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Pretty good. Run your game. If you don't make your product in America, however, under the Trump administration, you will pay a tariff, and in some cases, a rather large one. I've been doing this for almost 50 years, but I've never had a policy where I can't even understand what the rational, affirmative argument for it is. The markets keep crashing. They keep going down. Started at down 145. Did I hear you correctly? $4 trillion in market loss.
But why are they doing it, playing sort of economic chicken? Is it for political gains? Is it for economic gains? A lot of it is Trump really, truly believes that a trade deficit is against America's interest. But I think it is certainly... a willingness to accept that many, many eggs will be broken to make this omelet. We're rolling. We got speed. You're an animal. Part animal.
Part machine. I do my best. Larry Summers, the 71st Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration, also director of the White House National Economic Council under the Obama administration, former president. of Harvard University as popularized by the social network, where you come across as a total badass, I've got to say.
I'm a fan. I came down from Canada, studied politics and economics, and I've been using you as an example for a long time. So I just wanted to tell you, I came down as a young political scientist and I said, it's so funny to come. to America, where, you know, you have the Democratic Party through fiscal responsibility took the largest deficit, went to the largest surplus.
It was the Clinton administration. And then he came in. The next Republicans came in, expanded government and turned the largest surplus into the largest deficit. You were the architect of that surplus. So I believe I have it somewhere in here. I think that's the last time we had a surplus. When I was Treasury Secretary in 1999 and 2000, and...
Those were the last surpluses that the country ran. We were engaged in doing operations where we were buying back the outstanding debt. Unbelievable. With the surplus. Things are in a pretty different place today. Some of that's the fundamentals of the economy. Some of that is the way things have been managed. I think we've got a very serious fiscal problem in the United States. So let's get into that. You've been sort of highly profile.
going back and forth with Elon on Doge. But I wanted to get him because it's on the news everywhere this morning and yesterday. Tariffs. What the hell is going on? And, you know, what kind of economic chicken are we playing here? Tariffs are a self-inflicted supply shock. They're like when the oil price increases or the price of... food increases, only it's us doing it to ourselves. Right. We're putting these 25% tariffs on. It's going to raise the...
tariff rate for the United States to its highest level since World War II. It's probably the biggest protection shock we've had in decades. And it's probably, in terms of economic effects, the equivalent of a $40 increase in the price of oil per barrel, like from $70 a barrel to $110. Why do it? I can't imagine why you would decide to increase prices for consumers. Lower purchasing power for workers in order to make businesses less competitive. What they think, and I guess their argument.
is that the tariffs are going to cause people to relocate production to the United States. But I think the more likely thing... is that they're going to make the production, which takes place in North America, much more expensive. Because every time... car parts go back and forth across the Canadian border or the Mexican border, there's going to be a big tariff added. So this is the best thing that ever happened to our Asian competitors. This is the best thing that ever happened.
to Europe, we're shooting ourselves in the foot in North America or take another part of it. One part of the Trump program that he spoke about in the address to Congress is the across-the-board tariffs on aluminum and steel. And I have also imposed a 25 percent tariff on foreign aluminum, copper, lumber and steel, because if we don't have, as an example, steel.
And lots of other things. We don't have a military and, frankly, we just won't have a country very long. We've got 60 times, 6-0, times as many workers. who work in industries that use aluminum and steel as we do in the aluminum and steel industries themselves. So you're hurting 60 times as many workers. by making their businesses less competitive as anybody who you're helping. Tariffs are not just about protecting American jobs. They're about protecting the soul of our country.
I just don't understand the strategy here. Maybe there's a goal to get Mexico to cooperate on fentanyl or to cooperate on... drugs immigration some way or immigration but we don't have a drug problem from canada we don't have an immigration problem from canada and they're putting the same tariffs in canada So I understand why we need to have a strong supply chain. And that may mean taking measures with respect to China.
I get that. But this is not with any strategy that I'm able to understand. And, you know, markets came to that judgment. Day and a half after they announced these tariffs, before there started to be signs that they might take them off again, the market lost close to 5%. of its value in a very short period of time. And the risk premium, the VIX, the fear gauge went up by more than a third. So I don't.
I don't see the strategy here as a logical one, even if you accepted the idea of protectionism. Obviously, the rhetoric is out there that it's fentanyl. cartels, illegal immigration. So it's sort of, you know, quote unquote, the art of the deal. He's also made allusions to America was... You know, the best off it's ever been sort of turn of the century, the last century, when we had a lot of tariffs and no income tax. So sort of, you know, teasing that as a reason. It's nonsense.
Karl Rove, the guy who ran George Bush's campaigns and was a key advisor to George Bush. Yeah. wrote an old book about McKinley. He says that Trump's version of that history is almost entirely wrong. McKinley was actually heavily focused on preventing tariffs from being spread too far. and avoiding their tariff privileges being used in corrupt kinds of ways. That was an era when the whole federal government was less than 5%.
of the economy. That's got nothing to do with the financial needs of the current era. And by the way, there's a kind of a simple contradiction at the heart of Trumpism, which is You can't threaten people. If you do X, we'll take the tariffs off and then tell the bond market that the tariffs are the source of revenue that's going to pay back the debt. Yes. And so...
He can't have it both ways that there's some kind of big revenue source and some kind of big bargaining chip. I've been doing this for almost 50 years and I haven't. There have been plenty of policies that administrations have had that I've disagreed with. I thought the Biden policies were going to cause... inflation. I didn't like the Bush or the Reagan tax cuts particularly. So there are plenty of policies that I disagree with, but I've never had a policy.
where I can't even understand what the rational affirmative argument for it is. You know, another way to say it is economists disagree about everything. You know, famously, when you have six economists, you get seven opinions. They all agree. They all, except for the one President Trump pays. agree that these kinds of tariffs do economic damage i mean usually
You might try to stimulate the economy and then get higher price and accept that you were going to get higher prices. Or you might try to lower prices and recognize that that might increase unemployment a bit. What's extraordinary here. is pursuing policies that are going to increase both inflation and unemployment. Now, what happens going forward? I like your point of, look, you can't have it as a bargaining chip.
for immigration, fentanyl, whatever else, and also for a way to pay down debt and or bring in the golden era of tariff prosperity. What happens going forward? Is this deal-making in the sandlot? What happens? Well, I think that over time... it's going to become much riskier to make economic plans involving the United States. I think over time, the United States is going to stop being trusted.
And in some places start being hated, given the way President Trump is cozying up to Putin and given the way he's attacking. Our traditional allies in Canada. And in Europe, yeah. And when people like the United States less, they buy fewer American products. Yeah. So I think this is going to make the world a scarier place. I think it's going to make it a more anti-American place. And I think that's going to make the United States poorer over time.
