Summary of How the World Sees America, With Adam Tooze

Overview of How the World Sees America, With Adam Tooze

This episode features historian Adam Tooze (Columbia University) in conversation about the current global order after Davos, the Trump administration’s global posture, the legacy and limits of the Biden interlude, and China’s accelerating role in reshaping economics, industry and geopolitics. Tooze argues we are experiencing not a simple transition but a rupture in the rules, norms and institutions that underpinned the post‑Cold War era — and that the world is now full of competing “ordering attempts” rather than a guaranteed, coherent new order.

Key takeaways

• Mark Carney’s Davos formulation — “we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition” — captures the mood: the old order is disintegrating and the international community faces shock and instability, not a smooth handoff.
• The Trump administration’s global presentation (at Davos and more broadly) is a blunt, unpredictable assertion of power: tariffs, energy nationalism, and an iconography of industrial/ military artifacts rather than a technocratic industrial policy.
• The Biden era was a deliberate attempt to restore a rules‑based, alliance‑centered American leadership, but it struggled to deliver domestic bargains and to translate alliances into durable industrial and technological advantage.
• China’s economic and industrial scale is historically singular: rapid infrastructure build‑outs (high‑speed rail, solar, concrete, housing) and green‑tech manufacturing capacity give China an outsized ability to shape climate and industrial outcomes globally.
• China and Russia align because of a shared historical interpretation of 1989 and a common perception of threat from Western unipolarism; but their relationship is pragmatic rather than ideological identity.
• It is dangerous and misleading to treat the world as simply “democracies vs. authoritarians”; this flattens real differences in incentives and makes policy less effective.
• Tooze is skeptical that a stable “new order” will automatically emerge; instead we should expect overlapping networks, competing ordering attempts, and prolonged instability.

Topics discussed

• Davos 2026: Trump’s speech, Mark Carney’s speech, and how global elites read those performances as a signal of rupture.
• Comparative leadership visions:
  • Trump: power as coercion, tariffs, industrial symbols, energy tied to hydrocarbons.
  • Biden: rules/alliances + targeted economic statecraft (chips, weaponization of interdependence), yet hamstrung politically.
• China’s rise and its multifaceted impact:
  • Longstanding influence on U.S. domestic politics (e.g., Byrd‑Hagel/Kyoto concerns).
  • Massive infrastructure and industrial scaling (high‑speed rail, construction, solar and batteries).
  • Role in climate mitigation potential due to manufacturing scale.
• Europe’s position: vulnerable around auto industry and Ukraine; impetus toward “strategic autonomy.”
• Energy and technology as the central axes of contemporary power (electrification, batteries, AI energy constraints).
• The myth of predictable historical succession: rejection of the assumption that a new coherent global hegemon/order must follow the old.

Notable quotes & insights

• Opening reference (Antonio Gramsci): “The old is dying, but the new cannot be born… Now is the time of monsters.” — frames the episode’s sense of crisis.
• Mark Carney (summarized): “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”
• Tooze on Davos: Trump’s appearance was “the first real global showcase of the Trump administration… uninhibitedly lashing out.”
• Tooze on China’s scale: China “built more concrete in three years than the United States did in the 20th century” and has the industrial capacity to produce hugely scaled solar + batteries — a potential climate game‑changer.
• On historical perspective: “We’re in the position of people watching the pyramids being built, not afterwards.” — emphasises the uniqueness of China’s scale and speed.
• On world ordering: Tooze rejects the comforting assumption of a tidy interregnum → new order: “I’m dying on the hill that we’re not even in an interregnum.”

Recommended reading / resources mentioned (Adam Tooze’s picks)

• Lu Xun — “Diary of a Madman” (modern Chinese classic / novella)
• The Southern Tour — (recommended as the Deng Xiaoping southern tour account; cited in conversation)
• Ryan Ruby — Context Collapse (long‑form poem about poetry and cultural contexts)
• Adam Tooze’s own work and Substack (for charts and analysis of crises and structural change)

Note: transcript contains some possible name or attribution inconsistencies; these are presented as discussed in the conversation.

Actionable implications / what listeners should take away

For policymakers and analysts:

• Don’t assume a tidy successor to American hegemony will appear — plan for prolonged fragmentation and overlapping ordering attempts.
• Prioritize industrial and energy policy that supports electrification (batteries, solar) rather than relying only on hydrocarbons; cooperation with China on green manufacturing could be strategically crucial.
• Avoid simplistic “democracies vs. authoritarians” framing; alignments are often pragmatic and driven by shared perceptions, not ideology alone.
• Strengthen domestic governance architectures (e.g., more robust national social insurance, scaled industrial strategies) to compete on implementation and resilience, not just rhetoric.

For business and civil society:

• Expect more unpredictability from major powers; diversify supply chains and prepare for blunt tools (tariffs) as policy instruments.
• Track China not only as a geopolitical competitor but as an industrial force shaping climate and technology deployment worldwide.

Episode context & guest snapshot

• Guest: Adam Tooze — historian and commentator focused on economic crises, industrial policy and systemic change; author of books such as Crashed, The Deluge, and the pandemic analysis; writes a widely read Substack chart book.
• Context: Recorded after Davos 2026; conversation widens from elite performances at Davos to long‑running structural shifts tracing back decades (trade, climate politics, industrialization).

This summary condenses the episode’s core arguments and practical implications: the post‑1989 order is rupturing, China’s industrial scale is reshaping possibilities (especially on climate), and the global future looks like a contested, messy field of ordering attempts rather than a guaranteed, orderly successor system.