In short
The episode focuses on escalating U.S.-Iran tensions and how President Trump’s rejection of a truce extension undermines prospects for ending the conflict. It also covers Trump’s decision to substantially reduce joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises, and a broader roundtable on whether these moves make the world more or less secure, including concerns about U.S. munitions stockpiles and missile-defense shortages.
Guests (backgrounds)
Jordan Fabian (Bloomberg News White House and politics team leader). Nick Wadhams (Bloomberg national security reporter). Mark Kansian (CSIS senior advisor, defense and security; former OMB and DoD force structure/investment work). Peter Harrell (Georgetown Institute of International Economic Law visiting scholar; former Biden White House senior director for international economics).
Key claims
U.S. and Iran are stuck in an economic-attrition standoff; reopening Strait of Hormuz is unlikely to restore oil flow because Iran controls key passages and mines remain a risk. Trump’s credibility with markets is questioned due to prior “fake” or unfulfilled announcements (e.g., Hamas-Israel disarmament claims). Reducing South Korea drills erodes combined-war-fighting readiness and alliance reliability. Missile-defense interceptors (Patriot, THAAD, SM-3) are described as dangerously depleted, with no quick substitutes. Iran’s blockade/pressure and U.S. blockade keep energy prices elevated, complicating tariff and inflation policy.
Notable examples
Versailles MOU about reopening the Strait of Hormuz (dead within weeks); U.S. “maritime channel” near Oman but Iran controls middle/upper passages; South Korea exercise example “Ulchi Freedom Guardian”; shortages in ballistic-missile defenses; references to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar concerns about U.S. ability to defend allies.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOUS-Iran Tensions and Trump's Stance
0:30 to 1:00
Discussion on President Trump's comments regarding the Iran conflict and US military actions.
“When you're running a business, the best days are the ones where priorities stay on track.”
US-Iran Tensions and Trump's Stance
1:05 to 1:41
Discussion on President Trump's comments regarding the Iran conflict and US military actions.
“Policies provided by Hartford Fire Insurance Company and its property and casualty affiliates, Hartford, Connecticut.”
US-Iran Tensions and Trump's Stance
2:15 to 4:18
Discussion on President Trump's comments regarding the Iran conflict and US military actions.
“naval blockade on Iranian ports is putting pressure, no doubt about it, on the country.”
Analysis of US Foreign Policy
4:18 to 10:42
Jordan Fabian provides insights on the implications of Trump's foreign policy decisions, particularly in relation to Iran and South Korea.
“And once again, we do know that we hear from the president, Jordan, talking about the Strait of Hormuz, a territory.”
Impact of Military Strategy in Asia
10:42 to 11:21
Examining the implications of reduced military exercises with South Korea and how it affects US-China relations.
“And again, it points to the increasing unreliability of the president's public statements.”
Impact of Military Strategy in Asia
12:25 to 14:20
Examining the implications of reduced military exercises with South Korea and how it affects US-China relations.
“It's time to plan ahead and make sure your brand is showing up in ways that can have an impact.”
Impact of Military Strategy in Asia
14:24 to 14:50
Examining the implications of reduced military exercises with South Korea and how it affects US-China relations.
National Security Landscape Under Trump
14:50 to 16:56
Discussion on the current state of U.S. national security and Trump's policies.
“He's also threatened to bomb Amman if it gets in the way of the U.S.”
U.S. Military Strategy and Stockpiles
16:56 to 19:35
Examination of U.S. military strategy and concerns over weapon stockpiles.
“And there's a lot of broad concern from U.S.”
Challenges of Military Readiness
19:35 to 21:32
Insights into the challenges the U.S. faces in maintaining military readiness.
“You know, I've talked about this with Nick plenty of times, but it seems like right now the administration is a bit sensitive to this discussion.”
Show all 27 chapters
Impact of Stockpile Decisions on Policy
21:32 to 23:37
Discussion on how stockpile concerns affect U.S. foreign policy decisions.
“Because the administration, and I guess I understand it on some level, gets very defensive, no pun intended, when it comes to any criticism about the size of military stockpiles.”
Iran's Perspective on Nuclear Weapons
23:37 to 26:55
Understanding Iran's stance on nuclear weapons amidst U.S. pressures.
“decisions in the region about what it'll do next.”
U.S.-South Korea Military Drills and Implications
26:55 to 28:00
Analysis of the implications of reducing U.S.-South Korea military drills.
“Mark, I want to flip the switch to the comments the president had made over the weekend about the U.S.-South Korea drills, wanting to reduce those, citing a lack of help on Iran.”
U.S. Military Exercises and South Korea's Response
28:00 to 31:57
Discussion on the implications of U.S. military exercises with South Korea and Trump's recent comments.
“consistent that we can fight together as a team effectively.”
U.S. Military Exercises and South Korea's Response
33:03 to 34:00
Discussion on the implications of U.S. military exercises with South Korea and Trump's recent comments.
“It's time to plan ahead and make sure your brand is showing up in ways that can have an impact.”
Mark Walter and the Financial Challenges Ahead
34:00 to 34:56
Examination of Mark Walter's financial issues and the implications of the federal probe.
“Let's talk about healthcare for a second.”
Mark Walter and the Financial Challenges Ahead
35:00 to 42:04
Examination of Mark Walter's financial issues and the implications of the federal probe.
“This is the life of the CEO of Guggenheim Partners as he rushes a makeover amid it all.”
Legacy and Federal Probe Insights
42:04 to 43:10
Discussing the implications of the federal probe on Trump's legacy and business dealings.
“but what he does will determine kind of where this goes.”
DoorDash's Drone Delivery Initiative
44:25 to 46:17
Explaining DoorDash's advancements in drone delivery technology and FAA approvals.
“It's time to plan ahead and make sure your brand is showing up in ways that can have an impact.”
DoorDash's Drone Delivery Initiative
46:21 to 46:47
Explaining DoorDash's advancements in drone delivery technology and FAA approvals.
War in Iran and Economic Policies Connection
47:13 to 48:26
Exploring the intersection of the war in Iran and U.S. economic policies.
“I feel like in the backdrop of all of this, hanging over these massive trade and economic questions is this ongoing war with Iran.”