You know, these kinds of policies are new in the United States, but they're not new in the world. If you look at the economic history of Latin America, most famously... Argentina. There are lots of examples of where the president, Juan Perón is the classic example, tried to boss businesses around, put tariffs up. and said we were going to be strong and self-sufficient as a nation, leaned on the central bank to print a lot of money to keep interest rates low.
And they ended mostly in disaster. You know, I'm not a highly ideological person. I think President Trump is, to a significant extent, right about the borders. I think to a significant extent, President Trump is right on a range of the social and cultural issues. I wouldn't be exactly where he is, but I think there was a need for... a clear correction. I think he's right to emphasize building and building fast and doing more to exploit the United States as fossil fuel.
strength. So it's not that it's all one way or the other, but I think these tariff policies and some of the other things are... really a bit almost crazy. I'm supposed to not hit the table because it makes a noise. No, I can't. Hit that table. I'm going to hit the table. They told me not to hit the table. I'm going to karate. Action. Prize picks. Action is fun. Football is fun. And now that football's over, fear not. Why? Because PrizePix is here for the second half.
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So let's use that as a segue. You were talking about, you know, this is a larger political issue, but it's a problem for our allies. Canada, Europe, you know, people are putting obviously tariffs to respond. And in Europe, you know, they're putting 100 percent, 200 percent tariffs on Tesla as a thing against Elon. You have been sort of going back and forth with Elon on Doge.
What's your take on what's happening there? Because, you know, on one side you have, look, we should be looking at waste and there's all these hundreds of billions of dollars of waste. And on the other side, obviously, there's an uproar about what's going on. Look, Elon Musk is a person who has accomplished extraordinary things that no one could have imagined would be possible. He and the company he built.
put three or four times as much stuff into space each year as NASA with the whole federal government and a $20 billion budget behind it. So he's a person whose ideas... need to be very carefully considered. But government's different than private business. It wouldn't be true of almost any business, but if you look at the government... Far less than 10% of the government budget goes to pay government employees. Right. So even if you go after that, you don't really get anything that's large.
There are places where we should be reducing scale and where there is waste. But the president and Elon, they just say things that are just wrong. Like what? The president made a huge deal in his speech. about all the social, all the people in the social security file who were 120 years old or 140 years old or 160 years old or whatever. 3.5 million people. From ages 140 to 149. And money is being paid to many of them. Here's the problem. Those people's names are in the computer.
but they don't get paid any money. The last time this was looked at, there were 86,000 Americans who were over 100, and there were only 44,000 Social Security checks. paid out to people who were over 100. So these claims of massive abuse, in many cases, they're just not... close to right. And, you know, I don't know whether the numbers are exactly right, but one of the things the United States has been proudest of.
It wasn't brought in by some Democratic president. It was brought in by President George W. Bush. Was the PEPFAR program and a range of other programs like that where we get a ton of goodwill? by saving hundreds of thousands of lives by providing medicines in Africa. Yeah. You put those medicines off, people die. And that's what they just did. And people are dying. Malaria is spreading because of an action that we took precipitously. You know, Musk had a strategy for Twitter.
And I don't know whether it's a good business strategy or not. Running businesses isn't what I do. He fired 80% of the people and then he figured he'd see what happened and he'd rehire people as it was necessary. That might be fine when you're running a business. When you're a country that people have been relying on for their supply of medicine, that's not a very good idea.
When you have the responsibility for assuring that airplanes are safe, that's not a very good idea. And while we're talking about airplanes being safe, the government had let a contract. to put in the new information technology system behind air traffic control. That contract got scrapped, and they're trying to reallocate it to... the musk uh company right doing that with mr musk in charge isn't the way we should be doing things in the united states so it's a great idea to be getting
his advice on a set of these technology things that he, I'm sure, knows much more about managing than bureaucrats do. But letting them just... Run, run, run without respect for anybody who's been doing this for more than three weeks. Yeah. I think that's going to be dangerous in terms of people's lives, dangerous in terms of.
plane of airplane safety, dangerous in terms of whether we're going to continue to be able to operate the tax system, dangerous in terms of privacy rights that Americans rely on. So are they right about a lot of things? Absolutely. Should they be listening to the kind of Silicon Valley expertise that is represented? Absolutely.
But is the way we're doing it right? I don't think so. And I don't think the many errors of a previous administration justify a... whole new set of errors in different directions. Yeah, I think I saw recently, I think it's from a few years ago, but it's a Jon Stewart talking to the head of the DOD. And, you know, it's $780 billion. And he was saying, you know. We can't do an audit. An $850 billion budget to an organization that can't pass an audit and tell you where that money went.
I think most people would consider that somewhere in the realm of waste, fraud or abuse because they would wonder why that money isn't well accounted for. She's like, you don't understand what an audit is. And she was a bit heavy handed. And he's like, I'm a human being and I know that we pay taxes. I'm a human being who lives on the earth and can't figure out how $850 billion to a department means that the rank and file still have to be on food stamps. Like, to me, that's...
Corruption. I'm sorry. Absolutely. Look, it's the impulse here is absolutely right. Yes. But figuring out that it's screwed up and thinking that you. plus a group of 20-year-olds can, in a week or two, start giving orders to change everything around, that's a pretty different thing. If I decided I had a lousy auto mechanic for my car...
I wouldn't decide that I could start fixing it myself with my buddy down the hall. And that's the kind of thing that I fear that they are doing. And if I was going to have my buddy do it. I certainly wouldn't let my buddy buy all the things from a company he owned. Right. I don't want to be an apologist for the way things are. And I don't want to be a person who's saying that the impulse is behind.
Some of the things President Trump is trying to do are wrong. But I think the risk is that we're going to do things in a very damaging way. And that's even before you get to the whole national security area. It looks to me like we're doing what Neville Chamberlain did in the late 1930s. Except he just appeased Hitler. We're trying to become Putin's ally. And we are doing what the big mistake they made after World War I.
which was to try to extort huge amounts of money from the defeated Germans, which ultimately set the stage for World War II. And we're trying to do that with Ukraine. who's a relatively innocent victim of President Putin's aggression. So should we be working for peace? Does that mean leaning on both sides? Absolutely. Is letting it go as it is a reasonable option? No. But does that mean selling out NATO is right? I surely don't think so.
I want to use that as a segue for my last question, which is, you know, we talked a bit about tariffs, talked a bit about Doge. How did the economy become so politicized? that there's sort of one side, the other side. Maybe the last consensus politician was Clinton, sadly, who worked both sides of the aisle, especially on the economy.
