CSIS Podcasts

On this week's episode of the Trade Guys, we will talk about the announced but ultimately delayed tariffs on Canada and Mexico, along with the tariffs on China.

Betting on America: Winning the Global Tech Race explores how new and emerging partnerships between government and business are shaping the future of U.S. industrialization and the country’s prospects for winning the global tech race. Betting on America will dive into strategies and investments that government and business are pursuing together – sharing risks and generating returns – as they bet on the innovation, commercialization, and scaling of critical and emerging technologies across the country. These include climate technologies, advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum, bio technologies, and more. The podcast will feature in-depth discussions with policymakers, experts, and industry leaders on the most complex policy questions of the day.Hosted by Navin Girishankar, President, CSIS Economic Security & Technology Department

Dr. Elizabeth (Betsy) Bradley, President of Vassar College, shares her thoughts on the fusillade of Executive Orders signed by President Trump directed at educational institutions, including the apparent special animus toward elite private institutions. In this moment of heightened scrutiny across multiple fronts, the first step is to circle back to core values and the return on investment, to communicate strategy better beyond campus to the broader community, including elected officials of all persuasions, and to spotlight jobs and financial and other vital contributions. The threat of a dramatic increase in taxes on endowments, as part of a Congressional reconciliation measure this spring, “would definitely deal a blow.” Anti-foreigner rhetoric is having a “chilling effect” on recruitment and retention of international students. “Ambidextrous leadership” is essential: be proactive, have the data you need, don’t overreact, and be ready to act quickly when needed. 

Catherine Nzuki is joined by Andrew Friedman, Senior Fellow with the CSIS Human Rights Initiative. They discuss the scale of USAID’s work around the world, the immediate impacts of this aid freeze, and USAID's shaky future.Samuel Itodo, Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, joins the Afropolitan to unpack how his organization and others around Africa are impacted by the U.S. aid freeze. They also discuss the aid dependency debate that this freeze has spurred, and why this disruption is giving people hope that perhaps this time, Africa can address its aid dependency for good. 

Mike hosts Michèle Flournoy, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of WestExec Advisors. She is also former Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where she currently serves as Chair of the Board of Directors. Prior to that she served as the as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy during former President Obama’s first term in office from 2009-2012. They discuss deterrence and developments in the Indo-Pacific.

On this week's episode of the Trade Guys, we discuss the trade implications of President Trump's dispute with the president of Colombia. We also look at the potential for increased focus on trade remedies in the U.S. and a European shift towards deregulation. 

Apoorva Mandavilli, the award-winning New York Times science and global health reporter, is on the front lines of several fast-breaking stories. “We should be worried” about the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). It was “already on the chopping block” before the hugely disruptive Trump pause on national grants and contracts. Secretary Rubio did issue a waiver, but there has been no follow-up clarification. PEPFAR remains in peril. Many bad things happen rapidly when a sensitive, complex program of this scale is disrupted. “The virus comes roaring back.” Though Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation hearing to be HHS Secretary appears inconclusive, Apoorva was “not expecting the level of fireworks.” RFK Jr. was “damned by his own history” of false statements on vaccines, which “haunted him.” U.S. withdrawal from WHO is bad news for Americans in several concrete ways that will harm U.S. national interests. She has brought to our attention that scientists believe we have entered a new, far more dangerous phase in the evolution of the H5N1 threat, while the U.S. response remains woeful. 

In this episode of Pekingology from March 2023, Freeman Chair Jude Blanchette is joined by Dr. Lynette H. Ong, Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, jointly appointed to the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy’s Asian Institute and also a Faculty Fellow at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. They discuss her recent book Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China.  

This week on Babel, Jon Alterman speaks with Sinem Adar, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), where she works at the Centre for Applied Turkey Studies. Together, they discuss Turkey's evolving interests in Syria and their connection to Turkey’s wider foreign policy agenda. Then, Jon continues the conversation with Martin Pimentel and Will Todman to discuss the hard choices the United States needs to make about Turkey and Kurdish forces that have been fighting alongside U.S. troops in eastern Syria. Transcript: "Sinem Adar: Turkey's Syria Challenge," CSIS, January 28, 2025. Sinem Adar's recent work: "Turkey in MENA, MENA in Turkey," SWP, March 13, 2024.

On this week's episode of the Trade Guys, we run through the early trade actions of the new administration and what may come next. We also unpack the record-high U.S. share of global foreign direct investment (FDI).