Sir Christopher Meyer on Geopolitics

Former British Ambassador to the United States, Sir Christopher Meyer talks to us about the upcoming US elections, the role of China, the UK under Boris Johnson and the future of the European Union. He explains the greatest challenges he faced in his term as Ambassador, including the 9/11 terror attacks, as well as the greatest leaders he ever met.  

We asked: 

• Who will win the US mid-term elections?
• What is Joe Biden really like and will he lose to Trump in 2024?
• What relationship should the West have with China?
• Will we see a united Ireland?
• Does he actually like using Twitter? 
• What was the greatest diplomatic challenge he faced?
• Which world leader impressed him the most?

Transcript

BM TALKS WITH SIR CHRISTOPHER MEYER, JANUARY 2022

00:10

blondemoney

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of BM Talks. This is our first edition of 2022 and goodness me it still feels like we're stuck in 2020 so it hasn't time flown by. I'm delighted today to be joined by Sir Christopher Meyer, Former British ambassador to the United States and Germany, author of the famous “DC Confidential” among other books and perhaps most importantly in our digital age he tweets @SirSocks, one of the best Twitter handles I know so welcome Sir Christopher thank you very much for joining us.

00:54

Christopher Meyer

Good to be here. Helen.

01:08

blondemoney

Let's start in this the midterm election year in the US. How is President Biden doing compared to previous presidents and what do you expect could be the results of those midterm elections.

01:22

Christopher Meyer

Well poor old Biden's in a bit of a trough at the moment. I mean he started well, he started with very high expectations. Um, he had a certain advantage because he simply wasn't Trump and the idea of a not Trump normal president of whichever party was very seductive to the American people and he got an enormous ah number of votes in the presidential election but more or less since then it's been downhill all the way. Not I think incredibly steeply. But enough to make him by the end of his first year in office to be one of the most unpopular presidents at that stage. I mean there are others who've been more unpopular but I can't remember who they are.

02:11

blondemoney

I checked this on the um, Nate Silvers Five Thirty-Eight website, I think of all the modern presidents going back to the 1950 s he's at the lowest approval rating this point in a presidency apart from Mr. Donald Trump, but he's getting quite close to that.

02:28

Christopher Meyer

Yeah, but you know what was it Harold Wilson said? A week is a long time in politics. So we've got what about ten months before the midterm elections this year, anything could happen in that period. It's a very long period and it may well be that Biden will be able to build back the kind of majority he had when he won the won the presidency. I think actually the odds are against that but I don't have any faith in his mental capacity.

03:05

blondemoney

Ah, okay, do you think? Do you want to explain a bit more on that. Do you think there is a mental decline happening.

03:10

Christopher Meyer

Yes I think there really is a mental decline. Of course I haven't actually seen him in the flesh since he's been President but I was in Washington twice, I had 2 postings to Washington, 1 in the late 80s early 90s when I was the deputy ambassador and then the second time I went back as Ambassador. In the end of the 90s and the beginning of the naughties and at that moment those 2 moments Biden was at the height of his powers and it was an impressive sight to see senior senator commanding all the land that he could see, chairman of this committee that committee, he was a cunning clever rather charming pragmatic politician and he ain't now the guy I used to know in the year two Thousand, it is as simple as that. And I think he's got worse during the presidency as well.

04:07

blondemoney

Quite interesting to reflect on that period because you know he's been bequeathed to this fifty-fifty Senate which is always going to be tricky. But as you say he's a very experienced former senator who knows an awful lot of the people. And yet such a struggle to get any legislation through. Do you think his powers of compromise have been overdone or is it just that politics has become more polarized since that period you're talking about.

