DAVE DAVIES, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies. As the second administration of Donald Trump approaches, among those wondering what to expect are countless foreign leaders whose interests could be mightily affected by his moves. Trump's foreign policy team has begun to take shape. He said he'll nominate New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik to be U.S. ambassador. Florida Representative Michael Waltz will be national security adviser. And multiple news sources say Florida Senator Marco Rubio is the pick for secretary of state.
While foreign leaders ponder those choices. They can also consider Trump's many statements on the campaign trail - that he could end the war in Ukraine in one day, that he'll impose 20% tariffs on imported goods, with higher levies on products from China and Mexico, and that he'll deport millions of undocumented immigrants from the United States. He's also expressed admiration for authoritarian leaders such as Viktor Orban of Hungary, and he's threatened to abandon NATO allies unwilling to spend more on their own defense.
For some perspective on all this, we turn to Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief of The Economist. Minton Beddoes is a former economist for the International Monetary Fund who's been with the paper since 1994. She's overseen The Economist's international economic coverage from Washington, D.C., has reported extensively from Latin America and Europe and is a regular commentator on television and radio. We recorded our interview yesterday. Well, Zanny Minton Beddoes, welcome to FRESH AIR.
ZANNY MINTON BEDDOES: Thanks so much for having me.
DAVIES: Well, we're getting a sense of what Trump's foreign policy team might look like - Marco Rubio, Elise Stefanik, Michael Waltz. What can you tell from the team so far?
MINTON BEDDOES: So I think you can tell a few things from his picks so far. The first - and I think this was really epitomized by his chief of staff, Susie Wiles - this is an administration that is much, much more serious and determined to get an agenda done. And I think you see that from the foreign policy team, too. I was struck by a couple of things. Over the weekend, as you remember, it was made very clear that Mike Pompeo would not be part of the team. And that was a kind of rather public humiliation, I think, to release a statement saying that Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo would not be part of the administration. And that made people worry that perhaps it would be a very isolationist foreign policy team, more the kind of - the sort of JD Vance-style foreign policy.
But actually, Senator Rubio, very, very tough on China, very hawkish, but a man who has worked effectively in the Senate. And Michael Waltz, ditto, and a man who just last week co-authored an op-ed for us in The Economist - again, which made the point that the Biden administration had focused too much on Ukraine and the Middle East and was thereby weakening America's ability to deal with its real foe, China. So he is a very serious China hawk, too. But I was struck that these two people - if, indeed, it does turn out to be the two of them - are not the traditional sense of full-on isolationists. I think they are very hawkish about China but are probably more willing to engage than a team that one might have seen.
DAVIES: You know, in The Economist's piece a couple of days after the election, it noted that Trump's ascendance is a product of very modern developments, like the fragmentation of media in the country, but that, in a way, he represents a return to the United States of the 1920s and '30s. Explain what's meant by that.
MINTON BEDDOES: The point that we were trying to make is that for the past 80 years, really since World War II, and since the United States led the creation of a new world order after World War II - and that was a world order defined by alliances, by international rules, by free trade, with the U.S. at the center of it - that world order, I think, is now fundamentally coming to an end with the reelection of Donald Trump, because Donald Trump doesn't really believe in alliances. He thinks America is ripped off. He doesn't believe in free trade. He's a protectionist. He believes very much on focusing at home, make America great again. And he's very skeptical of foreign entanglements.
He is therefore, I think, turning America much more towards the kind of priorities that were central before 1945. And remember, for most of its history, the United States actually had very high tariffs. For most of its history, there was a great skepticism about being involved in foreign entanglements, as they were called. And although it's not yet clear that President Trump will be a sort of full-blown isolationist, I think he has a much more transactional view of foreign policy. He thinks there are deals to be done, but his priority is making America strong. He has much less time for this idea that America is the leader of some international order.
DAVIES: Well, let's go over some specifics. There's a shooting war in Ukraine since the full-on Russian invasion in early 2022. I believe you were in Ukraine not long ago, right?
MINTON BEDDOES: Yeah. I was in Ukraine in early September. I spent a week there, crisscrossing the country, and I spent quite a long of time at the front lines in the east of Ukraine. So I have a very clear and depressing sense of just how difficult the situation is there. And it became very clear to me after I came back, and then went to - Washington was actually my next stop - that the situation right now, the status quo, is completely untenable. And I think there does have to be some kind of cease-fire negotiation. And it is impossible for Ukraine to achieve what its stated war objectives are, which are the re-sort of capture of all territory to go back to its 1991 borders, which would, of course, include not just the territory in the east, but Crimea, which it lost in 2014. And I think that the status quo of America assisting Ukraine officially, you know, until Ukraine decides what victory is, is not going to be tenable.
