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Hello and welcome to World Today, I'm Zhao Ying. Coming up, US President Donald Trump has announced 25% tariffs on car imports. What does it mean for US car makers and consumers?
The EU has rejected Russia's ceasefire demand for sanctions relief. Does this add more uncertainty to the fragile Black Sea truce? Jamaica has rebuffed a push by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio against a program that brings in Cuban doctors. We take a closer look at the Cuban medical missions and their role in Caribbean health care.
U.S. President Donald Trump has announced plans to impose 25% tariffs on all imported automobiles. The tariffs will go into effect on April 2. Trump argued that the tariffs would encourage more production to relocate to the U.S., generate new revenues for the government, and help reduce national debt. Economists, however, have warned that tariffs would push up car prices and hurt consumers.
For more, we are joined by Liu Chiqin, senior fellow with the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China. Donald Trump claimed the tariffs would lead to tremendous growth in the U.S. auto industry and would spur jobs and investment in the U.S. Do you think this claim holds up? I think as a real businessman in the world that nobody can believe his claim.
that his policy of high tariffs can increase auto industry and also in the job creating. So because the situation has a different picture, we can see that in his first term four years before, what happened? The auto industry and job opportunity have not grown up as he wished. So this is a big challenge for him.
But I agree that there are some factors that could be growing up by his run policy or run doing. For instance, the trouble among the interests of the people and the problems among different ethnicities in the United States. We know in the first term of his office that a big racial problem happened.
and took place in the society. That is the problems among the ratios of the nation. This is a big challenge and also conflicts between different interests of people and the manufacturers also increased. But from the economic itself, I think he has really difficulties and also pressure from his policy he has made.
Well, the White House has also cited national security concerns as part of the justification for these tariffs. How valid is that reasoning in this case? I think the value of such a policy or such an excuse can only help when all these countries, including the United States and some other Western major countries,
that when they are facing challenges from outside, especially from developing countries, they always use the national security as a protectionism and as a shield to protect themselves. But actually we know that developing countries, including China, we are not having such a high
high level of techniques and science to damage their security. This is very clear, because the only country that can hold such a capability to make threats on the other nation's security is the United States and its close followers.
So that means the national security is always as an excuse for their own wrong action and the wrong decision making, especially when they are talking about rising of the developing countries, including China and other countries. So I think I would say this is really a nonsense. Well, how do you see this affecting American consumers, especially in an economy where inflation has already driven up costs?
Actually, in the first term, because I always compare what happened in the first term, when he raised the tariffs against China, we can see that really the inflation and the market price has been really greatly impacted.
because his policy has made negative impact on the international pricing mechanism and also make damage to the supply chain. The sound and healthy supply chain has been really influenced by his policy. And the third, of course, the raw materials and the production cost has been greatly basically increased by such
high tariff policy. So in this way, we can see that in the United States, the consumer and the consumption will be surely that the negative impact by crossing increase in six months, in my opinion, that six months later, you can see the market reaction.
and also inflation will see from the U.S. Federal Reserve has already warned that in three months or even longer time, the inflation will come back with a high inflation rate. Which countries do you think will be hit hardest by these 25% tariffs and how might this reshape U.S. alliances over time? Actually, this policy has fundamentally damaged the
trust and confidence between the lines of the United States because we can see the fact that for the United States there is no real alliance, no real friends, only the interests of conflicts. This is the problem for the United States and for the rest of the world.
Those major countries who closely followed the United States' interests in the past 20 years are heavily and mainly hit by such policies.
The most hit partner, I think, is Germany and Japan, because these two are the major auto industry in the world. In the past year, they exported their own products of autos, more than 60% of their own products to the United States. That's why they are very under the greater pressure of the United States to reduce their export to the US.
