The Munk Debates Podcast - Ian Bremmer on growing civil unrest and the future of the global economy after COVID-19

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

On this episode of the Munk Debates Podcast, political scientist Ian Bremmer on rising U.S.-China tensions, the global economy, and growing civil unrest in the U.S. and around the world.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Monk Debates podcast. Every episode, we normally provide you with a civil and substantive debate on the big issues of the day. But our world as we know it has changed, and so has our format for the next few weeks. We're bringing you a special series called The Monk Dialogues. We invite the sharpest minds and brightest thinkers for one-on-one conversations live on Facebook to reflect on what our world will look like after the COVID. COVID-19 pandemic. These dialogues provide you, the listener, with original insights into the pandemic's impact on everything from our shared values to the economy to international affairs. This week, we bring you political scientist and best-selling author Ian Bremmer in conversation with Redyard Griffiths. This is an edited version of the live event recorded Wednesday, June 3rd. Hello and welcome to the Monk Dialogues.

a project of the Peter and Melody Monk Charitable Foundation, proudly sponsored by our partners, Gluskin Chef, and the Onyx Corporation. My name is Rudyard Griffith, and I have the pleasure of acting as your host and moderator for these monk dialogues. We've been added now for eight weeks, joining you each either Wednesday or Thursday night of the week for a one-hour conversation about the world after COVID-19. Tonight, we're going to have a monk dialogue that I've been looking forward to for weeks. Our guest is, in my view, one of the world's finest thinkers on geopolitics, on risk, on the big issues and ideas that we need to contemplate in our society and in our international community today.

His name is Ian Bremmer. He trained as a political scientist. He's a founder and president of the Eurasia Group, one of the world's leading risk analysis firms. He's a New York Times best-selling author. You know his books. I certainly have enjoyed them. And he's the host of a great website, GZero World with Ian Bremmer. It's a really interesting media product, much like this one tonight that we're going to enjoy.

So, Ian, welcome back, a former monk debater. It's always great to have the opportunity to speak with you, my friend. Yeah, it's good to be back. Good to be with you, Matt. I think, Ian, we have to dive in with the big news of this last week, which are the protests. that have rocked the United States. And as someone who is really thinking a lot about risk, what do these protests tell you about the risks

that America faces right now, that American society faces in terms of economic inequality, the specter of mass unemployment, and the risk of an election, a very divisive election that your country will have this autumn? Give us a sense of where your heads at and thinking about these protests in the context of this pandemic

and what it's telling us about ourselves and about our society. Well, you might be surprised that the first thing I'm gonna say to respond to that is the riots show you just how strong, how deep, and how resilient American political institutions are. And that's true, even when it's very clear that they no longer serve a lot of Americans,

the way they're supposed to. I mean, we've known about massive and growing structural inequality in the United States and black Americans in particular on the short end of that stick. We've known about it for decades. America's been growing pretty strongly, and yet since 1976, since our bicentennial, working in middle class wages have been flat. And African Americans in particular are seeing the highest incarceration rates in the country that already leads the world tables among advanced industrial democracies on that, have the highest

unemployment rates, have the worst health care, have the worst experiencing with policing and with the legal system. And also, now you have this pandemic. And so take all of that, which is a massive amount of Tinder, and then light a spark. And in this case, the spark happened to be a man who was brutally murdered, being filmed nine minutes, asphyxiated, and no one does anything to the cops, one that kills them, three that are there and don't stop it from happening, until violent protests occur to force the action of the state. This is not a surprise. The question is whether or not this time the crises that we're experiencing are big enough to actually move the needle to solve some of these problems or to start to solve

some of these problems. One of the reoccurring questions that we've had asked in these dialogues with the last number of weeks has just been about the pressure that this pandemic has put on democracies writ large, that institutions have been tested. many of them have been found wanting. Do you have concerns here about what kind of looks like in an emerging kind of conflict that we could think about in the future between the democracies of the West in the shadow of COVID versus the autocracies like China who have done a remarkable job seemingly to suppress this virus,

to maintain social order and to project their power internationally? What is your feeling about the matchup of democracy versus autocracy in the post-COVID era? Well, one thing I would say is that 10 years ago, technology and its development was really helping liberal democracies and hurting authoritarian regimes. It was all about the communication revolution and getting information to people. It was a threat to North Korea. That's why they had to keep information out. It was a threat to China. That's why they had the great firewall.

And it's also why you got the Arab Springs, you know, why you got the Rose Revolution, the Orange Revolution in the former Soviet States. Today, technology is much more about surveillance. It's much more about big data. It actually empowers authoritarianism, while in my society and in Canada, you actually have social media and other information. that is being driven mostly by getting clicks and advertising and a business model that has nothing to do with civil society, a business model that's maximizing profit, and civil society is an unintended casualty. And so that's a really big change that helps authoritarian states and hurts democracies.

