Leadership or drift: what's next for US foreign policy?
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Welcome to the LSE Events Podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science. Get ready to hear from some of the most influential international figures in the social sciences. Good evening, everyone. I want to welcome you to tonight's roundtable. My name is Peter Trubowitz. I'm a professor of international relations here and director of the Phelan United States Center, which is hosting

Tonight's roundtable discussion, leadership or drift, what's next for US foreign policy? So yesterday Donald Trump was inaugurated as America's 47th president, marking I think a pretty improbable comeback to the White House. Trump and his aides in the run-up to the inaugural

said that they were ready to transform Washington and the world. And shortly after he took the oath of office, the president signed a barrage of executive orders, including a flurry

dealing with foreign policy that ranged from suspending foreign aid for developing countries to withdrawing from the WHO and the Paris Agreement to renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. Claiming that he wants to be a peacemaker and a unifier, he said this in the inaugural, he also declared his intention to take back the Panama Canal

and to impose tariffs on, he said after actually the address, to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico on February 1st of about 25%, in what's likely to be the opening move in a broader effort, I think, to leverage

America's market in dealing with friends and foes. So we're only, well, we're 24 plus hours in. There's already a lot to talk about tonight. From, I think, what Trump announced yesterday to what it promises or augurs for America's

many allies and partners around the world to what Trump's presidency is likely to mean for international stability, for the liberal order, and for the many trouble spots around the world. I think we should also say that there's also the question about how durable

the foundation, the domestic foundation that many of these executive orders but also the kind of larger program behind them, how durable that domestic foundation is given that

Trump won the election without winning a majority of the popular vote and with a fairly an impressive but not the kind of landslide numbers that you normally associate with in the electoral college.

with a landslide. He's declared or called it a landslide election, but it pales in comparison to what FDR racked up in 1936 or LBJ in 1964 or Ronald Reagan in 1984, both in terms of the electoral college vote and the popular vote, where each of them either came in just over 60% of the popular vote or just a hair under.

So all of these things are out there right now. Fortunately, we at the U.S. Center had the...

the good sense to schedule in a number of leading experts to help us kind of get leverage, take stock of the moment we're in. We planned this a number of months ago. And so joining me on the panel tonight, starting nearest to me on my left is Steve Erlanger, who is the chief diplomatic correspondent

of the New York Times based in Berlin. Next to Steve is Leslie Vengemori, director of the US and America's program at Chatham House and also a professor just up the road at SOAS. Anand Menon, a professor of European politics and foreign affairs just across the street at King's College.

and Elizabeth Inglison, who is an assistant professor right here at the LSE in the Department of International History. Welcome all, it's great to have all of you here. Thanks so much for joining me this evening. So a few words about the game plan for tonight before we get underway. So I've asked each of the panelists to take five minutes to tell us

bit about what they think Trump's foreign policy priorities will be and to tease out I asked each of them to to tease out what Trump is likely to mean for a region of the world that they or a country that they specialize in or just one that they want to talk about even if they don't specialize in it and then what we'll do after they each of them

speaks, we'll then open, we'll start a discussion. I'll probably put a couple questions to them and then we will open it up. We've got a lot of folks in here. I'm sure we have plenty online as well. Okay, Steve, great to have you back at the LSE. It's been far too long. So I know you're digesting everything that happened yesterday like everybody else.

There was the inaugural address. I think Trump actually gave three different speeches yesterday, in addition to the whole show in the Oval Office. Among, though, I think in the run-up to the inaugural, one of the things he really prioritized, certainly on the campaign, he talked a lot about this, about ending the war in Ukraine and

that he could do it in 24 hours. He's kind of backed off that now. They're talking about it might take 100 days. It should have been over by now. It should have been over by now. It's 24 hours plus. You're right. You have a deep knowledge of Russia, of Europe, of American politics. I mean, what do you make of Trump's chances here? I mean, I was struck yesterday, too,

He took, I think probably it's the first time I've heard him criticize Putin.

where he said, you know, Putin was destroying Russia. And I don't know, the way I decoded that was that he's a little concerned that Putin might not want a deal. So, I mean, if you could address that in your comments. Sure. Peter, first of all, thank you. Thank you for those. Thank you all for coming out. It's a wonderful packed crowd and we will try to do you justice.

When I think of Trump, I think of John Bolton's line about Trump, which he said, working in the White House was like living inside a pinball machine. And there's something to that. What he meant was Trump would careen from issue to issue to issue.

Trump has a very hard time keeping a focus on something. And I remember even when Trump took office, when Henry Kissinger was alive, chatting with him, and he was talking to Trump about China. And I asked Kissinger what he was telling, and he said, this is all off the record. And then he finally took a deep breath and said, the president does not have an orderly mind. LAUGHTER

So here we are, and he's older now. So maybe it's less orderly. So, you know, even yesterday when he was signing all these orders that he does in his Sharpie pen, I mean, he was talking about how he thought Spain was a bricks country. I mean, there's a lot of things he just kind of half knows. But he is clear on a few things. He loves tariffs. He really loves tariffs.

He dislikes multilateral institutions. He's pulled out of the WHO yesterday. He's going to stop funding UNRWA. He hates the UN. He pulled out of the Paris Accord again. This was the second time he's done that. He's very skeptical about NATO. He's basically convinced American allies screw us over, that America's the chump.

and that we are funding the security for all our allies, and it's time they did more for themselves, and it's time America did more for itself, and stopped being so foolish and be more imperial, because that's what he's certainly been talking about. And he's also obsessed by trade imbalances. He has a very thin knowledge of economics, I say at the LSE,

He believes the world should have even trade. He doesn't understand how trade balances work. And he has threatened to monitor tariffs, to use tariffs more against countries that do not spend enough on the military, an old theme of his, but also countries with a big trade surplus with the United States.

And, you know, this is kind of new, this feeling. Now, in the EU, it's a problem because the EU has a surplus in the United States of about 160 billion euros a year. UK is okay, I think, basically, because...

The US with the UK is a trade surplus of about 21 billion. But these are big issues. And then he wants to end Biden's wars. I mean, for all the aggressive, toxic, masculine talk that comes out of this guy.

He actually doesn't like war. He thinks it should be avoided, that it's something countries do sort of in a stupid way, that there are bargains to be had. And he wants to end Biden's wars. And by that, he means Gaza and he means Ukraine. Now, Gaza is certainly telling Bibi Netanyahu, who obviously wanted to help Trump,

and was delaying the deal for Trump, that he was serious about it, had an impact. It was important. I mean, we'll see if we get to the real end of the war. We've got a long way to go to get there. But Trump will, in his own head, I stopped the killing. And in Ukraine, he feels much the same way. Now, his narrative on Ukraine, and I've spent a lot of time in Ukraine since 1998,

I think he generally agrees with Putin that Ukraine isn't a real place and it's terribly corrupt. And he's still angry with it over the impeachment, the failed impeachment. And he felt Zelensky didn't do what he was supposed to do. And he still would prosecute Hunter Biden today if he could.

But one of the things he did say, he didn't mention the word Ukraine yesterday, but he said that the U.S. should stop financing foreign wars and that sometimes the best policy is not to have one. So Ukraine is slowly losing the war. So it's already an issue. And you have serious people involved.

