When Stanford sociologist Gi-Wook Shin left his home country of South Korea in 1983 to pursue graduate studies at the University of Washington, he was certain he would return to Korea upon graduation. More than 40 years later, Shin, the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, is still in the United States. 

Yet he does not consider himself a case of brain drain for Korea. Shin, who is also the founding director of the Korea Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and APARC director, has continuously contributed to Korea by leading transnational collaborations, researching and publishing on pressing issues in Korean affairs, and otherwise engaging in diverse intellectual exchanges with the country.

Shin’s experiences sparked his interest in the sociological patterns of mobile talent and a central question: How do countries attract, develop, and retain talent in a globalized world? His new book, The Four Talent Giants (Stanford University Press, 2025), explores that question regarding transnational talent flows from a comparative lens by examining how four strikingly different Asia-Pacific nations – Japan, Australia, China, and India – have become economic powerhouses.

We interviewed Shin about his book – watch:

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The book’s main idea, Shin explains, is that how countries manage talent is key to their strength and future success. He calls the four Asia-Pacific nations the book examines “talent giants” because each has used a distinct talent strategy that has proven critical to national development. Three of these nations – China, Japan, and India – are among the top five economies in the world in terms of GDP, and Australia, despite its relatively small population size, is third in terms of wealth per adult.

In The Four Talent Giants, Shin investigates how these four nations have become global powers and sustained momentum by responding to risks and challenges, such as demographic crises, brain drain, and geopolitical tensions, and what lessons their developmental paths hold for other countries.

A New Framework for Studying Human Resource Development 

Asia’s robust economic growth over the past forty years is nothing short of a remarkable feat. The Asia-Pacific today continues to be the world's fastest-growing region, despite global economic uncertainty. How did this phenomenal ascendance come about?

The existing literature has emphasized common “recipes” of success among Asia-Pacific powers. Endeavoring to find one-size-fits-all formulas that could be replicated in other countries seeking rapid development, it has overlooked the distinct developmental journeys of Asian nations. “We need a new lens, or framework, to explain their successes, while also accounting for cross-national variation in development and sustainability,” writes Shin. 

In his book, Shin examines talent – the skilled occupations essential to a nation’s economy – as a key driver of economic development. While all countries rely on human resources for development, their talent strategies vary based on historical, cultural, and institutional factors. Shin introduces a new framework, talent portfolio theory (TPT), inspired by financial portfolio theory, to analyze and compare these national approaches.

“TPT views a nation’s talent development, like financial investment, as constructing a ‘talent portfolio’ that mixes multiple forms of talent – domestic, foreign, and diasporic – adjusting its portfolio over time to meet new risks and challenges,” he explains. Just as an investor may select different financial products in a mix of assets, countries can create talent portfolios by picking from various strategies.

Shin identifies four main strategies by which a country can harness talent – what he calls the four B's: 

• “Brain train” signifies efforts to develop and expand a country’s domestic talent or human capital.
• “Brain gain” refers to attracting foreign talent to strengthen the domestic workforce.
• “Brain circulation” involves bringing back nationals who have gone abroad for work or study.
• “Brain linkage” means leveraging the global networks and expertise of citizens living overseas through transnational collaboration.

Shin uses TPT as an analytical framework to examine how each of the four talent giants has constructed its distinct national talent portfolio and how this portfolio has evolved. As in an investment portfolio rebalancing, a nation can maintain diversification across the four B's and within each B. TPT therefore offers a holistic framework for understanding the overall picture of a country’s talent strategy, and how and why it may “rebalance” its talent portfolio.

Throughout the book, Shin shows that, while Japan has relied on the brain train strategy, Australia, whose population was too small for such an approach, emphasized brain gain. China used brain circulation: it first sent students and professionals abroad to learn, then implemented policies to encourage them to return. India, by contrast, established linkages among its diaspora and used them to develop its economy.

New Geopolitics of Global Talent: Lessons and Policy Implications

The case studies of the four talent giants reveal that there is no single path to talent-driven development. Each of the four Asia-Pacific countries has built its unique talent portfolio, balancing human and social capital, homegrown and foreign-educated individuals, and domestic and diasporic talents. While the talent giants use all four B's to some extent, each emphasizes them differently, reflecting diverse strategies and development paths. The core findings of these studies offer valuable insights for countries aiming to design effective talent policies. 

