Strategic Outlook on Geopolitics 2025

Mirek Dušek: Hello from Geneva, from the World Economic Forum. I am a Mirek Dušek, managing director at the World Economic Forum.

It's really good to have you all for this final session of the Strategic Intelligence Outlook meetings that we've been running here at the World Economic Forum online and in person over the past two days, looking at major trends in the technology, industry, climate and other areas that are going to be shaping the year ahead, shaping 2025.

And it is something of a tradition for us as well. Those of you who are following what the World Economic Forum is doing, you know that this is the time of the year we would have the Strategic Intelligence Outlook meetings.

So this is the culmination of the two-day programme. And we are going to be focusing on geopolitics, geopolitical trends. And I will introduce it a little more in just a while but allow me first to introduce the contributors to the discussion that are with us on the line.

So a warm welcome to Suzanne Maloney, vice president and director for foreign policy programmes of the Brookings Institution. A warm welcome to you, Suzanne.

Suzanne Maloney: Thanks so much.

Mirek Dušek: Great to have you. Jason Bordoff, director at the Centre on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. Great to have you, Jason.

Jason Bordoff: Good to see you again. Thank you.

Mirek Dušek: And Keyu Jin, a professor of economics at the London School of Economics. Welcome to you as well.

Keyu Jin: Thank you.

Mirek Dušek: Great to have you. And I would also like to welcome, as I said, we have a live audience here.

So these are leaders that are within our strategic intelligence community. So also thank you for being here in the studio now for the session and over the two days here for the meetings overall.

So before we go into the dialogue – so I have personally been working on geopolitical issues here at the Forum and feel that our work is even more important now because a lot more people are paying attention, particularly if you look at the business landscape.

You talk to business executives, particularly in Europe and North America, there is this wake-up call to geopolitics. Geopolitics is more material to business decisions. And obviously, this is in response to the developments that we are seeing in the international system.

We, of course, also are clearly in a more contested, more competitive geopolitical environment. So we'll talk about the US-China relationship, Europe-China relationship.

We are, of course, seeing that unfortunately, we have an increase in the number of conflicts and displaced persons around the world but also the overall architecture of international relations, if you will, is changing.

Different regional groupings and other groupings are emerging and are becoming, if you will, more significant in the international system. So there is this consensus now that we live in a geopolitically and geo-economically multipolar world.

So it is, I think, a reality now, at least there is strong consensus on that. But there is also this connection between politics and societal trends and geopolitics.

So if we look again at, for example, the recent US election campaign, the US-China relationship was quite prominent for a foreign policy issue in the campaign and also Ukraine, for example, was part of that as well.

And so while we've covered over the past two days here many issues, I don't think we could have a better culmination of that programme with a session on geopolitical trends. It is really top of mind for many. It will also be top of mind and on the agenda for the Annual Meeting in Davos that we will have at the end of January next year.

So, this is just in terms of why I am excited that I can have this session with all of you and why I'm also excited to have all of you contributors with us for this. What we would like to do and what we normally try to do is to look a little bit under the hood. And so, yes, of course there are the headlines.

But why I hope many of you are following us online is also to really understand a little bit the deeper trends or look at the weak signals. Also, for example, talk about the false signals, things that many are talking about but maybe one year from now, those big issues, we will become much smaller.

So with that in mind, I would like now to go to our August panel, and I would like to go to you, Suzanne, first. As I said, you're vice president, director of foreign policy programme at the Brookings Institution.

And overall, I would like to go to all of you on kind of the impact of the the election in the US and the incoming administration on the geopolitical realm overall. After all, we are talking about the biggest economy in the world, still the biggest military power. So, obviously, that has systemic impact on the world. And so, hopefully, we can delve a little deeper into that.

So, Suzanne, if I could go to you first on the broad strokes, I think there is a number of issues we could look at. But first, you are seeing and a lot of observers are paying attention to who is being nominated to what posts, what roles.

Some would look at, okay, there are the traditional officials or people that could be part of the traditional foreign policy consensus, if you will and then those that are not.

But regardless of personalities, maybe if we could start just looking at what do you think could be the foreign policy doctrine of the incoming administration and if a fully fledged doctrine is hard to articulate, what would be the main characteristics or features, if you will? Over to you, Suzanne.

Suzanne Maloney: Thanks so much, Mirek. I'm really glad to be here today and to engage with all of you around these important issues that are a really difficult, interesting time for America and the world.

I think we can gauge some sense of what Trump's foreign policy doctrine might look like from his first term. But I also think it's important to note that this is likely to be a very different Trump administration than we saw the first time around.

