THE WASHINGTON POST

By Aaron Blake

September 25 at 11:16 AM

The rough transcript of President Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25 has been released by the White House.

The call shows Trump offering no explicit quid pro quo when it comes to Ukraine investigating the Bidens. But it does include Trump emphasizing how good the U.S. government is to Ukraine and suggesting that U.S. support is not being reciprocated. Trump then asks for two specific investigations, including one involving the Bidens.

Below is the rough transcript provided by the White House, which is based upon voice-activated software. Spelling errors have not been corrected.

Telephone Conversation with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine President Zelenskyy of Ukraine Notetakers: The White House Situation Room July 25, 2019, 9:03 – 9:33 a.m. EDT

The President: Congratulations on a great victory. We all watched from the United States, and you did a terrific job. The way you came from behind, somebody who wasn’t given much of a chance, and you ended up winning easily. It’s a fantastic achievement. Congratulations.

President Zelenskyy: You are absolutely right Mr. President. We did win big, and we worked hard for this. We worked a lot but I would like to confess to you that I had an opportunity to learn from you. We used quite a few of your skills and knowledge and were able to use it as an example to our elections and yes it is true that these were unique elections. We were in a unique situation that we were able to achieve a unique success. I’m able to tell you the following; the first time you called me to congratulate me, when I won my presidential election, and the second time you are now calling me when my party won the parliamentary election. I think I should run more often so you can call me more often and we can talk over the phone more often.

The President: [laughter] That’s a very good idea. I think your country is very happy about that.

President Zelenskyy: Well yes, to tell you the truth, we are trying to work hard because we wanted to drain the swamp here in our country. We brought in many many new people. Not the old politicians, not the typical politicians, because we want to have a new format and a new type of government. You are a great teacher for us and in that.

The President: Well it’s very nice of you to say that. I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine. We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time. Much more than the European countries are doing and they should be helping you more than they are. Germany does almost nothing for you. All they do is talk and I think it’s something that you should really ask them about. When I was speaking to Angela Merkel she talks Ukraine, but she doesn’t do anything. A lot of the European countries are the same way so I think it’s something you want to look at but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine. I wouldn’t say that it’s reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very, very good to Ukraine.

President Zelenskyy: Yes you are absolutely right, not only 100%, but actually 1000%, and I can tell you the following; I did talk to Angela Merkel, and I did meet with her. I also met and talked with Macron, and I told them that they are not doing quite as much as they need to be doing on the issues with the sanctions. They are not enforcing the sanctions. They are not working as much as they should work for Ukraine. It turns out that even though logically, the European Union should be our biggest partner but technically the United States is a much bigger partner than the European Union, and I’m very grateful to you for that because the United States is doing quite a lot for Ukraine. Much more than the European Union especially when we are talking about sanctions against the Russian Federation. I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.

The President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike … I guess you have one of your wealthy people … The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it’s very important that you do it if that’s possible.

President Zelenskyy: Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important, and we are open for any future cooperation. We are ready to open a new page on cooperation in relations between the United States and Ukraine. For that purpose, I just recalled our ambassador from United States, and he will be replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who will work hard on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and hope to see him having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate even more so. I will personally tell you that one of my assistant spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently, and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine, and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we are friends. We are great friends, and you Mr. President have friends in our country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly. That I can assure you.

The President: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good, and he was shut down and that’s really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what’s happening, and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news, and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.

President Zelenskyy: I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor. First off, I understand and I’m knowledgeable about the situation. Since we have on the absolute majority in our Parliament; the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of asking sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can provide to us, it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in our country with regard to the Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine as far as I recall her name was Ivanovich. It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100%. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President, and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new President well enough …

The President: Well, she’s going to go through some things. I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I’m sure you will figure it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly, and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything. Your economy is going to get better and better, I predict. You have a lot of assets. It’s a great country. I have many Ukrainian friends, they’re incredible people.

President Zelenskyy: I would like to tell you that I also have quite a few Ukrainian friends that live in the United States. Actually last time I traveled to the United States, I stayed in New York near Central Park and I stayed at the Trump Tower. I will talk to them and I hope to see them again in the future. I also wanted to thank you for your invitation to visit the United States, specifically Washington DC. On the other hand, I also wanted (to) ensure you that we will be very serious about the case and will work on the investigation. As to the economy, there is much potential for our two countries and one of the issues that is very important for Ukraine is energy independence. I believe we can be very successful and cooperating on energy independence with United States. We are already working on cooperation. We are buying American oil but I am very hopeful for a future meeting. We will have more time and more opportunities to discuss these opportunities and get to know each other better. I would like to thank you very much for your support.