04:38

Christopher Meyer

Well whenever you go back to the United States this has been my experience. They said that to me in the 80 s they said it to me in the 90 s and I you know I keep on hearing it. And up to a point. It is true. But I think with Biden specifically. Um there are some self-inflicted wounds and there are some structural problems inside his own party. So if you come into office and the Senate is split fifty-fifty and you've got a very small majority in the House of Representatives you've got to be careful what you do and what you try and sell to Congress to get legislation through, if you turn up with these monster mega bills that and you know, costing over $1000000000000 if they're fully implemented but all kinds of social programs bolted on and it becomes a gigantic pie in which some people want to add more ingredients and others want to cut slices out and I think his legislative program which was going to be the cornerpiece of his presidency I mean. 3 as a 3 yet 3 giant bills um were too ambitious for the state of the democratic party's tiny majorities in in the 2 houses and lo. It has come to pass. And then the other structural problem is you might just get away with it if your own party is completely unified. But what we have seen with the democratic party is that it is split between a kind of centrist more traditional group and some new hotter more progressive people. Um, who really want to drive by American standards the democratic party to the left and he hasn't been able to overcome that structural defect and it is interesting that the Build Back Better bill was done for by a renegade in the Senate from his own party - namely Senator Manchin from West Virginia - so I think this is not so much a Biden weakness in not being able to see this and do this when you become president. You can't have the same hands on as you can even when you're a senior senator and I think he's been let down by his staff, certainly in foreign affairs. But I think in domestic policy as well have probably not been up to the ambition.

07:15

blondemoney

Do you have any opinion on Kamala Harris? Let me ask you more specifically - there are talks of a rift - does it matter, was it ever thus between vice presidents and presidents. Do you think it's an issue.

07:31

Christopher Meyer

Well I think it no, it's not It's never an easy relationship between president and vice president. They tend not to be bosom pals. They tend to be people to grab out of the political jungle somewhere and and give them the title. And I remember know Bill Clinton and Al Gore were not soul brothers at all. No and George H W Bush and Dan Quayle I mean I think George W Bush didn't even know who Dan Quayle was when he was made vice vice president. Bush and Cheney got on quite well. But again, they hadn't conducted a political career together and the interesting thing about Biden and Kamala Harris is that she absolutely excoriated him on the campaign trail when they were both campaigning for the democratic nomination for the presidency so that that was not a promising start and that I think I'm told I've never met her either, I'm told that she did not like being sent down to the border with Mexico and told to deal with immigration because she couldn't do it. So the question arises - if Joe Biden's health broadly defined conks out by 2024 does she then become automatically ah the democratic nominee for the presidency and I guess I would suspect that she would not be but that opens up a huge can of worms.

09:13

blondemoney

Yeah I was about to ask you - is it Trump 2024? is that where this is headed?

09:20

Christopher Meyer

Well I think at the moment the good ship Trump, although it's taken a few hits and it's got a battered superstructure, been hit by a few torpedoes actually – it’s sailing quite strongly. He dominates the republican party in a way that Biden does not dominate the democratic party. Not just for ideological reasons. But he is the top republican fundraiser in in in the entire country. Um, and so long as Trump's health stands up. Forget he's in his seventy s as well. A bit younger than Biden I think is Trump. Will want to campaign in 2024 and I wouldn't bet against him winning.

10:05

blondemoney

Well, that is something for us all to bear in mind as we look forwards. Turning to the Uk and you know the UK-US trade deal is much discussed. Um, do you have any insight or thought on whether there will be one under a Biden administration. You know the talk of Northern Ireland and everything that's happened there with the protocol and Brexit, how do you think that all works together. Will we get a trade deal?

