This Isn’t Your Grandparents’ UN

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0:42This is Robert Smith from Business History. If you're listening to this, there's a good chance you're a small business owner. And like every small business owner, you started with a dream to do what you love and watch it grow. What you probably didn't dream about? Keeping up with cyber threats. That's where MasterCard can help with access to tools that help identify cyber threats to better protect your business. Building your dream business? Priceless. For cybersecurity in a changing world, there's MasterCard. Learn more at MasterCard.com slash small business. If you listen to financial news, you know a lot of time is spent thinking about what's next.

1:17The next opportunity. The next investment. The next move. But sometimes what matters most is being ready for what you never saw coming. For more than 75 years, Cincinnati Insurance has worked with independent agents to help protect businesses, homes, valuables, and more. Because planning for the future isn't only about knowing what's next. It's about making sure you're ready for what you can't predict. Let Cincinnati insurance make your bad day better. Find an independent agent at CINFIN.com. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. I think the two biggest issues have to be the two hot wars, the Strait of Hormuz.

2:03At the same time Zelensky was here and going into that meeting, the Financial Times had this reporting that when Zelensky was on the phone with the president, the president just kept saying diesel, diesel, diesel. So it's not just the United States. The whole global economy is feeling the heat of rising energy costs. That was definitely half of what everyone, I think, was focused on. And the other half was artificial intelligence.

2:29I'm David Gura, and this is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. Today on the show, a busy week on the world stage. Bloomberg's Anne-Marie Hordern and Nick Wadhams join me to make sense of what the United Nations General Assembly and a meeting of Presidents Trump and Xi reveal about the changing world order.

2:49Nick and Anne-Marie were chatting on Thursday morning in the middle of the U.N. General Assembly and this Leaders' Summit that's taking place in Washington. Nick, let's start with the U.N., which has been around now for more than 80 years, founded with this objective of preventing global wars. At this moment, how well equipped is the U.N. to do that? I think what you really saw this week was that it is not at all equipped to deal with these crises. I mean, Iran, Trump goes to the podium and says he's going to annihilate Iran. I mean, he's done that before with North Korea. He threatened fire and fury in his first term.

3:23So it's not exactly new for him to go. Familiar rhetoric. Familiar rhetoric threatening civilizational erasure of another sovereign state from the podium of the U.N. was definitely a jarring moment. But what you see is an organization that is essentially helpless to play a role. And then I think also the AI situation. I mean, Antonio Guterres, the outgoing secretary general, had really wanted to make regulating and putting guardrails on AI a sort of centerpiece of his second five-year term. That was really his big vision. And what you saw yesterday and have seen for years now is essentially the U.S.

4:01saying, we're not going to cooperate. You know, Trump said in his speech, you know, this is a globalist scheme. So you really see the challenge there. Gutierrez, it essentially means, I think, that they're not going to be able to do anything on it. Anne-Marie, let's dig into the speech that the president delivered. And let me start just by asking you about the rhetoric that he had toward the UN. He has Mike Waltz as his ambassador here in New York. What is the level of engagement that the Trump administration has with the U.S.? Or how does it think about the body? Well, I think Ambassador Waltz has talked about how they don't want to step away from it, but they want it to function better.

4:33They've obviously have held up some funding when it comes to the United Nations. I would also say the president's speech, I think we need to take the president's trip to the UN also in entirety. Yes, the rhetoric was incredibly hot about Iran, talking about annihilating Iran. At the same time, he did offer, which he normally does, another path. He said, potentially, we can get to a deal. And at the same time, his mediators met with the Iranians while they were here. So I think a lot of people were clinging to the fact that it's a lot of bark, but potentially he wants to still have a deal in the end because why would he allow his own mediators sit down with him?

5:13And I think he said the conversations were good, at least a start. He said they were productive. To me, there are a lot of ways to read those meetings because on the one hand you could argue essentially the president wants this thing sewn up ASAP. And he's using the UN and sort of the fact that everybody's descended on the UN to basically try to shake something loose. It's like a forcing mechanism. Correct. Challenge there, though, was that once we got a little bit more detail about what actually happened, it seems like this was basically talks about talks, which puts us back in where we've been for months, essentially, since the ceasefire collapsed.