It doesn't work. So that's why the United States has raised the tariffs on the major countries, but the main hit will be Germany and Japan. Okay. Then what retaliatory measures might we see from these major car exporting nations? We see that already the retaliation has already happened, and also the picture is mixed.
we see some pain or painful reaction from the United States, especially from agriculture. In some countries, especially for the bean export and also other agricultural products, including wines and different
In this way, we can see that this heavy disaster area is the agriculture products and the agriculture related products for also for pork and beef export, also milk industry also heavily interested. So of course, we can see that other products like the
The world brand that the US made also has been really heavily damaged, especially when the market is limited for this product from the United States. I think there were a few painful reactions from such policy because
deserve such a painful result. Okay. Well, Donald Trump also frames tariffs as a way to reduce taxes and debt, and he claimed they'll lead to an outstanding balance sheet. How realistic is this vision given the potential for higher consumer costs and also, as you mentioned, retaliatory tariffs from trading partners? I have to say that Trump's reaction or his idea that
By doing so to reduce the tax or even debt, it's quite naive.
that shows he is only a simple businessman, he is not a high-level economist. He doesn't understand or even he doesn't want to understand the basic principle of economics, what should be done in order to avoid any problems from tax on debt. Because of his actions in the first term, the debt also increased a lot. And by the other
the Biden administration increased another big step. So he is and he was responsible for such steps. But we never forget in his first term, he raised the tariffs. If the tariffs really help to reduce tax and debts, how can it become today's 36 trillion US dollars? Where is the outstanding balance sheet?
nothing happened. So he is really very naive. He just draw a beautiful picture just to cheat the market and to cheat his people. Okay, but we know that many of Trump's supporters, particularly the mega followers, they have often backed his protectionist trade policies. But if these tariffs lead to higher car prices and job losses, could this
policy test their loyalty? This is a really good question. My answer, and I assume that the only reaction by such a, in such case that they never acknowledge
their losses. That means if this tariff policy really had made a great impact, negative impact on the US economy, even they say that this is a real defeat or disaster for the US economy. But they will never accept that this is because their own policy. They will reshape and or shift their responsibility to others, to the outside factor.
to developing countries, to other alliances, that they have to do something that does not meet the demand of the United States. So I think it's very clear that they only show their loyalty, but they never
acknowledge their mistake. This is a big problem for them. So I believe that in two years, we can see such a scenario happen that all these politicians and the policymakers will never acknowledge their mistake. Okay, but are there alternative policies that could be more effective than tariffs in strengthening the U.S. auto industry? Actually, this is quite a
clear that or easy action for Trump administration, but they never follow it because only two, three with first
really sincere cooperation with the international community. We don't want to ask you to really have only cooperation with China, no. With the rest of the world, with the globalization, I think this is the best way for the United States to find a way out to ease their pressure of inflation. And secondly, it's also they should make their national,
the innovation in the high quality. So because in the past years we considered innovation in the United States
The quality is not as high as we wish or as it should be. So this is another challenge for the United States. So they should try to make a policy how to encourage their high-quality innovation. And the third, of course, is very important and also essential. They should open widely their market, like China. China can do
I think the United States should do the same, because it shows only the benefits to the nations and to the rest of the world. So by tariffs, there's no way out. This is only a loser, double loser, all loser policy, not a win-win. But by cooperation, innovation, open up is a win-win policy.
That is Dr. Liu Zhicin, Senior Fellow with the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China. This is World Today. We'll be back.
This is World Today. I'm Zhao Ying. The European Union says it will not lift or amend sanctions on Russia unless Moscow withdraws its forces from Ukraine. The European Commission statement came after the U.S. said it had reached agreements with Russia and Ukraine for a truce over the Black Sea. The Kremlin said the U.S. had agreed to help it lift a series of Western sanctions as preconditions for the partial ceasefire.
The demands include revoking sanctions on a state agricultural bank and restoring its access to the SWIFT international payment system. However, Zelensky said he believed the deal did not require sanctions relief to come into force and would take effect immediately. For more, we are joined by TMO Kim Vimaki, professor of international relations at University of Bath. Great to have you back on our show.
Thanks for having us. So it's understood that the United States brokered this Black Sea ceasefire by agreeing to push to lift sanctions against Russia. But how might EU's refusal to ease sanctions further complicate the situation and potentially affect the viability of this ceasefire agreement?
Well, I think the Russian demand seems initially unrelated to the Black Sea ceasefire and thus EU's refusal may not really affect the process of the ceasefire.
However, one of the reasons why this Black Sea related step towards peace was created was to ease the situation with food trade and to secure trade roads so that Ukraine and Russia food could enter the countries that have suffered from the war and sanctions in their food security.
