he understands that we’ve spent 20 years or longer feeling like the sole enforcer of norms and international order. And I think, you know, whether it’s economic reasons or security reasons, I think most Americans feel, like he said, they feel overstretched. They feel overburdened by that commitment. And so for him to show that empathy, frankly, for what Americans have done to uphold that order, I think that’s a tremendous rhetorical gesture. But even more important, I think what Japan is doing to increase its defense spending, to increase its defense capabilities, to look at ways that they can be more interoperable with us in the region—I think those are important, tangible ways that we can show solidarity together. And that’s—I think that’s a critical—it’s critically important.

Q    Is that still the role the US would play after President Trump comes back into office?
A    If we look at what he did the first time, I think, and we extrapolate from that—the United States continued to be the world’s leader. And I would argue the United States was more effective on the world stage, because people respected our voice people, respected that when President Trump said he would do something he did it, and people had a true—our adversaries particularly were deterred and feared American power. They don’t fear American power today. After Afghanistan, after Ukraine, after the Red Sea and the Houthis, American power or American words are not feared by our adversaries, and it’s having a very dangerous deterioration of deterrence globally. That was certainly not the case under President Trump, and I think you will see that deterrence restored—and our role as kind of the global champion of peace and stability—I think you’ll see that restored under President Trump.

Q    Would Mr. Trump expect allies to also be part of restoring what the US may have lost after President Trump?
A    Well, this is a great misconception, I think, that President Trump has some sort of natural antipathy towards alliances or partnerships. President Trump wants alliances that are effective and work. And, you know, if you look at what happened—let’s take Ukraine as an example. You know, the Obama administration—people forget this now, but the Obama administration after 2014 refused to provide lethal aid to Ukraine. President Trump did. President Trump is the one who sent the Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine. I was very proud to work on that effort. And he did that, and he also used his bully pulpit, his voice, to get NATO—every country in NATO increased its defense spending under President Trump’s time in office. That contributed directly to deterring Vladimir Putin for four years that Donald Trump was in office. All of that is—that’s diplomacy. Right? People give that a bad—you know, people say he was denigrating our alliances he was being undiplomatic. That is diplomacy at its essence: using American power to get better outcomes to keep peace. So I think that that’s going to be a core focus of his: is getting our alliances, expanding our alliances, making them more effective. I think you’re going to see more of that if he comes back.

Q    As you mentioned, Japan was also one of the countries that raised its defense budget. And I think since the end of the Trump administration, Japan’s security policy has changed drastically: The Japanese government has approved three new strategic documents on defense and has also decided to possess counter-strike capabilities, and also decided to raise defense spending to 2 percent of GDP. How do you see these changes? And if Mr. Trump returns to the office, do you think he would ask more from Japan?
A    You know, I think it’s too early to know if he how he’s going to interact with his prime minister counterpart, and how he’s going to directly you know—what the day-to-day relationship is going to look like. I think he’s always going to be looking for allies to do more. And I think that we should all understand that just by the nature and scope of who the United States, who we are, we’re always going to be in the lead. But because of that, we’re going to continually need our closest allies to grow and do more, particularly as the threat from China increases. And I think that threat is—if anything, it’s just gotten worse since President Trump left office. And so, you know, Japan is taking really positive steps. I think it’s a great story, and I think it’s a story that when Aso-san met with President Trump, I think he shared that story. And, you know, I think that was an important message to deliver: that since President Trump left office, Japan has not stopped its progress; Japan has only increased it. And so it’s a great narrative, and I think President Trump is going to be very receptive—in my personal opinion—I think he’s going to be very receptive to a narrative where allies didn’t just increase their defense spending because he was in office; they learned, and they fully integrated that that posture into their strategic into their strategy, and they’ve continued even under Joe Biden. And I think that’s a great narrative.

