And, This Is How The World Looks At Us Under Trump With Ian Bremmer

Governor Gavin Newsom sits down with Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, founder of  GZEROMedia, and one of the most influential geopolitical analysts in the world. Together they assess whether the United States is still seen as a reliable global partner.

Bremmer breaks down how President Trump is reshaping alliances, why U.S. foreign policy feels increasingly improvisational, and how adversaries like Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin exploit American dysfunction.

They also examine the administration’s Middle East strategy, whether the U.S. is quietly pursuing regime change in Venezuela and whether our fear of Artificial Intelligence can be solved by good political leadership.


00:00 — Is the U.S. Still a Reliable Ally?
06:31 — Does Trump Actually Have a Foreign Policy?
13:11 — MBS, Saudi Arabia, and That White House Meeting
19:22 — Should Trump Get More Credit in the Middle East?
25:38 — China’s Strategy: Xi Believes He Can Manage Trump
32:04 — Why This Administration Seems to Have It Out for Canada
38:48 — Are We Quietly Pushing Regime Change in Venezuela?
41:55 — The Trump – Putin Relationship Isn’t Working
48:53 — JD Vance & the NATO Breakdown
53:36 — How the World Actually Sees the U.S. Right Now
1:00:57 — American Corruption Is Now on Full Display
1:04:38 — Can Capitalism Save or Destroy AI?
1:08:50 — What The Epstein Files Really Tell Us


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The fact that Trump wants to fundamentally change the US
political system so there are no longer checks and balances
on his presidency. My principal enemies are inside the house.
They almost tried to kill me. It was this close.
Reality has punched him in the face. I think that
what Epstein represents two Americans are these assholes can get

(00:23):
away with anything.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Coming up next on this is Gavin Newsom. I just
sat down with Ian Brenner, the founder and president of
the Euraza Group started g zero Media. It's a fancy
way of saying a world leading expert on geopolitical risk,
on politics, on business and its intersection and of course
this week highlighted by the visit of the Crown Prince

(00:45):
of Saudi Arabia. There's so much to discuss around the world.
We are living in the trend lines that define this
moment and what to expect in the future. This is
Gavin Newsom and this is Ian Bremmer.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Ian Breunner, It's good to be with you, going to
be with you.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Where were you? We're in San Francisco. Yes, you made
it all the way out west. You are you a
product of East Coast? What are you doing out here.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yeah, I grew up in Chelsea, Massachusetts, outside Boston, and
I live in New York.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Now, all right, well I like it.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
I do like it.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Do you like it?

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Can't move me out?

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Okay, well I'm not trying. That's a good point, and
I'll get to we'll get to.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
A little bit of the East coast here for a
few years. Where were you Stanford?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Of course?

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Sorry, of course, Hey they let me in the projects,
let me in Stanford. I'm going to drop it right away.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
You're at Columbia University as well. You're all over. But look,
I want to let's contextualize because I think for me,
i'd like to sort of level set about, you know,
sort of in the Tom Freeman zone of what world
are we living in? I mean, what world are we
living in? Sort of globally? What are the trend lines
that define the world we're living in? What's your sense

(01:52):
of the moment we're in globally?

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Geopolitically, the biggest thing that is so unusual, and you're
in my histories, is that the United States we are
now driving the greatest level of geopolitical uncertainty. Right, It's
not China, it's not Europe, Russia is certainly a problem,
but comparatively small. No, it's the question of what does

(02:17):
the United States want. It's whiplash from one administration to
the next, and it is absolutely an unwillingness to be
the reliable partner on the set of rules that the
Americans had instituted and mostly, though not always live by,
collective security, free market trading, you know, the rule of law,

(02:40):
foreign aid. I mean, all of these things, huge questions
and countries all over the world, especially our allies, saying
we don't believe that the United States is reliable going forward.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
So the issue of reliability, so you talking, You've written
a lot about this notion of unpredictability reliability, but never
both aunt and that's the world now. We're living in
this notion of being unreliable and unpredictable. That's anomalist, even
by Trump on completely. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yeah, I mean they've been through Trump one point zero
and I think a lot of people assume Trump two
point zero would be the same, and they were really wrong, right,
So much more consolidated power under Trump, so much more
willingness to break the furniture on tariffs, you know, for example,
I'm on trying to do peace deals for example, just

(03:31):
a very, very assertive this is my opportunity. My principal
enemies are inside the house. They almost tried to kill me,
it was this close. And so I have to be
a revolutionary president.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
And you've used that word revolution, and some people have
boked at that, saying that may be overstated, though you've
made the point not dissimilar to Gorbachev himself. Some of
the revolutions we saw, at least the economic revolution in
China that you can certainly make the case that Trump's
policies visa either west of the globe is revolutionary.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
I think that in our lifetimes, and this is why
the geopolitical uncertainty from the US is so great. There
have really been three attempted revolutions that have had global impact.
The first Dengzhopang, an economic revolution not a political revolution
in China, successful and brings China ultimately into the WTO

(04:30):
and into the global economy. The second under Gorbachev, when
I cut my teeth as a graduate student, my first
trip outside the US was to the Soviet Union in
eighty six when he had first come in. This was
a political and an economic revolution completely failed, and the
Soviet Union collapsed as a consequence, and the third a

(04:53):
political though I would argue, not an economic revolution here
in the United States by Trump, and we don't know
if it going to be successful or not. And by
the way, Steve Bannon would completely agree with that, he
wants it to be successful. You absolutely don't. A lot
of people feel very differently, but the fact that Trump

(05:13):
wants to fundamentally change the US political system so there
are no longer checks and balances on his presidency, either
from inside the administration or from the party, or from
the administrative state, or from the judiciary. I mean these
are or from the media. I mean, as we saw,

(05:34):
you know, you and I are taping this on a
day that Trump, you know, went directly after ABC and
said they should have their license taken away. Didn't like
a question, tells the head of the FCC you should
be looking into that right now. That is not historically
something that is compatible with the United States. But under
a political revolution it might be.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
And you say, not an economic revolution, a political revolution,
but you just referenced the economic revolution in China. Some
have equated the economic policy shifts in the United States
two aspects of Chinese state capitalism. This notion that we
have seen, or not just notion, but we've seen some

(06:14):
of the transactions that have come with the ten percent
ownership into Intel. Obviously these golden shares with US steel
in Nvidia and AMD, even MP materials here in the
state of California, disproportion number of California based companies aspects
sort of component parts of state capitalism, they'll have Have
they not entered into political industrial policy?

Speaker 1 (06:37):
Absolutely, you just picked all the big ones right, by
the way, So I mean it's not like you can
say that across the US economy at all. The biggest
American companies are spending lots of money on the Trump
administration to ensure that they can continue to essentially capture
the regulatory environment, not the other way around. So my
view is that there are similarities between China and the

(07:01):
United States in the way the economy runs. In China,
the state captures the corporations. In the United States, the
corporations capture the state right where in Europe, right the
state actually stands pretty much outside and its superpower is
a regulatory superpower, which sounds great for the social contract
until you realize that there's no growth attached to it exactly.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, So from a perspective, you know, back to sort
of the alliance, there's alliances and now this notion of
predictability or unpredictability reliability. Would you describe, I mean, an
alliance first framework that sort of defines the post World
War II order the last seventy five eighty years to now,
an American first framework or is it an economic first

(07:45):
framework or is it just trump an impulse in the
context of what his revolutionary construct or ideological frame references.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
Well, so, one of the reasons why I don't think
it's an economic revolution is because even though Trump might
be interested in some of that stuff, reality has punched
him in the face. So you know, for example, he
tried to start a trade war with China and forced
them to bend the knee. He tried to put an
effective economic boycott on the Chinese. It didn't work. CHESI

(08:16):
Ping wasn't getting on the phone and jumping and saying please, sir,
can you know?

