Bloomberg Intelligence Sep 21, 2026
With Edward Price, non-resident Senior Fellow at NYU
Paul Sweeney's question was whether the week of the UN General Assembly, with Trump in New York and leaders from Iran granted rare visas, produces announcements on Ukraine or Iran. Edward Price's answer was that announcements are not the same thing as control.
Most commentary treats a summit as a negotiation between two leaders. Price's reading is that one of them is setting the terms and the other is managing a domestic fuel price.
"I'm not sure that he is in control of events anymore. Zelensky seems more in control of his war than does Trump."
Price is a non-resident senior fellow at NYU and a British national who watches the European end of this closely, and on Bloomberg Intelligence he was blunt about all of it — including that his own side's position is, in his phrase, a controversial opinion.
The full segment is covered here so you can skip it.
Here are the 7 arguments that matter.
Key Takeaways
Trump is desperate and no longer in control of events, on Price's reading — and so is Putin
What he expects from the summits is rhetorical movement, not settlements
He calls diesel the thing that finally got through to voters who had ignored every earlier signal
The Xi meeting is great power politics with a declining power on one side, in his view, and the deliverables are theater
Russia is losing its war, and he says the West is "just about winning" its own — which he flags as a controversial opinion
The EU made the overture to Canada, not the other way round, and he reads it as an attempt to checkmate Trump
He thinks the bloc is effectively shopping for an executive function it does not have
Europe could roll Russia conventionally if Poland, Germany, France and the UK all do their part — the problem is that Germany is talking about 2039
Putin is a cornered, unwell animal rather than a stalking one, and Zelensky is holding cards back
1. Rhetoric, Not Control
Sweeney set the scene: Trump in New York for a couple of days, the UN General Assembly running, leaders from Iran granted visas, which he noted is rare, and Zelensky in town too.
The host's own hunch
I'm getting this feeling that we might have some announcements this week on maybe Ukraine, maybe Iran, maybe President Trump is feeling the pressure with midterms coming up, with diesel at $6.50.
Paul Sweeney
He asked whether he was whistling in the dark. Price said he was not, and then narrowed what kind of movement to expect.
Something will be said, which is not the same as something happening
I don't think you're whistling in the dark. There might be some rhetorical movement, and I definitely think that Trump is desperate.
Edward Price
His evidence for the desperation was the price at his own gas station.
What the diesel price is doing politically
Diesel at 650 at my local gas station is wild. I mean, that's fritzing everybody's brain that voted for him.
Edward Price
The reason he chose the word rhetorical was a judgment about who is steering events.
The comparison he drew
I'm not sure that he is in control of events anymore. Zelensky seems more in control of his war than does Trump.
Edward Price
He put Xi in a good position relative to Putin on the same logic, and concluded that Trump and Putin are both desperate — so whatever the announcements turn out to be, he said, who knows what they are worth.
2. The Xi Summit
Scarlet Fu took the desperation claim and applied it to the upcoming summit with Xi Jinping: if Trump goes in more desperate than China, what is the prepackaged announcement going to be, as against what actually passes between the two men?
Price separated the two halves. What is actually happening, he said, is great power politics.
The trajectory he sees
Xi Jinping is on the rise. And Donald Trump represents a, I hate to say it, it's painful, declining power.
Edward Price
He qualified that with a measure and a horizon — looking at things such as the dollar over the next 20 years — and said the substance of the meeting is Xi telling Trump what is what. He imagines the same happens with Putin behind closed doors.
The public half he dismissed.
What the cameras will get
Everyone will be smiling and there'll be maybe an agreement on X, Y, Z soybean site. But it's all nonsense, right? So we are in a period of undeclared great power war.
Edward Price
3. Are We Winning?
He followed that framing to a scoreline, and flagged it as contested while saying it.
His tally of the undeclared war
Russia is losing its war. I think we're just about winning our wars, albeit that's a controversial opinion. And China's watching and waiting to see when it gets involved.
Edward Price
Fu stopped him on it — "We're winning our wars?" — and a voice on the desk asked whether he meant the Iran war. Price conceded the narrower point immediately: he is not sure the West is winning the Iran war it said it wanted to fight.
His defense was counterfactual rather than scoreboard.
The alternative universe he is measuring against
in a counterfactual where we didn't fight Iran and where we didn't back Israel, and in a counterfactual where Ukraine lost its war to Russia, that universe, I think, is the universe that we would have lost World War III right off the bat.
Edward Price
So his own position is somewhere in the middle: the West is reacting to an undeclared conflict, sometimes called hybrid war, and it is doing things. With one caveat.
The caveat he attached to all of it
It's just a shame that we are led by someone who doesn't really know what they're doing.
Edward Price
4. Trump and the Midterms
Sweeney asked whether Trump cares about the midterms, noting that some of his signature policies — tariffs, and starting a war in the global oil patch — do not generally poll well for the Republican Party.
Price's answer denied the premise that there are policies to poll.
