Return to Transcripts main page
Amanpour
Interview with Former Colombian President and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Juan Manuel Santos; Interview with Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Senior Fellow Karim Sadjadpour; Interview with Eurasia Group and GZERO Media Founder and President Ian Bremmer. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired January 07, 2026 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:00]
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The United States proved once again that we have the most powerful, most lethal, most sophisticated and most fearsome.
It's a fearsome military on planet Earth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Trump claims the Western Hemisphere as his own and puts Colombia next on the menu. Its former president, Juan Manuel Santos, joins me.
Then widespread protests shake Iran. Is this now existential? I ask Iran analyst Karim Sadjadpour.
And --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
IAN BREMMER, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, EURASIA GROUP AND GZERO MEDIA: The reality of America struggling internally is making it much less reliable
internationally.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- 2026 has started out with turbulence in geopolitics. Global risk analyst Ian Bremmer tells Walter Isaacson why this year could be the
tipping point.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
From Greenland to Iran to Colombia, Donald Trump is making serious threats. The president proclaims the Western Hemisphere belongs to the United States
and says it'll take Greenland from Denmark, its own NATO ally, one way or another.
In Venezuela, Trump says the acting president will do America's bidding or risk further military intervention. And he's threatening Colombia. Take a
listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Colombia is very sick, too. Run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. And he's
not going to be doing it very long, let me tell you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What does that mean? He's not going to be doing it very long?
TRUMP: He's not doing it very long. He has cocaine mills and cocaine factories. He's not going to be doing it very long.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, there will be an operation by the U.S. in Colombia?
TRUMP: It sounds good to me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, hit back by vowing to, quote, "take up arms" to defend his country.
Trump and Petro have clashed from the very start when Petro initially refused to take Venezuelan migrants that Trump was deporting, then over the
war in Gaza and U.S. military strikes against the alleged drug trafficking vessels of Venezuela. The U.S. even suspended Petro's visa and sanctioned
him last year. But could this really spiral into an American assault on Colombia?
Juan Manuel Santos was the country's president for eight years until 2018, and he's joining me now from there. Welcome to the program, Mr. President.
JUAN MANUEL SANTOS, FORMER COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT AND NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LAUREATE: Thank you, Christiane. I'm very glad to be here with you.
AMANPOUR: So, your president is, as you hear, under direct verbal threat from President Trump. Do you, if you were Petro, would you be preparing for
an intervention a la Venezuela or what?
SANTOS: No, no. This is more of a personal clash, as you said, that has been going on for some time. Petro and Trump in some way are the same. They
like to fight. They like to exercise their diplomacy through the microphone, through tweets especially. And for Petro to be on the other
part of Trump politically, he thinks that will benefit him.
But I don't think that this will go -- I hope it doesn't go further to a more dangerous area because I think that would be very, very
counterproductive for everybody, for the U.S., for Colombia, for the region, and for the world.
AMANPOUR: So, then let me ask you, do you think what happened in Venezuela was, in your words, counterproductive for all those elements that you just
listed? What was your reaction when you heard that a sitting president, I know many called him illegitimate, and a dictator, all of that, but
nonetheless he was extracted and moved to the United States and the U.S. says it's running that country now? What's your reaction as a South
American?
[13:05:00]
SANTOS: Well, my reaction is, on the one hand, I'm very glad that Maduro is no longer in power. He had violated every law, violated every human
right of Venezuelans, and Venezuela was going down the drain. So, this is a very good step to restore, hopefully, some stability and democracy in
Venezuela. So, as a Colombian, we have 2,200 kilometers of live frontier with Venezuela. This is a good step in the right direction.
However, as also somebody who defends multilateralism, the rule of law, international law, the action was not a legal action. It was illegal. And
therefore, if it stops there, we have to go back to what General de Gaulle used to say that politics and foreign affairs is an exercise of, among many
evils, choosing the lesser evil.
So, you have, on the one side, the good news that Maduro is no longer in power, the bad news that he was taken out of power through an illegal
action. Now, there are many questions now that the Venezuelans have and the world has.
The first question is, OK. Maduro is out of power. Apparently, this is to restore legitimacy and democracy in Venezuela. But it's very difficult to
understand that the person who is replacing Maduro is his vice president, because she is also illegitimate, because the Maduro regime was an
illegitimate regime. So, it's very difficult to understand that he was replaced by an illegitimate person in terms of democratic values.
