| | | |  | | By Robbie Gramer and Eric Bazail-Eimil | | 
As the U.K.’s ambassador to the U.S., Karen Pierce has earned a reputation as one of the sharpest and most convivial ambassadors in Washington’s diplomatic circuit. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images | By Robbie Gramer and Eric Bazail-Eimil With help from John Sakellariadis, Paul McLeary, Daniel Lippman Subscribe here | Email Robbie | Email Eric At a moment when the world is reading the tea leaves as to how President DONALD TRUMP will approach transatlantic alliances and global crises, KAREN PIERCE has some perspective to give. As the U.K.’s ambassador to the U.S., Pierce has earned a reputation as one of the sharpest and most convivial ambassadors in Washington’s diplomatic circuit. She’s leaving her post as British ambassador here after five years and heading back to London — but not before NatSec Daily caught up with her to hear her takes on Trump’s foreign policy and the future of NATO and Ukraine. Here are a few highlights from the conversation we had in her office over — what else — a cup of tea. (Edited for length and clarity.) Do you think Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN will be an honest broker in any future negotiations with President Donald Trump on Ukraine? And if Trump ever asked your advice on how to deal with a man like Putin, what would your advice be? I don't think President Trump needs any advice from me about negotiations. The one thing I would say about Putin is that he always has more than one scenario that he can contemplate, he has two or three scenarios. He dials them up and dials them down, depending on what we do. So the tougher we are, the more he moves to his less demanding scenarios. Are you nervous about the future of the transatlantic alliance? No. Why not? Well, why would I be? Well, have you read any headline over the past 4 to 8 years? It has withstood the test of time. It lived through the Berlin Wall. It lived through the Berlin airlift. It lived through Vietnam, even though that wasn't a NATO enterprise. It lived through Afghanistan. You've got a wider group of people who would say NATO's incredibly important, the transatlantic alliance is important, American leadership is important. But there's got to be more burden sharing, and we would broadly endorse that. Do you think the U.K. would get to spending 5 percent of GDP on defense as the Trump administration has proposed for a new NATO defense spending benchmark? If you look at figures when the Cold War was over, most NATO partners were at around 4 percent of GDP. And now we have a much more dangerous world and we have many more adversaries than we had during the Cold War. So logically, that suggests that defense spending needs to go up. But there are all these other constraints and there are ways of spending money that reduce the chance of conflict that aren't military. But yes, I think defense spending will go up. Can we get to 5 percent? I think we'll have to see how the economic circumstances unfold over the next few years. But it's certainly the British government's intention to do more. One criticism we hear from Trump’s team is Europe collectively doesn’t take the China threat as seriously as the United States does. Your response? I was in a dinner the other night where someone made a very good point that America has never faced, possibly since 1812, an adversary as rich as they were or with an economy as big as theirs. And that is unnerving. And I can completely agree with that and I understand it. America, they don't look at China as a national security set of problems, or an economic set of problems, they see them as fundamentally the same thing. I think for Europe as a whole, there's more of a tendency to put things in baskets: This is what we do economically. This is what we do on national security. Is there daylight between the U.S. and U.K. on China? We probably do draw the line on cooperation with Chinese firms as opposed to firms owned by the Chinese Communist Party in a slightly different place from America. But we completely agree with America on the South China Sea, on freedom of navigation, on military risks and threats and human rights.