His account of what a Trump platform is
President Trump has never had policies, per se. He's never had a thought-out, programmatic piece of paper
Edward Price
A voter, on his account, has nothing to go and read and say yes or no to. What there is instead he listed as three attacks.
What he says has actually been done
What he's done is systematically attacked our constitutional government, systematically attacked our alliances. And try to undermine his own country on the world stage.
Edward Price
He thinks voters are beginning to see it, and he is unimpressed by what it took.
The trigger, and his view of it
It's a shame that it took diesel, of all things, to really get through to people
Edward Price
There were any number of earlier clues, he said, that Trump was not a conventional politician offering what voters wanted. His conclusion on recovery is flat.
Why he thinks the ground is lost
I don't think there's anything that he can say at this point that are going to bring people back on board if they're losing their farms, literally losing the farm.
Edward Price
5. Carney and the EU
Fu raised allies looking elsewhere, and named Canada's overtures to the European Union. Was that a good thing?
Price corrected the direction of travel first.
Who approached whom
I think the European Union made the overture to Canada now. I think they saw the opportunity to maybe checkmate Trump.
Edward Price
Someone on the desk supplied the term associate member. Price said yes — and admitted it makes him jealous as a British national, adding that he used to hold an Italian passport de jure. He called it a good development, and his reason was about the person.
His read on Mark Carney
I think Mark Carney is an absolute player. He's really giving the world an example of what democratic leadership looks like in contrast to Trump.
Edward Price
Then he offered a structural explanation that was half joke and half argument. The European Union has no presidency, so on his interpretation it has been looking around for an executive function. Germany does not want the job, for obvious reasons. And there is a very interesting Canadian available.
Where he thinks that logic ends up
maybe we'll make him the honorary president of the European Union.
Edward Price
6. Can Europe Rearm?
Sweeney asked whether the EU beyond Germany is actually prepared to make the defense and infrastructure investments it talked about, given the confidence that Germany is moving in the right direction.
Price was dismissive about the southern members and said so without hedging: he is not sure places like Spain or Italy ever had much of a military tradition, and he does not think it matters.
His long view of Spanish military history
Maybe since the 16th century, Spain hasn't really been a military player.
Edward Price
What matters instead is a specific combination of four countries, and if it holds he is not worried about the outcome.
The conditions, and the conclusion
If Poland and Germany rearm properly, and if France extends its nuclear umbrella, and if my country, the UK, gets back to proper defense spending, and a bit more of a bullish attitude in the world, we could roll Russia in a conventional war. I don't worry about that at all.
Edward Price
Germany, he said, is doing the right thing, and if it does, Europe is solid. The problem is not willingness.
The constraint is time
I think the problem is the window, because it takes time to rearm
Edward Price
And the date he has in mind
Germany's talking about 2039, I think, at the point they'll be ready.
Edward Price
7. Putin the Groundhog
Sweeney's last question was what Putin does inside that window — whether he is bogged down in Ukraine, and what the next moves are, because people do not feel good about the possibilities.
Price started with the self-image.
How Putin sees himself
Putin likes to think of himself as like a wolf, right? As this kind of lone wolf
Edward Price
Then he replaced the animal.
His own description, offered seriously
I think of him as a rabid groundhog at this point. I'm serious. Like he is cornered. He's unwell. He's clearly losing that war with Ukraine.
Edward Price
On the other side of that war, his view is that Zelensky has not played everything he has.
Zelensky is holding back
Zelensky must have more cards to play, right, to return to that phrase.
Edward Price
He did not say which earlier use of the phrase he meant. His conclusion about Putin's own understanding was unqualified.
What he thinks Putin already knows
Putin must realize, even in his delusions, that that war is lost.
Edward Price
On the escalation question — Putin versus NATO, with what Price called a sprinkling of tactical nukes — he declined to answer and said to bring a military expert onto the show and ask whether it is possible. On the war actually being fought, he would not hedge: Putin is losing it.
Bonus Insights
He thinks both men are desperate, not just one
The desperation claim was symmetrical in his answer: Trump and Putin both, which is why he doubts any announcement out of either is worth much.
He treats the dollar as the measurement of decline
The "declining power" line came with a specific yardstick — measures such as the dollar over the next 20 years — rather than as rhetoric.
His own passport came into the argument
Price said the EU-Canada association makes him jealous as a British national, noting he used to have an Italian passport de jure. It was the one personal disclosure in the segment, and it sat directly under his point about the UK needing to get back to proper defense spending.
Price's bottom line is that the West is narrowly ahead in a war nobody has declared, that Russia has already lost the one it is fighting, and that the binding constraint on Europe is not willingness but the years it takes to rearm.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
European Union (He argues it approached Canada rather than the reverse, and that it is effectively shopping for the executive function its structure does not provide)
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (The counterparty in the escalation scenario he raised and then declined to assess)
United Nations (The General Assembly week in New York that framed the whole segment, including the rare Iranian visas)
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