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How Trump Sees Economic Survival at the Heart of National Security · Trumponomics

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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
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  Speaker 2: I'm Stephanie Flander's head of Government and Economics at Bloomberg,
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  Speaker 2: and this is Trumpanomics, the podcast that looks at the
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  Speaker 2: economic world of Donald Trump, how he's already shaped the
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  Speaker 2: global economy, and what on earth is going to happen next. Well,
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  Speaker 2: this week we're looking at what we really learned from
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  Speaker 2: a twenty nine page document published by the White House
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  Speaker 2: in the middle of the night on December fifth. You
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  Speaker 2: might have heard about it. The document in question was
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  Speaker 2: Donald Trump's National Security Strategy. Every administration has one, but
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  Speaker 2: we haven't seen many quite like this. And what it
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  Speaker 2: said about Europe, as you've probably heard, what it didn't
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  Speaker 2: say about Russia caused uproar in European capitals and many
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  Speaker 2: other places. We might get into some of that controversy,
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  Speaker 2: but what's been less discussed in the days since it
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  Speaker 2: came out is the economics that sitting within the foreign
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  Speaker 2: policy that it describes. I thought was a bit odd,
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  Speaker 2: because if there's one big takeaway from the President's time
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  Speaker 2: in office, it's that economics is almost all there is.
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  Speaker 2: It's certainly the part that the president cares most about.
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  Speaker 2: It might be called a national security policy, and it
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  Speaker 2: might be written largely by State Department officials with a
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  Speaker 2: wide range of objectives, but the economic and business interests
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  Speaker 2: of the US are at the center of nearly every
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  Speaker 2: big strategic goal identified here, and where security is a focus,
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  Speaker 2: it's the security of national borders and America's immediate neighborhood.
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  Speaker 2: It's America's economy first, and indeed America's economy best. Well,
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  Speaker 2: we've got some great Bloomberg talent to help unpick all
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  Speaker 2: of this and maybe also get into a broader conversation
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  Speaker 2: about what these documents. You know, who they're written for,
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  Speaker 2: and why they might be useful. One of our guests
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  Speaker 2: has contributed to these kinds of documents in the past.
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  Speaker 2: He's joining from Washington, d c Adam Ferrar, who's now
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  Speaker 2: the senior Geoeconomics Analyst for Asia Pacific at Bloomberg Economics,
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  Speaker 2: but was previously the director for the Korean Peninsula in
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  Speaker 2: Mongolia in the US National Security Council under Biden and
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  Speaker 2: the Trump administrations, and before that also an advisor to
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  Speaker 2: Carmla Harris Adam.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us.
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  Speaker 2: Great to be here and also joining from DC. We
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  Speaker 2: welcome back Sean Donnan, who is of course a senior
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  Speaker 2: writer with Bloomberg reporting on the US and global economy. Sure,
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  Speaker 2: thanks for coming on again, wonderful to be.
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  Speaker 1: Here, and sorry that I don't have the experience of
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  Speaker 1: having written one of these things before.
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  Speaker 2: Well I don't know. Maybe it would have been better
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  Speaker 2: if you had written. We could sort of use your
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  Speaker 2: inside perspective, Adam, just tell us a little bit about
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  Speaker 2: how these documents get written and what this national security
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  Speaker 2: strategy has been like in the past.