Speaker 2 (08:20):
Can you did that surprise you? The extent to which
China leveraged, particularly rare minerals, their strategic strengths in relationship
to that, do you think that I mean, was that
a surprise, not only from your perspective, but do you
think that surprised the Trump administry or.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
It clearly surprises the Trump adminstration. It The part that
surprised me was not the capabilities that the Chinese had
developed in critical minerals and earth. They've been building these
up for decades. It's very obvious that this is like
a really strategic move to have that leverage. But what
surprised me, and I think surprised a lot of people

(08:56):
in the field, was the view that their ability to
suddenly actually regulate through licensing and have a scalpol that
would allow you to really hit American companies and not
necessarily hit other companies. And to be fair, like, when
they announce these licensing agreements, suddenly everyone is trying to

(09:18):
make applications to China, and it's thousands of applications and
they don't have the staff to actually deal with it.
So it did cause damage. For example, China's relations with
the EU right now are markedly worse than they were
a few months ago, in part because they weren't as
capable to really use this as a lever just against

(09:39):
the United States and just against American companies. But their
willingness to do it, together with their getting up to
speed really really fast. I think was surprised everyone to
at least a degree. And the fact is that the
Trump administration is not prepared to have this fight with
the Chinese sign. What does that mean? In part, that

(10:01):
means that the Americans need friends, need allies. It turns
out inflation is higher than Trump thought it was going
to be, And what does that mean. It turns out
that like a lot of those tariffs on food and
on coffee and bananas other things, turns out, well, you've
got to take those off. Turns out that Trump doesn't
actually probably doesn't have the ability to use AEPA individually

(10:24):
as the president as everything as a national emergency, no
matter what country, no matter how poor or how rich,
how small, how big, And that the Supreme Court least
the initial arguments look like that's going to hit him
back pretty hard. All of that implies that Trump's he
may have an idea, grand grand idea, that I'm the

(10:44):
biggest actor out there, and therefore the law of the jungle,
I'm the predator, and so as the apex predator, everyone
has to bow to me. But you know, even the
apex predator like picks off like a wounded wildebeast, but
doesn't go after the entire herd. Simultaneously, turns out it's
not really working for MS. I think that in the
past few weeks we've actually passed the tipping point where

(11:10):
Trump's global unilateralism is really getting constrained.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
So to peak Trump in that and AIBA is the
International Economic Mercy Powers Act, of which Trump is asserted.
It's been litigated in the Supreme Court that he has
the unilateral authority without congressional approval to move forward with
these ranks. But even of course, if the Supreme Court
udicates against that authority under the MEER, he's still substantially

(11:35):
confined other avenues to advance the two but.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
It would take time and expectations for where the global
blended tariff average from the United States would be, it
would probably be three to six points lower than they presently.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Which is roughly what is it? Wait, it's seventeen. It
depends on.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
The add It depends on whether you're saying what he
has or what they're actually implementing, but something between thirteen
and seventeen.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, and it's high since the nineteen.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Thirties without anyway, and that's the single biggest thing he's
done on the global stage so far.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
So it seems to me that's the entire policy. I mean,
every single thing is leveraged, every conversation is leveraged. In
the context of that cudgel, isn't it a tariff cudgel
with him?

Speaker 1 (12:16):
I mean the Russia Ukraine thing, clearly, it's whether or not.
You remember when the Ukrainians, when Zelenski came to the Oval,
that horrible shambalic meeting and he cut off intelligence and
defense support for a week or two. That wasn't trade,
but my god, that was important. Sent a big message
to the Europeans. There have similar in terms of the
Abraham Accords and the F thirty five, so American military

(12:41):
capabilities also have that. I would say that's another significant
piece of.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
So let's let's reinforce that in the context of the
meeting that the President just had in the Oval Office
of the Ground Prince Arabia Yea talking about transactions around
F thirty fives, talking about potentially well though ipparently they
didn't talk about the Abraham courts, but the price of
bit they did a bit to pull potentially to get

(13:05):
Saudi Arabia as part of that. So give me you're
over under in terms of that relationship, which is to
me fascinating also deeply predictable, because there's a sort of
a crony component of that as well. There's a little
bit of self dealing that seems to attach itself, respectively
from my perspective, to all things Saudi Arabia and the
Trump and Trump family. But how did you perceive that

(13:27):
meeting the importance of it, a little bit of the
controversy around it, particularly a relationship to the murder the
Washington Post reporter, what was your sense of that?

Speaker 1 (13:37):
Well, there's so much to unpack here. Saudi Arabia today,
over thirty million population in the region is transforming itself
in ways that if you haven't traveled to the Kingdom recently,
is shocking in a positive ways, incredibly positive way that
this Muhammed bin Salomon, if there were elections in Saudi

(13:59):
Arabia would almost certainly win eighty eighty five ninety percent
of the votes. He is Women were eleven percent of
the workforce ten years ago. They're now thirty six percent
in ten years. It's like a reverse Iranian Revolution, right,
they're diversifying the economy, you know, So it's not just

(14:21):
you know, oil and petro cam it's actually meant to
and it's technology and tourism, and it's sports, and it's health,
and it's all of these comedies, even to that comedy
festival recently. Absolutely, and so you know, you go and
you see that suddenly, like men and women are actually
able to talk to each other. And I remember the
first time I went to Saudi Arabia, local men referred to

(14:44):
women as MBOs moving black objects because they were completely
covered by the nikab and you could couldn't see them
aside from this little slit, you know, with their eyes.
And they certainly weren't playing any role in terms of
social public culture. That has completely changed. There are no
religious police on the streets anymore. All of that is extraordinary.

(15:08):
So any country in the world, not just the United States,
that is thinking about what are the what are the
future oriented governments that you should be engaging with, Saudi
would be on your list. Having said that, the Koshoji assassination,
which the CIA said, Mohamed Trump under Trump said Mohammed

(15:33):
bin Salman was directly aware of right and then so
suddenly today and no one is you know, Kashoji is
no longer a thing in the sense that it was
many years ago. You got Davos in the desert, all
of the global the bankers, the industry leaders from the US,
other countries, they're all going, it's not like the Saudis
are suddenly a pariah state, not at all. And I

(15:56):
think Biden made mistakes on that, frankly, not reading the room.
But but for Trump to then take a question and
pretend that not only did this incident not happen, to
whitewash it and say, well, Mohammad ben Salomon, he knew
nothing about that, to say that, well, this guy Kishoji
was a bad guy, Like what, you don't need to do.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
Any of that.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
And yet it's almost like he takes pleasure in the
opportunity in undermining the values that the United States has
at least tried to stand for for much of its
recent history.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Net positive, Yeah, I mean, and it was he was
treated like ahead of state, even though it's technically not
the head of state.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
But yeah, they're still looking.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
But is it relates? So it gives us opportunity to
just maybe then to get into the Middle East and
the Middle East politics a little bit. The Abraham McCord
is a big success for the Trump administration one.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
Point arguably his largest success, largest success.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
And what I love about you, you call balls and strung.
You're nonpartisan and you're able to assess things without a
deeply political lens, which I think is critical and important.
I think it's important for us I to acknowledge that,
particularly folks in my party. But it relates to where
we are today and the ability to build on that
success and the relationship to this quote unquote Middle East
peace deal, the most significant you know, Trump sort of triumph,

(17:20):
and the challenges that persist in Gaza Hamas, who appears
not to have any interest in in you know, eliminating
or at least setting down their arms, the challenges with
the next phase of that peace deal, the importance of
Saudi Arabia recognizing Israel, but first Israel recognizing a Palestinian state.

