America’s geopolitical realignments, authoritarianism, and Trump’s endgame.

Preroll: PolicyCast explores research-based policy solutions to the tough problems we’re facing in our society and our world. This podcast is a production of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Intro (Wendy Sherman): I was talking with mid-career students from all over the world last evening. And, you know, I said I know everybody’s shaken. I’m shaken by the dramatic change here. But you all live in countries where there’s also been dramatic change. Where your leaders have changed. You’ve either moved forward or you’ve moved backward. I think people find this more dislocating because the United States has been such a huge power in the world, and so consequential and has been that shining city on a hill that Ronald Reagan spoke of. And now they wonder who we are now and what it will mean for them. So do what you need to do to take care of your citizens. Keep the lines of communication open. I believe in American resilience. I believe we will get back to the values that are who we are fundamentally. It may take time, it will take a lot of hard work. It will not be easy, it will not happen overnight. But I am old enough having come of political age during the Vietnam War, when we were quite divided as a country. This is perhaps more consequential. But I believe in us.

Intro (Ralph Ranalli): Hi. It’s Ralph Ranalli. Welcome back to the Harvard Kennedy School PolicyCast. Ambassador Wendy Sherman is a diplomat’s diplomat. A winner of the presidential National Security Medal, she’s also no stranger to decoding the moves and motivations of autocratic leaders. During the Clinton administration, she was a counselor to the State Department and coordinated policy for the United States’ negotiations with North Korea and President Kim Jong Il about its nuclear missile program. During the Obama years, she was appointed as undersecretary of state for political affairs by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and was the lead negotiator for the Iran nuclear deal between the regime in Tehran and the five countries that make up UN Security Council’s permanent members—the U.S., China, Russia, France, and the UK—as well as Germany. Under President Biden, she became the first woman to serve as Deputy Secretary of State and was the department’s point person on relations with President Xi Jinping and China. Now she’s back at the Kennedy School, as a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a Hauser Leadership Fellow at the Center for Public Leadership, where she is also a former director. She’s arrived just in time to help students, faculty, and others in the greater Harvard community make sense of Trump administration actions and strategies that in less than three months have radically reconfigured America’s relationships with traditional allies and adversaries. They’ve also changed the course of geopolitics and economics in ways that she says could have profound repercussions on everything from global economic stability to the future of democracy to nuclear proliferation. So how do you make sense of the seeming chaos that is Trump 2.0? We’ve asked her to share her thoughts with our PolicyCast listeners as well.  

Ralph Ranalli: Wendy, welcome to PolicyCast.  

Wendy Sherman: Thank you. It’s great to be with you this morning.    

Ralph Ranalli: When I was preparing for our chat and reviewing all the things that have gone on over the last couple of months, I couldn’t help thinking of the two astronauts, Sunni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who were supposed to go to the International Space Station for eight days and ended up spending nine months up there. And I just wonder what it must have been like for them to come back to a world that is really very different and a very, very different America nine months later.  

If you look at all the things that President Trump has done in this short span of time: He’s fractured the United States relationship with Europe and called our commitment to NATO into question. He’s blamed Ukraine for Russia’s aggression and he’s frozen military to Kiev. He’s withdrawn the U.S. from key United Nations and international institutions, initiated a global tariff war, and interrupted the delivery of American aid and humanitarian assistance around the world. And with the things he’s said about Canada, the Panama Canal, Greenland, and Gaza, he’s increasingly signaled that he would like to break what has been the basic tenet of the postwar order, which is that you don’t invade or grab somebody else’s sovereign territory. That’s supposed to be fundamentally out of bounds. Before the election, you said you were concerned about U.S. foreign policy if Trump was elected. Just to start out is, my questions is: How does the current reality match up to what your pre-election expectations? Could you have imagined nine months ago, when those astronauts went into space, that we would be where we are now?  

