Project 2025's Foreign Policy Agenda

On this episode, we are delving into the foreign policy vision of Project 2025 and to what extent it previews what we can expect from a Trump administration. What will the world look like if we reshape our relations with competitors and allies? We discuss what the report says about our relationships with China, Ukraine, Iran, and Mexico. We also address how the culture wars influence foreign policy and explain their so-called fair trade agenda.

In our news brief, we cover the Ukraine Kursk Offensive into Russian territory and ponder the lack of Iranian retaliation for the Israeli assassinations of key Hamas and Hezbollah figures in Lebanon and Iran.

Topics Discussed in this Episode

• 07:30 - Ukraine Kursk Offensive
• 11:45 - Why hasn’t Iran retaliated yet?
• 15:45 - Project 2025: Foreign Policy Breakdown

Articles and Resources Mentioned in Episode

Ukraine Kursk Offensive

• What Ukraine’s Kursk incursion means for the war with Russia (WaPo)
• What the fall of Pokrovsk could mean for Ukraine (Euromaiden)

Why hasn’t Iran retaliated yet?

• Iran and Hezbollah vowed revenge against Israel. Why hasn’t it come? (LA Times)
• Why Iran Has Not Yet Retaliated Against Israel for Hamas Leader’s Killing (NY Times)

Project 2025: Foreign Policy Breakdown

• Check out the full plan here

Follow Us

• Show Website: www.kelloggsglobalpolitics.com
• Show Twitter: @GlobalKellogg
• Anita’s Twitter: @arkellogg
• Show YouTube

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 7:30 Ukraine
• 11:45 Iran
• 15:45 Project 2025

Transcript

Anita Kellogg: [00:00:00] Welcome to Kellogg's Global Politics. I'm Anita, and I'm here with my co host, Ryan. 

Ryan Kellogg: Thanks. Glad to be back. 

Anita Kellogg: On this episode, we are delving into the foreign policy vision of Project 2025 and to what extent it previews what we can expect from a Trump administration. What would the world look like if we reshape our relationships with competitors and allies? 

We discussed what the report says about our relationships with China, Ukraine, Iran, and Mexico. We also address [00:00:30] how the culture wars influence foreign policy and explain their so called fair trade agenda. But first, the news. We cover the Ukraine Kursk offensive into Russian territory and ponder the lack of an Iranian retaliation for the Israeli assassinations of key Hamas and Hezbollah figures in Lebanon and Iran. 

So, it's college football season! 

Ryan Kellogg: I know, I can't believe we're already already back in, in college football seasons. It's, it's amazing. I [00:01:00] can't believe they actually started last weekend that there was actually a game played in Ireland. So bizarre. So bizarre. Both of our teams have already played their week one matches against mighty, mighty opponents. 

I know your Arkansas struggled immensely against its Arkansas pine bluff. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, what was the score again? 60 something? Or was it more than that? 

Ryan Kellogg: It was more than that, yeah. Yeah, yeah. 70 to nothing. You guys, I assume, look pretty good. We, however [00:01:30] struggled against our Intrastate rival, not really rival Western Carolina and the and the mountains of, of North Carolina, small college. 

And I don't even think part of the division one, a football as it's known in the U S for the, for the big boys we struggled mightily, but managed to pull out a win 38, 21. But I think the, the bigger thing is there for those that, that do fit Follow college football. There's big changes. [00:02:00] I think the biggest change is to the playoff structure. 

So it went from essentially kind of the, the top four teams as determined by, I don't know, AP polling, the coaches would always play in a in a tournament, which was an improvement over the previous system. But now it's like a 12. person or 12 team playoff where the I think the main conference champions automatically advance and then it's based on rankings and the New York Times recently put out like their projections [00:02:30] and I was sad to say it was, it was, it was pretty dominated by the SCC, especially the expanded SCC. 

So, I, I'm very sad as they as the NC state fan, as a proponent of the ACC it's just, 

Anita Kellogg: you guys have a weird conference though now with all your West Coast Berkeley and Stanford. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yes. But as I told you now, the highest GPA of any football program out there. 

Anita Kellogg: Which is what you brag about when you're not winning games. 

Ryan Kellogg: That's right. And I think our chances of winning games are going to remain very low with the [00:03:00] other thing that's becoming to dominate college sports is the with the rise of NIL, which stands for name, image, likeness compensation. This is basically something the Supreme court. ruled as legal. A lot of people saw it as a benefit because instead of all of the gains for, , an athlete's talent and, and, and appearance going to the university and to other people, , more of those, those revenue gains are shared.[00:03:30] 

But what wasn't clear before this New York Times article is how big These payments are especially within the SCC just to give you a feel on on the football side, the average SCC quarterback now can expect to receive 1, 000, 000 a year and NIL payments, which is just crazy from a couple years ago where it was amateur. 

Sport and, , college athletes, we get a free education. That was kind of the part of the thing. And then the, the trainee, and [00:04:00] then if they were lucky to avoid injury and had enough talent, they could be drafted into the NFL. 

Anita Kellogg: There are a lot of downsides to that system because one, if they got hurt, they didn't necessarily get to continue that free education. 

And two some of them were trying to go to school, do football and work a job because they didn't have any extra spending money. Yeah, I had a full scholarship based on whatever sport they're playing. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yep. Yep. But I think from the, the, the downsides are the, [00:04:30] the competitiveness. So the fact that the SEC pays essentially four times as much for its, for its players. 

And a lot of that has to do with the inbuilt advantages. It was already a dominant league. It was already getting more ad revenue. So thus it can afford to pay a lot more. On these these NIL deals. So it just seems like it reinforces where you had a competitive advantage before, well, now you can have even more of a competitive advantage going, going.[00:05:00] 

So I think sad on the competition side, but , maybe, maybe that causes other conferences to be creative. to do kind of what baseball did with moneyball use some magic data science to somehow take these, these teams, use that transfer portal, which allows , maybe neglected talent and assemble these kind of one off teams that can actually out compete the SEC, even though SEC has a tremendous money, monetary advantage. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. So I guess we'll just see how it works out. Like I [00:05:30] said, To some extent, I'm glad athletes are getting paid, although a million dollars seems maybe excessive. And I think when I was reading the article, Martha stood out to me. The part that is a little objectionable is the 80 percent of that being paid by alumni associations or sort of collectives through the university, but the sponsorship deals, I think they should definitely, that I don't have a problem with.[00:06:00] 

Ryan Kellogg: Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And what's not clear to me is if they ink that themselves, like between the corporation and the athlete, this is just something they assign themselves, or is there always like an intermediary in between? I don't 

Anita Kellogg: think there's an intermediary anymore. 

Ryan Kellogg: Okay, for those sort of one off, one on one deals. 

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's, I mean, that's where the superstars, the people that are future destined, , first round picks. 

Anita Kellogg: Well, gymnast and other sports, the stars and sports have very [00:06:30] high sponsorship deals. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. And I think that's actually helped women's athletics a lot. Cause that's actually where they're getting more. 

Cause there's not necessarily the structural because that comes from ad revenue and then that sort of thing. But then on the, the branding side, women athletes have actually been doing better in a lot of these these, these sports that on their own aren't really profitable for universities. Yep. So I'm excited about it. 

Always hold that hope that somehow this will mean our teams can maybe sneak [00:07:00] in one day. I think you have a better shot because you have that monetary advantage of being in a top 12 team. 

Anita Kellogg: But we're competing with other schools that have bigger monetary advantages. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, but the Arkansas State Legislature and all the state legislatures within the SEC are now competing against each other to give themselves like small advantages and, and recruiting, including, including paying prospective high school players. 

So allowing that NIL money to flow down [00:07:30] to high school players if they sign on with certain universities. Yeah. So maybe Arkansas can really just go all out. I mean, why not? , what else is, what else do you guys be focused on? 

Anita Kellogg: I don't see it, but I guess we'll see what happens. All right. So onto the news. 

Ryan Kellogg: Today we'll briefly focus on Ukraine's recent incursion into Russia and the ongoing battle for Prokhorovsk. Three weeks ago, Ukraine's military chief, [00:08:00] General Oleksandr Sirsky, launched a bold plan to turn the tide of the war by sending troops to Ukraine. into Russia's Kursk region. This strategy aimed to shift the momentum by striking Russian territory directly. 

Now, in this offensive, Ukraine has taken control of hundreds of square miles of Russian territory, including more than a hundred settlements, representing the most significant invasion of Russian territory since World War II. Now, despite this morale boost and the positive change [00:08:30] in the narrative told to Western supporters, Niko Longe, a former German defense official and fellow at the Center of European Policy Analysis, observed that the incursion into Russia has had mixed results. 

Lange notes, the operation has provided Ukraine with tangible gains, such as prisoners of war, but Russian President Vladimir Putin is downplaying the incursion and maintaining focus on the Eastern Front. He also added, there is an [00:09:00] asymmetry. Russia will keep the territory lost to Donbass, but Ukraine cannot hold Kursk, and Putin knows it. 

So what's kind of your take on, because I think it surprised everybody, and, and, and Western allies included, that Ukraine, after, , a year, year and a half of, of stalemate then made the decision to invade Russian territory. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, I'm pretty divided on what I think about this. I think the morale boost is [00:09:30] important to Ukraine certainly with the struggling personnel having enough soldiers. 