First and foremost, the president-elect himself and those around him are far more prepared. They have both the experience of their four years in office but they also came in, I think, they are coming in with the advantage of having anticipated, in fact, that they would win, which was not, of course, the case in 2016. It was very much a surprise. There was almost no transition apparatus established at all.

And this time, I think what we've seen play out over the course of the past couple of weeks is a clear demonstration of a president who sees himself very much in charge, who knows what he wants to accomplish and feels very much unconstrained by the expectations either of the Washington establishment or the international community and is going to pursue exactly the type of policy that he prefers to do.

So, you know, I think in that sense, it will be a highly personalistic foreign policy. It may continue, as we saw during the first term, to be somewhat unpredictable, somewhat chaotic. And I think, as you know, some of his selections have suggested that there's something of a bifurcation.

There are some traditionalists like Senator Rubio, who's the nominee for the State Department or Representative Mike Waltz will be his national security advisor.

But there are some very much outside-the-box picks, like the future potential Secretary of Defence, the Fox News personality with assault allegations in his background who's never managed a bureaucracy, anything like what the Pentagon will confront him with.

And so I think there will be that factor of difficulty in terms of predicting how this will play out; how this team is going to work together. But I think we know what the president-elect cares most about.

It will be highly transactional in terms of his approach with individual leaders. And he will be looking to, as he campaigned, put America first and to see what it is that he can achieve in terms of his own definition of what American interests are.

Mirek Dušek: Thank you so much. If I could just follow up with a few things. So, I'm here in Europe. So obviously, there has also been a lot of attention being paid by Europeans to the election and to the result and I think there is a great deal of nervousness or a lot of people are looking for strategies and a way forward in this new environment.

Could you maybe give us a sense from your vantage point, if you can – obviously a lot of it is still maybe just large contours – but help us understand what this could do to NATO and also obviously for the Europeans, Ukraine is very important.

What do you expect or what are you hearing among your colleagues are the likely scenarios for Ukraine, from the incoming administration?

Suzanne Maloney: I think what we're hearing and discussing here in Washington are multiple areas of serious concern for many about the transatlantic relationship. First and foremost about Ukraine and the president-elect's vision of what a future negotiated settlement might look like. I think everyone anticipated that with the next administration that there would be moved into 2025.

It's hardly surprising that negotiations might be on the agenda but what the president-elect might insist upon or what he might be satisfied with is probably quite different than what many in Europe would consider viable. And what might in fact, be a stable outcome.

I think that's the real concern that president-elect Trump doesn't really understand, that simply imposing some kind of a settlement isn't necessarily going to satisfy the Russians either in terms of what they then do in the aftermath. And so, you know, how stable any outcome in Ukraine is going to be a real concern. I think the other issue that looms large is the future of NATO.

We know that President-elect Trump and those around him have very dismal views of the importance and investment in alliances and partnerships that has been such a central feature of the transatlantic relationship and very much, I think, sort of the defining characteristics of the post-war liberal international order. And we've seen this play out in tremendous ways over the course of the past four years under President Biden. That will look very different.

But I would add too perhaps factors that are worth considering. One is that in all the conversations that I've had with European envoys and visitors here in Washington over the course of the past two weeks and in the run up to the election, is there is a sense that there is, in fact, a great deal more preparation on the part of European leaders and states.

They know what they're in for and they actually are thinking creatively about how to parry some of the things that may concern them in terms of how the Trump administration might approach some of the key interests. And one of those is, of course, the expectation that he is going to be imposing tariffs not just on China but also potentially on European partners as well.

And I think there are some who see an opening there because they recognize that if there are going to be difficult relationships in other parts of the world, that may become more important as a result. I think they also look back on some of the experiences of various leaders, whether it was Japanese Prime Minister Abe or French Leader Macron in terms of, you know, really opportunistically figuring out how to play President Trump.

And so, you know, I will look to see who has been practising their golf and who is thinking about how they can use charm and flattery to, in fact, blunt perhaps some of the more problematic aspects of the next administration here in Washington.

Mirek Dušek: Thank you and maybe just, it's very interesting things, though those important signals to read as well, as you said.

But maybe, because there is always this thing about, as you know, people say, whether the incoming president should be taken literally and seriously or either but overall, has there been anything since then – the election – anything that has surprised you?

Where obviously the big picture, yes, there is going to be some pressure around NATO, there is going to be a certain uncertainty overall with the European relationship and as you outlined, Ukraine.

But in terms of to what extent, for example, these things should be taken, literally anything, any movements that you've already seen were maybe the radical scenarios that were there a few days ago or a few weeks ago are no longer as radical as people thought. Or is it too early to know?