And so the notion that there would be some shift under President Trump - I think everyone agreed that the conflict does have to end, and Ukraine will end up losing some territory. The question is, under what circumstances? And the real challenge is, will Ukraine, even if de facto, it is forced to cede some territory because the Russians have grabbed that territory - and it's about 20% of Ukrainian territory that the Russians now control - how to ensure Ukraine's future security, such that Vladimir Putin is effectively deterred from trying to go any further. And that security is really central. And the difference between Ukraine winning and Ukraine having a disastrous loss imposed on it is now less about territory, because I think everyone agrees that it's not going to get the, like, full extent of its territory back. The question is about how credible those security guarantees are.
And a good piece would be one where Ukraine got either NATO membership or some real, credible source of weaponry and support from Europe and the United States, such that Vladimir Putin was deterred from attacking. A bad piece and a loss - and a catastrophic loss for Ukraine, for Europe and, indeed, a victory for Vladimir Putin - would be simply imposing on Ukraine a cease-fire, forcing it to be neutral, not giving it enough weaponry and a credible security guarantee. And that would mean that at some point in the future, Vladimir Putin would come back, would push onwards, and Ukraine would possibly cease to exist. And that's the catastrophic outcome that is still a possibility.
And what really matters with how Donald Trump approaches this is, does he see that it is important for Ukraine, for the West and, indeed, for the United States that Vladimir Putin is effectively deterred from trying to go any further? Or does he just not care and think that, you know, Vladimir Putin can do what he likes? And we're not - it - that's still open, and it really depends on how he goes about trying to do this peace deal. But the fact that some territory will be lost - I think everyone really realizes that now.
DAVIES: You know, I was surprised to read in the piece in The Economist that a number of senior officials in the Ukraine government were actually hoping for a Trump victory. It was kind of shocking. What was their logic?
MINTON BEDDOES: I was really struck by that, too. It was last week that my colleague in Kyiv was doing that reporting. And I think it's a function of both the desperateness of the situation there right now and, secondly, the frustration with the Biden administration, in particular and its sort of self-deterrence, if you will. The Biden administration, as you know, has been very reluctant to allow the Ukrainians to use long-range weaponry inside Russia. It's been very worried about escalation with Russia. It's, in the Ukrainian view, never given them enough weapons to really do the job properly.
And there is a sense of fatigue in Ukraine. The mood at the front is very, very grim. They're having difficulty mobilizing people. They've been at war now for 2 1/2 years. And there's a sense of frustration that the West says, you know, we will support Ukraine, we will support, we stand with Ukraine, but actually the weapons they need and the ability to use the weapons they need is not there. And I think that sense of, well, maybe Trump, you know, will at least be decisive was what people mean when they say perhaps it could be - you know, it might be better.
You know, I think if one has conversations at length, people are really worried in Ukraine that a Trump administration could essentially sell them down the river. But they also think perhaps the Trump administration could be persuaded to realize that it is important that Russia be deterred, and so it's important that any kind of settlement doesn't, you know, completely sell Ukraine and that perhaps Donald Trump could pull that off. And so it's in that context - I think it's born of 2 1/2 years of war, a sense that they don't have the capacity to push the Russians out and, you know, something certain may be better than what they've got right now.
DAVIES: You know, Trump has said - I mean, he's known for this kind of hyperbole that he could settle the conflict in a day. I mean, don't think that's going to happen, but it's been reported that he has spoken to Putin already. It's also reported that he's spoken to Zelenskyy - I guess it's not unusual to have a congratulatory call when one wins an election - but that Trump in this case, actually, put Elon Musk on the call. What do you make of that?
MINTON BEDDOES: Well, the role that Elon Musk is playing in this transition so far is absolutely extraordinary. He seems to be in so many meetings. I've been wracking my brains to try and come up with a historical precedent for such kind of extraordinary influence of one individual. But on the call with President Zelenskyy, you know, one of the really key aspects of Ukraine's ability to operate its military has been its access to Starlink. And Starlink satellites' capability was, in the early days of the war, utterly essential for the Ukrainians and has - and still is. And so Elon Musk has a sort of unbelievably powerful lever over the Ukrainian military. At one point, Elon Musk would not allow the Ukrainians to use Starlink over Crimea. And that really stymied their ability to direct drones and missiles into Crimea. The reliance on Starlink is enormous, and therefore, he has huge power. He can turn on and off, you know, which geographic areas have access to those satellites.
