US FOREIGN POLICY

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Pandora

RICHARD HAASS returns to the podcast to talk about the US FOREIGN POLICY implications of Trump’s Tariffs and other initiatives. We take another tour of the world’s hotspots after the recent UN conference here in New York. Finally, we weave in an analogy of the recent crowd misbehavior at the Ryder Cup as a symptom of America’s current mood.

US FOREIGN POLICY: INTRO

Frazer Rice (00:01.277)

Welcome aboard, Richard. We are past our technology glitch, I think. The next big thing here is to try to figure out what the US looks like. We’re on the heels of the UN week and also the Ryder Cup. I’m not sure which one was more chaotic, but as you look at the US’s standing after the UN, what do you take from the events that took place last week?

Richard Haass (00:02.744) on US FOREIGN POLICY

Great to be back.

THE US MOOD (AND THE RYDER CUP)

Richard Haass (00:28.172)

It was not a great week for what Joe and I, may he rest in peace, called soft power. What happened at Beth Page, the terrible manners, the coarseness, vulgarity, choose your word, the lack of sportsmanship, we could go on, but you get the point, was really poorly received in Europe, as it should have been. And I thought the PGA here just showed a blind spot would be generous. So it was not good. I felt somewhat between embarrassed and ashamed and also just overshadowed some unbelievable golf on both sides.

Frazer Rice (01:11.069)
Kind of where I came out on it. And it just felt bad watching some really good players doing their thing and then all of a sudden, again, overshadowed by pretty boorish behavior.

Richard Haass (01:22.51)

Particularly golf, because golf’s a game of rules and norms. I think it was Rory Mclroy who used the word etiquette, and what we saw was anything but. I really wondered at times whether some of those people ever played golf. And then the UN. Look, it didn’t happen in isolation. The President’s US Foreign Policy speech was…at times just, it was seen, it was taken badly by Europeans. It was for understandable reasons, seen by them as something of an attack on them. The comments like about Sharia law in London were over the top. The criticism of immigration policy, some of which, for the record, deserve some criticism, I would say. The total denial of climate change was badly received.

So it was not good, even though, and I think the president detracted for some of his legitimate criticisms of the UN. My own sense, though, is the UN’s got bigger problems than Donald Trump’s speech. The UN has basically made itself increasingly irrelevant. It’s no longer a place for serious diplomacy. At most, it’s a venue for side meetings. And since then, you’ve had the announcement of a “peace” plan for Gaza and so forth.

So the world’s moved on. quite honestly, what matters is not what happened during a few days of traffic in New York, but rather what happens more broadly. So we’ll see what, if anything, comes of this Middle East announcement. We’ll see what happens next, if anything, diplomatically with Ukraine. President Trump’s about to meet his Chinese counterpart in less than a month in South Korea. So there’s a lot going on.

And not to mention domestically, there’s a lot going on we can discuss. So the fact that the Ryder Cup or the UN were not great in and of themselves, they’re more data points. And I think what matters is more the larger story for better and for worse.

US Foreign Policy: Russia and the Ukraine

Frazer Rice (03:32.339)
As we just a couple of quick points to hit back on Ukraine Russia. What’s the state of play in there right now?

Richard Haass (03:41.71)

Well, we’re reaching the end of what you might call the third fighting season of this phase of the war, the one that started just over, mean, just under three years ago, in February of 22, if I have my dates right. My sense is things will dial down militarily somewhat during the winter, and then they’ll dial up again early next year for a fourth fighting season.

I don’t believe diplomacy will gain traction until the United States does probably two things, puts much more economic pressure on Russia and gives Ukraine much more military wherewithal, both to withstand Russia and to take the war to Russia. Ultimately, diplomacy will only happen in a context where Vladimir Putin comes to the conclusion, however reluctantly, that time is not on his side. Right now, he believes time is on his side. He has no reason to compromise or settle. Only if we convince him.

