August 02, 2025
President Trump’s policies swiftly rewriting the rules of global trade. As the United States imposes tariffs on allies and adversaries alike, do we risk losing our edge? On the GZERO World Podcast, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria joins Ian Bremmer to discuss what happens when globalization’s biggest champion becomes its biggest critic. For the past 80 years, the United States has been the beating heart of the free trade movement, the country that forced all the other countries in the world to open their markets. But now, Washington is tearing up the economic playbook—levying historic tariffs and recasting the world as a high-stakes, winner-take-all, zero-sum game.
Zakaria says we are living through an age of backlash to 30 years of globalization and that the next 10 years will be a period of “slowbalization,” where we'll see a much slower pace of growth and a much more political economy. Bremmer and Zakaria break down America’s retreat from global leadership, shifting power dynamics between the US and China, European pressure to become more self-sufficient, and whether the Trump administration’s economic gamble is worth the risk.
“The United States has gone from the leading advocate of free trade to being the most protectionist advanced industrial country in the world,” Zakaria warns, “We’ve always invited competition from the world’s best. If we move to something else, I think we lose that edge.”
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published
More For You
- YouTube
As America Turns 250, Ian explains why the country's current divisions aren't as unprecedented as they may seem.
Most Popular
- YouTube
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer is returning to your screens this week, kicking off Season 9 in a summer of sweltering global tensions. The United States is celebrating its 250th birthday, a war has reshaped the Middle East, AI is forcing humanity to confront profound ethical choices, and democracies around the world are bracing for what comes next. Host Ian Bremmer is here to make sense of it all.
The US president still has most of his term left and no shortage of disruptive fervor. But the fallout of the Liberation Day tariffs and the Iran war show that his power is limited – and it will be for the rest of his term.
- YouTube
Bill Maher says Donald Trump has pushed the limits of presidential power, but America's system of checks and balances is still holding.
© 2025 GZERO Media. All Rights Reserved | A Eurasia Group media company.