DAVIES: We need to take a break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Zanny Minton Beddoes. She is editor-in-chief of The Economist. We'll continue our conversation in just a moment. This is FRESH AIR.
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DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we're speaking with Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief of The Economist, about what Trump's foreign policy might look like in a second term and what foreign leaders are anticipating. We recorded our interview yesterday.
So let's talk about national security in Europe. Before his first turn in office, Trump talked forcefully about how European countries were taking advantage of the United States, not paying their fair share for national security. And he has said he was very successful in getting billions more from them. Is he right about that?
MINTON BEDDOES: Well, he was successful in the sense that NATO countries started spending more on defense. So if you're in Europe now, I think it's important that there are three ways in which Donald Trump will have a big impact on Europe, and in which - in each of the three of them Europe is in a weak position. The first is Ukraine, where if indeed the United States pulls back, there will be an important and immediate question for the Europeans of will they step up to provide more support for Ukraine in order to deter Vladimir Putin? If they do not do that, it directly affects not just Ukraine, but Europe's own security. It's not very far from Western Europe to Kyiv. Secondly, can they rely on the United States as a NATO partner with Donald Trump? President-elect Trump, you know, thinks of alliances - famously, he uses this analogy - as something like protection rackets, right? You got to pay up.
DAVIES: Right.
MINTON BEDDOES: If you want the security, you've got to pay out. And frankly, I think to a degree he has a point, that the Europeans have been freeloading somewhat on the United States, and they should be spending more on defense. But once you start publicly saying that you might not support a country, then the entire premise of Article 5, which is the underpinning of NATO, which is, you know, an attack on one is an attack on all, is undermined because people will wonder, well, actually would Donald Trump come to the defense of any country in Europe? And once that question comes into people's heads, then it becomes a much, much less effective alliance.
DAVIES: Right. And we should note that he has said not only that if they didn't pay up, would he not come to their defense - he would encourage Russia to, quote, "do whatever the hell they want" with them.
MINTON BEDDOES: He has said that. But I think you have to sort of distinguish between does he really want to pull America out of NATO, or does he actually want the Europeans to pony up more?
DAVIES: Right.
MINTON BEDDOES: And if it's the latter, I have a lot of sympathy for that. The Europeans should be spending more on defense, and if this is a means to accelerate them doing so, then, you know, it's a good thing. But the third sort of challenge that they face is that all of this is taking place at the same time as he is likely to increase tariffs and have a much more protectionist America. And if there is indeed, as he's promised, a 20% tariff on every country, then Europe is going to be hit hard. And so Europe faces the prospects of higher tariffs to the U.S. and thus an economic hit, even as it has to spend more on defense, even as this imminent question about what to do about Ukraine and, relative to the United States, its economy is very, very weak.
DAVIES: You know, he's expressed admiration for Viktor Orban. And, of course, there's his apparent affection for Vladimir Putin. And I'm wondering what you think his ascendance might have on other right-wing movements and parties throughout Europe. What can we expect there?
MINTON BEDDOES: I think this is going to be one of the really interesting things to watch. Is the main impact, or is another big impact, of Donald Trump in Europe the impact of imitation? And I expect quite a lot of that. I think that not just because he's close to Orban, but because there will be a view that cracking down on immigration, focusing on the kinds of values - you know, America First kind of values - that he cares about will become dominant again in Europe. Because in Europe already, illegal immigration is a huge issue. Culture wars are a huge issue. Many of the things that have motivated people to vote for Donald Trump are issues in Europe, and there are already politicians who are sort of in the broad mold.
Let me point, for example, to Marine Le Pen, who has a very good chance of becoming president of France in 2027. In Germany, you have - both on the sort of far left and far right, you've got a big increase in support for parties on that and a sort of collapse of the center. And you have - the current German government is collapsing as we speak. And there will be elections early in - probably early in 2025. The next chancellor is almost certainly going to be Friedrich Merz, who is much more right-wing, a center Christian Democrat - not quite in Donald Trump's mode, but more in that direction. But Germany's been very weak. President Macron of France is currently quite weak. And with this, the view that incumbents have been weak and that no one is dealing with people's problems, which I think has motivated a lot of the support for Donald Trump in the United States - those motivations, I think, could easily drive European politics further in the next couple of years. And so I think imitation will be a trend that we will see.