The four B's were instrumental in the economic rise of the four Asian nations, and they will be equally critical in addressing new challenges facing all economies, from demographic crises to emergent geopolitical tensions. For the United States, one such challenge is its sprawling competition with China, where the battle for talent is heating up in the race for technological supremacy.

Shin warns that the advantage the United States has long held in technological innovation, driven by its ability to attract skilled foreign talent, is now at risk from the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies, pressures on universities, and cuts to research funding. “Immigrants have not just filled jobs,” he emphasizes. “They have created new industries and helped the US and their home countries. If the US makes it harder for talent to come in and stay, it risks hurting its long-term success.”

The Four Talent Giants is an outcome of Shin’s longstanding project investigating Talent Flows and Development, now one of the research tracks he leads at the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL), which he launched in 2022. Housed at APARC, the lab is an interdisciplinary research initiative addressing Asia’s social, cultural, economic, and political challenges through comparative, policy-relevant studies. SNAPL’s education mission is to cultivate the next generation of researchers and policy leaders by offering mentorships and fellowship opportunities for students and emerging scholars.

Shin notes that the SNAPL team illustrates all four B’s in his talent portfolio theory, as some members are U.S.-born and trained, some come from Asia and, after working at the lab, return to their home countries, whereas some stay here, promoting linkages with their home countries. “In many ways, this project shows what is possible when we invest in talent and encourage international collaboration.”

In the Media

Stanford Scholar Reveals How Talent Development Strategies Shape National Futures
The Korean Daily, July 13, 2025 (interview)
- English version
- Korean version

On May 29, 2025, the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) hosted a conference titled Japan’s Global Content Industries, dedicated to exploring the global power and creative evolution of Japanese content, from anime to manga, video games, music, VTubers, and more.

Co-organized by Orange Inc. and APARC Global Affiliates Program Fellow Yasushi Maruyama, the event convened prominent influential creators, producers, technologists, and scholars from Japan and the United States. It offered a platform for interdisciplinary engagement and exploration of how Japan’s content sectors contribute not only to cultural imagination and entertainment but also to soft power diplomacy, economic strategy, and digital transformation.

“Content is the most successful export industry in Japan," noted Japan Program Director Kiyoteru Tsutsui in his opening remarks. "As of a year ago, Japan’s content has become a 43 billion USD industry, surpassing many of Japan’s traditionally successful industries, except for automobiles.” 

The Creators: Crafting Japan’s Cultural Icons

The morning session focused on creators within Japan’s content ecosystem. It featured leading voices behind some of Japan’s most influential media franchises. Junichi Masuda of The Pokémon Company opened with a reflection on the franchise’s long-term development and its transformation into a global cultural symbol. Hiroyuki Nakano, editor-in-chief of the magazine Shonen Jump, followed with insights into editorial strategies and the sustained appeal of serialized manga such as “One Piece.” Game designer Tai Yasue from SQUARE ENIX concluded the segment by discussing collaborative design approaches in creating popular video game franchises like “Final Fantasy” and “Kingdom Hearts.”

Each speaker underscored the strategic interplay between creative autonomy and organizational frameworks within Japan’s media production. Despite operating in distinct sectors, manga publishing, game development, and franchise management, the speakers emphasized the importance of creative vision, collaborative processes, and fan engagement in driving success.

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A panel discussion, moderated by Yasushi Maruyama and joined by Susan Napier, the Goldthwaite Professor of Rhetoric, International Literary and Cultural Studies at Tufts University, placed these industry insights within broader academic and sociocultural contexts. Napier, an authority on anime and Japanese cultural studies, connected the presenters’ creative strategies to the broader narrative of Japan’s cultural exports and its influence on global audiences. The dialogue highlighted how Japanese content not only entertains but also fosters deeper cross-cultural understanding.

The Innovators: Scaling Japanese Content Globally

The afternoon session turned attention to the structural and technological transformations enabling Japan’s media to scale globally. Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc., Director of the Board, CFO & CSO Hide Nagata examined corporate strategies driving global expansion of Japanese music and anime.  He emphasized the importance the anime fans have with music and leveraging data analytics in maximizing reach and impact.