Suzanne Maloney: I think it's probably too early to feel any abiding sense of reassurance. I do think that what we've seen over the course of the past two weeks in terms of the names that have been released and in terms of the way that the incoming administration has unrolled its selections and some of its general policy approaches, I think we really do see an emphasis on economic relationships. That's not entirely surprising.

But I think that, you know, the fact is that this incoming administration will be looking, they're looking to see how, in fact, they can deliver on what they have promised to the American people, which is to address some of the quality of life issues, inflation and other things.

And so I think there, too, is an opportunity for partners around the world to think creatively about how to leverage this new administration here in Washington.

Mirek Dušek: Thank you so much. I will come back still with another set of questions but I'd like to now move to Professor Jin on the US-China relationship. It is good to see you again and thank you so much for all your overall engagement with us. You really are among the top people on understanding particularly the Chinese economy.

Obviously, this is if we look at geopolitics and geostrategic trends, we look back. What has really changed and what is changing the geopolitical landscape? The US-China relationship, I think is obviously up there as a big catalyst of the changes that we're seeing.

We've already, I think, alluded to, for example, the pronouncements of the incoming administration on tariffs. There is language not only around de-risking but the more explicit around decoupling as a desired outcome about, so there is the economic relationship but overall, how do you see it from your vantage point?

What would be the major trends that we should be paying attention to in the US-China relationship? And maybe what are the weak signals there as well that may be not as pronounced but could be actually more important for us to pay attention to? Over to you.

Keyu Jin: Thank you and thank you again for having me. It's great to be with you and my fellow panellists.

Well, I think to sum it up, at least from Chinese perspective, Trump really pursues an anti-globalist, anti multilateralist, isolationist and desensitization policies, although they believe that there's still some room for negotiation. As Susan also just mentioned, the transactional aspects of Trump's policies.

When it comes to the relationship, let's say that the Chinese, I believe, are relatively indifferent between the two presidential candidates, unlike the first time around. And I also agree with Susan that, again, just as in Europe, this is not China's first time now dealing with the Trump policies and what is about to come in the beginning, especially the first trade war, they were also feeling the parameters.

They didn't quite really understand what was going to happen and what was going on. And they didn't know what quite to expect. And this time I think the reactions or the responses will be measured, will be more calculated and calibrated compared to the past.

Now, of course, on a general level, China has already been preparing for this, you know, a number of years ago. There are two trends to recognize. First is already what's happening independent of geopolitical changes. There has been a great economic trend, which is that China's becoming bigger and richer and therefore it's actually looking more and more like the US.

What that means is that its trade as a share of GDP is going down or its trade relative to its production is going down. It's becoming more closed.

Evidence suggests, statistics suggest that it's kind of producing more of its intermediate products and it was in the past. So there's that element of domestic structural changes. And then of course, the preparation for a more disengaged, let's say, US-China relationship.

And that includes strengthening alliances with other countries, especially in the region, in Asia, with other developing countries. And potentially there is room for more collaboration with Europe, given Trump's generally truculent trade policies towards everybody.

And technologically, it has already been really going on separate paths. So I would just say that this isn't really a shock anymore. China's preparation doesn't mean that there's going to be very little impact on China.

I'm happy to share some thoughts on the economic impact or expected economic impact on China but just to say that China would keep on engaging with Trump and keep on engaging in communication with the US.

However, some of Trump's cabinet choices make it more difficult because of, let's say, sanctions on certain US personnel would potentially make it more difficult for certain aspects of communication.

So I think overall, there is not much more to be done other than kind of signing up more trade agreements, focusing ourself and and actually making up for the potential loss of trade.

So let's say the first time around with the first trade war, 40% of the reduction in trade with the US was actually compensated by more trade with other economies. And also weighted average of tariffs where the US has been going up and half of the goods are much higher than what the most favoured nation status would give them.

So in any case, further kind of aggressive policies on the trade front might not make as much of a difference as we think. Let me just pause here because I know there's a lot of information that I shared.

Mirek Dušek: Thank you so much. So maybe just a quick follow-up. So that was the fiscal stimulus that was done. I think the timing was right after or a few days after the US election. Was that linked? There was some speculation on that, in your view, and as you said, there is already a redirection of trade flows and export flows from China to the rest of the world.

If I'm not mistaken, in 2022/23, the bilateral trade between US and China was almost 800 billion. Now, of course, it's going down. But is there, to what extent is there absorption capacity in those other markets?

To what extent can they replace a very rich market that the US actually is, in your view, as also the, as we all know, the shift to new productive forces and the importance of these high-quality exports and how important that is to the Chinese economic model going forward.

Or just any thoughts on those questions? Or you also wanted to possibly share more thoughts on the economic impact?

