2026 Increasing Challenges and Diminished Capacity in International Relations

P2 Increasing Challenges and Diminished Capacity

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
Please join your respective tables so that we start. We have a very punctual panelist on Zoom. Sylvie Kaufmann from Paris.

Shen Dingli, who is... I guess you're speaking from Shanghai, so it's a big time difference. So it's very generous of him.

It's already quite late at night to join us, so we should not keep him waiting any longer. Okay. We will...

Ambassador Martin Kimani is not there yet, but I guess he should be there anytime because he's probably a victim of New York traffic, because he's just across town, across Central Park. And Raja Mohan couldn't be there because he's fallen sick. But we have a very distinguished panel.

And I will start by asking Tim Naftali, a colleague at Columbia and a distinguished historian, a specialist of the American presidency. And with true, if I may add, Tim, bipartisan credentials, because you were the founding director of the Nixon Library. And as everybody knows, Nixon was one of the most controversial presidents of the 20th century.

And so there was a lot at stake in opening that library so that it would be seen and be completely transparent. And that was entrusted to Tim, to the satisfaction of everybody. So now I'm going to ask you about another president who is not sure about Donald Trump and about the United States.

This morning, we had a discussion on the Middle East, and some were making the point that, yes, the policies of Donald Trump in the Middle East have been very disruptive, but they are part of the issues that predate Trump. Trump has been an accelerator. So I would ask you a different question, a more broader question.

The United States, since 1945, has been essentially the backbone of so-called international liberal orders. It's been contested, but it was really the core pillar of it, underpinning it. And now it seems to be busy demolishing it, which creates some state of confusion among the international community.

And so my first question is, what does this mean for the world? Is that something that is going to last? Is it just an anomaly soon to be corrected?

What's ephemeral and what is more durable?

Tim Naftali:
First of all, thank you, Jean-Marie, and it's a pleasure to be a participant in the Kent seminar this year. We were all told we have five minutes, which means I might speak in shorthand, but you have lots of opportunity to ask questions if I am speaking in shorthand. During the G-Summit in 1981 in Ottawa, Prime Minister, then Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau was overheard saying to François Mitterrand after listening to Reagan, Mais il est fou, n'est-ce pas?

He's crazy. And Mitterrand saying, oui, oui. The challenge for allies of the United States has always been the idiosyncrasy and power of the American presidency.

So what makes this moment different? And this is what makes it different. We are witnessing, oh, in political science and international history, we use the terms status quo power and revisionist power.

Actually, the world is way more nuanced than that. I think American revisionism, America has been a revisionist power, but within certain guidelines. What we're seeing now is the chief beneficiary and chief architect of the liberal hegemonic order turning against that order.

And that is a form of revisionism we have not seen since the end of World War II. In the last 30 years, countries made a strategic choice to make themselves more vulnerable to China and because of the benefits of the opening Chinese economy. And then when China's policy changed, countries began to build non-Chinese critical mineral supply chains.

Now that America's policy has changed, countries are scrambling to create non-U.S. security supply chains. But even though both are difficult, it's easier with rare earth minerals than with security. Even though they're called rare, they're everywhere.

It's just the quantities are small. Security, however, is not as easily available. And so the challenge for countries where the central pillar of the security system has now turned against it is to find security elsewhere.

And that is not as easy. So the answer to your question is, is this forever? No, if the United States changes because the more natural system is the one that evolved after World War II in the sense that Europe and Canada would prefer the American nuclear umbrella to having to construct it themselves because the cost is high.

Europe and Canada would prefer access to the U.S. market and Americans buying from their markets, should there be a change in Washington. The natural interests of these countries is in the system we had. But can it be rebuilt?

So I'm saying that the players would like it to be rebuilt. And the answer to can it be rebuilt, I think, depends on two things. The president of the United States, I don't believe it's hard to say the U.S. government because Congress, I'm not convinced, believes this. And we're about to see a change in Congress in November. How dramatic? We don't know.

The president of the United States would prefer to replace the liberal hegemonic order with a nationalist hegemonic order, which we historically would recognize in the spheres of influences that developed at the end of the 19th century. Those who've studied that era know that that is an inherently unstable system. The fact that Belgium got the richest colony in Africa did not lead to World War I.

But these empires ultimately went to war with each other. So these systems based on nationalist hegemony do not have a track record of sustaining themselves. If the president of the United States succeeds in turning the Western Hemisphere into a nationalist hegemonic sphere by undermining the sovereignty of Canada, taking Greenland from Denmark, then I'm not sure that reconstructing the security system of the past 80 years will be possible.

That's number one. Number two, it's not all about elites. We are seeing throughout the world the rise of right and left-wing populism.

Those movements do not like the liberal hegemonic order. They call it neoliberalism. On the left and on the right, they just call it a big giveaway.

They don't want to reconstruct it. They may be in charge of most governments, the left and the right, in the next 15 years, in which case it doesn't matter who is elected in 2028 in the United States. We're going to see a reworking of the international order because democratic peoples want it.

Thanks.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
Thank you. If I understand you correctly, what you suggest is that maybe if there is a vision of President Trump, it's a vision of spheres of influence.

Tim Naftali:
Look, this is just my perspective. I don't have any inside information that you couldn't gather the same way, but I've been looking at this reasonably carefully. If you want to understand why the United States is acting the way that it is in the Western Hemisphere, it's all about resources.

Canada has rare earth minerals. Canada has critical – rare earth minerals are just a subset of critical minerals. Canada will be a major supplier of lithium.

It will be not a major supplier of cobalt, but it has cobalt reserves. Canada will be adding – again, it doesn't have the amount of rare earth minerals that China has, but it will be a significant Western player in the next 15 years. Greenland, southern Greenland in particular, has, again, an important amount of rare earth minerals.

Not more than China, but enough to begin the process of significantly removing the United States' reliance on China. And to give you a sense of Canada, Canada will not fully be able to replace tungsten from China, but Canada will be the second most important source of tungsten in about 15 years. So I'm convinced, and I am not a Marxist, but given the nature of the ways in which the U.S. has approached, under Trump, its work in the Western Hemisphere, the goal is minerals, are minerals. It's not to add fancy territory so that the United States is bigger than the Soviet – than Russia. And below in the south, the goal, of course, is oil. So in the north, it's critical minerals, and in the south, it's oil, and to some extent, lithium, because you can get lithium on the border between Chile and Argentina.