I think there, financial sanctions may be relevant. If Russia cannot access world financial markets effectively, it may have complications with this trade in food. And then the effect of Black Sea ceasefire would not influence Russian food trade. This way,
While EU does not intend with its sanctions to target the Russian trade in food and fertilizers, financial sanctions may actually do this. So I think this is why Russia may consider financial sanctions as something that is relevant to this step in the peace process. I think it could be possible to find a solution there between the Russian position of ending all sanctions and EU position
not to do that by adopting a compromise that will affect Western financial sanctions and thus
allow Russian food trade without financial problems. Okay, but now the EU has actually made it clear that sanctions won't be lifted unless Russia unconditionally withdraws from Ukraine. And it has actually stick to this maximum pressure policy for quite some time. But how effective has this approach been in pressuring Moscow so far?
I think, first of all, it's difficult to assess the effectiveness of EU sanctions as these sanctions have two contradicting objectives. On the one hand, they are intended to pressure Russia to withdraw, like you say.
On the other, they are intended to diminish Russia's ability to wage its war against Ukraine. These are two different objectives. What, for example, if the war operations cease with this ceasefire agreement and the eventual peace agreement, how can they
How can the EU sanctions then be diminishing Russia's capacity to fight the war that is not actually fighting any longer? So there's a contradiction there. But you asked whether EU sanctions will push Russia out of Ukraine. I think not because of two reasons. One is that for sanctions to be effective, you need to hurt your opponent more than you hurt yourself.
Now, looking at the development of the value of the euro compared to the value of the Russian ruble, we can see that ruble has gained 10 percent against almost 10 percent against euro during the past year. Ruble has gained a lot of value since last November, and statistics show that
growth developments speak the same language. So that's one of the reasons EU hurts itself more than it hurts Russia. The other thing is that to conclude that EU sanctions have
not been successful is simply to look at the track record. Already in the beginning, the threat of sanctions did not prevent Russian aggression. I think this was because Russia felt that they would be, I mean, sanctions would be forthcoming anyway, regardless of what Russia does. Putin said, actually, just days before his escalation of the war into Ukraine in February 2022,
that the West will sanction Russia anyway. They will always find an excuse. That's what he said. Now, if this is really his perception, then sanctions do not manage to create an incentive for better Russian behavior as sanctions are seen as a result of hostility and not the response to Russian behavior. Now, this is...
Partly because of the fact that EU sanctions, the decision making related to these sanctions is very, very cumbersome. You need a lot of consensus within EU and you normally don't get that. As a result, it's not possible for the EU to react effectively.
very quickly. If Russian behavior changes, EU cannot change its sanctions quickly. As a result, this kind of proves Russia that Russia's behavior does not affect EU sanctions. And obviously, if that's the case, then sanctions does not really have any impact.
Okay, well, you said just now that you believe this is primarily about food trade and food security, then how would you interpret Russia's demands for sanctions relief? Would you see it as an attempt to gain some economic leverage or a genuine effort for peace?
I think it could be both. But obviously, Russia wants peace, but it wants peace on its own terms. And it needs the leverage for persuasion, its own terms of peace. But I think it is also true that this is related to the main aim of the Black Sea deal.
related sanctions, sorry, Black Sea related ceasefire. If the intention is to enable food trade, then obviously there's a need for relaxing of sanctions that make Russian food trade very difficult because of financial reasons.
Well, some European observers argue that the terms of this tentative deal are enormously favorable for the Kremlin with few upsides for Ukraine. Do you think that's really the case? And do you feel that the Trump administration is perhaps prioritizing normalization with Russia over Ukraine's interests?
I think the two objectives are the same in the end. I mean, Ukraine will not benefit from a world war. And easing Russia's relations with the U.S. does prevent that war. So I think all in all, it seems to me that Trump sees this conflict as some kind of coercive bargaining tool.
And this is the reason why Trump wants to be very, very realistic in the sense that when he sees, as for example, the very recent annual threat assessment of the U.S. intelligence community saw that Moscow was
sizing the upper hand and it's gaining leverage. So therefore, it's kind of natural for Trump, who sees this as coercive bargaining, to be willing to compromise
because of the realities. In that sense, I do think that Trump wants to be a realistic peacemaker and Trump probably sees also that this is in the interest of Ukraine also.
Well, but the French President Emmanuel Macron has suggested deploying a European armed force in Ukraine as part of a future peace deal to kind of deter Russian aggression. I mean, how realistic is this idea, especially given that direct NATO troop deployment has been avoided so far?
