Chrystia Freeland (10:09)

You're absolutely right, Fareed. The pretexts are utterly ludicrous. This action is utter madness. It is a betrayal of America's closest friend, of your ally, your neighbor, your best partner in the whole world. It is an act of economic warfare. And the President was clear just this morning that it is a direct attack on our sovereignty. And I have to tell you, Fareed, Americans are going to be astonished by the Canadian response. We're hurt for sure because we're your friends and neighbors. But most of all, we're angry and we are united and resolute. You know, Canada is the true north, strong and free. We love our country and we are united, we are strong, we're smart. We're going to fight for our country, we're going to fight for Canada, and we're going to be successful.

Fareed Zakaria (11:10)

So let's put a little bit of substance on that. You know, you're a much smaller economy than the United States. 75% of your exports come to the United States, whereas I think the other way around is like 12%. This. There's only so much you can do to retaliate with an economy that much larger than yours. So how do you do it in a way that's effective?

Chrystia Freeland (11:36)

Well, first of all, we have more leverage than Americans think. Canada is the largest market for the United States, larger than China, Japan, the UK and France combined. And we know Americans, we know that for you guys, the customer is always right. We're your biggest customer. Doesn't make a lot of sense to be punching us in the face. The second thing, Farida, as you know very well, is America's tariffs are self harming. You know, by putting tariffs on the stuff that Canada sells you, you are going to hurt Americans. You have put a tariff, you're putting a tariff on the oil and gas that we sell you. That is going to make prices at the pump, prices at grocery stores a lot higher. And the final thing for Reid is this matters to us so, so much more than it matters to you. Our very sovereignty is at stake. You are seeing a phenomenal United and resolute response across Canada and for Americans. Does this really matter to you at all? I mean, do Americans wake up in the morning and say, wow, we gotta beat up on those Canadians? I don't think so. I think Americans actually recognize that we are a great partner, a great neighbour, a great friend, that this is ridiculous. It is not worth Americans suffering over this. As the prime minister said, we do not want this conflict, but we're not going to give in.

Fareed Zakaria (13:08)

Stay with us. When we come back, I'm going to ask Christopher, does this mean that countries like Canada, Mexico will find new markets and new alliances in places like China? When we come back.

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Fareed Zakaria (13:56)

There's nothing like when you get that part from ebay and it just fits. Yeah, the first time. So you can do less of this and get right back to more of this. At ebay you'll find all the parts you need, guaranteed to fit at prices you'll love. Sounds good, doesn't it? Ebay things people love. Eligible items only Exclusion supplies And we are back with Christopher Freeland, a former top official in Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau's government and now a frontrunner to take his job. Christoph Freeland when you look at this situation where the United States is basically levying tariffs on its closest allies, particularly Canada, really its oldest ally, does it make you think Canada is going to have to make its way in the world and find new markets and new friends? And of course China, the second largest economy, comes up. When one thinks about this, Fareed, we.

Chrystia Freeland (15:04)

Have so many friends and even family members in the United States. Our preference and our hope is that you guys are going to come to your senses. Our preference and our hope is that we can go back to a win win North American partnership. I mean currently our trade should be governed by the usmca, which we negotiated with President Trump, when we signed that deal, he said it was the best trade deal ever. So what we really want is for all the Americans who are listening to say, what the heck is going on. You mean we're fighting with the Canadians and to get back to a reasonable, mutually beneficial relationship. That is our preference.

Fareed Zakaria (15:48)

And when you have thought about this thing, you've talked about, you know, 100% tariffs on some things. You talked about a boycott of American goods, which would be not a formal legal thing, but you're just urging Canadians to stop buying American goods when they go to grocery stores. Is it also, are you also thinking in your proposals of doing something on oil? You know, we import a lot of oil from Canada.

