August 20, 2025 • 32 mins
Host Stephanie Flanders speaks with journalist and author Ben Chu to unpack his latest book, Exile Economics: What Happens if Globalisation Fails. As President Donald Trump calls for the US to break its dependence on foreign imports and bring all production “back home,” Chu pulls back the curtain on what abandoning globalization would actually look like—not in theory, but in the messy, interconnected reality of the 21st century.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. What I would point
out to people who take the view that globalization has
gone too far is that you'll miss it when it's gone.
We can't roll up those supply chains and cut ourselves
off from other countries about dramatically changing the way we live.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I'm Stephanie Flanders, head of Government and Economics at Bloomberg
and This is Trump Pnomics, the podcast that looks at
the economic world of Donald Trump, how he's already shaped
the global economy. What on earth is going to happen
next this week? Why you'd miss globalization if it went
Probably a lot more than you think. There's been a
lot of books written in the last few years about globalization,
(00:53):
deglobalization and the populist threats to integration. But one that's
a bit different is Ben Choose Exile Economics. What happens
if globalization fails. Ben is the policy and analyst correspondent
at BBC Verify and was previously economics editor of BBC Newsnight,
a job I used to have million years ago. What's
(01:15):
distinctive in Ben's approach is he's taking the arguments against integration.
You might say both seriously and literally he's asking not
just whether it's desirable for nations to shun globalization to
be self sufficient, whether it's even possible. I sat down
with him in late June at an event organized by
The Conduit in London to discuss his reporting, his style
(01:38):
of storytelling, and how his own family history played a
part in the development of the book. I thought it
was worth sharing with you an edited version of that conversation.
I started by asking Ben why he decided to write
the book.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
On that question, I feel incredibly honored to have had
a sort of front row seat to see the impact
of globalization firsthand. And of course what does that mean.
We've all seen globalization in our lives. But because my
family came from China, my father's family came from China
in the in nineteen sixty he came over to the UK.
I was born here, but he's still got family back
(02:18):
in China, and I first visited. I write about this
in the book, but I first visited China in nineteen
eighty five. When I went there, I was a quite
young child, and I still remember it incredibly vividly, the
lives they were living those forty odd years ago, and
it was incredibly uh frugal. Really, you know, in family
(02:38):
of six lived in about three rooms. They would pull
out mattresses from under the beds and all sleep on
the floor, just simply because that's the only way they
could live. They didn't have things like washing machines, microwaves.
We were living in Hong Kong at the time, so
they asked us to sort of go to this special
friendship store, which is the only place where you could
get western white goods, and you had to be a
(03:00):
foreigner to buy them, might from not from China. And
then we bought it and then get gifted it to them.
And it's crazy now because you think, how out have
you ever been to ch I'm sure a lot of
you being just like how CONSUMERISTI all is. You can
get anything there that you can get here, iPhone's laptops,
certainly washing machines. So to see first hand how their
lives have changed in my lifetime, and I think it
(03:23):
is very largely due to globalization. So I suppose the
question is why did I want to write this book?
Because I think that I could bring something a sort
of bit of personal experience, if you like, to seeing
how the good that globalization has done to my own family,
and to see it very vividly in a personal way
really brings it home. And when we hear people like
(03:45):
Robert Leitheiser, who is Donald Trump's first trade advisor in
his first term, he wrote this book that says it
with the title No Trade is Free, and he very
explicitly states that it was a mistake to trade with
China or allow China specifically into the World Trade Organization
in two thousand and one. It was a mistake. And
(04:05):
I just kind of like incredibly jarring, because what comes
into my mind when I hear that is my own
family backing Gangdhou in southern China. Well, really wasn't a
mistake for them. And now we can talk about the
ways which China does create very serious problems for the
world trading system in many many ways. But I think
on a very personal and human level, I think I
(04:27):
really wanted to tell that the other side of the
story actually and bring that personal experience to bear.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I think, and of course I find that criticism about
the Entry's wto jarring for a whole other reason because
when I was at the US Treasury, we were just
negotiating the China entry to the WTO, and since then
almost everyone thinks that that was a mistake, including many
of the people who were involved in negotiating it, because
various assumptions were made about what was going to happen
(04:54):
to China after that, that they would basically become more
like us and sort of market driven, that being part
of the global economy would push them on this same
path that we've all been on, and that clearly has
not happened, And you engage very directly with that in
the book. We should part that briefly, but I guess
(05:14):
we should also slightly lay out your stall in terms of,
you know, what's the architecture of the book? How did
you decide that there are real things that people are
responding to when they're nervous of globalization?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah? Absolutely so. The gestination of this book was really
in the pandemic, when the question that was arising in
lots of people's minds was, hang on, has globalization gone
a bit too far? Are we a bit too interconnected?
Has it made us vulnerable where we thought it was
making us more prosperous. We all remember in the pandemic
(05:49):
the shortages of things like masks, medicines, and hard on
the heels of that, of course, we had Russia's invasion
of Ukraine in twenty twenty two, where there was a
big shock to global oil prices and food prices, and
there was a real sense that we were a bit
too exposed and maybe we should start to do produce
more at home, that those supply chains shouldn't be as
(06:11):
extensive as they are, and that maybe, as I said,
globalization had gone a bit too far. I really started
the idea of writing this and it came out of it.
Actually a BBC radio series I did called The New
Age of Autarchy with a question actually rather than an answer,
and that question was is it possible to actually do
those things to be more self sufficient in terms of
(06:31):
things like food and energy and medicine, you name it.
It was a good faith exploration of whether it was
possible or not. And as I started to write it,
explore these supply chains in more detail and go into
some of the complexities of the way the global value
and supply chains have constructed, it became more and more
(06:53):
clear to me that actually the answer probably is no.
At least we can't roll up those supplies chain and
cut ourselves off from other countries about dramatically changing the
way we live. And I think on some level we
all know that, don't we, Because you know globalization if
you think, well, just look around you. We wake up
in the morning and you brush your teeth and toothpastes
(07:14):
from Poland, and you go and have your breakfast and
the grapes from Egypt, and then you put on your
clothes and it was perhaps it sticks together in Bangladesh,
and then you drive your German made car to the office.
That's the typical way someone describes how globalization shapes our lives,
and it's all true. But what I discovered in this
researching this book and lots of other people that made
this point as well, And it's not just about those
(07:36):
consumer goods which are the fruits of globalization. It's the
components which make those consumer goods which are unfathomably globalized
as well. Just talking about semiconductors, you know, we hear
about those and we took Trump and others and Biden
all wanted to make them in America rather than import them.