I do think that it is not realistic that Russia accepts the idea that NATO troops are at its border, that it could be a peace solution, especially since, according to the previous NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, he stated that
the whole war was due to Russian fear of Ukraine's NATO membership. So basically, to offer this cause of war as a peace solution does not seem realistic to me. Thank you, Timo Kivimaki, Professor of International Relations at University of Bath. You're listening to World Today. We'll be back after a short break. World Today
You're listening to World Today. I'm Zhao Ying. Discussions at the Boao Forum place a strong focus on the ethical development and governance of artificial intelligence. Experts have emphasized China's active role in promoting international cooperation to establish ethical standards and advance responsible AI governance.
For more insights, Tianlu interviewed Director Zeng Yi of the International Research Center for AI Ethics and Governance, who is also a member of the UN High-Level Advisory Body on AI. As AI continues to develop rapidly, can you share your thoughts on how China has been advancing AI governance in recent years?
Well, I think when China established the National AI Development Plan, within that, actually there is at least more than 10 times mentioning the importance of ethics and governance overall.
As far as I could remember, back to at least 2019, as one of the experts in the National AI Governance Committee, me and my colleague developed the National AI Governance Principles, which actually tells
not only in China but also the world, where China AI is actually going. Well, everything has to go into the details and actually to be grounded into reality. Well, actually it went back to last year, many ministries and city-level AI ethics review committee has been established.
So the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, they've been working on detailed ethics, AI ethics review guidelines to guide the domestic trials here in China. What is even more actually important is how China AI governance can actually contribute to the global efforts.
So this is why during the Belt and Road Conference last year, actually there's a release of the Global AI Governance Initiative by our government. So actually the Global AI Governance Initiative tells about the importance of building ethical, trustworthy and safe AI instead of having AI to be used in a wild way.
Well, on the other side, we also talk about inclusivity so that China AI governance models can be connected to the rest of the world and also to promote AI fair use in many of the low and middle income countries. Well, I think the trying of China AI governance actually is part of the global process.
This is why the Chinese government also endorsed that the United Nations should serve as the core for global AI governance.
By using the platform of the UN, the Chinese effort can be one of the best practices that can be shared to the world. Like you said, the AI governance is a global process. Can you elaborate a bit more on how China and other Asian nations collaborate more effectively in advancing the global process?
Yeah, I think Asia is very unique in a way that we share many of the non-Western values. So for the role of AI, actually for the West, they've been sharing a vision of AI only as a tool.
And in sci-fi, maybe you also get to notice that they think AI could be the enemies or terminators for the human society. But in Asia, I would say that most countries appreciate the vision
of having AI not only as a tool but also in the very long future it could also be a companion or partners of the human society. So not so many western people accept this kind of vision but this is very popular in Asia and also like
But countries like Japan, they have more senior age people. So they actually need companions, AI companions actually to assist the society. So I think what is unique from Asia is that we share a vision of symbiotic society.
That is to live in harmony between human and technology. So I would say either in industry or in the family setting for China now we have more experiences on the pros and cons of agentic AI or humanoid robots.
that can be used in different scenarios. So I think countries like China should share this kind of practices from a companion point of view to the rest of Asian countries and to co-develop and to make a progress for the concept and the vision of living harmony and the symbiotic society.
As you believe the AI or robots can be our companions rather than the enemy, but I know some of the developing countries are still facing challenges in keeping pace with AI advancements. So what strategies can be adopted to ensure that these nations are fully engaged in the global AI governance process?
Oh, they do. They do have these challenges. I think still, up until now, there's still one third of the people worldwide who doesn't really have internet connection, let alone AI. So now actually the digital divide has been extended to AI divide, which is horrible actually.
So I think the first step is really, if possible, if this is all possible, is to let the UN to lead to have a global AI fund donated by different countries and stakeholders. And then actually to solve in the first step about the connectivity problems.
and then to bring the AI services through networking and connectivity and internet and then to bridge this digital and AI divide. I'm not saying AI now is really a companion. Now AI is still a tool actually. The technology there only enables tools for now.
But maybe we need a new starting point to make AI more towards more companion style instead of only information processing tools. Well, I think AI will stay as a tool in most cases, but for those scenarios that people appreciate companions, AI should also play a role on that.