We had a cover earlier this year in The Economist where we said, MAGA goes global. And we had a piece showing that other, you know, national conservative movements in other countries were learning from the Trump movement, both about how to get power, what instincts, what areas to focus on. And in an area of fragmented media and particularly rise of social media, in these echo chambers, the - you know, one country learns from another.
DAVIES: And is one of the institutions that might be undermined the European Union?
MINTON BEDDOES: (Laughter) The European Union is almost the - it is the antithesis of all of this, right? It's a - an institution that was built in the aftermath of World War II to prioritize, you know, countries in Europe working together to integrate economically, to make war between them impossible. It's a complicated, convoluted place with endless rules, lots of diplomacy. It's exactly the antithesis of what Donald Trump and the MAGA movement stands for. So yes, I think it could weaken the European Union. And, you know, Viktor Orban has already done quite a lot to weaken the European Union. Set against that, you hopefully have a recognition and realization amongst Europe's center, center-left and center-right leaders about the need to fight for European liberal values, to fight for the European Union. And I hope this will be the wake-up call that is needed to both increase spending on defense, to revitalize Europe's economies - to do all the things that Europeans know they need to do, because the threat suddenly seems very much more real.
DAVIES: The United Kingdom has a new leader, a Labour government. Keir Starmer is the new prime minister. Would he...
MINTON BEDDOES: So we've interestingly - we are ahead in this sort of political cycle, 'cause we had our equivalent of a MAGA moment when we voted for Brexit in 2015. And that was a kind of vote against the status quo, a vote against the elites, a vote of fury. And then we had - you know, the subsequent years have been pretty grim, and we had a chaotic series of prime ministers. And then, actually, really sort of counter to this trend, the U.K. threw out the incumbents this year but voted in a center-left progressive government - almost the opposite of what's happened here. And Keir Starmer is the British prime minister. He's had a bit of a rocky start. They had a budget that massively raised taxes. They have not had the sort of strongest of beginnings. But it will be interesting, really interesting, to see how this government - which is a center-left government - works with the Trump administration.
DAVIES: The change there had to do with anger over inflation, too, didn't it?
MINTON BEDDOES: Yes. The British election of throwing out the Tories was a very good example of this anti-incumbent mood across the globe right now, which I think does have an enormous amount to do with the aftermath of the high inflation post-pandemic.
DAVIES: We are speaking with Zanny Minton Beddoes. She is editor-in-chief of The Economist. She'll be back to talk more after this short break. I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR.
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DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies. We're speaking with Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief of The Economist, about how foreign leaders are preparing to deal with a second Donald Trump administration. Trump, who considers himself master of the art of the deal, enters the international stage with wars raging in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon. Besides settling those conflicts, he's promised to raise tariffs on imported goods and deport millions of undocumented immigrants from the United States. We recorded my conversation with Zanny Minton Beddoes yesterday.
Well, let's talk about economic policy. Trump has talked about a 20% tariff on all imported goods, much higher for Chinese good and those imported from Mexico. First of all, can he do this on his own, without Congress?
MINTON BEDDOES: He can do a lot on tariffs without Congress. There may be challenges to some elements, but there are a number of laws, national security laws, that give the president remarkable latitude to raise tariffs.
DAVIES: So do foreign leaders that you talk to in Europe think this will happen?
MINTON BEDDOES: (Laughter) You know, everyone is trying to figure out what is likely to happen. That's the parlor game in every single capital right now. There are people working out, who do they know in the Trump orbit? Who can they call? How can they get on the good side of Donald Trump? How - what is their golf game? Can they improve it? And, you know, what is it likely to mean for their country? And the way I've started to think about it, there's a sort of matrix for - to work through whenever I think about a country. You - I think you can put Donald Trump's priorities - I think it's into four buckets, economic priorities. The first is tariffs. He is a true protectionist. This is what he's believed in for 30 years. You know, he's - it's very, very clear that he is a man who thinks that a trade deficit means that America is being ripped off by another country. And he thinks tariffs are good for the United States sort of by definition.
The second is that he's very focused on the border and on deporting illegal immigrants. He sometimes sounds like a kind of immigration restrictionist. He doesn't want too many immigrants. Sometimes he thinks he's - he sounds as though he does. He's OK with legal immigration, but immigration is his second priority. His third priority is tax cuts, which will, of course, boost the U.S. economy, give it a kind of - more of a sugar high. That's one of the reasons that markets soared after the election results were announced. And the fourth is he's very focused on deregulation, or at least the people around him are. You know, cutting the size of government, freeing up rules, making it easier for companies to invest, making it easier for AI to be adopted, shaking up government. And that, again, is something that has potentially beneficial economic consequences.
