Trade War Fears; Trump Appoints New National Security Adviser; Trump Appoints New National Security Adviser; Trump: Will Never Sign A Bill Like That Ever Again.
JONES: Welcome back. We'll go back to Hala Gorani in Paris a little bit later, but for now other news we're following for you tonight. An economic tit for tat is currently underway between the world's two super powers. First, U.S. President Donald Trump slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum imported from China. Then on Thursday, he tightened the screw with new taxes on other goods brought in from China worth up to $60 billion. As a result, the global markets nosedived. The Dow closed more than 700 points lower on Thursday and then this Friday, so far modestly proposing tariffs worth about $3 billion in response to the original round of Trump tariffs. More is likely to come and that is making investors nervous, indeed. This is how the Dow closed today, down 424. That's lower again today and while Mr. Trump is acting increasingly hawkishly on China, he's also just appointed new security adviser, his third since his administration began. John Bolton is the man and he is replacing H.R. McMaster in what is yet another high-profile shake-up of the White House in just the last few days. Bolton is a controversial pick given his views on Iraq and indeed his views on North Korea. So, let's discuss all of this with CNN's White House reporter, Stephen Collinson live in Washington for us. Stephen, John Bolton has been around for some time under various administrations and perhaps his most senior role as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, but might we see a different John Bolton under this president and under this administration and the Bolton we've seen of old?</s>STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR REPORTER: I don't think there's any reason to think that the John Bolton that we're going to see in the White House is going to change at least in terms of his policy views and his very hard line, as you said, on North Korea and his against the Iran deal and he's talked about the necessity to bomb Iran to end the program. He was a very prominent voice in the run-up to the war in Iraq supporting that action and I don't think it's likely that he will change his views when he gets to the moments when he has the most power in his entire career. You know, John Bolton is someone who is a very controversial figure in Washington. When he was nominated by President George W. Bush to be the U.N. ambassador, couldn't get a permanent appointment for that job because the Senate wouldn't confirm him largely because he was seen as somebody who was very hard on subordinates. And there was great resistance to him in the diplomatic corps, he's a very hard-charging character, but he's also somebody who knows how to use the levers of power in Washington so he's going to be a formidable opponent for his adversaries in the administration and he's a very interesting pick. The one thing that I would say is that what he must learn is that nobody in this administration is allowed to become more prominent and dominant than the president himself and if he doesn't learn that lesson, I don't think he'd be there for that long.</s>GORANI: And the president himself speaking earlier on, talking about this spending bill which he has now signed into law. You could argue that perhaps it was a useful distraction from some of the other rumors scandals in the White House, and he signed it, but wasn't all that pleased about it. Take a listen to this.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I say to Congress, I will never sign another bill like this again. I'm not going to do it again. Nobody read it. It's only hours old. Some people don't even know what it is -- $1.3 trillion.</s>JONES: So, you can hear there, Stephen, he signed it, but he will never do it again and it's apparent he didn't read it.</s>COLLINSON: Right. I mean, Donald Trump said he would to drain the swamp. This is a prime example of a swamp product coming out of Congress. You know, it's a bill that's bloated. The way you get stuff passed in Congress, everyone gets their pet project, and no one really knows what they're voting for because that's the way you need to get the votes. Donald Trump was happy to Trump it the things he does want to including increased military spending and more money for fighting the opioid epidemic, but to get that money, you have to compromise and concede on other things. What he didn't get in the bill was funding for his border wall which was at the center of his political project, if you like, since he started and that's one reason he's angry, but if he says he's not going to sign that bill again, if you want to get anything signed in Washington because of the way, you know, power is distributed, you have to give and take.