Foreign Policy Live

Climate summits such as the ongoing COP30 conference can often seem like a place where countries agree to disagree and little gets done. But Bill McKibben says there’s one key reason for hope: the sun. New advances in panels and battery technology mean solar power will soon provide a growing share of our electricity consumption. 

McKibbon is the author of the new book Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization.

Plus Ravi’s One Thing on Iran’s water crisis.

Nik Kowsar and Alireza Nader: Tehran’s Residents Are Panicking as the Taps Run Dry

Christina Lu: How China Became a Solar Power

Joseph Rachman and Indra Øverland: A Power-Hungry Southeast Asia Wants China’s Energy

Nigel Pruvis: Will Belém Kill Paris?

Jason Bordoff and Jack Andreasen Cavanaugh: AI’s Rapacious Appetite for Electricity Can Accelerate Clean Energy

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As the United States points its biggest warship at Venezuela, what is the White House trying to achieve in Caracas? How does it fit into the Trump administration’s broader Latin America policy? And how is the region responding? Host Ravi Agrawal sits down with scholar Oliver Stuenkel for answers.

Stuenkel is a leading Latin America scholar and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Plus Ravi’s One Thing on COP30.

FP Columnists: 5 Novelists on Their Favorite Climate Fiction

Oliver Stuenkel and Adrian Feinberg: Milei’s Midterm Miracle

Matthew Kroenig: Trump Should Oust Maduro

Carlos Ruiz-Hernández: The Nostalgic Delusion of 1989

Philip A. Berry: The Use and Abuse of ‘Narco-Terrorism’

John Haltiwanger: Latin America’s Disjointed Reaction to Trump’s Drug Boat War

Geoff Ramsey: What’s the U.S. Endgame in Venezuela?

Ryan C. Berg: Toppling Maduro Without Boots on the Ground

Catherine Osborn: How Migration Became a U.S. Foreign-Policy Priority

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China analyst and former policymaker Elizabeth Economy sits down with Ravi Agrawal to unpack the meeting that took place last week between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. What was agreed to? What does it mean for the broader trajectory of the world’s most important bilateral relationship?

Plus, Ravi’s One Thing on Trump threatening military action in Nigeria.

Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún: Why Is Trump Suddenly Talking About Invading Nigeria?

Wall Street Journal: Lingling Wei: China’s New Strategy for Trump: Punch Hard, Concede Little 

Rishi Iyengar, Christina Lu, and Keith Johnson: What Trump and Xi Did—and Didn’t—Agree to

James Palmer: Trump and Xi Step Back From the Brink—for Now

Alasdair Phillips-Robins: Xi May Have Miscalculated on Rare Earths

Christina Lu: Will Trump’s Critical Minerals Blitz Pay Off?

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Is the AI boom a bubble? What happens if it pops? Economist Jared Bernstein joined FP Live to sound the alarm on the growth and investment in the AI sector.

Plus, Ravi’s One Thing on the first Trump-Xi meeting in six years. 

James Palmer: Trump and Xi Step Back From the Brink—for Now

Rishi Iyengar, Christina Lu, and Keith Johnson: What Trump and Xi Did—and Didn’t—Agree To

Sahil Shah: Trump’s Vagueness Over Nuclear Testing Could Fuel an Arms Race

New York Times: Jared Bernstein and Ryan Cummings: Warning: Our Stock Market Is Looking Like a Bubble

Ravi Agrawal: Is the AI Economy a Bubble?

Bhaskar Chakravorti: 10 New AI Challenges—and How to Meet Them

Bhaskar Chakravorti: American AI Is High on Its Own Supply

Brought to you by: quince.com/fplive

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How can history help make sense of U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign policy? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Greg Grandin shares how Trump’s imperialist impulses may be inspired by the country’s Founding Fathers, and that he “rummages around the trash bag of history to find what’s useful at any given moment.”

Plus, Ravi’s One Thing on the recent U.S. sanctions on Russian oil companies.

