Thought It Was China" — The America Story Nobody Is Covering

0:00 Think about where China was 35 years ago.

0:02 What I mean, you know, you go there and everyone was riding a bicycle and now

0:05 they're building better tech than we have in the United States.

0:08 Like so they it's not just this idea of oh,

0:10 countries are static and I need to help you

0:13 understand that when you go to Japan it's different.

0:15 It's also that your your own place is changing and how

0:19 you're perceived as being is different than it used to be.

0:22 How far do you think America is from how

0:25 many Americans think about it currently in the world?

0:29 Oh, I I think it's Like like take us take us through a little journey.

0:32 So let's talk about that period.

0:33 There's the period where America comes out

0:35 of these these wars physical and otherwise, right?

0:38 The Cold War is a war World War Vietnam War but there's this moment like

0:43 America has this idea of itself and the world has an idea of America, you know?

0:50 And I think some people are still sort of set in that and stuck in it.

0:56 But it's clearly changed.

0:57 What do you think has been the biggest shift?

0:59 There've been a few.

1:00 Yeah.

1:01 Uh one, a big one, is that America used

1:05 to be the place that wanted to trade with everybody.

1:09 Free trade.

1:10 Now tariffs are the principal tool that the Americans

1:15 are using economically and and it's not just about Trump.

1:18 I mean, most people in the US, Democrats, Republicans are saying,

1:21 "No, no, no, no, we don't want free trade.

1:23 We want like, you know, stuff that's built much more here and we

1:26 want more manufacturing here." And you know,

1:29 you think as well about immigration.

1:31 And my grandma came through Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

1:35 Where did she come from?

1:36 Uh originally they are Syrian Armenians.

1:39 Oh, wow.

1:39 Okay.

1:40 Yeah.

1:40 So they came over and she's even on a little bench on a little

1:43 Oh, wow.

1:44 That's amazing.

1:44 kind of cool to see.

1:45 Still there now?

1:46 Yeah.

1:47 I mean, I haven't been today but I think so.

1:49 Unless someone ripped it out.

1:51 I mean, you know.

1:51 two cold days.

1:53 Yeah.

1:53 [laughter] She's out there in that bench.

1:54 Still there.

1:57 My old grandma.

2:01 [laughter] knitting cashmere and wool.

2:03 You and your textures.

2:05 Eugene loves textures.

2:06 God.

2:07 [laughter] So uh you know, and and I I think of the Statue of Liberty

2:12 as a pretty iconic thing for the United States.

2:15 But I mean, clearly that doesn't reflect who the United States is today.

2:22 Right?

2:22 I mean, like welcoming immigrants from all over the world.

2:24 Give me your tired, your huddled masses.

2:26 That that is nowhere close.

2:28 Yeah, now it's give me your people who have a million

2:30 dollars to invest or 5 million dollars to spend on citizenship.

2:33 Yeah.

2:33 Yes.

2:34 That's the new thing now.

2:34 Yes.

2:35 Sell me your golden visa.

2:36 Sell me your golden visa.

2:38 Right.

2:39 Yeah.

2:39 And and and also let me see your social media history,

2:42 by the way, the last 5 years.

2:45 You know, I when I first saw that I didn't see the context.

2:47 Of course, you'd immediately think, "Oh,

2:49 that's China." You would think that from around the world, right?

2:53 You know, or you think it was Russia

2:54 or some other authoritarian state that controls information.

2:57 Turns out it's the United States.

2:59 Most other people around the world would not have thought.

3:01 That's not That's not comport with their view of the United States.

3:07 I'm just thinking about how how powerful the idea of a place is [snorts]

3:16 in that it can be so powerful that people don't notice when

3:20 it is doing things that it said it did not stand for.

3:25 It cuz what you just said,

3:27 I don't know why that that that that it's

3:29 just like jammed something in my brain.

3:30 I saw the reaction immediately.

3:32 literally it literally jammed something in my brain where I

3:34 went if you put out a news headline tomorrow and said,

3:39 "China is going to be scrubbing people's social

3:41 media for anyone who comes into the country,

3:43 they're going to look through their social media for 5 years and they

3:45 they're going to get access to your phone." How would most people react?

3:49 They would go, "I'm never going to China." Yeah,

3:51 but they'll be like, "Of course, I expected it." Yeah.

3:53 And they'll be like, "What kind of country does this?"

3:55 Got to bring a burner, all that stuff, you know, it's a communist country.

3:58 Don't trust them.

3:59 Authoritarian.

4:00 You know, the United States is These these things are fluid.

4:03 Nations are fluid.

4:05 Governments, these all things, our identity, what do we stand for, who are we?

