[Camerota:] Three days until inauguration day and the outgoing administration is scolding Mr. Trump on foreign policy. Secretary of State John Kerry speaking out in an exclusive CNN interview with chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour. Listen.
[John Kerry, Secretary Of State:] Well, I thought, frankly, it was inappropriate for a president-elect of the United States to be stepping into the politics of other countries in a quite direct manner, and he will have to speak to that. As of Friday, you know, he's responsible for that relationship. But I think we have to be very careful about suggesting that one of the strongest leaders in Europe and most important players with respect to where we are heading
[Christiane Amanpour, Cnn Chief International Correspondent:] You are talking about Angela Merkel.
[Kerry:] make one mistake or another, I don't think it's appropriate for us to be commenting on that.
[Camerota:] Christiane Amanpour joins us now morning from London. Good morning, Christiane. So, great interview there. Very insightful. What Secretary Kerry was talking about was Mr. Trump talking about Angela Merkel, calling her refugee policy catastrophic. Mr. Trump also talked about NATO and he called that obsolete. What did Secretary Kerry say about that?
[Amanpour:] Well, this was a lot to digest for Europe, you know, here in Europe, people have been reacting, quoteunquote, "with astonishment and agitation," that was the word from mainland Europe after this interview was published, because it was taking aim at Europe's strongest leader in terms of calling the refugee policy catastrophic. Before, he had called it insane. He hasn't even met these people yet and is considered unusual for a president-elect to take such specific language and policy sort of directions without even coming into office. So, another thing that was really irritating to the Europeans was what seemed to be a predictionunquote, "a call" for more European nations to leave the E.U., just as Britain had done and calling NATO obsolete. And it caused a pushback, immediately, the NATO secretary- general, you know, said, no, we believe the U.S. is committed to NATO in defense of all the alliance and we will make sure and work hard with it. Angela Merkel said, look, I've heard this before. He has his ideas. I have mine. Europe has control of its own destiny, and the French immediately, including the person pushing back and saying what we need is to defend ourselves, our unity and we don't need any help or comments from outside. But it really has put European allies on a state of anxious, awaiting this next administration, because it looks like certainly from the words that the entire post-World War II raison d'etre of America and its alliance and liberal, economic political world order that was created is about to be turned back, and that is what they're worried about.
[Camerota:] Christiane, I've also just been handed out this bulletin out of Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum is meeting. I know you've been monitoring that, and Mr. Trump, of course, has been very outspoken about China. So, the Chinese president has spoken. What are his response?
[Amanpour:] Well, imagine this. This is truly an amazing and epic situation right now. You have the president of China for the first time coming to Davos. So, this is a communist country, and the world's second biggest economy. And he's there in Davos talking and defending globalization and free trade. [06:40:001] He said no one will be a winner from a trade war. He also got a lot of applause from that and obviously that reflects and responds to what Donald Trump on the campaign has been talking about, and that is punishing with tariffs. He has even said up to 45 percent on Chinese goods. So, Xi Jinping said nobody would benefit from a trade war. And then he also said, and this again in response to Donald Trump China has no intention of boosting its trade by devaluing the currency, the renminbi, unless by launching a currency war. So, putting himself on the record about that and defending the Paris climate accord which again Donald Trump has called into question, saying that this is a time where we must not walk away from it. And all of those statements won big applause. So, you've got China standing up for liberal trade, capitalist free trade and globalization at a time when in Europe, in Asia, people are wondering whether the leader of the biggest democracy, the world's biggest economy, might turn towards protectionism and nationalism as an economic and political project. So, that's what's going on as we wait another two or three days before the inauguration.
[Camerota:] So many shifting stands as you've just pointed out. Let's quickly touch on Russia. Mr. Trump gave an interview to "The Times of London" yesterday. Here's a little bit about what he said about Russia. "They have sanctions on Russia. Let's see if we can make some good deals with Russia. For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially. That's part of it. But Russia's hurting very badly right now because of the sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are going to benefit." What's been Russia's response?
[Amanpour:] So, we have to break a lot of that down. First and foremost, the idea of removing sanctions is something that neither the Europeans abet because it's all about Crimea and about the annexation of Ukraine. In other words, Russia violated the whole, you know, raison d'etre of international relations, which means a big country doesn't march in and invade and annex a little country. So, that's what those sanctions are about, and Europe and Angela Merkel has been with the United States on putting those there. And then, Donald Trump talked about a nuclear accord and lifting sanctions, the American sanctions in return for that. But the Russians are saying that we don't quite know what that means. There isn't any nuclear accord up for grabs at the moment or any work to be done in that area right now. So, that remains a mystery. Then, Europe got very upset because in that interview and, by the way, let's not call it an interview, it was a conversation with a politician, Michael Gove, who is the leader of Brexit. It was two aligned politicians, Donald Trump and Michael Gove, talking to each other. So, it wasn't an interview. It was a conversation about what he would like to see going forward. But what he said in that conversation was that for the moment, he would trust Angela Merkel, the U.S. main and most robust ally on the continent of Europe, with Vladimir Putin, the current biggest adversary of the United States and the west. So, that got people very upset.
[Camerota:] Christiane, thank you very much. Always great to get context from you. Thanks for being here. Let's get over to Chris.
[Cuomo:] All right. The ice storm that paralyzed parts of the Midwest and the Plains now heading east. Is it going to affect the inauguration? We have answers, next.