Azeem Azhar

Well, I think there's something else that has changed in the international environment over the last 10 or 15 years.

which has been the explicit weaponization of dependency.

In this Ricardian trade world, we always have dependencies on each other.

Famously, the Airbus passenger jet is manufactured in 100 countries and the wings cross borders 20 times.

And you do that because of the gains of trade.

You do that because of the gains of specialization.

But underpinning trade is that sense of dependency.

And countries have generally been

a little bit wary of doing that.

I suspect the OPEC cartel is a good example where the dependency on oil was used as a manifest as a tool.

But in the past five or six years, that weaponization has become increasingly manifest and it's becoming perhaps part of the geopolitical landscape.

So I'm just curious about whether you see that as a phase change as well, or is it a rerun of the tape that you so eloquently described of the 20s and 30s?

But do you think that what we see in this specifically between the US and China today has a grand plan to it?

Or is it a bit incoherent?

I mean, I look at things like 100% tariffs, but carve outs for Nvidia's H20 chips, you know, with the Chinese response to their domestic industry saying you've got to use domestic chips.

It doesn't look that look like

Either side is fully proactive and escalating in a consistent way.

And it certainly looks from the US side, but there's a little bit of shooting from the hip.

Right.

So maybe you don't you don't stop trade with China, but maybe it is that any kind of systems change is