I think there's certainly that point that Nicolange made is, is important that they can't ultimately hold on to this territory. But, , psychology is important in war. So maybe, maybe it's worth it that way. I do think that there needs to be more consideration of how Ukraine can affect Russia's [00:10:00] ability to wage war. 

And that may mean some attacks inside of Russia. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, and that's certainly something they they've been pushing for because they're still somewhat on a leash in terms of what weapon systems can be used to attack Russia directly. Up to this point, they haven't been able to use the more powerful Western supplied weapons to strike targets within Russia and have been relying on kind of their homemade drone program. 

And that's where they've, , targeted. We began targeting some [00:10:30] Russian electrical infrastructure and, and had a pretty big impact. Big encouragement, although I think it was largely stopped on Moscow itself. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. So I think there is that element that needs to be really thought through carefully, of course, the West wants to avoid any risk of escalation, but it's hard to win a war if you can't affect your enemy's ability to wage war. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I'm, I'm fully supportive of certainly anything where. It's [00:11:00] directly supplying the Russian troops on the battlefield that they should have full, full rights to use Western supplied equipment to strike those targets. Civilian installations of things not tied to the war, I think, should be off target. 

Definitely. But everything beyond that should absolutely be beyond the board. And, and it's, , it goes back to the original mistake of we've just been too cautious from the beginning in this conflict and too worried about nuclear escalation, frankly. [00:11:30] 

Anita Kellogg: And that cautious attitude has created the problem where Ukraine manages the stalemate, but it doesn't have a lot of prospects of winning the war. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. And I think that's, and that's the case here where even the, Incursion itself hasn't caused Russia to pull troops away from the Eastern front where, where they're really under, under direct attack. And, and, and, and, and it looks very likely that this the the town [00:12:00] of Prokhorovsk will fall, which which would represent kind of a strategic blow. 

Given that it's a center of rail lines So it's it's key to kind of supplying the entire Donbass front and it gets Russia closer to its political objective Which is taking all of these Existing provinces that it previously annexed 

Anita Kellogg: So let's delve into the evolving situation in the Israeli conflict following the high profile assassinations of [00:12:30] Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and a senior Hezbollah commander last month Both Iran and Hezbollah have vowed revenge against Israel, but as of now, their promised retaliation has yet to materialize. 

Despite initial fears of these killings might trigger a broader regional conflict, the anticipated harsh punishment from Iranian Supreme Leader Alatollah al Khamenei and his valour leader Hassan Nasrallah has not come to pass. General Ali Mohammad Na'ini has [00:13:00] Spokesperson for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps recently stated, Time is at our disposal, and the waiting period for this answer may be a long one. 

Nahini added that the response might not mirror past operations, suggesting a possible shift in strategy. In response to escalating tensions, the U. S. has increased its military presence in the region, deploying two aircraft carrier battle groups to deter further aggression. Ali Vaeh's Iran analysis at the International Crisis Group [00:13:30] Warns that Iran faces a tough choice. 

Saying that if Iran wants to retaliate in a way that isn't symbolic, it will invite a much more devastating blow. Faiz suggests that the Iranian leadership might be wise to avoid escalating the conflict, given that Israel's strategic objectives in Gaza have faltered and Iran has managed to isolate Israel internationally. 

So what do you think? 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I think it's been, I think it's been interesting. I think it goes back to a point we made in previous podcast about Iran really [00:14:00] wanting to avoid. a regional war in direct conflict with with the U. S. and Israel. And I think this hesitation to strike back, I think, speaks more than , kind of what what we've seen in articles to Iranian weakness. 

I think they have no confidence. And frankly, they were humiliated. I mean, this assassination. That occurred in Tehran and during the funeral service and of the, of the previous Iranian president is, is [00:14:30] unbelievable. I mean, it just shows that their security apparatus can be penetrated at will by Israeli forces and. 

All of this, I think points to Iranian weakness rather than kind of what, what Vase alludes to of I mean, I would even argue that is that it's not necessarily that Iran has managed to isolate Israel internationally. Cause I, I think at the, at the end of the, end of the day, as long as Israel [00:15:00] has U. 

S. A tie to the Gulf States. The Gulf States haven't pulled back or formally pulled out of relations that is really his position is weakened in terms of popularity, I guess, but in terms of the meaningful states and aid that's provided by its allies, it's, it's not impacted at all. 

Anita Kellogg: I agree with everything you just said. 

It shows what a tough spot Iran is in. Because they have very limited options because they [00:15:30] don't want a wider war and that doesn't give them a lot of options to respond. And it makes them look weak. And can they, is there an action that they could take that doesn't make them look weak? I mean, I think that then right, then that risks risk a war, which Iran would lose. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah, I, I, I think so without a doubt. 

Anita Kellogg: So, I think Iran just needs, , its strategy is not going to be retaliation, it's, I think it's just going to be through these terrorist groups to, , spawn pins and needles [00:16:00] at Israel, ships in the Red Sea, things of that nature. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, because I think that's, that's all it really has in its in its arsenal are these because, yeah, because it's conventional forces in terms of the security apparatus, in terms of the intelligence apparatus has been So thoroughly humiliated. 

I mean, nobody should take it. It, it I think the concern may be going forward in Trump administration is that it, [00:16:30] it, it empowers that the war with Iran is going to be very easy to topple this regime because all they've signaled is, is weakness. 

Anita Kellogg: So, yeah, I agree with all of that. So should we get into Project 2025? 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, let's do it. 

Anita Kellogg: A lot has been said and written about Project 2025, but those analysis have not gone much into the foreign policy aspects, which is what we want to cover. So Ryan, why don't you tell us a little bit about The motivating force behind this project. [00:17:00] 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. So, I mean, as you mentioned, I mean, project 2025 has gotten a lot of attention around kind of the, the domestic implications to, to us policy in various forms, but I think what's not really recognized is if you read the forward of the document, it really lays out like a series of challenges that. 

at the Heritage Foundation see that would face any sort of conservative [00:17:30] president coming into the White House. So I think it's worth reflecting, and I'll read this little bit from the forward. So the author's note, so a casual reader might take the last few pages of surveying a broad array of challenges, and facing the American people and the next conservative president, supranational policy making, border security, globalization, engagement with China, manufacturing, big tech, and Beijing compromised colleges. 

But these [00:18:00] really are not many issues. But only two. Number one, that China is a totalitarian enemy of the United States and not a strategic partner or a fair competitor. And two, that America's elites have betrayed the American people. So, I think what this really Tells you right up front is that this plan one, , is not conservative in any nature or any sense of the word, but it really represents this radical departure from [00:18:30] current norms. 

And that kind of goes out into kind of what their solution, because they go on and they say, , all of these above problems, it's not, the solution isn't to tinker with this or that government program or replace this or that bureaucrat. Instead, these problems are not. Of technocratic efficiency, but of national sovereignty and constitutional governance, we solve them not by trimming and reshaping the leaves, but by ripping out the trees root and branch. 

And that's, that points to. [00:19:00] This is a radical, radical program. And it's centered around these, these two different concepts. And I, I didn't realize before is that how central China is. And it's this idea that China is an unequivocal enemy of the United States and the CCP must be disposed of. This essentially is a framework, exactly the same as how we frame the Soviet union in the early part of the cold war. 

And then the, but the second part. [00:19:30] Which is a throwback to the McCarthy era is that, but even broader is that the American elites are an internal enemy of the United States, essentially calling them traders, a significant segment of the United States population are traders and must also be disposed. None of that is conservative in nature. 

Anita Kellogg: No, and pretty terrifying. I think particularly the, this last part that you talked about in seeing that [00:20:00] These elites as internal enemies and just putting forth a completely radical new system. I mean, because the current system has worked pretty well for the United States and if we replace it with this completely radical ideology, the consequences are going to be far reaching and many of them are going to be unintended as well. 

Like there's a lot of, I'll talk about the trade, there's a lot of things we just can't even know what the results would [00:20:30] be. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. So I, I see this as a because the, these sort of projects coming from the Heritage Foundation have a long history. I mean, they were first established for the incoming Reagan administration. 

But I think the, the difference is that the Heritage Foundation, like every institution supporting the Republican Party, has been so eroded and decayed intellectually that It's no longer [00:21:00] tied to established realms and areas of thought that would fit in in academia anywhere, because that was certainly the case in in the Reagan era. 

Heritage Foundation was a respected institution. People disagreed with it, sure, but the policies were founded in a respected, um, difference in opinion that fit in well in, in the world of academia, you could publish, you could, these, these are debated ideas, but what is now in the [00:21:30] husk of this one's kind of proud think tank is MAGA. And we'll talk about, it's, there's some residual amounts of that old institution, so there's some debates, and we'll see that with, with trade, but a lot of what is now being put forth is MAGA, and that's why it's a joke hearing Trump try to distance himself from it, when the fact that the authors of every single one of these chapters are ex members of the Trump administration. 

First term. 

Anita Kellogg: Not only that, many of them are [00:22:00] definitely going to be key policy makers in a future Trump. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, absolutely. Like Navarro 

Anita Kellogg: writing about trade. It is certain that he will have a prominent position in the Trump administration. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. So there's no reason to think that the authors of these plans within this document, wouldn't it be at high level positions within a future Trump administration and would implement these plans. 

They're telling us that they would implement these plans. 

So, so yeah, so I think that's, that's [00:22:30] central. China is key to almost every single component and justification used within the document in terms of these sort of policy changes that, that we'll go in and discuss. 