Not the majority yet, but serious people in America and other places who argue that even a lot more support for Ukraine isn't going to change the situation on the ground very much, which is pretty stagnant.

Now the Russians are slowly taking ground in the east through these massive, horrible mass attacks, including North Korean soldiers being sent into the meat grinder. But it is unlikely to lead to some major collapse. So the issue is, it's a legitimate question.

Is it better to somehow do a deal whereby the 80% of Ukraine that is fine, basically, that the war stops, we postpone what happens to Crimea and the Donbass, at least legally, down the road, we try to draw a ceasefire line, and then we think about how to protect Ukraine. It's also very complicated.

But this is, I believe, how he's thinking about it. The problem is...

It's going to be very difficult to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine without the Ukrainians, to do it over the head, as I think he would like to do, just with Putin himself, the two bros together. And Putin thinks he's winning the war. And in fact, Putin is slowly winning the war. And Putin does believe that the U.S. and the West will get tired and will not keep supporting Ukraine in the same way. And he just has to wait them out.

So getting Putin into a meeting won't be difficult. And then we'll all get excited and, oh my God, you know there's a meeting. It's like when he went to meet Kim Jong-un. A lot of noise and then nothing happened. But convincing Putin to do a deal of a kind that satisfies everybody is going to be very difficult. And if it fails, my guess is he won't blame Putin but blame Zelensky. I think that's enough for now.

Thank you, Steve. That's great. We're going to want to return, I think, to Ukraine as well. Leslie, lovely to have you back at LSE, your alma mater. So Trump had a lot to say about the Americas yesterday. I mean, whether it was Panama, Canada, Mexico was singled out for special treatment on a number of fronts, tariffs. And of course, Trump

you know, imposed a national emergency with respect to the border with Mexico. He invoked "manifest destiny," that phrase. So what are we witnessing? Are we witnessing a return to the Monroe Doctrine, to manifest destiny, spheres of influence? I mean, is there like a pattern or rhythm? You know, what's going on?

Well, first of all, thank you for having me, Peter, and for asking such an easy question. Maybe a couple of just minor, but actually important general comments before I answer your first comment. First of all, it has been extraordinary, perhaps always when we talk about Donald Trump, but certainly since he was reelected on November 5th.

how all of our analytical priors have, at some level, we've had to put them aside. And I feel like I've lived in this domain of phenomenally intelligent people who've taken off their sort of analytical hat and put on their crystal ball hat because we've all been trying to work out what he's going to do.

And it's not a comfortable zone to be in for most folks. It shouldn't be because we never know what somebody's going to do and we especially don't know what Donald Trump is going to do, even though the one thing that people like saying about him the most is he's going to do exactly what he said he was going to do. But it's a little bit more complicated than that.

I think. The second thing I would say is, and I guess it's to Peter's initial comment about the victory wasn't as big as it's made out to be, although he does have a phenomenal mandate in governance terms for the first two years at least. But it is 77 million Americans who voted for him. And they're not all idiots. And they're not actually all

you know, non-educated white young men who are angry either. There are a lot of people that I like that I consider to be incredibly intelligent, thoughtful, productive, ordinary in one sense or another Americans who vastly prefer Donald Trump to be their president. And I think it...

You know, I struggle with this, but I think that we are not going to get through the next four years in a productive way if we don't really, very seriously integrate that into every morsel, every fiber of our analytical being. And I think I don't believe this, but I might even say as a thought experiment, it might be a good idea to, you know, you can always find something you like in a person. It might be a good idea to try to like Donald Trump

so that we can evaluate the policies and the morality and the action on their own terms. Because if we can't get past how many people, especially in the liberal elite universities, feel about him, we are not going to be productive or effective

in dealing with the current moment. So it's a huge challenge, but 77 million people is a lot of people. And my feeling the morning after, I guess in the middle of the night, we started to realize what was going on was not panic, not dread, just like, okay, this is serious. This isn't like the first time.

So on North America, you know, it's not a region I normally talk about a huge amount, although it is from where we come. But I just want to kind of put a few numbers out there because it is extraordinary that it's sort of on the chopping block. It feels like it's on the chopping block, right? It's on the chopping block. 490 million consumers...

in North America, Canada, Mexico, and the United States. North America produces goods and services valued at more than $23 trillion every year. It has a $31 trillion GDP, supports 17 million jobs. And here's what's important. The U.S.,

Mexico-Canada agreement, the USMCA that Donald Trump renegotiated from the old NAFTA, which many people, including in Mexico, feel like is a better deal than the original NAFTA because it has labor rights and other sorts of things in there. Since the USMCA was negotiated, North America's trade has grown by 50%, and there's been a 134% increase in intra-regional capital investment. It's

been good for the kind of things that Donald Trump cares about. And those of you who are more expert than I am on the southern border, the U.S. southern border, Mexico's northern border, know that a lot of the production that's happening is the result of trucks and

and people, trucks that go across the border eight or nine times in a day, and people that are back and forth all the time. So it is a phenomenally integrated region, and the productivity of people of Mexican origin, legal and illegal, that exist in the United States, the majority of what they earn stays in the United States. There is a significant minority of their earnings there.

that goes back to Mexico, but the majority of it stays in the United States. And remember, again, many of you I'm sure know the data better, but

What I understand is that a lot of the jobs that lower income Mexicans are filling in the US economy are jobs that have been empty. And certainly in the post COVID recovery, jobs were chasing people, people weren't chasing jobs and Mexicans and Mexican Americans are filling a lot of those jobs. So there's all sorts of reasons not to do what Donald Trump is doing. So it is quite extraordinary. And as we saw yesterday,

And overnight, there were 10, at least 10 of the executive orders focused on the things that Peter outlined. Tariffs haven't come yet, so most of them were focused on border control, federal emergency, which is, you know, gives them the capacity to use troops and to use money, and to really go hard

on the anti-immigration and deportation agenda. And we don't know how much of this will be showing that he's doing it, because he's got to not only play to the tech billionaires that understand the benefits of immigration at all levels, but he's also got to play to the other crowd that we associate with Donald Trump, or whether he actually will go hard. Not sure. So lots to say about that.

On the question of territory that you raised, is Donald Trump trying to remake what Joe Biden and many other presidents, but in particular Joe Biden after Ukraine, made the point that we are no longer in a world where we have the Indo-Pacific and we have Europe, we have an integrated theater in part because of Russia and China,

and a number of other players that are playing across theaters. So one needs to think in a much more integrated terms, even geopolitically. So one of the big questions out there right now with the Panama land grab, notionally, Greenland, Canada, is whether Donald Trump is trying to move us towards a world of spheres of influence or back to a world of spheres of influence.

You know, my instinct is no, because that also means not only, you know, doing a grand bargain that includes giving Taiwan to China in order to get a deal on Russia and Ukraine and all the rest of it, but it also means selling America's allies in the Indo-Pacific down the river, Japan, South Korea, Australia. I mean, the list is very long. It would be a very dramatic thing. So what is he trying to do?