</s>JONES: Stephen Collinson, thank you very much. Appreciate your analysis on this. I want to bring some breaking news and this resolves around activity in the U.K. at the moment. You will, of course, remember Cambridge Analytica, the data firm accused of having used Facebook data in order to help Donald Trump, perhaps help the campaigns around the world, various campaigns to get elected. The U.K. authorities, the Information Commission has been trying to get into Cambridge Analytica's U.K. office for the last week or so to get to the bottom of this and take documents and they just today managed to get a court order to do that. We understand at the moment that 18 officers from the U.K. Information Commission or currently searching those offices here in London. We'll bring you more on that as we get any further detail. But let's get back to what we were talking about before and the shake-ups in the White House in particular. My next guest has met John Bolton, the soon to be national security adviser and he's met him personally and he has wide expertise on the Asian region. Of course, that's interesting because of what we've been talking about with trade wars and the like and the</s>JAMIE METZL, SENIOR FELLOW, ATLANTIC COUNCIL: This could be, and this is a very significant turning point in America's relationship, not just with China, but with Asia. Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has been really the foundation of peace, security and stability in the Asia-Pacific region. And that depended on America being a responsible player in that region and in the world, and so, America certainly made sacrifices, but also contributed through security, through open markets and through all these kinds of things that the United States provided to the world and we benefited enormously. Donald Trump and his administration are looking to redo that deal and for America to behave like in many ways any other country, just with narrow, nationalist activities and behaviors and so now certainly, they talk of trade, we are not just with China. China has behaved not well at all and there are reasons for the united states to get tougher on China, but to get tough on China, the United States needs to do what it's done for so many years, which is to build coalitions around positive values and that's what this administration isn't doing.</s>JONES: It isn't doing at the moment and if we talked specifically about the tariffs in particular, it was some $50 billion, wide-ranging tariffs that the U.S. has put on China specifically, but China's response is being quite measured. Are you expecting more to come?</s>METZL: China is waiting to see what the United States is really doing. The U.S. tariffs won't be applied immediately. There's going to be about a month of a negotiation process potentially, so China wants to wait and see. Nobody certainly, China doesn't want to have a trade war with the United States, but at the same time China has gotten away with a lot of bad behaviors, blocking access for American international companies and forcing technology transfer and stealing intellectual property rights or stealing intellectual property and keeping America's big tech companies out of the Chinese markets. So, China has known that the United States at some point will need to get tougher on China, but China also recognizes that President Trump is weakening America so significantly through his erratic behavior by the tumult within the administration and there are all these threats that have been made that haven't been carried out. So, they want to see whether this is real or not, and whether Trump has the political ability and just the capacity within an administration that's in complete chaos to deliver on these tough words.</s>JONES: You talk about the chaos within the administration at the moment and the shake-ups going on, I am wondering what you think China might be making of John Bolton coming into the new role as national security adviser, given the fact that he has been very outspoken in the past at least about say, North Korea, a proponent of military intervention as opposed to any kind of dialogue and presumably China might be feeling quite sidelined by what's going on between the U.S. and North Korea right now.</s>METZL: I don't know if they're feeling sidelined because China still has the cards in many ways for North Korea because China's trade and aid and energy resources keep North Korea alive. So, whether this meeting happens between North Korea, Kim Jong-un and President Trump happens or not, it's very clear that North Korea will not be giving up its nukes any time soon. That the Trump administration has no meaningful strategy so it's not that there's going to be some kind of deal or could be some kind of deal that sidelines China. But what I do think is that people all across the region are extremely concerned that the so-called moderates, the relative moderates and the so-called adults in the room from the Trump administration are all being sidelined, and a series of ideologues are taking their place. The John Bolton who I know is a very smart, very thoughtful person, but he has been on the aggressive use of military action in Iran, for Iraq, and North Korea, and this is going to be a very, very difficult situation because the president already has erratic impulses. Already his administration is under threat because of all of these scandals and he is, in the middle of the night, when decisions are made in the old days at least you can say there were some people who are trying to moderate their impulses. Now every day, we are losing what limited protection we have. This is a very, very dangerous situation.</s>JONES: Yes, exactly. A lot of people saying that the president has just surrounded himself by yes men. Even Kellyanne Conway is saying get with the program or get out to staff members within the administration. Jamie, that's what we got time for. Jamie Metzl, we appreciate it. Thanks very much, indeed. Still to come on the program tonight, after a terror attack in Southern France leaves three people dead, we're asking does France have a specific problem? Hala Gorani is back live in Paris next.