Keyu Jin: Yeah, sure. Well, fiscal stimulus, you know, the decision made is still primarily based on the Chinese economic reality, although I do think that right after the elections, it is a timing issue. It is also a signal to say that this is how the Chinese are prepared to offset some of the trade impact with the US by doing more stimulus, not through an exchange rate depreciation or some of the other tools that might be available.

They also picked a timing to do more stimulus after the announcement of the Fed cut of interest rates that they could also be choosing the particular window of timing to announce these. But overall, the fiscal stimulus is aimed at resuscitating the economy. And we believe that there will be more to come over time.

They're also trying to figure out its impact, the parameters of the stimulus, how it's done, how it's going to be implemented, when and where to introduce and which sectors and which areas. So forth. But I believe that there is a belief that the Chinese government has put growth back as front and centre before the other kind of policies.

In terms of trade with other countries. Well, first of all, you know, when you look at the US trade deficit, ultimately it is a saving and investment imbalance in the US. And so even if US imports less from China, it will import more from other countries unless they change this saving and investment dynamic.

They're not going to be able to reduce their deficit. They're going to be able to reduce it visibly in China. But overall, the trade deficit is not a bilateral aspect. And I think the same thing with China. I think there is more capacity to trade to other countries.

As I mentioned from the first time around, the trade wars, 40% of that was offset. And this could be increasing because China's also not only redirecting trade but also FDI and other investment directly investing in other countries that are set up as base for production. You also mentioned new productive forces.

I think China – and I think I'm sure we'll get to discuss some of that vis-a-vis Europe – China's very interested in building factories in Europe.

You know, this tends to make sense when you have a lot of exports to be closer to the home country and obviously, there will be a lot of laboratory, collaborative and complementary aspects to working with the European economy.

And the new productive forces. Let's just say that, yes, it is absolutely the Chinese government's focus, high tech – kind of the renewables, EVs [electric vehicles], emerging strategic sectors, if you will. That is an absolute culmination project and national strategic priority.

But in terms of size, they're still small in comparison to other big aspects of the economy like real estate. So it's very hard to make up for whatever the real estate impact on the economy is with new productive forces. Same thing with exports.

Something like less than 10% of maybe around 5% of the total manufacturing Chinese exports is accounted for by these new productive forces and even less of it is going to the US. Most of this exports is already going to Europe.

And so really, China's focus really on the trading relationship should be Europe and other countries given that there has been a slow structural decline and expectations of this reduced capacity with the US.

So absolutely, I think there is a lot more capacity, especially in these new productive forces if we're talking about the green transition and cheap available, good technologies, batteries and EVs. So, for solar panels are really what China is good at. So I think this is actually also China's strategic goal to increase alliances and relationships with other countries. Yes.

Mirek Dušek: Thank you so much. Now, going to Jason. You and we've also worked together for a while now and you really are one of the top experts on the energy transition of so on climate policy. And so, again, staying still with the effects and the impact of the incoming administration, we've already seen pronouncements around the energy transition and also around possibly rolling back pieces of legislations, including IRA [Inflation Reduction Act].

So what do you think this milestone and the coming four years will mean for the energy transition, maybe both in the US and in the world?

I'm particularly interested in also first unpacking what is going to, you think, remain from the IRA? There are all kinds of theories, for example, around critical minerals and the processing of those as opposed to maybe some of the downstream, projects that have been financed by IRA so far.

So if I could, even though we are talking about the geopolitical effects but if you wouldn't mind addressing both in the US and in the world.

Jason Bordoff: Thanks, Mark, for the invitation to be here and all the work we've done together over many years.

So I'll say a quick word about what I think a lot of people are talking about and focussed on and then maybe a word about what we should be focussed on when we think about the impact of the US election on energy and climate change. And it is a headwind for the pace of the clean energy transition.

This administration doesn't seem to have the same focus on accelerating a transition to clean energy but we should keep it in perspective. A lot of trends are probably longer lasting, are driven by some market forces and there are ways in which new forces and priorities of security and competition, including rivalry with China we just heard about, are continuing to fuel some of these things.

There's a lot of focus on what the US will do, especially with people in Baku as we speak with the international climate negotiation process. And President Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement last time. I suspect that will happen again. And as even talked about, possibly pulling out of the UNFCCC, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

On the Inflation Reduction Act, the Trump administration has been critical of the IRA, vowing to rescind unspent IRA funds to repeal the EV tax credit. It is important to remember that a lot of the economic activity being created by these tax credits is occurring in Republican states.

