Steven Cook

Jan 17, 2025 | foreignaffairs.com | James M. Lindsay |Steven Cook |Peter Schroeder |Colin H. Kahl

As the 2024 U.S. presidential election showed, public sentiment about economic prospects significantly influences voting behavior. At the moment, those prospects appear to be grim across the world. The International Monetary Fund has projected that annual global growth will average around three percent over the next five years—the weakest medium-term outlook in decades. The picture looks bleakest for countries with advanced economies, where growth rates are anticipated to remain stagnant.

Jan 17, 2025 | foreignaffairs.com | James M. Lindsay |Steven Cook |Peter Schroeder |Sarah Yager

On January 21, 2017, the day after his inauguration, U.S. President Donald Trump visited Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. It was one of his first official actions as president and an opportunity to reset relations with the intelligence community (IC). Just ten days prior, he had accused intelligence agencies of helping to leak a report that claimed that Russian operatives had his personal and financial information.

Jan 17, 2025 | foreignaffairs.com | James M. Lindsay |Steven Cook |Colin H. Kahl |Charles A. Kupchan

Since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, the breakneck pace of progress in artificial intelligence has made it nearly impossible for policymakers to keep up. But the AI revolution has only just begun. Today’s most powerful AI models, often referred to as “frontier AI,” can handle and generate images, audio, video, and computer code, in addition to natural language.

Jan 16, 2025 | foreignaffairs.com | Steven Cook |Michelle Gavin |Oren Cass |Ronald R. Krebs

Across the American economic dashboard, warning indicators are flashing red. The globalization and financialization of the past several decades have slowed investment, innovation, and growth. Industrial output and productivity have declined, and the United States has lost its leadership position in vital technologies—including in aerospace, energy, and semiconductors. Yes, U.S. corporate profits, stock prices, and consumption have all surged.

Jan 16, 2025 | foreignaffairs.com | Steven Cook |Michelle Gavin |Omar G. Encarnación |Robin Niblett

In the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, I argued in Foreign Affairs that Donald Trump’s ascent to power represented the “Latin-Americanization of U.S. politics” and the entrenchment of “caudillismo” in the United States. Deriving from the word “caudillo,” or strongman, caudillismo is a quintessential Latin American political phenomenon.