Chrystia Freeland (16:16)

Fareed, I'm glad you mentioned the boycott because that is already happening across the country. Americans have to understand how hurt and frankly, how furious Canadians are. Our sovereignty is being challenged. And so, yeah, regular Canadians across the country are coming up with ways to stand for Canada, to fight, fight for Canada, to defend Canada, but mostly to say to our American neighbors, guys, just cut it out. Just stop it. This is a terrible idea. And yes, we are going to use all the tools in our toolbox. You mentioned a little bit earlier how the United States depends on China for critical minerals and metals that you need, for semiconductors that you need to build electric vehicles. Well, guess who also produces those? Canada. You depend on us for a lot and we are happy to work together, but it's got to be a two way street.

Fareed Zakaria (17:12)

So you did negotiate with Trump and so you do have a sense of him. And I'm wondering, you know, what do you think is going on? Because the fentanyl reasoning, you know, is plainly not important. You know, Canada, I think, sends.002% of the fentanyl that Mexico sends, that passes through Mexico. It's all really coming because of American demand for it. But he then talked about making Canada the 51st state, which is obviously, again, not going to happen. What is he doing in your view? What is he trying to do?

Chrystia Freeland (17:53)

Look, that is of course a question first and foremost for the President. You're totally right, Fareed, that the pretexts for beating up on Canada are totally ludicrous. I think we all do know one thing about President Trump. The one thing he respects is strength. And if he sees weakness, if he smells weakness, he pushes harder and harder and harder. And so what you are going to see, what America is going to see, what the world is going to see from Canada, is total strength, total unity, and a very smart, surgical, strategic approach.

Fareed Zakaria (18:32)

Now you're an economist of sorts. You have a very distinguished career as a writer on economics. When you look at where we are, you know, a trade war between the United States and its closest ally, possibly the Peterson Institute, says that this could produce inflation in the United States on a fairly significant scale. I think they have a chart that shows that it could go up 3, 4%. Does that leave you thinking we're entering a kind of a much less prosperous world? Because, I mean, economics is meant to be about win, win, not win, lose. This almost feels like lose, lose, because both economies, the US And Canada, will be worse off after all this.

Chrystia Freeland (19:19)

Look, you're totally right. The path the US Is on right now is a lose, lose path. And at the end of the day, you cannot defy the laws of economics. You're exactly right to say the people who are going to suffer from this the most are Americans, including the Americans who voted for Trump. I mean, the President has decided now to make gas in the United States more expensive. He's decided to make groceries in the United States more expensive. And our retaliation is going to cost Americans jobs. That is completely ridiculous. We do not want to do this. And the right thing for Americans to do right now is to kind of shake their heads and say, guys, the Canadians actually are great partners. They're great neighbors. Let's not do this, because I want to tell you, Canada is formidable. We are resolute. We are determined. We know what we're fighting for. We don't want to have this fight, but we are not going to lose it.

Fareed Zakaria (20:22)

And finally, Crystal, let me ask you, you're very well plugged in to many north, to American CEOs, and a lot of the production that takes place, car production, for example, is completely joint. I mean, these products, auto parts, go back and forth across the border, and it's all kind of assembled in a North American supply chain. Are you hearing from them? Because this is the business community seems to me crucial here. Are you hearing from them that they're going to call up President Trump or let him know that this is bad for business, bad for American businesses like General Motors?

Chrystia Freeland (20:58)

I sure am. And you know, as you know, a part in a car crosses the border 16, eight times before that car is finished. Think about that. Think about what a tariff war does to Detroit. This is, you know, yesterday was a terrible day for Canada. It was a really black day for Detroit. This is going to be a very bad day for the stock market, which we know the President cares about a lot. And we're Already hearing, for example, from the United Steel Workers, a really important constituency for the president, They've come out already and said, let's not do this. This is a bad idea. It's a bad idea for workers, and.

Fareed Zakaria (21:37)

We'Ve got to leave it. We got to leave it. Christian Freeland, always a pleasure to have you. Thank you. And we will be back. How are Jewish people around the world to reckon with the terrible suffering in Gaza over the last 16 months? That is the subject of a new, deeply personal book by my next guest. Peter Beinart is a political thinker, a writer and a professor. He's also a religious Jew who attends an Orthodox synagogue. And his views on Israel have evolved over his lifetime from avid support to unsparing critique. The book is called Being Jewish after the Destruction of a Reckoning. Let me begin, Peter, by asking you, since we've known each other a long time, I knew you when you were what I think one would have called a tough Jew. You know, you were somebody who believed in a very, very militant Israel. What changed and when did it change?

