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Quest Means Business
Windsor, Ontario Gets Caught in the Middle of Trade War; Indonesia Seeks to Attract Visitors to New Destinations. Trump Says He Will Delay Auto Tariffs for One Month; U.S. Stock Rise After White House Announces Delay on Auto Tariffs; CIA Director: U.S. Pauses Intelligence Support to Ukraine. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired March 05, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:10]
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST, "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS": Closing bell ringing on Wall Street. We have a very distinguished group of bell ringers,
the Congressional Medal of Honor Society are ringing the bell today, and they are doing it on a day when the market actually has rallied quite
sharply. We will explain exactly what happened there and put that into context.
And now, sir, one, two. Oh, there we go. Exhausted. I'm not surprised. The market is closed. The market is up. Let's take a look at the main events of
the day.
Donald Trump has given North American automakers a month's reprieve from massively disruptive tariffs.
Emmanuel Macron says Europe needs to be ready if the U.S. is no longer by its side.
And a new era in Germany, the next government plans to ease the country's debt brake.
Good evening. I am in London tonight, live from London. Wednesday, March the 5th. I am Richard Quest and in London, I mean business.
Good evening.
Donald Trump has given North America carmakers a month's reprieve from tariffs, only a day after he introduced them.
Shares of GM, Stellantis and Ford soared on the news, up at least five percent. The White House made no mention of sparing other goods imported
from Canada and Mexico, and it reiterated reciprocal tariffs are set to take effect on April the 2nd.
The Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, spoke to President Trump about the tariffs. His office called it a constructive conversation. In a
slightly dismissive message on social media, the U.S. President said it was somewhat friendly.
He posted that Canada has still not done enough to stop the fentanyl trade. He also continued to call Justin Trudeau Governor Trudeau, and said he was
aiming to hold on, to cling on to power.
There is Jeff at the White House. Paula is in Ottawa, and I am going to let you two talk to each other in a sense, because, Jeff, what happened? What
caused the President to change his mind? Start with you, Jeff.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Richard, you started with the stock market right there, showing the rally today, but that was
the opposite, of course, on Tuesday and for the last couple of days here, the White House, of course, has been very -- keeping a close eye on a
metric that the President watches very closely.
But also, it was a series of personal phone calls that the top three automakers had with the President. Yesterday, they had another round of
calls with him. Today, I am told they made the argument that it put them at an unfair competitive advantage to have these tariffs imposed on them,
because the whole idea of the North American Free Trade Agreement was to have goods flow from Canada to the United States, to Mexico, and that is
how automotive companies work.
I mean, there is -- the suppliers are here and the other parts are there. So, the President was essentially won over by their argument to give them a
one-month reprieve. But the question is, what does one month do exactly?
And the White House Press Secretary also said that the President is open to exemptions or carve outs on other matters as well. So that really the
bottom line is, for all of this whiplash here, that the President's tariff message has caused. Is his bark worse than its bite? It has certainly cost
a lot of financial pain, if you will, but it is unclear if he likes imposing tariffs as much as he likes threatening tariffs.
QUEST: And Paula, it seems from what Jeff is saying that it really is the car companies that made him think again, not the conversation with Justin
Trudeau, which by the President's readout of it, he was fairly dismissive of the Canadian Prime Minister.
PAULA NEWTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST AND CORRESPONDENT: I mean, look, let's pick up on that theme, right? What Jeff said, look, it is the bark that is
biting right now. And I can tell you, across the automotive industry, the one-month reprieve pretty much greeted with a shrug, despite what the
markets think right now.
The markets went up because they do not believe he is going to go through with any tariffs on autos at the end of the day. I think, Canada is at this
point not so sure. I think the Trump administration has passed the point of no return. Why they continue to talk about exemptions and carve outs, I
guess, I suppose Canadian industries will take it, but the uncertainty has already done damage on both sides of the border, and right now we have at
least one premier, Doug Ford, that you know, runs the largest economy, Ontario, in Canada, saying we are not going to budge on retaliatory tariffs
for a month's reprieve. We are just not doing that.