So if you want to try to – now, Trump himself is not a strategist, but he has advisors who are interested in the AI boom and critical minerals. And both of those groups, while they're not necessarily the same, they're both seeking more rare earth minerals because of magnets and batteries, and some are anti-China. The others are just – they're pro their own green economy products and AI.

So the effect of that, this push, is the United States has become a resource predator. In a way, I know some people have read this about the Cold War. It's not true.

In the Cold War, the United States fought in places that had zero resource – they had zero interest in the resources. Southeast Asia, which is now resource-rich, largely because of the work done by the Southeast Asians, the United States does not fight the Vietnam War because of resources. The U.S. does it for alliances and security and all kinds of actually intellectual and ideological things. Now it's different. The United States is no longer interested in ideology so much as it is interested in resources. So that's how I understand what's going on.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
Thank you very much. Now, I am a European, and when I hear about spheres of influence, I begin to wonder and to be a little worried because it means that Europe is just that little corner of a sphere of influence. Some would say that Europe, since 1945, has always been in some ways under – because it has been under the American nuclear umbrella – was in some way an extension of an American-led world.

But there was a feeling – maybe it was partly an illusion – but there was a feeling that Europe had its agency. And certainly, Europe used its agency. It created the European community.

It turned into the European Union. It has its currency. Certainly, there is European agency.

But when one listens to you, one begins to worry whether there is such agency left. And when one looks at the other major centers of power, one sees Russia trying to sanctuarize itself to attack a neighbor, Ukraine. One sees China, which has a kind sometimes of what is described as a neo-mercantilist policy of exporting a lot to Europe but not being so welcoming of imports itself because the Chinese consumer is not spending enough.

China continues to spend a lot of its money on investment. And so, Europe today feels a bit under siege between Russia, China, and the United States. And so, I'm turning to Sylvie Kauffmann, who is a distinguished writer and journalist at Le Monde and who spends a lot of her time going around Europe and meeting European leaders.

And one question that many have looking at Europe is whether this situation is going to fragment Europe, has different countries react differently, or whether that shock is going to bring Europe together because it sees that if it doesn't come together, it will be really completely sidelined. And it's really an open question, and we all would like to have the answer.

Sylvie Kauffmann:
Thank you very much, Jean-Marie, and great to be with you a bit, even though it's only on screen. Yeah, you say Europe is under siege, and I think this is really the perfect expression because this is the feeling that we have here in Europe, to be under siege from three directions. You said Russia, literally, because of the war it's been waging against Ukraine.

And some European states are convinced that should Ukraine fall, they will be the next target of Putin's ambitions. So, Ukraine is acting as a shield for Europe, but only as long as Europe can help it financially and militarily. And Europe is also targeted by Russia through a very active hybrid war.

So, in a nutshell, Russia is seen as an existential threat to Europe. Europe also feels under siege by the United States under the Trump administration's second term, which is, as you pointed out, more disturbing since the US is supposed to be not only its traditional ally, but also the ultimate guarantor of its security. So, NATO is not as reliable as it used to be to protect Europe.

If Russia attacks one of NATO European member states, nobody knows whether the US administration will participate in the collective defense. And so, if we consider that as a given that Russia is an existential threat, this is a big problem. The other problem is, in some respect, the US is itself behaving as a hostile power vis-à-vis Europe.

For instance, when it says it wants to take over Greenland or when its national security strategy states that the European ideological or democratic trajectory is wrong and that it needs to be corrected with the help of the United States. So, in this way, I would disagree. I mean, I totally agree with this resource ambition, the American administration's ambition on resources, but I think, seen from Europe, there is also an ideological dimension.

And thirdly, as you've described it, Jean-Marie, Europe feels under siege by China more economically than politically, but there is also this problem on top of the export and industrial problem that China is helping or supporting Russia in its war with Ukraine. So, Europe has the feeling that it has to fight three predators at the same time. Now, your question is, will it accelerate the integration or, on the contrary, break it?

At this stage, I would argue that this accumulation of challenges is strengthening its integration. It has been slow. I would say the first three years of the full-scale war in Ukraine were pretty frustrating in that regard, but Greenland has really been a turning point and things have been accelerating since then.

You know, I once, I think it was earlier this year or maybe late last year, I wrote a column with the headline, Europe is finally waking up and a reader sent this comment, one thing is waking up, another one is getting out of bed. And I think this is very true. I think Europe is now getting out of bed and deciding to get dressed.

Now, what will it do once it gets dressed? I'm not completely sure yet. So, there are signs of this integration pushing forward.

Like, for instance, Europe is finding new ways to jointly finance the assistance to Ukraine. It has managed to sign trade agreements, big trade agreements like Mercosur, despite the forceful opposition of a big member state, France. It is finding new ways around institutional obstacles to integration.

And you mentioned the nuclear umbrella, the American nuclear umbrella. Well, this is also a very interesting initiative that France has just taken. I mean, took in March, actually, President Macron made that speech, offering, you know, forward deterrence to other European partners.

And that would, you know, extending in a way. I mean, I'm not going to spend time on details because it's quite complicated. But the idea is to extend the independent French nuclear umbrella to protection, the deterrence to other Europe, to Europe.

So, progress in, there is progress in the sense that the dynamic is improving, but we are not yet in a revolutionary stage. It's not yet the Hamiltonian moment, if you want, of the European integration. The feeling of being under siege has united Europe, I think, but not galvanized it yet.

Now, will Europe become a geopolitical actor? Maybe. But again, we're not there yet.

I know it's Mark Carney's dream, as he expressed it in a few weeks ago at the European Political Community Summit in Yerevan, in Armenia. Actually, it's quite interesting to have a Canadian prime minister, and this is the first time, attending a European Political Community Summit in Europe. And so, Mark Carney's dream, as he put it, is that Europe will rebuild the world order by the strength of its values.

But, I mean, can Europe look beyond Europe? I would say, and I will stop there, I will finish this there. I would say yes, but it first has to solve its own internal turmoil about the nature of democracy, illiberal or liberal.

And in that respect, 2027 next year will be a crucial year, because there is a series of very important national elections in several member states, starting with France. And so, yeah, I mean, we can talk about this later in detail, but I will stop there.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
So, you see the glass half full, more than half empty, which is...