4:09 I mean, maybe the most consistent thing since I was growing up is money.

4:14 In terms of what the United States stands for.

4:17 Yeah, the dollar.

4:17 The almighty dollar.

4:19 Yes.

4:19 Um but but I you know, when I grew up the US didn't only stand for the dollar.

4:24 It stood for other things, too.

4:26 And uh I think that's becoming a challenge.

4:29 You're always writing books about moments in time.

4:33 forget tweets.

4:33 I'll never forget the tweets.

4:34 Okay, good.

4:35 Where you guys first met.

4:37 [laughter] Our meet cute.

4:39 You were you were always writing books about moments

4:41 and ideas that speak to those moments, you know, a power crisis, um you know,

4:47 how the world is moving at a certain moment in time.

4:50 I I always wonder, you know,

4:52 especially from authors who tap into these these moments in the zeitgeist,

4:55 I always wonder what they're seeing that we're

4:57 not seeing that leads to them writing that book.

5:00 And and I'd love to know like what you're seeing now

5:02 that would inspire a book that you would be writing for the future.

5:05 What what's what's what's capturing your attention and your imagination?

5:09 Uh As someone who studies the world.

5:11 Maybe the So the the book that I wrote

5:14 that probably was most prescient was back in 2011.

5:19 And I'm going to answer your question.

5:20 I just wanted to give you a thought about it.

5:22 And um about the G-Zero world.

5:25 And this idea, not that I had some crystal ball,

5:28 but that it seemed so over determined by big structural factors in the world.

5:32 By the fact that the Russians, when the Soviet Union collapsed,

5:36 we said that we wanted to bring them

5:38 in, the NATO-Russia Council, the G7 plus one.

5:40 We never really wanted to bring them in.

5:42 They were angry about it.

5:43 They blamed us.

5:44 And we said we wanted to bring China in.

5:46 We did, but only if they were going to become Americans.

5:49 Only if they actually accepted our economic system.

5:53 They became free marketeers.

5:54 Only if they accepted Right.

5:57 If they if they adapted their system

5:58 and they became much much much more powerful, but they were still Chinese.

6:01 So we weren't happy about that.

6:03 And then the United States increasingly had

6:05 a whole bunch of people saying, "Well,

6:06 that stuff that we used to do, like, you know,

6:10 sheriff of the world and architect of trade and promoting democracy,

6:15 we don't really buy that stuff." So you put all those things together with it

6:19 seemed to me wildly over determined

6:21 that the world wasn't going to be Pax Americana.

6:24 It wasn't going to be G7 or G2 or G20.

6:27 It was going to be an absence of global leadership.

6:30 That the US wasn't going to play the role it used to, but no

6:33 other country or group of countries could come together and replace it,

6:37 at least not for a period of time.

6:39 And so it's it seemed to me wildly over determined,

6:42 even if some of these things were going to change,

6:44 that the train had so had so much momentum pulling out

6:47 of the station and going downhill that that the G-Zero was going to come.

6:51 So I wrote that.

6:52 Because, you know, a book should be something that stands up for a while.

6:57 And the thing that I see now Before you move on from that.

7:01 Before you move on from that, I'd I'd love

7:02 to know how people responded to it at the time.

7:05 Because I find a lot of these books

7:08 and these ideas are welcomed when they meet their moments.

7:13 Or in hindsight.

7:14 Yeah, but when you when you release them,

7:16 I'd love to know how people responded to you writing a book

7:18 basically saying not only would America not be the de facto,

7:23 you know, respected and loved power in the world,

7:25 but power itself would diffuse,

7:28 it you know, would find itself diffusing in in in this kind of way.

7:31 What How did people respond to that?

7:33 Um I think they thought it was interesting.

7:35 Yeah.

7:35 They thought it was intriguing.

7:36 I think it it played with a lot of different

7:38 strands that that people were picking up and looking at.

7:41 There were a whole bunch of people that were

7:43 looking at one or two pieces of that puzzle,

7:45 but most people at the time thought I was taking it too far.

7:48 Yeah, I can imagine.

7:49 Most people thought, "No, no, no.

7:50 Maybe it'll go that way, but actually we see a G2.

7:54 It's going to be US-China.

7:55 Actually, it's still Pax Americana and the US isn't in decline." I'm like,

7:59 "No, the US doesn't have to be in decline,

8:00 but if it doesn't want to do these things, you know,

8:03 then it it it is it is personally removing itself from that role.

8:07 It doesn't mean that the dollar suddenly is no longer the reserve currency.

8:10 It doesn't mean the US doesn't have,

8:12 you know, [music] all of this military capacity,

8:14 but it still has to be willing to play that role." [music]