Shoko Ugaki, CEO of Orange Inc., shared production methodologies that have positioned the startup manga localization studio at the forefront of innovation. The presentation highlighted how Orange Inc. leverages various AI technologies to make manga more accessible to international audiences and the challenges of automated translation. The session concluded with Motoaki Tanigo, CEO of COVER Corporation, who introduced Hololive’s virtual talent ecosystem. His remarks on VTubers underscored how digital personas and fan interactivity are redefining contemporary media engagement.

A concluding panel, moderated by Kiyoteru Tsutsui and joined by Professor Mizuko Ito of the University of California, Irvine, synthesized the day’s themes. Ito, a specialist in digital youth culture, explained how fandoms, participatory culture, and platform technologies are creating new modes of learning, connection, and commerce. The panel emphasized that Japanese media no longer function as static cultural exports, but as dynamic, interactive ecosystems integrated into everyday digital life across the globe.

Japan’s Content Power: Cultural Strategy and Global Relevance

Throughout the conference, a consistent theme emerged: Japan’s content industries are increasingly strategic in blending creativity, technology, and cross-cultural appeal. Whether in serialized manga, immersive games, or AI-driven virtual entertainment, Japanese content reflects a convergence of artistic vision, business innovation, and global ambition.

The conference demonstrated the value of interdisciplinary dialogue in understanding the evolving dynamics of global media and connected scholarly analysis with real-world developments, fostering deeper engagement between Japan and the world.

Sana Sugita is a master’s student in East Asian studies. Her research interests include democracy and freedom, nationalism, identity, and the social impact of algorithms and AI.

Yifei Cheng, ’26, is excited every week to learn about unorthodox and relatively lesser-known historical figures who played a major part in Japanese history. For instance, Onodera Makoto, a Japanese military attaché, allegedly sent a telegram to the Japanese General Staff shortly after the Yalta Conference in February 1945, warning that Stalin had promised during the conference that the USSR would attack Japan three months after the German surrender. Or Kiyosawa Kiyoshi, who criticized the Manchurian Incident, Shanghai Incident, and the Sino-Japanese War, and later turned to writing diplomatic history, keeping a detailed diary during the Pacific War.

These are some of the stories Dr. Shinichi Kitaoka, a visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and Japan Program fellow, weaves into his spring quarter seminar series, Reexaminations of Major Issues in Modern Japanese Politics and Diplomacy. “It has been wonderful to hear how Dr. Kitaoka introduces us to Japanese diplomacy,” says Cheng. “With his experience as the former president of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), he connects these facts and compares them to real occurrences in the 120 countries he has visited around the world.”

During the seminar series, students and the APARC community explored, through a fresh lens, new interpretations of major issues in Japanese politics and diplomacy from the Yedo period in the 17th century to the present day.

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Cheng, a history major, was drawn to the seminar’s foreign policy perspective. “It helped me to see how domestic policies and foreign policy interact. I feel that often, they are treated separately. But, this has been a nice way to understand how they connect and see how internal dynamics and external pressures shape policy decisions on both fronts.”

The seminar was developed during Dr. Kitaoka’s quarter-long visiting fellowship at APARC. Kitaoka serves as special advisor to the president (and former president) of JICA, as well as emeritus professor at the University of Tokyo and ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary, deputy permanent representative of Japan to the United Nations (2004–2006).

This class originated in response to a request by Kiyoteru Tsutsui, the director of the Japan Program, due, in part, to his concern about the decline in high-quality research on Japanese politics. Kitaoka notes that current interest in Japan tends to focus on culture more than on politics and diplomacy. “I considered offering a course on Japan’s road to war, a topic I have written about in my book, From Party Politics to Militarism in Japan, 1924–1941," he says. "Instead, I decided to focus on six key topics: the Meiji restoration, Taisho democracy, surrender and occupation, the Regime of 1955, the recent development of Japan’s security policy, and Japan’s official development assistance (ODA).”

“When discussing Japanese diplomacy and history, terms such as 'fragile' and 'failed' are often used. Today, we are seeing how unstable and precarious democracy and diplomacy can be around the world. That is why I believe there are important lessons to be learned from reexamining modern Japan. This is what led me to create a class on the subject. From my experience at JICA and the United Nations, I also know how challenging democratization can be in developing countries. Studying Japan, a formerly developing country that has successfully developed, can be helpful. In particular, Japan’s unique approach to ODA offers useful insights as we think about the future.”

