Return to Transcripts main page

Fareed Zakaria GPS

Ukraine Takes the War to Russia; From Iranian President to Israeli Intelligence Asset. Interview With "The Atlantic" Staff Writer Rose Horowitch; Interview With Author Daniel Mendelsohn. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired July 19, 2026 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:01:25]

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 from New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Today on the program, as Ukraine's offensive abilities get better, causing untold damage to Russia's economy and Muscovites' sense of safety, we'll get a read on the sentiment in Russia. Are the people, especially the powerful ones, ready to give up on this war?

Also, the extraordinary tale of Israeli spies' alleged attempts to turn Iran's former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, into an intelligence asset.

Finally, when Homer spun the tale of "The Odyssey" more than 2,500 years ago, he certainly could never have imagined the spectacle around the opening of the new movie version.

How well does it hew to the original? I will ask a leading classicist.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: But first, here's "My Take."

As the war with Iran blows up and cools down from week to week, one trend is clear. The biggest beneficiary of this conflict is China.

Beijing did not have to fire a shot, spend vast sums or use up political capital, but it has gained more from this crisis than any other in three decades. The war accelerated three of China's long held goals, a Middle East less dependent on America, a world more dependent on critical Chinese technology, and a reputation for Beijing as a serious and steady world power.

Beijing has not tried to replace Washington as the Middle East's military guarantor. That would require expensive commitments. Its aim has been simpler and more subtle. Get Gulf states to detach somewhat from the American orbit. Donald Trump is doing much of that work for Xi Jinping. America's Gulf

allies have watched as Washington waged this war in chaotic fashion and with little regard for the damage inflicted on their cities, infrastructure and economies.

The Gulf is now dividing into two camps. The United Arab Emirates is drawing closer to Israel and Washington, but a larger group led by Saudi Arabia and including Qatar, Oman and perhaps Iraq and even Turkey, is likely to seek long-term security through a balance. Continued ties with the United States, but also dialogue with Iran and better relations with China.

That is precisely the regional order Beijing has favored. In 2023, China brokered the restoration of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Riyadh has since resisted joining certain American led joint data center and computer chip projects. It has bought Chinese missiles and drones, held exercises with the Chinese Navy, and explored local production of wing loon combat drones. Gulf countries accounted for more than 80 percent of Chinese defense exports to the Middle East from 2016 through 2025.

No one is trying to replace America's security umbrella, but they want options and options reduce American leverage.

China's more impressive victory is geoeconomic. At first glance, a country that imports about 70 percent of its oil should be among the war's biggest losers.

[10:05:06]

Yet China has weathered the shock better than most countries because it spent years preparing. It diversified suppliers, built what is estimated to be the world's largest oil stockpile, continued using coal and expanded nuclear power, and electrified its economy on a scale no other major country has matched.

Electricity now accounts for about 30 percent of Chinese energy consumption. Almost 40 percent more than in the United States or Europe. China installed more than half of all new global wind and solar capacity in 2024. For these reasons, China was able to cut back on its imported oil purchases during the war by some four million barrels a day.

The war has become a giant advertisement for China's critical technologies. Governments everywhere are looking to build up their solar power, batteries, wind turbines, electric vehicles and grids. China controls about 91 percent of global solar panel manufacturing capacity and 89 percent of lithium ion battery capacity. Chinese firms manufacture at least 70 percent of almost all clean energy technologies tracked by Bloomberg.

The longer energy insecurity persists, the more the world will buy into industries China dominates.

The war also advances a key Chinese goal, weakening the dollar's hold over global commerce. Iran reportedly allowed some tankers through the Strait of Hormuz on the condition that transactions be settled in Chinese renminbi or in cryptocurrency. China and its partners have effectively expanded renminbi dominated trade to reduce exposure to American sanctions. The shift will be gradual, but the trend is now unmistakable. Away from dollar dominance.

