[0:00]A lot of the things that Trump has done are not surprising in terms of where he's trying to take things. People knew he was going to get tough on tariffs. They knew he was going to be harsh on Europe. And I think I'm surprised not by the direction things have gone, but by the sort of speed and scope by which things have changed.
[0:28]Hello and welcome to GZERO World. I'm Ian Bremmer, and today we are looking back on the first year of President Donald Trump's second term, and taking stock of just how much the United States and the world has changed in 12 short months. With fewer constraints this time around, President Trump has been able to reshape the government to fit his world view. The presidency is more powerful, alliances more conditional, and the rules of the global order are being redefined in real time. Is this a permanent rewrite of how the United States uses power going forward? Today, a one-year check-in on Trump's second act and what it has already changed, both at home and abroad. I'm joined by Steve Walt, an expert on power diplomacy and professor of International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School. But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on. Funding for GZERO World is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis, ahead of what's next. And by Cox, a family of businesses. Additional funding provided by Carnegie Corporation of New York, Koo and Patricia Yuen, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities and Susan S and Kenneth L Wallack Foundation.
[1:48]Happy birthday, America. This year 2026 marks the country's semiquincentennial, 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And the American colonies revolting against the king in the name of representative democracy. Conquered, Lexington, Washington, crossing the Delaware, give me liberty or give me death, you know the story. And as the country celebrates its founding revolution with fireworks, tall ships and soaring speeches about patriotism and self-government, it's living through another kind of revolution, one being led from inside the White House. And I'm not the only one that thinks that. We're in the midst of another kind of revolution, a revolution of winning. We're in an economic revolution in America, the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense. Hyperbole is Trump's native language, but in this case, he's not wrong. In just 365 days, Trump has launched a genuine political revolution, radically transforming the Oval Office, and I don't mean the gilded decor. Never in our lifetimes have we seen a US president so committed to and capable of reshaping the political system and America's role in the world. Listen to Trump describing his view of presidential power in a recent New York Times interview. Do you see any checks on your power on the world stage? Is there anything that could stop you if you wanted to? Yeah, there's one thing. My own morality, my own mind. It's the only thing that can stop.
[3:19]The American Revolution was about limiting executive power and building institutions that could outlast any one leader. Trump's revolution has been about something else, centralizing authority, weakening constraints, and remolding the government so it answers first and foremost to him. President Trump has spent the last year dismantling what he sees as his greatest enemy, the so-called administrative state. Career civil servants were fired, ethics watchdogs removed, the Justice Department and FBI stripped of their post Watergate independence. The system of checks and balances designed after 1776 isn't quite as solid as we were taught in civics class. Congress has mostly fallen in line. Democrats remain divided and leaderless. Even the Supreme Court has embraced much of Trump's expansive view of presidential authority. So as 2026 unfolds, the revolution will only get bigger. With poll numbers dropping and Democrats predicted to win the House in November, Trump and his inner circle aren't going to back away. They'll double down, targeting political enemies and wielding power more aggressively. So will the revolution succeed? Maybe not. The Maga coalition is showing some signs of cracking. Some Senate Republicans recently joined Democrats to help advance a resolution to limit the president's war powers. Trump's own impulsiveness is a wild card. But success isn't the only issue. Win or lose, the presidency has changed and there may be no going back to what came before. 250 years ago, America's revolution created a system built to restrain power. This one is testing just how much strain that system can bear and whether it can still hold. Here to help us understand just how much President Trump has transformed the presidency and the world is Harvard Kennedy Professor of International Affairs, Steve Walt. Steve Walt, welcome back to the show. All right, nice to be with you, Ian. So, uh, we're a year into the second Trump administration. How different does the world look uh from the way it did a year ago in your view and how surprised are you by that? Uh, it looks a lot different, and I think I'm surprised not by the direction things have gone, but by the sort of speed and scope by which things have changed. When you think about it, a lot of the things that Trump has done are not surprising in terms of where he's trying to take things. People knew he was going to get tough on tariffs, they knew he was going to be harsh on Europe, and they knew he was going to be relatively soft on Russia. Nobody was quite sure what he was going to do uh with China. He's done pretty much all of those things. I think people didn't expect him to go after Greenland in a big way. I think people didn't expect uh some of the other shifts, the uh coup in Venezuela, uh if you want to call it that, the kidnapping in Venezuela.
