:00:00. > :00:22.Welcome to HARDtalk. Donald Trump doesn't do diplomacy in any
:00:23. > :00:26.recognisable form. A clear strategy, a consistent message, they don't
:00:27. > :00:32.feature in that trump toolkit. It is that he can threaten North Korea
:00:33. > :00:36.with war why at the same time describing Kim Jong-un as a smart
:00:37. > :00:41.cookie who it would be an honour to meet. What does it all mean? My
:00:42. > :00:44.guess is Christopher Hill, a senior US diplomat under three presidents
:00:45. > :00:49.and the former lead negotiator on North Korea. Good Trump's
:00:50. > :01:03.unpredictable approach to foreign policy actually work?
:01:04. > :01:16.-- could trump's unpredictable approach?
:01:17. > :01:25.Christopher Hill, in Warsaw, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you very much.
:01:26. > :01:33.Let's start with the general point about the President and his foreign
:01:34. > :01:38.policy making style. Admittedly, we only have 100 more days to judge him
:01:39. > :01:43.on. -- have only had 100 days to judge him on. What you think it is
:01:44. > :01:49.breaking off the norms in pot -- foreign policy leadership? He is
:01:50. > :01:53.certainly breaking with the norms in a virtual lack of staff. He has the
:01:54. > :01:57.Secretary of State, as secretary of defence and there is not much in
:01:58. > :02:02.between. You get the impression that when he says things, it is really
:02:03. > :02:07.from his heart or I guess some other place but it's definitely not
:02:08. > :02:12.considered opinion. That's one thing that is very different. Another
:02:13. > :02:15.thing that's very different is, and this was a kind of criticism of
:02:16. > :02:19.President Obama, he didn't really at the time to get to know these
:02:20. > :02:23.foreign leaders where is Donald Trump has them to dinner and takes
:02:24. > :02:27.them to Florida, et cetera. It also has a very friendly but you just
:02:28. > :02:31.really don't have a sense of where it's quite going. I think largely
:02:32. > :02:37.because he doesn't really know where it's quite going. Let's talk North
:02:38. > :02:41.Korea. That is obviously one of your special subjects. He famously went
:02:42. > :02:45.to Pyongyang as the US lead negotiator at a time when you are
:02:46. > :02:50.desperately trying to find and negotiating way through the nuclear
:02:51. > :02:57.crisis with North Korea. Donald Trump's style on North Korea is, it
:02:58. > :03:00.seems, to mix bellicose language with actually signals that is not
:03:01. > :03:08.that resident has sent about his willingness to meet face-to-face --
:03:09. > :03:13.president. What do you make of that? First of all, I think he has
:03:14. > :03:17.understood that North Korea is a top of the charts issue these days. It's
:03:18. > :03:23.not going away. They are very much focused on developing deliverable
:03:24. > :03:29.nuclear weapons. I think he understands that during this term of
:03:30. > :03:32.years that he will quite likely face the American people in Twenty20 and
:03:33. > :03:42.have to explain what he has done about this North Korean threat. I
:03:43. > :03:45.think he looks at this as a trip transactional negotiation. He can
:03:46. > :03:48.get the Chinese to do what other people couldn't get them to do.