Q    It may be hard to predict, but do you think Mr. Trump could call on Japan to raise its defense budget even more?
A    This is hard to predict. And look: I know that Japan is doing a lot comparative to what it has done in the past. I know you still have constitutional constraints on what you can do in certain circumstances. I think what Republican foreign policy experts and practitioners want to see from Japan over time is more and greater integration with the larger US defense effort in the Pacific. And does that require increased defense spending over time as a percentage of GDP? Probably. But even more important than that, I think, are the specific capabilities and how we’re going to integrate them together. And I think some of the things that Kishida-san announced on his visit were really, really positive steps in that direction. And so, look, continuing in that trajectory I think is more important than just the specifics of percentages of GDP. I think it’s the trajectory that matters.

Q    So it’s more about how Japan and the United States act together in their defense integration？ . .?
A    . . . And showing that we’re making progress and that we’re growing closer as part of both the bilateral alliance. But I think we can’t forget the Quad. And something I think will be one of President Trump’s great legacies: how he expanded the Quad, and obviously Prime Minister Abe, one of his great legacies. So I think, you know, within that framework—not just bilaterally, but multilaterally, in that framework—how Japan is further integrating into the deterrence posture in the Indo-Pacific—I think that trajectory is important, as much as what percent of GDP is being spent.

Q    Do you think Mr. Trump would ask for more funding for host nation support since he did before?
A    You know, not to be vague and evasive on these things, because we just don’t know what set of facts he’s going to face when he gets into office. But I think when we look at how President Trump perceived things in his first term, which is a great baseline, I think, you know, Japan was one of the countries most responsive to his concerns about what host nation support looked like. And because Japan was very responsive, because Prime Minister Abe understood the sensitivity of this issue and acted accordingly, I think there’s been a good framework set that shows that Japan kind of understands President Trump’s concerns. And hopefully, if it’s something that he does raise, we have precedent for solving it in a, I think, a professional way.

Q    Moving onto broader security issues. The world is chaotic at the moment. But what do you think is the greatest security threat to the United States?
A    It’s the People’s Republic of China, and it’s China’s global intentions, not just regional. Obviously, we have to be concerned about the Indo-Pacific. But what we’re seeing now in China is a direct—however the administration chooses to define it—in reality, China is directly aiding Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine. China has been a part of Iran’s race for nuclear weapons for over a decade and a half. China is part of what’s become an axis of authoritarianism all over the globe, and it’s using its economic and political position to prop up regimes that are trying to overthrow that global order we just talked about. Not only does China have aggressive military ambitions in the Indo-Pacific, but it is exporting authoritarian chaos globally. And I think that is a fundamental threat, not just to the US, but to every Western, liberal-value-minded country in the world. And so that’s—I think, whoever is president on January 20 of next year, that’s going to be the number-one threat they’re going to have to address.

Q    So if China were to invade Taiwan, do you think the US military would get involved? And if so, what kind of involvement would that be? If Mr. Trump were in office at that time, what would he ask Japan to do?
A    Well, I think, you know, we obviously have—President Biden has changed it a little bit, but traditionally we’ve had this doctrine of strategic ambiguity about how we’d respond. I think that it is relatively clear that whoever the American president is—Joe Biden, Donald Trump, 2025, 2029, for anytime in the future—I think bipartisanly, on a bipartisan basis, there’s a consensus that Taiwan is a fundamental—Taiwan being autonomous self-governing entity—that is a fundamental core interest of the United States. And I think you’re going to see whoever the president is in 2025 acting to preserve Taiwan’s autonomy if China chooses to do something as reckless as trying to take it by force.

Q    If fighting were to break out, would the US military go near the Taiwan coast?
A    Look, this is my personal opinion. Obviously, I don’t speak for the president. But I think President Trump fully understands that China’s threat to Taiwan is one of the most dangerous threats to American economic and security interests that we face anywhere in the world. And let’s be very clear about this: President Trump’s policies in office contributed directly to deterring Xi Jinping for four years. And the tensions that we’ve seen in the Taiwan Strait since Donald Trump left office are a reflection of policies by his successor that have made deterrence more difficult and have made it harder for the United States to keep that equilibrium that restrained China while President Trump was at the White House. So, I think we’re going to see policies of peace through strength, probably a very significant buildup in US military capabilities, that are going to directly contribute to keeping—you know, Xi Jinping wakes up every day, and he asks a question of himself. He asks, “Are conditions right for me to change the order in the Indo-Pacific?” And when Donald Trump was president, and if he’s president again, I think the answer is going to continue to be “No, the conditions are not right to do that.”

