PDB Situation Report | April 19th, 2025: How Long Can The Tariff War Last & A Ground Campaign Coming In Yemen?
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Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, and your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. We'll start things off with new fallout in the U.S.-China tariff war. Perhaps you've heard about this. Factories are idling, orders are vanishing, and the pressure is mounting on both sides. Now, how much longer, you ask, can both sides endure the pain? Heritage Foundation's Preston Brashers joins us to break it down.

Later in the show, we'll turn to the Middle East, where the ongoing strikes against the Houthi rebels appear to be reigniting Yemen's decade-long civil war, with government forces reportedly planning a ground offensive against the wounded terror group. Bill Roggio of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies gives his insight. But first, today's PDB Spotlight. The pressure from President Trump's sweeping tariffs is starting to hit home in China.

At export hubs like Guangzhou and Shenzhen factories are going quiet. Orders from U.S. buyers are being canceled, inventory is piling up, and workers are bracing for layoffs. One export manager told local media he's never seen this kind of slowdown in 20 years.

Meanwhile, ports are jammed and uncertainty is seeping into every corner of China's manufacturing base. This all sounds very dire, doesn't it? The question now, how long can China absorb this slowdown? And how much longer can Washington keep turning up the pressure without feeling a major impact here in the U.S.?

Joining us now to break it all down is Preston Brashers. He's a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Preston, thanks very much for joining us here on the Situation Report. Yeah, thanks a lot for having me, Mike. What we're hoping to do is to approach the talk about the trade war with China from an economics perspective. And let's look at it from that direction, as opposed to what I think a lot of the conversation has been, which is, okay, how is this impacting China on the home front? Let's start with

sort of a layman's explanation for tariffs in general, and then we can start drilling down towards a specific battle between the US and China. Yeah. So, I mean, tariffs are a form of tax, but they're tax on products that are crossing into the United States from other countries. And so, this has been part of the

way that the United States has raised revenues from the outset, it used to be a much larger part of the US revenues back before we had an income tax. Since the income tax has come into existence, tariffs have become a much smaller portion of what we have. But tariffs can be... They're opposed on both intermediate goods. So you can talk about manufacturers that might have

some inputs that they're buying from overseas. So it can have some effect on domestic manufacturers as well, but it also is going to hit consumer products. And obviously we purchase a lot of consumer products from China. Think your smartphones, laptops. Although it should be noted that President Trump

The 225% tariffs, he's put some exemptions in place. So some of these products, some of these intermediate goods, there's kind of consideration being taken

They're making considerations for some of these things that perhaps could have a deep and immediate impact. So they're trying to be mindful about this, I think, but obviously this is a huge step that the administration has taken. They're not wasting any time and kind of trying to address these China issues.

And, I mean, it's interesting what you said at the outset, which is that tariffs used to be a much more important part of U.S. government revenues. It seems like, I mean, if you read a lot of the press out there, it sounds as if, oh, this is some new invention on the part of the Trump administration to utilize tariffs.

If you could talk to me about that, when did that change? When did we move? I suppose, based on what you said, it might have been around the time that we implemented the income tax. The income tax was implemented in 1913. So that was really where you started to see some movement away from tariffs for a period. The income tax, it ramped up obviously during World War I. But then you saw in the 1920s that

They moved towards reducing the income tax, but then President Hoover in the 1930s really wrapped up the tariffs again. So they've come and go a little bit, but

The big difference really between now and what we're talking about 100, 150 years ago is that the US government just raises a lot more money than it used to. So you used to be able to fund the government off of 2% or 3% of GDP. And so that was where you could run the government off of tariffs and then a few excise taxes. Nowadays, that probably would be feasible. I'd love it if it was, I'd love to get to a government that was so small that you could.

Unfortunately, probably we're going to have to have, it's going to be a while before we can think about getting rid of the income tax and replacing it altogether with tariffs. So I think those are a little bit overstated claims as to being able to replace it altogether. But tariffs, the level of tariffs today is significantly less than it was before.

in earlier decades, even within the century, 50, 60 years ago, we've worked to reduce trade barriers and a lot of other countries have as well. So trade barriers are relatively low. There's been obviously a big push towards globalization, not just in the US, but other countries as well. So that's where we're at. And maybe there's a little bit of buyer's remorse in some ways that, especially with

with respect to China, a lot of people are questioning whether it was a good idea to let them into the WTO and open up trade relationships. And I think that's really, I think a lot of what this is about probably is that China angle. And it's one thing to have good relationships and open and free trade with our allies and free countries. I think people have a very different mindset about it when it comes to China though.