Anita Kellogg: Which is pretty fascinating and something that I certainly haven't heard anywhere when people are talking about project 2025. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, yep, so I s and, and it's it's an interesting framework, it doesn't necessarily, , I say these are, are MAGA [00:23:00] thinkers, and it is, but even within MAGA world, because MAGA, that's the, the weakness of MAGA, is it's what Trump believes. There's no, and what Trump believes is very transactional. So, they do put a very robust case, I think a very mainstream case in terms of, like, the defense of Taiwan. 

Around Chinese attack. There's agreement across both parties around that, but Trump himself introduces a much more transactional thing of, [00:23:30] well, , if, if they don't pay, , a certain amount, or if we're able to domestically move enough of the semiconductor industry out of Taiwan, well, who cares what, who cares what happens to them? 

Anita Kellogg: Right. The sort of more transactional than having certain principles. Right, 

Ryan Kellogg: right. So you always have that contradiction, but anything we discuss with Trump is going to have contradictions. Absolutely. So, we just have to go with this framework and kind of what Project 2025, the people that are actually going to do the [00:24:00] work. 

Mm 

Anita Kellogg: hmm. 

Ryan Kellogg: What they believe is. Yep. 

Anita Kellogg: So given the centrality of China and we'll talk more in the trade section too, about it, but what are some key things that stood out to you? 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. So, , like I mentioned before, there is, this is the one area around foreign policy where there's significant bipartisan agreement, , we saw during. 

Our discussion around the the chips act around the general approach to [00:24:30] China around the China select committee that Mike Gallagher now retired headed up, , there's general agreement, but there are two areas that stood out to me from the plan. , one was. This absolutist view that there's no room for cooperation with China. 

They specifically key in on, cause one of the areas of cooperation was always cited as climate change by the Biden administration. But again, the plan views throughout climate change essentially as a, a Marxist hoax that'll [00:25:00] only benefit the CCP. So you take that off the board, you do create this even further than kind of where, where people are right now, but just China is the new Soviet union. 

in the Soviet Union of the 1960s, not the, the detente Soviet Union of the 70s under, under Nixon and Ford but is an enemy that needs to be isolated. The specific angle on climate change is related to the fact that the [00:25:30] Chinese have a competitive advantage in renewables around rare earth minerals. 

And that by pushing this and pushing a rapid energy transition that you're empowering directly the CCP to dominate, , the, the future industry in energy landscape of the world and to do so is undermining our, our national security and effects. So that's, that's one area of difference. I want to 

Anita Kellogg: certainly, I don't want to derail from China, but I thought it was interesting that. 

This [00:26:00] idea of climate change is throughout the national security portions as well, in that the military would no longer be able to list climate change as a security threat to the United States, which would end up, which would upend years of policy where the Defense Department has directly cited climate change as a threat to U. 

S. national security, particularly in the developing world certain areas of the globe where they're [00:26:30] very vulnerable to climate change, increasing conflicts there that the U. S. may be dragged into and destabilize, basically, peace in their respective regions. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Now I think this, this and again, this is a mixed area that I'm surprised didn't receive kind of similar treatment that we'll see with trade where you kind of present a, a Crazy MAGA side, and then a more reasonable kind of moderate sort of [00:27:00] position. 

Because that's definitely moved a lot. I mean, we've talked about how it's moved within the energy industry itself and how climate is viewed, but yeah, you're right. I mean, the military's made huge amounts of investments. There's certainly this, I mean, we have hundreds of bases around the world. 

Many of them based in the Pacific, many of them in environments. that would be threatened because of climate change. So then to, to treat it like a boogeyman topic that should just be [00:27:30] shelved seems, seems pretty short sighted. Mm hmm. So the, the other area that, that stood out to me because it's a, it's a topic that we've addressed before, including in a war in the rocks article was that the department of justice should restart the China initiative just as a refresh. 

So this was the initiative that was launched in the first Trump administration in 2018, and basically it was designed to address the growing concerns about [00:28:00] espionage. IP theft and that are linked to, to China. And just the way that it was implemented in a very heavy handed way, it ended up targeting and making more false accusations than, than actually nailing culprits within academia, particularly. 

So targeting ethnic Chinese, , people that maybe had, , Green cards and passways, the citizenship and charging them essentially being spies for China and that created a, [00:28:30] a chill within the open environment within academia. And I think is, is still something that has, has, has resulted in lasting damage in terms of us reputation for openness for academic inquiry. 

And, just generally, , the open sharing of, of ideas. So the, the fact that this is being talked about to, to re implement I think is, is pretty, pretty deeply concerning. 

Anita Kellogg: It is deeply [00:29:00] concerning. And the way that I know of friends who are professors who are of Chinese descent, some of them born in the United States, the way they're treated by their colleagues, the way they're treated by their students is very negative. 

And it takes a toll on them. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yep. No, absolutely. 

Anita Kellogg: , brilliant work into, into our understanding of both social science and the sciences, and we're [00:29:30] making, we're making that much harder for them to have a contribution. To the United States, 

Ryan Kellogg: right? And it's not in the interest of the United States. Strategically either because China has largely served as a, we've largely been able to, to have significant brain drain, especially at the PhD level, where 85 90 percent of Chinese nationals that come to the U. 

S. And that's why a lot of our students end up staying in the U. S. permanently, getting their green cards and [00:30:00] becoming highly effective contributors to all sorts of STEM fields within the U. S. So it's, it's key to our competitive advantage. 

Anita Kellogg: And. , this comes out strangely in the trade portion, but every Chinese student at whether they're at the undergrad grad level work in national laboratories as researchers. 

incubators, think tanks. They're treated as, , they're information harvesting. This [00:30:30] is all just to get information into the CCP. And that all these visas should be dramatically reduced or eliminated completely. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah. And the other part, because you're talking about Peter Navarro's section under trade is when he refers to the Chinese and anybody from China communists as always. 

put in front of it. So yes, all Chinese undergrads, the communist Chinese nationals. There's just, yeah, it's just this general sense of [00:31:00] dehumanization of 300, 000 people that are currently studying in the U. S. from China, that they're all spies, they're all direct ties to the Chinese communist state, and that all of them should not be trusted. 

Anita Kellogg: Yes, so that is very disturbing. It is also a reflection of what I hear in my, my job at NDU sometimes, but I think really misses what we have pointed out in our War on the Rocks [00:31:30] article of these really tremendous contributions that they are making to the U. S. and contributions that would be otherwise made to China. 

Right? So when we talk about tech competition, we want the most brilliant Chinese minds working for us because then they're not working for China. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the other thing we lay out in the article is, , we're not, we're not saying there's not an issue or there's not a problem. 

There's clearly a major issue and a problem, but there's smart ways to deal with it surgical ways [00:32:00] that, that deal with it because, , it's, it's the whole, , throwing out the baby with the, the, the bath water. We gain a lot from these individuals. These are the creme de la creme coming from seeing law, the, , the, the Harvard Of China and we're attracting them and then we're retaining them and they are generating huge amounts of, of IP becoming leaders and founders within, , our, our startup culture to [00:32:30] throw that away when you could take a smart approach that that, that, that we detail it's, it's insane. 

Anita Kellogg: It is. It's just incredibly harmful. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. 

Anita Kellogg: Like so many of these policies that are done in the name of, quote, national security, they're actually things that would hurt our prosperity and our national security. Particularly with respect to this competition with China. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yep. Yep. Yeah, so it's [00:33:00] and then there's just the, the incongruity of it. 

, the vast majority are undergrads. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. They're not getting, they're not getting access as undergrads to high tech, secret, federally protected things. They're not working in those sort of, those sort of environments at all. 

Anita Kellogg: One speaker. at NDU had said to us that, well, sort of in response to my comments about the contribution of these [00:33:30] students, that basically, so and so, the child of some CCP member in China notes when one of their classmates speaks up against China and gives that information to his or her dad. 

I'm like, what are they going to do with that? 

Ryan Kellogg: I mean, that's, I mean, I don't know what to say, right? Yeah. This is part of the under Xi Jinping, the disturbing, , they're, they're self monitoring of their own [00:34:00] citizens. I don't know if we can do a lot to prevent that. That doesn't have to do with our national security though. 

Anita Kellogg: Well, I think it was monitoring of American students. 

Ryan Kellogg: Oh, American students. 

Anita Kellogg: What are they going to do with that? I know exactly. 

Ryan Kellogg: No, that's that's ridiculous. Yeah. 

Anita Kellogg: But I see your point of how it could be applied to others. Yeah, 

Ryan Kellogg: that's what I thought you meant, that it was, and that's, that is common. That, yeah, you'd have people, , hardcore CCP [00:34:30] members that get through, and then they hear, , a fellow Chinese national talking bad. 

publicly in some forum about it and then they rat him out and then their family's in danger or they lose so many social credit points or whatever. I thought you were talking more of that. I mean that's also the idea of I don't know this so much true in, in in the U. S. but in other nations where yeah, you have essentially CCP police. 

That are in Western cities and things that'll police their own [00:35:00] citizens to make sure they don't have a undesirable actions. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. So these are the sort of dangers that the Chinese students bring, particularly the undergrads. 

Ryan Kellogg: Right. Yeah. That, that was, that was the main one that was cited for, yeah. No, they're really, they're a cash cow. 

