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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Terrorists in London Kill 7, Injure 48; Changing American Foreign Policy; Global Reactions to U.S. Withdrawal from Paris Climate Accord; Town on the Move. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired June 04, 2017 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:00:17] FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: This is GPS, the GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria coming to you live from New York.

We have an important show for you, all about the two big stories of this week.

We'll start with last night's terror attack in London. Less than two weeks after a terrorist attack at the Manchester Arena, just 10 weeks after an attack on Westminster Bridge, suspected Islamic terrorists have struck again on another bridge, this time London Bridge.

We'll bring you the latest from London and analysis from experts around the world.

Also, the president pulls out of Paris. Where does this leave America? Where does it leave the planet? We have a great panel to discuss.

I'll bring you my take in a moment, but let's first go to the London attacks. CNN's senior international correspondent Clarissa Ward is at 10 Downing Street right now. Earlier Prime Minister Theresa May came out and made a statement. She implied that last night's attack was Islamic terror and she said that after three attacks in Britain in as many months, enough is enough.

Clarissa, what do we know about this attack and the attackers? Is it part of a pattern if not of a consistent plot?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is an interesting one, Fareed, because it has hallmarks of some attacks we've seen, but it's a little bit different to others. Essentially what happened last night as a lot of people would have been out enjoying restaurants and bars in an area known as Borough Market, a van containing three assailants mowed down a bunch of people. Eyewitnesses describing scenes, people jumping 20, 30 feet in the air.

The van careened past London Bridge. At that point the assailants got out of the vehicle. They were carrying large knives and they began essentially, Fareed, to run into restaurants and bars and stab people. Now within eight minutes, eight minutes, a really extraordinarily rapid response time, police were on the scene and had shot all three assailants dead. But nonetheless, during those eight minutes, they were able to kill seven people, 48 people remain injured. The police have arrested 12 people today, but what they haven't done,

Fareed, critically, is to raise the terror threat level. The terror threat level remains at severe. You may remember that after the Manchester attack, they elevated it to critical. That was the highest level it had been in a decade. But in this instance, authorities do not believe that there is a larger network at play. They believe that the three assailants who were all shot dead by police within eight minutes are as far as the network extends, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: Clarissa, in that case, why did they arrest 12 people? What do we know about those arrests? Is that others who are on watch lists, or are they part of what might have been the support network for this?

WARD: Well, at this stage, Fareed, authorities are not releasing any information. They are holding their cards very close to their chest. They have not, for example, told us anything about the identity of these three attackers. Who were they? How did they know each other? They haven't released any information. As you ask about the 12 other people who have been arrested, although I would say it's quite common with these types of attacks for police to round up family members, people who know or potentially knew the attackers in the aftermath to sit, detain them and question them for some time to determine whether there is any other possible extenuating threat out there.

But we did hear the Home Minister Amber Rudd, she appeared on iTV British News, saying that they do not believe that there is a larger network at play. That said, we also heard from the British Prime Minister Theresa May saying, you know what, we've had three terror attacks in three months. We've had another five terror plots that we have successfully managed to disrupt, but there is a larger linkage here. Not a network linkage, but an ideology linkage. And she talked about the extremist ideology or, rather, the evil ideology of Islamist extremism and the need for a review of British counterterrorism policies. She said that essentially Great Britain has been too tolerant for too long, and to use her words, she said enough is enough, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: Clarissa Ward, great reporting. Thank you so much.

Now let us bring in a panel of experts to explore this further. In London, Nader Mousavizadeh is a geopolitical analyst and author. He serves as the cofounder and co-CEO of Macro Advisory Partners. Fawaz Gerges is in Beirut today but he is actually based in London as a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics.

[10:05:04] Jessica Stern joins us from Boston. She's an expert on terrorism and the co-author of "ISIS: The State of Terror." And CNN's national security analyst Peter Bergen joins us from Washington. He is a vice president at New America.