What's your perspective on the use of tariffs at this point, as is being done by the Trump administration? So I think with anything, there's trade-offs. So people should be realistic about those trade-offs. I'm an economist. Economics is all about trade-offs. And so there might be some economic pain that comes with it. You might see that some prices will go up as a result of tariffs. But if there's a

consideration to national security and other things where we think that that's necessary. I'm not an international relations expert. I defer to some extent to people that are on some of these things, but there's obviously a case to be made that certainly China has not been a good actor in a lot of cases. I talked to companies a

leaders of companies all the time that will talk about IP theft, dumping of products, things of that nature. So certainly China has some unfair trade practices that the US should be concerned with. As a general matter, I'm not a fan of taxation, high taxes in general. I'd like to see trade barriers reduced and hopefully this can be a way to get to reduce trade barriers

with countries that are willing to work with us towards reducing theirs as well. Okay. I'm sure to you it was going to sound like a simplistic question, but those are my favorite kind. Is this about leveling out the differences between the U.S.'s tariff

amount of the trade percentage that I'm talking about for the tariffs and respect of other countries? Or is it about the trade imbalance between the US and a relevant country? Because there's been this talk that the White House is, they're fuming about the trade imbalance with a variety of countries, obviously, including China.

But then the counter to that seems to be, well, we are the largest consumer out there. So, there's going to be imbalance.

Yeah, it's a great question. And there's been a little bit of mixed messaging on this. I think the tariffs, the administration and others have spoken of tariffs and the use of tariffs in a lot of different ways. And I think, frankly, they're coming at it from a lot of different angles. They talked about reciprocal tariffs. If you saw what we rolled out, that wasn't necessarily just reciprocal tariffs. They imposed the 10% across the board and they were

calculated what they call the reciprocal tariffs based off of this formula. It wasn't truly about reciprocity, it was more about trade deficits. And that's a different concept than necessarily what these countries tariffs and trade barriers are against the United States.

And so perhaps it was a negotiating tactic that you come in with this very aggressive tactic to get countries to come to the negotiating table very quickly. I would imagine that's part of what's going on here. But it wasn't simply reciprocal tariffs. Now, when it comes to the trade deficit,

Trade deficits come from a lot of different things. It's not just from the trade barriers. Trade barriers can be a part of that, and tariffs are just one form of trade barrier. There can be some others as well, and the administration has spoken to some of those things, such as currency manipulation. Or you can think of, for example, in the European Union, if they put restrictions on

Just very tight regulations, for example, can be a form of a trade barrier if you're imposing these regulations in a way that it's designed to make sure that you're keeping sellers from other markets out of your country. So there's a lot of things that are at play here and it is extraordinarily complex. I mean, even just talking about the tariffs, if you look at these schedules, they just go on forever, just product by product. And so it's enormously complex.

Part of the issue actually, when it comes to the US trade deficit, the US trade deficit is largely actually a result of the fact that in the United States, we are a nation of consumers. And part of the reason that we're a nation of consumers is because unfortunately, it comes from a matter of we're not saving enough money. That's both at the private level and the public level. And so one of the things that contributes to the large trade deficits that we have is actually the massive

budget deficit that we face. This $2 trillion budget deficit, whereas as a government, we're not paying for all the things that the government is spending money on. And this contributes in a large way to those trade deficits that the administration is trying to address. So there's a lot at play here and some of it's rhetoric perhaps, some of it's negotiating and there are some real issues as well. So it's a combination of a lot of things.

Okay. I want to dive into a little bit more of a focus on China, but first, Preston, if you could stay right there. We've got to take a quick break, and then we'll be right back with more of the Situation Report and Preston Brashers.