There's undergrads are a cash cow to U. S. universities and U. S. universities are struggling. Well, 

Anita Kellogg: and that means like either you would have to raise tuition for American students or put [00:35:30] more tax funded money into the system. States aren't doing that. Yeah. That's not going to happen. So it would make it harder for American students to go to college. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yep. Yeah. Yeah, so it seems like, it seems like a lose lose. And there's rare cases, which I think occur only at the graduate level. A lot of this stuff can be prevented at through the screening process up front. So putting more funds to that, making sure that people don't have ties to, to CCP [00:36:00] institutions on the education side. 

And I, I think you can prevent 90 percent of it. And, , in, in, in limiting. probably federally oriented jobs, , in the research laboratories in terms of access for, for Chinese nationals. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. I mean, those are excellent points. And I think you've also noted though, how rare it is for there to be any sort of incident. 

It's 

Ryan Kellogg: very rare, very rare. But I get it because the price is high. The price could be potentially be very [00:36:30] high. But the price is also high by taking this absolutist approach of just shutting out all Chinese nationals from from traveling, which again, it's, it's a full recreation of treating China like the Soviet Union. 

Anita Kellogg: Mm hmm. Which is very problematic because China, I guess, it's not the Soviet Union. It is, you It's far more entangled into the global economy and it has [00:37:00] consequences. So on Ukraine, it was kind of interesting because MAGA thought has been unsupportive of our current Ukrainian strategy and continuing to fund support for Ukraine. 

In project 2025, there actually is a supportive approach in a, in a comprehensive approach to how you would end the war in Ukraine. So that's an interesting contrast to Trump who just says that he would just [00:37:30] end the war and complains about the money that we've spent on it, but this would actually increase the level of military support, enhance NATO involvement, which is also very un MAGA and place severe sanctions on Russia, which we pretty much have. 

engage in diplomatic negotiations, economic recovery aid, counter disinformation efforts, and humanitarian assistance. These strategies would aim to strengthen Ukraine's position, pressure [00:38:00] Russia into a ceasefire, and support the long term stability and recovery of Ukraine. I mean, I'd be interested in knowing more about what exact increased military support means to them. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, and I think, , the one caveat is that the majority of this report was written in in late 2022 and 2023. So it doesn't necessarily incorporate all the developments within the Ukraine war. And that's also the reason it doesn't mention [00:38:30] much on Israel. Let alone kind of Gaza in that period. 

I heard it was listened to another podcast and they mentioned the lack of that, but it's just a function of the, of when the report was written. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's surprising. I think it, it it largely reflects, yeah, just that split that exists within the Republican party. And we saw that, , the very prolonged drawn out ability to get additional funding for Ukraine. 

And but eventually you saw maybe. 40, [00:39:00] 50 percent of Republicans that, that supported the the funding and then had this, this MAGA rump that, that stood out against it. But again, when we talk about MAGA, the only important thing, and, and around all of this around foreign policy, president has enormous power and, and leeway and doesn't really need congressional approval. 

And in a lot of cases Trump has come out and been pretty clear that the support for Ukraine will in all likelihood [00:39:30] end or be curtailed significantly. So I think that's more what we have to, to, to draw upon than, than anything else. But I think there will be pushback. Nobody wants to see a situation where Ukraine collapses. 

I mean, I think that's. That's that's Afghanistan on steroids a thousand times worse because it's of its strategic importance to, to NATO, what it signals to China around Taiwan. It would be an [00:40:00] absolute unmitigated disaster. And I don't think Republicans want that on their watch, but. Maybe a certain, certain amount do. 

Those that envision the Bannons that think that ultimately our, our, our real interests lie in allying with China, sorry, with Russia against China. 

Anita Kellogg: Well, and there's J. D. Bantz who said he didn't care at all about Ukraine. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, that It doesn't matter to him what happens. 

Anita Kellogg: He doesn't see it in the U. 

S. 's strategic interests. 

Ryan Kellogg: No. No, they [00:40:30] just view it as they blame NATO. NATO was too aggressive in the expansion of its members that it insulted Russia in the post Cold War period, and that naturally Russia should have a sphere of influence which includes all of its ex allies. Ex Republics, probably including the Baltic States. 

Anita Kellogg: So I don't think you have to go as far as Bannon and say that to be a person who we should be allying with Russia, just to just say, [00:41:00] yeah, you can just say the vice president of Canada, 

Ryan Kellogg: J. D. Vance. Yeah. Yeah. 

Anita Kellogg: I don't think he is on that train. I think he just thinks, doesn't think it's important to the U. S. 

in any way. 

So shifting to Mexico, that's always an interesting portion of Republican philosophy. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yes, Mexico. , really what I was looking for here is, , we heard during the Republican primary debates, the discussion around [00:41:30] Mexico was around strikes, , essentially ordering the military to violently curtail the cartels, which they view as, as existing outside of law and that the Mexican government essentially doesn't doesn't exist as a sovereign state itself. 

And I think you see that view. Reflected within project 2025 and they talk a lot about a sovereign Mexico policy. And really what this [00:42:00] is, is stating from that is that Mexico can no longer qualify as a first world nation. And it has functionally lost its sovereignty to muscular criminal cartels that effectively run the country. 

And that the same cartels that parasitically run Mexico are also working with the PRC again. China ties with everything. China is the great octopus that pulls together and is and it's taking over the world. But yeah, so it's, [00:42:30] it's, these cartels are working with the PRC to fuel the drug crisis around fentanyl that has, , tragically led to instill averages about a hundred thousand deaths a year of, of American citizens. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, so , basically this policy means violating the sovereignty of Mexico, 

Ryan Kellogg: right? But they, they say that it's no longer sovereign because it's run by cartels. It has no true government, 

Anita Kellogg: right? And this harms the immigration cooperation [00:43:00] because Mexico, if they find somebody traveling from through Mexico to immigrate to the United States, they send them back on buses. 

Right. And in fact, there's kind of this loop that they talk about is every time they send them back to the edge of the Mexican border with Central America, and then they come back and there's just kind of this loop. But cooperation with Mexico has been pretty crucial in having that cooperation and keeping more illegal [00:43:30] immigrants and asylum seekers at the border. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yep. Yep. So I see this as a, as a major flashpoint and we, and we talked about, and I think the last episode about the liberal issues with the current Mexican government and with, with AMLO and and kind of his, his His protege who's recently been elected. So this seems like a major flashpoint almost immediately between an incoming Trump administration and this leftist [00:44:00] illiberal Mexican government. 

And they've talked a big game. I still, it still seems like a stretch that. that the US military would be asked to go against without kind of the implicit without the full buy in from the Mexican government to carry out targeted strikes on cartel leaders. I would be I would be shocked if this happens, but it's certainly everything is set up around that. 

Anita Kellogg: I mean, we have violated international law before, [00:44:30] but the type of violation that of international law to violate whether they say Mexico is sovereign or not, it's a sovereign country. The it's one of those really radical things that just is kind of unbelievable to me that is even being considered. And the consequences of doing that would be very harmful, especially when it comes to working with our allies who would definitely not support such action. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. And then, then and maybe this gets into the trade issues as well, but I mean, [00:45:00] Mexico. Has once again become u. s. 's largest trading partner, 

Anita Kellogg: and we sort of want that Shift in trade from China to Mexico, 

Ryan Kellogg: right? So how does introducing this into the relationship? Factor in to to to the entire kind of economic dynamic It just seems it just seems a little crazy that they would pursue this route, which, , maybe this [00:45:30] was fine, , where we've had kind of these strong interventions in the past in Central America, but this is Mexico. 

It's on our border. It's a huge economic trading partner. It just seems again, it's a radical notion. It goes back to, yeah, like you said, it's, this is just a radical plan in so many ways. 

Anita Kellogg: So I think what they have to say about Iran is not surprising. Basically they want to end their Iranian regime. I think a lot of [00:46:00] people would like to do that. 

I think they should look at American history and to see how effective we've ever been in ending anyone's regime unless we do what we did in Iraq or Lebanon and we directly put military troops in there to assassinate leaders. And destroy the government that way. But from outside of doing that, we do not have a history of positive regime change. 

So they also say very explicitly about stopping [00:46:30] Iran's nuclear ambitions, also a goal from all sides, but it it proposes new enforcement of existing sanctions and possibly new ones to prevent Iran from advancing its nuclear program. I don't understand how this would work since. Sanctions don't actually prevent in any way Iran from having the technical know how or the capabilities to build a nuclear weapon. 

It only seems to incentivize their [00:47:00] building of one. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yes, I don't, I mean, I think it's clear they want to return to The Trump administration's first term policies around Iran. But I think ultimately what it, it leads to when combined with what we talked about earlier on, on the weakness that Iran has signaled, but it empowers and again, this is a split because you have a, a dedicated isolationist wing within the MAGA movement, but you also have a very significant [00:47:30] Iranian Hawk within, within the Republican parties, guys like Lindsey Graham or Tom Cotton that are itching to, to wage this war against Iran. 

So I think the sanctions are just, will be used as an excuse around. Well, naturally we'll see. It's only hope is to carry out a nuclear test that will serve as a deterrent. Israel has no interest in that. So it really creates this crisis of where. Israel and the U. S. will be forced to conduct a [00:48:00] strike on Iran, and then of course that'll push them into regime instability and basically nothing left to lose, and that leads to the, to the greater, greater conflict and war. 

