 Okay, we're back. We're live. We're here in global connections with Carlos Juarez who joins us from San Antonio, Texas this time. And today we're going to talk about, you know, the transformation, the coronavirus transformation. It has begun. And it's becoming very clear. Hi, Carlos. Nice to see you. Hello, hey, good to say hello. I'm now on the mainland of the US, of course. But as you well know, I've done another show or two in the past from San Antonio. This is a very Mexican town as well. And very well connected to Mexico, two hour short hop. So And it's a beautiful town. So totally beautiful. I have friends that live there as well. So, you know, what's on your mind first? We have the India trip, and we have the Trump reaction, if you will, to the coronavirus. Where do you want to start? Yeah, maybe just opening some quick remarks on the India, you know, Donald Trump just had a state visit and had an opportunity to in many ways return the visit. I think it was a year and a half ago when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Houston, Texas, and he was received there in a massive rally at a big stadium as well. And almost in a curious way, like a rock star. And now Trump returning there goes to this massive, largest cricket stadium in India, 100,000 people. And just, you know, it must have been for him quite, you know, like another one of his rallies, it was quite exciting. They, you know, they even had, they were wearing 100,000 hats that said Namaste Trump on it. And, and so he meets with Modi and, you know, nothing huge and substantive. I heard at the end that, well, there's a $5 billion dollar arms sale. You know, it's five billion is a lot of money. But in terms of arms, it's really a drop in the bucket. I mean, you know, but it was more symbolic. I think they're buying some helicopters. But, you know, more to the point, I mean, these are two leaders, curiously, that have established a very, you know, sort of their own bromance. They're both populist, you know, strong national hyper nationalist leaders. You know, Modi's been in power more years by now. But, you know, he's got they share some common things, particularly a very strong anti Muslim sentiment. In the case of Modi, he's been pushing various policies, a very controversial, recent law that has allowing refugees to become citizens, however, not Muslims. So all the other And it's reflecting, you know, again, his very strong nationalist, you know, he's a Hindu nationalist India is about 82% Hindu, but the Muslim, you know, largest minority, there's some 15% of the population. So it's the largest population of Muslims outside of, I think, Indonesia, one exception. But that aside, I think, you know, it just underscores how interesting, you know, leaders do develop these personal relations on the one hand, may not be a lot of substance going on between them because, you know, the US and India, while their relations have improved, there's not a great deal of, you know, trade and commerce. There's not a lot of military exchange, although we heard again this announcement of a brief, or at least a modest amount of sales. But I think other than that, you know, again, India certainly has an important emerging power and as a buffer and balance to India in that region. Any US president, you know, should be reaching out to somehow accommodate that. And then again, the thing about India, while it may not have the hard power that we might see in Russia or China, it does have a very substantial soft power. And it has a very large diaspora community, both the US, the UK, and they play a very important role in helping promote India's image. So the soft power of India is interesting. And then it's always a paradox because here's, you know, the largest democracy by any measure, it is a democratic society, and yet mixed in with it violence. And even as Trump was there, there were, you know, a number of people who were killed in some of this, you know, rioting. Did that have anything to do with him? Did that have anything to do with his presence? No, not really. No, it was really, again, more protesting against, well, I shouldn't say protesting. Most of the victims were Muslims, most of those carrying out the crimes appeared in these, you know, Hindu nationalists who support him. So it has more to do with this recent controversial law that I've mentioned that is now allowing refugees to become citizens, however, excluding Muslims. And so there's, you know, real tensions there. But I underscore, because again, it's this paradox of India, it is the largest democracy, certainly, and yet it continues to have a fractal, subtle violence on a regular basis, usually Hindu Muslim violence. And of course, Modi himself has some baggage in his past before he was Prime Minister, he was the, you know, the first, or the, you know, Chief Minister for the state of Gujarat, one of the most important states there in Western India. And in about 2003, I think it was, there was a massive, massive amount of violence. There was an incident that I think up to a thousand, mostly Muslim were killed. And his handling of that was very controversial. Many felt that he kind of fueled the flames and he took a lot of heat for it, but he was in fact able to come out ahead and, you know, again, given the solid majority of Hindus and many themselves who are firmly anti-Muslim, elected him, Prime Minister, re-elected him. So, yeah, I just said, you know. Is he popular now, Carlos? Is he popular now? And did the Trump visit help his popularity? I would say yes, in general. Again, partly because it's the theatrics that, you know, he puts on a big show and by most measures he is. He's a very popular, you know, leader, you know, popular with the majority, of course, not among the large Muslim population, and maybe those who would like to see less of this hypernationalism. As you