this is a region devastated by war pm is one of dozens of villages along the border with as well. and like others, nearly everything has been destroyed in more than a year of fighting between as well and has beloved. hi can. it's always on the coffee shop alley lost his home and business. he set up a small kiosk in the place of his cafe to survive. and while the database, you know, the situation is horrible. most homes, a totally destroyed. we still haven't begun to do anything. i can't imagine anything will be rebuilt before 5 years. the most buildings are beyond repair. people need support to rebuild. the world bank estimates, direct losses to amount to at least $6500000000.00. it's a similar figure for indirect losses. lebanon doesn't have that money, nor has it yet secured it from its donors. the world bank is trying to help

establishing a fund of $1000000000.00. he will within $1015000000.00 as a, as a, as a loan. and said that $50000000.00 he wouldn't work or collecting from donors. reconstruction can begin without substantial international support. the scale of the destruction here is worse than the last conflict between israel and has the law in 2006 and back then the international community, in particular, arab countries were quick to help with reconstruction money. this time it's different. there are no blank checks. the international community is demanding, has the bellows full disarmament. there are already efforts to clump down on the group sources of funding. left and onto new administration says it is committed to its obligations. we have a lot of with this already, so that's the south east. most of the so you don't expect that we are now going to be able in that in a minute. you know, in short, the,

to stop the doing everything at the same time, but, but assistance can come soon enough. this is a society reeling from years of an economic and political crisis. a fish as a is the sheer mass of the i'm gonna, i can't afford to fix the gloss in our house and it's co account by fuel for heat. my children sleep cold and no one has come forward to help us. even before the war living on was already a broken country. said uncle there, i was gonna see to see him. southern lebanon. discovered that more on our website, i'll just say on the comedy on your media devices to be set off to upfront. stay with us here and not just the the

it is donald, trump and 11 must continue to slash public spending. what impact will this have when the every day citizens of the united states, and how will trucks terrace impact the country's global standing this week on upfront? i asked those questions to economist richard with the ritual. thanks so much for joining me enough for my pleasure. so let's jump with ministration is set to cut 2 trillion dollars in federal spending. slashing funding for disaster relief, humanitarian aid. the center for disease control,

i mean just to name a few things. what do you make of this? well, i'm the one hand, this is the traditional republican pitch. remember from at least a century, the republican party presents itself in this country as the party against taxes, the party for small government. all of that. what you see in mr. trump is the same old republican story, but carried much further. it's a little bit like the republican party always allowed the southern white population to leave the democratic party and come over, but they didn't pay under to white supremacy. mr. trump, did you know the hostilities are foreigners that you could get from the republican party is taking further, trump defined himself as different. i'm going to give you more than any

republican ever did. and you've got to let me do more than you might. and that's it. and so people say that in different ways, but that's, did you look to democratic party? isn't that different? it also supports private enterprise and capitalism, but it makes the alliance based on a different group of people, women edgy, highly educated people, brock them around people. yeah, i think it will all, we all kinda know if you pay much attention. the democrats say the big shots support to us because we will bring in and they will like nancy pelosi and that same is moment during the campaigns. a few years ago when she was at a college and a young student stands up and says, you know, what are, what do you think about socialism? the obviously affected by burgundy and all of that. and she does it. you can see the cameras right on her, so she doesn't know quite what to say. and she's fumbling would she?

she's pretty well spoken. so this was unusual. finally, it comes to how she looks kind of befuddled and looks why that the young man and says, we're all capital as wow, wow. and that's in that she's right, that's success. we're well, all of them, those folks and their job is to build the alliance that gets you the boats and when i used it, and when you don't do it well enough, then the other one, trump comes along, breaks all of this by saying, i'm going way further in building that alliance, and i'm going to get enough people that i'm going to blow the rest of you out of the water. what's the, what's it, what are they going further? thanks good. you're not wrong. at least based on what we've seen so far. the republicans in congress want to extend from existing tax codes, which are set to expire at the end of the year, but a pass it'll cost an estimated $4.00 trillion dollars. yes. but it does, for fortunately, we'll reduce taxes for the wealthy. now the further part seems to be that in order

to pay for it, or they're considering slashing medicaid getting parts of the affordable care act, i mean, they're going further and deeper than we've seen in a recent years. but how does that jive with the populist promises he made it again? he's telling lots of people your lives bad now it'll get better under me. but a baby was health care and high quality medical services. housing life better. it isn't. i mr. mr. trump, this is what he sells it to the people in the, in the has to that's the employer class. look in in 2017. when mr. trump was president and got them this tax cut. it was then the biggest tax cut we've seen, emphasizing the corporations and the rich. it came at the end of a 40 year period on the equals in american history for re distributing wealth and income up away from the poor away from the middle to the musk send the bees osis