Peter, let me ask you, does this strike you as terrorists adapting yet again? Because what is interesting about this to me is it's in many ways very low tech. A van going into crowds, people brandishing knives and using them as weapons. Of course, guns are very hard to get in Britain. All of that -- and maybe I'm just trying to look for a silver lining here, all of that means that they're finding it hard to do big bombs at symbolic locations and that kind of thing, and what they are reduced to is driving vans and using knives, which is, of course, terrible and tragic, but you can only kill so many people, particularly if the police responds as quickly as they did in this case.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Sure. But, you know, for that silver lining, we look to Manchester where only two weeks ago where, you know, a bomb detonated killed 22 people. So I mean, I think the problem, Fareed, is, you know, Britain has, you know, thousands of people who have been influenced by this ideology. Something like 850 Brits have gone for training in Syria and Iraq. You know, compare that to America where really you're talking about a few dozen who have successfully gone to Iraq and Syria with a country six times the population. So you know, we used to think of this as a largely francophone phenomenon, it would be numbers of attacks in France and Belgium, Britain seemed to be protected by the channel, protected by a very efficient law enforcement community, but that was not sufficient.

And I think Theresa May, who after all faces this election in four days, you know, it can go both ways. She was the Home secretary. She does have a lot of experience in counterterrorism. The Conservatives are regarded as being more tougher on terrorism that the rival Labour Party, But we saw in the Spanish election in 2004 that Jose Aznar who took a very strong position on the Iraq war after a terrorist attack in Madrid lost the election to somebody who was much more of an opponent to the Iraq war. So, so late in the electoral cycle, you know, it's quite unpredictable what the political consequences might be, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: Fawaz, I think the question most people must have is, in a sense, who are these people and why are they doing this? And I don't mean that in the general sense. We've been living with this for decades. I mean specifically British terrorists. As Peter was saying, what is going on in Britain? Why are there so many and, you know, who are they?

FAWAZ GERGES, PROFESSOR, LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS: Well, Fareed, it's not just in Britain. It's in France, it's in Belgium, it's in Germany, it's in the United States, even though in Europe now it's a big phenomenon. You have about between 4,000 and 5,000 young men and women who have traveled to Syria and Iraq. Britain has a large number of basically recruits who have been fighting with ISIS.

The British Security Forces estimate that there are between 2,000 and 3,000 potential radicalized individuals who are being monitored by the security forces. They also estimate that there are 23,000 potential radicalized individuals. You have a traveling ideology. It's a transnational ideology. It appeals to many young men and women. We're talking about London and Manchester.

And, I mean, think about it, Fareed, in the past few weeks. Just a few days ago, what happened in Kabul, Afghanistan? Almost 500 people were killed and injured. Think of Egypt in the past few weeks. Cairo, Alexandria, after Egypt -- I mean, in Baghdad, almost on a daily basis. Here I am in Beirut. Basically people live under constant threat. What I'm trying to say, this is an ideology, it's a spreading ideology.

It's not a mass movement, it's a social movement, it's a powerful movement and some individuals respond to this ideology for a variety of reasons. It's partly for utopia, you have troubled souls, you have hard core ideologues, you have people who believe that somehow some Western countries and Middle Eastern countries are waging a war against their faith, and that's why in almost every case they tried to kill in the name of Allah even though that Allah they are not to harm civilians. The fact is it's going to run its cycle in the next few years not just in Europe, but throughout the world.

ZAKARIA: Jessica Stern, you've spent so much time interviewing and talking to jihadis. What strikes me about this brand of terrorism, and it's been going on for years now, is there is no specific political demand. We were used to terrorists from the Irish to the Palestinians who had demands.

[10:10:02] This seems just nihilistic, purposeless terror designed simply to kill people and sow fear. What do they hope to accomplish?

JESSICA STERN, CO-AUTHOR, "ISIS: THE STATE OF TERROR": Well, of course, initially they were talking about -- well, frequently talking about inciting an end-times battle, provoking the West into meeting ISIS in (INAUDIBLE) where this battle would take place. Another thing they have made very clear is they want to destroy what they call the gray zone where Muslims live in peace in the West. They are trying to inspire young Muslims or converts in what they call the garrisons, the arena of war in the west to fight. They believe they're at war. They want to make it extremely uncomfortable, dangerous even, for Muslims living in the west. That is the goal, I believe, of these attacks.

ZAKARIA: Nader Mousavizadeh, what does -- what can we say about Britain versus other countries? Is there -- is there any particular reason this has happened three times in Britain in the last three months?

