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President Donald Trump gives a thumbs up as he returns to the White House on Feb. 22, 2025.
Opinion: 100 days of promises kept
World leaders and the global audience are trying to adjust to so much change in such little time, but the dominant thread has been the surprises hidden in plain sight throughout these last three months.
Border security & budget cuts take center stage
At home, the administration immediately got to work on commitments made on the campaign trail and in the latest Republican platform. Atop the list was a mandate to reverse “open-border” immigration policies and secure the US frontier. In its “Protecting the American People against Invasion” presidential action, one of a flurry of Day 1 executive orders, Trump established the groundwork for a multipronged policy, which has included detentions and mass deportations, designating MS-13 a foreign terrorist organization, and court battles over the protected status of Venezuelan migrants as well as birthright citizenship. The approach has had a chilling effect on immigration, with southwest land-border encounters down more than 90% year-on-year, according to the latest March data.
Trump’s other major domestic campaign priorities, deregulation and reigning in federal spending, have spawned a similar pace of action. Elon Musk’s work overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency has come to symbolize how the contours and shape of the US federal government have been redrawn. Last week’s announcement by Secretary of State Marco Rubio that his department will also be overhauled – reducing jobs, shuttering “redundant” offices, and reprioritizing departmental focus – is just the latest example of a campaign throughline to reevaluate federal government spending and structure. The news comes as local governments and populations are still adapting to the shuttering of USAID, a key lever of US soft power abroad.
On domestic policy, there have been few surprises. Trump’s 2024 campaign commitments have become Trump 2.0 administration policy. Despite efforts last fall by the Trump campaign to distance itself from Project 2025, co-author Russell Vought’s selection to lead the Office of Management and Budget was a clear and present signal to all market players of how expansively the plans currently unfolding had been laid.
Remaking America’s role abroad
Turning to the global stage, Trump 2.0’s America First foreign policy has not been the “Make America Great Again” isolationism of Trump 1.0. Instead, from Canada to Mexico, Greenland, and Yemen, no stone is being left unconsidered or unturned. Global expectations set by the first Trump administration that foreign policy would only play second fiddle to a brighter spotlight on the domestic agenda are being updated. Trump has begun to remake America’s role in the world in his image, sowing a geopolitical unsettling but being transparent about the administration’s intentions – as peacemakers and trade disrupters.
As a would-be peacemaker, the president had hoped to bring an efficient closure to the war in Ukraine, an ambition welcomed by those sitting in European capitals. He committed initially to ending the conflict on his first day in office but later extended the timeline to within six months. Last week’s decision by lead attaché Steve Witkoff and Rubio to pull out of peace talks in London is telling. With remaining wide gulfs between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Trump (even after their 15-minute tête-à-tête at the pope’s funeral this weekend), and likewise, between Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the US administration is quickly discovering that intractability is in the details. European leadership has yet to identify an offramp to the conflict that does not include the US administration’s stewardship.
As a quick resolution does not appear imminent, the Trump administration may soon look to quietly back out and close the door on its peace negotiation efforts. Rubio acknowledged as much over the weekend, saying that “we cannot continue … to dedicate time and resources to this effort if it is not going to come to fruition.”
Any reduction in attention on Ukraine and Europe would almost certainly coincide with a ramp-up toward the Middle East, where the administration has historically had more success (e.g. Trump 1.0’s Abraham Accords).
While being a peacemaker remains a work in progress, the president has exceeded expectations as a trade disrupter over the first 100 days. Despite Trump’s constant refrain of tariffs and a four-decade commitment to seeing the US not get “ripped off,” the markets and global leadership still held their breath for a targeted, gradual installation of levies. Instead, April 2, aka “Liberation Day,” introduced the world to one man’s concept of “kind reciprocity,” a benign phrase that has the potential to reshape the global trading system, financial markets, and international relationships.
The accompanying executive order provided for a 10% flat tariff on all trading partners, which went into effect earlier this month. The additional “discounted” reciprocal tariff rates to be imposed on certain trading partners were postponed for 90 days until July 9 for all except the People’s Republic of China. In the intervening weeks, markets have wobbled but are holding onto hope.
The dominant question now is what lies ahead for the next 100 days and beyond. As the “Liberation Day” announcements and maneuvers clarify, there will be more volatility to come. Even with the policy priorities and details beginning to be filled in, this is not the finishing line; it is merely the starting gun. Trump has 90% of the race still to run.