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  Speaker 3: So it's interesting to think about this type of document
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  Speaker 3: because it's rather different from many other documents the United
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  Speaker 3: States government puts out to start with, it's actually congressionally mandated,
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  Speaker 3: and so in addition to being a useful exercise for
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  Speaker 3: administration to work through its potential policy objectives and to
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  Speaker 3: lay that out not only for itself but for the
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  Speaker 3: international community, it also is required to do this to
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  Speaker 3: meet congressional requirements. And as a result, basically, when administration
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  Speaker 3: comes in, they set out a specific team, usually a
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  Speaker 3: small team at the White House, to go forward and
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  Speaker 3: write a document that reflects how they view the world
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  Speaker 3: and how they view the United States role in it,
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  Speaker 3: and what they expect to do and prioritize over their
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  Speaker 3: time in office. What's a little different here with the
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  Speaker 3: Trump administration is that team is almost always at the
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  Speaker 3: White House, sequestered in the Strategy and Planning Office at
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  Speaker 3: the White House, but in this case it was actually
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  Speaker 3: at the State Department, where much of this initial draft
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  Speaker 3: was supposedly written separate from the guidance of the formal
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  Speaker 3: National Security Council, and is probably a reflection of how
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  Speaker 3: this administration President Trump have sought to spread out these
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  Speaker 3: powers and authorities of national security at large outside of
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  Speaker 3: the White House itself and diminish the power of that
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  Speaker 3: National Security Council.
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  Speaker 2: And I guess the people who would have written it
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  Speaker 2: are just not there. I mean, this has been shrunk
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  Speaker 2: a lot, right, the National Security Council.
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  Speaker 3: Well, that's exactly right. The Council itself has been shrunk,
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  Speaker 3: and certainly after the turnover and decision to bring in
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  Speaker 3: Secretary of Rubio and Duel had him as a National
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  Speaker 3: Security advisor. I guess it made sense to them that
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  Speaker 3: they can.
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  Speaker 2: The National Alchivist and quite a few other jobs.
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  Speaker 3: That's right. He has many, many, many jobs, and apparently
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  Speaker 3: shepherding this through with his staff at the State Department
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  Speaker 3: was one of them. And what's intriguing about all of
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  Speaker 3: that is that what we're left with is a very
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  Speaker 3: different document than we're traditionally see coming out of a
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  Speaker 3: White House. One aspect of that, honestly, is just how
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  Speaker 3: this document was shared with the world. As you highlighted,
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  Speaker 3: this document didn't come out at a large thing tank
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  Speaker 3: event with a speech from the National Security Advisor of
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  Speaker 3: the Secretary of State. It came out at ten forty
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  Speaker 3: five pm on a Thursday night with little fanfare, and
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  Speaker 3: remains hard to find on the White House website, which
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  Speaker 3: I'd certainly worth us discussing a little more later as
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  Speaker 3: to why that's the case, but moreover that the tone
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  Speaker 3: and direction of the document is political and ideological at
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  Speaker 3: its core. And while all documents coming out of administration
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  Speaker 3: certainly are political in nature, this one is distinctly so.
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  Speaker 3: And it's very direct in its language and direct in
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  Speaker 3: its approach, and you know, skews from traditional foreign policy
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  Speaker 3: and national security writing. It talks far more about US
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  Speaker 3: domestic interests, economic interests in particular, as opposed to how
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  Speaker 3: it perceives its role in different parts of the world,
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  Speaker 3: and moreover, how it's going to interact with other countries.
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  Speaker 2: We're recording this on Tuesday morning, US Time. Sean, you
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  Speaker 2: wrote the start of the week one of your regular pieces,
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  Speaker 2: you said, if you want to give President Donald Trump
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  Speaker 2: credit for a revolution in strategic thinking, the most enduring
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  Speaker 2: one is likely his view of a world in which
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  Speaker 2: economic security drives national security. It is the signal change
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  Speaker 2: in the last few years that I notice, especially in
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  Speaker 2: sort of national security settings or kind of summits that
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  Speaker 2: are nominally about NATO. If you're a European country that
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  Speaker 2: doesn't promise to do X on defense spending, then why
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  Speaker 2: on trade and tariffs is going to happen? I mean,
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  Speaker 2: we've got used to that, but actually it is. It's
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  Speaker 2: a fundamental shift, is entirely associated with Donald Trump.
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  Speaker 1: And it's a rewriting of the global rules right as well.