(17:40):
How do you feel a state of the Middle East?

Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yes today, Well so first balls and strikes. Let's give
Trump credit where credit is due. Nobody thought that Hamas
was going to actually release all of the living Israeli hostages,
and they did with Trump pressure and it was at
the United Nations General Assembly, and I remember when he

(18:03):
stood up and the speech was way too long, almost
an hour, and there were only two applause lines, one
when he finally finished and the other when he said,
you want to end the war, Hamas has to let
the hostage go. And everyone, almost everyone in the rom
applot did that, and so but no one thought it
was going to get done. He got it done. He
got it done by also orchestrating a summit on the

(18:25):
sidelines of the UN General Assembly. And you were there
in New York with me as well, with all of
the leaders from the region, not the Israelis, saying here's
the twenty or twenty one point plan, depending on what
we talked to. That they then mostly got agreement on,
and recently they just got it passed by.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
The Security Council, which is remarkable.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
Which is remarkable, the Russians and the Chinese sustained, and
everyone else was.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
A little bit. They were a little bit on the
side of they were chippy. They were chippy, that's the
right word. Yeah, yeah, no, but that was another remark.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
But to go from a position where the United States
had been almost isolated completely on the global stage, and
it's support Israel to having the US lead diplomacy with
the Security Council voting in favorite only two ebstensions for
American adversaries, that's an extraordinary wine. Give them credit. When
Trump went to the Kanestant and gave that speech, he

(19:18):
was a hell of a lot more popular there than
Prime Minister Not Yeah, who is right, clearly, So that's
the positive. Negative is getting this deal from ceasefire to
a Palestinian state is really really not looking very likely
right now. And that's why the Saudis were not prepared

(19:40):
to show any leg on the Abraham accurts. And when
I was in riad same thing, like, yeah, yeah, we're
very hap we'd like to do it, we'd like to engage,
we'd like the technology, all that stuff, but not until
we see a clear pathway to a Palisadian state, and
right now, with this leadership in Israel, it is not happening.
So you saw Trump just brought the Kazakhs into the

(20:01):
Abraham Accords. You see that I saw that week.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
They're not even it was an unrelated party, well, but
it was just to show momentum.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
They already had relations with Israel. For decades. It's like
when Trump announced that he ended the Azeri Armenia War,
which is great because they weren't actually fight.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
A bel prize the ten piece deals, I know.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
But the point is that the Abraham Accords are not
going to include the Saudiast for the foreseeable future. That
is the future.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
Where are we? What's your over under? And I've been
reading some of the things you put out. How concerned
are you about Hesbala in Lebanon? How concerned are you
about what's happening by route or not happening. Where do
you think you see things going in the short term.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
Well, the Lebanese government after the ceasefire said that they
were going to work to ensure that the heavy weaponry
that Hesbola had in the south of the country near
the Israeli border. They were going to destroy that critical
infrastructure and make sure that those weapons weren't there. They've
done none of that in a couple of cases, a
couple of cases where US has intelligence provides the Lebanese government,

(21:03):
they respond to that. But this has not been proactive.
Nobody thinks they're going to actually get this done, and
that means that Israel is going to start mowing the
grass again, and that means more strikes by the Israelis.
I do I expect it now? Whether or not that
is limited strikes drones, missiles, aircraft just across the border,

(21:26):
or whether that includes special forces insertion in Beirut. There's
a big, big difference between those two things. Either could happen,
But I'd be stunned if we have this staying quiescent
over the coming months.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
Tony Blair heading this effort in Gaza, in Gaza, what's
your over under on success in that respect? I mean,
the idea if Hamas is not going to put down
their arms, of an international security force coming in armed
security force seems less likely under those circumstances, or am

(22:04):
I off less likely?

Speaker 1 (22:05):
But also everyone that's been traveling to this coordination center
that they've set up just on the Israeli side of
the Gaza border, and it has like one floor with
the Israelis, one floor with the Americans, then one floor
with the multinationals, and apparently, first of all much bigger,
much more capable than people think, the US, much more

(22:26):
directly involved now in terms of ensuring that humanitarian eight
is getting in the Israelis are in some of the meetings,
they are not in all of the meetings. So there
is an effort to really have people that are capable
of moving the ball. And also, as the administration is
called it BB sitting, so senior officials that are constraining
him so that he can't destroy the progress in the process. Now,

(22:50):
also Tony Blair controversial figure, but is well regarded, well
respected in the Gulf. He brings farm more political influence
in leadership to Agaza role than anyone else plausible. Interestingly,
the Jordanians have been really opposed to him, and I
haven't been able to figure out why.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
No history when he was Prime minister and with the king,
I mean.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
With the rock A little bit sure, but still surprising
to me. I mean it might be that Abu Mazen
as opposed to it and has used the Jordanians to say, hey,
you know, sort of he's going to be tough on us.
I'm not sure, but I think that everyone would be
fortunate to have Blair in this role.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
Frankly, it was your perspective, was the right thing to
do to go in and go after those nuclear facilities
of the United States and those strikes, Well.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
They worked right. I mean, you know you're talking about
intelligence estimates, are you probably delayed the Iranian program by
some twelve to eight months eighteen months, and the Iranians
were incapable of any response, marshaling any response to Israel
or the United States. Most of it was done by

(24:01):
the Israelis. The Americans saw that that was successful and
nothing happening. Trump wanted to get in, but then the
war was over in short order and no American boots
on the ground. So look on balance with an Iranian
government member. Trump had bb in the Oval Office and
while he was there announced I'm going to start engaging
with the Iranians. I want to see if we can

(24:23):
get to a diplomatic deal. And there was some effort,
and the Iranians weren't really willing to go there. So
ultimately that meant I mean, this is not like the
Gaza situation. Certainly not like Cutter, where the Israelis made
strikes the Americans weren't happy about it. In the case
of Iran, the United States was pretty much on board

(24:45):
with Okay, we're gonna let you guys have at it.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
Let's go back to China. It's interesting to me just
with a weaker economy. We talked a little bit, I mean,
this notion that they were able to flex with a
little more precision and push Trump back. Although we still
have you outrageously high tariffs and that's going to impact
already impacting prices as you suggest, but particularly this Christmas
where I think eighty percent of our toys come from China,

(25:10):
et cetera. So we're going to feel those impacts, and
they're starting to actually make I mean, people are starting
to absorb the realities of these terriffs in a way
those first few months they appeared not to be And
so there's back to this notion that certain realities are
hitting Trump in the face in terms of how he positions.
But give me a sense, you know, the Biden years
vis a vis China, how Trump is posturing that relationship

(25:34):
with she. Where do you see things going even beyond
the situational politics today around the immediate you know, sort
of that we sort of decompressing a little bit of
that stress after that APEC meeting, Where do you see
things going with China in the next two five years.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
The Chinese are very confident right now. They believe that
the United States as a country that is less Reliedle
is creating big opportunities for China. Long term, US shuts down, usaid,
who's going to be the principle on the ground in
the global South? Going to be the Chinese. US doesn't

(26:12):
show up with the cops summit that you just went
to in Brazil. Who's driving technology at scale for post
carbon energy? The Chinese? The Americans are scaring off brown
people that might want visas to get top higher education
in the United States. Who's now trying to make visas
easier for people to come in the Chinese? So long term,

(26:35):
Xi Zhiping is going to be there, in all likelihood
a lot longer than Trump is. He believes this is
an opportunity. I would argue he is also overplaying his hand.
She is in which respect or what respect that when
he decided to put that loaded gun on the table
that said, here is what I can do in weaponizing

(26:57):
these critical minerals that are utterly essential for everybody in
the advanced industrial economies. Suddenly you have Europeans, Japanese, South Koreans, Australians,
Canadians saying, okay, we can't rely on the United States,
but these guys are actually a fundamental national security problem
right now, and we've got to find a way to
work together, all of us so that we have alternatives.