know, I was there for about six months. Two years ago I came back from having spent the fall semester there. I was a Fulbright scholar and, you know, I began to see a lot of examples of this nationalism. For example, now when you go to any movie theater in India, it always starts with a national anthem and everybody is required to stand up. And I used to do that at the beginning. And then at some point I just got tired of it. It's like, well, this is not my national anthem. I don't have to do this. And it was my own kind of little protest at the movie theater. But after going to so many movies there, you know, I began to sing the song and I got to know the national anthem quite well. But that was just a funny example of which, you know, that didn't happen before, but it's a way of trying to, I don't know, I guess promote a certain sense of national pride. But it's more when you see these policies that are explicitly anti-Muslim, that begins to get a little more, well, discriminatory and, well, maybe not racist, but certainly, you know, targeting this. And it goes against really the ideals of India when it was founded in 1947, you know, Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi, all the top leaders very much fostered a secular, you know, tolerance, you know, inviting all the major groups, particularly again, the large Muslim community. As you know, the story there, the split that occurred in 1947 between Pakistan and India, of course, led to a massive, massive migration of, you know, Muslims out of India, Pakistan, and then Hindus from Pakistan into, and that migration resulted in millions being killed. It was a horrific experience. And those tensions have remained ever since, since 1947, the creation. But I go back to this, I think, you know, in the early days, the leaders, the founders of modern India very much sought to create a secular society, let's say. I mean, multi religious, I guess. And now what we've seen under Modi these last five, six years is very aggressive, you know, Hindu nationalism, the party that he comes from. Well, it sounds like there's a dynamic that Modi sends. What is he, two years in office now? More than that. At least four or five by now. He's been elected already. So he's changed, right? There's a dynamic going on with him. Could you articulate how that's working? Well, if anything, I think now he's gotten more confident. He's been able to push more aggressively on some of that. It's always been there. He's always been a very strong, you know, nationalist Hindu, Hindu nationalist, we would say. And, but, you know, he is very much a solidly in control of his party, the BJP party has a very, you know, very much control. And so I guess I want to say he does have popular support. He's not unpopular and it's not quite the polarized society that we might see in the US or in many other countries that is divided down the middle. It is basically this small but significant minority of Muslims who are, let's say, the ones that are, I guess, the targets of many of his policies. Well, that considers Carlos, it sounds like he's a perfect object of affection for Trump. Yes, yes, absolutely. And that part of it motivated, maybe a large part of it motivated Trump's trip over there. But you know, one thing that strikes me, and this is, you know, the second subject for us to discuss is that Trump made that trip. It was a time when we all became increasingly concerned about coronavirus. And when we would have expected a leader of the free world to stay in the White House and work on it, he was off trundling into this love affair in India. And I wonder, you know, I wonder whether Trump could have done a better job. We saw him a day or two ago making a, you know, a statement of policy about what he was going to do and who was going to do what to deal with coronavirus. What do you think about that? How well has he done so far? Well, again, it's a mixed bag. He obviously has sent conflicting signals from what his healthcare professionals have done. And by and large, you know, the public health community is very clear, including the CDC saying, look, this situation is serious and it's likely to get worse before it gets better. And we do need to, you know, be aware of it and be observant. And I think, you know, Trump was like any leader trying to maybe allay concerns and when he sees the stock market as it has been, you know, tanking these last few days, continuing to do so. I think, you know, some critics would say he's more interested in that aspect since his re-election depends on very much an argument that he's made the economy strong and should that change, obviously that begins to erode that. But if you saw the press conference he held yesterday, it was a little, you know, he was again as typical, you know, boasting about things that had nothing to do with the issues there. Putting blame on the media and the Democrats and when this is a time when, you know, the leadership come forward and just reassure the population, make sure we are confident that they're doing the best they can. He has appointed as his czar, of course, Vice President Mike Pence and that itself has raised some, you know, concerns and puzzles given that he named him because he had experienced as governor of Indiana. And yet the story in Indiana is one that has raised questions about the Trump, I'm sorry, Pence's own either capacity or maybe how powerful his own religious views and values are in dealing with something that requires clearly scientific, rational, you know, careful public policy and not, you know, faith and somehow prayer. Well, there was a piece about how at the time of this outbreak of HIV, I think it was, while Pence was the governor of Indiana, he addressed that by turning to prayer, which I don't think qualifies him to deal with a global epidemic, a pandemic like this one, which is only going to