Each session included a 90-minute lecture followed by a Q&A, and those who wanted to stay afterward had dinner together. These more casual discussions offered a space to continue engaging with class materials and explore more questions or related topics. Kitaoka noted that he was impressed by how the students and audience responded in class. Even when the class touched on sensitive topics, like the atomic bomb and World War II, he felt they received it calmly and thoughtfully.

“There are students taking the seminar for credit, APARC members, faculty, and community members coming to listen,” Kitaoka says. “Everyone’s research interests are different, but they all ask a variety of questions based on what they know – that is something I have enjoyed at Stanford. In Japan, when there are experts or faculty members attending, students or people with less experience do not ask questions. At Stanford, everyone, no matter their background or level of expertise, asks. I really like that.”

“Staying at Stanford has been wonderful, just as I expected,” Kitaoka adds “The number of opportunities available for each student is incredible. Each person can try various things – from research and teaching assistant opportunities to club activities to startups – and the fact that the school encourages that is just great. In Japan, schools create more of an environment to just focus on one thing rather than trying a variety of activities.”. Interacting with faculty at APARC and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and reexamining his own scholarly work from a comparative perspective has been an engaging experience, Kitaoka notes. He believes that American political theory tends to be inward-focused and emphasizes the importance of comparative studies, especially given Asia’s rising global presence – making APARC’s work particularly important.

“Politics and diplomacy are important because their misunderstanding can lead to war. I am sad that they are a rather neglected,” Kitaoka said.

“Experience other civilizations while you are young – non-Western civilizations, like in Asia or Africa,” he advises young scholars aspiring to a future in political science. “It really broadens your world.”

After returning to Japan, he hopes to further contribute to international cooperation, which he believes is now in crisis. “More cooperation, the restoration of international cooperation, is needed – especially in the Western Pacific: Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asian countries, and Australia. Like the EU, I am envisioning a Western Pacific Union. I hope to do something in that direction to realize that,” he said.

Steven Han is a foreign area officer in the U.S. Army and a first-year master’s student in East Asian studies. “I took this class because I have a limited background in Japan, but with my job, there is a possibility I will work in or with Japan. I like how Kitaoka touches on all students’ comments from the response papers, and I get his own personal feedback every week.”

“Everything is new to me,” Han added. “It was just very different, and I am learning so much in every class.”

As the global geopolitical landscape shifts and the United States redefines its role on the world stage, Japan, its closest ally in the Asia-Pacific, faces mounting expectations and emerging opportunities. In recognition of this critical juncture, APARC’s Japan Program and the United States-Japan Foundation convened a timely symposium at Stanford University, Recalibrating U.S.-Japan Collaboration in a Time of Tumult. The event brought together scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to explore how U.S.-Japan relations are adapting to new global realities. Over the course of five thematic sessions, participants engaged in a dialogue that spanned foreign policy, international trade, social governance, civil society, and even the cultural diplomacy of baseball.

📄  Get the event highlights below

📹  Watch the symposium sessions on our YouTube channel >

🔗  Read Nikkei coverage of the event >

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The opening session, “Global Democracy, Foreign Aid, and Regional Security: As the U.S. Pulls Back, Will Tokyo Step Up?,” featured Larry Diamond, Mosbacher Senior Fellow of Global Democracy at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute, Shinichi Kitaoka, former Japanese ambassador to the United Nations and past president of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), along with APARC Japan Program Director Kiyoteru Tsutsui. Together, they examined Japan’s potential to assume a greater leadership role in defending democratic norms and providing regional public goods in an era of American retrenchment. The discussion underscored both Japan’s growing capacity and its constitutional and cultural constraints.

In the second session, “How Tariffs and Trade Wars are Reshaping the Indo-Pacific,” Wendy Cutler of the Asia Society Policy Institute and Peter Wonacott of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability reflected on the disruptions facing global trade. Drawing on their experience in economic policy and journalism, respectively, they traced how protectionist policies and decoupling strategies are altering regional supply chains. Their analysis emphasized the importance of maintaining open trade flows while also reinforcing economic resilience across the Indo-Pacific.

The third session, “The Future of DEI, ESG, SDGs: Will Japan Follow the U.S. or Stay the Course?,” focused on evolving norms around corporate and social governance. Keiko Tashiro, deputy president at Daiwa Securities Group, joined Gayle Peterson of Oxford’s Saïd Business School and Stanford sociologist Patricia Bromley to evaluate whether Japan’s institutions will align with American trends or continue along a distinct trajectory. Panelists discussed Japan’s historically unique approach to equity and sustainability, noting the domestic implementation of global frameworks such as the UN-sanctioned Sustainable Development Goals.