10:35

Christopher Meyer

Well I don't know. Um, it's possible I think I think. The mistake the Brexiteers made, particularly during the campaign um, was to say that one of the things at the end of the road would be a truly wonderful bilateral trade deal with the United States that you know this was the golden vessel waiting for us, the great prize of Brexit - that was always a mistake to erect this thing. Trade deals with the Americans are so difficult to negotiate partly because the American negotiators take their cue from some extremely powerful domestic lobbyists like the agricultural lobby, like the pharmaceutical lobby. The American definition of success is usually in a trade negotiation total crushing victory. Wouldn't anybody bother to ask me from the Brexit side of the argument, what about this trade deal. So I said - Beware of what you wish for because what they will ask of you for us to get better access in certain sectors, that will be extremely expensive and you may not want it. But it's a huge thing. It's a massive thing and it doesn't really have any intergovernmental agreements bilateral agreements to push it along it goes along under its own steam. I don't think we should rush into it. Let's not be a sort of needy demon for a trade deal and also it gets us off the hook a bit on Ireland as well because the Americans are simply, for all their love of Ireland and the strength of the Irish lobby - particularly the Republican Irish lobby. I mean the Dublin lobby, the Sinn Fein lobby. For all their love, they don't actually understand the problem of the Northern Ireland protocol and how and in what ways is it different from the Good Friday agreement and I think the president hasn't the faintest idea that there are 2 quite separate things here.

13:19

blondemoney

How do you think that's going to end up. We're going to end up with a United Ireland now eventually?

13:24

Christopher Meyer

I would have thought so in the end but I but it ah it's a long way off I think. I actually think if somebody from the British government went to Dublin tomorrow morning and said, Hell we're pissed off for this bloody island problem, it's been a problem for centuries, How would you like the north? We'll give you the north at lunchtime. Um, can you put together a quick ceremony and we'll give you the north, I think the Dublin Government would run screaming from the room. 

14:07

blondemoney

Because it's going to be expensive for them.

14:11

Christopher Meyer

A) it'll be expensive because the subsidies that we send to Northern Ireland by comparison with the totality of the Irish economy, the southern Irish economy is pretty big. They would be very expensive and they'll also, in the island of Ireland for which they will then be wholly responsible, a dissident group of really fractious and in some cases violent protestant unionists who simply don't want to be ruled from Dublin and it'll become a security problem so it can be ah, an economic problem and a security problem. So I would, if I were a Taoiseach, I would say um… what was it Saint Augustine said about sin? Make me pure and yeah that that I think is the Irish position. But now we'll wait till the next century say or whenever.

15:06

blondemoney

Oh yeah, Make me pure but not yet.

Talking of trade I was interested what you said there about the US and how they exact a very strong price. But how about China in their dialogue with China you know, um Trump did all obviously a lot of work on these trade deals with China. What do you think of the trade relationship between the US and China firstly -  then we'll talk about matters beyond trade - but did Trump manage to redress the balance somewhat? What do you think that will happen in the trade relationship between the US and China?

15:41

Christopher Meyer

Well we on another occasion, we talked about this, you and I and others. I said I thought that the Americans like us and the other Europeans, we really have to make up of our minds. Whether China is a partner or a competitor or an enemy. Some combination of all 3 and that makes policy for us incredibly difficult. It's a really really really difficult thing I think Trump in his crude way. Um, had it right? But the relationship did need rebalancing. It got out of control. Here in the UK, so when we had Cameron and George Osborne talking about a golden age of relations with China that was a you know bit over the top really and we had them building our nuclear industry and the heavy investment in our airports and other areas of infrastructure - Huawei was but the tip of the iceberg, and I notice even now that when I finally can lay my hands on a covid lateral flow test, it is made in China. So it was a relationship that needed rebalancing and what we now need as we do actually with Russia is an agreement. Sometimes our sunlight in Nineteenth century agreement between the great powers on the rules of the road where are the lines where are the red lines can we still in the twenty first century talk about spheres of influence I think we can.

And I think things like spheres of influence are incredibly important to the Chinese and to the Russians and once we could we grasp that then you can start to find a sweet spot in negotiation where on which you can base an agreement and that. I'm a great disciple of Henry Kissinger and I think that is what he would do and so Henry Kissinger where are you when we need you and he actually extremely old living in New York but his brain still seems to be functioning.

17:56

blondemoney

Yeah I mean how old is he now? He must be getting on for a century. Um, so what do you think is Xi Jinping's end game? Trying to put him into the pantheon of other Chinese leaders and what they have achieved and what their goal is what is he trying to get to clearly aggregation of power which he's had some success with in terms of removing his term limit etc. But what does he actually want to do? do you think.