(27:20):
In the same way that the Europeans had their eye
off the ball on energy and allowed themselves to be
dependent on Russia a really bad idea for decades. In
the same way that the Americans did that with semiconductors
and TSMC right off of the Chinese coast, really bad
idea for decades. All of us have done this on

(27:42):
critical minerals and rare arts. So yeah, I think if
you're China, you should have just you know, as they say,
you know the sun Zoo right when your enemy is
making a mistake, let them and don't intervene. And I
think that the Chinese actually sort of have played a
little too aggressively.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Recently, the new Prime Minister of Japan said she would
intervene on behalf of Taiwan.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
If they were attacked.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
If they were attacked. The United States has had a
curate I mean, Biden administration seemed to have multiple positions
on this, and I don't mean that as an indictment,
but this notion of ambiguity I think was part of
a little bit of the strategy.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
Didn't help that. Nancy Pelosi also decided to go play
by herself under the Biden administration.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
And there was there was some frictions there. We're what's
the over under on China, moving on Taiwan in the
next decade.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
Oh decade is a long time, right, I mean in
the next over the course of the Trump administration, I
would say, actually quite low low.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
And what would you say under the course of the
is that just because of years or because of policy
with Trump?

Speaker 1 (28:52):
I think it's both. It's in part because the Chinese
don't yet have the military capabilities in place, and you
see every month there's a new corruption scandal that's hitting
the inside the top levels of the Chinese military. So
how much would she want to rely on that to
ensure with a military that hasn't been used in you know,

(29:12):
sort of battle conditions the way like the Russians have,
for example, and learn some things maybe they didn't want
to learn at the beginning of that war. But then
you also have the fact that the Chinese sea that
Trump isn't looking for a trade war, like recognizes that
he needs to bend the knee, that he needs to
find a way not to cause problems for China. There's

(29:32):
a mutually assured economic destruction between the two countries for
now at least, even if the long term path is
towards decoupling, and you know, going to war against Taiwan,
even if Trump's instinct his impulse would be that's pretty
far away, not really my problem. But the Japanese, the

(29:54):
South Koreans, the Australians wouldn't feel that way. And the
Americans are very much on the ground there and intelligent
sharing and troops and all the rest of It'd be
hard for the Americans to actually steer clear of that.
And I don't see Shi Jinping as wanting to take
that risk. Similar to the economy. You know, the Chinese
economy is not performing that well right now. He's not

(30:14):
ready to launch the big bazooka at domestic stimulus. He's
not suddenly going to take all of the provincial debt
and take it on at the federal level because he
doesn't need to. Because Xi Jinping is thinking about ten
years down the line, as you suggested, twenty years down
the line, and the fact that like he can wait,
he is patient, He is more risk averse. He's being

(30:37):
quite cautious about some of these bigger, long term strategic issues,
specifically like Taiwan.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Is the policy in the United States decoupling or is
it de risking.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
I think it is long term, it's decoupling, and that's
an aggressive thing to say. But you know, when I
think about the commanding heights of the global economy over
the next five years, we're talking about AI and advanced technologies,
and these are places where what the Americans are doing
and what the Chinese are doing are completely separate sets

(31:08):
of investments. They're not interoperable. We're taking our researchers out
of each other's programs. We're not collaborating, we're not communicating,
We're doing completely different things. And so you know, we're
going to other countries and we're saying it's not just
about if we want to talk about US China, we
have to talk about American diplomacy with third parties and say, well,

(31:32):
we're pressuring the Mexicans to ensure there are no transhipments
of Chinese goods through Mexico into the United States. We're
pressuring the Netherlands to make sure that they're not actually
you know, sort of selling software design or semiconductors into China.
We're working on all of these countries to build alternate
supply chains so that we don't rely on the Chinese.
That's not the risk game. That's decoupling. That's that's where

(31:55):
the Americans are going long term. But there's a recognition
that for the next one, two, three years is you
can't actually get that done. You can't execute on that
strategy near term.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Uh, you mentioned Mexico. We can sort of connect the
dot up Canada? What what is what is that? What
is the Trump administration's bone to pick with Canada? Where's
the origin story here? Was it personality with Trudeau? I mean,
was it just again back to impulse or is there
a strategy? I mean this issue of sovereignty Denmark written about.

(32:30):
I mean, we were going away from down in Panama
for a while. We'll get to Venezuela perhaps in a
moment with Maduro. But what is it? What is the
bone to pick with Canada? Is there a strategy here?
Is there a rationale?

Speaker 1 (32:42):
Well, given that the US Mexico Canada agreement was again
after the Abraham Accords, arguably the second biggest win of
the first transition, own negotiated Trump own negotiate agreement. Yes,
and that's why I say the second Trump term is
so different from the first. It's much more like, I'm
much more power powerful, and I am in a position

(33:03):
where I can force you to accept asymmetric negotiations that
benefit me to a greater degree. And you know, yes,
at the beginning, of course, it was justin Trudeau and
the fact that he really disliked him personally, and so
when he came down to mar A Lago and Trump

(33:23):
had him surrounded at that table and started talking with
Governor Trudeau. And you'll remember that there were like you know,
hockey matches and the rest where they were booing the
American national anthem. All of the countries. I mean when
I mentioned that the Americans are perceived is unreliable. But
there are a whole bunch of countries that are still
trying to find more effective ways of can't we just

(33:47):
get along? Can't we not have a crisis? Canada, because
they know the Americans so well, they are so angry. Yeah,
you look at how few Canadians are traveling to the USA.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
You rely on one point nine million year just in
the state of California.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
It's just it's collapsed staunch.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
Absolutely. The economic damage, the self harm we've done is
off the charts. That's a side. But you're right, it's
interesting for the Canadians. It's raw.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
It's raw. Yeah, yeah, I talked to hotel owners in Boston,
New England that kind of stuff. Also, Canadian tourism has
just fallen off a fucking cliff, and so there's a
huge amount of self harm in a country that really
integrates trusts the Americans, right, I mean they're very similar people.
And and remember Mark Carney won because of Trump period.

(34:33):
I mean that he was not in there with the
fighting chance.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
Otherwise it was going to get to Lulu and we'll
get to all these others that are beneficiaries of Trumpt's policies.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Australia, same thing happened.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
It's interesting. That's a good point.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
A number of elections that Trump actually pushed in the
other direction.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
What's Channebaum's the president of Mexico's played it from her
perspective Canadian Mexican perspective.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
Well, I would say so. I think she's been one
of the.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
Times a little frustrating for other training partners or relationships.
So you can't in California and others. But she's she's
got a lot more to lose. No, yes, she's she's
sort of she's figured out how to play Trump a
little bit differently than a lot of leaders.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
No, yeah, I think that what's interesting You're talking about
a PhD woman, environmental scientist, Berkeley grad. I mean, you know,
if she had been black and lesbian, I mean, like,
you can't find me a demographic that's going to be
more challenging for Trump to actually deal with. Right and
yet and yet she's been She's she's talked with him

(35:38):
frequently on the phone. She has engaged. She stands up
for herself and her country on the issues that are
utterly critical, like, for example, you can't send the military
in directly, you can't send drones indirectly. Will cooperate with you,
but you know, our sovereignty is utterly sacrifanct. But she's
given on border security, which has made Trump look good.