And I do think, and I'll just put this out there and then close, I do think that he is trying, we know he's trying to and has been trying to the entire time that he's been on the scene, let alone president, disrupt but also shift the way we think, change and undermine our dominant norms, our expectations of appropriate behavior in international relations, certainly regarding territorial sovereignty and the use of force.

And I absolutely think that he has designs, maybe not on Panama, but certainly on Greenland, because he's looking at the map and he's thinking about America's maritime power and China's maritime power. And he's thinking about the Arctic and he's thinking about sea lanes and he's thinking about America's geopolitical ambitions here.

And if he can just spend four years getting us to question Greenland sovereignty, that in and of itself might be the first step towards America owning it. Anand, great working with you again. The last time we were on a panel together, we were both...

The panel was about the possibility that Donald Trump might become president. And I was speculating about what that might mean for the United States, and you were speculating about what that might mean for the UK. Well, we're here. And I suspect there are a fair number of people that wonder whether this is good, bad, or ugly for the UK. Thoughts?

Well, I mean, as Leslie said, it's very hard to know what Donald Trump is going to do if he doesn't know what he's going to do. And you do get the impression that he doesn't know what he's going to do. I mean, in terms of the UK, I think, first, to put it into context, we made a big geopolitical decision in 2016 with the referendum. And behind that big geopolitical decision were a series of assumptions that

that made Brexit work to an extent. And the assumptions were that firstly, our security would be guaranteed via NATO, so we didn't need to worry about security cooperation with the Europeans. Secondly, that globalization would continue full speed ahead so we can become some kind of buccaneering trading nation, a new Elizabethan trading nation, as Daniel Hannan put it. And thirdly, that our major trading partners would remain open, liberal economies.

And one of the problems we have as we go into this next Trump presidency is that all those assumptions have been shattered. So being Britain at the moment is a far lonelier place than it would have been without those developments because NATO has been called into question by Trump on several occasions, which reopens the question about whether we should work with the Europeans.

Globalisation, if it hasn't stalled, has slowed because of the impact of relations with China, Covid, Ukraine and so on. Supply chains are being revisited. People are thinking more about resilience than about trade. And our two major trading partners, the European Union and the United States, have become more, well, for want of a better word, mercantilist. They're more protectionist. They're ploughing loads of subsidies into domestic industries. It's harder for us to penetrate their economy. So we start from quite a weak position.

and quite a lonely position because the world hasn't turned out as we wanted it to turn out. And the real danger, I think, of Trump for the UK is that he confronts us with a series of really difficult choices. If you think about UK British foreign policy since the Second World War, it's all been, I mean, one of the big strands of our foreign policy has been to avoid choosing between Europe and the United States.

So you have this metaphor of the bridge or various other things that we've talked about. And that was to say, we're close to the United States, we're close with the European Union, we see no need to make a choice between the two. The danger with Trump is he forces us to make a choice.

In security, for instance, he might say, "Okay, look, there's a danger of tariffs. You want to avoid tariffs or you want to avoid incurring my wrath, you buy more off-the-shelf US military equipment." If we're buying more off-the-shelf US military equipment, it's harder for Europe with the United Kingdom working with them to become self-sufficient and autonomous in security affairs. Equally, if Trump says, "Okay, look, if you strike a deal with us to avoid tariffs, that's fine, we'll give you a special deal,"

that's not going to play well in the reset with the European Union. The Europeans aren't going to say, well, that's great for you, you've got a deal with Trump, we're still going to play nicely with you. They're going to think, you know, well, a lot of what's happening now makes me think back to when de Gaulle first turned down the British membership bid for the European communities and said, you can't join the European Union because you're the American's Trojan horse in Europe.

And there will be a bit of that again if we're seen to be getting special favours for ourselves from the United States. And the third area, I think, where we face really difficult choices because of Trump are domestically. One of the things we know, and one of the annoying things about Trump is there's quite often a kernel of truth to what he says, is that Europe has been a free rider on America for European security since the Second World War, and he wants us to spend more on our own security.

David Lammy has talked about finding a pathway towards 2.5% of GDP on defence. That's something we're going to have to do. The problem is, as we've seen over the last year with increases in borrowing costs and what's been happening in the gilt market, is we're skint. Rachel Reeves has got virtually no headroom now, fiscally. And if we're really going to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, and even higher if we end up taking responsibility for rebuilding Ukraine...

something is going to have to give in that domestic economic program of the Labour government. And it's very, very hard to see what can give because we're in a situation already where there are massive cuts foreseen in non-protected departments in the next two or three years, where the NHS is going to need more money rather than less. And so that, I think, is the fundamental problem we face coming into the new Trump presidency, is he will force us to make the kinds of choices...

we find really, really difficult to make, and in particular that choice between the US and the Europeans that we have avoided for so long and we really don't want to confront now. Lizzie? China, China, China. So, actually, if there is a country that I think unexpectedly got a reprieve yesterday in the inaugural, it was China. I mean, you know, he hit China over Panama. China now owns it and runs it.

or Hong Kong owns it and runs it. But in general, there's been a surprising, I think, lack of attention. There's been very little that has been said about China, I think by Trump's team and by himself since the election.

And so I guess the question here is, I mean, what's going on? Has Trump got in mind some type of grand bargain with Xi Jinping? Is Trump just keeping his powder dry? Thoughts about that? Just kind of the direction of travel. Not a small question, is it, Peter?

Look, I think there are a couple of things going on. So, on the one hand, we have seen Trump...

in the lead up to the election really pushed China, right? We heard so much about China. And I think part of that was using China as a strategy to appeal to American peoples on an emotional level, right? Using China as a scapegoat to suggest China's stealing our jobs, to really push

put sort of heart back to a very mid-20th century vision of what the American economy should look like. One of manufacturing jobs, one that's very gendered, that's very sort of hard hat wearing men, that this is what America, making America great again, this is what it looks like, right? And what was so important about that rhetoric was that it was so

disconnected from the realities of what American work looks like today. So the vast majority of labor within the United States is in the service sector. About 80, depending on your counting, 80 to 90 percent of American workers work in service work, not in manufacturing. But what China was able to do was it provided a very easy mechanism by which Trump was able to blame China for stealing American jobs, tap

into this very emotional register of what America used to be like back in the, this ideal, not reality, of what America was like in the 20th century. And so for that sense, China was, you know, it was a rhetorical device. But there is very much a substance underpinning it. And I think what's really interesting in recent days is, no, we haven't heard Trump particularly push the China...

if you will, in recent weeks. But we have had Xi and Trump have a conversation on the phone on Friday. We have had indications that perhaps one of... There is potential that what is happening at the moment is Trump is using the TikTok saga in order to leverage... I think there is... We don't know, but there is some potential substance to the notion that...

what Donald Trump is doing is seeking to leverage the TikTok saga, which I'm happy to go into. I think it raises some really interesting questions about the rule of law. I think it raises really important questions additionally, which I will get to, but what Trump might be doing with TikTok

is using this debacle to present himself as a dealmaker, as someone who can achieve deals and fix problems. We've already had the TikTok itself say thanks to Donald Trump, we are back online. So that is very much a direct product of Shou Chu, the CEO of TikTok, very much working with Trump on that. So there is potential and there have been signs even from the Chinese foreign ministry that they're

They came out and said that it is up to Chinese companies to decide where their investment lies. So perhaps we are seeing a potential for some kind of deal in which what Trump is at least pushing for is a 50% ownership of TikTok by American companies. What I think we should not lose sight of is that even if this is the scenario that might be underway at the moment,

We should not lose sight of the fact that this is only the beginning of what will be a protracted reinvigoration of a trade war. Let's not let the fact that Trump hasn't in recent days been flying the sort of tariff flag when it comes to China, let's not let that fool us into a reinvigoration of a trade war down the line.