Wendy Sherman: I think we’re in a really dangerous place, quite frankly. The morning we are taping this, in addition to that summary, an excellent one, of all of the things that have happened in just a little over two months. We have the president issuing an executive order to look at the Smithsonian Institute and the zoo to get rid of any wrong ideology. I’m not sure how you do that at a zoo. An executive order saying that federal employees can’t unionize. But the Smithsonian one is a further amplification of what we’ve seen in national security and foreign policy, which is really heading in a direction of a strong man, authoritarian view of the world. I think we all should have studied President McKinley more closely quite frankly. I’ve read some short bios of his, and not only did he support tariffs, which President Trump certainly does, but tariffs in a world where we didn’t have an interconnected world, we didn’t have the era of globalization that we’ve just had. But McKinley also believed in imperialism. That was the time of acquiring Hawaii and Guam. And I think President Trump is really in that mold.  I believe that he believes in spheres of influence. That President Putin can do what he wants. That President Xi Jingping can have Asia and perhaps take Taiwan. That the United States can capture Canada and have a different relationship with Mexico and the Western Hemisphere. This is a very different world order—one that concerns me tremendously in terms of not only our power and our ability to operate in the world. But what it means for the rights and freedom and values of our country.  

Ralph Ranalli: Well, you went right to where I was planning to take us eventually, which is trying to figure out what the through line is to Trump’s flurry of foreign policy moves, economic policy moves, and of the domestic policy moves he’s made through more than 100 executive orders. I know a lot of people just sort of see chaos, but is there a through line? A theme around how all of these things are connected? I read a piece in Foreign Policy magazine that said even though people are struggling to process and make sense of Trump’s actions, they can be understood under a theory you could call autocratic regime consolidation. Because if you look at more of his individual actions, you’ve got his surrogates JD Vance and Elon Musk promoting Germany’s far right AfD party, even as Trump is embracing Putin and Hungary’s autocratic president Victor Orban. And the countries that he is now de-aligning with are mostly liberal democracies. And the idea would be that Trump is trying to discredit the notion of liberal democracy in order to—in combination with all these other moves—legitimize the authoritarian approach he prefers. What do you think of that as a through line to understand the things he’s done?

Wendy Sherman: It worries me enormously that what you’ve just articulated is exactly what’s happening. It was interesting. I’ve met with lots and lots of students when I’ve been here this week. Always gives you a perspective that’s terribly important, particularly how young people see the world. And there was a young woman who was from Russia, and she said, “I don’t think Americans understand what’s happening.” She’s a dissident. I don’t think Americans appreciate what is occurring in real time. And indeed, the polling data before the election show that most Americans don’t know what authoritarians are, what that word means, how their rights and freedoms will be taken away.  

Everyone’s been very focused this week, understandably. On the Tufts PhD student who was, in essence, kidnapped on a street in Somerville and disappeared to Louisiana without charges, without access to a lawyer. I don’t know, maybe there’s something more we don’t know. But all we know right now is that she wrote an op-ed. And I believe—and I know that some people wouldn’t agree—that in our country we have free speech, and in the constitution it says “We, the people.” It doesn’t say “We, the citizens,” it says “we, the people.” And folks who are here with a green card or a student visa should have a right to speak, because if they don’t have a right of freedom of speech, it’s a very short walk to American citizens not having the right to speak. And so I think this has been very present in all of my discussions this week, because we have a lot of young people here who are on student visas and quite frankly, they’re terrified.  

Ralph Ranalli: I mean, it’s very poignant that you talked to a Russian dissident, because we just had a Harvard-affiliated Russian researcher, Kseniia Petrova, who was also arrested and taken to Louisiana and is in the process of being deported back to Russia. And she is again, a dissident and faces potential...

Wendy Sherman: Absolutely.  

Ralph Ranalli: ...persecution...  

Wendy Sherman: Absolutely.  

Ralph Ranalli: When she gets back.  

Wendy Sherman: Without a doubt.  

Ralph Ranalli: I did want to go around the world a little bit  

Wendy Sherman: Sure.  