You recently had a letter from 18 Republican members of Congress to the House Speaker encouraging the Speaker not to pull back on IRA spending and some of these priorities, there is broad bipartisan support. How we think about technologies like carbon capture or nuclear power. So I think some of the consumer facing tax credits, like the tax credit for EVs, are at risk.

Some of the manufacturing tax credits, particularly in areas of technology where a lot of the investment is happening in Republican states, maybe less so.

We should remember, too, that we're going to have a big debate in the United States over fiscal policy and how to think about extension of the Trump tax cuts. And that's really expensive. And they're going to be looking for pots of money to pay for it and the IRA may be one of those that they turn to.

The third area is kind of unleashing oil and gas dominance. And I think there will be a focus on trying to – Trump promised to cut energy prices in half; I think that's a very hard thing to achieve. And if we were to cut oil prices in half, I'm not sure oil companies would keep drilling at the rates that they are.

But there's going to be efforts to increase oil and gas production but probably, frankly, more rhetoric than impact. If you look over the last 15 or so years at the pace of production growth for US oil and gas, with the shale revolution, you really can't tell whether a Republican or Democrat has been in power.

Most of that is happening on private lands. There will be some things that make a difference, like making it easier to build pipelines, for example. Some things that affect production further out, like maybe offering new areas for leasing. But when you leave something, it takes years and years to build and then probably allow starting the permit process again for LNG exports.

So those are the things that are getting a lot of attention. I wrote a piece this week in Foreign Policy with my colleague David Hill, who worked in the Bush administration and we talked about where this administration should be focussed, particularly if part of the promise was to bring energy prices down or at a minimum, prevent them from going up.

And if you look at the current oil outlook, I think there's less reason for concern there than there is for concern about where electricity and power prices are headed. This is sort of a new thing we really, frankly, haven't didn't think about for a long time.

Electricity demand has been roughly flat for the last 20 years. The New World Energy Outlook from our friend Fatih Birol at the IEA [International Energy Agency] says we're moving from an age, the age of oil to the age of electricity and we're going to be using oil for a long time, don't get me wrong.

But we're going to be electric – we were already electrifying a lot of things like cars and heat as part of the energy transition. And of course, now we have this dramatic new force sector and lots of ways we can talk about, which is artificial intelligence and how much power that takes.

So if you look at the outlook for energy prices in the US, if I were the Trump administration, I'd be more concerned about where electricity prices are going than where gasoline and oil prices are going. And that is going to require a lot of focus from the federal government, as well as state and local governments because it's really hard to build infrastructure.

We need to build more transmission lines. There's a permitting reform effort in Congress now that hopefully will move forward to make it easier to build infrastructure. We should be reforming how our utilities operate.

And then we need to have a focus which is related to climate change efforts too not just for renewable energy, which we need but also to think about sources of zero carbon electricity that run 24-seven and nuclear is getting a renewed push.

You saw the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in the US say it was going to reopen with Microsoft and Constellation is just one example of that. So how do we really shorten the time frame to new nuclear and think about rebuilding our nuclear sector in the US? That's going to get a lot of attention.

And then the other thing that's going to impact energy and climate more than people realize and are talking about is the trade and tariff policy of this administration.

We want clean energy to be as cheap as possible in order to deploy it as fast as possible. But on both sides of the aisle now, there's a concern about the dominant role China plays in a lot of these supply chains.

And you're seeing us use tools like Section 301 national security tariffs to address that. And that's a challenge.

I think it is probably a good thing to think about diversification of supply chains globally. But I think it's also important not to lose sight of the fact that if every country, for security or reasons of politics and jobs at home, tries to make everything at home, it is going to slow down the transition, make things more expensive at a time when we need more economic partnerships internationally.

When people talk about [unidentified speech], we need to take a pretty expansive view of that and be working really closely with lots of allies in Latin America and Southeast Asia and elsewhere to build these supply chains for clean energy.

And then the last thing is foreign policy. And, Suzanne, forgotten more than I'll ever know about things like Iran sanctions and whether a million barrels come off the market there again and what normalization with Saudi might do to bring new moral supply to the market. But those foreign policy issues will also affect energy markets.

And those are things I think, electricity, trade and foreign policy that probably should be getting more attention than some things everyone's talking about, like Paris and the IRA, which are important to be sure.

Mirek Dušek: Thank you. I'll still come back to you. But just to go to Suzanne, back to Suzanne. And maybe in this round, we can do shorter reactions but still a lot to cover.

Suzanne, you've also covered a lot throughout your career in the Middle East. You are renowned for that. So it's really great to have you here because, help us understand maybe two things in the Middle East.

What do you think is going to happen to the relationship with Iran or the approach to Iran and also to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on both counts? There is, there have already been pronouncements. We also know, again, what the first Trump administration did on that on those two fronts.