[16:05:10]
And I think there is a level of exhaustion here that business people and ordinary Canadians just want to say, rip the Band-Aid off. We know this is
going to hurt Canada much more than it is going to hurt the United States. The U.S. will win the trade war, hands down, and people are saying, let's
get on with it. Let's just figure out what our economic future looks like without the United States. That will take time.
But I don't think that, you know, and as you just pointed out astutely, Richard, look, this wasn't Trudeau or any negotiation that made the
difference here, it was the car companies themselves that have billions of dollars in investment right now on the line.
QUEST: Jeff, I want to pick up on this.
From what we are hearing and it is not just about cars, per se, because it is the same with Macron in France, which we will be talking about in a
second.
Donald Trump is in danger of everybody saying, fine, do your worst. We will all suffer, but we cannot keep having this infantile, immature, make a
decision, reverse it the next day.
ZELENY: I mean, good luck with that. That is part of the strategy to the extent that there actually is one, it is to keep other leaders, companies
off balance. It is to keep them wondering and guessing what is going to come next, if a threat is actually going to be followed through and carried
through or not.
But look, the bottom line is, as Paula was saying on automakers, I am told the President also is really won over by the argument of Michigan. He
treats these battleground states, the political battleground states that he won almost as his own. He talks about them as my battlegrounds and the fact
that this would really cause some deep economic pain in Michigan, I am told, was persuasive to the President.
Of course, that argument does not work in a broader context of all of Canada or indeed reciprocal agreements elsewhere. He is very much focused
on what he is focused on, but that is what I am told is what the -- you know, help make the argument here from the automakers who spent quite a bit
of time with him.
And you're right, it was the call with the Big Three that had much more impact than the call with the outgoing Prime Minister of Canada.
QUEST: Jeff at the White House; Paula in Ottawa, grateful. We will talk more as it moves on.
The markets rose after the news that we showed you, the Dow was considerably higher. And you remember I told you how I would explain why.
Well, there you are. I mean that chart tells the day of when they heard that the tariffs or the 30-day reprieve would be announced.
Still, today's gains are barely making -- well, they are not, they are failing to make up for the losses in recent weeks. All U.S. major averages
remain below where they were when President Trump was Inaugurated.
Ruchir Sharma is the Chairman of the Rockefeller International and founder of Breakout Capital.
His latest book is "What Went Wrong with Capitalism." It is an excellent -- it is an excellent piece -- and he is with me now.
It is not so much what went wrong with capitalism, it is how can anybody operate capitalism when you have a President that makes a decision, changes
it the next day because certain facts, which should have been obvious before the decision was implemented, suddenly come home to roost.
RUCHIR SHARMA, CHAIRMAN, ROCKEFELLER INTERNATIONAL AND FOUNDER, BREAKOUT CAPITAL: Well, Richard, I think that the focus has been very much on how
the U.S. stock market has been behaving with all of this volatility, but I think something else more interesting has been going on this week, which
is, if you recall, at the beginning of this year, there was this very popular conventional wisdom on Wall Street that Trump's policies, including
tariffs, may or may not be good for America, but they would be terrible for the rest of the world.
Instead, what we have seen this week is that the dollar has suffered a very sharp decline. This is completely against what the entire Wall Street crowd
was expecting. What is this revealing to me? It is revealing that the rest of the world one, is getting its act together, as we saw in Germany with
its fiscal reform; and two, that I think investors are beginning to notice that there are other countries worth investing in given all this policy
volatility that is happening in the U.S.
I think those are the more important trends that are emerging here.
QUEST: But they will take time to play out, whether it be south trade or trade that avoids the u., that that can't happen in a moment in a sense.
I ask, though, the damage from tariffs, it is going to be deep. It is going to be broad. But will the U.S. suffer less than others?
SHARMA: Well, you know, Richard, the research that I've put out here and I wrote about this as well earlier this year, is that the rest of the world
has already been moving on, that if you look at it since the beginning of Trump's first term, back eight years ago, the U.S. share in global trade
has been declining.
[16:10:10]
And if you look at the fastest growing trade routes in the world, the U.S. is not there in most of those trade routes anymore. In fact, of the 10
fastest growing trade routes in the world, the U.S. is there at one end of those in only two of them.