That is Director Zeng Yi of the International Research Center talking about China's efforts to advance AI governance. This is World Today. Stay with us. This is World Today. I'm Zhao Ying. At this year's Zhongguancun Forum, Chinese enterprises have unveiled a groundbreaking AI model set to revolutionize scientific research.
Unlike traditional ones, the innovative Deep Potential model delivers quantum-level precision at a fraction of the computational cost. This open-source model could accelerate research in fields like catalysis, drug discovery, and renewable energy development. For more, my colleague Gao Yingshi spoke with Zhang Linfeng, founder and chief scientific officer at DP Technology, a participant at the CIRS Forum.
How does DeepPetentro's AI for Science approach fundamentally differ from large language models in terms of data modality and application areas? If we want to define a model, we typically see what is input and output. So for a large language model, definitely the input is language and words. And for AI for Science models, there are different size modalities, like
also words, but also molecules or material structures and geometry of an object. And these are special modalities for a science model. So AI for Science models are different by the model input. And also in terms of data, AI for Science model data comes from experiments or literature or simulations. So we need to put this kind of data and feed them into
these special AI for Science models to generate AI for Science models. In terms of application, definitely the major application are science-related research and also industrial applications in fields like drug development and materials. I think these are the major differences. I think the rationale and the tag philosophy behind are the same, but model input and model structure as well as applications
are a bit different. Could you explain how Deep Potential algorithm achieves quantum mechanical accuracy while reducing computational cost compared to traditional methods? Sure. So Deep Potential can be viewed as one specific AI for Science model in the early stage of AI for Science development. So let me introduce the problem first. So what
Deep Chancel's address is to solve interatomic potential energy surface, which drives the movement of atomic structures or microscopic world. So previously there has been a longstanding dilemma. So if we want to describe atomic interactions,
For example, for a protein, it's like hundreds or even thousands or millions of atoms. And we need to just take that as input and generate energy and forces that drive them to move. And previously, people either choose quantum mechanicals, which need to just solve electronic structure problems, which are very
expensive, or people just use empirical features, just like feature engineering in data science to describe the interactions. So Deep Potential as an AI-based model has like empirical feature-based method efficiency, but also because it's consideration of
physical constraints and physical symmetry, and also by leveraging the capability of addressing high dimensional functions. So it achieved quantum mechanical accuracy. So it's the tool that deep neural network give us that address the accuracy efficiency dilemma more elegantly.
What are the key scientific breakthroughs that Deep Potential's technology has enabled that were previously computationally infeasible? Okay, for the Deep Potential algorithm, what it achieves is that previously what people can do with computational tool for microscopic
Simulation is typically like hundreds of megatons and also 10 or 100 picoseconds. That's the size and also time scale that previous accurate method can achieve. With deep potential, this kind of scale are increased dramatically by five to six orders of magnitude. So currently, what people can do is to do simulation of millions or even more
atoms with a timescale of like nanosecond to even microsecond, like this kind of timescale more routinely. So with this kind of capability, what we have seen is that in fields like catalysis and chemical reactions and also drug and materials discovery, people can model
real pieces more appropriately. So we have seen like hundreds of research works published every year using this tool. Yeah.
How do you envision your AI for Science approach accelerating research in industries beyond material science, such as drug discovery, renewable energy, or catalyst development? Yeah, okay. So, yeah, so a quick reaction is actually there are, for each specific domain, there have been like a lot of examples. But let me just give you one for catalyst development. To describe catalysts,
catalysis process properly, what one needs to consider is both the electronic structure, which is described the giving and loss of electrons. That's a chemical reaction process. That's number one. Another factor is temperature and pressure. That's the catalysis of the experimental conditions. And previously, because the method is so expensive, people can only consider zero temperature effects. But actually,
According to a work by Professor Jun Chun in Xiamen University, which has been published in a very high-profile journal, what they can do with the potential is actually to study the temperature effects during the increase of temperature and to see the effect of the free energy barrier of the catalysis process.
So what I observed is that the barrier with the increase of temperature has two kinds of sub transitions, which is due to the fact that the underlying nanopluster melts. That's a physical process associated during the increase of the temperature. So the physical melting process and the chemical dissociation process are coupled with each other. So these kinds of effects are very fundamental to this kind of
applications, but without deep potential or these kind of tools, previously people can hardly study very routinely. But actually there are many such kind of examples in this field now made possible with deep potential. What unique challenges exist in training AI models for scientific application that don't exist for large language models? So I think for whatever model development purposes,
There are several technical factors and one need to consider them jointly and they may change over the period of time. So these are the data profile and the principles or constraints on the models as well as compute.
