WSJ What’s News - The Axis of Autocracies Lining Up for World War III

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

P.M. Edition for Dec. 16. Conflicts once viewed as disconnected have merged into what could be the opening shots of a massive confrontation. Chief foreign-affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov reports on how opposing alliances are preparing. And President-elect Donald Trump and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son announce a $100 billion investment in U.S. projects. Plus, police say a student at a Christian school in Madison, Wis., is believed to have fatally shot at least two people. Pierre Bienaimé hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3, 2, 1. What will the world look like 10 or 20 years from now? The Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything podcast is here to give you a peek. And we can't wait to show you what's coming. Subscribe now. President-elect Donald Trump and the CEO of SoftBank announce a $100 billion investment in U.S. projects. And could the conflicts roiling the globe amount to the beginnings of a new world war?

President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia really found this common ground with the idea that the West is weak, the West is inexorably losing its position as the dominant force in the world, and as a result, this axis of autocracies, the future belongs to it. Plus, at least two people have been killed in a school shooting in Madison, Wisconsin. It's Monday, December 16th. I'm Pierre Bienhame, filling in for Alex Osela for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that moved the world today.

At least two people were killed today and several others injured in a shooting at Abundant Life Christian School, a private K-12 school in Madison, Wisconsin. Madison's police chief said the suspected shooter, who police believe was a student at the school, was also found dead. Every child, every person in that building is a victim and will be a victim forever. These types of trauma don't just go away. And you can follow this story on wsj.com. Speaking at Mar-a-Lago today, Donald Trump and SoftBank group CEO Masayoshi Sun together

announced that the company plans to invest $100 billion in U.S. projects over the next four years. The Japanese internet and telecommunications company estimates that its investments will create 100,000 jobs focused on AI and emerging technologies. And it plans to complete the work before Trump leaves office in 2029. National politics reporter, Alex Leary was at the Mar-a-Lago event where Trump also gave his first press conference

since winning the election. And Alex joins me now. Alex, how significant is this announcement and this investment for Donald Trump? This is a big deal for Trump, at least symbolically early on. Trump is just about a month away from taking office and he's looking to put points on the board and this is a very, very big showing.

$100 billion is a huge amount for no matter what company and Trump heralded this as basically saying I'm back, America's back and the economy is going to be great, come invest with us. So it's a big deal for Trump. saying, I'm back, America's back, and the economy is going to be great, come invest with us. So it's a big deal for Trump. Now, whether this happens to the full extent that it's been promised, we'll see. But for now, this is a win for Trump without question. Well, in fact, how is it that SoftBank can manage to do this given the company has roughly $30 billion of cash on hand, as you report?

That's a very big question, a very big open question. We did not get to question the CEO today. He left before the president-elect took questions, so we didn't get that answered. It's certainly one that reporters and investors and others will be certainly looking to figure out because, again, he has about $30 billion, according to our reporting, at his disposal. So he's going to have to raise more funds in order to make this work. That was national politics reporter Alex Leary. And as Alex mentioned, the president-elect took questions from the press after the announcement.

Among other things, Trump doubled down on his use of tariffs on imports from around the world, said he would look at pardoning New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat whom federal prosecutors have charged with bribery, fraud and campaign finance offenses, and credited Turkey for Syrian rebels' victory in ending the regime of Syria's now ousted President Bashar al-Assad. Trump also asserted without citing evidence that the U.S. government knows what's happening with mysterious drones that have appeared in the skies over New Jersey in recent weeks, which we discussed in this morning's show. The government knows what is happening.

Look, our military knows where they took off from. If it's a garage, they can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went. And for some reason, they don't want to comment. And I think they'd be better off saying what it is. Trump declined to say whether he had received a security briefing on the unexplained appearance of the drones. In U.S. markets today, the Dow edged down 0.3 percent, the S&P 500 rose 0.4 percent

after falling last week, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite surged 1.2 percent to a new record as shares of tech and other fast growing companies extended a year-end rally. In Damascus, the leader of one of the biggest rebel groups that routed Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad is promising reform for the country, cautioning, however, that it would take time. Wearing a suit rather than military fatigues, Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani positioned himself as a statesman in a meeting with foreign journalists today. He said the country isn't yet ready for elections because it remains in turmoil and many of

its citizens are still displaced by the civil war. Jawlani is designated a terrorist by the US government. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is offering a $10 million reward for information about him. Meanwhile, Bashar al-Assad spoke out for the first time since his ouster today. The former president says he fought to the end, staying in Syria until the regime's last defenses crumbled before being evacuated to Russia. A longtime spokeswoman and several other officials close to the Assad's couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Coming up, an axis of autocracies led by Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea is challenging the democratic world order thing we know about the future. It's being built now. We all have a stake in the future. The future. The future. The future. And the Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything podcast is here to give you a glimpse of what's