NADER MOUSAVIZADEH, CO-FOUNDER AND CO-CEO, MACRO ADVISORY PARTNERS: author, Well, I think, Fareed, one of the questions that people are asking now is that given that Britain has actually had a better record both in terms of the integration of some of these communities from which some of these perpetrators emerge but also in terms of its intelligence capabilities, both offensive and defensive, as well as its understanding from a day to day perspective, what we're dealing with, this was supposed to be a safe country, certainly relative to some on the continent where there's been broadly a sense that they had less of a strong handle on the phenomenon itself.

I think what we're going to look at now is despite what has been correctly pointed out that this is a worldwide phenomenon. The politics of this country, I think, will guide towards a more aggressive set of measures both abroad as well as domestically, that there is not a sense that this is simply something that is a global phenomenon that has to be endured, but then rather there are more steps that can be taken both on the online space with so much of this activity and extremism is encouraged and bred, but also in specific measures, both in terms of individuals and surveillance but also how companies and technology companies are going to be asked to do more to be better partners in this struggle against this scourge.

ZAKARIA: Fascinating. We'll be back in a moment. President Trump of course has been tweeting this morning about last night's terror attack in London. And some Brits have been responding rather angrily. We'll tell you about it and then discuss when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:17:04] ZAKARIA: Let me draw your attention to a tweet from Donald Trump this morning. He said, "At least seven dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and mayor of London says there is no reason to be alarmed."

Well, in fact, Mr. President, here is what the mayor actually said. "Londoners will see increased police presence today and over the course of the next few days. There is no reason to be alarmed."

Now people have had widely varying reactions to Trump's tweet. One in particular caught my eye, Brendan Cox, whose wife, a British MP, was murdered by a far right extremist, responded to the president's tweet by saying, "You represent the worst of your country. Sadiq Khan represents some of the best of ours."

Joining me again are Nader Mousavizadeh, Fawaz Gerges, Jessica Stern and Peter Bergen.

Peter, Trump has tweeted several other things, all of which suggesting we need to get tougher, meaning by that, the courts are standing in the way of the U.S. government from doing what it needs to. I wonder what your reaction is, because of course, European countries, generally the police has much more authority and they have had difficulty stopping this kind of terror attack. And as you pointed out, by contrast the United States has a much less radicalized local population of Muslims.

BERGEN: Yes. And also the travel ban is a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist, Fareed. I mean, you know, almost all the terrorist attack -- all the lethal terrorist attacks in the United States, for instance, since 9/11 are being carried out by American citizens or American legal residents. Similarly in Britain, all the lethal terrorist attacks have almost without exception been carried out by British citizens, whether it was the worst terrorist attack in British history on July 7th, 2005, three out of four where Brits.

The Manchester attack, the terrorist was actually born in Manchester. The Westminster Bridge attacker was also a British citizen. So, you know, travel bans are one of those sort of seemingly, you know, commonsense answers to a complex problem which actually makes no sense at all, and also you can't ban the Internet with a travel ban, and most of these people have been radicalized by the Internet, so the travel ban is really a red herring. ZAKARIA: Nader, when you talked about how companies are going to have

to do more, explain exactly what you mean because it seems to me you can't really turn off the Internet, can you?

MOUSAVIZADEH: No, but I think what we're going to see, and this has been something more open in debate here, and the government has been more explicit about it in this country, Fareed, is that there is a sense that whether it is the persistent character of online extremist material on various Web sites and social media platforms that the companies are aware of and could do more to take down or prevent from being put out or the wider question of encrypted communications which again we know is complicated in both law enforcement and other government authorities actually want to keep it.

[10:20:01] Having said all that, I think it is important to understand that an event like this and a series of events like this will put more pressure on those companies whose ecosystem at the end of the day is allowing some of this communication, if not all of it, to take place, often without the ability of governments to access it. The political pressure, I think, will simply grow.

You have also in Theresa May a prime minister who as a Home secretary was very focused on this issue, very determined to do more. So as we look at policy responses to last night and going forward, I think that is one area we're going to see more activity in.

ZAKARIA: Jessica, is there anything that convinces these people to be de-radicalized? Is there any argument, any emotional reaction to death?

STERN: Well, when we talk to people who have de-radicalized themselves, some of them will admit that they were spiritually dispossessed and that their reasons for radicalizing actually were not really related to a particular ideology. In fact, one of the people I've talked to extensively has said that pretty much any ideology would have -- extremist violent promoting ideology would have worked for him. He was a convert who established the first online recruitment site for al Qaeda.

