Geopolitical Economy Hour

Is the Jensen Huang “Chinese spy” affair a real national security threat, or a convenient crisis? Einar Tangen joins me to unpack the alleged honeypot scandal that ended with the Nvidia CEO’s resignation and wiped some $750 billion off Nvidia stock. Einar points out that the intelligence was old news and that the board pushed Huang out not over the Chinese executive but over a second affair with a...

France is in revolt. Mass protests against Macron, austerity and war brought 1.6 million people onto the streets in a single day, as students, teachers and the CGT unions push France toward a general strike. Is this the end of neoliberalism in France, and can the movement stop the far right? I am joined by Aymeric Monville, French essayist and political philosopher, to explain why France's crisis...

What happens when a defeated president still controls the world's most powerful military? In this Geopolitical Economy Hour, Beijing-based American commentator Einar Tangen joins me to unpack Trump's crushing midterm defeat and why the US is in free fall, as China sees it. Meanwhile, Trump is not retreating and has made Stephen Miller, a man with ties to white power groups, his chief of staff. Ein...

Is Western democracy anything more than a managed oligarchy? As the 2026 US midterm elections become the most expensive in American history, I am joined by economist Michael Hudson to ask who really rules in the West. From Poland's constitutional crisis to Elon Musk's half a billion dollars for the Republicans, Hudson traces how oligarchies from ancient Rome to Washington have let everyone vote wh...

A so-called "Blue Tsunami" swept the 2026 US midterm elections and delivered a stinging rebuke to Donald Trump. But will the Democrats actually do anything with their victory? Professor David Gibbs of the University of Arizona joins to look beneath the surface. Gibbs argues this was above all a vote against war, as Americans connected Trump’s Iran war to soaring fuel and food prices. Yet the Democ...

Is Ukraine on the brink of collapse, and can Trump, Putin or Europe still end the war? Alexander Mercouris of The Duran joins me for the first time to step back from the daily news and analyse the Russia-Ukraine war as a whole. Alexander explains why this war is unlike any Russia has fought before. It carries an element of civil war over the Soviet legacy, and it pits Russia against NATO and the e...

Is Narendra Modi trying to subvert Indian democracy? Across India, protests are erupting against the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls, which has overwhelmingly struck Muslims and minorities off the voter lists. Seema Chishti, Indian journalist, joins me to explain how the BJP government is working to control elections in time, space and people through “one nation, one election,” d...

Is liberalism the monster of our age? A week after the conference Geopolitics in a Time of Monsters, I am joined by Pascal Lottaz, host of Neutrality Studies, to reflect on what its speakers learned. Pascal explains why thinkers across the political spectrum converged on liberalism as the root of today's chaos, a chaos visited upon the world from the North Atlantic and now turned against Western p...

Is Netanyahu finished, or has Israel’s Uniparty of genocide already won? Mouin Rabbani, Palestinian analyst and co-editor of Jadaliyya, joins me to break down the 2026 Israeli elections and why they do not change much for Palestine. Netanyahu and Likud lost their majority, but Gadi Eisenkot, a core member of the genocide government until 18 months ago, clearly lost too. Palestinian citizens of Isr...

Will Trump attack Iran again? The US-Israel war on Iran looks set to return, and Saudi Arabia is losing its war in Yemen. Laith Marouf, founder of Free Palestine TV joins me to explain why Trump held back on Iran strikes even as Netanyahu demanded them. Without its Gulf bases, the US must now strike Iran from Cyprus, Djibouti and Diego Garcia, and it is still waiting for a third aircraft carrier....

Capitalism's last line of defense is that it innovates best. But what if China has already proven otherwise? Recording live from the Global Governance Initiative conference in Xiong'an, China's brand new city south of Beijing, I am joined by regular guest Warwick Powell. We report on our visits to the energy giant Huaneng and to China Mobile, already trialling 6G, and Powell explains why the "over...

Are the US and Israel about to restart their war on Iran? As Netanyahu lobbies for new strikes ahead of Israel's election and Trump weighs the midterms, Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran joins me at the Global Governance Forum in Xiong'an. Professor Marandi explains why Tehran expects the next round to be decisive, whatever its timing, and why Iran will treat any America...

