Heather, what about climate? Donald Trump is a lot less supportive of efforts to reduce the impact of global warming than other politicians we saw during his first term rollbacks and a lot of international commitments from the US. What are you expecting this time around?

the outlook for international cooperation is pretty grim with COP29 starting on Monday and potentially the US having withdrawn from the Paris Agreement already by then. That was a campaign promise that Trump made. There's apparently there are reports of a draft executive order to take the US out of the UN Convention on Climate Change altogether as well. And of course, he's made all kinds of commitments during the campaign, or said things certainly during the campaign, about stopping offshore wind, and also withholding funds not deployed under the Inflation Reduction Act. So we need to see how that plays out. But in terms of the US's own transition, I think it's quite likely that renewable energy will continue to grow in the US because it's profitable. And although the US has the same constraints as everywhere else about grids and interconnectors and so on, investments have been made, electricity is being generated, it's cheaper um and so that can continue but the chilling effect that this has on global climate efforts could be really considerable um it really empowers um people in other countries including in europe who say oh we've gone too far with green uh look the u.s isn't it. They're a major emitter and, of course, an oil and gas producer. We shouldn't be increasing our efforts. Just in a moment when actually all of the, you know, we've probably crossed 1.5 degrees, the Paris target already. And we're just at the moment when we're seeing devastating impact of hurricanes in the US, ironically, as well as floods and other problems in Europe. So the EU really is going to have to step up with global leadership and forge much stronger alliances with others who still care about climate. And most countries now do, including China. And I think an interesting question is, what could the EU do to forge closer ties with China on climate leadership, as well as, of course, all of the other countries that are still pretty committed and which want to continue also using the UN framework? But as on defence, as Guntram was saying, the question is, what can Europe do to step up? What alliances can it make? Can this galvanize action that has previously been impossible? Or will we fall back into divisions and arguments in the EU about how to go forward, both on party lines and also between countries? It's the leadership impact of Trump that is really the biggest question. Will this mean Europe gets its act together? On some things that has happened under the first Trump administration, for example, countries really did increase their defence spending. Two thirds of the NATO allies are now at 2% of GDP. In terms of defence spending, that's likely to go up. Strategic autonomy in both military and economic terms is a big thing. Economic security is a big thing. Trump will drive that further. But how easy is that going to be if the international system, not only for climate, but also for trade, is sealing the gap of the US withdrawing, even becoming quite belligerent in places like, on things like international trade, all of the question about what will Trump's tariff war lead to. These are questions where the EU is going to have to be united and come up with a common strategy really quickly. And this is just in a moment when governments in Paris and Berlin are weak and when a new term is starting. So it's a big challenge politically. Is

there anything that the world can do at this COP, the last one where Joe Biden's administration will be representing the US to prepare for these inevitable changes? The

nationally determined contributions that countries are putting forward will be really important. And I think also just reminders about the climate science that we're starting to feel really devastating impacts of climate change already. And highlighting that this isn't just one country or one region, but it's globally. Everybody is going to be facing more and more climate impacts and the huge damage to their economies that are coming from that and that would come from more inaction. That, I think, is the most important thing. And to get countries to continue to pledge that they will continue the course themselves because they can see the impact it's having on their countries as well as on the global climate. Diana,

we've already got a question for you asking how you think the CEOs at top companies, many of them in the U.S., will be briefed on the coming changes. Any predictions or analysis there? Yeah,

I think that one is pretty easy to predict. I think probably most CEOs have already been back channeling to the Trump administration and saying friendly things and trying to hedge their bets. We had this interesting problem of asymmetry in the rule of law, where CEOs knew that if they sucked up to Trump, that that would help them a lot if he were elected, whereas the Harris administration would use the rule of law. And so saying nice things to Harris wasn't going to change how you got treated one way or the other. So I think many corporations have planned ahead. I would say on competition enforcement, we should expect to see less following of the rule of law for two reasons. One is the usual traditional Republican preference for corporate profits over consumer surplus. But now we have an additional reason that whoever influences Trump is going to determine policy rather than just the application of the law. a corporation that was a defendant or one that was benefiting from the enforcement action is a company run by one of the bros on the Trump side or has a relationship with Musk or has a media property. So for example, let's think about the FTC's monopolization case against Amazon. Amazon is run by Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos competes against Elon Musk in rockets. So I imagine that that case will continue to go forward because Musk will want Bezos to have to face that pressure. Apple might be deemed a liberal corporation, and therefore the lawsuit against Apple might continue. Or we may see Apple offering some kind of privacy change, like allowing the Trump administration to jailbreak handsets so that they can get their case dropped, that kind of thing. I think initiatives like the FTC's ban on non-competes would likely be dropped because those just help workers in a general way, And this administration, the incoming administration, would not be making that any kind of priority. Indeed, the opposite, that would be interested in making workers earn less and corporate profits be higher. So I think that's the rough overview. I mean, likely corruption in that way and likely very targeted enforcement. Benjam,

where do we see global markets headed? Starting this morning, we saw the dollar was up. Generally speaking, the prospects of a Trump victory have boosted American markets rather than hurting them. And yet there is talk that the U.S. deficit will continue to grow. And some people speculate way could be sovereign debt issues going forward. You're no stranger to sovereign debt crises. What do you think? Well,