Impact of Oil Prices on Tariff Policy
48:26 to 49:38
Analyzing how rising oil prices due to the Iran conflict influence tariff decisions.
“at least where they were at the beginning of the year, going into a midterm.”
Shift towards Pragmatic Tariff Strategies
49:38 to 51:04
Discussing the Trump administration's practical adjustments to tariffs amidst economic pressures.
“this time than maybe what we saw about a year, year and a half ago, Peter.”
New Era of Economic Policy Discussion
51:04 to 53:35
Examining the evolution of economic policy and its implications for the future.
“White House senior director for international economics.”
Upcoming Xi-Trump Meeting and Trade Dynamics
53:35 to 56:00
Assessing the significance of the Xi-Trump meeting in light of ongoing trade tensions.
“There's so much on the table for this, but I do want to pivot.”
US-China Relations and AI Discussions
56:00 to 58:25
Explore the dynamics of US-China relations and the focus on AI safety in upcoming talks.
“Clearly on AI, they are quite committed to an aggressive American preeminence posture.”
US-China Relations and AI Discussions
58:58 to 59:28
Explore the dynamics of US-China relations and the focus on AI safety in upcoming talks.
“For midsize and large companies, risk can affect multiple parts of the organization at once, from property and liability to cyber and regulatory challenges.”
Transcript
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1:47Carol Massar:Podcasts. Radio. News. This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily. reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus, global business, finance, and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast with Carol Masser and Tim Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio. Hey, President Trump reportedly said he is in no hurry to end the war with Iran and a U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports is putting pressure, no doubt about it, on the country. The president also warning that if Oman gets in the way, we will bomb the expletive out of them.
2:29Carol Massar:Fill in the blank. I'm sure you can figure it out. Also said back channels with officials from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard remain open, which was later denied. And then, you know, we've just got kind of back and forth. There's new tensions in Lebanon. We've got to remember Israel and their role in all of this. It's a full plate and a reminder that this war, which I think some, Joe, I think early on might have thought it would have ended quickly. We are now almost six months in. Yes, six months. I mean, that's crazy to think about. Yeah, and some talk about this as a forever war. Let's get to our Washington roundup, a lot out of the nation's capital.
3:07Carol Massar:We head to our Bloomberg News Washington, D.C. News Bureau, and to Bloomberg White House and politics team leader Jordan Fabian. Jordan, as always, there's a lot coming at you guys there in D.C. Iran and the United States, where to begin? Feels like we're not necessarily moving closer to an end. And yet some say it's always darkest before the dawn. How does the White House see it? What are you guys hearing? Well, we should take stock of what's happening today, which is that 60 days ago, the president sat in Versailles Palace and signed that Memorandum of Understanding, essentially saying this is over.
3:43We're going to move toward an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and we're moving on. And now we're sitting here and the U.S. is still stuck in a quagmire there. The strait is still close to a lot of maritime traffic restricting oil supplies. And the president has no real way out of this with Iran digging in its heels. And so the White House is saying they're going to continue with economic pressure. Scott Besant teased some developments this week, perhaps. But it's important to remember that Iran has been under sanctions for years and And it hasn't changed their behavior. So it's hard to see how this new approach, quote unquote, by the president is going to yield any new results.
4:23Carol Massar:And once again, we do know that we hear from the president, Jordan, talking about the Strait of Hormuz, a territory. Not the first time, right? And he chuckled, I think, the first time he said it. I don't know. The more time you hear it, I don't know that they think, the Iranians, think it's too funny. No, he could very well do something reckless, do something along those lines. It's unclear to me how that would change the reality on the ground, which is that, yes, the U.S. has opened a maritime channel south near Oman, but Iran controls the middle and the upper passages. There's still concerns about sea mines.
5:00And if the U.S. wanted to really take control of the strait, they would need to occupy land on the Iranian side of that waterway. And now we're talking about a land invasion of Iran by U.S. forces. And that would certainly mark a huge escalation of this conflict and one that the president hasn't wanted to take before. So I still think that he's essentially saying this is a tongue-in-cheek thing, that he's labeling it the U.S. territory. But it's not really going to mean much if there's not an increased oil flow out of that waterway.
5:32Carol Massar:Sometimes I think he says something, Joe, to just kind of get a feel of how people in the markets read it. But who knows? Yeah, I mean, that certainly has been the case with him many times. But, you know, Jordan, you're in this every day. You've done this a long time. You've covered both of his administrations. I think for people in the markets and generalists who are not necessarily, you know, trading every day, right, they might just feel like this is just another headline, another part of the slog. But how can you parse what we're seeing right now as to how this is not just part of the slog?
6:09This is something new and what direction we're headed into right now. Well, Joe, it's an interesting question. And I do have a question about Trump's credibility with markets moving forward, given all the pronouncements he's made throughout this conflict about how close the deal is. And even the MOU didn't really turn out, pan out to be much. was pretty much dead within three weeks. And even the other week, he announced that he had an agreement with Hamas and Israel to disarm the militant group there. And that turned out to be nonsense also. It was essentially a fake deal. Hamas said that we're not going to do anything until Israel withdraws.
6:49Israel said we're not going to withdraw until Hamas disarms. And we're still at square one. So it's increasingly harder to take his pronouncement seriously. You still have to. He's still the president of the United States. He still commands the world's most powerful military. But he's made a lot of pronouncements about things are going to happen that haven't really panned out. Your point on taking him seriously. I mean, how do you think right now the Xi Jinping and Chinese officials are viewing this? I mean, the problem for them and for markets and people in general is that Trump has followed through on enough of his threats.
7:26So you do have to take it seriously. And then the question is, there's always this debate about seriously versus literally. Is he going to follow through this time? That's a hard gamble to make. But it does appear that he's promising these things that he can't deliver. And I think that's every foreign leader that's dealing with him, whether it's Xi Jinping or the leaders of Iran or even Kim Jong-un, given this new threat on South Korea, you have to be wondering, What is this guy about? Is he just going to tear this up the minute he finds it inconvenient if you sign an agreement with him? You've seen this with the trade deals he struck with U.S.
8:06allies last year. So it's just an increasingly reckless administration, and it makes it very difficult to deal with if you're across the table from them.
