 We're back, we're live at the one o'clock block here. Think Tech, I'm Jay Fidel and that's Carlos Juarez. Hi Carlos. Hello Jay, great to see you. Always good to connect and here we are again, our global connections, a chance to talk a little bit today about the image of the United States abroad and particularly President Trump and some impressions that come out of a pretty in-depth survey from the Pew Research Center. So we'll come to that but let me just first welcome you as well, great to see you. As always, we live in interesting times, there's so much going on in the world and domestically that it's sometimes it's hard to grab on to something, right? It's all shiny objects, all seem to be domestic these days with Trump and we have to learn to deal with them and maybe sometimes ignore them and see what's really going on behind his back, which is all about the election and how he's trying to cheat on it. And then, as you pointed out before the show, we live in a global world, we cannot forget that for a minute and Trump would like to turn in the isolationist but the fact is the world is relevant, we are relevant to the world, we can never forget that. And for that reason, we have to study the image that the world has of the US and that's the discussion of our show today Carlos. No, absolutely. And of course, again, countries in the US today, I mean, we're looking internally because we have this major crisis, but of course the pandemic ultimately is an example of a global issue. It cannot be solved by independent countries. There needs to be some degree of cooperation, coordination, sort of dialogue, communication. And so, but more to the point, I mean, we've had a lot of conversations over our many shows about just a similar topic, but today I wanna share with you some data so we can kind of speak to it. And that is the US image, which is plummeting. And so if I can, maybe we've got a couple of pictures to show the first one here is just a cover of this news article, not news article, I'm sorry, a research report that has been published, the Pew Research Center, one of the leading sort of public policy think tanks entitled US image plummets internationally as most say the country has handled the coronavirus badly. We'll see in a moment some more data. If I can turn to the second slide, what we have here is a look at, it's kind of hard to see all the data, but it shows us a handful of countries, the UK, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, and Australia. So sort of our partners are similar, advanced industrial economies, et cetera. And over the last 10 years, there's been sort of an up and down, but in general, a pretty downward trend in the first part, George W. Bush. Obama, of course, gained a lot of support internationally, he was popular for various reasons, I mean, his appeal, but also perhaps his diplomacy was obviously seen that way more, less bellicose, less aggressive. If we look just at the last few three, four years, we see a pretty significant decline. And these are, the question is, what percentage who have a favorable view of the US? Back in the year 2000, it was 83 in the UK, today it's 41. In France it was 62, today it's 31. In Germany it was 78, in 2000, it's 26 today. I mean, these are pretty dramatic and these are pretty extensive surveys they do. They're not just a short one. Pew is known to be a pretty rigorous analysis. Let me move real quickly. I'm just gonna go through some of these and then we can just continue to talk and debrief about it, but the next slide or next picture we have basically is more specific to the Trump administration because we have to understand there's often a difference between the image of the United States as a country, as a society, as a people and the leader, the president. Sometimes they're in sync and they go hand in hand. Sometimes they are out of sync. Now in general, the image of the US has gone down but more the image of the president or the impression of him. So what we see in this third slide is Trump is very dramatic to say this. He's less trusted throughout much of the world than leaders of Germany, France, the UK, Russia and China. And especially, this is interesting because the Chinese, as we often talk about, I mean, they're obviously taking a very sort of almost, taking their time, very slow, gradual, long-term approach and with deeply engaged in particularly the developing world, China and Africa, China and Latin America, China throughout Asia, building, let's say, almost a new international system. The United States meanwhile, which for much of the post-Cold War, the early, I'm sorry, post-war and post-Cold War has been the defining global leader. Today, that role is quickly dissipating. So again, I won't read all of these but we just see dramatic, especially in places like Germany. The question is, what percentage who have Trump in, well, I'm sorry, high degree of confidence or no confidence in Germany, 76% basically have Trump less trusted than in these other countries, et cetera, quite dramatic. And it varies, of course, in the U.S. and in China and in Russia, they're more in sync. Let me just, again, I wanna just rather move quickly so we can get through these. The next slide has a look at different ratings of different countries, again, can't cover all of them but in the bottom part, it's interesting to see there are, of course, some countries that have a very favorable view of the U.S. The number one that stands out is South Korea. And it's a mixture of things, Korea, of course, South Korea, that is, you know, long-time ally, you know, long security blanket from the United States but maybe more than that, even in terms of culture and sort of popular culture, there's a deep integration there, Italy is relatively high but as we move down, places like Germany, the Netherlands, France, Sweden, they are all on the bottom and moreover, the other side on the right column shows us confidence in Trump, relatively low, places like Germany, 10%, Denmark, 10%, Japan slightly higher