Name: Boris Johnson on What a Second Trump Presidency Will Mean for the US and Europe
Uploaded: 2024-11-15
Duration: 10 min 1 s
Description: As the world navigates a year of major elections and shifting alliances, the global standing of the United Kingdom is at a crossroads. At Fortune Global Forum in New York City, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson sat down with us for a conversation on the reelection of Donald Trump, the implications of Brexit, and the evolving dynamics between the U.K., U.S., China, and other global powers.

As the world navigates a year of major elections and shifting alliances, the global standing of the United Kingdom is at a crossroads. At Fortune Global Forum in New York City, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson sat down with us for a conversation on the reelection of Donald Trump, the implications of Brexit, and the evolving dynamics between the U.K., U.S., China, and other global powers.

Boris Johnson on What a Second Trump Presidency Will Mean for the US and Europe

Features

Boris Johnson on What a Second Trump Presidency Will Mean for the U S  and Europe

At Fortune Global Forum, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson sat down with us for a conversation on the reelection of Donald Trump  and the evolving dynamics between the U.K., U.S., China, and other global powers.

At Fortune Global Forum, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson sat down with us for a conversation.

The United States is the hegemon. It's going to be the hegemon for our lifetimes and our Children, grandchildren lifetimes. I'm absolutely convinced, but the Europeans can't just free ride, they need to step up. And I think economically and on defense, I think the Trump administration throws out a big challenge. Boris Johnson has a unique relationship with Donald Trump. You know, and while Johnson is no longer Prime Minister of the UK, he still holds strong views on just about everything. Putin's pet parrots, this entire country citosis, which is a disease you get by the way from cozying up to pet parrots. I sat down with Johnson at the Fortune Global Forum where he weighed in on the impact of potential tariffs, the European economy, China's economic and military standing with the US and what it all means for the future of the US. And Europe Boris, many of the CEO S who are with us here uh are finding that they, relations with China are not quite as friendly as they had been. The president elect is promising to put heavy tariffs on China. How do you think that the US and the West generally should be reacting to China as an economic force. So I think China is a great strategic competitor. It's uh presents a huge challenge for everybody in the West is the rise of China is a huge fact of life. But I think my advice to everybody would be, don't freak out and yeah, look, I'm have been worried about China having too much of a, of a role in nuclear power in the UK or in five G and we spend a lot of money getting them, getting them out. But on the other hand, I think that it'd be crazy for us to kind of turn our backs on the fifth of humanity with all the genius, all the the talent, all the potential China is integrally intertwined with, with the UK economy and with the US economy, big companies, big US companies like Walmart get a huge proportion of their stuff from China to, to try to deracinate to try to uproot uh Chinese uh presence in the altogether in the US or the UK would be a tremendous destruction of value and it would lift costs for ordinary people. I mean, be tough, China, they would, they, they, they didn't respect you unless you, you've got to be frank with the Chinese. So when it comes to issues like uh Xinjiang or Tibet or Hong Kong where we have disagreements of principle about things, you know, they, they're gonna expect to hear that and if they don't hear that, they're gonna think you're a bit wet. Let's see what happens with the tariffs and all and all the rest of it. Uh, that President Trump has threatened to impose tariffs where they're not necessarily a very bad idea. They put up costs for, for both sides. They're crazy. They're economically illiterate. On the other hand, sometimes China dumps and when China dumps you got to take ID W measures, China has become the primary adversary of the United States and vice versa. Each country's military is now gaming combat with the other one. Can the two countries maintain such a high level, such an enormous amount of trade while also becoming more and more adversarial? I hope that they do and I hope that that means that they don't become adversarial. I think that one of the ways to fix the problem of Chinese aggression, for instance, against Taiwan is to make it very clear that the great democracies led by the United States won't stand for aggression. And the theater where that is most obvious is Ukraine. And I I think there are clear reader crosses between what's happening in, in Ukraine and, and other theaters particularly in the South China Sea. So, you know, we can keep take the temperature down, everybody