| | | | We’ve re-imagined and expanded our Inside Congress newsletter to give you unmatched reporting on Capitol Hill politics and policy -- and we'll get it to your inbox even earlier. Subscribe today. | | | | | | | NETANYAHU COMES TO TOWN: Israeli Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU is coming to Washington on Tuesday for a state visit and meeting with Trump. But he won’t be encountering a president who’s particularly optimistic about long-term peace prospects in Gaza. In the Oval Office today, Trump said that there are “no guarantees” the Gaza cease-fire will hold, though he praised the efforts of his special envoy for the Middle East, STEVE WITKOFF. “We'll see how it all turns out. It's complex, but I think he's going to do very well,” he said. Meanwhile, Israel has yet to name a negotiating team for the second phase of talks, which will seek to turn the six-week cease-fire into a permanent cease-fire and fully end fighting in the enclave. That move has sparked worries in some corners that Israel could undermine efforts to fully end the war against Palestinian militant group Hamas. Read: US to again withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council, stop UNRWA funding by our colleague Megan Messerly USAID CHAOS RAMPS UP: The developing USAID saga is becoming a key showing of the power and influence tech mogul ELON MUSK wields over administration policymaking (over more traditional players like Chief of Staff SUSIE WILES and national security adviser MIKE WALTZ). Democrats, after several days, are now mounting a concerted defense of the agency. Sen. BRIAN SCHATZ (D-Hawaii) said he’d place a blanket hold on State nominees until Trump backs off on USAID. Meanwhile, a group of Democratic lawmakers railed against Musk and Trump for their efforts to dismantle USAID in front of the agency’s building on Monday. NatSec Daily was there to cover the event. Flanked by a crowd of several hundred demonstrators, they called the move illegal and unconstitutional and vowed to fight it. “This is a constitutional crisis that we are in today," Sen. CHRIS MURPHY (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said. Murphy and other lawmakers said that weakening or eliminating USAID would benefit Washington's geopolitical rivals. "Elon Musk makes billions of dollars based off of his business with China. And China is cheering at this action today," Murphy said. "If we step back and create a vacuum, you know who steps in? It's Russia and China," said Rep. ALEXANDER VINDMAN (D-Va.). EXCHANGE RATE: President Trump on Monday threatened to require some of Ukraine’s valuable rare earth minerals in exchange for U.S. aid, as our own Paul McLeary and James Bikales write in. "We're looking to make a deal with Ukraine where they will secure what we're providing them with their rare earth materials and other resources," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. Context: While Ukraine’s deposits are spread throughout the country, many of its reserves are in areas now controlled by Moscow in the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions, making extraction impossible by the Ukrainian government. Putin, meanwhile, has floated the idea of slapping restrictions on exports of raw materials such as uranium, titanium and nickel. "We're looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they're going to secure what we're giving them with their rare earths and other things," Trump said. The minerals Ukraine has access to are critical in the manufacturing of batteries, radar systems, and armor – all key for the U.S. and its allies. Trump has shown recent interest in Greenland’s reserves as well. Both would go a long way to reducing the West’s reliance on Chinese minerals. IT’S MONDAY: Thanks for tuning in to NatSec Daily! This space is reserved for the top U.S. and foreign officials, the lawmakers, the lobbyists, the experts and the people like you who care about how the natsec sausage gets made. Aim your tips and comments at rgramer@politico.com and ebazail@politico.com, and follow Robbie and Eric on X @RobbieGramer and @ebazaileimil. While you’re at it, follow the rest of POLITICO’s global security team: @dave_brown24, @HeidiVogt, @jessicameyers, @RosiePerper, @nahaltoosi, @PhelimKine, @connorobrienNH, @paulmcleary, @reporterjoe, @JackDetsch, @samuelskove, @magmill95, and @johnnysaks130
| | DEFENSE BRACES FOR TRADE WAR: The defense industry could suffer some major blows if Trump’s tariffs take effect. As our friends at Morning Defense wrote today (for Pros!), defense businesses are worrying that a North American trade war will upend supply chains and jack up prices. In particular, tariffs on steel, aluminum, and rare earth minerals from Canada might drive up the Pentagon’s costs for military programs, particularly shipbuilding and aircraft production. It could also lead to delays and disruptions similar to the Covid-era crunch. While tariffs could incentivize the domestic production of key raw materials, the U.S. lacks the infrastructure to immediately replace foreign suppliers. The Aerospace Industries Association on Sunday warned Trump’s tariffs could erode the aerospace and defense trade industry’s "decades-long" status as a top exporter and its "skyrocketing positive trade balance." It’s worth noting that U.S. trading partners aren’t out of the clear, even as Trump delays tariffs on China and Mexico. As Trump made explicit in his Truth Social post on Monday, high-level talks will be held soon featuring Rubio, Treasury Secretary SCOTT BESSENT and Commerce Secretary nominee HOWARD LUTNICK to fully iron out issues with Mexico. Similar talks will take place with China, the administration announced. All the while, tariffs against Canada have yet to be postponed. Trump is scheduled to speak to Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU today, but they could still be implemented if he feels unsatisfied with Ottawa’s response.