The time is not his friend, I believe. Will he agree to something like a ceasefire? I don’t think we should be pushing for peace for any number of reasons. We can go into it if you want, but I don’t think we need to. So at the moment, diplomacy is dependent on the calculations of the two sides, and I think the Ukrainian leadership is willing to accept a ceasefire in place, but the Russian leadership isn’t. We’ve gotta change that calculation, and that’s more than anything, I think, a function of whether we give Ukraine greater military help, which persuades Putin that more war will not give him more results.

Frazer Rice (05:15.571)
Any inside baseball and any potential weaknesses in Russia that we don’t hear about over here, as opposed to sort of the general posturing we get from Putin?

Richard Haass (05:25.389)

There’s been a lot of talk about it recently. The president mused on true social, about Russia’s economy and so forth. Look, Russia’s paid an enormous price for the war in terms of manpower, in terms of its economy. But China continues to buy oil, India continues to buy oil, Turkey continues to buy oil. So think the Russian economy limps along. Militarily, they’ve got a pretty good wartime economy. Putin still controls the narrative within Russia.

I don’t sense, I’d love to be wrong, but I don’t sense that Russia’s on any brink where it can’t sustain a version of what it is doing. So no, no, could we reach a point, phrase it like that, is no longer true, and Russia, literally and figuratively, begins to run out of gas? Yeah.

But I don’t think we’re there yet, but time, the medium to long term is not in Russia’s favor, only because their productive capabilities are getting diminished and so forth. again, I still think what we want to do is help Ukraine more. don’t know if we will. I don’t know if we’re going to impose sanctions. can’t explain why this reluctance to pressure Russia directly and indirectly.

It gets into places I don’t have any evidence on. But I would simply say…President Trump is right to want to bring peace. I think he’s sabotaging or undermining his own US Foreign Policy efforts by not creating a context in which diplomacy is more likely to succeed. But I don’t see any signs at the moment that either side is ready to essentially shout uncle.

US FOREIGN POLICY: ISRAEL AND GAZA

Frazer Rice (07:10.163)
Trump just came out with his 10 or 20 point plan for Israel and Gaza to

Richard Haass (07:15.373)
It was to inflationary times. It was 20.

Frazer Rice (07:18.951)
It’s power of compounding. Hopefully, maybe that’ll help. What do you make of that? We’ve just had all sorts of different iterations of from the invasion to the counter invasion to all the fighting. on one hand, I’m happy to see that there’s an attempt to try to stake out some peace plans here, but I’m not confident that it will come to pass. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Richard Haass (07:44.258)

I pretty much agree with what you said. Look, it’s the shortest 20-point plan in history. And by that, I mean there’s 20 points to it, but none of them is fleshed out. So the immediate question is whether Hamas agrees to it, the Israeli government did. But even if Hamas does any number of implementation questions. Certain preconditions have to be met and so forth.

When I used to teach at Harvard, we used to say that 90 % of life is implementation. Well, this plan is the 10%. It’s a design. It includes all the things a peace plan would need to include, at least it mentions them. But they’re not developed. And so all sorts of things to tall for a technocratic that could run Gaza, a stabilization force, full humanitarian aid, all sorts of things about political and diplomatic processes.

The plan is more, I guess I’d say it’s more aspirational than operational. So the good news is the Israeli government agreed to it. We’ll see what Hamas does. My own guess is at some point,

There’ll be all sorts of hiccups in implementation. And probably early next year, in the spring or so, I expect Bibi Netanyahu will call for new elections. He’s got to do it within the next 12, 13 months. He’ll choose an opportune moment. The fact that he’s gotten this plan put forward, which is quite sensitive, shall we say, to Israeli interests, and he’s agreed to it, puts him in a very good position.

So either Hamas…capitulates or Israel’s given a green light to continue the war from the United States. So I think, my own view is this plan in its current form will not reach fruition to say the least. And at some point sooner rather than later, we’ll probably have Israeli elections, possibly as soon as six, seven, eight months from now.

CHINA AND INDA

Frazer Rice (09:48.392)
Got it. So it would be geopolitically crazy not to talk about the two most populous nations in China and India. I know they got together with Russia in the room as well to maybe to broadcast their sort of emergent standing in the world. Is there anything we should be watching on that front besides sort of the obvious in terms of how they deal with themselves and how they deal with US Foreign Policy, especially in a tariff environment?