Q    On a different topic, the war between Israel and Hamas is ongoing. In general, what are your thoughts on the conflict? And how do you evaluate the Biden administration’s response to this?
A    Well, I think, you know, Israel suffered the most catastrophic attack in its history. And I think it’s only been a couple of months, but the world seems to have forgotten just how horrific the October attacks were. And, you know, we’re talking about innocent civilians massacred in an unprovoked attack, and I think Israel—what is forgotten in this is Israel has a fundamental right under international law to defend itself. Israel, I would argue, is using proportionate force to try and eliminate a terrorist nonstate entity that is avowedly seeking its destruction. Can we quibble in some instances with tactical battlefield decisions that the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) makes? Absolutely. And I think those are conversations that need to be had between the United States—is Israel’s best friend in the world—and the Israeli government on a private, individual basis, the same way we have with other governments when we have concerns. 
My concern with the Biden administration is they are transparently viewing this in a US domestic political context. They are concerned about their base of progressive voters, who have turned against Israel, who identify with the Palestinian cause rather than with Israel’s right of self-defense, and they are concerned with how this is going to affect their election outcomes. And so, the Democratic Party is making a decision about its support for Israel wholly in that context rather in a strategic context, and rather in the context of our historic relationship with the State of Israel. I have real concerns about how the Biden administration is approaching that. And I think that they’re trying to have it both ways, and this is an area where you can’t have it both ways. We can express our sadness and our solidarity with what innocent Palestinians are facing and the humanitarian crisis. And I think everyone, their hearts, all of our hearts, should be broken by what we see on TV, by what the refugees are facing, by what Gazans are facing; but at the same time, we have a strategic interest in standing with Israel and communicating our concerns about Israelis’ specific operational decisions on a confidential government-to-government basis and not litigating it on cable TV.

Q    Robert O’Brien, the former national security adviser, visited Israel and met with Prime Minister Netanyahu. It’s not every day we see big Trump allies meeting such high-level foreign officials. Did those two talk about what kinds of policies Trump will enact if he’s reelected? Is there anything you can share with us about what they discussed?
A    I think it is relatively common for former senior government officials to meet with their former counterparts, and this is a tradition in American diplomacy. Obviously, Ambassador O’Brien was speaking only for himself as a private citizen—wasn’t speaking, certainly not for the US government, and he wasn’t speaking for President Trump. He’s been a friend of Israel his entire public career. And he was there to express solidarity with the people of Israel as they’re in the midst of this existential fight with Hamas, and now with Iran, Hamas’s sponsor. But he was also there, I think, to show that, you know, Americans care about this region of the world. Americans have an interest in the humanitarian aspect of this as well. You know, we can we can agree, or at least many of us feel, that Israel is one of our closest allies and deserving of American military support and other American support. But we can also—and he said this while he was over there—our hearts really do break for the Gazans. And I think that is a message that too often gets lost. And we have to be thinking from a humanitarian perspective, “What can we be doing to alleviate their suffering?” And so I think he was there to deliver both of those messages in his private capacity.