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  Speaker 1: There used to be this national security exception in global
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  Speaker 1: trade rules. In times of war, global trade rules went
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  Speaker 1: out the window. Well, what Donald Trump did very early
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  Speaker 1: on in his first tart was essentially invoked national security
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  Speaker 1: for everything and create this idea that economic security is
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  Speaker 1: national security. And you read this document and I spent
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  Speaker 1: my weekend reading through it. A few times, and it
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  Speaker 1: is really striking how central the economy is to this all.
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  Speaker 1: And it's even more striking when you think of it
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  Speaker 1: as something that was written over at the State Department,
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  Speaker 1: where usually they are thinking about great power competition and
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  Speaker 1: small wars and the Korean peninsula and nuclear proliferation and
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  Speaker 1: things like that, and here they are talking about free
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  Speaker 1: trade and actually putting unfair trade practices on the same
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  Speaker 1: level as a military attack, espionage, drug running, and so on.
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  Speaker 1: I find it a really remarkable document in that way.
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  Speaker 1: I think there's lots of other ways it's remarkable, but
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  Speaker 1: that is the core of Donald Trump, right is it's
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  Speaker 1: the economy. This is a business transaction, his relationship with
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  Speaker 1: the world. At one point they say every embassy in
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  Speaker 1: the world essentially needs to be a sales office for
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  Speaker 1: American corporations, which you know, that's not something many American
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  Speaker 1: diplomats would be comfortable with.
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  Speaker 2: Many other countries would say that commerce has always been
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  Speaker 2: much more front and center of US policy. But I
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  Speaker 2: guess we saw supporting your view. Sure, we did see
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  Speaker 2: overnight the news that rather bore this out, that the
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  Speaker 2: President has granted in Nvidia the permission to ship those
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  Speaker 2: h two hundred advanced semiconductor chips to China in exchange
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  Speaker 2: for a twenty five percent surcharge.
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  Speaker 1: That's a great reminder of how Donald Trump in some
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  Speaker 1: ways as willing to cast aside his strategy. The strategy says,
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  Speaker 1: part of our strategy is to limit China's access to
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  Speaker 1: American technology, to have this competition with China in the
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  Speaker 1: world over economic primacy and technological leadership and so on.
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  Speaker 1: And this is the shipping of chips is something that
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  Speaker 1: a lot of national security types in Washington are really
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  Speaker 1: uncomfortable with. They really see this as handing China some
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  Speaker 1: of America's crown jewels and when it comes to AI leadership.
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  Speaker 1: And so I think that's a reminder that this National
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  Speaker 1: Security Strategy is valuable in that it's kind of the
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  Speaker 1: only document that we have that lays out a strategy
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  Speaker 1: on the economic front for the Trump administration other than
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  Speaker 1: lots of social media posts. And at the same time,
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  Speaker 1: it's something that we should take with a grain of
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  Speaker 1: salt because President Trump is always going to do what
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  Speaker 1: he wants and his kind of he's always going to
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  Speaker 1: put commercial priorities or is often going to put commercial
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  Speaker 1: priorities ahead of national security priorities.
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  Speaker 2: So talking about in video and that chips Adam Shan
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  Speaker 2: referred to as the crown jewels, I guess there is
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  Speaker 2: another level of sophistication of chip. There's the Blackwell chips,
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  Speaker 2: which as far as we know, I think Donald Trump
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  Speaker 2: has suggested that they might also be sent to China,
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  Speaker 2: but that's not happened yet. And even these ones, I
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  Speaker 2: guess there was quite a lot of discussion leading up
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  Speaker 2: to it. But how do you read that decision? And
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  Speaker 2: I guess more generally the way the China policy is
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  Speaker 2: described in this document.
