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The body of Pope Francis in the coffin exposed in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City on April 24, 2025. The funeral will be celebrated on Saturday in St. Peter's Square.
World leaders to bid farewell to Pope Francis – and hold talks on the side
While the Catholic world prepares for the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday – the service begins at 10 a.m. local time, 4 a.m. ET – certain high-profile attendees may also have other things on their mind. Several world leaders will be on hand to pay their respects to the pontiff, but they could also find themselves involved in bilateral talks.
Who’s on the list? Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will effectively be the host at the Vatican, which lies just next to Rome. Many of her fellow Western leaders will attend, including French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and US President Donald Trump. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who leads the most Catholic country in Asia, will also attend.
South American representation. Argentine President Javier Milei – a former adversary of Francis, his fellow countryman – and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva plan to cross the Atlantic for the funeral, too.
Glaring omission. Russian President Vladimir Putin won’t attend the funeral, the Kremlin confirmed.
Side hustle. Trump appears to be the principal object of interest for other world leaders. Zelensky has already said that he’d like to speak to the US president at the Vatican, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen could meet the American president for the first time since he returned to office, if Meloni gets her way. They won’t have much time, though: Trump plans to spend less than 24 hours in Rome.
President Donald Trump at a bilateral meeting with China's President Xi Jinping during the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 29, 2019.
Trump promises to be “very nice” with China – but Beijing won’t be flattered
On Wednesday, Donald Trump said he would deliver a “fair deal” with China. He also said he’d be “very nice” to the country after meeting with major retailers. CNN reports the retailers gave the president a “blunt message” about the risks of a prolonged trade war with China, warning shop shelves could “soon be empty.”
Beijing, however, denied that there are any ongoing talks and told the US it must cancel its unilateral tariffs before China will broker any negotiations.
Trump is now promising a substantial drop in tariffs on China, which currently sits at 145%, though he says he won’t drop them to zero. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessentsays there won’t be a tariff reduction without a trade deal, and that it could take two or three years before the US manages to rebalance its trade with its rival, citing the past precedent of Japan, with whom it took a decade to rebalance trade volumes.
On Wednesday, markets were up on the China expectations and news, further buoyed by Trump’s comment that he had “no intention” of firing Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. But don’t bank on a long-term comeback or market stability. Earlier in the week, stocks were down with indices closing roughly 2.5% lighter than they started the day after Trump called Powell “Mr.Too Late” and “a major loser” as he pressed for interest rate cuts he claims will buoy the economy amid declining consumer confidence and a growing recession risk.
Canada’s political parties are united in offering plans to hit back against Donald Trump
Albertan Keith Gardner has been a member of the New Democratic Party his entire adult life. He’s the provincial riding association president for Lethbridge West, and he has worked on previous federal campaigns for the NDP. But in this year’s federal election, which takes place Monday, April 28, he’s voting for Mark Carney and the Liberal Party — and the reason is Donald Trump.
“There’s a kind of existential moment going on,” Gardner says. “I think the Trump piece elevates the stakes of the election.”
The election has been dominated by concerns like Gardner’s. Trump has shaped voter intentions, party strategies, and policy platforms. The two parties most likely to win, the Liberals and Conservatives, broadly agree on what needs to be done. Each supports reciprocal tariffs, reducing internal trade barriers, using government procurement to buy Canadian, and building infrastructure. They are also promising support for workers affected by Trump’s tariffs and Canadian counter-tariffs. While the parties’ methods differ — to varying degrees — the message is clear: Canada must protect its economy from its largest trading partner.
Canada looks inward — and plans to build
The Liberal Party’s platform mentions Trump eight times. Carney argues that Trump’s economic program is restructuring the global trade system, a move that threatens to hit Canada hard since the US-Canada trade relationship is worth roughly $1 trillion a year.
The Liberals are promising to reduce internal trade barriers, lowering costs by “up to 15%,” and build an internal trade corridor so goods, services, and workers can move freely and easily. To do so, they’ll undertake “nation-building projects,” including ports, airports, highways, and high-speed rail in Ontario and Quebec. They’ll also “build out” Canada’s east-west electricity grid.
Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party mention Trump six times in their platform. Their plan aims to “rebuild [Canada’s] economy and open new markets so we can reduce our reliance on the US and stand up to Trump from a position of strength.” The crux of the platform rests on fast-tracking approvals for infrastructure, including rail, roads, and power transmission lines — projects they say Canada can’t build now because of regulations.
The Conservatives are also all-in on pipelines, vowing to repeal the Trudeau-era Bill C-69, which requires impact assessment reviews for major projects. The Tories call it the “No More Development” law, claiming it “makes it impossible to build the mines, pipelines, and other major energy infrastructure Canada needs.” Carney supports the law. In contrast to the Liberals, the Conservatives are pledging to eliminate the emissions cap on oil and gas production and double oil production in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Looking outward … a bit
Foreign trade is getting less attention than internal trade, but the front-runners have some plans for boosting external commerce. The Conservatives will pursue a free trade and mobility agreement, CANZUK, with the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. They would also push to export “cleaner” Canadian resources under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which allows countries to transfer carbon credits across borders.
While the Conservatives look to CANZUK, the Liberals are talking about new deals with MERCOSUR in South America and ASEAN in Asia. The Liberals would launch a CA$25 billion export credit facility to help foreign buyers finance Canadian goods. They would also fund efforts to make better use of existing trade, including Canada’s free trade deal with Europe and its deal with trans-Pacific states. The latter captures Australia and New Zealand but is a more limited deal than what the Conservatives are promising.
Weathering the Trump storm
After Trump leveled tariffs on Canadian goods, Canada hit back with reciprocal tariffs. The Liberals promise that “every dollar” from those duties will be used to protect workers and businesses. They’re speeding up and easing access to employment insurance – which, as the governing party, they started to do pre-election. They’re also looking to launch a CA$2 billion fund for the country’s auto sector for worker upskilling, shoring up the domestic supply chain, and protecting industry jobs from layoffs. Their plan includes an “All-in-Canada network” for making car parts, reducing the frequency with which components must cross the border.
The Conservatives will maintain “existing government supports” for the auto industry while removing sales tax on vehicles made in Canada for as long as the Trump tariffs are in effect. They’re promising a “Keep Canadians Working Fund” that uses reciprocal tariff money to support workers affected by the duties. The party says it will also “drastically” reduce the number of temporary foreign workers the country admits and ensure Canadian workers get a first crack at jobs, which could strengthen domestic wages for citizens and permanent residents.
Can the parties get it done, and will it be enough?
It’s easy to make promises during an election. It’s harder to deliver on them. Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group's global macro-geopolitics practice, says that some promises are easier to deliver on than others.
“I think internal trade is a low-hanging fruit if you can get the provinces aligned, which it seems like they are,” he says. “There is no question that non-tariff barriers within Canada are an impediment to domestic trade.”
But even if the government does deliver on that, the shadow of the US will continue to loom large.
“The problem is that in absolute terms, internal trade is minute compared to the value gained from trade with the United States,” Thompson says. “So, a hit to the Canadian economy because of tariffs could only very partially be recouped by domestic efficiencies in terms of trade.”
He says recouping losses by boosting external trade with non-US countries is easier said than done. Canada has other trade agreements, but Canadian businesses are still attracted to the US market, which is large, rich, next door, and culturally familiar.
“Until that changes, it’s going to be hard for Canada to diversify its trade by governmental efforts.” Thompson’s waiting to see if industry follows the government’s lead. “Until then, it’s just talk.”
For all that talk, whichever party wins next week will be expected to deliver. Gardner hopes that will be the Liberals, kept in check by the NDP. Looking south, he says, “One of the things I think we can do is we can have a federal government that clearly stands up, that preserves the things about Canadian society that we have achieved together, protects our notions of person and peacekeeping, protects public health care, protects all these things that frankly the NDP helped create and instill into Canadian political culture.”
It could be the Liberals who win, or it could be the Conservatives. But, either way, the message from voters during the election has been clear: They want a government that takes a firm stance against Trump’s threats.
Trump’s America: A kleptocracy but not a police state
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: I want to talk about checks and balances in the US political system. I get so many questions about this of course, because the United States today is the principal driver of geopolitical uncertainty, of global economic uncertainty. And people want to understand, is this the end of globalization? Is it the end of US democracy?
Everyone has their knobs politically turned up to 11 on everything, and that's very undifferentiated. So, how do we think about this? I want to give you a few thoughts on what is and what isn't a permanent change. What is and what isn't a serious threat and concern. Particularly big picture on the nature of the US political system.