:03:49. > :03:52.Somehow, he can find a sort of formula in negotiations that will
:03:53. > :03:56.make the North Korean state oh, we can deal with this guy, we can cut
:03:57. > :04:03.some arrangement with him. He goes into this with a sense, a kind of
:04:04. > :04:07.thought, that he understands that at a certain level but of course, I
:04:08. > :04:11.don't think he has ever cracked a briefing book on it or anything like
:04:12. > :04:16.that and often when he is confronted with facts, he has never really seen
:04:17. > :04:20.them before. So, we have the odd spectacle of the Chinese President
:04:21. > :04:25.Xi Jinping talking to him about North Korea and he said, that after
:04:26. > :04:28.ten minutes of it, he finally understood it, it's a bit more
:04:29. > :04:34.complicated. He skates on a very thin fact base to be sure. He is
:04:35. > :04:38.concerned about train to deal with it. He feels there is no one better
:04:39. > :04:44.than himself to deal with it and that is a concept that frankly have
:04:45. > :04:47.to be tested. It's an interesting concept but maybe he bases that
:04:48. > :04:52.impart that people like you worked very hard on their briefing notes
:04:53. > :04:55.and briefing books and research things very thoroughly and you tried
:04:56. > :04:59.to deal with North Korea for many years and it has to be said, you
:05:00. > :05:04.signally failed. So, the trump message seems to be, I have
:05:05. > :05:08.inherited one heck of a mess from all of these so-called experts and
:05:09. > :05:11.diplomats that worked on this for 20 years, they got nowhere, I'm going
:05:12. > :05:16.to try things a little different. I think that's absolutely his view.
:05:17. > :05:20.There are those of us who did our homework, worked very hard, try to
:05:21. > :05:24.integrate different elements of our government, elements of strategy,
:05:25. > :05:29.approached the North Korea is, got them to do certain things in terms
:05:30. > :05:33.of disabling their plans and tried to give them certain payments in
:05:34. > :05:36.terms of fuel oil and things like that and ultimately, we were not
:05:37. > :05:41.able to get a deal because the North Koreans wouldn't allow us to verify
:05:42. > :05:45.things. So, he looks at all that and say, heck with that, I can just go
:05:46. > :05:50.in there, seat of the pants and try to solve this. Look, if it works, is
:05:51. > :05:55.absolutely wonderful that just because it hasn't been solved before
:05:56. > :06:00.doesn't mean it's going to be solved without cracking a briefing book.
:06:01. > :06:06.Before we get to the trump approach, and I want to undertake it in a bit
:06:07. > :06:11.of detail -- Trump, why do you think and I referred already to your
:06:12. > :06:15.mission in Pyongyang which was in 2007 and your talks with the other
:06:16. > :06:19.members of the multilateral group trying to fix the North Korean
:06:20. > :06:25.problem, why, particularly in light of your visit to pond Yang and
:06:26. > :06:29.meeting the leadership there -- Pyongyang, wide you think that this
:06:30. > :06:34.carrot stick approach that successive administrations have
:06:35. > :06:38.tried, why has it failed? I think it's failed, it is failed in the
:06:39. > :06:42.sense that I think North Korea isn't prepared to give up their nuclear
:06:43. > :06:46.weapons. We sat down with the North Koreans and said, "What do you want?
:06:47. > :06:50.What do you want to give up your nuclear weapons? They want a peace
:06:51. > :06:54.treaty, it got it. Energy assistance, financial assistance,
:06:55. > :06:57.all of these things we packaged together in a financial agreement
:06:58. > :07:01.and we put it altogether and at the end of the day, North Korea was not
:07:02. > :07:05.prepared to have any kind of verification so we had to take their
:07:06. > :07:09.word for it on whether they were stopping the production of nuclear
:07:10. > :07:18.weapons and ultimately, that is something we absolutely could not
:07:19. > :07:22.live with. This, despite numerous meetings in Beijing. Plus, as you
:07:23. > :07:26.mentioned, I made three trips to North Korea, including going to
:07:27. > :07:29.their nuclear reactor. At the end of the day, they basically decided they
:07:30. > :07:34.would rather have nuclear weapons. The question is, can this president,
:07:35. > :07:40.working with a very familiar elements, China, South Korea, can he