US FOREIGN POLICY: INDIA

Richard Haass (10:16.279)

Couple things come to mind, in terms of India.

I think it’s fair to accuse the administration of diplomatic malpractice. The U.S.-Indian relationship has been carefully nurtured over the last few decades by Republican and Democratic presidents alike. It made sense economically. India is the world’s largest country. It’s probably, the fifth largest economy, but it’s going to grow by any measure. Strategically, it’s a real concern for China.

So the idea that we’ve slapped these heavy tariffs on India and pushed them and China’s direction seems to me to make little sense. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not happy with India buying oil from Russia. India’s long bought its arms from Russia, but this hostility towards India just makes no sense. And this embrace of Pakistan, again, what’s Pakistan? A country of 1 6th, 1 7th the population of India. It’s got a long association with terrorism.

The army, shall we say, has disproportionate power. I don’t understand this fondness for Pakistan and this distancing from India. So I think this is one of those head shakers. In terms of the Indians showing up at the powwow in China, yeah, it was a sign that the Indians are alienated. Now they did leave before the military parade. But again, I think it’s India in some ways.

Re-embracing its tradition of a kind of strategic independence, something that it had during the Cold War, even though it tilted towards the Soviet Union. And I think it was the Indians’ of pushing back against US Foreign Policy, saying, we have options. If you Americans are going to treat us badly, we can lower the temperature with China, which is not in our strategic advantage. We want China to have to think about India.

So that’s just at the moment drifting in a kind of bad place in India. We have what, it’s the 50 % tariffs, which again, it’s not that India isn’t protectionist it is, but this is not the way to deal with it. This is not the way to reach a point where India becomes much more open to American exports.

US FOREIGN POLICY: CHINA

Richard Haass (12:12.398)

In terms of China, again, President Trump and Xi Jinping are gonna meet in less than a month in South Korea on the margins of the APEC meetings.

There’s talk about a summit in China sometime in 2026. And I think the real question is not just what happens economically, what is it the United States and China can agree to, but also what happens geopolitically. And to what extent is it a narrow economics conversation, or to what extent is there a grand bargain in which there’s some trading off, if you will, between geopolitics and economics.

What a lot of people in the strategic world are worried about is that China gives us some of what we want economically, and we give them some of what they want strategically. And that gets into the question of the South China Sea and even more Taiwan. I don’t know. But this is an administration that has consistently put what it sees to be the country’s economic interests before its strategic interests.

And so I can’t rule that out, that that might be the approach. I’m not going to say, I’m not going to rule it in. But I think this meeting in October and then the meeting sometime next year, the summit sometime next year, could go in any number of directions. the meantime, though, I think China has pushed back successfully against American tariffs with their cutting off of exports of rare earth minerals. It’s interesting that we tariffed India, but not China, over purchases of Russian oil. So stay tuned. But I think China has considerable leverage in things like agricultural exports, as your listeners will know.

Essentially the Argentines, the Brazilians and others are benefiting and American soybean farmers are paying an enormous price. The Chinese essentially are saying, you want to play a bit of economic warfare. Well, two can play that game. And by the way, we might be at least as good, if not better than you, at playing it.

US Foreign Policy: Nepal

Frazer Rice (14:36.148)
Quick flashpoint question about Nepal, which I thought was sort of an under-reported story and how basically the leadership there was in a sense overthrown. And you have that happening right in the middle of India, Pakistan, China right there. there anything, it’s tough for me to tell whether that’s a contagion that’s been closed off or whether that’s something that just bears further monitoring.

Richard Haass (15:01.324)

I mean, I go on at great length, except I don’t know enough to go on at great length. So I haven’t seen a lot, but what I don’t know, to be honest, is whether the fact I haven’t seen anything after the initial few days of reports, whether that shows a lack of media access and interest or that things have seriously or fundamentally calmed. Sorry, I just don’t know. I don’t know how to interpret the lack of news coming from there.