How did it get so politicized that we don't even try to go against the other party? We try to undo their policies as soon as we get in. And how do we use our economy as such a political lever? I wish I knew. Some of it is that we have a system in Congress now where if you're a typical member of Congress, you're more worried about losing a primary to an extremist.
from your own party, then you are losing an election to a member of the other party. So it used to be that people tried to seize the model. seize the middle in politics. Yes. And now they're all about protecting their flanks in politics. And that pulls people apart. Yes. And the same thing happens in primary elections of four. presidential candidates. And so I think that's an important part of how it is that this has happened. I also think we had a financial crisis. We had COVID when...
They're bad things that happen. People tend to be angrier and they tend to, therefore, to go a little bit more for simplistic solutions. When I was in government, I always consulted with people on the outside who were... both Democrats and Republicans. When previous Republican administrations were in place, they would reach out to people like me who were on the other side. but had some relevant experience. But I think that tendency has sort of falling away and people seek.
less advice and more validation than they used to. And that is an unfortunate tendency. While I'm particularly critical of the particularly extreme policies being pursued now, it's not that everything that's problematic began with Donald Trump in 2024. There have been economic mistakes made of various kinds by a range of previous administrations. But, you know, I think that the country is better run.
and is more successful with a commitment to policies from the middle for the middle class than it is when it's run in these more extreme ways. Hear, hear. The architect of the last great American surplus, Larry Summers. Thank you for your time. And hopefully we can... We can keep the dialogue going because we know this is going to be number issue number one, two and three on on most people's list. I'd like that very much. Thank you. Thank you. Are you expecting a recession this year?
I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition. The fact is that what Trump is doing is just helping other countries believe that every four years the United States will do something radically different and you can't count on it. And you can count to a greater degree on other countries out there. That's a serious problem. All right, Ian Bremmer. Man, oh man, I am a fan.
You're everywhere in social media. I'd just like to say I was a fan before you blew up. We've known each other for, what, about a decade now, right? Yeah, about a decade. Done some secret talks, some interviews, politics, economics. my favorite subject. So this is a real treat for me. I'm just going to, you're president and founder of Eurasia Group, also GZERO Media.
a master's degree and doctorate in poli-sci from Stanford, as well as a degree from Tulane. You teach at Columbia, and before that, NYU, and a senior fellow.
at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. None of that matters because, in my mind, you're the number one international political... economy brain out there and i want to get into it and chop it up thank you for spending the time my pleasure and congrats on the uh on the full circle i am really happy uh that you're doing it and i'm uh looking forward to having the conversation here we go so
Number one on the headlines this morning and yesterday, tariffs, Canada, Mexico, China, redrawing alliances. What the hell is going on? With tariffs, what do you think? Is this using economic carrot and stick to get political gain? Is that the fentanyl and illegal immigration? What does it mean for China, etc.? Go.
Trump is in such a stronger position this time around than he was in his first term. I think that the market's sort of presuming that Trump carries a big stick, but he doesn't necessarily swing it, and certainly not repeatedly. But I think that's a misread. I think that Trump, first of all, he had a lot of establishment Republicans around him and he needed them in his first term. And they need him a lot more than he needs them right now.
And his economic team in particular are mostly yes men and bag carriers and hype men. They're not people that are going to push back hard on Trump, even if they think he's doing something wrong. That wasn't true. First time he had, you know, of course, Jared Kushner, who he respects an enormous amount and who had real access. He had Robert Lighthizer. He had Steve Mnuchin. This is a very different group.
So, I mean, what he's hearing every day is, yes, you're the most brilliant person out there in the world. And everything you're saying, of course, is going to work. And we are there to implement for you, sir. And by the way, why are they doing it? What do you think the reason why are they playing sort of economic chicken? Is it for political gains? Is it for economic gains? A lot of it is economic gains. A lot of it is Trump really, truly believes that.
a trade deficit is against America's interest. So he wants to balance those trade relations. He wants the Americans at least to balance or in surplus. With other countries, he believes that he has for decades. That's not new to his presidency. He thinks the tariffs should be reciprocal. So the United States should not have less access or be charged more than a smaller, less powerful country.
He thinks that in places where the Americans are more powerful, they should wield a bigger stick and you should do what we want or else. And he also sees tariffs as useful from a national security perspective. So you can use economic weaponization for the Americans to address the border more broadly, illegal immigration. Use it to address fentanyl. Use it to address...
national security and whether the Americans want to keep troops on the ground in South Korea or Japan. All of those things play through. But I'll tell you something that I worry about more and more these days is I see the three most powerful leaders. comparatively unconstrained leaders on the global stage, increasingly not getting good information. And I really worry about that because you and I both know.
The only way you can respond to a challenge is if you know what it is. If you get, you know, best brains in the room to really explain and understand the problem. You and I might have different solutions, but you got to understand the problem. So who are the three brains? Is that? Putin, Trump. Well, it's Trump, it's Xi Jinping and it's Putin. And these are extremely powerful people with very few checks and balances on their power.
who increasingly are surrounded by people that are not giving them great information. They're older men with huge egos. And I worry about that. What could go wrong? I worry mostly about it in Russia because that's the most dysfunctional of the three. But frankly, I worry about it in the United States a lot, too. So tariffs with China, it seems to be the latest in an ongoing Cold War with China, both politically and economically.
We do the three. We do, okay, these tariffs, how does it affect China and our relationship with them? How does it affect Europe and Canada and North America? And what are the repercussions in Europe? the knock-on effects with Russia. So I think, as you just mentioned, or you alluded to, Trump doesn't just see tariffs by themselves as an economic lever. Yeah.
tariffs are a core component of what the US is trying to accomplish in the broader relationship with the country. So I think if we're going to address US-China relations and look at what he has done on tariffs, we have to look at the broader set of US-China relations and where they're going. So, yes, it's interesting to me that unlike Mexico and Canada, where the tariff announcements were really meant as an opening salvo.
to ensure engagement, negotiations, see what the Americans would get from those countries. The art of the deal. That's not true with China, right? China, you announced the 10%. And they weren't interested in a call with Xi Jinping, not at that point. And then they announced another 10 percent. Same thing. And that's also true with export controls on semiconductors. That's also true.
with talking to other third countries about trying to contain the Chinese or else they'll be on the other side of the American tariff wall. We've seen that with conversations with Australia, with India, with Japan, you name it. And, you know, it's also about talking to countries, not letting them take Chinese goods and bring them through their countries into the U.S., big part of the U.S.-Mexico conversation. So this is more broadly.
I don't know if I would call it a cold war, but I would certainly call it a policy of containment. The Americans under Trump have decided that China is America's principal adversary. They want. a Russia rapprochement in an effort to do a reverse Nixon and peel the Russians away from their China relationship, which I think will fail. We can talk about why that is later. But the point is that everything they're doing, even.
less troops in the Middle East and Europe is oriented towards more focus on Asia and dealing with this China that is much more capable technologically than they used to be. a much bigger economic threat to the United States than any other country that's out there and a country they fundamentally don't trust at all. By the way, a country that they did a deal with.
a hard-fought deal in Trump's first term, and all of the Trump people say they didn't actually then go and implement the terms of the deal they promised. So why would we do a second deal with them? So I do think that the gloves are truly off. on the U.S.-China relationship this time around.