at 25, Australia, surprisingly, I thought 23 but in general, relatively low marks for President Donald Trump. And then I think we have one or two more. Interesting to contrast the case, again, or just to see the data from our neighbor to the North Canada, we have a chart that shows favorable opinion of the U.S. and confidence in its president today is at an all-time low. We look back again, 2002, one line shows us the confidence in the United States, which, you know, they go kind of parallel but the part that is for the president is substantially higher for Obama and substantially lower for Trump. So even today, 20% of Canadians have confidence in Trump. That's a pretty low mark for a neighbor that shares a lot of values, ideals, you know, we often have some statistic, you know, probably 80, 85% of the Canadians live within 100 miles of the border and they are clearly very much, you know, sharing some of our own, let's say, culture but very different values and views. I mean, the Canadians, it's fair to say they would never elect Donald Trump. The United States, by contrast, partly a function of our peculiar electoral system, he's able to maintain a pretty solid base of 35, 40%, but enough to get elected into office, et cetera. Finally, there's the last table that just is interesting to note too and it looks to the support or maybe more confidence in Trump among European right-wing populist parties. We've seen just like in the US, you know, Trump represents sort of a criticism of globalization, of multilateralism, of anti-immigrant in the many European countries. We've also seen a similar rise in right-wing populist parties throughout. You know, 10, 20 years ago, they tended to be on the margins, on the fringes today in places like France and in Germany, the rise of ultra right-wing anti-immigrant parties and they are populist and sort of anti-democratic in a curious way, even though they use the democratic system to push a very, you know, maybe a strong agenda. So here, again, throughout these, you know, one that has been quite dramatic in Spain has been a rise of a movement in some ways, known as books, a very high percentage of those 45% of them have more confidence in Trump and so on. Again, just data that underscore, and from that, let's just, you know, move to kind of reflect on it a little bit, analyze it. You know, what is the cause? You know, there's no simple single answer, but clearly Trump brought a different style of diplomacy, a different approach. Some of it is isolationism, but that's not alone and the US has a long history of, you know, the push and pull of isolationism. Obviously, under Trump, it was almost a very aggressive and it continues to be a very bellicose approach. Just in these last few days, we've seen the annual opening, the ritual opening of the United Nations General Assembly, given the pandemic this year, rather than meeting in New York, everybody sends in their videotaped presentation, if you will. And Donald Trump offered a very, very aggressive and quite bellicose statement, ranting and accusing China of, you know, blaming them for the pandemic, for failing to address it. You know, this is not a norm and again, norms are being broken left and right, but in international politics, you know, sometimes you see some of that, but the level that we've seen coming from Trump of criticism towards, again, like a major power like China and so today we see US-Chinese relations at one of their lowest points ever and reflecting that. So as a result, I think those kind of aggressive approaches have cost the US in terms of the image, the perception and especially the crisis of the pandemic, normally the world community would look to the United States as a leading partner, helping address it. Today the US is under, President Trump is deliberately, you know, shunning it, trying to exit the World Health Organization, you know, missing out, we don't have a seat at the table and, you know, for such an important country and for an issue that requires cooperation, this cannot be solved alone and the US can't just, you know, close its borders and contain it. It's a pretty remarkable situation, I think, of concern because where do we go from here? How does this get repaired? Even if there should be a transition of Trump, you know, when he does leave office, how will the US come back from that to repair some of the very, you know, poor image that is now in place? So let me stop and maybe see if you have any reflections. Any thoughts? Well, you've answered one of my questions at least in part, which was why do we care? Why does the guy in a red state in the base, why does he care? What would you say to him about how this is ultimately going to affect his life in times? Yeah, well, in very concrete ways, if he's a farmer in the red state, you know, Nebraska, he's likely to be affected by his soybean, you know, and other, you know, agriculture products that are sold in the international markets. And to the extent that we have a trade war as we do with China, this can have a profound impact on the livelihoods of people. Maybe to put it differently, like it or not, all of us are in some ways dependent on the global economy. Now we can choose to have strategies that reduce it or protect it, but you can't avoid it. There is simply no way. The US depends on selling many products to the world, from soybeans to Boeing jets and, you know, computers or whatever. But it also, the other side is we love to have those containers full of Walmart goodies so we can buy cheap products. And, you know, if we find ourselves shutting the world and fighting against China, well, guess what? I mean, the cost will be borne by us as individual consumers. And that's maybe one aspect. The other is that, yeah, I mean, it just, the end of the day, we need cooperation on many things. If you wanna fight the world of the bad guys, you're gonna need to cooperate, sometimes with the unsavory characters or even countries, but ultimately with anybody and everybody. Something like