US FOREIGN POLICY’S IMPACT ON THE US ECONOMY

Frazer Rice (15:29.086)
Got it. So let’s move stateside for a second. It’s the economy, stupid. That’s what they all tell us. And it’s actually, in my opinion, probably very true. Trump’s tariffs have now had a set of months to bed in, and it’s had its different issues related to sort of geopolitical relationships.

It’s unclear to me whether we can really sort of take any solace from it other than a high stock market. But even that scares me a little bit. What do you think about in terms of the economy and how the US is set up both for everybody sort of individually who are citizens here, but then geopolitically and otherwise as we look forward to things like the midterm elections and other phenomenon.

TARIFFS AS AN ARM OF US FOREIGN POLCIY

Richard Haass (16:15.286)

Sure. You wrapped around six questions into that one, my friend. Look, I think the tariffs, they’ve certainly hurt us geopolitically because a lot of them are against allies. And we’ve essentially said being an ally doesn’t insulate you, whether you’re Europeans or the Indians or Japanese or what have you.

So I think they’ve had a strategic impact of weakening a lot of our relationships. Economically, we’re still in the phase of seeing the effects, but I think the preliminary effects are increasingly apparent. They’re inflationary, they have slowed growth, and they have led to a bit of job loss. So I think that’s the, but this is a work in progress, and my sense is that’ll get worse and it works against what the administration wants, which is for the Fed to dramatically lower rates.

On one hand, the slowing growth does, it reinforces the desire to lower rates, but obviously the inflationary impact works against it. This is an article of faith, not analysis for this president. So I’m on the skeptical side. It will raise some money, maybe a couple of hundred billion a year. in terms of added revenues. But the real question is whether how it nets out. If the economy slows and there’s less growth, then that’s going to hurt us on balance because the IRS, the extent that still in a position to take in revenues, reduce the effectiveness there, will have less to work with. The economy will just be smaller.

Richard Haass (18:04.16)

I think on balance both strategically and economically, the tariffs are unfortunate. They’re ill-advised. But like I said, it’s an article of faith for this president. It’s the centerpiece of a lot of his economic program, even if it works against some of what he wants to see. And I do think politically it hurts him. You see the numbers in the economy.

Look, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, essentially what led to their defeat, as much as anything, was the cost of living. And, you know, people get reminded of higher prices several times a day. I think it will hurt the Trump presidency as well, both in terms of food prices, which are pretty robust, or in terms of mortgage rates not going down much.

So I think this will politically be a… net loss for them plus with specific constituencies I already mentioned certain farmers who live by exports they’re to be they’re they’re they’re furious they are they have been they they have been made you know what they’re paying an enormous price for this policy they didn’t realize they were voting for.

US FOREIGN POLICY AND THE ECONOMY CONTINUED

Frazer Rice (19:06.057)
Right. The other part that scares me a little bit is if you subscribe to the notion that AI is going to lead to productivity gains, that could lead to unemployment in pockets that people didn’t expect. In Midtown, if have whole bunch of guys in vests walking around that suddenly don’t have cushy jobs anymore because they’ve been replaced by GPT-5 and all that, that’s not great either.

Richard Haass (19:27.118)
Yeah.

Richard Haass (19:37.999)
That’s happening and it’s gonna happen more. And I think it’s inevitable. It’s gonna affect white collar and not just blue collar. People who have incurred serious debt to go to a fancy four year school. And they’re gonna have a lot of debt and not a lot of jobs. Look, I don’t think we’re ready for that. For the hit it’s gonna take on jobs.

We haven’t really begun this conversation in this country about a safety net for people who, for long-term unemployment, for people who had never had jobs. It’s one thing to get unemployment insurance for a limited period after you’ve been laid off. What if you can’t get that first job? These are, I just don’t think we’re, as a society, as a polity, to get political science here for a moment, we are not positioned to have that conversation yet. And whether we’re talking about universal basic income.

Whether we’re talking about lifelong education and re-skilling and re-tooling opportunities and so forth. So the question is, how do we deal with this? What is the responsibility of the state? To what extent do we condition the various types of economic support on certain willingness of the individual to do certain things? We haven’t begun that conversation, but we’re going to have it.