Sylvie Kauffmann:
I would say today, yes.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
But, you know, looking at Europe from a distance, a number of countries are struck by how Europe, and is understandable, is very much focused on what happens in Ukraine, on European issues, but not that much involved beyond Europe. I mean, you see in the Middle East for the moment, which directly affects Europe, because Europe is a big importer of energy, and inflation is picking up. For Europe, this war in the Middle East is a disaster.

But it's a long time past since the Europeans were seen as an important actor in trying to move forward various political processes in the Middle East. I mean, the point was made this morning that one had to connect the various conflicts in the Middle East, that it was an illusion to think that you could think separately of what happens between Israel-Palestine, what happens with Iran, what's happened with Lebanon, that you had to have a more comprehensive view. It doesn't seem that Europe has that comprehensive view because of its divisions.

Sylvie Kauffmann:
Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. It is true that Europe is mostly focused on Ukraine, and I think there's a very clear reason for that. I tried to describe it.

First, it is happening on our continent, and second, some member states feel physically, directly threatened. So, it is a priority, and it is seen as existential. Now, the conflict in the Middle East, I mean, since October 7, and then the reaction, the war in Gaza, Europe has been divided and has been unable to overcome its differences for historical reasons, obviously.

And I agree that this is a big weakness of Europe. Europe doesn't manage to have yet a foreign policy of its own, because Ukraine, in a sense, is not a foreign policy, and Russia is in a class of its own, right? So, on China as well, it is finding it very, very difficult to unite and to have a coherent policy, because the biggest member states have different interests and have different economic policies towards China.

So, in that sense, I agree with you. I mean, before Europe can become a geopolitical actor, it has a lot of homework to do.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
So, I'm going to turn to our colleague Shen Dingli, who is a distinguished professor at Fudan University in Shanghai. And, of course, everybody looks at China today, because it's been a spectacular success over the last few decades. And China, in that respect, is very different from the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union was a formidable military power with the Warsaw Pact. But from an economic standpoint, yes, it sold commodities, it sold gas and energy, as Russia still does, but it was certainly not an economic heavyweight. While China is a heavyweight, it's integrated in the world economy.

It's become the factory of the world. It's very efficient. It's gone up the value chain.

It produces high-quality products. It's the envy of the world in many ways for its economic success. And so, my question, in a way, is that success, which is due in part to very smart, intelligent planning by the Chinese authorities, is also linked to a somewhat predictable world.

When you are a big power, just like a big company, you need to be able to see the future to make plans. And the world is becoming more and more disrupted and more and more unpredictable. We were discussing earlier this morning, what will the Middle East look like in five years?

And frankly, we had no clear answer. And I think that can be said, unfortunately, of many, many parts of the world. It's all in flux.

And so, China has a lot to lose from the collapse of an international rules-based order. I'm not talking about an international liberal order, but some kind of order with rules. And the question for me is, can China be an architect of a new order?

Or can it take advantage? Can it be nimble enough to take advantage of this sort of chaotic, unpredictable world? How is China going to adapt to a world that has become so unpredictable? Over to you.

Shen Dingli:
Thank you, Jean-Marie, for inviting me. I offer my own observation.

Since Trump returned to the White House, personally, I would say his government is adopting a two-wheel strategy. The first wheel is the so-called Donald Doctrine, the new Monroe Doctrine. The U.S. would claim its hegemony over the entire West Hemisphere to work on Panama, Venezuela, Canada, and Greenland, etc. I think the U.S. has more country in its mind. This would come to your question, would it directly create an impact on China? Would it squeeze China's capacity to continue to grow and make China meet more hardship?

For instance, with China being kicked out of the Panama Canal, China would feel a lot insecure, uncomfortable, comparing with its previous situation, that China thinks it has control over two major ports, which gave China kind of security. And now we are kicked out. That does not mean China cannot use the canal.

But that would make China think our access could be a lot controlled by America. America, if it is willing, could stop China's access to that part of the world. Second, U.S. bring in Maduro from Venezuela early this year, make China to feel a surprise. So China can no longer expect that it can access to Venezuela strategically, and in terms of energy access, which is beneficial to China as convenient as it used to be. And I would also say U.S.'s other wheel of its foreign policy is Indo-Pacific strategy, which was coined by Trump's first term, was carried on by President Joe Biden. But now this is a continuation by Trump again, with a focus on Iran and China.

And the U.S. bombed Iran two times, so not with full success. But this has made China to have a lot of economic frustration, because our access to the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz to meet lots of frustration. And we can no longer access to Iran's oil, which is relatively more cheap than the market oil.

And China used to access to Saudi and other Gulf countries' oil, and now our ships cannot enter that area freely. Already for more than two months, all this make China's energy use to have more costly energy, and making China's economic manufacturing more costly, and make our export less competitive. But of course, all countries are having less competitive economy, given this Middle East challenge.

So these are those challenges China is meeting. And most likely this would go on and would be expanded to more and more difficult level. So what China will do?

Meeting these challenges. So China would think those good old days when China was integrated to the world economy is gone. This is no longer the traditional, the classic globalization time.

But of course, as China is thinking that to integrate the world into China's track, China wants to lead the world. I think the U.S. cannot accept no longer by the Democrats or the Republicans. And the European country cannot accept a Chinese global leadership, because we have different ideology.

Given this, China feel more difficulty. So China need to think if the U.S. would employ peace, slow, strength approach. So U.S. is no longer rely upon the old classic liberalism. U.S. is somehow returning to the barbaric realism, using flexing muscle, exerting pressure upon others. So China need to be prepared for even worse situation. But China think it has some of its own muscle, own resource.

China need to build probably a Chinese version of Trump's strategy. Peace, slow, Chinese strength. That is our missile, our rare earth, our strategic rocks.

So China think we have something to retaliate. That China did not use in the first Trump's term, when Trump evoked trade war. For his first term, China did not use rare earth.

But this time, China used quite a successful way, which made Trump to make China as the number one challenge. But to handling America's neighboring country first, Iran first. And to prepare for a major face off with China after a few years.

So Trump came to China, inviting my president to go to U.S. September 24th. And the two countries coined a new word, making constructive strategic stability, only for three years. Which means China wants to have peace for the remaining years of Trump's second term.