And if you're sitting outside the U.S., you look at those four and you think, how do those four policy priorities affect my country? And which of them is he going to focus on most? Because one of the things that is very clear is that it's very easy to have a huge number of campaign promises and campaign slogans, but even a president whose party controls both chambers of Congress has to set priorities. The machinery of Washington, as you know very well, is such that you can't get absolutely everything done. So, for example, if their main focus is on deportation and they are really serious about wanting to deport 10 million people or more, the amount of money, effort and presidential focus that will need to go on how you create the machinery to do that. Do you get the military involved, National Guard? The kind of civil strife that will come for it will be just an enormous time sink, and that will probably mean that some of the other economic priorities will get less attention. So how other countries are affected depends a little bit on what the Trump administration puts top priority on.
So when you go through the countries, sort of how vulnerable are you on each of them? And I'd point to Mexico, for example, which I think is in a very vulnerable position, because Mexico is going to be affected very dramatically by whatever the Trump administration decides to do on deportations and the border. If they're really serious about deporting this many people, a lot of them are going to go to Mexico. And it's very clear that President Trump has already said, I'm going to demand that Mexico - we close the border and they take back people. And if they don't, I'm going to put tariffs on them. And so he's going to use tariffs as a negotiating tool.
That then leads to a sort of nother calculus, which is, do you think that President Trump will use tariffs against your country as a negotiating tool and he'll want to make a deal? Or do you think he's actually going to do it anyway because he really believes in it? And there again, you have a slightly different reaction, right? Because one of the big questions that any country is going to have to ask itself is, if the United States slaps tariffs on me, am I going to retaliate? And the risk for the world economy is, of course, if you have this tit-for-tat retaliation. The U.S. puts up tariffs. Other countries put up tariffs. That's what happened in the 1930s. That's when you have a trade war with truly cataclysmic economic consequences.
DAVIES: You know, in Kamala Harris' debate with Donald Trump, she referred to his tariffs as a 20% tax on the American people on the notion that, you know, if someone is exporting goods to the United States and you have to pay 20% tariff to the government, you're just going to boost your prices by 20%. I mean, it does stand to reason that, you know, the United States consumers benefit a lot from cheap goods imported from a lot of places, and that consumer prices would probably rise with these tariffs, right? And will that not create a political backlash?
MINTON BEDDOES: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's why (laughter) - that's why I believe in free trade and not protectionism. And that's what - The Economist was founded in 1843 to champion free trade. That's literally what our founder, James Wilson, created The Economist for. He - at the time, there were - England had these things called the Corn Laws, which were very high tariffs on agricultural goods. And as part of the fight to get rid of these Corn Laws, they founded the magazine called The Economist. And ever since, we've been arguing for free trade and against tariffs for precisely that reason.
Tariffs impoverish a country. Tariffs - a global system based on tariffs is one which has much less economic prosperity than free trade. But you're right - a 20% across-the-board tariff would be a tax on American consumers. And if you combine that with a very, very dramatic deportation program and clampdown on illegal immigrants, just practically, if you deport that many people, that is a hit to the U.S. labor force. Which means that you are going to have, again, higher wages, 'cause you're not going to have people to pick fruit in California or work on construction sites. So you're going to have a hit to the economy coming from higher labor costs. You're going to have a hit to consumers coming from higher tariffs. This is not a recipe for a - for strong economic growth.
DAVIES: Then there's China. I mean, you know, Donald Trump has made trade wars with China a staple of his rhetoric over the years. He's also expressed admiration for Xi Jinping as a guy who runs his country, you know, with a sense of great authority. Do you have a sense of what might actually happen here in terms of policy with China?
MINTON BEDDOES: So I think there will be - almost certainly, there will be more tariffs on China. What's interesting about China is that Donald Trump, in his first term, very much shifted the prevailing sort of view in Washington about China, right? In the Obama administration, and certainly in the Clinton administration, there was a sense that you wanted to integrate China into the global trading system.
DAVIES: Right.
MINTON BEDDOES: And if you integrated it, China would be better off. The world would be better off, which - an idea with which, you know, of course, I have a lot of sympathy. But as it turned out, China didn't play by global trade rules. China - you know, it's absolutely true that they were very mercantilist themselves. They ripped off U.S. companies. They didn't play by the rules properly. And so when, in 2016, Donald Trump came in and said, we need to think differently about China; you know, we need to put on tariffs, actually, the Biden administration didn't really change that view. It didn't get rid of any of the tariffs that Donald Trump had put in and indeed put more export controls on U.S. high-technology exports to prevent China from getting access to cutting-edge U.S. technology.
