In October, President Trump and President Xi Jinping met for the first time in Trump’s new presidential term. The meeting ended with commitments from both countries designed to lower trade tensions —– something many observers greeted with relief.

But, according to Watson Senior Fellow and Director of the Watson School’s China Initiative Lyle Goldstein, perhaps more noticeable was what was left out of this meeting; almost all of the pressing security issues that exist between the two countries, including the one Goldstein sees as the “most dangerous of all”– the U.S. relationship with Taiwan.

On this episode, host Dan Richards speaks with Goldstein about the state of U.S.-China relations over Taiwan, why he believes this issue represents one of the world’s greatest risks to human safety, and why now is the moment to reconsider the U.S. foreign policy consensus on this geopolitical flashpoint.

Learn more about the Watson School’s China Initiative

Read Lyle’s multi-part series on the past, present, and future of US-China relations

Transcript coming soon to our website

In August 2022 — just over three years ago — the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law. It represented the largest federal investment in renewable energy and climate action in U.S. history. The bill was a historic victory for the climate movement — and, as it turns out, its high-water mark in the United States for the foreseeable future.

Since returning to office, President Trump has withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, rolled back numerous environmental and climate regulations, issued executive orders to pause renewable energy projects, and worked with Congress to dismantle key parts of the IRA.

On this episode, Dan Richards speaks with two experts on climate politics at the Watson School: Jeff Colgan, professor of political science and director of Watson’s Climate Solutions Lab, and Chris Rea, assistant professor of sociology and expert on climate and environmental governance about the new landscape of climate politics. They discuss the state of the climate movement and green transition in America and around the world, where the climate movement goes from here, and what it all means for our politics and our planet.

Learn more about the Watson School’s Climate Solutions Lab.

Read Jeff Colgan's recent article in International Organization on contemporary climate politics

Transcript coming soon to our website.

Bryce Steinberg is a development economist, which means she studies how lower-income countries grow into more prosperous ones.

More specifically, she studies how to help people in low-income countries build their “human capital” — a phrase social scientists use to describe things like getting more formal education, more professional training, or improving your health.

As she tells Dan Richards on this episode of Trending Globally, part of the answer is well-understood.

“We have to build the schools, we have to build the clinics, we have to get the roads, get the infrastructure in place so that people can access these things,” Steinberg explains.

However, decades of development policy has made clear that access alone doesn’t solve the problem, and supplying communities with such resources doesn’t necessarily mean people will use them.

Why not?

That’s what Steinberg studies.

On this episode, Richards talks with Steinberg about her research, which seeks to better understand what she calls the “demand-side” of development policy: What makes people actually use the services that are available to them, and how to remove the barriers that stand in their way. They also discuss how development policy has evolved over the last few decades and how, with the dismantling of USAID, it may be poised to change once again.

Transcript coming soon to our website.