Tom Friedman Thinks We’re Getting China Dangerously Wrong

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04/15/25 • 68 min

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The Ezra Klein Show

My colleague Tom Friedman thinks we’re screwed.

That’s the first thing he told me when recounting his recent trip to China. It’s not just because of the trade war that President Trump is escalating right now. Friedman believes the whole Washington consensus on China — that the country is a hostile adversary — is dangerous and based on an outdated understanding of what China now is. He saw how China’s manufacturing and technology have advanced so far that in many ways it now surpasses the United States’.

In this conversation, Friedman walks me through the advancements he saw in some of the most critical fields of the coming decades — including A.I., E.V.s and clean energy. We discuss why he sees the current consensus as dangerous, what a different path might look like and what the United States should do to develop its domestic manufacturing so that we don’t “get steamrolled.”

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

“I Just Saw the Future. It Was Not in America.” by Thomas L. Friedman

“China's overlapping tech-industrial ecosystems” by Kyle Chan

Genesis by Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt and Craig Mundie

Book Recommendations:

The works of Yuval Noah Harari

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Isaac Jones, with Aman Sahota and Efim Shapiro. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Elias Isquith, Marina King, Jan Kobal, Kristin Lin and Jack McCordick. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Zoe Zongyuan Liu, Kyle Chan and Matt Sheehan.

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

My colleague Tom Friedman thinks we’re screwed.

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

“I Just Saw the Future. It Was Not in America.” by Thomas L. Friedman

“China's overlapping tech-industrial ecosystems” by Kyle Chan

Genesis by Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt and Craig Mundie

Book Recommendations:

The works of Yuval Noah Harari

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Previous Episode

Trump’s Tariffs, Market Panic and What Comes Next

After a week of market chaos, President Trump pulled back from the brink. But he didn’t pull that far back. He left a 10 percent tariff on most of the world and launched a trade war with China. It’s unclear what he will do after this 90-day pause or what countries need to do to satisfy him. But one thing that is very clear now is that our economy is subject to one man’s whims.

How are businesses supposed to adapt to this new reality? What is this new reality?

Peter R. Orszag is the chief executive and chairman of Lazard, one of the world’s largest asset management and global financial advisory firms. He also served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Barack Obama, so was a policymaker during a financial crisis. And over the past few months, he’s been talking to lots of C.E.O.s and corporate board members as they try to process these changing policies. I wanted to ask him what he’s been hearing and how he sees the volatility of this moment.

Mentioned:

“A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System” by Stephen Miran

“Paul Krugman on the ‘Biggest Trade Shock in History’” by The Ezra Klein Show

Trade Wars Are Class Wars by Matthew C. Klein and Michael Pettis

Book Recommendations:

Underground Empire by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman

Chokepoints by Edward Fishman

Smart Money by Brunello Rosa and Casey Larsen

The Catalyst by Thomas R. Cech

Kaput by Wolfgang Münchau

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Isaac Jones, with Aman Sahota and Efim Shapiro. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Elias Isquith, Marina King, Jan Kobal and Kristin Lin. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Matt Klein.

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Next Episode

The Emergency Is Here

The president of the United States is disappearing people to a Salvadoran prison for terrorists: a prison built for disappearance, a prison where there is no education or remediation or recreation, a prison where the only way out, according to El Salvador’s justice minister, is in a coffin.

The president says he wants to send “homegrown” Americans there next.

This is the emergency. Like it or not, it’s here.

Asha Rangappa is a former F.B.I. special agent and now an assistant dean and senior lecturer at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, as well as a member of the board of editors for Just Security and the author of The Freedom Academy on Substack.

Mentioned:

“Abrego Garcia and MS-13: What Do We Know?” by Roger Parloff

Book Recommendations:

The Burning by Tim Madigan

Breaking Twitter by Ben Mezrich

Erasing History by Jason Stanley

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Elias Isquith. Fact-checking by Rollin Hu, Jack McCordick, Kristin Lin and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Isaac Jones and Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Aaron Reichlin-Melnick.

Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.