I don’t know when, whether it’s in a year or two years or three years.

I don’t know if it’ll happen before 2026, but do I think it’ll happen by 2028? Yeah, I do. I actually think that that will be one of the conversations that will, whoever the candidates are in 2028 for the presidency and for Congress, this is gonna figure significantly in the public, if you will, in the political marketplace.

2026 ELECTIONS

Frazer Rice (21:27.728)
We painted a pretty gloomy picture for Trump in his sort of era here. And in many ways, I feel like he’s trying to run out the clock before 2026 in the midterms, where if the House switches over, I think a lot of what he’s trying to do slows down to a crawl. But the Democrats themselves are not creating or taking advantage of the conditions they inherited.

I spoke, or I didn’t speak, I was at an event where NY1 was talking about the mayor’s race in New York and Mondami and sort of the progressive element in the Democratic Party having a big impact on what’s happening here in New York City. I guess just from a broader question, how do you see the Democrats lining up for 2026 in something that seems to me to be very winnable, but at the same time, they seem to not lose an opportunity to lose an opportunity?

DEMOCRATS

Richard Haass (22:25.006)

I have a couple of reactions. One is you can’t speak of the Democrats when it comes to 2026 because they don’t have a candidate. What they have is 435 candidates for the House and 33, 34 candidates for the Senate. And I don’t know how many governors. It’s decentralized. So the Democrats are going to be all over the place. From center left to center to far left to Democratic socialists like the likely next mayor of New York. So.

They’ll be all over the place. And all politics is local. Some will win and all that. But I don’t know what kind of clarity politically will emerge from it all. I also think there’s some big questions, it’s awkward to talk about, how the administration will try to shape the environment so the Democrats don’t emerge with control of the House.

I don’t think there’s much chance, there’s some, but not much chance they could regain the Senate, but the House is paper thin margin. This administration clearly, strongly does not want the Democrats to take control of the House of Representatives, given the subpoena power, the hearing power, and all that, what would accrue. So the question is, what lengths will the administration go to to see that that doesn’t happen? We’re already seeing what you might call aggressive gerrymandering.

You had the president just recently talk about the deployment of American military in many cities and so forth. I think the jury’s out on what’s gonna happen in this country over the next 13 months. I’m not predicting what will happen.

I’m simply saying I’m not confident that I can sit here and tell you what will be the run-up to the elections in… in 13 months. But I do believe this administration will go to great lengths to see that the Democrats do not gain control of the House of Representatives. I can’t talk about 2028 yet.

There the Democrats will have a representative. Someone will ultimately win the party’s nomination. And I don’t know if it’s somebody of the center, the center left, or the progressive left, the far left.

REPUBLICANS

Richard Haass (24:45.998)

And on the Republican side, I don’t know if you essentially, could have everything from the President running for a third term, if that’s even a possibility, to Vice President Vance essentially representing what he would do is represent a de facto or effective third term of President Trump, whether you might have a Nikki Haley or Glenn Youngkin or somebody like that who might represent a little bit of a correction. I don’t know.

Again, a week’s a long time in politics. We’re now talking, we’re two years away from the beginning of the primary season. So we’ll probably have six more conversations, you and I, before then. So we can revisit that. I think we’ve got to get through this November, which is the mayoral election, a couple of gubernatorial elections in New Jersey, I think Virginia, and so forth. We’ll see what signs they tell us about disaffection over the economy and over other issues.

Frazer Rice (25:21.492)
Ha!

POLITICAL INDICATORS TO WATCH

Richard Haass (25:41.643)

Then I think the next big political, well two things, one will be Supreme Court decisions on such things as the power to enact tariffs and post tariffs and how the court decides and how the administration reacts to those decisions. And then I think the other big thing will be the run up to the midterms, among other things again, the use of National Guard, military and so forth and how that all plays out.

I would just say, this is largely a business audience. The range of potential futures over the next, what, 13 months is much larger than we’re used to. Now, investors used to live in a world where the range of possibilities was pretty circumscribed. We were maybe playing between the 50 yard line and the 40 yard line on whatever side of the field the occupant of the Oval Office came from.

