How The World Sees America, with Adam Tooze | The Ezra Klein Show
January 30, 2026
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1:04:27Now PlayingHow The World Sees America, with Adam Tooze | The Ezra Klein Show
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as posted by the channelThe old world order is dying. What new world order — if any — is struggling to be born?
I can’t think of a week when it felt clearer that an era was coming to an end. Whatever people thought America was, at least for a couple of decades, it’s something else now. The killing of Alex Pretti and the fact that it was recorded on video that plainly contradicted the Trump administration’s initial narrative made that clear. Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada, also drove home that point when he declared at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the world was in the midst of a “rupture.”
What do people think of America now in Europe? In China? And if American hegemony is coming to an end, what comes after that?
Adam Tooze is a historian at Columbia University and a chronicler of crises. The Guardian recently called him “the crisis whisperer.” He’s written a number of books about the times when systems fall apart and new orders emerge, including “Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World.” And on his Substack, Chartbook, he tracks the unfolding crises and power shifts, in particular the rise of China. He also had a front-row seat to the chaos of Davos last week, moderating a panel that included Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary.
I wanted to talk to Tooze about what he saw at the World Economic Forum, how the world’s understanding of the U.S. is changing and how he’s making sense of this moment.
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Guests & Subjects Covered
Claims
33 claims extractedWorld governed by strength and force
World order experiencing rupture not transition
Government killing protesters constitutes domestic terrorism
Old world order is dead and monsters are evident
Trump cabinet's Davos presence was shocking and devastating
Trump criticizes returning Greenland to Denmark as stupid
Trump claims freedom from world peace obligations
World economic order experiencing fundamental shock and rupture
US, Russia, and China are equivalent powers relying on force
Biden administration failed to deliver on promises and alienated allies
Trump administration views America as embattled loser in globalization
Globalization, universities, and migration threaten American power
Trump administration uses crude tariffs instead of strategic industrial policy
China has been long-term generational challenge held back by elite consensus
China governs effectively while America is slow and dysfunctional
America's confidence eroded by long-standing insecurity
China's transformation is unprecedented historical experiment in 21st century Marxism
Western analysis of China requires humility and avoidance of bias
China's role in climate transition analogous to Soviet role in WWII
China has capacity for global climate stabilization but West rejects it
Biden administration deliberately slowed energy transition for political reasons
Biden officials prioritized China containment over climate action
Putin and Xi view Soviet collapse as disaster; China justified Tiananmen crackdown
Tiananmen Square military crackdown was right thing to do
China views Russia as useful wedge; China's governance superior to US
Chinese officials hold conspiratorial views of America's global influence
Chinese officials gave up tracking Trump, use crude psychological rules
Trump administration offers China better tariff deals than India
Trump motivated to deal with Xi because he's a big guy with nice palace
Biden administration believed it could win chip war through strategic denial
No guarantee new world order will emerge from current rupture
Multipolar overlapping orders may provide stability without single hegemon
Framing China as replacing US hegemony is wrong and dangerous
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