The Delegates Lounge
Join us in The Delegates Lounge, an independent podcast on world affairs based in New York City at the United Nations, the hub of global insights in plain sight. We hope you’ll come back often to listen in on some fascinating conversations hosted by J. Alex Tarquinio, a veteran journalist who writes essays for Foreign Policy from her office across the hallway from the UN Security Council chamber.
We’ll wade into the rising tide of global threats to peace and security in our discussions with the denizens of high-level diplomacy, as well as assorted scholars, scientists, soldiers, spies, and other influencers. From time to time, we’ll hit the road for sit downs with the world’s movers and shakers, whether it be at NATO’s 75th Anniversary Summit in Washington, D.C. or to parts as yet unknown.
This podcast is solely a production of The Delegates Lounge LLC, which was co-founded by the host and her husband and executive producer, Frank Radford.
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The Delegates Lounge
The United Nations Adrift in a Sea of Change
In this episode, we explore the seismic shifts reshaping global diplomacy with Richard Gowan, the International Crisis Group's UN expert and our first-ever return guest, or "friend of the pod."
Recorded at UN headquarters while Trump and Putin conducted a phone call to discuss the war in Ukraine, our conversation captures a pivotal moment in international relations. The timing couldn't be more significant as we analyze how the Trump administration might transform the United States of America's relationship with the United Nations, not through complete withdrawal as some fear, but through strategic disengagement and funding cuts that could devastate humanitarian operations worldwide.
Gowan provides extraordinary insight into the coming UN Secretary-General race, where Latin American candidates are positioning themselves while carefully navigating the Trump administration's preferences. We explore China's calculated approach to filling potential power vacuums and examine how the U.S.-Russia rapprochement is creating an uncomfortable dynamic for traditional American allies, particularly regarding Ukraine peace negotiations.
Our conversation concludes with real-time analysis of the readout of the Trump-Putin call as it hit the host's inbox, providing listeners with expert interpretation of this crucial diplomatic engagement. Whether you're a foreign policy professional or simply concerned about global stability, this episode offers essential context for understanding how the international order is being reshaped before our eyes. Subscribe now to ensure you never miss these vital conversations at the heart of world affairs.
Speakers:
J. Alex Tarquinio (host). @alextarquinio of @delegateslounge on X.
Richard Gowan (guest). @RichardGowan1 of @crisisgroup on X.
References:
Alex wrote about Elise Stefanik's confirmation hearing to become the next United States ambassador to the United Nations in Foreign Policy.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/01/17/un-ambassador-elise-stefanik-hearing-confirmation-trump/
Richard wrote about Trump's impact on multilateralism in Foreign Policy.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/03/03/trump-united-nations-multilateralism-diplomacy/
They spoke at length about Richard's recent article on China and Afghanistan for Just Security.
https://www.justsecurity.org/107832/us-china-standoff-afghanistan-un/
Alex mentioned the "virtual cookies" that she shared during UN week. Those may be found here and here.
Connect With Us:
Welcome to the Delegates Lounge. Pull up a chair. I'm Alex Tarquinio, a journalist based at the United Nations here in New York City and your emcee for this podcast featuring some of the most influential minds in the world today. Settle in for some riveting tete-a-tete, available wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome back. We have a fascinating conversation in store for you with Richard Gowen, the Director of UN and Multilateral Diplomacy at the International Crisis Group, a non-governmental organization committed to preventing, mitigating and resolving deadly conflict. Richard oversees their advocacy work at the United Nations in New York, liaising with diplomats and UN officials. He was our very first podcast guest and he's now our first repeat guest.
Speaker 1:In this episode we discuss the potential impact of the Trump administration on the United Nations and the multilateral system more broadly, touching on many of the current conflict zones, from Gaza to Afghanistan to Syria. We also cover the election of a new UN Secretary General and the budget woes of the organization. Our conversation was recorded in a studio at the UN headquarters while Trump and Putin were speaking by phone. On Tuesday, the White House readout of the call hit my phone as we were chatting. We hadn't yet seen the Kremlin's readout, the only one to mention Moscow's demands, as listeners will know by now, putin rejected a proposal by Washington and Kiev for a general ceasefire, and there's been no let up on Russia's air assault on Ukraine. Nevertheless, richard had some off-the-cuff commentary about the readout from the White House, so stick around for that. Here's our conversation, richard Gowd, welcome back in the Delegates Lounge. You have a unique distinction of being both our first guest on the podcast and also our first friend of the pod. You are the first person we've had back as a repeat guest, so welcome back.
Speaker 2:It's great to be back. I feel like those stars who get to host Saturday Night Live multiple times. I think they get a blazer. They get a blazer. Do I get a?
Speaker 1:blazer. We were actually joking about that. Well, first of all, that is five times that they get a blazer. They get a blazer. Do I get a blazer? We were actually joking about that. Well, first of all, that is a five times that they get the blazer. I do intend to design some coffee mugs with our logo and I had been thinking about that of making that the friend of the pod gift. Sadly, I have to admit that we have not yet designed the coffee mugs, so you'll have to take a rain check on that.
Speaker 1:During uin week I had something kind of cute. I don't know if you remember where I was giving people virtual cookies. You know those UN cookies with this design of the UN building or the UN logo. I was giving virtual cookies and at first I was buying cookies but they were actually rather expensive. So after a while I just had one cookie that I brought around to different settings. I finally did eat that virtual cookie. But no, I'll make sure you don't get a virtual gift but a real gift and you will get one of our. In fact, I'll give you our very first coffee mug. That's a promise.
Speaker 1:And I should mention we're meeting once again in the same room at the United Nations Headquarters building in New York as we met for our first episode. Much has changed since then. Much has changed as we met for our first episode. Much has changed since then. Much has changed. I should also mention this will be podcast soon, but we are meeting while we believe the phone call may still be going on between Trump and Putin. That's happening today and hopefully by the time we get to discussing the Trump administration in more depth, we may actually have some news. First of all, I did want to ask you about some of your very interesting coverage recently. There's been some speculation things that still seem a bit wild but you could not even have imagined discussing a few months ago, including that the US would withdraw for the UN entirely Not just those bits that Trump finds particularly distasteful, like the Human Rights Council, the Climate Accord and, of course, the Palestinian aid group UNRWA, but entirely. You've written that you don't think that that would happen. Tell us your reasoning.