So I think the world has been moving on. But yes, the world is still very dependent on the U.S. and selling into the U.S., but the big shift which is
happening is that the rest of the world are forming their own free trade agreements, their own alliances and so moving on.
So, therefore this volatility is here to stay.
QUEST: Let me jump in there, because on that point I am going to ask you the same question that I asked Paula and Jeff Zeleny, at what point, and
maybe your answer is we were already there. Does the rest of the world say you're going to do it anyway? Just do it and we will deal with it, but we
can no longer just jump to your tune.
SHARMA: Well, China is already showing signs of that, that if you look at China, they've barely responded to it. Even their retaliatory measures have
not been very strong, but they have barely responded to any of this noise.
So I think that China is playing the long waiting game and instead, what these countries need to do is to get their own domestic act together,
rather than just keep relying on selling to the U.S.
So even the message to China, which I think Xi Jinping has taken, is that they need to do much more to boost their own domestic consumption to sort
of give a reassurance to their own private sector, you know, that we are here to back you.
That's the way the rest of the world needs to play this game, which is to sort of strengthen its domestic consumer base, its domestic manufacturers,
rather than just keep relying on selling to the U.S. and you can offset some of that and we've seen that already in Europe, that there was so much
despair about Europe. And, so many Americans, you know, thought it appropriate to lecture Europe about how weak their economies are and how
poorly their economies have done, all fair.
But I think that this German response, where they sort of come and say that, okay, we are going to do a massive fiscal reform here and we are
going to boost our economy that's already having a big impact on Germany's stock markets and the whole of Europe.
QUEST: I am grateful to you, sir. I certainly will be following up with you in the weeks and months ahead on this theory of how countries are adapting
--
Now, later in this program, we will be speaking to the mayor of a city on the front line of the U.S.-Canadian trade war. The map shows it all. One
side is Detroit, the other side is Windsor, Ontario. The mayor of Windsor will be with me. That's later.
First, in a primetime address, the French President Emmanuel Macron is warning the United States that any tariffs on Europe will not go
unanswered.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translator): We have to also be prepared for the U.S. to decide about the tariffs, which they might be
imposing on Europe, as they have on Canada and Mexico.
This decision is incomprehensible as much for the American economy as for ours.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:15:52]
QUEST: Ukraine says positive progress in their words, that's what is being made towards rebuilding the frayed relationship with the United States. It
was a video message from President Zelenskyy where he said Kyiv and Washington are working on organizing another meeting, and he hinted it
could come as soon as next week.
For those in Ukraine, it can't come soon enough after the U.S. confirmed it has paused critical intelligence support which Kyiv uses to defend against
Russian attacks.
Nick Paton Walsh is in Kyiv for us this evening.
Nick, look, you know, it was depressing enough when they announced that they were suspending military aid, but suspending intelligence assistance,
that is devastating when basically it is the backbone of how much of the war is being fought.
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, it has been a huge advantage, frankly, for Ukraine to know what
Russia has been planning or doing. It hasn't necessarily always been in real time, the sharing, and so there possibly are some hopes that maybe
this pause will be very short and then ultimately not have an immediate, palpable impact.
But again, it is a body blow to the morale of Ukraine beginning to wonder quite whether the Trump administration is ever going to land on their side.
Twenty-four hours ago, they woke up to see that U.S. military aid had been stopped, and then everyone said, oh, don't worry, intelligence sharing
won't get impacted. It was.
Then Trump's speech last night said he had received a letter from Zelenskyy, who said he wanted peace, said he was going to sign the rare
earth minerals deal and Zelenskyy earlier in the day had used the word "regrettable" twice about the Oval Office meeting, which most people in
Ukraine here, frankly think it was a public dressing down for their President, their wartime commander.
So hopes had been there that things were on the mend, but then two key Security Cabinet officials go on Fox and talk about how intelligence
sharing, John Ratcliffe of the CIA says he thinks it will be restored soon, but Mike Waltz, the National Security adviser, suggests that Ukraine needs
to do more, be more involved, more committed to specific peace talks.
But let's face it, the White House hasn't spelled out exactly what kind of peace they are talking about here, what it needs Ukraine to commit to yet -
- Richard.