Keith Johnson: Will Trump’s Russia Oil Sanctions Finally Sway Putin?

Greg Grandin: America, América: A New History of the New World

Ravi Agrawal: Why Trump Is a ‘Scarcity President’

Syrus Solo Jin: With Territory Comes Torment

Stephen M. Walt: Donald Trump Will Never Be a Restrainer

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With the cease-fire more than a week old, Palestinians now turn to what comes next: rebuilding and governing. Former spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization Diana Buttu sits down with Ravi Agrawal to share her perspective.

Plus, Ravi’s One Thing on the Trump administration’s moves on Venezuela. 

Diana Buttu: A ‘magic pill’ made Israeli violence invisible. We need to stop swallowing it.

Omar H. Rahman: Can Palestinians Trust Donald Trump?

Daniel Byman: One Question Looming Over the Gaza Deal: Why Now?

Michael J. Koplow: Three Reckonings the Gaza Deal Will Force

Christopher Sabatini: Will Venezuela’s Nobel Peace Prize Winner Stick With Trump?

Geoff Ramsey: What’s the U.S. Endgame in Venezuela?

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43 percent of voters under 30 supported U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, a 7 percent jump in support from both the 2016 and 2020 elections. What’s underpinning this rightward shift among young voters? Conservative commentator and journalist Emily Jashinsky shares her take.

Plus, Ravi’s One Thing on the Israel-Hamas deal over hostages and an end to hostilities.

Megan DuBois: The Shape-Shifting MAGA Hat

Adrian Karatnycky: An Emerging Trump Doctrine?

Emma Ashford: Four Explanatory Models for Trump’s Chaos

Emma Ashford: If Trump Is Neither Hawk nor Dove, What Is He?

Howard W. French: Trump Is Ushering in the Era of the Strongman

Stephen M. Walt: How Assassinations Became Normal Again

Julian E. Zelizer: Why Don’t Younger Americans Vote?

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Tuesday marks two years since Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Since then, Israel has decimated Gaza in what many independent organizations are calling a genocide and attacked several countries in the region. How have all of these events impacted the world? FP columnist Stephen M. Walt sits down with Ravi Agrawal to share his take.

John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt: The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

Stephen M. Walt: Meet the New Middle East, Same as the Old Middle East

Steven A. Cook: The Delusions Driving U.S. Policy in the Middle East

Pankaj Mishra: How Gaza Shattered the West’s Mythology

Emma Ashford: What Was the Tipping Point on Gaza?

John Haltiwanger: Why Israel’s War in Gaza Has Been So Deadly for Journalists

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With increased polarization and ongoing budgetary disputes, the U.S. government does not seem to be acting in the way that the American forefathers intended. Host Ravi Agrawal brings on historian Jill Lepore to share more. Lepore is a professor at Harvard University and the author of We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution.

Plus, One Thing from Ravi on the U.S. government shutdown.

Rishi Iyengar: How a U.S. Government Shutdown Could Impact Washington’s Foreign Policy

John Haltiwanger: Why America’s ‘Unusual’ Democracy Leads to Shutdown

Andrew O’Donohue: The U.S. Judicial Crisis Is Uniquely Dangerous

Stan Veuger: Americans Need to Acknowledge Their Unwritten Constitution

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Qatar often presents itself as a neutral mediator in the world’s trickiest problems, but on Sept. 9, its sovereignty was violated as Israel launched a strike to assassinate top Hamas leaders in Doha. Will Qatar change its strategy? No, explains Majed al-Ansari, the spokesperson of the country’s Foreign Ministry, at a live event with host Ravi Agrawal along the sidelines of the 80th U.N. General Assembly. 

Plus, One Thing from Ravi on a feeling that seems in rare supply but was surprisingly abundant in New York this week: hope.

Mina Al-Oraibi: Qatar Strike Creates Rift but Not Rupture in Gulf-Israel Ties 

Matthew Duss: Recognize Palestine, Then Put Real Pressure on Israel

Ravi’s interview with Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

Ravi’s interview with Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein

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