(36:00):
He's much more popular on that than he is on
the economy. Right now, she has given on trying to
get China out of their economy, which frankly, the Chinese
investments in Mexico haven't been that popular. I mean they're
not manufacturing cars. They are assembly. There are many good
jobs around that they're They're sending in a whole bunch
of cheap textiles. A lot of Mexican small and medium

(36:20):
producers are losing their jobs. So I mean there's alignment
on a lot of stuff. They had their their absolutely
biggest fentanyl bust in Mexico under Stanbaum for Trump. They
weren't doing that under Biden. And by the way, I
just heard from her cabinet just last week that the

(36:42):
that the bust in Nogadless, I guess it was with
the United States actually grabbing all of these rifles, heavy rifles.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
They were going south.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
They were going south. Was the single biggest seizure that
has happened.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
From get a lot of deserved a lot more attention.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
But in Mexico, got a lot of attention.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
We've been working on our own state national Guard has
been working. I've deployed them to the border on precisely
those operations, working in partnership with the National Guard in Mexico,
which we have a formal relationship. So I've plogged that effort.
That was significant and it's a good proof point of
that relationship. When we look more now.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
But of course they are deeply worried about, like, you know,
what happens with trade between US and Mexico. It's the
end of the day. As much as she's trying to
manage it, and she's doing good job, they are deeply
uncomfortable with the Americans saying, hey, USMCA, don't care what
that says. We're actually going to rip that off and
we're going to hit you hard unless you improve trade
terms with US.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
Yeap.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
That worries them a lot, because I mean they are,
you know, a much smaller economy and they are overwhelmingly
reliant on the US exactly right.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
The issues of narco trafficking, et cetera. It's obviously raised
and by when I was down at copp in Brazil,
this was a question to Presco. Was a few on
a reporters, and it was interesting how many questions I
got on this topic, not on topic meaning climate issues.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
They expect that the Americans are going to start bombing
Venezuela any day.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
You got it? I mean, where do you? I mean
a lot of people are speculatings a little bit of
wag the dog. There's a lot of distrust about the administration,
particularly time Epstein files and everything else going on, everything
that arguably is going wrong. Trump's had a difficult few weeks,
and I would argue a few months, but don't really
last few weeks. What do you make of what's going

(38:32):
on with these these strikes on these boats? What do
you make Is this a strategy to take out Maduro?
Is it a strategy to create anxiety for their for
their regime of sorts there for folks down in that
region more broadly beyond.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
I mean, it clearly isn't just a strategy to take
out these boats, because the expense and the amount of
material that the Americans presently have a raid off the
coast is radically beyond what you would need for that. Right,
Let's put an aircraft carra down there, that's right, Yeah, yeah,
strike group? Yeah yeah, no. Now. I think what's interesting, though,

(39:15):
is that, unlike a lot of the policies you and
I have been talking about in the past moments, this
is one that Trump has not personally been driving details on.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
This is Rubio.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
This is it's Rubio, It's Ratcliffe and CIA, it's Stephen
Miller actually as well, and they've really been pushing pretty
hard to nothing is going to be worse than the
Maduro regime right now. There are several reasons. It's it
is cocaine export coming into the United States. It is

(39:48):
oil going illegally to Cuba and then on to China.
It is ideological that you've got Venezuela, you've got Nicaragua,
you've got Cuba, these revolutionary leftist regimes. For otherwise in
the region, most these countries are turning towards the United
States and towards the right. And so there's a whole
bunch of things happening at the same time. And it's
also a little bit of hey, we were successful with Iran,

(40:12):
you know we all we need to do is a
little flex We don't need boots on the ground. We
can get rid of this guy. So I think that's
what's driving them. But this is going to be a
lot harder because you know, you are at the end
of the day talking about wanting Maduro out and what
replaces him and how that gets done and who's responsible

(40:34):
for that. I mean, chaos is a real option here,
and chaos can easily be worse than the devil. You know,
as we've seen in Libya, as we've seen in Iraq,
and I would hate to see that kind of quagmire
on America's shoulders again. As much as I find Maduro
utterly despicable and want to see this guy out of power,

(40:56):
it's interesting.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
So what's I mean, what's your over under if you
I mean just in terms of assessment of risk, in
terms of them escalating, I mean it's clearly they've escalated
significantly last week or so. What do you anticipate in
the next few months, weeks months, in terms of any
additional activities.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
I would say close to one hundred percent that there
will be direct US military strikes against targets in Venezuela. Yes,
now I don't that is not necessarily regime change. I
would be stunned if they don't. Stunted. Everything is oriented,
including like just the cadence of meetings in the situation

(41:33):
room on this, the amount of like you know, intel
and scenario planning. There's no way they're putting this much
effort into it to just say, ah, it's going to
climb down. Don't don't really care unless Maduro were to
be forced out absent that push, and I just think
he has too much control for that to happen.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Interesting, let's talk about control things not happening. Clearly the
Trump administration over promised significantly in terms of controlling the
agenda for peace deal with Putin and Ukraine. What do
you make did you? I imagine we all came in
with some hope and expectation that we can turn the page,
that maybe the power personality, the relationships between the two

(42:14):
leaders that could pre persuade. I mean, where do you
think we are right now? Was the Bilat up in
Alaska complete abject failure? Yes? So where are we right now?

Speaker 1 (42:28):
I mean? Trump really did think that his relationship with
Putin was going to make a difference. I think he
came to that honestly. He saw that Biden did not
treat Putin as an equal leader at all. Remember, the
whole thing was autocrats and Democrats, and he wasn't going
to pick up the phone to talk with Putin. He
certainly wasn't going to invite him to a bilateral summit.

(42:51):
Trump was willing to do all of that, and in fact,
that first phone call he had with Putin, he was
a two hour phone call. He didn't even coordinate with
the allies in advance. He gave Putin so much more
respect as an equivalent great power. The way when he
met with Chiesenping the last time around, when he spoke
with him that he said, this is a G two meeting, right,

(43:14):
I mean, he's seating the field of where the two
great nations.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Right.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
No other American president would do that. And so between
that and saying that he would end the sanctions and
he would no longer freeze the assets and they could
work together on arms control and up in the Arctic
and critical mineral exploitation, there's a lot that was being offered.
And Trump had already showed through the Ukrainians that he
was willing to really pressure Ukraine to accept the ceasefire

(43:42):
with no preconditions, which again Biden didn't do. I mean Biden,
I'd be talking to Jake Sullivan, I'd be talking to like,
you know, all of the people around Biden, and they'd
be saying, well, we can't really get them to accept
the terms for a ceasefire. The Europeans are having a
hard time with it. It's hard to bring up. Trump
went directly to the source, got that done. But Putin

(44:06):
was absolutely uninterested in moving an inch on a ceasefire.
And kind of humiliated Trump, honestly kind of And I
think that Trump has taken it personally. Even though he
clearly doesn't want to escalate against Russia, he now has
put himself in a position where he is escalating against Russia.