Ralph Ranalli: And sort of talk through some of these realignments. Let’s start with the EU and NATO, because that will inexorably lead us to Russia. If you are in the shoes of NATO allies or, I don’t know what you call ‘em these days....  

Wendy Sherman: Well, I’m hoping, I’m hoping they’re still our allies.

Ralph Ranalli: Yes, exactly. Alright. If we hopefully describe them as still our allies, and you’re in their shoes, what are you thinking right now and what are you planning to do for the future to address this radically changed situation?

Wendy Sherman: Well, I was very glad to hear that President Trump and President Macron spoke yesterday morning before President Macron and Prime Minister Starmer of the UK held a meeting with other leaders in Europe to support President Zelensky of Ukraine and the Ukrainian need to survive. So I’m glad that there are still lines of communication and that we have not ended these alliances, which are so critical because we are really stronger in the world when we have this Transatlantic relationship and when we work together.  

NATO, as I think many of your listeners may know, have this famous Article Five, which says, an attack on one is an attack on all. And that article has only been invoked once, and it was for the United States of America after 9/11, when we went into Afghanistan, and we had Canadians and Danes and others with us fighting on our behalf. It hasn’t been used any other time. So both NATO and the European Union, in my view, are very critical allies and very critical to our power and strength in the world. Europe, nonetheless... I think what good will come out of this tension is that Europe is going to strengthen its own defense capabilities. That’s something that’s been needed for a very long time, and I think it has to be inter-operational with NATO and NATO forces. But it will be important for Europe to show its own strength and its own capacity. So there’s some good that’s coming out of this. It will take Europe a long time to get where it wants to go, because they don’t have those capabilities quite yet. But I think it’s quite important going forward. So I’m hoping that those phone calls, those open lines of communication happen. And it will be interesting this summer to see whether President Trump attends the NATO summit. I hope that he does. If he doesn’t, I think it’ll be a very loud message.  

Ralph Ranalli: We had the just now former Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo on this podcast just a couple months ago, and he was saying that Europe needs to not just prepare itself militarily, but also to prepare itself economically.

Wendy Sherman: Mm-hmm.  

Ralph Ranalli: And to really get its house in order economically in order to become what he said is the leader that the world needs, if the US is going to withdraw under Trump from that strategic position of leadership. What do you think about Europe’s economic position in the world and what might lie ahead for Europe economically, given the both tariffs that are going up but also possibilities for other economic realignments for the EU?  

Wendy Sherman: Yeah.  

Ralph Ranalli: Given the ones that the United States is giving up,  

Wendy Sherman: Right? Well, we will see what happens on April 2nd, whether in fact there are additional tariffs all over the world. President Trump said the other day, if countries respond to the tariffs he’s put on by putting more tariffs on us, then he’ll put more tariffs on them and we will truly already have a trade war that I think doesn’t help anybody, quite frankly. I understand the Ppresident’s desire to have manufacturing back in the United States. I understand his wanting to make sure we are confident in our supply chains. But we all believed that that didn’t mean everything had to happen in the United States. We had to just make sure we had reliable partners that had maybe something that we would need in a time of war or time of a pandemic, which is what I think really illuminated the supply chain problem.  

I think that Europe is thinking its own economic future. They are strong. With us, they’ve been really strong. They’re tremendously important trading partners. I think one of the things that isn’t talked about a lot right now is Europe’s relationship with China and Europe’s relationship with Russia, and whether in fact Europe will go back to relying on Russia for oil and gas; and go back on de-risking the relationship with China—not decoupling, but de-risking it, as Ursula von der Leyen said quite clearly in a terrific speech she gave about the Europeans’ relationship with China. So I think it’s critical that the United States and Europe be together in our approach toward China, and it does worry me tremendously, that there may be some backsliding by Europe because they will feel they can’t rely on the United States and may move back to China when in fact they had gotten quite aligned with us, on that strategy and that policy direction.  

Ralph Ranalli: You’ve done work on China, and I think China’s fascinating, but if we can just make a quick pit stop in Russia first...  

