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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Trump's Standoff with Venezuela at a Boiling Point; No Breakthroughs in Ukraine Peace Efforts. Interview With Public Interest Journalism Lab Co-Founder Nataliya Gumenyuk; Interview With New York Times National Correspondent Thomas Gibbons-Neff. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired December 07, 2025 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:00:28]

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: This is GPS, the GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. Welcome to tall of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria coming to you from New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Today on the program, President Trump's vendetta against Venezuela.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We consider Venezuela to be not a very friendly country.

ZAKARIA: Should the United States try regime change one more time? Do we know what the day-after would look like? I'll talk to James Story and Elliott Abrams, top officials on Venezuela in Trump's first administration.

Also, as diplomats shuttle around the globe to try to bring an end to the war in Ukraine, how do the people of Ukraine feel about all this? I'll ask Ukrainian journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk.

Then, an Afghan national who worked with the CIA stands accused of shooting two National Guard members on the streets of D.C. last week. President Trump has since embarked on a crackdown on immigration across the board. Is that warranted? We'll explore.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: But first, here's "My Take."

One of the differences between Donald Trump's second term compared to his first has been a full blown attack on the expert class. J.D. Vance urges that we trust our common sense over the ideas of the experts. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is actively overruling the views of the medical establishment on issues like vaccines. Pam Bondi forces out Justice Department officials who prize professionalism over personal loyalty. Stephen Miller has declared war on NGOs.

It is part of an American cultural revolution designed to discredit the credentialed elites who, in their view, run America. It's true that over the last few decades, America has spawned a

meritocracy. Armed with Ivy League degrees and specific skills and training that has come to dominate business, government, media and culture. And it is also true that it can morph into a group of smug technocrats who lose touch with the society they come from.

But before we join the pile-on, let's keep in mind that the rise of a merit based elite is a historic shift in the right direction. What did we have before? An old-boys network in which the right family name, religion, prep school and club assured your passage to the top?

Meritocracy, however imperfect, opened doors. It promoted people on the basis of their aptitude and academic excellence, bringing Catholics, Jews, Asians and blacks into the American establishment. It placed a premium on competence over lineage, on work over patrimony.

The real problems of meritocracy are best addressed by creating better access to high quality education, fewer non-merit mechanisms like legacy admissions and racial quotas, more rigorous grading, and a renewed respect for nonprofessional work skills. In other words, more emphasis on genuine merit and real efforts to make sure everyone has access to opportunity.

But as the populist right trashes meritocracy, it is replacing it with something older, cruder, and more corrosive. A naked plutocracy ruled by the very rich.

We now have the wealthiest Cabinet in history, stocked with billionaires and centi-millionaires. Immense wealth is seen as the single best qualification to run anything. Since Elon Musk is the world's richest man, he must be qualified to tackle the entire federal government. OK, he overruled a bunch of experts who spent decades understanding how to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa. But the thinking these days is, if they were so smart, how come they aren't rich?

Billionaires are today regarded as fonts of wisdom on everything and even dispense oracular advice on dating.

Outside of the hubris of such thinking is the genuine problem of conflicts of interest. In May, a cryptocurrency company created by Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump and their sons announced that it received a $2 billion investment from a firm controlled by Sheikh Tahnoun, the National Security adviser of the United Arab Emirates.

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Just two weeks later, the White House agreed to a plan to give the UAE access to the highest end A.I. chips from America, a plan negotiated by Tahnoun and advocated by Witkoff within the White House. We are to believe that there is no connection between these two decisions.

One number surely says it all. A Reuters' special report calculates that the Trump Organization's income for the first half of 2024 was about $51 million, and about $864 million in the first half of 2025. That is a leap of roughly 1,600 percent. To give you a rough sense of how steep that rise is, Nvidia's net income rose about 44 percent in that same timeframe.

Take the almost parodic example of plutocratic politics. The planned $300 million White House ballroom, funded by private donors, many of whose fortunes depend on federal contracts, regulatory decisions, antitrust enforcement, tariffs and export licenses. Trump says this is a great idea because it comes with "zero cost to the American taxpayer," quote-unquote. But history tells us that when government asks big business for favors, in return, over time, it dispenses special treatment, tax breaks and regulatory advantages to its favorites, and the taxpayers are the ones who foot that bill. The ballroom would be cheap to fund, by contrast.

