CFR-GVSU Election 2024 U.S. Foreign Policy Public Forum

This in-depth, nonpartisan conversation on America’s role in the world and the foreign policy issues at stake in the 2024 election included topics such as international trade and national security, the U.S.-China relationship, and U.S. engagement in global conflicts. Panelists with distinguished careers in government, business, and academia discussed the trade-offs presented by different policy options both locally and globally and provided context on the international issues, choices, and challenges facing the next president.

TRANSCRIPT

RYDECKI: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to our programming tonight. My name is Megan Rydecki, and it’s my pleasure to serve as your director here at the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies. 

We are so thrilled that you are here to join us for our Election 2024 U.S. Foreign Policy Public Forum cosponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, Grand Valley State University, and the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies. 

Tonight’s event is the third of four public nonpartisan forums that the Council on Foreign Relations is co-hosting with colleges and universities across the country in pivotal states in the leadup to Election Day. The first two took place just last week in Arizona and Georgia, and we are very fortunate to be representing Michigan as the partner for CFR. In 2020, they did a similar program and they were at Wayne State, so we feel very fortunate they chose the west side—some may say the best side—to be—to be sharing their talent, their knowledge, and also their hopes and thoughts about the world. 

Tonight, we will be discussing America’s role in the world and the foreign policy issues at stake in the upcoming election. Our panelists will examine the tradeoffs presented by different policy options both locally and globally, and provide context on the international issues, choices, and challenges facing the next president. Topics will include international trade, national security, the U.S.-China relationship, U.S. engagement in global conflicts, and more. 

As an independent membership organization, think tank, and publisher, CFR serves as a nonpartisan source of information and analysis to advance understanding of global affairs and the foreign policy choices facing the U.S. and other countries. And as many of you are very familiar with our Common Ground initiative here at GVSU, our goal is always to bring all sides to the stage not to necessarily persuade or get you to think a certain way, but to simply bring you the context and the information you need so that you can make your own informed choices. 

The goal this evening is to raise awareness of the international issues that affect our daily lives and to help you make an informed decision before casting your ballot. Though I’m sure some of you are overachievers and already have your absentees in, for those who don’t certainly we hope that this will help inform your choices. 

As you might imagine, there are simply too many issues to cover in ninety minutes, so we may not get to every one. But we hope you will bring up the most important to you during the Q&A session. 

We want to encourage you to take advantage of a host of Election 2024 resources available online at CFR.org, including a tracker of the candidates’ positions on international issues, podcasts, videos, and explainers that delve into specific topics. You can also find experts—or, articles by experts in Foreign Affairs magazine, CFR’s flagship publication. 

I would like to thank again our partners, the Council on Foreign Relations, their staff, the colleagues who have come in to speak with us tonight, and also the Carnegie Corporation of New York for their generous support of CFR’s Election 2024 initiative. 

Very briefly, I’m going to introduce the panelists. They’re not going to come up right away because we have a short activity first, and I will be brief, again. Their full bios are in the programs, and they simply have too many accomplishments to read out in total tonight. So I invite you to return back and read those. But joining me on the stage in a few minutes will be Mike Froman, president of the Council on Foreign Relations; Lingling Wei, chief China correspondent for the Wall Street Journal; Kori Schake, senior fellow and director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute; and Raj Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation. So we look forward to hearing from them. 

As a reminder, today’s discussion is being recorded and livestreamed. You’ll be able to find it on CFR.org. It will likely be available at the Hauenstein Center website as well. 

OK. Here’s a fun thing tonight: You actually get to use your phones. So go ahead and pull out your phone. We’re going to do a little live polling. While you get it out, a great reminder to turn off your ringer or your haptics or whatever it is that might make noise—not that any of you have ever done that during a public program, I’m sure. But tonight we’re going to do a little polling. And here we are getting started. 

So—and as it happens, mine is not loading. You guys, we practice this stuff always. 

(Off-side conversation.) 

RYDECKI: OK. All right. So you can see this online here, too, but: How important is foreign policy in considering who you will vote for in the presidential election? Is it very important, somewhat important, not important? And because I took a minute you all have your results in already, and it looks like about three-quarters of the room think it is very important. OK. 

Oh, and I should give a preview. At the end of our discussion, we’re going to re-poll the audience and see if our numbers have moved. So if you want to mess with us, you can do that. But otherwise, we hope you will listen intently and then make some informed decisions, and we’ll see how we’ve done. 

Oh, I’m sorry. There’s this QR code in your program. Sorry. You guys, I just got so excited. I have no—I’ve been geeking out about this event for, like, the last month, and I’m just so excited to know what you all think about these things. So—thank you, Irina. It takes a village, right? We don’t do any of these by ourselves. So there’s a QR code on the inside of your program. If you scan that, you should get here. And I will wait, and we will hopefully all get here. Has everyone had a chance to vote? No, OK. Have we gotten to the poll? Have we found the QR code? OK. And this—we’re happy for this to be anonymous, so don’t feel like you need to put in a username or anything. 

(Pause.) 

I don’t think—you shouldn’t have to download anything; it should just come up. OK. I think for the sake of expediency we’re going to keep going. And we’ll recheck back at the end, again, with the re-polling. OK. 

So the second question: Which of the following do you consider greatest threat to U.S. national security—AI, China, climate change, or domestic challenges, Russia, or other? And the survey is saying—ooh, climate change and domestic challenges are top two there; China, AI, Russia—AI and Russia, close tie. So this is good, good level setting. 

Next question—did we miss number two? No, that’s one. OK. When it comes to trade with China, how should the United States approach tariffs on Chinese imports given the impacts on Chinese businesses and American consumer prices? Should we increase, should we keep them about the same, decrease, or we don’t know? Lot of us think we should keep them about the same. Some say increase. Some say decrease. Probably a couple down there that don’t know. 

And finally: Do you think the United States should increase, maintain, or decrease its current level of defense spending? Survey says primarily decrease, with maintain and increase, do not know bringing up the rear. OK. 

Well, again, thank you for participating in some of this polling. Again, we are going to jump into our conversation now. We’re going to have about thirty-five, forty minutes of moderated conversation with the panelists, and then we are going to have Q&A, and then we will re-poll you and see how we did. 

Hi there. Thank you. 

So at this time I want to welcome again our panelists for this evening: Mike, Lingling, Kori, and Raj. (Applause.) 

We are so thrilled to have you all in the great state of Michigan. Raj is actually a fellow Michigander, so we’re happy to have him back. (Applause.) And I think the other three are newcomers, so let’s be sure to show them some Grand Rapids hospitality while they’re here and wish them well in their travels. 

So, OK. We’re going to jump in, and I’m going to ask a couple questions just to set the stage for the discussion tonight. So in general, obviously, we’re talking about the upcoming election. Mike, maybe you can start us off: What kind of foreign policy approach should we expect to see from a Trump presidency or from a Harris presidency, just level setting? What are—what are the broad choices we’re looking at? 

FROMAN: Well, first of all, thank you for having us, and thank you all for being here and taking time out of your schedules to join us. It’s a great honor for us to be here. 

I think, first of all, we have to have a little bit of humility that it’s hard to predict prior to an election, prior to somebody being selected, and prior to them selecting their Cabinet and their team exactly what their policies will be. But since we know what Trump one looked like and we know what the Biden-Harris administration has looked like, I think we can do some extrapolation from there. 