and all of them. yeah. as an economist, i can tell you, never did. we need a tax cut for corporations in the rich less than 2017 when they got it. now they want to keep it because they're the sunset provision. now they want to keep it in this year. if he's gonna do that, the only way he can deliver to that or to use his language, i'm going to make you will rich. exactly. the only way he can do that now is to savage, the public sector. where else is he going to get the money? and then when the public realize it's just too late, or how does it have to be reconciled? it? mr. trump will be with us when they think about that. fair enough, you mentioned eli unless he has not just been a public cheerleader for donald trump. he's been brought into the fold very concrete ways. uh kinda to help dismantle the federal government. they've got it entire departments, including the agency, us a i. d,

as well as the department of veterans affairs. they terminated thousands of contracts, and they're set to lay off tens of thousands of workers. and what might be effectively the biggest job cutting us history. mm hm. and i don't know they're setting sites on the u. s. department of education, but again, think like an employer for a minute, even if it doesn't come to you naturally, if it doesn't come to mean that for lead, for an employer. this is near vonda because he's not gonna have to tax that look, he has to deliver that to them. how's it going to do it? he could borrow the money. that's what his predecessors did. but we are now a little level of debt. this country as whenever she and it's becoming a scary problem, because if the rest of the world no longer lives to the united states government, the coverage deference, it's, what are we going to do? let's remember that for many, many people you get paid less if you work for the government and if you go in the

private sector and the compensation for that was job security. what mr. trump, mr. musk are doing more than what the word is or that they fire is they've taken that security away. where do you think public employees are gonna go? if either they've lost their job, which is happening to tens of thousands, or they're scared silly that they might lose their job. they're going to go into the private check world. so they go to go. which means they're going to drive down wages and working conditions in the private sector. because the worker who comes from the private sector laid off after 510 years, that means not only your job is gone, your income is gone. but your career ladder has just been yanked out from under you . so you're desperate. your worried you will offer yourself one way or another for less money than the person who's getting who's in that private sector job now. but

let me, let me, let me reach over here and put on my read mega head for 2nd. i'm going to represent the position of truck potentially good. yeah, we're cutting taxes for the richest among us. yes, we're giving more and more benefits to corporations. but that will create jobs that will allow us to take risks that will allow us to spark innovation that will allow us to create the next big market that will allow for, you know, what for everybody. if we build a new internet, if we build a new auto industry, if we build a new thing, everybody gets a job. everybody wins more money is on the table. this was a reasonable argument. i don't think it was ever true. i'm a professor of economics. i spell it all my life. what you're saying is a nice way, better way than they usually do for what used to be called trickle down economics. you help the folks at the top, you boost the profit, you give them a tax cut and it will trickle down to a good job for me and all. that was,

i'm going to be more nice now than i ought to be. there was a grain of truth to that, but it isn't any more. and that's perhaps the most important thing that i can tell you. the, i'll say it as bluntly as i know how the american empire is over. we're done. we picked about 1215 years ago and we are on the down. and it's very hard for the american people, which i understand i am on. it's hard to get your head around that. we've had a century of on the way up, which is a lot more fun than on the way down. but it does happen that every empire, we're only the latest look at the additional how far they fall. we were in the process. so the problem with the trickle down is, yeah, there might be more jobs, but they going to be created in china. they're going to be created in brazil. they're going to be created in india. they're not created here. how do you compare

at this moment of slashing particularly the federal government to say the nineties and bill clinton did something somewhat similar, but are they? is this just a part of some disagreement or the substance of dallas again, and i know this is difficult for people to hear. this is a cut based on desperation. this is an economy that is indeed we have the greatest level of corporate debt. this company is ever seen of the choice, the greatest level of personal debt, and we have the greatest level of government that our government, that is now trillions of dollars greater than our annual output. that was not the case in the 20th showing to it is the case. now, what you're seeing is desperation politics. the whole prompt phenomena, or to say you wait a minute, these jerky moves that are out of whack. right in recent days we have seen the decision of the trump administration to kiss the war in ukraine. good bye. we're

not doing that no more. because we can't afford it, we can't keep funding a war, which by the way that west is losing, as anybody who pays attention knows all these things are signs of what of a country that is in trouble. and these are turning on each friends because it can to save itself. look, let me give you a simple example. the best electric vehicles in the world right now, but by uniform global agreement, are produced by something called the b y d corporation, which probably most folks and never heard of, which is chinese. b, y, d, lea, initials, b, y, d. they make the best quality, cheapest electric car and truck, or you don't see the money with them united states. why not? because mr. trump put a 27 percent tariff on them, and mr. biden raised it to

