GOP Election Enthusiasm, Netanyahu Addresses U.S. Congress, Cyprus 50 Years After Invasion, and More

MCMAHON:
In the coming week, the world reacts to the U.S. Republican Presidential ticket, Israel's Prime Minister, Netanyahu, addresses the U.S. Congress, and tensions in Cyprus are high, fifty years after the Turkish invasion divided the island. It's July 18th, 2024 and time for The World Next Week. I am Bob McMahon.

ROBBINS:
And I'm Carla Anne Robbins.

MCMAHON:
Carla, let's start here, in the United States where there is a heck of a lot going on. It has been a momentous week for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. We should note, as this podcast was being taped, it was a few hours ahead of his capping speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His party's nominating convention there has been rallying vigorously behind Trump following the weekend assassination attempt and the announcement of his vice presidential running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance. Through the course of events, there has been reinforcement of Trump's populous messages on trade, immigration, and U.S. alliances, to name a few. Carla, how's this playing in the rest of the world?

ROBBINS:
Well, it's head spinning abroad just like it's been here, Bob, between the attempt on President Trump's life, and now the revived questions about whether President Biden is going to remain in the race and of course President Biden's COVID diagnosis. So, for anyone watching the GOP convention has exercised the last vestiges of traditional Republican internationalism. I don't know if you saw this, but Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell was booed when he appeared in Milwaukee on Monday night, and the crowd cheered Marjorie Taylor Greene as she denounced globalists. Tech investor David Sacks, in his own primetime speech, blamed President Biden for provoking the Russians to invade Ukraine with talk of NATO expansion. The crowd in the convention center has been out there waving, "end the war in Ukraine" signs, along with those signs calling for mass deportations. So, bye-bye Republican internationalism once and for all, and the rest of the world has been watching very closely.

What has gotten the most attention abroad has been the choice of JD Vance as his running mate. Let's face it, vice presidents may not have any real influence on policy, but the signaling here is clear and loud. President Trump is not looking to balance the ticket in any way, and he certainly isn't looking for the sort of adult supervision on national security that frustrated him so much in the first term, when he found his impulses stymied again and again by Defense Secretary General Jim Mattis by National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, and Chief of Staff John Kelly. Remember the days when he loved his generals? Then, he got so frustrated by them. So, Vance is a very different guy. He's full on MAGA, and like Trump, he's a guy who really relishes breaking the crockery. The new Starmer government in Britain has shrugged off his comments that Britain under Labor could be seen as the first Islamist country with a nuclear weapon, but they are clearly not amused and everybody else is pretty nervous about this.

So on policy, Vance is pretty much but not completely in lockstep with Trump. In the days before the invasion of Ukraine, he declared on Steve Bannon's podcast that he thought it was ridiculous that we're focused on this border and said he didn't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other. He tried to block Ukraine funding in the Senate arguing that Putin doesn't pose an existential threat to Europe, that Ukraine cannot beat the Russians, and the U.S. does not have manufacturing capacity to support a ground war in Eastern Europe indefinitely. He has an enormous amount of swagger. Even when he went to Munich, which was his first appearance there, he skipped a meeting with Zelenskyy, arguing that he didn't think he would learn anything new from it.

MCMAHON:
That was the Munich Security Conference earlier this year?

ROBBINS:
Yep. At the same time, unlike Trump, he has said he doesn't think we should pull out a NATO. Trump has went back and forth on that, so not completely lockstep on that; we'll see where he comes out, of course, now that he's part of the ticket. He told the times last month he thinks we should make it as hard as possible for China to take Taiwan. He's very much of that group there that's arguing that we shouldn't be focused on Ukraine, we should be much more focused on Taiwan. He complained that we're not focused on Taiwan because we're giving all these weapons to Ukraine. But, even there there may be some real daylight with Trump because Trump told Bloomberg Businessweek just this past week that "Taiwan should be paying us for defense."