First of all, I think there are certain issues where there’s likely to be some continuity. I think on China there is broad bipartisan agreement between the parties, but also between Congress and the executive, about the need to compete both domestically and internationally with China across political, economic, military, technology arenas. There may be differences in tactics, and we can talk about tariffs later, but I think the broad approach to China is likely to be pretty similar. 

And similarly, in the Middle East I don’t expect a very significant change. I think both administrations would very much stand behind Israel’s right to its security, but also want to see normalization of relations between Israel and its neighboring states and dealing with the Palestinian question. There may be, again, difference of emphasis a bit on the—on the focus on Palestinian issues perhaps more by Harris than by—than by former President Trump. 

I think where the biggest differences are likely to come out, one is on Ukraine and Russia, where the two candidates have laid out quite different perspectives with Vice President Harris likely to continue President Biden’s strong support for Ukraine, including military support, and former President Trump declaring that he will end the war within twenty-four hours of being elected. That’s largely viewed—he hasn’t laid out a plan for doing that in explicit terms, but it’s largely viewed as a signal that he will withdraw support from Ukraine and force the parties to a table for whatever solution they can get. So I think there is one very significant change. 

And the other change, I think—the other difference between the two candidates I think is likely to be how they deal with allies and partners. The Biden-Harris administration has focused a lot on building up alliances, building up partnerships, consulting with our friends and allies around the world on virtually every issue. I think former President Trump has demonstrated a willingness to sort of go it alone or be more transactional in his relations with allies and partners. And I think our European and Asian partners are likely to see quite a bit of difference in terms of the overall approach. 

RYDECKI: Great. 

Anyone have anything to add there? 

SCHAKE: I would say that’s basically right. 

RYDECKI: Yeah. OK. Wonderful. 

FROMAN: Try not to—(inaudible). (Laughter.) 

SHAH: Well, I’ll add—I’ll add one thing to that. You know, there are a series of long-term issues that require global cooperation, and they include the effort to invest in preventing the next pandemic, which is almost certainly going to be a cross-border, global threat; and of course, the effort to fight climate change. And I think especially on that latter issue, on climate change, I think there’s a pretty stark contrast in that President Trump, as president, pulled out of the Paris Accords and deprioritized global engagement on that issue, and the Biden-Harris team has reentered the Paris Accords and reenergized American—America’s role as a negotiator of global climate agreements. So that’s the other area I’d add where I think the contrast is pretty significant. 

RYDECKI: All right. Great. 

So, Mike, you named a couple things, but what issues, conflicts, situations should voters be most cognizant of right now? And how important—you know, we asked a question about domestic issues and that directly tying into foreign policy, but how important is domestic policy versus foreign policy in this year’s election? And, Kori, I might ask you your thoughts on that. 

SCHAKE: So I think domestic policy is always more important than foreign policy in American elections, and it should be, right? The United States won the geopolitical lottery. We have Canada and Mexico as our nearest neighbors and oceans on the other side. We have a domestically driven economy, we have—we have an immigration policy that produces surfeits of labor at all levels of expertise. We have the natural resources—the water, the land, the agriculture. So we are the country that will last feel the effects of a corroding international order, and that means that domestic policy should always take precedence. 

If we four are doing our jobs right, foreign policy should be a lesser concern than domestic policy. But I would also say I very much hope to be able to persuade the 48 percent of you who thought that defense spending should be less than it is that you are mistaken because the world actually is growing more dangerous for American interests. The United States basically has no shipbuilding capacity remaining in our economy. The Chinese economy has 250 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United States, and if you think you’re going to protect Hawaii, much less America’s allies in Asia, you actually need ships on that great big Pacific Ocean. China has 390—excuse me—371 ships in its Navy; the United States has 290. That is not an equation that bodes well if we want to protect our friends and protect ourselves. 

RYDECKI: Other thoughts on what should be top of mind, or Kori, I think you brought up a really great example of something that’s maybe flying under the radar—you know, American voters aren’t thinking about. What are the issues that are out there that, you know— 

SCHAKE: I have one. I think the biggest opportunity the United States misses is the consolidation of North America as an energy, economic, immigration, education—and all sorts of everything else—platform. If Canada, the United States, and Mexico can find a common way to secure our supply chains, to provide transitions and labor, can create a common education platform, we actually won’t have to worry about a rising China. We are missing what is—what should be, for us, a relatively easy source of strength. 

FROMAN: Can I mention a continent that is often forgotten in all these conversations, and that’s Africa? Right now there is a war going on in Sudan where more people are being killed every day than in the Middle East and Ukraine combined. And there’s very little attention to Africa. And why should it matter to folk in Grand Rapids or anywhere across the country? 

You know, all these issues are interconnected, and if you’ve got instability in Africa—you’ve got lots of coups, you have this war going on, you have multiple conflicts going on. These are also the places where we have critical minerals that are so important to some of those supply chains, including around clean energy technology; issues around immigration, as people get pushed out of their country. There are ten-and-a-half million people in Sudan who are displaced at the moment. It’s one of the biggest refugee crises. 

We don’t hear anything about it. We don’t read anything about it in the Wall Street Journal, Lingling, but it’s true. And that puts pressure on Europe, it creates political dynamics in Europe that makes them less willing to be open and turn inward. That effects our ability to work with them on issues like Ukraine, or on China, or other issues. So these have spillover effects, and sometimes it’s hard to connect the dots when something is far away and as remote as Sudan to something in Michigan, but all these things are interrelated and, you know, our well-being—that we saw with the pandemic, that we certainly see with climate change, we see with immigration issues—our well-being is very much tied into the well-being of people beyond our borders. And so having an open eye to those issues I think is really important, as well. 

RYDECKI: You know, so like you mentioned, there’s a lot of issues that we’re all having to wrestle with and work through in this election. Certainly, we know that there are voters out there who choose one issue or topic and that’s how they vote—based on one. And curious to know thoughts, and maybe, Raj, we’ll start with you. You know, do you think that’s a prudent tactic in this election—you know, find your issue, stick with it—or do you think that there could be different ways to be looking at things, especially when it comes to foreign policy?  

SHAH: Well, I think overall it’s very hard to tell anyone, you know, what issue they should vote on or care most about. Obviously, you enter that decision based on tremendous personal consequences one way or another, and a sense of who you place your trust in. 

I’d say, in this particular election, when you look at the polling, the consistent observation is economic issues are very high at the top of everyone’s agenda. And that’s I think the one area where we tend to forget just how interconnected American foreign policy—including economic policy, trade policy—Mike was the U.S. trade representative, of course—how directly correlated that is to the health and well-being of our communities across this country. 

Michigan is an extraordinary state—I can say that as a Michigander, but $65 billion of annual exports from this state—sixth amongst all states despite not having such a huge actual population—and we put that at risk if we live in a world that’s characterized by trade wars instead of characterized by some real stability in our trade relationships abroad. So international economic policy is also foreign policy and really is about creating jobs in Michigan and markets for companies right here. I mean, I think we’re on stage here at the Hauenstein Center—I hope I pronounced that correctly—recognizing a leader who I learned at our dinner—(laughs)—at our snack earlier, came back from World War II, and with some support from his war buddy, David Rockefeller, helped create the goldfish cracker as an export product. 

RYDECKI: That’s true. 