The current crowd of tech billionaires delight in the access they have to the Trump White House. But surely they understand that the key to America's innovation is that they were able to build their companies without any special access, without having to curry favor with the government, without having to pay for the president's personal vanities.

The price of their access will be paid for by those young entrepreneurs toiling in their garages right now who lack the money and connections to join the White House billionaires club. With a tax code that already heavily favors the super-rich, today's plutocracy will inevitably turn into a new inherited elite, with families maintaining power and privileges for generations.

This is the opposite of the American idea. For Thomas Jefferson, nature's most precious lesson in setting up a society was that it should be run by what he called a natural aristocracy, based on virtue and talents. The best governments, he explained, choose their leaders based on this criteria. The wrong model was the artificial aristocracy based on wealth and birth.

Provisions should be made, he concluded, to prevent such a system from rising in America. Oh, well.

Go to FareedZakaria.com for a link to my "Washington Post" column this week, and let's get started.

Tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela are reaching a boiling point. After months of striking Venezuelan vessels in the Caribbean, this week President Trump warned that land strikes on Venezuela could come very soon. There are now over 15,000 U.S. personnel in the region. The largest military buildup there in many decades.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused the U.S. of trying to remove him from power. And indeed, many in the Trump administration are pushing for regime change.

Joining me now are two former top officials on Venezuela from Trump's first presidency, former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela, James Story, and former special representative for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams.

Elliott, explain to us how we got here. It felt like Donald Trump came to power talking about wanting to get away from forever wars, wanting peace, and now we seem to be -- we find ourselves in what appears to be the most confrontational situation in the western hemisphere since the Cuban missile crisis. How did this happen?

ELLIOTT ABRAMS, FORMER U.S. SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR VENEZUELA: He's been interested in Venezuela from the beginning of the first term, and started putting more and more sanctions on, particularly in 2019 and '20. But the diplomatic and economic pressure wasn't enough to move the regime. Last year, there was a real election in Venezuela, and Maduro tried to rig it and he failed and lost in a massive landslide. The administration is now saying, well, this government really has to -- has to change.

They don't use regime change. And I think Trump is not going to put boots on the ground, but he does seem to have decided this is my hemisphere.

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This is our hemisphere. We can't have a hostile regime like this engaged in criminal activities hooked up with Iran and Russia and China, and we're going to change it.

ZAKARIA: And, Elliott, what do you make of the deal or some kind of negotiations that the Trump administration seems to have been engaging in? What was the nature of that deal, and what was it that -- you know, it seems like that fell through and that has irritated Trump even more.

ABRAMS: Yes. There were some negotiations, but I think we've got two policies here. There was one being followed by a sometime envoy, Ric Grenell, who was negotiating with Maduro directly. There is a harder line that we associate mostly with Secretary of State and National Security adviser Marco Rubio, and I don't think the negotiations are dead, Fareed. I think you could envision two or four weeks the president claiming victory in saying this was about drugs. I've suppressed drug trafficking in the Caribbean. Maduro has promised A, B, and C.

But I don't think that's going to happen because I think if Maduro survives, Trump loses. So I do think you're going to see some strikes on Venezuela in an effort to push Maduro out.

ZAKARIA: James Story, does feel like, as Elliott has said, that Trump has drawn a line in the sand. There's this huge buildup. At this point he needs Maduro to, you know, to give him a lot to be able to claim victory. What do you think is the most likely unfolding of this scenario?

JAMES STORY, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO VENEZUELA: Well, I agree with Elliott completely on this. There's a question of American credibility. You don't put 10 percent of the U.S. Navy off the coast of Venezuela without a result. So I would imagine that we'll see some kind of a limited engagement, limited strikes in the country, again, another inducement to try to get Maduro to depart or to try to create a break in the regime to help him seek an exit.

ZAKARIA: And help us understand the ostensible reason here, the drug trafficking. Venezuela is not a large source of drugs, particularly not fentanyl. Can Maduro deliver something meaningful on this, or is this just a kind of pretext?

STORY: Well, I don't know how much Maduro can deliver on this because of the nature of the corrupt regime that -- over which he presides. He's basically allowed the military to engage in all kinds of nefarious activity to include drug trafficking. I believe going back to the question of, what can you get from Maduro, I think his departure is the first order objective. And then the negotiation is about, well, how do we help the Venezuelan state reconstitute itself? How do you institutionalize the country?