Q    If Mr. Trump comes back into office, how would he handle this war? How would he do that?
A    I think that part of this comes back, a significant part of this comes back, to the issues we’re facing with Iran. Iran is the locus of terrorist activity in the Middle East. It is the funder; it is the underlying mastermind of Hezbollah, of the Houthis, of Hamas, of the militant groups in Iraq, in Syria. So much of the destabilization that we see in the Middle East is directly from Tehran. And unfortunately, we’re seeing this now with President Biden refusing to follow our allies in Europe in the IAEA who are urging him to declare that Iran is not in compliance with our nuclear—with the demands of the UN that it stop its nuclear program. And the Biden administration is refusing to admit reality and is continuing to try and bring forth the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran in some fashion. That’s extraordinarily reckless. And I think history has shown that failing to understand Iran as a toxic influence in the Middle East and acting strongly to deter them, the way President Trump did, is disastrous. And so I think what you’re going to see with President Trump going back to a posture of overwhelming American Force to deter Iran, followed by an approach of—you know, we saw this with Abraham Accords: building a coalition of like-minded moderate Arab states who understand that the future of the Middle East is not Tehran’s version of autocratic militant Islamism. The future of the Middle East is a relationship with Israel, a relationship with the United States, and a focus on building prosperity by having ties between all the countries of the region. And that’s what the Abraham Accords was all about. So I think you’re going to see President Trump doubling down on that effort, aggressive presidential-level diplomacy to expand the Abraham Accords, and to isolate Iran. And that’s what we’ve lost the last four years.

Q    There’s another war going on in Ukraine. Mr. Trump said, “If it were me, I would end the war in 24 hours.” Is that still his thinking, and how would he go about ending the war?
A    Well, obviously, I’m not going to pretend that I read President Trump’s mind or that he’s sharing his plans for what he’s going to do with me. But I’ll say this: We were able to prevent Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine, because we deterred Vladimir Putin. We deterred him not just through providing Ukraine weapons. We deterred him because we took—we started repositioning American troops in Poland, in the Baltic states, in Romania. We started moving the focus of America’s security posture from our legacy bases in Western Europe to Central and Eastern Europe, where they could actually be a deterrent on the ground. The Nord Stream pipeline. You remember this well. The Biden administration—we fought against it for years, because the Nord Stream pipeline would have made it easier for Vladimir Putin to use energy blackmail against Western Europe. Within months of taking office, Joe Biden just said, “That’s fine. We can have the Nord Stream pipeline. We’ll allow that energy blackmail to take effect.” 
Putin watched that type of weakness from the White House. And I think he made a calculation, especially when President Biden said that “a minor incursion in Ukraine might not warrant a significant American response.” I think all of those decisions led to President Putin making the decision that Ukraine was a tempting target. And that didn’t happen on President Trump’s watch. Unfortunately, it did on President Biden’s watch. 
What I think you’ll see from President Trump is overwhelming American strength designed to get us back to a deterrence posture. What that looks like in terms of ending this conflict remains to be seen. I will say from my personal perspective this conflict is going to be ended at a negotiating table. It’s got to—it has to. And so the question is, “What are the terms on the ground when that negotiated settlement occurs?” And I think, from my personal perspective, the only way to bring Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table is to have him in a much weaker position on the battlefield when that happens. That’s going to require a much more concerted American approach to arming Ukraine and to having Ukraine gain that tactical battlefield advantage. And what that looks like, you know, we can go into the details, but I think unless we do that, unless we allow Ukraine the freedom to use some of its weaponry in more aggressive ways, unless we provide Ukraine weaponry in a more timely manner—not just talking about it and drawing it out over six months at a time, but providing them what they actually need in executing—I don’t think we’re ever going to shape the battlefield in a way that creates incentives for Putin to come to the table.

Q    The US is supporting both Israel and Ukraine. But at the same time, China is also a big threat to the United States. There are people who think that the United States won’t be able to respond adequately if China acts on its threats. Do you think the United States would actually be able to react adequately, having two wars going on already?
A    Look, I think that anyone who underestimates—particularly Xi Jinping—who underestimates the capability of the US military is making a very grave mistake. We have extraordinary capabilities, some public, some not. I think it is absolutely critical that Xi Jinping understand that the US military, particularly the Navy and the Air Force in the Indo-Pacific, remain the most capable in the world. And if he seeks to change the status quo in the Indo-Pacific, I don’t think that’s going to go well for him. At the same time, we have a trajectory issue. The US Navy and the US Air Force are declining in size and they’re getting older, and Xi is investing extraordinary amounts of money in his capabilities. We have to change the trendline. That’s a larger issue beyond what happens if he comes and tries to change the status quo tomorrow. Over a 2-, 5-, 10-year period, we need to make generational investments in our defense, so if we’re having this conversation 5 years from now, I can be as confident about where the US military is, as I am today. And that trend line issue is very real.