China, again, just to keep it there. I mean, they are one of the major suppliers of this, you know, fentanyl and all of these, you know, sort of very, you know, contributing to our opioid crisis. Guess what? If you don't have a working relationship with them or cooperation, or if you choose a very aggressive antagonistic strategy, we may lose out on the ability to get any, to be able to manage something like that more effectively. So there are many points and reasons that may not be obvious, but our connection to the outside world is real. And if we don't manage it well, you know, it can have real consequences for our lives, for our economies. I mean, that was certainly being touted, at least in my circles, at the early part of the pandemic, we have to work together. We have to bring the scientists together from various countries. We have to encourage them to talk to each other. We have to have collaborative science. There was a company in Germany that Trump tried to buy for a billion dollars. He tried to buy their scientists and their science and so forth and like shut it down there and bring it all here somehow. And Angela Merkel stopped them. The scientists wouldn't cooperate. The company wouldn't cooperate. They said, take a walk. And, you know, he never was able to do that. But, you know, that suggests the kind of approach that he would take. We want it all here. We don't want to collaborate with you. We want to buy you, take you over, control you and all that. And some people think, well, no, no, science ignores that. And scientists around the world, they do talk to each other, no matter what. They have the email. They have their journals. They have their meetings. However, their meetings may be virtual these days. And despite Trump's isolationism, despite his anti-science, you know, you still have a certain amount of traffic among the scientists. Now I'm tossed on that because one side of me says, well, yeah, that must be true because science was talking to itself, you know, globally so much before. They must still be talking to themselves. But on the other hand, I see Trump trying to control, you know, the vaccine. I see him doing the same thing as in Germany. I see him, you know, using his warp speed initiative on the vaccine and be damned to science and be damned international cooperation. Do you have any thoughts on that? That's an important part of the international process, the dynamic here. Sure. Well, I mean, a couple of quick thoughts. I mean, on one hand, you described like the scientific community for many, many years now, decades, they are now literally a good example of a virtual community. They are deeply connected. And of course today's technologies have been quite literally this idea that today we're all living with Zoom meetings here and there, well, the scientists have been doing that for a long time. And what I mean by that, particularly our scientists addressing pandemics, infectious diseases, these have been going on for a long time. And you know, we've had, but they are plugged in and that is there. Today the difference is that now with the situation in the US and the, you know, very aggressive approach of the government to, you know, to move away from the World Health Organization and even things like the restriction of, you know, of visas for foreign nationals to come and work in the US. The United States is the leading center of research and analysis on everything and anything. And that, the risk of, I guess, this more isolationist approach and maybe the anti-immigrant, including, you know, visas for, let's say, experts, that could have an impact. It's hard to measure exactly, but it's real. Suddenly, you know, if you're a research scientist from, let's just say, I don't know, could be anywhere, it could be from Mexico or from Russia where you might be working at Stanford or MIT. The situation is so ugly and uncertain and aggressive, you may end up in Canada or maybe choose to go to the UK or, you know, elsewhere and, you know, just to avoid that. But beyond that, there's also, I think, what else would I add to that? This crisis, this pandemic, again, you can't underscore, it's a health crisis and it's a global crisis. And the United States cannot solve it by somehow, you know, hoarding the market or controlling the pandemic. We as a, you know, country have a vested interest in making sure to manage this crisis that the poor developing countries of Central America, of South Africa and Asia, they are gonna need the help of the wealthier developed countries of Europe, of the US. Because if we don't, this situation is gonna continue to fester and it'll come back to bite us. And, you know, so again, the United States, large, powerful countries, center of so much, you know, maybe ability to, well, develop the vaccine. We can't keep it to ourselves. We need to use it to help the world address this problem. Right now, there's a void in that leadership and so there's a critical uncertainty. The whole issue has been politicized and captured by the president today in a way that is almost sinister. And sadly, it fuels a lot of this negative image of the United States and, you know, looking out, well, not so much looking out yourself, you know, countries do that. We all look, you know, countries look out for their national interest, but doing it in a way that seems so selfish and narrow, it really, again, it erodes credibility in the image of itself. Yeah, that's not the global ethic. The global ethic, at least in recent years, has been to think of humanity as a global experience and try to come together with due regard for your national interest. You know, one thing that strikes me is China is pretty advanced in medical research. China was able to suppress its own curve. China is not our enemy. I mean, we got to manage our relationship with them, but what's happening now is they have a vaccine and they're using the vaccine. Their trials are different than our trials, but I understand that China is actually deploying a vaccine. We should share