And this -- all the people that were responsible for the human rights violations and for the terrible things that happened in Venezuela are still
in power and backed by the U.S. So, that is a difficult aspect to understand. And as a Colombian, I am worried. I'm worried.
And my question is here, where is the Venezuelan real opposition? Why has the real opposition, the one that won the elections last year by a very big
majority, 70 percent, that's the information that everybody has, why are they not in the front line of the transition? Why is it that the transition
is being done with illegitimate members of the Maduro regime? That is a question that so far nobody has answered.
AMANPOUR: Right. And it's a question that I'm puzzling over as well, because it's, for me, you know, the first time in my career following these
kinds of upheavals, that the United States hasn't immediately tried to back the legitimate democratic opposition. Instead, it's done the opposite. And
it's verbalized, President Trump has verbalized what he thinks about, for instance, Maria Carina Machado, that she doesn't have what he said the
respect to govern.
Do you have any knowledge about what might have caused the president of the United States to take that view? There's reports that perhaps the CIA felt
that she didn't have enough influence with the military or with the infrastructure and the security apparatus, et cetera. Can you imagine why
the United States would not immediately embrace the opposition that it was -- it already said actually won the elections in '24, not Maduro -- or '25,
not Maduro?
SANTOS: Well, one would suppose that they think that the people that were left of the Maduro regime because of the threats of -- And Trump has been
very clear on that. If you don't behave yourself, you will be in the same or in worse situation than Maduro. And then they're afraid, and he probably
thinks that he can control them much better than he could control the opposition.
[13:10:00]
Because if the opposition is granted the space that it deserves, if you want to recuperate legitimacy in Venezuela, I think that they would be much
harder to negotiate with on aspects like, for example, what has happened with the oil.
So, I would imagine that what the U.S. is thinking is that the vice president, now president, and the regime is going to behave better right
now than the opposition.
AMANPOUR: Very interesting. Now, let's get back to your own country. Trump has said this about the current president, Petro, that Colombia is very
sick, too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States, and he's not going to be doing it for very long, let me tell
you. It's a little bit of what -- the soundbite we played.
What -- you know, there apparently is no credible evidence that Petro is a drug dealer. Maybe he hasn't cracked down as much as people would like, but
that accusation apparently is not correct. And that when he -- when Trump says he's not going to be doing it for very long, let me tell you, do you
take that as a threat of intervention, or is it because there's going to be election soon in your country, Petro can't run again, and yes, de facto, he
will not be doing that for much longer?
SANTOS: I think, and I hope, it's the second point that you just mentioned, that Petro is not going to be in power for long. We have
congressional elections in two months, exactly, and presidential elections in four months, so he's not going to be in power for long. And I don't
think that what Trump was suggesting is that he's going to do an operation similar to what he did with Maduro.
Among other reasons is because, as you very rightly mentioned, there's no evidence of Petro, who is not liked by many people and with good cause, but
that he is a drug trafficker. I don't think that he is a drug trafficker, and there's no evidence that he's a drug trafficker.
AMANPOUR: So, what do you think your country has to do? Because let's be realistic about it. It does produce and sell -- well, send, you know, over
80 percent of the cocaine that gets to the United States comes from your country. There isn't enough or there hasn't been enough crackdown or
ability to get it under control. Likewise, zero ability in the United States to control the demand, which presumably makes it a viable place for
all these South American, you know, drugs to go to the U.S.
So, what does your country have to do to make sure that it does crack down on this illegal drug trade, particularly to the U.S.?
SANTOS: Well, Colombia has had a very, very fluid and constructive relationship with the U.S. for decades. We were the strategic ally of the
U.S. south of Rio Grande, of all the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Colombia was the number one as an ally with the U.S. We used to
work with the U.S. in many aspects, among them, the war on drugs. We trained police from other countries with the help of the U.S. to fight drug
trafficking.
And we gave the U.S. 60 or 70 percent of the information that was necessary to combat drug traffickers and to seize the drugs. That collaboration is
necessary because what is happening in the whole of Latin America and also starting to happen in Africa is that organized crime is growing and is
becoming more powerful and more sophisticated. And they are probably very happy with what is happening because if the major producer of cocaine and
the major consumer of cocaine are fighting among each other, who wins? Organized crime.
So, what should Colombia do? Colombia should say, listen, let's go back to what we had before. Let's cooperate in something that is good for both of
us, which is drug trafficking, instead of this fighting with the microphone and with the tweets and these threats, because that will lead to nowhere.