be resolved by science. Yeah, I was a little surprised. I mean, on one hand, I think it's the Health and Human Services Secretary Aznar. I mean, he's head of the task force and seems a logical choice. But often, as we've seen over the years here in the US, we like to have a czar or somebody who's, you know, given this title of, you know, whether it's the drugs are for many years. Now it's the COVID or the coronaviruses are, you know, in the end, obviously it's all about coordinating the many different pieces and it's, you know, both the public health, the CDC, but also, you know, state relations with different states, you know, law enforcement, you know, logistics, transportation. So there is a critical need for this coordinating role, but also crisis communication. You need to be able to manage, you know, the media in a way that reassures people, provides good information, not mixed signals. And I think in the last few days, we've seen some of the mixed signals that have many questioning, you know, both his knowledge because literally he did not know, for example, the very large number of deaths that occur every year from the influenza, from flu. And, you know, we have the ritual every year, the flu, get your flu shots, why? Well, many people don't realize that. But literally every year, I think I've seen figures 15,000 to 60,000 Americans die of flu every year. So that's, you know, a reality. But here we're dealing now with an issue that takes on both a global dimension because of this, you know, and then a lot of questions and uncertainty still, we don't know a lot about exactly how it's being transmitted. I mean, I can't speak to some of those technical issues, you know, I'm not able to, but what I'm reading and hearing is that, yeah, this is something that by most measures we now have just a few days ago for the first time. We've had more new reported cases outside of China, and it's spreading wildly, you know, even here I think that we had the first one in the US and California. Yesterday, the first in Latin America and Brazil, many European countries beginning to feel that Northern Italy is now coming under quite a bit of tension and many of the cases in Europe are connected to people who have been traveling there, whether on ski or, you know, ski trips or otherwise in this region around Milan where what I'm reading to is that there's just a lot of places that are suddenly being like clamped down. It's centered primarily in Northern Italy, but you know, this is, this is a concern. Let's assume, let's assume that it continues that way. I mean, I think we have every reason to assume that it will continue that way. There are more cases across more borders, more borders being shut down, more quarantines, more governmental action, maybe sometimes overly drastic as in China. And, you know, of course you get economic implications both on a one nation at a time level and on a region level and on a global level. So my question to you, this is really something to look forward or look ahead about is this is ultimately going to have an effect on diplomatic foreign policy geopolitical implications. Isn't it? When you close borders, when you say people can't travel, when you have, you know, syncopated failures in local and global economy, that's got to affect geopolitics. It's got to put some people higher, some people lower. It's got to test our ability to stay peaceful and calm. What do you think is going to happen in that regard? Yeah, well, it's a good question. I mean, right now it's interesting to see how it has been primarily, at least up until now, places like South Korea and many of the European countries. We have not seen it quite yet, maybe take on a significant presence in, let's say, Africa, the African continent, or even much of Latin America. Again, there was a single case in Brazil and I think it was somebody connected to Italy, if I'm not mistaken. But I mentioned that because developing countries in places like Africa or even maybe some parts of Latin America are going to be challenged with the, you know, the maybe weaker infrastructure capacity. And yet the other is that if it is something that is involved with traveling, that's how it's going to spread. But I go back to Africa. This is a place where China itself is deeply, deeply, you know, embedded throughout many of the African countries doing a lot of, you know, infrastructure development and construction and whatnot. And yet what we've also seen, I think what's been taking place, and I mean, getting to your main question, I think as certain countries are beginning to limit restriction of travel to or from places. I think I just saw a while ago that Japan has taken a very aggressive move now to, if I'm not mistaken, I think they're canceling schools. Yes, I saw that this morning. Yes, they're closing all the streets in Japan. They are taking, I think, a preemptive action given that the upcoming summer Olympics are going to be there. They want to try not to, you know, I guess they want to try to make sure that they can get a handle on it before it becomes a crisis. And, you know, a society like Japan very well organized, very, you know, capable of doing that, let's say, but maybe not in the harsh authoritarian way we're seeing in China. But, you know, I guess I hadn't thought too much about it, but the impact on geopolitics, I'm not sure. Clearly the other angle though, which is going to be the global, you know, the independence of the global economy. China is already beginning to see a real effect on its output and given, you know, the very deep interconnection of supply chain networks, you know, it's going to affect people everywhere in the US, you know, getting access to manufactured goods. Even, you know, something as simple as these masks that apparently are now running out of the, of course, like everything are made in China, but