(07:58):
But if you look at the supply for something like semiconductors,
they're so unfathomably complex, coming from hundreds of different countries,
these raw materials and the machines that make them that
it really is impossible to see any single country having
a fully nationalized supply chain in something like semiconductors, computer chips,
(08:20):
and it goes for many other things as well, and
I talk about lots of examples of these in the book.
So Yes. I started out I guess with a question,
and I came increasingly to an answer, which is that,
you know, don't take globalization for granted, or don't assume
that it's going to be simple or easy, which is
obviously what a lot of the exile economic exponents populist
(08:43):
politicians say it's going to be quite easy to do
these things. It really won't be. It'd be very expensive.
And you know, I'm a BBC journalist. It's not my
job to say what people should want or what politicians
should do. What I'm trying to do in this book
is say, be aware of the costs, be aware of
the implication it's impossible. Well, you know, if people genuinely
think that it's worth it, then that's fine, but I
(09:06):
would like them to do it with the full facts.
In mine.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
You mentioned semi conductors. I think with electronics generally people
will sort of understand that it's a pretty complicated supply chain,
and in fact, that is what we're discovering. You know,
with the tariffs. Donald Trump sort of outraged the thought
that even with various high tariff rates, Apple's still not
going to want to make iPhones in the US and
(09:30):
to your point, cannot make iPhones in the US because
there's so many things coming from different parts of the world.
But food, how hard could it be to be self
sufficient in food?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Well, that was one of the most fascinating journeys I've
been on actually in the book, because that was the
one where I started out was I think, I'm sure
many of you will will will have this sense that
do we really need to import so much food from abroad?
You know, the UK provides about or supplies about sixty
percent of the food that we consume in so, you know,
(10:02):
pretty reliant on the rest of the world for food.
And why not, as the farmers say, you know, produce
more at home, consume more at home. It'd be good
for good for farmers, good for the economy, and good
for food security. And I think that is quite an
intuitive argument. It's a very common argument that you hear.
(10:23):
What I've discovered in the book is that it's really
for a large part of the world, it's just not
feasible to rely only on the food that can be
grown in that individual country. So there's a striking cistic
from a study done in twenty twenty which I imagine,
if everyone on the planet had a one hundred kilometer
circle drawn around them, what proportion of the world's population
(10:48):
could feed themselves from staple foods grown within that one
hundred kilometer radius. And the answer is it's only twenty
five percent, So only a quarter of the global population
could feed themselves within that area. So how big would
that circle need to be around every single person on
the planet so that they could feed themselves on staple
(11:09):
foods like wheat and corn and potatoes and what have you.
It would have to be two thousand kilometers. And what
that tells you is, given the size of countries, given
the size of the planet, is that if we're going
to feed ourselves as a world, as a planet, we're
going to be incredibly reliant on trade in food. This
idea and food self sufficiency is a non starter for
(11:32):
probably most people on the planet. And that's really sobering thought,
isn't it, Because we often hear this line, as I said,
we just do it at home. Just do it at home. Well,
it's not going to happen. At least we're not going
to have the kind of diets that we used to,
increasing reliance on meat in large parts of the world,
the variety of food. But simply we can't feed ourselves
(11:52):
as a planet with just national production.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Although that fact does cast some light on why Donald
Trump w with want Canada, because I think the Americans
will probably do quite well if they could just take
all of the Canadian planes.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Well, that was another interesting thing about it, because America,
on the face of it, is very abundant in food.
It produces more than it consumes. It's a big agricultural
exporter to the rest of the world in net terms.
But even America relies on fertilizer imports quite a lot
of them from Canada. So even if you say America
(12:23):
doesn't need the rest of the world when it comes
to food, well, it actually needs chemicals from the rest
of the world to make its agriculture so productive.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
In your chapter about food, you also you have a
distinction which I think is used for in another areas
as well, because you think of self sufficiency, as we
often painted politically, as being the same as security. If
you're making it your own, then you're not at the
behest of foreign powers and dictators. But you make the point,
especially with food, that food security is very different from
(12:54):
that and is often just related to poverty.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yeah. I had a look at countries ranked by by
food self sufficiency, so how much of their own consumption
they're producing at home, and also about their levels of
food security. Is the proportion of the populations who are
struggling to feed themselves. So just to take two examples
which I've plucked out in the book, which I think
are really illustrative, So the Zambia in Africa, which is
(13:21):
only seven percent reliant on imports according to the measures
of the which I was looking at, so it basically
produces more or less all that it consumes when it
comes to agriculture, but it has food insecurity levels which
are extremely high, so more than fifty percent. And if
you look at a country like Mauritius in the Indian Ocean,
(13:44):
which has a food self sufficiency ratio which is incredibly low,
so almost the inverse of Zambia, but its food security
was incredibly high. And what's the difference between those two countries.
Mauritius is a much richer country than Zambia is. So
precisely as you said, I think the lesson is what
(14:06):
leads to food insecurity is not reliance on imports. It's
poverty and you need to solve that if you want
people to be well fed, rather than obsessing about local production.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
And actually, and you made the very obvious point which
I hadn't thought about, that you could be completely self sufficient,
but if you have a crop failure, if you've also
closed yourself off from the world, then you are instantly
less secure just through that factor.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Lae. Yeah, I mean we all know this in a
way because we all saw the example of Ukraine. Ukraine
it has this reputation of the bread basket of Europe
going back for decades, and it is it is. On paper,
it's incredibly food secure, it produces more than it consumes.
It's a big exporter to the rest of the world.
But when it got invaded by Russia in twenty twenty two,
(14:52):
it had to rely on the World Food Program to
feed three million of its population. That just shows you
how just have a large amount of agricultural production doesn't
necessarily make you secure.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
So it's fair to say we've not overplanned this conversation.
But you have taken me perfectly to the subject of
Ukraine and Russia. Because energy is the other example where
I think it's the most intuitive to people that we
just can't depend on other nations for our energy, or
at least it would be much better if we weren't.
And the celebrated example which you go through, but I
(15:24):
think a lot of people were have in their heads
is you know, the way Europe, especially Germany. But Europe
allowed itself to become very dependent on Russian gas, despite
that the risk of overreliance on Russia being identified by
Americans and the American intelligence community and others. So what
about energy. Surely it is better for us to be
(15:46):
independent in our energy supply, especially now we can get
all of this nice you know wind.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
And so yeah, yeah, well, I mean it takes me
back again to twenty twenty two when this was what
the politicians were saying. This, as you said, Stefinitie, it
shows the folly of relying on energy imports. A country
like Russia can hold you hostage and cut off the
supply and then you having to have power cuts or rationing.