Wendy Sherman: Sure.  

Ralph Ranalli: ...before we head over to China. There’s a lot of concern, obviously that, with the US withdrawal of support for Ukraine, that could embolden Putin to maybe make other moves against other countries. You’ve got the Baltics, you’ve got Poland, who are understandably nervous, but they’re members of NATO and they’re covered under Article Five. But then you’ve got a country like Moldova, for example, which has neutrality enshrined in its constitution, is not a member of NATO, but on the other hand, Russia has already lost 300,000 troops in Ukraine, and they’re backfilling with North Korean troops. How do you handicap the chances of—if things keep trending this way with this kind of coziness between Trump and Putin, the U.S. and Russia—how do you handicap the chances of further Russian territorial aggression in Europe?  

Wendy Sherman: Putin is very wily. I would not expect that to happen immediately. I think he will bide his time and find a moment to in fact attack someone else. I agree with you. Moldova is certainly in his sights. A lot of Russian-speaking Moldovans. Putin, I believe, feels very strongly that he must recreate the Russian Federation and the Russian Empire. That starts with Ukraine, but it doesn’t end with Ukraine. So I think everybody has a right to be nervous and there is no doubt that I think it’s hard for Americans to understand why this matters to them. And it matters because we are part of NATO. We would want to come to the support of NATO countries if Putin takes a further stand. It could set off a world war.  

Students ask me all the time, “How do you deal with policies that you worked hard for and then they are trashed by the next administration?” And I say to them, “You know, you have to persist.” World War I was called the War to End All Wars. And 20 years later, which is a very short time in history, we had World War II. So I don’t want to freak everybody out by saying we’re on the cusp of World War III. What I would say is that that is certainly a possibility, if certain actions take place and Putin feels he has freedom to do whatever he wants.

Ralph Ranalli: The other thing about nervousness in Europe and elsewhere—Taiwan—is that it’s not just an abstraction. It has real consequences, for example, for nuclear proliferation. If the countries that have been living under the Pax Americana created by the US nuclear umbrella no longer feel that sense of protection, there’s going to be a move among them to build their own nuclear weapons for deterrence. I think South Korea has talked about doing so, Europe has certainly talked about developing more nuclear weapons. Currently I think nine countries are believed to have nuclear weapons. Sixty years ago, President John F. Kennedy said he feared that there would be as many as 25 by now. So we’ve actually done a very good job—and you’ve personally played a part in this too with your work negotiating the Iran nuclear deal—in trying to keep a lid on that nuclear proliferation.

How concerned are you now? Because I’m old enough to remember when I was in school and we did the duck and cover...  

Wendy Sherman: Sure. Under your desk,  

Ralph Ranalli: ...under the desks. And it wasn’t about school shooters then, it was about the Russians dropping the bomb.  

Wendy Sherman: Absolutely.  

Ralph Ranalli: How concerned are you about nuclear proliferation in the short to medium term, given where we are right now?

Wendy Sherman: So I’m actually on a task force that is co-led by NTI, the Carnegie Endowment, and the Belfer Center here at Harvard Kennedy School. And we’re looking exactly at this, and we hope to have a report by this summer, addressing where we are when it comes to nuclear weapons and nuclear energy and where we may be headed. So the short answer to you is, yes, I’m concerned. I have heard from... the Kennedy School’s a very international school, so I’ve listened and talked with lots of folks from lots of countries all over the world while I’ve been here this week. And, this issue has come up several times, where countries say: “We are considering getting nuclear weapons because we think it’ll be a deterrent. It’ll give us leverage in negotiating with North Korea” or with whomever else they’re concerned about.

And what I’ve said is, “I understand the impulse to want to get them,” but it is so dangerous, because not all nuclear weapons are the same. They’re not all safeguarded well, they’re not all managed well. And, in fact it creates enormous danger for the world. And so I sincerely hope no one else feels they need to get nuclear weapons, and I think we should do everything we can to ensure there’s not further proliferation.