other places have to probably fill in that gap now. I think the real concern is going to be more the economic impact that it's going to have. I guess, not quite sure because part of me wants to say that like Europe, very much has a strong, let's say culture and tradition of coordination and cooperation and through the EU and then individual countries very much are all deeply, well, in sync. And so right now the focus is on Italy, because that's where the cases have 650 cases, I think 817 deaths, but I was reading details where France, they're anticipating it's likely to dribble in there very soon. So they too are kind of trying to take some preemptive measures. We've had some single cases, I think in Denmark and maybe Latvia was another one. Each of these, you know, they're aggressively trying to find out if it's where, you know, if there are any way it's connected to, you know, Italy or China or what. And, you know, this is the real challenge because it's moving so quickly every day and, you know, what we're hearing from some of the experts, I heard one of the former CDC heads, I think Tom Friedman in an interview paper yesterday, making very clear this is likely to get worse before it gets better. And that's, you know, that's not a, I mean, it's an important message to let people know because you should not be, I think as we heard from President Trump, oh no, we've got to handle on it's okay, it's not going to affect us. That's a little deceiving and not being honest. You know, Carl, this is a related issue. You mentioned it earlier in connection with Trump's speeches, press releases rambling every press release press conferences rambling. And you mentioned it in terms of managing information so as not to get people, you know, who excited to avoid panic. And so every leader, every government's going to be mindful of that and going to, you know, sort of calculate comments and public statements, not not to panic people. In the case of Trump, you know, I don't think he knows how to do that. And he makes his own decisions. Now, one of the things he says is that Say again, I was just saying it's crisis communication, you need to know how to handle an emergency situation like this and it means, you know, clear and not wandering off and, you know, rambling about, you know, your opponents or criticizing the press. I mean, that's not the point. And telling the truth. He has terrible, terrible reputation for not telling the truth. And so how can you rely in crisis on his statements when you question whether he's telling the truth. One of the remarkable things he said was, don't worry, this is out of being there with Peter Sellers. Don't worry in the springtime, everything will be better. It'll be warmer and that will diminish the effect of the virus. That's not there's no evidence of that. And so I think what we're going to get from him are untruths as usual. And that's not going to help delay the panic. Now, let me shift for a minute to China, where Xi Jinping is also very interested in avoiding panic. And he's taking, you know, draconian steps to do that. And anyone who, anyone who makes a public statement about the failure of the government to deal properly with this or about, you know, how bad it might be is going to be arrested and muzzled and probably taken away to a dark place. In fact, that's happening in the underground Chinese media is filled with stories about people who've been taken away from their homes because they made statements against the effect, against Xi Jinping and his efforts to deal with the virus. So I think what happens here is in trying to deal, you know, to avoid panic, trying to deal with it on informational crisis management, governments change and do very strange things. And it feeds right into, you know, a very over overbearing government, a dictatorial government, as in the case of China. And don't you think that over time, when the panic gets worse, when the situation gets worse, the press will be under attack, as it already is with him. And that anyone who speaks against, you know, the government in any country will be at risk. Yeah, and, you know, again, it is very important in these complex emergencies where, you know, you've got to get a handle on that because otherwise, you know, you can, unfortunately, Trump is starting already from a disadvantage because, you know, half the population just doesn't believe him. And as you noted, when he does have any kind of statements, he is not very good at just reading what you're supposed to he ends up wandering off and saying things and drifting into, you know, things that are not the core focus that you need to deal with. So I think, yeah, and we, you know, you can say throughout history, or at least, you know, modern history, whenever you have these emergencies, it could be an earthquake, a national disaster. Often they become a very powerful political challenge for the leadership that can erode their credibility legitimacy in different ways and, you know, how they handle it. I mean, whether you were called Katrina and comments that George W. Bush and how he handled it. And you'd think by now that, you know, governments, it's one of the things you have to do, you've got to be able to respond quickly, clearly, good information, you know, competent people. Frankly, some, you know, again, Trump doesn't have anybody there to tell him this, but somebody else should be in charge of this clearly. And Pence, well, you know, he doesn't command I guess a lot of, you know, he doesn't come across as being, yeah, just to be very clear. So, you know, that's unfortunate. But who else is he going to convince he's going to have to buy somebody because even, you know, even the public health officials, they want to be as they are as scientists very clear and, you know, and then I think there was just to add again to all the politics of this. I