Katrina Perry
Appearances
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
And we've seen it come into force straight away with the couple of thousand Afghan refugees who had appointments, who had flights booked, who were ready to travel to the US. These are people who had helped out the US military in Afghanistan, many of whom their lives were now at risk under Taliban rule for having done that.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
And they're now in limbo, essentially, with these executive orders that President Trump has signed. So There is concern in many quarters about the fate of those individuals and for anyone coming behind them and this is something that came into force immediately and there is great concern in the NGO sector as well as to whether these agencies and these programmes will be stood up again.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
These are pauses again subject to review that President Trump has ordered. but it's unclear as to what will happen beyond that.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
And I think we've seen that already even before Donald Trump assumed office for the And credit has been given to him for that intervention from President Biden, amongst others, that it sort of took that different type of speech and different type of approach to get that deal over the line.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
And, you know, to build on Gary's point there, he does use threats as a way of getting things for America, as is his right as the American president. All countries are essentially equal. self-interested. That's what they do. The question is, too, how much President Trump is concerned. Is it America first and the rest of the world second or America first?
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
And I don't really care about the rest of the world, particularly when it comes to trade and the dangling of the threat of tariffs being imposed on foreign governments. I mean, we heard him
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
enunciate that in a very clear way in his speech at Davos last week basically come and build your products in America or face the consequences we saw over the weekend when he was deporting migrants from Colombia sending them to Colombia The Colombian president refused to take them. And then it was President Trump saying, right, OK, well, face tariffs then if you don't take your people back.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
And, you know, there was a lot of technical issues there about how they were being transported in military planes and so on that the Colombians didn't like. But ultimately, they were able to come to an arrangement to receive these individuals back. and Donald Trump took away the threat of tariffs. So he has a very different way of doing business.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
He approaches this as he is the CEO of a big company and as he has done business over all the decades of his professional life. You know, as Gary says, it is transactional. It is the art of the deal. It is about doing whatever he has to do to get what he perceives to be best for America.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
And I think if President Trump decided to take Greenland by force, defending Greenland from US forces would be the least of his worries because that would be viewed as a direct attack on Denmark. So we'd be into a much more serious international situation.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
Well, this is one of the executive orders that President Trump has signed that we haven't heard quite as much pushback and reaction to at this point. And this executive order designating these cartels as terrorist organizations is intended to apply maximum pressure.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
Mexico to rein in the drug trade and basically it gives more power to various branches of the US government to impose economic penalties, travel restrictions and potentially even to take military action and it can lead to severe penalties, fines, criminal charges and so on. The flip side of that is that some companies, US companies and others could get caught up unwittingly in
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
being accused of being part of supporting a terrorist organisation, doing very innocent things like importing avocados. If it's found that cartel members had some involvement in how the avocados were picked or transported, a company importing them in the US could find themselves on the wrong side of the law. So there are some very specific and potential penalties here. Banks as well.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
could find themselves in a difficult situation if they have accounts with individuals in good faith. And it turns out that that individual has some connection to a cartel now designated as a terrorist organisation. So again, the devil is in the detail with many of these executive orders and we have to see how they'll play out.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
There's a mixed answer to this one. Fundamentally, it's not easy to dismantle because it's a piece of legislation and the only way you could truly get rid of it or undo every aspect of it would be by further legislation coming through Congress. However, what the president can do is he can slow down some of the provisions of it. He can put them on ice indefinitely.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
I would just add that having spoken to some experts in the oil fields and in natural resources, the idea about lowering the OPEC price is designed to target President Putin's coffers, essentially. So if he can't sell his oil for as much, he has less in his war chest. Ergo, he has less money available to fund the invasion in Ukraine and that that would put some kind of pressure on President Putin.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
Again, there are questions about that approach because President Putin has a fairly deep war chest and it's ideological, his push into Ukraine. And we know he's getting support from North Korea and elsewhere at this point. And I think, you know, one of the questioners there was asking about how much does the U.S. care about Ukraine and so on.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