SHAH: And, you know, it just—it’s a reminder that American ingenuity and innovation depends on access to markets everywhere. Someone said we have the most powerful consumer economy. That’s true. But we also depend on the world being integrated and, you know, when Mike talked about thinking about Africa and all of these issues interconnected, I’d point out there are about thirty-five countries right now in Africa that are teetering on the edge of a debt crisis. When you see kids rioting in Nairobi or Lagos because of tax policy or fuel subsidies being cut, that’s because those countries are spending more money repaying debt to Western creditors and the Chinese than they are paying for education and health care in their own economies. And that is not the kind of instability that accrues to American prosperity and American security. 

So we know how to make the world more safe and more secure, but it does require prominent American leadership based on values and based on a clear understanding of our threats, and our capabilities, and our economic prosperity and where it comes from. 

RYDECKI: Yes, thank you. So we’ve mentioned China a couple of times, and we’re so fortunate to have Lingling here with us tonight. I kind of teed here up for this a little bit, but we have a situation here, about an hour north in our backyard where we have a Chinese EV battery manufacturer who is willing to invest $2.3 billion into our state and create twenty-three hundred jobs in a somewhat rural part of Michigan. And the state has done very well to court them, has put together incentive packages. Largely it was heralded as a big win, but in the subsequent months after that, there has been a lot of backlash in the community. An entire local government board was recalled because of it, and there’s been a lot of consternation about how we should view foreign direct investment from China. 

And I will say, as an economic developer in my past, I say yes to jobs and investment, but as I think about what American voters have to look at today, not too long ago Congress was talking about whether or not we needed to ban TikTok because it’s a Chinese company.  

So for Michigan voters who are trying to wrestle through, you know, how do we—how do we make decisions about the role that China should play in our local economies. Lingling, share some thoughts about how you might approach that. 

WEI: Sure. It’s really an honor to be here, Megan, with Mike, and Kori, and Raj. 

So I write for the Wall Street Journal. I’ve been covering China for more than ten years. And I thought the survey earlier you did was very telling. A lot of people, you know, named China as the biggest threat to the U.S., even than Russia. I think, you know, that just shows how much of a security story China has become in a lot of voters’ minds. 

I completely agree with Raj about the need to, you know—the fundamental of America, competitiveness, is to keep, you know, markets open overseas, and talents—you know, the door open for talents all over the world. But it’s also important to really understand where China is coming from, right—the policymakers in Beijing, what they want to accomplish. Gotion, you know, this Chinese company, you know—(inaudible)—what their plans in Michigan—great! Two billion dollars investment, thousands of jobs. As you said, you know, from a pure business perspective, there’s really no reason, right, to block that plan. 

Then, you know, the United States and China are engaged in this very intensifying competition and, you know, for a big part, is because of the Beijing’s agenda—President Xi Jinping’s own agenda to try to surpass the United States, you know, try to reshape the global order. So for companies like Gotion, they’re not just a pure private company. At home, they benefitted from a lot of government subsidies, so that gave them a leg up in terms of cost, right? So why? First of all, we need to understand why companies like Gotion want to invest in Michigan or other areas in the United States. Is it purely because they see this as a business opportunity, or are there other reasons? 

I do not know for sure but, you know, that might be a question to ask. And also, when you do business analysis—as you pointed out, Megan, for Gotion to set up a plant here, they were granted billions of dollars of subsidies by the state, and they could also access incentives under IRA, right? And so they are getting a lot of help from the United States government. At the same time, they are also—they have also got a lot of subsidies—support from within China. So their cost base is much lower than, for example, just a purely private American manufacturer. So that’s one thing that we need to do some—a little bit more analysis on. Can American manufacturers compete with a Chinese company that’s having so much support, right? 

And the second thing is that China controls a lot of the key components that go into making what Gotion makes—batteries, right? There are a lot of chemistry components—their names I don’t really remember—but China controls key parts of the supply chain. 

And we all know that China does have a coercive economic policy in place, which means if they’re not happy with what are you doing, they put sanctions on stuff. They restrict the selling of those critical minerals, right, to—for example—the U.S. So it’s not a(n) inconceivable scenario when you have the whole plant all set up in Michigan, and all—and this plan also depends on China to sell you the components to make those batteries—what if the U.S.-China relationship gets worse, and China could restrict the sale of those components—so you are stuck, right? The factory would be unable to function. 

So the reliance—the over-reliance on China on critical supplies is another concern, I think, for a lot of businesses in this country and also for people like Mike and Kori that, you know, really policy advisors. There’s a huge debate in Washington, right—how welcome should we in terms of to Chinese FDI? Yes, jobs, investment, but also do you really want to rely so much on a key opponent on a lot of stuff that you rely on for the product? 

So I would think, you know, obviously, business analysis, cost, right, and also in the context of the great power competition. 

RYDECKI: Thank you. And if we link that back to the stage that Mike set for us about would we see a difference in administrations when it came to the U.S.-China relationship. Largely, no. So as we’re thinking about which circle we’re filling in, and it may not change and there may be other factors that need to be considered in terms of how that situation would change and how policy might shift around there.  

But, Kori, you certainly have something you want to say. 

SCHAKE: Yeah. So I agree with Mike’s analysis that on trade policy both Trump and Harris are actually pretty bad. Like, they don’t actually believe that—(laughter)—but you meant bad.  

But the one difference is that in a Trump administration you will have an enormously high chaos premium, right. It will not be clear whether the president is going to put 20 percent tariffs on something or 200 percent tariffs on something and we saw this in the first Trump administration when the issue of banning TikTok originally came up, right? 

There are both privacy concerns and national security concerns about a Chinese company like TikTok operating in the United States, and Trump was initially all gung ho to ban TikTok and then changed his mind for no evident reason and reversed the policy. And that’s actually a very difficult thing for businesses to be able to plan around.  

It’s a very difficult thing for consumers to plan around, and it creates a lot of anxiety among America’s allies because they can never tell how to—if they want to support American policy how to dovetail with our policy or how to protect their own economies against it.  

RYDECKI: Mike? 

FROMAN: You know, for decades we were working to integrate China into the international system and the theory was that the more they joined the international system the more they would become like us, and we would lecture them about don’t use tariffs and protectionism to close your market. Don’t restrict foreign investment in your market. Don’t subsidize industries through industrial policy.  

And they basically sort of ignored us and they did their own thing, and now we see President Xi is taking them in quite a different direction, I think we would agree.  

I think instead of them becoming more like us we have become more like them, and so we’re using protectionism. We’re using foreign investment constraints. We’re engaging in subsidies in industrial policy.  

And I think there may be cases where that’s appropriate but it also opens a Pandora’s box of what are the limiting principles—what are the guardrails behind it? This makes sense for chips and electric vehicles but what else does it make sense for and are those equally meritorious, those two? 

When it comes back to the question you were asked, Lingling, about the battery factory, I wonder if this is a good case to learn from the Chinese. The Chinese, if somebody—if the U.S. wanted to go into China and create a factory they would say, you need to transfer your technology. You need to build a local supply chain. You need to, of course, hire just local staff, and you’re going to be very constrained in terms of what other influence you might have in the community, which I understand is one of the issues that’s being debated here. People worry that they’re going to have too much influence in the community. 

And if it still makes sense from that perspective then if they’re willing to bring in money and they’re willing to bring in technology, because they do have some cutting-edge technology in this area and this is a sector that’s important to us, then we should be I think open, at least, having that conversation and seeing whether with certain constraints, with certain conditions, we can make the investment, support the overall American economic strategy versus undermine it. 