I've said a number of times that I consider the US to be by far the most kleptocratic and dysfunctional political system among all of the advanced industrial democracies. I've said that not just in the last few months, but for years now, and that predates Trump. Trump has sped up the kleptocratic impulses in the United States.
The second most powerful person in the White House on President Trump, at least for now with an official position, is also the wealthiest person on the planet who continues to own and run six companies. Obviously, it's kleptocratic. Trump is very much pay for play.
If you're a TikTok investor and you give him money, he flips his position on TikTok. Very direct, very dramatic, but the United States has been kleptocratic for decades. It is the country where if you have money, you can use it to gain access to power and that will get you outcomes you want. Whether it's a specific tax code or a specific regulation or lack thereof.
That is much more true in the US than it is in Canada or Germany or Japan or Australia or New Zealand, or the Nordics, any of the advanced industrial democracies, the rich democracies, right, which is the cohort that you look at when you think about the US political system.
And that's interesting because when Trump leans in on that kleptocracy, when he expands it it may make a number of business leaders and bankers uncomfortable. It's unseemly, but they're used to it. They know how that works. They already have their lobbyists and their pacts. They already have their comms teams, they've got their people on K Street lined up.
They already know what it means to pay for an inauguration and to get people that say they have access to the family of the administration and they can help you as a consequence. They're willing to spend money on that and to make favors for that, all of the offer internships for that, all of those things, right?
And as a consequence, you don't get pushback on that, right? If Trump is going to shake down a corporation or else, they'll pay. And that's true across the board. You don't see a lot of public courage as a consequence from the business environment in the US.
The US does not have a long-standing policy of authoritarianism. The US is not used to dictatorship. And so when Trump engages in things that feel like a direct threat to the rule of law on say the ability of law firms to conduct their core business, which is representing anyone vigorously, that deserves defense.
Yeah, a couple of firms will bend the knee, but there'll be a lot of internal pushback and most won't because that's something that is beyond the pale.
And I think the same thing is true about academic freedom. Is when the Trump administration says whether you like the politics or not, that they're going to cut off funding if you don't eschew some of the independence that you have exerted and you have as your right as you do as a public institution, as a university.
And that maybe they should take away your tax-free status, all that kind of thing. Then you see a couple of universities will bend the knee, but most won't. And there'll be very strong pushback on that.
And so what I think is happening is that the US is going to continue to become much more kleptocratic beyond Trump, and I don't see anything that's going to stop that. That is a serious problem long-term in terms of reputational capital for the United States, both domestically in attracting capital and also on the global stage.
But I also see significant pushback on authoritarian impulses, and I think it's far less likely that the US is slipping into dictatorship. And so when the Financial Times writes that the US is halfway towards becoming a police state, I say, "No, not at all."
The US may well be today the most unfree of advanced democracies, but it is not the most free of authoritarian states because it's not authoritarian. You still have an opposition party that you can vote for and that says whatever they want.
I don't feel in any way like I am potentially going to risk arrest or my liberties by virtue of saying to you exactly what I think about what's happening domestically, internationally. If that starts to stop, believe me, you're going to hear from me before you hear it from somebody else. So that's one point.
Second point is that for Trump to be successful in subverting the checks and balances on him, if he wants to win as a revolutionary president, he has to do two different things. The first is he has to actually erode those institutions, those norms, those values, he has to weaken them. But then he has to actually execute on being the most powerful.
Because if you want to live by the law of the jungle, you have to actually be the effective apex predator. And what we've seen is that Trump has been reasonably effective at not paying attention to rule of law norms.
Look at trade treaties, USMCA. He's completely abrogated by virtue of saying, "Nope, national security emergency, I'm just putting tariffs on." That's clearly not what the Mexicans and Canadians signed up for. He doesn't care. And he is doing that with reckless abandon in all sorts of different places domestically and around the world.
But to be the effective apex predator, you have to not only erode the norms and values, but then you have to actually perform. What we're seeing is that having a fight with literally everyone simultaneously, your adversaries and your allies internationally and domestically turns out to be really hard.