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  Speaker 3: So I think up front it's fair to say that
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  Speaker 3: it was a big decision and a surprise decision by
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  Speaker 3: the President to allow the Age two hundred ships to
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  Speaker 3: be sold. And certainly there's big pushback, as Sean said,
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  Speaker 3: from the national security establishment and those in the tech
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  Speaker 3: side of things in the United States who really worry
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  Speaker 3: about the loss of US leadership and these key arenas,
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  Speaker 3: and particularly in the AI race. It is fair to
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  Speaker 3: say the H two hundred is both not the highest
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  Speaker 3: level chip, as you said, it's not Blackwell chips, but
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  Speaker 3: at the same time it would be the most advanced
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  Speaker 3: ship that would have ever been sold to China. So
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  Speaker 3: I think what's intriguing there, as Shawn alluded to, is
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  Speaker 3: the fact that this does not seem to align with
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  Speaker 3: the policy, even the very general policy put out in
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  Speaker 3: this document that labels China as the United States key
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  Speaker 3: economic competitor and then goes on to actually try and
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  Speaker 3: lay out a plan for bringing other partners and allies
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  Speaker 3: together to push back on Chinese economic dominant, something that
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  Speaker 3: I think explicitly the administration is not doing right now.
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  Speaker 3: The document seems to be a moment in time that
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  Speaker 3: is far more correlated with the beginning of the administration
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  Speaker 3: when many thought the China Hawks and the approach that
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  Speaker 3: Trump had at the end of his first administration would maintain,
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  Speaker 3: and that's not what we're seeing today. And really, again,
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  Speaker 3: I think it raises real questions about the value of
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  Speaker 3: this document and whether or not we should take it
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  Speaker 3: at its word as to how the administration plans to
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  Speaker 3: move forward.
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  Speaker 1: To be fair, we should say that in the document
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  Speaker 1: they do say that the US should aim to have
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  Speaker 1: its standards for AI and quantum computing and other things
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  Speaker 1: be dominant in the world, and there is an argument
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  Speaker 1: inside the White House. You heard from David Sachs, the
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  Speaker 1: cyber and AI advisor, that export controls haven't really worked.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, they've accelerated, China's moved to independence in terms
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  Speaker 1: of chips and it's on and that they've been counterproductive.
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  Speaker 1: So it isn't a complete departure from what's laid out
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  Speaker 1: in this strategy, but it does reinforce the kind of
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  Speaker 1: commercial interests here.
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  Speaker 2: No, That's what I think it's interesting is I think
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  Speaker 2: if a central objective of foreign policy is that the
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  Speaker 2: US sustain its commercial and business supremacy with benefits for
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  Speaker 2: American workers and the broader US economy, then arguably this
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  Speaker 2: is the approach you would take because you're not being
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  Speaker 2: animated by a fear of a sort of rival political
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  Speaker 2: system gaining power in the world. You just want to
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  Speaker 2: have that because and you don't really mind there's a
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  Speaker 2: big non democracy that's going to get more and more
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  Speaker 2: powerful as long as the US is continuing to lead
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  Speaker 2: and continuing to be the country that other countries have
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  Speaker 2: to buy their tech from.
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  Speaker 3: Sean is absolutely right that there is an argument, and
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  Speaker 3: one that is taken over parts of Washington. Seems to
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  Speaker 3: have taken over the Oval Office that binding China into
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  Speaker 3: the US tech stack and keeping them tied to US
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  Speaker 3: companies is advantageous to US dominance and certainly haven'tageous to
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  Speaker 3: the bottom lines of US companies. But others argue, and
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  Speaker 3: I think rather persuasively, that is an incredibly short term
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  Speaker 3: view of the problem. It puts forward an idea of
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  Speaker 3: profits today without a real thought process as to what
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  Speaker 3: that competitive environment looks like, both geopolitically but also just
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  Speaker 3: commercially in just a couple of years, by feeding into
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  Speaker 3: China's AI race and giving them better tools by which
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  Speaker 3: they can theoretically advance their models faster, it actually makes
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  Speaker 3: them their companies more competitive, and their price point is
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  Speaker 3: already well below American AI companies in terms of delivering services,
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  Speaker 3: and so you have this potential where you're actually speeding
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  Speaker 3: up their ability to meet or exceed USAI company capabilities
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  Speaker 3: and models and then take market share globally, particularly in
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  Speaker 3: starting in countries that have the ability or don't have
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  Speaker 3: the ability to spend as much money on these models,
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  Speaker 3: but eventually spreading more broadly. And so we shouldn't just
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  Speaker 3: take it at its word that over time the United
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  Speaker 3: States will remain dominant commercially.
