. this is gps, the global public square. today on the show, donald trump returns from asia declaring victory. >> my fellow citizens, america is back and the future has never looked brighter. >> what does the world actually think of president trump? we'll get that view from across the atlantic. and the week's other stunners in zimbabwe and poland. also is the american economy

in a dangerous crisis? ga ray dahlia sounds the alarm on what he calls our biggest economic, political and social issue. then first mosul fell and then raqqa. what is an islamic state without a state? but first, here's my take. donald trump graded his asia trip this week, not surprisingly, he thought it was a tremendous success. our great country is respected again in asia, he tweeted. all recent polling data from the region suggests the opposite. a core focus of trump's trip was japan and south korea, for

example. only 17% of south koreans and 24% of japanese expressed confidence in him. that is down from 88% and 78% who expressed confidence in president obama during his second term. trump's rhetoric of self-interest and america first was seen by others as a sign of retreat, in contrast to xi jinping's more outlooking agenda. however president trump's policies face a new challenge now, that could further disrupt the middle east. trump has given the green light to an extraordinary set of circumstances in saudi arabia that can only be described as a revolution from above. many acknowledge the need for reforms, but differ in how to stabilize the middle east. mohammad bin salman has been

removing power in all directiod. his most recent darks have been some of the kingdom's most powerful princes, including the head of the national guard and others on allegations of corruption. the reasons given seem suspect. he said every prince in saudi arabia has partake on in the institutionalized corruption that is embedded into the system. if this was really about corruption, that is the last saudi prince you would go after. there's the royal family, and it has intermarried with a second pillar of saudi society, the tribes. these two then alley with the religious establishment. mohammad bin salman has taken on all three pillars.

but in doing so he is altering the very substance of the saudi regime. time will tell whether it will work. the greater puzzle and greater danger is that while taking on this bold and risky domestic agenda, the crown prince has also made a series of aggressive moves abroad. he has escalated saudi intervention in yemen, with air, land and sea blockades and missile strikes. he was hoping to stabilize the shiite dominated government. all of this is to fight back against eiran's growing influence. but for several years now, the saudis and americans have been in an unspoken alliance with

hezbollah against the islamic state. the islamic state is being largely defeated by american backed kurdish forces and iranian backed shiia militia. it's turned into a disaster, creating a failed state on iran's border. the shiites in lebanon did not take the bait and so far they have seen the responsible party refusing to plunge the country into instability. but everywhere in the middle east, tensions are rising, sectarianism is gaining ground, and with a couple of miscalculations or accidents, things could spiral out of control. and with donald trump having firmly supported this saudi strady, america could find itself dragged deeper into the

growing morass in the middle east. for more go to cnn.com/fareed a and read my "washington post" article for this week. america is back. >> that's what donald trump declared on his return from his five nation, two week trip. i wanted to get some perspective on the united states that the outside. here i am in london, joined by a former foreign minister of poland, neil ferguson who's a senior fellow at hoover institution, and the author of "the square and the tower." and anne mcconway is a senicolut

for london's daily standard. as someone who understands economics, zimbabwe after mugabe be successful? >> it's not looking very promising in zimbabwe, pretty much ruined by moorobert mugabed what we're seeing here is a change in the regime. it's hard to believe that this is going to make a difference in the rule of law tragically. >> when i was in singapore, i found that what people were saying about trump's asia trip, was really more about xi jinping. what's your sense? >> i hate the fact that the

united states is stabilizing itself relationship with china is a good thing. because the stability of the world depends on that, but i think president trump has mishandled the way he treats north korea. when you escalate with a rogue state, you should allow your underlings to do your talking so when the commander in chief says do something serious, it is. the other side might not understand when the crisis has become really serious. >> it you have actually visited north korea. is it your sense that this is a regime that's trying to survive, or does it pose an imminent threat to the united states? >> it's threatened the united states, but can certainly threaten south korea. one strategy for regime survival obviously, but they also wanted to reunite the country and by