Finally, there's the reputational windfall. The Trump administration entered this war with grand goals. Regime change, destruction of Iran's nuclear program, eradicating its ballistic missile capabilities and its support for regional proxies. It has achieved none durably. Instead, it is now hoping simply to open the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before the war began.

Donald Trump chose this war and in doing so blew through tens of billions of dollars, wasted America's munitions, diverted military assets from Asia, unsettled allies, and demonstrated that even with America's enormous power, a misguided strategy, and constantly changing tactics will produce bad results.

China did remarkably little. It kept buying Iranian oil, maintained relations with the Gulf states, avoided the costs of defending Iran or policing the Gulf. This is Beijing's preferred approach. No dramatic confrontations, but rather the steady accumulation of influence. Over the last 25 years, the United States has exhausted itself in three major military adventures in the greater Middle East, while China has accumulated manufacturing power, technological capacity and diplomatic relationships. Washington acts, Beijing waits.

China has paid costs for this war. Higher energy prices, disrupted supply chains and weaker global demand. But power is always relative, measured against the damage to America's goals, alliances and credibility, China has come out ahead.

Go to FareedZakaria.com for a link to my "Washington Post" column this week, and let us get started.

This week, Russia received a very clear reminder that fewer and fewer places are out of Ukraine's reach. On Wednesday, Kyiv said it had struck 116 Russian vessels over a nine-day period in the Sea of Azov, near Russian occupied Crimea. The attacks are part of a broader Ukrainian campaign to hit targets well beyond the front line, and often deep inside Russian territory. It's all driven by major advances in Ukraine's homegrown drone technology.

My next guest argues that this new phase means that the conflict is finally hitting home for many Russians after four and a half years of the war being something happening far away in somebody else's country.

Mikhail Zygar is a Russian journalist. He was the founding editor-in- chief of TV Rain, the country's only independent news television channel.

Mikhail, welcome. When you say that it's coming home, what is -- what's the kind of evidence that people are beginning to realize, oh, my god, this is coming home?

[10:10:06] MIKHAIL ZYGAR, FORMER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, TV RAIN: You know, gas stations as always, as everywhere. Long lines at the gas stations. That's the clear evidence that finally people cannot pretend that nothing is happening. Because for four years, five years -- it's almost five years, Russians were very successful in trying to ignore the war. It was not there. It's, you know, they know that they cannot do anything about it. They cannot protest. They cannot influence Putin so they were living their life trying to enjoy their life as if nothing is happening. But now it's impossible.

ZAKARIA: And in a major oil producing country, that's very rare.

ZYGAR: Yes. And it's happening everywhere. It's happening even in Moscow. The supply in Moscow has always been the best. And now I know that people have to wake up like 3:00 a.m. to go to stand in line at the gas station just to get some, like the number of memes and jokes about selling the car and buying a horse is like, what Russia is talking about. It's impossible to ignore the war.

ZAKARIA: So tell me, what does all this mean for Putin? You know, every -- all of this is pressure, and we're all trying to speculate, what will it do to the decision-making of this one guy?

ZYGAR: You know, it's really, it's really hard because we -- although we understand that everyone sees that that's a deadlock, Putin is clearly the person who does not understand and who doesn't see that. And it's very hard to try to see the world through his point of view, but he's not losing this war he thinks.

ZAKARIA: In his mind.

ZYGAR: Yes. He thinks that it's OK. He doesn't plan to start any negotiations. He doesn't need that. And --

ZAKARIA: And he's extraordinarily isolated, right? This is a guy who we don't --

ZYGAR: He's more or less isolated. You know, it's some kind of --

ZAKARIA: He doesn't use cell phones, right?

ZYGAR: Yes, yes, definitely.

ZAKARIA: No cell phones, no internet.

ZYGAR: No, no, no, no, no. He has never had laptop. He doesn't have -- he has never tried using a smartphone.

ZAKARIA: Because he thinks that it, you know, it means everybody spies on (INAUDIBLE).