I found it very compelling that argument in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
But when you start as you were paying your gas.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Bill, yeah, absolutely, I'm sure we all felt this, didn't
we And it does tell so perfectly, doesn't it with
the argument that we should decarbonize and rely on renewables.
And it's all true to some extent. But if you again,
if you go into the weeds, go into the supply
chains of all these renewable technologies, you just see how
(16:32):
distributed they are right around the world. Just for example,
the battery that goes into an electric vehicle, the amount
of critical minerals that it relies on is vastly greater
than a petrol car. And those critical minerals are spread
right across many, many different countries. There's no single country
can realistically source all those critical minerals at home and
(16:54):
have a national supply chain. Goes for China, goes to America,
certainly goes for the UK. And so you just go
through all these renewable technologies and you realize that actually
we are going to be reliant on imports if we're
going to have a renewable energy generating sector. So that's
not to say that it shouldn't be done. It's to
say that, actually, be wary of the rhetoric of self
(17:18):
sufficiency or tarchy when it comes to energy, just as
you should be wary of it when it comes to food,
or semiconductors or medicines.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
If you read the book, we can sort of take
it as read that he goes through quite a few things, medicine, steel, semiconductors.
It's really hard, all of them to be self sufficient.
If Donald Trump was sitting here, he would say, yeah,
to right, it's really hard because we've had thirty years
on the wrong path. You know, we took the cheaper option,
the easier option. We took advantage of like falling to
(17:49):
transportation costs, companies becoming more global, the fact there was
a sort of broadly peaceful global environment. Countries are all
seemed to be moving in the right direction. So businesses
created these enormously complicated supply chains that they never should
have done. And yes, it's going to be really painful
to aren't pick it all. But if we don't, we're
(18:10):
going to wake up tomorrow and everything we want is
you know, being made by China.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, well, Donald Trump has changed his tune on this,
hasn't he, Because I'm sure you remember definitely in the
campaign trail he wasn't talking about the long, difficult journey
to a more resilient American economy. Now you're right, he
has started to talk about how this will be hard
and there are other you know, there will be sacrifices
a long way. But I think how would I try
(18:37):
and persuade Donald Trump?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Just tim right? The Biden administration in some ways institutionalized
his kind of gut instinct slash tweets, and he did.
They did sort of focus more on resilient, focus more
on industrial bis. But it was based on that same
negation of the original idea of global or what a
driven the previous version of globalization, which is we have
(19:03):
to think about the long term costs our strategic position
with regard, particularly with regard to China, not just the
short term cost benefits.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Yeah. I think Richard Baldwin, I think you've interviewed recently,
had a great phrase that Trump was not how did
he put it, He said he wasn't a new turn.
He was a culmination of something that had been going
on for a very long time in politics, this gradual
sense of, you know, globalization is not working the way
we thought it, we hoped it would, and we need
(19:33):
to think more about pulling inwards and turning inwards and
doing things differently. Because you're absolutely right, Joe Biden had
a lot of those same instincts as well. His administration
had a lot of the same instincts, and they were
quite protectionists when it comes to things like Chinese electric vehicles,
Chinese batteries, and you know, really took on what Trump
(19:57):
had done in his first term and took it to
a whole new level. And when it comes to when
it came to making it harder for China to source
the most advanced microchips, they were much more proactive than
the Donald Trump had been. So I think that's really
important to recognize that this isn't something that just don't
just started when Trump came to the White House. What
I would point out to people who were not Trumpian
(20:19):
but sort of take the view that globalization has gone
too far is that you'll miss it when it's gone.
I think it's probably the right way to frame it
because we have taken it for granted that some of
the huge benefits, not just in terms of like my
family in China, but all our lives have been enhanced
(20:41):
and we've been made much more productive and wealthier as
a result of globalization over these past fifty years. In
a sense, trade is being used as a scapegoat for
the failures of domestic politics to redistribute those gains and
to compensate the low from it. So I would say,
(21:02):
I suppose if Trump was here saying, you know, there
are undoubtedly problems in America, economic problems, communities which are suffering,
but don't make the story all about trade. Make it
about how you can use the immense resources of America
to improve their lives. It's quite interesting. I was listening
(21:22):
to JD. Vans, who's slightly more sophisticated figger than Trump
when it comes to making these arguments. And he gave
a speech in March to the American Dynamism Conference, and
he said the problem of the American and global economies
that has been too addicted to cheap labor, both at
home and talking about immigration and abroad, meaning outsourcing American
(21:46):
multinationals sending their supply chain to broad cheap labor. And
he said that as undermined American innovation, which is pretty
crazy because America is the most innovative and dynamic economy
by far in the world. If it's had a net
negative impact on American innovation, it's pretty hard to see
it in the statistics.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
But well, you mentioned Jadevance. I mean, I think it's
interesting because it comes through more strongly in what he
says and that speech. Part of the kind of rebellion
against globalization that jade Vance represents is kind of rebellion
against modernity, against the modern global economy and what's happened
to communities and day to day life from only get
(22:28):
going for the most productive, the cheapest way of making things.
You know, America's moved to a massively service based economy.