Speaker 2:Well, the idea that Trump could pull out of the UN has been around for a while. I remember that in 2020, at the end of his first term, while I remember that in 2020, at the end of his first term, diplomats were talking about the US quitting the UN quite seriously, but it seems to me that Trump is probably going to stay inside the institution, even though he is already doing a great deal of damage to the multilateral system. I think, ultimately, even this administration recognizes that if it were to quit the UN completely which only one state, indonesia, has ever done and Indonesia only stayed out for about two years if the US were to leave, it wouldn't have its veto in the Security Council and all of a sudden, the Security Council would be a space where US rivals such as China would have a lot more influence, and they would probably use that influence to pass resolutions putting pressure on Israel. They would pass resolutions, you know, damaging to other US interests, and so I just don't believe that Trump is going to let that happen.
Speaker 2:I think Trump also sees the UN as a place where he can do a little bit of his big power diplomacy with Russia, and it was very striking that on the 24th of February, on the third anniversary of Russia's all out aggression against Ukraine, the US and the Russians actually worked together on a Security Council resolution calling for an early peace and sort of overriding the preferences of both the Ukrainians and the Europeans.
Speaker 2:So I think at the political level the US will stay. I think the headache for all UN officials is that it's quite possible that the US will stay but effectively zero out funding to the organization or at least very, very significantly reduce funding to the organization. And the US is absolutely crucial to the finances of the UN across the system. And if the US stops putting money into the UN, then it is going to have to curtail a lot of its humanitarian activities, a lot of its other activities, and so you could see the UN shrinking very significantly because of a lack of American support. But there would still be a US ambassador sitting in New York holding on to that veto, blocking initiatives, you know, ensuring that the UN doesn't start to actively damage US interests, as Trump defines them.
Speaker 1:Well, you've touched on a lot of the things we want to talk about this hour. It did occur to me one other reason that Trump might not want to quit the organization entirely is the outsized influence on the upcoming campaign to replace the secretary-general. He has less than two years in his term. Campaigning will probably be starting pretty soon, if it's not already going on in the whispers in all ways. Typically, the US isa P5 member and the largest funder of the? U, the UN, would have a lot of influence on who the next Secretary General is. That's going to happen in Trump's term, so his new ambassador will have a lot of influence there. How do you see that playing out?
Speaker 2:Just before we get to the Secretary General race. I would say there's another reason that Trump will want to stay in the UN and that's because he does enjoy I mean, we know this from his first term. He does enjoy coming to the UN every September for the General Assembly and, frankly, having other leaders fawn on him. You know, he's a New Yorker, he likes to come back to New York and he does enjoy the theater and he does enjoy the prestige of being the sort of big star of the General Assembly. So that's another reason he will stay.
Speaker 1:Well, that's an excellent point. Having grown up here as a New Yorker, he would have seen from his earliest memories every year that the cavalcade of high level world leaders and ambassadors coming here every September. So you know, that would be a big deal. Well, to any world leader, but to a New Yorker. Now the other interesting thing is because this is the 80th anniversary. There's questions if China might come. I believe Xi only came once for the 70th anniversary.
Speaker 2:Potentially the last time that either Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin attended the General Assembly in person was 2015. It was for the 70th anniversary and, depending on how relationships develop between Beijing, moscow and Washington, I can easily imagine Trump making a bit of a personal effort to get both Putin and Xi to come to the UN and essentially to show that they are the troika that now runs the world. I think that would actually be very uncomfortable for some other leaders who are normally stars at the UN General Assembly, like President Macron of France. I think that if Trump were to bring Putin in, macron and others would would recoil, but you can see how that again would appeal to his sense of both theater but also geopolitical messaging.
Speaker 1:But it could cement the realignment that we saw with that vote when US voted with Russia and was basically working with Russia on a rival resolution to the one by Kiev and its allies. That was a very visible realignment with the US and Russia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think that this is clearly how Trump sees the world. He sees the world in terms of big powers and he cares about diplomacy with other big powers. He's talking to Vladimir Putin right now, as we speak. We know that he's quite keen to meet with Xi Jinping in Beijing. He tried to get Xi Jinping to come to his inauguration and that's the sort of major power bargaining that appeals to Trump's worldview.
Speaker 2:And I think that when Trump looks at the UN, he doesn't worry about the 190 odd small nations, about the 190 odd small nations. He doesn't worry about all the sort of human rights nonsense that Europeans seem to worry about. He just sees it as a space where, you know, maybe sometimes the big powers can do some deals. And you know that in some ways actually does echo the design of the UN. I mean, fdr, back in the 1940s, designed a UN that was meant to be a space where the big powers ran the world. That may be how Trump sees it too. And so, yeah, in September we could see Trump standing between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin and just sort of sending a symbolic message to the rest of the world's leaders that you know, these are the countries that matter and the rest of you don't. But I mean we should get back to the Secretary General.
Speaker 1:Well, before we get back to the Secretary General, you're reminding me of something that Biden's UN ambassador, linda Thomas-Greenfield, a seasoned career diplomat, in her final press conference she did say that she had made a point during her term to meet with all of the countries except for the handful I think about half a dozen that the US doesn't talk to, that it doesn't have diplomatic relations. But otherwise she had met with the ambassadors of all of those countries and, as she put it, so that they felt heard. So what you're saying is you do not expect Trump's ambassador to go around on a listening tour, but the focus will be on the major powers. She's not here yet, by the way, so we can't ask her.
Speaker 2:I think that's probably right.