What I think is really important here is that even if there were, say with TikTok, a collaboration, so if you had a 50% ownership by an American company, even in the Cold War, I was asked earlier, I'm a historian, am I going to make a historical analogy? One that I think is important is that during the Cold War, when the United States and Soviet Union were at very much visionary loggerheads,

there were sites at which they collaborated. So in medical

innovations on smallpox vaccination, for example, and other things, even the two biggest superpower enemies were collaborating at some point. So I think even if we do see some kind of collaboration on an issue such as TikTok and other things, that should not, I think, preclude the bigger picture of tensions. That's not to say that I think that we're moving towards a US-China dynamic that's like a second Cold War. I actually think we're not, but that's a different point.

I think the final ideas I want to sort of throw out there, I did my homework. The other couple of points that I wanted to make, there are a couple more about the TikTok issue that I want to sort of throw in here because I think it raises bigger points. So Trump, I mentioned he's sort of trying to sort of use this TikTok issue to present himself as a dealmaker. It's very much, I think, also part of a much longer process

emotional register in American political culture that venerates the role of business people, particularly businessmen. So Trump, we were speaking earlier about the appeal that Trump had. I think one of the significant parts of what Trump appeals to in American political culture is the fact that he's a particular kind of businessman. He is a maverick.

He is an entrepreneur. He presents himself in these ways, right? Let's leave aside the realities of his business acumen. But he's presenting himself as a maverick, as someone who pushes frontiers, as someone who is willing to do things differently, to be a businessman disruptor. And that is very appealing and has a very long history in American culture and society and politics.

And that is certainly an aspect of what he's been able to tap into. And I think he's been able to use that to present himself as someone who can get deals done. He can make deals and he can achieve outcomes. I think that's part of what he's leveraging, perhaps, with the TikTok issue.

There are two other sort of things I want to sort of just throw into the ether, but I'm conscious I'd rather have questions from the audience. The second one is simply keep, so the things that I want to sort of flag for you all to sort of keep your eyes on, I think, you know, no one, as we've all said, can predict what's going to happen, but I think do keep your eyes on this issue of tariffs. It's not going to go away. It will come back. And I think as we look at that issue,

what's most important in this story is of course what China does in response because the China that Trump will be dealing with now is very different to the China that Trump was dealing with in his first presidency. So China has already been imposing critical mineral restrictions. It has been responding itself to the tariffs that have

already been in place since the Trump administration and increased under the Biden administration. So China's own responses and ability to tap into sore points such as critical minerals, which are crucial to US chip making, China will continue to do that and to hit the soft spots where it can. I think what's also really important on this point about tariffs, again, is that Trump is sort of

situating this story about tariffs as a panacea to the problems, the very real problems happening within American society and felt by ordinary Americans that he's been able to tap into. The issue is that the

We're familiar with the fact that there is a crisis going on. It's happening in a different iteration here in the UK. But this is a crisis of capitalism. It's a crisis of corporate money and corporations that have been able to operate without proper taxation and proper filtering further down into aspects of society. That is the crisis that we're living through.

and Trump's tariffs are not going to address those problems. In fact, his cosying up to the CEO, Sho Chu, we know them all, Elon Musk, etc., is precisely going to support this capitalist class, not address it. So the tariffs is going to continue, but it's not going to address the problem that's existing. And the final point I'll make

is that of the climate crisis, where we have a climate denier in the White House. We have a convicted criminal who is able to become president, and yet we've seen in Los Angeles so many of the firefighters are themselves incarcerated firefighters, most of whom will struggle to become firefighters after

after serving their sentences precisely because of their criminal conviction. There are capacities to move around that, but it's very, very difficult. So we're living in a space where a convicted criminal can become president, but firefighters struggle to do so after serving their terms. And what we're seeing as a result of these fires is, of course, a denial of climate at a time when China is itself positioning itself

as able to provide the technologies needed to at least ameliorate aspects of the climate crisis. So China's capacity to dominate in electric vehicles was partly a product of the COVID-19 pandemic and a huge change as a consequence of that pandemic. And we're seeing now, I think,

to keep our eyes on as well what will happen in terms of the green energy production now that we do have a climate denial in the White House. Hi, I'm interrupting this event to tell you about another awesome LSE podcast that we think you'd enjoy. LSE IQ asks social scientists and other experts to answer one intelligent question, like why do people believe in conspiracy theories? Or can we afford the super rich?

Come check us out. Just search for LSE IQ wherever you get your podcasts. Now, back to the event. Great, thank you. So that's a terrific set of opening comments. Maybe I can see where we are in time, and I'm sure there's going to be a lot of questions from the audience. Maybe just ask one question of all of you that...

- It seems to me like, you know, and I certainly have contributed to this as well, that most of the discussion about the international implications of Trump, of his victory, of the America First agenda, what he laid out, I mean, I think yesterday, is really pitched at the level of policy, but it strikes me that

One thing that's kind of like under the radar here in a way or not getting enough as much air time are the potential political implications of this in other countries. That is, I think especially when the UK, Europe, and how this is playing in terms of anti-globalism and populism, how it is

I think it was Victor Orban on the night of the election said, this accelerates history. This is going to be just such a jolt.

and move kind of parties, accelerate movement towards parties on the right and so forth. And just kind of reflecting back on kind of what's happened in Germany, what's playing out in Germany, reform UK seems to be like,

They may not have their leader if Elon Musk has his way, but at any rate, there seems to be a lot of movement in that direction. Maloney, I think, has been really strengthened by this. So thoughts? Steve, maybe start with you. - Since I live in Germany, and I used to live here, and I've lived in France,

Almost everything covered, just Italy and... And in Moscow. But I mean, it's the trifecta, those three countries, really. I mean, I'm more worried about France, to be honest. I think structurally, France has a lot more problems. Its politics are frozen for reasons we won't go into, but I think people understand the French parliamentary system doesn't really function with fragmentation.

And it's deeply fragmented. Macron, who's Jupiter, which we all know, I mean, he's the secular king, has three more years to go, badly weakened. He could still do foreign policy, but in a way, in the country at large, he feels almost irrelevant already. Marine Le Pen is likely to win the presidency. We'll see. I mean, there's a lot of anti-

far-right feeling, but the Rassemblement National is not her father's party. It just isn't. Now, the courts may disqualify her because she did basically what I believe Farage did too, which was use European money for domestic political purposes, but in France that's kind of a crime. And... I mean, no disrespect, but...

