Niall Ferguson

And I worry that we're withdrawing from, I think the most valuable companies in the world

Apple and Alphabet are basically operating systems upon which everything else is built and they get a tax for everything and they set the tone.

As of American economics, policy, rule of law, mostly democracy has kind of been the operating system for the majority of the West.

And now people are deciding maybe they'll try and find their own operating system or shifting off of it.

and we're moving to these spheres of influence where we have these regional superpowers, China and Asia, the US and the Americas, I don't know, they fight it out in Europe, you're not worried or you don't see it as kind of a withdrawal.

You see it as flexing, which will ultimately potentially increase US dominance and kind of get the Europeans in line to stop, quite frankly, bitching and moaning and live up to their rhetoric that music has to match the words.

I see it as a withdrawal to a smaller America around spheres of influence that will embolden Russia and China in their spheres.

You don't see that.

Well, it's conceivable.

I guess this is sort of Gideon Rachman's view that in the end, Trump's just another strongman who wants to carve up the world with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

But I'm not sure that that's really what we're seeing here.

I mean, last I heard, Indo-Pacific Command is still by far the most important of the military commands of the United States.

And its role in life is to deter China from...

seeking to establish itself as in control of Taiwan or extending its power in the South China Sea.

It's a real and formidable force.

And I don't think if you spoke to Admiral Sam Paparo, the commander of Indo-Pacific Command, he would say, yeah, we're just winding this up because we're all going to the Western Hemisphere.

I think we have to distinguish here between rhetoric and reality.

The rhetoric of the Trump administration, particularly Trump 2.0,

is quite consciously borrowed from McKinley and Roosevelt.

It's a sort of circa 1900 vibe.