RYDECKI: Raj? 

SHAH: Well, I would just build on that by saying I think it’s tough to listen to campaign rhetoric from either side and discern a really thoughtful nuanced approach to how America is going to compete for—(laughter)—you know, for primacy in the world against China over the next several decades and what Mike just described is a thoughtful nuanced approach to one particular issue, like, should we enable a certain amount of foreign direct investment that would create jobs and potentially transfer technology and manage the risks thoughtfully. 

Kori mentioned the fact that, you know, there’s some very important areas of military capability where analysts believe and our defense establishment believes we have fallen behind Chinese capabilities in a way that could really affect our ability to carry out our responsibilities to our allies and to our partners around the world and to ourselves, and so we have to reinvest and rebuild.  

And I—and this is just without saying one side or another—I just wish there was an actual real debate and discussion about what it takes to compete with China over the next twenty-five years because it’s not the Cold War model of containment and isolation—we’re always going to be deeply interconnected—but it is about resilience in our own supply chains and it is about clarity of how we maintain military superiority where we absolutely need to and it is about making sure we make the investments at home to have a competitive economy and workforce in a manner that can win the future.  

And I noticed in that survey poll AI was one of the topics. You know, the lack of data privacy in any meaningful way in China enables Chinese and companies working with the government to really move quite quickly on AI, and even then most of the greatest advances in artificial intelligence so far that are hitting consumers have taken place in the U.S. and that’s yet another area of competition that we have to get right in a way that is cognizant of the fact that it’s competition and interconnection.  

So I don’t know that I’d fully agree with Mike’s early point that they’re both the same and I don’t think you meant to say that they’re both the same in terms of both, but I do think it’s a tough task for voters to kind of look at both parties and say, OK, who’s going to have a nuanced and mature and comprehensive strategy to win relative to China over twenty-five years and what does that actually mean.  

RYDECKI: Lingling? 

WEI: I just wanted to follow up what Rajiv said and also what Mike said.  

From the Chinese perspective, yes, there is a bipartisan consensus on being tough on China. But from Beijing’s point of view they do see quite a difference between what—a potential Trump approach versus a potential Harris approach to China. 

So in their view—so, I mean, if you ask Chinese officials which candidate would you prefer to win the election in November very likely they would say it’s none of our business. But they definitely have indicated what they want from the next U.S. president. They want stability. They want predictability. They also want a willingness to soften a little bit on this tough on China approach.  

One of the surveys earlier was about tariffs. I thought it was really interesting a lot of people, right, voted for keeping the tariffs, right. So Trump has proposed imposing 60 percent or more in tariffs on everything China sells to America. It’s across the board. And, obviously, you know, that would be a huge hit from the Chinese view to the Chinese economy at a time when there’s considerable economic stress in China. 

So and also during the first trade war under the Trump administration they were really exhausted dealing with a(n) erratic dealmaker known as Donald Trump. They were really exhausted by that.  

For the Biden administration, at least for the past four years, yes, Biden has been very tough, very difficult on China, but there has been a sense of predictability and they managed to really keep the competition going without, you know, heightening the risk of a hot war, right?  

So this is also something that, you know, the Chinese have taken note. They were very worried about, you know, a huge hike on tariffs—in tariffs across goods sold by China, and also another issue we haven’t touched on is Taiwan, right? It’s another very hot button issue. In this interview Trump just had with the Wall Street Journal editorial board, you know, Trump indicated that Taiwan could also be used as a, you know, business negotiation in a sense, right?  

You know, Trump was asked by our editorial editor Paul Gigot what would you do to prevent China from taking back Taiwan by force. Trump’s answer was, you know, I would let them know we would impose very high tariffs on China, as high as 200 percent. So he thinks tariff is the solution to everything. But for the Chinese, Taiwan is a sacred mission for them. It’s nonnegotiable, right?  

So, you know, what I’m getting at here is that, yes, you know, we can debate a lot about the similarities and, you know, the differences between a potential Trump approach to China and a potential Biden—Harris approach to China from the Chinese perspective that, you know, they really do want predictability and a sense that someone’s willing to, you know, reset the relationship or soften the approach a little bit. 

FROMAN: Just to broaden the issue of tariffs out because I certainly didn’t mean to suggest they were identical—the two candidates—because this is an area actually where both candidates have laid out pretty explicit plans and those people close to former President Trump will tell you that there are a couple areas where he has deep core beliefs that go back decades.  

One is on immigration and one is on trade, and they—(off mic)—very seriously what he says on those issues because they’re really coming from him, not just his advisors, and what he’s laid out, as Lingling said, not just a 60 percent tariff on everything coming from China but a 10 (percent) to 20 percent tariff on everything coming in from everybody else including our friends and allies.  

Now, when you talk to people around him they’ll say, well, this is just a tactical move. It’s to get countries to come to the table to negotiate over other issues. But just to give some sense of what that would mean, that would mean—the Peterson Institute has estimated a $2,600 tax on the average American family.  

And it’s not just the average American family, it’s low income families that spend a disproportionate amount of their income on imported goods—clothing, footwear, back to school items, et cetera, and so it’s really—it is a sales tax of sorts, particularly on low income Americans.  

Now, the Biden-Harris administration has not been averse to tariffs. They’ve kept the Trump tariffs on on China and they’ve added a few other tariffs in a targeted way, and what they’ve indicated is they would be more targeted in that they may reduce tariffs in certain areas but they may add them in other areas where there’s strategic importance.  

So if we’re going to invest industrial policy public dollars in the United States in building out an electric vehicle sector we’re going to impose tariffs to make sure Chinese imports don’t undermine that new industry here in the United States.  

So be more strategic, more rifle shot rather than scatter shot, and it’s quite a bit of a difference in terms of the effect on the American public.  

RYDECKI: Appreciate that. Thank you. (Laughs.) 

FROMAN: We’re nonpartisan. 

RYDECKI: We spent a lot of time talking about China. Let’s talk about Russia and Ukraine.  

You know, where do we go from here? If any of you watched the presidential debate I think we heard one person say, you know, that we continue to support Ukraine. We heard another one say, I’ll just make a couple phone calls and I think things will be fine.  

What should we expect to see under the various administrations when it comes to Russia-Ukraine?  

SCHAKE: So President Trump said just in the last day that he would tell Putin if you invaded Ukraine I’m going to bomb Moscow and, first of all, you know, 3,400 Russian nuclear weapons that’s a big call and the recklessness with which former President Trump threw that card on the table I think actually should worry voters.  

The second thing is that we do have some data from the first Trump administration where I think it’s fair to say there’s probably not been an American president, at least since Franklin Roosevelt, who was as supportive of the government of Saudi Arabia as was President Trump and, yet, when Iran struck, attacked Saudi territory the president declined to allow the United States to retaliate.  

And so I think one risk we run in a Trump administration is grandiose rhetoric that has an enormous gap between what he says and what he’s willing to do and that’s corrosive to deterrence. It also scares the hell out of America’s friends and allies and that’s—that lack of discipline is actually really bad for American foreign policy.  

RYDECKI: Other thoughts about the current administration and— 

FROMAN: This is always ironic that the Democrat is sort of laying out the Trump case and we are where we are. 

SCHAKE: A conservative Republican is what he’s trying not to say. (Laughter.) 