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Support an American company, invest in yourself, and start getting your best sleep tonight. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining me once again is the Heritage Foundation's Preston Brashers. He's an economist and an extremely smart person, as you probably realized from our first segment. Now, Preston, I've heard from the White House, okay, not directly, they didn't call me and say this, but I've read,

that, according to President Trump, the US government is currently raking in something along the lines of $3 billion a day from the tariffs as they currently stand. Does that sound about right from what you've seen? I don't have an exact number. That data I don't think would be publicly available this quickly. I would say that

The amount of tariffs could potentially be substantial. I mean, just the level of tariffs with China, the level of the across the board tariffs. One of the things that we have looked at at the Heritage Foundation is a border adjustment. It's not exactly a tariff, but it has some similarities. And you can get to a trillion dollars

of revenue from a border adjustment at about a 10% rate. Before we go further, what is a border adjustment? What are we talking about? Yeah. So, a border adjustment would act very similar to a tariff, but a tariff, I mentioned how a tariff can capture intermediate goods, for example.

And so what you can have is if you have, say a car and you have parts that are being distributed across the border and then it's manufactured and assembled in different, maybe the US and then Canada and Mexico, and it's crossing the border multiple times, that cascades and then you have this double taxation that happens. What a border adjustment does is it basically acts like what these other countries, most of these other countries, they have a value-added tax.

And with the value added tax, what they're doing is they're saying it's kind of like a sales tax, but it's done based off of the value of the product. So when you have these intermediate goods that are crossing the border, you would have a tax that applies when it comes in. And then if it's coming back out, you have a credit that offsets that. So what you're going to end up with is something that works a little bit more like a flat consumption tax. So I think it's a feasible outcome that what could result from this is you could have an

instead of that 10% across the board tariff, you could convert that into a 10% border adjustment and use that within the budget reconciliation process to advance some of President Trump's pro-growth tax cuts that he wants to advance. And the advantage of doing that is you'd actually get to use the budget scoring from that

in a way that you wouldn't be able to do with tariffs because you're locking those into permanent law. And so, that would be something that they could use to advance some of President Trump's other priorities. So, that's the direction that we'd like to see this go to that we think would be a really, I think, productive way to do this. Does it surprise you in terms of the response?

with the tariffs, the trade wars, and I don't mean just with the US and China, but in general terms, just the focus on tariffs, the uncertainty, if you want to call it that, that it's created in international markets and with allies. Are you surprised at

You know, the response so far, is it what you would have expected? Is it less than you would have expected? You know, give me a perspective on that. What I would say is kind of mentioned before that there's been sort of mixed messaging on some of this, like,

Is this about reciprocity? Is this about we want to address the issues with China and make sure that we're decoupling from China? Or is this about we really want to make sure that we're pushing everything back to the United States and producing everything here and

producing and cutting off that global trade. And so, I think for a moment there, there was a lot of, and maybe again, this was a negotiated tactic, I don't know. But I think there was a concern from a lot of people and as an economic analyst, I had a lot of uncertainty too as to what was going on. But there does seem to have been a signal that, and certainly they came out very strong and left this

very large incentive for countries to come to the negotiating table. And I think we've seen that many countries such as Japan right now, we know there's talks going on there. So there was a lot of uncertainty and I think countries were very concerned. And certainly I wouldn't want this to turn into something where we're cutting ourselves off in a way that's going to box us out and push countries closer to China. So I think it was a good move for the president

to announce the pause in the tariffs, try to get as many countries to the negotiating table as possible, work out some deals and secure some wins and really get to reduce trade barriers with our friends so that they're coming closer to us and not closer to China.

Yeah. And obviously, with the exception of China in terms of the US, the White House's moves on the pause. As an economist, is there a way that you can look at the current situation with China, the levels of tariffs? And I realize part of this is it falls in the realm of foreign policy and geopolitics. But

from an economic perspective, can you look at the current state of play and say, "All right, there is an anticipated timeline for when the US consumer is going to start feeling the pain of this battle between the US and China."

Yeah, it's very difficult to kind of play out exactly the timeline of when you'd feel that. And it's really going to, it's not going to be, I wouldn't anticipate it's going to be kind of an across the board inflation that you would feel. It would be more something that there's certain snags in supply chains because there are things that are going through China. And it does take a while if you think about, if you're a multinational company,

And you now have this big incentive to try to find a way to produce outside of China or abroad.

diversify where you're supplying from, that's going to take a little bit of time. And so I would anticipate, assuming these tariffs remain in place, that you would start to see it within a matter of months, there would be some effects. I don't think it would be across the board. I think that markets would adjust if it is just focused on China. But there are going to be some things where, and I think that's where those exemptions came in, where they do have to be mindful that companies can't

change overnight. If you have manufacturing that's set up there, if you have just a widget to your, an input to your production that's coming out of China, it's going to take you a little while to figure out another way to source that. I realize I'm asking you a lot of questions that it's a soft science at best, but the idea of onshoring a lot of the manufacturing that's moved offshore from the US,

In today's world, I mean, is that, you know, if you look at all the various things, the labor market in the U.S., the cost of sales in the U.S. and manufacturing, do you think that process of onshoring is a realistic expectation?