The fourth session, “Redefining the Relationship Through Civil Society: Burden Sharing, Knowledge Sharing, Picking up the Slack,” included remarks from Mike Berkowitz of the Democracy Funders Network, Laura Deal Lacey of the Milken Institute, and Jacob M. Schlesinger, president and CEO of the United States-Japan Foundation, who explored how non-state actors are increasingly stepping in to fill voids left by governments. The conversation highlighted the growing role of philanthropic networks and think tanks in shaping bilateral cooperation, particularly in areas such as disaster response, democratic resilience, and public diplomacy.

Capping the day’s proceedings was the session titled “Diamond Diplomacy Redux: Baseball as a Bilateral Bridge.” Featuring Stan Kasten, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Yuriko Gamo Romer, director of the documentary “Diamond Diplomacy,” the discussion viewed U.S.-Japan relations from a cultural diplomacy perspective. The two reflected on the enduring symbolism of baseball in forging people-to-people ties, illustrating how shared pastimes can foster mutual understanding even amid geopolitical uncertainty.

The symposium served as a vital platform for reassessing the U.S.-Japan alliance in a period marked by shifting global norms. As the international system undergoes profound change, the panelists indicated that the robust partnerships must evolve not only through diplomacy and defense but also across the realms of trade, governance, civil society, and cultural exchange.

This interview first appeared in the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paolo, on April 6. The following English version was generated using machine translation and subsequently edited for accuracy and clarity.

WASHINGTON — The tariff hike against all countries announced last week by President Donald Trump may bolster China's image, but that doesn't mean China or any other country is poised to replace the United States, says Thomas Fingar, Shorenstein APARC Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University.

Fingar, a former chief of the State Department's China Division, among other roles in the U.S. Foreign Service and national intelligence, believes that Trump's tariffs will be bad for all nations.

"I hesitate to predict how other countries will react, except that this has more or less given everyone an incentive to bypass the U.S.," he tells Folha.

Donald Trump announced tariffs this week against virtually every country. China has already announced retaliation, imposing a 34% tariff on American products. Are we facing a trade war?

I don't think the war metaphor works for me. I don't know what Trump is trying to do. One could say that this is a game of imposing an outrageous tariff in the hope that specific targets, which are basically all countries, might give in to what they say are their demands. In doing so, they would reduce barriers to trade with the United States. To me, it doesn't make sense with the vast majority of targets of the 10% tariffs.

Why?

I hesitate to predict how other countries will react, except that this has more or less given everyone an incentive to bypass the U.S., to make the U.S. a supplier of last resort, to hold the line, to have a kind of united front to compete with each other.

If the assessment is that the Dutch or the French or the Germans or the Brazilians or somebody else is talking about doing something to eliminate a 10% tariff to gain a comparative advantage in accessing the U.S. market, if that's the logic, then fine. Maybe there's something rational about that, but I think it's more likely that the targets of those low tariffs are just getting together.

My main trade competitor has the same or higher tariffs levied against them. Why should I give in if we are competing on a level playing field?

I think Trump is going to make the U.S. pay a huge geopolitical price. But what he thinks he will gain from this, I don't know. Is it likely that he will achieve anything really significant from it? I doubt it.

You mentioned a geopolitical price tag for the United States. What would it be?

The tendency of much of the world, most of the time, was to try to work with the United States, to the extent that they couldn't automatically do what Washington wanted, but they were inclined to cooperate because they saw it as benign, if not beneficial, to their interests. I think Trump has reversed that. This is going to lead to a disinclination to work with us, an incentive to try to bypass us. I think the inclination now is going to be: I'm not going to vote with the Americans, I'm going to look elsewhere first, for my investment, for my capital, for the market, for what I'm doing, for partners.

But I don't think that these measures are necessarily going to play in favor of any particular country. Maybe China in some places, the European Union in some places, Japan in some places. It's going to be a very different environment for the United States, for American companies and diplomats to operate in. It's going to be much more difficult.

This tariff strategy that you say is hard to understand is seen by some analysts as part of Trump's isolationist policy.