And I think his argument would be, and lots of
people say this that those service sector jobs, even if
you can afford to buy lots of stuff with them,
because you've got all these cheap things that were being
made in China, we quote un quotes were happier when
(22:50):
we were making that stuff ourselves. And maybe we had
a bit less, but we had community and we didn't
have you know, endless insecure jobs and other things So
how is it if you're a politician, how do you
tease out that argument against trade from the sort of
broader sense that we've sort of culturally gone the wrong
direction because of this advanced industrialization.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Well, it's incredibly difficult. I mean, Dave the Evans, You're right,
he does talk in that sort of nostalgia we must
bring back manufacturing, and others in the administration in America
talk about Americans screwing the little screws into iPhones and
returning to a manufacturing economy. At other times he's more
with the tech bros. In fact, he was in this
conference he was talking about innovation. But I think it
comes down to a fundamental problem with the argument that
(23:37):
you reindustrialize America through tariffs and reindustrialize it full stop
to create great jobs. Is that as many people have
pointed out, But it's absolutely true. What you're going to
get if you bring American if you bring more manufacturing
back to America, is not a huge amount of really
high paying jobs. And the turning back of the clock
(23:57):
to the nineteen fifties where everyone took their lunch pale
to the factory. You're going to have robots now that
will create higher incomes for some people, but it's not
going to fundamentally shift the structure of the American economy
the labor force back to the way it was all
those decades ago. So I think I think the honest
answer is that, yes, there's a big seam of nostalgia
(24:19):
that people like Jdvans and many others in America are mining,
but it's not one that is going to be actually deliverable.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
I guess one other sort of obvious response to some
of what you've said is if it's also inevitable, if
there are all these forces technology and other things that
are putting on us a path to integration and making
it extremely hard to unpick these supply chains, then maybe
we don't have to worry about protectionism after all. Maybe
(24:49):
you know, if it's going to all prove in a
few years time, if it's going to prove to be
completely counterproductive and or prohibitively costly, shouldn't we just like
sit back and wait for it all to play.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Wait, wait for it, yeah, wait for people to come
to their senses. I think that is compelling in some ways,
and I think there's a bit of a debate actually
when you look at analysts because some say, look what deglobalization.
You know, in some measures in terms of data flows
across borders. If you look at the actual complexity of
supply chains, we have never been more more globalized than
(25:22):
we are today. Notwithstanding these these many years of politicians
making these policies to withdraw us inwards and attempt to
resure and friendshure, et cetera. If that's the result, then
you know, why why are we even talking about this
term deglobalization. I think my answer would be, on the
one hand, that's true, but if you look at the
(25:43):
number of actual acts that politicians have taken to put
barriers up, it is definitely glowing going up. You are
seeing a trend of politicians to fight against this global integration.
And my answer would be that you're effectively It may continue,
the wheels may keep turning, but you're throwing sand in
(26:03):
the gears of it. This is one of the greatest
engines of prosperity that we've seen ever, is globalization. And
if you make it harder, then your living standards will
not rise as rapidly as they otherwise would have countries,
and that's in developing, that's in rich countries and developing
countries are going to find it harder to get onto
(26:24):
that economic ladder of having better lives and integrating into
it into global supply chains in the way that China
did in the past, in a way that countries in
Africa are trying to now so effectively pulling up the ladder.
So I think, yes, I think there is a strong
case for saying that we are not going to deglobalize.
It will just be too hard. But I think we
(26:45):
can still make life very difficult for ourselves and much
more difficult than it needs to be.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
And the response to the strategic worry that we will
wake up in twenty years time and find that a
very different government, very strong government, with very different value
system certainly doesn't believe in journalists of Newsnight has control
over key parts of our economy because we've decided to
buy all our solar panels from them, and all of
(27:11):
our electric batteries and all our electric cars. How do
we get around that?
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Well, that is that is an extremely tough one. China.
I mean, I've talked, I started talking about how the
miracle of globalization in China. I've seen the benefits of it,
but I've also seen the downsides. I've seen the dark
side of what the new China, what the Chinese regime
is in terms of the crushing of personal freedoms of
people in China, in terms of its economic mismanagement. I mean,
(27:37):
everyone's talks about China as this great economic success, and
in many dimensions it is, but it's also really messed
up the property market. It's it's got deep set economic
problems as well, and I've seen that in the same
way I've seen the benefits. I've seen that up close
in terms of my own family in China, and it's
a very I can understand why Western politicians say we
(27:59):
should be pus much distance between ourselves and this regime
as possible. I completely understand that. At the same time,
we take an issue like decarbonization, China has such a
head start when it comes to the technology of solar
panels and electric batteries and also wind turbines that it's
simply not feasible for the world to decarbonize by twenty fifty,
(28:23):
as nations have signed up to do without relying very,
very heavily on Chinese renewable energy. Kit that's just the reality,
and governments are going to have to choose there. And
also I think that China is so integrated into global
supply chains that this fantasy, you know, I think it
is a fantasy saying that it's simply a case of
you just turn the switch and it's and it's removed.
(28:45):
And I think Donald Trump has actually found this out
since Liberation Day. He started out very bullishly about the
ability of him, you know, decoupling from China, as he
put it, and within a couple of months they're making
the deal. And I think a lot of American retailers
went to see him, called him and said, the reality is,
if you don't change course on this, you're going to
(29:06):
have empty shelves, You're going to have prices spiking. And
I think that message got through.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Actually, I was in Hong Kong last week and I
was struck by there's quite a few people. I sort
of asked their investor types, market types. But what's surprised
you most in the last six months or even the
last twelve months. None of them said anything to do
with Donald Trump. It was all how fast China has
(29:34):
progressed in ex technology or why technology. There's so many
articles you read now or reports on any subject, whether
it's trade, technology, innovation, and you could just have a
sub headline China's going to win. I mean, is that
what you're basically saying that we should just accept that
China's going to end up dominant in all these areas
(29:54):
and we will just lose out by trying to be more,
more diversified and less reliant on it.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Well, I think going back to the what JD. Evans
was saying and linking that to the ev picture of
China's got such that amazing lead in electric vehicles. You
know BYD you'll be seeing a lot more of those,
I think on our streets, their electric vehicles in the
coming months and years. But what JD. Evans was saying
was that innovation needs a barrier, he needs trade walls
(30:26):
with the rest of the world, and then American companies
will innovate more. I think the evidence suggests the exact
opposite will happen. If American wars itself off, it will
not be subject to competition from companies like BYD, from
a Chinese battery makers, etc. And they will stagnate behind
those walls. What you are more likely to get and
you have a bit of confidence and faith in Western
(30:48):
companies actually faced with that competition. I think they can
do well. I think they can innovate and they can
properly compete. Don't forget China only moved into this space,
what was it, you know ten to fifteen years ago,
been an incredibly rapid development. So if you think about
it in those terms, I don't see why Western carmakers
or Western technology companies can't compete with China and through competition,
(31:12):
I think what's more likely to happen is if you
put up trade barriers and you don't compete, you will
stagnate and you will fall further behind.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Okay, well that was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Thank you very much, Thank you, Thank you all.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Thanks for listening to Trump and Noomics from Bloomberg. It
was hosted by me Stephanie Flanders and I was joined
by Ben Chu at the Conduit in London. Trump and
Nomics is produced by Summer, Sadi and Moses and with
help from Amy Keen and special thanks this week to
Asher de Lenarole and Lily black Cell at the Conduit.
