The Foreign Affairs Interview

• Why America Shouldn’t Underestimate Chinese Power

  For years in U.S. foreign policy circles, discussions of China focused on its growing wealth, power, and ambition, and the fear that it would supplant the United States. But a few years ago, the conversation took a sharp turn. Rather than fixating on China’s rise, most analysis began to focus on the country’s stagnation and even decline. There were good reasons for this: disappointing post-COVID economic growth, dire demographics, and a foreign policy alienating much of the world. And so a new consensus took hold—that a weakened China might not overtake the United States after all. In a new essay for Foreign Affairs, Kurt Campbell and Rush Doshi argue that this new consensus dangerously underestimates Chinese power and the challenge it represents for U.S. foreign policy. Washington, they warn, is missing Beijing’s key strategic advantage—an advantage that only a new approach to alliances will offset. As they write, if America goes it alone, “the contest for the next century will be China’s to lose.” Campbell is the chairman and a co-founder of The Asia Group and served as deputy secretary of state and Indo-Pacific coordinator at the National Security Council during the Biden administration. Doshi is an assistant professor at Georgetown University and director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations, and served as deputy senior director for China and Taiwan affairs at the National Security Council during the Biden administration. They joined Dan Kurtz-Phelan on April 14 to discuss the sources of Chinese power, what U.S. observers of China get wrong, and whether the Trump administration has an endgame in its confrontation with Beijing. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

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• How Latin America Can Survive an Age of Turmoil

  For decades, it has been a trope of foreign policy commentary in the United States that Washington does not pay enough attention to its own hemisphere. But the Trump administration seems to be bucking this trend—though not exactly in the way those complaining about neglect might have wanted. President Donald Trump’s campaign spent a lot of time focusing on immigration and fentanyl coming from Latin America. And in the early months of his administration, Trump has focused to a surprising degree not just on Mexico and Central America but also on the Panama Canal and Canada and Greenland. There’s even been talk of America’s so-called sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere.  Brian Winter, one of the best chroniclers and analysts of Latin America and the longtime editor of Americas Quarterly, was one of the few people who anticipated this focus—as he did in an essay for Foreign Affairs a few weeks before Trump’s inauguration. As Trump unleashes a whirlwind of confrontational policies across the globe—his sweeping tariffs being just the latest example—Latin American leaders are developing their own approach to this challenge. And in Winter’s view, they may be surprisingly well positioned to weather the storm better than their counterparts anywhere else. He spoke with Dan Kurtz-Phelan on April 8 about how leaders everywhere from Argentina and Brazil to Mexico and Central America are navigating this new reality—and also about whether Latin America’s long tradition of strongman leadership has now come to the United States. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

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• Where Is the U.S.-China Relationship Headed?

  Two months into U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, the U.S.-Chinese relationship—the most consequential one in the world by a long stretch—faces new uncertainty. Trump has threatened larger tariffs as China has continued its military buildup and activities in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea. But Trump has also focused his ire on allied capitals, rather than on Beijing, and talked about making a deal with his “very good friend” Xi Jinping. In a recent essay for Foreign Affairs, Jude Blanchette and Ryan Hass stressed the importance, and highlighted the challenge, of understanding the balance of power with America’s top rival. The biggest risk, they argue, is not that Washington will underestimate China’s strength, but that it will neglect the sources of its own. Blanchette runs the China Research Center at the RAND Corporation; Hass, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, long worked on China policy at the National Security Council and State Department. They joined editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan to discuss Beijing’s assessment of American power, the prospects for a “grand bargain” between Trump and Xi, and whether fears of American decline risk becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

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• What Does Trump See in Putin?

  Not even two months into his second term, U.S. President Donald Trump is reshaping U.S.-Russian relations at a critical juncture for the war in Ukraine. As Russian President Vladimir Putin presses his advantage on the battlefield, Trump’s admiration for the Russian leader, and his push for warmer relations with Moscow, is raising alarms across European capitals—in Kyiv most of all. Fiona Hill spent years studying Putin and Russia as a scholar and U.S. intelligence official before serving, in the first Trump administration, as senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council. She became a household name during Trump’s first impeachment, when her testimony provided crucial insights into Trump’s dynamic with Putin and his early interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Today, she is a senior fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution and serves as Chancellor of Durham University. Hill spoke with editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan on the morning of Tuesday, March 11, about Trump’s relationship with Putin, the prospects for peace in Ukraine, and European security in an age of American retreat. Later that afternoon, U.S. and Ukrainian officials unveiled a tentative agreement for a 30-day cease-fire—putting the ball in Putin’s court. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

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• Where Does Ukraine Go From Here?

  After three years of war, Ukraine is facing intense pressure from Donald Trump to reach a settlement with Russia. Trump has engaged directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin while calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator. His administration has sidelined European allies while joining a handful of Russian partners in voting against a UN resolution condemning Putin’s aggression. And U.S. officials have pressured Ukraine into signing over critical mineral resources. And yet despite this new geopolitical reality, and despite month after month of grueling fighting that has Russian forces taking territory by the day, Ukrainians themselves remain deeply resistant to accepting an end to the war that would sacrifice their country’s territory and sovereignty. In a new essay for Foreign Affairs, the Ukrainian journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk explains that Ukrainians’ resistance emerges not only out of a sense of patriotism but also, she writes, “because they know there is little chance of survival under Moscow’s rule.” For years, Gumenyuk has reported from Ukraine’s conflict zones, documenting the brutality and trying to understand the logic of Russian occupation. She spoke with senior editor Hugh Eakin on February 21 about how Ukrainians are reacting to the shift in U.S. policy, what life is like in the almost 20 percent of their country under Russian control, and where Ukraine goes from here. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.

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