That's a great question because there's an interesting poll that I saw that was released. It asked people whether they would want to go into manufacturing. And there was, I believe it was 20, 25% that said they would prefer to have a manufacturing job relative to their current job. I believe it was 20% was the number.

And there were two different interpretations of that. Some people were looking at that and saying, well, that means there's a lot of people, 20% of people, that's a lot of people. And there's an opportunity there for all these people to kind of move into manufacturing.

And then other people are looking at that and saying, "Well, that just shows that there's a lot of people that would prefer to work in..." Because manufacturing jobs are not necessarily always the most pleasant and best work environments. Some people might prefer to have a different type of job. I do think we maybe...

It's an interesting question. I think in many ways, part of the issue is not necessarily the trade side of it. I would actually point to maybe the fact that we are in some ways subsidizing certain, I guess, laptop class jobs. We push people into universities, we subsidize the university system. And I think student loan, forgiveness, all these different things that really we've kind of

as a society may be taken too active of a role in trying to push people down a certain path. And that path wasn't the manufacturing, that path wasn't industrial. So I'm not necessarily one that says, that has a overly romantic view of manufacturing. But at the same time, I don't think we should be discouraging people from that route. And I don't think we should be

putting barriers in place such as regulations. I think about some of the labor regulations and some of the environmental regulations that might make it difficult to have factories here in the United States. And so we offshore stuff to China where they produce things more cheaply and produce more pollution and have all these other hosts of problems.

Yeah, it's a fascinating subject. I'd love to have you back on for another conversation about this because there's so much here. I take your point. It's a very complex issue that doesn't lend itself to a short beginning and middle of the end type of news story by any means. And you look at the US currently and you think, okay, all the companies that right now are facing these issues that have committed themselves over years to

to China as part of their manufacturing distribution delivery process, the entire logistical chain.

And right now, I mean, it's very difficult for them to forward plan, right? And you're not doing a just-in-time situation where you're booking and making deals on a weekly basis. You've got to plan out, right? And so, I think there's a pain here that's impacting. I'm not going to bore you with all the details, but maybe I'm about to. We took our youngest boy, Muggsy, out to buy a new motocross bike. And

It was interesting because one of the models that he was interested in, the dealer literally said, look, we're sold out and we can't get an answer from our supplier in China as to when we might get more stock. We just don't know. And they're telling us they don't know.

So, that's just, I know that's a little thing, but it's interesting already how it's impacting businesses. Preston, again, I hope when we call you, you'll pick up the phone and you'll agree to come back on the situation report. But thank you very much for joining us today. Yeah, thanks so much, Mike. This has been a great conversation. Appreciate it. Excellent. Thank you, man. Take care. And that's my story about Mugsy and the motocross bike.

You're welcome. All right. When we come back, as the U.S. pounds Houthi targets from the air, forces loyal to Yemen's internationally recognized government appear to be gearing up for a ground offensive to reclaim territory lost during the nation's decade-long civil war. And it was a brutal civil war. Bill Roggio from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, you know him, he's a friend of the show. He joins us next with what to expect.

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Welcome back to the Situation Report. Yemen's long-simmering civil war may be about to boil over again. Oh, wordplay. Forces loyal to the country's internationally recognized government are reportedly preparing a ground offensive against Sakoutis, hoping to take advantage of the group's weakened state after weeks of U.S. airstrikes.

According to Yemeni officials, the plan centers on recapturing the strategic Red Sea port of Hodeidah. The goal is to push the Houthis out of key coastal areas they've used to launch drone and missile attacks on international shipping. And they may not be acting alone. Saudi Arabia has reportedly launched new missile and artillery strikes along Yemen's northern border, possibly setting the stage for the offensive by softening up Houthi positions in advance.

Joining us now to break it all down is Bill Roggio, senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and editor of FDD's Long War Journal. Bill, thank you very much for coming back on The Situation Report. It's always a pleasure. Thanks for having me. Look, there's a lot going on, but let's start with what is happening in Yemen. Give us that top line summary of what's happening now.