a 100 percent. so let me give you an example. if you wanted to buy a $30000.00 b y d electric vehicle, which you could do, that's what they charge. twice so good. you would have to pay $30000.00 to get the chinese to ship it here. then you'd have to give a mazda 30100 percent tariff to uncle sam on this case. uncle, gone in the way of a tower, so would cost you $60000.00, which you're not going to do because you can get a less good tesla, or gm, or ford, or anybody else at 40 to 50000, which is less than you'd have to pay but here's the problem, isn't it? because right now this sounds like a good plan to a lot of people. trouble is that i wouldn't do this, not just the china. you know, i'm the, everybody's going to double exist in jazz china, everybody but mexico, canada, everybody. if we intensify the tariffs, the scenario you just painted will happen and people will be forced to by us stuff, right? which then creates us jobs, which it stimulates the economy. let me be the economists. okay, that's good for,

for the tesla company, which i'm sure is purely going to take off the gm and ford and the others good. and they'll maybe be able to hold on to some jobs. good. but now let's follow the bouncing ball. that's my job is in the comments everywhere else in the world. every company in, in asia, africa, latin america that competes with an american company that has to buy a truck. this part of its business will go to china and buy the best truck at the lowest price, $30000.00 the best truck. no american company that competes with them. we'll do that if you go to europe right now and you go on the auto reach all over europe. you'll see b, y, d cars and trucks. america is shooting itself in the. it may be great politics for mr. trump. i'm hoping the oil companies and the workers you'll go to michigan,

that will give us. yeah. but what you're doing is diminishing the capability of the united states to hold on at a time when it's footprint in the world is shrinking. if you take the united states together with the other g 7 countries that used to be the dominant block of the world. but united states like just the numerate themselves by no kind of the japan, germany, france, italy, and brit. okay. the g 7, or i'm gonna add up all the, the g, d, p gross domestic pro, total output of goods and services of all of those 7 countries. us and it's major allies. and now i'm going to compare it to the growth ended up gd, piece of trying to and its allies know now as the brakes. okay. you end up united states about 28 percent of world output your head of china in the breaks. it's 35 percent of the world output. we aren't the wealthiest block in the world,

number 2, a, and that's new. and that changes every se, every country and asia, africa, latin america, trying to figure out who to go to borrow money from, who to go to, to deal with who to go to sell your exports. where to go to, to invest in your railroad, you know, where they used to go. washington london, powers, of course, now they go there, but they go to india and brazil and that, so i, they go to south, i won't move deli, beijing. and they asked, can you give us a better deal? and here's the news. i got to give you the get the better deals, and they go that way. and that's not gonna stop. and you can rattle your sabers all over the you put the 7 sleep in the south. china sea is going to change that. you've got to come to terms with that. but we are led by people who don't want to do that because nobody wants to be the politician who has to explain to the people

it's over. and we now have to figure out which we should do and we couldn't do it. we have still lots of resources to manage coming to terms with the change situation and, and kind of picking them against the larry doesn't do that for saying, hey, we may not do so what global marketing anymore. but if these companies, us companies are sort of treated properly and the terms keep the other people out, we can just based on the few 100000000 people in this country be able to support our economy, create jobs in, in, in, in lives, dudley. i doubt it possible, but i doubted why, because it's never worked that way that we have. we have a global economy and more globalized that we ever were. we'd, we have wondering which now supply chain, almost every american kind of understand what's the supply chain, didn't use to think about things like that. because we were all here when they say supply chain. they kind to know that when you get up in the morning and you have

your breakfast, the coffee doesn't come from america and the sugar in it don't come from america. so if you put a lot of tire up your last day is going to cost you $30.00. oh, how are you going to manage this in a country already troubled with in the quality the price increases alone suggested by what he's doing, the dramatic actions. they looked dramatic. i'm helping america it, it looks wonderful. it is choreographed in the hollywood. but it doesn't work, do you think he it, it has a good faith belief that this will lead to the best outcomes for the american? oh, i think that would be given while i what i gather from what he says. i don't know how to say this politely. he doesn't understand the economics real well. the things he said are things which in undergraduate, after baby 3 weeks wouldn't say, well, i'll give you an example. tyrus. he keeps saying and he said that before the tire

of i'm going to get china with these top tyra, so paid by americans to the american government. tyrus are a tax, they just have a, it's a tax on imports to which we have given historically a particular name terrace. but it's attacks and people who have to wonder the anti tax party gotten to the republicans, or it's a big goal for something has changed. so he keeps thinking that he could hit other countries. what with that are you with us? with the arrow, we have to pay it. it means we will have to pay more for every thing you attach a tariff to. i'd like to turn the foreign policy for bit. donald trump has said that he wants to turn canada into the 51st stage. he wants to take over the panama canal of gaza in greenland. he's already been in the gulf of