Intervening, it's partly clearly ideological, because what happens, whatever the reason the person gets drawn in, they do begin to buy into the ideology. It's partly ideological and partly psychological and partly spiritual. I think there are many -- just as there are many different reasons why people get drawn into these movements, there are many different pathways to help them out.

ZAKARIA: Fawaz, when the president went to the Middle East, he said the problem of terrorism was all being fueled and supported by Iran. But, of course, this is all Sunni jihadist terror. Yet again the ideological roots actually draw on places like Saudi Arabia. Is there anything to be done? How does one battle this ideologically?

GERGES: Well, I mean, I think you asked me, and of course, Fareed, there is no simple cure. There is no magical really answer to this complex, you know, traveling ideology. But if you ask me what you can do about it in western societies, they would say local, local, local. You need to work with local communities, Muslim civil societies.

Let's remind our audience, too, between 2013 and 2016, the British Security Forces have foiled 18 operations. Since the attack in Manchester in March, basically the security forces foiled -- has foiled six attacks. So the reality is you need good intelligence, you need to be proactive, and you need to work with local communities. The worst thing you can do is to alienate local communities, Muslim communities, like President Trump in his rhetoric and his ban against Muslims coming from the world to the United States.

ZAKARIA: Peter, talk about the politics of this going forward. Nader pointed out that this will put a lot of pressure on the British government, but what will that mean? You know, at the end of the day, what can you do when you have somebody who decides to take a van and use it to -- you know, to find a place where people are having a good time? Is there -- again, it strikes me that this is so low tech that it's not going to be easy to figure out what it means to get tougher with this kind of terror.

BERGEN: I totally agree, and I mean picking up on the social media conversation, you know, that -- you know, social media companies have ISIS -- Twitter has closed down hundreds of thousands of ISIS accounts. Facebook has thousands of people looking for these kinds of messages. But, you know, the Internet is very big and there are a lot of messages. And so the idea that somehow we're going to magically make all the social media companies produce content that doesn't incite this kind of thing I think is kind of false.

There is a, you know, First Amendment problem particularly in the United States, and also there is an issue that ISIS is using Telegram, which is a Berlin-based social media company encrypted platform and isn't subject to British laws or American laws. And so the terrorism seems to be technologically ahead, and I think the social media companies are doing what they can, you know, there, and, you know, the British government can demand whatever they want, but I think if that's seen as sort of a magic bullet, I don't think it's going to work either.

ZAKARIA: This is a fascinating conversation and it's not going to go away, so we'd like to have all of you come back to talk about it soon.

Next on GPS, the other big story of the week, of course, President Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement.

[10:25:06] Does it signal the end of an era of American leadership in the world? I will give you my thoughts when we come back and then a discussion.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: We now have a Trump doctrine. And it is in its conception and increasingly its execution the most radical departure from a bipartisan American foreign policy since 1945.

In an op-ed for the "Wall Street Journal," National Economic Council director Gary Cohn and National Security adviser H.R. McMaster explained that President Trump has a clear-eyed outlook that the world is not a global community but an arena where nations, non-governmental actors and business engage and compete for advantage."

[10:30:10] They added, "Rather than deny this elemental nature of international affairs, we embrace it."

That embrace has now led the U.S. to withdraw from the Paris accord on climate change signed by 193 other countries.

Now, the elemental aspect of international relations has of course existed for millennia, and American foreign policy amply reflects this feature. The United States has the world's largest military and intelligence apparatus, troops and bases in dozens of countries around the world and ongoing military interventions on several continents. This is not the picture of a nation unaware of political and military competition.

But in 1945, the world did change. In the wake of two of the deadliest wars in human history, with more than 60 million killed and much of Europe and Asia physically devastated, the United States tried to build a new international system. It created institutions, rules and norms that would encourage countries to solve their differences peacefully through negotiations rather than war. It created a system where trade and commerce would expand the world economy so that a rising tide could lift all boats.