Lots of that complaining that we heard about South Korea, Japan, lots of other countries. And, keep in mind that Taiwan already pays for nearly all of the weapons it orders from the U.S. So, potentially some daylight there on that, but it doesn't matter ultimately—it's the president who gets to decide. On climate, Vance is in lockstep with Trump, questioning the human causes for climate change. He's floated legislation last year to repeal the clean vehicle tax credit in the IRA; very much with Trump on hating on EVs as much as possible. He seems most enthusiastic when it comes to economic protectionism—another way Trump's choice is challenging traditional GOP values. Vance is a fierce believer in tariffs. Trump has talked about a 60 percent tariff on Chinese imports and 10 percent across the board, much to the dismay of the Europeans. He's also called for a higher minimum wage and increased barriers to corporate mergers. Don't know whether Trump is on board with that.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, you're right to point out for starters, Carla, that it's not clear exactly what a vice presidential candidate brings to foreign policy at the end of the day, but it's not insignificant and there's a lot of messaging going on as you indicated. Certainly there's a starting point if you just contrast it with Trump's previous vice president, Mike Pence, who, while really unstintingly loyal, was an internationalist Republican, in many respects, in terms of national security and the NATO alliance and a lot of the standard sort of Republican establishment foreign policy values he definitely held. At the end of the day he was not willing to go against the norms and not certify the results of the 2020 election-

ROBBINS:
Something Vance says he would definitely not have certified.

MCMAHON:
Something Vance is saying he would do. Exactly. By the way, the January 6th events—all but certainly not acknowledged in terms of being something bad—it's something that's hovering there behind all of this as well. In addition to feeling like there is a great deal of momentum and really confident that Trump will win outright, there's still messaging coming from Trump campaign officials that they won't accept a non-Trump victory, if that's the result that comes in November. So, that's a concern that's separate from all the foreign policy issues. That's sort of a U.S. democracy, national security concern. The foreign policy issues that you mentioned are very interesting. I think there's a number, aside from Ukraine, there could be some other areas where there's internal dissent. I think there's been a number of reports coming out of the Milwaukee Convention about concern about the populist economic message and what that means for Republican donors who have done quite well through trade and through policies that the campaign is now saying it's going to turn against.

And, certainly tariffs, those who understand tariffs know very well what impact that can have, and it also has an impact on inflation. So, I think when the rubber meets the road, you might start seeing some modification of some of the rhetoric here and conventions are nothing if not areas, full-fledged areas, for rhetoric and exaggeration and so forth. But there is a consistency here. Then as you said, by virtue of just choosing JD Vance, Trump is doubling down on his message and finding someone from a younger generation who articulates, even more than he does, the America first mantras. So, it was also revealing that this convention we kicked off with a very long address by a labor official from the Teamsters. So, organized labor is now speaking at the Republican convention. Populous message is very strong and isolationist message, although not complete is still permeating.

So, that is I think what the world is looking at. I think there's a great deal of concern about how to deal with this incoming administration, but there are officials who are reaching out. I think the Keir Starmer administration has already reached out to Trump, for example. I think there's a bit of pragmatism that's starting to set hold or at least practicality about what a second Trump administration will mean with a different cast of people in important cabinet roles. That's the thing to really watch, in terms of who emerges beyond VP, who emerges in these crucial roles that countries are going to need to deal with and try to deal with in a sense of confidence: defense, Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, and so forth.

ROBBINS:
So, Starmer of course is hosting this meeting in Blenheim today—somewhat counter programming there, long planned—and they are talking about how Russia poses a threat across Europe. Zelenskyy is there and they're certainly talking about how they're going to have to push forward. We haven't seen the reports fully from the meeting. I don't think they're going to be criticizing the Republicans or Trump about it because, not that they're predicting inevitability here, but they're certainly very nervous about it the same way they were talking about "Trump-proofing" last week at the NATO summit. But, Europe's got some really big questions here, about how much they are going to try to weedle, how much they're going to try and work with Trump on this, and how much they themselves are going to have to make decisions about whether they can go it alone on Ukraine. Vance talks about manufacturing capabilities; how much they themselves continue to support Ukraine, and what they're going to do if Trump is elected and he goes to them and says, I've cut a deal with Russia, what are you guys going to do?