with them. Instead, we're shutting them out at every way possible and they shutting us out. You know, so who gains on that? But let me ask you another question, Carlos, and that is, you know, so people don't like Trump. I mean, no right-thinking person, in my view, in the world is gonna like Trump. I asked one of our correspondents in India not too long ago, do you like Trump? And he said, yes, I like Trump. He's a student. Yes, I like Trump. I said, why do you like Trump? He says, because Trump is strong. And that speaks of the right-wing thing, you know? It speaks of, you know, the current, what do you wanna call it, flow in the world where people like strong leaders and strong leaders are taking over in more places, you know, tyrannical leaders. And so that's not a good thing for, you know, what do you call it, world politics. But unbalanced, most people in the world don't like Trump. And the question I put to you is this. So they don't like Trump. Does that mean they don't like the United States? And you're probably gonna tell me, no, no, no, no. United States still has some pretty good franchise out there. And it may be historical. It may be they remember us when we were better as a country. They remember us in times when Trump wasn't around to mess things up. But here's my question. Over time, the rational observer is gonna say, well, gee whiz, the Americans still have Trump. They didn't let go of him. He must represent their thinking as a country. So if I don't like Trump, you know, I don't like the people who put him there and keep him there. Therefore, I don't like the country either. It's not just Trump. What do you think? You know, what I want to say is it is not an easy answer, but I think it just depends on where you sit. And so you've mentioned this student in India. My best guess is he's probably not spending a lot of time reading about the social protest movement in the US, about the, you know, political fight right now over the Supreme Court and what was going on. I'll say that his impression is just this very broad one. Trump is strong because he got the image. You know, Trump has this image of a strong leader. But at the end of the day, you know, is he effective? Is he getting results? And, you know, again, by any objective measure, obviously even those, you know, well, many of those who have worked with him, it will tell us unequivocally, this guy does not have the competency skills, foresight, strategy, whatever you want to call it. And so the other part I want to say is that, again, it depends because there are those who have, let's say, some kind of contact with the US, maybe a family member or otherwise they studied or had a visit. In general, we tend to still see a favorable image of the US with those who've had any connection or no Americans, let's say, versus somebody who has just this abstract perception of it. Now, having said that, and maybe in light of the Trump administration or not, of Donald Trump, not just administration, he has certainly helped to foster a more negative image of the country. But I want to say that people will tend to distinguish that, separate the two, not everybody, again, not everybody is interested in global affairs. I mean, even in the US, I mean, you know, you go on the streets of the US and who could find, you know, Ukraine on a map or whatever it might be or just understand, even I would say like Donald Trump, I mean, many of his base supporters have no knowledge of the history of the United States, you know, in World War II, post-Cold War and, you know, the role that the US had, helping establish the modern international system with alliance systems and what does that mean? Even today, you know, we have no concept, you know, a young, you know, 20, 25-year-old has no concept of bipartisanship or when the Supreme Court has a vacancy, there was a long, long unwritten rule forever where you basically allowed the other side to have their pick, you know, and unless there was some rare case, they all got approved with pretty broad support. Those days are gone and I guess I'm saying, you know, the reality, maybe what people are seeing is so different today and, you know, it's a real difference between those who are educated and have some knowledge and let's say if we look at foreign perceptions in Europe, for example, the older generation, somebody over 50 or 60 may have more memory and understand the US was our ally, supported us, especially the older generation, grandparents today, young populations today don't see that. I mean, they've grown up in a world where the United States is not really the global player it once was. And, you know, for Americans, sometimes that's hard to understand. Many Americans have a simplistic view that we're number one, we're the best. Well, guess what? The world is looking at no longer depending on the US, no longer counting on the US, and no longer seeing the US as the leader that it once was. To me, the last question I wanna pose to you, which is actually the most interesting to me, is that, okay, let's assume for a moment that God is in his heaven and that Biden is elected and takes office and becomes the president. Knock wood and thank you, God, for that. Okay, so now we're in presumably a more enlightened time. Everybody agrees that Biden has his work cut out for him in trying to correct all the problems that Trump, you know, created and allowed to surface to use that term during his administration. I mean, he fomented such, he has fomented such divisiveness and, you know, cretinism around the country. So my question, I guess I wanna frame this so it doesn't answer itself, we have to fix things. Biden would have to fix things. But isn't it so that before Biden can achieve a better image of the United States in the eyes of the world, he's gonna have to fix this country. He can't go as one person, one force and talk sweetly to them and make it all better. He's gotta be able to demonstrate that he's corrected the things that alienated them in the first place. Am I