Speaker 2:I mean so the Biden administration, especially after Russia's all out aggression against Ukraine, did make a real point of showing that it cared about the views of the wider UN membership, and Biden and Linda Thomas-Greenfield at the UN framed their support for Ukraine as essentially supporting the right of small and middle-sized countries to defend their sovereignty, to defend their territorial integrity, as guaranteed by the UN Charter, and that was a line that I think was pretty successful in 2022 and into 2023, although it rather came off the rails after the 7th of October and the Hamas atrocities, because when it came to Israel, it turned out that actually Biden did not give two hoots about the views of the wider UN membership, and so to some extent, I think the shine went off that positioning.
Speaker 2:But overall, yeah, the Biden administration saw the UN as a space to show that Washington was listening to the global south, washington was listening to the interests of developing countries, washington cared about the wider world. Trump, I don't think, wants to send any of those messages at all and we don't know how Elise Stefanik, his nominee to be ambassador, will play her role, but I think there may be some parallels with Nikki Haley, who was Trump's first ambassador in New York in 2017. Haley, she wasn't unpleasant to ambassadors from smaller countries, but I remember the representative of one, shall we say, smaller European country saying that Haley really cared about a few big states, about a few big states, and she just didn't have the time or inclination to talk to smaller countries about their concerns or their development needs. And I think that that is how we would expect Stefanik to behave too.
Speaker 1:Before we get too far down that road, let's talk about the Secretary General campaign.
Speaker 2:So the UN Secretary General, the current officeholder, antonio Guterres. His term ends at the end of next year, 2026. And the formal sort of competition to replace him will kick off about a year from now, in the early spring of 2026, when candidates will have hearings before the whole UN membership. At the General Assembly they'll lay out their platforms and then at some point in the fall, probably October the Security Council gets to winnow down the list of candidates to one. So we're still almost a year away from the formal race, but people are starting to throw their hats into the ring. People are starting to position themselves and testing the waters.
Speaker 2:Due to a sort of informal UN convention, the job rotates between regions. The general view is that this is Latin America's turn. Now there's one candidate, mia Motley, the prime minister of Barbados, who's been fairly openly campaigning for at least three or four years for the job. But Motley faces quite a lot of opposition from Spanish-speaking Latin American countries because she's not a Spanish speaker, she's an Anglophone. And I think if you're sitting in Buenos Aires or if you're sitting in Quito, barbados doesn't really represent you.
Speaker 2:And so we are starting to see other candidates from the region poking their heads up Michelle Bachelet, the former president of Chile, confirmed what we all knew, which is that she's interested in running about four or five days ago, I think. There are stories of other candidates in the wings, like Alicia Barsena, who's been the Mexican foreign minister. Some UN officials from Latin America, such as Rafael Grossi, the head of the IAEA, the atomic agency, are fairly clearly in the mix, and I think what we're going to see over the next six months is that they're going to be making their candidacies more obvious. But they have to be careful, because Latin America is a region with very poor relations with Donald Trump right now, and I think that candidates are going to have to navigate around some of the hard questions they might be asked about how they would cohabit with the Trump administration questions they might be asked about how they would cohabit with the Trump administration.
Speaker 1:Many of the names you mentioned were women. There's a big push to have the first woman Secretary General. That's been talked about for years at the UN. On the other hand, the Trump administration is very anti-DEI diversity, equity, inclusion. That doesn't mean they would oppose a woman. Obviously they're sending a woman here as ambassador, but they might not take kindly to that being argued as the fact that it is time to have a woman unstoppable.
Speaker 2:I think that people are conscious that if you use that argument too loudly around Trump, he you know he may kick back and say, no, we need another man.
Speaker 2:I mean, I still think that the majority of UN member states do want to see a female secretary general. That was true 10 years ago, but I think it's even more true today. I think that you know male candidates are going to face some very hard questions from more progressive parts of the world about you know why they're standing in the way of a woman, and I don't think that the Trump administration will necessarily oppose a woman on principle as a UN leader. However, they will be looking for a woman who takes conservative positions on abortion, who doesn't represent their candidacy as a candidacy promoting a very progressive gender ideology, and so I think that all the candidates are going to have to be insanely delicate in how they address some of those topics which matter a lot to some of the culture warriors around the president, do you think there might be some people who are real long shots, like they've got a particular regional issue that they want to bring attention to, so they jump in the race?
Speaker 2:and look. I I think that you know, we know various names of candidates, but I also think that there's quite a good chance that new people will jump into the race. I think that a lot of politicians, especially more conservative politicians around the world, will be sticking their heads up and thinking, hmm, trump brings a high degree of uncertainty into this game. Maybe we should give it a whirl. And you should also remember that a lot of people run to be Secretary General knowing they're not going to win, but because it's fun. You get to fly around the world, you get to meet some important people, and sometimes failed candidates use the profile raising to get other jobs in the international system or maybe to create a platform for domestic political positions. So I think this this could be a complex, long race with a lot of unexpected people popping up, especially probably again around September, around the time of the high level General Assembly week, which is when I think campaigning will really come out into the open.
Speaker 1:Do they get to really travel all around and make their case?
Speaker 2:You know, serious candidates do do a lot of travel. They're either being funded by their home government or they find other sources of funding. Yeah, it's a very good way to carve out a profile on the world stage, and I'm not sure of the numbers, but there are always candidates who come forward who clearly don't stand a chance. I mean, the rules are that you need the support of all five members of the Security Council, and I can certainly think of candidates last time around who knew from the get-go that there was at least one veto power who would block them, but that didn't stop them getting out there raising their profile, and I'm sure we'll see some of that again.
Speaker 1:Well, that also raises a good point about the race, because you need the imprimatur of all five on the Security Council Britain, France, the US, China and Russia so you really, from the get-go, need someone who's a compromise candidate. Now you also did mention in your answer to my opening question about the financial difficulties at the UN. The Secretary General, as you know, just announced the UN 80 Initiative. Sounds like this great event to celebrate 80 years of the UN, but it's actually about the fact that the UN is broke and needs to introduce efficiencies, and these may be more than just cost savings. These may be real cutbacks or even elimination of programs, and that's partly because a lot of countries are in arrears, including some of the big ones like the US. There are question marks about US funding under the Trump administration. My understanding is that China is the second biggest funder, is also in arrears, but I sort of have it on good authority that they plan to pay after the party Congress in April. I don't know if that's what you've heard.