I mean, if she is disqualified, I mean, you know, but her party has other people to run. And the French are kind of, so I see it there. But she and Trump are not particularly close. And I think we could make Trump more important than he is. In Germany, which I think really is important, the rise of the AFD movement,

has been happening actually for quite a long time. But at the moment, it will be the second largest party, but in a very structured constitutional system where the firewall will still work. But the risk is always that the more you keep

you know, let's say it gets 18, 19% of the vote. Now it's much stronger in the East as the Vagandak Party is, because there's a residual anti-Americanism there, there are lots of reasons for this that we don't want to go into, but if you're 20% of the country and you get no part of government at all, I mean, it tends to make you bigger.

So the argument in Germany eventually would be like the argument we've had in Sweden and in the Netherlands. Is it better to bring these parties in as junior partners and tame them or at least make them complicit?

in real life governing? I mean, or are you better off keeping them out, out, out? That's something Germany has to cope with. And the problem with the AFD is it's really not a constitutional party. There are really a lot of crazy people in it, unlike the Wagenknecht party. So they will...

get more wind from Trump. You know, Musk thinks they're great. He can't pronounce the name of their leader, but he says she's what Germany needs. I mean, it's, you know, the Germans are sort of staggered by this. So yeah, I mean, I think Trump will be seen as the kind of leader of the pack.

and encourage this. But, you know, in Europe, they're all different. I mean, Orban's party isn't Kaczynski's party. It's not Maloney's party who's for Ukraine. It's not Farage's party, not Marine Le Pen's party. I mean, so Bannon tried to pull it all together and failed. I don't think Musk is going to have much better luck. But that's the wind. The wind everywhere is center-right, which is why Keir Starmer is kind of an interesting exception at the moment.

Leslie, you want to jump in? Definitely. So the question... No, I don't disagree with any of that. It's undoubtedly the case that there is an opening that's created. I guess I want to make a more general point about leadership. And it is that, of course, our leaders matter. When a woman is in charge, women in the audience feel something different. When a man is in charge...

women in the audience feel something different. When an African leader is standing before an audience of mixed-race individuals, people feel something different. So what am I worried about with Donald Trump? I'm worried about, you know, partly the populism thing and clearly, you know, on the norm busting, they're very willing to bust the norm of don't stick your nose in other people's domestic politics.

And so, you know, the representation is being used and it's very concerning and he has lots of, you know, he's an octopus. There are lots of legs coming out of that agenda to do the work for him. But I'm more concerned about some other things that, you know, Donald Trump is willing to kind of put out there in front of people in the United States and around the world. And, you know, I guess globally the one is, you know, authoritarian practices and tendencies, right?

I actually think is as concerning, if not more, which isn't separate from, but it's not the same category. That one, you know, you can break the rules. The rules are there to be broken. The rule of law doesn't really matter, or it's malleable beyond what we would have assumed was, you know, standard practice.

And that comes down to any sort of number of issues with respect to minority rights, gender questions. The rollback of the woke agenda is welcomed by many people, and there are some things about that that could be good, and there are a lot of things that are going to infringe on people's rights. So I worry a huge amount about the broader set of things that he enables. And I guess the final comment I would make on this is...

is that the other thing we haven't touched on and it feeds into this is that, you know, he's part of, you know, part of why he's there is because America is apparently transitioning from a white majority country to majority minority country somewhere around, the NAEPs keep moving, but 2050, and that is an extraordinary cultural change. And so he's not, I mean, I know you've written a lot about this.

very successfully, but he's not just a populist. He's also a white, you know, he also has a strong line of white nationalism in there, which is, you know, more complicated because he is reaching out to minority groups within the U.S. and all the rest of it, but it's very powerful, and it's very present, and it's obviously, you know, welcomed by many people who feel their status is being challenged.

And I don't think that we can underestimate that or what it means for people outside of the United States. - You write a lot, great, a lot about Europe. - Yeah, I think a really important point Elizabeth made was there's a crisis of capitalism going on. What's happening in Europe is down to the fact

that we can't generate economic growth, however hard we try. And, you know, our economic models just aren't functioning anymore. And so, you know, you look back on the year of elections last year, what is the lesson you take? It's not don't be left-wing, don't be right-wing, don't be authoritarian. It's don't be the incumbent. OK, it's as simple as that. This is a very anti-incumbency thing. And who knows, Trump might suffer from that himself. And I think, you know, whether Trump impacts on populism in Europe, there's several things to bear in mind. One is Trump isn't very popular in Europe.

Okay, I mean Trump isn't very popular in any European country that I know of if you look at the opinion polls. So having Trump's backing in Europe is not necessarily a passport to electoral success.

It's a passport to success amongst a very limited swathe of the electorate. And I think, you know, we'll look at how Trump does. If by the time you get to the midterms, tariffs have led to high inflation and another cost of living crisis in the United States, Trump will be judged very differently to if all seems to be going very, very well indeed. We should also bear in mind that Trump suffers from what a lot of populist parties suffer from, which is massive inflation.

policy disagreements within the movement. You take one very specific example, within the MAGA movement they can't agree what they think about high-skilled immigrants.

There's a massive fight going on about Indian immigration into the United States. Musk and co. love it because they're the people that staff their countries. The sort of traditional MAGA crowd hate it because it's foreigners coming to the United States. So there are contradictions built into the populist project that might actually reveal themselves in power in a way they don't reveal themselves in opposition or during a campaign. On the specific question of reform, it's really interesting because...

We spend so long talking about reform. I personally don't think reform are as great a threat to the Labour Party as people think. I think a lot is made of the fact that they're second in 90 seats or whatever. They're second by miles in those 90 seats. These aren't close contests. These are contests where they snuck in second because people didn't like the Conservatives and voted for them because they couldn't vote for Labour. But they're not challenging Labour in the vast majority of those seats. The other thing to say about those 90 seats is...

They're fundamentally different sorts of seats with different demographics. So if you really think reform is going to win in those 90 seats, reform needs to simultaneously have 50 different contradictory policies to appeal to people in these different seats. And I think that's beyond the wit even of Nigel Farage. He's very good at dealing with contradictions, but I think there are limits to it. So, you know, populism is an issue in European politics. Absolutely.

And I don't think we should shy away from the fact that people are turning off mainstream politics because of the failure of mainstream politics to deliver economically. But I do think we're in danger sometimes of talking up the threat, particularly in countries like this, where it perhaps isn't quite as serious as the media likes to think. And the media likes to think it because everyone clicks on those stories.

I think one of the things to keep in mind though is that this question also, I mean it's a question of what impact will Trump have on the rest of the world but I think if we

flipped it around, we can also see that what is happening with Trump and his victory is part of a much larger shift that is happening globally, a larger disaffection. And I think it comes back to this point about we are living in a moment of flux. We are living in a moment of international flux and in many spaces crisis.

And to my mind, the biggest crisis is this crisis of capitalism, of which Trump has been able to manipulate and maneuver his way into. But it's operating in different ways and in different spaces globally, precisely because of the nature of the kind of capitalism we've been living through in the last 30 to 40 years. And that is a very internationalized, globalized version of neoliberal globalization, you might want to call it.