I mean, even the mighty lion doesn't go after an entire herd of wildebeests simultaneously. You pick off an injured one, a little one, maybe a juvie, right? And what Trump is finding out is that he's going after a herd of wildebeest and he's getting kicked in the head.
He's done that internationally with, let's put 145% tariffs on China, the second biggest, strongest, most powerful economy in the world. And by the way, with a political system that's much more capable of waiting out and taking pain than the Americans are, because it's an actual authoritarian regime with a multi-generational rule from a communist party that is very consolidated.
So the Chinese are saying, "Oh yeah, we'll hit you back." And now Trump is saying, "Uh-oh, maybe bad idea." And he's also seeing that, for example, with his decision to go after Fed Chief Jerome Powell. He said how horrible Powell is and, "I should fire him. I should get rid of him." And a few days later he said, "Well, I'm not going to fire Powell."
Well, it's not like Powell's done anything differently. He's not behaving in any way that Trump would want, but Trump has recognized that trying to kick Powell in the head is a really bad idea because the markets are throwing up all over it and the business community and other countries and his own advisors.
It's harder to get that feedback to Trump because he has a group of advisors, some of whom are very capable, some of whom are completely incompetent, but all of whom are far more loyal and therefore far less willing to give him information he does not like.
But the bigger the obvious failures are, the more clear it is that you can't fight all the wildebeest simultaneously the more that information is going to get through to Trump and we are seeing that start to happen.
So, in other words, I do see snapback functions that are constraining what Trump is trying to accomplish. They are not coming from rule of law. They're not coming from the established institutions, which turn out to be a lot weaker than a lot of people had hoped or believed.
But they are coming from other powerful forces domestically and internationally that are capable of standing up and saying, "No, we're not going to take that." And you all know courage is contagious. You suddenly see some big guns that are coming out and saying, "No, we're not going to take it," and that actually provides space for other people to do it too.
And so at the end of the day, leading by example really matters, especially when something's happening that is obviously deeply damaging to yourself, to your family, to your colleagues, to your business, to your country, and to the world. And I think that's playing out right now.
Don't call me an extraordinary, unrelenting optimist. It's not that I am an optimistic person by nature, but this is coming from analysis. I'm more than capable of telling you when I think things are going to hell and predicting things that I really don't want to have happen.
This, on the other hand, is something I would really like to see happen, which is effective checks and balances on unhinged decision-making and I am starting to see that some of that is playing out. That's it for me, and I hope everyone's doing well. I'll talk to you all real soon.
Trump’s 4D checkers, China’s opportunity, climate hopes, and more: Your questions, answered
Welcome to another edition of my mailbag, where I attempt to make sense of our increasingly chaotic world, one reader question at a time. If you have a burning question for me before I go back to full-length columns, ask it here and I’ll answer as many as I can in next week’s newsletter.
Let’s dive in (with questions lightly edited for clarity).
Is the US currently a kleptocracy?
The United States is the most structurally kleptocratic of any advanced industrial democracy, with public policy increasingly captured by monied special interests and the rules of the marketplace determined by the highest bidder. The wealthiest Americans not only can fund political campaigns but also buy favorable regulatory and legal treatment and lobby for policies that perpetuate their economic interests. This system is two-tiered alright, but it doesn’t see red and blue – only green.
President Donald Trump is a beneficiary and an accelerant of this disease, but it long predates him. Which is why Trump faced so little pushback from the business world both times he was elected. After all, a system where the connected can buy their preferred policy outcomes is a system much of the private sector is both used to and comfortable with.
Has Trump done to brand USA what Musk did to Tesla?
He’s working on it. The long-term damage to America’s reputational capital has been incalculable (though it hasn’t been as great as the >50% in value Tesla has lost since its mid-December peak). Sometimes you have a personal relationship and someone does something that can’t be unseen. That’s what has happened particularly with Canadians and Europeans of late. I think that damage is permanent. And we are not even 100 days in …
How do other nations view America in light of Trump’s aggressive tariffs, threats, and general disdain for allies?
They all see the United States as the principal driver of geopolitical uncertainty. In the near term, most countries – especially smaller, poorer ones – will look to cut trade deals with Trump relatively quickly because the alternative, direct confrontation with the world’s sole superpower, is too costly to bear. We’re seeing that already with the Japanese, the South Koreans, and many other delegations coming to Washington to try to do everything they can to secure at least functional relations with the US.
