Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: So if I was to do a panel, let's say
Speaker 2: some fancy place like Davos right now, they would say,
Speaker 2: mister Keene, who would you like to have in your panel?
Speaker 2: And I would say Ezra Prisade of Cornell and Ian
Speaker 2: Bremer of Tulane, and Stanford Bremmer and Prosad would be
Speaker 2: lights out. The Doom Loop is Azra Prisad's new book
Speaker 2: with really interesting discussions of stability, and Ian Bremer owns
Speaker 2: the high ground on this with every nation for itself,
Speaker 2: the j curve, and of course us versus them. Doctor
Speaker 2: Bremer joins us from Eurasia a group. I look at
Speaker 2: the Doom Loop from prisad Ian and the heart of
Speaker 2: the matter is we are in some form of stability
Speaker 2: moving to instability. Is that how you see it? There's
Speaker 2: instab out there. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I like his book a lot. He's more of an economist.
Speaker 3: I'm a political scientist, so I'm focusing on the geopolitics specifically,
Speaker 3: and I think it's cyclical. So I see this as
Speaker 3: a bust cycle because the balance of power is no
Speaker 3: longer aligned with the institutions, the architecture, the policies or
Speaker 3: the values, and that's particularly playing out with the Americans,
Speaker 3: the most powerful country, stepping back from their own historic leadership.
Speaker 3: So I mean, the good news is that that's very
Speaker 3: unlikely to get you the so called Throughcinity's trap, a
Speaker 3: World War III. Historically, usually when you have a move
Speaker 3: to instability in geopolitics, it's because the major power is
Speaker 3: in decline and trying to hold on to its old system.
Speaker 3: The rising power wants to create a new one. That's
Speaker 3: not what's happening here. The United States is still the
Speaker 3: most powerful country. It's just unilaterally saying it doesn't want
Speaker 3: to be in charge of collective security or free trade,
Speaker 3: or promotion of democracy or rule of law. So it's
Speaker 3: causing a lot of instability, but it's not causing global conflict.
Speaker 1: In your notes, you suggest that these countries historically allies,
Speaker 1: and maybe if it's posed of the United States, they
Speaker 1: are not decoupling from the US, but they're de risking.
Speaker 1: How are they doing that.
Speaker 3: They're primarily doing it economically, And the reason it's mostly
Speaker 3: economic is because the global economy today is increasingly multipolar,
Speaker 3: while the global security environment is still dominated by the
Speaker 3: United States. So the reality is that even if you
Speaker 3: don't trust or rely on the United States as a
Speaker 3: security ally, you don't have many good options, and it
Speaker 3: will take you a very long time. Even for the
Speaker 3: Europeans who see this as an existential need. Yes they're
Speaker 3: spending a lot of money on Ukraine, but they're buying
Speaker 3: American weapons. Yes, they're stepping up their own security, but
Speaker 3: they know, as Mark Ruta, the Secretary General of NATO
Speaker 3: said in the last few days, how essential the Americans
Speaker 3: still are for the foreseeable future. Where when you think
Speaker 3: of the global economy, there are options. I mean, even Canada,
Speaker 3: which is so incredibly dependent on the United States, has
Speaker 3: the ability to diversify more effectively with the Europeans, with
Speaker 3: the Chinese, with others. And that's particularly true India, for example.
Speaker 3: The United States pushes India hard, despite the relationship that
Speaker 3: Trump and Mody have, and Modi takes his time in
Speaker 3: doing a deal with the Americans and instead steps up
Speaker 3: his relations with the EU and with the Australians and
Speaker 3: stabilizes with China and the rest.
Speaker 2: So that.
Speaker 3: Effort that we are seeing to hedge is most happening
Speaker 3: in diversifying away from US. Trade from US capital, and
Speaker 3: you know, those things, once they happen, they do have
Speaker 3: much more long term implications.
Speaker 1: Does does this America first agenda of this second Trump administration?
Speaker 1: To what degree do you think it will empower China
Speaker 1: empower Russia.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's empowering Russia at all. I do
Speaker 3: think it is empowering China. Russia's dug its own grave.
Speaker 3: In fact, they've dug hundreds of thousands of them over
Speaker 3: the last four years of the war in Ukraine. They
Speaker 3: are weaker as a consequence. Their economy is weaker, their
Speaker 3: security environment is weaker, their diplomacy is weaker. They're basically becoming,
Speaker 3: you know, a a second rate state that has to
Speaker 3: has to follow the lead of China. And that's not
Speaker 3: where Putin wants to be, clearly where China is actually
Speaker 3: in so any ways, taking advantage of the United States
Speaker 3: being seen as unreliable. In part that is directly reaching
Speaker 3: out to countries to improve their bilateral relations, and in
Speaker 3: part it's stepping up China's role in these old institutions
Speaker 3: that the Americans don't value much anymore. So you will
Speaker 3: have noticed the Americans pulled out of the World Health Organization.
Speaker 3: They convinced Argentina to join them. Nobody else did. China
Speaker 3: immediately stepped up how much money they were giving to
Speaker 3: the WHO to five hundred million dollars. Why would they
Speaker 3: do that because if America's out, they get to be
Speaker 3: number one in influence. When Trump announced the Board of Peace,
Speaker 3: not just in terms of Gaza coordination, but as potentially
Speaker 3: a replacement to many of the of the operating principles
Speaker 3: that the United Nations has, the Chinese immediately said, we
Speaker 3: don't want to join that.
Speaker 2: In the same thing in the time we got left Ian,
Speaker 2: I think the question, I'm getting this all the time,
Speaker 2: and I'm not informed like you as simple as I can.
Speaker 2: What do you perceive post Trump? Do we return to
Speaker 2: what Paul and I knew years ago? Do we go
Speaker 2: to some form of a mended new What do you
Speaker 2: perceive in say, twenty twenty eight, two thousand and thirty.
Speaker 3: Well, if Trump is followed by a much more predictable
Speaker 3: and reliable leader in the eyes of allies, that I
Speaker 3: think you will be able to normalize those relations from
Speaker 3: a very different base. In other words, permanent damage will
Speaker 3: have been done, diversification efforts will be in place. The
Speaker 3: Americans won't be leading the world the way they used to,
Speaker 3: but you won't see the continued trajectory towards chaos. If,
Speaker 3: on the other hand, Trump is replaced by a leader
Speaker 3: that is seen as not only more unilateralists, but also
Speaker 3: just as un rictable right and just as willing to
Speaker 3: use American power against allies and adversaries alike, then of
Speaker 3: course that trajectory will continue to deteriorate.
Speaker 2: We don't care. And the only reason you're on today
Speaker 2: is pitchers and catchers with Red Sox down at Fort
Speaker 2: Myers Jet Blue Park, you were behind home played. I
Speaker 2: saw for the playoffs last year. What an improvement on
Speaker 2: the Red Sox, Doctor Bremer. Can they do it again
Speaker 2: and improve further?
Speaker 3: Well, they can't do worse than the Patriots did this
Speaker 3: Sunday one of the worst games I've ever seen. And
Speaker 3: but I you know, you got to be hopeful for
Speaker 3: my Red Sox. I've got to be one of the
Speaker 3: only Red Sox out there that's also capable of rooting
Speaker 3: for the Yankees when I see them in New York.
Speaker 3: It's a weird it's a weird position to be in.
Speaker 2: It's a weird's there's a mental health issue the probably
Speaker 2: Adam Bremer, thank you so much. Regards to moose as well.