Yeah, the developments in Yemen are interesting. So the Biden administration, as we discussed before, mainly targeted weapons systems things for the Yemeni in order to try to get the Yemenis to stop attacking international shipping. It didn't work. The Trump administration has taken a different tack. It's not only targeting weapons systems, it's going after individuals. And just today,

the U.S. Central Command, which is directing the strikes, targeted a fuel depot that is being used to provide, you know, that is to basically to fuel the Yemeni military. So this is, but also targeting the leadership. I've seen reports, Yemeni generals and colonels are starting to be identified as being killed. We didn't see this under the Biden campaign. We are seeing this

Under the Trump campaign, whether it'll work, that remains to be seen. I think that the, you know, the Houthis are just a small terrorist organization. It runs a government. It runs a military. So it's a terrorist government. And so there's a lot of work to be done, but you have a far better chance to get them to stop attacks on international shipping.

than you did under the Biden administration's, if you could call it a strategy of just targeting weapons systems that can be and were being replaced by both the Armenians who manufacture them and the Iranians who supplied them.

I suppose, what is the downside here or potential downside scenario for weakening the Houthis to the degree where the, I don't know how you want to refer to them, the established Yemeni government or certainly the government that's been supported by the Saudis and others,

What is the downside scenario here if that government is able to, in a direct offensive, take back territory? So I think a downside is, as you could see, a Libya or a Syrian situation where you have a fractured Yemeni state, which you really essentially do now. But look, the Yemeni government that we support

is really very toothless. One of my concerns is that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula can reassert control, as it has done several times in the past.

Or that you get in a situation where Al-Qaeda is all of a sudden viewed as moderate, just as it is in Syria, where you have a specially designated global terrorist who leads a foreign terrorist organization who's become president and runs the government of Syria, that you can have a situation like that. The problem is that I see with our foreign policy, and this is not a left or a right or a Republican or Democrat issue, but it

It's a Washington issue is that we're always looking for someone to work with. And in places like Yemen and Libya and Syria, there are really very few good actors or the ones that are good tend to be powerless or maintain very little power. So my concern is that this if we replace the Houthis.

Or if we depose the Houthis, they could be replaced with another bad actor and we could be convinced that they're good actors. That's exactly what happened in Syria. We exchanged one bad leader, Assad,

and replace them with a terrorist. And so, you know, is the situation better in Syria today than it was a year ago? I'd argue it's just as bad. It's just a different kind of situation. Yeah, I think it's an excellent point that, you know, I know we've got plenty of case studies, recent case studies, is

in how the US tends to do what you're describing, looking for that partner, right? That, okay, and in part it's because the Americans

no matter what the administration is, I agree with this, this is an operational issue, this is not a partisan issue, but we tend to, as Americans, mirror our values on others. And so then we imagine... So with Afghanistan, somehow, yes, the Soviets had to turn tail and run out of Afghanistan, but because we're bringing democracy, they're going to love us and it's all going to work out well. Well, that's not the case because most often these countries don't know what it is that we're trying to sell.

And they don't understand it and much less want it. So I take your point. And that's kind of a concern here. Look, I'm not saying that we shouldn't be degrading the Houthis, right? They're in part funded, trained, supported, resourced by the Iranian regime. And they've also obviously been playing havoc on international shipping. But I think you have to be pragmatic and say, well, what comes in behind it?

I completely agree. We absolutely should be taking out the Houthis. We should do everything. We just need to be, as you said, be pragmatic. Your case of Afghanistan is perfect, right? When we, the Taliban, President Trump negotiated the Doha agreement with them that President Biden used to withdraw. And we're talking to the Taliban now. We took off the bounty, the $10 million bounty for Sir Juncker, one of the most

Horrible terrorists on this planet. He's responsible for the deaths and wounding of thousands of Americans in Afghanistan, tons of thousands of Afghans. He's with ties to Al Qaeda. So