Speaker 1:I'm sure about that, but china normally does come through yes whereas the us sometimes just doesn't come through, just doesn't come, through yeah and uh, and the smaller countries can't make up the gap. And also, of course, we have the the big cuts to usa id, uh, which is going to filter through some un programs. How much is the UN potentially going to have to cut and also, how much might that make Trump's new UN ambassador's job more difficult?
Speaker 2:Look, the UN has been in a very difficult financial situation for some time and at the beginning of 2024, Antonio Guterres sent a letter to all member states saying that there was a risk the organization could just run out of money and would have to stop paying salaries as it is. I mean they were able to avoid that. But I think, coming into the new year with very, very big questions over US funding, there's a really acute sense. A lot of money from the US. They're going to have to sort of cut back their operations very, very significantly around literally asking where do they stop food supplies and where do they stop vaccination campaigns, because there just isn't the money to do some of that really basic work.
Speaker 2:And apparently Guterres has sort of had some calculations. He's worked out that he can scrape through this year, but that's about as far as it can go. So it's a very, very grim financial situation. I think that what we're going to see is a lot of developing countries, countries that rely on assistance from the UN, becoming more and more vocal in their criticism of the US. I think it's going to create a very toxic political dynamic towards the US and it's not actually only the US that's going to be in the line of fire because a number of other significant, if smaller, donors to the UN system are also reducing aid spending. Within the last month or so, the UK has announced very significant aid cuts.
Speaker 2:The Netherlands has announced significant aid cuts and pulled money from UN bodies like UNICEF, and so I think that the global south, the non-aligned countries, will be saying you know, the US is the prime culprit for this financial crisis, but London is at fault too, european leaders are at fault too, and this could lead to a sort of 1970s dynamic here, where you just have sort of endless arguments, endless toxicity between richer and poorer countries at the UN particularly since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Speaker 1:It sounds like what you're saying is under Trump, US and Russia might get along much better and those closed-door meetings on the Security Council might be slightly less tough because of that, but the Trump administration will get along much less well with the rest of the world.
Speaker 2:I think that is a real possibility, that you sort of end up with the US and Russia hunkered down at the top of the system, but then the Europeans unhappy because of Washington's reconciliation with Moscow.
Speaker 2:If that happens, and the global south unhappy because they're not going to get what they want on aid, on debt relief, on global public health, it will lead to a lot of anger, it will lead to a lot of shouting and I also worry that a lot of countries have already been questioning what they get out of the UN.
Speaker 2:Last September, when Joe Biden came to the UN General Assembly for the last time, last September, when Joe Biden came to the UN General Assembly for the last time, I met with a lot of diplomats from different parts of the world, and so many of them were just starting with the question of like, what do we get out of the UN anymore? Is this place really working? Is it delivering for our voters? If leaders from the global south in particular look at the UN and say, well, it's not even delivering us the level of aid that we were getting before, you can't go to the UN to sort of extract resources from richer countries, now why bother? It would seem to make more sense to focus on alternative groupings like the BRICS or maybe the African Union if you're in Africa and try and sort of like build up cooperation with those structures rather than a universal body like the UN, which just will not be providing the goods that a lot of people want it to give.
Speaker 1:Interesting. There's been so much speculation on whether the Trump administration would leave the UN, but what you're saying is the first country to leave the UN should that happen. This is speculation, but it might actually be from the global south.
Speaker 2:I don't think we're going to see countries leaving the UN, and I think it's also worth remembering that there are sort of bits of the UN, especially away from New York and places like Geneva, that sort of manage things like mail between states.
Speaker 2:You know, the Universal Postal Union statistics bits of the UN system will keep, I think, sort of chuntering on. But I think that what you would see is just, you know, quite a lot of disengagement. And you know it's already quite difficult for some countries to attract really good diplomats to serve in New York because they say we'd rather be where the action is in the world, we'd rather be in Shanghai, we'd rather be in Singapore. So there is a sort of a risk that the UN sort of becomes, on the one hand, sort of a space for very angry arguments about sort of global justice and injustice in terms of development and economics and then, on the other hand, just a bit more abundant as a sort of a real space for solving global problems. And I do worry that this is the course we're currently set on, unless we can find ways to change course sooner rather than later.
Speaker 1:What do you think are the chances that China will try and move in and take advantage of the US either defunding or quitting certain programs of the UN? You wrote a very interesting piece recently about China making a play to be the penholder on the Afghan file.
Speaker 1:For our listeners, the penholder is the UN Security Council member who essentially takes the lead in drafting resolutions and mandates and things related to a certain file could be a country or an issue. China has not typically been the penholder. I believe that most recently it was Japan right, which ended its term. So now that position is open and tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Okay. So just before we get into this specific case, there's been a lot of talk in the last two months about how China can fill the vacuum created by the US, and actually this is a talking point that friends of the UN repeatedly use because they think that it's a way to get attention in Washington and they think that you may not get the Trump administration to love the UN, but you can at least get the Trump administration to fear that China will take it over and you can use that argument to support continued US engagement in the UN system. I am a little skeptical that the Chinese really want to take over this system. I think there are bits of the UN where they will put in more money. There are bits of the UN which they do see as supporting their global economic strategy, and you know they may put more money, for example, into the World Health Organization, because that's a good way to win goodwill and sort of distract from discussions of where COVID came from. But actually you know the Chinese are quite cost conscious. Their economy is not doing as well as it's been doing in past years. It's been very notable in New York budget debates that the Chinese actually don't like spending lots of money at the UN. They're quite cost conscious. And I don't think that lots of money at the UN. They're quite cost-conscious. And I don't think that the Chinese necessarily think that it's in their interest to bail out an institution that is still very largely run by Western or Western-friendly officials. So I think the Chinese takeover of the UN narrative is overstated.
