Well, I think one of the things that coronavirus has done, just like bar the fact that our globalized economy is an economy that really works for China first and foremost, and not for the United States, certainly not for American workers. Are supply chains where are they now in China? Our medical devices where they made China? Are pharmaceuticals where they made China? Are big tech companies who do they want
to do business with China? I think it's time that we asked ourselves what kind of an economy have we allowed to be created and what is it doing for American workers? We need some structural reform at Senator Josh Holly, This might be the biggest thing that comes out of the coronavirus. On the other end is a different relationship with China. We've been kind of ignoring the fact that we use, we allow slave labor to bring us cheap
socks and that sort of thing for years. But so let's talk about that with Ian Bremer, President and founder of Eurasia Group. It's always a pleasure Ian, how are you, sir? Very well? But you know, I mean the Chinese are too expensive to make our socks right now. That's largely Bangladesh excellent so but cheap consumer goods electronics in particular. To fixate on socks at this moment I think would
be a mistake. The bigger pictures give you that. I mean, why are you focusing on thought that was a for instance and maybe it was a bad for instance in generally and that so, hey, do you think this is going to be an inflection point, as the kids say, and and how big a one in terms of the world and specifically the US is willingness to be in bed economically with China? I do, because especially most people are quarantining right now, which means they're not wearing shoes,
they're walking around their house in suck. So we're gonna need We're gonna need a lot more. It's becoming a nationally strategic important asset. And if all of them are coming from China, clearly we're gonna need to stop that. We're gonna need to bring that production back to the Unit States. Most of us didn't realize that so many of our drugs remain in China, and then and then the fact that they can lie to us and unleasha virus like this on us, and all this stuff it's
just it seems to have changed our view. Is that you think that's correct? Well, the fact is, guys, we have a just in time supply chain. It is incredibly efficient, It leads to a lot of growth, and we've all our companies have made a lot of money, shareholders have made a lot of money. What we don't have is it just in case supply chain. If anything breaks, if you suddenly have a major disruption, we're in a lot
of trouble. And a lot of that supply chain comes out of China, whether it is electronics or major consumer durables, or our medical supply chain, our health care, so much of that is reliance on China. They don't have rule of law. Um, they don't have an independent judiciary. Uh. Their state has much more influence over their economy than the private sector companies do. So it's hardly a free market.
It's state capitalists and uh and and our relationship with them right now is not good and it's probably going to get a lot worse. So, I mean, given all of that, it's pretty clear that we're gonna need to think very differently about our supply chain, and we're gonna bring a lot more manufacturing closer to where we actually consume those goods. But keep in mind that labor also
is less important to capital. We don't need. Not only has Chinese labor gotten a lot more expensive, um, but also with robotics and automation and big data and deep learning and and uh you know, and and and and new types of manufacturing processes, you just don't need anywhere near the amount of labor to produce this stuff. So a lot of operations had been thinking about changing their supply chain for a long time, and they didn't because they were making so much money. The CEOs didn't last
very long. It's like, let's have somebody else do that. Now that's going to happen. So the point that you made before we talked about socks is that the most important, the most important thing coming out of this crisis, that we're gonna have a very different relationship with China. I think is absolutely case. The questions do we go so far that it becomes a cold war? Um? And I
think it's plausible. And we also have to recognize China is a lot more powerful today than they worked during the SARS crisis or during two thousand eight, And there are a lot of countries around the world right now that see the way that Chinese have responded to this coronavirus crisis or the China virus as Trump is saying, and how they're willing to provide a lot of humanitarian aid to the Europeans in the Middle Easterns and others. There's gonna be a lot more hedging of American allies
towards Beijing and away from Washington. And that matters too. Really, that's an interesting twist. Did not see that? I mean, think about after nine eleven when Alwa lead from Saudi Arabia and the Saudia is approximately responsible for all of that. That's where most of the bombers came from, offered money to the New York to New York, so then Mayor
Giuliani told him to go scratch. When Jack Ma comes to the United States and offers us five hundred thousand masks and test kits that we can't produce ourselves right now, first of all, it hurts your heart, But second of all, it tells you just how how different this global environment is. And we need to get our heads out of our asses a bit. We need to stop with the American exceptionalism.
We have the best of everything, including health care. We don't, and we're gonna have to actually start making sure that we do again. So A and Bremer, president founder of Eurasia Group, is on the line. I watched the video. I'm sure you have two of the spokesperson for the Chinese Bureau of Foreign Affairs in essence saying there will be no decoupling. This is foolish, that you need to
stop slandering China, etcetera. How how concerned are the Chinese about how this whole uh you know, the era has has hurt their reputation. Um. I think they're much less worried about how it's hurt their reputation. UM. You know, I remember during the earthquake in Indonesia, the big one and the tsunami that came afterwards, wiping out all of
those towns. The Americans were boots on the ground in Indonesia almost immediately, and I mean the massive grassroots support for the United States that came out of that was extraordinary. And the Japanese put a lot of money in real fast, the government down the private sector, and the Chinese were late and did almost nothing. I think they offered two or four million dollars, like a couple of weeks after the fact, and and it really I mean they were like, well,
we're poor, we can't do anything. But it really undermined China as this you know, have all this economic influence, all this trade, but really not not a properly functioning government. This is a very different place. And so even though the Chinese did cover up um this coronavirus, and while they were covering it up, allowed over a million people from Uhan to travel outside to China and other countries.