At the same time, every country recognizes the longer-term need to hedge away and “de-risk” from the United States as much and as fast as possible to reduce their exposure to Trump-driven disruption. Even those that manage to come away with deals know the president could change his mind. After spending the last decade focusing on the dangers of having too much exposure to Beijing’s opaque, arbitrary, and personalistic decision-making, policymakers, businesses, and investors all over the world now suddenly see de-risking from the US as the more urgent priority. That’s an extraordinary shift when you stop to think about it.
Granted, de-risking from the US is a tall order given America’s asymmetric power advantages and the global embeddedness of so many of the things it provides – defense, advanced technologies, finance – that are hard to substitute (read: to break free from). But many US allies see no choice but to start seriously looking for alternatives. We’re already seeing the European Union and Latin America speed up their conversations to fast-track approval of the EU-Mercosur trade deal. Trump-aligned India is likewise moving to improve its trade relations with the EU, the United Kingdom, Australia, and others. Canada is trying to engage much more closely with the Europeans. Even Vietnam, which has long harbored deep mistrust of China, signed 45 new economic cooperation agreements with Beijing days after Trump trade czar Peter Navarro rebuffed its offer to lower its tariffs on US goods to zero.
Can China capitalize on Trump’s global trade war to peel off US allies?
Xi Jinping just wrapped up a Southeast Asian charm offensive to try to do exactly that. For the first time since the Vietnam War, most Vietnamese are now more well-disposed toward China than the US. That’s not true everywhere (e.g., the Philippines is still about 80% pro-American), but the trend line is clear. China sees the moment as a historic opportunity to move economically closer to many countries and portray itself as a champion of globalization and a force for stability.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean America’s loss will be China’s gain everywhere. The Europeans don’t suddenly trust the Chinese more just because they now trust the Americans less. They still have big issues with Chinese dumping, overcapacity exports (especially in the auto industry), data surveillance, and other beggar-thy-neighbor practices that have not gone away. Europe’s de-risking will be less about tilting to China and more about strengthening its own capabilities and hedging with pretty much everybody else. Plus, as I mentioned above, while Trump has worked hard to alienate US allies, America remains the only game in town for most Western countries in many strategic sectors and critical networks. Going cold turkey is unthinkable.
If everyone thinks tariffs are a bad idea even for the American economy, why is Trump persisting? Do you see a way the US can win on this?
As much as I’d like to believe so, I just can't see any way the US comes out ahead on this. Myself and others have written extensively about why the tariffs (and the massive ongoing uncertainty surrounding US policy) are an economic lose-lose, not only for America’s trade partners but for American consumers and businesses, and not just in the short term but also in the long run. Rather than boost domestic manufacturing, they will accelerate the country’s deindustrialization. And if the administration had really intended to use the tariffs as a cudgel to forge a united front against China (as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and others have claimed), it wouldn’t have slapped punishing duties on friendly countries already inclined to join this alliance before asking for their help. I’m afraid there’s no “4D chess” strategy or master plan.
It’d be one thing if the Trump team were only picking this one fight. But it’s going to be much harder to convince the world not to hedge away from the United States when at the same time as they’re hitting everyone with tariffs, they’re also picking all sorts of fights on other fronts. They are directly and indirectly threatening other countries’ sovereignty and territoriality, whether it’s Greenland and Denmark, Panama, Canada, or Ukraine. They are exporting algorithms and disinformation that undermine democracies around the world. They are destroying the transatlantic alliance. They are aligning with Russia over longstanding allies at the United Nations and the G7. They are driving away foreign tourists and international students. And they’re picking fights domestically, trying to weaken checks and balances, undermine the rule of law, and erode state capacity in ways that will make the US a worse place to live, invest, and do business.
I'd love to be proven wrong, but this policy set looks hands down like the most extraordinary geopolitical own goal I’ve ever witnessed.
Is it possible that Trump is purposely upsetting the economy in an effort to lower interest rates, reduce the US government’s debt servicing costs, and shrink the federal deficit?
