• Geopolitics
• Economics
• United States
• China

December 26, 2024, 6:00 AM View Comments ()

Each week, FP Live, Foreign Policy’s forum for live journalism, explores key global issues with policymakers and academics. This year, leaders of NATO and the World Trade Organization (WTO) took on the debates over multilateralism and globalization, foreign ministers from Ukraine and Poland addressed fears over Russian aggression, and key policymakers from both the Biden and the Trump administrations revealed the foreign-policy motivations of their respective presidents.

There was also an important discussion with Greece’s prime minister on his nation’s economic revival, an exploration of the likelihood of political violence in the United States with scholar Barbara F. Walter, and an examination of Palestinian leadership with former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Throughout the year, FP Live also covered U.S.-China competition, the climate crisis, and global elections around the world.

Here are five discussions worth watching, or rewatching. If you’re an FP Insider, you can read transcripts of them, too.

1. Oren Cass Makes the Case for Trump’s Tariffs

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has referred to tariffs as “the most beautiful word in the dictionary.” Trump has threatened further tariffs on China, and even the United States’ largest trading partners—Mexico and Canada—may face tariffs of 25 percent. All this despite warnings from some economists that tariffs could lead to higher consumer prices in the United States.

Foreign Policy’s Ravi Agrawal sat down with Oren Cass, a leading conservative economist of the New Right, to discuss why tariffs have nevertheless become such an important part of Trump’s economic strategy. Cass, who contributed to the labor chapter of Project 2025, explained why he sees tariffs as an effective strategy for uplifting the working class and supporting those whom free trade has left behind. His work is influential with Republican figures including Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and Secretary of State-designate Marco Rubio. Read the transcript

2. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on Free Trade

FP Live looked at globalization from a different angle in a rare long-form interview with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director-general of the WTO. Since the 2008 financial crisis exposed how many have been left behind by globalization and the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted supply chains, wealthy countries and emerging markets have looked to new economic models. Free trade neoliberalism is out; near-shoring, de-risking, and friend-shoring are in.

FP’s Ravi Agrawal, the host of FP Live, asked Okonjo-Iweala what it means for the future of globalization if even the United States—the longtime promoter of global free trade—is resorting to protectionism. If big wealthy countries turn inward, will poorer countries face greater inequality?

“We would not want the world to fragment into two trading blocs, one with the U.S. and one with China, because that will be a big loss to the world,” said Okonjo-Iweala, who also served twice as Nigeria’s finance minister. “Everyone would lose. The U.S. would lose. China would lose. And developing countries would lose more if we broke into two geopolitical blocs along those lines. So we are very concerned.” Read the transcript

3. Platon on Photographing the Powerful

Whether you know it or not, you’ve seen photographer Platon’s distinctive wide-lens photos of notable global figures. He is celebrated for taking some of the most famous magazine cover images in history—of Trump, former U.S. President Barack Obama, former Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, actor George Clooney, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and countless others.

On FP Live, Platon revealed the stories behind his powerful shots: how he connected with Putin over the Beatles; how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu whispered, “Make me look good”; and how Platon asked President Bill Clinton to “show [him] the love.” In this interview, Platon explained how his photos capture the essences and motivations of the impactful figures who shape our world. Read the transcript

4. Ambassador Nick Burns on U.S.-China Competition

This year saw a spate of high-level meetings between the United States and China as great power competition between the two nations intensifies. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan all visited Beijing. Just after Sullivan’s visit, Agrawal sat down with U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns.

Burns laid out the endgame that the Biden administration has focused on: “We want a peaceful relationship between these two very strong countries with the two strongest militaries of the world. … While we compete and defend these very important interests to which we’re attached, we want to see our allies respected in the South and East China sea[s]. We want to see human rights respected. We’re not going to cease and desist in pursuing those interests.” Read the transcript

5. Panel on Alliance of Autocrats

North Korean troops have joined Russian forces fighting in Ukraine. Russia has shared weapons and even military intelligence with Iran. It’s yet unclear whether this partnership of global pariahs is a marriage of convenience or a new autocratic bloc.

On FP Live, Barbara Slavin, an Iran expert at the Stimson Center, and Chung Min Lee, a Korea expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, discussed the Iran-North Korea-Russia bloc. They also touched on where China fits in and how the West should respond to this threat.

“The most important glue that should hold them together, which is absent, is trust. None of these four countries trusts each other,” said Lee. “I think that is going to undo the so-called super Eurasian alignment over the next four or five years.” Read the transcript