Yeah. And look, you alluded to the fact that these things are all sort of intertwangled. And just to let you know, I want to get into tariffs. I want to get into Ukraine, Europe, NATO and Gaza. I remember talking to you about Gaza. And it was funny because we went from Gaza to China. Why? Because at the time, everyone was focused on...
Gazan, you're saying, but this is what's happening in China over here. And that's why I like your brain, because all of this stuff is interrelated. But on the tariff side, so we've got tariffs as the latest. you know, in our ongoing China saga. And I want to get into tech with quantum and AI and that race. But just to finish with tariffs.
It seems that there's an economic or that at least there's a nod to this sort of turn of the century, 1900s, like tariffs paid for everything and we didn't have to have tax and all of this stuff. but also it's going to be used for fentanyl and cartel and illegal immigration. So we're using sort of economic stick to get to political gains. It seems that you can't... have both of those because they conflict i.e. if you say okay we stopped the fentanyl and the illegal immigration
then the taxation or the pay down the surplus or the no IRS or whatever it is you promised the other people goes away because you have to take away. Isn't that sort of schizophrenic? Sure. Well, I mean, if you believe the tariffs are an answer to every problem. then you're going to have to eventually pick and choose, you know, which of these challenges you are prepared to actually negotiate on, do a deal on. In the case of China, I think the most important issue for Trump is not fentanyl.
It's certainly not immigration. The most important issue is that he wants to revise and restructure global trade flows away from China. He wants China to be a smaller part. of global manufacture. He wants that going towards allies, and most particularly, he wants it going towards the United States. He wants those supply chains aligning more with the U.S. Now, in some cases, the Americans are in a strong position to do that.
When I look at AI and I look at the new diffusion rules that are trying to get American aligned countries, if you want to be in tier one, where you're going to get access to the top semiconductors, then you're going to have to have a whole bunch of rules around your supply chain. around your data centers that need to align fully with the United States. That's an area where the Americans can get a whole bunch of countries that even though they trade a lot with China.
They're going to want to be in tier one no matter what. The Europeans, the Japanese, the South Koreans, the Emiratis, the Saudis. On the other hand, when you look at energy transition and where the Chinese are on electric vehicles. And batteries and technology or an advanced nuclear capabilities or even green hydrogen. And they are miles and miles ahead of the Americans and everyone else. It's not like the United States has a credible alternative.
for many of these countries to align with if they say no to China. So a big piece of it is where do the Americans have actual leverage and how broadly does that leverage apply? Because a full decoupling.
of the commanding heights of technology away from China is just not doable given the lack of American investment into many of these technologies for a very long time. On the other hand, if you want to look specifically... at AI and how AI applies to the military industrial complex, that's a place where not only are the Americans ahead.
But if the Americans don't take some fairly aggressive moves in the near term and we assume that U.S.-China relations are becoming more confrontational, the Americans might not have the ability to do that in five years time. Right. So I'm more sympathetic on some of this. than I am on others. You brought up supply chains, semiconductors, AI.
China, America, we're leading to Taiwan. There are the military operations, which China has carried out in the waters south of Taiwan, and then there are the words. China has repeatedly said it intends to regain control of the self-ruled island. Is Taiwan our Poland? What happens over the next few years with Taiwan?
China's been making a lot of moves. We're both familiar with encirclement and things, and there's movement of Chinese students to farm so we can sell some fish and all this stuff. What happens with Taiwan, and how important is it geopolitically? So the big thing that has changed is the U.S. The big things that has changed is Trump. So if you're China, you need to understand what that change means for you and what it means for Taiwan. And there are conflicting signals here. On the one hand.
The Americans have just thrown the Ukrainians under the bus. They've said we're not interested. This is Europe's fight. It is far away. We're not providing the intelligence support. We're not providing the money and the weapons anymore. Europe, if you want to do it, have at it. But we really want a ceasefire because this could be World War III.
If I'm China hearing and watching all of those things and knowing that Taiwan is even further from the United States than Ukraine, right? Not a part of Europe. Well, then clearly there's a possibility. that Trump doesn't care about, especially when he is saying that TSMC is ripping off the Americans. They're stealing intellectual property. They're not actually doing enough in the United States. So that's one hand. But then at the same time.
Not only do you have people around Trump in his administration and Republicans in the House and Senate, along with the Democrats, who see China as... the principal U.S. adversary. But you see the American national security complex saying that they want to take troops out from the Middle East and out from Europe because the principal area they need to focus is Asia and that Trump had a pretty good meeting.
with the Japanese prime minister, Shiba, even though he's very weak, unlike the Europeans, unlike even the Canadians. Why? Because they recognize Japan's important. India, same thing with Modi, oriented towards... more alignment on tech, more alignment on their military relationship with the United States. So if I'm Xi Jinping, I recognize something very big has just happened in the United States, and I don't yet have enough information.
So what do I need? I need more information. How do you get that information? I engage in a series of low level, meaningful escalatory moves militarily in my backyard. South China Sea and Taiwan, because I want to understand how the Americans do or don't respond to that and and what the allies do, depending on that. Right. I mean, do I am I starting to see.
fragmentation and maybe some allies that are pissed with Trump that I can pick off. What about the new South Koreans? What happens? How do the Taiwanese respond? I mean, they've got a majority for the KMT, which is the more. mainland China-aligned party, not with the president, in parliament, in Congress, and they're trying to reduce defense spends.
If China suddenly is doing a bunch of live fire exercises they've never done before right outside Taiwan, they don't tell anyone, do they get capitulation from the KMT? That could be really useful information. Or do the Americans suddenly say, OK, we're going to start sending to do like a Pelosi trip. But with Mike Waltz this time, National Security Advisor. So Xi Jinping doesn't know what he doesn't know. And in the next six to 12 months.
He's going to learn. He's going to find that out. And that's going to help him play the long game. You mentioned Ukraine. And I love, again, how everything's intertwined and what is happening, what's being played out in the Ukraine.
is teaching the Chinese Communist Party what they can do in various parameters. Let's talk about the Ukraine. Like dramatic... fight in the in the white house if you didn't have our military equipment if you didn't have our military equipment this war would have been over in two weeks in three days i heard it from putin in three days this is something
Maybe less. In two weeks. Of course, yes. It's going to be a very hard thing to do business like this. I tell you. To say thank you. I said a little time. Except that they're accepted. To American people. Is this staged? Is this a bit of bed and puppet theater or, you know, was that for real? A, B, what do we hope happens there and what the hell goes on with NATO, which seems to be. sort of the biggest shift since post-war when we made up the deal. The Europeans feel a true crisis here.