QUEST: Okay, so same question I am asking everybody, in a sense in their various different guise. At what point does Ukraine just recognize that the
U.S. is no longer on its side, and I won't go so far as to sort of say, wants Russia to win, but is ambivalent about whether Ukraine survives or
not.
WALSH: I mean, on the surface science so far, if you're looking at this purely from actions, are that the U.S. is no longer really on Ukraine's
side, but Ukraine can't afford to make that conclusion. They need the patriot air defense missiles that only the United States can provide. We've
just had a 53-year-old man die in Kryvyi Rih from a Russian ballistic attack on a hotel there. That may well be because there were enough
patriots. Ukraine counts them every morning.
Intelligence sharing vital as well. There are certain specific things that Ukraine desperately needs from the United States, and so we have this
separate track now building pace. You just mentioned Emmanuel Macron address to the nation there, hammering home the need for Europe to be more
united, suggesting the possibility of expanding France's nuclear umbrella to protect Germany, talking about how Russia's aggression knows no
boundaries.
They are spending 40 percent of their GDP on defense, really laying the groundwork for tomorrow's meeting in Brussels, which President Zelenskyy
will also attend, and then saying there is another meeting next week in Paris where more military details will be discussed about how the French
and I understand it, from a European official, British and likely Turkish, will put together the bulk of a reassurance force for here.
But that same European official said to me, look, it is high risk. We simply can't really do this without American enabling assistance and
psychological reassurance as well.
So, so much moving, so much scrambling in European capitals to make up for the American absence, but ultimately no real, I think, understanding or
acceptance of the possibility of doing this without Washington.
That's something that for 80 years no one has ever had to really even consider -- Richard.
[16:20:04]
QUEST: That is the point. That is exactly the point. It is thinking the unthinkable. Thank you, Nick Paton Walsh in Kyiv tonight.
On what Nick was talking about, President Macron says Europe needs to be ready to stand without the U.S. by its side. Now, just pause and let
yourself digest that thought. Bearing in mind what we know, 80 years of a post-Second World War alliance.
President Macron told France that his country would consider protecting European allies with its nuclear arsenal and that France remains committed
to working within NATO and said Europe must help Ukraine resist Russian aggression.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MACRON (through translator): I think that it will be the case that U.S. will be by our side, but that has not been the case so far.
The European states or states of Europe must be capable of defending themselves better and to dissuade, to deter the Russian threat. We have to
make sure that we reequip better and to increase our security and to deter..
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: All right, joining me Antonio Assis Teixeira, a journalist with our colleagues at CNN Portugal. He is in Brussels.
Antonio, look, we've had lots and lots and lots of meetings. This is -- you know, London here, there, everywhere. This is another one. Why is this one
in Brussels tomorrow different?
ANTONIO ASSIS TEIXEIRA, CNN PORTUGAL JOURNALIST: Indeed, Richard, we had lots of meetings, but now the European leaders have a plan that tomorrow,
they will discuss a plan that was presented by the European Commission earlier this week and will be a basis for the discussion.
Tomorrow, European leaders will promise to turn the page on Europe defense, because things have changed in the past month. The latest face-to-face
meeting between European leaders was one month ago here in Brussels, an informal retreat, and since then, the American position has developed.
Things happened in the White House.
So there is another sense of urgency and a question that needs to be tackled. And the European leaders really, really want to make and have this
political sign that they will endorse the European Commission plan that Ursula von der Leyen will present tomorrow to the 27.
QUEST: Right. But who leads? Who leads in all of this? The one thing about Europe is its very difficult to find who actually takes the lead and what
invariably happens is, it is either the Brits or the French.
Now, Ursula von der Leyen hasn't got an army. She controls a budget, but it is everybody else's money. So in this scenario, who becomes the most
important player, do you think?
TEIXEIRA: I think that the European leaders will most likely want to have a team play. Of course, there are the institutional figures that will play
the part, but another topic that might be discussed tomorrow is the creation of this figure that exists in the United States, the Special
Envoy.
There is not much more information about this, but this is something that the European leaders will discuss if it is good to achieve peace, which is
the end goal of every European leader.