(44:27):
He is directly permissioning missiles that the Americans have provided
to Ukraine and allowing them to take it out of
the box, in other words, going far deeper in terms
of their strikes with US intelligence on targeting taking out
Russian energy capabilities. And that's why oil prices have been
started to push up in the high sixties and might

(44:49):
go to seventy. Wouldn't shock me in that environment. Trump
also on Luke Oil, on Rosnef, telling the Indians, I'm
willing to give you a trade deal, but part of
that is U stop buying that oil from Russia. Biden
was willing to allow them to buy that oil from Russia. So,
I mean, for all of the talk about how Trump
has been some kind of a Russian asset, the reality

(45:12):
is Trump wanted a good relationship with Putin. He doesn't
care about the human rights abuses, doesn't care about the
fact he's dictator. That could even be a feature not
a bug. But now that Trump has humiliated him, not
giving him an he wants, Trump's pretty angry. And Trump
can also legitimately say, hey, the Europeans are doing most
of the lifting now, yeah, which is what I wanted
from day one. They're the ones spending most of the money.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
We're not. And that so he would argue, we're making money,
we're selling arms.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
He would argue that, yeah. He would argue that, so
we're literally making money off the war, making money selling
He would say that, yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
And so, I mean, what you see Putin five ten?
I mean, is this another Afghanistan from Putin's perspective? I mean,
he's just gonna wear everybody out. This is another two
to three years grind, grind, grind, I mean, inch by inch.
At what point do you see Zelenski breaking the EU
saying that we've had enough. I mean, you know, we've
got to move on. How many more winters are people

(46:08):
going to suffer? How many more tens of thousands of
lives are going to be lost?

Speaker 1 (46:11):
So, Gavin, we've been coming up now on almost four
years of war, and after the first few months, it's
been you know, it hasn't moved a hell of a lot.
I feel like we've been lulled into a false sense
of stability in this war. I don't think, if God forbid,
we have another two three years of the war, which
is wholly plausible. I don't think it's going to stay

(46:33):
the same the way it has.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
Meaning it's going to significantly escalate.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
I fear that it's going to escalate for a few
different reasons. First, because I think the a Wall numbers
of Ukrainian soldiers in the last year I'm hearing from
the Ukrainians are about three hundred thousand. That's a lot
greater than it was a year ago. How topening a
harder time getting the reservist to actually fight. The Ukrainians
are stepping up their own indigenous military capabilities, these Flamingo

(47:02):
missiles with a three thousand kilometer capability and they're making
one hundred of them every month, their drone capacity which
is massive, and a willingness to hit the Russians a
lot harder because the Ukrainians see that they can't continue
to fight the way they have. At the same time,

(47:23):
you know, the Russians, just in the last few days
we saw clearly ordered these agents to try to blow
up a Polish train that was providing aid to Ukraine.
This was after sending drones three hundred kilometers into Poland.
I mean, I talked to a lot of the frontline leaders,
the Baltic States, the Nordics, the Poles. They're they're deeply

(47:47):
concerned that this Russian asymmetrical warfare is It's already happening
inside NATO, and NATO hasn't done very much in direct response.
That's your putin. You think, Okay, I can get away
with that. Can I get away with a little more?
Can I do a little more with the intention of
dividing the Europeans Because you're hitting the front line states,

(48:08):
you're not hitting Spain, right, You're not hitting Italy. So
you get those guys to say, hey, we don't want
to be a part of this. So I think that
for lots of reasons, both in terms of the direct
Russia Ukraine flight and also in terms of Russia and NATO,
that the potential this gets significantly worse. And look, it's
been horrific for the Ukrainian people, and it's been horrific

(48:28):
for the Russians fighting. I mean, they've already had over
a million casualties so I'm not trying to diminish that
at all. But for those of us sitting kibitzing about
this in the United States, Russia, Ukraine has seen seemed
like a war vontam way over there, as the Russians
would say, and I fear it's going to start becoming

(48:49):
a little more real for us.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
The NATO relationship with NATO seems NATO stepped. I mean,
Trump tested the theory around the two percent. I mean,
obviously he's got these guys. I mean you mentioned Spain.
They may not be on board, they're not, but clearly
NATO is. Their posture has been a little bit more
assertive in terms of their own contributions, and there's some

(49:14):
curious ways they determined and calculate.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
What those numbers are.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
Those numbers, So I think there's a little bit of
press release and celebrate success on that. But what I mean,
do you think he's played NATO and very effective and
strategically Trump I mean, despite how he's handled it, the
outcome in terms of where he's positioned NATO, are we
better off as the United States, I mean, the relationship
to NATO than we were prior to this new Trump.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
We're clearly better off because the Europeans are spending more.
We're clearly better off because the Germans are now taking
this seriously. We're a little worse off in the sense
that the trust has been so eroded to get there. So,
I mean, you know, you kind of want to be
in the middle, right. You've had this policy of extremes
where for a long time the Americans did really press

(50:00):
the Europeans, so the Europeans were free riding and they
weren't developing their own military capabilities. That made them a
lot more vulnerable. And now they have to really get
up to speed fast. But the damage that's being done
to a lot of the relationships is real and is
going to be persistent for a long long time. It's
going to be hard to build. And I would be

(50:22):
perfectly happy with the Trump approach of you guys have
to spend or elsewhere out if it was not aligned
with JD. Vance and others saying you guys are the
principal adversaries and you don't respect rule of law or
free speech, and we don't want to be aligned with

(50:42):
your governments. We want the AfD in Germany, which the
German government sees as a neo Nazi party. Right, So
I think that there we've done a lot of own
goals by having this let's just flood the zone on
a reissue and fight against our allies on everything as

(51:03):
opposed to picking the few things that are really important
for the strategic relationship and that's where the fight is.
And on everything else, keep it stable, don't make the news,
don't make the headline. But that's not the way this
administration works. And they don't really care about the long term,
right right, that's the problem. So short term this is
going to look like a lot of wins because you

(51:24):
can point to the Europeans and say, look at how
much they're doing, and look at how much they're lifting,
and you know they're really when when Zelensky last came
over to the White House, look at how the Europeans
all came with them and we're all sitting there like,
you know, sort of being lectured to by the American president.
Doesn't that mean the Americans are showing leadership? And to
a degree, the answer that is yes. But you can't
sit and think that these alliances can just take this

(51:49):
idea that there's no friendship, no trust, no shared values,
that the only thing that aligns them is, you know,
some common present day interest from a deal that's been struck.
That's not an alliance.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
You've talked a lot. I mean this notion of short termism.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
With that's why we needed you and Bella. That's it
was important for you to go.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
And I appreciate that, and I want to connect a
few dots in terms of just my It was interesting
just having the opportunity to meet with leaders from around
the globe, from Columbia to Chile, not just South America,
Central America, in European and to hear the feedback and
to hear what you hear, what you hear in private,
what is obviously obviously what Trump often does not hear

(52:31):
or is not interested in even knowing about in terms
of their perspective, is important. But here the perspective of
short term ism, which you've written a lot about, you've
talked about, you've studied, versus long term interests. You know,
you referenced Ai you we talked about the bylight in
APAC which Trump did not participate in the APEC conference

(52:53):
but did the photo op and have the short inter
exchange with President she uh w H talked about USA aid,
immigration policy, the attack on research and universities, I mean
the seeds of our own destruction in many respects that's
an overstatement, perhaps, but the significant damage that potentially we're

(53:16):
doing to these conveyor belts for talent to this formula
some would say for success that is to find the
American dream, certainly to find California dream. Those seeds have
been planted, I mean mass immigration or deportation. Rather issues
around the universities, which we're feeling here in California disproportionally

(53:41):
five hundred and eighty four million dollars of grants for
research grants at IHNSF grants, a billion dollar extortion fee,
that fine that Trump wants from the UC system. You
mentioned what China's doing as it relates to potentially getting
the best in the brightest and first round draft choices,
because we've seen a significant decline in international students I

(54:04):
think percent so far in every year. What do you
make of all of that? And are we again am
I overstating the impacts in the medium and long term
in terms of the damage they'll be done. These alliances, truth, trust,
these relations easy to damage stuff, hard to build those
things back.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
So I think You can't look at the whole elephant,
all of the damage that's being done to so much
American trust and soft power and commitment that has been undone,
unwound for unnecessarily and think that it's all just going

(54:43):
to be fine because these countries have nowhere else to go.
It is true that they have nowhere else good to go, right,
There is no other market that you would bet on
as much as you would bet on the United States
at this point and in the near term future. But
they will all hedge, they will all do less. And
you know, it's not death by a thousand cuts, but

(55:05):
it's a lot of injury by a thousand cuts, you know.
I mean, you know you're gull over and you take
enough Liliputians and eventually your limbs don't work quite as well. Right,
And they are a lot of them are Liliputians because
and I don't mean to disparage, but the fact is
that the big change in the US alliance system in
the last thirty years has been American allies getting weaker.