So, there's some really big decisions ahead if Trump is elected, but we still quite a while until the election themselves. But I think migration also is one more point which we need to think about. There were all those signs out there: "stop the migrant invasion." That's part of the twenty promises in the platform: "carry out the largest deportation operation in American history." I think to find that personally, intrinsically un-American; it certainly has strong populist appeal to some of the rightest governments in Europe itself. But, when you talk about it going against the grain, and for American business, I think there's a lot of business leaders who also are going to bristle against us. So, there's a lot to watch here.

MCMAHON:
There's the business community and there is just the legality of it is going to run up against some real problems. I mean the first Trump administration, if that is indeed the case, that it was the first of two, dealt with quite a bit of legal challenges in terms of some of its immigration policy and deportation certainly could not be handled in the way promised at this convention. But, they will certainly take a strong position. There's some things they can do. I think one other thing that's going to be interesting that plays out is a result of this latest incredible session of the Supreme Court where the ruling, the so-called Chevron ruling, takes out of the executive's hands the ability to exercise authority in certain areas like immigration for example. That will be interesting seeing how much that runs up against this ruling.

ROBBINS:
Bob, let's shift to Washington, DC, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to address a joint session of Congress next Wednesday, July 24th. Despite growing tensions between the two, Netanyahu's also scheduled to meet with U.S. President, Joe Biden. Whether that will go forward with the President's COVID diagnosis, we'll have to see. Like Netanyahu's 2015 address to Congress, this invitation was pointedly issued without the White House's blessing. Indeed, Republican leaders were describing it as a way to jam Biden and Democratic leaders by highlighting tensions over the Gaza war. Meanwhile, back in Israel, some opposition leaders there and hundreds of academics have been urging the U.S. to disinvite the prime minister. Nevertheless, Bibi is coming. So Bob, what should we expect out of this speech?

MCMAHON:
You right, the speech is the focus point and we don't know the extent to which Netanyahu's going to have the ability to meet with administration officials. We're going to post a piece on our website shortly from our colleague Steven Cook about it, and he basically points out that Netanyahu's going to need to be messaging in multiple directions. He's going to be a need to messaging to the Israeli public, which as you say, he's faced a great deal of opposition from. But, basically demonstrate to them that he has the support of the crucial ally, the United States, and that he comes across with a message that resonates in Congress about what kind of struggle the Israelis have been up against for the last nine months and what they plan to do. I'm not sure you're going to see a great deal of mapping out of a Gaza plan, per se, but you will see a doubling down on Israel's approach in Israel's right to defend itself.

Not only vis-a-vis Hamas, but against Hezbollah, against which there's an escalating and worrisome conflict in the north of the country near the Lebanese border. So, as Steven writes in his piece, they're going to be looking for, to signal that they're going to be shortly moving on or hoping to move on from the conflict in Gaza and focusing on the conflict with Hezbollah, which is of a different magnitude altogether. Hezbollah, among other things possesses more than a hundred thousand missiles of various sorts that could do damage, despite the very effective missile shield we've seen in Israel. There's already caused tens of thousands of Israelis to have to flee border areas in the north. That would involve all sorts of things because Hezbollah is, among other things, a prime proxy of Iran, and could involve an important added U.S. military commitment in the area. So, there's that existential issue involving these two conflicts.

There's the relationship issue involving how much the U.S. has Israel's back, and you'll certainly see Republicans in full throated support for Netanyahu in Congress. Then, it's a question of how much this plays on the domestic Israeli scene where people are still very upset, not only about the unresolved hostage situation and not having all of them having been returned, but any sort of sense of a plan for what next in Gaza. And, in the run up to this visit, there's been a real ramping up of Israeli military strikes throughout Gaza. Last weekend, they went after the head of Hamas' military arm and seemingly were not successful, but there was high casualties and Gaza continues to be fraught humanitarian situation. The U.S. just announced it was abandoning its plan for this humanitarian pier. It was an attempt, it was a creative attempt, to try to provide another way to get aid into Gaza. But, everything that happened with that both logistically and sort of politically showed how difficult that whole process is and the humanitarian situation remains really dire.