And this new approach may not work for any Trump successor. But we need stability, strategic stability. But not through barbaric competition, but through constructive stabilizing.

And Trump think this is good. He echoed this word. So for China, we not only meet challenges, probably we also see some opportunity.

So Trump approved a big sale of weapons to Taiwan, 11 billion U.S. dollars at the end of last year. Preparing to give another even bigger sale, 14 billion U.S. dollars to Taiwan. But he called my president on the phone to discuss this matter.

In clear violation of Reagan's six assurances to Taiwan. That for any U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan, U.S. is not going to consult to discuss this with China. Trump thinks that was a very old, ancient, remote kind of restriction.

He is not going to abide by this. And he said after his Beijing visit, I may approve or I may not approve. He said he did not say U.S. is opposed to Taiwan independence. U.S. always say U.S. wants to have a status quo, which is not to use any violence to settle this dispute. But this time he said he is not happy with Taiwan's independence. And this exerted quite a lot of strategic pressure on Taiwan.

On Taiwan's government and also on Taiwan's opposition party to make them to feel U.S. may experience a major revamping of Taiwan policy. Which would be detrimental to Taiwan's security. So Trump seemed to be not stable.

Not good for everyone on the earth. But China also think he is a guy good at making deal. Why we would not using our muscle to make a deal with him?

He need three years. For three years, no war with China. He may still want to get a Nobel Peace Prize.

For this, China may not have bigger difficulty. But we also need three years to revamp our military. Lots of our generals disappeared.

We still need to fix our radar, our stealthy warplane. And we need to access to U.S. top-notch ship and U.S. civil airplanes engine. And we still depend upon America.

But probably three, five years later, we would be independent. And the U.S. would be independent. So building its own parallel strategic mineral supply chain.

So this is what I am watching and seeing. But I would say the best is China may stabilize the relationship for the rest of this year. The worst is probably after two months, the relationship between our two countries would be tumbling again.

For many different reasons. So let's wait and see.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
Thank you very much. Tim earlier on said that system of spheres of influence is unstable. It doesn't really, really work.

And whatever one thinks of the order that emerged after 1945, it was partially a system of spheres of influence. Clearly, there was a Western camp, there was a Soviet camp. But it was more a conservation of a status quo than exactly a spheres of influence.

And discussing earlier the position of Europe, for instance, which had its agency. I mean, it could not be summarized just as spheres of influence. And so what you say, for me, raises a lot of questions.

Because in some ways, it raises the question of whether there can be some kind of minimal agreement among countries on rules of the road, so to speak. In the U.N. charter, the U.N. charter is fundamentally ambiguous. Because it starts with we the people.

So it suggests that it's an organization of people. But at the same time, what it does really is regulate relations between states. And we have seen China and Russia also being very clear that it's about regulation of relations between states rather than getting into the internal workings of countries.

That the principle of sovereignty limits that. Russia has violated the fundamental rules of the U.N. charter on relations between states because it has used force beyond self-defense by attacking Ukraine. But China seems to be very attached to the notion of an international order that is regulated by rules, at least rules that regulate relations between states.

Do you think that there is some common ground there? I am asking that question also as a European. Sylvie Kaufmann noted that one of the things that the Europeans do not like, to be honest with China, is the support of China to Russia, which has clearly violated international law.

And so one could see a rapprochement between China and Europe, but it would have to be based at least on a minimal understanding of what the rules of the roads are. Do you think that's possible? Or do you think there are some fundamental issues that prevent that?


Shen Dingli:
In my view, the U.N. system is a lot paralyzed. China has its issue of Taiwan. Taiwan is a part of China that most countries accept this.

And the U.N. accepts this. But the U.N. can do nothing on this because the U.S. would not allow any U.N. Security Council debating on this to be approved. And the U.S. bombed Iran two times without going to the Security Council to elaborate, to present evidence, to seek a vote. And Russia did not go to the Security Council to ask for approval. And very interestingly, U.S., China, Russia, on the issue of Ukraine, seem to have made a very peculiar coalition. They both say, oh, excuse Russia.

Personally, I have difficulty with my government position. It pretends to be neutral, but actually nobody believes China is neutral. I think probably due to China's kind of play, realism, if Russia can finish its war in two weeks, in two months, the damage to China is very limited.

But Russia would appreciate China to support Russia. And Russia would eventually use its military to support China in China's potential launch of non-peaceful effort to reintegrate Taiwan. So Russia and China would work together to handle Taiwan plus Japan and the U.S. But unfortunately, Russia, after four years, still cannot finish its business. That has made China pay a huge legal and moral cost. And China cannot revoke its position. So this is, in my view, is due to China's mistaken calculation of Russia's bet on its success against the Ukraine.

But China still tries to present itself as a stable country with foreign policy which can be predicted, which has a continuation. Comparing with Trump, U.S. foreign policy, from Trump to Biden to Trump, it's so unstable. It's so unpredictable, which undermines U.S. global leadership and prestige. So China has its own fallacy. But China seems to be still much better. And also U.S. is pushing China and Europe to go together because they are both victims of U.S. universal terrible war. So many European leaders travel to China in order to make an export trade deal with China. China can buy a lot. Of course, they work with China on short-term calculation.

In my view, they don't like China, given China's handling of Hong Kong, given China's handling of Ukraine. But look at what the U.S. has behaved. They still need to try to balance their global and regional interests.

So this is something China tried to pretend itself as a predictable power.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
Yeah. Yeah. I was going to welcome Ambassador Martin Kimani.

We're happy to have you with us. And we've been discussing the impact of the Trump administration on the world, how the Europeans, how China can address it. Tim Naftali has described, in a way, the approach of Trump sphere of influence.

At the same time, maybe which runs against some American tradition, not the Monroe Doctrine, but a broader vision of the world. And I want to ask you, as we see the collapse of international cooperation and also bilateral cooperation, when you see, well, USAID has been terminated. Do you think that the developing world, Africa and not just Africa, can come together in that difficult situation?

Or that it's too politically fractured to tackle problems in concert? Because we talk about various formats, the BRICS, which include Russia and China, of course. But also, I mean, various understandings of what brings the developing world together.

Do you think that in that situation, there's going to be a new alignment of countries or it will be more opportunistic, depending on the issues in the countries?

Martin Kimani:
Thank you so much, Jean-Marie, and thank you for inviting me to be part of this discussion. And I'm really sorry I'm not at Columbia in person. To answer your question, I do not think international cooperation has collapsed.