Speaker 2:Nonetheless, it is interesting that China is still looking to get more influence on certain files around the UN system, and one of them is Afghanistan. China borders Afghanistan. It's not a very big border, but they do border one another. The Chinese see the UN's continued presence in Afghanistan as being in their interest. It provides some stability on their border, and I think that the Chinese, in the long term, want to normalize relations with the Taliban, and so, in that context, late last year, the Chinese said that, yes, they would like to start drafting UN Security Council resolutions relating to Afghanistan, resolutions relating to Afghanistan, just as the US drafts on Haiti or France has drafted on resolutions on Francophone Africa. It was a step forward for the Chinese.
Speaker 2:They haven't played this sort of role very often before. Actually, most UN men, most Security Council members, thought fair enough. You know, no one else has been able to get Afghanistan right. You have a go, but the US, both under Biden and then under Trump, responded hugely negatively and fought really really hard to stop China playing this role as the diplomatic lead on Afghanistan, and I think that probably tells us that you know the US is going to be continuing to try and place some limits on what influence China has in the multilateral system, even if, as we were discussing, trump builds some sort of personal relationship with Xi. There's a US knee-jerk reaction, which is Chinese influence of the UN is, by definition, bad. I mean to end that story, a compromise was worked out. You have to have a resolution every year in Afghanistan to keep the UN assistance mission there. Denmark ended up tabling a resolution. Everyone was fine with it. It wasn't actually about the substance, but it was just about this question of how much influence should China have?
Speaker 1:That's very interesting, but it still has no pinholder right, Because I think you said that both South Korea and Pakistan were also interested in that role. South Korea would be a natural swap for Japan. You know one US ally in the region for another, Pakistan would have less enthusiasm, perhaps from the Trump administration, but it also has very clear border issues. China has expressed a lot of interest in the minerals in Afghanistan in the past, even before the fall of the Taliban. Could that also be of where this is going in Afghanistan?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that this is one reason that the Chinese want to keep the UN in Afghanistan, because they do see big opportunities for mineral extraction, other forms of economic activity there. But, quite reasonably, the Chinese have some questions about whether it's wise to go into an economic partnership with a group like the Taliban and they actually quite like having the UN there to provide some stability. And I think that the Chinese would like to see the UN ultimately maybe providing the Taliban with more economic advice, more development advice, because that would make it easier for Beijing to meet its economic goals. So the Chinese interest in Afghanistan is not purely out of the goodness of Chinese hearts, it's driven by national interests. But let's keep in mind that for a long time, you know, the UN was in Afghanistan as an adjunct to the US-led military operation there. I mean, everyone has interests, everyone has national priorities.
Speaker 1:I just checked. The White House, pool reported, said the call has wrapped up. There'll be a readout soon. Since we don't actually have the readout and it looks like we probably won't have it in time, this is your speculation on how Donald Trump's call with Vladimir Putin could impact their relationship with the UN Charter, the idea of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Speaker 2:Well, as we were saying, the Biden administration in New York really framed their support for Ukraine as fulfilling the core principles of the UN.
Speaker 2:Charter and the Biden administration worked very effectively actually with the Europeans and with the Ukrainians to explain to other countries that this wasn't just a European territorial tiff. It was a Russia was assaulting the principle of non-aggression, the principle of sovereignty and the principle of territorial integrity. You know it was. There were always questions about how the West could square that rhetoric with the reality that a ceasefire would involve Ukraine having to accept that Russia held 20% of its territory roughly. The idea that Vladimir Putin might end up in a war crimes tribunal was going to have to be thrown out of the window and so on and so forth. The Biden team never squared that circle. Trump just isn't interested in squaring that circle.
Speaker 2:He has made it clear in the US resolution on Ukraine that Trump pushed through the Security Council with the Russians on the 24th of February. Just say you know we need peace and we will make this implicit. It will be peace on transactional terms. It will be based on the balance of power. It will not be based on, you know, any of the fine language of the UN Charter and I think that there will be a lot of UN member states who see that and really wonder if the UN Charter is worth the paper that it is printed upon. I think it's also worth saying, though, that there are quite a lot of UN member states from the global south who, despite sympathy for Ukraine and despite a belief in the UN Charter, just want the war to be over anyway and this is something which the Chinese have been saying, something that Brazil has been saying there's been a very strong feeling that continuing the war and NATO continuing to arm Ukraine has raised unacceptable risks. It's raised risks of nuclear escalation.
Speaker 2:It's distracted Western powers from other issues like development. It has taken up a vast amount of time in the UN system and so, quietly, there are a lot of diplomats here who are saying if Trump can get it done, let him get it done and we'll work out the matters of principle afterwards.
Speaker 1:On the one hand, I hear what you're saying A lot of people at the UN have been saying a long time. It is a distraction from issues where they could actually make some progress at the UN. Obviously, their hands are tied at the UN on Russia because of Russia's veto. On the other hand, I've also heard people from smaller countries say that the UN Charter is all they've got. That's their only guarantee of sovereignty and territorial integrity, because they simply don't have the resources to defend themselves from more powerful neighbors. All they have is international law. So I would think they don't want to go too far in the other direction, because the benefit of international law is the same with the UN Charter. It's the confidence you put into it. Once that faith is gone, how much is there there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there is. You know, there's a lot of concern amongst smaller states that if you create a precedent for land grabs, for ignoring countries' territorial integrity, that you know that will be catching. You have Somalia, which is a fragmented country where neighboring powers are looking for bits of territory. You have Guyana, which has faced territorial threats from Venezuela. You have both Denmark and Panama, which have faced about Ukraine, marking the beginning of a might-equals-right world where core principles of the UN Charter no longer matter as much. All that said, I do think there's also still even quite small global South countries who just feel that they're you know in the old phrase they're the ants amongst the elephants that you know.
Speaker 2:As long as the war goes on, they're just put in difficult positions. They're having to make statements on topics where they have very little influence around European security. They would still just like this to be over.