Help us understand what will be the continuity, what could be different this time around.

Suzanne Maloney: Thanks, Mark. I think, you know, the two issues that you brought up in the Middle East are inherently interconnected today. So the answer is to some extent, simply one answer, which is to say that the president-elect has a number of internal contradictions in the way that he sees the world and the types of policies that he's articulated.

I think you've heard both of the fellow panellists here speak to some of those in their remarks.

I think in the Middle East, he is looking to draw down the war in Gaza, which, of course, has now encompassed a war underway in Lebanon as well as you know, the interaction of a number of other parties around the region.

That's really consistent with his long-standing disinclination to have the United States engaged in what he sees as costly, wasteful and destabilizing conflicts around the world.

He campaigned the first time around on the wasteful nature of $7 trillion that he alleged the United States had spent in Iraq. And so it's not at all surprising that he would, in fact, be looking to try to draw down not just in Ukraine but also to persuade the Israelis to draw down their campaign.

But at the same time, of course, he wants to escalate pressure on Iran. And there are some contradictions there because what we know from the first Trump administration is that when Iran finds itself under pressure, particularly economic pressure, the maximum pressure sanctions that Trump imposed in 2018, it eventually began to ratchet up its own version of pressure, which involved strikes on some of its neighbours against tanker traffic in the Gulf. And in some ways, in very potentially destabilizing ways on oil infrastructure from in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

And I think that, you know, that's something that the administration is going to have difficulty navigating how to ratchet up pressure on Iran without necessarily resulting in some kind of a new round of instability and conflict, which could, of course, have economic implications of how to manage the relationship with Israel, which of course is going to be very close but in a way that could actually detract from what we've seen of the expansion of the Abraham Accords, one of the really important and lasting contributions of the first Trump administration.

We've seen a lot of cooperation and interest from Saudi Arabia in terms of full-scale normalization and broader regional integration.

But in fact, if President-elect Trump and his administration really give the Israelis and Prime Minister Netanyahu a lot of running room, whether it's on the potential annexation of the West Bank or other types of provocative actions that we saw during the first Trump term that would, in fact make it more difficult to go forward with normalization, because the Saudis have been very clear that they want to see some sort of a pathway to statehood for the Palestinians and they will need that for their own domestic audiences.

And so, you know, this may be a more difficult part of the world for President Trump to navigate effectively and to get the kinds of outcomes that he hopes to achieve.

Mirek Dušek: Thank you. Let me just a quick build on what you said on the Saudi-US relationship. As you indicated, there's been developments since already within the Trump 1.0 administration, we're learning from the Saudi Aramco incident, etc.

So, are you expecting that that relationship will be not as straightforward as it was in the first administration?

Suzanne Maloney: I think it actually will be a little bit more complicated because, of course, the Saudis have also embarked on this rapprochement with Iran, which I think reflects their recognition that their own long-term interests in moving beyond an oil-based economy and navigating successfully the energy transition really require a sense of calm in the region.

And they found that, in fact, by trying to co-opt Tehran rather than trying to confront Tehran, that might be a more successful strategy for their own long term interests. And so, you know, there's going to be a disinclination, I think, from Riyadh to see the same repeat of the Trump administration's approach of maximum pressure on Iran.

And I think, you know, there is this sort of set of complications for the Saudis about, you know, to what extent Trump really gives the Israelis a wide berth and enables them to go about some really radical changes in terms of the relationship with the Palestinians. So this is going to be more complicated perhaps the Trump administration anticipates.

Mirek Dušek: No. Thank you. Shifting to Professor Jin and also just a shorter reaction in this round. You mentioned earlier the China-Europe relationship and a lot is happening, we are all tracking it.

Now, the latest is obviously, as you said, that there is now talk of co-investments in production plans in Europe, talk of how the transfer of intellectual property is done, etc. So, it's a really very dynamic environment but it is not without complexities and without dilemmas also for the Europeans.

Help us understand, where do you think the China-Europe relationship, economic relationship is headed? What would be the key trends we should be looking out for on that front?

Keyu Jin: Thank you. And especially given the, let's say, more disengagement, especially on the trade front with US and China, China would want to focus on Europe, on the sectors that you have mentioned, the new productive forces, renewables, etc.

I think there's a lot of scope for collaboration. First of all, you need to be on track with the green transition. This is very important. And second, Europe is very important for market access to these Chinese companies.

I think the Chinese position is if there were to be discussions about intellectual property transfers, it should be made at the private sector level, should be made at the company level, should be a mutually agreed upon thing rather than a state requirement.

