STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
President Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, is still on the line. Ambassador, thanks for sticking with us. I want to ask about Ukraine because we heard an idea floated by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine. He talked about an energy truce. And the idea is Ukraine doesn't hit Russian diesel facilities or gas refineries, oil refineries. And in exchange, Russia would keep away from Ukraine's power grid, which they really need in the winter. Does the United States support that idea?
MIKE WALTZ: Yeah. Steve, we actually, if you roll back the clock to last year - and I co-facilitated or, you know, supported Secretary Rubio as we engaged the Russians and Ukrainians a year ago. We entered into an - a moratorium on striking each other. We facilitated a moratorium on both sides. We would certainly welcome that again. And there's some discussion of the same when it comes to grain, wheat, barley. The - both the Russians and the Ukrainians export about a quarter of global grain exports. And so it's tremendously affecting East Africa. There's a lot of people that are going from, frankly, bad to worse situations right now across the region and around the world.
This is just all the more reason, Steve, where the president has been adamant the war has to end. Not only is there a risk of it spreading to our NATO allies. There is the thousand people a day - a day, Steve - that are dying on the Ukrainian front lines, plus now the rest of the world that's being affected by energy, grain and other types of exports. The president's determined it's - has to end. And he's using the weight of both his leadership and U.S. leadership to try to do just that.
INSKEEP: OK. And I heard you say yes at the beginning of that. So the U.S. would support that idea of an energy truce, and you said the U.S., in fact, supported it in the past. Let me ask now about Greenland. You alluded earlier to agreements across the Americas. There is this agreement now with Denmark over the status of Greenland. Denmark maintains sovereignty there. Greenland remains separate from the United States, and there is a change to U.S. military basing there. What does the United States get out of the agreement that it did not have before?
WALTZ: Well, we have expanded overflight in terms of aviation, but also, importantly, subsea and other types of naval access. The United States gets, in addition to that, to really sit down with our Danish partners and ensure that we don't see the types of so-called investments, like we've seen from the Chinese and other places - companies that may look like commercial entities and then have a dual use with the Chinese or Russian military.
And just to kind of take a step back, Steve, if we're ever attacked in the continental homeland, it's going to come over the North Pole. It's - obviously, if you - you know, when everyone flies - if you fly to Europe or Asia, you know, and you look at those maps, you fly over the north. It's obviously a much shorter route. We're starting to see that with shipping as well. As the ice pulls back, you're starting to see shipping lanes go over both the north of Canada and the north of Russia.
So it's becoming an increasingly contested space, not to mention the critical minerals and oil and gas that are being exposed and massive, often untouched fisheries - that we're seeing other countries send their vessels up in there. It's affecting our native populations, but it's also affecting our food stocks. So the Arctic is an incredibly important space. It's...
INSKEEP: Yeah.
WALTZ: ...Kind of a new, unfortunately, space of competition. And the president's been focused on it since Day 1. And frankly, many of our NATO allies were not. They are now. It, you know...
INSKEEP: Yeah.
WALTZ: ...Took - may have taken some tough love or some mean tweets, so to speak, but now you have NATO focused on it. You have your European allies focused on it.
INSKEEP: Understood.
WALTZ: You have an agreement with Denmark that is going to make the American homeland safer.
INSKEEP: I'm glad you mentioned mean tweets. The president, of course, talked about annexing Greenland repeatedly. And I want to ask about another statement the president made yesterday there at the United Nations. In his discussion of Iran, he talked about Iran facing...
WALTZ: But, Steve, before - I'm sorry to interrupt you. President Truman made offers to buy Greenland from Denmark. There's been a number of other updates to our 1951 treaty...
INSKEEP: Understood.
WALTZ: ...With...
INSKEEP: Understood.
WALTZ: ...Denmark from Greenland. There's been other discussions with other administrations of annexing. So this wasn't...
INSKEEP: Understood.
WALTZ: ...New.
INSKEEP: If I might...
WALTZ: But of course...
INSKEEP: If I might...
WALTZ: ...It's President Trump.
INSKEEP: I understand...
WALTZ: So it's going to get...
INSKEEP: ...And respect...
WALTZ: ...All kinds of attention.
INSKEEP: ...That Truman didn't do tweets, but he made some other remarks. That's true. But I was thinking about...
WALTZ: Well, there wasn't Twitter, so...
INSKEEP: Got it.
WALTZ: ...Fair enough.
INSKEEP: Understand. But I was thinking in terms of...
WALTZ: Might have wrote letters.
INSKEEP: Understood. He did write interesting letters. In the speech yesterday, the president, talking about Iran, used the phrase nuclear annihilation. Should a president be talking that way?
WALTZ: Well, this is a regime that has been at war with us, Steve, for 47 years. It's quite personal to me, and it should be to every veteran out there. Over a thousand American soldiers, over various conflicts, starting with the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon in the early '80s, have lost their lives. Many told, tens of thousands of more civilians across the region, from Lebanon to Syria to Iraq to Yemen. There is not a single country that is better off because of the Iranian regime. And every...
INSKEEP: Does it help to talk of nuclear annihilation?
WALTZ: ...Terrorist organization is practically funded now. So when we're talking about this type of regime that has terrorized so many countries for so many years, it only listens to strength and deterrence. I can tell you that firsthand. So I'm absolutely fine with it. I think the American people are fine with it, if ultimately we get to an agreement that makes the next generation safe from an Iranian regime with a nuclear weapon.
INSKEEP: OK. I got to be respectful of the clock here. We've got a few seconds left. Give me a yes-or-no answer, and we'll fill in on it later. Is the United Nations working well right now?
WALTZ: It's working better. The president has, under his leadership, NATO working better and contributing, and we're going to get the U.N. to a better place. We call it Make the U.N. Great Again. It's reforming. It's becoming more relevant. This year, it'll have a new secretary-general. And I can point to you, from Gaza...
INSKEEP: OK. We got to...
WALTZ: ...To Haiti, places where it's working with us.
INSKEEP: Got to stop there. Ambassador Mike Waltz, this has been great. Hope we talk again. Thank you so much for taking so much time, sir.
WALTZ: All right. Thank you.
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