And there's a second one. And that is we are moving into an environment where I fear much more than free trade moved labor into the emerging markets and grew a global middle class, but at the expense of a lot of middle class in the wealthy countries. You're now moving in a technological innovation age that an awful lot of people are going to have their jobs automated away. And that's going to be sped up by coronavirus very dramatically because the tech and the digital economy, the virtual economy, are the big winners. That's how we're doing this event. We can't have one in person. That's how Amazon is delivering your stuff. You can't get to the stores. A lot of them have been closed. A lot of them aren't coming back. That also means that you're going to have, I think, structurally much less than full employment in democracies, in advanced industrial democracies.

And our government doesn't guarantee full employment. And we don't have universal basis. income. Instead, I mean, we've got creative destruction. If a company falls apart, that means better, more productive companies come along. But what happens to the people when workers, labor, and capital become unmoored from each other? Well, the Chinese system, which believe me, I am not suggesting that I would prefer to live under that I think is objectively better system, but the Chinese system actually does try to ensure full employment, even if it's really inefficient. They don't care. That's what state capitalism is all about.

We will put capital into inefficient organizations to make sure that people are employed. So I think you have these two really huge structural changes, both of which are driven by technology, just in the last 10 years, that have, frankly, strengthened authoritarian states and weakened civil society and democracies. Now, believe me, I don't think that the United States or Canada or any of the advanced industrial democracies are about to fail or collapse or even turn authoritarian. And we can certainly talk about that in the United States if you want. But I do think that for other countries, poorer countries that are in the balance right now and are thinking about what direction they want ahead, a country like India, a country like Brazil, a country like Turkey,

increasingly, the authoritarian model is seeming more attractive to them, especially because the United States is certainly not leading by example right now, either domestically or internationally. And I think the coronavirus crisis and everything around it, both on the health side, on the economic side and on the social dissent side, is accelerating that trend, experiencing 10 years of change over the course of 18 months. Wow, Ian, these are really interesting insights. So let's just play this out a little bit because you're painting, I think, a picture that intuitively a lot of us are feeling through the lived experience that we're all sharing right now,

which is that something big has happened, that there are going to be some really significant changes, that we could be looking at long-term structural unemployment. And we're going into that reality in with these profound inequality, in our society, inequalities of wealth, inequalities of race. This pandemic has hurt. It's literally killed more people who are African American, Hispanic, who are visible racial minorities. This virus has had a racialized component to it. What does that make you think about the future of democracies like Canada, the United States? I know there's significant differences there, but maybe focus more on the U.S. because that is your home.

What does that make you think about the ability of American civil society to hold together through this period of automization, high unemployment, and then these pre-pandemic fractures that are running deep through the U.S. body politic? Well, I mean, this is the biggest, most destructive crisis of our lifetimes. You've got a massive pandemic. You have an economic recession much bigger. in the Great Recession, so let's call it a depression, even though it's not going to have the scale of the Great Depression. And you have these riots across the country that could expand more broadly than that,

there's no question that that is going to create much more inequality. That is going to create much more hardship on the back of those working in middle classes, many of whom are going to lose their jobs and they won't come back anytime soon. I mean, 25% unemployment, I don't think we're going higher than that in U.S. And I think we'll bounce back from it very quickly. But bouncing back from it is very different from getting the economy back to where it was. And until we have a vaccine that works and is rolled out across our country, and there are a lot of ifs there, and that's going to take a long time. Until we have that, we are not getting back to everybody going to restaurants, everybody getting on planes, everybody going back to work. That's just not going to happen.

And I don't know that our government is going to be able to continue to provide the kind of relief and stimulus for the next two to three years that they have been able to for the first three months of this crisis. And I also think a lot of corporations are going to be feeling a great deal of hardship and they're going to let a lot of people go. So this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. I mean, you look at where the markets are right now. I am considerably more pessimistic about the economic future of the country and the world than where the markets are right now. But I also think there is a real chance that this could be a Goldilocks crisis. In other words, a crisis that is finally big enough to get us to reform some of the institutions

that we have that are broken. And the 2008 financial crisis wasn't big enough. By 2009, 2010, the economy was getting back to normal. Obama didn't have to worry about infrastructure. He could go back to health care, which is what he wanted to do to begin with. You didn't have to address the fundamental structural inequalities because Occupy Wall Street wasn't a powerful force. It wasn't a big enough crisis. I mean, there's plenty big for those of us to live through at the time and said,

holy crap, we don't want a great recession to become a depression. But it wasn't big enough to deal with these longstanding structural problems. That's why you got Trump. That's why you got Bernie Sanders. That's why you've got Brexit. That's why Canada's is divided as it is right now. Nowhere near as bad as the U.S., but still much more divided than it used to be. I mean, how could Trudeau not pick up a scene in Alberta?