And it is somewhat ironic that only a few years ago, people were still on and on about Chinese companies requiring intellectual property technology transfer in return for market access.

So now the table has flipped around and it's the other way around. But I think Chinese companies also understand that they do want the market access to Europe. And I think there are a lot of scope for collaboration given their already ongoing investments into Europe, Spain, Poland and many others to help set up JVs [joint ventures] for EVs and so forth and for mutual investment.

So I think that, so far, we shouldn't overly interpret what is about to come because nothing is set. And also the intellectual properties, I believe, are required for companies that want to qualify for R&D subsidies. This is also a normal policy. It's not that surprising.

It has been in the case in the past. But this is not going to throw off Chinese companies because, as I mentioned, given the domestic capacity issues in China, given the fierce Chinese competitions, there's really not much choice but for Chinese companies to go abroad. And so this is still an opportunity for them, I'd say.

Mirek Dušek: Thank you. And before I go to Jason, in that last round, I also wanted to give you a heads up. If you in the audience here want to ask a question or have a comment, I'll open the floor right after Jason and I think there'll be mics or opportunities to have your voice heard.

Jason, on technology, you mentioned it a little bit. Two questions. One, so, because you are, again, tracking very closely, where we are with climate, diplomacy and overall on the net zero. And you mentioned technology and trade barriers, etc. So how concerned are you?

Obviously, everyone knows that this is part of the story that we have been and we have available, affordable, particularly Chinese technology on solar and wind that is, of course, contributing also to our joint efforts around, addressing the climate change.

And as you said, now we are moving into a more fragmented environment with all kinds of pronouncements around tariffs. How worried are you? Is it a big thing? Is it going to set us really back in our efforts or in the big scheme of things, maybe these things are not as big of a deal as some might make it? An open question.

And then second one is around the role of new technologies in helping us get to where we need with net zero. And you mentioned of course that we have now reopening of some old nuclear plants. Then there is this whole momentum around small modular reactors.

There is now a lot of divided opinions, if you will, around hydrogen. So, the first one is more on the trade barriers, but the second one is more around, how, what would be the technologies you think we should be paying attention to that can become even bigger and help us get to net zero over two?

Jason Bordoff: Sure. Yeah, I know. Look, we just started a major programme here at the centre a few months ago on trade in the clean energy transition. It's the focus. It's the team we sent over to Baku to COP and it's a really important issue to pay attention to. And two things are both true at the same time.

If you look at the more than 90% decline in solar costs, in battery costs over the last decade, a significant part of that cost decline was because of the massive manufacturing capacity that China has built and seems to be pursuing a strategy of economic stimulus, which has some amount of investment in domestic manufacturing for the purposes of export.

What is perceived, at least over here, as overcapacity, which may be a challenge for manufacturing investment here.

You know, it's incredible that $2 trillion is going to be spent this year on clean energy globally more than twice what is spent on fossil fuels. You're kind of breaking these records year after year. Two-thirds of the investment in new electricity new electricity generation globally is renewables.

You know, for each of those statistics I just gave you, about half of that is China. So it's just a major player in deploying clean energy, building coal plants as well but in deploying clean energy and bringing costs down.

And then that is, in some sense, when things are cheaper, you can deploy them more quickly. But it is raising obviously a lot of concerns in the US and in Europe on multiple fronts. And I think it's important here to be clear about what problem we're trying to solve and what the concern is because it probably is the case that one should think differently.

Safe when we use phrases like national security, everything is now a national security issue, it seems. What is the national security risk of a cheap manufactured product like a solar panel? It might not be quite as severe as advanced, you know, sensor semiconductors that are used for advanced military technology or something.

So the concerns you hear relate to national security, economic competitiveness, job creation, just domestic politics. Can we maintain support for the Inflation Reduction Act if people in Michigan and the auto sector are losing their jobs in the process?

Carbon intensity. The White House climate adviser, John Podesta, gave a big speech here at Columbia about levelling the playing field there. So, it can be helpful to think about resilience, think about security, think about diversification of supply chains. But that, again, requires more trade partnerships, not fewer and more cooperation globally.

In the US, there may be an effort to think about something like a carbon border adjustment as the Europeans are putting one in place.

And so we've got to think about how do you coordinate that when Europe has a price on carbon and the US doesn't, in order to make sure that we're using that new sense of urgency that comes not just from decarbonization, which I wish more people shared but also from concerns about competitiveness, about the security of supply chains, about resilience, that competition, those forces of competition now, whether it's in the US or in China, are major drivers of investment in clean energy.

If we harness those right while not losing support for the globally integrated economy at the same time, that can actually be helpful to accelerate efforts in this regard for clean energy technology.