AMANPOUR: Can I just quickly ask you, you're obviously incredibly well- known as the president who took on the FARC, guerrillas, the rebels, the insurgents in your own country and led a long negotiation, which with a lot
of bumps and ups and downs, finally succeeded in bringing peace to your country. You won the Nobel Peace Prize.
[13:15:00]
Do you worry that there could be an Iraq-style insurgency brewing eventually in Venezuela? I mean, I don't know what's going to happen to the
current military there. They're currently running it. The security services, as you put -- you know, you pointed out and everybody knows, is
still cracking down on ordinary civilians in Venezuela. But what if they are pushed aside? What is your analysis of what might happen if there's to
be a backlash against the American intervention?
SANTOS: Well, that is one of my worries, that there's a backlash, not only from Venezuela, but from the whole region. This is something that the U.S.
should take into consideration. Many people are happy that Maduro is not in power anymore. But this attitude of, I own the hemisphere, and therefore
you have to do everything that I want you to do.
The Latin Americans have dignity and they have pride. And if they're forced to take a more stronger position to defend their dignity and their pride,
they will do it. So, I hope it doesn't develop into that situation. And so, I hope that diplomacy and dialogue can be recuperated, which is what
everybody knows is necessary in this type of circumstances.
And people ask me, well, what would you do generally? And I say, when you are confused, your principles and your values are like your maps or your
compass when you're lost in the sea or in the continental areas. You go to your principles and you go to your values. And we have to recuperate what
has been working, dialogue, multilateralism, the peaceful solution of conflicts. We have to go back to that situation. Otherwise, not only the
regional stability, but the world stability will be in danger. We cannot continue to go towards that world where the stronger you are, the better
off you are. The weak, well, they suffer whatever happens. That is a preamble to war, world war.
AMANPOUR: Well, then -- OK. Sorry. I don't mean to interrupt you because you're saying something very important. Say that again, preamble to world
war.
SANTOS: Oh, yes. I mean, if this trend that the powerful countries can do whatever they want in their sphere or influence, that is what we had before
the world war. And that is exactly what the U.N. tried to establish a procedure for this not to happen, for the powerful countries to take into
account the rule of law, the protocols that were negotiated, that is what maintains peace. If you violate those protocols, those laws, then the
consequence is going to be war. History has taught us that.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, let me then -- I wanted you to lay that out because I want you then to react to one of President Trump's key advisers and
strategists, and that is Stephen Miller, who has been out since, you know, very publicly saying, all of what you just said, you know, the rules of the
road, the international world order led by the United States, he called them all these international niceties, but we live in the real world which
requires strength, might, and power. And he's doubled down on that again. So, that is their principles.
He says, obviously, Greenland should be part of the United States, and nobody would fight the U.S. military over the future of Greenland. Then he
said this about the Western Hemisphere. Let me play what Miller said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN MILLER, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF: The United States is using its military to secure our interests unapologetically in our
hemisphere. We're a superpower, and under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower. It is absurd that we would allow a
nation in our own backyard to become the supplier of resources to our adversaries, but not to us, to hoard weapons from our adversaries, to be
able to be positioned as an asset against the United States, rather than on behalf of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[13:20:00]
AMANPOUR: So, President Santos, he's laid out a vision completely at odds with the traditional rules-based vision that you just said needs to be re-
implemented. So, are you concerned that actually this administration's principles and their values are as Stephen Miller has just laid out? And
you see what they're talking about with the oil.
I mean, we talked about the lack of focus on democracy and the legitimate opposition in Venezuela. Instead, they talk about the oil, the oil, the
oil, and projecting strength, and now it's time to get Greenland. So, if that's the strongest country in the world talking like that, what hope is
there for the rules-based orders?
SANTOS: That's something that should worry everybody. It worries me. I am also chair of something called The Elders, that you know very well. And we
are very worried exactly with what you just said. This trend of not respecting the rule of law, of weakening multilateralism, of doing away
with the U.N., because the U.N. is being weakened. That is a preamble for chaos and anarchy and possibly war.
If you allow the powerful countries to do whatever they want in their zone of influence, if China goes and invades Taiwan, and that's OK. now Russia
invaded Ukraine, and that's OK. then where does that stop? This is what worries everybody. It worries me. And this is what I hope that through
dialogue we can sit down and say, listen, we have to change the way we relate to each other. We have to -- what Mandela used to say, we have to
use a constructive dialogue in order to -- if you don't like the present world order, we can change it, we can reform it. But we should not do away
with it, because if we don't have an order, chaos will be the rule, and chaos is a preamble for war.