Sound design is by Blake Maples and Sage Bowman is
(31:51):
the head of Bloomberg Podcast. Please to help others find
and enjoy the show. Please rate it and review it
highly Wherever you found.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
It and distils from Stetson. To Pass from Stetton
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. What I would point
out to people who take the view that globalization has
gone too far is that you'll miss it when it's gone.
We can't roll up those supply chains and cut ourselves
off from other countries about dramatically changing the way we live.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I'm Stephanie Flanders, head of Government and Economics at Bloomberg
and This is Trump Pnomics, the podcast that looks at
the economic world of Donald Trump, how he's already shaped
the global economy. What on earth is going to happen
next this week? Why you'd miss globalization if it went
Probably a lot more than you think. There's been a
lot of books written in the last few years about globalization,
(00:53):
deglobalization and the populist threats to integration. But one that's
a bit different is Ben Choose Exile Economics. What happens
if globalization fails. Ben is the policy and analyst correspondent
at BBC Verify and was previously economics editor of BBC Newsnight,
a job I used to have million years ago. What's
(01:15):
distinctive in Ben's approach is he's taking the arguments against integration.
You might say both seriously and literally he's asking not
just whether it's desirable for nations to shun globalization to
be self sufficient, whether it's even possible. I sat down
with him in late June at an event organized by
The Conduit in London to discuss his reporting, his style
(01:38):
of storytelling, and how his own family history played a
part in the development of the book. I thought it
was worth sharing with you an edited version of that conversation.
I started by asking Ben why he decided to write
the book.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
On that question, I feel incredibly honored to have had
a sort of front row seat to see the impact
of globalization firsthand. And of course what does that mean.
We've all seen globalization in our lives. But because my
family came from China, my father's family came from China
in the in nineteen sixty he came over to the UK.
I was born here, but he's still got family back
(02:18):
in China, and I first visited. I write about this
in the book, but I first visited China in nineteen
eighty five. When I went there, I was a quite
young child, and I still remember it incredibly vividly, the
lives they were living those forty odd years ago, and
it was incredibly uh frugal. Really, you know, in family
(02:38):
of six lived in about three rooms. They would pull
out mattresses from under the beds and all sleep on
the floor, just simply because that's the only way they
could live. They didn't have things like washing machines, microwaves.
We were living in Hong Kong at the time, so
they asked us to sort of go to this special
friendship store, which is the only place where you could
get western white goods, and you had to be a
(03:00):
foreigner to buy them, might from not from China. And
then we bought it and then get gifted it to them.
And it's crazy now because you think, how out have
you ever been to ch I'm sure a lot of
you being just like how CONSUMERISTI all is. You can
get anything there that you can get here, iPhone's laptops,
certainly washing machines. So to see first hand how their
lives have changed in my lifetime, and I think it
(03:23):
is very largely due to globalization. So I suppose the
question is why did I want to write this book?
Because I think that I could bring something a sort
of bit of personal experience, if you like, to seeing
how the good that globalization has done to my own family,
and to see it very vividly in a personal way
really brings it home. And when we hear people like
(03:45):
Robert Leitheiser, who is Donald Trump's first trade advisor in
his first term, he wrote this book that says it
with the title No Trade is Free, and he very
explicitly states that it was a mistake to trade with
China or allow China specifically into the World Trade Organization
in two thousand and one. It was a mistake. And
(04:05):
I just kind of like incredibly jarring, because what comes
into my mind when I hear that is my own
family backing Gangdhou in southern China. Well, really wasn't a
mistake for them. And now we can talk about the
ways which China does create very serious problems for the
world trading system in many many ways. But I think
on a very personal and human level, I think I
(04:27):
really wanted to tell that the other side of the
story actually and bring that personal experience to bear.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I think, and of course I find that criticism about
the Entry's wto jarring for a whole other reason because
when I was at the US Treasury, we were just
negotiating the China entry to the WTO, and since then
almost everyone thinks that that was a mistake, including many
of the people who were involved in negotiating it, because
various assumptions were made about what was going to happen
(04:54):
to China after that, that they would basically become more
like us and sort of market driven, that being part
of the global economy would push them on this same
path that we've all been on, and that clearly has
not happened, And you engage very directly with that in
the book. We should part that briefly, but I guess
(05:14):
we should also slightly lay out your stall in terms of,
you know, what's the architecture of the book? How did
you decide that there are real things that people are
responding to when they're nervous of globalization?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah? Absolutely so. The gestination of this book was really
in the pandemic, when the question that was arising in
lots of people's minds was, hang on, has globalization gone
a bit too far? Are we a bit too interconnected?
Has it made us vulnerable where we thought it was
making us more prosperous. We all remember in the pandemic
(05:49):
the shortages of things like masks, medicines, and hard on
the heels of that, of course, we had Russia's invasion
of Ukraine in twenty twenty two, where there was a
big shock to global oil prices and food prices, and
there was a real sense that we were a bit
too exposed and maybe we should start to do produce
more at home, that those supply chains shouldn't be as
(06:11):
extensive as they are, and that maybe, as I said,
globalization had gone a bit too far. I really started
the idea of writing this and it came out of it.
Actually a BBC radio series I did called The New
Age of Autarchy with a question actually rather than an answer,
and that question was is it possible to actually do
those things to be more self sufficient in terms of
(06:31):
things like food and energy and medicine, you name it.
It was a good faith exploration of whether it was
possible or not. And as I started to write it,
explore these supply chains in more detail and go into
some of the complexities of the way the global value
and supply chains have constructed, it became more and more
(06:53):
clear to me that actually the answer probably is no.
At least we can't roll up those supplies chain and
cut ourselves off from other countries about dramatically changing the
way we live. And I think on some level we
all know that, don't we, Because you know globalization if
you think, well, just look around you. We wake up
in the morning and you brush your teeth and toothpastes
(07:14):
from Poland, and you go and have your breakfast and
the grapes from Egypt, and then you put on your
clothes and it was perhaps it sticks together in Bangladesh,
and then you drive your German made car to the office.
That's the typical way someone describes how globalization shapes our lives,
and it's all true. But what I discovered in this
researching this book and lots of other people that made
this point as well, And it's not just about those
(07:36):
consumer goods which are the fruits of globalization. It's the
components which make those consumer goods which are unfathomably globalized
as well. Just talking about semiconductors, you know, we hear
about those and we took Trump and others and Biden
all wanted to make them in America rather than import them.