Still, the Trump administration will be pleased with the scorecard of promises kept thus far. It has planted seeds across the domestic and global landscape and will now step back to watch the garden grow. On trade, the ambition is 90 deals in 90 days. And with it, Trump assumes his most preferred role: dealmaker-in-chief.
Lindsay Newman is a geopolitical risk expert and columnist for GZERO.
US President Donald Trump returns to the White House from his New Jersey golf club to Washington, DC, on April 27, 2024.
Viewpoint: How strong is Trump’s support 100 days in?
President Donald Trump has claimed a broad mandate to pursue sweeping changes to US institutions and policies since he took office on Jan. 20. He has sought to overhaul the federal government by closing agencies and cutting thousands of jobs, restructure the economy by throwing up a tariff wall to force companies to base more of their operations in the US, reconfigure decades-old foreign alliances, and assert expansive powers in an illegal immigration crackdown.
With a cohesive team in the White House, Republican control of Congress, and a disoriented Democratic opposition, Trump has pushed ahead rapidly on many fronts. But opinion polls in recent weeks have shown a sharp decline in public support for the president, and the courts, financial markets, and other institutions have started curbing his actions. Eurasia Group’s Clayton Allen and Noah Daponte-Smith explain their shared insights on where things are likely to go from here.
What is your assessment of the strength of Trump’s starting position? Was it a “historic mandate,” as he has said? And where does he stand today?
Trump’s popular vote win last November gave him a mandate — not the historic romp that he claimed, but a clear signal from voters that they wanted to buy what he was selling. A hundred days in, a lot of voters are suffering buyer’s remorse. It’s been a rough 100 days, almost all self-imposed: The US economy is headed for much lower growth, if not contraction; negotiations are moving slower than the expectations Trump set for the Ukraine war and Gaza; and national polling shows Trump underwater in overall approval, his handling of the economy, management of foreign policy, inflation, even immigration in some polling.
In the Silver Bulletin polling average, Trump had a 52% approval rating (with +12 net approval) on Jan. 21. His approval has since declined to 44%, with a -9 net approval.
The big question for Trump is if, or when, the negative views on the economy and general exhaustion with volatility begin to weigh on his GOP support. His approval among GOP voters is still robust in the mid-80s, but it is showing signs of weakening on the issues. A Gallup poll over the weekend, for example, found that 36% of Republicans believe that tariffs — one of the administration’s headline policies — will “end up costing the US more money than they bring in.”
What signs of Trump’s support will you be focusing on in the months ahead?
Two things – Trump’s approval ratings on the economy and his approval ratings among Republicans. Economic performance polling is a traditional source of strength for Trump, but the economy is where he has shown his sharpest and most notable decline, largely stemming from the tariff rollout. According to the Economist/YouGov survey, Trump’s net approval on the economy was -5.8% as of last week. That is lower than at any point in his first term when he reached a nadir of a net -2%. If Trump is losing support on one of his traditionally strongest issues, that suggests he will be somewhat politically weakened in the latter half of 2025 and beyond.
Trump’s approval ratings among Republicans will be another key sign to watch. The president’s ability to command an unruly Republican conference in Congress depends in large part on his unquestioned popularity within the party. So far, that has held up: He’s still above in the mid-80s% approval among Republicans. But if that dips below 80%, Trump may no longer appear the invincible figure in the party that he does today.
What do you see as the biggest risks for Trump and his ability to advance his agenda?
Recession, market blowback, and the courts. After a big sell-off in early April, markets have stabilized somewhat following Trump’s decision to pause some of his most expansive tariff measures. But with no imminent trade deals on the horizon to clarify tariff levels, one wonders how long that confidence can hold. Similarly, a recession – beginning in the second half of the year, or potentially backdated to the first – would severely disrupt his tax cuts-and-tariffs agenda.
The courts are the biggest source of procedural risk for Trump, especially on the deportation of illegal immigrants and the spending cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. We have already seen strong pushback from the courts in both areas. That pushback may extend to tariffs as well, with court cases in the pipeline over the legality of the emergency authorities claimed to enact them. In all these areas, the courts’ skeptical postures toward the Trump administration’s more disruptive actions will be a major source of conflict between the branches of government over the next year.
How do you think Trump will react if some of these risks materialize? Change approach? Lash out against institutional checks on his power?
Lashing out against institutional checks is more likely. A Trump who can no longer marshal the Republican congressional conference at his will probably seek to expand executive power so that he can act without Congress. Key members of the administration have already pointed in that direction. Even with Musk poised to scale back his involvement with DOGE, the administration is claiming broad powers to reshape the federal government under the so-called unitary executive theory. Similarly, pushback from the courts will likely lead Trump to further test the exact bounds of the courts’ power, as in his moves to skirt rulings related to deported immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s case. And if an economic downturn materializes, Trump will likely blame it on the policies of the Federal Reserve and its Chairman Jerome Powell.