Speaker 1:Typically the larger powers the P5, work with their natural allies on the council and that's how resolutions are passed. So, even if the US and Russia have a closer relationship, the Trump administration has been doing a lot to alienate its natural allies on the council, both Panama and Denmark, which, of course, Greenland is a territory of Denmark. How is that going to impact Security Council meetings, and particularly the behind-door negotiations? And I'm also wondering, you know, one huge question when Russia and the United States work together to get their resolution through on the Security Council, One of the big questions was whether either the UK or France would exercise their veto, which they haven't done since 1989.
Speaker 2:So in February, when the US introduced its Security Council resolution on peace in Ukraine that didn't refer to territorial integrity and so forth, my understanding is that there was a discussion at the UK mission to the UN that lasted perhaps half an hour about whether to use the veto, and then I think the French talked about it for about two hours, but mainly so that the French could say they talked about it longer than the UK. And I don't think either mission really thought that it would be wise to veto a US resolution which, at the end of the day, didn't contain anything actionable. It was a non-binding 63-word resolution and although it didn't say the right things, it said nothing fundamentally objectionable. And I think that the Europeans concluded that if they voted against it, firstly they would infuriate Trump, who was meeting Macron and Starmer shortly after the vote, and also they would just look you know they would look a bit foolish to global south countries who would say are you now against peace? That might be under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, making it legally binding.
Speaker 2:That might contain clauses that Kiev would struggle with and that the Europeans would struggle with, if the Europeans think that this is fundamentally a really bad deal, and the Russians and the Americans bring it to the Security Council, which is still some way away. I would expect whatever is happening while we're speaking between Trump and Putin, but if that's the reality, then I can imagine that France and the UK would use their vetoes, if they had to, to block it. But they would be doing so because I think at that point they would have felt so fundamentally let down by the US that they wouldn't worry about damaging the US relationship. It would still be. I think it would still be a sort of like traumatic moment with a lot of heartburn for both countries.
Speaker 2:The idea of breaking publicly with the US in that way at the UN on a European security issue. You know that would be very, very tough for them.
Speaker 1:That would be a historic turning point and they haven't used again. They haven't used their veto since 1989.
Speaker 2:It's ironic, though there's a certain circularity about all this, with Panama back on the Council. The last time France and the UK used their veto was actually to block a resolution condemning the US invasion of.
Speaker 1:Panama. So, in fact, what goes around comes around because we haven't gotten into the bombing of Yemen and the Houthis. You can't do anything about geography the same places are still focal points.
Speaker 2:Just to say in the meantime I mean so everyone is talking about the fact that, you know, on this one resolution around Ukraine, the Russians lined up with the US and the Chinese, although the Chinese in that case seemed a little bit confused.
Speaker 2:They didn't really seem to know what was going on. It is worth saying that there has been one other case in recent weeks where the Russians and US have lined up in the Security Council, which was over the very serious violence in Western Syria, and previously Russia and the US have been very divided over Syria. This time again they made a point of showing a common front, saying calling a Security Council meeting on the violence together, which did look like another signal of better Russia-US cooperation at the UN. But other than that, actually we've been hearing that on Iran, that on Bosnia, on some other topics which have been debated recently around the UN, things have not changed. The US is still siding with the Europeans on those topics the Russians are still very critical. The Russians have been critical over the US action against the Houthis. So we shouldn't you know, I don't think we should just let one admittedly very, very startling vote shape our view of how the council is working as a whole, there is still a degree of cooperation between the Europeans and the US on other files.
Speaker 1:Well, speaking of the Syria file, switzerland and Brazil were the co-pinholders and their terms have now ended. Has it been reassigned?
Speaker 2:Denmark has indicated that it wants to lead on resolutions on humanitarian affairs in Syria. There was a little bit of to and fro around that, but actually no one is really objecting, and what's very interesting about Syria at the moment is that this file, which from 2011 until 2024 was one of the most divisive in the Security Council, is now one area where actually everyone is still cautiously open to cooperation. After the fall of Assad, the Russians signaled that their guy had gone. They now wanted to work through the UN to see what would come afterwards in Syria. No one has a better idea. Meetings on Syria, even behind closed doors, are generally reported to be comparatively mature, comparatively constructive. It is odd that this war, which was so associated with the collapse of US-Russian relations in the UN in the last decade, is now a small island of agreement.
Speaker 1:It's interesting, of course, for how long? Because there are the reprisals against the Alawites in Syria. There's the fact that Assad is still on the wings, so we don't know what's going to happen there. It's still important to have the penholder and to have that file, but we don't know what's going to happen there.
Speaker 2:And it's also worth saying that the new authorities in Syria, including al-Sharaa, the president, you know want to work with the UN on humanitarian issues, but they're very skeptical of the UN having a significant political role in the country's you know process towards democracy and stability, because obviously, they associate the Security Council with over a decade of failure and compromise with Assad. So the council may be unified, but it may not be able to actually achieve very much politically because of facts on the ground.
Speaker 1:Well, it's a sign of how much news there is in general now, and especially today, that it's taken us this long to get to Gaza, despite the fact that the Gaza ceasefire is just broken down. We don't know what will happen there, but could this be at risk of taking over the Security Council and the UN agenda again?
Speaker 2:We've always known that the Trump administration would double down on the Biden administration's policy of support for Israel at the UN, and Elise Stefanik, the nominee to be ambassador, is slightly more pro-Israel than Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Speaker 1:Well, we all saw, of course, her grilling and her drive really to get those university presidents overturned.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I fear that what we're going to see if we have a renewed conflict in Gaza is that it will just not be possible for Algeria, as the Arab member of the Security Council, to table a ceasefire resolution.