Anita Kellogg: Right, and so I would think, , we know that Iran is actually very close to being able to develop nuclear capabilities. I would say the only thing that has kept them from doing that is the threat of these strikes from Israel and the prospect of a wider war. Which even with a nuclear weapon, they wouldn't be able to win. 

Ryan Kellogg: Right. [00:48:30] Right. Yeah. So it's yeah, it's not, it's not too surprising. I think the, the position but I see this as probably the most likely flash point for, for a Trump administration in terms of, of a major war breaking out. Yeah. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. I think it's a very dangerous situation. I've always thought Iran is one of the most likely prospects for a If we were to go to war with anyone, I think Iran, that flashpoint is, is the [00:49:00] number one possibility. 

Of course there's China, but I personally think there's less chance of China invading Taiwan. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, and I, I don't know if this would create a situation, , if a war breaks out that was some of the conjecture that I saw on, on X, a completely untrustworthy platform, but nevertheless, there was the conjecture that we've actually, we had to pull those aircraft battle groups from, from Asia, so I think we're, we're a little bit short there in that, that [00:49:30] area. 

Obviously in the case of a full blown war most of our resources would be dedicated to the Middle East. Does that, does that leave an opening for, for China if it were to choose? 

Anita Kellogg: Always very dangerous and definitely something there has to be a priority in preventing that war. And what has always been, , troublesome to me is those hawks you have in the Republican party. 

I think, Trump clearly. Did not want to have a war with Iran and so I think we'll [00:50:00] do what he can to avoid one as well But there is still that pressure in the Republican Party for one. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, and it's just these these conditions And these sort of policies make it more likely to force a crisis where Iran is feel so Threatened and isolated that it's only chance for regime survival is to complete the nuclear program and demonstrate it 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, yeah, so troubling on that front You So, the next thing we wanted to talk about was how [00:50:30] the culture wars make their way into U. 

S. foreign policy. You wrote this, Stop Pinko Indoctrination of the Military. 

Ryan Kellogg: Absolutely, and that's, this is the funnest part of Project 2025 in my mind because it's it uses all of the over the top, Again, this is where it goes back to the Heritage Foundation is no longer intellectually respected in any way. 

Because you put this sort of language out, which is throughout the document. I didn't do a word search [00:51:00] on Marxist, but I bet it, I bet it appears over a hundred times within the document. Ridiculous. Ridiculous sort of quotation. Yeah, so let's, we'll start off, yeah, the, the pinko indoctrination. So two things kind of stood out, , one was and these are, are verbatim quotes. 

This is on page one or three. One is to eliminate Marxist indoctrination and divisive critical race theory programs and abolish newly established diversity, equity, and inclusion offices and staff. This is in [00:51:30] relation to the department of defense. And then this second part, which I want you to comment on, audit the course offerings at military academies to remove Marxist indoctrination, eliminate tenure for academic professionals, and apply the same rules to instructors that are applied to other DOD contracting personnel. 

Anita Kellogg: Well, this is terrible. I guess that's a, Are you, no, no, no, no. 

Ryan Kellogg: You, you answered this. Consider you under oath. , I'm the, I'm the, I like sitting [00:52:00] at the Senate subcommittee. Professor Anita Kellogg. Have you, are you indoctrinating your students with Marxist thought on a continuous basis? No. Remember, you're under oath. 

Anita Kellogg: No. There's no Marxist thought in the curriculum, and we talk about economics, but it's economic competition with China. There's no Marxist economic thought in that whatsoever, but more about harming hardening our economy to national security objectives. [00:52:30] So I don't think they can audit it. I don't think they're going to find it. 

Eliminating tenure. I mean, at my institution, we don't actually have tenure, but a lot of institutions do. This brings out getting top talent into these, these institutions, and I think you want that talent. I think military schools are not considered as prestigious as other sort of university schools, so I think you need incentives for For people to to come and work at these [00:53:00] institutions They have some of the best minds in the country 

Ryan Kellogg: That are gonna teach The thoughts of Karl Marx right and his dirty Leninist 

Anita Kellogg: I actually have been taught by Marxists, so I can tell you assuredly that there's no What real 

Ryan Kellogg: Marxists are. Yeah. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah. I've had a Marxist professor before. Yep. 

Ryan Kellogg: A real one. So it does [00:53:30] exist, clearly. 

Anita Kellogg: At liberal arts colleges, maybe there are a few, but even they admit some of the failures to, to Marxist policies, but Are critical of in some ways on the other end critical of the same trade practices that The right has now become critical of just for different reasons 

Ryan Kellogg: Right. 

Yeah. Anyway, 

Anita Kellogg: that's that's sort of what little marxism you might get in the academy [00:54:00] did not convert me to marxism. I should say since Everyone says these liberal professors are indoctrinating their students outside the military, too. But, this is respect to military indoctrinating students. I think, of course, there is a lot of oversight. 

A lot of oversight of the curriculum. And I think you do want to make sure what you're educating the future leaders in the military and, and civilian leaders as well. And that oversight already [00:54:30] exists. I definitely don't think there needs to be more of it. Who's gonna audit these, , who, who they even think is going to do this. 

But, sure, I mean, you could also say, Okay, do that, because it's not there anyway. 

Ryan Kellogg: Well, I mean, I think we know who's gonna audit, cause , we, we haven't talked about the, the personnel aspect. But a big part of project 2025 is to reinstate schedule F, which gets rid of the 50, 000 or so kind of top bureaucrats within the federal government across [00:55:00] all agencies. 

And puts in people that, again, the heritage foundation is part of project 2025. Five has built up a database of 20, 000 individuals who filled out a ideological test job application, which is some very interesting questions. Courage. Everybody check it out. So yeah, it would be one of these these mega loyalist will be coming in to your classroom. 

Kind of similar. Hmm. I don't know what regime in Germany in the 1930s did that in academia. And had [00:55:30] monitors come in in regards to the curriculum. If you went a little too far off, then you were just escorted out of the classroom. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. And I definitely don't think you have necessarily, I mean, there's still a lot of, and there should be academic freedom in these military institutions. 

Again, you want top talent. You want academic freedom to be able to Truly study the world as it is and to come up with good policy recommendations. 

Ryan Kellogg: Also, I would say there's nothing wrong with teaching Karl Marx. That is [00:56:00] a critical part of any education of 19th century economic philosophy. He's probably one of the most influential Western philosophers, period. 

So not to teach him is to have a pretty big gap in your, your Western education. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. 

Ryan Kellogg: So 

Anita Kellogg: very problematic, but not surprising. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yep. So it is staying with the, the culture war issue. So the, [00:56:30] the next, next part that I noted was getting rid of all the dirty leftist and the state department. 

So this is from former state department director of policy planning, Kieron Skinner, who writes large swaths of the state department's workforce are left wing and predisposed to disagree with a conservative president's policy, agenda, and vision. She adds that the department possesses a belief that is an independent institution that knows what is best for the United States, sets its own foreign policy, and [00:57:00] does not need direction from an elected president. 

Anita Kellogg: Sets its own foreign policy. It's responsible for helping create foreign policy. Right. But it doesn't set its own foreign policy. Well, it's saying, 

Ryan Kellogg: yeah, it does. You have all these leftists that just ignore whatever Trump said and just continue on doing. Doing whatever it wants. Was that how the first Trump administration went with the state? 

But I don't think so. I think a lot of them [00:57:30] quit. 

Anita Kellogg: Morale plummeted and a ton of people quit. Yes. Yeah. In fact, they do have a lot of recruiting drives. When I was younger, it was really, really hard to get a job at the department of state. And I'm not saying it isn't now, but I also know they recruit heavily retired military because. 

We have a lot of Department of State students and they're always telling their military colleagues that once you retire from the military, you should think about going to the Department of State. [00:58:00] So, I think that did really take a toll on the number of people that they can even get working with the Department of State, which would be worse under a Trump administration. 

I don't know exactly what they mean about their conducting their own foreign policy. Basically, I mean, any negotiations you might be having with a foreign country are dictated by U. S. policy and I don't see how you can be accused of violating that. [00:58:30] 

Ryan Kellogg: I think it's just yeah, they want, they want zero leeway, zero professional leeway in how policy is implemented and they want complete loyalists that whatever Trump is thinking that day on his on his daily review, PowerPoint review. 

That that they implement that without question and without objection, regardless of the constitutional or legal consequences. 

Anita Kellogg: I think it's probably having personnel who just already [00:59:00] think the sort of MAGA mindset and are going to interact. Cause basically this is, this is just people who are interacting with other governments, right? 

Yeah, right. So that's their fundamental job and how they interact with them, the type of information they're getting. Do we want something like the kind of Trump ideology the way he talks about our partners and allies and competitors? Is that what we want in the Department of State to [00:59:30] have people there that talk exactly the same way? 

Ryan Kellogg: That sort of transactional sort of mindset. And we'll, and we'll ignore in a certain, this wasn't State Department, but not having A person like former guest Alexander Vindman in a room with Trump talking to high level foreign officials so that they can't object to it. If that person is in the room, they're going to be completely ideologically. 

in line around that transactional kind of MAGA approach and it just doesn't, doesn't [01:00:00] get reported. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. And I mean, that's definitely their vision for personnel across the board. That was mentioned in the trade section as well. Having key MAGA people in these positions that must conform to this way of thought. 

I think, , the department, the state, the reason why is targeted is because it has tended to recommend policies. That are more cooperative with, particularly with our allies, then some presidents [01:00:30] have wanted. And so there was a lot of people in the department of state did not think that Iraq war was a good idea. 

