From technology competition to the global rise of illiberalism, the United States will face numerous foreign policy challenges in the year ahead. John R. Allen, a retired U.S. Marine Corps four-star general and president of the Brookings Institution, joins David Dollar to discuss those challenges and how the new administration can work with America’s allies to meet them. Dollar and Sense is a part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Send feedback email to BCP@Brookings.edu, and follow us at @policypodcasts on Twitter.

Carbon pricing systems have been celebrated as instruments for combatting climate change, but how effective are they really? David Victor, co-chair of the Cross-Brookings Initiative on Energy and Climate, joins David Dollar to explain why market-based solutions for addressing climate change have fallen short of their promise. Victor examines how politics have hampered the effectiveness of market policies in key sectors, like transportation and aviation, and the political barriers the Biden administration will need to overcome in order to make real progress on climate change.

President-elect Biden will face a myriad of economic challenges when he is inaugurated next month, including a pandemic that continues to spread and unemployment numbers that remain high. Jason Furman joins David Dollar to discuss how this crisis differs from the economic issues Biden faced in 2009, what should be prioritized in a short-term stimulus package and long-term reforms, and to what extent policymakers should worry about the federal debt when designing fiscal relief.

When the COVID-19 pandemic sent the global economy into a deep recession, it exposed structural weaknesses in economic institutions and highlighted the need for reform. The challenges countries face today are daunting, but this moment should be recognized as an opportunity to build back more sustainable and inclusive economies. David Dollar is joined by three Brookings experts—Eswar Prasad, Marcela Escobari, and Zia Qureshi—to discuss their forward-looking policy proposals for a post-COVID-19 world.

This week, 15 countries in Asia and the Pacific joined the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which is arguably the largest free trade agreement in history. To explain the origins of the agreement and how it will affect economic integration across Asia, David Dollar is joined by Peter Petri, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings and professor of International Finance at the Brandeis International Business School.

The 2020 election has revealed deep divisions in the United States and questions about what binds Americans together, but this is not the first time the country has experienced extreme polarization. Marvin Kalb, a senior fellow at Brookings and veteran journalist, joins David Dollar to explain how the current moment compares to other eras in American history. Dollar and Kalb also discuss how America’s role in the world has diminished under President Trump and whether a Biden administration can restore a U.S.-led international order. Dollar and Sense is a part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Send feedback email to BCP@Brookings.edu, and follow us at @policypodcasts on Twitter.

President Trump’s critiques of U.S. trade policy are well known. He frequently lambasts ‘bad deals’ that favor America’s trading partners, and since taking office he has tried to use tariffs and new trade agreements to reduce the trade deficit and bring back manufacturing jobs. So, how have his policies affected American workers? What impact did President Trump’s tariffs have on important swing states like Ohio and Michigan? To answer these questions, David Dollar is joined by Sandra Polaski, a senior research scholar at Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center. Dollar and Sense is a part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Send feedback email to BCP@Brookings.edu, and follow us at @policypodcasts on Twitter.

The exchange of data and digital services has become a new frontier for U.S.-China competition. To discuss the scale of digital services trade and the United States’ attempts to regulate it through trade agreements, David Dollar is joined by Joshua P. Meltzer, a senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings. Meltzer is the author of a new paper for Brookings’s Global China series titled “China’s digital services trade and data governance: How should the United States respond?” Dollar and Sense is a part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Send feedback email to BCP@Brookings.edu, and follow us at @policypodcasts on Twitter.

The person elected president of the United States this November will have enormous influence over America’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated recession. To discuss the differences in how President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden approach these issues, and lessons from the first presidential debate, David Dollar is joined by William A. Galston, a senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings and expert on campaigns and political theory. Dollar and Sense is a part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Send feedback email to BCP@Brookings.edu, and follow us at @policypodcasts on Twitter.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has served as the finance minister of Nigeria, the managing director of the World Bank, and she is currently a candidate for the director-general position at the World Trade Organization. She joins David Dollar in this episode to discuss the role trade plays in global development and what she would prioritize as director-general. Okonjo-Iweala is a nonresident distinguished fellow with the Africa Growth Initiative in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings. Dollar and Sense is a part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Send feedback email to BCP@Brookings.edu, and follow us at @policypodcasts on Twitter.