Speaker 2:I think that most council members would support that resolution and the US will veto it. And then, as has been the case again and again since the the atrocities on the 7th of October, the issue will go to the General Assembly. A big majority of members of the General Assembly will support a ceasefire call and the US will vote against it, along with a very, very limited number of other countries. But the Trump administration will firstly just use this to say look, we're standing up for Israel. That plays very well with the domestic audience, and the Israelis will ignore all the criticism from the UN, just as they have been ignoring it before. I think the one very big question which does worry a lot of UN officials is how does this very likely set of arguments over the Middle East intersect with the funding discussions that we're talking about? Because if there is one issue that is going to motivate the US administration to cut even more from the UN budget, it is going to be the claim that the UN is standing up for the Palestinians against the Israelis.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:I think that if that sort of turns into a really nasty diplomatic downward spiral, then we're approaching the case where the US just doesn't pay the UN anything at all in response to criticisms of Israeli policy.
Speaker 1:What did that mean for, in essence, the UN brand? I mean, this is the ultimate arena for soft power brand. I mean, this is the ultimate arena for soft power. I'm thinking in particular of this really eccentric video I'm sure you saw it going around with the belly dancers. I mean, all I have to say is bearded belly dancers on the beach, and I think everyone knows what video I'm talking about AI generated showing Trump andanyahu sort of celebrating in Gaza. That looks a bit like Mar-a-Lago. That already has to have taken a hit with the US impression with some UN members. Is that again something that's going to make the new UN ambassador's role here more touchy or fraught? Or does the Trump administration, the new ambassador, just don't care?
Speaker 2:I think that if you're Elise Stefanik, you want to have a fight over Israel at the UN. You know, nikki Haley at one point ended up voting alone on a UN resolution, I think, regarding Hamas. And to this day, un officials say, well, wasn't it embarrassing for Nikki Haley to be voting alone in support of Israel? Wasn't that a diplomatic failure? But if you looked at some of Nikki Haley's campaign materials when she was running for president, that vote and the fact that she stood alone for Israel was a key plank of her foreign policy case. And Stefanik too, who's someone with longer term ambitions, I think would be delighted if the UN served up a series of votes where she could hang tough and show support for Israel. So the US certainly doesn't care.
Speaker 2:I think that if you look at the wider UN membership I mean firstly, the wider UN membership has just been horrified by this war and they again, just as they want the Ukraine war to stop, they want this war to stop. But I think at a diplomatic level, a lot of other member states were quite relieved when Trump supported the Biden ceasefire push because they thought, okay, this takes Israel-Palestine off the table as an early flashpoint for really serious rows. I mean, yes, we're going to be arguing over UNRWA, the UN agency supporting the Palestinians, but if there's a ceasefire, maybe we can put it to one side and focus on areas where there's more space for cooperation with the Americans.
Speaker 2:I suspect that right now there are a lot of ambassadors reading the news that's coming out of Gaza and their hearts are sinking because they know this means there will be a full-on grade A row with the US that they deeply, deeply wish to avoid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. So from Gaza to Africa, there's been a lot of talk, of course, on African solutions for African problems. We have touched on Somalia, not as much Sudan, where there's a terrible humanitarian crisis fighting At the same time, the Trump administration recently expelled the ambassador from South Africa, calling him a race baiting politician. I mean, that's their direct quote. Again, that's a, that's a bilateral relationship. If you're looking at the context of the African Union countries in the UN, how are they going to approach the new Trump administration coming in?
Speaker 2:So I think this is a dilemma for the African group at the UN because the Biden administration, especially towards the end, was quite sensitive to African concerns, in part because they wanted African countries to vote with them on Ukraine at the UN. But also the Biden administration did focus on some major crises on the continent, like the war in Sudan. Since taking office, the Trump administration hasn't demonstrated very much interest in Africa at all. You know the US has been absent, I think diplomatically, over Sudan, although it did support a statement on Sudan in the Security Council. Recently the US supported a Security Council resolution over the violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But everyone understands that. You know these are a long way down the American foreign policy agenda.
Speaker 2:You know, relative to Ukraine, relative to Gaza, I think the African group also facing development cuts, facing humanitarian cuts, I think they're going to struggle in some cases to get positive attention from from the new administration. And south africa faces a very specific problem, which is that there are people close to the um, the president, who you know are trying to relitigate the end of apartheid and I believe you're talking about president trump's new best buddy, elon musk, a South African immigrant who has issues, shall we say, with the current South Africa repeating narratives that I think South Africans of all races find extremely uncomfortable and degrading, claiming that there's mass persecution of whites in the country.
Speaker 1:Well, also offering asylum to white South Africans, but not necessarily Venezuelans, afghans, countries that the UN would recognize as difficult situations deserving recognition for refugee status.
Speaker 2:I mean it is somewhat bizarre. So I think the South Africans, you know, who have also been amongst the most vocal supporters of the Palestinians, who took the Israelis to the International Court of Justice, claiming that there's genocide in Gaza.
Speaker 1:Considering that both Trump and Stefanik are wholly in Israel's camp, could it really be that that as much as Elon is his influencer decision-making on South Africa?
Speaker 2:I simply couldn't pretend to know what is going on inside the White House on these issues. But what is undeniably true is that I think for a lot of UN members, if they look back over the last 50 years, especially if they look back to the later Cold War period, global South countries would say you know, there were two great causes that animated the UN in the 1970s and 1980s.
Speaker 2:One of them was the fight against apartheid, which was a huge issue in the UN in the 80s in particular, and the other was the fight for a Palestinian state, and two or three years ago I think diplomats would have said you know, looking back, the UN triumphed in the fight against apartheid and it failed the Palestinians. Well, now we have a US administration that is very negative towards the Palestinians and wants to bring apartheid back up and relitigate that. It is the perfect combination of factors not only to alienate South Africa, but to alienate pretty much every country that escaped from colonialism after 1945. And so I think some of these lines are going to prove absolutely explosive in the UN, and especially in places where the US has pulled out, like the Human Rights Council in Geneva. The US may be out, but it can still face a lot of criticism from other countries for some of its stances.
Speaker 1:Most UN ambassadors and obviously they get the direction from their capitals have not been too vocal about this yet, and that could be also because you know Stefanik is not here yet.