We may be good at deposing a regime. We just don't seem to have foresight. And you're absolutely correct. We project our values upon people that really are our enemies, the Taliban or our friend, Ahmed al-Shara in Syria and in Hayat al-Tahir al-Sham, which he runs. They are not an ally, and yet we're treating them like one. And I hope we don't

you know, have followed similar steps in Yemen as we've done in Libya, right? Another basket case study of our failed follow-through policy. And I just hope we don't do that again. Yeah, nobody wants to talk about Libya. Nobody likes talking about Libya because it's such a hot mess, right? There you've got what? You've got over 130 tribal elements there. And, you know, you're trying to somehow imagine you were going to create a unified...

federal state and it's a disaster at this stage of the game I love your reference to Shara in Syria and I loved the fact that as he and the rebels rode into town and Assad was you know getting on the bus to go to Moscow

By the way, nobody ever talks about the fact that Assad's... What is he doing in Moscow? Is he working as a barista? Anyway, point being is the next day, basically, almost the next day, Sherrod dumped his camos and he put on a suit and an expensive watch because he understands how to play the West mindset. To some degree, if I look like what they want me to look like, they're

They're going to layer on their expectations and their hopes onto this image. And I think he's not doing a bad job of playing the West right now to some degree. Look, it's interesting because when you talk about what happened in Libya, you talk about what happened in Afghanistan, you talk about what could happen in Yemen.

Libertarians would argue, well, why the hell are we even there? What is the point? Why doesn't America just stay out of it? We should be focused on our own people. We have no role to play overseas. We should not be engaged in these activities. I always, you know, I guess my question is, how would you answer that? It's a great question. I fall somewhere in the middle of interventionism and isolationism.

Um, only because we're really bad at interventionalism, right? So if we're going to intervene, we need to do it wisely. We need to understand our enemy. We need to understand the limitations of our allies and understand who they are as well and what their goals are. And we shouldn't get involved like, you know, in retrospect, you know, deposing the Taliban, uh,

and then trying to prop up you know as you mentioned right promote democracy in afghanistan that was a fool's errand it should have been very clear from the very beginning we should have had limited goals in afghanistan instead we had lofty goals same thing in iraq um you know same thing you know in in syria where we take a terrorist organization the um the turkistan people's

Workers Party, which is a foreign terrorist organization responsible for killing tens of thousands of Turks.

And call on the Syrian Democratic Forces, or I'm sorry, the, yeah, it's the Syrian Democratic Forces. There's nothing democratic about a Marxist terrorist organization. But we, again, it's another perfect case of projection. We need to be very careful. We can't ignore the world. We get things like 9-11 because we pretend that Afghanistan was fine and that Al-Qaeda wasn't a threat. But, you know, again, we just have to

We need better leadership. We need better expertise. We need to get rid of the people in the State Department, in the Department of Defense that have these, you know, and it's, again, this isn't a left and a right issue. There's a lot of ideological blinders on both sides of the aisle. Again, they're project...

their values and their vision of the world and in the Middle East and Africa and many places in the world, they do not share our values. And we have to be very careful when we decide to

You know, when we when we're going to go into democracy and nation building. So, again, I don't want to come off as being an isolationist, but, you know, when you get stuck somewhere in the middle there, you know, you have you really have no hope, especially in a place like Washington.

Yeah. Nobody's living in the center, right? You got trenches and then you got nothing in the middle except people lobbing hand grenades. You don't want to be in that. Look, Bill, if you could stay right where you are, I want to swing the conversation a little bit over towards Iran. But first, we have to take a quick break and we'll be right back with more of the Situation Report.

Welcome back to the Situation Report. Joining us once again is Bill Roggio, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and of course, as you know, editor of FDD's Long War Journal. Bill, thanks very much for sticking around. We started by talking to some degree about the Houthis. I want to pivot just slightly to talk about their patron, the Iranian regime,

What do you make of the reports that have just come out talking about the fact that the White House apparently convinced the Israelis to put the brakes on a pending attack against the Iranian nuclear infrastructure? Well, the Trump administration, I think, everyone should or should be very clear to everyone at this point.

really is looking to negotiate across the board in Ukraine with Russia, negotiate with the Iranians, negotiate with the Syrians, negotiate with the Taliban. With the Taliban, right, we just had two American hostages released in exchange for the dropping of bounties. So I'm not surprised that President Trump believes that there's a lot of deals to be made out there

One of my concerns is that when you're dealing with the Putins and the Iranians of the world,

Um, they're not you're not dealing on a level playing field. And I do hope he understands that, that you can't trust the Iranians and you can't trust the Russians when it comes to negotiations with as far as Iran goes. Look, I've always been very skeptical that the Israelis can pull off a strike against Iran's nuclear program without significant U.S. support.