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  Speaker 2: Under this strategy, documents like this have tended to be
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  Speaker 2: much longer, certainly appeal to much more lofty ideals and sentiments,
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  Speaker 2: and maybe have not always born much relation to what
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  Speaker 2: administrations did when faced with tensions between lofty ideals and
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  Speaker 2: US business interests. So I guess one argument you could
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  Speaker 2: make is, even if there's inconsistencies here and indeed in
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  Speaker 2: the administration's approach, they are inconsistencies that have always been
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  Speaker 2: there in US foreign policy, and the administrations in some
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  Speaker 2: sense is just much more transparent about it, much much
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  Speaker 2: more like a quote unquote normal flawed Adam, you're laughing
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  Speaker 2: as I say this.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, I think you're right. They're very clear
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  Speaker 3: that they seek transparency in this, both in this document
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  Speaker 3: and in how they communicate what they're trying to do.
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  Speaker 3: The inconsistency is the contradictions, while always present in foreign
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  Speaker 3: policy and how countries interact, particularly the United States, raise
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  Speaker 3: questions again as to the value of the document as
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  Speaker 3: a whole, that they spend a huge amount of time
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  Speaker 3: trying to highlight how non interventionism will be a key
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  Speaker 3: tenant of this administration, and then they spend the remainder
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  Speaker 3: of the document, talking about how the United States needs
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  Speaker 3: to dominate it's near abroad in the Western hemisphere, returned
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  Speaker 3: to an aggressive form of the Monroe doctrine, the Trump corollary,
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  Speaker 3: which is a direct reference back to the Roosevelt corollary,
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  Speaker 3: which basically that the United States would act aggressively to
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  Speaker 3: maintain its own interest in the Western hemisphere.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the Monroe doctrine, we should say, was actually
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  Speaker 2: about there not being a colonialism in South America rather
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  Speaker 2: than it should be the US muscling in correct.
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  Speaker 3: And I think they're picking and choosing the parts of
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  Speaker 3: that that they want to put forward, particularly keeping foreign
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  Speaker 3: powers out. But you know, in addition, you know, the
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  Speaker 3: simple reality is that they also had to find a
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  Speaker 3: way to wedge in moment. You know, references to what's
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  Speaker 3: actually occurring, right the references to President Trump's efforts on
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  Speaker 3: peacemaking globally don't align with this document. In fact, in general,
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  Speaker 3: those efforts seem to be the exact opposite of the
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  Speaker 3: United States putting its nose and interests are interacting in
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  Speaker 3: an area where its direct interests don't necessarily apply. I also,
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  Speaker 3: I just I do think it is important to say
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  Speaker 3: that there are major international, national security and defense issues
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  Speaker 3: that are just not mentioned at all. It is stark
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  Speaker 3: to see that, you know, there's no reference whatsoever to
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  Speaker 3: Korea's nuclear program and its threat to both Northeast Asia
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  Speaker 3: and key US allies and directly of the United States,
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  Speaker 3: or even what President Trump plans to do in terms
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  Speaker 3: of his engagement with North Korea, which he continuously talks about.