8:17Carol Massar:Yeah, it certainly keeps everybody on edge and certainly global leaders are at least uncertain about what's next or what's real. Hey, on South Korea, let's go there, Jordan. President Trump telling the Pentagon to, quote, substantially reduce joint military exercises with South Korea, citing the cost of the drills and his, quote, very good relationship with North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un. What's the read on this? And I mean, China's got to be watching. We keep thinking about China watching dwindling military and defense supplies here in the U.S. as we continue to fight wars, the war in Iran and moving stuff around.
8:51Carol Massar:So help us understand what we need to know here. Well, we've been hearing for a decade now about this supposed pivot to Asia that was going to happen for the United States, where the U.S. is going to focus its power more in that region to counter China and its advances there and away from traditional hotspots like the Middle East. And this is a exhibit A of how that has failed, where you have the president bogged down in another Middle Eastern conflict that there's no end in sight. And his reason for pulling back support for South Korea is that they didn't offer him military aid in Iran. So it's all coming back to this conflict that we need to remind people he started in February and really had no exit strategy to get out of.
9:40And so you're seeing this reverberate now to South Korea, which is one of the key U.S. allies in the region. It's a country that this administration has said they're looking to to help revive the U.S. shipbuilding industry. How does that all affect the administration's ambitions with South Korea, given this latest outburst by the president? Just real quickly, Jordan, on the South Korea point, I mean, when we read between the lines, how should we interpret what the president is saying there? Well, he's put it pretty clearly, which is that he has value his relationship with Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, more than the U.S.'s traditional alliance with South Korea.
10:23And this could change tomorrow. The South Koreans could offer him a concession. And he could say, well, I've always been friends with South Korea. Now we're going to increase the military jewels again. But it again goes to the point we were talking about earlier of reliability. And if you make a deal with this administration, is the president going to keep it or is he just going to change his mind on a whim? And again, it points to the increasing unreliability of the president's public statements. And it erodes of those alliances.
10:52Carol Massar:Right. And the past doesn't necessarily indicate what might be done in the future, which makes it a little tricky for the world. So appreciate it. Jordan Fabian, White House and politics team leader for Bloomberg News. He's there in our D.C. News Bureau. When we come back, we're going to kind of stay on this topic. more in geopolitics, everything we discuss, what it means for those all-important global relationships. That's next. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
11:22Carol Massar:This is the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChatGPT. Now with ChatGPT work. I'm Carol Masser. DoorDash, the largest food delivery company in the U.S., is building its own delivery drones and has gained the necessary FAA approvals to operate them commercially, the latest in its effort to delegate more orders to robots as a way of cutting delivery times. Bloomberg's Natalie Lung reports the company says it has been conducting pilot programs with various restaurants, some of which have seen their order volume grow during the test period. The effort marks an expansion of DoorDash's in-house robotics efforts to reduce reliance on human couriers for some orders, as their wages constitute a key expense to the business.
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14:50Carol Massar:Trump in no hurry for a deal. He's also threatened to bomb Amman if it gets in the way of the U.S. This is coming from Fox News. President Trump reducing U.S.-South Korea drills, citing a lack of help on Iran. And then we've got just some different stories going on. It just thinks, you know, national security. I keep thinking, Joe, are we a more secure world here in the U.S. or just globally or not necessarily? Wow. It really depends on who you talk to. too. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe if you're in a bunker far, far away. Well, I mean, even internally in this administration, right? There are people who feel like we are not.
15:25Carol Massar:Yeah. There are people who think we definitely are. So the divide is stark. Yeah, exactly. Which is kind of what we want to tackle with our next roundtable. And lucky for us, we have with us our own Nick Wadhams. He's national security reporter for Bloomberg News. He's out there in our Washington, D.C. bureau. Also with us and in the D.C. area, Mark Kansian. He's senior advisor, defense and security department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He spent time at the Office of Management and Budget, spent more than seven years as chief of the Force Structure and Investment Division.
15:56Carol Massar:He worked on Department of Defense, budget strategies, and different issues. It's a great roundtable. Nick, I want to kick it off with you. I'm going to start big and broad. Are we a more secure world, or are we less secure, or TBD? I never give you easy questions, do I? Figure it out. Well, listen, I mean, you know, if you if you look at the pure metrics of the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz, you would have to argue that we are not. Of course, President Trump would argue differently. But you had a sort of status quo prior to the U.S. attacks on Iran, where oil was flowing freely through the strait.
16:32And now it's not. And this has been really one of the problems that has bedeviled the president. Of course, his administration continues to claim that it's Iran that wants a deal, that he's in no rush. But there are some suggestions that really indicate he's growing weary of this. You also have the strain that I'm sure Mark will be able to talk about as well on the U.S. troops and the U.S. assets that are in the region. And there's a lot of broad concern from U.S. allies in Asia. You mentioned South Korea. If President Trump is now going to try to exert leverage over a country like South Korea over, Ron.
17:08Well, what does that mean for the U.S.? A commitment to South Korea in a region where China is still looking to make its own moves. So a lot of uneasiness from U.S. allies. Spin it back to the Western Hemisphere, though. You have Nicolas Maduro, who's been removed. The president argues that's a win. But, you know, a lot of instability, a lot of concern. So, you know, but certainly looking at Hormuz, I would say we are not as secure as we were before February.
17:37Carol Massar:Mark, Nick, as he always does, laying it all so well, come on in on it. I am curious, too. We've talked a lot about the USS Abraham Lincoln. We've heard from the president saying the deployment not nearly long enough. There's a lot of things that we could hit on. But take it away from your vantage point in terms of global national security, U.S. national security. Well, one of the problems is how do you define U.S. interests? Now, I agree with what we've just heard that there have been some very concerning events, Strait of Her Moves being right up there. The Trump administration, they're much more skeptical about defending Europe.
18:18They are skeptical about even the Western Pacific and believe that countries there should do more, that the United States has been taken advantage of. So from the perspective of many in the administration, we're better off because if the Europeans are threatened by Russia, that's not our problem. You know, we will be able to keep more of our forces and resources at home. Now, the concern is that, you know, we've tried that strategy twice in the past. It failed both times. You know, there's no need to try it a third time. But many of the administration focused on America first. And one of the problems that I think they're realizing is that even if you have a strategy that says America first, we're going to focus on the hemisphere and the homeland, we still get dragged into these foreign events like the Middle East, like Europe, like the Western Pacific.