Peter Beinart (22:40)

It began to change the very first day that I spent with Palestinians on the West Bank. You know, I had gone to Israel all my life, very important to me, very important to my family. I still love being in Israel. It's a very special place, place to me. And the first day I spent time with Palestinians in the West Bank, I realized I knew almost nothing about what Israel had meant to them and that the conditions under which they were living were more brutal than I had been able to imagine. And when I faced that head on, it began a process that has led me to a place that I really would not have expected. It leads me to an idea that many people in the Jewish community and the American politics think is radical and outlandish, which is the idea that all people should be treated equally under the law, irrespective of their religion and ethnicity and race, which is the principle that we're struggling for in the United States and that most American Jews emphatically believe in, in every country except for in Israel. The very same American Jews who think that Israeli Jews cannot possibly be safe unless they rule in Israel in a Jewish state, are placing our own children's safety, betting it on the principle of equality in the law here. And you know what? We are safer than Jews in Israel. Israel is the most dangerous place for a Jew to live of any large diaspora community. And I think that's because when you deny people their basic rights, you inflict tremendous violence on them. And that Violence endangers you as well. Israeli Jewish political culture has become accustomed to supremacy. Illegal supremacy over Palestinians is simply taken for granted. And it is equated with separate safety. That supremacy means safety, which is the same way that white South Africans felt during apartheid, the same way that white Southerners felt during Jim Crow, the same way that Protestants felt in Northern Ireland. The argument of this book is to those people to say, look at those other places. People became safer when everyone got a voice in government. Because when people have a voice in government, they don't need to take up arms to get the government to listen to them.

Fareed Zakaria (24:37)

You talk about the suffering in Gaza, but what do you make of, of the event that precipitated that suffering, by which I mean the Hamas attack? And what does that tell you about Palestinians willingness to live alongside Jews?

Peter Beinart (24:51)

That was one of the darkest days of my life. It was a trauma that still hasn't healed, probably will never heal for Jews in Israel, but also Jews around the world. We still have on our refrigerator door the names of all the hostages. When we learn about them, we write whether they are still alive or whether they have been free. So there's no decent person can deny the horror of what happened. But one has to understand the context in which it happens. One has to understand that understanding context is not justification. And you can't understand how to prevent future October 7th without understanding the conditions in which Palestinians live. That Human Rights Watch called this an open air prison, that the United nations said it was unlivable for human beings. They were penned into a ghetto and half the size of New York City. They could never leave. And if you want to deal with that, with that violence, you have to deal with structural oppression. Unfortunately, throughout human history, people who are brutally oppressed have responded in inhumane ways.

Fareed Zakaria (25:45)

And when you talk about, you know, being Jewish after the destruction of Gaza, do you think there's something particular that you know, how do you think, what is the Jewish obligation in witnessing this destruction?

Peter Beinart (26:00)

Well, this is being done in our name by a Jewish state. And I think what has happened in the Jewish world is that the state has become an object of worship. The state is treated as a God in many Jewish institutions in the United States and Israel around the world, you are getting more trouble if you question the legitimacy of this state than if you question the authority of the Torah and the existence of God. There's something fundamentally wrong here. And I talk about, in the book about what Jewish tradition says about idolatry, which is the worship of anything that is created by human beings. When you say that a state has unconditional value, you are treating it as an idol. And so in the Jewish world, we insist again and again and American politicians, does Israel have a right to exist as a Jewish state? And my point is the question should we be asking is, do the people who live under Israeli control have a right to exist? It's the life of the children in Gaza that we should consider of unconditional value. And then you ask, is this state doing a good job of protecting that life? And if not, maybe the state should be rethought.