Edited by Jonathan House, senior editor at Eurasia Group.
Ian Bremmer on Trump's first 100 days
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: It is a hundred days of President Trump's second administration. How's he doing? And the answer is not so well, certainly not if you look at the polls. Worst numbers for first a hundred days of any president since they've been taking those polls. Markets, of course, down, global economy also down, so much of this self-imposed. And it's not the big-picture policy ideas. The things that Trump says he wants to do are not only popular, but they're also sensible policy: end wars, secure the border, and fair trade. Running on those three planks would work for pretty much anyone in the United States, the things that Trump is committed to, the things that previous administrations, including Biden and the promise of Harris, had not been particularly effective at. But the implementation has been abysmal. The lack of interest in policy specifics, lack of ability to effectively execute, and the dysfunction inside the Trump team/teams, economy, national security has been really challenging.
Tariffs, of course, so far have been the big problem, big internal fight on what it was that Trump should do and for what purpose. In terms of the purpose of these tariffs, you had so many ideas, and a lot of them were mutually contradictory. You're meant to raise revenue and lower taxes and reshore manufacturing and balance deficits and decouple from China and improve national security and on and on and on. These tariffs were going to be a panacea for absolutely everything, and you can't accomplish all of it. And that means that all of the fights that are going on, these countries don't know what the Trump administration actually wants. Bessent, the secretary of treasury, came in with one idea, and Peter Navarro, who initially won, came in with a second, the senior trade advisor in the White House, and Lutnick sort of had a third, and now Bessent is in charge for now, nominative.
Of course, Trump is really in charge, and Trump isn't interested in the specifics. He just wants deals. He wants wins. And he's saying, "Well, you guys, you other countries, you tell us what you're going to do. Well, it's not our job to tell you what we want, even though we're the ones that are expecting these deals to come together." And of course, it's happening with the Americans picking fights with all of these countries, literally everybody in the world simultaneously. And the impact that's going to have on the American economy is going to be dramatic. It's going to be long-lasting. It'll be, in many ways, as big as the pandemic, but completely self-imposed.
And even if deals were put together tomorrow, and they won't be, with the Europeans, with the Mexicans and Canadians, with the Chinese in particular, you'd already have a massive long-term disruption because the supply chains, the tankers, the contracts have already been severed for a period of time. And every day this goes on is a day that it's going to get worse. So that's going to lead to a lot of inflation in the United States, going to lead to a lot of bankruptcies and need for stimulus in other countries around the world, and the average voter's not going to be happy about that at all, which does help to explain why they did Liberation Day the day after elections in the US, special elections in Wisconsin and Florida and elsewhere.
Ending wars, Gaza did have a ceasefire early on, but not now. And now Trump is planning his trip to the Gulf and doesn't have Israel on the schedule, at least not yet, because there's more fighting happening between the Israeli Defense Forces and what's left of Hamas. And that fighting is not something Trump wants to see. Let's see how successful he is at bringing it to a ceasefire.
More important for everyone right now in the United States is the Russia-Ukraine War. The Americans are pushing to end that war, and Trump has had some success in getting the Ukrainians to the table because they understand that the or else is their intelligence and defense support from the US will be shut down, as it was suspended, so they're taking it very seriously. But the Russians are not because Trump has not displayed much of an or else for the Russians, hasn't said directly that if Russia refuses to do a ceasefire, that the US will provide more support for Ukraine, even though Trump advisors were saying that before he became president, has said, "Well, maybe there'll be secondary sanctions." But Trump is not making this very serious for Putin, and so Putin isn't taking it very seriously. Nobody thought he was really going to end the war in a day, but it's been a couple of months of effort, and clearly now Trump and team are losing patience and it's looking increasingly that they might walk away, which is why they're engaging with the Iranians and why, heck, Kim Jong Un probably is going to get a call at some point, right? Because Russia-Ukraine not working so well. So much for ending those wars.
And then on the border front, where Trump is having much more success in terms of policy, you don't see illegal immigrants coming into the US at anywhere close to the numbers they were under Biden or during Trump first term, and that has been a response to effective US policy. But there's also been overreach in terms of refusal to carry out the rulings of federal justices and even the Supreme Court, and that overreach is something that most Americans oppose. So even in the area where Trump is doing the best, his numbers are actually not as favorable as you might otherwise expect because of the dysfunction and because of the overreach of a more revolutionary Trump orientation.