That's the biggest change. And I think that there were two different components of that. The first component was in Munich a couple of weeks ago when I was watching about 30 feet away. vice president, say that the principal enemies are not China or Russia. The principal enemies are the Europeans in this room who are anti-democratic, anti-free speech. What I worry about is the threat from within. The retreat.
of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America. When that vice president said, and very similar to what Elon Musk has been saying. that this AFD party, which the Germans consider a neo-Nazi party, should be fully integrated and aligned and the future of Germany. The firewall, the German, the so-called German firewall. The German firewall. So, I mean, first of all, they were shocked by that.
And they and many of them, especially the Germans, but many Europeans I spoke to that made them think that. On the one hand, the Russians have a gun to their head on Ukraine, but the Americans have a gun to their head on democracy. So the Americans are an adversary. That was the first shoe to drop. Second shoe to drop was when Zelensky came to Washington and met directly with Trump.
and met with Vance, and that Trump treated him not as a friend, but as a supplicant, as a vassal, as someone to be beaten on, radically different than the coalition of the willing in the UK with all the Europeans that embraced him. that said that they were supporting him no matter what. And the United States said, you don't have any cards here. And I'm not on Ukraine's side. I'm not on any side, Russia, Ukraine. I just want to end this on peace. Trump did that unilaterally.
breaking not only with his own Republican Party and the Democrats and, of course, the Republicans quickly aligning with Trump, but also breaking with his NATO allies. Yes. So if you are the Europeans, you now feel in a matter of three weeks. that you cannot trust the United States on the two principal issues that have been core to NATO, rule of law and democracy, as well as national security with Russia and Ukraine. That's the reality. Now.
The Europeans are now taking this very seriously. There's been true urgency. And we are now seeing things from the Europeans that were inconceivable a few weeks ago. So, for example, the Germans are now prepared to spend a trillion extra dollars. before their new government comes in to essentially ignore the constitutional majority required debt break, allowing them to radically increase their spending on defense and infrastructure.
That was inconceivable three weeks ago. And you also see a number of countries talking about putting boots on the ground in Ukraine. They would prefer a backstop from the Americans, but many of them prepared to do it, even if the Americans aren't there. The Europeans seem to be willing to take the lead on ceasefire negotiations with Ukraine on Russia if the Americans are saying we're not talking to the Ukrainians anymore. We're not doing the critical minerals deal.
Now, on the one hand, if that works, I could imagine Trump triumphantly saying, look at me, I just got the Europeans to take a leadership role. when Biden never could have, when Kamala never could have. And so now, yeah, now I'm willing to do more because the Europeans are actually playing a fair share. They're doing more in a part of the world that they should rightfully be doing more. And they weren't for decades. And I told them to last time and they refused.
And Russia invaded and they refused. And Biden told them and they refused. And now finally they get it. And so now we can have a new NATO based on a reasonable agreement with these people like Trump saying. I'm going to keep my troops in Poland because the polls are moving to 5% of GDP defense spend, much more than the Americans. Why? Because the polls are on the front lines. So he could do that. Or he could say, I'm doing a deal.
with Putin. I'd much rather align with Putin anyway. We're both aligned. We don't want a strong European Union. We're both aligned with the Reform Party in the UK and the AFD in Germany and the National Rally in France and all those parties and the Patriots in the EU and Orban in Hungary. Those are our friends. Those are who we want to win. Those are the MAGA Europeans.
And those are Putin-oriented Europeans. So we can end the European Union that we never liked. We never liked the strong EU. And the Ukrainians have to pay for themselves. And if they don't want to sue for peace, then that's it for Ukraine. We'll see what happens. We warned them. He could do that, too. And I do think that Trump is very interested in a deal with Putin. And the big question is whether that deal includes the Europeans or not, whether that deal includes the ceasefire.
Or not, because if it doesn't include a ceasefire, that's because Trump says Zelensky is the problem, not Putin. So I think that's the open question here. And let's keep in mind, Zelensky.
You know, very courageous, has in my view, has nothing to apologize for. His country was invaded illegally. You know, we in principle stand for territorial integrity, but not anymore since we threw that away at the U.N. uh general assembly resolution where we're we're aligned with the russians and the north koreans now um i mean that's a problem but i mean the fact is that the ukrainians without the us the ukrainians will not be able to fight for another year
They probably won't be able to fight through the summer. And a lot more Ukrainians are going to die and millions more Ukrainians will flee Ukraine. So there will be a lot of pressure on the Ukrainians to sue for peace. And if that happens. And the Poles and the Balts and the Nordics are standing up for Ukraine no matter what. I can imagine the UK, which is not in the EU anymore, saying we got to find a way to work with the Americans and do a trade deal with the US. And I can imagine Maloney.
who doesn't spend much on defense and isn't prepared to send troops to Ukraine and has a better relationship with Trump and with Elon saying, I'm going to do an alliance with the UK and we need to work together with the Americans. So, I mean, it is possible.
that Europe falls apart on the back of all of this. The Europeans are doing more. The Europeans are acting credibly. But it is very late, my friend. And there is a lot to play for here. You were just in Munich, I believe, when all this happened. And, A, I believe a little birdie told me that the German defense minister had an outburst. If you could talk about that little insider.
But also, how much of a real slap in the face is this for Europe? It seems to be redrawing our diplomatic maps as we speak. Well, I mean, breaking from the Ukrainians. without discussing it with the European allies in advance is a pretty staggering break. But it's not like Trump hasn't done it before. I mean, in Afghanistan, Trump wanted to end the war. He wanted to pull American troops out.
He engaged directly with the Taliban over the heads of American allies that had fought shoulder to shoulder with the Americans for decades. He did the deal. He didn't ask the Europeans if that was OK. I think if you care about your alliances and remember the first time, the only time Article five has ever actually been operational was after 9-11 when the Americans said we were just attacked by bin Laden.
And we need you for collective security. And all of our allies stood up and said yes. And a lot of them sent more troops per capita than the Americans were sending. Article 5, just to be clear, is if you attack one NATO member, you attack us all. That's right. It's the core piece of collective security. And so when the Americans, the only country in history that has ever invoked Article 5 because of 9-11, our allies came to our aid and we had a collective coalition.
based on NATO. And, you know, Denmark, for example, sent more troops per capita, had more people die in Afghanistan per capita. And Trump's response to that is not only to throw them under the bus, but to say we're going to take Greenland. So if I were an American ally, I wouldn't necessarily trust Trump a lot. Right. I mean, I think that's fair. And so, yeah, they were really.
and concerned about Trump for a second time acting unilaterally on a core national security issue. And Ukraine, of course, much higher stakes than Afghanistan, at least for the Europeans. Then you have in Munich. Vance with that speech. And yes, when he spoke specifically about the firewall.