You get incredible divisions, right, inside countries that have been working pretty well. And it's not just domestically. It's internationally too. If you wanted to create an alliance today that would work for the 20, global environment. You wouldn't create NATO. It wouldn't be focused on conventional weapons and nukes. It wouldn't be focused on the East Block and Russia. It'd be focused on China. Japan would be in it. South Korea would be in it. Germany, Australia, Canada, France, the UK, probably not Italy, certainly not the East Europeans or Turkey. It would be focused on technology,

on cyber, on 5G, and it'd be focused on economics of IP and things like that in supply chain, and let's say pharmaceutical and PPE supply chain, and maybe even labor. It would literally look nothing like NATO today. And when you think about all of our institutions, both international and domestically, the fact is that today's environment has changed a lot, but the institutions haven't. So the whole rugged is that this crisis, as it evolves over the next three years, both domestically within our societies as well as geopolitically across the whole world, will prove big enough that it will force us to address some of these underlying issues and truly reform our domestic institutions and our international architecture. That's a lot to hope for, but you and I both know that we get very little from human beings, we're not challenged when things are fine.

We don't address these structural issues. It's good enough. This G-Zero world I talk about, the absence of global leadership. You know, you and I have been talking about this for a decade now, but it didn't matter to many people because we didn't have a crisis. Well, now we have a crisis. Now I'm saying, oh, my God, is it a new global order? Is there no ludicship?

Like, where have you been? Of course this has been coming. We knew about structural inequality in the U.S. Isn't new? But now it's scaring people a little. And it's become more fundamental. So we're going to need to step it up. We're going to need to address it. Yeah, and that's why I love talking with you because you shake it up. And just the idea that, you know, replace NATO with, as you say, an alliance of states to counteract China focused on IP and cyber. This is brilliant stuff. Let's hope that this happens. Before we go to audience questions, one final thing to put to you, because you really were way ahead of your peers on this in prognosticating, as you said, a decade ago,

that globalization was under really acute threat. People have now caught up to your analysis, and in this crisis, there is a view that this is the end of globalization, as we've known it through our adult lives. Where is your thinking on this? Because this is something that you've kind of led on intellectually now for the last decade. Well, let's be clear. There are some parts of globalization that aren't ending.

in fact, they're speeding up. If I think about the global energy market, vastly more decentralized than it was before, I mean, the Saudis and the Russians waged a war against each other and the Americans, precisely because OPEC is dead, because the Americans are the largest energy producer in the world right now, which the Canadians are very well aware of. And the energy market, energy prices are lower because the market has become more globalized, not less, and I don't think that's going to change. But if you look at technology,

which, you know, was the World Wide Web. It was everybody all over the world being able to log in and connect with each other. Well, actually, that is splitting literally into a technology Cold War with 5G, not just our smartphones, but the entire Internet of things, everything with a chip in it, our homes, our smart watches, our biometric data, smart cities, are going. to be either on a Chinese system or they're going to be on a Western system led mostly by the United States. That not only fragments a big part of the global economy in two, because if you build a port, you know, if China through Belt and Row builds a port, they might have more

influence over the country because of the terms of the loan, but anyone can use the port, right? Canadian ships, American ships, anyone can use the port, anyone can get wealthy from the port. If you have two different tech systems, two different sets of big data and the cloud and AI and 5G, you're using one or the other. And that means not only things like the filter of products that you see, but also who surveils you, collects your data, monetizes it, how, the future of digital currency. That's the most advanced piece of the 2020 economy. It's becoming much more strategic and structural.

and it's breaking into two. Mark Zuckerberg learned how to speak Mandarin and even asked Xi Jinping personally if he had a suggestion for a symbolic name to give to his newborn baby, which is a level of ass kissing that one doesn't usually see publicly from a major CEO,

and she said, no, I'm not going to do that. In the last month, Mark Zuckerberg has actually said to the U.S. government and publicly, we need to do something about China because we can't get access. We'll never get in. We're having a fight with the Chinese. It's radically different.

And then in between technology and stuff you take out of the ground, you've got all of these goods and services. And goods and services, we've got it just in time supply chain, right? I mean, you don't need warehousing. You don't need lots of logistics. You just need the fastest possible, smoothest possible global supply chain. And that means you can make everything out of China and developing markets because labor there is cheaper. Well, we are moving away. from that for lots of reasons. One, the labor's gotten more expensive. Two, you don't need a lot of the labor

because you can gigify it or you can displace it, particularly with AI and deep learning. Number three, the Chinese have not adapted to American or Western rules on rule of law or an independent judiciary and their companies have gotten a lot stronger and more competitive. So we're having a harder time working there. Number four, we're having a huge fight with the Chinese and interlinkages are going to become reduced. And number five, on the back of this crisis, you're going to see an enormous amount of stimulus to companies coming from taxpayers who are going to say, hey, you want that money, you move the capital and the labor back to our home country. So I do think that a lot of the movement towards globalization, which created incredible economic

growth and efficiency, even though it was not at all efficiently distributed, or equally distributed is now going to unwind. We hit a real change in trajectory. It's structural. And that is going to cost us a lot of money. It means a less efficient global economy. It means whatever your level of growth, there's more risk around it. And growth levels will be lower globally. And it also means that the likelihood of a fight between the United States and China's growing. By the way, Roger, it also means I'm probably betting less on the Chinese going forward. because if there's a fight between the U.S. and China on tech, I know where the Canadians are going. You've got no choice.