ROBBINS:
Why is Bibi so determined to do this speech? I mean, does he get a benefit for it back home? I mean there was a long time in which any Israeli leader got a benefit for having the blessing of U.S. leaders, but that relationship with Biden is a strained one, to put it mildly. Why is he so determined to come when he's sort of the thirteenth guest at the wedding?

MCMAHON:
It really does seem like he feels like he's going to get a boost, some wind in his sails. First of all, it would be a record fourth visit to Congress. He was tied Winston Churchill, with three addresses to Congress. So, this puts him in his own category.

ROBBINS:
Is he going to Missouri also?

MCMAHON:
Yeah, maybe there's a iron curtain speech in his future. Who knows? It's not to be underestimated the amount of support he's going to get, especially from Republicans in Congress. I think whether it's further playing to his coalition, his hard line coalition, or to other Israelis who are still coping with a really difficult time right now, maybe he sees this as just a net plus to be able to come and get a boost. It was pointed out that his previous visit, politically charged visit in 2015, which was in many ways intended to try to disrupt the deal over Iran's nuclear program, that it was not successful.

The U.S. went ahead and brokered the deal, but what also happened at that time was that Republicans and other opponents to the deal did not give up their opposition. Within not too long afterwards, when the Trump administration came in, they removed the U.S. from that deal. So Netanyahu resonated certainly with that base. Not only is there a presidential race, obviously in the U.S., is Congress, we could see a change in control of Congress in terms of both houses, and maybe Netanyahu gains some traction there. So, for him it makes sense to go ahead and do this, at a time when things couldn't be more difficult in Israel, to get a boost from the biggest ally that the country has.

ROBBINS:
Do we have any sense of whether the Hamas talks are going to be revived anytime soon?

MCMAHON:
Well that's interesting. I mean even as these Israeli IDF attacks have been ramping up, there have been talks going on, there have been talks over Rafah for example, involving the U.S., Israel, the Palestinian authority, and so forth. There continue to be a number of top figures, U.S. Middle East Envoy, Brett McGurk, and top Israeli officials, talking about the logistics involving the end phase in Gaza in terms of the end phase of hot military action. So, I think that continues to percolate. I wouldn't rule it out, on top of everything else, but it still seems like it's so intractable in terms of what they're willing to ultimately agree to that it just feels like compromise is still remote.

ROBBINS:
Well, we'll see which Bibi we get: the conciliatory Bibi or the pugnacious Bibi, in front of Congress, and who knows, maybe he'll bring some good news.

MCMAHON:
He'll certainly come back to Israel with a fresh insight into the U.S. political landscape, that's for sure.

ROBBINS:
Bob, the Mediterranean. This Saturday, July 20th, as you said, marks this fifty years since Turkey invaded Northern Cyprus and they split the country into two. Turkish Cypriots hold the upper third of the country, Greek Cypriots the south, and there's only this very thin UN protected green line, which is a buffer zone which separates the two. In the past few months, the UN peacekeeping mission has reported a 70 percent increase in buffer zone breaches. A lot of this seems innocuous, the name-calling, but there has also been something of a scale up of security forces on both sides. Is there a real threat of conflict here?

MCMAHON:
Well, it is certainly a reminder that the world has a number of these, so-called frozen conflict zones, and that they're not frozen forever. Some of the other ones are in the former Soviet space, for example. A recent example would be the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave that was contested by ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Azerbaijan, after a couple of decades, finally gained the upper hand and was able to win the day and ethnically cleanse the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh of something like a hundred thousand ethnic Armenians. That's still playing out and it's still the source of great deal of anxiety, especially in Armenia right now. You have frozen conflicts in Georgia and Moldova and other parts of the world.