ZYGAR: Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. He doesn't -- his personal safety is most important. He doesn't want any spy devices around him. And he doesn't trust anyone, but he's getting information from all of his security services. And he thinks that this war is winnable. He sees that, like, the situation in Ukraine is not stable at all. Zelenskyy has just fired the government. The very famous, very popular Minister of Defense Mykhailo Fedorov is dismissed.

And before that, Andriy Yermak, de facto vice president of Ukraine, former chief of staff, was arrested for corruption. In Putin's view, that's the clearest sign of the moral decay or even collapse of Ukrainian statehood. He doesn't understand that sometimes that's how civil society works. That's how institutions work.

ZAKARIA: And that's how democracies work.

ZYGAR: Yes. And it's actually much more stable system because it's based on institutions, not on the supreme power of the president.

ZAKARIA: You made a point --

ZYGAR: He doesn't get that.

ZAKARIA: -- five years. It's almost five years. That's longer than Russian participation in World War II. Right?

ZYGAR: That's true, that's true.

ZAKARIA: And the number of Russian lives lost much larger than in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Do you think he can survive politically if there is a peace deal which does not achieve his objective -- his first objective which is to take all of Ukraine?

ZYGAR: Now, clearly, I think that the only possibility to end this war is to have him gone. There is a very well-known phenomena about Soviet Union. Everyone was thinking that Soviet Union would be forever. No one was expecting the Soviet Union to collapse. And what is happening in Russia right now is quite the opposite. No one thinks that it's going to be forever. Everyone thinks that that's temporary. We just -- we need to wait. And it's going to fade away. It's going to be gone. Just like in a couple of months, maybe years. But that's that cannot be forever. Everyone is waiting for the end.

ZAKARIA: That's sobering because it means that this could go on for a while in a very messy, bloody way.

Thank you so much, Mikhail.

ZYGAR: Thank you.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, according to a stunning "New York Times" report, Israel's agents tried to turn Iran's staunchly anti-Israel former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into an Israeli intelligence asset. That wild story, when we return.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:19:21]

ZAKARIA: This is one of the most amazing stories I have read in years. According to reporting from "The New York Times," Israel worked to groom former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as an intelligence asset and recruited him to lead Iran in the eventuality that the ayatollahs were to be overthrown.

You may remember Ahmadinejad for his firebrand style of politics. As the president of Iran from 2005 to 2013, he made a name for himself through his anti-Israeli rhetoric, calling for it to be wiped off the map, denying the Holocaust, and accelerating Iran's nuclear program.

So why did Israel pick him as the person they wanted to lead Iran?

[10:20:03]

Joining me now is Mark Mazzetti, one of the reporters who broke this story.

Mark, so tell us the story. This, you know, in 2023, the Israeli agents meet with Ahmadinejad in Guatemala. How did that happen?

MARK MAZZETTI, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, NEW YORK TIMES: Well, we believe that this effort took a number of years, as you said, so that the Israelis identified sort of an opportunity to recruit Ahmadinejad because he was fracturing with the regime in Iran after his time as president. And we think that the first meeting, as you said, was a trip that Ahmadinejad took in 2023 in Guatemala.

It got a little notoriety at the time because Ahmadinejad was trying to leave the airport in Tehran, and they weren't -- they wouldn't let him leave and so he staged a sit-in until he was allowed to leave, and eventually does go. And we think makes contact with Israelis there. But the real, you know, more significant meeting is the following year, when in 2024, in the summer, he's invited to a climate change conference in Budapest.

And I spoke to the head of the university who invited him. Ahmadinejad is no climate change expert. And what the university rector said was that he had been contacted by a senior Hungarian official who said, you've got to set up this basically phony conference so Ahmadinejad can come and meet with Israeli intelligence operatives. And so what was seen at the time as Ahmadinejad attending this conference, that there were a lot of protests around, was actually a way for him to meet with, we're told, the head of Mossad at the time, David Barnea.

So, yes, it's a crazy story.

ZAKARIA: And that meeting did take place.