I know where the Japanese are going with their security umbrella. They've got no choice. I know where the U.K. is going. Australia. I think I even know where the Germans and French are going, though they aren't as happy about it. Germans have switched recently on contact tracing towards Apple and Google, they flip. They'll be on the American side, which means the Americans get the rich countries, and the Chinese have all of these countries that are massively indebted to China.

but probably they're not in a position to pay off their debt. I'm not sure I'm betting as much on the Chinese portfolio domestically or internationally coming out of this crisis as a consequence of the unwinded globalization. I mean, America benefited mightily from globalization, but there would not be a global middle class in China if it wasn't for globalization. If you're unwinding that, they've got a big consumer base,

but they've also got big problems. You're listening to a special series of the, Monk Debates podcast, The Monk Dialogues, featuring Ian Bremmer. If you're enjoying this dialogue, visit monkdebates.com slash dialogues to find out about upcoming speakers and topics in this new monk debate series. Thoughtful conversation on how COVID-19 will change our world, all at monkdebates.com. Let's go to another question because there were a lot of them for you, Ian. And the next step is from Amir asking the COVID-19 experience shows the West cannot rely on China

for a critical supply chain, something you were just mentioning. How do you see this playing out over the next five to ten years? And who will be the winner and loser? I mean, you've kind of talked a little bit about winners and losers. Maybe talk to us in about time frame. Is this supply chain reorganization, something that you think is going to happen fast? Or is this something that will take a considerable amount of time to re-reform? engineer the move from just in time to just in case supply chain making sure you have resilience

making sure that you have more stock because your supply chains can get disrupted because travel isn't working the way it used to that is going to happen very quickly it's already happening it's happening domestically for food in the united states it's happening internationally around lots of products and components of key manufactured goods but i don't think it'll last I mean, keep in mind, China, their supply chain is already back up and running. Their coronavirus curve looked like Mount Fuji, massive explosion of cases, and then crushed it down. And I'm not suggesting that we trust Chinese data, but looking at satellite imagery and

traffic patterns and talking to all of our clients who have companies on the ground, it's very clear. Their supply chain is back up and running, very quick, three months up, three months down. That's a good thing for the world. and it's a good thing for China. But I think that once we have the global supply chain back up and running around the world, companies are going to stop wanting to spend for just in case supply chain. They won't want the resilience.

It'll be too much of a pain for them. The shareholders will punish them if they don't move back, the cheaper and more efficient. But I think these other questions of structurally high unemployment in the democracies, in the wealthy democracies, that's going to make you bring care. capital and labor back. It's going to make companies that involve lots of labor more strategic, more patriotic. And I think that that's going to happen and it's going to stick. And I think the same thing is true around who's in charge of making the vaccine. You're not going to want to see global production of that, even though it's much more efficient and it would be better for

the global economy. Individual governments will demand more control so that they have access for their own population. That's why we're seeing a big fight over vaccines right now. It's part of why the U.S. is saying they're going to withdraw from the World Health Organization. Ditto with PPE around medical equipment. And so I do think those changes are happening fairly quickly. They'll last. Now, you asked, who are the winners and losers? Let's be very clear.

There are no winners as countries from this crisis. Everyone is worse off than if the crisis hadn't hit. But there are a lot of countries that are better off than other countries. So what do I mean by that? Well, I mean, China's better off because there is. able with a technologically empowered surveillance state to quarantine, test with extraordinary abandon, and punish if people don't comply. So that's been helpful for them.

And I also think that their technology advantages are going to help them with the poorer countries who will be more aligned through the digital Belt and Road. I think the United States will be a big winner. The value of the dollar is global reserve currency will be stronger coming out of this crisis than it was going in compared to the yen, compared to the British pound sterling, compared to the euro or any other major currencies out there. We're the energy exporter. We're the food exporter. Those are things that are going to become more important. And America's big tech advantage with our companies vastly more strategically important coming out of coronavirus than going

in. And that disruption is going to make Europeans, Canadians, others more reliant on the United And then you have a bunch of other countries that are comparative winners because they've been governed really well through this crisis. We know Brazil's been governed really badly, Pakistan really badly, Mexico really badly. South Korea, Germany, Vietnam, Singapore, Taiwan, governed extremely well. Norway, Iceland, New Zealand, there have been a bunch of countries that have done a really good job in not cheerleading, in focusing on science, in getting the testing up quickly, and having contact tracers, in learning the lessons from previous outbreaks, from SARS, H1N1.