(55:26):
It's not been America getting weaker. The American allies have
they have not invested, They are not growing.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
You're talking about EU.

Speaker 1 (55:35):
EU, UK, Canada, Japan, Australia, South Korea, all.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
Of them from a GDP perspective, from innovation and entrepreneurial perspective, new.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
Technologies, defense, growth, productivity, even demographics in the case of
most of them, every single piece.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
And so you know, but the reason why we have
outperformed all of those reasons there's under allied reasons, back
to that formula for success. Those things are being ventialized.
They're putting sand in the gears of all those things.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
So what I would want Trump to do, I wouldn't.
I would want Trump to say, look, we need our allies,
but we need strong allies. So the EU is not
a threat to us. We don't want the EU to
break apart, where we have much stronger relations with individual
European countries that we can drag into the dirt and
force them do we want. No, we want the EU

(56:25):
to be stronger because a stronger EU is more capable
of being a useful ally with the United States and
fighting against Russia, fighting against China, and maybe even forcing
them over time to align more with our own interests.
A strong Canada, a strong Japan, a strong South Korea.
That's the message that you want that the Americans need friends,

(56:47):
but they need capable friends. That's that's a message that
allows and yeah, there's going to be some tough love
that if you don't do these things, that we're not
going to give you what we did before. But it's
not we want to destroy the EU. It's not that
we want the anti establishment populist who don't care about
your strength to win in these individual countries just because

(57:08):
those people happen to like me and where somebody go
on the global stage. But that's a long term perspective,
where short term Trump is like, of course I want,
you know, sort of the a FD, of course I
want you know, sort of reform in the UK. And
these guys would completely undermine the productivity of their own countries.
So that's that's where I think there's real misalignment. It's

(57:29):
not that the Americans don't understand the symptoms of what's
ailing everyone geopolitically, but the cure that they're offering is
going to make the patient worse.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
You wrote a book Us Versus Them, talked about this notion.
You know, well, you frame globalization and I think a
very honest and reflective way winners and losers, etc. We experience.
This is a period of deglobalization. How do you describe
this moment?

Speaker 1 (58:01):
I would say this is a period where the United
States is no longer driving globalization. There are still processes
of globalization that are occurring. I mean, when I think
about globalization, I think about people and goods and services
and capital ideas moving across borders faster and faster all
over the world. There are certainly lots of that that
is happening, more and more technology facilitates it. But the

(58:21):
United States is no longer driving it. In many ways,
the US is assertively moving away from it, and there
is a level of decoupling happening directly between the United
States and China and forcing other countries to make uncomfortable decisions.
So yeah, I don't think we're in an environment where

(58:43):
globalization is sort of being driven by the economists and
the political science and everything to say about it. The
politics are throwing sand in the gears and it acts
as attacks on the productivity. But we can't just think
of this in terms of the economic shift. We also
have to wreckonized that. So much of this is that
the US political system, while the US economy has been

(59:04):
doing so well. The US dollar has been doing so well.
Political system is not. And I think this is the
fundamental issue that when I started my work on my
PhD back in nineteen eighty nine, wall came down. And
I think part of the reason I wanted to do
what I do is because this was a time of
great pride to be an American because the wall coming down.

(59:26):
I mean, you had all these captive nations, East Bloc,
Soviet Union. We're looking at our system and saying, dah,
I wish my country worked like that. I wish I
had some of that liberty, some of that rule of law.
And in thirty five years, people still want access to
the US market and our technologies and our companies best
in the world. But nobody around the world looks at

(59:47):
the US political system says I wish my political system
ran like that in thirty five years. And I think
that it is very hard to overestimate act of that
damage on relations around the world long term, because you're
no longer driving what people want to be, You're no

(01:00:08):
longer acting.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
And that's this fundamental notion. I mean, these are these
the historic project of our founding fathers. You're referencing this
notion of popular sovereignty broadly and well, maybe reserve that
popular sovereignty aside, but this notion of the rule of law.
I'll get to the role of Dawn which you coined,
which I'm crypt this notion of coequal branches of government.

(01:00:32):
What what what aspects of our political system do you
fear our most being? You know, sign well are are
looked at negatively now in that respect that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
They're fundamental on the global stage. You talk about commitment
to being the architect of global free trade, which the
United States is no longer willing to do. And not
only that, but the idea of a well regulated remarket
increasingly people looking at the US and saying, that's the
country that supports kleptocracy, This is a country that supports

(01:01:07):
state corruption, and that the best way to cut a
deal is to make sure that you're paying off the
right people that are close to the administration.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
So you're talking, I mean, now you're getting into I mean,
just looking at the self dealing, looking at.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
That's part of it. Yeah, And it's one thing what
some would called the crony capitalism.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
They're sort of almost paid a play.

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
Here's from so many leaders. Yeah, I have, and I
have so many CEOs inside the United States who are
global CEOs.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
No, And I mean I could agree with you more.
I mean I did a Patriot site where I literally
am selling kneepads Trump signature series needpads.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
You said, I think you said they sold out, they
sold out?

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
Yeah, No, and yeah I could. Uh, well, there are
plenty of reasons why they've sold out, because there's so
many examples of law firms and universities and media companies
and not least of which some of my friends and
CEOs that have sold out in that spirit. And but
they're selling out what makes this, to your point, a
reputation of this country. They're selling out what makes the

(01:02:05):
United States so central and so important? And so I
couldn't agree with you more. But it's interesting from your perspective.
Though you started with free trade, you talked about sort
of just the global leadership that this country has advanced
in terms of building alliances and building that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
Yeah, collective security and NATO is still there, and arguably
NATO is stronger than it was before because it's expanded
a couple of Nordic countries and the countries are spending more.
But the belief that the United States would actually stand
for collective security if the country was invaded, that's deteriorated significantly.