[6:09]So in some respects, the the speed and scope of these changes has exceeded a lot of expectations, uh but not the general direction. Some people are surprised that he's been as willing to use force. Right? There was this view that Trump, you know, was averse to using force, didn't like forever wars, things like that. But in fact, he's used force quite frequently, I think, against seven or eight countries by now. The key is that he likes these short, sharp, discreet uses of force, primarily air power, and I don't think that uh instinct is going to go away. Yeah, he he doesn't like forever wars. I don't think that that's um uh been disproven, right? He's not sending American troops in harm's way in any of these countries you're talking about. No, that's right. He tends to pick on weak countries that really have no prospect of retaliating against the United States. And that seems to be true like across the board, whether you're talking about where the tariffs are hitting the hardest, right? It's not China, it's on countries where the Americans have much more asymmetric advantage, and that's true militarily. Uh you look at Venezuela, you know, for example, or Iran, I mean, these aren't countries that have the capacity to hit the Americans back. That's exactly right. Is that the way we should think about Russia and Ukraine? I I mean, you know, at the end of the day, the Ukrainians are getting hit hard by Trump, the Russians not so much. Is that purely because Ukraine's weaker? Um, it's partly because Ukraine's weaker. It's partly because uh because Trump has never been supportive of Ukraine. You could argue he's got an animus there dating back from the first term as well. I think at a geopolitical level, he's always had this idea that if you could settle the war in Ukraine, then you could open things back up with Russia, which might make sense in terms of trying to pull Russia away from China. Might make sense in terms of some commercial opportunities that Trump would love to take advantage of, either as a country or as an individual as well.
[8:04]The problem is that the Russians haven't been paying ball quite as much as he expected them to. But he thought it would be relatively easy to solve. He would simply, you know, give the Ukrainians a lecture, tell Putin that he'd got the deal set up, and it would all be over with. And I think he's discovered that the Ukrainians are more stubborn, that the Europeans have been more willing to help the Ukrainians than he might have expected, and the Russians have not been willing to cut the deal that he keeps putting in front of them. So you've talked about one access here uh of US policy, which is the fact that how powerful your interlocutor is matters a lot in terms of the behavior of the United States.
[8:44]The other one, of course, is how aligned the country is, is it democratic, is it an ally, does it share values, historic commitments? Uh it it feels as if those things are playing a much less important role now. But how much less in your view, Steve? Well, there's actually a big shift that's gone on with the Trump administration and I've been taking to calling it predatory hegemony. Now, all great powers are predators to some degree, but they usually confine their acts of predation to their adversaries. In any deal with an adversary or any engagement, you want to make sure you get the better of that arrangement. Um, but what Trump has done is he's applying that to our allies as well. In all bilateral relationships, what's, you know, his view is what's mine is mine, what's yours is negotiable. I want to make sure I get the best deal, uh, no matter what it is. I get more out of it than you do. So when he goes to talks to the South Koreans, he says, I'm going to slap, you know, really stiff tariffs on you and really hurt your economy, unless you agree to invest in the United States, unless you agree to make a whole series of concessions.
[10:00]Here's the list. So in a sense, he's engaged in acts of predation against everyone, and of course, he's got more leverage when he's dealing with American allies, particularly allies that have been dependent on us for military protection in a variety of ways. I think we see this happening pretty much across the board, and in sense, it's more effective in dealing with allies than it is in dealing with adversaries, at least in the short term. The long term, I think it's likely to be a loser. It's likely to be a loser in the long term for what reason, Steve? Um because other countries will start to adjust. They'll start to adapt. Countries that now are dependent on the United States will start diversifying their relationships, as Canada is starting to do in trade, as the Europeans are doing now.