Ralph Ranalli: Last year you mentioned some concerns about the growing cooperation between Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.  

Wendy Sherman: Yeah.  

Ralph Ranalli: And it’s sort of an alliance of autocracy. I think you called it the “Axis of chaos.” Tell me about what your concerns are with those four countries in particular.

Wendy Sherman: Yeah, people have named it the Axis of Chaos or Alliance of Adversaries. I’m not sure it’s really quite an alliance. I think there are vectors of common interests and so they work together, like the North Koreans sending troops to help Russia. And Russia is giving things back to North Korea that North Korea needs. China and Russia ostensibly have a relationship, but I think Xi Jinping is largely concerned with his own country and how he’s moving it forward and dealing with a difficult economic situation right now.  

Iran certainly looks to see where it can ally with these countries. But Iran is somewhat weak right now because of the pushback against Hamas and Hezbollah and militias in Syria, as well as of course the Houthis in Yemen. And we’ve seen, as we’re talking today, that Iran has sent a letter back through the Omanis to the Trump administration basically saying they’d be open to indirect talks, but not direct talks. And they’ll talk about what they call their civil nuclear program, but their military situation is not, I think, on the table from their perspective. So we’ll see what the Trump administration does. So I’m not quite ready to say this is a true alliance among these four. But they certainly work together when it’s in their interest to do so.  

Ralph Ranalli: Right. Trump has been very belligerent towards Iran. I think he’s said that he wants to try and get Iran’s oil exports down to zero. But it’s the Chinese who have been helping Iran evade those...

Wendy Sherman: Yes.  

Ralph Ranalli: ...those oil sanctions.  

Let’s talk about China for a little bit. China’s a very interesting part of this equation. China was part of your portfolio at the State Department when you were Deputy Secretary of State. If you are Xi Jinping, what are you thinking right now about these developments, and if they are advantageous for China? Because there is open talk in China about how Trump’s foreign policy moves open up opportunities for them.  

Wendy Sherman: Well, I think probably Xi sees Trump as a very transactional president, so maybe they can make a deal. I think Trump very much wants to compete with China in terms of AI and quantum and biotech and technology in general. It is complicated because I think as most people know now, Elon Musk—who has become, I don’t know, a quasi-partner, a presidential partner—has huge interests in China. I think his largest Tesla plant is in China. So, this’ll be complicated, but potentially quite transactional. And I’m quite concerned that President Trump will basically say to, Xi: “Sell us TikTok, do the following five things, and then whatever you want to do with Taiwan is your decision. South China Sea, you know, do what you can. We’re not going to get in your way.” And that will be incredibly destabilizing in Asia.  

Ralph Ranalli: So it’s not quite an analog to the quote, unquote Axis of Chaos, but in the economic arena China is also involved in what you could label an alliance of opportunity, which are the so-called BRICS countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. For example, I believe Brazil’s president just invited Mexico to the BRICS Summit in April. I don’t, I don’t know if Mexico has accepted, but certainly given the tariffs situation between them and the Trump administration, there might be some willingness to go explore that on Mexico’s part.  

More broadly, China, has tried extend its soft power, but it’s had some trouble doing that because other countries don’t quite trust China because it’s an authoritarian regime and because there’s all this military tension with its neighbors because of the buildup in the South China Sea. But are things like Trump’s cutting off of USAID funding, for American humanitarian projects around the world, which is a retreat by America on its soft power. Does that  open up an opportunity for China to extend its soft power and further its economic and strategic interests?

Wendy Sherman: Absolutely. Without a doubt. I mean, the destruction of USAID is extraordinary, and truly not in our self-interest. And I want to make sure folks understand. USAID, of course, was critical for humanitarian assistance, whether it was getting vaccines or HIV aids drugs or dealing with pandemics. But what I want people to understand is… Let’s take Ebola. We helped Liberia and others deal with an Ebola outbreak. We did it because we have a great humanitarian impulse in our country, but we also did it because people get on airplanes, and we didn’t want Ebola to come to the United States. That really compelled us to help. It was really to keep Ebola from becoming a disease here, to American citizens.