Certainly Vietnam, Southeast Asian countries did well in part because of that, South Korea too, post-MERS. So those countries will come out comparatively better. You already see Merkel with 80% approval more capable of structuring integration in Europe and bailout than anyone thought she could have been six months ago when she was on fumes, not able to get her preferred successor in place and losing so much support after bringing all of those Syrian refugees in. And then finally, and this is an interesting one that will surprise you, Rudyard, sub-Saharan Africa, in part because they're not as exposed to globalization.

Ethiopia has over 100 million people, and it's basically local agriculture. And there's not a lot of travel to and from Ethiopia. And they've got a really young population. The average age is like 19. And so even though they don't have the health care system, and if they get coronavirus, everyone's going to get it because they're not socially distancing and they're not testing, but almost no one is going to die. And a lot of people won't show symptoms. Why? Because the average age is 19. It's not Italy. It's not the United States or South Korea. So I actually think that sub-Saharan Africa, which usually gets whacked so much worse. And if you've seen the news just today in the DRC, you've got another outbreak of Ebola, which is Jesus, like, we really need

that. And there's been, you know, massive locust problems in Kenya and East Africa right now, which is eating up crops and it's a hunger issue. But actually, from coronavirus, I expect sub-Saharan Africa will come out of this faster with fewer problems than the middle-income developing markets will. That's a great global picture. Thank you, Ian. This is coming in from Facebook, from Kazim. Do you think the negative effects of social media, globalization, fake news, fueling populism, can and will be fixed? An interesting question from Kazim there, Ian, because as you say, these companies in some ways have become more strategic now, more important. Does that mean they're going to be less likely to be regulated? Or that conversation,

that really has not lost steam, especially around social media, about how accountable they are and should they be treated like regular media? Does that take on new urgency in the months to come? Yeah. Certainly in an environment where governments will be budget constrained and have just blown out their fiscal spend, they're going to be looking for deep pockets. And in Europe, I think, the effort to shake down the wealthiest companies out there and make them pay more tax, oh, that's absolutely going to happen because how else are they going to meet the requirements of the social contract, including a lot of workers that are out of work precisely because they've been displaced by these new technology companies. There's no question that's going to happen. But on the regulatory

side, these are the companies that you desperately need to actually get the economy back up and running. You need them strong and consolidated. And you're also fighting against the Chinese tech companies. So the idea of Elizabeth Warren just six months ago saying let's break these companies up, when now we're facing a Cold War with the Chinese and you need to get the economy back open on the back of these companies. No. I think that the regulatory environment is actually going to be much less restrictive. I think these companies know exactly how they want to be regulated and they will be writing much of that regulation. I think Mark Zuckerberg today, for better but mostly for worse, is actually in a much stronger position on that front than he was six months ago.

Do you think in the U.S. election will be another significant test for these companies? I mean, it's interesting to see this divergence between some of the different platforms over the president's presence on their platforms, how it's construed, whether it's fact-checked or not, whether political speech should be regulated or not. Will this U.S. election be a kind of moment of reckoning for social media? I don't think so. Twitter decided that they were going to do this experiment and go after Trump and fact check them on some political stuff, whether or not you could steal votes through vote by mail. And they said, here, look at this in the Washington Post. It's not exactly censorship, but the idea of sending Trump Twitter followers to the Washington

post, which he regularly decries. is fake news, and the Washington Post is best known for 18,000 lies and counting in their own fact check. These are both organizations that are deeply polarizing. Now, you and I may prefer the Washington Post to President Trump. It don't matter. President Trump, as of today, is at 42% approval ratings. With the highest unemployment of our lifetime, 6 to 8% economic contraction expected this year, 105,000 dead in the United States, probably heading to 150 to 200,000 before the elections. And that 42% is exactly what he was polling at when unemployment was at record lows before coronavirus hit. What does that tell you? This is not about social media and fact checking.

These people have made up their minds. And this isn't even just about Trump, though Trump is enormously divisive and yet another day today showing just how true that is. But Trump is a symptom of a country that had stopped talking to each other, that stopped having common values and were so deeply fed up with the legitimacy of the institutions of the other. And I don't think any amount of fact checking in social media is going to fix that. It's so much deeper. If you don't fix the structural inequality, if you don't make a social safety net that works for people. Now, why would Americans be capitalist if they don't have access to capital and they don't even believe their kids could? It doesn't make any sense. And when I was growing up, even if there was still a lot of

inequality, Americans were generally so optimistic that even if they were in the bottom 20, 30%, they thought that their kids would have a chance to make the top 10%. Americans don't believe that to anywhere near the same degree anymore. And unless you fix that, unless you make the American dream a reality for the average American, the working class American, dare I say it, the black American, if you don't do that, social media is not going to fix it. There's just no way. What's the political risky in right now of an American population that's looking at