And keep I mean, I'll give you the background because you maybe explain the firewall, too, because the other parties can't align with just maybe just explain that firewall. So the idea is you have this this far right party, the alternatives for Deutschland. And they believe in a lot of things that we would consider anathema in any advanced economy. So, for example, they support taking away the citizenship and the expulsion of existing citizens that have not adequately integrated in their view.
with germany right so they're talking mostly about muslims right turkeys so i mean like literally i mean it's one thing to get rid of illegal immigrants it's another thing to take citizens and say you are no you no longer have citizenship in our country yeah right this is the kind of thing that last time we saw that in germany was
Nazi Germany. So, I mean, the Americans led the way after World War Two. We didn't want to get in the war. It wasn't our fight. Charles Lindbergh was the original America first. He was the one that coined the term. He said, this is the European problem. I thought you coined it and then it was stolen from you by Trump. I referred to Trump's policies when he was running as not isolationist, but America first.
in the context of Lindbergh, and Trump had never heard of that, when the New York Times came to interview him on foreign policy and they asked him if he was isolationist and they just read my newsletter. I think it was David Sanger and Maggie Haberman said, do you consider yourself an isolationist? No, no, no, not at all. And then they said.
After my update, they said, oh, do you consider yourself America first? And he loved it. He's like, oh, yeah, America first. That's what I am. Not realizing that that was what kept the Americans out of the war. Now, of course, when Pearl Harbor happened.
suddenly the war was about the U.S. and then we got in. But let's be clear, if the Japanese had an attack, the Nazis are taking over. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, there's a lot of history around America first. And now we have the Americans who, after World War Two.
led the process of denazification in germany yes that was on our shoulders we were the ones that did the marshall plan we were the ones that were going to create even with our adversaries that were defeated by us we were going to make them democracies
We're going to make them align with us. Yeah, learning from the Treaty of Versailles and saying, you're not allowed to do that because you were bad at that in World War I, so we're going to do it for you, World War II. That's right. So here you have... J.D. Vance. And this is after Elon Musk is saying that, you know, Germany is done for its history. If they don't elect the AFD, this this.
party that is considered by a majority of Germans neo-Nazis. And they have something called the firewall, which is that no matter what party is in government, they will not work with the AFD because of the Nazi background. And because this is a neo-Nazi party, understandable in the German perspective completely. So Vance comes to Germany. He goes to Dachau. He visits the concentration camps.
The next day he comes and speaks and does the most important speech, the plenary at the Munich Security Conference. I've been going for 15 years. The U.S. delegation is always led. by a major figure, usually the vice president, not always, who gives the most important national security speech. Right. He gives this speech. I'm watching him give this speech literally 30 feet away. And he is saying, I'm not going to talk about Russia. I'm not going to talk.
about China. I'm not going to talk about the Middle East. I'm going to talk about the most important national security issue, which is you guys destroying democracy. And he goes through and he says, look, this firewall. is anti-democratic it should not stand and at that point there is someone a man with a booming voice who yells out from the front this is unacceptable and there's this 1500 people in the room it is tight it is standing room only
Everyone's seeing the back of his head. I'm a few places away from him. I see him. It is the defense minister of Germany. Pistorius, who, I mean, literally, I have never seen in my life anything remotely like this. in the Munich Security Conference. This is our top ally in Europe who is yelling out at the vice president that his formulation...
is essentially adversarial. And so then you have the German elections. And by the way, Vance refuses to meet with the German chancellor because he's only going to be there for a couple of months. So why bother? But he does meet with the leader of the AFD. Yeah. So later on, you've got the elections that happen later that week.
As everyone expected, the AFT does about 20 percent, which is better than they had done, but nowhere close enough to run a government so that they're going to be out. And Friedrich Merz is going to form a grand coalition, two party coalition. And Merz comes out. And says, we've got to formulate European defense ourselves. We can't rely on the Americans anymore. And says what the Americans are trying to do to our democracy.
is no different from what the Kremlin has been doing to our democracy. These are unprecedented statements from a German leader, but when you understand the context of the Zelensky meeting, you understand the context of... the vance speech suddenly you understand why the germans feel that way what happens going forward in the ukraine it seems like
And I wanted to get into this later, but this is a sort of a segue. It feels like, and I was actually looking for someone to attribute this quote to and I couldn't find, but the American government is set up to do nothing. And do it very slowly. When Obama got in and had the House and the Senate, it felt like, OK, there's going to be a lot of stuff happen.
A lot of times politics is just, like I say, bread and puppet, bread and circus theater. It's a two-party system. It's set up to do nothing and do it slowly. It's galvanized into inactivity. It feels now like we're on a sort of, you know, like we're on a cliff and we're about to jump off and a lot of stuff is about to happen.
And it's going to be looked at historically as, wow, you know, this was a lot of stuff going down. Number one, I think, on the jump off point is the Ukraine. What happens going forward? Well, I mean, I think the relevant historic quote here is Vladimir Lenin's, which, you know, there are decades where nothing happens and then suddenly there are days when decades happen. Yeah, there we go.
And and that is I mean, I remember when Trump first was inaugurated, I wrote an update that led with that quote. Yeah, because I mean, it felt like that was exactly what we were going to see. We were going to see revolutionary behavior at home. And we were going to see Trump as apex predator abroad, which was very, very different from the transactional sort of Trump that was in place from 2017 to 21. Yeah. What happens to Ukraine now?
Well, I mean, the Americans have already temporarily at least suspended aid. And so, I mean, while the Ukrainians can still fight for now, and I think we'll still have the capacity to fight at least until summer, even if those conditions hold. Summer's not that far away. But, I mean, the United States, I mean, this move fast and break things, it works in Silicon Valley, right?
But for the U.S. government, it means people die. Right. Right. I mean, when you move fast and break things in USAID, you end a lot of ultra woke stuff that nobody supports. And you also stop supporting helping people fight AIDS or malaria. and hunger and people die and we're already going to see that right so i mean and and obviously i don't want to go so far as to say the cruelty is the point because i think people are largely indifferent to that um but i think it is certainly
a willingness to accept that many, many eggs will be broken to make this omelet. I strongly oppose that because I think that actually the American citizens, as well as less fortunate citizens around the world. have relied on the United States and we will fail them and they will hurt and they will suffer. And I care about those people. And even if I didn't, I certainly don't want America's adversaries to come in and take over that rule for their benefit, which the Chinese will do.
So specifically on Ukraine, even as it makes the Europeans stand up for themselves to a greater degree, which is a good thing. Yeah. But it also means that the Europeans do not trust the Americans going forward. And there is a greater possibility the whole thing breaks.
