Fareed Zakaria
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
It's when I moved there.
And Trump is a huge character in it.
And you can look, even then, every time he did a deal,
His absolute imperative was, how do I squeeze everybody in every possible way to screw them and get the best deal I can for myself?
There was never a thought about, instead of a transaction, how do I build a relationship?
And any really great businessman will tell you, businesses are built not on a single transaction, but on building a relationship.
Right.
And this is what he's doing in each of these tariff negotiations.
His point is, I'm going to screw you.
I'm going to squeeze you.
I'm going to get that.
And there's something sort of strange about not realizing that American power since 1945 has been built on this unique thing that we have built so much goodwill and trust among the richest countries in the world.
International relations here is all predicted.
that at some point Germany will go nuclear, Japan will go nuclear.
They're too rich, they're too powerful to allow their foreign and defense policy to be subcontracted to the United States.
But it never happened.
And it never happened because we were honorable about saying we're taking everyone's interests into account.
And as you say, we made mistakes and all that, but
compared to other great powers that dominated the world.
You know, the United States has been remarkable in having this enlightened self-interest.