U.S. stock indices that are overwhelmingly owned by the top 10? 10%, even significant portions by the top 1%, approaching all-time highs of early 2020 that were already considered pretty frothy, while, as you just mentioned, 30 to 40 million, primarily blue-collar working class Americans are not employed and many potentially, as you said, facing long-term unemployment. Is there, do you think, a kind of new political risk that is emerging around this extraordinary fiscal response and monetary response on the part of governments and central banks in particular? It seems like they're protecting the 1% pretty well. The 1% have had a pretty good pandemic so far, Ian. Yeah, that's certainly true, Roger. I accept that. And it's interesting

that Trump, who is someone that has relentlessly watched the markets and always tweet, about them when they're going up has not been tweeting about the most recent rebound. He did when the markets first collapsed and then had a really good day. He hasn't recently. And that's certainly because his campaign folks are seeing that that doesn't play well. They're doing that testing. So I think they get that the disconnect until you start bringing jobs back, you're not going to be able to give that story. Now, to be clear, I believe that we're going to double-digit employment for a couple of years plus. I think this is going to be systemically high for a while. But I also think that come November with the U.S. election, unemployment levels are

going to be dropping at a pretty extraordinary rate because it's from 25%. And I think Trump will be spinning that story very, very heavily. So I suspect that, you know, you asking me right now, well, Ian, there's 25% unemployment. 40 million Americans have lost their jobs and the markets are doing incredibly well. Isn't that a disconnect? That's hard for Trump. But when the economy is moving in the right direction, even though it's still really reduced from where it was before the pandemic, I absolutely believe Trump will do everything humanly

possible to spin that story in his direction. And with his supporters, he'll be somewhat successful in doing so, maybe quite successful. So far, one of the most important things to watch, if you're thinking about Trump's re-election, are the Republican numbers. And he continues to poll incredibly and consistently highly among his own base, many of whom have suffered economically mightily. Aren't in that top 1% percent, my friend. I mean, he has 42% approval ratings. You just said that 1% has had a fantastic pandemic.

Where the hell's the other 41% for Trump coming from? They're pretty consistent. It sounds like, Ian, that you have the beginnings here maybe of a contrarian thesis that the current view amongst the punditocracy is that Biden's numbers are looking increasingly strong and that the Democrats not only have a good chance at taking the White House, they could sweep Congress, the House of Representatives in the Senate too. It sounds like you're not so sure that that kind of optimism should be baked into our analysis at this moment. Am I getting you right? Yeah, it's too early for that. I mean, I certainly accept that a depression economically, a pandemic that Trump botched on his watch with so many more deaths than were necessary if he hadn't been a cheerleader. And to be clear, it's also on governors red and blue.

This is not just on Trump, but Trump bears a lot of responsibility and won't take any. And the mishandling so far of the riots. I mean, so much that a former Secretary of Defense, Mattis, excoriates him just a couple of hours ago publicly, by far, saying he's acting in an unconstitutional fashion. That's quite unprecedented in my lifetime from a Secretary of Defense that served in your administration, quite something from someone considered a hero and the adult in the room by Americans on both sides of the aisle. those are horrible, horrible things. But I also know that Trump's approval ratings not only have stayed solid, but the red voters are less worried about coronavirus. They're less inclined to wear masks.

They want to get the economy going again. They're less scared about going to a polling place and voting. And we're going to be socially distancing to some degree in November. In fact, that's probably when you expect a second wave. in the fall to come when you talk to the epidemiologists. So you've got that. What if we still have a significant amount of social unrest, some of which would be stoked by this president?

Will there be fewer polling places? What's the process gonna look like? I mean, what I promise you, there's no one in the Trump administration in the White House right now that is uttering the sentence, we can't do that because it's wrong. They're not saying that. Now, around Biden, you've got people that are saying that,

Even Biden himself, Trump has never said the words, we can't do that because it would be wrong. And I think that that gives Trump a better opportunity to manipulate the process in his favor. And so if you put all of those things together, believe me, I am not sitting here in front of you right now, Rud, you're going to say, I think Trump's going to win. But it would be very foolish at this stage with the capacity that Trump has. to drive headlines, the massive social media advantage he has over Biden in reach and in engagement, massive. And that's the way young people actually engage. And we haven't even seen them do deep fakes of Biden yet. We haven't seen them yet. That's clearly going to happen. We haven't seen a dirty tricks campaign yet. That's clearly going to happen. We haven't seen anything meaningful in terms of

external intervention, which I don't think is going to be the be all and all, but it's certainly going to participate. So again, if you put all of that together, it seems to be very uncomfortable to think that Biden's just going to skate through. And by the way, we haven't even talked about Biden, who I consider to be a deeply empathetic, but also flawed candidate who's lost a step or two in the last few years. But I haven't talked about him because I don't actually think this election is about Biden. I think this election is overwhelmingly about Trump. And that plays well for Biden, but it also can play well for Trump. Yeah, it's a referendum on the Trump administration

and their handling of this pandemic. Let's squeeze in as many questions as we can. Now, if you want to do a lightning round where you ask me, like if you've got a lot of them and I'll just like answer to a sentence or two, we can do that. Yeah, let's do a couple. That's a great idea.

