Will Bain

And here he is talking about China to podcaster and AI researcher Dwarkesh Patel last month on Patel's own podcast.

And so as we round this out, then, and VAI is kind of the tip of the spear, if you like, of some of where the tension is, those broader issues.

I mean, I was looking this week, Michelle, in the United States, bipartisan, which is a very rare thing in your part of the world, bipartisan bill coming forward.

Sorry, what is that?

Yes, exactly.

Coming forward between Republican and Democratic senators to try and block those Chinese car manufacturers, the likes of BYD, from being able to sell and build plants in the US.

Has it now got to a point, perhaps, Raoul, first, where

That tension from the people you've spoken to, particularly close to the Chinese government and looking at the Chinese economy closely, has it come to that point where actually the US is such an unreliable partner from their perspective that they have already looked elsewhere.

And as a result, compared to 2017, where we started this program, it's not kind of the same stakes as perhaps were at play a decade ago.

And we've talked about these gigantic companies a lot, you know, the Metas, the Boeings, you know, that work all around the world.

Within reason, they can sort of ride these shocks, can't they, because of the size of them.

in both countries and actually around the world in the supply chains to the smaller firms that can still be impacted.

And we thought we'd give you a little snapshot of one of those.

Ethan Frisch is the co-founder and CEO of a company called Burlap & Barrel, imports spices into the United States.

This is what he told us on the World Service last week.

And Michelle, all three of us have spoken to so many companies of that kind of size, haven't we?

People who are exporting grilling tools and barbecue tools to the United States, people importing plastic toys, even if they're here in the UK or Europe, what that's doing to the sort of wider supply chain and the wider cost there as well.

Is that somewhere that you think realistically that we could find some peace this week if they can't get somewhere on the really big stuff as you guys have mentioned?

Well, let's find out.

In a way, I hope they sort of don't because it'll be good content for us going forward on the podcast here as well.