AMANPOUR: Finally, because you spent so much time negotiating, I think in Cuba, regarding the FARC and all the rest of it, Secretary Rubio has
indirectly threatened the Cuban regime, saying if I was in Cuba, if I was a member of the government, I would be worried right now. Do you think the
Cubans should be worried right now?
SANTOS: Well, yes, I think they should be worried that the U.S. continues to exercise its power in the way that it has announced. I would be worried
if I was a Cuban. But again, hopefully we can sit down, or we should sit down and talk and have a constructive dialogue, because things cannot be
allowed to develop in the direction that they are developing.
You mentioned about oil in Venezuela. I am quite sure that it's not the oil -- maybe the oil is important, but what the U.S. is after is what they call
the rare earth minerals, which is strategically something much more important for the U.S. than the oil. The U.S. does not need the oil, but
China is monopolizing these rare minerals, rare earth minerals, and Venezuela is a big source of these minerals. And China is controlling the
production and the distribution of those minerals in Venezuela. So, I think that the oil is an excuse to do some other things that strategically for
the U.S. is more important.
AMANPOUR: Wow. Well, now they then have to face off against China and Venezuela. So, that's the next chapter. President Juan Manuel Santos, thank
you very much for joining us from Colombia.
And we'll be right back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:25:00]
AMANPOUR: Next, to Iran, where President Trump has also vowed to intervene, saying the U.S. would come to the rescue of protesters there if
the government, quote, "violently kills peaceful protesters." Now, these protests, which have been going on for over a week, are spreading from the
capital to provincial towns. Ordinary Iranians are taking to the streets in anger at the ongoing economic pain that makes their lives so very
difficult. It is a growing challenge to the Islamic Republic. More than two dozen have died, and rights groups say thousands have been detained.
Karim Sadjadpour follows Iran very closely. He's a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and he's joining me from
Washington. Kareem Sadjadpour, welcome back to our program.
Let me just directly ask you, with all this going on, with the threat Trump made to, you know, guarantee the lives of the protesters, do you -- what do
you think? How do you read that right now?
KARIM SADJADPOUR, SENIOR FELLOW, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: Well, I think the protests have actually been gaining in momentum
over the last week, and for many Iranians who are out there protesting, President Trump's moral support was welcome. But, you know, I live in
Washington, and it's not clear to me that there are people really thinking hard and strategically about Iran, whether at the State Department or the
White House, beyond simply the tweets of the president.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, that's really interesting. So, let me just play this soundbite of the president's, which is, in his words, what I've just
encapsulated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they're going to get hit very hard by the
United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, again, I really want to drill down on what you just said, because he said that. He's the president of the United States. He
threatened Maduro. He did it. He went in and took Maduro out. And clearly, nobody quite knows how to predict what President Trump will do or say. So,
tell me more about what you're hearing inside Washington.
And I just want to also remember that during the 2009 Green Revolution, Iranians were quite disappointed that President Obama didn't actually do
more to support their protest. So, what's at stake for Iranians and for the U.S. in this regard?
SADJADPOUR: I think there is a fear among some Iranians about the Venezuela president, which is, in Venezuela, President Trump decapitated
the leadership, plucked Maduro out of Caracas, and he's sitting in a jail cell in New York City. But rather than try to empower the legitimate
opposition or the democratic forces in Venezuela, they left in power, essentially, the remnants of the regime.
And the fear, I think, among Iranians -- and, you know, I've spoken to individuals in the Trump administration who would agree with this
perception -- that if the Trump administration is able to decapitate Iran's supreme leader, somehow take him out or empower Revolutionary Guard
commanders who would cut loose Ayatollah Khamenei, they're willing to do a deal with the next strongman in Iran, if, indeed, that next strongman,
presumably from the Revolutionary Guards, would be willing to change Iran's longtime ideology of death to America and death to Israel.
AMANPOUR: And, Karim, you've been studying this for a long, long time. How realistic does that actually sound to you?
SADJADPOUR: You know, the supreme leader, who is probably the longest- serving autocrat in the world, Ayatollah Khamenei, is now almost 87 years old, has been ruling since 1989.
[13:30:00]
You know, he's been preparing for this day for a long time and that, you know, he very carefully handpicks the senior Revolutionary Guard
commanders, and he shuffles them every few years so they are not able to get too comfortable and attain their own independent power base.