I think it is in serious trouble, but I don't think it has collapsed. Secondly, I also believe that President Trump's effects on that international system are sort of acceleration of certain trends that have been going on even before he came to office. And thirdly, which is where the bulk of my answer will live, is we need to understand how a lot of global South countries came to international cooperation.

And particularly African countries like my own Kenya. We literally left being colonies to becoming members of the UN. And the post-1945 order was the order in which we learned how to practice being modern states, modern states in the Westphalian model.

The original sovereignties that were suppressed by colonialism were not reasserted. We created new states and the international system and the guarantee of restraint by major powers, or rather the promise of restraint, was a major way for us to actually practice statehood for the first time. So the reason I said at the beginning that I do not think it has collapsed is because for many, many states, practicing statehood itself is predicated on some of the assumptions of the post-1945 order.

For instance, many, many militaries and security services in most countries cannot really, in fact, defend territorial integrity if it is threatened by a predator state or by an aggressor state. They depend on the norms and the values and the restraints that are inherent in this post-1945 order. And that post-1945 order, no matter the United States overstepping and sometimes abusing the order itself over the last few decades, has depended remarkably on American restraint, has depended remarkably on American financing of the different systems that make up the international system.

Everything from the United Nations to development aid to U.S. aid, as you refer to. So there is, at this moment, no scenario in which a United States that withdraws from the system enables me to see what the system after will look like. I do not have the power of that kind of analysis.

The system is really predicated on American involvement and engagement. Now, that can change, and I take that President Trump's approach is not necessarily to destroy the international system. That's not the intention, but the intention is to reset it on terms that he and his political supporters want to reset it.

So the question to me is, is their vision for international cooperation in tune with the expectations of global South countries? And that's one big question. I don't have a big answer for it.

And secondly, is the restraint that the system requires the major powers to show, and that restraint includes allowing them to have higher seats in a hierarchy, for instance, in the Security Council, giving them veto power so that they are able to feel that their interests will never be fundamentally or existentially threatened by the collective. As their restraints against aggression, against breaking fundamental norms of the UN Charter, as their restraints fall away—and it's not just one country that that has happened with, it's a number of them—the question to me becomes, how will the so-called middle powers or regional powers behave? My sense is that they are also going to behave in a more unrestrained way, so that the dangers to countries will not just come from the major powers and how the major powers behave, but rather from their behavior being reflected down the chain by regional powers, that we become more aggressive, we'll be less constrained by the rules that have been constraining them until now.

And what that sets up is a much more anarchic world. And there is, as of now, no strong global structural cooperation in the Global South to counteract that effect. Let me finish, perhaps, with maybe slightly better news than my very pessimistic answers, which is that Africa, for instance, has the machinery to try and fix and ride this moment, and that is the African Union peace and security architecture.

I think right now it is very weak. It is unable to respond to crisis in Sudan and in the Sahel. But at the end of the day, the tools are there, and they just need not to be changed, but to be led with more political vigor and ambition.

And I think many regions in the world should take inspiration from the African Union in understanding that you have to build a regional architecture, or your best advice to build a regional architecture of peace and security that dovetails with the international universal model of the UN. And the UN Charter's Chapter 8 is very key, and I think the African Union peace and security architecture needs to be reflected and built on in Africa and perhaps mirrored in other regions.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
Thank you very much. One optimistic note, the possibility of regional organization picking up the slack from paralyzed global organization. And one pessimistic note, the notion that global thuggery can turn into local thuggery, if I put it bluntly.

I'm going to open to questions, but before I open to questions, I want to ask all our panelists if they have any thought that comes from what they have heard from the other panelists that they would want to say a word on.

Martin Kimani:
Well, I didn't get a chance to listen to Sylvie, but I got to listen to Shen engage, and I am incredibly interested in whether China sees itself as having a role in stepping up to be a guarantor, more of a guarantor of international peace and security. Do more mediation, mediating, for instance, of of of conflicts, take a more direct frontline role in trying to stop conflicts, let's say in Sudan and elsewhere. I'd be very interested in that.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
And Dingli, do you want to react to Martin's question, comment?

Shen Dingli:
Thank you for Martin's question. My view is that China wants to play such a role and to be viewed as a greater power, which is playing such a role. And China sent quite some UN peacekeeping force to Africa and to some other places, and China even has suggested to play a post-war role in Ukraine to play a buffer between Ukraine and Russia.

China would be happy to be invited to play such a role. But my own observation is that given China's link to Hamas, whether Israel is interested in seeing China to play such a role. Given China's relationship without an alliance, but they have substance more than an alliance to support Russia, China's friendship with Russia has no talk.

Whether such a nature of relationship can make Ukraine to trust China, to make the EU to believe in China. So China has put a Hong Kong-based mediation organization, inviting international players to submit their case for this mediation organization to play a role. But so far it has received no, it has seen no clients.

So to put China's dream to be a reality, in my view, still need a long time for China to practice its theory into reality. Truly believe in peace and believe in UN spirit, not to play realism. If for one time bypass UN principle would be beneficial to China, let's do it.

Let's do it on Gaza, let's do it on Ukraine. If China keeps doing this, it would be very difficult for China to be accepted as an honest peace broker.

Tim Naftali:
I just wanted to add one thing. I believe that one of the reasons why the liberal international order lasted as long as it did was that, no, no order is perfect. And we can talk about the effect within countries, but that the order was predicated on the respect of sovereignty.

The countries in Europe that participated in this order did not feel that they were compromising their sovereignty. The challenge now for middle powers, I believe, is that there is no reason for them to believe that China will be any more respectful of their sovereignty than the current White House is. I wouldn't say that it's American tradition not to be.

America led that old order, and as Ambassador Kimani said, with restraint for the most part. But China's own record in its relationship with its neighbors, I'm talking about Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, in the South China Sea, and its relationships with South Pacific countries like Nauru and Kiribati and the Solomon Islands, is not an argument for seeing China as an honest broker. This is not an anti-China speech.

What this is is a realization that China also has a very compromised history of its relationship with sovereignty of countries. I'm saying that China is not at the moment in a position to be that honest broker and to replace the United States as the center of a system of international order where sovereignty is respected. Its own past does not suggest it could play that role.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
If I wanted to challenge you, I would say, during the Cold War, you had the coup in Iran, actually, Mossadegh. You had Pinochet in Chile. You had him in Guatemala.