MAZZETTI: That meeting took place. And shortly after that, the Mossad notifies the CIA that it had made contact with Ahmadinejad. And the following year, in 2025, Ahmadinejad is invited once again to the same university and gives us public speech, but also in private meets with Israeli intelligence operatives. And this was right before the first Israeli war in Iran in 2025. So clearly, there are plans in place for maybe some life after the regime that Ahmadinejad could take part in.

ZAKARIA: And I think it's important for people to get the context here because it sounds so bizarre and wacky. Ahmadinejad actually was a political outsider to the Iranian establishment. The clerics didn't much like him. The Revolutionary Guard didn't much like him. He was like a street politician who had managed to get himself elected.

MAZZETTI: Yes. They didn't -- they weren't quite sure what to do with him. And I think these were things that potentially the Israelis saw as opportunity to recruit him in for some purpose that was, at that point, yet to be determined.

ZAKARIA: So then the war begins. And what happens with this plan?

MAZZETTI: So the war begins, and Ahmadinejad's compound is hit in Tehran. And at the time it was unclear exactly what was going on. But our reporting recently and going back since May is that this Israeli airstrike on Ahmadinejad's compound was designed to spring him from government control. It hit his -- the house where his bodyguards were. And our more recent reporting is that right when that strike happened, a black Peugeot car pulled up to the scene and whisked Ahmadinejad away to a Mossad safehouse somewhere in Iran.

And this was sort of part of the plan to get him out of Iranian government control. And then when this larger Mossad regime change plan was put into place or executed, then Ahmadinejad would be waiting.

ZAKARIA: Wow. And so what happens then? Well, you know, obviously the regime doesn't collapse. So what, are they stuck with Ahmadinejad in a safehouse somewhere?

MAZZETTI: Yes. Right. So this is where it's still a little bit unclear what happens if he leaves the safehouse. And the reasons for that we're still unsure about why he did it. And he sort of disappears for a period of time. Until very recently, earlier this month, he shows up at the funeral of the slain supreme leader in the procession with his head down. He's got a mask, a surgical mask that's sort of below his chin.

[10:25:00]

And he's clearly flanked by some kind of guards. So it looks as if he is back under some degree of control. And what happens now? Obviously, we don't know. What we do know, of course, is that the grander plan that the Israelis and to an extent the United States had in mind for a regime change didn't -- it failed. Right? There were elements of a ground operation with the Kurds moving into Iran. That was called off.

There were other people that had been groomed that the Trump administration and the Israelis saw as someone -- people who could take over, some of them were killed. And so here where we are -- here's where we are months into the war, with effectively the regime still in place.

ZAKARIA: Wow. Mark, amazing reporting. I don't know how you guys did it, but congratulations and thank you.

MAZZETTI: Thank you, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: I should say that Ahmadinejad's office has dismissed these reports, calling them Hollywood style claims, and accused "The New York Times" of publishing fake news.

Next on GPS, we know Americans and many others around the world spend way too much time on their phones. But does the addiction to quick hits of dopamine mean that we have reached the end of reading?

My next guest makes just that case in "The Atlantic" and right here when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:30:32]

ZAKARIA: Listen closely to these statistics. I found them striking and disturbing. The number of Americans who said they read for pleasure on any given day fell more than 40 percent from 2004 to 2023. Not even half of U.S. adults said they read a book in 2022.

These numbers come from an article entitled "The End of Reading is Here," from a young writer named Rose Horowitch. Rose's piece is the cover story of the latest edition of "The Atlantic." She joins me now.

So tell me, how did you get interested in this? Because you are off the generation about which you are reporting.

ROSE HOROWITCH, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Yes, exactly. So I note in the piece that I grew up in this post-literate age and that, you know, I entered school around the same time that the iPhone was released. And I really became interested in this, you know, from reporting that I had done a few years ago about how students were arriving at universities, even elite universities unprepared to read books because they had never been asked to do so in middle and high school. And so that made me want to explore now, what does this mean for society on a broader level if we're seeing these shifts?

