Ian Bremmer on the Risks America Poses to the World
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm Winna Liu. I write the game Connections, one of the puzzles from New York Times games. And I love horror movies. I love my dog. And I love trying to trick you. I'm Tracy Bennett. I get to pick the wordle word every day, which is not as easy as it sounds. The fun fact about me is that I am descended from a witch who was put on trial in Salem. New York Times games are made by people, like the ones you just heard from. Go to nytimes.com slash games to start playing today.
Over the past month, there are two dominant stories in American foreign policy. One, of course, is the war with Iran. The other is the much anticipated summit between President Trump and Xi Jinping of China. And I think if you look closely at both of these stories, you see that our foreign policy has entered into a period of absolute and complete incoherence. Donald Trump said that the point of the war with Iran was to end the threat of the Iranian regime and to forever end their capability to get nuclear weapons.
They will never have a nuclear weapon. This regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the United States Armed Forces.
Now, if you look at what is being considered, it appears that neither policy is going to be achieved. So what are we doing there? What are we trying to achieve there now? And if you look at President Trump's entire time in politics, he's been committed to nothing so much as changing America's relationship with China.
We can't continue to allow China to rape our country. And that's what they're doing. It's the greatest theft in the history of the world.
Containing China, making sure we have power in that relationship or we begin to detach from it. But if you look at our policy now towards China and you look at that summit with China, are either of those things happening? Are we, in fact, moving in the opposite direction?
The American and Chinese people share much in common. We value hard work. We value courage and achievement. We love our families and we love our countries. Together, we have the chance to draw on these values to create a future of greater prosperity, cooperation, and happiness.
There is much I disagree with in Donald Trump's foreign policy, but at the moment, there's just a reality that it's not clear what it is. It's not clear what he is trying to achieve or what he is simply settling for or reacting to. So I wanted to do an episode looking at China, Iran, but also just trying to assess Donald Trump as a geopolitical force and as a force that is remaking what America means and what its role is in the world. Ian Bremmer is the president and founder of the Eurasia Group and GZERO Media. He's also the author of, among other books, Every Nation for Itself, What Happens When No One Leads the World. As always, my email is reclineshow at NYTimes.com.
Ian Bremmer, welcome to the show. Ezra, good to join you. So I was going to do like a direct into the news question on Iran, but I was reading your global risks report from the beginning of the year. And it made me want to ask a bigger question first, which is. What to you is the meaning of Donald Trump? What does he historically and geopolitically represent?
I would say he's first and foremost a symptom, not a cause, of trends that have been coming in the United States for a long time. American people that believe that for various reasons that the political system does not represent them adequately, that something about it is broken and so needs someone who's going to shake it up, who isn't going to be an establishment figure. I think that you see that reflected in a whole bunch of structural policies like a lack of U.S. support for free trade and instead moving towards industrial policy and nearshoring and inshoring.
What are the two dominant stories in American foreign policy right now?
You see it in a move away from more open borders, both in terms of response against illegal migrants, but also restrictions on legal migration. You see it in an unwillingness of the United States to get as involved in foreign wars and a demand for much greater burden sharing and other countries paying for their own defense.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–4:42
2
What are the two dominant stories in American foreign policy right now?
4:42–8:54
3
What is Trump's stance on the war with Iran?
8:54–11:15
4
How has Trump's approach to China evolved during his presidency?
11:15–15:18
5
How does the current state of American foreign policy reflect Trump's objectives?
15:18–16:21
6
What does Ian Bremmer say about Trump's geopolitical impact?
16:21–25:22
7
What are the implications of the Trump-Xi summit for US-China relations?
25:22–36:14
8
How has Trump's foreign policy affected America's allies?
36:14–1:33:15