And that was because there was then, on - in both parties, a growing recognition that China had become more authoritarian under Xi Jinping, more aggressive and was a real, strategic adversary. And so the interesting thing here now is that what Donald Trump was really pushing in the first term has become really conventional wisdom about the risks from China. And so the question going forward is, how hawkish are you about China? And what do you think the U.S.' geopolitical and economic relationship should be?
DAVIES: You know, one of the interesting questions about China - it's been very aggressive internationally in expanding its, you know, economic and diplomatic and cultural reach to nations all over the world. And if Trump really wants to disengage from a lot of, you know, foreign entanglements, does that not serve China's interests?
MINTON BEDDOES: I think that's a really interesting question. And I think in the short term, China is bracing itself for an economic hit from more tariffs. But in the medium term, the reelection of Donald Trump probably serves its purpose for precisely the reason that you lay out, which is that a United States that turns inward and no longer wishes to be, you know, leader of the - a world order leaves much more room for China to kind of shape the world as it sees fit. And it's really interesting. If you look at specifics like electric vehicles, for example, there are already very high tariffs against electric vehicles from China in the U.S. And, well, there'll probably be more tariffs, but China is dominating electric vehicles in the rest of - in the developing world. And China is now, you know, really making clear that it is still the world's leading manufacturer by a long way, and it's looking in different places for its markets.
So you could imagine a world where America walls itself off through tariffs and is a large enough market that it is - you know, it'll survive that. And it'll - you know, in many ways, no doubt it'll prosper, because it's a very innovative and successful economy, the U.S. But that China is - it has a much closer relationship economically with many other parts of the developing world.
DAVIES: And what about Taiwan, which, you know, China has been increasingly aggressive towards? Where does it stand in all this?
MINTON BEDDOES: It really depends on whether you - what you see President Trump doing elsewhere. So Ukraine, for example. If Ukraine is lost to Russia, then that sends a very worrying signal to Taiwan. On the other hand, the appointees that President Trump has made so far are very much China hawks who are focused on Taiwan and think it's extremely important, and that Taiwan plays an important part of the sort of U.S. security infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific. So we will see. I mean, and President Trump himself, you know, sometimes has sounded as though it's a long place far away, you know, Taiwan. Why should the U.S. care about it? On the other hand, he - it's, you know, currently the absolute center of global chipmaking, and I'm sure the desire to have more chips made in the United States will continue. Over time, perhaps, as that happens, there will be a change in the view of Taiwan. But that's going to be a real - you know, one of the big flashpoints of the next few years.
DAVIES: Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Zanny Minton Beddoes. She is editor-in-chief of The Economist. We'll continue our conversation after this short break. This is FRESH AIR.
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DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we're speaking with Zanny Minton Beddoes. She is editor-in-chief of The Economist. We're talking about what Trump's foreign policy might look like in a second term and how international leaders are preparing for it. We recorded our interview yesterday.
Well, let's talk about the Middle East. Donald Trump has, you know, close relationships with some Arab states - Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States. He's been very, very supportive of Israel. But he also says he wants to bring the fighting to an end in Lebanon and Gaza. What is your sense of how he will approach these conflicts?
MINTON BEDDOES: So in the Middle East, there's really the short-term question, which is, can President Trump bring the war to an end? And I think there's not - there's a sort of nonzero possibility that Prime Minister Netanyahu will want to hand President Trump a win. And that win might well be an agreement to a cease-fire.
DAVIES: In Gaza?
MINTON BEDDOES: In Gaza, yeah...
DAVIES: And what about...
MINTON BEDDOES: ...With the remnants of Hamas.
DAVIES: And what about Lebanon?
