The Foreign Affairs Interview

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney may have made headlines when he described a “rupture” in global order in a speech at Davos last month. But long before that, policymakers and analysts had already been grappling with this unsettled—and unsettling—era in global politics. And the challenge has of course been especially great for American allies facing a very different Washington. 
 
President Alexander Stubb of Finland has become central both to navigating and to understanding this time of rupture. He has emerged as a leader who is particularly adept at managing the rift in the U.S.-European relationship, and at talking to Donald Trump, whether about Greenland or about golf. Yet even as he’s scrambled seemingly every week to avert a transatlantic crisis, Stubb has also gone out of his way to stress the long-term stakes of this moment—as he did in a recent Foreign Affairs essay. He warns that without significant changes, “the multilateral system as it exists will crumble,” and that “the alternatives are much worse: spheres of influence, chaos, and disorder.”
 
Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to Stubb on Tuesday, February 3 about geopolitical challenges from China and Russia to Ukraine and, of course, Greenland; about Trump and the future of alliances; and about what a true breakdown in global order would mean in the years ahead. 

You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

One of the big surprises of Donald Trump’s second term has been the change in his approach to China. His first term marked the start of what seemed to be a hard-line consensus in Washington. But in the past year, the drivers of Trump’s policy have been much harder to decipher—including for Chinese policymakers. Beijing was prepared to respond forcefully to tough U.S. measures, as it has, most prominently, by wielding its control over rare-earth metals. Yet it has also seen new opportunities to gain ground in its bid for global leadership, as Trump’s focus careens from Latin America to the Middle East to Greenland.

Jonathan Czin has spent his career decoding the power struggles and ideological debates inside the halls of power in Beijing. Now at the Brookings Institution, Czin long served as a top China analyst at the CIA before becoming director for China at the National Security Council. He sees Beijing’s year of aggressive diplomacy as a success, but with a lot of uncertainty about the months ahead. Xi Jinping faces a series of summits with Trump even as he grapples with economic challenges at home and a military that, if recent purges are any indication, is still not to his liking. Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with Czin about China’s approach to Trump 2.0; what to make of the military purges and other developments in Beijing; and the enduring nature of U.S.-Chinese rivalry, whatever the surprises in the short term.

You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

In the past year, Donald Trump has upended the global trading system and used American economic power like no president in recent memory. He’s imposed tariffs to force other countries to fall into line on commercial issues and geopolitical disputes—like this week’s threats against NATO partners over Greenland. He’s called into question the role of the dollar. And at home, he’s attacked the independence of the Federal Reserve and intervened in private-sector decision-making.

Lael Brainard served as director of the National Economic Council in the Biden administration and, before that, as vice chair of the Federal Reserve. Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to her not about the short-term consequences of Trump’s policies but about what they would mean for U.S. power and prosperity in the long term. Brainard has taken on that question in recent pieces for Foreign Affairs. In this conversation, she stressed not just the risks posed by Trump’s economic agenda but the bigger changes necessary to sustain American economic success into the future.

You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

At the end of December, protests erupted across Iran. The government has since cracked down hard with potentially thousands of Iranians killed. It now seems possible that the United States might intervene. Via social media, U.S. President Donald Trump has told Iranian protesters that “help is on the way.” We do not know yet what, if anything, Washington will do. But the repressive regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is being pushed to the brink after punishing years of war and sanctions. 

Few observers of Iranian politics have thought more deeply about the regime and its future than Karim Sadjadpour. He is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. And he is the author of a recent essay in Foreign Affairs in which he underlines the fragility of the Ayatollah’s regime and explores what might happen after its fall. 

Deputy Editor Kanishk Tharoor spoke to Sadjadpour on the morning of January 12 about the upheaval in Iran, the weakness and brutality of the regime, what U.S. intervention can and cannot achieve, and about what kind of political order might emerge in the coming years. 

You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

It was just a few days ago that, after months of saber-rattling by the Trump administration, U.S. forces raided Venezuela and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro. Already, Trump has suggested that the United States could “run” the country and has demanded a huge stake in Venezuela’s vast oil resources. Maduro, meanwhile, sits in a New York jail, awaiting his next court date in March.

But much remains unclear—about what happens in Venezuela with Maduro gone but his regime largely still in place; how his ouster affects the wider region; and what’s next as the Trump administration flexes its muscles in Latin America.

In this special two-part episode, Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke on the morning of Wednesday, January 7, with two experts on Venezuela seeking to make sense of the situation. First, Phil Gunson, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group who is based in Caracas, explores the dynamics within Venezuela and the prospects for the country’s new president, Delcy Rodríguez. Then, Juan S. Gonzalez, a longtime U.S. policymaker, including a recent stretch overseeing Latin America on the National Security Council, charts the history and near future of U.S. policy on Venezuela. Both make clear how difficult and dangerous the path ahead will be, for Venezuela and for the United States.

You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.