The President: Good. Well, thank you very much, and I appreciate that. I will tell Rudy and Attorney General Barr to call. Thank you. Whenever you would like to come to the White House feel free to call. Give us a date, and we’ll work that out. I look forward to seeing you.

President Zelenskyy: Thank you very much. I would be very happy to come and would be happy to meet with you personally and get to know you better. (I) am looking forward to our meeting, and I also would like to invite you to visit Ukraine and come to the city of Kyiv, which is a beautiful city. We have a beautiful country which would welcome you. On the other hand, I believe that on September we will be in Poland and we can meet in Poland hopefully. After that, it might be a very good idea for you to travel to Ukraine. We can either take my plane and go to Ukraine or we can take your plane, which is probably much better than mine.

The President: Okay, we can work that out. I look forward to seeing you in Washington and maybe in Poland because I think we are going to be there at that time.

President Zelenskyy: Thank you very much Mr. President.

The President: Congratulations on a fantastic job you’ve done. The whole world was watching. I’m not sure it was so much of an upset but congratulations.

President Zelenskyy: Thank you Mr. President bye-bye

End of Conversation

By Gabriella Muñoz, Dave Boyer and Stephen Dinan – The Washington Times 

By George Friedman – September 24, 2019 Geopolitical Future

The United States and Britain have agreed to sign a trade agreement by next July, The Sun newspaper reported on Monday. The accuracy of the story is not yet clear, but for Britain, leaving the European Union and building a closer trade relationship with the United States, and therefore with North America, follows geopolitical logic.

Britain’s historical stance toward Europe was to try to maintain a balance of power on the Continent so that no force there would be able to threaten British sovereignty. One force driving British imperialism was the need to develop markets and sources outside Europe so as not to become excessively dependent on Europe. The Royal Navy was designed both to protect Britain from continental powers and, in time of war, to blockade hostile European powers without being excessively drawn into combat on the Continent. The British hesitated for a long time before agreeing to join the European Community and the powers on the Continent (particularly the French) hesitated for a long time before admitting them. The British were instrumental in creating the “Outer Seven” bloc of nations on the Continent’s periphery as an alternative to what would eventually become the European Union.

For Britain, the consolidation of the Continent into a single bloc was a perpetual nightmare. Britain was militarily weak compared to the Continent as a whole and saw Napoleon, for example, as an existential threat. Had he been able to impose a stable system, dominated by Paris, on the Continent, the economic and military force he could have mustered would have overwhelmed Britain’s naval defenses in the not-too-long run and compelled Britain to accommodate itself to French hegemony. In this hegemony, it would have found itself at a perpetual disadvantage (as would other nations) as France tilted the economic system in its favor. It therefore joined the anti-Napoleonic alliance and, after Waterloo, cautiously withdrew from the Continent and focused on its empire.

With the unification of Germany in 1871, however, Britain was drawn into Europe once again. It first found itself in economic competition with the new European power, then in political competition over empire, and finally was drawn into the two world wars. The point that must be borne in mind was that membership in a European bloc ran counter to historic British views of Europe. The British fear was that the constraints imposed by any European alliance would inevitably tilt the economic system against Britain and threaten its sovereignty.

World War II left Britain in a difficult position. It had essentially bankrupted itself in the war against Germany. The effort to resist the Continent in order to guarantee its sovereignty and prosperity had preserved sovereignty at the price of prosperity. It had also decisively brought another nation into the dynamic: the United States. At the end of World War I, the United States had the same perspective as the British. A German victory would unite Europe and create naval forces that would limit U.S. access to the seas. The U.S. wanted the same thing Britain had wanted: to prevent a single hegemon from controlling the Continent, and therefore to maintain division of the Continent through a balance of power. This was the intent of the Treaty of Versailles, which blocked France from dismembering Germany and achieving Napoleon’s goal of dominating the Continent. Versailles also set the stage for World War II, once Germany had reorganized itself.