Q    In 2018, President Trump held the first-ever US-North Korea summit, and in 2019, he and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met two more times. If he comes back into office, will he look to set up another summit with North Korea?
A    Well, look, I think President Trump looked at North Korea policy, and he said, “We’ve been doing the same thing for 25 years and it hasn’t worked. So what’s the one thing that’s left on the table that hasn’t been tried?” And it was leader-to-leader diplomacy. And he tried it, and Kim Jong Un had a great deal, and he didn’t take it. And I think what is different now—and this is not to say, you know, President Trump’s going to look at all the facts, he’s going to get the briefings, he’s going to take a look at things independently and come to his own conclusions. But I think, looking from the outside at what’s changed in North Korea since he left office, is Kim Jong Un has openly now associated himself with a war of aggression against Ukraine. I mean, North Korean shells are being used to kill innocent Ukrainians as we speak. And I think we can’t separate the fact that Kim Jong Un has decided to export his authoritarian militancy to Eastern Europe. We can’t separate that. We know that he’s been working with the Iranians in various capacities for years. You know, he is now part of this global axis of authoritarianism that isn’t just confining itself to its home regions. It’s actively seeking to export itself. And I think that’s got to be part of America’s calculus, when we think about how to engage North Korea. We can’t just see this as a vacuum. This is part of a larger global issue that we can’t really just separate now.

Q    So policy toward North Korea could change a lot from Mr. Trump’s previous administration?
A    Well, yeah, just looking from the outside, I think the facts have changed significantly. I think the first thing that, you know—and this is what President Trump did in 2017. We all remember “fire and fury.” We all remember some of the comments he made. We all remember the maximum pressure campaign with sanctions. The first thing he did before negotiations was he restored deterrence. And if you remember 2016, the pace of missile launches was extraordinary, and the nuclear testing. 
First we had to stabilize the position on the peninsula. And that’s what President Trump spent 2017 doing. Unfortunately, you know, he didn’t have a partner in South Korea who was aligned with him in a lot of ways, and President Moon. That made it rather difficult. Now with President Yoon in office, I think there’s going to be a much more collaborative approach between South Korea, the United States, and—frankly—Japan, because of the trilateral partnership that has been growing. I think there’s going to be an opportunity here to restore deterrence on the peninsula, and then look what our options are and see where we, you know—what can we do proactively once we’ve restored deterrence?

Q    So a leader-to-leader summit isn’t something that would happen right after he comes back?
A    You never want to predict these things without being there. But I will say this: I think he’s going to have to—what he will inherit from Joe Biden is a peninsula that is extraordinarily unstable because of Kim Jong Un’s behavior. And he’s going to have not just the peninsula, but instability that’s being actively exported to other parts of the world in contravention of our other interests. And we’ve got to get our heads around that before we can do anything else.

Q    Mr. Trump has said that he would put a 10 percent tariff on imports to the United States. Have there been any changes in his thinking? Is this what we’re going to be seeing when he comes back in the office this November?
A    I’m not aware of any changes. And I think what he said reflects a reality that the global trading system is still out of balance. And whether it’s China, whether it’s other countries, some of whom we have great relationships with strategically—but on the economic front, we have real concerns about their behavior. And so I think President Trump and—you know, hopefully he’ll have people around him like Ambassador Bob Lighthizer and others—are going to be in a position to make clear to our trading partners—again, regardless of whether we have a great relationship on other fronts—that we’ve got to come to some sort of real understanding about how to get our trading relationships in order. The US trade deficit with too many countries is out of whack, and it’s got to be brought under control. This is—when you asked earlier about the liberal international order, the failure to do a reset of the global trading order—that is a direct cause of so many Americans’ skepticism about the broader international order, and why it’s in America’s interests. If we can’t fix the trading order, we will never have American support for things like defending Ukraine or defending Taiwan in the future. We have to get this right, or we are not going to get anything else right.

(Lisa Masuda  Nippon Television Washington DC Bureau)