The Bottom Line

United States President Donald Trump realises “the rules-based international order” never existed, and he’s “willing to turn his back on that”, former Trump administration official Christian Whiton argues. Whiton tells Steve Clemons that US foreign policy remained fairly consistent over the past 80 years while Trump is happy to upset “the globalists and the establishment unity party in Washington - Republican and Democrat - and all the generals”. In Europe, the US would like to see more populist, anti-immigration governments, Whiton said, adding that Western societies should “cast aside” the idea that they are “inherently racist, a patriarchy [with] … a racist, imperialist history”.

China’s domination of minerals - especially the copper needed for electrification, data centres, robots, cellphones and defence technology - is pushing the United States to ramp up its control of oil and minerals worldwide, argues Daniel Yergin, one of the world’s top experts in the economics of oil. In this episode, Yergin explains how Venezuela, Greenland, Iran, Russia and other issues are connected to the business of oil and the competition to control Earth's minerals. And while US President Donald Trump’s motives in Venezuela and Greenland are unclear, Yergin says one thing is certain: The US is desperate to achieve supply chain independence from China.

America First foreign policy means that the United States is becoming a country that opposes the rule of law, free trade and collective security, argues Ian Bremmer, president of the risk analysis firm Eurasia Group. Bremmer tells host Steve Clemons that the international system built by the US over decades “was going to reach a geopolitical bust” regardless of the advent of President Donald Trump. Washington’s decision to project power in Venezuela, coupled with rhetoric threatening Greenland, “makes the US more unreliable for its allies”, according to Bremmer, “and a much bigger driver of geopolitical risk on the global stage”.

The United States has realised it cannot keep “trying to police the whole world”, argues Victor Gao, the vice president of the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing. Gao tells host Steve Clemons that improved China-US relations are “inevitable” although he warns that some American policymakers still view China as the number one threat and Chinese officials “never underestimate what American neofascists will cook up next”. In this wide-ranging conversation, Gao maintains that Beijing has replaced Washington as the world’s champion of free trade and won’t allow the US to dominate the field of artificial intelligence.

Months after being attacked by the United States and Israel, Iran finds itself in the crosshairs again, with Israeli officials lobbying US President Donald Trump to address Tehran's ballistic missiles. Veteran Iranian diplomat Javad Zarif tells host Steve Clemons that "everybody lost any faith in diplomacy" after Israel and the US attacked Iran following five rounds of reconciliation talks between Washington and Tehran. Zarif added that Israel has historically thwarted every opportunity for reconciliation between Iran and the US, and that Trump's style of diplomacy is disastrous, as it creates "negotiations that end up in war".