-The 2020 presidential campaign is heating up
and there are a whole range of issues being discussed,
but foreign policy is really low on the list.
I had the opportunity to sit down with Andrew Yang,
who you probably know as the candidate
of the universal basic income,
a $1,000 check every month into your account.
But I wanted to get his take on a range
of foreign policy questions.
After nearly two decades of US presence in the Middle East,
things have only gotten worse there.
What role should the US be playing in that region?
-Our goal should be to try and stabilize
the region without open-ended military commitments.
So, to the extent that we have allies we can work with
in the region, we should invest in diplomacy.
I think it was Mattis who said, "If we spend less on diplomats,
we have to spend more on ammunition,"
so the goal should be to spend more on diplomats.
At the same time, I've signed a pledge to end the forever wars.
We've been in a constant state of armed conflict
for at least 18 years
and that's not the will of the American people
and that's not the way it was designed in the Constitution.
-Unfortunately, some of our alliances
seem to be shifting, specifically, in Syria.
-Yes. -and the Turkish
intervention there over the last few days.
Turkey seems moving towards authoritarianism.
Erdogan is emboldened and doing more to protect his own power
than work with the United States and other NATO partners
to come up with a peaceful resolution to Syrian conflict.
What does that say about the future of democracy
and the fragility of it right now?
-The international norms are disintegrating.
It's a massive problem.
And, to me, Donald Trump has accelerated the disintegration
in various ways,
where it's hard to push other countries
to pursue things that may not be in what they perceive
to be their self-interest
if you don't seem to have a higher set of principles
that you're bending over backwards for,
and, unfortunately, that's where America is right now.
It's going to be a massive challenge
to see what we can rebuild and reconstitute
in the wake of the Trump presidency.
Unfortunately, it's much easier to destroy
than it is to rebuild trust,
but rebuilding trust is what we have to do with partners
that want to work with us.
If you find that someone that you've been an ally with
has reached a point where they actually don't want to work
with you on various shared goals,
then you have to react to that accordingly.
-And what about the opposite?
We had this deal with Iran that we backed out of last year.
-To me, it was a massive mistake.
And it wasn't just us and Iran in that deal, you know.
It was Germany and UK and others.
Now, the timeline doesn't make sense anymore,
so you can't reenter the deal and say, "Hey, we're back,"
but the goal would be to reenter
and reform that deal with different timelines.
-Can we contain Iran's intervention in the Middle East
while simultaneously working with them?
I mean, are they an adversary that you think
that we can have a,
I don't want to say cooperative relationship with,
but one that is less contentious
than it's been over the last 40 years?
-Well, I think that countries have different goals
in different arenas and so,
if you can find a way to satisfy their goals in one space,
while still disagreeing with them in another,
I think that's appropriate.
And, if you're the United States,
avoiding a nuclear-powered or a nuclear-armed Iran
is a top priority and so you should be pursuing
every avenue to make that happen,
even if you don't meet every goal
you have for that relationship in the region.
-Climate change is an issue that's facing the entire world.
How will you work with other countries to save us
from what seems to be imminent catastrophe?
-First, you have to get your own house in order
and try and move towards more sustainable forms of energy.
Second, we need to make it more compelling for other countries
to adopt wind and solar and renewable forms of energy,
as opposed to coal and fossil fuels.
And, particularly for developing countries,
in places like Africa, they're going to do whatever
they think is in their best interest,
economically, so you have to make that compelling,
which may include subsidizing many of these technologies
and installations in other parts of the world,
which we do, with other exports, through the EXIM Bank,
but we need to be applying that to renewables.
One thing I would do immediately is convene
a global geoengineering summit,
because, right now, there are hundreds of scientists
working on various
geoengineering solutions and implementations,
but there's no convening,
there's no global consensus around it.
And, realistically, 25 years from now,
if China thinks it's in its best interest
to launch various geoengineering measures,
they will likely do so without consulting with us,
so we have to try and get in front of that
as quickly as possible.
-Donald Trump came into office as nonexperienced
in the political and governmental realm.
You and other candidates will be learning on the fly.
What sort of people, advisors, will you surround yourself with,
and what sort of plan do you have in place
to address some of these larger international issues
that you may not personally have a lot of experience with?
-Building the Yang administration
will be such a joy
because we're gonna get tremendous people
from both sides of the aisle who want to solve the problems,
not just here in America, but internationally.
So I've had the pleasure of speaking to and meeting
with various experts in foreign theaters,
China experts and Middle East experts,
and we're going to build a dream team.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
At the end of the day, a lot of these issues,
there's no right answer.
That's one reason why we elect a president,
is that many of these things are about judgment and values,
but you have a much better chance
of accomplishing your goals
if you have the right guidance and perspective,
and that includes bringing in people
who've been working with particular foreign leaders
or in other parts of the world for decades.
-So how did he do?
Andrew Yang has clearly infused the campaign
with some innovative ideas about economics and employment,
but, on foreign policy, he's still got some work to do.
We already know what it looks like to have a president
who is not engaged with those issues
and who doesn't heed the advice of advisors
with years of experience
on some of our most important foreign challenges.
The next president needs to do better.