Fareed Zakaria (26:58)

As a Jew, as a religious Jew, you are in a lonely place, right? I mean, I'm assuming that this argument is not easily received. And so you're not going to synagogues and talking about this. Do you have platforms?

Peter Beinart (27:17)

Not as many as I would like. You know, nobody likes a turncoat, a traitor, especially in a people that imagines ourselves as a family as I am, as think of us and as a group of people who have suffered a lot and still lives with the trauma of October 7, the ongoing trauma that exists in Israel. But the thing that gives me hope is how many young American Jews I hear from who say, I feel betrayed by our community. I was raised to believe that Judaism believes in the institution, infinite dignity and worth of all human life and that we believe in fierce and open debate. That's what they say it means to be a Jew for them. And they say, I don't see that in our community. We need this dissent, loving dissent to be better versions of ourselves.

Fareed Zakaria (28:01)

On that note, Peter Beinart, pleasure to have you on.

Peter Beinart (28:03)

Thank you. Thanks a lot.

Fareed Zakaria (28:07)

All right, we are going to move from the tragic world of the Middle east to technology of the future. I'll talk to the tech entrepreneur Reid Hoffman about Deepsea and the promise of AI. Gatorade is the number one proven electrolyte blend designed to hydrate better than water so you can lose more sweat and raise your game. Gatorade is it in you?

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Fareed Zakaria (29:08)

There's panic in Silicon Valley around the new AI model from the Chinese company Deepseek. And there's panic in many pockets of the world about the potential negative consequences of AI. But my next guest wants us to remain optimistic about the possibilities of this amazing new technology. Tech entrepreneur and co founder of LinkedIn. Reid Hoffman has a new book out called Super Agency. What could possibly go right with our AI future? I should note he's a founder of multiple AI ventures. He's also on the board of and an investor in many companies involved in AI, including Microsoft. So let me first ask you, Deep Sea, you and I have chatted. You have a slightly different perspective than the one I described. Tell me, what's your basic takeaway from the deepsea the release?

Reid Hoffman (29:58)

Well, the principal thing I think in your excellent article that I agreed with was the fact that constraints do create good innovation opportunities. And that's one of the things that we should all in the world, including here in the US and in Silicon Valley, be paying attention to is the constraints of training in a much more constrained environment. There'll be lessons that come from that. We should learn those lessons as well. Doesn't necessarily mean you want to adopt those constraints. It's like, well, do you want to run a race with weights tied around your ankles? It makes you stronger in some cases, but not always great on the race.

Fareed Zakaria (30:31)

Let's talk about the heart of the book. People look at AI and there's a lot of fears about it. But what you want to remind us is the promise. So when you think about it, what is the principal upside we should be thinking about with AI?

Reid Hoffman (30:46)

So the principal thing is it gives us superpowers. And what's great, and this is part of why super agency is when both you and I get the superpowers, we actually get more superpowers, not just the ones we get individually. So to think about what you can get with AI, a medical assistant that better than an average GP on every smartphone that runs for under $5 an hour, right? That is transformative. Most people don't have access to a doctor at 11pm Some people can go to emergency room. And so how do you make that happen? A tutor on every subject for every age. And then of course, part of the work transformation is I think within a very small number of years, when in anyone deploys as a professional, they'll deploy with AI agents, helping them do what they're doing. That is part of the reason why we're in this cognitive industrial revolution. And that thing that we're heading towards is super important.

Fareed Zakaria (31:39)

And when people hear this, they're going to Think, okay, that's so great. Now what happens to the real doctors and nurses and tutors? Is it possible? It feels like there's this bit of a contradiction. It's going to do all these things that human beings did, but there's going to be no unemployment produced by it.

Reid Hoffman (32:00)

Well, actually, I think there will be an all major technology transformations. There's transition points that are difficult. Industrial revolution, classic. Let's try to do that smart. So jobs will get transformed. I think a lot of them will transform by a human, will be replaced by a human using AI. But we can try to use AI to help that human being, the human who's using AI for part of this. Now, for example, take a doctor.