:07:41. > :07:43.create a situation where North Korea says, "We are better off giving up
:07:44. > :07:47.our nuclear weapons". Certainly, we were prepared to put whatever they
:07:48. > :07:51.wanted in the agreement, provided they were willing to give up their
:07:52. > :07:56.weapons. We were not prepared to kind of look the other way and
:07:57. > :08:00.pretend they were giving away, giving up their nuclear weapons when
:08:01. > :08:05.in fact they won't. I think it's a very tall order to get them to do
:08:06. > :08:09.this. They have new leader, Kim Jong-un, at least his father seemed
:08:10. > :08:14.to care what the Chinese thought and tried to engage in these
:08:15. > :08:19.negotiations. Kim Jong-un shows absolutely no interest. Right, well
:08:20. > :08:26.you negotiated with the Father's team rather than the Sun's. When
:08:27. > :08:31.Donald Trump says things like, you know, "We could end up having a
:08:32. > :08:34.major, major conflict with North Korea, absolutely." And when he
:08:35. > :08:42.sends the warship aircraft carrier groups to the region, when he uses
:08:43. > :08:47.the bellicose language, how does that go down with North Korean
:08:48. > :08:50.officials? Well, they are obviously listening very carefully, I'm sure,
:08:51. > :08:54.to some extent, they are worried he could actually follow through on
:08:55. > :08:58.some of these things. To another extent, he is trying to be more
:08:59. > :09:03.bellicose to the North Koreans. He is trying to out North Korea the
:09:04. > :09:11.North Koreans. They are pretty good at Bella Scott T. -- being
:09:12. > :09:17.bellicose. They are waiting to see if he was do these things. It's not
:09:18. > :09:21.just bellicosity. You said that the feeling is, within the next four
:09:22. > :09:25.years, they really could have a missile system with a nuclear
:09:26. > :09:29.warhead, that is within the term of the Trump presidency. Is it not the
:09:30. > :09:33.case that no US president can allow that to happen and if the diplomacy
:09:34. > :09:38.doesn't yield anything, Beijing can't deliver on getting North Korea
:09:39. > :09:44.to change tack over the next year or two, there will have to be an
:09:45. > :09:48.American military intervention, wouldn't it? It's quite possible
:09:49. > :09:52.that here is a scenario. You launch a pre-emptive strike against the
:09:53. > :10:00.North Korean nuclear facilities and then the North Koreans retaliate by
:10:01. > :10:05.launching artillery to the South Koreans who live within artillery
:10:06. > :10:09.range of North Korea. Once they strike South Korean civilian
:10:10. > :10:13.centres, then what does the US do? Does the US then retaliate for that
:10:14. > :10:17.because the South Koreans it certainly will. And then we are into
:10:18. > :10:22.a second Korean War. That's a pretty big step. That's not something you
:10:23. > :10:25.want to bluff your way into. You want to be purposeful and talk to
:10:26. > :10:29.the South Koreans about it. You want to make sure there are no mixed
:10:30. > :10:48.signals. You want to talk to the Japanese and oh, by the way, you
:10:49. > :10:52.want to share it with the American people who might not quite the offer
:10:53. > :10:56.another war right now. There are a lot of things to go into his
:10:57. > :10:59.decision of whether to launch a pre-emptive strike against the North
:11:00. > :11:02.Korean facilities, even if he feels it is absolutely something he has to
:11:03. > :11:06.do to protect the American people. Lets change tack. If we are to avoid
:11:07. > :11:10.the missiles flying across the sky and the Chinese are going to be a
:11:11. > :11:14.pretty major part of any diplomatic shift here. Do you see signs, again,
:11:15. > :11:17.at the Donald Trump style, and we have to remember that President Xi
:11:18. > :11:20.has already been to Florida hobnobbing with President Trump, do
:11:21. > :11:23.you see signs that the Chinese, in a sense, are reacting more positively
:11:24. > :11:27.and proactively to the Trump style than they were to Obama's, on North
:11:28. > :11:33.Korea in particular? I think that is fair. I think the Chinese like the
:11:34. > :11:38.decisiveness of Trump. They think they can understand it better. They
:11:39. > :11:42.didn't know what President Obama meant by strategic patience. They
:11:43. > :11:45.see this guy getting up and clearly not a very patient individual and