So, what we saw in the Arab Spring, if you remember, Christiane, in countries like Egypt and Tunisia, the militaries in those countries, when
protests mushroomed against their dictators, the militaries in those countries cut loose the dictators. Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt,
they said, listen, in order to preserve our own political and economic interests, we have to, you know, cut loose the autocrat.
And in the Iranian context, up until now, the Revolutionary Guards have always seen their fate intertwined with that of Ayatollah Khamenei. And so,
the question -- it is a big question. Can the Trump administration somehow separate the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, with senior Revolutionary
Guard commanders? And I do think that's likely going to be a tall order.
AMANPOUR: Wow. So, can we get now to the nitty-gritty of what has really started this latest round of protests, and that is the sheer economic pain
and hardship, the collapse of the currency, the massive inflation, just the increasing inability to keep body and soul together. There's a difference
between the vision of Ayatollah Khamenei and the current president, the secular Masoud Pezeshkian, who has said that the people are right, that
they, you know, are legitimate with their anger, and that he actually does not know how to fix things because it's all so badly managed there and
they've got so many sanctions from abroad.
So, break that down for me. Where does Pezeshkian stand? What can he do, if anything? And what is Khamenei saying about these protests?
SADJADPOUR: Well, really, Christiane, my shortcut for understanding Iran, especially in these moments of crisis, is that the words of the president
are not that valuable. Really, we should be focusing on the message of the supreme leader and his senior Revolutionary Guard commanders, because, as
President Pezeshkian himself would admit, he is not someone who is empowered. He is not a real decision-maker.
But it is telling, the fact that he also acknowledges that the grievances of these protests are legitimate. What's unique about the Islamic Republic
of Iran is that it's not only, obviously, I would argue, totalitarian governments, it's politically authoritarian, but it's also economically and
socially authoritarian. And so, there's so many different reasons for people to be upset.
There's some Iranians we saw two, three years ago during the Women, Life, Freedom movement that was triggered by a young woman being killed for
showing too much hair. There's deep economic grievances and, obviously, profound political grievances. And you have a leadership which essentially
has not changed their worldview and their ideology one iota. Over the last four decades, Ayatollah Khamenei has essentially offered people repression
at home, and his foreign policy has been one of resistance.
And so, that organizing principle that your chief slogans are death to America and death to Israel, not long live Iran, they really don't have
anything to show for it. And for that reason, we see, you know, this is just another example that, in my view, Iran is probably the country which
has the greatest gap between its government and its citizens in the world.
AMANPOUR: So, given the fact that it has this domestic, you know, protest right now, and even Khamenei said that, you know, certain stakeholders have
the right to be angry, like the shop owners who closed down, but the rioters, quote-unquote, "need to be put in their place." That's what he
said. But they've also got this external threat. That is, you mentioned the U.S. and Israel and referring back to the June bombing. There is -- that's
not off the table. It's still on the table.
Do you think, as one of them told The New York Times, that this really is an existential moment now?
SADJADPOUR: I think it's reaching an existential moment. Anytime you have protests, which are now throughout the country, they're starting to
commence in some key sectors of the economy. I saw today in Abadan, very oil-rich province, there was protests. These protests began among merchants
in the bazaar. You know, that's dangerous. University students are protesting. You see now some of the ethnic minority groups protesting.
[13:35:00]
You know, if these protests continue to grow and you start to see labor movements and then you start to see a strike among oil workers, this
definitely will be existential for the regime. They've faced worse in the past. You know, they've snuffed larger protests than this. So, it's
possible that they will successfully repress this, as well.
But either way, Christiane, in my view, Iran is a country on the cusp of some kind of a transformation, because, as I said, they have an 86-year-old
supreme leader. He's not going to be around that much longer. And I don't think anyone, either within the society or even few people within the
regime, believe that this status quo is sustainable.
AMANPOUR: Let me later ask you, you raise the issue of a potential, you know, deal with the Revolutionary Guards as some kind of real politic from
the United States. But as we know, Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of Iran's, you know, final Shah, he's often mentioned. He's supported by the United
States. He's supported by Israel. He wrote in The Washington Post this week, I've therefore stepped forward as a steward of a national transition
to democracy. My role is to bring together Iran's diverse democratic forces, monarchists, republicans, secular and religious activists,
professional civilians and members of the armed forces who want to see Iran stable and sovereign again.
How realistic is he as an option?