Now, with the development that we have from the French President that addressed the question and will open the debate of using the nuclear
framework, this will not be in the agenda, the formal agenda, but it might be on the informal conversations between leaders.
QUEST: Final question to you though, this is -- this core idea that 80 years of security with the United States and that the U.S. might be
changing sides, or at least is an unreliable ally that is shaking Brussels and its leaders and the European Union.
TEIXEIRA: I mean, the past few days and the past and the latest events indeed has shaken up the Europe political foundations, but we've heard
President Macron saying that basically summarizing a position that is shared among lots of European leaders that want to believe that the United
States will be on the European side, but also want to be prepared and to be ready for the fact that the United States might not be on the European
side.
[16:25:08]
And that is why, he is addressing now this nuclear question again, of course, that European leaders still want to have a contact with the United
States administration. It was suggested a few days ago the creation of this European-U.S. Summit, which, it is very well received. Of course, there is
no contacts now to the creation of this event, but there is a consensus that is very -- and a lot important for the European leaders.
QUEST: I am grateful to you, sir, tonight in Brussels, where the meeting takes place tomorrow.
The next likely Chancellor of Germany plans to ease the country's debt limit so can spend more on defense. Germany's fiscal discipline goes back
to its postwar reconstruction, its so-called debt brake is more recent, adopted in 2009.
Under the brake, the annual deficit is limited to 0.35 percent of GDP. A proposed reform would exempt certain borrowing. Most of it would go towards
an infrastructure of more than $500 billion, defense spending above a certain amount would also be exempt.
German investors cheered the potential. The Dax closed more than three percent higher.
Carsten Brzeski is the chief economist for ING.
This idea of eliminating the debt brake in certain circumstances, I mean, every Finance Minister is in some -- I mean, we saw it with the Chancellor
of the Exchequer shifting the goalposts to sort of say, what is legitimate borrowing versus illegitimate borrowing.
But this is different for Germany, isn't it?
CARSTEN BRZESKI IS, CHIEF ECONOMIST, ING: This is extremely different because the last Finance Ministers had somehow been kind of beacon of
austerity for Germany. So we've never had any Finance Minister since the debt brake was introduced who really argued in favor of more spending.
This is now -- this is historical. This is really a complete U-turn, because it also means that there will not only be more money for defense
spending, but also this 500 billion euro investment fund for infrastructure is unique because it means that Germany finally will want to close this big
investment gap that has been piled up over the last decade, because there are estimates going for 600 billion investment gap in infrastructure built
up over the last 10 years and this is now finally being resolved.
QUEST: So we've seen other countries, I mean obviously the U.S. with its Infrastructure Act did it and the U.K. has had a bash at that. And indeed
the E.U. has got its own plan. But, but, but on this defense spending and all of these other bits of spending, you still need somebody to pull it all
together.
This is the difficult part with Europe. Everybody is spending more and we've seen defense stocks rise sharply. But how is it coordinated if NATO
is not to be the leader?
BRZESKI: Well, I think this would be the rub for Ursula von der Leyen and the European Commission and this is also why European leaders are meeting
this weekend in Brussels, because I think the time apparently is not ripe yet for really something like a European defense fund, where we would have
European borrowing to finance, really defense.
So this will go national again, and I guess that then the European Commission has already kind of paved the way by saying that national member
states will be allowed to run higher deficits if it is for the sake of increasing spending on defense.
QUEST: Donald Trump has implied, well said, his tariffs are coming. Let's assume that they do arrive. European growth is already weak. Will tariffs
push the economies into something approaching recession or further?
BRZESKI: We have so many kind of moving pieces right now, Richard. It is very hard to tell whether if tariffs come and I think they will come,
whether this would be enough to really push the European economy into recession.
If, on the other hand, we will now get this confidence boost by these fiscal stimulus announcements coming out of Germany. So these are really
going into kind of opposing direction.
The only thing is, yes --
QUEST: Yes, sorry, on that, I've been reading various articles suggesting people like you are basically throwing your papers on the floor and saying
it is impossible to make reliable, credible economic models out of the data and things that we are hearing. We just can't do it because we can't get
the right information.
BRZESKI: Currently, it is impossible because things are moving so fast. I think what the tariffs mean that the U.S. economy will become even more
attractive, also on the back of deregulation in the U.S.