Fareed Zakaria (32:24)

Sure.

Reid Hoffman (32:25)

A gp, like a medical assistant, everyone. That's great. By the way, doctors. Most people get five minutes with their doctor and so forth. Actually, if you walk into your doctor and the doctor says, hey, let your agent tell me what they've been talking to you about. Oh, this is something. Oh, let's focus on this. In terms of what we're doing, it's not human or machine, it's human plus machine. In a lot of these cases now, there will be some replacement customer service, a bunch of other things that will happen. But those countries, those industries which embrace this will have the same massive increase that happened during the Industrial Revolution.

Fareed Zakaria (33:02)

Why is it important that the United States stay ahead of China in the AI game? Is this at some level going to be a little bit like the Internet where everyone's going to use it and does it really make a difference?

Reid Hoffman (33:16)

I think it's actually very important that we make artificial intelligence, American intelligence, which is kind of the question of what are the values that are based on what is the norms, how does the standards, how is it adopted in the broad world? And that's one of the reasons why I think we want to bring along a lot of the world in this. And by the way, that's part of what I agree with you about in your article about this is much more than a Sputnik moment. Because this is not just much bigger.

Fareed Zakaria (33:41)

Yes.

Reid Hoffman (33:42)

It's like what is the global industrial, the cognitive industrial future look like?

Fareed Zakaria (33:47)

Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, says that the rise of AI is going to be the revenge of the English major because AI does coding very easily. And what used to be the great skill you wanted to have in the tech world was coding. His point is now it's going to be prompting the AI, which is a English skill. Do you buy that? Actually the power has shifted in this way.

Reid Hoffman (34:16)

Broadly, yes. Although it's actually English plus coding concepts, so no longer is it, oh, I'm an expert in C and I know how to do memory management and all the rest of the stuff because the AI agent can do all that. Part of the transformation that I was saying in terms of the transformation of work is you and I and every professional will have an AI coding assistant on our PC, on our phone. And so when we're doing like, oh, I want to do this analysis of this issue in world affairs, you can actually have it code up something specifically to do that analysis. And by the way, that will be part of how analysts work. How you interface with analysts and so we will all have coding assistance is actually in fact part of the application of the professional work. Now, it's a colorful way to put it as the revenge of the English major. Now, I do think that question of how you think creatively in humanities is actually in fact an important thing to add in, but you're still going to need to be thinking about in patterns of data, in patterns of code as part of how you do that. So that mindset and skill set at an abstract level is still very important.

Fareed Zakaria (35:20)

So you still need science and the liberal arts, which is what Steve Jobs always said.

Reid Hoffman (35:26)

Exactly right.

Fareed Zakaria (35:27)

Reid Hoffman, pleasure to have you on Farid.

Reid Hoffman (35:29)

Always a pleasure.

Fareed Zakaria (35:32)

Next on gps, is China ready for an escalating trade war with the United States? We'll hear from a Chinese economist who says that Beijing is in a far stronger position than people realize. President Trump imposed 10% tariffs on China, which could bring about a a major expansion of the trade war between the world's two largest economies. Last week at Davos, I sat down with K. Yu Jin, an associate professor of economics at the London School of Economics. K. Jin, pleasure to have you.

Keishin Yu Jin (36:08)

Great to be with you, Fareed.

Fareed Zakaria (36:10)

So you say that China is better prepared for a divorce with America than America. What do you mean by that?

Keishin Yu Jin (36:19)

Well, China has long been preparing for less exposure to the US Diversifying in all ways, not just in terms of trading partners investment, but also currencies and payment system. And whichever president comes around, that plan hasn't changed. In fact, the first time around, the Trump tariff wars have set off this complete globalization frenzy among the Chinese companies. 80 something percent of them have already implemented going abroad plans.

Fareed Zakaria (36:46)

So they're trying to create foreign markets that are not American and things like that. But still there's a huge amount that they do sell to America. And the tariffs would hurt, right?

