It's a really bad story. Susan, let me bring you in on that. I mean, look, U.S.-China relations are the dominant axis here. What's your sense of the risk as Cliff outlined some of the key kind of pressure points here? Yeah,

I mean, look, you know, the new Trump administration hasn't even taken office yet, but I think one thing that stands out from a number of his appointees, it hasn't gotten as much attention, understandably, as the, you know, kind of personal scandals and extreme views of many of the appointees. But several of his national security appointees, including the people in key positions like Mike Waltz, the incoming national security adviser, Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida who's slated to be secretary of state. They are really China hawks. And in many ways, I think you're going to see, to a certain extent, the kind of push-pull that happened in the first Trump administration over Russia, where you had kind of Russia hawks in a lot of these national security jobs, but Trump himself obviously taking in a very different view, a much more accommodationist view toward Putin and toward Russia. I think that's going to be kind of what you see on China policy in a second term, where you have these kind of China hawks. You're going to hear a lot from the more establishment, old-fashioned conservative types who remain in the Republican Party saying, look, we're really tough on China. But then you have Trump's own impulses and instincts. He's going to want to keep American business tycoons happy. He's got Elon Musk whispering in his ear at all times, the House guests who won't go away. We'll see if he actually moves from Mar-a into the White House with Trump. But, you know, even if he doesn't, that's going to be a major fault line. And so, you know, it'll be interesting to me to see the extent to which the kind of China hawks are able to impose those views in a broader way in the Trump 2.0 administration or not?

I'm just smiling because of that shot we just showed of Elon Musk poking his head between Vance and Trump, Ian. And by the way, Susan, I think you probably get the point from raising the Elon Musk name first here, because it's not insignificant, Ian, specifically around China, where he's got his own interests. But Ian, just weigh in on the China-Trump, the China-U situation and how it may become a greater risk in 2025. Trump is, by inclination, a dealmaker

with anyone. He doesn't care what your values are, what kind of political system he has. It's just like real estate. If you're going to spend more money on his property, he's going to sell it to you, right? So, I mean, it's consistent. He's been that way for a long time. And sometimes it works out for him. Remember Kim Jong-un, you know, he developed his, he had a couple of summits and people said, oh, we didn't get anything done. Actually, there was a freeze for freeze. The North Koreans froze their missile tests and the Americans froze their military exercises with the South Koreans. And actually, the relationship deteriorated under Biden. So it's not like Trump can't do a deal with China. He can. But as Cliff and Susan mentioned, we have a lot of things. It's a very complicated relationship and a lot of things that are mitigating against it. First is that there are so many people in the Republican Party, including in Trump's old administration, that are far more hawkish on China. And when I say far more hawkish, I don't just mean like want to change the status quo on Taiwan. I mean, they want the Americans to engage in regime change in China. That's not something that exists in the Biden administration. There are a lot of people that advise Trump that really believe that these two countries can't actually coexist, that America's policy should be to contain and defeat the Chinese Communist Party. That's number one. Number two, the Republicans in the House and Senate are pushing towards more restrictions on China, more export controls, more companies that you can't do work with, a broader definition of national security in how the Americans shouldn't be engaging with China, tougher technology controls on semiconductors. So look, it is absolutely plausible that Trump will get on the phone with Xi Jinping, and maybe Elon will be on the phone too, as he has been with like Zelensky, for example, and other leaders, Erdogan. And Trump will, as he said before, Xi Jinping, he's very smart. He's a strong leader. I respect him a lot. Maybe they'll talk for a couple of hours and they'll talk about a deal. But I don't think that you can get from there to the Chinese giving enough to break through on what Trump wants. And I also don't think that Elon Musk is willing to use his personal capital on that issue. I think he's much more willing to do things that he'll win with, like go after political opponents in the UK and Germany and Canada and at home in the United States that he's fully aligned with Trump on. I think it would be a challenging one for Elon to go full on publicly and say, I'm going to stabilize. I'm going to be Kissinger. I'm going to stabilize this relationship. It is possible. I mean, recognize that there is a 5, a 10 percent chance that Trump actually gets a huge deal done with the Chinese that no one else could have done because he's the one that's willing to put huge pressure on China at a time that China's particularly weak. It's possible. But we are saying in this report that we fundamentally don't expect that's going to happen and that rather we think the most important geopolitical relationship in the world is set to become significantly worse in this year.