So what we're seeing in Trump and his victory is also to de-exceptionalize the United States. It's part of a much larger international moment in which no nation or leaders have been able to really present a way forward.

that's constructive at least. That's great. So look, we've got 30 minutes. We're going to devote them entirely to your questions and questions online. What I'm going to do is we're going to do several rounds here. I'm going to take three questions, two from in the audience, one from online.

And I am going to start with the woman right over there. Hello. And the question, please introduce yourself and make the questions really short and precise so that we can get as many in as possible. Hello.

Hello and thank you very much for your lecture today. It was very interesting. My name is Darina and I'm an alumni of LSE. My question is about Canada. Could you touch upon Canada in more depth? And what started with a 25% tariff now seems to be a bit more gradual. According to what Trump could do in that foreign policy, what could be the response of Canadian politicians as well as Bank of Canada?

Thank you. Great. Okay, Canada. How about that gentleman right in the middle who's waving his hand right now? Thank you. Trump appears to be transactional and beyond, I'll call it the current, speaking personally, it's not clear what he might or might not do, say, towards the end of his term. But if you're advising the British Prime Minister, what would you advise, please?

Okay, so advice to the British Prime Minister. And good question. And Chris will offer us a question. Thanks. Just to say there are 280-odd people watching online from countries including the U.S., Ireland, Brazil, India, France, Germany, Guatemala, Italy, Turkey, Poland, and Argentina. There's lots of questions coming in online. The first is from Peter Rapply, who is an LSC MSC.

who asks, how can the UK and NATO realign Trump's stance on Ukraine given the lessons of the 1930s in Europe? Thank you. Okay, three great questions. Canada, advice for the PM and...

I think, right, is the appeasement question. Who wants to jump in first? Anybody? Let me just say very quickly. If nobody takes Canada, I will. Yeah, well, I mean, I would just say, I mean, I know it's not a very nice drug. I've been to Canada. Canada's decaffeinated America.

You know, it just is. It's a really nice place. People are nice there. But they also have interests. And one of the reasons Trudeau got into so much trouble is because he looked weak in the face of Trump. Chrystia Freeland, who some of you may know, I mean, used to work for the FT. She was the stringer in Kiev.

a long time ago, is running, Mark Carney's running, and part of what they're going to run on is, you know, we need to be tough in face of potential threats, because we're a country too, right? So I will let you say more about that. And I would just sort of say, I mean, just because it's fun, advice to the British PM is,

Don't do what Theresa May did. You know, don't kowtow. Trump hates people who look weak. Trump hates people who want him to like them. And don't look needy. Look strong. Say, these are my interests.

and I'm standing by them. And this is what I can do for the United States. This is how I'm going to help with security. This is, you know, helping your project to bring peace to the world, whatever. And then UK NATO appeasement is tough because, frankly, Ukraine's not part of NATO. I don't believe it is going to be part of NATO.

I'm not sure it's going to be part of the EU either. And I do think there is a generational struggle ahead for Europeans, including all of you, against a Russia which has set its face against the West and has ambitions. So this is a long-term question. I'll stop there.

And I think you've got to offer advice to the PM. Well, I just want to say something about Canada, which is Canada, of course, has its own election with its own populist...

running in that election and it just strikes me looking at Canadian politics where there's the same push back the same populist push back against globalization that we've been talking about in the context of Europe and the context of the United States but it just seems to me the notion that if you have an anti-globalization slightly anti-system feeling in your population the idea that the answer to that is Mark Carney.

Strikes me as slightly strange. But anyway, moving on from that, on Keir Starmer, I mean, two bits of advice I suppose I'd give to Keir Starmer. I mean, the first is he's doing the right thing, which is to try to avoid...

That's where UK policy needs to be. And in Mansion House, he said there is no choice. There is a choice, but he needs to avoid that choice as much as possible. Because at the end of the day, the security relationship between the UK and the US is uniquely close and uniquely important and is one that we need to preserve. But the other part of the thing, the advice I would give to Keir Starmer is...

This is going to happen over the medium term anyway. You know, Trump puts everything on steroids, but the fact of the matter is that over the next few decades, the US is going to spend less time and less treasure worrying about Europe.

It's going to expect Europe to do more for itself. And we need to start thinking about that now. The only way we can start thinking about that is in collaboration with European allies. So whether we saw a huge sigh of relief after Trump saying, well, NATO is still going, so we don't need to worry or not. The fact of the matter is we are going to need to worry. We might as well start putting preparations in place now. So making that reset real and particularity

particularly figuring out how Europeans can do more for their own security, which isn't all about spending more money. It's about spending money more efficiently. One of the problems with Europe is we duplicate so much, whether it's weapon systems, whether it's armies. We have, you know, 27 plus us, different establishments duplicating each other. We could spend that money far more efficiently and effectively if we put our minds to it. And it is something we have to start doing now. And we'd have to start doing it whether Trump had won or not, I think.

Leslie and then Leslie. Yeah, just on this point about what would you advise Keir Starmer and this question that you raise, Anand, about choice.

When I say this to my British friends, particularly those who work in government, they don't like this, but I'm Australian and I do find that sometimes the question about what should the UK do, the question particularly post-Brexit, it has real resonance with the conversations that happen in Australia as well, which also has a very uniquely close relationship with the United States, a very strong reliance on American interests,

security. The difference is of course Australia is in a very different geographic region but the question about choice, right, how does a country navigate its space when its major ally, the United States, is now led by an unpredictable and very distinct, to put it mildly, president.

And I think one of the things that I would say just to build on this point about what Keir Starmer specifically could do is not only try and avoid this idea of choice, but also work more long term with understanding Europe, but also invest in Asian language, invest in Asian history and knowledge here in the UK. The UK is geographically distinct.

But Asia is going to become increasingly more important in global politics and in international order precisely for the fact

that America under Trump is going to start shifting its interest from Europe to Asia. And so the best thing that a nation like the UK can do for a long-term vision is have expertise in Asian history, Asian culture, Asian language, precisely so that the United Kingdom can operate in the way that the world is operating.

Yeah, I'd say on the Starmer question, the UK just needs to really invest in its people and its economy. And because there's nothing, I mean, look, it shouldn't be about the US, frankly. This is a big problem for the UK. It should be about the UK first. But the positive side effect of that will be that Donald Trump will have respect for the UK. And if it can't solve

the investment in services and infrastructure and making it a friendly place for investment and making sure its universities are as good as they've historically been and that that doesn't slip, then it's going to make everything slightly worse. And I absolutely agree with it. It's a false choice.

It's not an offer. It's not an option. So don't make the choice. On Canada, the only thing I would say is that they're prepared, right? They've got their retaliatory tariffs all lined up. They know what they're going to do. It's going to be incredibly costly if it gets to that, but they've signposted it.

And I think that the Canadian leadership, you know, despite what's going on domestically in the country, has been very savvy and very, very smart about saying, we're on your side, we've been tough on the border, we want to work with you, but boy, we're ready for your trade war. Watch out. The only thing I would add on Canada is Trump should be careful what he wishes for. There's a good piece that my wife shared with me in Le Monde a couple days ago.

That would be one... If they become the 51st state, that is one big blue state with about 53 representatives. So I don't think that's going anywhere, to tell you the truth. Okay, we're going to go back out. We'll take a question down here, right in the front. Go ahead. Good evening. Thank you very much. My name is Jack Lambert. I work at a geopolitical advisory firm called Gatehouse. I was wondering...