MINTON BEDDOES: Because - possibly even there, too, because, you know, the Israeli army has actually achieved its military goals in Gaza. And it's done a huge amount of damage to Hezbollah in Lebanon. And so it is possible that you could see some movement there. But the real question is, what does a sort of longer-term peace in the region look like? And that has two components. One - what is the relationship with Iran, and how do you stop Iran from funding these militias? And is there some kind of a grand deal that includes Iran? And the second, of course, is Saudi Arabia. And the logic has always been that there was a sort of big deal to be made whereby the U.S. did a defense agreement with Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia recognized Israel and there was normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. And increasingly, Saudi Arabia has said that can only happen if there is a serious pathway to a two-state solution and to a Palestinian state. And so the challenge for President Trump is that he's, you know, very much going to want a U.S.-Saudi defense deal, and he's going to want Saudi Arabia to normalize its relations with Israel. But I'm not sure how focused he is on creating a Palestinian state. And right now in Israel, not only is Prime Minister Netanyahu very against a two-state solution, so too is public opinion in Israel. So that would take a lot of diplomacy to pull off. It's possible that he does. It's worth remembering that the Abraham Accords were - which were the accords under which the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and other Gulf countries normalized relations with Israel - took place under Donald Trump. That was an achievement, a signature achievement of his first term. And so you can imagine some grand deal, but the difficulty of that is, one, it takes a lot of diplomatic heft to get there. And two, what do you do with Iran?
DAVIES: Let's talk about Iran, which, of course, has exercised military pressure throughout the region through its support for Hamas and Hezbollah and other militias. And, of course, there was that plot to assassinate Trump, which was exposed. What do you think Trump's policy is going to be towards Iran?
MINTON BEDDOES: So I think there's a debate going on within Iran right now. On the one hand, there are the sort of reformers who - and there've been articles in Iranian newspapers advocating that Iran should try and do a deal with Donald Trump. What a deal would, of course, involve would be, one, very clear, you know, restrictions on - to ensure that they did not get a nuclear capability. And secondly, very clear commitments to not fund militias such as Hamas and Hezbollah or the Houthis. That, I think - the hard-liners in Iran are very against all of that, so there's a debate within Iran.
Then, of course, there's a - you know, a choice and a challenge for the United States. On the one hand, it's very clear that Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu would like to, you know, once and for all take out Iran's nuclear capability. That risks a - you know, a regional war. On the other hand, the nonmilitary means of doing this - so maximum pressure through sanctions, which is what the Trump administration did in its first term - could be reimposed, but is less likely to be lastingly effective because in the meantime, Iran has built a whole system of what are called teapot refiners and shadow banks, which enable it to sell its oil largely to China and to get the proceeds back. And if you really want to put maximum pressure on Iran now, you need to have China on board. And that's obviously - you know, depends on your relationship with China.
So the world has become more fragmented, more dangerous, and it's actually harder for America to impose its will through sanctions and so forth than it was in 2016, when President Trump first took office. And I think that will be a bit of a sort of rude awakening, that it's one thing to come in and say, you know, I'm going to be unpredictable. I'm going to - I scare people. All of that's, no doubt, true, and he gets quite a long way with that. But America's actual heft - it financially, in terms of control over sanctions and so forth, is less than it used to be, because people have increasingly found ways to get around it.
DAVIES: You know, I should also just note that there are family connections and financial connections in the Middle East.
MINTON BEDDOES: (Laughter).
DAVIES: You know, Jared Kushner got $2 billion from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund for his private equity fund. Should we be concerned that the personal financial interests will be driving policy?
MINTON BEDDOES: Yes, there are close personal connections, and no doubt that they will - I'm sure they will have some impact on who gets the president's ear. But I think the bigger point is that the Saudis clearly prize their close personal relationship, but the Saudis also prize regional stability. And I was just in Riyadh just 10 days ago. And it was very clear to me that they think it's good that they know the Trump family and they have good relationships. And yes, they, you know bankrolled Jared Kushner's private equity fund. On the other hand, they clearly want stability. They're worried about unpredictability. No one's quite sure what President Trump will do. And it's telling that just this week, there was a regional summit in Riyadh to which, very clearly, the Saudis invited lots of people, including the Iranians. And they're keen to have what's called the cold peace between those two countries. They want to have relations with Iran. And so I think they would be alarmed about a very, very hawkish, aggressive, you know, maximum pressure, let alone military attacks on Iran policy.
DAVIES: You know, it's interesting that Tiffany Trump, who is Donald Trump's daughter, has a father-in-law, Massad Boulos. I don't - I'm not sure if I'm saying the name right. He is a wealthy Lebanese American businessman who has supported Trump in the campaign and, I gather, was a go-between in getting the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to have a conversation with Donald Trump. Any idea what significance this might have?
MINTON BEDDOES: So I think the glib way of saying this is that the direction Donald Trump's Middle East policy takes depends on which of his sons-in-law he talks to first...
(LAUGHTER)
DAVIES: Really? Wow.