right? Well, you know, the way you, when I'm thinking about that, it's like, well, what possibly could he do that's gonna change that? At the end of the day, obviously, in a post-Trump world, it'll come someday where hopefully it'll be 2021, but let's see how it plays out. It's gonna require patience, but I think most importantly, a high degree of humility because the US is gonna have to rebuild support and trust and credibility. And that's not happening overnight and it's not gonna happen easily. And there'll be some where you're gonna just miss the boat all together, but it's gonna require a high degree of humility and engagement, a seat at the table, but also maybe a little bit more modest and respectful. The US has a long tradition of coming, maybe a style of negotiating, a style of diplomacy that's often very in your face, very blunt, even a preacher attitude, a bully. All of those are typical characteristics. An arrogant, and unfortunately, that's gonna have to change. The US doesn't have the ability, it doesn't have the ability to mobilize and get support from the world the way it did before. The world doesn't depend on it in the same way. And now the complexity of geopolitics, you've got the European Union and China as new players that I'm speaking here about maybe different parts of the world. If you're even sitting in Latin America, the US has somehow always been a bully, but while the 90s and 2000s had engaged and pushed open liberalization of the economy integration, today, that is all being rejected. And basically, the US is not seen as a fair player. And although there are limitations, looking to China, looking to the European Union is an easy appeal because it's like, gosh, we need to diversify our portfolio on some level. So it's gonna be challenging, it's gonna require obviously a re-engagement, a different narrative. But I go back to this idea, I think a fair degree of humility, and that's not gonna be easy because the US has often this tendency to be rather more pompous and arrogant. But I don't think we have the luxury of doing that these days. Even in the post-trump world. Let me flip the question on your Carlos. Let me flip the question. Let's say he stays in power. Let's say he's not only continues the same attitude, same policies, same isolationism, cold shoulderism, what have you, that he's been doing increasingly. But that, because he's in power after what would be a mandate that he can continue to do this, it gets even worse. And he alienates more people more arrogantly. So the question I put to you is, what happens in terms of this Pew report? What happens in terms of the world view of the United States? It's dynamic. You know everything changes, including the collective attitude of the world about the image of the United States. Where does it all go? Where does the United States dollar go as a reserve currency? Where does trade go? Where does inclusion of the United States if the United States deigns to agree in world organizations? Where does it go? Well, again, you've described one of several possible scenarios as we look to the future. One could be that, maybe let's hope it's not the outcome, but it's a more draconian that somehow Trump pulls off and stays in office and maybe disruption. At the end of the day, it's gonna be more further isolation for the US. You know, other countries are, and I'm thinking particularly of the important players, the Western Europe, Japan, Australia of the world, they are gonna increasingly isolate the US more, not invite them to a seat at the table because you cannot trust them. By now, the European leaders know that for Trump, it's all about a transactional approach. There's no historical or proper etiquette or protocol or respect for the other side, understanding the other side's positions, whether you like them or not. And so I think they would increasingly isolate the US even more and that's unfortunate and that'll just deepen what is already happening. That's a scenario that, again, is bleak and rather dark to think of because it would have other implications. As you said, I mean, we would see other countries responding to us with further isolation. Would they respond to us with geopolitical friction? Would they respond to us with, you know, their own bellicose moves? Would they respond to us with war? Well, here, again, I would say first, the world community overall would, or particularly the key players, let's say the top 20 countries would suddenly no longer depend on the US more and more. And so they would have to solve their problems more separate and individually, but I think it would also give rise or foster other populist and right-wing leaders to give them perhaps more ability to push so within the European Union, for example, you might then see these right-wing leaders today in Hungary and Poland or even the rising group in Spain, they would almost be given maybe a green light to resist even, you know, it's interesting because the European Union, this deep level of integration today is facing a serious crisis and there are a handful of countries that are trying to go their own way. They wanna control their own borders more. They don't have an ability to have a clear and coherent migration policy. You may remember like some five years ago, I can recall I was in Austria at the time and we had this massive crisis that a million refugees flooded in there, but today that crisis has also fueled a lot of this anti-immigrant sentiment. So we're talking about Trump in the US, but you have populist and right-wing leaders that have gained more strength throughout many European countries and a continuation of Trump would only foster more of that and unfortunately more polarization, more conflict and divisiveness. So it's not a good sign. No, it's out of Charles Dickens, the ghost of Christmas future. So I think this is very helpful to make this analysis. We're out of time, Carlos, thank you so much. This is a very helpful discussion. Carlos Suarez, we'll see you in a couple of weeks. Aloha, stay safe.