You had a number of situations where the United States did not respect the full sovereignty of countries, and that did not prevent it. There are examples that undermine a bit your thesis now.

Tim Naftali:
No, I'm simply saying that China is not an easy substitute. I wasn't suggesting that the United States' position in the Cold War was perfect. As the ambassador said, with exceptions, the United States actually acted with restraint, and it respected the sovereignty of its allies.

In fact, it went to war in Southeast Asia to defend the sovereignty of its allies. It had no intrinsic interests in Southeast Asia. Let's be absolutely clear about it.

The only reason the United States did what it did was that it had mistakenly participated in the Geneva Convention. Not mistakenly. The decolonization of Indochina was essential, but the United States should not have been a guarantor for the nations that emerged from that.

It had no interest in that part of the world. But I don't think that scattered, and again, I'm no fan of them, but scattered covert action over a 45-year period is the same as a systematic lack of respect for the sovereignty of allies.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
Thank you.

Sylvie Kauffmann:
Jean-Marie, may I just ask something to Tim Naftali? Do you work under the assumption that this is definitely the view from the United States that it will not take part in shaping the global order anymore, even after the Trump administration?

Tim Naftali:
Oh, I don't think so. No, I'm not sure how epiphenomenal Trump is, how idiosyncratic this is. And that's why I laid out my ignorance in being able to predict the role that populism and nationalism will play.

I was in Budapest to celebrate. I have relatives from that part of the world. I was there for the election, and I saw the victory of liberal democracy in Budapest.

And if that is the future, I think that some of the questions that have been raised today, particularly for Europe, are not going to be as acute. But I just don't know. No, I think the United States will play a role because it has to.

What is so worrisome for someone like me who studied U.S. foreign relations and international relations in World War II, Cold War, and the 9-11 period and thereafter, is that one of the reasons that the United States showed restraint was fear. The United States actually, during the Cold War, never understood how powerful it was. It exaggerated the Soviet threat, not on purpose.

It really did exaggerate it. And only when I went into Soviet records, when we could in the 90s, did I see the extent to which the Soviets had puffed themselves up and were really not competitive with the United States at all. And then after 9-11, Al-Qaeda and Islamist terror was a problem, of course, but the United States saw it as an existential threat.

And that led us into Iraq. Right now, I don't think the United States is actually fearful of the Trump administration. They believe themselves to be all-powerful.

They are actually a hyper-power, which we have never seen in the modern era, not since the development of nuclear weapons have we seen this before. And that's the danger I see. I don't expect a nuclear war, but it's the sense that Iran could be as easy as Venezuela, that is so dangerous in this moment.

The sense that you could put enough pressure on Denmark that Greenland could be turned over. The fact that you could play politics in Canada to undermine the Canadian Federation. And we still, there's a very important election that will occur in Alberta.

It'll likely go against separation. But the U.S. government has already made it clear it wouldn't be unhappy if Alberta separated from the rest of Canada. Whereas American governments were neutral.

They supported Canada during the period of Quebec separatism. So we are seeing a fundamentally different play by the United States. And it's a result of being drunk on power, which is something that is entirely new.

And if you want to see what I mean by this, look at the way the United States behaved in the first two years after the end of World War II. When it had a monopoly of nuclear power. If it had been drunk on its power, the world system would have been fundamentally different in those first two years.

The Cold War did not begin with the Soviet Union in the summer of 1945. It actually took until 1947. The U.S. was not using the power it had to reorder the system. In fact, it was withdrawing from Asia. So what we're seeing now is unusual and I think dangerous for the system. But I don't know if it's epiphenomenal.

I don't know if it's just Trump and a couple of his inner circle that are doing this and that the American people won't want it and won't tolerate it afterward after 2028. I don't know.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
Thank you very much. Let's open for questions. Microphone over there.

Datcha Byangoy:
Thank you very much for this great panel. I'm Datcha. I'm with the UK Mission Peacebuilding Advisor.

My question is directly to Sylvie. You spoke about the triple threat, triple siege, I think you use, that Europe is under currently. And I wanted to ask a question about the Russian siege.

And you coined that Europe is currently under existential threat from Russia. And I'd like to understand a little bit where this framing is coming from. Because when Russia attacked Ukraine recently, they thought that it's going to be an easy win for them.

But it's been, I think, four years of that and they're not winning the war. So it'd be really good to understand whether Europe is seeing this threat as really like a real threat or is it exaggerated and kind of like perceived as well. Because so far, we don't see a lot of leverage that Russia might have over Europe.

We understand clearly that there is the nuclear kind of like threat. But also we have a deterrent from the UK and France as well. So it'd be good to kind of get some insights on the type of, you know, kind of intelligence that you have.

Or there is out there to see whether this is a real threat rather than perceived and exaggerated. Thank you.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
Yes. And if I can add, you have people like John Mershimer who would say, how can Europe be so afraid of Russia when Russia is not able to win over Ukraine? Europe is much bigger, much stronger than Ukraine.

What's your answer to that?

Sylvie Kauffmann:
Yeah. I mean, if you add, of course, if you add all European countries armed forces, it is bigger. And also the GDP.

And so but the problem of Europe is that it's not a federal state. Yeah. So that's that's the main problem.

Why is it seen as still seen as existential? It is true that the situation on the on the front at the moment is not favorable to Russia. But, I mean, this war has gone through stages and a lot of experts think that we shouldn't get maybe too overexcited about that present stage, that current stage that.

And others will say that Putin can be even more dangerous when he's when he feels weaker. And on the other, there's another dimension that I mentioned, which is the hybrid war. I mean, Russia is behaving very, very aggressively at the moment, particularly towards Baltic states.

But also, I mean, you probably heard that the drone damaged a residential building in Romania two days ago. I mean, there's a lot of activity, including cyber attacks, not only in the Baltic states. So, yeah, Russia may be going through a difficult stage militarily on the front line, you know, because because Ukraine has been very agile and very creative and actually very smart with the with the drone revolution.

But Russia has scale, you know, and also Russia has helped. We've mentioned China, we've mentioned other countries. So, yeah, no, I think the feeling that it's an existential threat hasn't really abated yet in the rest of Europe.