Keishin Yu Jin (36:58)

The tariffs will hurt both countries but you've seen already a gradual kind of redirection of trade to other countries. In fact, if you look at the EV solar panels and all these what they call new productive forces, forces very little that is actually going to the US but it's totally pushed them to embrace new opportunities and sign new trade deals and new trading partners. And in fact, after the first time around, Trump war, global trade has actually expanded. China's position in the world as a share of global exports has actually risen compared to before while US is declining. So I think China's response is while US is, you know, kind of going back, they're going to open up as much as possible. So this is why Premier Li has repeatedly said unilateral opening up, zero tariffs on the least developing countries. We should not underestimate the degree and the pace of fragmentation that is happening. Multipolarity and the rise of economic blocks. We're already seeing the data, whether it's investment or trade, the kind of the non aligned blocks with aligned blocks and their interaction with each other. If you go around the world, you're asking the likes of Brazil or ASEAN countries or what are they saying? The same thing, Diversify. Don't be at the mercy of the dollar or the US financial system.

Fareed Zakaria (38:11)

What do you make of the efforts that President Putin has made, Xi Jinping has talked about, which is to get away from the hegemony of the dollar, that because the dollar is the international currency, almost 90% of transactions done in dollars. It means the US can levy sanctions, it can cut people out of the countries out of the system. And obviously China, Russia, even some other countries don't like that and want to escape it. So far it's mostly been talk, is it more than that now?

Keishin Yu Jin (38:44)

I think it's much more than that. Whether it's quietly or not so quietly building up this huge financial infrastructure that's enabled by technology, blockchain technologies, the channels of alternative payment systems, digital central bank currency. That's actually happening at a much faster pace than we realize in that part of the world. China has signed 40, with 40 countries, bilateral swap agreements to settle in the local currencies. Of course these are marginal improvements, but you see the dollar slowly declining. And the fundamental question, even apart from financial sanctions, is that there's a dollar shortage. Emerging markets, the size of GDP is growing massively. The demand for dollar dollars is there, there's not enough liquidity. So now the interest rate is high, the dollar is at a very high level. This actually has a huge financial implication on the developing countries who are all looking to diversify.

Fareed Zakaria (39:36)

So do you think the Trump administration will be surprised at how resilient China is as it tries to put pressure on it?

Keishin Yu Jin (39:45)

I think they will. I think, first of all, the resilience of China has been damaged, demonstrated to a certain extent. The economic challenges are primarily internally driven. Exports have actually performed quite remarkably. The other countries, not so much not so resilient. China is not so opposed to a Trump presidency because they still see Trump as somebody who they can negotiate with, that there's room for negotiation and that there is some space to take the temperature down and to manage and maintain the relations. They've emphasized repeatedly mutual respect. That's not a high price to pay for the gains.

Fareed Zakaria (40:17)

Keishin, pleasure to have you on.

Keishin Yu Jin (40:18)

Great to be with you. Thank you.

Fareed Zakaria (40:21)

Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.

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This week on the Assignment with Me, Audie Cornish. My guest is Larry Wilmore. He's a writer and producer who's worked on some of the most successful shows of the century. In Living Color, the Bernie Mac show, the Daily Show, Blackish, Insecure, we're just naming a few. But. But in his heart, he's still a comedian.

Peter Beinart (40:47)

I'm getting back into doing standup again, which I really haven't done full time in a while. So.

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What? Wait a second. Like, you're going, you're doing open mics?

Fareed Zakaria (40:56)

I know.

Reid Hoffman (40:56)

I'm going up Saturday night.

Peter Beinart (40:58)

I'm gonna start working on a new hour.

Fareed Zakaria (41:00)

Yeah.

Peter Beinart (41:00)

So it's a little scary.

Fareed Zakaria (41:01)

Audie, don't get me wrong.

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I can imagine. Evan, what do you think is pulling at your chest here?

Peter Beinart (41:08)

I feel like I have to say something. I can't stay silent anymore about just the world that I'm in.

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Listen to the Assignment with me, Audie. Corn streaming now on your favorite podcast, apparently.