mexico, the gulf of america. the you argue that this is a kind of 18th century crude colonialism. but why? at a moment like this, where the united states, from your perspective has a weekend to global position, where they take on such and vicious, extensively colonial activity as opposed to hunkering down domestically. well, if you're study colonialism, you discover that most of the time when a country began going overseas and snatching parts of the world, it was because of 2 things. one, it needed 2 and 2 it good. the united states needs it in the united states can it can take over europe. that's too expensive, too difficult. there too rich and then too powerful. and they can't control russia . they're learning that now bad,

badly. and they can't control china and they've learned that now for 25 years. but what can they control or taking control lexical control, canada, or least they can make a stab at it. when i look 5 bucks worth of food are you and i and everybody each comes from overseas and most of that from mexico and canada. energy comes, it's huge portion of our energy is canadian oil gas. and so. so these are basic things when the and we're strong enough, they depend on us way more than we depend on them. we have a much bigger economy then either of them. so we can, so it just might makes right just basically, and he's also a, we're is a good politician. he's aware that a lot of the things he's going to do, we're going to produce real tensions inside the united states between those parts of the community that are hurt and those that are not foreign adventures. i've

always had that wonderful quality that we can unite our country in opposition to in the feeling superior to, in benefiting from really or by imagination those other over there. let's talk about those others over there some more because throughout this conversation you've been talking about the brakes, nations a, how significant as a military matter is the bricks. economic alliance is the emerging power of china. how, how scared should we be? it's, it's, it's fundamentally very different. let me explain economically. the game is over the chinese, if not already of a wealthy or economic unit than we are, which they probably are, will be within a few years. very few like by the end of this decade, it's not, it's not already. so economically they are doubt our equal. but remember there are

equal, they're going up, we're going that way. cool. but the trajectory is unmistakable across the board. and so politically it's comes right after that you're that powerful economically. if you're the place that the whole world goes to, to cut a deal because you get a better deal that you can get from washington or london, which is now most of the time the case. that's why if you look at the biggest harbor being built in africa, it's being built for the chinese. if you look at the new railroads going across parts of light, the met is built by the charging him on and on. and you know, the panama canal, why is he want me to take it? well, the 2nd, the united states is the number one country using the panama changes. number 2, gentleman has built all these buildings to, to handle their ship. it. yeah, it's everywhere. and once you start looking, you see it everywhere. but militarily,

there's none of that. americans have to understand, even if you don't agree with me, trying to understand how the rest of the world looks in the united states maintains 750 military bases around the world. the china doesn't have any. the united states is a global military presence. the likes of which is not existing any way we are alone in that. how, how, how long was that solitude going to last? if, as you're saying, the economic power is diminishing of the united states. that then transformed into diminished political power because again, this is already held by the of the nation. look at the votes in the u. n, you'll see the book diminish political power, right on display. so then it feels like the military's next might, how scared should we be? well, i think i put it this way. i think you're right across the roads. now. either you decide to stay with what you're doing, in which case you are right. they will,

even if it's a, in their minds think it's defensive. who cares? they will develop a military capability because that will be their only safety, philip, forget whether you agree with them or not. it's not the issue. but there is an alternative. the alternative is, you sit down and you say to your adversary, we both got to live on this planet. can we work out a deal where we give each other the room to function to live? because if we threaten each other, what's the end game of this? we spend a fortune friday. if we ever slip and make a nuclear awards over anyway. so that's it, that is what, what, why don't we try to shift? why don't we try that to a better shot? so maybe the best move is to sit down with the up and comers and work something out

. we'll see richard wolf. thank you so much for joining upfront. my pleasure. thanks for having a program like this where these things can be talked about. the a pod he came into the dates to military abuse, poco around somebody, not at all. there's no, you know, character, we don't know such facing reality. how do you reconcile your needs from a security perspective with the human rights folks and everybody who wants to come to portland can do that, but we expect that person to accept our rooms, thought provoking on north korea with those extend. now korea is the mirror of what do we need to avoid in the case of you hear the story on talk to how does era the 1st thing is how many people even care about sustainability or the planets. because

we are lost in the external world trying to compete with each other to get a faster car or a bigger house or something more shiny. and i think all wisdom traditions have pointed to this, that we need to have these skills and abilities to take care of the world of each other in a wise way, especially for leaders. and this has to do with maybe compassion and empathy. and our ability to think long term and not just the one my next salary will show up or what happens next year. but actually to see, where are we heading and ask the big questions? the

limits to how far dream continue to study in your own adventure now counter arranged the a watch over the last week or so what's going on? any of this thing could end up in world war 3 us president donald trump threatens both functions against russia, saying he's considering large scale measures because most of that was pounding you crate on the back and see the carry johnston. this is all just here, a lot from the whole set coming through an official se securities restored in that's not him. often thousands of people are killed in fighting

a sore machine. knowing this box are rated in the occupied. westbank is very full system. 8 of them in the city of novel.