And Trump is willing to take that risk because he doesn't really value it. But I mean, I think as Americans thinking longer term than just one Trump administration, we should value it. These things that ultimately matter. Like, I mean, having. countries around the world that are advanced economies, that are wealthy, that have rule of law, that actually have a greater amount of mutual trust with us, that will work with us, that will support things that we like long term.
I think are good for us. And also the fact that even if we wanted to be great at the law of the jungle and say, who cares about these rules of the road? We're the most powerful. That doesn't work well if you're not a dictatorship. And America is not a dictatorship. We've got a 70 or eight year old man who is going to be in power, given decent health for four years, and then he's out. And in two years, he might have the Democrats controlling the House and he's constrained.
And there's still an independent judiciary, even if he doesn't want to listen to it, it still exists. And there's still a professional military that he's still going to have to deal with. And it's still a federal system with independent governors. Right. And independent state legislatures. And so, I mean, you know, other countries around the world aren't going to treat Trump like he's dictator for life. He's not. So the fact is that what Trump is doing is just helping other countries.
believe that every four years the United States will do something radically different and you can't count on it. You can't count on it long term. And you can count to a greater degree on other countries out there. That's a serious problem.
How did Russia go from being the boogeyman and our enemy in the Cold War and, you know, who has... openly tried to screw with our elections and we've screwed with their elections and sanctions and all these things, go from being the boogeyman to we're going to throw our NATO allies under the bus for... for our new allies or our new buddy Russia. To me, that boggles the mind that that just sort of switches. And by the way, not only does it switch, but the exact same people.
in the GOP who said these guys are our number one enemy and, you know, they have all these nukes and they're the worst and the dictatorship and Putin, KGB, blah, blah, blah, are now like, yeah, yeah, no, they're our boys now. How do you switch that ideologically?
I mean, look, Ted Cruz isn't saying that. And Lindsey Graham isn't saying that. And I mean, there are a lot of Republican senators that are still very strongly committed to the idea that Russia is the principal adversary that should not be trusted. That's number one. Number two, I'm a little surprised you're surprised, right? Because it is true that Putin has been messing with American elections, has spent a lot of money on disinformation.
is trying to like he's promoting like, you know, a whole bunch of racism and promoting a whole bunch of Islamophobia, stuff like that. He's promoting a whole bunch of stuff. The Kremlin has been that makes America want to hate each other more. He's promoting disinformation and polarization. But I mean, it's true that you and I want rule of law. But I mean, what Putin has also been doing is promoting Trump. Like he wants Trump to win. He didn't want Biden to win. He didn't want Harris to win.
In many ways, he's aligned pretty well with Trump. Trump also doesn't want checks and balances in the U.S. system. Trump doesn't want rule of law in the U.S. system. He wants a stronger Trump. He wants a stronger executive. So in that regard, what Putin has been doing inside the United States is pretty aligned with what Trump and Elon have been doing inside the United States.
really supports a strong Europe, thinks a strong European Union is good for the United States. Trump doesn't. Trump thinks a strong EU is adversarial. They free ride on America. They refuse to pay for security. They coordinate on trade and on regulation and undermine American competitiveness in companies. And they tariff us too much. They won't give us access. So what the U.S. wants is an end to the EU under Trump. He loved Brexit.
He always talked to Macron in his first term and said, when are you going to do a Brexit? Every time he met him, he always said that. Trump wants all of the parties that are more aligned. with Trump and with the Kremlin. He loves Orban. Orban's the guy that always travels to Mar-a-Lago and says what a great guy Trump is. Hungary. He also promotes Putin. So, I mean, frankly, the Americans under Trump and Putin...
have a significant strategic alignment on Europe. And Trump believes that Europe is one electoral cycle behind the U.S. But if you give it one more voting cycle, that reform can win. in the UK. And Elon's talked about maybe donating 100 million bucks to Farage in that group, though he doesn't like Farage leading it. You know, they want the AFT to win. They want the national rally in France, Le Pen to win.
So, I mean, actually, it would be quite surprising if Trump didn't see himself as aligned with Russia on those issues. And also, I mean, I remember when when Trump had his first G20 summit as president. in his first term. And he was there with all the Europeans, but also with Putin. And Trump knows that the Europeans don't respect him. They're educated elites. They think he's some low class heck.
That, you know, doesn't that they snigger at and they laugh at just like Obama used to. They don't respect him. They say one thing in front of his face. They say another thing behind his back. And Lord knows he gets intelligence on that. And he sees that Putin actually.
gets along with him just fine, is nice to him, is good to him, just like Mohammed bin Salman is. And that matters to Trump. And I remember in that first G20 meeting in Hamburg and he was sitting there with all these, you know, educated, erudite global leaders.
feeling disrespected. And so he gets up from his seat where he was sitting next to Shinzo Abe's wife, who was pretending not to speak English so she didn't have to talk to him because she hated Trump. And then he gets up and he goes around the table.
to sit down and talk to Putin. And you know what? And they used the Kremlin translator because his translator had Japanese but didn't have Russian. And I broke that news because a bunch of the leaders that were at that table told me about it. They were so stunned. I wasn't stunned. And this wasn't some conspiracy theory. This wasn't Trump figuring out how to do some sort of big, grand alliance with Putin. This was Trump feeling disrespected by Western leaders.
And saying, screw you. I'm not dealing with you. I'm going to talk to this guy. So I really think that people need to understand how Trump's brain works on this stuff. Just to be clear, my surprise is not about that alignment. My surprise was how does the GOP. go from here's the biggest boogeyman to here's our buddy. No, and that's why I think it's important to note that a bunch of GOP senators who have not spoken out against Trump on hardly anything. I mean, they voted through RFK.
Yeah. I mean, who, you know, frankly, you know, wouldn't get a cabinet position in Burkina Faso. Right. And I mean, is here right now for Trump. They voted for Tulsi Gabbard. for Christ's sake. I mean, again, who certainly shouldn't be on cabinet. They also voted for a lot of very capable people on cabinet like Besant and like, you know, Rubio and Waltz. So it's across the board. But I mean, they have spoken out on Putin.
A lot of them have. Who hasn't spoken out on Putin is Marco Rubio, who you saw during the Zelensky blow up was just like fading. into the upholstery because, I mean, you know, everything that he has stood for on this issue is being ripped up by Trump in front of him. And he understands that his job as secretary of state is not. to act as a principal, but is to do the bidding of the American president. So amidst all this drama with tariffs and Ukraine, NATO...
the redrawing of the political map of Europe. We seem to have forgotten, and maybe there's Gaza fatigue. What are your thoughts on Gaza? What happens? How do we come back from this incredibly tragic situation that happened there? Well, as you say, it's interlinked. There are some analogies. Trump went and he was frustrated the Middle Eastern allies who he's closest to, particularly MBS in Saudi and MBZ in the Emirates.
that they were not acting faster. And Egypt, which gets the most U.S. military support, leaving aside the special money for Ukraine in the world after Israel, he was very frustrated that they were not moving faster to take responsibility. for what a post-cease-fire Gaza would look like. And so finally, you know, he meets with Netanyahu and he said, okay, I'm just going to do it myself. And I'm going to take it over. Under whose authority? Under my authority.