FROMAN: This is why there’s such great bipartisanship.  

Look, I think there are—there are—you hear former President Trump talk about pulling back, pulling out of NATO, pulling back from Ukraine, not standing by allies and partners. I think there’s sort of two forms of isolationism that are out there.  

One is sort of—you know, isolationism goes way back in American history, I mean, all the way back to the founding of the country, George Washington, and not getting involved in entangling alliances. It was big in the 1930s, Charles Lindbergh giving speeches all over the country; 1952 presidential candidate Robert Taft made the case again for isolationism even after World War II.  

There are really two forms of it that you hear. One is we should just pull back. We shouldn’t be involved. Leave it to others and let’s just focus on our own knitting here at home. And the other—and you hear that from former President Trump sometimes and people around him—but you also hear another form which is kind of a triage approach.  

There are people who are arguing that we should cut off Ukraine because Ukraine and Russia should be left to the Europeans. It’s in Europe—let the Europeans take care of it. They’ve been benefiting too much from our largesse over the years.  

Our main challenge is China. China’s the pacing threat. We should be focusing all of our efforts on the Indo-Pacific and less so on Ukraine and Russia where the Europeans can take charge instead.  

I think both obviously pose serious risk because Europe, as you may have noticed, is not in the greatest shape. It has a productivity crisis. It’s not growing. Doesn’t have a coherent defense strategy or a coherent defense industrial base.  

And so I think many of us fear that if the U.S. were to pull back Europe would not be able to step up, would not be able to fill the gap, and we are basically leading Ukraine to the Russians and signaling to others that it’s free game to go in and invade neighboring states through the use of force.  

But there are these two arguments that I think have to be separated and wrestled with a bit because one still has the U.S. engaged abroad but in a much more limited way, and the other one really focuses on just what’s at our borders.  

RYDECKI: Sure. 

SCHAKE: One is what President Trump says privately is that the sweeping statements he makes are just a negotiating strategy to get allies to do more for Ukraine, to get Russia to do less against Ukraine, to negotiate with China.  

And I was in Brussels talking to NATO officials last week and a NATO—a senior guy at NATO said something that really struck me, which is—I asked him, you know, maybe President Trump’s right. Everybody agrees Europe should be doing more for its own security and maybe President Trump’s commentary produces it.  

And what the NATO official said is NATO’s like a marriage, and married couples have disagreements. Married couples even fight. But once somebody says I want a divorce it changes the nature of the discussion, and what America’s friends hear when President Trump talks like that is, I want a divorce. They don’t hear, I want you to do the dishes more often. They hear, I want a divorce.  

And so that really does affect and it affects the United States because we mostly want our friends to help us do the things we want to do in the world. It’s not them dragging us into stuff. It’s almost always us dragging them into stuff, and it will raise the cost to the United States of everything we try and do in the world if our allies don’t give us the benefit of the doubt. 

The second thing I would say is that—well, I forgot the second thing I was going to say so I give it up.  

RYDECKI: (Laughs.) We are almost at time for Q&A but I do want to touch on the situation in the Middle East and I might use this time as a reminder, too, to just remind everyone here at Grand Valley we have international students from nearly every country in the world, and so when we talk about these issues and matter of policy we also talk about them as a matter of lived reality for the students who are among us.  

So, you know, I think that is also one of the challenges that we face these days is talking about foreign policy, foreign relations, from that kind of perspective but then also sitting next to someone in class who may have family in Darfur or in Gaza or in Jerusalem or Lebanon or anywhere else.  

So always an interesting dance for us as we consider what these conversations really mean to the world today.  

So with that, the Middle East, right—certainly a conflict that keeps expanding, additional players being brought in. We know that certainly there are voters who would like to see the Biden administration, perhaps a continuation of the Harris administration, do more. Not necessarily a lot of talk about what we would expect from a Trump presidency but do we see it being much different?  

SCHAKE: I’ll take the first swing at that.  

I do think there is a slight but consequential difference between President Biden and Vice President Harris and that is that Vice President Harris has rebalanced the policy towards being more sympathetic to the suffering of Palestinians, which I think President Biden has been so concerned about the suffering of Israelis that he has been, I think, disgracefully silent on the suffering of Palestinians. I think Vice President Harris is trying to rebalance that. 

President Trump, I think, would be almost wholly unconcerned about the plight of Palestinians. I think that was the case in the decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem. I think that was the case with the Abraham Accords, which were one of the most important positive consequences of Trump foreign policy, getting the Arab states to acknowledge the extent to which their interests align with the interest of Israel.  

But one consequence of the Abraham Accords was even the Arab states ceasing to be interested in the plight of Palestinians, and so I think on the spectrum of likely political outcomes Vice President Harris is the most concerned about Palestinian issues, President Biden less so, and President Trump much less so.  

RYDECKI: Raj? 

SHAH: I’d just add a comment on the humanitarian consequences of the conflict in the Middle East and certainly how it’s felt in communities across the state.  

You know, in a prior era and a prior conflict I had some responsibility for overseeing humanitarian response in Syria when the Syrian people were being attacked by their own government, and we couldn’t get any humanitarian groups—the Mercy Corps of the world, all these wonderful, passionate humanitarian organizations. It was just simply not safe to go into communities that were being besieged by Bashar al-Assad and provide support.  

And we got some outreach from this—a group of doctors at Henry Ford Hospital and they said, can you come to Dearborn and help us get organized? And they created a group called Syrian-American Medical Society, or SAMS, and these doctors would go on six-week tours. Some were surgeons, and they’d go in—they’d go into Syria. They would literally take kids—remove shrapnel from kids—and they’d come back and then they’d work at Henry Ford for another three months and then go back for another six weeks. They did this for years.  

And so when you really appreciate the depth of human commitment that you see in that type of context it becomes a lot easier to understand why losing 42,000 people in Gaza in such difficult circumstances, 70 percent of whom are children and women, is held so deeply by so many people as just an absolute humanitarian catastrophe.  

And I agree with Kori. I think Vice President Harris has sat down with the Arab-American community in Dearborn, has tried to communicate how she might approach things, and if not dramatically differently in a policy context—and I won’t get into that piece—in a much more determined way on the humanitarian side.  

And there are things that can be done on the humanitarian side that don’t necessarily have to require America stepping back from an absolute commitment to the long-term security, stability of Israel and the recognition that Israel is in a war not just with one offshoot of Iran and Gaza but in a full-fledged conflict with Iran across many different elements of its proxy organizations, most of which are declared terrorist groups.  

And I would just say that the humanitarian—what’s missing from what we see in the news is any real commitment—you know, any real dialog of how those commitment and those values around humanitarian welfare will play out in the future.  

So I’m really pleased, Kori, with how clearly you sort of spelled that out.  

SCHAKE: Thanks for that.  

RYDECKI: At this time I think we’re going to turn to you all and to some Q&A. so if you have a question we do have a roving microphone and I will ask you kindly to wait until the microphone gets to you and we will go from there.  

Thank you, sir. Kayla, I think this woman in the back here might be our first one right back here.  

Q: Thank you. I have actually several questions but I’ll first start with one about foreign policy.  

One thing that’s happened that’s come to my attention recently is just our U.S. embassies that are being shut down in foreign countries. I’m wondering if you could talk at all about why that’s happened, what the repercussions on it would be, and benefits to getting back in there to reopening. Does anybody want to speak on that, or—(inaudible)? 