18:22

Christopher Meyer

Well and I'm not a China specialist and I never actually worked in China but I think what he wants to do, if you're going to reduce this to a sentence, is to ensure that China never again has to suffer what the Chinese see as the humiliations of the nineteenth century. They were incapable militarily of withstanding various types of incursion and invasion by all kinds of powers: us, the Portuguese, the Germans, Americans, Italians I think were in there somewhere, the French um, and then the Japanese particularly so in the in the early part of the twentieth century that they will be impregnable and invulnerable to outside invasion and incursion and that's the defensive side of it. Um, and I have seen a Chinese diplomat with tears in his eyes. Talking at a negotiation about how China was humiliated ah over a hundred years ago and on and the other side is China wants what it sees as its legitimate sphere of influence. The sixth fleet. Yeah, the sixth fleet sailing up and down the South China seas then I think for the Chinese intolerable um, and they want Taiwan back.

20:00

blondemoney

Do you think there will be all out military conflict over Taiwan in the next few years?

20:08

Christopher Meyer

Well I don't know when it would be  -the Taiwanese say that they expected in that the Chinese would be ready militarily in 2025. But having said that you know will they actually do it. Um, they've got Hong Kong back, they've got Macau back which was ah originally a Portuguese colony and they will wish to re-incorporate some way or other Taiwan so something is going to happen there and it could be all out hot war. And if it is all out hot war, what will the Americans and the rest of us in the west do? What will the Japanese do? I don't know I don't know the answer there I Really don't.

20:58

blondemoney

I see the Japanese have just signed a defence treaty with Australia, apparently Australia one of the first countries to do that with Japan other than the US. Australia had been agitating against China quite a bit more aggressively under Scott Morrison.

21:12

Christopher Meyer

Yeah, they have and um, actually I did something the other day which I should have done long ago I looked again at the globe at the map of the world and you suddenly see why. Australia is in effect an Asian power. Yeah, we forget, we think oh it's cricket and the Ashes and Tennis. But you look at the map. These guys are an Asian power. So if we are going to have an Asian vocation to our foreign policy in as part of global Britain. Australia becomes a natural ally and which is why we have this thing about nuclear submarines, the US, the UK and Australia this deal on providing Australia with ah nuclear submarines. The thing that so pissed off the French um, and I think if you're worried about containing China you do a deal among other things with the Australians.

22:27

blondemoney

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned France because Germany of course now under new leadership for the first time in 16 years you know, post Merkel. On their foreign policy, it remains to be seen but the green party who are obviously part of the coalition have had a much more Atlanticist pro-NATO approach whereas historically the cdu and the spd have um, let's say been more open to Russia.

Where does the EU fit into this.

23:21

Christopher Meyer

Well, ah in my lifetime. The Eu has always fitted in very awkwardly on security matters. Macron I think coined the phrase “strategic autonomy” and all it means is that the European Union becomes a military and security force in its own right with a foreign policy to match. Now part of the reason that this thing has never got off the ground is because we've always had the American military and nuclear umbrella. Through NATO now after Trump and after Biden's extraordinary withdrawal from Kabul without properly consulting any of the NATO allies including us. Um, people have very severe doubts about how reliable the US is or whether its foreign policy will continue. To be more or less moving in the same direction as the European… but I think all that said, even if you say, as I believe, that the great dispensation after the second world war is now falling apart and it's been ah that the way in which the pax americana has been organized. Um, ah basically ruled the world from 46 onwards all that is starting to fray at the edges and it's something that the Russians deeply resent and it's something also the Chinese deeply resent and people like macron are afraid of who don't have a pax americana. Can we have a European international system and that that's another um angle to strategic autonomy. But I think it's going to happen - not as long as NATO exists because if you're someone like Germany, if you're someone like France for that matter and you're paying into your defence budget in order to make a significant military contribution to NATO you know you're not going to start voting billions and billions billions of euros sort of do the same thing for the European Union. And we had this debate in the 90 s about this. It's not the first time the French have popped up but the Americans got very very upset because they could see that the money was going to be spent on the European defence would be money taken away from contributions to NATO. So they came up with a formula which was that European Military forces would be separable for purely European military escapades and interventions would be separable but not separate and this was the cunning phrase in the communique to mark the fiftieth anniversary of NATO. European forces would be “separable but not separate from NATO”. In other words, once they've done their thing saving Chad in West Africa then they've come back again into the into the bosom of NATO. And that formula held for a long time and now we're back again talking about the same thing with the same problems.