(07:58):
But if you look at the supply for something like semiconductors,
they're so unfathomably complex, coming from hundreds of different countries,
these raw materials and the machines that make them that
it really is impossible to see any single country having
a fully nationalized supply chain in something like semiconductors, computer chips,
(08:20):
and it goes for many other things as well, and
I talk about lots of examples of these in the book.
So Yes. I started out I guess with a question,
and I came increasingly to an answer, which is that,
you know, don't take globalization for granted, or don't assume
that it's going to be simple or easy, which is
obviously what a lot of the exile economic exponents populist
(08:43):
politicians say it's going to be quite easy to do
these things. It really won't be. It'd be very expensive.
And you know, I'm a BBC journalist. It's not my
job to say what people should want or what politicians
should do. What I'm trying to do in this book
is say, be aware of the costs, be aware of
the implication it's impossible. Well, you know, if people genuinely
think that it's worth it, then that's fine, but I
(09:06):
would like them to do it with the full facts.
In mine.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
You mentioned semi conductors. I think with electronics generally people
will sort of understand that it's a pretty complicated supply chain,
and in fact, that is what we're discovering. You know,
with the tariffs. Donald Trump sort of outraged the thought
that even with various high tariff rates, Apple's still not
going to want to make iPhones in the US and
(09:30):
to your point, cannot make iPhones in the US because
there's so many things coming from different parts of the world.
But food, how hard could it be to be self
sufficient in food?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Well, that was one of the most fascinating journeys I've
been on actually in the book, because that was the
one where I started out was I think, I'm sure
many of you will will will have this sense that
do we really need to import so much food from abroad?
You know, the UK provides about or supplies about sixty
percent of the food that we consume in so, you know,
(10:02):
pretty reliant on the rest of the world for food.
And why not, as the farmers say, you know, produce
more at home, consume more at home. It'd be good
for good for farmers, good for the economy, and good
for food security. And I think that is quite an
intuitive argument. It's a very common argument that you hear.
(10:23):
What I've discovered in the book is that it's really
for a large part of the world, it's just not
feasible to rely only on the food that can be
grown in that individual country. So there's a striking cistic
from a study done in twenty twenty which I imagine,
if everyone on the planet had a one hundred kilometer
circle drawn around them, what proportion of the world's population
(10:48):
could feed themselves from staple foods grown within that one
hundred kilometer radius. And the answer is it's only twenty
five percent, So only a quarter of the global population
could feed themselves within that area. So how big would
that circle need to be around every single person on
the planet so that they could feed themselves on staple
(11:09):
foods like wheat and corn and potatoes and what have you.
It would have to be two thousand kilometers. And what
that tells you is, given the size of countries, given
the size of the planet, is that if we're going
to feed ourselves as a world, as a planet, we're
going to be incredibly reliant on trade in food. This
idea and food self sufficiency is a non starter for
(11:32):
probably most people on the planet. And that's really sobering thought,
isn't it, Because we often hear this line, as I said,
we just do it at home. Just do it at home. Well,
it's not going to happen. At least we're not going
to have the kind of diets that we used to,
increasing reliance on meat in large parts of the world,
the variety of food. But simply we can't feed ourselves
(11:52):
as a planet with just national production.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Although that fact does cast some light on why Donald
Trump w with want Canada, because I think the Americans
will probably do quite well if they could just take
all of the Canadian planes.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Well, that was another interesting thing about it, because America,
on the face of it, is very abundant in food.
It produces more than it consumes. It's a big agricultural
exporter to the rest of the world in net terms.
But even America relies on fertilizer imports quite a lot
of them from Canada. So even if you say America
(12:23):
doesn't need the rest of the world when it comes
to food, well, it actually needs chemicals from the rest
of the world to make its agriculture so productive.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
In your chapter about food, you also you have a
distinction which I think is used for in another areas
as well, because you think of self sufficiency, as we
often painted politically, as being the same as security. If
you're making it your own, then you're not at the
behest of foreign powers and dictators. But you make the point,
especially with food, that food security is very different from
(12:54):
that and is often just related to poverty.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Yeah. I had a look at countries ranked by by
food self sufficiency, so how much of their own consumption
they're producing at home, and also about their levels of
food security. Is the proportion of the populations who are
struggling to feed themselves. So just to take two examples
which I've plucked out in the book, which I think
are really illustrative, So the Zambia in Africa, which is
(13:21):
only seven percent reliant on imports according to the measures
of the which I was looking at, so it basically
produces more or less all that it consumes when it
comes to agriculture, but it has food insecurity levels which
are extremely high, so more than fifty percent. And if
you look at a country like Mauritius in the Indian Ocean,
(13:44):
which has a food self sufficiency ratio which is incredibly low,
so almost the inverse of Zambia, but its food security
was incredibly high. And what's the difference between those two countries.
Mauritius is a much richer country than Zambia is. So
precisely as you said, I think the lesson is what
(14:06):
leads to food insecurity is not reliance on imports. It's
poverty and you need to solve that if you want
people to be well fed, rather than obsessing about local production.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
And actually, and you made the very obvious point which
I hadn't thought about, that you could be completely self sufficient,
but if you have a crop failure, if you've also
closed yourself off from the world, then you are instantly
less secure just through that factor.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Lae. Yeah, I mean we all know this in a
way because we all saw the example of Ukraine. Ukraine
it has this reputation of the bread basket of Europe
going back for decades, and it is it is. On paper,
it's incredibly food secure, it produces more than it consumes.
It's a big exporter to the rest of the world.
But when it got invaded by Russia in twenty twenty two,
(14:52):
it had to rely on the World Food Program to
feed three million of its population. That just shows you
how just have a large amount of agricultural production doesn't
necessarily make you secure.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
So it's fair to say we've not overplanned this conversation.
But you have taken me perfectly to the subject of
Ukraine and Russia. Because energy is the other example where
I think it's the most intuitive to people that we
just can't depend on other nations for our energy, or
at least it would be much better if we weren't.
And the celebrated example which you go through, but I
(15:24):
think a lot of people were have in their heads
is you know, the way Europe, especially Germany. But Europe
allowed itself to become very dependent on Russian gas, despite
that the risk of overreliance on Russia being identified by
Americans and the American intelligence community and others. So what
about energy. Surely it is better for us to be
(15:46):
independent in our energy supply, especially now we can get
all of this nice you know wind.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
And so yeah, yeah, well, I mean it takes me
back again to twenty twenty two when this was what
the politicians were saying. This, as you said, Stefinitie, it
shows the folly of relying on energy imports. A country
like Russia can hold you hostage and cut off the
supply and then you having to have power cuts or rationing.
