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The Foreign Affairs InterviewAuthor: Foreign Affairs Magazine
Foreign Affairs invites you to join its editor, Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, as he talks to influential thinkers and policymakers about the forces shaping the world. Whether the topic is the war in Ukraine, the United States competition with China, or the future of globalization, Foreign Affairs weekly podcast offers the kind of authoritative commentary and analysis that you can find in the magazine and on the website. Language: en Genres: News, News Commentary, Politics Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Are America's Allies Finally Learning to Deal With Trump? A Conversation With Philip H. Gordon and Mara Karlin
Thursday, 4 June, 2026
Six months ago, Philip Gordon and Mara Karlin wrote an essay in Foreign Affairs about the plight of the United States’ allies in U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term. What was surprising, they argued, was not the administration’s cajoling and threats, or all the ways U.S. policy had called into question the basic principles of these relationships. The surprise was that allies were surprised by these moves in the first place. Almost a year into Trump’s second term, they had done little to develop a plan B. The months since have brought a wave of new challenges to U.S. alliances—the threats to seize Greenland and pull out of NATO, the continued warnings to free-riders, the shifting approach to China, and a war in Iran launched with little consultation even of the Gulf leaders who would be most directly affected. Editor Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to Gordon, who was national security adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris, and Karlin, who was assistant secretary of defense in the Biden administration, on June 1. They discussed how the responses of U.S. allies in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East have evolved over the course of Trump’s second term, and how those responses will shape and constrain U.S. power in the years ahead. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