19:16So if we're a global superpower, we need to maintain those global capabilities. And right now we're seeing that the Navy is stretched and our munitions inventories are much lower than the war planners would like. Yeah, Mark, I mean, what you're really moving towards, in my estimation here, is this ongoing discussion of the U.S. weapons stockpile. You know, I've talked about this with Nick plenty of times, but it seems like right now the administration is a bit sensitive to this discussion. And I'm just curious what you think, you know, in telling our viewers who maybe aren't paying as much attention to the weapons aspect.
19:57Is it a dire situation? Is it a troubling situation? Where do you benchmark this at? I would put it at troubling. But you have to keep in mind that munitions covers a lot of territory. And there are some munitions where we have good stockpiles. For example, we're rebuilding stockpiles for ground munitions, and there are some short-range ground attack munitions that we have pretty good stockpiles on. But there are other areas where we are short. The one place where we're really desperately short is defenses against ballistic missiles. And these are systems like Patriot, which many people have heard of, THAAD, and the Navy's SM-3.
20:49We've used about half of those, Patriot a little more, SM-3 a little less, and there are no good alternatives. Is it like a level that keeps you up at night? That would keep me up at night. Now, we have alternatives from some of the other munitions. And there are some things that have come out of the war that I think do help deterrence against China. But this is an area where we are short. It's going to take a long time to rebuild those. And there are no good substitutes.
21:23Carol Massar:So, Nick, come on in on here. You know, you cover national security from so many different angles. But let's go to our military stockpile and what you're hearing. Because the administration, and I guess I understand it on some level, gets very defensive, no pun intended, when it comes to any criticism about the size of military stockpiles. What do we know for real? And I do understand we have to keep some of this quiet because it is a security issue. Right. I mean, it's very interesting because having covered U.S. wars going back to Iraq in the early 2000s, I mean, as a reporter, I was used to constant daily incessant briefings from the administration, certainly putting their spin on the state of U.S.
22:07forces, number of casualties, territory, stockpiles, things like that. And while a lot of this was considered a secret, you could get some estimation of where things stood. And this administration has taken a much different approach. It's much more difficult even to get assessment of damage on U.S. bases in the region that have been hit by Iranian attacks. So there is so much that we don't know. What we can say, though, is that some of our reporting does suggest that the administration is making decisions partly because of concerns around stockpiles. So when you had the president essentially promising to unleash a massive new military campaign against Iran a couple of weeks ago, and then the reporting suggested that U.S.
22:54allies in the region were telling him, listen, we do not think this is the best path forward. We did have some indication at that time that concerns around strikes on U.S. allies in the region, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, for example, that the U.S. understood it would not be able to defend them as well as it would want to because of concerns around its ability to knock down all of those incoming strikes from Iran. So it's a very complicated picture. There's a lot at play. There's a lot we don't know. But we can at least say that the evidence we're getting from the reporting does suggest that concerns around those stockpiles are starting to influence the way the administration does make decisions in the region about what it'll do next.
23:40And Nick, when you say not be able to defend our allies in the region as much as we'd want to, can you unpack that for listeners who maybe don't really understand the day-to-day of what you might be talking about? Well, I mean, it's like what Mark said. I mean, if there's a ballistic missile that comes in, I mean, that's a very powerful weapon. And if it can't be defended against because there's a shortage of Patriot missiles or they're being much more selective about their targeting. You know, those sort of targeting decisions are going to be influenced based on your stockpiles. I mean, the U.S.
24:12is starting to get into other forms of defense. They're not effective against ballistic missiles, but against incoming drones. So they do have more counter-drone defenses. And there are indications that they're ramping up production of those Patriot missiles. Of course, those take months or years to produce, but they are bringing in cheaper anti-drone defenses. They're working on directed energy weapons. There's all sorts of stuff they're trying to bring to the region to defend against Iranian attacks, but the Iranian attacks are so varied, and the time lag between when you expend those munitions and then can resupply them, you know, if it's a cheap drone, okay, that's one thing, but if it's a PAC-3, you know, Patriot interceptor, you know, those take years to produce, and they cost millions of dollars.
Read the full transcript
25:00So there's a much longer time horizon to get those into the battlefield to be able to defend the U.S. forces.
25:06Carol Massar:Yep. Can't flip a switch quickly on that one. Hey, Mark, I want to go back to you for a moment. One of the things I keep thinking about with any of this is that I do feel like the cards are largely in the hands of the Iranians. And we did have President Trump come out on social this morning. The number one goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have in any way, shape, or form a nuclear weapon. So we're back to that as the mission, which is what we all thought that mission was in the beginning, but it's kind of gotten tossed around here. From the Iranian perspective, this is existential for them.
25:38Carol Massar:So what do we need to understand about where they are coming from and how long they're willing to keep this going? Again, going to what some say will be a forever war between the U.S. and Iran. Well, I think that's right. that for the Iranian regime, this is an existential threat. The Israelis in the United States have threatened to overthrow the regime. Now, the focus is back on nuclear weapons, but regime change was certainly discussed early on. And the regime is willing to endure great hardship. They're willing to inflict great hardship on the population in order to stay in power you have to keep in mind too that there's a religious element here you know it's not just that there's a regime that wants to retain power as all regimes do they believe that god has entrusted them with certain responsibilities and they need to carry those out both sides have cards the iranians of course are blockading the strait the u.s is blockading the strait also and preventing Iranian oil from going out and materials coming in, we are in what I call an economic war of attrition to see who can endure longer, who can force the other side to make concessions.
27:03Mark, I want to flip the switch to the comments the president had made over the weekend about the U.S.-South Korea drills, wanting to reduce those, citing a lack of help on Iran. From your Perch, when you hear something like that, I mean, what kind of goes off in your mind? From a military perspective, you know, this is a bad thing. Now, it's not an immediate problem the way that reduction in forces might be, for example. But these exercises, and the big one is coming up. It's called Olshii Freedom Guardian. It's been going on for literally 50 years. And one year I was, when I was in the Marine Corps, I participated.