Now, it didn't work perfectly. The Soviet Union and its allies rejected many of those ideas from the start. Many developing countries adopted only some parts of the system. But Western Europe, Canada and the United States did, in fact, become an amazing zone of peace and economic, political and military cooperation. The West that emerged is, in historical terms, a miracle. Europe, which had torn itself apart for hundreds of years because of the elemental nature of international competition, was now competing not to annex countries and subjugate their populations but just to create better jobs and more growth.

This zone of peace grew over the years, first encompassing countries like Japan and South Korea, then later a few countries in Latin America. Then in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and large parts of the world gravitated towards this open international order.

And at the heart of this system was the United States. Since 1945, every president of either party has recognized that America created something unique that was a break from centuries of elemental international conflict.

But from the start of his political career, Donald Trump has seemed unaware of this history and ignorant of these accomplishments. He has consistently been dismissive of America's closest political, economic and moral allies. He speaks admiringly of strongmen like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Rodrigo Duterte but critically of almost every democratic leader of Europe.

The consequences of Trump's stance and his actions are difficult to foresee. They might result in the erosion of this open, liberal international order. They might mean the rise of a new, not-so-liberal order championed by China and India, both of them mercantilist and nationalist countries. But they could also result, in the long run, in the strengthening of this order, perhaps by the reemergence of Europe.

Trump has brought the continent's countries together in a way that not even Vladimir Putin could. German Chancellor Angela Merkel says that Europe must look out for itself now, and as if to underscore that fact, the same week welcomed the prime minister of India and the premier of China.

French President Emmanuel Macron upheld Western interests and values face to face with Putin, in just the way an American president would have done in the past. So Donald Trump might not cause the end of the Western world, but he might end America's role at its center.

For more, go to cnn.com/fareed and read my Washington Post column this week.

Next on GPS, much more about the president's decision to withdraw from Paris. A great panel will discuss it and what it means for America and the planet.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: The reaction around the world to Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement was fast and mostly furious. The U.K.'s Guardian played it pretty straight, "Anger at U.S. as Trump Rejects Climate Accord," and France's Liberation said simply, "Goodbye, America." Another German outlet was even more punchy, "Earth to Trump: F you!"

So is it farewell?

Joining me to discuss are Ernest Moniz, who helped negotiate the Paris Agreement as secretary of energy under President Obama. Rana Foroohar is CNN's global economics analyst and the FT's global business columnist. And Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of "A World in Disarray."

Secretary Moniz, let me start by asking you, Donald Trump said that it was highly likely that he would be able to negotiate a better deal. What are the prospects of the other 193 countries doing a new deal now that the United States has pulled out?

ERNEST MONIZ, FMR. SECRETARY OF ENERGY: Well, I think the -- the odds of that are vanishingly small. And what is, of course, particularly strange is, if the president were concerned about the relative size of commitments, the Paris Agreement has all the flexibility to -- to, for example, reduce the targets. I wouldn't advocate that, of course, but that's a much more practical approach, certainly, than arguing that the whole deal could be redone.

I might add it's particularly sad, in my view, in the sense that the agreement accomplished exactly what was called for over many years, getting the emerging economies to have commitments, to have flexibility. So obviously this -- this action by the president is a major step backwards.

ZAKARIA: Richard, it seems as though, you know, Secretary Moniz is right, that the Paris accords were pretty flexible; you could, kind of, do a lot of different things. The United States can build co-plans under it, for example. Why withdraw? It seems to be part of a political signaling game that Donald Trump is playing. If you look at the way he treated NATO, refused to affirm Article 5, now this, these are symbolic statements that seem to be all about nationalism and sovereignty over globalism.

RICHARD HAASS, PRESIDENT, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS: A hundred percent. This is not about climate change, per se. This ought to have been a form of multilateralism Donald Trump should have embraced. This is the most flexible form of multilateralism. It allows sovereign governments and countries to choose and adjust their -- what it is they're going to do.

So, rather than reject this, actually he should have said this was a model. But he didn't, and your question has the answer in it. This is symbolic. This is about the politics, the appearances. He's playing to a domestic base. It's part of his larger worldview, that when he looks at the last 70 years, I think, unlike the two of us, rather than see a world that's been pretty good for the United States of America -- it's been relatively peaceful, relatively prosperous, an awful lot more democratic than it ever was -- Donald Trump looks at the world and says somehow it's costing us much more than it's benefiting us; our allies and our trading partners, to use a technical phrase, are screwing us.