threat. let's remember that north korea is a really, nasty stalinistic dictatorship, it's the sickest society i have ever visited. >> what is your sense of how the world is reacting to donald trump as he goes around? >> well, there's always a nervous air with donald trump, isn't there? if he leaves washington, d.c., it seems as a major achievement, he went somewhere and came back again. i do think the asia trip was important and not just because it has flushed out a bit more of the chinese position, i think it's actually good for the donald trump m and for the administration itself to get out a bit. and he was worried that asia may be seeing that other capitols as a kind of backdrop in a studio, that made him look good in the film. i think in this case, his

officials did work on him. i have just come back and seen a lot of people involved in preparing that, they wanted him to sustain some interest. i think the problem is that he's a difficult man to steer or control. but when he has met some of these people, when he has sat down and spent some time, it is easier to say, now do you see what we were talking about. because remember this is not a president on a learning curve, see in all fairness, taking away the donald trump factor, there still would be a lot of learning to be done and i think that's what this trip was all about. >> under trump's predecessor, the -- and the obama administration's handling of the north korean situation was disaster rourou

disastrous, remember impotent resolutions that presented -- the obama people said it would be at least five years before kim jong-un had a intercontinental ballistic missile, and it turned out to be four months. his predecessor did very poorly in asia indeed. >> and the united states that supply those new energies to the north koreans, so they can put a bigger payload in space? >> where did they come from? >> the 350 engine, used to be produced in the old soviet union and spare parts from which you could put these engines together entered into ukraine and russia. >> we will have to leave it at that. when we come back, angry nationalists take to the streets, many of them calling for jews and muslims to leave poland and chanting death to the enemies of the homeland. what's going on?

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and we are back. tell us what is going on in your country. we see these pictures and it feelings like charlottesville times ten, is it? >> i think we have across the west a wave of populism, a wave of ethno nationalism. here in britain, the brexit was a vote against a bunch of english counties against london. when it comes to nationalism, there are some majorities that are in fear of becoming minorities and it takes

different forms. remember that the nazi minority was a minority. it wasn't meant to be the way it turned out. and the president of poland has condemned these radical -- these radicals and there are now motions to delegalize some of the organizations behind it and i think the government really needs to take tough action now. because they were too lenient in the past. >> you agree this is a cultural disparity that does seem to be happening around a multiimmigrationingism? >> although it varies from country to country, i think the fundamental drivers are the samsam same, even in places where there hasn't been much immigration, which is certainly true of poland or hungary. it earlier this year there was a tendency to say, oh, the

populist wave has passed, that the nightmare scenario has not materialized because mrs. merkel wanted germany panic over, it was just an anglo sphere for trump. it turns out there's an awful lot of right -- this happens at a time when the polish economy is doing well. >> what about brexit, the forces fueling brexit, again, as neil said, a mix of economic and cultural, if brexit, the vote were held together would it happen again? >> yes, it would. and in my mind it would happen at any time you call that vote since the 1990s. we're literally going to wake up and say how might we have failed in a way that brought this about and how might we respond better. ent

>> even handling immigration? and i'm talking assimilation. >> i think there's a genuine question which would be very interested in free and open borders. but i don't think we can go on sings off the same song heat that there's an enormous group of people that are concerned about it and they think it affects them adversely. so a lot of things are going to have to change, some of the policies but some of the tone and analysis, i think some of the spasm you hear is oh, for brexit and the question to ask ourselves why this happened, but not simply to blame people about it or say that they were lied to. >> donald trump came to poland and he gave a speech that was seen at least by some people back home as a kind of steve

bannon ethno nationalism. he talked about poland, but not poland as a country of democracy and liberty, but a kind of ethno nationalist poland. >> that's because of the disaster in poland's history. and yes, i think the nationalist right felt empowered in that bannba bann bannonite personality. >> is trump feeding the ethno nationalism? >> i thought there was a wild and sometimes rather unreasonable attempt to miscon tr misconstrue it as a white nationalist speech. if you talk about world war ii, i don't think that's necessarily a bad thing in poland, since in many ways poland was the main victim in world war ii. some have empowered this