There's very little, I think, that Maduro can offer outside of his exit, which will end up redounding positively on our overall policy in the region frankly.

ZAKARIA: All right. Stay with us. Elliott Abrams argues in an essay in "Foreign Affairs" that the U.S. should go for regime change in Venezuela. I'll ask him why, and what about all the possible problems, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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ZAKARIA: And we're back with the former special representative for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, and the former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela, James Story.

Elliott, you argued in "Foreign Affairs" for a regime change in Venezuela. Now, I want to ask you, we've been through a regime change for 20 years now. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya. It doesn't seem to work out so well and it seems like these are much easier to start than end. They open up a can of worms. You end up almost always with some kind of civil war, because there's now an open contestation for power among the many factions left.

What am I missing in seeing this as a lot of red lights blinking here?

ABRAMS: Well, this is not Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya. First, those countries had zero history of democracy. Venezuela had 50 years of democracy after it overthrew a dictator in 1958. Second, those countries are all split. You know, Sunni, Shia, Kurd, Christian, Druze. Not Venezuela, which is a pretty united country from that point of view. And it is surrounded in the western hemisphere by democracies.

So I think the chances that this would lead to a democracy, as has happened in the rest of South America, are really much, much better. As long as Maduro is there, Venezuela will be a source of drug trafficking of migrants. A fourth of the population has already fled the country because of this regime. So there won't be any stability in that region until that regime is replaced by a return to democracy.

ZAKARIA: Jimmy Story, you know Venezuela well. I mean, I'm struck by the fact that there do seem to be a lot of -- they don't have sects, religious sects, but you have a lot of groups in Venezuela that have arms, various kinds of militias, right? STORY: Well, there certainly are. I mean, Venezuela is a country

completely riddled with illegal armed groups. You had the FARC-D, the ELN, these are two Marxist terrorist foreign drug trafficking organizations from Colombia finding themselves inside of Venezuela.

[10:20:04]

You had the Tren de Aragua, the Cartel de los Soles, the Colectivos themselves. But I agree with Elliott here. This is -- I think the closest example would be more along the lines of Panama than it would be Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya or any of these other places. This is a country that can provide for its own reconstruction. And what's important here is to remember, Venezuela not only do they have a democracy, they had the best institutions in the region and those can be rebuilt from hospitals to education to transportation to electricity.

All of that can be rebuilt. And as Elliott rightly pointed out, this is not a country riven by sectarian issues or religion or ethnicity. In fact, if you look within the inner circle of Maduro himself, you have a lot of people who are cousins of members of the democratic opposition. They went to college together. These are people who know each other. So I think that the idea that this will drop into civil war is misplaced.

Now, having said that, it's important that the armed forces of Venezuela remain intact in some way because you're going to have to provide for security and stability during the transition period and into the future as the country is re-democratized.

ZAKARIA: You know, I do remember that Paul Wolfowitz very famously testified that Iraq would pay for its own reconstruction with its oil funds right before a 10-year civil war broke out. I guess what I'm still wondering, Elliot, is there going to be lots of people with guns who are not reconciled with going quietly into the night.

How would the United States, without troops on the ground, ensure that that didn't turn into some kind of a free-for-all, with remnants of the old army, with new forces that are trying to take power? Wouldn't there -- at the end of the day, how do you avoid, it may not be a religiously oriented civil war, but a power struggle? And then the United States has, as you know, Colin Powell said, it has broken it so it owns it.

ABRAMS: Well, that's a critical question. I'd say, we should be messaging. I hope the CIA is doing this right now to people in the Venezuelan military. Maduro has to go. You don't have to go. Every South American transition to democracy has had an amnesty. There's going to have to be one in Venezuela. We need to keep the army in place. We need to avoid a kind of de-Baathification campaign.

And we need, above all, and I think this is the magic formula. Pay them. Pay them. If we can pay the army, I think that's critical to having them stay loyal to the elected government.

ZAKARIA: Jimmy, what is the most likely outcome you think right now? Are strikes that then possibly lead to Maduro's departure but if he doesn't leave?

STORY: Well, certainly the president has the option to do strikes directly against Maduro as well. I believe the most likely scenario coming forward would be something very limited. Maybe in the Zulia state, south of Lake Maracaibo, from which 95 percent of all drug flights originate. Again, this is only 10 percent of the total drug flow, but perhaps something they're being very cautious of civilians.