Nope. That’s another one of those 4D chess stories flying around, and it’s nonsense. It’s true that a tariff-and-uncertainty-induced US recession can make existing US government debt (and mortgages, car loans, credit card debt, etc.) cheaper to refinance by bringing down long-term interest rates. But if long rates decline because the real economy has deteriorated to the point where the Fed has to cut short-term rates to boost aggregate demand, the money saved on debt interest payments probably will be offset by the lower tax revenue collected and the higher unemployment benefits paid out during the recession. The overall deficit will likely be higher than if said recession hadn’t been engineered in the first place – destroying trillions in economic value and hurting millions of real Americans in the process.
And all this assumes that long rates will in fact go down when the US enters a tariff-and-uncertainty-induced recession, which financial markets are currently telling us is not guaranteed in light of growing inflation and default risks. Thus far, Trump’s stagflationary policy mix and erratic policymaking style have made the world’s safe-haven assets relatively less attractive, prompted investors to sell US bonds, and caused long rates to rise rather than fall.
Will Trump succeed in brokering a ceasefire in Ukraine like he promised on the campaign trail?
Only if he’s willing to effectively use both carrots and sticks on Russia and Ukraine alike. So far he hasn’t, deploying mostly sticks (suspending military aid and intelligence sharing) to force the Ukrainians to come to terms and principally only carrots (the promise of sanctions nonenforcement and relief, and even full normalization of relations) to get the Russians to back off their maximalist demands.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week the administration is giving the talks “a matter of days” to make progress or else they’ll walk away from the peace effort altogether. The problem is that Vladimir Putin continues to be uninterested in a durable ceasefire, at least not unless the so-called “root causes” of the conflict are addressed through a permanent settlement. He started this war to change the facts on the ground and is convinced he still has what it takes to win it. What’s more, he’s betting that if he can keep slow rolling the peace talks and convince Trump that it was Kyiv’s intransigence that tanked them, Russia could plausibly get a US rapprochement while it continues to wage war against a Ukraine deprived of US assistance. I’m not a betting man, but at this point, it’s a reasonable wager for Putin to make.
What do you expect from incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz?
Less capacity to spend and lead than many people hope, despite having managed to pass a historic fiscal package through the Bundestag lifting the country’s “debt brake” for defense spending and creating a 500 billion euro special fund for infrastructure investments. The incoming coalition is serious but relatively unpopular and divided, facing a stronger-than-ever far-right Alternative for Germany leading the opposition in the new parliament.
This political weakness, combined with the sheer scale of the challenges it faces, will water down the government’s ambitions. Germany is undergoing a severe, decade-long economic crisis. Merz will be under considerable pressure to jumpstart growth quickly amid global trade wars and under tight budget conditions. Just a few weeks ago, he was well-disposed to take on a European leadership role. Now that talk is no longer cheap, his constraints and risk tolerance will change. And if the Germans won’t step up, who in Europe can?
Is climate action possible in a disintegrating world? Have the odds of avoiding catastrophic climate change worsened in the past three months?
I’m more optimistic here. We’ve already broken the back of the most catastrophic climate change scenarios. Economic self-interest – not ideology or idealism – is driving the clean energy revolution as technological innovation and steep learning curves have dramatically reduced the price tag of clean power technologies, making them the cheapest and most profitable option in a lot of markets regardless of politics. Deep-red Texas and Florida lead the US in solar and wind power deployment. China is set to hit its emissions peak several years ahead of schedule. Europe sees renewables as an energy security imperative. Emerging markets from India to Indonesia and Pakistan are eager to develop using cheaper and cleaner domestic energy sources than high-volatility, dirty imported fuels.
I don’t want to be glib. The planet is still heating up faster than we’d like, and the present state of geopolitics – from Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” to the G-Zero vacuum of global climate leadership – will slow the pace of decarbonization. With every fraction of a degree of warming causing bigger and more frequent disasters, lower growth, and more deaths, that’s not good news. But for every environmental regulation repealed, clean energy policy revoked, fossil fuel project approved, and international commitment abandoned, there’s another, much more structural force pulling even harder in the opposite direction. As my colleagues and I put it in Eurasia Group’s 2025 Top Risks report, the global energy transition “has reached escape velocity.”
Would you ride Moose like a jockey if given the opportunity?
I’d train him with a well-disposed toddler first. That would be must-see television. Any volunteers?
Inside the Harvard-Trump showdown
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hey everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take to kick off your week. I'm here at the Kennedy School at Harvard University, with my buddy Steve Walt.