They essentially, they thought we were not going to be welcomed 

Ryan Kellogg: as we were not. Which, which was smart. I 

Anita Kellogg: mean, basically they had a very accurate view of what would happen if we went to, to war. Right. So, yeah, so they are, they do leave more in the instruments of diplomacy and information 

Ryan Kellogg: and tend to have more in depth knowledge of the domestic [01:01:00] situation within the foreign countries that they're based in study, obviously. 

Anita Kellogg: So that is why their perspective does differ sometimes from national security, which is natural. That's always 

Ryan Kellogg: existed. Yeah. 

Anita Kellogg: So, I mean, I think we want some levels of not. Some levels of disagreement within the government. And I think the state department, we, we ignore it too often at our own peril. 

Ryan Kellogg: Right. 

Right. 

Anita Kellogg: Because it does have all this [01:01:30] knowledge. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yep. 

Anita Kellogg: And so basically what project 2025 wants and Trump wants is to get rid of that knowledge because knowledge itself is, seems to be bad in general under a Trump ideology. And replace it with people who don't care about what the domestic situation. They don't, they're not going to be good negotiators because we don't need negotiators. 

We just need a lot of little Trumps. 

Ryan Kellogg: Loyalist. [01:02:00] 

Anita Kellogg: Right. Yeah. Yeah. 

I wanted to mention, and to go back just to the military really quick is that also I was reading that they want to get rid of all mentions of gender in the military. Okay. And one of the things, I mean, the military is wanting to do is to recruit more women. Women have, , bring all these talents to the military. 

You already have problems with recruiting enough people, right? If you just then eliminate any [01:02:30] mentions of, again, they want all diversity, then you're going to even have more problems with recruitment. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah. No, without a doubt. 

Anita Kellogg: So that's just a little aside that I thought I would get in there. But, you also wrote Getting rid of woke mind virus crap in the U. S. aid and messaging in the developing world. This is attacking the U. S. AID Department, which mostly deals with international development in developing [01:03:00] countries, the global south. So this former acting deputy administrator for the U. S. Agency of International Development asserted that the United States Agency for International Development must be reformed, The Biden administration has to form the agency by treating it as a global platform to pursue overseas, a devices, political and cultural agenda that promotes abortion, climate, extremism, gender, radicalism, and interventions against perceived systematic racism. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, sounds [01:03:30] about right. I'm in full agreement. You're in full agreement of what they want to do. Yep. 

Anita Kellogg: , a lot of this has to do, I believe with a lot of aid is tied towards improving the quality of life for women having access to employment, to resources. That's just one example of of some of the ties that we values that we have and that we promote with our giving aid to [01:04:00] developing countries. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. And I guess, I mean, their counter argument would be a lot of these countries are culturally conservative. And having these sort of stances or aid tied to the respect of these particular rights is is alienating is something China wouldn't do. China doesn't care about your values. So the best way to counter China would be to get rid of all this woke mind blindness because it's alienating. 

To these [01:04:30] traditional cultures within the developing world. I think that would be the, the counter. 

Anita Kellogg: I mean, so you're saying like, you don't want to promote democratic values. You don't want to promote again, things that are trying to be beneficial to minorities in these countries who are oppressed just general reforms on the community level that increases voter participation or democratic participation in these countries. 

I mean, that's what you want to get rid of. [01:05:00] To compete with China. I mean, that's an argument 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, it's a it's I mean, is it different than kind of a real politic? Argument that the the objective Take values out of it. Our objective is to prevent china from becoming a dominant Influence within these areas. 

Let's do whatever it takes to compete 

Anita Kellogg: right with them. So that's an art. Yeah So, I mean, that's that's the argument I actually think that You [01:05:30] USAID should continue with its programs, but I do think there should be some additional mechanism of aid that goes more to infrastructure projects, which are often ignored in favor of these smaller community based programs. 

Ryan Kellogg: So, so you're, so you're directly competing with, like, the China Belt and Road Initiative. Right. Right. Right. 

Anita Kellogg: Because I think Infrastructure and particularly does give influence with the country's government because the leader then gets [01:06:00] to have a big win for his people. Look, I brought in new roads or I brought in a soccer stadium or , look at, look at that. 

And even though there is some internal backlash against these Chinese projects, in general, they've been a good thing for leaders. And it's what country countries need infrastructure and they want infrastructure. And that's something that we don't typically offer them because they're not profitable. 

Ryan Kellogg: In a lot of cases. China loses money on this because 

Anita Kellogg: losing a ton of money on this. Yeah. People can't [01:06:30] pay them back. It's the reason why we didn't invest in these projects to begin with, because we knew they're not attractive returns 

Ryan Kellogg: to our firms. Yeah. Right. 

Anita Kellogg: And we're not thinking them in terms of aid. 

So what I think is we need to give them out as aid, not as loans and consider that an important part of our soft power. So, the last thing we wanted to touch on was Peter Navarro's trade policy framework. And he has [01:07:00] some pretty radical ideas. Some of these were brought up in the Trump administration, and I admit, I didn't put a Pay play close enough attention to these developments at the time, but they're they're actually pretty crazy So basically his key proposal is that he wants to end the most favored nation status of the world being part of the World Trade Organization and this means that Whatever your tariff is your lowest tariff to a country then that has to be [01:07:30] the tariff to all other countries Now one exception to this is if you sign free trade agreements So that's the agreements That are negotiated in the world trade organization. 

The last one was in 2000 and these the reason why they're not reciprocal is because Developing developing countries make deals to access to certain markets So it may not be reciprocal on one front, but you may have increased access in a different area But [01:08:00] in a free trade agreement you can lower tariffs And not have to offer those lower tariffs to other countries. 

Just something I thought I would note. So he wants to replace this Most Favored Nations status and replace it with reciprocal trade agreements. So, if our, our tariffs on cars are 10%, but Brazil's tariffs on cars are 35%, then we would raise our tariffs on [01:08:30] Brazil's cars to 35%. 

This is why it doesn't work. Why it won't necessarily reduce trade deficits or create jobs, but would raise prices. So basically, Navarro assumes that if you had reciprocal trade, then this completely eliminates the trade deficit with each country. But in actuality, it would probably shift trade deficits around and raise prices for US consumers. 

So [01:09:00] illustrative example. Let's pretend that You have Brazil cars and Mexican cars. The Brazilian cars are the cheapest in the U. S. and the Mexican cars are the next cheapest. And Brazil has these 35 percent tariffs and Mexico has like 15 percent tariffs. So basically, we raise our tariffs Brazil 35 percent and Mexican to 15%. 

Now, there is the point that Brazilian cars may still be the cheapest cars, they're [01:09:30] just now 35 times more expensive. But there's another possibility that Mexican cars are now the cheapest cars again, this does not encourage you to buy American cars because you only raise tariffs on Mexican cars by 5 percent because of based on their own tariffs. 

And so now you buy Mexican cars instead of Brazilian cars. Now, the price rise there might be more gradual because then you're just increasing the price of the lower cars like by 5%, but you still definitely [01:10:00] see price increase, and you're still not buying American cars, and you're not erasing the deficit. 

All you did is reduce your deficit with Brazil, but increased your deficit with Mexico. And sort of, this is happening in Real life examples where we last year we slightly reduced our deficit with China But we increased quite a bit our deficit with Mexico This makes sense is shift some manufacturing from China to [01:10:30] Mexico For more French shoring or other markets where you don't have the same political tensions as you do with China. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah Yeah, 

Anita Kellogg: so does this all make sense? 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I mean it's kind of like I don't know what that, that toy was where, I mean it's kind of like Play Doh, but it's that, , those squishy sort of toys where you squeeze like one side of it, it just wells up in another, but you ultimately aren't kind of changing the dynamic or the shape of it, it's [01:11:00] just going to a different area regardless of like where you squeeze. 

So you squeeze China. Well, that's going to well up in Mexico. But ultimately what I'm hearing is that the American consumer gets screwed. Yes. Either way, there's higher prices. Yeah. So the vast majority of people, because the vast majority of people aren't working in. Uh, and even for the auto manufacturers, but even what you're saying under this is even the people employed under auto manufacturing, this also presumes [01:11:30] that instead of instead of increased automation that they're going to just hire. 

a ton of Americans also. 

Anita Kellogg: Because the assumption is you're selling more American cars. 

Ryan Kellogg: Right. 

Anita Kellogg: But as I just explained, there's a very good possibility That you're not even doing that. 

Ryan Kellogg: So it's a, it's a full net loss for Americans. You don't get the additional jobs and you don't get lower prices. 

Anita Kellogg: Right. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. 

Anita Kellogg: So one organization, the only one I found that would [01:12:00] propose a cost American action form, did kind of a very rough calculation on What percentage you're increasing these tariffs by and they said that that would be about 60 billion dollars per year About five hundred dollars to American households But and that's without taking into account one argument is also that you would raise tariffs on some countries Beyond what their tariffs are to retaliate for non tariff barriers. 

These can be subsidies to different industries and, and [01:12:30] are actually a true problem in the trading system. But I think this calculation, I wouldn't put any faith or hold anything in it because basically it's unknowable. It's unknowable how trade would shift who in this scenario, , I don't know who has the cheapest cars anymore. 