on the way. I'm Danny Lewis. Join us as we dig into how science and technology are shaping the future. For that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Russia's war in Ukraine. The Middle East ablaze in several countries, tensions building in East Asia. Once thought to be disconnected, these conflicts have merged into what could be the opening

shots of a third world war. Our chief foreign affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov joins me now. Yarov, what is it that connects these conflicts? We're really seeing the formation of an axis of autocracies now. Obviously Russia, Iran, North Korea, all three of these are actually militarily cooperating now. And then you have China, the biggest, the most powerful of them all, which is staying away from direct military involvement in all these conflicts, but is certainly indispensable as a political protector, as an economic partner

and as a source of technology for all three of these nations. How is it that this autocratic axis has come together in recent years? If you roll back just a decade ago, China and Russia used to work with the U.S. and other Western nations on containing Iran's nuclear ambitions on sanctioning North Korea as recently as 2017. But the turning point was the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, which led to mild Western sanctions, but also gave President Putin the idea that the West is not really in it for the fight and could be deterred. And that gave birth to more and more cooperation between Russia and China, because China turned

to a source of technology for Russia Russia and Russia started supplying more and more materials, but more importantly President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia really found this common ground with the idea that the West is weak, the West is inexorably losing its position as the dominant force in the world and as a result this axis of autocracies, the future belongs to it. And is the West united against these challengers? We're seeing cracks within the West.

We're seeing, obviously, with the election of President Trump, who assumes office in January, potential for more disputes over things like trade, but also defense with European and Asian partners. Many in Europe are very much alarmed about whether the Trump administration would strike its own deal with Russia at the expense of Ukraine and the expense of European security. So we are in a moment of disunity among the democracies and the closing of the ranks among the autocracies right now.

And would you say that all of this is pointing to a global conflict? Well, we have a conflict that is globalizing. Look at what happened just in the last few months. On the Ukrainian front in Russia, thousands of North Korean troops have come to join the fight, but not only to help Russia, but also to learn valuable lessons about how to fight against an American equipped military. At the same time, if you look at what happened in Syria in recent weeks, the main reason why the regime of Bashar al-Assad collapsed is because Russia, its main patron, was distracted

by the war in Ukraine, so it could not spare forces. And at the same time, Iran was too weakened by its own war against Israel over the last year. So everything is connected more and more so. How was the U.S. in particular readying for a possible conflict? If we accept that we are in a global conflict now, let's look back at the spending that we saw during the actual Cold War. Back then, the U.S. was spending anything between 6% and 16% of the GDP Cold War. Back then, the US was spending anything between six and 16% of the GDP on defense.

Now it's about 3.5%. And if you look at what countries like Russia are spending, they're spending everything they can. The US has partners in many parts of the world, but they are not taking part in this. Countries like India, countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, they are on defense. They are mostly neutral.

And so we're really talking about NATO countries in Europe and Canada, and then treaty allies like Australia, Japan, and South Korea in the Pacific. That was our chief foreign affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov. Yarov, thanks so much. Great to be on the show. On Capitol Hill, millennial and Gen-X Democrats are seeking to grab power from longtime baby boomer leaders. The tussle could put Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez atop the Influential Oversight

Committee. That race is a closely watched test of the Democratic Party's appetite for generational change after big electoral losses in November, though they made a net gain of one seat in the House. Katie Stachverich covers Congress for the Wall Street Journal, and she joins me from Capitol Hill. Katie, what would an AOC victory say, reflect about the Democrats' strategy and the faces they're looking to put forward? It'd be mostly a symbolic move.

I mean, she has been kind of the face of a younger Democratic Party, a more progressive Democratic Party. So if she were to win the slot over Jerry Connolly, who's been on the committee for a decade longer than she's been in Congress, it would show that Democrats have an appetite for and are restless for younger leaders, more progressive, bold vision that AOC has represented since she got here. What about the party dynamics and where does this challenge leave the older guard? What we're seeing on the Hill this week is sort of the reflection we've seen since the

election results became clear among Democrats of what kind of, what does the party look like going forward? And with the election results, we expected some sort of purge, some sort of directional shift from Democrats. And this is part of that discussion. Writing about lawmakers who have a tendency to stay and a hesitancy to retire is both something that Democrats and Republicans have been having conversations on. However, when it comes to who should lead this committee in Congress, in some ways, that's a uniquely democratic problem

in that the Democrats do not have term limits, Republicans do. And while this election is about putting people in different committee leadership positions, it's also a question of whether the Democrats will recalibrate their values and decide that seniority does matter less going forward when it comes to who is in charge and who's setting the direction for the party. Peter Bialycki, The Wall Street Journal. Katie Stachowaryk covers Congress for The Wall Street Journal. And that's what's news for this Monday afternoon.

Today's show is produced by Anthony Bansi with supervising producer Michael Kosmides. I'm Pierre Bienemé for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.