[10:44]Uh recently signing, finally, after many years, a trade deal with the Latin American trade pact Mercosur. All of these are uh designed to try and make them less vulnerable to American pressure going forward by having lots of partners and not being solely reliant on the United States. So if you're if you're bound to be a predator with your allies, if that is the strategy you want to use, is the right counter strategy to that to escalate further against those countries that are vulnerable. You tell the Canadians, well, look, if you're actually, if you try to diversify away from the United States, here are the even heavier consequences because these countries are not only weaker, but they are much more dependent on the United States as well. Well, I think that again, it works in the short term, but not if you realize that the predator can't be accommodated. That each demand is just going to be met by another demand down the road. So most American allies have been very reluctant to sort of balance against the United States, to try and push back in a big way. But if you look around the world, the countries that have pushed back, like Brazil, have tended to do better. Uh China of course, being the most obvious case, pushed back very hard and the Trump administration basically caved. Um and so as much as American allies may be reluctant to take concerted action against the United States, over time, I think that we're pushing them to have no choice but to do that. Now, both of the countries you mentioned that were effective at pushing back, were effective at pushing back economically. Right? In terms of tariffs and trade relations. Places where there's lots more interdependence of leverage, where when we talk about the security relationship, for example, American power seems much more asymmetrical in its favor compared to other countries around the world. Are you suggesting that actually the United States and Trump's strategy is likely to have a longer uh glide path for what he does on the security side in a predatory sense than what he does on the economic side? I think you can't rule that out depending on how far the United States is willing to go. And perhaps the most obvious case would be the case of Greenland, where the Trump administration keeps saying that, you know, we have to have it, we have to control it. We have to essentially assert sovereign control over Greenland. There's no economic or security reason why we have to do that. The current uh treaty arrangements governing Greenland give the United States as much access as it might ever want. This is all about essentially marking territory, which is something of course Trump likes to do. That, of course, if it's done coercively, is a direct threat at our NATO allies. Denmark has been probably one of the staunchest American allies in Europe for many, many years. Um and this would be essentially a direct threat towards uh towards Denmark. At that point, Europeans have to ask themselves if they really can not just not count on American protection, but actually have to worry about the United States as a serious adversary. And they do have some leverage to push back on. For example, the United States is still dependent on military facilities and bases in Europe in order to project power into other parts of the world. If the Europeans are sufficiently alarmed by the United States, they simply say the United States has to leave Europe and can no longer rely upon those facilities if it needs to intervene in the Middle East or anywhere else. And that's something that I think the Pentagon would have to take very seriously. Now, the direct intervention, essentially the rendition, capture of Nicholas Maduro and his wife, I mean, that was a very explicit use of hard power that would not have been considered by a previous administration. Certainly not under Biden, really not under Trump the first time either, and, you know, no regime change, relatively limited cost for the United States thus far, and what appears to be the existing or the the remaining Venezuelan regime, uh, prepared to jump as high as the Trump administration demands of them. Um, what are the short and likely medium-term implications if that, positive and negative, Steve? Well, the whole Venezuela operation is one we're still trying to sort out. And it's possible the administration is still still trying to sort it out as well, because there's multiple motives that might be involved here. I mean, I think it's pretty clear it was not about narcotics, uh because Venezuela was not a source of many drugs coming to the United States. It's pretty clear it was not about democracy promotion because, of course, the old regime has been left in place, and there wasn't a serious security threat emanating from Venezuela. It wasn't like China was about to put missiles in Venezuela or anything like that. Um, so the motive to me at least, uh, you know, in Trump's mind is partly about oil, which he keeps referring to in various ways, where I think he's simply mistaken. Uh there is no great oil bonanza to be gained by gaining greater access to Venezuelan petroleum resources. Um the oil is hard to extract, it's hard to refine, you probably can't do it profitably at current market prices. So there's no oil bonanza there. I think what it's uh really is trying to put all of Latin America on notice. This is our hemisphere, and we're going to run it. Uh, we're going to be in charge, and you shouldn't get too far out of line. And of course, after Venezuela, you know, they would love to be able to uh get a regime change going in Cuba. Something Secretary of State Rubio has wanted for decades. The point here is that they want to put Latin America on notice, um and if you read the National Security strategy, I think much of that is about trying to limit foreign influence in Latin America and in particular, I think Chinese influence, although it's not explicitly uh named in the National Security strategy. But there are there is language about discouraging Latin American countries from entertaining foreign investment, from allowing key assets to be controlled by foreign actors from trading with