27:49But this is a mechanism to get the U.S. forces and South Korean forces working together to mesh the two military systems, to make sure our plans are consistent, to make sure that all of our communications is consistent that we can fight together as a team effectively. And there's also on the South Korean side, a mobilization aspect to the operation. Now, you cancel it one year, and you lose some experience, but there's still a lot of experience in the force. But over time, as you cancel that, you cancel the smaller exercises, that expertise declines, Your credibility with the North declines, your military capabilities to conduct combined operations, a conflict with the United States and South Korea, that declines.
28:42And it's not clear to me what we're getting for it. The North Koreans haven't offered anything. So I'm not sure what's in it for us. But I'll defer to the political side to answer that question.
28:59Carol Massar:All right, Nick, come on back in here. In that social post, too, President Trump said South Korea had declined to join us in the denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It did catch Seoul, though, by surprise. This is just another thing. Or how are you and the folks you talked to kind of assessing this latest move, which many say caught Seoul by surprise? Right. I think it probably caught a lot of Trump's most senior advisors by surprise as well. I mean, there is some precedent for this. When the administration in Trump's first term was in negotiations with North Korea, the president scaled back U.S.
29:37military exercises with South Korea. It also got in a big imbroglio with South Korea over the amount the U.S. wanted South Korea to pay for U.S. troops hosted on its soil. So there was a lot of conversations that was seen as sort of leverage the administration was trying to use for to renegotiate those basing agreements to get what President Trump believed was a better deal. So when I see that, a lot goes through my mind. OK, maybe it's Iran. Maybe it's the basing agreements, though they have some more time to go there. Maybe we'll also get back into some sort of conversation with Kim Jong-un in North Korea.
30:12You know, the white whale of President Trump's first term, an agreement with North Korea. maybe he's going to make another run at it. So it's always difficult to divine, you know, on a Sunday evening where these pronouncements come from, though it does have some historical precedent for President Trump. Though I do agree with Mark there on the question of, you know, what does the U.S. get out of this? What help does President Trump actually want from South Korea in helping with Iran? Maybe it's maritime patrols for the Strait of Hormuz. But it's hard to see how South Korea could actually help with denuclearization of Iran.
30:51Maybe it's just diplomatic support. So, again, a lot we don't know here. And we'll really have to see how much he actually scales back those drills when it comes down to it.
31:01Carol Massar:Just another issue, right, that we have to pull into kind of the geopolitical conversations. You both are gems. Thank you so much. As always, Nick Wadhams. He's Bloomberg News national security reporter out there in our D.C. bureau. Mark Hansian, thank you as well. Senior Advisor, Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. I mean, it is, right? Always just another layer on top of things. And whether or not it's significant or whether it was just a statement or tweet or social post by the president. I mean, that's what investors, the world at large, global leaders and companies have to figure out.
31:31Every weekend, Nick and I are exchanging emails on the latest comments made by the president or someone in his cabinet about these things. And you have to be quick to parse it.
31:39Carol Massar:Yeah, exactly. Because sometimes it impacts the market. Sometimes it impacts the narrative in a big way, and sometimes it doesn't, which is also another fascinating aspect to all of this. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Businessweek Daily coming up after this.
31:57Carol Massar:This is the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChatGPT. Now with ChatGPT work. I'm Carol Masser. DoorDash, the largest food delivery company in the U.S., is building its own delivery drones and has gained the necessary FAA approvals to operate them commercially, the latest in its effort to delegate more orders to robots as a way of cutting delivery times. Bloomberg's Natalie Lung reports the company says it has been conducting pilot programs with various restaurants, some of which have seen their order volume grow during the test period. The effort marks an expansion of DoorDash's in-house robotics efforts to reduce reliance on human couriers for some orders, as their wages constitute a key expense to the business.
32:40Carol Massar:Drones are also a way for DoorDash to cut delivery times on orders from more remote locations that some dashers may not want. That's the Bloomberg Tech Minute, brought to you by ChatGPT. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com today by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro plans. It's time to plan ahead and make sure your brand is showing up in ways that can have an impact. That's where 4imprint comes in. 4imprint have promotional products that work as hard as you do. Durable, useful, and designed to make a lasting impression. Think quality apparel your team will wear again and again, including popular and exclusive brands.
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33:594certain.
34:00Carol Massar:Let's talk about healthcare for a second. It doesn't always work the way people expect it to. If you've ever waited on a prescription refill or had a hard time getting the care you needed, you know the feeling. The system should just work better for everyone. That's exactly what the people at Optum are trying to do every day. They're a health care company linking patient care and pharmacy services and using data and technology to drive the whole system so care is connected, not complicated, for patients and providers. Things like making it easier to get care that looks at the whole person, from primary care doctors to mental health support and even in-home care, and then using technology to make sure they all work together.
34:38Carol Massar:Technology designed to help doctors spend less time on busy work and more time with their patients. And those prescriptions? Optum is working to bring costs down, save patients money, and make it easier to get refills. Little by little, Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Head to business.optum.com to see how.
35:26Carol Massar:team until last week, a stake in Chelsea Football Club, and a federal probe and the financial troubles that have followed that led to a possible sale of that Chelsea Football Club, and it did lead to a sale of the LA leakers that we learned last week. This is the life of the CEO of Guggenheim Partners as he rushes a makeover amid it all. Talk about a full plate. It is today's Bloomberg Big Take, and joining us is Sri Natharajan, Bloomberg News Chief Wall Street Correspondent here in studio. Shree, I feel like we've seen these stories before, these people that achieve incredible levels of success, and then they either stumble or kind of fall from on high.
36:08Carol Massar:He's got a full plate. Where is he? And tell us about the things that he's kind of dealing with. Okay, the whole storyline is interesting because of who he is, Mark Walter, right? It's not just a name that you would recognize on Wall Street, which you would, because on Wall Street, you have his giant asset manager, Guggenheim Investments, his broker dealer that's run by the former Bear Stearns CEO, Alan Schwartz. But also a name that should be known on Main Street and has bled through to that space because in his table of sports team are the Dodgers, the Chelsea Football Club, Lakers, Cadillac F1 team, the professional women's hockey league where the winner plays for the Walter Cup.