SCHAKE: So I don’t even know of embassies that are being shut down. That’s news to me so you may know more about it than I do, but I’d welcome hearing more from you about where they’re being shut down because I did not know that.  

Q: OK. I know they’re talking about cutting back and shutting in Afghanistan, Haiti. I’ve heard four other countries.  

Those are the two that are on my radar the most so—and something that was said is it’s due to security reasons. So that was one question I had. I guess you’re limiting me to one question? 

FROMAN: Yes. 

Q: OK. Otherwise, I also just want to say I was really hopeful that this would be an unbiased conversation, and in my opinion it was not at all.  

SCHAKE: I apologize for that. 

Q: So and I think you’re doing a great disservice by negative comments to one candidate, positive comments to another candidate, that—I think you’re doing a great disservice by that, by not having—if that’s the conversation you want to get into, having someone with opposing views on there. Thank you.  

SCHAKE: So I think that’s my fault, and I apologize.  

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Don’t apologize—(off mic). 

RYDECKI: I think Andy is our next question here. Yeah, we would appreciate if folks could pick their most burning question—Andy, like, your most burning question and limit the comments as well.  

Q: Thank you for all being here. Can you hear me?  

RYDECKI: Yes. 

Q: There we go. OK. My question is on something that happened starting at Bretton Woods and it’s about BRICS, and now it’s the new guys on the block—China, Russia. Do you know who I’m talking about? Anybody is—would like to talk on BRICS a little bit, Russia and China especially? 

FROMAN: Sure. So BRICS is a(n) acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. Interestingly, it was invented by Goldman Sachs as a marketing—(laughter)—thing to talk about the importance of emerging markets. But it became an organization and the countries thought, well, if Goldman Sachs thinks we belong together then perhaps we should all get together. 

And it’s existed for a while. It’s interesting—my view is they don’t have actually a lot in common. I mean, India and China, by the way, there’s no more country that is more anti-China than India including at the border where they have real military skirmishes.  

But they do get together and they recently decided to expand. They invited six more countries to join. I think four have agreed to join, and they’re actually going to be meeting next week—or maybe it’s this week. 

SCHAKE: Kazan. 

FROMAN: Yeah, in Kazan, in Russia, with a larger group of countries. I think twenty heads of state are coming, forty are coming. 

Look, it’s not a group that gets a lot done concretely. But I think it is an important political statement because the one thing they have in common is that they are—they have agreed, basically, not to be fully aligned with the U.S. or the U.S.-led international system. And so even though they don’t have agreement on what that alternative would be, they stand against sort of supporting the broad-based U.S.-led system that’s been in place since Bretton Woods, as you said, since the Second—since the Second World War. They have created a bank for themselves called the BRICS bank, or there’s a more formal name to it. But it’s quite small. It’s quite marginal. It’s much smaller than the World Bank and the other—and the other MDBs. 

They’re talking right now about a common currency, which I don’t think is very likely, but also about getting off the dollar as the fundamental currency of transactions. And partly that’s because the U.S. has over the years used sanctions quite effectively to try and either punish other countries or incentivize countries to change their behavior, and the most powerful sanction we have is the use of our dollar-based system because any transaction that is denominated in dollars goes through the U.S. system in some point or another. And if we can say that no transaction from this country, or this company, or this person can go through the U.S. system, can use dollars, it’s quite—it has quite an effect. So they are actually actively looking to try and create payment mechanisms among themselves to avoid the dollar-based system, in part to weaken our capacity to put sanctions on them. 

Q: Thank you. Good afternoon. 

I am a Palestinian, born and raised in the West Bank, and I condemn what happened on October 7 and the killing of innocent people. But it breaks my heart that nobody is condemning the killing of the 42,000 people, the starvation. They’re starving the children in the north and they’re not letting food in, and nobody talks about that. Everybody talks about the hostages, and rightfully so; the hostages should be released and they should go back home. But so should the thousands of Palestinians that are being held in Israeli prisoners simply because they speak their mind. And nobody talks about the inhumane conditions in the West Bank, where you have roads just for Israelis and roads just for Palestinians. And I’ve seen that; I’ve seen those roads. And it just breaks my heart that the media in the United States is—doesn’t talk about those things, you know, that Palestinians bleed just as much as, you know, Israelis bleed, and Palestinians bleed just as much as the 1,200 people bled. And while that’s wrong, it’s also wrong to, you know, destroy an entire country, and kill 42,000 people, and displace millions of people, and starve children to death. And nobody talks about that. Thank you. 

SHAH: Yeah. I might—I don’t want to react to that, but I do want to say I—having seen this play out in this case and also in many others over a longer period of time, America on a bipartisan basis has traditionally been—one of our great sources of strength has—we have been that moral voice on the global stage. And we don’t always live up to it in our policies foreign or domestic, but when America leads on moral and humanitarian issues others follow. And as modest as the accomplishments might be in that context, things happen. And so I would just say I think it’s extremely important that America always use its moral voice on the global stage, and I’ll leave it at that. 

Q: I had a question for Ms. Wei. You know, I think, as you pointed out, you know, discussing and diplomacy is extremely crucial in trying to define a problem as well as possible resolution. I happen to think that probably the greatest threat to this country and the world is China. And we see these diplomatic get-togethers between the Chinese, ten people on one side, Mr. Xi, and ten of United States on the other side with Lighthizer and somebody else, not sure who, discussing things; then the next day you read about the Chinese assessment, and then the United States assessment, and what transpired, and the results. I am totally convinced that I don’t think that the Americans know what the Chinese are saying, and I don’t think the Chinese know what the Americans are saying. I know China is extremely a difficult language, and the nuances in translation can be missed. And my question I have for you is: Do you really think that the Americans understand what the Chinese are saying and the Chinese understand what the Americans are saying? 

WEI: Oh, that’s such a good question. That’s what my job is. (Laughter.) Trying to—trying to— 

RYDECKI: Job security. Right. 

WEI: You’re the judge. 

Q (?): I think you’re doing a good job. (Laughter.) 

WEI: Thank you. Thank you. That’s such a great question. 

I mean, you know, oftentimes the two governments do talk past each other, that’s for sure, but I do feel like Americans now—Washington—have a pretty good understanding about China and China’s intention, China’s strategy these days. And so there—you know, in the Biden administration, you know, we have seen very experienced and skillful diplomats, you know, trying to continue and build up the dialogue with the Chinese, specifically for the reason you talked about—you know, need the communication, need to understand where the Chinese are coming from. 

At the same time, I do feel like, you know, there—based on reporting in Beijing these days, you know, the strategic view about the U.S. is that, you know, that the West is on decline and the East is rising. And you know, I don’t know all Chinese believe that, but at least in some very important circles in Beijing they do have that view. And you know, that has been proven wrong. You know, for the past four years, the U.S. economy, you know, has grown dramatically. I mean, inflation is still a problem, but overall growth. You know, look at—look around; the markets, the business opportunities, you know, have been growing. But China, where is China now? You know, they’re experiencing a huge economic, you know, crisis, you know. So I think the—if the top leadership continues to make decisions, take actions under the—on the belief that the United States is in this terminal decline, then, you know, I would think the risks of policy mistakes coming from China are definitely increasing. 