This one now, 50 years old, is one that has the potential to have impact far beyond Cyprus, but certainly for Cypriots, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, who've inhabited this island for years and years, it's a source of great deal of angst. Fifty years ago, with the Turkish invasion, you had people fleeing their homes, thinking they're going to be coming back within a couple of days and never returning. It's thousands on both sides left. There's this buffer zone that runs across the island, and as you say, there's arming up going on. There is a UN mission that's supposed to be maintaining the status quo while diplomatic efforts that have lurched back and forth over the years are supposed to be trying to come up with some sort of permanent solution. It's at loggerheads. There were some hopes back in 2017 at this so-called Crans-Montana Summit where they were going to come up with a deal that would finally settle the issues between the two sides.

But, at the moment it's Turkish Cypriots want two states, want to exist side by side; they have declared independence on their side for the last 40 years, recognized by nobody but Turkey and a handful of other states do business with them, but it's really a Turkish recognized affair. Then, there's the Greek side of the island, which is actually part of the EU, but the EU considers it unfinished business and would love to get this process solved because of the animosities—and because of the fact that it could be a flashpoint ultimately between Greece and Turkey. We talked previously not too long ago in this podcast about the Greek and Turkish leaders actually have been involved in a rapprochement of sorts, but there are lots of issues that the two countries are still at odds over.

Cyprus is an extension of some of that. Some of it also has to do with Cyprus' own location in the Mediterranean, among other things, there are nearby hydrocarbon deposits. Who has sovereignty over those, who claims them? Well, the Greek Cypriots think they do and can benefit from exploiting, say national gas reserves, but that can't happen seemingly unless they reach agreement with Turkish Cypriots. It's a very complicated situation, but it's one in which this anniversary is sort of bringing fresh light to, because I think most people recognize the status quo is not really acceptable there and frozen conflicts are not frozen forever.

ROBBINS:
So, we did talk about Erdogan and Mitsotakis' meeting, and declaring that they saw no unsolvable problems and wanting to move things ahead. How much control do they actually have over these disagreeing parties, and are they proxies for those disagreements or are they just unruly ethnic allies who they actually don't have control over?

MCMAHON:
Yeah, I think it's a good point. I think we should not consider them mere pawns for these two bigger countries, that they actually do have their own agency. Even the Northern Cyprus, Turkish Cypriots, are not in total lockstep with what Ankara is decreeing, even though they really heavily rely on Turkey. It's basically its connection to the outside world. That's one of the things that's complicated these efforts, these painstaking efforts over the years, especially this century, to try to come to a final agreement. So, I do think that if you had a real sense of momentum at the levels of Athens and Ankara, you could create some pressure that might bring us at least out of these tensions and into some sort of more productive diplomatic path. But, beyond that, they have walked up to the water but have not been able to drink it and it's really posing a problem.

So, I think there's further attention on just maintaining peace, not letting the situation get out of hand and coming up with some sort of practical way... I mean the two sides do have some technical agreements, the two sides of the island, maybe building on that to try to create ties that are more practical and not antagonistic. But, the skirmishes at the border, they have to do with the occasion there's activity on one side or the other that the other side sees as threatening. I think it's things like that that make this worth keeping an eye on and worth the attention. Certainly having the Greek Cypriot side of the island as part of the EU helps in that you have EU attention to this and EU resources, diplomatic and otherwise, that can sometimes come into bear and have an impact.

Again, it's been overlooked amidst everything else going on in the Middle East, but it actually has ramifications for the area. Among other things, Cyprus is an important sort of staging point for humanitarian aid for the Middle East as well as a place where refugees tend to get funneled through on their way across the Mediterranean. Carla, we've talked ourself into the audience figure of the week portion of the episode.

This is where listeners vote every Tuesday and Wednesday @CFR_org's Instagram story. This week our audience selected interestingly, Communist party leader Oli is Nepal's new prime minister. What does this mean for Nepal?