So lower taxes in the U.S., already lower energy prices. So taxes could be a stick to push European companies further to the U.S., but now if we
really get this counter movement by infrastructure spending in Europe, by more defense spending in Europe, this could then again pull back European
and also foreign companies to stay and to continue staying in Europe.
So, this is really what we are living in very interesting times right now.
QUEST: Carsten, I am grateful. There will be more interesting times and we will talk more in the days and weeks ahead. Thank you, sir.
QUEST MEANS BUSINESS tonight. We are in London. I am going to talk now about Windsor, no, not Windsor in England; Windsor in Canada, home of the
busiest border crossing with the United States. Joining me is the mayor, there he is, the mayor of Windsor will be with me after the break.
He has had a reprieve on autos today, but it is only short lived and I am sure he has got some thoughts on that.
QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.
[16:01:04]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: The Canadian prime minister had a phone call today with Donald Trump. They discussed tariffs. Justin Trudeau's office called the 50-minute
call constructive. As Canada has been promising retaliation for tariffs that it's been imposed, the premier of Ontario says he's starting with
American made liquors to retaliate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOUG FORD, ONTARIO PREMIER: To support the federal government's efforts, Ontario will also launch its first round of retaliation. Starting today
LCBO, the largest purchaser of alcohol in the world, will begin removing U.S. products from its store shelves.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Well, caught in the middle of all of this is a place called Windsor. Windsor, Ontario. Now there you see it on the map. There you have the
Detroit River. Detroit in the U.S. on one side, Windsor on the other. It's the southernmost part of the country, and it's across from Detroit.
[16:35:04]
Now, the primary connection between these two is the Ambassador Bridge. It is the busiest border crossing in all of North America, but it's also got
lots of traffic on it, as you can see there. Now, the residents in Windsor are simply fed up with what's been happening.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The tariffs are bogus, right? I mean, this is just a ridiculous situation that we find ourselves in. We're the best friends of
the United States. They're our best friends. They are just -- well, it all comes to Donald Trump, right? He needs an excuse to be an (EXPLETIVE
DELETED). And that's what he's doing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Well, Drew Dilkens is with me, the mayor of Windsor.
Mr. Mayor, good to have you with us. Thank you, sir. You have a reprieve because I know autos is the backbone of the traffic that goes across. Those
cars go backwards and forwards as they're being constructed. You've got a 30-day reprieve. Hip, hip, hooray. Are you happy?
DREW DILKENS, WINDSOR, CANADA MAYOR: Well, let's hope it sticks. I mean, this seems to be a moving target each and every day, and we never know
what's coming next. It's almost like the Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. So we're grateful for the reprieve, announced to be 30 days today.
Let's hope it makes it that long. And let's hope before we get to April 2nd that it goes away entirely.
QUEST: Even if it's the autos, get a permanent reprieve, there's still the tariffs on all the other goods that Canada is sending to the U.S. and now
you have tit-for-tat retaliation. Are Canadians ready for this, do you think?
DILKENS: No, I think, you know, the folks you just interviewed there and play that people are spitting mad about this. We've been best friends,
allies, largest trading partners. We've worked on joint trade agreements, at least in the auto sector, since the 1960s. We built the free trade
agreement that moved to NAFTA. It then moved to CUSMA and USMCA, and CUSMA and USMCA was created when Donald Trump was in his first term.
And he claimed that was the best trade deal ever. And so all of a sudden, it is an unfair trade deal to the United States. But the stats show a
different story, Richard. It shows that this trade deal has created more jobs than Mexico and Canada, and in the United States. It's grown the pie
of GDP. It's been good for all three countries. So we're a little spitting mad that we're at this point because it makes no sense to us.
And the stated purpose of why they're put in place, border security and fentanyl, we know that's bogus. Just tell us what it is we're trying --
what target are we trying to reach here? Is it an early renegotiation of the trade agreement? Let's get the folks around the table, do the work, and
make sure we continue to build the economies together.
QUEST: Because as I was -- I've been reading, and you'll know more about this than me. There's actually no barometer that shows how much fentanyl is
coming across or shows the numbers. Apparently, according to some research, there's actually no real time data that the president could even be using
to prove that it hasn't been happening.