36:46So here is someone who's at that intersection of Main Street and Wall Street. So when you have this sort of money trouble that pops up, and money trouble is perhaps a very loose term for what is happening right now, because he also owns insurers. And as the feds probe how these insurers made loans, whether they made loans to affiliated assets or not, it's clearly raised the temperature a little bit. All our reporting shows that he has been accelerating and rushing efforts to try and clean up that insurance balance sheet. But the spillover effect of that, as a result of that, you are seeing some big ticket, important trophy assets being taken away from him potentially.
37:27Today's news story talks about the Chelsea stake going to another Chelsea owner, Clear Lake. No deals there, but the talks are happening and they seem to be happening in the last few days. Last week, you had that surprise sale of the Los Angeles Lakers. The headline figure says a$12.5 billion record-breaking sale. sounds great, but when was the last time you've heard of a professional sports team like that, of that stature, getting flipped in less than a year as if it was some Jersey Shore mansion?
37:55Carol Massar:Hey, watch about Jersey. Hey, I'm a Jersey girl. I had to throw that in just for you. I went to school in New Jersey. He's a Florida guy. Don't forget that. Thank you. All right. So as you dig into this story, I do wonder, is this the guy who stumbles and falls and then is gone? or is he able, I mean, he's got so many coveted assets. Is this enough? But then when you've got also a federal probe, you do wonder what's the implications longer term. Right, the implications on what's happening to your cabinet of assets and whether that grows or shrinks is one thing. What happens to a federal probe is a whole another thing.
38:35So I don't know if we can square away the two right now. We are obviously seeing as they try and remediate the issue with his insurance firms. And again, to explain to our listeners and viewers what exactly the issue is, is Mark Walter owns an insurance firm. Through that insurance firm, they were getting loans to fund other parts of Mark Walter's sprawling empire. The problem was a lot of those loans were tagged as unaffiliated. When they did a review, they suddenly said, at least one of the bigger insurers, Delaware Life, that he owns said, our affiliated assets have gone up from 3 % to 40 % after we did some checks.
39:13And why did they do the checks? Because they got subpoenas from the feds. So the problem is real. And he'll have to find a way to get through that. Again, it's a federal probe that matters. And we're all paying attention to see where that goes. But you are seeing the dynamic of that in some of these big asset sale and discussions. You know, this is a story that like every day, there's some new scoop coming out from us or from others. It just does not go away. Can you kind of dive into that aspect coupled with the you sitting down and saying, you know what, let's just do a quick, let's do a profile of this man.
39:47Let's explain to people who obviously are interested both in the sports world and the finance world, who he is and catching them up to speed and knowing this is maybe just the beginning. And that's always a challenge with the fast moving news cycle. There are a lot of developments is happening and you will find news interest in different corners of that empire just because of all that he owns. How often do you see Sportico and the New York Times Sports section and Bloomberg and the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal focusing on the same subject, focusing on the same person? That is exactly what's happening right now.
40:19But also an interesting life story. We all know him for that Guggenheim name. He has nothing to do with that great American dynasty. He's not a direct descendant. It was a chance meeting where Mark Walter was running a financial firm in the backwaters of Chicago, or at least in the financial backwaters in Chicago, to be clear, and had this meeting with a great-grandson of the original Guggenheim baron, the mining baron, Meyer Guggenheim. Turned that, parlayed that into this big empire that he has because he folded his firm into that family office, Guggenheim family office. And really, when you think of Guggenheim today, you think of this man who grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, son of a factory worker with nothing to do with that great dynasty.
41:04But that's the name you think of. And then over time, as it's expanded, you have the Dodgers, Lakers and all these other teams. Last month, he was getting fettered at the Rose Garden by President Donald Trump, where the president calls him my friend Mark Walter. Then compare him to George Steinbrenner, famous for his win at all costs mentality. Again, Steinbrenner, rest in peace. was a polarizing figure. So it's not really clear to me whether Mark Walter would have heard that comparison and been happy about it or not so thrilled.
41:35Carol Massar:We've only got about a minute left here. And in the story, it's like he talks about, I hate losing. He said this back in 2024 next to Lakers legend and turned business ally, Magic Johnson. I just can't stand it. He also says, I was used to being poor and happy. Then I just got in business and was competitive and things worked out. I mean, what is it in kind of digging into his past and understanding a little bit about who he is and what he's about that really just struck you as he is really kind of fighting for his, I don't want to say fighting for his life, I don't want to put drama, but what he does will determine kind of where this goes.
42:09More importantly, what happens with the federal probe will determine what his legacy and standing will be. And it's not like in the past the feds haven't tried to look at other aspects of his business empire. The SEC in years passed at various stages without bringing any cases, without accusing anyone of wrongdoing, but at least had explored various investigations that looked at elements of conflicts of interest. That is what this current probe also seems to at least reek of. It seems to have some of the same flavors. But really, the outcome of this probe will tell us how we'll see history. Is he, at the end of the day, the epitome of that true great American dream?
42:45Right. You know, from nothing to becoming one of America's greatest, wealthiest financiers. Is it financial ingenuity or something worse? And we'll have to wait to see what that is.
42:57Carol Massar:Highly recommend. This is one of the stories that Sri, you and the team always just do so well. It's on the Bloomberg. It's on Bloomberg.com. Thank you. Thank you. It's a great Monday read. Sri Natharajan, Bloomberg News Chief, Wall Street Correspondent. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Businessweek Daily coming up after this.
43:19Carol Massar:This is the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChatGPT. Now with ChatGPT Work, I'm Carol Masser. DoorDash, the largest food delivery company in the U.S., is building its own delivery drones and has gained the necessary FAA approvals to operate them commercially, the latest in its effort to delegate more orders to robots as a way of cutting delivery times. Bloomberg's Natalie Lung reports the company says it has been conducting pilot programs with various restaurants, some of which have seen their order volume grow during the test period. The effort marks an expansion of DoorDash's in-house robotics efforts to reduce reliance on human couriers for some orders, as their wages constitute a key expense to the business.