(LAUGHTER)

HAASS: And what he wants to do is essentially disrupt. I can understand, Fareed, why Vladimir Putin wakes up every day and wants to disrupt. I can't for the life of me understand, on the merits, why any American president would want to disrupt the inheritance that he had. And this -- this will be truly consequential.

ZAKARIA: Rana, what's striking to me is that, for the last three months, we've been hearing from the president of the United States about how the world order is unfair and how he wants to tear it down...

(LAUGHTER)

... and the president of China about how he wants to uphold free trade, the rules of the road, world order and actually expand and enhance it. Is this an opportunity for the Chinese?

RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMICS ANALYST: Well, absolutely. I mean, you already see the Chinese and the Europeans coming together and saying, "We're going to have tighter alliances around climate issues; we're going to develop smart grids; we're going to look into new technologies."

And that's why you see so many business leaders in the U.S. so upset about Trump pulling back from Paris, because they know that, when you talk about jobs -- and it's ironic that he's making the economic argument for trashing this agreement. Because when you think about jobs, the jobs are in smart tech; they're in green techs, which, by the way, have become more cost-effective relative to fossil fuels for some time now.

So that's one interesting point. But again, from a political standpoint -- and I agree with Richard -- this is theater for Trump. You know, this is playing to his base. In a way, it works internally amongst his advisers. He splits the difference between the Steve Bannon nationalist camp and the moderate Gary Cohn camp by saying, "I'm not going to deny the science, but I'm going to stand up to these Europeans who are pandering in their salons and the Chinese, who are saying that they're going to be global leaders while they build more coal-fired power plant. So it works very well for him at home.

ZAKARIA: Pittsburgh -- he says "I represent the people of Pittsburgh, not Paris."

(LAUGHTER)

Pittsburgh has twice as many clean-energy jobs as oil, natural gas and coal jobs.

FOROOHAR: It's not about facts.

(LAUGHTER)

ZAKARIA: Secretary Moniz, what is the effect, though? All this theater has a price in terms of the climate and the American economy, right?

MONIZ: Absolutely. And if I may, Fareed, I'd just like to add a couple of footnotes to what's just been said, one being that, as Richard said, this is a pattern, in many cases, and together deeply shaking the confidence of our allies and friends in our reliability. And on the jobs front -- and this is part of the impact -- on the jobs front, I'd like to inject in that, in addition to the Paris accord announcement, that the president's administration has also sent a budget to Congress that would undercut the innovation investments that are exactly the foundation for jobs of the future, exactly the investments that would position us to get a large market share of a future multi-trillion-dollar clean-energy marketplace.

So the effects there -- combining those would be immense. The good news, of course, is, as has already been noted, the good news is our business leaders, they make long-term business plans, but, look, when the federal government is not rowing in the same direction, it's obviously going to make things more difficult. And it's going to make it much more costly and challenging for the United States in the future, as we protect the environment but also compete in that global -- global energy marketplace.

ZAKARIA: All of you, stay with us. When we come back, we are going to explore, in some greater depth, what does a world without America at its helm look like? How stable or how scarily unstable is it? When we come back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: And we are back with Ernest Moniz, Rana Foroohar and Richard Haass, talking about the Paris accords and all that.

So, Richard, expand on your previous comments, in the sense that, so this is part of a pattern, withdrawing from Paris, withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, withdrawing -- essentially, the European version of it is dead, not affirming NATO. What does this mean? The United States has really been at the center of this order that we created since 1945. What's likely to happen?

HAASS: Well, there's -- there's two futures. The optimist would say others would step in and they would step in, in ways that would be benign. They would essentially no longer look to the United States and do it themselves. It would be a positive self-help society. The Europeans would do certain things, maybe the Chinese, some of the Asian allies. And you'd say, "OK, the American era has ended, but there's still a pretty good world order."

The much more negative approach would say the others simply don't have the capacities in many cases; they don't have the mindset. The kinds of rules they'd want to promulgate would not be ones we would want. So rather than having something of a race to the top, more likely to get a race to the -- closer to the bottom.