Stephen Walt: Nice to see you, Ian.
Ian Bremmer:
And kind of ground zero for a lot of things happening geopolitically right now. How does it feel to be an independent variable?
Stephen Walt:
It feels better than it felt two or three weeks ago when many people at the university were worried whether we were going to actually bend the knee, cave in, give the administration what it wanted, do pretty much what Columbia did. And when the administration, perhaps mistakenly, sent that letter last week or so, and the president responded appropriately, I think there was a huge collective sigh of relief in the Harvard community. And the response that Harvard has gotten now, including from people who don't like Harvard, that someone finally stood up and said, "This is unacceptable," has been quite gratifying.
Ian Bremmer:
Harvard, huge endowment, not a poor campus, lots of influence in Boston community and around the world, but we're talking about billions of dollars of funding a year. We're talking maybe about not providing green cards for international students, lifeblood of the Kennedy School. What's at stake here, do you think?
Stephen Walt:
What's at stake is the presence of independent centers of thought in a free society. I mean, ultimately this is an attempt by the administration to bring Harvard, as the world's most prominent private university, under its control. If you read the letter carefully, they were basically wanting to have control over who got hired, control over what got taught, control over content of curriculum, control over admissions, in a variety of different ways. At which point the university is no longer independent. It has to get up every morning, say to itself, "Gee, what does the president think of what we're doing here?" And that means you don't have independent thought.
So two big problems. One is of course this is going to reduce scientific and technological progress in the United States in a whole series of areas.
Ian Bremmer:
Because that's so much of what the funding is actually going for.
Stephen Walt:
That's exactly right. Particularly medical research in particular. But it's also important in a free society you have a wide range of opinions, people who can challenge what's going on, and can challenge it from the right, challenge it from the left. One of my colleagues is one of the people who discovered the China shock, that a bunch of American jobs had gone to China due to previous economic policies. Something that of course Trump has played on, etc. So the point is you want lots of different ideas in a free society. You don't want the government to be able to control what people can teach, control what people can think, because how you get big mistakes. That's how you get Mao's Great Leap Forward because no one could criticize him, no one could challenge it, no one could even report what was happening. So there's actually more at stake than just scientific research here. It's also independent thought. Again, from across the political spectrum.
Ian Bremmer:
Does it feel like a resist moment on Harvard campus right now? Is that the kind of emotion that comes with it?
Stephen Walt:
This isn't a sort of let's go to the mattresses moment. The university did not want to have this fight. I think they were negotiating in good faith to see if they could come to an accommodation that would satisfy some of the concerns, including some legitimate concerns about whether or not a wide enough range of viewpoints was being expressed on campus. So I think they were negotiating in good faith.
The one advantage in the government's letter was it was so extreme that we had really no choice at this point. And I think the university now is going to go about its business. It's going to continue to teach. It's going to continue to do the research we want to do. It's going to have to do it with fewer resources. And I think we're all aware of the fact that there's going to have to be some costs paid by the faculty, unfortunately by our students and staff as well. And I think we're willing to do that.
Ian Bremmer:
And Harvard is well-known, has been ever since I was a kid, as the leading higher education facility in the United States and in the world. Also has gotten itself part of the political tribal fighting going on and we saw the former president basically ousted under that pressure in part. What do you think Harvard needs to do to be seen not just as the place that you want to go to university, but also as a place that is above the political fray?
Stephen Walt:
Well, because universities are islands of thought they're never going to be completely separate from the political fray. But I strongly believe in institutional neutrality, that the university should not be taking public positions on political issues that do not directly affect the university. So yes, we do have a public position on say, student visas. That's important for us. But we don't necessarily have a public position and shouldn't have a public position on the war in Ukraine or what to do about the Middle East or whether affirmative action was a good thing or not. Gay marriage maybe would be one that you'd say. It's not something where the university takes position. Individual faculty can say what they want and should, and they can disagree and they will, and they do. But the president of the university, the board of trustees, et cetera, they don't take a particular institutional position. I very much agree with that.
That doesn't mean the university won't be political and it won't be politicized as well. I think first of all, we need to reaffirm that, that our business is doing independent research and doing teaching, that we are open to a wide range of opinions, that we care about rigor and honesty and research. We can disagree. You can even be wrong. Scholars are wrong all the time. But they can't be dishonest. So we have very high standards and we're not advancing a particular agenda other than the pursuit of truth for the benefit of society as a whole.