And earlier, USAID had helped to train Nigerians to become nurses. Now, why did we do that? We did that because when that Ebola strike happened and countries didn’t have enough medical personnel, 200 Nigerian nurses came to the area to help stop the spread of Ebola and therefore ensure it didn’t come to the United States. So, all of this is, yes, about our great, wonderful generosity and humanitarian impulses. But it’s also about protecting Americans.  

We also use our soft power, or as Hillary Clinton once said, smart power, to really get things done. If we have our military in an area and the military is concerned about the rise of terrorism, which might ultimately come to our shores. They want to make sure that that village might have water, that the kids have schooling, that they see that the food that comes, comes in packages that say “From the United States of America,” so that kids grow up not wanting to be terrorists, not taking on that ideology, not getting paid by a cartel to ship drugs, but see that they have a different kind of future. That protects us. So, yes, USAID was about our humanitarian generosity, but it was fundamentally about helping America and American citizens.  

And the last point I’d make is I think at least 20% of all farm production in the United States was sold to USAID to be used abroad. And so our farmers are very unhappy that USAID has been destroyed. Because it means that some of their export capability is gone.  

Ralph Ranalli: Right. They’ve lost a big market.  

Wendy Sherman: Yep.  

Ralph Ranalli: Speaking of important markets, I think what is perhaps the most inexplicable—even to people who are just casual observers of foreign policy—is the current breakdown of the relationship between the U.S. and Canada, and to somewhat similar extent between the U.S. and Mexico. I mean, there’s all kinds of interesting theories about why Trump is picking a fight with Canada—like years ago he had some hotel ventures there that went bust, and maybe now he sees Canada as a 51st state where he can do a lot of great real estate deals. But what do you think is the real reason in your mind for the tensions with Canada and for Trump being so acrimonious with Canada?  

Wendy Sherman: So, I don’t really know. Trying to understand the president’s mind is something I don’t do very well. It’s so alien to me how he goes about life, and how he’s going about his presidency, that it’s hard to fathom.

I do think it’s destructive. Mark Carney—who’s the current Prime Minister and has called an election quickly to try to cement his premiership—has said that the relationship with the United States is over. That is a profound, profound statement. Now he’s doing it in part for domestic politics. As I think you know, well, the liberals in Canada were doing terribly until Trump attacked Canada and it really helped to lead to Carney’s becoming the Prime Minister and now calling this quick election. Even though the conservatives have come back up some, I think most people believe Kearney will prevail,  

Ralph Ranalli: Right. The liberals are ahead at the polls.  

Wendy Sherman: The liberals. Right. The liberals will prevail thanks to Donald Trump, quite frankly. It’s incredibly destructive. We share so much. Hundreds of thousands of people go back and forth our border every single day. People live on one side or the other. It’s very sad to me that three very prominent Yale scholars, including Timothy Snyder, who’s written so much about democracy.  

Ralph Ranalli: Right.  

Wendy Sherman: Have now gone to the University of Toronto, to protect themselves. That’s really scary, that they felt a need to leave the United States to protect themselves and went to Canada. And my guess is a lot has come up. And this relationship, this destruction of this relationship, has meant that Canadians aren’t coming to the United States as tourists.

Ralph Ranalli: Flights are down. Something like 70% .

Wendy Sherman: Stunning, just stunning. That’s not good for our tourism industry. So I don’t know what productively comes out of this. Maybe pipelines. Maybe market share. Maybe anger for previous hotel problems. I don’t know. But it is not helpful, to us in any way that I can see.  

Ralph Ranalli: Turning to the southern border, in addition to the bad blood being created by Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs, there’s been a good amount of, I think you’d probably call it saber rattling, on the Trump administration’s part with Mexico. You’ve had eight Mexican drug cartels that have been reclassified as terrorist organizations. You’ve had a U.S. military Stryker brigade combat team move to the border. You’ve had Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth say quote “All options are on the table” unquote. Do you think that message is purely about Mexico, or do you think, going back to much earlier in the conversation we were talking about President McKinley’s foreign policy, that this is more of a broader message to Latin America and what he views as the U.S. sphere of influence in the Americas?