And to your question about what those technologies might be, I don't, I think it's very hard to imagine getting to our net zero goals without nuclear playing a really important role. We need clean energy that runs 24-seven. And I'm excited about the advances we see in technology there.

And then you have these new hyperscalers – the Google, Meta, Microsoft – with huge amounts of money to spend. They care deeply about their green credentials. They just need to move fast. We can't wait a decade to build data centre demand. So we got to figure out how to shorten the timeframe to build, to put capital to work in clean electricity sources.

Advanced geothermal is actually could contribute more than people think. It's kind of exciting what's happening there. Breakthroughs in storage, which would allow renewable energy to play even a bigger role moving forward.

You asked about hydrogen. I think there you know, a lot of people want to make hydrogen, the problem, there's not as many people want to buy hydrogen, green hydrogen. I mean, and so this issue of cost in the transition is still a very important one.

Green hydrogen is really expensive compared to the alternatives. And so we need continued government support and policy to help with that and we need to make sure that we're bringing the cost down as quickly as possible so that private sector forces can help to drive faster toward the clean energy solutions we need where we know we're going to need not just electrons but molecules for a lot of uses.

And things like green hydrogen are going to play an important role there.

Mirek Dušek: Thank you, Jason. We do have one gentleman here if you can introduce yourself.

Audience member: Sure. I am Arun Sundararajan from New York University. My question's to the entire group.

You know, the kneejerk reaction that people have in the United States to a Trump administration is that it's bad for China because of the trade barriers. That's sort of the general feeling. But as I've been listening in and when we were in Dalian over the summer, someone told me that the Chinese press was referring to Trump as nation builder. And so, sort of there was a positive outlook there.

And, you know, you've talked about a closer relationship with Europe. There's certainly, you know, a lot of desire in China to get rid of the trade ban with the Netherlands so that they could import more UV machines from ASML, for example.

You know, the world would be looking towards China as being the other superpower if the US recedes leadership in alternative energy.

So, I guess my question is that do you think a Trump administration is going to be good for China or bad for China over the next four years?

Mirek Dušek: Thank you so much. Anyone has a reaction.

Keyu Jin: I can start. I think economically, it will be bad for China but it would also be bad for the rest of the world, given the pressure on inflation.

Politically, you know, China believes that there might be still, rightly or wrongly, might be more room to negotiate around the sensitive issues around Taiwan or geopolitical issues. So I think this is how they perceive it with a bit more room for negotiation. But economically, absolutely, it would not be great news.

Mirek Dušek: Thank you so much. Anyone else wants to?

Suzanne Maloney: I'll jump in very quickly and just say I think, like Keyu has just said, you know, it would very much depend on how China plays this opportunity. But there is an opportunity there for them to expand their reach and to rebuild some relationships with countries in their own neighbourhood as well as potentially with Europe.

And so it really is to what extent the Chinese leadership can be opportunistic and navigate the headwinds but also take advantage of some of the detritus that the Trump administration may create in terms of US leadership and relationships around the world.

Jason Bordoff: Yeah, I'll just make one quick comment about it. I mean, I think we're seeing it play out in Baku, in Azerbaijan, now, in the UN climate meetings. And there are many reasons why I think it would be problematic if Trump pulls out of that process. One of them is that it is a source of soft power and geo-strategic relationships and influence.

And the conversation happening in Baku now is what wealthier countries are going to do to deal with the fact that the problem of climate change historically has been created by developed countries. The lowest-income countries don't necessarily have the resources to develop in a cleaner way or cope with the impacts of climate change.

And how are we going to think about equity in this transition and come up with resources at a time when the emerging and developing economies have a growing sense of hypocrisy and resentment for how this energy transition is unfolding in ways that they see as unfair.

That the US retreat from that stage would be a geopolitical opportunity for other countries like China to step in and play a leadership role with some of the emerging and developing economies that are looking for partners to think about how they're going to meet their energy needs and cope with the impacts of climate change.

Mirek Dušek: Thank you so much. We are. It's time. I wanted to thank Suzanne Maloney, Jason Bordoff and Keyu Jin. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your views.

Obviously, we are seeing a lot of change in the system. So really being able to get views and analysis from experts like you is of critical importance, as I said at the beginning.

It's also something that is now of clear importance to business leaders. Geopolitics has become more material and it's informing business decisions as well.

As I also said at the beginning, this is the final session of the Strategic Intelligence Outlook meetings of this year. So thank you so much for being with us. And obviously, given what we've heard, 2025 is going to be a very interesting, very dynamic year. We are hoping that you will be with us as we offer other conversations like this throughout next year. Thank you so much.