On a lower level—meaning not just, you know, the top leaders, White House versus Zhongnanhai, China’s version of the White House—more importantly is the exchanges among the ordinary people, right, in the United States and China. I think it’s been reported in the past there were tens of thousands of American students in China, and now the number is down to 800. That’s really bad, right? So—because as you’ve pointed out, sir, Chinese is a really hard language, and there are so many things, you know, like, just totally the opposite of what Americans do. Like, the markets go up, Americans is, you know, red, but in—green; in China, markets go red—you know, go red—go up and the color is red, right? And also, my name here is Lingling Wei, and back in China I’m Wei Lingling, right? So there are so many things that you just—you know, you need a lot of people really here understand China and also China understand the United States. So the channel between—among the people should continue, you know, be open. 

Raj mentioned AI earlier. I just—80 percent of the AI professionals in America are ethnic Chinese. 

Q: Eight-zero? 

WEI: Yeah, eight-zero. So that just shows the enormous, you know, contribution made by immigrants, including immigrants coming from China. So, you know, that’s just yet another piece of evidence that despite, you know, the fight been the governments and all that, this still is very globalized economy, still needs—America’s strength still lies with being inclusive. You know, not everything Chinese is bad. Yes, you know, need to preserve national security. Do realize the challenges posed by the Chinese military, you know, the industrial policy, overcapacity, tech transfer, and all that stuff. Those issues definitely need to consider. But always keep in mind what really makes America great, right? It’s this kind of inclusiveness. 

RYDECKI: Lingling, that’s a great setup. Our theme this year at the Hauenstein Center for our programming is E Pluribus Unum, “out of many, one.” And so I think that’s such a great reminder as we wrestle with these big issues of the world that where our strength can lie and can be found is coming together. So thanks for that. I didn’t even tell her to say that, it’s just—(laughter). 

I’m sure we have some more questions. I think I see—oh. 

Q: (Off mic)—ask, you know, regarding the Middle East, it seems like, you know, the U.S. has continuously kind of been reacting to what Israel is doing instead of, you know, seemingly with—you know, with the pagers in Lebanon, it didn’t seem like they were really, you know, up to date with that. And I think it’s kind of been the question, you know, when you hear Biden and Harris saying, you know, we think it’s time for them to end the war, we think it’s time for Netanyahu to do this, the question is, you know, why, when we’re giving billions of dollars, do you not have more influence on what Israel is doing? What are you not up to date on what their plans are in Gaza and elsewhere? 

And I think my question to all of you is, you know, more broadly, how do you balance giving aid, giving money to another country and, you know, also, you know, having some influence without—you know, the U.S. has kind of always been known, obviously, as, you know, having a heavy hand overstepping. You know, what, maybe, is that balance of giving money but not influencing too much, I guess? 

SHAH: Well, you know, maybe I’ll start on that. I would say on a global basis over decades when we give aid, whether it’s military aid, or humanitarian aid, or efforts to fight disease and support economic growth and development, we do so alongside the promulgation of our values and our influence. So when I ran USAID, for example, Uganda had passed this very draconian anti-gay law and started to arrest people, including political adversaries, you know, based on very little fact, and we withheld components of our aid and assistance until there was a real diplomatic dialogue and resolution. And there are probably fifty cases like that I could describe where we condition our aid, and the fact that the counterparties know we condition our aid allows us to have much more diplomatic leverage in engaging in outcomes. 

That doesn’t, by the way, mean—I mean, and a lot of times we don’t get what we want, right? But we—but diplomacy is a slow, long-term mission, and you pursue it whether or not you’re winning every—with every argument and every confrontation in that context. 

You know, I’ll leave it to others to maybe speak to how that played out in the Israel context, but I’d argue that we probably weren’t as—we clearly weren’t as effective, in my view, at responsibly and credibly conditioning aid for reasons that have to do with the uniqueness of that relationship and Netanyahu’s perspective of what we would or could do or not do in a political season. And I certainly don’t think we used our voice on the—on the humanitarian urgency, which I actually think we could have done alongside pretty unequivocal support for Israel. Like, we have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. 

FROMAN: First of all, I want to thank you for that comment and the—and the prior comment on the Palestinian issue. Look, I think it points out there’s a great deal of frustration, I think, to say in Washington that we haven’t been able to have more influence. And I think, to Rajiv’s point, we probably could have done more publicly. But certainly there have been private messages all throughout this process. And the current government in Israel has largely ignored or informed the U.S. after the fact when they were taking action. And there’s deep frustration about that. 

This is not to excuse it, but maybe to explain it. I think it’s hard for us back here to fully appreciate the national trauma that Israel went through after October 7. And whatever influence we normally seem to have over the Israeli government, I think they are so determined to restore, in their view, what security looks like that they have been quite willing to put their relationship with the U.S. at some significant degree of risk. Now, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have done more to push on the 42,000 that were killed in Gaza, or other actions that have been taken. 

But I think if we think about how much trauma we went through here after 9/11 with 3,000 people killed, and the equivalent would have been 30,000, or something of that sort, given the size of the population, there was such a political reaction there that made influence from the outside even less effective than it might otherwise have been. 

RYDECKI: Other questions? 

Q: Thank you. 

So we saw in the poll earlier that climate change is a really important issue to a lot of people. And one of the regions where climate change is going to affect the most is one I feel like hasn’t really been touched on yet, of Latin America and the Caribbean. And so my question for you all is, seeing that climate change is also going to produce a lot of displacement of people and migration, how is the U.S. collaborating with these countries, anticipating this issue? 

SHAH: Yeah, I actually just got back from the region, a trip designed to work on exactly that issue. And so I’ll share some observations. The first is, you know, it’s really easy to overlook the extent to which Latin America and South America are so critical to the future of our planet, just geophysically. The Amazon itself are the Earth’s lungs. Few other forest systems, but that’s the big one. And, you know, a 20 percent further deforestation of the Amazon across the five countries where it is most present would actually result in a tipping of that ecosystem to no longer allow it to sustainably over time, as temperatures warm even by just 1 ½ degrees, continue to be a net producer of oxygen, a net sink of carbon dioxide. So and that’s one of the sixteen geophysical tipping points that scientists look at and say, gosh, if that happens we are even more in this irreversible loop of extreme climate consequences. 

So in light of that, what do we do? Well, you know, the U.S. should be leading efforts, in my view, to bring countries together to make investments and provide support, to provide agricultural assistance to local indigenous communities that are often the ones being pushed off their land as larger farms with cattle are doing the deforestation and using that land for grazing. And there are ways to manage that. But it requires both leadership and investment. And in the current context, we’ve been unable to produce significant aid and assistance to those countries to cooperatively invest in the protection of those ecosystems at scale. So I think it’s largely totally missing from this presidential debate or dialogue. (Laughs.)  

But, you know, I come back to the basic point that when America leads—both with our values and with our interests—and when we make smart, targeted investments that have a repayment to the whole—to the security, and the prosperity, and the stability, and in this case the sustainability, of the whole planet, those are the kinds of things where if America doesn’t lead, effectively no one does. In this context, those five countries have gotten together. They’re doing things. But it’s—there’s no enforcement, there’s no mechanism for making real public investments. And they’re just starting to negotiate sort of MOUs with each other. They’re not really changing the game on the ground. 