ZAKARIA: And so, what is the data that most troubled you?

HOROWITCH: I think the data that most troubled me in writing this piece was that more Americans are interested in gambling or gamble on any given day than read. You know, we know 57 percent of Americans gambled last year. And so, that to me was a really striking and chilling statistic.

ZAKARIA: And the numbers are down uniformly. It's like -- you know, and this is really over the last 25 years. And my understanding is before that you did not have a big decline, that this is a very steep drop in recent decades.

HOROWITCH: Yes. So I think this really started with the television, you know, and when that, you know, came that sort of crowded out time that people would have previously spent reading. But, you know, you're right that I think we see this really kick off with, you know, streaming and smartphones and broadband internet, which are just, you know, so much kind of harder to resist. There's no stopping point.

And so that crowds out much more time. And it even sort of accustoms us to switching our attention much more so that it's kind of difficult now or it feels difficult to focus on a full book.

ZAKARIA: The thing we lose with reading books is this idea of deep reading, right? The sustained attention to ideas, to a story. And there's good research on this. Tell us about that.

HOROWITCH: Right. So one of the bedrock principles of neuroscience is that people get good at what they practice. You know, their brains master what they spend time doing. And so we know that if we're not reading, we're going to have much less background knowledge to aid in comprehension. We're going to be less accustomed to persisting through something or focusing on something.

You know, we know two decades ago, the average attention span on a screen was 2.5 minutes. And five years ago, it was 47 seconds. So we see that. And then we also see, you know, these changes in kind of our abilities to do complex synthesis and analysis and logical reasoning. You know, those abilities have declined for American adults in the past two decades. And so, you know, we do see that when we use this kind of fundamentally different mode of video or audio, it really does change kind of cognitively how we're processing the information.

ZAKARIA: So we're reading less. With A.I., we will end up writing less because the A.I. will write lots for us. And it does feel to me like we're kind of -- we're at an extraordinary moment in our evolution where ever since the enlightenment we have used reason to figure out the world and to write about it and to read about it. And we may be at the end of that point, because the A.I. will write for us. We're not reading. In fact, the A.I., if you need it, will read for us.

Do you have any thoughts? Like, where does this leave us?

HOROWITCH: Well, I started my article, you know, talking about the Library of Alexandria. So, I went way back. And, you know, I brought it up because it was obviously this real center of intellectual life in, you know, this earlier era.

And for a long time, scholars thought that it was destroyed by this external act of war. You know, Julius Caesar burned it down, and there was nothing that people could do. And that that started the dark age. And now there's this emerging consensus among historians that actually it's not -- you know, it was destroyed by a much more mundane cause.

[10:35:06]

It was neglected until it eventually fell into disrepair. And so it wasn't that, you know, the destruction of the library started these dark ages. It was we knew that the dark ages were here by the fact that nobody cared enough to save the library.

And so I wanted to sort of argue that we may be undergoing a similar kind of world historical shift in our consciousness, in our politics and culture, even how we tell the history of our civilization, and that it really is up to us. It is a choice.

ZAKARIA: That is a very smart and very worrying thought. We have to end it on that. Rose, really extraordinary article. As I said, I think it marks something very important. Thank you for bringing it to us.

HOROWITCH: Thank you so much for having me.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, Christopher Nolan's highly anticipated film "The Odyssey," hit theaters around the country this week. How does it hold up against Homer's version? I'll ask the writer and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn, who has his own great translation when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:46]

ZAKARIA: Christopher Nolan's new blockbuster "The Odyssey" was released stateside on Friday amidst a ton of buzz. The film is, of course, an adaptation of Homer's epic story, which has seen dozens of translations and adaptations since it was first told over 2,500 years ago in ancient Greece. The movie has sparked a whirlwind of debate over the film's casting, language and historical accuracy.