DILKENS: Well, and to your point, the data that is available, that is publicly reported by U.S. Customs, shows that fentanyl from Canada to the
United States is less than 1 percent of overall seizures, and the same with border crossings, illegal border crossings from Canada to the United
States, it was around, I think, 10,000 folks last year, where we know what happens on the southern border of the United States. It was millions of
people.
QUEST: So the -- clearly this is a policy of Donald Trump and the Trump administration and all of those in government. How do you -- as a leader in
Canada, how do you prevent people sort of doing a collective guilt on Americans or U.S. citizens, and basically saying, you know, an animus
building against the United States and Americans, which of course serves nobody's purpose?
DILKENS: Yes. And I -- listen, we've seen a couple instances where the U.S. national anthem has played at sporting events in Canada, and people are
booing. That is not Canadian. I certainly would never do that myself. And I think if you asked most of the Canadians who came out of that game what
they felt, they probably apologized to you for having to do it. We don't hold Americans responsible for this.
We hold one American responsible, and so we know where to place the blame. But what we're trying to do is just figure out what the end goal is because
putting a 25 percent tariff on Canada is just a tax to U.S. consumers. It's going to raise prices for U.S. goods, and it's going to be really bad for
business for everyone. So how do we get to the other side of this sooner rather than later?
QUEST: Mr. Mayor, thank you very much, sir. And may I say I visited your wonderful city on several occasions and always had a very warmest of
welcomes. Thank you, sir, for joining us tonight.
DILKENS: Thank you.
QUEST: Now, Indonesia says it's looking to promote new travel destinations this year. Foreign tourists have steadily been returning, though not yet
back to pre-pandemic levels. I spoke to Indonesia's tourism minister at ITB in Berlin.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WIDIYANTI PUTRI WARDHANA, INDONESIAN TOURISM MINISTER: Last year our tourist, inbound tourist is 13.9 million. It's a 19 percent increase from
the previous year, and our domestic tourist is about one billion trips per year. And our quality tourism is the key that we want to focus this year.
QUEST: What does that mean in a sense? What do you mean by that?
WARDHANA: So quality tourism is being a quality destination but also giving the quality service, meaning that it's clean, hygienic and friendly.
QUEST: When you look at the competition in the region?
WARDHANA: Yes.
QUEST: Is it difficult to differentiate? Is it difficult, you know, to stand out, I wonder?
WARDHANA: We're an archipelago country, the biggest archipelago with 17,000 islands. We have the second biodiversity of the world and we have 10 UNESCO
heritage sites.
QUEST: So how many people are you hoping to come, will attract this year?
WARDHANA: This year, around 16 million.
QUEST: Sixteen million. The big challenge for everybody is to somehow disperse, isn't it? So that everybody isn't all going to the same three
places. How successful are you being at that?
WARDHANA: OK, everyone knows Bali.
QUEST: I do. I've been there.
WARDHANA: We have five new places to promote, Lake Toba in North Sumatra, Lombok for the Moto1 GP, Labuan Bajo is very beautiful island where the
Komodo dragons live and it has pink beach, and Jogjakarta, it has Borobudur Temple, and also Likupang is the biodiversity for snorkeling and diving.
QUEST: The famous BP beach.
WARDHANA: Yes.
QUEST: How is it doing, that beach?
WARDHANA: It's very nice, a lot of people. But we still need to promote and improve the infrastructure. The connectivity issue that we have right now,
but we have to improve.
QUEST: That's one of the big challenges, isn't it?
WARDHANA: Correct.
QUEST: Improving infrastructure and managing to grow that. What do you need? What would help grow that, do you think.
WARDHANA: Investment. Investment from abroad and also within the country. Recently we launched the Indonesian Sovereign Wealth Fund, Danantara, by
the president. We hope that it will increase investment in infrastructure that can help improve the connectivity issue. So that in turn it could
improve the tourism industry.
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QUEST: Indonesia. And that's QUEST MEANS BUSINESS. I'm Richard Quest in London. Coming up next, "CONNECTING AFRICA."
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(CONNECTING AFRICA)
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