Wendy Sherman: Perhaps it is that. You know, the issue that still has tremendous popularity among the American people is what the President is doing on migration and people coming into this country. I must say it was a smart strategy by Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis to send migrants to northern cities to nationalize the problem. The irony is, of course, by the end of the Biden administration, people weren’t coming across the border in huge waves anymore. But Trump has claimed credit now for closing the border and not having people come in. So it is still incredibly popular to be very tough in this arena.  

People also were very and understandably concerned about the transit of fentanyl across our border. I certainly know people who have had their children die from a fentanyl overdose. It has been a horrible, along with opioids, a terrible problem in the United States. And so again, I think there was a lot of support, understandably, by the American people, to do this. I find it very terrifying that in Florida there are some who are advocating laws to claw back protections of child labor to replace the migrant labor that has been pushed out of the country. A) That’s horrifying. I hope it does not pass. I hope it’s just the far, far, far right trying to move in that direction. But we are going to have a labor shortage in some places because of this and we’ll have to figure out how to deal with that.  

I think going back to the beginning of our conversation, everyone who comes here—however they come here—have a right to due process. That’s who we are. We’re supposed to be a country where the rule of law is real. And I hope that we get back to a place where that occurs.  

Ralph Ranalli: So we usually ask our guests on policy cast for policy recommendations for US or world policymakers. I’m not a hundred percent sure that this current administration is all that receptive to policy recommendations. So I was wondering if instead I could once again put you in the place of policy makers in countries that have seen their relationships with the United States deteriorate. The EU, Canada, Mexico,  

Wendy Sherman: Denmark, Greenland...

Ralph Ranalli: Denmark, Greenland.  

Wendy Sherman: Right.  

Ralph Ranalli: You’re a seasoned diplomat, you’ve been involved in many very difficult and challenging negotiations, including the Iran nuclear deal. As a diplomat, what would your advice to them be about how to navigate this entirely new world we seem to be living in.  

Wendy Sherman: So every leader in every country has to put their country first. I know America First is this, you know, banner for the Trump administration. But the fact is, leaders’ responsibility is to take care of their citizens and to ensure peace and security, and prosperity. So I expect every leader to do what they need to do to take care of the citizens of their country, because that’s their responsibility. And where the United States has been part of that effort, to try to keep lines of communication open, because we do have change.  

I was talking with mid-career students from all over the world last evening. And, you know, I said I know everybody’s shaken. I’m shaken by the dramatic change here. But you all live in countries where there’s also been dramatic change. Where your leaders have changed. You’ve either moved forward or you’ve moved backward. I think people find this more dislocating because the United States has been such a huge power in the world, and so consequential and has been that shining city on a hill that Ronald Reagan spoke of. And now they wonder who we are now and what it will mean for them.

So do what you need to do to take care of your citizens. Keep the lines of communication open. I believe in American resilience. I believe we will get back to the values that are who we are fundamentally. It may take time, it will take a lot of hard work. It will not be easy, it will not happen overnight. But I am old enough having come of political age during the Vietnam War when we were quite divided as a country. This is perhaps more consequential. But I believe in us. And I think we will find our way forward. So keep those lines of communication open.  

Ralph Ranalli: Well, Ambassador Wendy Sherman, we are in an extraordinary time and I could not think of anyone with more wisdom and experience necessary to have a comprehensive and enlightening discussion about this than you. And I’m so glad you were here.  

Wendy Sherman: Thank you. I really appreciate this podcast and the work that you do. And the work that everyone’s trying to do to hold on to our democracy. Thank you.  

Outro (Ralph Ranalli): Thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting app, and while you’re there, hit the subscribe button so you don’t miss any of our important upcoming episodes. So, until next time, remember to speak bravely, and listen generously.