So in the very beginning, so we do have like good quantum mechanical solvers, which are very expensive. And, and also we need to generate a little bit data to train the model. So the model development process are very much like a problem that how we combine physical constraints and your network structures smoothly and in an end-to-end and general purpose fashion. So that's challenge number one in the early stage.
And that gave rise to the special architecture of the deep technical model. And definitely because these factors are considered properly and also with the power of open source, we quickly, these kinds of models quickly got into several fields and achieved a certain level of success. But definitely with the development of the whole field right now,
the data factor is no longer a problem. So over the past five years, the open community has generated more and more data, which is essentially covering the whole periodic table right now. So now is the best timing to develop a fundamental foundation model at atomic scale that we call large atomic model that can
take into all data coming from different domains like drug and material development and analysis and covering the whole periodic table. So right now we heard the major technical frontier is to devise this kind of large atomic models. So the data factor and principle factor could change. So we need to just adapt to this kind of change and also lead this kind of development.
That is Zhang Linfeng, founder and chief scientific officer at DP Technology, speaking with our reporter Gao Yingshi. You're listening to World Today. We'll be back. You're listening to World Today. I'm Zhao Ying. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has defended the Trump administration's opposition to a Cuban government program that deploys medical workers to countries in need. He made the remarks during a visit to Jamaica as part of a Caribbean tour.
The Trump government alleges the program violates international labor standards and amounts to human trafficking in some instances. Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Honus rebuffed those accusations, saying the Cuban doctors have been incredibly helpful to Jamaica. Honus said they ensure that those doctors are treated within the country's labor law and benefit like any other workers.
For more, we are joined by Professor Joseph Mahoney, Professor of Politics and International Relations at East China Normal University. Thanks for joining us, Professor Mahoney. So can you start by explaining how Cuba's medical program works and what role it plays in Jamaica's health care system?
Despite being a developing country that has long been victimized by the U.S. embargo, Cuba is a socialist country that has long prioritized public health care. And it has, for example, the lowest infant mortality rates in the West, which is one of the key indicators of a good health care system, much better even than the U.S.,
Now, Havana has long welcomed students from other countries to study medicine in Cuba, and Cuban doctors themselves are set to serve developing countries around the world, especially islands nearby Cuba in the Caribbean, like Jamaica, providing critical medical services given the lack of doctors at those islands.
So these services are paid for in various ways, sometimes in the form of exchange, but generally through cash payments directly to the Cuban government.
Now, the U.S. government has argued these doctors are forced to work and that they're not paid for their services. And as you noted, they allege that this amounts to illegal trafficking. But there's no evidence to support this claim. Now, Jamaica responded to these criticisms by insisting that Cuban doctors are treated, again, as you noted, according to international labor standards.
And we even heard Rubio concede that that might be true in Jamaica. Now, according to the Jamaican government, the Cuban doctors do play a vital role in meeting Jamaica's health care needs, but they didn't give some sort of quantification that would help us assess how large that role is, although we believe it would be substantial.
Okay, so as you said, there's no hard evidence of forced labor in these programs. Then why is the US government taking aim at this Cuba's medical program? What could be its real intentions?
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, first, Secretary Rubio is a Cuban American from Miami, and though he's not actually a member of the exile community, despite claiming that heritage, he's long been an ardent supporter of Cuban exiles and thus an anticommunist and supporter of the U.S. embargo.
Second, during Trump's first term when Rubio was still a U.S. Senator, his influence on Trump's policymaking in Latin America was so great that many considered him to be a shadow Secretary of State for that region. Now, at that time, he worked to reverse
Obama's previously softening position on Cuba and to press harder against Venezuela, which had been supporting Cuba with energy. In part, Venezuela was doing that for medical support from Cuban doctors. So these are issues that have been part of Rubio's personal identity-based political brand for a long time. And it's not surprising that his grand tour of the Caribbean and Latin America is happening now.
