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00:00Today as we speak Mike Pompei the secretary of state has gone to the United Nations asking for a so-called snapback sanctions against Iran. Let's start with Iran. How would President Biden we think if there were a president by differ from President Trump in his approach to Iran. Oh it's pretty clear that the Biden administration if it came to being would immediately try to restart the JCP away the old Iranian nuclear deal. I don't think it would happen quickly in part because that deal didn't get the Iranians after their assets were frozen. The kind of foreign investment they had hoped for. And because the supreme leader wouldn't want to give the Iranian president an immediate win especially in the run up to Iranian elections. But the relationship would improve . And I do think you would get easy multilateral engagement between a Biden administration and the U.S. allies that helped to put that additional Iranian deal in place. And you know David that just a few days ago when the Trump administration brought furthering of an arms embargo against Iran to a vote at the Security Council it didn't even require a veto. It was eleven to two against the United States. Quite an embarrassment for the Trump administration. At the same time wouldn't it be awfully difficult to get that genie back in the bottle. I mean years have passed. There was a clock ticking throughout the length of the curtailment of their development. And in the meantime they've been really enriching uranium to Iran. Can we really just go back to status quo ante. You know I was someone who believed that the deal was a good deal for what it's worth . David but it was a limited deal. It didn't stop the Iranians from supporting Hezbollah and other organizations we consider as Americans. Terrorist organizations in the region didn't stop them from developing ballistic missile technologies and testing those missiles which was in breach of United Nations Security Council resolutions. And it didn't open trade or diplomacy between the United States and Iran. So I mean it was it was a deal but it was a limited deal. And so if you asked me could we get that back. I want to I want to make sure everyone understands that doesn't suddenly mean that the United States and Iran are going to be friends in any way shape or form . America's closest allies in the region will still be countries like the United States the UAE and the Gulf states that the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. And by the way those countries are a lot closer today diplomatically to each other than they were under the Obama administration in part because they all see Iran as their common principal enemy. And again even though Biden would want to come back to the old deal Biden would also see Iran as our principal antagonist in the region as well. So let's go to a different hotspot. It'll be in the inbox for the next president whether that's Donald Trump for a second term or a Joe Biden. And then it's Belarus. And our relationship with Russia it seems to me at least that President Putin has got a bit of a problem there . He does. And you know what's interesting about yellow rooms is that the people of the country are not particularly anti Russian . It was the most recent poll that was taken on this nationwide was back in December. But over 90 percent of the reasons at the time had a generally favorable orientation towards Russia. You wouldn't find that in Ukraine and you wouldn't have before the Orange Revolution. So I mean there's an enormous outcry against Lukashenko. They want him out. And if the Russians intervene they're going to be mad at Russia too. And we're already seeing the Russians start to intervene for example Belarus and state television which was off the air because the existing anchors refused to cover a a propagandistic support of Lukashenko. They wanted to cover the demonstrators. Well now Belarus state television is covering the regime and apparently Russians have come in provided by the Russian government to allow that. So they are engaged on the ground. They are not engaged militarily . And there aren't great outcomes for Putin here. He'd rather this just continue to be a comfortable dictatorship aligned very strongly with Russia. But what's interesting you're asking me about Biden. The fact is that the Putin administration understands that as long as Trump is in place there's not going to be significant U. S outcry against Russian intervention in Crimea or southeast Ukraine. I mean Trump has on many occasions say why can't we just forget about Crimea. They already took it . It's not my problem. I mean I have a hard time seeing Trump standing up for democracy in Belarus Trump standing up against the Kremlin. You've also seen that Navalny the most important opposition member in Russia today is in a coma because he was poisoned. One would presume by the Russian government. And you know not something something we see a lot unfortunately from Russia. But the timing here is unfortunate and certainly coincidental. You have to wonder are the Kremlin is the Kremlin trying to create facts on the ground while they know Trump is still there because life would get more difficult for the Russians and a Biden administration. So even that's Iran that's Russia. Let's get to the really big one. I think the agenda for whoever is in the White House in the next four years and that is China U.S. China relations. You think actually this is something of a success as I understand it President Trump's foreign policy relationship with China . Yeah in the sense that pretty much everyone Democrat and Republican agree that the United States needs to take a tougher policy a tougher stance against China. They were involved in a serious cover up of the coronavirus for the first weeks when they didn't tell their own people never mind the World Health Organization or the rest of the world that made this pandemic a lot worse. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese from upon leaving the country during that period of time. Biden's mad about that . Trump's mad about that. They are trying to become a tech superpower. You have a lot more access and control over data of people outside China and competing with American tech companies . Both Trump and Biden would want to fight back against that . The Chinese have unilaterally changed the rules set. There's no more one state two systems with Hong Kong. The entire Western world opposes China doing that. That would be true for both Trump and for Biden. So I mean really what you see I think in the next few months will be both the president and the former vice president competing to show that each are tougher against against this Chinese government. And I don't think I think that if Biden came in you'd certainly see a stronger effort to make U.S. policy more assertively multilateral use our allies and make statements together where Trump's orientation is more unilateral and forcing allies to get on board with the Americans as opposed to constructing policy together. But I think the the broad sweeping strokes of those policies toward China actually wouldn't change very much between these two leaders. So not a potentially big difference at least on the substance of the position. And we've heard Republicans this week say you don't hear about China at the Democratic convention in part because they really don't disagree with us on it at all. At the same point is this sort of fundamental is a different approach particularly in the tech world particularly the Internet where there's this term now. I've read net nationalism. The Internet was thought to be open to all the way of communicating with all some countries led apparently by China want to use it as an instrument of state power . That's very clear. And you know we used to talk about a world wide web. I mean that sounds quaint today. There is no such thing. The Chinese have a separate Internet and increasingly a separate Internet of things that works for their own people and also that they are starting to export to countries like Zimbabwe for example Pakistan mostly poorer countries that have benefited from Chinese investment and loans. But the the advanced industrial democracies are almost all aligned with the American tech firms. And so we can talk about net nationalism David . But the reality is there are only two countries in the world that have global technology firms truly of scale. And that's the United States and China. And so I think it's more accurate to talk about a technology Cold War which we are presently in . The Chinese do not allow American tech firms like Facebook or like Google or like Amazon to function openly in the Chinese market. The largest data market in the world. And the United States is now making it clear that while away and very soon tech talk and we'll chat will not be operating in the United States . And by the way we don't want them operating with our allies either. If they do operate with our allies we intend to make that costly both in terms of intelligence sharing and perhaps economic sanctions as well to those countries. Once again I think that policy would be almost completely in substance upheld if we were to see a Biden administration come into place next year. So even here in closing we you talk about a tech Cold War . Ultimately I think it's fair to say the Western ISE is one that that original Cold War against the Soviet Union in large part because we had more resources that can we win tech Cold War given the fact that China is growing so fast it is going to eclipse us at some point here as a world wide economy. You know David we had more resources but also our ideas were better. I mean ultimately the Soviet Union and the East Bloc imploded from within because their ideology was bankrupt and because we were seen as leading by example. Now I think if it's purely a tech Cold War between the US and China I'm not sure whose technology is ultimately going to end up being more effective. I know a lot of the top experts in this field and they're not sure if it's mostly about scientists. It's probably the American friends. It's mostly about data. It's probably the Chinese . And there's a big debate going on in that front. Where we are winning is on ideas our allies see even though they don't like Trump do understand that rule of law and a comparatively free market in the United States is a lot better to align yourself with the state capitalist than authoritarian China. And even though the United States right now is doing our damnedest to shoot ourselves in the foot on those fronts and we're not feeling like we're leading by example very much. I mean it's pretty obvious if you're Australia or Japan if you're Canada if you're France if you're Germany if you're the UK and you're forced to choose between the United States and China then say well no I don't want to have to. I don't force choose. You know who you choose. And it's fascinating .

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Biden Would Make U.S. Foreign Policy More Multilateral: Bremmer

Ian Bremmer, president at Eurasia Group, examines policy differences between President Donald Trump and Democratic Presidential Nominee Joe Biden on Iran, Belarus, and China. He speaks with Bloomberg’s David Westin on “Balance of Power.” (Source: Bloomberg)