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  Speaker 3: There's no reference at all to the authoritarian alignment we've
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  Speaker 3: seen between China and Russia in particular, but also China,
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  Speaker 3: Russia and North Korea, and to some extent Iran, which
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  Speaker 3: is driving the war in Europe and changing the dynamics
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  Speaker 3: global international institutions. Cyber which has been a massive threat
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  Speaker 3: to Americans and to the global community as a whole,
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  Speaker 3: makes very few appearances and only in passing. And so
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  Speaker 3: I've raised this to say that again, this document from
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  Speaker 3: a security standpoint is in many ways unseerious, but at
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  Speaker 3: the same time certainly does focus on the issues the
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  Speaker 3: administration thinks are more important to it. And maybe that
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  Speaker 3: is something to take away.
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  Speaker 2: Adam, You're being a bit unfair, because they do have
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  Speaker 2: various get out clauses. For example, they say, for a
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  Speaker 2: country whose interests are as numerous and diverses as rigid,
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  Speaker 2: adherence to non interventionism is not possible. So that sort
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  Speaker 2: of allows you to intervene in other places.
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  Speaker 1: To me, one of the big themes that's in here,
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  Speaker 1: which is at odds or this kind of idea of
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  Speaker 1: non intervention is there's a kind of desire here to
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  Speaker 1: export America. First, I think we often think of the
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  Speaker 1: Trump administration as inward looking, as isolationists potentially and so on,
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  Speaker 1: and here they are they're saying to Europe. First of all,
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  Speaker 1: there's this kind of reference to shared Western norms, and
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  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people in Europe would question
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  Speaker 1: whether the norms are still shared anymore. But there's also
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  Speaker 1: the desired to export trade policy, where they say, hey, allies,
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  Speaker 1: you guys need to follow our lead and actually put
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  Speaker 1: tariffs in place and limit imports from China. So I mean,
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot of telling the rest of the world
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  Speaker 1: how to how they should be running their economies in
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  Speaker 1: this document as well. That I think is along with
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  Speaker 1: the kind of only semi code stuff on migration that
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  Speaker 1: feels like it comes out of a populist far right
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  Speaker 1: party in Europe in some ways that will make people bristle.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm slightly pulling out some of the sentences
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: out of context, and Adam talks about it being non serious.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, you could say that all this has been
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: is sort of an invitation to critics to show all
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: of their worst qualities of kind of snobbery and contempt
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: for what is actually a very kind of populist approach
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: to explaining foreign policy. I mean, if you're this administration
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: in particular, and a lot of your voters didn't really
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: want you to talk about foreign policy at all, this
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: is the kind of document you would write to explain
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: to them why this stuff matters. It reads like and
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: not necessarily in a bad way, reads like a high
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: school high schooler's approach to what is foreign policy? You know,
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: even the headings, you know, what should the United States want?
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: What do we want over all? What do we want
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: in and from the world? What are America's available means
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: to get what we want? I mean, I look at this, Adam,
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: and I think they're actually trying to get to the
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: guts of what foreign policy should be about, rather than
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: sort of just wishing that other countries behaved in a
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: different way.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: I think you're absolutely right that this was written for
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: a different audience, and the international contingent of foreign policy
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: experts and security officials and world leaders were just not
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: the primary audience for this document.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: And there's a bonus that European leaders got very upset
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: about it.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: Probably absolutely a bonus and certainly something this is not
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: unintentional in its direction, and certainly on that issue we've
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: seen the administration double down in a president double down
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: in his political interview that came out this morning. But nonetheless,
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: it is very clearly targeting the Trump voter and elements
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: of Trump's support based to explain to some extent how
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: the United States plans to move forward and why it's
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: going to continue interacting in the international space, and that
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: how that is beneficial theoretically to the United States itself.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: But what continues to be strange is how the administration
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: seems to have been unable to figure out kind of
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: where it feels this document falls right, because what you
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: what we just went through, arguing that this is a
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: useful and interesting way to communicate the administration's objectives to
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: its voters and to its supporters, would argue that they
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: would draw some more attention to it, right, And so
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: I think again that just maybe speaks to broader dysfunctions