From unification onward, Britain’s primary threat was not France but Germany. World War I settled the problem only temporarily, drawing both the British and Americans into a war on the Continent. The conflict also reversed the relationship between the United States and Britain. Neither had fully trusted the other. After World War I, the U.S. maintained a set of war scenarios that included War Plan Red, which was based on a potential British invasion from Canada. Far-fetched as this might seem now, Washington had seen the British as a threat during the Civil War less than 50 years before, as well as a naval challenger in 1900. Britain saw the American economic surge as a threat to its markets and vigorously limited U.S. economic relations with the empire. In 1920, the mutual suspicion continued; indeed, when lend-lease was enacted, the U.S. lent ships to Britain – but Britain leased almost all of its bases in the Western Hemisphere to the U.S., ending centuries of domination of the Atlantic and a perpetual threat to the United States. The two countries cooperated in World War I, but isolationists in the U.S. remained suspicious of British motives in the war.

World War II ended with Germany partitioned, the British Empire crumbling and the United States the dominant power. The U.S. and Britain were allied in the conflict, but it would be a mistake to think they were close partners. In 1956, the U.S. blocked Britain (and France and Israel) from retaking the Suez Canal. President Franklin Roosevelt had made it clear that the U.S. was fighting to defeat Germany and not to save the British Empire. The two countries were imperfectly aligned, to say the least.

The Marshall Plan made European economic integration a prerequisite to recovery. In a way, the EU originated as a U.S. plan. But the U.S. focus was not European integration. Washington was worried about the Soviets and wanted a prosperous, united Europe that could field a military. The British were uneasy about integration, and the French were cautious about Britain. The old tensions did not dissolve. Nor did German weakness. The U.S. needed Germany to recover, since Germany would be the battleground of any future war. And so it did, and over time an integrated Europe became a German-dominated Europe, benign militarily, aggressive economically.

The British had to develop a new grand strategy suitable for their new position. Britain’s strategy was to maintain its distance from Europe by building a special military and intelligence relationship with the United States, while cautiously dipping its toes into European integration. In other words, the British managed to maintain a European balance of power while at the same time creating a balance between Europe and the United States, using the space this opened to pursue their own interests.

The Brexit deadlock today is over the same issues: sovereignty and prosperity. For Britain, the EU delivered a degree of prosperity at the loss of a degree of sovereignty. This arrangement could work if it was meticulously balanced. But the EU was not a flexible entity in which Britain could work its historic subtlety. This split Britain down the middle between those who had not experienced prosperity and resented the loss of any degree of sovereignty and those who had experienced prosperity and did not value sovereignty. The damage to the United Kingdom’s stability was substantial, the fear of declining prosperity real.

This has forced Britain to look to the United States as it had during the 20th century. Britain’s military and intelligence relationships with its former settler colonies (the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada) were an important dimension of its global vision. They were also foundational to the American alliance system, with all five countries participating in the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing group and maintaining intimate military cooperation. Canada and Australia have significant trade agreements with the United States, and New Zealand is negotiating one.

Britain sees this structure as an alternative to the European Union. On security matters, Britain is already part of this coalition. Economically, North America’s total gross domestic product is larger than that of the EU. Add Australia, New Zealand and Britain and this economic group is substantially larger than the European Union and, in many ways, more dynamic. And given U.S. sensitivity over its own sovereignty, it does not make demands on social and political harmonization, nor does it dictate rules on migration. Britain already conducts substantial trade with all four nations, which requires a degree of integration, but it’s limited to market access on favorable terms.

The problem for Britain, however, is that a shift in economic posture would end the long-term balance of power strategy. On the other hand, staying in a bloc that has no interest in the internal harmonization of Britain would be damaging. A shift would be complex and painful, but the pain Britain is feeling now from the split inside of its country is at least as unbearable.

If Britain shifted economically to this bloc, we would be seeing the emergence of a loose economic and security alliance. It would be a bloc of the settler colonies Britain spawned. The weight of this group in world affairs would be massive. For the United States, this would be nice to have. For the Canadians, it would be more tense. For the Australians and New Zealanders, it would be business as usual. But nowhere would it be as fraught with tension as in Britain. Brexit is going to happen, and Britain must imagine what life will be like after its withdrawal. A trade agreement with the United States is the logical and even inevitable step, but one with long-term significance.