And I think that's a good question in terms of future funding and support for Ukraine under President Trump and this new Congress.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
many voters on the campaign trail traveling around, I noticed, and Gary, I'm sure you were the same, were also questioning that level of support when so many Americans, you know, are struggling with the price of groceries, the price of housing, other benefits, and they don't understand why so much American money goes to support Ukraine.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
And so I think that's just a watch point people have in the back of their mind in terms of continued support for Ukraine. That also is motivating President Trump to try and want to get a deal done because he wants to cut those financial ties and not have U.S. money employed in other countries and helping other defense moves go. So, you know, I think it's just it's a very complicated relationship.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
And obviously, we heard from President Trump last week saying he wants to meet President Putin as soon as possible. President Putin responded saying he was open to having discussions, described Donald Trump as a smart man and President Trump's envoy to Ukraine, General Keith Kellogg.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
We've already seen, in fact, President Trump signing one of these executive orders that pauses the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act and another one called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. So that's what he can do. He can slow it down. He can't get rid of it totally.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
He has been talking about this 90-day period kind of taking us up into the middle of May, that there might be a deal done. So we're watching for a meeting between President Trump and President Putin before that time.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
Yeah, this is the thing about tariffs. I mean, Donald Trump has described tariffs as the most beautiful word in the English language. And he was speaking last week about his quest to be considered the tariff king. But of course, imposing tariffs on another country really raises the possibility of that other country retaliating and imposing tariffs on you instead.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
So you get into a situation where ultimately it's the American consumer who could pay the price for any sort of trade war or tariff war. And he targeted the EU quite specifically in a few comments last week. I mean, we've heard him talk about China. Often we've heard him talk about imposing a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada from the 1st of February.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
But he really headed in the direction of the EU last week. And that's a complicated one. And if you take the issue of cars, for example, many European companies make cars in America. hiring American workers, using American materials, but some of the parts for those cars come from Europe to the American factory and then those cars are sold back to Europe.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
So you have a potential for things getting incredibly expensive quite quickly if tariffs are layered upon each part of something like a car and ultimately that will be the consumer that pays the price there.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
And some of the provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act that were already in force and already up and running, he can't undo those at this point.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
And I would say maple syrup and poutine are great reasons to do it.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
Well, the question of should I move to Ireland was also heavily Googled in the days after. And the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ireland actually has had many, many queries from Americans looking to trace their Irish grandmothers and whatever to move to Ireland.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
And I think the question of the role of the media is quite an interesting one and one that we'll see people do PhDs and various studies on for times to come because this was the first election where we really saw the role of the podcast and the user-specific, user-generated media really play a role there.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
So I think large numbers of people, particularly those who Gary's talking about there, who maybe were in the middle, don't normally vote, came out to vote, so on, probably weren't being hugely influenced by, you know, what the questioner describes there as overly liberal rhetoric in the media.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
I think they were more swayed by things they were hearing in their own social circles, things they were hearing from podcast hosts who have massive reach and... You know, Donald Trump doing that three hours or whatever it was with Joe Rogan, you really got to see quite a different side to him than you get to hear when he just does short soundbites or his big long rallies and so on.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
So I think it's the role of the media has changed. And I suppose for us here in the BBC, you know, that's something we're trying to get back. handle on as well and that audiences are moving and you need to go where the audience is and give them the information they need, such as on a podcast like this.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
I think actually I've noticed, because I'm presenting programmes on the news channel and we have debates every night and we have people from different perspectives on every night, and I've noticed in the last week things are actually less harsh and less competitive. I find our panellists more trying to find a place where they can reach common ground and trying to find a place where they can...