Well, now we’re playing on a much wider playing field. Now, we’re not playing within a span of 10 yards. We might be playing within a span of 30 or 40, 50 yards. So, to stretch the metaphor, and I can use football metaphors this week, because the Giants finally won a game the other day, that I think the range of possibilities is much greater.

There’s the two parts of our conversation, to use my two favorite words, home and away, given my substack, I think the range of possible outcomes, both domestically and internationally now, is far greater than we’re used to.

We’re all…trained to operate in a world where you get up in the morning and you can make a large number of pretty big but safe assumptions, I think that world is probably gone for the foreseeable future. And that we’ve now got to operate in a world where both domestically and internationally, we don’t have that luxury of making confident assumptions or predictions.

THE EROSION OF CIVICS

Frazer Rice (27:33.041)
I recommend your book on the Bill of Rights and Obligations. Emphasis on obligations because people forget the concept of dutt. What do you think about the American electorate and the citizenship? My personal thought on it is that I feel like people are really in it for themselves a lot and that the idea of contributing back to the society and the politics, the confidence in the institutions and the trust is in a weird place right now and something that needs some emphasis. You’ve written a book on it that I love. I’m interested in your opinion on it right now. Many of us are fatigued over the last six months to a year.

THE BILL OF OBLIGATIONS

Richard Haass (28:16.366)

Well, thank you. Yeah, I wrote the Bill of Obligations because I’m worried. And I feel a sense of urgency. Here we are. We’re less than a year away from the 250th anniversary of this experiment. And coming back to what we just talking about, it’s hard to feel sanguine, shall we say, about our prospects. I’m not defeatist. I’m not negative. But I’m worried, which gives me a sense of urgency. But, we don’t teach civics or foreign policy in a lot of our schools or if we do teach it, we don’t teach it well.

It’s become harder to operate a democracy given how we fund our politics, given social media and cable and radio. you know, go on and on. We began the conversation by talking about the Ryder Cup behavior. There’s things that are amiss, I would simply say, in American society. Things have gotten coarsened. They’ve gotten rougher.

There’s fewer norms that are recognized and respected. So we’re on the brink of yet another shutdown in America, in Congress, what’s gonna happen there. And regardless of what happens this time, there’ll be a next time. We’ve been unable to deal at all with a deficit that’s what, north of 37 trillion.

So, American politics are not working terribly well. I think American citizens are not informed enough or active enough right now. So, yeah, again, we can analyze how we got to where we are, but it’s a worrisome situation. I don’t know if it constitutes a crisis, but probably you could make the argument that it… does, we had about a third of the eligible voters didn’t bother to vote in the last presidential election.

I would think upwards of 40, 45 % of eligible voters at least won’t vote in the midterms. So we’ve got a problem with civic participation. We’ve got a problem with civic knowledge about what people are learning and where they get their information from. TikTok, I know this comes as a great shock to you. No matter who owns it. TIkTok is not a reliable source of information for citizens about their democracy or the issues of the day. So yeah, I mean, I think this is a testing period for American democracy and what we’re seeing in Washington is in some ways a reflection of that

Frazer Rice (31:09.48)
Great stuff. Richard, how do listeners and watchers now find you and find out more about US foreign policy?

Richard Haass (31:14.68)

Well, they can find me on Substack. I publish a weekly newsletter called Home and Away, where I talk about, as the title suggests, things domestic and things international. I try to throw in just a little bit of golf and sports so people don’t get too depressed when they read what I have to say. And I do a lot of media. They can find me there, whether it’s on Morning Joe or some… this shows in you were kind enough to mention my last book, The Bill of Obligations.

I’d for more people to read it, particularly in the run up to, again, July 4th, 2026. This is a time for Americans to reacquaint themselves with the DNA, shall we say, of our political system, of our democracy, which has served us pretty well for two and a half centuries. And if we’re lucky, we’ll continue to.

Frazer Rice (31:48.233)
Me too. Thank you.

Richard Haass (32:10.969)
Thank you, sir. Good to see you.

Frazer Rice (32:13.087)
Likewise!