Metin Esen:
Thank you. Thank you very much for this comprehensive panel. My name is Metin Esen, and I'm working at the Permanent Mission of Turkey to the United Nations.

With your indulgence, I would like to ask a more general question. As you know, the one of the defining paradoxes of our time is that the demand for international cooperation is increasing precisely as the political and institutional capacity for cooperation appears to be diminishing. The contemporary challenges from armed conflict and enforced displacement to climate change, artificial intelligence, economic coercion and transnational terrorism are inherently interconnected and cannot be realistically addressed through isolated national responses alone.

Yet, at the same time, we are witnessing a growing erosion of trust in international institutions, a weakening of normative consensus and an increasingly selective approach to international law and multilateralism. In this environment, I mean, I think the main challenge is not only to manage the current crisis, but also preserve the credibility, legitimacy and effectiveness of international cooperation itself in today's fragmented world. So having said that, I would like to ask, I mean, do you think the current crisis is a crisis of capacity or a deeper crisis of political trust among states?

Thank you.

Tim Naftali:
I would just say that part of the political crisis is within states. I think the lack of trust, at least in the United States and parts of Europe, is that a lack of trust in government and in the ability of government to deliver on needs, to deliver affordability. This is not just an American thing.

And so I think it's this instability within states that is the key instability. I don't I don't believe there's a lack of necessarily a upper level lack of trust in international institutions so much as there's a trust, a general social mistrust in institutions in general.

Martin Kimani:
I'd like to sort of follow up on that. Is that OK, Jean-Marie? No, it's I think we need to take a harder look within countries.

They really are the building block of the international system. And I have thought that one of the things that is under maybe underappreciated, it may not be underappreciated, is a rise of oligarchy across the world where, you know, a lot of our narrative in Africa is about corruption. But this is not corruption in the traditional way, is that very powerful, wealthy companies and individuals across the world are taking a greater and greater slice and not just being satisfied with being rich, but increasingly trying to turn the state into their an instrument to promote their private interests.

And I think this is leading one to a much higher level of inequality within countries and hugely a lack of trust by working people for politicians, for political institutions. And that is what's opening the way for very extremist and populist politics. And unless there's a sort of taking on of sort of this oligarchic rise across the world, I don't think we're going to be able to stop really extremist politicians rising on the back of this low, low levels of trust.

But the question is, who will bell the cat? And I have thought really that, for lack of a better word, elites, elites in the different countries really need to take stock of the fact that a few among them are running away with the whole thing. And they're all going to suffer if they do not fundamentally reset trust with citizens.

And that really applies to, I think, a large number of countries globally.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
Very interesting to hear you say that, because this morning we had a panel on the Middle East, and Lisa Anderson was making the point that we talk about different states, the Middle East, about interstate differences. But the fundamental issue is the gap, the divide between a very small elite, which controls countries with immense wealth, and the population that have little benefit from it. And she saw that as one of the big issues in the Middle East, much more than the issues that we talk the most about.

I think we are running out of time. Maybe we can have one more. Okay, so let's collect the two questions quickly.

Just questions, and then we will wrap up.

Rustem Maikabayev:
Thank you. My name is Rustem. I'm from the mission of Kazakhstan to the United Nations.

So first of all, thank you for all panelists for a very interesting and informative session. So I have two questions to all speakers. The first one is in the context of European and international security.

What do you see as the most realistic pathway towards the negotiated settlement in Ukraine? And my second question is on the economical part of Chinese foreign policy, so the Belt and Road Initiative. How do you assess the long-term impact of the Belt and Road Initiative on economic development and maybe the strategic autonomy of the participating countries, and especially the Central Asian countries?

Raphaël Ollivier-Mrejen
Thank you very much. I'm Raphael from the French mission to the UN. It's more a comment than a question, actually.

But I think one of the starting points of this discussion was that we've reached a new state of international relations with the comeback of spheres of influence, where traditional international governance bodies, especially the Security Council, are unable to deal with international crises. And I think there are some counter-arguments to that. First, it's something that is not new.

As you mentioned, there were, to some extent, some spheres of influence during the Cold War. And I think we can go even further, saying that the Security Council has not been able to deal with some crises related to great powers' interests from the very beginning. This is something not new.

But that being said, and this is probably an unpopular opinion, but there have been some successes, including a recent one. I'm not saying that the Security Council is perfect, and it definitely needs to be reformed. But we've seen peacekeeping successes in Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, more recently in the Central African Republic, where the UN has helped the country recovering from a terrible civil war.

So perhaps we can also get positive things even now from the UN on Chapter 8, and African peace operations have been mentioned. And this is an example, I believe. Thanks.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
So, answers and final comments from the panelists. Who wants to start? Maybe Sylvie, you were asking a question on Ukraine.

Sylvie Kauffmann:
On Ukraine, yeah. The pathway to a negotiated settlement in Ukraine. So the United States doesn't seem to be willing to push this effort forward anymore, at the time being.

So there's no real, I mean, there may be back-channel discussions, but there's no official negotiations at the moment. Europe is debating, Europeans are debating at the moment whether they should try to pick up the mantle. But that's a very European debate.

Should we talk to Putin? Who is going to talk to Putin? Which format should it be?

To say what? To talk about, you know. So we're not there yet, definitely.

I think there's a general, there's a fairly common view in Europe that Putin doesn't really want to negotiate, and that he will have to, this war will end when the cost is just too heavy for him. So it may end up with a negotiated settlement, but this is not, we're not there yet.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
Any final remarks from Shen Dingli, Martin? Yes.

Shen Dingli:
Let me say a few words about the Belt and Road. It's a Chinese government proposal to link the world, especially the infrastructure together, to make it interconnectedness. That sounds good.

But I would caution China should not think I have a responsibility to do this. China has no responsibility to do this. Only if it's good for China.

What do I mean? If a country A has a need, then they can invite China, they can invite America, EU or Japan to build. China should not think I automatically, I should lead the world, and I do this all of a sudden with 150 countries.

That's too much a burden. And China does not have time to calculate how China can benefit. So many of these projects have ended without a welcome.

China has eventually relinquished the debt. This is not a Chinese donation. The recipient country should return the money and interest to China.

But China, over time, has given up its responsibility to take the money, the land, to be back. China says, OK, it's a free gift. If it's a free gift, we should do far less free gifts.