Joining me now is the author, critic and classics scholar Daniel Mendelsohn, who came out with his own highly acclaimed translation of "The Odyssey" last year.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Welcome, Daniel.

DANIEL MENDELSOHN, AUTHOR, "THE ODYSSEY: A NEW TRANSLATION": Nice to be here.

ZAKARIA: So, how did you like the movie?

MENDELSOHN: Well, I thought it's definitely visually overwhelming. It definitely covers a lot of the ground that Homer covers. It is different in many ways, but I think, you know, it's a rollicking good time. It's quite intense.

You know, as a Homer scholar, you're always balancing it against what you know. But I had a really good time.

ZAKARIA: In what principal way does it differ from your sense of Homer?

MENDELSOHN: I think -- and Nolan has been quite upfront about his desire to modernize. So, what does that mean? I think most of the changes have to do with how he's altered the character of Odysseus.

We love Odysseus because he's a trickster. He's sly. He has a way with words. He's seductive. He's got brio. This makes him into very much of a modern, guilt ridden, anguished anti-hero, I would say.

For me, that was a problem because in this he is made to feel guilty about the destruction of Troy. We keep having flashbacks to the terrible violence, you know.

ZAKARIA: And there's no evidence that he was ever guilty in the book. MENDELSOHN: No, guilt is not a -- not an emotion that the Greeks really dealt with. It's a very modern contemporary idea, you know? So -- look, every adaptation legitimately projects its own -- you know, the ideas of a given moment. And I will say that if you look at Christopher Nolan's other movies, this is exactly the kind of hero he always returns to. Look what he did with Batman. He turns Batman --

ZAKARIA: Yes.

MENDELSOHN: -- which we all grew up with in comic books, into a guilt ridden, anguished character. So he's sort --

ZAKARIA: And of course, Oppenheimer.

MENDELSOHN: Yes, and Oppenheimer too. So, you know, he's taken this great work with a very interesting, complicated hero and given him an attributes that speak to us today. I missed some of the glitter and fun. You know, "The Odyssey" is quite a lot of humor. There's a lot of teasing. There's a lot of sly joking. That's all gone.

ZAKARIA: Would you describe this -- what you saw as woke?

MENDELSOHN: Woke. I don't know. I do think -- I'll say that the movie shows sensitivities to issues that we care about today in a way that the Greeks would not have. Most famously, I'm sure, is the issue of the casting, which was very controversial. The multiracial cast, the casting of Lupita Nyong'o, an African actress, as Helen of Troy, got some people's knickers in a twist. That stuff doesn't bother me at all.

ZAKARIA: I mean, it's a mythical story.

MENDELSOHN: It's a mythical story. You know, as many classicists as have pointed out, Helen was hatched from an egg, right? So the question of accuracy, I think, isn't really an issue.

ZAKARIA: Tell me your translation which I really, really liked and heartily recommend. Is what the 50th translation in the last 60 or 70 years? Why does everybody keep retranslating "The Odyssey"?

MENDELSOHN: Well, it's funny because of the two Homeric poems, "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." "The Odyssey" is the one that we sort of can't let go of. I think it's for several reasons.

[10:45:00]

I think -- first of all, it's a story that continues to speak to the way we live. What do I mean by that? So, you have two sort of narratives wrapped around each other. One is the adventure, the adventure story, and that's the stuff we think of when we think of "The Odyssey." You know, Calypso, the cyclops, the sirens, Scylla and Charybdis.

On the other hand, it is about a homecoming. And I have always thought that the reason it speaks to us so forcefully is that it is a work about attention we're all familiar with. We all want adventure. We all want spice in our lives. We want to travel. We want to learn. We also want the comforts of home, relationships, all that.

And so "The Odyssey" oscillates between -- it gives us both. And I think people really plug into that because we know about that. It's a modern dilemma. How do you balance home and adventure in your life?

ZAKARIA: So, the best thing would be for people to watch the movie and then read your book.

MENDELSOHN: And read the book.

ZAKARIA: Daniel Mendelsohn, a pleasure to have you on.