| | GABBARD EXPLAINS SNOWDEN DODGE: TULSI GABBARD, Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, is reiterating her refusal to label EDWARD SNOWDEN a “traitor,” arguing in a new op-ed that it is irresponsible to throw around that label casually — like others have done to her. “Treason is a capital offense, punishable by death, yet politicians like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former U.S. Senator Mitt Romney have slandered me, Donald Trump Jr. and others with baseless accusations of treason,” Gabbard wrote for Newsweek. Gabbard’s refusal to call the former NSA contractor a traitor before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week alarmed Democrats and Republicans alike. The committee is expected to vote on Gabbard’s nomination Tuesday, our own John Sakellariadis reports.
| | THE MSC UNINVITED LIST: One of the world’s top security confabs, the Munich Security Conference, has banned Germany’s far-right and far-left parties from attending as Germany grapples with its own populist headwinds ahead of elections later this month. MSC chair CHRISTOPH HEUSGEN confirmed the exclusion Monday, pointing to the decision of both Alternative for Germany and Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance to walk out during Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY's address to the German parliament last June. Who wasn’t disinvited? POLITICO. In case you missed the news on Friday, POLITICO is opening the doors to the POLITICO Pub, which will be just next door to the MSC main event. If any of our loyal readers are joining the throngs of natsec officials flocking to Munich for the big annual conference, let us know! Join our all-star team at MSC from Thursday, Feb.13. Full details here.
| | — Right-wing intellectual DARREN BEATTIE, who was forced out of a faculty position at Duke University after attending a conference with white nationalists, will fill the role of acting undersecretary for public diplomacy, two State Department officials confirm to NatSec Daily — both granted anonymity to discuss internal personnel matters. (Semafor first reported the move). He’s beloved in Trump’s orbit, getting praise from allies like STEVE BANNON. But Beattie has cast doubt on the need to defend Taiwan, downplayed alleged Chinese abuses towards Uighur Muslims and once urged Sen. TIM SCOTT (R-S.C.) to “learn his place and take a KNEE to MAGA.” A State Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. — JONATHAN GUYER is now program director at the Institute for Global Affairs at Eurasia Group. He is a former senior writer at Vox and managing editor of The American Prospect. — DANIEL THAYER is now military legislative assistant for Rep. MARK MESSMER (R-Ind.). He previously was legislative correspondent for Sen. RAND PAUL (R-Ky.). — ALEXANDRA BELL joined the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists as the organization’s president and chief executive officer. She was previously deputy assistant secretary of State for nuclear affairs in the Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability. — Lockheed Martin added KATIE ORLOWSKY MCINTYRE, formerly of BAE, as its director of government relations. Lockheed has also hired MONICA MATOUSH, formerly Invariant’s senior director of government relations, as director of congressional affairs for its aeronautics programs. She is a former House Armed Services Committee communications director.
| | — Yasir Zaidan, Foreign Policy: Why Sudanese democracy activists are now backing the army — Katrina Northrop and Vic Chiang, The Washington Post: What to know about China’s role in the fentanyl crisis — Charles C. W. Cooke, National Review: Trump wages a needless war
| | — Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 9 a.m.: Standoff at the border: Rebuilding the India-China relationship — Wilson Center's Mexico Institute, 9 a.m.: Ten political risks for Mexico in 2025 — Senate Judiciary Committee, 10:30 a.m.: The poisoning of America: Fentanyl, its analogues, and the need for permanent class scheduling — Center for Strategic and International Studies, 11 a.m.: North Korean troops in Russia: Comrades in arms or cannon fodder? — Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, 12 p.m.: Europe and the Trump administration — Wilson Center Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, 12 p.m.: Book discussion on "Punishing Putin: Inside the Global Economic War to Bring Down Russia" Thanks to our editor, Heidi Vogt, who throws terrible parties on Washington’s diplomatic circuit. Thanks to our producer, Gregory Svirnovskiy, whose diplomatic parties are among the most beloved in Washington.
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