ROBBINS:
Never would've predicted they would've chosen this one. Bob, when I started co-hosting, I was a bit confused about whether the audience figure was supposed to be a figure number or a figure person. You and Ester explained to me it could be either and in this case it's both. The stats around Nepal's disruptive politics are pretty incredible and concerning. KP Sharma Oli—who leads Nepal's largest communist party, which is actually a moderate grouping,—this is his fourth stint in the job. He's Nepal's fifth prime minister in five years, and this is the fourteenth government since 2008 when Nepal's 239-year-old Hindu monarchy was overthrown. What he's promising above all else is political stability, something most people inside and outside the country are skeptical, he or anyone else can deliver.

His predecessor, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who led the violent insurgency that overthrew the monarchy, well, he served as prime minister three times and he was subjected to five confidence votes—this could be like a kid's rhyme here—during his nearly two year tenure before being voted out. As for the sources of this instability, Nepal is one of the world's poorest countries and the political instability has discouraged outside investment, feeding more instability, and there's constant meddling from neighboring China and India, which certainly isn't helping. So, Nepal is squeezed by this geopolitical rivalry. And add to that, in particular, China's further interest in preventing any anti-Chinese activities in the Nepal by supporters of Tibet. In his first term as prime minister in 2015, India posed an unofficial economic blockade on oil, medicine, and other materials, which led to severe shortages and was in response to a reform of their constitution. So, we'll see whether he does any better this time around. This is just a really, really hard place with nothing other than people trying to meddle and constant instability, and the numbers really are against them.

MCMAHON:
That's kind of a fascinating rundown, Carla, because, maybe like many, my knowledge of Nepal is mostly limited to its Himalayan hiking prowess or the incredible Himalayan hiking venues there are there, its beauty and its reputation as a place for sort of echo tourists to come. But, it obviously has this political backdrop and it's in this place... If you look at a map, it's really at this loggerhead between these two giants who are starting to compete in other parts too and have their own sort of mountain border dispute on top of everything else—I'm saying India and China there. So, do we think Oli's got the stuff to bring Nepal through?

ROBBINS:
You're now going beyond my expertise here. As I said, if history is any guide, but certainly at least people deserve a break, and it would be nice if their neighbors gave them a break.

MCMAHON:
All right, spotlight on Nepal. We will keep an eye on that and possibly return to it. That's our look at The World Next Week. Here's some other stories to keep an eye on. China wraps up its closed door plenum and is expected to lay out a new economic plan. NASA celebrates the fifty-fifth anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. Where were you when that happened, Carla? The BBC Proms season opens, kicking off eight weeks filled with ninety concerts and more than 3000 musicians. Check it out.

ROBBINS:
What does Proms mean?

MCMAHON:
Proms is the, I just know it as this sort of annual late summer event in which you have this incredible collection of musicians, classical music, especially concerts and guests from all over the world come and strut their stuff. It's a real prestigious honor to go and perform there. Little known fact, the choir director at my daughter's high school, Alexandria City High School, is going to be performing there this year. So, it's a big deal.

ROBBINS:
It's Taylor Swift and classical music in your daughter's lives?

MCMAHON:
Among other things, yes.

ROBBINS:
Please subscribe to The World Next Week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review while you're at it, we appreciate the feedback. If you'd like to reach out, please email us at [email protected]. The publications mentioned in this episode as well as a transcript of our conversation are listed on the podcast page for The World Next Week on cfr.org. Please note that opinions expressed on The World Next Week are solely those of the hosts and not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. Today's program was produced by Ester Fang, with Director of podcasting, Gabrielle Sierra. Special thanks to Helena Coppens Johnson and Emily Hall Smith for their research assistance. Our theme music is provided by Markus Zakaria and this is Carla Robbins saying, so long and as Bob likes to say, be careful out there.

MCMAHON:
This is Bob McMahon also saying so long and stay off the news cycle for a little bit.