MENDELSOHN: Thank you, Fareed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, China has almost a stranglehold on the processing of rare earth metals, without which your car, computer and phone wouldn't work. Not to mention missiles. How can America tear itself away from relying on its most important competitor for this crucial commodity?

I'll bring you the story of the one nation that tried to do just that. Did they succeed? Find out when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:50:54]

ZAKARIA: And now for the last look. More than a year ago, China decided to remind the world just how easily it can choke the global economy. Last April, in response to U.S. tariffs, Beijing briefly tightened exports of rare earth metals, which make up the tiny magnets inside everything from phones to cars to fighter jets.

Edward Fishman of the Council on Foreign Relations labeled the move the most effective use of economic warfare we have seen in recent years. And the west has been scrambling ever since for a strategy to loosen China's grip. But it is easier said than done, as Japan learned the hard way.

Despite the name, rare earths are not actually rare. They are 17 metallic elements scattered in the Earth's crust on every continent. What is rare, though, is the capacity to refine them. It is a filthy, expensive process that leaves behind toxic waste.

Decades ago, China made a long term bet on an industry that many other countries were happy to avoid. As former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping famously said, the Middle East has oil, China has rare earths.

Today, this bet has paid off. Beijing now refines roughly 90 percent of the world's rare earth supply. Japan discovered the danger of China's dominance long before anyone else. Back in 2010, a Chinese fishing trawler rammed two Japanese coast guard vessels near the Japanese controlled Senkaku Islands, which China claims. After the Japanese authorities arrested the Chinese captain Beijing retaliated by freezing rare earth shipments to Japan. At the time, Japan relied on China for about 90 percent of its rare earths imports. Even Tokyo's own officials were caught flat footed.

Tatsuya Terazawa, then in charge of economic policy at Japan's trade ministry, recently admitted to "The New York Times" that at the time he had zero knowledge about rare earths. But by the next month, Japan had pivoted to an urgent and comprehensive strategy focused on reducing demand, building stockpiles, recycling material and, most crucially, investing in mines abroad to secure its own supply.

The country's crowning achievement was backing a struggling Australian mining company called Lynas, which digs up oil in the outback, and refines it 5,000 miles away in Malaysia. Nearly 16 years on, Japan's approach has led to steady but slow results. It has cut its overall rare earth consumption in half, but it still relies on China for between 60 and 70 percent of its rare earth usage. While down from 90 percent, that is still a very high level of dependence.

But it meant that when China restricted exports again this year after a diplomatic spat over Taiwan, Japan was much better prepared. It released stockpiles and it could use its supplies from Lynas, the miner it rescued 15 years earlier, which has now become the biggest rare earth producer outside of China.

So what can the west learn from Japan? The first lesson is patience. President Trump has declared it would take about a year for the U.S. to secure enough rare earth supplies. That statement is totally divorced from reality.

Gracelin Baskaran and Meredith Schwartz of the Center for Strategic and International Studies write that Japan has put itself on permanent alert for more than a decade and pushed its new agenda forward aggressively. The west needs the same sustained attention, they argue, instead of momentary ramp ups during crises, which then collapse once there is calm.

The second lesson is about friends. Japan needed Australia's mines, Malaysia's refineries, France's recycling plants and American capital and technology to reduce its reliance on Beijing.

[10:55:05]

No country alone can break China's near monopoly on rare earths. The Trump administration, to its credit, appears to understand this. It has gathered 55 countries and signed agreements on nearly every continent regarding critical materials and rare earths. But that cooperation is an outlier in its broader America alone strategy.

Trump has hit those same friends with an onslaught of tariffs and abuse. Allies watching Washington today might be quietly wondering whether depending on America is really so much better than working with China.

The lesson is clear. Even Japan's best efforts could barely dent Beijing's rare earth dominance. Without similar patience and an ecosystem of strong long term alliances the U.S. will never be able to create truly resilient supply chains for vital goods.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)