And and they're all going to leave voluntarily, the Palestinians, and I'm going to make it into a beautiful Riviera. And then he makes the Jordanian king come and kiss the ring while he says that as well. But the reality is he doesn't have a plan.
to take over Gaza and he doesn't have a plan to get all the Palestinians out and they wouldn't leave voluntarily. And he's certainly not going to engage in full ethnic cleansing. He's not going to send boots on the ground to do it. So what what he's done. is basically put more pressure on the Arabs to make a plan, which they have now come to with a meeting in Cairo among the Arab League. And that plan includes...
A lot more money for reconstruction in Gaza while the Palestinians are still there and are resettled on in camps where they have capacity with humanitarian aid coming in. The Israelis have not accepted that plan. Trump has not accepted it yet, but they're talking, including with his very capable special envoy, Whitcoff, who's done a really good job with the Gulf allies over the past few months. And so I think the intention.
Is kind of like on Ukraine to get the Americans out of the process, to have the Gulf Arabs take the lead, pay the money, figure out the governance and let the Americans do other stuff. Now. I mean, you do have the the complicating factor of the Israelis who are the exception consistently to Trump's America first policy, because kind of no matter what Israel does, the United States under Trump will make sure.
that they get a hell of a lot of support. And that is not the way the Americans treat the Ukrainians or the Canadians or the Mexicans or others. But leaving that aside, because Israel is in such a strong military position. And because they can basically determine the level of escalation or de-escalation in the region because they destroyed, they decapitated Hezbollah, which was their principal.
military adversary in Lebanon because they've destroyed Hamas in Gaza because they've done so much damage with the Islamic Jihad in the West Bank and because Assad has been overthrown. which means the Iranians can no longer get military weapons over the land bridge to Lebanon and Hezbollah. Israel just doesn't face the kind of threat that they had faced before.
So there is no longer the same level of urgency from the Israelis as there was after October 7th when the Americans really deeply had to stand up for their ally or there was a more existential question. And so... How does it resolve itself? I mean, you think that the GCC pays for the rebuild and we make a sort of... Dubai on the Med, and we forget and forgive, and we have an Ireland where we have jobs, so therefore, you know, we have money and go forward.
No, not quite. I mean, because, again, the Israelis are relevant here and they're going to demand buffer zones and they're going to demand some level of control. of border security and what does and doesn't get in from a humanitarian perspective. So I think we're very far from allowing the Arabs to have sovereignty over that process.
The Israelis don't just want Hamas out and the Arabs agree on that, of course, but they also aren't comfortable with the Palestinian Authority having any leadership that is at odds with the Arab plan. So that would have to be discussed. At the same time, the Israelis are taking more territory in the West Bank. They are evacuating Palestinians from camps in the West Bank with force. And that is likely a precursor.
to Israelis expanding illegal settlements, which is supported by Netanyahu's far right coalition partners that allow him to stay in power in Israel. They're part of his government. So I think there's a lot more hair on this before we get to something that feels like, oh, this could be a plan for a Palestinian state, even though the Arab plan does explicitly call for a role for a Palestinian state, which is something that Biden.
nominally supported that we didn't do much to support it uh trump said i used to support it i don't anymore i want to get into even bigger stuff uh global geopolitics and power shifts how do you see this this ever-changing world of of China, Russia, Iran, Gaza, the Middle East. What are the power moves and the global economy right now?
With tariffs and we're playing economic and political chess, what are the big moves that you see over, let's say, the next six months to a year? In the near term, the United States gets a lot of announced wins. some of which are symbolic only, some of which are meaningful because other countries that are weak and other companies are trying to do everything possible not to get into a fight with Trump and his administration.
And that's true whether you're Meta and Zuckerberg or whether you're TSMC or whether you're Panama. There are going to be a lot of wins like that. But longer term, the impact of that. especially for a country that doesn't have a very good long-term strategy because of our political system, is going to be the U.S. that will lose a lot of influence, that will lose a lot of allies. And I think that's going to create more opportunities, sadly.
For the Chinese and also more fragmentation geopolitically, less growth geopolitically as well. OK, not great. Where do you see the Chinese American? you know, relationship heading over the next year? Significantly more negative. I think that, you know, you're going to have the Americans continuing to impose tariffs. They've already gone with 20 percent, which is pretty meaningful.
And the Chinese are responding in kind, though not quite as hard. There's also going to be an expansion of American export controls. And America will use its power to get other countries more aligned with the Americans and get the Chinese out of their supply chain.
particularly in areas of technology that are considered adjacent to a national security broadly defined. And that effort to contain the Chinese will lead the Chinese to be fighting. So I think that you'll see more decoupling, broadly speaking. And also you'll see a more challenging relationship that won't be as well managed between the U.S. and Trump. Because of all this noise.
We're forgetting some big things. Climate change and global security. What like, you know, a lot of these things are just falling to the back burner. What are your thoughts there? Yeah, well, I mean, I'm ultimately, even though the Americans are not. part of a global response to climate change. The Americans are part of a global response to investing massively in post-carbon sustainable technologies.
Because they are working at scale. And I don't think the United States pulling out of the Paris climate accord is going to meaningfully change that trajectory. Texas. is producing more renewable energy right now than any other state in the United States. It was California a couple of years ago. Why? Because entrepreneurs and capital know their returns and they're going to keep doing it.
So, I mean, yeah, I can see that what the U.S. is doing now will make this process more inefficient and maybe it ultimately means that we move more towards longer coal. and longer oil and gas than we otherwise would see. But we're still, our kids and our grandkids are going to have a future of inexpensive, post-carbon, sustainable.
decentralized and abundant energy. And the only real question is how much climate change and how much damage has been done in the interim. And we'll probably do a little bit more damage. That's the reality. But it's the genie's out of the bottle. on moving past coal and oil and gas long term. And that's something we should. And if we're going to end on something positive, that's a good thing to end on. We have some green suits. I like to end. You've got to.
Accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative as the song goes. Listen, a pleasure as always. Let's do it again. The man, the machine, the legend, Ian Bremmer. Thank you. Good to see you, man. Take it easy. This podcast is brought to you by Aura. By the time you hear about a data breach, your information has already been exposed for months. On average, companies take 277 days to report a breach. That's nine months where hackers have access to your personal data, your name,
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