I think this will be a world of much less American influence. I think this would be a much more illiberal world, to use a word that you've used in a book, and probably a world where you have the global arrangements shrink and the gap between global challenges, from proliferation to terrorism to climate to cyber -- the gap between those challenges and global arrangements grow simply because the United States, which is still what, 20 percent, 25 percent of the world's economic output; we're still the most powerful country militarily -- without our full positive contribution and participation, it's -- it's a much more difficult enterprise.

ZAKARIA: And talk about China specifically, Rana, because China's own approach, even though it talks about free trade and global order -- I mean, they're a pretty nationalist, mercantilist country. If you look at their one belt, one road initiative, it's essentially "Let us go out and build your infrastructure for you and in return we want special deals."

FOROOHAR: Absolutely. You can see that happening now. I mean, I think China is already setting the agenda increasingly in Asia in big ways. And climate change is actually an interesting example of the nationalist strategy because, at the same time that, yeah, China has a lot of dirty coal, it's also made clean tech a really strategic, important sector and actually quite a protected sector. But I think you are going to see this kind of regionalism that Richard was talking about. I think Asia is, kind of, moving forward in the most strategically smart way with that.

Europe -- it's interesting, post-Brexit, you would think it would have been a moment to really, kind of, reintegrate, for Germany to take the leadership on, you know, saying "We are going to commit to deeper political and economic integration," but you don't seem to be seeing that. You see a Germany that feels isolated and on its own.

In the U.S., it's interesting because, you know, NAFTA and what's happening with NAFTA is a perfect example. Actually, it makes a lot of sense to have closer economic ties, but given Trump's rhetoric, I, kind of, wonder how the Mexicans are going to feel in the next few years about working with us on that.

So I think it's riskier at the moment.

ZAKARIA: Secretary Moniz, when you look at, you know, all those countries you negotiated with for the Paris accords, how do you think they are going to react? How will the Indians and the Chinese react?

Are they looking at this as an advantage for them? Are they sad about it? What's your suspicion?

MONIZ: Well, first of all, the Chinese and the Indian leaders have already come out and made very strong statements about trying to up their game in terms of leadership. But, as Richard said, it's very hard to replace American leadership. Indeed, for Paris, it was frankly the initiative taken by President Obama to have the joint announcement with President Xi that really changed the entire game on the pathway to Paris.

Now, having said that, and I think this was just referred to as well, there is no doubt that the Chinese in particular are going to see this as a fabulous opportunity, frankly, to strengthen their position in the -- in the economy in the decades ahead.

In fact, I mentioned earlier the president's budget proposal to Congress, and today we have a substantially larger governmental investment in early-stage innovation than does China. The trajectories that we would have if Congress supports the president's proposal would put us at a substantially lower position with regard to China.

So you know what this will do? Twenty years from now, the president will be complaining about the Chinese market share in clean-energy technology.

(LAUGHTER)

ZAKARIA: Well, thank you all -- a fascinating, fascinating conversation.

Next on GPS, a town on the move. No, actually, a whole town that is being moved from one place to another. Where in the world is this? We'll find out when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: One country picked up and moved a historic building last week, the first such move in the relocation of the entire town. What country performed this unusual engineering feat? Is it Russia, Mexico, Sweden or South Africa? Stay tuned and we'll tell you the correct answer.

This week's book of the week is a podcast -- well, sort of. Podcasts are hot nowadays, so let me tell you about my favorite. BBC Radio has for almost 40 years had a Monday morning show called "Start the Week" that is unrivaled anywhere in the English-speaking world. It brings four authors together who have all read each other's books, and the moderator, usually Andrew Marr, brilliantly manages a fascinating conversation among them.

Listen to last week's conversation on India and you'll see why I'm hooked. And don't forget to subscribe to my actual favorite podcast, which is of course our "GPS" podcast, if you haven't already. That way you will never miss a show. Go to cnn.com/fareed, where you will find a link.

The answer to my GPS challenge is C, Sweden. The town of Kiruna, population of about 20,000, is picking up and moving two miles to the east. The people are relocating and some of the buildings are coming, too. Last week the first of the historic buildings was hoisted off the ground and moved, as courts reported. The impetus for the move isn't climate-related, but it is the result of a man-made problem. Kiruna was built atop Europe's largest subterranean iron ore mine. After a century of tunneling and mining around the town, fears that it would be swallowed by a large hole prompted the decision to pick up and go. The rough cost of this logistical nightmare: over $1 billion.

Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.