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
be in agreement with each other because I think for some anyway there is an appreciation that America got to a place that was so polarised and you know people can't have family dinners and they can't speak to their brother or sister because one supports Trump and one doesn't and that you have to try and get to a place where everyone can work together and that there's an acceptance of
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
OK, it wasn't a landslide victory, but it was a victory. A majority of the American people, 77 million of them, voted for President Trump. 75 million didn't. And so you have to find a way to be able to live your life and move on from there and try and have some type of society. And, you know, here in Washington, D.C., we can all get caught up on
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
the Republican Party did this and the Democratic Party did that. Whereas most people are just trying to get on with their life and feed their families and go to work and earn a few quid to have a little holiday here and there or, you know, pay their health care bills and so on. And I've noticed a slight shift.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
Maybe it's wishful thinking in this first week, but definitely there seems to be an effort there to try and improve things.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
OK, so there's a lot in this question. We probably need a whole two hours to go through everything that Donald Trump has done so far. But just on the issue of the FBI and the CIA, obviously, we saw the former FBI director, Christopher Wray, resign before Donald Trump took office. Basically, Donald Trump had said he would fire him if he didn't.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
We've seen the Department of Justice workers who were involved in the investigation say into those federal charges against Donald Trump in terms of election interference, working with Jack Smith. They've been let go. We've also seen the inspector generals fired as well.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
They are supposedly independent officers who are established under the Inspector General Act of 1978, and they're independent and objective units themselves. who basically make sure that each federal agency sticks to their mission. So they've all been fired and the expectation is that they'll be replaced by individuals who are loyal to President Trump. So it's a sort of watch this space on that.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
When you're talking about deep state as a term, obviously that's quite a subjective viewpoint, but it is something that we had heard Donald Trump talk a lot about on the campaign trail.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
Just on eggs as well, there is a secondary issue there, which is that avian flu has been detected in parts of the US. So actually a huge number of chickens and hens and poultry have been slaughtered because of that. So there is, in actual fact, a shortage of eggs. I just even know myself, Gary, I'm sure you're the same, going to the supermarket in recent weeks, sometimes there are no eggs on the
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
at all and it used to be the case that they were there but they were extremely expensive sometimes $10 for a dozen eggs but now you just can't get eggs at all often.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
Indeed, President Trump signed four executive orders which were focused on reshaping the US military. One of them was about developing an American Iron Dome, similar to the one used by Israel in the Middle East. But in terms of the ones that relate to gender, as the questioner has asked, they're
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
He signed one banning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the military, so-called DEI, and he's done similar things in other federal agencies over the past week. So that basically removes the use of race or sex-based preferences in the armed forces, something there'd been much debate over for a couple of years now, really, in terms of the US military and the debate around
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
comes up around readiness of the armed forces and capabilities and so on. Another executive order that he signed tasks officials in the military with coming up with a policy on transgender troops. Now, the action doesn't immediately ban transgender service members, which was something that President Trump did in his first term.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
But there's a lot of detail not in these executive orders as there are with many of President Trump's executive orders where he's ordering reviews or he's passing it back down to the agency or the department to kind of figure out as to how they'll be implemented. So in terms of transgender service members, there are 14,000 active military transgender service members at the moment.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
It's about 0.8% of the entire force. So it's unclear whether this order would mean they can no longer be in certain jobs in the military, whether they have to be discharged totally. So as you can imagine, this is causing a lot of upset.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
Well, I would just say, first of all, that President Trump and his supporters do not see these moves as dismantling civil rights. They actually argue that it's a restoration of civil rights, that they say false equivalencies have been created by these DEI policies and issues.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
If you read some of the executive orders, that's the language that's in there, that this is about restoring civil rights and restoring what he calls a meritocracy. I do think on the second part of that question, when Federico asks, you know, could this sort of spread into other countries as well.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
I think there is a risk in that because whatever the United States does is often copied in other countries. And in particular, a lot of these big private sector companies, big multinationals obviously have operations in many other countries as well. And they tend to have broad sweeping policies that stretch across right around the world.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
And I'm Katrina Perry, chief presenter with BBC News based in Washington.
Global News Podcast
President Trump: Your questions answered
But again, there's not a lot of detail in some of these executive orders as to whether some of the instructions from President Trump will result in the removal of people from office and what that means for their salary, what that means for their employment rights.