I found it very compelling that argument in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
But when you start as you were paying your gas.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Bill, yeah, absolutely, I'm sure we all felt this, didn't
we And it does tell so perfectly, doesn't it with
the argument that we should decarbonize and rely on renewables.
And it's all true to some extent. But if you again,
if you go into the weeds, go into the supply
chains of all these renewable technologies, you just see how
(16:32):
distributed they are right around the world. Just for example,
the battery that goes into an electric vehicle, the amount
of critical minerals that it relies on is vastly greater
than a petrol car. And those critical minerals are spread
right across many, many different countries. There's no single country
can realistically source all those critical minerals at home and
(16:54):
have a national supply chain. Goes for China, goes to America,
certainly goes for the UK. And so you just go
through all these renewable technologies and you realize that actually
we are going to be reliant on imports if we're
going to have a renewable energy generating sector. So that's
not to say that it shouldn't be done. It's to
say that, actually, be wary of the rhetoric of self
(17:18):
sufficiency or tarchy when it comes to energy, just as
you should be wary of it when it comes to food,
or semiconductors or medicines.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
If you read the book, we can sort of take
it as read that he goes through quite a few things, medicine, steel, semiconductors.
It's really hard, all of them to be self sufficient.
If Donald Trump was sitting here, he would say, yeah,
to right, it's really hard because we've had thirty years
on the wrong path. You know, we took the cheaper option,
the easier option. We took advantage of like falling to
(17:49):
transportation costs, companies becoming more global, the fact there was
a sort of broadly peaceful global environment. Countries are all
seemed to be moving in the right direction. So businesses
created these enormously complicated supply chains that they never should
have done. And yes, it's going to be really painful
to aren't pick it all. But if we don't, we're
(18:10):
going to wake up tomorrow and everything we want is
you know, being made by China.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, well, Donald Trump has changed his tune on this,
hasn't he, Because I'm sure you remember definitely in the
campaign trail he wasn't talking about the long, difficult journey
to a more resilient American economy. Now you're right, he
has started to talk about how this will be hard
and there are other you know, there will be sacrifices
a long way. But I think how would I try
(18:37):
and persuade Donald Trump?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Just tim right? The Biden administration in some ways institutionalized
his kind of gut instinct slash tweets, and he did.
They did sort of focus more on resilient, focus more
on industrial bis. But it was based on that same
negation of the original idea of global or what a
driven the previous version of globalization, which is we have
(19:03):
to think about the long term costs our strategic position
with regard, particularly with regard to China, not just the
short term cost benefits.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Yeah. I think Richard Baldwin, I think you've interviewed recently,
had a great phrase that Trump was not how did
he put it, He said he wasn't a new turn.
He was a culmination of something that had been going
on for a very long time in politics, this gradual
sense of, you know, globalization is not working the way
we thought it, we hoped it would, and we need
(19:33):
to think more about pulling inwards and turning inwards and
doing things differently. Because you're absolutely right, Joe Biden had
a lot of those same instincts as well. His administration
had a lot of the same instincts, and they were
quite protectionists when it comes to things like Chinese electric vehicles,
Chinese batteries, and you know, really took on what Trump
(19:57):
had done in his first term and took it to
a whole new level. And when it comes to when
it came to making it harder for China to source
the most advanced microchips, they were much more proactive than
the Donald Trump had been. So I think that's really
important to recognize that this isn't something that just don't
just started when Trump came to the White House. What
I would point out to people who were not Trumpian
(20:19):
but sort of take the view that globalization has gone
too far is that you'll miss it when it's gone.
I think it's probably the right way to frame it
because we have taken it for granted that some of
the huge benefits, not just in terms of like my
family in China, but all our lives have been enhanced
(20:41):
and we've been made much more productive and wealthier as
a result of globalization over these past fifty years. In
a sense, trade is being used as a scapegoat for
the failures of domestic politics to redistribute those gains and
to compensate the low from it. So I would say,
(21:02):
I suppose if Trump was here saying, you know, there
are undoubtedly problems in America, economic problems, communities which are suffering,
but don't make the story all about trade. Make it
about how you can use the immense resources of America
to improve their lives. It's quite interesting. I was listening
(21:22):
to JD. Vans, who's slightly more sophisticated figger than Trump
when it comes to making these arguments. And he gave
a speech in March to the American Dynamism Conference, and
he said the problem of the American and global economies
that has been too addicted to cheap labor, both at
home and talking about immigration and abroad, meaning outsourcing American
(21:46):
multinationals sending their supply chain to broad cheap labor. And
he said that as undermined American innovation, which is pretty
crazy because America is the most innovative and dynamic economy
by far in the world. If it's had a net
negative impact on American innovation, it's pretty hard to see
it in the statistics.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
But well, you mentioned Jadevance. I mean, I think it's
interesting because it comes through more strongly in what he
says and that speech. Part of the kind of rebellion
against globalization that jade Vance represents is kind of rebellion
against modernity, against the modern global economy and what's happened
to communities and day to day life from only get
(22:28):
going for the most productive, the cheapest way of making things.
You know, America's moved to a massively service based economy.
And I think his argument would be, and lots of
people say this that those service sector jobs, even if
you can afford to buy lots of stuff with them,
because you've got all these cheap things that were being
made in China, we quote un quotes were happier when
(22:50):
we were making that stuff ourselves. And maybe we had
a bit less, but we had community and we didn't
have you know, endless insecure jobs and other things So
how is it if you're a politician, how do you
tease out that argument against trade from the sort of
broader sense that we've sort of culturally gone the wrong
direction because of this advanced industrialization.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Well, it's incredibly difficult. I mean, Dave the Evans, You're right,
he does talk in that sort of nostalgia we must
bring back manufacturing, and others in the administration in America
talk about Americans screwing the little screws into iPhones and
returning to a manufacturing economy. At other times he's more
with the tech bros. In fact, he was in this
conference he was talking about innovation. But I think it
comes down to a fundamental problem with the argument that
(23:37):
you reindustrialize America through tariffs and reindustrialize it full stop
to create great jobs. Is that as many people have
pointed out, But it's absolutely true. What you're going to
get if you bring American if you bring more manufacturing
back to America, is not a huge amount of really
high paying jobs. And the turning back of the clock
(23:57):
to the nineteen fifties where everyone took their lunch pale
to the factory. You're going to have robots now that
will create higher incomes for some people, but it's not
going to fundamentally shift the structure of the American economy
the labor force back to the way it was all
those decades ago. So I think I think the honest
answer is that, yes, there's a big seam of nostalgia
(24:19):
that people like Jdvans and many others in America are mining,
but it's not one that is going to be actually deliverable.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
I guess one other sort of obvious response to some
of what you've said is if it's also inevitable, if
there are all these forces technology and other things that
are putting on us a path to integration and making
it extremely hard to unpick these supply chains, then maybe
we don't have to worry about protectionism after all. Maybe
(24:49):
you know, if it's going to all prove in a
few years time, if it's going to prove to be
completely counterproductive and or prohibitively costly, shouldn't we just like
sit back and wait for it all to play.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Wait, wait for it, yeah, wait for people to come
to their senses. I think that is compelling in some ways,
and I think there's a bit of a debate actually
when you look at analysts because some say, look what deglobalization.