marginally far right element. the british elite embraced brexit. i mean teresa may was not for brexit. but in many ways, the british elite said we're going to make this work. we lost and many of the predictions that were made, i think are coming true on the economic side. it's also far from clear that brexit so far as done anything about immigration. so i think we are at a very interesting juncture in britain, where the chickens are coming home to roost. >> as someone who sat on those councils, is it that you're going to give britain a way to do this softly? >> well, it may come to that, but i think brexit is also a result of first years of miseducating the british public about how the eu actually works and the political class in standing up to the tabloids. and britain is, i'm afraid in a

somewhat weak negotiating position, because whatever pains the u.s. suffers, britain will suffer three to five times more under a no deal scenario. and what brussels want britain to do is to make up its mind, do you want to stay in the union or do you want to leave? and britain can't make up it's mind because both factions are split if you don't know what you want, it's hard to achieve success. >> it sounds like a perfect mess. next on "gps" at a u.n. climate conference, the white house hosted a panel on fossil fuels. as we talk carbon keeps piling up making the atmosphere warmer. can anything be done and fast? one harvard scientist has a very cool idea when we come back.

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now for our what in the world segment. the u.n. released its newest emissions gap. according to the report, the world needs to reduce emissions much more than they already pledged to do so, if we hope to keep warming to just 2 degrees celsius by 2100.

the world would have to cut emissions by 11 billion tons of c02. now there might be a technological solution to the problem. the idea draws from what happens after volcanic eruptions, david keith will help us understand. he's a professor of physics and public policy in harvard. >> they have this digital signature up in the air. and they also put sulfur dioxide high up into the atmosphere. and that gets concerted to tiny droplets of sulfuric acid and it reflects sunlight. >> these little particles help to cool the planet. you might remember the filipino

volcano that erupted in 2012. >> you actually see the whole world get cooler for a year, not just get cooler, but the productivity of plants, the ecosystem went up in that year. >> so how do we get particles into the atmosphere that will do the same thing. keith has an idea, send planes up in the air that release an aerosol to do the trick. >> the basic idea would be flying from just one or two airfields in the -- slowly reflect a tiny bit of sunlight. not to cure the problem because there is -- >> we could really on a region by region basis reduce the intensity of the big storms, like the tropical cyclones, or heat waves and also to reduce

the melting of the ice caps. so the scientific evidence that these technologies could reduce risk is very strong. >> the problem is it's unclear what else solar geo engineering would do, that is the technical term for putting all those particles into the is stratsz stratosphere. >> of courit has unexpected uncertainties but the state we're in has unexpected certainties. >> so should we put jet after jet into the air to release these particles? look, it sounds too good to be true, but sometimes that is how technology works, so why not try? >> next on gps, one of america's wealthiest men on why he is worried that the rich are getting too rich and the poor are staying too poor.

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a study out this month from the institute for policy studies finds that the three richest men in the united states are richer than the poorest 160 million people combined. most experts say this the republican tax plans will favor the rich and worsen this inequality. all this deeply worries the 26th billionaire on the forbes list, ray dalio.

he wrote a blog post on linked in sounding the alarm. and i wanted to talk to him about how he sees the problem. he's also the author of a much discussed new book called "principles." so you are looking at a global economy that is generally doing well, there's a kind of synchronous global recovery, the u.s. is doing well, europe is doing well, u.s. stock markets are hitting highs, yet you call code red on the american economy in a very interesting blog post, what do you mean? >> first i think the averages are misleading. i did an examination of the bottom 60% of the economy and the top 40% of the economy, if you break it up into the two pieces, what do its differences look like? if you look at the bottom, over

the last 16 year period of time, there's been no -- there are two economies. >> and so for that 60%, you point out it not just economically that they're not doing well, they're having rising death rates, you pint out in your post that the top 40% spends four limes as much on education, as the bottom 60%, which means that we're perpetuating a top 40 relief that gets more advantages on the bottom 60% that's left further besigned. >> we as a nation have to focus on the bottom 60%. in other words in other words -- i do believe there should be a national initiative that actually focuses on that. because that problem is going to increase.