There's a lot that goes into hitting nuclear program like Iran's that's extensive with bunkers and facilities that are very deep underground, built in the mountains. It's not just fly a plane, drop a bomb, and it's destroyed. You got to do follow-on strikes. You have to have search and rescue available. When you go down, you got to be able to refuel those planes. You got to be able to get the air, get the clear to go over the Saudis and the Jordanian airspace.

Et cetera, et cetera. It's a very complicated. I don't think this is something the Israelis can do on their own. So if the Trump administration, you know, if they were going to carry it out, they need American support, both political and military support to launch an effective strike. And they have to do it effectively. They're really going to get one shot at this.

Yeah, it's interesting because the reporting that's coming out indicates that the Israelis initially were looking at a combination of airstrikes and ground operations involving some of their special forces elements.

and then decided to pivot and say, okay, this is going to be primarily an air-based attack, which then kind of calls on more resources from the US, requires more effort from the US, more input. And so, I think that at that point kind of shifted the conversation inside the White House and they said, well, no, let's take a different tack, put that on hold, at least for now.

But let me ask you this, trying to tie the two things together, the Iranian regime and the Houthis, from your perspective, how much control, how much say do the mullahs have over what the Houthis are doing? Is it, look, we'll tell you what your strategy is going to be and you're going to follow it or is it much looser than that?

So I would say it's loose. The Iranians and its access of resistance, that includes Hezbollah, that includes the Iraqi and Syrian militias, the Quds Force,

groups like Hamas, the Iranians are never going to ask these groups to do something. A, they don't believe, the Iranians don't believe that these groups can carry out, that includes the Houthis. And if there's concern, so it's a back and forth, right? The Iranians have a good read on the capabilities of these groups, what they can and can't get away with. But if there are, you know, so...

The Iranians are never going to order the Houthis to do something, but they can advise them. They can encourage them. They provide the weapon systems and the advisors. So it's that sort of relationship. And as far as the Houthis go, right? Like this is one of the questions that I have, right? Are we dealing with a symptom of the disease or are we dealing with the cause? And the real question,

Striking at the Houthis, it's necessary. It's something we have to do. But if you really want the Houthis to stop, you hit the Iranians. You hit them hard. You make the Iranians pay. You kill their IRGC operatives that are advisors and building weapons systems within Yemen and other places. And you also show the Iranians that they're weak at home. You pick targets inside Iran.

of Iran that's the real weakness of the Iranians is and that's why they have these this axis of resistance they have groups like the Udi's and Hezbollah because that's how it's it's it's the way of projecting power but it also shows how weak they are if they can if they're shown to be weak at home

That is something that they can't tolerate. That is something that could really get them to force the Houthis and Hezbollah and Hamas to draw back. That could get the Iranians to order them. That's a situation where if the Iranians feel they are truly threatened, these groups would comply with that. What do you make of the initial...

round of discussions that took place. At one point, there was reportedly like a 45-minute discussion between Witkoff and Basaragchi, the foreign minister for Iran, several days back. And now they're scheduled to have a second follow-up round of discussions on Saturday, I believe, in Rome. What do you make of all of that? I...

I don't think the Trump administration is going to get what it wants and what it needs. The problem with our negotiations in the past is it's decoupled Iran's nuclear program with its support for these militias across the Middle East or that access of resistance. That was the whole one of the big problems with the JPCOA. And I suspect that it's going to be a big problem with this. So we and also the Iranians.

are going to try and run out the clock. They're going to string the US along. They're going to say and do enough things to keep Trump advisors, and particularly the State Department, which loves negotiations for the sake of negotiations. And that doesn't matter who is running the State Department. It doesn't matter if it's a Republican or a Democratic administration. The State Department likes to talk for the sake of talking. That's what they're paid to do.

Well, I don't disagree with you. I do worry that, you know, we're basically looking at, yet again, just kind of kicking the can down the road, right? For the sake of saying that we got a deal. You know, we're basically just putting lipstick on a pig.

But, you know, that's just me being cynical. You and I should do the live version of those two old guys that sit up in the balcony on The Muppet Show. The Muppets. Yeah, I love them. Sit and think about things. I will say that the Trump administration does need to go through the process of

of talking to them. I just hope they don't allow themselves to be thrown out. They need to get to know and then do what they need to do. I just hope that they eventually recognize that they're being played.