foreign partners, et cetera. And I think that they want a situation where they can deny China and possibly some other countries much access to economies in Latin America. The only problem there is that makes the United States solely responsible for the health of those economies. Um, and that's a very big job for Washington to be taking on. Especially as the dominant trade partner of almost all of those countries for quite a while now isn't the United States. That's correct. It's China. And if the United States tries to tell, you know, uh consumers in Mexico or Brazil or Argentina or elsewhere, uh not to buy things from China that are cheaper than what they could get from the United States and in some cases, maybe better quality than what they can get from the United States, those consumers are not going to be very happy and those governments aren't going to be very happy as well. So again, I think if the idea here is trying to exert almost total control over the the political and economic decisions in those countries, this is a long-term loser. So, as you said in the opening, um the direction is not all that surprising. But the speed and the impact has been greater than you would have expected a year ago. So as we look forward to three more years of these policies, give or take, um, what how, how do you think the world is likely to look? What are the things that you think you might end up being today surprised by? Well, I think one big question is whether or not the sort of absence of a lot of collective action is going to change. I mean, both in within the United States itself and outside in dealing with the outside world, the Trump administration has benefited from the fact that it's hard to organize a lot of collective opposition. Uh and they've benefited from that so far. As I've suggested, lots of countries have real concerns about what's happening, but getting their act together, uh, to work together to put limits on what the United States can do as proven to be difficult. Yeah, even Europe, which I mean, has the superstructure in principle, but they've had a really hard time developing collective action to respond to you. That's the perfect example of it. And I think it's again, it was a certain element of wishful thinking. They thought, uh, if they could play nice with Trump, come to the White House, flatter him shamelessly in various ways, they could get benevolent treatment. And of course, if that doesn't work, eventually, you say, well, all right, we tried to be nice, now we're going to have to play hardball, uh the way some other leaders have done more successfully. So that's I think one big question. Uh the second uh question of course, will be what happens here in the United States with the midterm elections? Do you start seeing uh the political fortunes of the Democratic Party improving, suddenly he doesn't get a blank check out of Congress for anything he wants to do, et cetera. starts to, uh, starts to have to trim his sails at least a little bit. I think a third big question will be the state of the American economy. Um, you know, as if the American economy starts to show real signs of strain, uh that's going to again uh shift the political calculus. That may, of course, encourage greater Trumpian activism on the global stage, uh as a distraction from things at home, possibly as a way of keeping the Epstein files off the headlines, as well. Um, but exactly, you know, where that goes, I I would have trouble forecasting. Yeah, I mean, off the headlines, there's so much news right now, it's hard to know what can stay on the headline for more than a day or two. No, and that's again, it's it's worth remembering, this has been, I think, a consistent part of Trump's strategy, uh all along. If you keep the news cycle constantly buzzing with the latest thing you've done, even if it's just something as trivial as putting your name on the Kennedy Center. Um, you know, that takes over the news cycle for 48 hours and people forget about whatever it is you were doing last week. And I think one of the things you ought to expect here is there will be constant news stories about some big thing that the administration is about to do, a peace deal they're about to arrange. Something like that will always be coming up even if most of them don't come to fruition. And if we look at President Trump's policies, what are the one or two that you think are most likely to have much longer-term implications, irrespective of who the next president happens to be? Oh, I think the uh the most important one is the general gutting of research and development, uh scientific research, the assault on universities. Uh we live in an era where scientific and technological prowess is absolutely key to national power and the Trump administration has been significantly undermining America's ability to stay at the cutting edge. So I think, you know, the next several presidents are going to deal with the consequences uh of the damage that's been done to our research and development capabilities. Well, have you experienced that so far at at Harvard? I mean, are you seeing is it a student issue? Are you starting to see a lot of students that aren't able to apply, for example, or I I know there's been research uh grant issues as well. Yeah, it's not so much a student issue in areas like political science, but in areas like computer science, in the medical area, in, you know, biochemistry, things like that. These are all areas that are now being hurt, uh quite directly. Um, so, uh you know, and this not just at Harvard, at lots of other places as well, and the damage there won't be felt for another five or 10 years, but it's the kind of thing that you don't recover from in a year or two. Subsequent presidents are going to look back on this and think it was absolutely insane. Steve, my friend, always good to see you. All right, nice to see you too. Take care.
[22:59]That's our show this week. Come back next week and if you like what you've seen, or even if you don't, but you feel like wielding power against your own political enemies, take a minute and sign up for our daily newsletter. It's called GZERO Daily.