Ian Bremmer:
So broader point before we close this down. State of democracy in the United States right now. What worries you most and where do you see the most structural strength and resilience?
Stephen Walt:
What worries me the most is the inability of a set of institutions that I would've thought 20 years ago were pretty rock solid to impede what looks to me like an authoritarian grab for power.
Ian Bremmer:
Are you talking about the judiciary?
Stephen Walt:
I'm talking about in part the judiciary.
Ian Bremmer:
Or Congress?
Stephen Walt:
And Congress and the fact that they've been willing to essentially suspend most of their checks and balances roles in recent years.
I am encouraged, unfortunately, by the degree to which opinion seems to be shifting as to whether or not the direction of the Trump administration is the right course for the country.
Ian Bremmer:
Specifically on trade at this point?
Stephen Walt:
Trade, one, economic effects.
Ian Bremmer:
Yeah.
Stephen Walt:
I think people are starting to be uncomfortable with the idea that we're gutting the engine of scientific progress that has driven American technological and scientific leadership for decades. That that's going to have consequences sooner rather than later. And I think people are nervous, not everybody, but people are nervous about turning what have been some of our closest friends in the world into adversaries or enemies. I mean, when you pick a fight with Canada, the greatest bit of geopolitical good fortune the United States ever had, having Canada as a neighbor. When you turn them into an adversary, that's not going to end well.
Ian Bremmer:
Steve Walt, always good to see you, my friend.
Stephen Walt:
Nice to see you. Take care.
U.S. President Donald Trump salutes as he attends the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, in Washington, D.C., U.S., on April 21, 2025.
HARD NUMBERS: Trump rolls real eggs, UAE seeks AI’s help, White House nixes safety jobs, South China Sea gets battle-tested, Gold rush, Senior US official robbed
30,000: Rising egg prices don’t seem to have hit the White House, as nearly 30,000 real eggs adorned the White House lawn Monday morning for the 147th annual Easter egg roll. Donald Trump paid tribute to Pope Francis, defended embattled US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and shared photos with the Easter bunny.
1: Hey ChatGPT, can you propose some new legislation for the United Arab Emirates? Yes, the Emirati nation plans to become the first country to harness the power of artificial intelligence to propose new legislation.
875: Out of the roughly 1,000 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Healthjobs, the Trump administration has cut 875 of them as part of its broader effort to slash the number of federal employees. This move could especially harm former coal miners – who often suffer from lung disease – as NIOSH has helped them find work outside the mines.
14,000: More than 14,000 American and Filipino soldiers – 9,000 from the US, 5,000 from the Philippines – are participating in a “full battle test” this year, amid mounting tensions in the South China Sea. The coordinated drill will also feature soldiers from Australia, Canada, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The exercise, which started on Monday, will run for three weeks.
$3,400: An age-gold problem: The price of gold surpassed $3,400 on Monday amid fears over the future of the global economy and concerns for the Federal Reserve’s independence. A year ago today, the price of gold was at $2,384.
$3,000: A thief swiped US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s bag while she was having dinner in Washington, DC, on Sunday night, taking her passport, makeup bag, checkbook, and $3,000 in cash. Police officers have not yet caught the thief, believed to be a white male.Graphic Truth: How much has Trump cut from the federal workforce?
Since returning to office in January, US President Donald Trump has brought sweeping reductions to the federal workforce, firing or otherwise facilitating the departures of more than 200,000 government employees. It’s a stark contrast from the start of his first administration, when firings were more limited to high-ranking officials.
This is all part of Trump’s attempt to improve government efficiency and slash costs, but there’s just one problem: Congress controls the purse, and only 4.3% of the government budget goes to federal employees anyway. What’s more, some of these workforce cuts have faced legal challenges. Just on Friday, a judge halted the removal of 1,500 jobs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
At other times, the president’s plans have won out in court. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court green-lighted the removal of 16,000 government workers who were on probation across a suite of federal agencies. Some staff have also been willing to go: Over 20,000 Internal Revenue Service officials — roughly one-fifth of the workforce — have accepted government buyouts.
Here’s a look at which departments and agencies have taken the brunt of Trump’s blows so far.