You know, in some measures in terms of data flows
across borders. If you look at the actual complexity of
supply chains, we have never been more more globalized than
(25:22):
we are today. Notwithstanding these these many years of politicians
making these policies to withdraw us inwards and attempt to
resure and friendshure, et cetera. If that's the result, then
you know, why why are we even talking about this
term deglobalization. I think my answer would be, on the
one hand, that's true, but if you look at the
(25:43):
number of actual acts that politicians have taken to put
barriers up, it is definitely glowing going up. You are
seeing a trend of politicians to fight against this global integration.
And my answer would be that you're effectively It may continue,
the wheels may keep turning, but you're throwing sand in
(26:03):
the gears of it. This is one of the greatest
engines of prosperity that we've seen ever, is globalization. And
if you make it harder, then your living standards will
not rise as rapidly as they otherwise would have countries,
and that's in developing, that's in rich countries and developing
countries are going to find it harder to get onto
(26:24):
that economic ladder of having better lives and integrating into
it into global supply chains in the way that China
did in the past, in a way that countries in
Africa are trying to now so effectively pulling up the ladder.
So I think, yes, I think there is a strong
case for saying that we are not going to deglobalize.
It will just be too hard. But I think we
(26:45):
can still make life very difficult for ourselves and much
more difficult than it needs to be.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
And the response to the strategic worry that we will
wake up in twenty years time and find that a
very different government, very strong government, with very different value
system certainly doesn't believe in journalists of Newsnight has control
over key parts of our economy because we've decided to
buy all our solar panels from them, and all of
(27:11):
our electric batteries and all our electric cars. How do
we get around that?
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Well, that is that is an extremely tough one. China.
I mean, I've talked, I started talking about how the
miracle of globalization in China. I've seen the benefits of it,
but I've also seen the downsides. I've seen the dark
side of what the new China, what the Chinese regime
is in terms of the crushing of personal freedoms of
people in China, in terms of its economic mismanagement. I mean,
(27:37):
everyone's talks about China as this great economic success, and
in many dimensions it is, but it's also really messed
up the property market. It's it's got deep set economic
problems as well, and I've seen that in the same
way I've seen the benefits. I've seen that up close
in terms of my own family in China, and it's
a very I can understand why Western politicians say we
(27:59):
should be pus much distance between ourselves and this regime
as possible. I completely understand that. At the same time,
we take an issue like decarbonization, China has such a
head start when it comes to the technology of solar
panels and electric batteries and also wind turbines that it's
simply not feasible for the world to decarbonize by twenty fifty,
(28:23):
as nations have signed up to do without relying very,
very heavily on Chinese renewable energy. Kit that's just the reality,
and governments are going to have to choose there. And
also I think that China is so integrated into global
supply chains that this fantasy, you know, I think it
is a fantasy saying that it's simply a case of
you just turn the switch and it's and it's removed.
(28:45):
And I think Donald Trump has actually found this out
since Liberation Day. He started out very bullishly about the
ability of him, you know, decoupling from China, as he
put it, and within a couple of months they're making
the deal. And I think a lot of American retailers
went to see him, called him and said, the reality is,
if you don't change course on this, you're going to
(29:06):
have empty shelves, You're going to have prices spiking. And
I think that message got through.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Actually, I was in Hong Kong last week and I
was struck by there's quite a few people. I sort
of asked their investor types, market types. But what's surprised
you most in the last six months or even the
last twelve months. None of them said anything to do
with Donald Trump. It was all how fast China has
(29:34):
progressed in ex technology or why technology. There's so many
articles you read now or reports on any subject, whether
it's trade, technology, innovation, and you could just have a
sub headline China's going to win. I mean, is that
what you're basically saying that we should just accept that
China's going to end up dominant in all these areas
(29:54):
and we will just lose out by trying to be more,
more diversified and less reliant on it.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Well, I think going back to the what JD. Evans
was saying and linking that to the ev picture of
China's got such that amazing lead in electric vehicles. You
know BYD you'll be seeing a lot more of those,
I think on our streets, their electric vehicles in the
coming months and years. But what JD. Evans was saying
was that innovation needs a barrier, he needs trade walls
(30:26):
with the rest of the world, and then American companies
will innovate more. I think the evidence suggests the exact
opposite will happen. If American wars itself off, it will
not be subject to competition from companies like BYD, from
a Chinese battery makers, etc. And they will stagnate behind
those walls. What you are more likely to get and
you have a bit of confidence and faith in Western
(30:48):
companies actually faced with that competition. I think they can
do well. I think they can innovate and they can
properly compete. Don't forget China only moved into this space,
what was it, you know ten to fifteen years ago,
been an incredibly rapid development. So if you think about
it in those terms, I don't see why Western carmakers
or Western technology companies can't compete with China and through competition,
(31:12):
I think what's more likely to happen is if you
put up trade barriers and you don't compete, you will
stagnate and you will fall further behind.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Okay, well that was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Thank you very much, Thank you, Thank you all.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Thanks for listening to Trump and Noomics from Bloomberg. It
was hosted by me Stephanie Flanders and I was joined
by Ben Chu at the Conduit in London. Trump and
Nomics is produced by Summer, Sadi and Moses and with
help from Amy Keen and special thanks this week to
Asher de Lenarole and Lily black Cell at the Conduit.
Sound design is by Blake Maples and Sage Bowman is
(31:51):
the head of Bloomberg Podcast. Please to help others find
and enjoy the show. Please rate it and review it
highly Wherever you found.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
It and distils from Stetson. To Pass from Stetton
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.