So let's do three. And we'll break them up pretty quick and get answers for our viewers. Asking here about Meng Wanzo, this was the Canadian court case that went against the daughter of the very influential company in China that's instrumental in creating 5G technologies for China and exporting those around the world. They're asking, what in a sense can Canada do here? How can Canada kind of manage this relationship? So that's

question one. I'll ask them, I'll go quick. You're overwhelmingly dependent on the United States for pretty much your economy, your infrastructure, your tourism, and your tech. You've got an independent judiciary, but you're going to follow the U.S. on this. Yeah, it's interesting. Tell us one of our big telecommunications companies just announced Erickson and Nokia as the providers of their 5G having previously worked with Huawei. So that's an indication of the direction we're going. Okay, let's take another in our lightning round here. Matthew asking, given the increased polarization between the two parties in the United States, what are the chances of a third party candidate in the next election? They've often been spoilers occasionally. but seemingly inconsequential in the red state, blue state reality of U.S. politics. Yeah, they'll be agreeing something. They'll be a libertarian something. They will matter, not a whit. I don't feel like there's space for a third party,

particularly in this election as polarized as it is. Great. Let's take another from our online audience. Will the huge unemployment figures bring about a universal basic income? This has been a reoccurring theme, Ian, in these dialogues, people asking is UBI going to be one of the? the big public policy planks that come out of the post-COVID recovery agenda. My friend Andrew Yang ran on it, and he did a lot better than people thought he would.

Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House recently said that she would be willing to consider it today. She never would before. The Spanish government is trying to implement it. At the very least, you're going to see a lot of talk and a lot of experimentation in that direction. Actually implementing it in an ongoing way is a massive cost, but one that I think, you're going to see a lot of people consider given the structural increase in unemployment. Right. Good points. Let's go to another question from our audience. Here it goes, from Ali asking what would be the best solution in a perfect world to the situation that we find ourselves

in? You've said in a sense a complete rethink of some of the big institutions like NATO, the WHO. Is that your view of how we kind of seize this moment, a kind of rethink? And I guess just to challenge you, why is that likely to happen if the two people running for the presidency of your country are on their way to being octogenarians? How are they going to rethink the global international order post-COVID. Well, I mean, given Biden's mental state right now, his VP is going to be much more important, and she will not be an octogenarian or a septuagenarian, so that's worth thinking about. But leaving that aside, if you want to be optimistic about something, you've got 110 vaccine efforts out there. And some of them are being driven private sector. Some of them are being

driven by individual governments. But you also have the World Health Organization and the European Union working together with the support of my good friend Antonio Gutierrez who runs the UN and Bill Gates. And those are the ones that are out of the box. And we actually get working vaccines in a year, a year and a half, as opposed to four years for months, which is the fastest humans have ever developed a vaccine for a new virus in the past. And you actually have a multilateral effort to make it global. Maybe that's the kind of global project that creates a new greatest generation, who also happens to care a lot more about climate than the octogenarians did.

And by the way, even in the United States where climate is a pretty divisive issue, young people, both left and right, are not deniers. They recognize this a high priority. So I do think, I mean, I'm not saying it's going to happen, believe me. I'm pragmatic and I focus on the cyclicality of where the global order is heading. We're in a geopolitical recession. The institutions are broken. It's going to take us a long time to dig out.

But I do think there are real opportunities inherent in this crisis. I don't think that's just a cliche. And we should recognize them for what they are. Good insights. This is from Margaret. What's the big picture strategy between China's actions towards Hong Kong. It's an economic success, so why spoil it by interfering? What's China's game here, Ian? I mean, Margaret brings up a good point. Hong Kong is a vibrant international city,

state that is integral to the success of the Chinese economy, which, as you rightly point out, is going to be stressed in big ways coming out of this pandemic. Yeah, but it's a lot less than it used to be it's 2% of Chinese GDP compared to 15% 1997 during the handover. They're very concerned about upcoming elections in the fall in Hong Kong and that they would go much more against mainland China. They're concerned about demonstrations. It's very popular in mainland China for Xi Jinping to go after Hong Kong. They don't think the Americans are going to break the special trade status that Hong Kong has because it would affect all the American financial institutions. And so far, they've been right about that. Trump's press conference on China was a bit of a nothing burger.

