Russia no longer a competitive threat to U.S. but an issue for Europe, says CFR's Michael Froman

Andrew Ross Sorkin (Anchor) 00:00.070

is joining us right now on that plus the trump administration 's increasing pressure on venezuela council on foreign relations president michael froman is here he served as US trade rep in the obama administration can also talk about so many other things that are going on in the

Andrew Ross Sorkin (Anchor) 00:12.430

world but let's let's start with ukraine do you think we're actually going to get a deal what do you think that deal is going to look like and is this ultimately the solution that everyone 's been after

Michael Froman (President) 00:23.230

well look it looks like there's been good progress over the last few days in terms of the security guarantees we haven't seen the details but with the trump administration talking about nato like security guarantees and zelensky saying he's not insisting on nato membership

Michael Froman (President) 00:36.590

anymore that's a moment of progress if nato like means we have coalition of nato partners willing to put troops on the ground as in ukraine that could be meaningful whether the US is there how the US supports that that could be a meaningful step question is whether anything that

Michael Froman (President) 00:53.470

zelensky could agree to putin will agree

Becky Quick (Anchor) 00:55.830

to well that's yeah though it's a weird thing to think like who does the trump administration who's president trump specifically think is the one who's holding out he's gone back and forth it used to seem like he thought zelensky was the one who was causing this problem now it

Becky Quick (Anchor) 01:09.110

seems like he's thinking maybe more putin that

Michael Froman (President) 01:11.230

has been the dynamic here between zelensky and putin to try and demonstrate to trump which one is operating in good faith and which one is not and right now zalenski 's on the on the upswing and there's talk but there's been not ongoing talk about increasing sanctions on russia

Michael Froman (President) 01:25.710

if they don't respond positively but so far russia hasn't really moved off its maximalist goals from even before the war including wanting more territory than they

Becky Quick (Anchor) 01:34.830

even occupied that

Andrew Ross Sorkin (Anchor) 01:38.030

some of this started or i shouldn't say started but some of this moved ahead a couple months ago when treasury secretary besson got involved and there was all of this this idea of a strategic sort of economic deal between the US what do you think that would look like on the

Andrew Ross Sorkin (Anchor) 01:49.990

other side of this

Michael Froman (President) 01:51.910

president and and the administration 's been very focused on on resetting the russia relation post eight agreement on ukraine and really exploring the economic opportunities that we know whether it's on on oil and gas or on minerals or the broader relationship now there had been

Michael Froman (President) 02:06.870

a US russia economic relationship prior to ukraine it's not as significant obviously as the relationship with china or a number of other parties but us firms had to pull out because of the sanctions and i think he sees there as being an opportunity for us to be more involved in

Michael Froman (President) 02:21.390

that so he'd like to broaden the broaden the discussion beyond ukraine to talk about the overall relationship between the US and russia and between russia and the west and one of the most interesting parts of the national security strategy that the administration put out about

Michael Froman (President) 02:35.790

ten days ago was they no longer talked about russia as really a competitive threat it was an issue an existential issue for europe and the US was going to have to stay involved in order to mediate between europe and russia we weren't on a party to the the concern as as we had

Michael Froman (President) 02:51.590

been for OK

Andrew Ross Sorkin (Anchor) 02:52.670

throw ukraine into the mix i'm sorry not ukraine venezuela into the mix i apologize it's early in the morning here what is your sense of what is going to happen next in this regard because this is a a new it's a constant ratcheting up of pressure i i think the you know the the

Andrew Ross Sorkin (Anchor) 03:09.310

designating part of the regime as a terrorist organization saying we're going to now saying we're going to intercede and blockade all the sanctioned previously sanctioned tankers that is an escalation now these sanctions these tankers were already sanctioned the sanctions were

Andrew Ross Sorkin (Anchor) 03:23.950

not being fully enforced and now we're going to start enforcing it with this armada that we have what is the end state what is it where where does this all go he's been very interesting i mean on

Michael Froman (President) 03:32.510

one hand he's still talking about this as being a war on on drugs and and human trafficking and and the like but everyone believes it's really about regime change and constantly increasing the pressure on maduro to change whether between the economic sanctions like this and the

Michael Froman (President) 03:48.070

blowing up of boats and potentially a bombing of of land sites in venezuela whether that's enough pressure short of actually sending troops in to change the government in venezuela remains to be seen and you have a long history of regime change including in latin america with a

Michael Froman (President) 04:03.910

rather mixed result so you know i think the hope is is that all this pressure pushes maduro out without having to escalate on the ground of military action do

Andrew Ross Sorkin (Anchor) 04:12.710

you think any or all of this is changing meaningfully changing our long term relationships with the rest of the world at this point absolutely

Michael Froman (President) 04:18.990

absolutely way though well you know first again the administration has now come out clearly and said this is really our number one priority is the western hemisphere it's our border it's the things that threaten the homeland including migration and drugs coming from latin

Michael Froman (President) 04:32.590

america so latin america is going to get a lot of attention you know starting with venezuela and that i think changes certainly the relationship there i think with the other interesting part is what does it mean for china and russia you know that we're not really talking about

Michael Froman (President) 04:45.270

great power rivalry anymore we're talking about trying to come up with a mutually beneficial economic relationship with china rather than china being the pacing threat for US national security and as we just talked about with russia trying to think on the china side