SADJADPOUR: You know, it's too soon to know, Christiane. He's the only name, to the extent the protesters are calling any oppositional name, he's
the only name that people have called thus far. Based on opinion polling, there's a sense that he has perhaps one third of the population supportive
of him, which is not insignificant. That's pretty significant. There's tremendous nostalgia for the days of his father.
And when he speaks to Iranian audiences, his message is usually pretty effective. He's someone who is an advocate of democracy and freedom. But
the challenge that Reza Pahlavi or his followers, Prince Reza Pahlavi, face is that he's living 6,000 miles away.
And we know from history that it's important for every revolutionary movement, you obviously need to have inspirational leadership. And for his
followers, he provides that. But organizational leadership is perhaps even more important. And being able to organize from so far away is very, very
difficult. And up until now, that's why the regime has been able to consistently prevail. It's not because it has tremendous popular support,
but the combination of lethal force and repression and the opposition's lack of organization has helped them consistently prevail.
AMANPOUR: So, I have 30 seconds left, and I want to ask you about the fact that a senior Iranian official told me just recently that they estimate
some 30 percent of Iranian women are not wearing the hijab right now after those protests and they're not cracking down on them. So, my question to
you is, how important is Gen Z in the current protests and in any future protests against this regime?
SADJADPOUR: Well, obviously those folks are the future of Iran, and they've been incredibly brave. And according to people I speak to in Iran,
the numbers are much higher of women no longer obeying the mandatory hijab.
And this is significant because I would argue from -- you know, there was three pillars of the 1979 revolution, death to America, death to Israel,
and the mandatory hijab for women, and one of those pillars has fallen.
AMANPOUR: Really fascinating. Karim Sadjadpour, as always, thank you so much. And we'll be back after this short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:40:00]
AMANPOUR: So, this year is off to a turbulent start and a new global risk report by the Eurasia Group is sounding the alarm, calling 2026 a tipping
point. In an unusual shift, it identifies the United States as the principal threat to the global order and offers a stark warning as
President Trump tests the limits of his own executive power.
Ian Bremmer is the group's founder and president. He joins Walter Isaacson to break down what he calls the American political revolution.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. And Ian Bremmer, welcome back to the show.
IAN BREMMER, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, EURASIA GROUP AND GZERO MEDIA: Walter, great to see you.
ISAACSON: Well, let's start with Venezuela, of course, and the capture of President Maduro. You referred to it in your beginning of the year report
as the Donroe Doctrine. Of course, referring to James Monroe's doctrine of the 1820s, that we should have South America or all the Western Hemisphere
as a sphere of influence. Could we go back to that type of sphere of influence? Does this make sense?
BREMMER: We couldn't go back to it on the economic side, because China, of course, is the dominant trade partner with most of the countries in the
Western Hemisphere. And they're not about to leave. Mexico, of course, the U.S. has been pushing hard against Chinese transshipments. The Mexicans,
really reliant on the United States, have significantly increased their tariffs against China, but that's, broadly speaking, not going to work.
Militarily, of course, the U.S. is dominant, and not only in the Western Hemisphere. And that is exactly where Trump just had a staggering success
with a six-month in-process plan to remove Maduro and bring him to see justice in the United States. And other countries in the region are
absolutely put on notice as a consequence of that.
And not just in the Western Hemisphere. This is a Greenland issue, too. Trump has made very clear that he intends to have Greenland. He wants
sovereignty over it, and he's not debating that with the Danes right now. So, this is a really big shift to the law of the jungle in America's
backyard.
ISAACSON: Well, wait a minute. You said it's a staggering success. You just called it the law of the jungle. But, man, you say, the law of the
jungle is dangerous, what applies to your enemies one day can apply to you the next. Make no mistake where the world is heading here.
BREMMER: Yes. Well, staggering success for Trump in a headline is very different from U.S. influence in five or 10 years. I mean, Trump is clearly
really pleased that Maduro is out and that whatever next government comes in, not regime change, more like regime roulette, is going to do America's
bidding, or else that military can be used against them. So, he sees that as a win.
But long-term, the United States is not China. It's not Russia. It doesn't have leaders for life. It has elections every four years. And just as Trump
did to Biden and Biden did to Trump before him and Trump did to Obama, the next president can change things. And when you have an independent
judiciary, when you have an election cycle.
When you have two different political parties, you know, you don't want to have law of the jungle. You want to actually be constrained by rule of law
with institutions that you set up because they align with you over the long-term. Unfortunately, Trump's efforts to secure a law of the jungle in
a G-Zero world, as I put it, long-term is much more beneficial for the Chinese than it is for the United States.