5:53Let's talk a bit more about AI, so it came up in the Secretary General's speech that there was this moment on Wednesday when you had the CEOs of OpenAI and Anthropic testifying before the Security Council. What are they asking for broadly? How extraordinary was it to have them here in New York doing that? I think it's pretty extraordinary in the sense that they are really trying to make their case, but I also think we should look at it a little bit from a lens of these are also companies that are going to be going public. And at the same time, we learned this week from the Australian government how there was an open AI agent that hacked one of their websites.

6:29So they need to make their case to the public, I think, that they understand the risks. Now, is that good policy because they're about to debut on the market? Because we've seen in poll after poll, there's been a lot of backlash. I also think it was a little bit jarring to me that one of the executives that was making this case decided to zoom in. If you're going to make the case to the international community about potentially how dangerous and the risks of all this are, I feel like you should show up in person. Was having them there articulating this need to pace or slow down in front of all of these countries, was that a constructive move?

7:07I guess it depends on which side of the ledger you're on. I mean, on the one hand, you could say it underscores just how severe and terrifying this moment is that you have the CEOs of these major AI companies coming to the UN and basically saying, like, help us keep from hurting the world, like save us from ourselves, basically. And so you'd think, like, okay, that's, that's pretty crazy. But then it does feel a lot like a PR move. I mean, these are the guys who have created the AI systems that we are now also worried about. So are we expecting that they're just suddenly going to step back. And then, I mean, listen, I started covering the UN, I'm embarrassed to say, in 2004.

7:50So I've seen a lot of these meetings, and it's a crazy situation where whether it's about AI or the role of children in armed conflict or North Korea's nuclear program, you have all these countries, the diplomats come around the table, they all talk about what a terrible threat it is, how terrifying this moment is, and then everybody kind of breaks and goes home and nothing gets done. So what comes of it? I mean, right now it does. I'm feeling pretty pessimistic, as you can probably tell. But it was at least a sort of clarion call. They had never done this at the U.N. before to this degree. And it felt like a moment, at least.

8:31And I think a lot of leaders besides the United States and China were welcoming of it because I spoke to the Finnish president, Alexander Stoop, and he was saying how I think most countries want to see China and the United States have some sort of framework. And the fact that they have a dialogue on AI is important. But I'm not sure with these executives here, to Nick's point, they give these speeches and then nothing really comes of it. I think that your point is a really good one. There were foreign ministers and world leaders around this table, and the anthropic CEO doesn't even have the time to hop on a plane.

9:09Maybe he had better things to do. Well, no, that's my point. What could be better if you're concerned? And it was his employees that went on Twitter and said there's a 10 percent chance that this can wipe out humanity. And then another employee from Anthropic doubled down and said, actually, I agree with you, but it's more than 10 percent. And you can't come address world leaders in public, in person. It was it was a symbolic moment at the very least.

9:39More from my conversation with Anne-Marie and Nick after the break.

10:05work. It's designed to help you move from a chaotic starting point to a reviewable first version. So all the source materials, briefs, and scattered information that you have to grind through to turn into something useful can just become something useful. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro plans. If you listen to financial news, you know a lot of time is spent thinking about what's next, the next opportunity, the next investment, the next move. But sometimes what matters most is being ready for what you never saw coming.

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12:40Let's pull our focus from New York to Washington. Emory, you have President Xi meeting with President Trump, this highly anticipated summit taking place. Should we read anything into the fact that President Xi didn't come, is not coming to New York, to the General Assembly, that he's made this trip to Washington instead? Well, he doesn't always come to the U.N. General Assembly. I know the last time he spoke, I believe it was during the COVID pandemic. Potentially, he didn't want to speak for two reasons. The optics would be domestically, he would have to deliver a message that might not be so pleasant right before he goes meets with the U.S.

13:18president, right? Yes, there's a stabilized trade truce right now. But of course, for China, they were dealing with sky-high tariffs from this administration and potentially have to push back on that. The others is that maybe you just want to focus all the attention on this meeting with President Trump and not be one of a long list of world leaders that are going to be taking to the stage in New York. We've talked about the conversation about AI in New York, Nick, at the UN General Assembly. There is bound to be a conversation between these two world leaders in Washington. Is that the more important conversation when you think about this arms race that's taking place?