:11:46. > :11:49.saying that this needs to be resolved, they kind of like the
:11:50. > :11:54.directness. The problem is what to do about it. The Chinese can clearly
:11:55. > :11:57.do a lot more in terms of economic sanctions that the question is
:11:58. > :12:03.whether doing more in the economic sanctions will be enough to get the
:12:04. > :12:08.North Koreans off their own nuclear train because they are really moving
:12:09. > :12:13.very fast on that. Frankly, I think the Chinese like working with the
:12:14. > :12:18.Americans when Americans talk this way even though, I'm sure in the
:12:19. > :12:20.dead of night, they worry a little about whether President Trump will
:12:21. > :12:27.follow through on all of these things. Isn't one of the to these
:12:28. > :12:35.things, isn't your boss, when you are dealing with these things,
:12:36. > :12:41.George W Bush, the famous axis of Eagle, Trump and his Secretary of
:12:42. > :12:45.State Rex Tillerson are not doing this and this is from Rex Tillerson,
:12:46. > :12:50."We do not seek a collapse of the North Korean regime, we do not seek
:12:51. > :12:57.accelerated reunification of the peninsular, we are not out to bring
:12:58. > :13:04.the regime to its knees." -- the axis of evil. It is an important
:13:05. > :13:10.signal to Beijing. Another reason why the Chinese liked dealing with
:13:11. > :13:16.the President and Secretary Rex Tillerson. There is no question that
:13:17. > :13:21.the Trump administration has been very clear about this. Whereas,
:13:22. > :13:25.during the Bush administration, those statements were similar to
:13:26. > :13:32.what Congolese Rice would say but not dissimilar to what Vice
:13:33. > :13:40.President Dick Cheney would say -- Condoleeza. In a sense, they were
:13:41. > :13:44.clear messages. But we want to see North Korea get rid of their nuclear
:13:45. > :13:49.weapons, we are not seeking regime change. I want to emphasise that
:13:50. > :13:53.when we reached an agreement with the North Korean, we explicitly put
:13:54. > :13:57.that in, that we were looking forward to living peacefully
:13:58. > :14:00.together with North Korea. We put that very explicitly. So, I'm not
:14:01. > :14:05.sure that this is necessarily going to solve the problem but I guess it
:14:06. > :14:09.is a starting point to laying out the North Koreans that it's about
:14:10. > :14:15.their nuclear weapons. Not trying to change the regime.
:14:16. > :14:22.A slightly different question related to Donald Trump. On the one
:14:23. > :14:26.hand he gives the message he is ready to go to war, but he says he
:14:27. > :14:35.is honoured at the thought of meeting Kim Jong-un and maybe we can
:14:36. > :14:40.talk when it comes to China. We similarly get talks about China and
:14:41. > :14:44.they are a currency manipulator and then that is put on the shelf.
:14:45. > :14:50.Donald Trump says he wants to work side-by-side with China or North
:14:51. > :14:54.Korea. Sending these mixed signals, contradictory signals, by Twitter,
:14:55. > :15:02.by TV appearance, does this in any way work in terms of putting your
:15:03. > :15:08.adversaries off-balance? You know, performance art is part of many
:15:09. > :15:12.professions, including diplomacy. I think to some extent we have this
:15:13. > :15:18.reality TV show man engaging in some performance art. It is not a bad
:15:19. > :15:21.idea to have your adversaries a little off-balance and I think he
:15:22. > :15:26.has succeeded without. The problem is mixed messages can lead to some
:15:27. > :15:32.very serious mistakes. So I think it needs to be careful with this stuff.
:15:33. > :15:38.He was talking about the South Koreans, we want to stand by them,
:15:39. > :15:41.help them, and then he says, by the way, we want them to pay for the
:15:42. > :15:46.ballistic missile system we are installing. The pricetag was of the
:15:47. > :15:52.order of 1 million dollars. The Secretary of Defence had to walk
:15:53. > :15:56.back the president's comments on that before it created a firestorm
:15:57. > :16:02.in South Korea. In addition, the president had one point said of
:16:03. > :16:06.course we also want to finish the US- South Korean trade agreement
:16:07. > :16:11.which is so terrible. And of course, the South Koreans spent a lot of
:16:12. > :16:15.time getting go through the National Assembly and getting a lot of
:16:16. > :16:19.consensus on it and it is the last thing they wanted to reopen.