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: in how this document was made and personnel turnover, and
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: just how the administration ended up deciding to throw this
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: out in the middle of the night and just move on.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and sure, just to sort of put a bow
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: on it, I think that you've identified probably the core feature.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, you were written in your piece about it.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: It shows the absolute primacy of the economy and how
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: it economic the economy is being put before national security.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: But then your recent point that it's America first, but
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: America first for the world, and all the kind of
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: tensions embodied in that sentence, given that America First is
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: supposed to be often about non interventionism, I think is
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: very much captures the art of it and will be
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: driving policy going forward.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I think there is definitely this effort to kind of
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: have a populist or a popular security strategy here. Right.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: The second sentence of the first section is all Americans
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: need to know what exactly it is what we are
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: trying to do and why. Right. But I mean, the
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: thing I keep coming back to, and I've read this
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: a few times now, maybe too many times, but is
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: that I get to the end of this document and
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I don't really understand what they're trying to do right
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: other than this broad idea of declaring this idea of
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: America first, this broad idea and the more and saying
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: that is our purpose in life, and that is where
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: we are heading. I wonder whether six months from now
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: we're going to treat this in the way that we
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: now treat a document that Stephen Meyron, who was at
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: the Council of Economic Advisors and now at the Federal Reserve,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: that he wrote before coming into office, in which he
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: talked about this idea of a Mara Lago accord to
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: rebalance global currencies. For a while there, that kind of
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: dominated the policy conversation because it was a thing that
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: we had. It was something that we could latch onto,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: something tangible other than a social media post. And I
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: feel the same way about this. Maybe you know, this
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: has got a life cycle of a week or two,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about maybe it's a month
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: or two. But it is a reminder of this kind
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: of enigma in some ways that is Donald Trump's strategy, right,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: and we keep saying what is the strategy when we
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: talk about trade policy or the economy on well, here
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: it is, it's put down on paper, and the answer
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: is it's still pretty hard to discern.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: I just wanted to say, I think one thing to
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: keep in mind, though, and I don't disagree that we
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: very well may find ourselves moving past this document as
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: outside observers very soon, is that internally, this document is
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: going to be incredibly significant for lower level government officials
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: and workers, and it's going to help drive what they
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: do on a day to day basis. Because what we've
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: seen specifically, and maybe more starkly than any administration in
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: recent memory, is that administration officials, particularly below the White
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: House and senior levels, have been really afraid to take
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: steps that might be seen as getting in front of
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: the president and moving into direction that the White House
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: is not supporting. And now that they have a document,
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: something in writing that lays out the objectives and the priorities,
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: they have something that they can actually tie their actions too,
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: and their own personal work too. And so I think
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: moving forward, we're going to see more more and more
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: folks using this as the guide for how they interact
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: with foreign governments, how they move forward on their own
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: priorities in the national security space. So leaving this is
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: potentially having more of an impact than we might think.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: And that might be a good strategy for those officials,
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: or it might just be another way to get burned
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: when a truth post comes out. That's completely contradictory with
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: a strategy. But I think this, potentially, this will be
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: an artifact of the administration that gets forgotten. And having
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: talked about it now for half an hour, we don't
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: need to talk about it ever again. Possibly, but I
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: appreciate the conversation it led to Adam Sean, thanks a.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Lot, Thanks for having guys, Thanks so much.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to Trump and Nomics from Bloomberg. It
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: was hosted by me Stephanie Flanders. I was joined by
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Bloomberg Senior writer Sean Donnan and Bloomberg Economics Senior geoeconomics
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: analyst Adam Ferrar. Trumpnomics was produced by Someasadi and Moses
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: and with help from Amy Keen and special thanks this
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: week to Rachel Louis Chrisky. Sound design is by Blake
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Maples and Nick Johnson and Sage Bowman is Bloomberg's head
• 26:21
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• 26:24
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