So, you know, I was just in the Amazon. It’s at a forty-year drought level low in terms of the actual depth of the river. And it’s totally noticeable. And it’s an urgent crisis that demands the kind of leadership we saw, again, on a bipartisan basis when George W. Bush saw an HIV crisis tearing apart Africa, America led, saved thirty-eight million lives, and protected a continent. And in the same way—and we did it with a tiny little share of our total foreign assistance. And in the same way, we could be doing those types of things to protect critical ecosystems for our planet. 

RYDECKI: I think we have time for one last, very succinct question. 

Q: I don’t want to end up on a boring topic, but I’m going to talk about the deficit. (Laughter.) And it’s the time value of money. And unfortunately, it’s a fact that, I think, 44 percent of the U.S. dollars were created since 2020. We have a yawning deficit. We have Chinese, you know, reserve currencies that hold, in round numbers, more than a trillion dollars. And I want just the panel to kind of talk about the security implications of all that, because you can’t weaponize the dollar. You can’t hold the dollar as a reserve currency as easily when all that is going on. Combined with the fact that it’s just a large chunk of money that is gradually moving to debt, and crowd out any kind of defense spending, or any other kind of spending that we might want. Please address. 

SCHAKE: So maybe I’ll start. I absolutely agree with you. I mean, last year payments—interest payments on the U.S. debt exceeded defense spending in the United States. We are paying more for the money we have borrowed than we are paying to defend ourselves, our allies, and our interests in the world. And that is wildly unsustainable. And, exactly as you said, it is—debt is crowding out discretionary spending, slowly and surely but inexorably, unless we solve this problem. And the only way to solve this—I mean, there are three factors, right? Spending, entitlements. 

Entitlements are the big elephant in the deficit room. We actually need to rein in entitlement programs if we are going to preserve discretionary spending, domestic or defense, in the American federal budget, because entitlement spending and interest payments are crowding everything else out. And neither political party wants to face that. And it’s going to require real leadership, and real pressure from civil society groups and voters to change political leaders’ attitudes about that. But you are right, as early as 2012—so the American military planning system starts with a document called the Joint Operating Environment. In 2012, the American military identified the national debt as the largest threat to our country, because it’s crowding out all discretionary spending. So you’re exactly right. And please keep boring people with it until we fix the problem.  

FROMAN: I’d just add, Kori’s absolutely right. And it’s hard, with all the challenges that we see around the world that we’ve been talking about the last hour and a half, to imagine that there’s going to be less need for defense spending going forward rather than more need. And so we’re going to need to spend more on defense, and modernize our forces, and use technology differently than we’ve used it before. We have tremendous domestic needs that need to be funded. And everyone—all the economists will agree what we’re on an unsustainable trajectory, but they can’t agree on when it’s going to happen and what the event’s going to be. And so as a result, we keep on spending deficit money and raising the debt. 

This is not a point of being biased, but there is the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office which has scored the two candidates’ policies. Neither candidate, as Kori said, is talking about fiscal responsibility. But the extension of the tax cuts from 2017, which cost about $5 ½ trillion, adding more—$5 ½ trillion more to the deficit and debt. And under the Harris plan, she would also add about $2 ½ trillion. But there is a—there is a difference there in terms of what the scoring is of their economic policies. 

RYDECKI: Thank you for that. 

Speaking of scoring, we have reached the end of our Q&A time. Thank you for the great questions. I’m going to invite you all quickly to get your QR code back out and your phone, and we are going to re-poll one more time. I have the magical results—not in a secured briefcase, but I have the magical results from the first round right here, and we’re going to do this one more time. And so, as a reminder, scan the QR code, skip the username. 

The first question: How important is foreign policy when considering who you will vote for in the presidential election? And we’re not going to project on the screen and open that up, so you’ll just need to check your devices to see the results. So in the first round of voting, we came in around 73 percent that said it was very important; I’m seeing the number right now at about 78 (percent). So congratulations, panel, you’ve moved 5 percent of the room. (Laughter.) Well done. Well done. 

FROMAN: Five points in Michigan means a lot these days. (Laughter.) 

RYDECKI: It does mean a lot. Yeah. That is—that is no joke, no joke. 

OK. Moving to the next question. Is somebody advancing our questions? OK. I am not—there we go. 

Second question: How active should the United States be in global affairs? So this question, actually, there was a technology blip the first round; we didn’t get to answer that. But how active should the United States be in global affairs—more active than it is now, maintain current level, less active than it is now, not at all active, or do not—do not know? Looks like about 54 percent of us believe that it should be more active than it is now, 33 percent say maintain, 11 (percent) say less. No one thinks we shouldn’t be active, so I think that’s probably good. That’s probably a win for the panel. And 2 percent who don’t know; there’s an honest couple folks here. OK. 

Next question: Which of the following do you consider the greatest threat to U.S. national security? Choices are AI, China, climate change, domestic challenges, Russia, or other. In the first poll, domestic challenges came out at about 41 percent, climate change was 25 (percent), China came in at 13 (percent), AI and Russia both at 8 percent. And my live results are still loading; anyone have live results out there? What are we seeing, Julian (sp)? 

AUDIENCE MEMBER: China’s at 16 percent, climate change is 21 percent, and domestic challenges are—(off mic). 

RYDECKI: OK. So we’ve become more concerned about domestic challenges as a result—as the greatest risk. 

SCHAKE: That’s a total failure for this panel. (Laughter.) 

RYDECKI: Fourth question: When it comes to trade with China, how should we approach tariffs—increase, keep them the same, decrease, do not know? Survey says—the first round, about 32 percent said keep them the same, 26 percent said they didn’t know, 15 (percent) said decrease, and 11 percent said increase. Currently, about half the room says let’s keep them the same, so that’s an increase of seventeen points. Thirty-one percent say decrease, which is a doubling of our first round where we came in at 15 (percent). About the same number say increase. And do not know has gone down, so that, I think, is a win. 

SCHAKE: Victory. (Laughter.) 

RYDECKI: And finally: Do you think the United States should increase, maintain, or decrease its current level of defense spending? First round, about 39 percent of—nope, sorry, 48 percent of us said we should decrease. And currently, about 40—38 percent of us say increase, 40 percent say maintain, 22 percent say decrease. 

FROMAN: Kori wins. 

SCHAKE: OK. Thank you! Thank you, my friends. 

RYDECKI: Oh. Congratulations, Kori. (Laughter.) We’ll have a trophy for you afterward. (Laughter.) 

OK. Thank you. So we’ll put a little caveat on some of these responses. Certainly, there’s always a margin of error. We are no different here, unfortunately. 

But I want to thank you all for participating. I want to thank you all for being such good listeners and thinkers tonight. (Applause.) 

Join me in thanking our very esteemed panelists for making time out of the busy election season and their busy lives for being here. Certainly was a great, great conversation. (Applause.) Our thanks again to the Council on Foreign Relations, the support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York for their funding. And again, we remind you to visit CFR.org and ForeignAffairs.com for additional information. 

And before I release you into the exhibition hall, just a quick personal story. I had dinner with a friend who lives in the EU last night, an EU national—not last night; last week—and I said, you know: Are you paying attention to things that are happening here? What do you think about the election? And he said: I follow it every day. I watch the news every night. So as Michiganders, we are tired of being a swing state, right, and we’re tired of our phones blowing up, and we’re tired of all of it, but a gentle reminder and encouragement that our votes really do matter, and that the eyes of the world are watching us and depending on us to make a difference in the world today. So as you go to the polls, keep that in mind. And we thank you for your civic engagement and for being here tonight with us. (Applause.) 

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