frankly, last week. And also the Chinese have Shenjin. They've got Shanghai. They've built their own financial centers. So, I mean, it's not like they want to kill Hong Kong, but they are prepared to kill Hong Kong for the political stability and the lack of political volatility that could potentially come out of it. They want to change the rule set on the ground in Hong Kong. They'll take some economic hits to do that. Okay. This is John asking, will COVID divide Western nations into regions who will want to hold more authority and autonomy. I guess, Ian, maybe this goes to some of your discussions around vaccines and supply chains. Does the unity of the West hold? Or are we going to see more of an intensification around blocks, North America,

South America, Europe? Yeah, I fear right now we're heading in the direction of blocks. The good news story is the Germans, the French, and the EU leadership working on a $500 billion bailout grants to help the South as opposed to loans. That's a big deal, but that doesn't get you the political integration that you would need to make Europe as a stronger united player to support the West as a totality. And in fact, that's a big division inside the grand coalition of Merkel right now. In certainly the United States and Europe, I would argue technology is going to bring us closer together, but a lot of this inequality, a lot of the concern about the failings of the social safety net are going to make you more

domestically focused. And let's keep in mind that whether it's Biden or Trump, because the United States will emerge from this crisis more asymmetrically powerful than its allies, I actually think there's going to be more push towards unilateralism on the part of the United States. And America's orientation from a security and an economic perspective will be more focused on Asia than it was, less on the Middle East, and probably less on Europe. And of course, Canada, Mexico and the United States are very deeply integrated and only more so with a new modernized USMCA on the trade side, which I think was a success of the Trump administration. So the potential for greater blocks is increasing now. Okay. Let's ask one more question. We're going to be asking

to be generous with his time. And this is Dennis. Question has come up a few times on this. Russia, where does Russia stand post-COVID? I mean, if we think of Cold Wars, this is the Cold War that defined many of us watching this. Russia remains in a power that seems to punch well above its weight economically. And it seems to have a theory, a view of the world. Again, a kind of autocratic vision, maybe without the technology, but some 3,000 thermonuclear warheads. heads by my last count. But Russia's in decline. Their economy is smaller than Canada's right now. Putin's approval ratings is 59%, which is lowest in his presidency. And they do believe it or not still have a real polling institution. I know that's surprising, part because Putin likes Potemkin

democracy, kind of show it off and also likes getting real information. So maybe that's a credit to him because the economy is going to hell. I mean, what are they all about? They're about selling arms to other countries, and they're about energy resources and natural resources, and those commodity prices are in the floor right now. They have been attracted for indirect investment. Putin himself has said that the person that will lead the world, the country that will lead the world, will be the one that dominates AI. The Russians are nowhere on AI. All their great scientists emigrated a long time ago. So it's going to be the Americans of the Chinese. And I think the Russians are pretty pissed off about it. They blame the Americans for it, you know, maybe 20% correctly,

but they're actively divisive, and they're trying to take advantage of the divides inside society in the United States. We're helping them with that, obviously, inside Europe, and within the transatlantic relationship, and it's sad they've had some success in that regard, but ultimately the Russians are not winners in this global order. They're losers. Okay. Yeah, we're going to have to leave it there. Just always such a treat to speak with you. The kind of breadth of the palate that you paint on is always edifying and I think it just shows the hard work, the time that you've put into wrapping your mind around these issues through your bestselling books, through your research notes at the Eurasia group, and for your leadership at one of the world's best risk management firm. So Ian Bremmer,

the Eurasia Group, thank you so much for coming on this edition of the Monk Dialogues. Great to be with you. Tell everybody watching g0.g0.media.com. I should know my own website because that's free, unlike the consulting firm, and hopefully we'll see it engage with with people there. But Rudyard, always great to be with you here at Monk. This is a lot of fun, and I wish you only the best for the end of the series and for the fall. Hey, thank you so much, Ian. Be well. Well, thank you for tuning into tonight's Monk Dialogue with Ian Bremmer. This has been our ninth dialogue in this series. We've got one more to go next week. We've got a terrific speaker on deck for you. Victor Gow, he's a...

a key voice out of Beijing, out of China, on international relations, served at very high levels within his government, within industry and business. I want to thank a terrific group of sponsors that have helped fund this series. These dialogues really owe everything to the generosity of the Peter and Melanie Monk Charitable Foundation. Thank you also to the presenting sponsors of the Monk Dialogues, the Onyx Corporation and Gluskin Chef, who've joined us and will be supporting these dialogues as they go into the autumn for a second set of 10 programs. Well, I'm Rudyard-Griffis. Thank you for watching the Monk Dialogue with Ian Bremmer. We'll do this all again next week, Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern with Victor Gow. In the meantime, be well, be safe, and good night.

The Monk Debates are produced by Antica Productions. and supported by the Monk Foundation. Rudyard Griffiths and Ricky Gurwitz are the producers. The Monk Debates podcast is mixed by Steve Lewin. The president of Antica Productions is Stuart Cox. Be sure to download and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like us, feel free to give us a five-star rating. Thanks again for listening.