So what the actual increase in costs would be. The only thing we can know is that it would increase cost that's pretty much all that's guaranteed [01:13:00] and obviously given the amount of goods that we import into our economy this would have Incredible inflationary effects this also like just getting rid of this Would it's then that the whole like trading system in the post world war ii era. 

I mean if the u. s. Suddenly does not MFN rules in the World Trade Organization, what keeps other countries from doing it and what keeps spiraling tariff wars from [01:13:30] happening? It's I just can't imagine this world is really, really deeply disturbing to think about on the positive side is that the president himself cannot just make this decision. 

It requires Congress, right? So, you can't make this trade decisions except on a very narrow basis. that violate the trade agreements Congress has already approved of, right? So they approved our entry into the [01:14:00] World Trade Organization. So you don't have the ability. And that's why in 2019, they had the bill, the United States Reciprocal Trade Act, which would allow the president to renegotiate the trade deals. 

Navarro's proposal would have the U. S. renegotiate each trade deal On tens of thousands of, of products with each country. And he notes that it's not possible to do that with every single country. [01:14:30] So we would target the countries where we have the highest deficits, China, Mexico, India also the countries where they have the highest tariffs, such as like India and Brazil. 

Just the, well, the amount of personnel you need to one enforce these new tariff regimes, which are now extraordinarily complicated. To renegotiate trade deals with countries is insane. And I mean, basically it says as long as they [01:15:00] don't agree, like, you negotiate with them. If they don't agree to lower their tariffs to the same price as ours, then we just raise ours. 

So, I mean, it's not like a free trade negotiation. But the feasibility of being able, the thought that you have to renegotiate everything now is pretty crazy. I mean, the whole multilateral trading framework means that you don't have to do this. 

Ryan Kellogg: So a lot of what you've studied is around kind of the private sector influence on government. Mm-Hmm. . [01:15:30] Where do you see us' own kind of business organizations commerce small business association, all the different trade groups? I think I can go along with this. 

Anita Kellogg: Absolutely not. And Navarra acknowledges this, right? 

He puts it in there like, right. All these special interest groups are going to be heavily against this. American multinationals, just all forms of, of commerce. I mean, people, we benefit so much from international trade and Europe ending that. So yeah. So he [01:16:00] acknowledges that somehow you have to overcome the resistance of all these special interest groups, which, I mean, the problem with that is these are also who you're hoping to support by giving them tax credits and such. 

So you are, the Republican party has appealed very much to these sort of companies and. Yeah, so this thing is dead on arrival. Well, it, it didn't work before, so it's unlikely. Another reason why it's unlikely to pass through Congress [01:16:30] is, and I'm not going to go into it because it's kind of irrelevant in policy, but the, the other chapter that was written by the Heritage Foundation on why free trade is a good thing and why we need lower tariffs and more free trade. 

So there's still that element, like heritage, 

Ryan Kellogg: Also dead on arrival, 

Anita Kellogg: right? Obviously not gonna happen, but heritage felt the need that it still had to reassert some traditional philosophy. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's been the interesting thing [01:17:00] throughout the document is it's a little schizophrenic in the sense that you have this very MAGA language, MAGA policies, but then you have this residual part of the Republican party that didn't become never, never Trumpers like us. 

That's holding on. I don't know what they're holding on for, but. But there's still a little, little group that's holding on that still espouses essentially Reagan era policies. 

Anita Kellogg: So there's still enough elements in the Republican [01:17:30] Party to, to keep that from happening. You would have to have a dramatic shift in the composition of Congress to get that passed. 

Not that that isn't possible, but in the present reality. Not likely. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, very, still very unlikely. Yeah. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. Hopefully unlikely because I just, this unprecedented disaster and part of the problem too, to really note that I meant to mention is Navarro is seeing this all in terms of bilateral trade, but [01:18:00] trade is far more complicated because we're trading with hundreds of nations and you cannot look at trade through this lens of bilateral trade. 

So he also has a section on national security. Many, most of it familiar to me because it's what we discuss so often in my institution, but one thing he talks about is the need for manufacturing for the defense industrial base, which is a problem, but he just simply assumes tariffs would encourage this.[01:18:30] 

And I just have to like tariffs have never do not work and just encouraging these manufacturing jobs to appear in the United States, the tariffs that we already implemented on China have not done so I think to really build manufacturing, you need to think more like the CHIPS Act, where you also providing these deep subsidies for companies to build their manufacturing, you can't just raise tariffs and expect an industry to evolve. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah. 

Anita Kellogg: One thing that I found [01:19:00] fascinating was that the only authority the president has to raise tariffs is if he does so for national security reasons and, but to do so, you need the secretary of defense to sign off on it. 

Ryan Kellogg: So Navarro 

Anita Kellogg: complained that when they wanted to implement aluminum and steel tariffs, Mattis refused to do so. 

You refuse to sign off on this. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah 

Anita Kellogg: fascinating. This 

Ryan Kellogg: is the [01:19:30] still had the adults in the room. Yep 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, I mean I had no idea and So in the personnel section, he talks about the need to have a secretary of defense who's in line with this economic agenda as well uh, so Another element is foreign direct investment He talks about this as if because you have a trade invest deficit You have foreign direct investment coming into the country. 

The actuality in [01:20:00] economics is because you have so much foreign direct investment that allows Americans to spend essentially more than, than they're making. In any country with net foreign direct investments are going to have, essentially are going to have trade deficits. So one of the reasons why we have this net influx of foreign direct investment is because it's so attractive to buy financial products from the United States, such as government bonds and treasury. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, [01:20:30] part of this and part of the support for the Bretton Woods system, the whole post war system and why kind of the rest of the world also benefits from an American led world order. Is yeah, , this support around, around free trade and the, the, the global trading system and in exchange, , there is that, that great appetite for for our debt and being able to service our debt as the world's reserve [01:21:00] currency. 

I mean, because we are together with maybe Japanese bonds are the flight to safety. For world financial capital that we have this great ability, unlike other nations to run pretty high deficits, but to still be able to service that debt at reasonable interest rates because there is that global appetite for that debt. 

Now, when you start messing with that, that system and it becomes [01:21:30] less and less attractive for global. Other, other nations to, to buy into that system, then you begin to really undermine that. Then we're really in a world of hurt when that appetite begins to disappear. And, and that's what, that's what you saw in the UK. 

Remember when old Liz Truss lasted as long as a head of lettuce? So maybe a month. I don't know how long a head of lettuce. It's a weird British British comparison. Yeah, when she [01:22:00] made that policy of of cutting taxes and this very unsustainable fiscal policy, the markets immediately punished her and there was a run on the pound. 

The pound used to be the world's reserve currency and they were humiliated and forced to back off of that policy. When you begin to undermine and corrode the U. S. system that benefits, , the rest of the world you begin to erode that trust in the dollar itself. And if we're no longer a reserve currency, then, then the [01:22:30] damage done to our economy would be tremendous. 

Anita Kellogg: Interestingly, one of the consequences of tariffs are to actually strengthen the U. S. dollar, which then makes our exports less attractive because they cost more. 

Ryan Kellogg: Right. 

Anita Kellogg: That was the national security section. But then, of course, there's this huge section on China. And basically, some of this reflects things we've already talked about in China, about China. 

One main point is [01:23:00] that there's no point in pursuing negotiations. That this trade deal that, that Trump got with China just means that they were negotiating in bad faith. Because it didn't work. Right. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yep. 

Anita Kellogg: So there's no point in any negotiations. And then it goes into a very long and detailed list of all of China's unfair trade practices. 

Fair enough. Uh, [01:23:30] so one of the things he complains about is technology seeking state finance foreign direct investment. So basically he says like if Americans build it, the Chinese will come. So new businesses developing technologies There's incentive for China, China to put investment in that. And basically he wants to prohibit that. 

That's not a particular shocking position either. Since we already have rules that have started to [01:24:00] reduce what foreign direct investment from China can invest in. So that's kind of a continuation of things that are already underway. He gives a very long list of policy options. A few, just a few that stood out. 

I mean, pretty much they're what you would expect, but strategically expand tariffs to all Chinese products and increase tariff rates to a level that will block made in China products completely from the U. S. I mean, this is [01:24:30] continually, completely disentangling. Most trade with China through the use of tariffs by making them so high, but he says that this has to be executed in a manner and at a pace that will not expose the U. 

S. to lack of access of essential products like key pharmaceuticals. So it's true. A lot of the key ingredients for pharmaceutical drugs do come from China. And so if you expand tariffs to all Chinese products, then. You don't have those materials or you [01:25:00] make drugs even that much more expensive. So he wants to use tariffs to end trade with China. 

That's basically the gist there. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Which goes back to the , the, what we started with. I mean, the framework is China's intractable enemy of the United States. The CCP needs to be destroyed and we should treat China like the Soviet Union. So this, this all falls into this cause , there was no trade with the Soviet Union. 

So yeah, we should cut off trade with China. 

Anita Kellogg: Right. 

Ryan Kellogg: What's the problem? [01:25:30] Oh my 

Anita Kellogg: gosh. I mean, if you start making every single Chinese product more expensive, the amount of, again, price inflation in the U S economy is dramatic and how high do you have to make those tariffs before it is no longer attractive to, to To continue making them in China and basically even if you do that Then most of that manufacturing is going to move to places like [01:26:00] india and mexico but it dramatically disrupts prices and the trading system that we're so integrated in with china because It's not like india and mexico and other countries can completely absorb all that manufacturing that's being done in china 

Ryan Kellogg: Right. 