take the temperature down, fix Ukraine, get Putin out, you know, find a, find a way for them. You know, I hope that President Trump can do that. But then I think that will take the temperature down with China as well. We have a lot of misinformation spread about China and you have a lot of misinformation spread about other different places. I think I'm going to get along great with China, President Xi of China and I were very good friends and you had effectively endorsed him in your uh or at least said there's a good case to be made for him. That's right in your new book, in my new book, Jeff Unleash, which you very generously alluded to look, I don't think it's the job of UK prime ministers or UK politicians to get involved in American domestic politics. I think, you know, it's not welcome in my experience. Um But I was just trying to make a few points about the Trump that I knew. Uh who is, I think very different from the left wing caricature when it comes to some of the areas of foreign policy that I had direct experience of. So when it was uh Iran or Syria or Ukraine or even Ukraine, he was actually very robust, he was robust against Putin. And um you know, people, I think people, sometimes they forget that you can get Brexit done. We can move this country forward. I hope very much that you will support us as a party of progress that will take this amazing country forward, unite and vote for a one nation conservative government. On Thursday. There continues to be debate controversy in the UK, about Brexit in many years now, after it became reality, what's the argument in favor of sticking with it? Well, there's, there's a million arguments for sticking with it. Um, the most important is that, I mean, actually, contrary to what you say, Jeff, it's, people don't talk about it that much anymore. It's sort of, it's, it's down the political agenda to imagine that Brexit will be, um, re reversed. You've got to imagine that the British people are going to vote to, to pay £20 billion to have their laws uh again, decided elsewhere, their borders under the control of others and, and, and give up the control of their currency. So it's, it's not gonna happen. The, the advantages of Brexit in a globalized economy are huge and it just needs the government to exploit them. One of the things I I point out in unleashed is that it was very, very significant when we were dealing with COVID that uh we face this appalling threat, you know, and, and lots of people were dying by March 2021. Our government, my government had vaccinated 45% of the adults in the, in the UK. Uh almost 100% of those over 80. The corresponding figure in, in the eu was 10% because they'd waited so long to get the, the approvals. And so in that sense, Brexit saved lives and, and, and saved lives within months of it formally coming into effect. And, you know, you won't read that in the New York Times. You won't read that in the left liberal media, but it is the truth today. How would you compare the European economy with the US economy? The EU and the US were both worth about $14 trillion in 2008. Today, the EU is worth about $15 trillion and the US is worth $26 trillion. And even though the US has far fewer people, right? So the the growth rate in the US has been absolutely extraordinary vertiginous compared to Europe is, is very sclerotic, very overburdened. Far too much regulation is why Brexit offers such hope for the UK, partly it's a function of legislation and regulation, but it's also to do with culture and aspiration and dynamism and guts and, and admiration for money because the people who appear in your pages, the people who appear on the front of your Fortune magazine in America, they are people who are, who are held in esteem, right in the UK. It's much more, I'm afraid tragically, it's much more even handed under President Trump the second time around. How do you expect relations to be between the United States and Europe and UK? Economically? I think that they will continue to be extremely good the for the, for my own country, for the UK. Uh The US is by far our biggest individual national export market. Our biggest trading partner. I think there are two ways in which the Trump agenda will be healthy for Europe. I hope that it will force an argument in our own societies about our economic model and the way it works and the low growth, high tax, high spend uh cycle we've got ourselves into and I hope that the Trump agenda will challenge that. Second. I think the Trump administration's frankness and candor about the European need to spend more on defense will also be healthy. The world depends on, on the United States for its security. The, the United States is still 25% of global GDP. The United States is the hegemon. It's going to be the hegemon for our lifetimes and our, our Children, grandchildren lifetimes. I'm absolutely convinced, but the Europeans can't just free ride. They need to step up. And I think that so I think economically and on defense, I think Trump administration throws out a big challenge to, to us, to, to emulate the American approach.