:16:20. > :16:23.Sometimes he makes next statements and they worry them because you
:16:24. > :16:30.never know what the next one is, a serious one, or a blast. It is a
:16:31. > :16:35.problem because you don't have someone who can go in there and fill
:16:36. > :16:39.in the various statements. We don't have ambassadors anywhere in the
:16:40. > :16:47.region. The are no assistant secretaries, undersecretaries. It is
:16:48. > :16:50.a home-alone crowd. We have to wait for the next statement from the
:16:51. > :16:54.president and it worries every country. You are a senior diplomat
:16:55. > :16:59.yourself and when Donald Trump does not appear to respect the importance
:17:00. > :17:03.and significance of senior diplomats, I can imagine it would
:17:04. > :17:07.hurt you a bit. Coming back to the wider point, which I want to put to
:17:08. > :17:09.you, because it seems to be a critique of the foreign
:17:10. > :17:16.policy-making establishment of which you were a part, Donald Trump's
:17:17. > :17:22.message, not just on the peninsula, but on a range of things, is that he
:17:23. > :17:30.inherited a 20 year long failure, a mass. Clinton, Bush, Obama, they did
:17:31. > :17:34.not really address a host of problems, and so he has to do it
:17:35. > :17:41.himself. He has got a point, doesn't he? Yes. But every president since
:17:42. > :17:46.John Adams because George Washington was the first can point to the
:17:47. > :17:51.predecessor and say I inherited a mess. The question is not whether
:17:52. > :17:57.you did that, but what you are going to do about it. I think the question
:17:58. > :18:04.will be what is he going to do about this. Of course these questions are
:18:05. > :18:12.tough and the wrapping is not easy to explain. But he cannot face the
:18:13. > :18:18.American people in 2020 and say this is not my fault. I take your point.
:18:19. > :18:24.But what he can do, and let us get specific on the Middle East, he can
:18:25. > :18:30.point, at Obama's red line on chemical weapons with Bashar
:18:31. > :18:34.al-Assad, which would produce an American military response, which of
:18:35. > :18:39.course, it did not. By Donald Trump actually made good on the motion of
:18:40. > :18:43.that being a red line. -- but. Frankly, many people criticising
:18:44. > :18:47.Donald Trump during the campaign in the early days of the presidency,
:18:48. > :18:52.like former CIA Director, Michael Hayden, are now saying, do you know
:18:53. > :18:57.what, he handled that really well, and it was an important signal and
:18:58. > :19:03.an important question he sent with that airstrike on the airfield in
:19:04. > :19:12.Syria. -- important message. Maybe you will need to reassess. I don't
:19:13. > :19:17.know about you guys, but many people, including ours, felt it was
:19:18. > :19:25.a good decision. If Syrians are going to drop chemical weapons on
:19:26. > :19:29.civilians, the US should go out and hit them and hit them hard on
:19:30. > :19:35.principle. That is what he did. But I want to draw a distinction between
:19:36. > :19:38.hitting a Syrian air base and coming up with a political plan going
:19:39. > :19:42.forward that will address this carnage in Syria in the long-run. I
:19:43. > :19:47.have seen no effort, really, to address the politics or the
:19:48. > :19:52.diplomacy of the issue, and no effort to address what Syria should
:19:53. > :19:56.be when the war ends. I think President Obama failed miserably on
:19:57. > :20:01.that, but I don't see any renewed effort from President Trump to say,
:20:02. > :20:05.OK, we are going to lead a diplomatic effort and work with
:20:06. > :20:15.others and see what we can come up with. Iron men, just whacking the
:20:16. > :20:20.Syrian Air Force on one of their air bases is not solving the problem.