But then, you know, I have the question about really bad actors within the regime and what difference is it between someone who runs the interior police, runs the Colectivos, is responsible for the kidnaping of American citizens, the torture of American citizens, and figures such as Raul Reyes from the FARC, Mono Jojoy as well, or Suleimani from Iran, so the president could make a decision to do something that's a little more directed towards some of the bad actors inside of the regime.

So we'll see how that plays out. But I agree with Elliott on the de- Baathification question. There are, you know, 70 percent of the people went out and voted against Maduro, voted him out. And a lot of those people are also in the military. You have to identify them, you have to support them, and you have to encourage them to help a democratic process.

ZAKARIA: All right. Well, thank you both. Very illuminating. And as this moves on, I hope we can come back to both of you. Thank you.

ABRAMS: Thank you.

STORY: Thank you, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, French President Emmanuel Macron said in a phone call with European leaders that there is a chance the U.S. will betray Ukraine, according to reporting this week by German magazine "Der Spiegel." Is that a real fear for Ukrainians? I'll ask a top Ukrainian journalist when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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ZAKARIA: Diplomacy to bring an end to the war in Ukraine continued this week, including a marathon five-hour session between President Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and Russia's President Vladimir Putin. This round of diplomacy began with a 28-point Trump peace plan developed by Witkoff and Kremlin special envoy Kirill Dmitriev. That plan was widely criticized as highly favorable to Russian interests. The U.S. has since softened parts of the plan, but a breakthrough remains elusive.

What do Ukrainians make of all these machinations?

Joining me now is the Ukrainian journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk.

Nataliya, welcome. So how are people in Ukraine receiving this 28- point plan and a softer version of it? What is the general feeling? NATALIYA GUMENYUK, UKRAINIAN JOURNALIST: So after almost a year of

talks about so-called negotiations, it's probably the worst version of the plan because it offers a lot of symbolic concessions from Ukraine, looks the closest to initial demands of Vladimir Putin. And what is missing there is the real end of hostilities, because there is no discussion about ceasefire. There are a lot of talks about symbolic concessions, which also demands probably to weaken the army.

And if any military would read that plan, you also see there is somehow an invitation for a bigger war, because in a nutshell, there is also the demand to give the territory which is the most fortified and which Russia isn't capable to conquer, and also weaken the army. So, if you really read it, it looks like, you know, be weaker and then we'll invade you further while using your own fortified land to attack you in some years.

ZAKARIA: So, I hear in Ukraine that people are very worried and suspicious of the dealings that Witkoff has been having with Russia, with Dmitriev. What are your Ukrainian sources telling you about those? Are people very nervous?

GUMENYUK: So, what is interesting that those kind of economic propositions from the Russians to the United States, where somehow they are discussed or rumored for quite some time. So it's not something new. And we knew that was coming from Russia. Of course, there is a concern because the U.S. is moving from the position from an ally to a mediator but now for a spokesperson from the Kremlin. And that's not exactly what Ukraine wants to see the United States, of course.

ZAKARIA: Does Ukraine think it can continue to fight even if the Americans, as you say, essentially abandon them? Can Europe itself provide enough support for Ukraine?

GUMENYUK: I think that it's already almost a year since Ukraine was building its own defense, and miltech, and especially a very important day, march 3rd, when Ukraine was temporarily -- the support to Ukraine was stopped. I think it was when the government and the military took it extremely seriously.

So, Ukraine is more or less already less dependent from the western technology, including from the American technology. Ukraine is dependent from the money, but it's really -- the Europeans are stepping in. The very important thing is that Ukraine is trying to have the situation when the U.S. won't forbid Europe, for instance, to buy some of the American weapons, for instance, air defense and things like that. But technologically, if we compare the situation in March and now in November, Ukraine is definitely less dependent on the western technology. It still depends on the money.

ZAKARIA: And tell us about these allegations of corruption and the -- and the resignation of Yermak. What's going on there in Ukraine?

GUMENYUK: So, it was a long awaited process. First of all, what is very special and what we want to highlight that the investigation was not a journalistic investigation. It was the investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, an institution set up to investigate the corruption in the government or high profile corruption.

So, it did its job. The bureau did its job. Of course, it's very unpleasant. It's horrible to know that in the energy sector, which was quite murky, there was those cases of corruption and misuse of the funds.