13:51Yeah, I mean, I think there's no progress that can be made around putting guardrails on AI without the U.S. and China essentially having that conversation. I mean, the challenge there is you see across so many issues where these two countries are so intertwined, they have so many problems they need to figure out with each other, but they can't seem to get out of their own way in terms of those problems. So the tariff issue, yes, we have a tariff truce for another couple months, but tariffs remain very high. Industrial espionage remains a huge issue. South China, I mean, there's so many issues between the U.S.

14:25and China that are so important, but they have been largely unable to resolve. Seeing them get into really sort of technical, detailed talks where they agree to some sort of AI truce that would require the buy-in of the CEOs of all these companies as well is a pretty big ask. And, you know, Xi Jinping is coming here. He's not bringing any CEOs with him. There's no indication that there is going to be a real sort of industry-to-industry conversation around this visit. You're covering the UN in 2004. Hugh and I meet in Beijing after that, where you're based subsequently. You know China well. How do you gauge that country's willingness to get involved in this conflict in the Middle East?

15:04It's been subject to some pressure to make some moves or force some moves in the region in recent days. Does President Xi have any appetite for doing that? You know, the Chinese have been very explicit that they feel no obligation to agree to or adhere to what they call unilateral sanctions. So sanctions imposed by the U.S. on another country. They say they will agree to sanctions that come out of the U.N. Security Council, but you have seen the case of North Korea, they're not always willing to do that either. It looks to me like China has been willing to play a role essentially assisting Iran in a sort of under the table fashion behind the scenes.

15:47They are willing to buy their oil. There's some indications that they've been willing to give them intelligence or components that could go into weapons. So they're not going to take a total step back. But they're also, on the flip side of the coin, have no interest in playing like global peacemaker. I want to wrap up just by talking about the state of the global order. So, Anne-Marie, we've seen the rise of strongmen. We've been talking about two of them, President Trump and President Xi. But there's Dorendra Modi, Benjamin Netanyahu, host of others, nationalist parties having a moment here as well.

16:20These are not international consensus builders, I should say. In an era when leaders seem to kind of feel free to ignore international organizations and norms and laws, Because what is the role of a body like the UN, other multilateral institutions? I think when it comes to the UN, it's a lot of talking. But to Nick's point earlier, it's really hard to get anything done. And, you know, I was struck by the start of the UN week this week because President Erdogan of Turkey actually published an opinion piece in Bloomberg. And he talked about how the Security Council at the United Nations needs to be totally abolished and reworked and tweaked because it's unfair that since the world has changed so much, to your point, about all these kind of new strongmen and different dynamics we're seeing than we did very short after the post-World War II era, he thinks that it needs to change in terms of how the veto powers work in terms of the Security Council.

17:19So I think until you get any sort of changes at the UN where they can have a real bite, the UN, I'm not trying to be rude, but it doesn't really matter. It just causes a lot of traffic. Nick, pick up on that because, you know, there have been calls for reforming the Security Council for a really long time. You see the kind of acrimony in this bilateral relationship between the U.S. and China building over the years. It strikes me this is not an institution that has any kind of potential to mediate the difficulties of that relationship. No, I mean, as long as the Security Council is so divided, I don't think you'll really see it play a very major role.

17:58I mean, it should be said, though, there is vast use and good work being done by the UN agencies. So the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the UN Refugee Agency. I mean, for a lot of countries in crisis, Sudan, for example, the UN is basically a support of last resort where they're able to get humanitarian aid in and help refugees. And there's a whole system in place to sort of keep people from really falling off the bottom rung of the ladder. So that work is of enormous use. The challenge we've seen in the last few years, though, of course, is that the U.S., the biggest contributor financially to the U.N.

18:38is either withholding funds, as Anne-Marie said, or pulling out of a lot of these U.N. agencies entirely. And so that's been another big blow. But, you know, you still do see the Trump administration looking to gain legitimacy for some of its actions by going through the U.N. So, for example, it got a Security Council resolution on the Board of Peace for Gaza. So there still is, I think, some vestige of this idea that if you have a big idea or a peacemaking initiative or whatever it might be, you do want to try to get the imprimatur of the UN to achieve that thing. whether it can pull that off again with Russia and the U.S.

19:17essentially being unwilling to speak to each other in Iran's situation. I mean, that was the JCPOA. It was amazing. You had the P5 plus Germany coming together and unifying around this idea of this agreement. Hard to see that happening now. But, you know, all we have is hope.

19:42This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura. To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg.com, subscribe today at Bloomberg.com slash podcast offer. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.

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