ISAACSON: Well, wait, you say it's beneficial to the Chinese. You said we're not going to be able to have economic dominance. But the Chinese, who
have lent large billions of dollars to Venezuela based on oil revenues, they now seem like they're going to be cut out of this equation.
BREMMER: Well, actually, in the hours after Maduro was removed, despite the U.S. boycott on tanker traffic, over 12 tankers were allowed out. That
was by the United States to ship over oil to China. And Trump said the Chinese will be able to get their oil. The United States is quite excited
now. Trump is going to go to Beijing and meet with Xi Jinping coming up in April. And this relationship is precisely what Trump calls a G-2 now.
[13:45:00]
Why is he affording the Chinese such incredible deference when he's beating up on Venezuela and he's beating up on his own allies? And the reason, of
course, is because the Chinese have shown the willingness and the capability to hit the Americans back hard.
So, there's a really big difference between Trump announcing FAFO, fool around and find out, to Nicolas Maduro, and people talking about taco,
Trump always chickens out when you discuss how the Americans need to back down to the Chinese. And the real question, if you want to think, Walter,
about how the U.S. will engage with other countries around the world is where do they fall on that spectrum between FAFO and TACO? The Europeans
today, at least from America's perspective, look a lot more FAFO-like, and that is a problem for Europe.
ISAACSON: Stephen Miller just said Greenland should obviously be part of the U.S. and that nobody is going to fight the United States over the
future of Greenland. So, when we speak next year on this day, who's going to control Greenland?
BREMMER: We don't know. There's no plan for taking over Greenland, but Trump says he wants one, and that means American sovereignty over
Greenland. That is --
ISAACSON: What would that mean to NATO then?
BREMMER: Well, it would be a disaster, of course, for the non-American NATO countries. Now, that doesn't mean boots on the ground. I don't think
anyone is talking about an invasion, but there's lots of ways to have influence over a country and get what you want if you're so much more
powerful as the United States is. Political inducements and economic inducements, but also threats.
And what we've seen is that the U.S. has cut off their negotiations with the Danes. They don't want to discuss this with Denmark. This is the Alice
through the Looking Glass part of all of this, is if what Trump wanted were more access for U.S. bases in Greenland, more ability to have intelligence
surveillance, if he needed access for the Americans to exploit Greenland natural wealth and resource, all of that is on the table by just sitting
down and negotiating with Denmark.
ISAACSON: This law of the jungle where might makes right and we have the right to do these things. You said that could backfire on us. Let me read
you something that was on China's social media platforms, postings that were allowed by the censor to stay on the platform. One of them read, if
the United States can arrest another country's president, then China can absolutely arrest Taiwan's president. And then there was a comment
following up saying, is that that China is not able to, is that China doesn't dare to.
Do you think this Venezuela action might embolden China to do something similar on Taiwan?
BREMMER: Not in the near-term, no. And that's why this isn't in the report. China, of course, sees Taiwan as a domestic policy issue, not a
foreign policy issue. So, they certainly believe it's within their rights to do whatever they want with Taiwan. But they also understand that Taiwan
is an island. It's very heavily fortified and defended. And it also matters a lot economically to China, especially TSMC and their semiconductor
production, all of which is an unacceptable risk for the Chinese to take against the United States, Venezuela or no Venezuela.
So, this is really a capabilities issue. And it's the fact that the Chinese are long-term players. They're patient and they're building their
capabilities. They're biding their time with the intention of making a move on Taiwan when they believe it is to their advantage. That time is not
today.
ISAACSON: How does this Venezuela situation sort of affect Russian relations and even the sense that maybe Russia should have its sphere of
influence, including large parts of Ukraine?
BREMMER: Well, I'm going to give you a similar answer, which is, again, the Russians didn't need the Americans to make them feel like they deserve
a sphere of influence. And they invaded Ukraine initially in 2014 with the illegal Crimean annexation and the little green men in Donbas. They saw
that the Europeans, the Americans didn't do very much about it. So, then they went back for a second, much bigger bite at the apple in 2022, the
full-on invasion. All of this comes well before Venezuela.
So, I mean, Trump -- it was interesting to see the Russians publicly, the Kremlin condemn the United States for this breach of international law,
something the Russians have a great deal of expertise on in history, of course, themselves.