I mean, let me first just echo the point that Fiona made about of the Latino capitalism, let's call it like this, Latin American capitalism, where there's a lot of sort of connections between politics and big firms. We saw today, this morning, that the Tesla shares rose by more than 12%. I mean, that shouldn't happen, right, in an election where the rule of law applies to these kind of firms. But it does. And so markets really sort of anticipate that this will have a concrete impact on corporate profits of the firms that are on the right side of the spectrum. right? And so I think this is really, ultimately, extremely harmful for the US economy, for US consumers, but even for US productivity growth. We know that this kind of stuff, ultimately, is a bad thing for your own growth, right? And so I

hate to interrupt, but the debate on national champions just couldn't fit better with your remarks. I mean, Europe is deciding whether to have national champions. In the U.S., it looks like we're going to have national champions not picked on the basis of anything sensible, but just whether they're friends with the president, which is remarkable. I mean, what a productivity waste.

Exactly. Now, and then look on the broader question that you asked, Rebecca, on the macro side. I mean, I would say what we saw is a textbook like appreciation of US dollar. That's exactly what markets should do when they expect US tariffs to go up. That means ultimately exports for US firms will get more difficult. Imports, while you have more purchasing power, to the appreciated currency. Basically, you lose out because of the tariffs for which domestic consumers pay. The Peterson Institute has calculated that this will be a significant burden in particular on the small and the poor households. Now, the implications for Europe are such that European traditional strengths, so firms that traditionally are strong, corporates, industry players, corporate, I mean, industry manufacturing, that export a lot to the United States will be negatively affected by the tariffs. So Europe now exports, I think, more than 500 billion per year to the US. And that's a really big number, and it will be directly impacted on by the tariffs. And so the real economic policy question for Europe is, what do we do? I mean, how do we replace some of that lost exports in a moment when China will face even higher tariffs and therefore will redirect some of its export surpluses to Europe and to the rest of the world. So competition will just go up a lot for industrial goods. And that's bad news for European firms. And I think my interpretation and my recommendation is that European firms need to modernize and go towards a more domestic demand, reducing their reliance on exports ultimately. We

got a question. Will Lina Khan continue in her position? And given that she's holding an expired term for a change of administration, it seems pretty likely that the new administration will want to put in their own person. So thank you, questioner, for asking that. I'd like to come back to just the global economy and this tradeoff between individual companies thinking of this as a profit-making opportunity, investors in that, those companies thinking that also. And yet all of the things that we are expecting to change that go against what we think leads to growth and productivity. Heather, do you have any thoughts on how to square that circle in our heads? Well,

there's a huge problem with policy becoming more and more unpredictable. Of the, you know, policy often changes after elections, but it's changing so dramatically between one American election and the next. And that really inhibits investment, especially of the kind of long term investments that you need, for example, for the energy transition and for infrastructure. I mean, a lot of American infrastructure is really old and really rickety, not only for energy systems, but also airports and all kinds of other things. So these kinds of investments, both by the private and the public sector, get inhibited. And that, of course, does have an impact on productivity over time because the capital stock gets eroded. There's also the question about longer term. What does this mean for American human capital if the education system is, you know, underfunded? Also, if there is some kind of sovereign debt crisis, if the US deficit and then debt level continue to rise under Trump. So all of those questions are very difficult. And also this key point that Fiona made, that if corporations do well, because of their personal links to the president and his family, and the benefits that the president and his family gained from them, then that is not very good for the competitiveness long term of American corporates. But it's also not good for Europeans either, both because they're the exports that Gundrum was talking about, the pressure from China directing more of its exports towards us. But it also emboldens those leaders in Europe who would love to follow the Trump playbook, who want to erode the rule of law, who want the executive to have primacy over the courts, so to erode checks and balances and have all powerful executives, and especially to tighten the nexus between politics and companies, politics in the private sector. Now, the EU has been a big break on that because it's a community of law with really strong provisions to ensure the continuing implementation enforcement of EU law. But of course, there comes a point where that whole system starts to break down if enough leaders are playing that game. And the problem is we do see something of a contagion effect. If it's one or two relatively small countries, it doesn't make a big difference. If it becomes the name of the game in more countries, then the EU as an entity, its community of law starts to break down. So I think we watch this with a great deal of trepidation. It's not just American democracy in terms of elections that's at stake. It's the rule of law as the underpinning of a sound economy.