44:01Carol Massar:Drones are also a way for DoorDash to cut delivery times on orders from more remote locations that some dashers may not want. That's the Bloomberg Tech Minute brought to you by ChatGPT. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com today by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro Plans. It's time to plan ahead and make sure your brand is showing up in ways that can have an impact. That's where 4imprint comes in. 4imprint have promotional products that work as hard as you do. Durable, useful, and designed to make a lasting impression. Think quality apparel your team will wear again and again, including popular and exclusive brands.
44:46Drinkware that's enjoyed again and again. Bags, notebooks, tools, and tech items that don't just look good, but actually get used. With thousands of customizable options, 4imprint makes it easy to find what fits your brand and your budget. You'll get expert help, free samples, and their 360-degree guarantee means you can be 4imprint certain your order shows up just right, right on time. Whether you're gearing up for fall events or simply planning ahead for the season, 4imprint can help your brand show up, stay useful, and make connections that last. Explore the possibilities at 4imprint.com. 4imprint.
45:204certain.
45:21Carol Massar:Let's talk about healthcare for a second. It doesn't always work the way people expect it to. If you've ever waited on a prescription refill or had a hard time getting the care you needed, you know the feeling. The system should just work better for everyone. That's exactly what the people at Optum are trying to do every day. They're a health care company linking patient care and pharmacy services and using data and technology to drive the whole system so care is connected, not complicated, for patients and providers. Things like making it easier to get care that looks at the whole person, from primary care doctors to mental health support and even in-home care, and then using technology to make sure they all work together.
46:00Carol Massar:Technology designed to help doctors spend less time on busy work and more time with their patients. And those prescriptions? Optum is working to bring costs down, save patients money, and make it easier to get refills. Little by little, Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Head to business.optum.com to see how.
46:47Carol Massar:going to be here, you're like, I've got a perfect guest. That's right. That's right. We are fortunate enough to bring in someone I've known for a little while now, Peter Harrell. He's the visiting scholar at the Georgetown Institute of International Economic Law. He's also a former Biden White House Senior Director for International Economics, and he's joining us from Washington, D.C. Peter, thanks for coming on. Joe, thanks for having me on. It's a real pleasure. So, Peter, one of the things I wanted to dive in is you have been writing quite a bit about the latest grouping of trade tariffs that have been coming out in the section two, two 32s and all the others, you've been talking about budget deficits.
47:27I feel like in the backdrop of all of this, hanging over these massive trade and economic questions is this ongoing war with Iran. And I'm just wondering, is that fair to say? Is it fair to say that the war in Iran is actually maybe causing a bit more of a policy problem for this current White House over all these other trade and economic issues that you've been writing about? Yeah, well, Joe, first of all, thanks for having me on. And I think it's a really important question. I do think we are seeing some interplay between the war in Iran and the White House, the White House's tariff agenda. You know, as I think of it on the war in Iran, we're in kind of the phase of this war where it is a war of economic attrition on both sides.
48:14Right. The Trump administration is imposing a naval blockade on Iran's oil exports. Iran is trying to reduce global oil exports from the Gulf by keeping the Strait of Hormuz close. And that is keeping energy prices elevated, at least where they were at the beginning of the year, going into a midterm. We are in a higher oil price environment, which is politically challenging for the president. And interestingly, one thing you see the president having done over the last month or so is having made a decision not to take U.S. tariff rates all the way back to where they were at the beginning of this year before the Supreme Court ruled his first round of tariffs illegal.
48:56So his average tariff rate at the beginning of the year was maybe about 15 percent or so. After the Supreme Court that fell to about 10 percent, they have said, you know, they said at the time we're going to fully recreate these tariff rates, but they haven't actually done so. They've kind of kept them more in that 10 to 11 percent range. And I do think that's because the war in Iran has made energy prices and thus inflation run a little bit hotter than it otherwise would have. And I do think that's, you know, we still have tariff man for a president. We got to be direct about that. But I do think that has made them a little bit more cautious about fully reimposing the full tariff rates they had before the Supreme Court ruled in February.
49:37So more of a practical approach this time than maybe what we saw about a year, year and a half ago, Peter. Yeah, I think that's correct. I actually think one of the stories of Trump tariffs over the course of really starting late last year is that beneath the headlines, beneath a president who continues to want to talk about tariffs, lean into tariffs, beneath those headlines, you have begun to see the Trump administration take a more practical approach. You know, so as I say, he has not fully recreated the tariffs, the sort of high tariff rates that he had earlier this year. I don't want to minimize them.
50:13They're still several times higher than they were when he came in. But, you know, they are a couple of percentage points lower. But we've also seen him take often quiet, you know, sometimes on Friday afternoon, take measures to exempt different kinds of price sensitive products from the tariffs. Right. So late last year, earlier this year, they exempted a bunch of foodstuffs from the tariffs to try to take some of that price pressure off. They have they have very quietly made sure that they are exempting farm and fertilizer inputs. They did that earlier this spring. So, you know, again, they want to be able to talk about tariffs.
50:52It is a very aggressive tariff regime compared to what we've seen in recent years. But I think they have pivoted to be a little bit more pragmatic than they were, you know, kind of peak tariff last spring, last summer.
51:03Carol Massar:Peter, we mentioned in the intro to you that you worked with the Biden administration, White House senior director for international economics. I do wonder if you think now that in terms of international economics, you look around the world, are we in a completely new era? And whether it's tariffs, investments in companies, governments taking investments in companies, on shoring, that we are, whoever is in the White House, whatever happens in the midterms, who's ever in the White House next, that this is our new era when it comes to what companies and countries are doing to kind of protect themselves.
51:44I think we are in a quite different era, certainly at a policy level. And we talked about tariffs. You bring up another very important point on government equity investments. I think this is often underappreciated by the public here in the U.S. You know, the Trump administration has taken either 35 or 37 different equity stakes with a market value of 60 or 70 billion dollars today. Just on a straight line trajectory, we're probably looking at by the end of the Trump administration. I don't know, you know, 100 to 200 equity stakes, 100 to 200 billion in market cap. Like this is very different from what we have seen in the past.