>> you talk about investment, what do you mean? >> i believe that there should be a commission or an initiative in which two objectives are set out. to take metrics for that segment of the population, and to move those metrics and to do the investigations of the various ways. i do fear what will happen in the future, because as we look forward, what will the next economic downturn be? there will be a journey turn, and if we imagine the downturn, with the existing polarity, i think it's going to be a very serious social and political issue. >> do you worry that we are now in a two tier economy and one could argue that even in the first top half of that that it's really doing well?

i know you've told me you grew up very modest means, forbes says you're worth $17 billion. are we moving into an almost brazil type situation where there's only going to be an elite that dominates -- >> the pressures of technology, technology's wonderful. but technology in replacing people is an important force. and so if we go forward, you're going to create a two-tier economy, because there will be those who will create these wonderful things that also have the effect of replacing people. so it is the issue of our time. >> you have this fascinating new book out, i don't want to let you go without asking you, what

one thing does everybody talking about. at your firm there's this idea of radical transparency, which means that people have to disagree, clearly, publicly, without this. and people always wonder, do you take it to the point where people in your firm actually routinely look you in the eye and tell you ray, dalio you're the boss, but you're completely 100% wrong? >> i do because i need that. i set up the company, if i don't have that engagement, besides my not hearing things i need to hear, can you imagine you being in a company in a position where you have to hold that inside of yourself, or walk around saying i did something stupid or i didn't speak up. you can't build a company that way. in order to have independent

thinkers around to get to the best ideas and have great collective decision making, you have to be able to have thoughtful disagreement to rise above it. there is a challenge a lot of people have emotionally to be able to have disagreement. shouldn't disagreement be a source of curiosity? and if people are are disagreeing, then somebody must be wrong. how do you know that wong person isn't you? it makes a better decision-making process and also improves the quality of relationships. coming up on gps, first mos mosul, then raqqa, the two parts of the isis caliphate are no longer in terrorist hands. so what does this mean for terror? ♪ and how, i can't explain ♪ oh yeah, well well well youuuu ♪

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. last month, raqqa was declared liberated, free after enduring three years under isis rule. the terror group had taken over its city as its headquarters, the capital of the so-called caliphate. this came just three months after the iraqi capital was delivered from the terrorists as well. so what is an islamic state without any pretense of an actual state. my guest is the author of "the golden house". when you look at what's going on in raqqa, with isis, with al qaeda, it does seem as though islamic radicalism or at least the jihadi version of it is dieing or at least being defeated on the battle ground. do you think that's being

defeated idealogically as well? >> i think, yes, it always seemed to me that it would be likely that isis would be defeated militarily, people who have reported on the war, friend or mine, french journalist said the thing about isis is they're good terrorists, but their bad soldiers. when you confront them on the battlefield, they run away. that's probable. the difficulty now is that there will be an extent of the splintering of the dangers, so i think we may face more of the individual low tech attacks that we have been seeing across europe with people driving trucks into civilian populations and so on. i think there may be a bit more of that. but i think there is really a reason to think that the tide has swung against that phenomenon across the western world. >> that's a big thing for you to say because you've been worried

and warning about the fact that there has been this council will be islam. >> i think it's still there, i'm not even saying that it's in remission. i am saying it's having a hard time right now and that could be a good thing for all of us. >> it was tried in many places and nobody likes it, the afghans hated the taliban. >> everywhere this has actually taken power, they have very quickly become hated. if afghanistan, the taliban were hated. in algeria, the radicals would hate the gia, or were very unpopular. the military in iran are not really beloved. and in iraq, whenever this gets into control, people rapidly discover they won't wadon't wan