Speaker 2:Whatever the undercurrents of feelings in the diplomatic community, a lot of ambassadors are hedging and you know a lot of ambassadors are waiting for Elise Stefanik to arrive and they at least hope that once you have someone who is senior, who represents the Trump administration, you can at least do business with them. You can at least sort of work out what their political strategy is. Until, she arrives, I think everyone is strongly inclined to hedge.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, it's excellent that we went a bit long, because within the last five minutes we just got the readout the White House has just sent. A couple of minutes ago Today, President Trump and President Putin spoke about the need for peace and a ceasefire in the Ukraine war. Both leaders agreed this conflict needs to end with a lasting peace. They also stressed the need for improved bilateral relations between the United States and Russia. The blood and treasure that both Ukraine and Russia have been spending in this war would be better spent on the needs of their people. This conflict should never have started and should have been ended long ago with sincere and good faith peace efforts. Other leaders agreed that the movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire, as well as technical negotiations on implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, full ceasefire and permanent peace. These negotiations will begin immediately in the Middle East.
Speaker 1:The leaders spoke broadly about the Middle East as a region of potential cooperation to prevent future conflicts. They further discussed the need to stop proliferation of strategic weapons and will engage with others to ensure the broadest possible application. The two leaders shared the view that Iran should never be in a position to destroy Israel. The two leaders agreed that a future with an improved bilateral relationship between the United States and Russia has huge upside. This includes enormous economic deals and geopolitical stability when peace has been achieved. Ok, that's much longer than most readouts. So what are your first thoughts? Just taking that all in?
Speaker 2:It's interesting that that proposal for a sort of an air and sea ceasefire is actually broadly similar to various ideas that the Europeans and the French and the British have been floating. It's actually short of what the US had got Zelensky to agree to, which was an immediate total ceasefire. I mean, I think that the Ukrainians, I'm guessing, will probably be relieved that Trump is at least not publicly buying into some of Putin's arguments, For example that a ceasefire is insufficient. You need an immediate full peace deal, which would probably mean carving up the territory once and for all, so that will be a relief to the Ukrainians. During the height of the Syrian war, in bad faith Moscow could be agreeing to something simply with a view to accusing the Ukrainians of breaking the ceasefire and then redoubling military efforts. I guess there will also be some quite important technical questions.
Speaker 1:Now, interestingly, they do not mention Crimea and you know there was speculation beforehand with the US unilaterally recognize Crimea as Russia. There's nothing in here about that.
Speaker 2:Those two specific areas for sort of early agreement. The no attacks on energy infrastructure, no attacks, no maritime attacks those are things that the Ukrainians and Russians have been talking about. Actually, last year they got quite close to an agreement on not attacking energy installations. We've had the Black Sea Grain Initiative. There have been talks on and off about a maritime ceasefire. Those are fairly low-hanging fruit when the Ukrainians and Russians have already had contacts. They already understand the terms of what's possible. Those are quite feasible steps in the right direction. As I say, it's not far off from what some of the European countries have been proposing. And, as I say, it's not far off from what some of the European countries have been proposing, but I still think that both sides will have a very low level of trust in each other's intention to actually fulfill the ceasefire terms.
Speaker 2:Ukrainian military may have been hoping for a full 30-day ceasefire because they do need some time to rest and recover, so this can play in a lot of different directions, I mean, the last thing I would say is it's interesting you have a direct reference to Iran, because it's fairly clear that Trump, who does not want a war with Iran, is very much hoping that a side benefit from reaching out to Moscow over Ukraine is that Russia will help them sort out the Iranian nuclear issue. And I think Putin is dangling and probably, beyond Iran, the US hopes that Russia will help it sort out the North Korean nuclear issue down the road. So you know, yeah, we're focused on Ukraine right now for obvious reasons, but there is, I think, some sort of idea in Trump's head that if you get the relationship with Russia right, that solves a series of problems around Russia's periphery.
Speaker 1:Last time we talked about the zombie apocalypse, which was very redolent of the COVID era. Today, I wanted to ask you if there's a particular film you know, classic film in mind that reminds you of this new era we're in.
Speaker 2:Probably Star Wars, always a classic other than the US. I think they do feel right now a little bit like the Rebel Alliance, on the run from a sort of a US empire that has suddenly gone over to the dark side. I'm not saying who in the administration I would compare to Darth Vader or who amongst the UN ambassadors is the Han Solo figure. Certainly not saying who is Jabba the Hutt, but I do think that right now, if you talk to even quite seasoned diplomats, they do feel like they're in that scene where the rebels are working out what is the one vulnerability in the Death Star that they can strike. There's a real sense of disarray and we're just going to see how strong the resistance is to some of what the US is doing in the UN.
Speaker 1:You have the best one. I've thought of a few sci-fi. All the ones that came to my mind were sci-fi. Mine was Village of the Damned. You probably remember that. It's an English one, it's an old one, it's a sleepy English village. I think this is key and why I was reminded of it A little bit of that, since before the Trump administration came in, they all pass that at once. After they wake up, everything seems to be normal, but nine months later, all the women give birth to these geniuses. I think it may be the Doge kiddos that remind me of the children in that film, but I actually think your analogy to Star Wars is much better. That's one of my top picks. Thank you so much again, richard Gowan, for making time for us today.
Speaker 2:All right, I look forward to being the person to come on for the third time.
Speaker 1:At that time you will get your Delegates Lounge mug.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much, and that's it from the Delegates Lounge. We'd like to thank our esteemed guests, who've graciously allowed us to share their hard-earned insights into what really matters. And then there's you, our listeners, who we hope are sufficiently edified to clamor for more of the same. Do drop in for a weekly episode on Thursday, or from time to time if we're on the road, for special events, in which case there'll be a bonus episode. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and, if you like what you've heard, please take a moment to rate or review the show, as it helps others who share your abiding interest in world affairs to find their way to the Delegates Lounge. You can connect with us on many popular social media platforms or reach out to us directly at infothedelicatesloungecom. We're a small team so we can't respond to every message, but we will read them. Our show this week was written and produced by the host and by yours truly, executive producer Frank Radford. Until next time, keep calm and curious.