As my kids would say, this is so last century. This is really 19th century, the idea of bringing industries, manufacturing back to the United States. Very little manufacturing, I think, is going to come back to the United States. We have 4% unemployment. We can't fill the jobs that we have now, imagine bringing back manufacturing of basic commodities like shoes, toys, that kind of thing.

That left the United States a long time ago and went to Japan, moved from Japan to Taiwan, moved from Taiwan to South Korea, moved from South Korea to somewhere else, and then moved to China and then to Vietnam. Those things are not coming back here because there's not enough profitability to justify investing in robots and mechanizing those things to bring them back to the United States. Our workforce is small relative to the size of the economy. It's not coming back.

It's already moving from China because labor costs are so high. The fallacy in Trump's logic is that things like furniture, construction, textiles, clothing, and manufacturing would come back. And the people who would actually do the work are the people he's persecuting with his ridiculous immigration policies.

Trump has argued that he imposed the tariffs to curb alleged abuses against the United States that would benefit China. Is he containing Beijing with this move?

I don't think he really cares about containing China. But the answer is no. These moves boost China's image. Beijing has seized on the rhetoric of defending the open, globalized international trading order that the United States has attacked. They will take advantage of that as much as they can. I don't think the tariffs are part of the U.S. rivalry with China. China's rise has not disadvantaged the United States economically — it has done so to Japan, and, to some extent, South Korea and Taiwan, but not the United States. So Trump is using this argument with false, exaggerated, and distorted statements.

Could we witness a change in the world order, the end of the American era and the beginning of a Chinese era?

No.

Not even as a consequence of tariffs?

Absolutely not. Part of the problem is that China's economy is closed. One of the reasons is that it doesn't have a consumer society because people don't have enough income. That's because of the amount of wealth that the state extracts to pay for high-speed rail, military structures, and energy development. Some of that is good, some of it is excess.

U.S. tariffs won’t create a market that can rival the size and influence of the United States. It would have to be somewhere else that is very rich, and China is not very rich. China is barely in the middle-income category, it has a per capita income at a level that Mexico has been at for decades. It's not binary. So, the U.S. retreat from its leadership position in the world order, which I don't necessarily see as a bad thing, doesn't automatically hand that role over to China, Russia, the European Union, Japan, Brazil, the BRICS, or any other set of players.

Can China gain ground by investing more in countries that are affected by tariffs?

China has invested more in countries that are affected by tariffs, like Indonesia and Vietnam. These countries are very wary of Chinese investment for various historical reasons, and to some extent for ethnic reasons. But China is actually cutting back on its overseas investments because its own population is asking: Why are we giving money to countries that are richer than us? That is a reasonable question.

They have real problems meeting the expectations, demands, and needs of their own population, which is now largely urban. The cities have to function, you can't say, "Go back to the farm and do sustainable agriculture." That phase is long gone in China. So they have to spend more. Half of the population still has rural identity cards. That means they don't get free education beyond primary school. That means 50% of the future workforce won't have more than a primary school education. This is a country with enormous challenges. Can they manage them? Probably yes, but there is not much room for maneuver. Their own slowing economy will be hurt by these tariffs. I don't think that's Trump's intention, but it will hurt them.

What impact might the tariffs have on Brazil and Latin America? Do you think China will become more attractive?

I don't know specific commodities from specific places, but my general starting point is that a 10% distribution across Latin America won't have much of an impact on the price for consumers in those countries. You'll export the same amount; we'll pay more for whatever the commodity is, flowers from Colombia, grapes, wine from Argentina or Chile. Since the tariff is general, it doesn't give Chile an advantage on wine over Argentina, because they both have the same amount. Most of what Latin America exports to the United States doesn't go to China.

In short, what are the main consequences of tariffs in terms of the geopolitical landscape and the domestic landscape?

It destabilizes the international trading system that has benefited most countries for a long time. It will force adjustments, that is number one. And number two is that it undermines the image of the United States, and therefore its influence as a stabilizing, predictable, and broadly beneficial member of the international community. It disrupts economies and undermines American influence and attractiveness.

In the end, does anyone benefit from Trump's tariff policies?

No one. This is not a policy that works to anyone's obvious benefit. It upsets everyone. And there is no alternative to the United States, in the sense that the Soviet Union was during the Cold War. China is not that, and China does not want to be that.