And that's why we suddenly this massive expansion, this explosion of cases, not just across China, but also in Washington State, in Iran and Italy. I mean, where did this come from. It came from Wuhan. UM. But since then they cracked down very severely. They've gotten out of the depths of this um uh epidemiological crisis, even though their economy is
still very slow, very quickly. While the Europeans are the epidemiological center of this breakout in the Americans are only a couple of weeks behind um and the Chinese, who produced the vast majority of the world's medical supplies and also have an awful lot of medical personnel are now using that both in terms of selling it but also providing it um for and there will be a bill to be paid long term um to all these countries around the world. It's it's very clear the Chinese feel
in a much stronger place. Where after the two thousand and eight financial crisis, it was the Americans that we're leading the charge. In the G twenty, we were the ones doing the big stimulus, both for Wall Street and for Detroit. We were the ones coordinating with other central bank governors around the world. There's been no such coordination this time around, and there doesn't seem to be any planned.
New York Times had this video they put together of China's propaganda effort, both domestically there in China and for the world. That was pretty impressive that I was looking at something that they have these TV shows that look like Ellen and Oprah, and they're spouting all this crap about what a great job they did of handling it, and isn't g amazing and all this sort of stuff. They're really good at that sort of thing, aren't they. Yeah,
they really are. We used to be really good at We had radio for Europe UM, and uh, you know, we would really propound American values and it wasn't hard to do because the United States was doing so well and leading by example in so many ways. Um that now today I would argue that the Chinese a lot of it is propaganda, as the treatment of the average Chinese citizen, of course, is nothing that anyone in the
United States or Europe or Canada would tolerate. But their propaganda has gotten certainly, they're putting a lot more money into it. The production values are very high, and they also increasingly have some messages that they can actually sell that that that resonates with others around the world. So I mean, coming out of this crisis, the Chinese model is going to look a lot more robust and no one will be able to say it's the US leado
order anymore. I mean that that that will be formally gone. Interesting. Ian Bremmer, President and founder of Eurasia Group, always enjoy the Chattian. Thanks for a carveness out a couple of minutes. Let's talk again soon. Good talking, guys. Thanks. You know, the the the I'm up with America part of me, which is a lot of me, It's like most of me, it's practically all of me. Really hates hearing people saying that. In my my reaction is always some people saying that
sort of stuff. But if but if China makes most the world's medical supplies, for instance, that means most of the world is on the hook to the Chinese, that means something right and they and they're they're the one that get to yank the leash this way or that, not us right the way it was for a very long time with practically everything. Yeah, yeah, well, listen, there are a couple of kinds of patriotism. There's the raw raw all the time, dance and Uncle Sam outfit type
of patriotism, which is fine. It's it has its role. But you know, I just I tend and people who I talked to about the country tend to have more of a I don't know, I maybe a good example be like Bill Belichick, the head coach of the Patriots. He loves the Patriots and the Patriots organization. Therefore, he has utterly clear eyed about what it does well, what it needs to work on, and what it's doing poorly.
And he's utterly clear headed about the Patriots opponents and what they're going well, and how we need to counter them. And and a lot of other countries are in our opponents at all, not in a significant way. China is an opponent absolutely, And so to say, wow, we've really become dependent on China and we've lost our manufacturing capacity and something like pharmaceuticals, which is critical to national security. That's that's not a lack of patriotism, man, that's being honest.
It reminds me to keep the sports thing going of when you've got like a team you're rooting for is really good, and hey, and we might as well keep on this metaphor because there ain't any real sports, right. Go ahead. When a team is you know, like a championship team or whatever, it happens with them all the time and they kind of get in their head that they're gonna win just because of your jersey, just because the name on the jersey. You Yeah, we automatic we're
better than everybody else. Right, Well, sometimes you get exposed as for having some problems. The good thing is sometimes it's just you just need to be reminded because you actually are better than everybody else. Yes we are that we are actually the championship team. Just not playing like it for a while, right, Not perfect, absolutely a great deal to be proud of. And our system is better than their system, right, oh yeah, and we just have to make sure it stays that way. And so, you know,
it's a realistic person understands both are true. We are the greatest country on earth with the greatest system and the greatest constitution and the rest of it, and we have stuff we need to work on. Don't believe the crap coming out of the universities that America is the most racist country on earth and that's based on slavery, and know, please, that's garbage. But you know, be a realist.
So I've been complaining about you prepper weirdos. Somebody pointed out, I've got my anger pointing in the wrong direction.