The Most Important Foreign Policy Speech in Years

A Conversation with Ezra Klein.

“Beneath Carney’s analysis of what is happening is an idea I’ve been following for some time: weaponized interdependence. This idea comes from the international-relations theorists and professors Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman in their book “Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy.” The basic concept is that over time, in this globalized, woven-together world, there are a lot of ways in which being on American technologies and in American financial markets gave the United States leverage. This system was fine for our allies and for the world, as long as we didn’t use that leverage too much. But now we’ve begun to make that a way we can harm them, a way we can extort them, a way we can control them, and that has really changed the nature of the bargain.”

More at The New York Times.

Other Writing:

Essay

America Should Think Twice Before Replacing Sanctions with Tariffs – with Abraham Newman

Donald Trump complains that they are undermining the supremacy of the dollar. Access the full article here. Henry Farrell (and Abraham Newman), “America Should Think Twice Before Replacing Sanctions with Tariffs,” Financial Times, September 19, 2024.
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Academic Article

Regulating Information Flows: States, Private Actors and E-Commerce

Growing interdependence between jurisdictions means that states are increasingly using private actors as proxies in order to achieve desired regulatory outcomes. International relations theory has had difficulty in understanding the exact circumstances under which they might wish to do this. Drawing on literatures in both international relations and legal scholarship, this article proposes a framework ...
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