But the Russian problem is that their military is nowhere close to as capable as the American military. I mean, if the Russians could have come
close to pulling off against Zelenskyy what the Americans did to Maduro, you and I would be having a very different conversation right now about
Ukraine and about Russia's future.
[13:50:00]
But Russia's kleptocracy, its incapacity, its lack of wealth and productivity and its lack of human capital, so much of which has died on
the battlefield or has got the hell out of Dodge (ph) because they're so scared of what would happen to them if they're drafted. That really
undermines Russia's future. So, they're gaining some land in Ukraine, but Russia's losing everywhere else in the world.
ISAACSON: Your very first item on your risk list is the domestic political situation in the United States. It reminds me of the old Pogo cartoon. You
may not be old enough to remember it, but we have met the enemy and he is us.
BREMMER: He is us.
ISAACSON: Yes. And so, to what extent do you think we're going through a political revolution that is a threat to our international standing?
BREMMER: Whether or not the revolution is successful, the reality of America struggling internally is making it much less reliable
internationally. And this is the problem that, you know, Americans may not agree on which part of America is the enemy, but they seem to increasingly
agree that the enemy is not Russia, China, North Korea, Iran. The principal enemy is inside the House.
And Trump in particular really believes, and a lot of his supporters believe, that the government was weaponized against him, that these two
unprecedented impeachments, the felonies and the convictions, again unprecedented, and the near assassination occurred because Biden and the
Democrats weaponized the power of government against him.
And so, he now believes that he must weaponize the administrative state, politicize it, as well as the Department of Justice, the FBI, the power
ministries in the U.S., to ensure that they can never come back to power and do that to him. And that is a very dangerous position for the U.S. It
means that he is trying to break the checks and balances against the presidency. And so, far he's done a lot more of that than anyone would have
expected a year ago, Walter.
And the reaction, there has been pushback, but there's been less pushback than anyone would have expected a year ago. And that makes this political
revolution real.
ISAACSON: And you expected a year ago. You said it was a bit overstated that our democracy's institutions would fall apart, that there were
guardrails. Are you surprised at how problematic it was, having the guardrails that protect our democratic institutions?
BREMMER: I'll say that I'm a little bit surprised. I still think this political revolution will ultimately fail. I think Trump doesn't have the
popularity, the ability to see it through, and that there are still guardrails. I think that the judges in the United States, you're going to
see the Supreme Court rule on AIPA. You've just seen Trump be pushed back on using the National Guard in Chicago, for example. You saw his
investigations against Letitia James and Comey get pushed back. So, there has been some.
The U.S. is a federal system. The states matter. They're red and blue, but they are more technocratic in the way they are governed, and that also
means the way that elections occur. But when I look at the weakness of the Democratic Party, when I look at the inability and unwillingness of the
Republican Party to be anything but completely loyal to Trump, when I see that the CEOs and the bankers are privately very concerned and wring their
hands but publicly won't criticize, when I see the role of the corporate media rolling over and paying off lawsuits that they know they could win,
but they don't want to be threatened or they want to make sure they get a new merger deal together, when I see the threat by Trump against public
television, which you and I care a great deal about, all of those things do imply that we are in unprecedented times.
ISAACSON: You're right. Let me give you the quote, "With only three years left and Democrats favored to take the House of Representatives in
November's midterm elections, Trump and his inner circle will grow more, not less, risk-acceptant." Tell me what you expect.
BREMMER: Well, it's kind of like what we just saw on Venezuela, that when Trump feels like he's not succeeding in one area, he doesn't sort of give
up. He doubles down in another. And I think that Trump's impulses, just as you saw after he lost the election in 2020 and he didn't give up and go
quietly into the night, he said, no, no, no, I'm rallying my people and we're going to do everything we can to overturn this fake election that has
been rigged against me.
I don't think anyone that knows Trump thinks that this guy isn't a fighter. This guy was almost killed again and he got back up immediately and raises
his fist in the air and it's right in the West Wing. Big photograph, you go in and, you know, there's the -- in the White House, there's this massive
painting of Trump fighting.
[13:55:00]
I think that Trump feels like, you know, he has everything to lose if the Democrats come back and he's going to do everything in his power with a lot
of people that are much more loyal to him, around him in his administration than they were in the first term to fight, to ensure that his political
revolution is successful.
ISAACSON: Ian Bremmer, thank you so much for joining us.
BREMMER: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And that's it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. Remember, you can
always catch us online, on our website, and all-over social media. Thanks for watching, and goodbye from London.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