(01:02:43):
And you know that belief in American reliability is core
to collective security, so you undermine that foreign aid. The
United States has historically provided more foreign aid than any
other country in the world, still providing a lot of
support to Israel and to Egypt, but around the world world,
they're shutting it down. And the United Nations was created

(01:03:03):
by the United States right here in San Francisco, right
here in San Francisco, and the UN Charter reflected American values,
and it's something I'm really proud of. And I think
part of the reason that we don't support the UN
right now is because we look at what the UN
stands for and we feel a little shame that it's

(01:03:25):
it's not what America stands for anymore today, and we
don't like that, don't like we don't like something that
we created making us look, you know, reflective on ourselves.
But I think all of these things from the perspective
of other countries around the world that really do need
rule of law, they really do need collective security, they

(01:03:46):
do need us led multilateral trade because otherwise they don't
have the ability to operate in a in a global
system that is a law of the jungle. They just don't.
They don't have the ability to operate and sics seed
under rule of don. They need rule of law, and
that I think that's a serious problem.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
Where you talk about apex predators or this notion of
that sort of t rex presidency where the guy either
devours you or he mates with you one or the other.
You have that option. It's no ver it is visual,
forgive me, but I mean this notion of the rule
of the jungle, uh, and the rule of don And
I you know, I've used your phrase. And I hope

(01:04:25):
it is donning on people. How how real and serious
uh that is. And it's examples here in California and
where they're receiving it of so much of this disproportionately
but increasingly. I hope people are growing more and more
conscious of this. But I want to just close a
mind full of time on two things that we haven't
brought up. This issue of AI. Seems also that we're

(01:04:46):
seeding global leadership on AI and AI standards. California has
led this country in terms of at least addressing frontier
model regulation. There's some legislation in New York right now
that potentially can mere aspects of what we have done
here in our state. We take the issue very seriously

(01:05:06):
as the birthplace and obviously the center of the universe
in terms of AI. But you mentioned China in the
relationship to AI. What does AI mean from your perspective
when we look at geopolitically and risks, rewards, opportunities, challenges
in the next two three years, superintelligence, national security, truth trust,

(01:05:30):
What do you make of AI.

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
I'm not worried, particularly about superintelligence. I think that I'm
much more worried about what human beings that control and
program the algorithms are doing with them. If they are
bad actors, if they're indifferent, if they're just focused on
short term producier responsibility as opposed to well being long term,
and if they're not really capitalists, because really capitalists care

(01:05:53):
about not just profits but also losses. The capitalists also
when they experience losses. And yet a lot of the
people that are driving AI do not account for the
losses in society, do not account for the losses in
the economy that come from damages from product damages that
come from rolling these things out. So I think we

(01:06:13):
need more capitalism among the AI folks in that regard,
you know, But I am a enormous enthusiast about this technology.
I mean, you're just down there in Brazil and you
saw Bill Gaate saying he's focused less on climate change
because not because he doesn't care, not because he doesn't
believe the science. He certainly does, but because he thinks

(01:06:34):
that what happens in AI is going to be more
impactful than your term to determine all these things. I
buy that I do. I mean, I think that we
can exceed sustainable development goals that we've been failing to
meet in terms of poverty, in terms of availability of

(01:06:56):
food and water, in terms of shelter, in terms of
efficient see of transfer of resources. So much the world
is so wealthy, and yet we waste so much that
is so inefficient. AI can fix that, but we need
to make sure that everyone has access to it. It
needs to be invested in and not just be a
tool that's available for a tiny percentage of really rich

(01:07:16):
people and everybody else loses their job or everybody else
doesn't have access to it. And that requires governance that
requires not just companies to be in charge of the regulations,
because companies ultimately aren't accountable citizens. It means that like
the states, the cities, the countries, and even in some cases,

(01:07:37):
the world needs to take some responsibility. And Americans Chinese
are really enthusiastic about what AI is going to do.
Americans are scared. Yeah, and the reason they're scared is
because the US they don't believe in their leaders to
take care of them. Americans should be the one that's
the most excited about the technology, right, I mean, this

(01:07:59):
is a frontier economy, right. We started so much of
bringing new technology and making this country incredible on the
back of that and then exporting it all over the world.
And now we have the most transformative technology that humankind
has ever come close to creating. And you're telling me
that Americans are scared of it. That is a governance issue.

Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
It's interesting unpacking that's at the core this notion of
truth and trust governance is that's that's compelling. What is
less compelling to me, but seems more compelling than any
other issue in America today is an issue you just
did a video on and that is this damn Epstein thing.

Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
What what is? It's amazing?

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
It is just completely captured everyone's attention. You you, you,
you presented your point of view, and you wrote about
and did a video saying Trump has literally he could
not have scripted a more ineffective response and he, I
mean in every way, just flobbing all. I mean, what

(01:09:10):
is the Epstein files represent to you? What does it mean?
I'm just curious what I mean, what is it? What
is our fascination? Why is this? I mean, besides just
the atrocities that occurred and the victims, beyond that and
God bless on that, what is it about the Epstein
files that has captured so much imagination attention?

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
I mean, we talked about cleptocracy, We talk about the
capturing of the American political system by people of power.
We talk about rule of law and the two tier
system of justice. I think that what Epstein represents two
Americans are these assholes can get away with anything. Well,
you know, my mother used to read the Enquirer every weekend.

(01:09:52):
She didn't have a high school education, and she wasn't
you know, she wasn't on top of all the global issues.
She knew in her heart that these people with a
lot of money and a lot of power in the
United States weren't going to take care of her and
her kids didn't trust them. And you know, this is
before algorithms, this is before the blog is feared, this

(01:10:14):
is before cable news. But nonetheless, you know, and I
think that what we see today with the Epstein files,
after decades of Americans, wealthy Americans just not taking enough
care of their fellow citizens and the wealthiest people in
the world right now, Americans, how much do they actually care?

(01:10:36):
Do they feel responsibility and accountability for their fellow citizens,
never mind the rest of the people on the planet,
which I would kind of like if they'd pay attention
to that too, but just their fellow citizens. I mean,
you know, Bill Gates is revered around the world for
a lot of what he has done. Elon not so much,
Bezos not so much. And I think that that's a

(01:10:59):
failure of the American political system and we see it
playing out in the Epstein files right now. And yeah,
of course there's also Algorithmically, people are focusing on one
side or the other, and Trump has flipped so much
on this, but people understand that the core something is
rotten right at the core of this venture. And it's

(01:11:21):
part of the reason why they think why people think
that no matter who they vote for, they can't fix this,
they can't resolve this, and you know, I think it's
not going away.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
I can't close on that. So I want to ask
you give me why we should be optimistic in the
next five to ten years. What gives you optimism? I mean,
you mentioned AI should give us more optimism than pessimism,
But what aspects of some of these global trend lines
that we opened up with give you more confidence and

(01:11:53):
distill you with a bigger sense of well being than
perhaps most of us are aware or should.

Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
Look. Young people are more global, they're online a lot, yeah,
but they're also skeptical of what they're being fed in
a healthy way and their friends. When I was growing up,
my friends were playing stickball in the backyard. They all
grew up within three blocks. There were some Irish, some

(01:12:21):
Puerto Ricans, some Italians. There want nothing else. Kids today
are you know, playing fortnite on Twitch with kids from
South Korea and they're watching K pop and everything else.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
With politicians on Fortnite Friday? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, at
Twitch con as well. But keep going.

Speaker 1 (01:12:37):
So these kids they global and you've done podcasts with
some of them. Yeah, right, so important. They're far they're
far more opportunities to connect with their fellow human beings.
Why do they care more about climate than the forty fifty, sixty,
seventy year olds because they're the ones that are actually
inheriting that world. Why are they more skeptical of the

(01:13:00):
US political system because they see that the seventy and
eighty year olds that are running the Republican Democratic Party
won't let go, won't let go after well beyond they should.
And this is a huge Trump problem, this is a
huge Biden problem. I mean, come on, people, and I

(01:13:20):
think I think the young people. Okay, maybe they don't
all believe that the way they're going to fix this
is by voting, but they're going to do something, you know,
They're not just going to sit and demographically they're going
to be in charge, and I hope they're going to
be successful.

Speaker 2 (01:13:35):
Ian Brenner, thank you for being on our podcast. I
appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:38):
Better be with you. Thank you