Look, even DOGE, where I was kind of hoping in the early days that DOGE was certainly going to be effective at taking a lot of the corruption and the overspending out of the US government, but much less has been done on that front. There's been lots of claims of fraud, but very little evidence of actual fraud. There's been lots of claims that they were going to take two trillion, then one trillion, then maybe 150 billion, and now looks like less of that with Elon in charge of DOGE. And the focus that they have had has been much more politicized, much more ideological. Anything that looks like DEI or woke, let's just remove all of it and not necessarily do it with a scalpel, but more with a sledgehammer or a chainsaw, which means a lot of important programs get caught up, along with programs that no Americans should be funding.
And so overall, it's been a very challenging first hundred days. This is very much a move fast and break things approach. They are moving very fast. They are breaking a lot of things. There's not a lot of building, at least not yet. And a lot of Americans, while they feel that their government is inefficient and bloated, very few Americans want to see the government be broken further than it already is and less effective than it is, and that is so far what people are seeing. They're seeing it at home and they're seeing it internationally.
And they're not seeing a lot of restraint, even as mistakes are made, not only because Trump is never going to admit to have made any mistakes, of course that is something that you see from pretty much every president, but also, unlike most presidents, he's surrounded by people that don't tell him when he gets things wrong. And that is very different from Trump's first term, and that's a problem because you want to have people, irrespective of how loyal they are to you, you want them to be loyal first and foremost to the country. But Trump doesn't want that. He wants them loyal to him before they're loyal to the country, and that means not giving him information when he screws up because he will retaliate against them. And that's going to get you negative outcomes, I think, not just for the first a hundred days, but also for a much longer period of time in the United States and internationally. I hope I'm wrong. I certainly want to see him succeed, I want to see the country succeed, but that is not the trajectory that we are now on.
That's it for me, and I'll talk to y'all real soon.
President Donald Trump raises a fist during a ceremony where he signs two executive orders that will lead to reciprocal tariffs against other countries that charge tariffs on US goods.
Is Donald Trump’s foreign policy … working?
What’s the old line about there being decades where nothing happens and weeks where decades happen?
Quoting Vladimir Lenin may not be the wisest move in today’s America, but it’s an apt description of the (second) first 100 days of Donald Trump’s foreign policy.
In barely three months, he’s bashed America’s closest European allies, spooked NATO into worrying about its survival, taken a chainsaw to US foreign aid programs, pulled the rug out from under Ukraine, threatened to expand US territory for the first time since the 19th century, and started a global trade war that’s pushed protectionism to its highest levels since the Great Depression.
Not bad for 100 days! But is there a method to what seems – to horrified defenders of the “US-led world order” – like so much madness? “Method” is a risky word to use with a figure as famously capricious as Trump, but there are a few basic aspects of his worldview and commitment to “America First” that are consistent and worth understanding.
No new friends (also no old friends)
First, Trump believes that the world is a place where all countries are just trying to “screw” each other. This is true not only of adversaries but, especially, of allies. (Tell me you’re a New York real estate developer without telling me you’re a New York real estate developer.)
The mutual screwing occurs in an endless chain of zero-sum transactions between countries in which hard power and cold cash are all that matters. Deficits or defense umbrellas are ripoffs. Alliances based on “values” are silly. Soft power is a useless conceit, a virtue signal, a kind of “Geopolitical wokism.”
It’s a (multipolar) jungle out there
Second, there are various great powers in this world, and each has its own sphere of influence. The largest of these are the US and its chief rival China, but Russia is up there as well. You do not, in Trump’s view, mess with another power’s sphere of influence, and you do not waste time trying to win over countries of marginal economic or strategic value beyond your neighborhood. You put your country, to borrow a phrase Trump uses a lot, “first.”
Once you grasp that, for Trump, the world is a transactional and increasingly multipolar jungle, it actually explains a lot about his foreign policy.
It tells you why he doesn’t seem to care that much about Ukraine (he sees it as Russia’s sphere) or Taiwan (ditto for China) or why he’s OK slashing foreign aid (soft power is silly). It explains why he wants a piece of Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal (all have immense strategic and economic value within Washington’s own sphere of influence, especially if conflict is coming with other powers.) And of course, it tells you why he loves to love tariffs – a crude but effective tool for unleashing America’s immense economic power
Hard power dreams, soft power missteps
All of this is a big rupture with the longstanding idea that the US, as a hegemon, gets more than it gives by providing security, market access, or development assistance to vast parts of the world.