:20:21. > :20:32.But it is in saying I will take action when it is merited and I will
:20:33. > :20:35.drop the Mother Of All Bombs on IS fighters where they are. This is a
:20:36. > :20:40.man who does things. Obama, frankly, you were his ambassador in Iraq, who
:20:41. > :20:45.made this happen, he just wanted to get out of Iraq and get out of
:20:46. > :20:48.Afghanistan and it seems he did not want to use American military force
:20:49. > :20:56.in any decisive way. Donald Trump, coming back to the point of being
:20:57. > :21:01.unpredictable, he was decisive. That is the point. That matters. I would
:21:02. > :21:08.like to say about President Obama, he went after more bad guys with
:21:09. > :21:13.cruise missiles than anyone in the history of America and set a record
:21:14. > :21:18.that will be hard to beat. He did go after people. The problem is he did
:21:19. > :21:24.not want to state in any way that he wanted to stay in the Middle East.
:21:25. > :21:27.There are two wars in Syria. One is a war of annihilation against
:21:28. > :21:31.Islamic State. There is no negotiation with those people. We
:21:32. > :21:35.have to keep going after them and tell we have essentially killed off.
:21:36. > :21:40.The other issue is the war of succession in Damascus and whether
:21:41. > :21:44.the United States can work with others, including the Russians, the
:21:45. > :21:50.Iranians, and maybe the Saudis and others to see if there is a solution
:21:51. > :21:55.they are. And that is where I think American presidents need to be
:21:56. > :22:00.judged to find a solution. The Syrian Air Force, hitting them, no
:22:01. > :22:04.question, it was the right decision. When you come after civilians, we
:22:05. > :22:16.have to restore deterrence, and we also have to launch punitive raids.
:22:17. > :22:25.That is what it was, punitive. But we don't have a political goal. That
:22:26. > :22:29.is what I want to see a man not just whacking people when we're mad at
:22:30. > :22:31.them. We are almost out of time. In your diplomatic style, you have been
:22:32. > :22:37.identified alongside Hillary Clinton. Some say you would have
:22:38. > :22:42.gotten a senior job if she won. But in 3.5 years, would you reflect on
:22:43. > :22:47.things and say, Donald Trump, much to my surprise, proved to be a much
:22:48. > :22:53.more effective foreign policy president than I ever thought
:22:54. > :22:57.possible? I don't rule that out. I think to some extent, he has had a
:22:58. > :23:02.much sharper focus, especially in dealing with China. We have a lot of
:23:03. > :23:09.issues with China. Human rights issues. Trade issues. The South
:23:10. > :23:14.China Sea issues. I think he has very much sharper and the spear and
:23:15. > :23:17.said we need to put North Korea as a priority. I like seeing priorities
:23:18. > :23:23.in diplomacy. Coming in with Christmas trees of things you want
:23:24. > :23:27.and not getting anything done, well, when you set a priority, you have a
:23:28. > :23:32.better chance of taking care of it. I welcome that approach. My only
:23:33. > :23:37.concern is that I don't really see the mechanisms by which you can
:23:38. > :23:41.follow through. Diplomacy is not just showing up, it is following up
:23:42. > :23:45.as well. I don't really see that. I would like to see him either empower
:23:46. > :23:49.the foreign service he has got there, or if he needs to bring in
:23:50. > :23:55.other people, that is fine as well. We need to get on with the task.
:23:56. > :24:00.America cannot be in retreat. It has to be directly engaged on these very
:24:01. > :24:14.tough issues. We are out of time now, but, Christopher Hill, thank
:24:15. > :24:27.you very much for joining me on the show.
:24:28. > :24:30.We are watching a weather change later this week which will bring
:24:31. > :24:36.some rain to some areas that have been mainly dry for several weeks.
:24:37. > :24:38.This is the satellite picture on Monday.