Yeah, no, I, you know what, and I suspect there are voices in there saying that and advising that. And I agree with you. You've got to have a channel of communication. That's very important. Whether we're talking about the Iranians or the Russians, the Chinese, you've got to have that ability, but you've also got to be able to dual track and you have to be pragmatic about where that might get you.

Right. So, I mean, it is, look, we're in a fascinating time here. I think the IAEA, the Atomic Energy Agency, has just put out a statement saying that Iran, the regime, is dangerously close to a breakout on their nuclear weapons capabilities. So, yeah, the stakes are extremely high. Do you anticipate...

Let me ask you this. Take out your crystal ball and tell me what you think is going to happen or what will have happened in the next six months with Iran.

Yeah, that's a great question. I honestly, it's all a matter of how President Trump wants to be perceived. Remember, he campaigned on no new wars. Now, striking at the Houthis is not a new war. It was an existing issue, right? The Houthis were attacking U.S. warships, international shipping. So it was a continuation. So what he's doing, launching strikes on Iran would be perceived as such. Does he want to go down that route?

Um, you know, how desperate or how desirous is he of getting a deal to show that he's the dealmaker? Um, or how willing is he to walk away?

You know, President Trump is it's very I find it. He's very uptight. He's the most typical person to read in Washington. You know, if this was the Biden administration, I could easily say a little talk for the sake of talking. This will be strung out. President Trump could on a drop of a dime. He could either he could say I've had enough and it's time for us to deal with this problem meaningfully.

Or he could say, well, we're just going to continue negotiations. So, yeah, unfortunately, I wish I had a better answer for you.

No, you know what? I tell you what. You think about it, and then we'll have you back on the show, and hopefully you bring a better answer, because that one was awful, Bill. I realize when I ask some of these questions sometimes, there's no good answer, right? It's just a matter of, okay, what do you anticipate? Were you speculating? All that, but honestly, God, look, we're in a situation right now where the White House is in critical discussions or at a critical stage with Iran.

They're in critical discussions with Russia, with Putin, right, who also likewise seems to just be, you know, happy to string this out. We're in a critical situation with China. You know, it's a definition of multitasking here.

Yeah, absolutely. And look, you know, there's been times in my career where I could give you a definitive answer. When, you know, President Biden announced the withdrawal from Afghanistan, I was the guy who created that map that showed, you know, the Taliban taking over. I said day one, the Afghan government will be lucky to make it out by the end of the summer. They collapsed on August 15th.

Some of these are very easy to answer. And some, especially when you're dealing with the best way, a mercurial leader like President Trump, it really depends on his mood and his vision. And again, I just can't get inside his decision-making loop, which is interesting. And by the way, in many ways, his unpredictability

A lot of people view that as a negative. I view it as an asset. Our enemies and our adversaries have to look at that and say, you know, I'm not really sure about this guy. And we need to really consider whether we want to negotiate in good faith or not, or we want to conduct this type of attack, or we want to do this to raise the ire of President Trump. Yeah. No, I agree. I think that unpredictability, you got to keep your...

your, I don't want to say enemies necessarily, we want to maybe phrase them all differently in the countries that are not aligned with our interests and don't have our interests at heart. You have to keep them on the back foot.

And you also have to make them believe that you're capable of choosing any decision point on that spectrum, right? So, I think it is. It's a positive. If you've got a consistently readable leader in the White House, that's a problem.

because it's a very aggressive world out there and they'll play you for all it's worth. But look, Bill, this has been, as always, fascinating. And I hope that we'll get a chance to talk to you again here very soon. And I hope at that point in time, you'll

You know, you'll get back to wearing a suit and tie. I don't know why you thought this situation was poor. It was a casual environment, but maybe we should go that way. I tell you what, next time I try to wear cardigans. I'm working hard to bring the cardigans back. So let's focus on that. We'll coordinate before our next appearance. Bill Rocio of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Listen, thank you so much, man, for joining us as always. Thank you. Always a pleasure, my friend. Hope to talk to you soon.

Well, that is all the time. There is so much going on in the world today. I hope today's episode helped to bring it into focus. Maybe not completely, maybe it's still a little blurry, but there is a lot happening in the world and our job is to try to point out what's happening and let you think about it the way you will.

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