26:57

blondemoney

Is Monsieur Macron going to get his second term

27:01

Christopher Meyer

I think macron will win. Um I think the far right is now split .

27:06

blondemoney

Actually we haven't talked about one particular leader which of course is Boris. At the time of us speaking he is still prime minister - will he be in a year's time?

27:17

Christopher Meyer

Um, yeah. Will he lead the conservative party into the into the next general election I would say the odds favour his doing so although he's fallen a long way. I think the 2 real dangers I see. ah 1 is um ah covid and are we going to come out of Omicron actually in reasonable shape and say oh that wasn't so bad after all, it was a heavy cold and that was it? I mean I had I've had it with 2 days of sneezing and that was it. So if we come out of the other side saying hell you know if this is the best that covid can throw us now. Then I think it'll help Boris.

28:42

blondemoney

He's the greatest escape artist isn't he? I mean a year ago he was under extremely similar pressure and there was a lot on the right of the party were screaming about restrictions. But then they all shut up about a month later so

29:03

Christopher Meyer

Yeah, yeah, and you can argue if it's a bit like Biden in America you can argue that Boris's biggest danger comes from his own party rather than from Labour.

29:13

blondemoney

Yeah, can the Labour Party win the next election? can they even force a hung parliament.

29:24

Christopher Meyer

What they could do, if things go to hell in a handcart I mean for example, if the costs of living really does start to bite then the wage increases which the government says is that the country is enjoying but not disappear and the inflation doesn't kill it. Um, and. Combination of that in energy prices and I see there's an attempt even today to try and get Boris to drop the increase in national insurance. Well I think there is there is a wing of the conservative party who are really anxious about this, really anxious.

29:50

blondemoney

Yes, what do you make of that.

30:00

Christopher Meyer

And I think a lot of the new guys from 2019 and from the red belt. They do not like to see their constituents complaining about the cost of living and by the way where is all the gold coins that were going to fall from the sky as we levelled up. So you know if you're going to level up, you probably need to get rid of the increase in National Insurance and I wouldn't exclude that happening.

30:44

blondemoney

Well, our time together is almost nearing a close. So let me ask you on sort of bit more reflective on your time as ambassador. What was the greatest diplomatic challenge you faced? if you can talk about it - you can change the names to protect the innocent!

31:03

Christopher Meyer

Ah, but it was learning German in six months! Now, without a doubt the immediate aftermath of Nine eleven because I was ambassador in Washington and picking up the various pieces that resulted from that was a very tough time indeed. When it happened I was having breakfast in the Embassy on the terrace on a fine autumn day with John Major of blessed memory and um, one of my staff came to me and said “Sorry to interrupt you but a plane has crashed into one of the twin towers” and my immediate assumption was it was ah some private plane and pilot lost his way and got blown into the towers or something like that and John Major and I carried on talking and then 10 minutes later, my wife was had kind of come downstairs and she and my social secretary came and said another plane is hit up the other one of the twin towers. And at that moment you knew that there was something big afoot and it wasn't clear what it was. So John Major and I immediately broke up our breakfast. He went downtown to give a speech to a private equity group, the Carlyle group, and I went to my office and then everything was revealed. We were totally neglected by American security because…

32:56

blondemoney

Did you have to be put into any kind of lockdown?