So, that was a problem. But the investigation is rather welcomed by the society. And the resignation of the head, the chief of staff of the presidential office is also welcomed. It's seen more or less like a reset.

The president is criticized for making it too late, mainly because the problem with Andriy Yermak's position was that by trying to make the government stronger, making the office of the president stronger, they were weakening the government, the government, the parliament, and all the other bodies. So, now having him away, it's a bit of the revival of the other bodies. The problem is indeed it should have been done earlier and it should be initiated by the president, not under this type of pressure from the civil society and from also various political parties.

ZAKARIA: Nataliya, that was a very good and intelligent briefer for us to understand how things are in Ukraine. Thank you.

GUMENYUK: Thank you.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, last week's fatal attack in Washington by an Afghan asylum seeker has unleashed a sweeping immigration crackdown by the Trump administration. What does it mean for the Afghans who once risked their lives for the United States, when we come back.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If they can't love our country we don't want them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: The Trump administration intensified its immigration crackdown after last week's attack in Washington that left one National Guard member dead and another critically injured. The shooter, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is an Afghan national who worked with the CIA in country and came to the U.S. in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden era program designed to resettle vulnerable Afghans in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from that country. He ultimately gained asylum in 2025 during the Trump administration.

Since the attack, the administration has halted all immigration from what it calls countries of concern and vowed to reexamine green cards that have been issued to people from those nations. Joining me to discuss this is Thomas Gibbons-Neff.

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He's a "New York Times" journalist and former Kabul bureau chief. He also served two tours in Afghanistan with the U.S. Marine Corps. Thomas, welcome.

First, give us a sense, for those who don't know, when the United States went into places like Iraq and Afghanistan, how critical were the locals who were helping you when you were in the marines?

THOMAS GIBBONS-NEFF, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK TIMES: Sure. Well, thanks for having me. And, I mean, I think whether you believed in the war or not, how these wars were carried out very, you know, counterinsurgency focused where, you know, commanders would talk about winning hearts and minds or installing governments in the image of U.S. democracy, U.S. institutions, locals, Afghans, Iraqis, Vietnamese, Kurds were integral to propping up all these institutions, including the military.

As far as when I was serving in the marine corps, when we were on patrol, we would have interpreters. We fought alongside the Afghan army, which again, was, helmed by Afghans. I mean, they were integral to the war effort. And they had a belief that we would both never leave. And if we did leave, that we would somehow help them in one way, shape or form.

ZAKARIA: What was the atmosphere like as the United States decides to leave? Describe for us the mood of the Afghans who now realize the U.S. is leaving.

GIBBONS-NEFF: I mean, in August of 2021, as the provincial capitals fell early that month, there was still this belief that Kabul would hold. And then when it did collapse on the 15th and Afghan president Ashraf Ghani fled, I think, there was, I mean, shock.

But as the crowds grew at the airport, as I remember, it wasn't so much talking to individual Afghans. It was just this feeling of complete terror about what would happen next, how the Taliban would govern, and just the inability for the United States, with its massive military behind it, could really control what was happening at the airport. I mean, everyone did the best they can, and I certainly watched that play out. But it was a -- it was quite a moment.

ZAKARIA: And so, the United States leaves. Some of these people managed to come to America. What was -- because you've been involved in that as well. What is it like for an Aghan who has worked with America in, you know, Helmand province or some -- one of these places, rural Afghanistan? What's it like to come to the United States? I mean, that must be a pretty big culture shock.

GIBBONS-NEFF: Yes, I think like any first generation -- first generation immigrant or refugee, I mean, it is a -- is a huge cultural shock. I think obviously more so coming from Afghanistan. I think one thing that's just been very striking to me, just talking to our local staff, "New York Times" local staff, that's resettled it's really how communal Afghanistan is where they lived with their family just doors away and close proximity to this kind of individualistic culture that's prevalent in the United States. And you could say the west, I guess. And I think that's been an extremely hard adjustment.

I think when we talk about the shooting of the two National Guards members by the Afghan Rahmanullah Lakanwal around Thanksgiving, you look at what his situation was when it comes to how he -- how he felt isolated. And I think degrees of that isolation is felt in many Afghan communities in the United States.

ZAKARIA: So, when you heard about Lakanwal, you know, shooting these people, obviously a brutal and unforgivable, what was your -- what were your thoughts about it knowing the background as well as you do?