Is the world economy in crisis, or only the Western one? I spoke with Dr Sergey Glazyev, a Russian academician and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, at the Global Governance Initiative Forum in China, held to mark the first anniversary of President Xi's initiative. Having lost its competitive edge to China, the West tore up the very WTO and IMF rules that once kept it in power. We discuss...

China entered its 14th Five-Year Plan leading in hardly any industry. It came out leading the world in batteries, EVs, drones and biotech. I am joined by economist John Ross of Renmin University's Chongyang Institute to explain how. The answer is not a miracle ingredient but a high and steady rate of investment. Ross explains why the Western push for China to consume more and invest less would der...

With the US midterms less than two weeks away, Trump's poll numbers are cratering. Can he hold on, or will he try to steal the election? Professor David Gibbs, economic historian at the University of Arizona, joins me to explain why Trump's presidency has failed on its own terms. The self-styled peace president raised inflation and launched a war on Iran that never had public support, a first sinc...

Ukraine's position is becoming untenable, and now even Trump has cut a diesel deal with Putin and called for a new president in Kyiv. Yet Europe's leaders refuse to stop. Why? Professor Michael Hudson joins me to explain how the wars on Russia and Iran form a single US campaign over the world's oil. We discuss why Europe's war has become performative, a cover for shovelling money to big corporatio...

Brazil's presidential runoff has become a battle between the people and the algorithm. After Flavio Bolsonaro edged out Lula in the first round, millions poured into the streets to overturn the result. I am joined by journalist Sarah Vivacqua and Professor Afonso de Albuquerque of Fluminense Federal University to examine the forces backing Bolsonaro, from Meta's suppression of pro-Lula content to...

For 76 years, the United States has controlled South Korea’s military, and it still refuses to give it back. Regular guest K.J. Noh joins me to explain how Washington is preparing South Korea to be its Ukraine against China, even as South Koreans push back and President Lee Jae-myung moves to reclaim his army. We also discuss North Korea’s hard-won nuclear deterrent, and why US faith in “usable” n...

India's streets are seething. For the second time in a few months, the young people of the Cockroach Movement are shaking the foundations of Modi's rule. Is this the beginning of the end for Modi? I am joined by Sushant Singh, consulting editor of Caravan Magazine and lecturer at Yale University, to examine the electoral roll revisions behind the uprising, exposed when the Indian Express revealed...

The truth about dedollarization is that it is unfolding but without a concrete plan. In this explainer, I argue that the dollar system is collapsing under its own contradictions while alternatives from the Global South have stalled. Lacking an empire like Britain's, the US could supply dollars only through deficits and, later, financial bubbles. Today the Federal Reserve is trapped between inflati...

Why are the AI promoters who spent months resisting regulation suddenly asking for it? Warwick Powell, adjunct professor at Queensland University of Technology, joins me to connect the doomsaying about AI destroying humanity, the new appetite for regulation and the postponement of OpenAI’s much-trumpeted IPO. With capital expenditure soaring and analysts seeing no pathway to profitability, these f...

Wherever Narendra Modi travels, he comes home with a medal, and much of the world's media treats him as a statesman and a voice of the Global South. Aakar Patel, columnist, chair of Amnesty International India and author of Price of the Modi Years, joins me for the first time to separate the image from the record. Aakar describes a foreign policy with two registers. One is theater performed for va...

Mark Carney has a 70% approval rating and a global reputation as the man who stood up to Trump. But is any of it real? I am joined by Dimitri Lascaris of Reason to Resist, who calls it arguably the greatest political scam in Canadian history. The so-called trade war between Canada and the US is rather a skirmish that only covers under 5% of Canada-US trade. On everything else, however, Carney is i...

Is artificial intelligence the technology of the future, or the next great bubble? Michael Hudson joins me for another Geopolitical Economy Hour to discuss the looming AI economic crash. Michael compares the frenzy to the dot-com bubble and the railroad bubbles of the 19th century, while the scale of this one outmatches all what we have previously seen. We examine Washington's plan to turn AI into...

Is the war meant to break Iran now breaking Washington's Gulf allies instead? I am joined at the Valdai Discussion Club in Moscow by Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran, who points out that seven months of siege and sanctions are strangling the oil-dependent Gulf monarchies that helped wage this war. With US bases around Iran destroyed or half destroyed, these states are e...