But the bottom line is that Cuban doctors are not forced to work by anyone. They can choose whether to go to medical school. If they do, their studies are paid for by the state. They can choose whether they participate in this program. And many voluntarily sign contracts. They want to join these programs. So it's true that they work in difficult circumstances.
that their salaries aren't very high, but this is the nature of providing medical care to developing countries that are unable to meet those needs by themselves.
But in response to the claims of forced labor, several countries have come forward, not just Jamaica, to prove that the Cuban doctors serving their citizens do so willingly and fairly. Yeah. And actually, the U.S. government has even threatened to cancel visas for anyone working with or supporting this Cuban medical program. Is this legally justified?
Not at all. I mean, it's basically anti-socialist, reactionary, ideological rubbish.
designed to pander to the Cuban and Venezuelan exile communities and to do so in ways that intersect positively with Trump's desire to accumulate and exercise leverage over weaker countries, especially those he considers in America's immediate sphere of influence. Okay. So with thousands of Cuban medical professionals across the Caribbean, how critical are these missions to regional health care and what would happen if they were disrupted?
Well, we have data from 2020 showing approximately 30,000 Cuban doctors working abroad, a large proportion of which are working in Venezuela. But they can be found in developing countries around the world, especially the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa.
We hear reports from countries that employ these doctors that they are providing critical services that would otherwise be absent, but we don't have a complete picture of how much would be lost if their missions were shut down. However, we do know these doctors were regarded as providing critical support, especially during the pandemic, and that Cuba itself faced the outbreak better than all others in the Western Hemisphere at a time when the U.S. abandoned support for others or played games like vaccine diplomacy.
Second, we have to consider these threats with Trump cutting foreign aid, including USAID, to developing countries, as well as cutting funds to the UN and the World Health Organization, the latter which he quit again for a second time, with public health operations being canceled around the world, including providing basic vaccines. So to simultaneously target Cuban medical missions is therefore especially cruel.
Well, apart from this Cuban doctor's issue, what are the other major objectives of Rubio's Caribbean tour this time? You know, other than satisfying his longstanding emphasis on
on the region by touring it so soon after taking office, Rubio is certainly trying to press his anti-communist and anti-socialist agenda against Cuba and Venezuela, especially in tandem with Trump's broader vision of the U.S. imposing its will on nearby weaker neighbors, the weakest of whom are in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, which I think we all recall Trump recently renamed the Gulf of America, likely to signal a new projection of American power there.
Well, actually, Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on goods imported to the U.S. by countries that continue to buy oil from Venezuela. I mean, does this approach stretch U.S. authority into some kind of long-arm jurisdiction over other nations' trade policies? And how might this affect international trade norms?
Well, first, we've reached a turning point with the U.S. Some may recall that Trump hung a portrait of Andrew Jackson, the seventh U.S. president, in the Oval Office during his first term. Now, this was removed by Biden in 2021, but Trump recently brought it back for his second term. Now, this is interesting to international relations scholars because Jacksonian diplomacy is generally associated with great power relations in contrast with Wilsonian diplomacy, which emphasizes alliances.
Trump isn't interested in alliances. He wants to leverage American power in every relationship with a special emphasis on dealing with other great powers as near peers when necessary. Consequently, we might well wonder about the future of NATO, AUKUS, and so on, and likewise U.S. commitments to multilateral organizations like the U.N. Now, we already know his position with the Paris Agreement, the WTO, and the World Health Organization, and
And in short, there's some suspicion that the U.S. is returning to a 19th century paradigm of might makes right. And some believe this may include a return to some sort of new Monroe Doctrine, where the U.S. will try to establish itself as the uncontested hegemon of the Western Hemisphere. While this will appear
like a strategic retreat, say from a Chinese perspective, from the Cuban or Venezuelan or Latin American perspective, it would look like a return to sort of a heavy handed US imperialism.
But second, it's in this context that we have to judge the violation of trade norms, including Trump imposing tariffs, sanctions, ignoring the WTO, forcing Canada and Mexico to change NAFTA in his first term, and then taking another cut in his second. It's in this context that we see him trying to force the sale of Chinese companies like TikTok or force Hong Kong firms like C.K. Hutchison out of Panama.
Yeah, thank you, Professor Joseph Mahoney, Professor of Politics and International Relations at East China Normal University. And that's all the time we have for this edition of World Today. I'm Jiao Ying. Thank you so much for listening. See you next time.