>> this is a novel that you've written like others, it feels like it's the reality we're living in. what is your view of the dominant reality of america or its big cities today? >> first of all, i think one of the realities is the incredible division between the big city, for example new york thinks one way and middle america thinks in a different way. there's always been that split, that america have never been completely happy with each other, and that's true in britain and france as well. but right now that rift is so exaggerated. >> it was said in the obama years, you made a conscious decision to do that. >> it's the thing that you're told not to do, is to write up

until the rent comment, to write >> as a novelist, what strikes you about the obama era. >> i felt there was this movement from incredible optimism to the antethesis. i remember. i was here on the night of the first obama election and i was walking around the city in the middle of the night in places where people gather. union square and rockefeller plaza like that. looking at people's faces. the extraordinary joy and hope in those mainly young faces. i thought it was a remarkable thing to witness. now certainly for somebody of my inclinations, we face the dark side of that. >> to add to the comic relief, there is a guy called the joker who is donald trump. he is a variation on trump.

>> in a deck of playing cards, the only two cards that don't behavior properly are the joker and the trump. trump's name is not in the book anyway. i don't want the trumps. i will have the joker. there is a cartoon villain running for president. >> did you watch trump and say to yourself, if i wrote this, people wouldn't believe it? sometimes trump is stranger than fiction. >> totally stranger than fiction. i have dinner with my friend last week and we were agreeing if we presented this as a story to our publishers, they would say go away and try harder. it's implausible. we live in the age where the implausible is what's happening. >> what is going on in america that it allowed for this? >> i don't think it's just america. there is a broken relationship with reality. i think that people don't believe things anymore. i don't think this is just to do

with the trump administration. a lot of it has to do with the information age. out there on the web now, truth and untruth twist at the same level of authority. i think it's very difficult for people to judge which is which. if you don't have a firm grip on the truth, you lay yourself open to phenomenon like trump and like brexit. there is a range of these phenomenon that come from the same damaged reality that we are living in. >> pleasure to have you. >> next on gps, i have been in london where it costs you 11.50 pounds to drive your car into the center of the city each weekday. there is still lots of traffic. is there an answer? there may be a boring one. i don't mean the answer is uninteresting. i will explain what i do mean when i come back.

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so all you pay for is data. choose by the gig or unlimited and ask how to get a $200 prepaid card when you buy any new samsung device with xfinity mobile. a new kind of network designed to save you money. click, call or visit today. the president returned from his big international trip this week and it brings me to my question. which country's passport is ranked the most powerful in the world for ease of travel? is it the united states, singapore, germany or sweden? stay tuned and we will tell you the correct answer. this week's book is red famine, stalin's war on ukraine by the pulitzer prize winning historian, gps regular. she writes vividly about the strategy to starve ukraine and destroy the culture.

why the fear of apathy have roots in the 1930s. a gripping read. now for the last look. i'm no london are a city toer touous for terrible traffic. driving into downtown london on a weekday costs drivers a $15 congestion fee. take a look at this picture. it looks like a garden variety underground shaft. in reality it is a tunnel that space ex-founder elon musk is digging under these los angeles. why the pivot from above the clouds to below the ground? he founded a tunnelling firm called the boring company. the mission is to solve the traffic problem and started with a two-mile test tunnel near lax. the goal is to build a network of tunnels to move cars on electric tracks under cities fast at around 125 miles per

hour. as you can guess, this is not cheap. tunnelling projects cost $1 billion per mile. another goal is to reduce costs. whether it's boring tunnels or limiting cars or prices, let's work towards ending our traffic nightmares. by one estimate traffic congestion costs american drivers 3$300 billion last year alone. the answer to my challenge question is b, singapore. a singaporean passport holder can visit 159 countries either without a visa or by obtaining one upon arrival. a ranking compiled by the advisory firm. it is the first time an asian nation came out on top of the list since it began in 2015. if you are wondering which countries provide powerful passports are, germany was next

and south korea in a third place tie. the u.s. fell to 6th place with island, canada and malaysia. which country has the unfortunate rank of being the least powerful passport in the world. afghanistan. thanks for being part of my program this week. see you next week. >> a possible turning point in the u.s. senate race in alabama. three of the state's largest supporters are urging republicans to support democrat doug jones over roy moore. the number calling on him to withdraw is growing. multiple lawmakers are speaking out this morning. >> these allegations are extremely disturbing, but under the constitution, the test on whether or not