Yeah. Yeah, there is a question 

Anita Kellogg: about pacing. He's not saying that you should do it immediately You But do it in a way I assume somewhat expediently. [01:26:30] 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know we, yeah, we definitely talked about that before. And o obviously India really is the only one that potentially has the scale to replace a significant part of, of the role that China plays within the global economy. 

But it's, it's a big challenge in question whether India can can make that transition. And no one thinks it's not over in the next decade. It's like over a decade or two, right before it would even be anywhere near the position. 

Anita Kellogg: [01:27:00] They don't have the skills right now. They don't have the skills, they 

Ryan Kellogg: don't have the infrastructure, they don't have the 

Anita Kellogg: They don't have the political system for, , to so much corruption happening in construction. 

And so there's lots of reasons why you couldn't just move that now to India. Also kind of weirdly in the trade portion is banning all Chinese social media apps like TikTok and WeChat 

Ryan Kellogg: Well done and done. Yeah, we banned TikTok. 

Anita Kellogg: I don't think we banned WeChat I don't know. I mean he uses 

Ryan Kellogg: WeChat. I thought that [01:27:30] was only domestically within China 

Anita Kellogg: No, you can use it. 

So people I know who travel to China a lot And interact with their Chinese counterparts. Do you okay so 

Ryan Kellogg: ban it from use within the US? Yeah So you have to VPN to Canada. 

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, basically. I mean, there's always ways around these things. Yeah. And the other thing that, that definitely kind of ties into if you're cutting off all trade with China, , it's reducing and eventually eliminating all U. 

[01:28:00] S. dependents on Chinese supply chains. Such as medicines, silicon chips, rare earth minerals, computer motherboards, flat screen displays, and military components. Oh, 

Ryan Kellogg: rare earth minerals, yep. Okay. 

Anita Kellogg: So, yeah, so one, we already do this on military components. Right. We have a ban on so I think that should be noted. 

Rare earth minerals, I mean, again, to completely eliminate your reliance, there's a reason why it's just, it's too expensive. Yeah. [01:28:30] We have a, it's not profitable to run mines in the United States. And then we have this big problem because used to like in 2008, China did mine, like 90 percent of rare earth minerals. 

And now it's down to about 60%, but they still process 90 percent of rare earth minerals. And this is also a heavily polluting industry. It's one that we don't really have the technical know how. We're in the process of trying to build some plants. [01:29:00] But it's happening very slowly any any ability to do this would take many many years and Could never to get it on sort of scale of what China does is Very unlikely 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, and I think what a lot of this Does just with the whole? 

MFN and , just the whole focus, which is a [01:29:30] Trumpian focus of like, all trade deficits are bad, regardless of allies or enemy, we're going to go after it, is it doesn't even have the logic, the internal logic of like, friend shoring or, , you accept a thing like rear earth minerals and you go, okay. 

, we, we can't do this economically within any reasonable without the heaviest of subsidies, which is not smart to do. Okay. Well, let's, let's, let's try to grow our relationships with in [01:30:00] Southeast Asia, where it strategically makes sense. Let's, , China's made inroads. I mean, we have a good relationship with Vietnam, but China's made inroads in Malaysia and Indonesia. 

Why not 

Anita Kellogg: countries that were targeted as having high deficits with. 

Ryan Kellogg: Right. Yeah. But then it's like, why not try to shift more of it there to diversify? I mean, I know the biggest component, correct me if I'm wrong, is now like Australia makes up like 20%. And that's, that's fine. They do that all in Western Australia, the rare earth mining and, but not the processing.[01:30:30] 

Why not do the processing in Southeast Asia? , but then Oh, okay. Oh, no, our trade deficit was Southeast Asia. But you've you've formed this process. , better alliance, but it's, it goes back to the complete rejection of the Alliance system, which is so critical to us strategy and, and, and strengths to, to be able to contain China. 

And it's this rejection of the Alliance system. That's probably one of the overarching, most disturbing things of Trump foreign [01:31:00] policy is the rejection of that system. And it comes across here in trade policy too. 

Anita Kellogg: Absolutely. A hundred percent. I mean, you could not. Reduce your trade significantly with China without French oring is just not possible. 

Yeah, we operate at full employment as it is like we don't have the capacity to In so many ways we don't have the capacity to build all those plants back in the united states and somehow fill them with labor and It's it's completely [01:31:30] unfeasible. So you have to build those in other countries and That does expand your trade deficit with those countries. 

And it depends on how serious you are in taking on China. But it's a very simplistic view of economics. It is like the whole Trump agenda definitely ignores the importance of allies. Also, , if you are raising tariffs on allies, which like the aluminum and steel tariffs were going to raise them on [01:32:00] Canada and Europe as well, then you You have less support for those countries when you are wanting support, like in the Pacific and, to get European countries or other countries to agree with your policies on China. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's 

Anita Kellogg: plus we like, yeah, there's so much to that we could take advantage of by partnering more closely in [01:32:30] our industrial base with our allied partners. And we don't do that. And we're always in all documents and current administration too. We're always saying let's onshore all this to America. 

And then in the same breath say we need to like work with our allies to French or like, we can't do both. We can't onshore in French or like there's all the policies are toward onshoring and all the talk is toward French. 

Ryan Kellogg: Right. Yep. Yeah, and that's, that [01:33:00] is right to point out the inconsistencies and, and we're, , we've talked about before with the the requirement within like the IRA and having to have 80 percent of the components, like in battery manufacturing, solar panel manufacturing be like us based. 

But again, it goes back. It's like, well, I have to do all this processing of real earth minerals. It makes no economic sense when we could be doing more like French shoring and get rid of, and there has been negotiation on like, Oh, well, , like Europe. We've Been able to negotiate certain items that they get in on [01:33:30] those subsidies. 

So there's like reforms in place, but Trump, I think would be like a huge step back from, from all of that. And back to this, just us is the biggest kid in the block. And we think we can just bully everybody into whatever our interests are constantly at will, I guess, just through Trump's, I mean, that's basically Trump's selling point is that. 

He's so big and strong and tough that other nations just quake in fear. I mean, that's the [01:34:00] whole idea of, well, if, if I had been president Russia would know when a deer, cause I, Putin respects me. He would never evaded Ukraine. I'm trying to think of ever evading Taiwan. Cause I'm, I'm big bad ass. It's just, it's so infantile and ridiculous. It's, it's just beyond, I don't know. What else can you say after nine years of this? I don't know. 

Anita Kellogg: I mean, I think that's like, we're talking about something that's extreme and [01:34:30] radical, although, I mean, I guess my emphasis is not everything is so, so different from the general national consensus. It's not, it's not. 

It's just a more radical version of it. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, it is. 

Anita Kellogg: And when we're talking about this holistically, it's hard to, , Come up with enough adjectives for radical, because, , that's basically like what I just want to say about everything. This is crazy. This would harm us interest. This would disrupt the [01:35:00] economy. 

This would not only disrupt the economy in the United States, but in the global system and, , other countries being in depression are not good for the U S is economy. If you want to try to sell anything anywhere. Just 

Ryan Kellogg: yeah, and the inflationary impacts. I mean, that's people's number one complaints is like groceries. 

Groceries have gone up 20 percent over the last four years. You think any of these policies are going to help? And now we're, we're in a much [01:35:30] better environment. , inflation is down under 3 percent and on, on most items, this is going to reverse all of that. 

Anita Kellogg: It's huge inflationary effect because no matter what you have reciprocal trading. 

Agreements, you are absolutely increasing prices on just about everything that we import and we import a lot of goods maybe 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, it's not good Project 2025 is not good. That's what, [01:36:00] that's what I've concluded. That's the conclusion, but I hope, 

Anita Kellogg: like, this discussion has been, like, why is bad for U. S. 

national interests in terms of foreign policy. And, like I said in the beginning, I think we kind of do have something unique here because so much of the discussion, at least that I've seen, has been, , sort of on domestic policies. And, it's just important to consider , we've talked all these things affect domestic politics, right? 

Your trade policy is going to affect your economy a great deal. So these are [01:36:30] foreign policy aspects that. affect the everyday American as well, whether they're as in tune to foreign policy or not. 

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, and I think in reality, foreign policy is where the president has the most leeway and the most power. 

So, these policies that we talked about today have the highest likelihood of being implemented with exception of some of the trade stuff that requires congressional approval. But these are the things that, honestly, They are never featured in debate. They're never featured in interviews because Americans, [01:37:00] a voter doesn't care that much about foreign policy, but in reality, you're elected president, most of their leeway, most of their power lies with foreign policy. 

Anita Kellogg: So hopefully that's been a comprehensive look at project 2025 foreign policy vision. And I think that brings us to the end of this episode of Kellogg's global politics. You can visit our website at www. kelloggsglobalpolitics. com and follow us On [01:37:30] x at global kelogg or me ar kelogg And I just want to mention that we are starting some new initiatives, so you can find us on Instagram and YouTube as well. 

Ryan Kellogg: Awesome. You can also reach us by email. So Anita at Kellogg's global politics. com and myself, Ryan at Kellogg's global politics. com. And as always. Please see the show notes for the articles we discussed in the episode. And if you like the show, please take time, tell your friends, share it on your social sites. 

It's [01:38:00] a simple, quick and free way to support the show. 

Anita Kellogg: Thanks everyone. 

Ryan Kellogg: Thanks. Bye.