But taken on its own terms, is Trump’s foreign policy ... working? The evidence is mixed. Many of his objectives – restore America’s lost manufacturing capacity, confront China, and force Europe to carry its share of the defense burden – can make sense on their own. But, taken together, the overall policy is still a mess of conflicting impulses.
Trump wants to isolate and pressure China, but he’s simultaneously wrecking relations with Europe, Washington’s most natural ally against Beijing. He wants to maintain technological supremacy over China, but his immigration and education policies are scaring the world’s best minds away from America.
He wants to use tariffs to restore manufacturing – which, by definition, almost requires leaving them in place for a long time. But he also wants to use them to extract tactical concessions on trade and defense – which means not leaving them in place for a long time. Which is it?
And while he is right to force the West to confront the problems of Biden’s well-intentioned but poorly defined Ukraine policy, his pledge to end the war “within 24 hours” is already 2,376 hours overdue. Browbeating Ukraine while pleading with Vladimir Putin on social media is not exactly a foreign policy to be reckoned with.
It’s still early days to be sure. But whether the decades that have happened in these 100 days are a real revolution against the long-established order of US foreign policy, or a a tangle of disruptive but ultimately confused impulses remains to be seen.
Graphic Truth: Is Trump’s use of executive orders unprecedented?
All presidents rely on executive orders, but in his second first 100 days in office, Donald Trump has taken it to a whole new level. He has issued 137 executive orders so far — more than triple the 41 Joe Biden signed during the same period, and far surpassing the pace of Trump’s own first term in 2017.
Executive orders are an efficient tool to deliver on “first 100 days” campaign promises (check out this article on where five of Trump’s biggest campaign promises stand). While they offer an immediate way to shape policy, they’re also notoriously fragile — easily reversed by future administrations, as seen on Trump’s first day in office, when he issued 26 executive orders and overturned 78 of Biden’s.
Critics warn that Trump’s flood of orders isn’t just about speed; it’s also raising serious concerns about presidential overreach. Many fear he is using executive actions to bypass Congress altogether and, in some cases, is ignoring Supreme Court rulings instructing him to stop.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.
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.
Trump’s inaction on wrongful deportation may spark constitutional crisis
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
If the US won't work to return a wrongly deported man to El Salvador despite a Supreme Court ruling, are we headed towards a constitutional crisis?
It certainly appears that way, and I think this is the constitutional crisis that the Trump administration would love to have. Because wrongfully deporting someone without evidence who is in the country illegally and therefore guilty of a misdemeanor, but sending them to a max security prison, which the Supreme Court says you shouldn't do, but now is in another country. Very few Americans are sympathetic to the case of this person. And indeed, Trump won on the basis in part of being sick and tired of allowing illegal immigrants to spend enormous amounts of time in the United States without recourse.
So he's breaking the law here. He's flouting independent judiciary and their decision-making, but he's doing it on an issue that most Americans have no sympathy on the other side. So the Democrats would have to be very wary of making this a hill they want to die on, and Trump knows exactly what he's doing. It is pretty impressive playbook for undermining rule of law and checks and balances on an increasingly authoritarian leaning executive. That's where we are.
Trump claims China-Vietnam talks are intended to "screw" the US. Does this run the risk of pushing Vietnam to China?
Certainly, most Vietnamese now are more well-disposed towards China than the US. First time we've seen that since the war. It's not true across Southeast Asia. Philippines, about 80% still pro-US, not pro-China. But it is a problem, and Xi Jinping understands that. And that's why he went in and was received directly by the president as opposed to the prime minister last time who met him at the airport. 45 big deals that they're signing on trying to improve economic coordination. Clearly a bit of a surprise to Trump, just as the direct retaliation from the Chinese, even though the Americans warned them, "Negotiate, don't retaliate." But that's exactly what China did, and Trump frankly should have expected that was coming. Now he looks a little bit weaker in the way he's backing down and creating exemptions for a lot of people in this space.
Saudi Arabia plans to pay off Syria's World Bank debt. Could this be a major turning point for Syria's future and its ties with regional allies?
It certainly helps. We've also seen the Qataris already say they're going to offer gas through Jordan into Syria. I think that this is all promising. The Saudis were never going to do that, provide any support as long as Assad was in place. Now they are. The Americans are pulling troops out, and Turkey is going to be the most important country on the ground. But economically, it's going to be the Gulf States, and that gives this new Syrian regime a better chance to succeed. Something we all clearly are rooting for in terms of one of the places that we'd like to see a little more stability from. Anyway, that's it for me, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
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