And deciding it as a gift, like a Marshall program, it's a free gift. At the beginning, China does not think it's a free gift. But at the end, 5, 10, 15 years later, it's a free gift.

It's a big burden to China's economy. And that may still not win the heart of the recipient country. Look at Malaysia.

Look at Pakistan. Look at Kenya, many other countries. They may not really like such a program.

It's one government-like. But do we have good accountability to make all dollar, Chinese money, be accountable? They would not be wasted.

They would not be abused. They would not be corrupted. So the next government of the host country would say different things.

Like Pakistan's new prime minister, who succeeded Sharif, he campaigned with a slogan. He is against the China-Pakistan economic corridor. Of course, when he was elected, he would still need Chinese money.

But this kind of flip-flop, China's all-of-a-sudden strategy to invest without having enough caution to protect the money, to make the project eventually be respected, be welcomed by generations of people and the government of the recipient country, is a big lesson. I think my government is re-adjusting, re-evaluating the strategic necessity of such a program. Now the new slogan is small and beautiful, not big and beautiful.

That's good.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
So this is a very interesting remark. Martin and Tim, do you have any final remarks?

Tim Naftali:
Well, I think you got your answer. I just want to say, Shen, I think China could have made many, many more friends in the global south. I have been on some of those roads.

They're wonderful. I have seen the many football or soccer stadiums that China has built. I've seen them in Angola.

I saw one in Nauru. I've seen them around the world. But China's approach, China never had a peace corps.

China would send people in, build it, and leave, and not establish cultural relations, particularly in Africa, with those countries. So I suspect that's one reason. I think China had a great opportunity to make friends.

Look, every hegemon is flawed. The current system, though, was developed for a liberal hegemon, the United States. And yet that hegemon is now absent.

The question for middle powers and larger powers is how to achieve security and access to markets without a United States that's committed to international institutions. I don't have the answer, but that is the current question. I don't think China is the answer, not because I'm a China hawk, not at all.

But it, too, has an especially troubled last 30 years. A lot of what we mentioned about the United States happened over 30 years ago. So I think that's the challenge.

I'm just not convinced that the United States will always act in the predatory Trump way, that that is the new normal for the United States. I know too many people who are really unhappy about the way in which America is projecting its power. Not because they don't like American power, but the way it's being projected now.

So I'm not convinced. But if this is the new normal, then I anticipate the international system changing rather dramatically in the next 10 years.

Martin Kimani:
Well, I don't know if there's a member of the Kenyan delegation there who can answer Shen's point about the Belt and Road.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
We have a Kenyan diplomat, actually.

Martin Kimani:
Okay, he should speak up or she should speak up. I really think that on the Belt and Road, one of the things I always had a hard time with was the narrative of Belt and Road. When, in fact, for us in Kenya, it wasn't Belt and Road.

It was a railway we wanted for our own reasons. And then we borrowed money from China, which was also constructing the rail. So our railway is not to us part of some large sort of global infrastructure, geopolitical piece of infrastructure.

It's something we needed and something we chose to take on. I want to just slide back a little, because I think the way China comes to Africa and to the rest of the world is really, really important. When I was growing up, there used to be an area in Nairobi called Industrial Area, where there was a lot of light manufacturing.

And it just did not survive China's incredible boom, manufacturing boom, and China essentially becoming the world's most dominant manufacturing power. And I think what is underappreciated, perhaps, when you look at African demographics, the job crises in many African countries, is the fact that we have this really rapid urbanization happening without industrialization. And part of the reason this is happening is simply that African industry, by and large, could not compete with Chinese manufacturing.

So now we are largely assembling products, at most, that are manufactured in China. So the next stage, the question is going to be whether China, and you can see some of this uptick happening, getting the ambition to do manufacturing closer to the source, closer to the source of raw materials, that may intersect with an increased aspiration by African governments to make more use of the mineral and energy resources that they have. That decision, whether it's small and beautiful or big and a bit messy, is a really big strategic decision for China to make.

And I think if China makes a decision to do that, it will create a lot of wealth, it will create jobs, and will actually be a net positive. That is also really a strategic mindset that the Europeans need to bring to the table. I've asked my European friends, when you talk of strategic autonomy, when you talk of a new European strategic approach, where does Africa sit in that?

In terms of our closeness geographically, but also our opposite demographics, the aging population, they have high amounts of capital and technology, we have young people, less capital. Is Europe going to make a new offer, a new relationship with Africa that's built on actually doing more manufacturing and more beneficiation in Africa? Now, the United States, we're sitting in New York, and New York has been the city that basically funds the world's biggest ideas, but New York barely knows Africa exists.

And this is not because of the Trump administration. I think for years, the United States has been unable to get its head around Africa as more than an aid case, a humanitarian case. So the question now is whether the Trump administration's much more transactional business-led approach, let's say it's in Angola or in the DRC, how that's going to look.

But I suspect that there's going to be a level of competition in Africa by these hegemons to grow their wealth. And the question is going to be whether they're going to grow it in ways that strengthen African economies and opportunities, or it's going to just further lead to a further splintering and insecurity on our continent. I have no ability to analyze the future.

Nowadays, things that happen come to me as complete surprises. But that's the table that, Jean-Marie, I see being set. And that's the next generation of effort that's required is for these three major poles of power to reassess their relationship with Africa.

Thank you.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno:
Martin, really, the takeaway that I get from this panel is that, in some ways, and that's a silver lining on the situation that many would see as not very good, is that the disruption created by the Trump administration, in a way, forces the rest of the world to be more creative, to really think through what it really wants. It was, in a way, the fact that, for decades, the United States were underpinning an international liberal order. It made all of us a little bit lazy.

And we see that we can't be lazy. And that's, in a way, that's very good news. That means that there has to be, in all continents, a little more creativity.

Sylvie told us that the Europeans may be a bit slowly, but nevertheless are waking up. Soon, they're going to get dressed. So, that's good news.

I hope they get dressed in very fancy clothes. The French luxury industry will provide. We see, and you said it, Martin, Africa has a lot of potential if it links up in a creative way with China, with Europe.

China may have to rethink some of the ways in which it interacts with the world, but it also has enormous potential. So, we're in a very fluid moment, which has potentially a lot of opportunities, but it's up to us to seize them. So, thank you, all panelists.

Thank you all.