52:24And I do think we are in a new era when it comes to policy, whether it's trade policy and tariffs, whether it is this sort of supply chain policy, whether it is these these these equity investments. I think there's still an open question about, OK, we have a very different policies. But what is this going to do on the data? Because, you know, for all the tariffs that were imposed over the last year, year and a half, the U.S. trade deficit was basically it's basically been unchanged over the last six months. Pretty wild, right? You know, I think we have to be realistic that policy is changing. The data has not yet caught up with the policy changes.
52:58Carol Massar:But can I just just real quickly, like 20, 30 seconds, whoever is next in the White House, do you think these kind of policies continue? If it's a Democrat, if it's a socialist, if it's a communist, who knows? But I mean, there will continue. There will certainly be differences with the next president. But I do think we are in a structurally higher tariff environment than we were a couple of years ago. And I do also think this kind of idea of a more activist interventionist government in markets is going to be here to stay, though, whether it partly rolls back, I think, is an open question. I feel like there's a book in there for you, Peter.
53:38There's so much on the table for this, but I do want to pivot. We have we have the meeting from Xi Jinping, the president of China that's supposed to be coming up in the next month with Donald Trump, the president of the United States. all of this tariff discussion. You know, like you said, we've seen polysilicon tariff announcement come out, drone tariff come out. All of this is slowly coming out ahead of that meeting. How do we position the importance of that meeting and what we're seeing from this White House right now in the weeks leading up to it? Yeah, it is interesting to me that we have seen some continued action again that is clearly focused on China, even if sort of the stated reason is more general.
54:24It wasn't Chinese polysilicon tariffs. It was polysilicon tariffs. But this is really all about China. Similarly, we have seen the Federal Communications Commission roll out some bans on robots, on power inverters. These are also not stated to be about China, but are about China. It has been interesting to me to see the Trump administration continue to put some pressure on China in advance of the Xi meeting. You know, sometimes you think, oh, there'll be a period of quiet before a summit like that to keep the diplomatic waters calm. The Trump administration has clearly been willing to put some chips on the table in advance of that meeting.
55:07I think what will be interesting to see is does the Trump administration negotiate any of this away or are they setting a new baseline going into that negotiation with Xi to say, hey, this is what we've done. We're only going to be talking about the future.
55:25Carol Massar:Well, you know, on that, I just want to throw in, I mean, the U.S. planning to warn dozens of countries that they would be shut out of a U.S.-led AI coalition if they sign on to a similar framework proposed by China. This is coming out of Reuters. I mean, yeah, is it just U.S. reminding China of potentially the power they can still wield? Are they serious about this? I mean, this is one of the big races and wars of our time, it feels like. And I think the Trump administration, well, I think the Trump administration is internally divided sometimes about how they want the decoupling with China to go.
56:03Clearly on AI, they are quite committed to an aggressive American preeminence posture. We've seen that with their, you know, kind of diplomatic initiatives. We've seen that with their kind of accelerationist posture, putting aside the issues with this recently with Anthropic on model safety. But they clearly want to have an accelerationist posture here vis-a-vis China on AI. That said, I do think both Trump and Xi will want to talk about AI next month at Mar-a-Lago. And I won't be surprised if we see at least some rhetorical talk around cooperation on safety and the like. I don't think that's necessarily mutually exclusive.
56:51I think the U.S. would like to have those negotiations from kind of a position of strength. But I do think there will be some desire to cooperate on some core safety principles. Just as a quick one, though, Peter, I mean, there's a lot of concern in the circles that I speak to and the circles that you run in as well, that this is a tough meeting for Donald Trump, because in the minds of a lot of folks who've been around this space for a long time, they feel like Xi Jinping holds a lot more cards than the president of the United States does at this moment. Do you think that is fair directionally?
57:24I think both governments here hold quite a bit, quite a number of cards. Like, clearly, the Chinese continue to hold a lot of leverage through their control of rare earths. The Trump administration is trying to reduce U.S. dependencies, but that's a two, three year, four year kind of play. The Chinese continue to have a lot of leverage there. Clearly, actually, the Chinese, we talked about oil markets earlier, like the Chinese have actually been incredibly helpful in keeping oil prices from going even higher because they've been releasing enormous amounts from stockpiles. I do think President Trump is going to want that to continue.
58:01I think the Chinese have a lot of cards. Of course, we do, too, right? We continue to have a lot of cards in the financial domain, in the technology domain and the like.
58:09Carol Massar:Yeah, I would love to be a fly on the wall. It's like that ultimate frenemy relationship. Peter, you rock. This was really fun. Thank you so much. Peter Harrell, visiting scholar at Georgetown Institute of International Economic Law, former Biden White House Senior Director for International Economics. Great to have him here. This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast, available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the iHeartRadio app, TuneIn, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg
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1:00:10Carol Massar:As industries evolve faster than ever, companies need an environment that accelerates strategic growth And Michigan delivers on that promise. From emerging startups to global enterprises, Michigan offers what executives value most, a resilient, innovative ecosystem, diverse communities that attract top talent, and a quality of life that supports work-life balance. With our unified Team Michigan approach, businesses scale faster and compete at the highest level. Michigan, pure opportunity. Seize your opportunity at michiganbusiness.org.
From the publisher
The people, companies and trends shaping the global economy. Watch Carol and Tim LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
President Donald Trump said he’s not interested in extending the expiring agreement with Iran. The price of Brent crude climbed above $90 a barrel as fresh concerns about an escalation of the war jolted global energy markets. Tensions in the Middle East were already on the rise over the weekend, with Israel’s military saying it killed senior Hezbollah commander Abu Hassan Alaa in southern Lebanon.
On this episode, Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec speak with:
- Jordan Fabian, Bloomberg News White House and Politics Team Leader
- Nick Wadhams, Bloomberg News National Security Reporter AND Mark Cancian, CSIS Senior Adviser, Defense and Security Department on US-Iran latest from a military/stockpile/weapons standpoint, Iran's side of negotiations
- Sri Natarajan, Bloomberg News Chief Wall Street Correspondent on ‘I Hate Losing’: Walter Rushes Makeover as DOJ Probes His Empire
- Peter Harrell, Visiting Scholar at the Georgetown Institute of International Economic Law AND Former Biden White House Senior Dir. for International Economics
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