GIBBONS-NEFF: Yes. When I saw that an Afghan was being accused of the shooting that I was immediately concerned, of course, for the people that we've helped resettle. I think, just given the current political environment that, you know, their lives were going to get more difficult. I mean, I think that's always been the toughest part of all of this, is that there was this idea that we would get them into the airport and get them on the plane, and that things would, you know, get better.

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In hindsight, I mean, they were safe into the airport, away from the Taliban, but it just opened up one -- I guess, one battle after another.

ZAKARIA: One battle after another. Thomas, pleasure to have you on. Thank you.

GIBBONS-NEFF: Thanks so much for having me.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, I'll tell you about a country that is building drones at an unprecedented pace and using them commercially across many of its cities. A hint, it is not the United States.

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[10:50:14]

ZAKARIA: And now for the last look. For much of the 20th century, drones and flying cars existed in the realm of science fiction. Writers and filmmakers imagined swarms of unmanned aircraft soaring above futuristic cities.

Today, this future has indeed arrived, but not where many might once have expected. This future is in China. It is where drones are no longer just toys for hobbyists or for military purposes, but ubiquitous in everyday life.

In many cities delivery drones drop meals at kiosks or onto rooftops. Others ferry blood to hospitals, spray fertilizer on farms, and even carry out emergency rescues in rural areas.

According to "The Economist," in 2024, China had 2.2 million civilian drones in operation. A remarkable 455 percent increase in just five years. The country's drone revolution is the result of a deliberate, state driven push to expand what Beijing calls its low altitude economy.

In recent years, it has rewritten airspace rules and incentivized local governments to scale up drone manufacturing. The policies have been a huge success. China now produces at least 70 percent of the world's commercial drones, according to the group Drone Industry Insights.

A similar pattern is emerging in the Asian powerhouse with so-called electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. In other words, flying cars, which are set to enter commercial service as early as next year.

The U.S., meanwhile, is struggling to keep up. America may have invented modern flight, dominated the aerospace sector for a century, and largely pioneered the first military drones, but today its commercial drone service remains broadly in early testing stages and confined to a handful of urban and rural areas.

The main barrier is regulatory. This year, the FAA only just proposed a rule to ease requirements that commercial drones can fly within the pilot's line of sight. For all the talk of America's business friendly regime, the regulatory environment in China has oddly been much more permissive. Public willingness also plays a role. In a McKinsey survey from last year, 86 percent of Chinese respondents said they would be willing to switch to commercial drone deliveries, compared with just 53 percent of Americans.

Chinese drones dominate even in the U.S., largely due to one company called DJI. Its drones are easy to use and cheaper than alternatives, meaning it controls roughly 80 percent of America's commercial market. The company has a store in New York's Fifth Avenue. Craig Singleton from the conservative think tank the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, attributes DJI's monumental rise to, quote, "subsidized prices, massive scale and aggressive dumping that wiped out a lot of western competitors," unquote.

This dominance has led a growing bipartisan movement in Congress to restrict the company over national security concerns. It's new import sales could be banned by the end of this month.

In a new book called Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future, China expert Dan Wang argues that even though Beijing contributes relatively modestly to scientific breakthroughs, it excels at what he calls process knowledge, which is expertise gained from practical experience. He likens it to cooking. You can have a fully equipped kitchen and a great recipe in front of you, but if you've never cooked before, you probably won't know how to fry an egg.

China's leading drones reflects precisely this, years spent building an ecosystem where process knowledge flows freely between workers, factories and firms. Nowhere demonstrates this better than the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. Once a low cost assembly hub largely for foreign companies, it has evolved over decades to become what some call the Silicon Valley of hardware.

Within a small radius, entrepreneurs can access an array of sophisticated batteries, sensors, cameras and motors, all of which are key ingredients needed to test and scale drones. It is no accident that a place that was once the beating heart of Apple's iPhone supply chain is now the home of DJI and some of China's other most innovative tech giants.

Drones are just one example of a deeper divergence between the U.S. and China on adopting the technologies of the future. The U.S. is pouring resources into a still largely abstract vision of A.I., known as human level artificial general intelligence.

[10:55:06]

China, meanwhile, is putting A.I. to work in the physical economy, automating factories, deploying humanoid robots, and scaling drones. In the race to apply A.I. to the real world, China is quite literally taking off.

Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.

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