Seeing as the Washington-Silicon Valley relationship historically has been somewhat acrimonious, how will U.S. foreign policy and U.S. tech presence abroad feel different for us if they're singing from the same hymn sheet? We talk about this oligarchy. We talk about this tech-Trump overlap. How will it feel differently for us and our businesses? That's great. And then there was a woman right in the middle there. Yes. Pointing to yourself. Hold on. Wait for the mic.

I'm just wondering, because the appellate body crisis is really exacerbating the horrific tariff situation that's going on, what do you think is a solution that the WTO and the U.S. in particular can kind of adopt in order to avoid another post-World War II chicken tariff situation? Okay. WTO. WTO Tech, WTO Chris. Yes.

Thank you. So Maureen Gilbert asks, will we see the end of the UN as we know it during the Trump presidency? And if so, what might replace it? I missed that. What's the question? Will we see the end of the United Nations as we know it during the Trump presidency? And if so, what might replace it? Okay. So tech, oligarchs, World Trade Organization and UN. Okay.

Should I divide it up or who wants to take the UN? I did not listen to the confirmation hearings today. I will confess, at least Stefanik's hearings were today. But I will say something on the UN. So first of all, you know, it's less than we aspire for it to be. But it's there and it's important. And even in this very dark moment for the UN where, you know, how many members of the Security Council are, you know, ignoring its most fundamental norms?

It's still doing things actually, but I think the more important point is that we've already moved into a world where norm setting, the provision of public goods, cooperation, whether it's on tech, the digital agenda, gender development,

You know, things below the level of, you know, peace and security at the highest in the most pointed crises are already, those conversations are already taking place in smaller organizations. Certainly this is, you know, been a lot of what's been invested in over the last four years in the Indo-Pacific.

but in lots of other parts of the world. And I think that is the space where, for better and for worse, the needle is, you know, that things are going to be taken forward. And on tech? On tech, I mean, a lot is going to hinge on whether the relationship between Trump and people like Musk endures, and we just don't know that. But I was very struck this morning by the tone that Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper struck

about the tech companies spreading disinformation because it was very, very clear from the tone, at least, that they're not worried, they're not going to back away from legislating if necessary, and they will take on the tech companies if they feel they are acting irresponsibly here. So...

I think it is another axis of potential conflict between us and the United States. How serious that is, I think, will hinge on the degree to which the tech companies get the backing of the administration in Washington long term. And that hinges on personal relationships that I just can't predict. Maybe just to add to that. So I think that's a very good point. One thing to keep your eyes on is the...

that is the cleavage that's emerging inside the Republican Party between Bannon and Musk. And it's playing out across a number of issues. The visa issue got most of the attention, but I think even more interesting is what's unfolding over China. So there's a real spat there.

You know, it was curious to me that the one person who was missing at the inauguration was Steve Bannon. And I don't think that's because Steve Bannon is being sidelined. So he's got a megaphone too, so this will be very, and that will have implications, it seems to me, at the policy level. Other thoughts? WTO.

I don't think it just comes down to Musk. I think this is structural, and I think we're driving in a single direction. I mean, every single one of them was there. They all contributed, the CEOs of the major tech firms. They all contributed. They know exactly what they want, and it is moving ahead. The regulation of tech is, you know, that is a dead agenda.

And I think that this is a singular direction of travel. I think it will put immense pressure on the UK and on Europe to deregulate. And I think that the threat of tariffs will be right behind the tech companies if they don't play ball when push comes to shove, and I'm sure it will

will come to shove on any number of issues. I think that this is really probably the most interesting thing to watch, the most interesting question in the next four years. Yeah, I mean, just to say, I mean, Musk hates Brussels for business reasons, I think, not for any other real reasons, right? I mean, he wants deregulation. He says he's all in favor of free speech, but in fact, he just doesn't want to be regulated. And definitely,

WTO and UN, it's almost the same question because, as I said, Trump doesn't like multilateral institutions. The WTO has been sick and kind of dying for a long time, long before Trump, partly because of China, I mean, partly because of...

the inability to get an appeals court put in and also partly because of economic nationalism which you know biden did i mean french acted surprised i don't know why no since that's what they do constantly

And so the WTO, I think, is not that relevant, sadly. And the UN, I don't know. I mean, it's like better to have it than not to have it, but it looks pretty paralyzed. I mean, you know, I like what it does for UNICEF. I like...

UNHCR. I think the UN does a lot of really good things that have nothing to do with how it's actually run. And, you know, the whole question of UNRWA we could get into, but it's complicated. But

It's not really functioning as a peacekeeping organization. It's running out of people. Look at Lebanon. Look at lots of places. But it is still doing decent work, and conversations happen, and I think it's important to have a place where the world participates.

Lizzie? Yeah, I was just really struck thinking and listening to these answers, but thinking about these questions, when I do have conversations that are more sort of China-focused, in a lot of ways, all three of these topics come up, but the conversations are

take a different angle, right? Because the focus is on China. So questions about the UN, for example, the question here has been, the implication has been, the United States is perhaps going to be abandoning it, what's going to happen to the UN, et cetera, et cetera. Trump doesn't like multilateralism. When I'm in a space talking about China, so much of the conversation is about

Is China sort of seeking to usurp the United States' position in the UN? Is China leveraging its place in the global south in order to sort of advance its ambitions and its interests to respond to what's happening in the United States? Similarly, when we look at questions about trade or the WTO, yes, it has been significantly more

a dire institution for decades now in which China itself has sought to navigate, but also sought to uphold as it claims sort of international, the rules based order. - But only as a developing country. - Well, as a developing country. And that's part of the problem, right? Is China sort of fits both definitions, right? It's both developing and developed, precisely the problem, right?

But the point is that China can claim to be sort of upholding institutions. And when we look at the question about Silicon Valley, underpinning this issue and underpinning this real push, as Leslie was saying really rightly, like any form of regulation in the United States is now out the door. But a very significant factor underpinning that desire is competition with China and China's own capacity to perhaps thrive

in AI and try at least and sort of compete in those areas. So I think so much that's underpinning this conversation is a structural question about what role will China play as well. And we're seeing in certain industries China really push ahead. And the question now for Trump is to what extent is the United States able to sort of fill certain gaps that it sees as important?

Okay, let's take another group of questions. Let's take the woman right there. Hi. Thank you so much. I'm a first year here at LSE and I was just wondering, to keep it short, if Trump abandons all efforts to mitigate climate change, is there any hope for a future there? Okay.

All the way in the back there, you've got a tie on. Yeah, keep your hand up. Yeah, there you go. Hi. My question is, recently an Italian journalist was freed from Iran in a deal that was said to have involved Elon Musk. Is this a new dynamic we might be seeing going forward with the Trump administration and Iran, especially in light of a new potential nuclear deal?

Okay, I'm going to take a few more questions. Gentleman back there in a kind of orange sweatshirt. Hi there. Following Biden's CHIPS Act and Trump's comments vaguely related to Ukraine yesterday, how worried should Taiwan be over the next four years? Good question. Well, I'm going to keep going here. Take this gentleman right down in the front here.