33:03

Christopher Meyer

There was so much demand from well of course a President was flying around the United States at the time much to his irritation but they had to get the Vice President safe, the whole of the White House staff safe, the Senate safe, the House safe, by that time they ran out of policemen and secret servicemen. And I suddenly realized we had nobody protecting us and we didn't know whether there was a threat on the ground and we were next door to the Vice President's house. And so that was a bit of ah anxiety as well as trying to find out from Condi Rice and Colin Powell what the hell was going on and what they wanted and what they needed and arranging phone calls between Tony Blair and George W and Tony Blair got terribly sort of irritated. They couldn't get hold of the President but he was poor man was flying somewhere in the air above Omaha Nebraska round around in circles. So I think I was the most challenging time. Also the most interesting because when things get really really tough like that, once the immediate crisis is over, you realize it was an immensely fascinating interesting time from all kinds of points of view.

34:36

blondemoney

Um, as you mentioned Blair any thoughts on his this honour that he's been given which actually apparently is late for a former prime minister?

34:49

Christopher Meyer

It's very late. It's very late for a former prime minister I think he deserves it and he should have it.

34:56

blondemoney

Yeah, do you have any thoughts on why it was delayed.

35:00

Christopher Meyer

I don't actually. Probably I think there was a feeling among the powers that be, that he had made himself deeply unpopular because of Iraq and because he'd made so much money. And I think a lot of people thought this unseemly and he might have made it slightly less obvious than he did. So I think there were there were serious doubts - but he did a lot of other stuff as a New Labour Prime Minister.

35:42

blondemoney

One of my final questions to you is over all of your period as a diplomat and the people you have met over the years - which world leaders have impressed you the most and why.

35:57

Christopher Meyer

Um, I would say without doubt Nelson Mandela that's not a very original observation but this man who had spent almost three decades of his life in jail and you meet him and there was this extraordinary ah calm authority which was massively impressive. And I think the other person is Bill Clinton. I thought was one of the cleverest. I think it's purely because of his cunning and his cleverness and his astonishing ability to switch from a kind of private inwardness and then go out and meet a crowd and come alight and empathize with them and you could see the lines of energy like the lines of the sun, coming from the crowd into him physically. He had his weaknesses as we know which kind of undid him, to coin a phrase but he was an incredible political phenomenon. So yeah, Mandela and Clinton in that order.

37:33

blondemoney

You used the word “froideur” about Clinton - is that what he's like if you meet him 1 to 1?

37:38

Christopher Meyer

Yeah I thought so sometimes you meet him. He was incredibly warm and friendly but he had a capacity when a difficult subject was being discussed such as what we do about Saddam. Come over with a group from Downing Street and when Clinton had not fully made up his mind what he wanted to do or hadn't yet decided, he would just sit there. With an unlit cigar stuck in his mouth and just not say a thing and let everybody else talk nothing and with a cold look in the eye. There are other times when he was incredibly friendly.

38:31

blondemoney

Which in itself actually as you say is it a great political talent to be inscrutable when you need to be as a leader. 

35:50

Christopher Meyer

He had that erotic weakness. He would have been the greatest of the great.

38:57

blondemoney

Ah, well so many US Presidents have haven't they, even John F Kennedy of course. What would have happened if they'd had to live through a period of such intense media scrutiny as we have now. By the way you have embraced Twitter brilliantly. Twitter can be a force for good or bad and it certainly is having an impact on the political process. But you have a very positive experience I think, I hope.

39:46

Christopher Meyer

By and large I like Twitter although from time to time you detect the stench of the hideousness lying under the stones and boulders that are revealed and it can be a hideous place but I mean I think I thing to do is not to respond people will insult you grotesquely. Ah, just because they disagree with you and unless you've got an instant and killer put down. I picked up this phrase in Texas um, which is never get into a pissing match with a skunk and that's a very good rule in life. 

40:35

blondemoney

Well that I think is a perfect way to end because I think we should leave that resonating around our craniums as we as we finish. Thank you so much for your time. As I mentioned there on Twitter I'm at market blondes if anyone would like to engage in some useful and thoughtful dialogue, equally of course feel free to contact me via email Helen@blondemoney.co.uk. Thank you Christopher for your time.

41:15

Christopher Meyer

Thank you Helen for having me, I much enjoyed that.