Dr. Elizabeth Economy sits down with Nadia Schadlow, former deputy national security advisor for strategy in the first Trump administration and author of the influential 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS). Schadlow reflects on how the NSS was architected around the shift toward great power competition and America's four core national security interests: protecting the homeland and way of life; promoting American prosperity; preserving peace through strength; and advancing American influence. The conversation moves through key differences between the first and second Trump administrations, including process, tone, and the role of ideology in foreign policy, before turning to a substantive debate about the limits of multilateral institutions and Schadlow's argument in a recent Foreign Affairs essay that state-centric approaches can outperform global governance frameworks. Economy and Schadlow also assess the strategic landscape ahead of a potential Trump-Xi summit, discussing where US leverage is real, where it may be overstated, and whether tariffs alone can move China's economic model. They close with a shared critique: that the United States has consistently failed to develop a coherent, assertive diplomatic and development strategy to compete with China's Belt and Road Initiative.
Recorded on April 2, 2026.