MINTON BEDDOES: ...Because - well, you know, you're right. He's got - one daughter has married a son of a prominent Lebanese businessman. And then obviously, his daughter Ivanka is married to Jared Kushner, who's very close to Israel and particularly Bibi Netanyahu. So a president who is, you know, notoriously prone to call lots of people and ask them for advice - I mean, it's interesting. I hope that it means that he gets, you know, interesting takes on both sides.
DAVIES: We are speaking with Zanny Minton Beddoes. She is editor-in-chief of The Economist. We'll continue our conversation after this short break. This is FRESH AIR.
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DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. And we're speaking with Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief of The Economist, about Trump foreign policy in the second term and how foreign leaders are anticipating that. We recorded our interview yesterday.
We should talk briefly just about climate change. It's a very, very big issue. We imagine that Trump will pull out of the Paris Agreement. Where does that leave the effort to deal with carbon emissions?
MINTON BEDDOES: So I think you're right. I think they are likely to pull out of it, which is sort of diplomatically a blow. But increasingly, I think it's less important to the sort of evolution of the decarbonization effort than you might think. Countries are moving along in their decarbonization efforts, and China, in particular, is doing a huge amount. And the whole COP process, which is the, you know - there was a gathering just this week, actually. In Baku was the latest COP summit, where people were, yeah, nervous about what the United States would do. But I think there's increasingly a view that the process is ongoing. And it's not as though - you know, the whole fight against climate change didn't stop because the U.S. pulled out last time, and it's not going to stop this time, either.
DAVIES: You know, as I was preparing for this interview, it reminded me of just how complex and interrelated and really difficult these diplomatic issues are to understand. And, you know, trying to craft an effective policy is so challenging. You know, and there was a lot of reporting from Trump's first term about his disinterest in details, his reluctance to read policy papers or listen carefully to briefings. Should this trouble us?
MINTON BEDDOES: I'm going to be resolutely optimistic, not least 'cause it's just too depressing not to be. And I think it's worth remembering one thing - that in the first Trump administration, particularly on foreign policy, everyone thought that it was kind of going to be a cataclysmic catastrophe, disaster. In Europe, there was huge shock when he won first time around - oh, my goodness, you know, the world has come to an end. And actually, you know, if you sort of stand back, in various areas, he either, you know, made clear something that everyone knew and no one was willing to say or actually had some successes.
So we've talked about some of them. But actually, it was during the first Trump administration that, you know, America really changed its position towards China and started thinking of it as a strategic adversary. And that is now something that both parties have embraced. For good or ill, both parties have embraced it. It's now common view. In - as regards Europe, you know, as we discussed earlier in this show, the Europeans did increase their defense spending as a result of the sort of threats and approach of Donald Trump. In the Middle East, the Abraham Accords were signed. There were countries that normalized their relations with Israel during the first Trump administration. And so it's - I think it's just wrong to say that it was all a disaster.
Now, there were lots of costs associated with that. He weakened international institutions. He imposed tariffs. He had - it was an uncertain, faintly terrifying time. And this time around - and this was, you know, why we were very worried, are very worried about a second Trump administration and why we endorsed Kamala Harris. I think there are reasons to be more concerned this time around. Not just because his policy agenda is more radical, but also because, as we've been discussing, the world is more dangerous and because there are fewer constraints on him.
So I think, as a result, the tail risk of things potentially going very badly wrong in foreign policy is there. Now, is that tail risk 10% or 15% or 20%? I don't know, but there is a tail risk that things go very badly wrong. But that there is still a probability, I think, that it needn't be utterly catastrophic. And actually, there could be some good elements that come from this. So I think it's important to not reach the conclusion that everything will be terrible. It may well not be. You know, do I think the risks of things going very badly wrong are too high? Yes. That's why, you know, we did not endorse President Trump for president. I think the risks are very - you know, are too high for my liking. But high tail risks doesn't mean that it's necessarily going to be disastrous.
DAVIES: Zanny Minton Beddoes, thank you for speaking with us.
MINTON BEDDOES: Thank you for having me.
DAVIES: Zanny Minton Beddoes is editor-in-chief of The Economist. We recorded our interview yesterday. On tomorrow's show, we speak with accomplished screenwriter and author of one of the most anticipated novels of the season, Richard Price. He wrote for HBO's "The Wire" and "The Deuce" and co-created HBO's "The Night Of" and "The Outsider." Several of his novels, including "Clockers," were adapted into films. His new novel, "Lazarus Man," is about second chances. I hope you can join us.
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DAVIES: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today was Adam Staniszewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producers are Molly Seavy-Nesper and Sabrina Seiwert. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies.
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