Keeping the ushers busy. Right down here, all the way down, one, two, three, four, five, I guess. Yeah, not you, right behind you. Yeah. Do you see the dollar as the world currency fading, going back to leadership or drift? Okay. One, two, three, four. I take one more question. Right over there.

Hi, my name's Katie. I'd like to hear more about what you think this means for Africa. We've got a decline of aid going into Africa, massive political implications and war, but we've not heard a link so far on that. Thanks. Okay. What does it mean for climate, Trump? Are we seeing something new with the recent development in Iran and the connection to Elon Musk?

I can't even read my own handwriting. Oh, Taiwan. Taiwan, what does it mean for Taiwan? And then the dollar as the reserve currency, and then sub-Saharan Africa. I mean, I'm not going to answer all of them. Yeah, just pick one. So I think...

I would say on Iran, because I covered the revolution in Iran and I follow Iran and I have covered the nuclear talks and I've done a lot from the Middle East generally. Iran is in terrible shape, which we know. It feels pretty defenseless. Trump doesn't want a war with Iran. That's for sure.

But Bibi does. So there's already a choice there. Iran has been trading kind of like what Russia did with Evan Gershkovich. I mean, it's been taking hostages to trade for Russia.

in jail elsewhere that it wants back. And that's what happened, right? I mean, it's just pretty disgusting trade. I mean, and they did it with the Belgian to get one of their diplomats out who was actually convicted of planning a terrorist attack. It's just what they do. So if you're planning on visiting Iran, I would be careful. That's all. But

But Iran also wants a nuclear deal, and Trump, I think, wants one too. The question is, Iran is so close to, it has plenty of bomb-grade material within three weeks. So it's a serious question for nonproliferation. Iran says it would never have a bomb, of course not. But nobody has 90% enriched uranium for any other reason.

It wants economic relief. And by the end of October, there'll be snapback provisions so that it will be hit with UN sanctions that have been in suspension while this JCPOA agreement's been going on. So Iran is really in a tough place. Will Trump give the space to try to do a deal? He keeps talking about doing it. Could it be acceptable to Iran if it doesn't work?

Iran, certainly people in Iran, the IRGC, other people will say, we look defenseless, maybe we should have a deterrent. So it's a very crucial question. I'll stop there. It's very complicated, but thank you for asking it. Let's go from Iran to Taiwan. Yeah, I mean, I think the Taiwan question is excellent. What I'll say is...

Taiwan as an issue has been something that's been central to Chinese politics right from the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, right? So right from 1949. This is an issue that has always been central to Chinese politics and to China's vision of its role in the world. What we may see under the Trump administration, I think more specifically,

is that he's made very overt claims to wanting Taiwan to be paying a defense fee, so making Taiwan, transactionally thinking about Taiwan and making the Taiwan government pay for some kind of defense from, support from the United States. I think that is

possible, probable perhaps even. But in terms of any kind of Ukraine-like scenario which still gets bandied about now and then, I think that kind of thinking is the wrong kind of thinking for approaching the issue of Taiwan. As I said, this has been a very ongoing problem and importance to Chinese society. I think a much more useful analogy

also very dire but a useful analogy would be something like what's happened with Hong Kong I think that's a far more likely scenario for what would be happening with China and its relationship to the long-term strangulation okay let me quickly do climate and Africa on climate it's clearly a really bad thing if Trump rolls back on climate mitigation but I'd say two things firstly the

The US is a federal system and Washington might want to roll back climate regulations. California won't. So actually it's going to be quite a messy picture within the United States. And secondly, I suppose it's one area where

Others might take advantage in terms of leading on climate technology and investment on the green economy. China will certainly profit from this, and it'll be interesting to see if Europe tries to as well. I mean, if basically the sites of technological and industrial development of green technologies shift from the U.S. elsewhere on Africa...

i i wanted to say something positive i can think of nothing positive to say i think the trump administration will simply lead to an extension of chinese and russian influence in africa which will be bad for the continent in the long run yeah two quick things one is it's terrible you know pulling out of paris is bad for all sorts of reasons it's also

horrific that the US is likely to get out of the game of, you know, there's been this big push to get more climate finance for developing countries. That's probably dead in the water. I agree, there's a lot of other sources of positive momentum, not only domestically but internationally coming from the US, but there's no doubt

that this will be crippling and very significant at an important time. But the technologies, hopefully they keep moving, the carbon removal technologies. On the Taiwan question, the only thing I would add is, it gets back to the spheres of influence question. Is Trump looking to do some sort of grand bargain where he says, fine, have Taiwan

and we want these other things. And I don't think he is. And I don't think the people that he's appointed would lead us to believe that that's the direction that he's heading. But there are a lot of people that think that is the direction.

of travel, so my suspicion is that even though he's trying to push Taiwan on defense spending and all the rest of it, I still think he'll hang in there on the deterrence question. - I want to close with a question picking up on the dollar as a reserve currency. I mean, I think the implicit question there is,

What's the likelihood that Trump overreaches? I mean, Trump's strategy very much depends on the dollar as the reserve currency, being able to leverage the American market. What about this overreaching in terms of where the public is, maybe overreaching in terms of what his own coalition can bear?

Any thoughts on this as we close? I would just say very quickly, I worry more about what he's going to do to the Justice Department and American retribution

and voting rights than I am about foreign policy. Foreign policy, you know, I mean, allies can fight back. I mean, people are not helpless. I don't think there's a replacement for the dollar. I have to say it's not the euro. When Iran, you know, when US pulled out of the JCPOA, Europe tried to come up with some other way of dealing with Iran that avoided the dollar and completely failed. So I'm not optimistic about that part.

There's going to be ongoing efforts. There was a great piece, I think it was in Project Syndicate, saying this is China's moment. Move forward, BRICS, with your attempt to have an alternative. I don't see it happening anytime soon, but I wouldn't discount the momentum that will be generated as a result of Trump. But the thing I want to know more about is Bitcoin and crypto.

That's another one of those spaces that lots of your students should be working in. I don't think there's a replacement for the dollar coming, but you can easily imagine a scenario of spiraling deficits and runaway inflation if he goes ahead with some of the things he said. And a bond sale that fails for the first time. That would be amazing. The American economy might be significantly weakened if he goes ahead with some of the things he said.

Leslie, you get the last word. The last word. Well, I echo Leslie's point about the importance of crypto and Bitcoin. I think that role is only going to become more interesting as we go through a sort of bifurcated system. I think the question, though, about...

you know, is Trump, are we going to see a sort of overreach? That language suggests a sort of overreach in terms of foreign policy, when I agree that far more impact Trump will have will be domestic. But I think part of that question is implying a sense of perhaps American decline, and that is always relative. And where I think we'll see...

answers to that will be in what happens elsewhere in the world. I think bricks are important, but I think China is even more important. And so how Xi Jinping is able to use this moment to his advantage, I think is now something to really keep an eye on. We're going to draw a line under it right here. Steve, Leslie, and Ellen, Lizzie, thank you for a terrific discussion. Thank you. And thank all of you. Great to have you here. Thank you.

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