think one of the top leaders of the Center for Disease Control involving infectious diseases happens to be the sister of Rod Rodenstein, this recent acting Attorney General, and she was giving statements of, you know, cautioning warning. And suddenly now a lot of the right wing, you know, all the media or whatever right is now like up in arms is all the conspiracy state. Oh, that's my favorite one. He agrees that there's a conspiracy of the Democrats and that the Coronavirus is a democratic weapon, only meant to bring him down. The absurdity of the insanity of that is inescapable. But let me let me ask you this, you're a traveler, and you go on these full right trips. You're always doing that. You're, you think globally, you act globally, you travel globally, you're everywhere. There are no barriers for you, Carlos, and I admire you very greatly for that. So here you are on the cusp a lot of travel. In fact, you're traveling right now. And that means getting out of the plane. It means dealing with crowds. It means hearing the person in the seat next to you cough and retch or whatever it is. How are you changing your technique? How are you protecting yourself? How will you protect yourself in the future? I know. And it's a tough one because anybody who's got some travel plans have to really think carefully about it. It's not always easy to cancel. Usually when you buy, you know, most people don't buy their cancellation insurance policy options. And, you know, you've got to make a tough decision. This morning I did. I left Mexico City. You got on a plane to San Antonio. And you could already see a lot of the airport workers are very much covered in masks. But I was actually in line coming into my plane and a woman behind me from China, although coming from Mexico to Texas, eventually on her way to China. But she was right next to me and began coughing and sneezing. And I have to admit, I was a bit nervous. I tried to walk away. I think more immediately, and the advice we're getting from, you know, obviously the extras, you've got to continually wash your hands as often as possible. You know, the mask can be helpful, but you got to have the right kind of mask. A lot of these that are out there are not. But the other is also avoid trying to like touch yourself because in public areas where you could have exposure, it might be on a tabletop or on a counter or some knob, and then suddenly you start touching your nose, your mouth, your eyes, and that's going to bring it into you. So you've got to begin to, and as I took this initiative myself today, trying to be real careful, literally every bathroom I saw, I would go in and wash my hands again. And that's the best we can do now. Beyond that, I have to think carefully in about a month. I'll be on my way to Europe there, and as you know, I travel every year to Innsbruck in Austria, just a stone's throw from northern Italy. And now I'm hoping they can contain it and solve it. But even as I am likely to go, I don't plan to cancel a trip. I'm going to probably be very low key. I do some lectures there. So I'm just going to avoid big crowded places and minimize being in places where, and yet again, Innsbruck is a place where tourists are always coming there, bus loads of Chinese tourists. So over the years I've been going there now, 12 years, I've seen an interesting changing dynamics of the tourism in China and also India are now among the most popular tourists. They go to this Alpine region, you know, to basically enjoy the beauty of it. And they often come just for the day, bus loads of them. But yeah, now I wonder to what extent it might be affecting that region given, again, the proximity of northern Italy. It's right there. Really a flat world these days. Well, Carlos, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. I'll tell you what it is. You know, when you travel, or when anyone travels, or when we want to reach somebody in a faraway place, name it anywhere in the world, we can do it by VMIX call remote, which is what we're using right now. So when you go to Europe, we can catch you there and you can talk to us. And we will have no fear and you will have no fear. And that's a blessing. But we do you have to think carefully about it and until we get a very better sense that this has gotten under control. For now, it looks like we're literally going to have to be staying abreast of developments what's happening and how our officials dealing with it. And no doubt, I mean, given just that, you know, we are same humans everywhere, but in fact, we are different in the house certain cultures you describe, for example, the Chinese given their form of government and the political culture. Very much the leadership there is moving aggressively to kind of snuff out any criticism of course, because it can cost them it can become a crisis of legitimacy, a challenge to their, you know, they're not so democratic rule. So while it is going to impact the economy of many places, including China, which will affect the entire world. It is also this, I don't know, just this fear and paranoia and anxiety that can lead to other things, you know, people. We don't know other things that are going to change around us. Indeed, as I mentioned at the, at the inception, we are in a transformation happening right now. And you know, we're at a time. I was going to say that this is the reality we're going to see in the future pandemics and diseases that they are going to be with us. This is just one now and there will be others in the future so we're going to have to come to terms with this. Okay, but you, you know, after this call you, you don't actually have to wash your hands. Thank you. Thank you, Carlos Suarez. I hope we talk to you. I know we'll talk to you again in a couple of weeks. And I say, I appreciate the show. Global connections with Carlos Suarez wherever he is.