Introducing The Global Story... what's really behind Trump's foreign policy?
Americast
BBC
4.3 • 3.1K Ratings
🗓️ 18 January 2026
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How are Donald Trump’s ambitions in Venezuela and Greenland changing America’s place in the world? President Trump’s key adviser Stephen Miller has said that we are living in a world “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power” - so where has that philosophy come from?
All this week, we are teaming up with our sister podcasts to explore how power and influence around the world is shifting. We exploring who is in a sphere of influence and who is being controlled by one.
Today, we speak to Anthony Zurcher, co-host of Americast and the BBC’s North America correspondent, about what US history tells us about this moment.
Producers: Sam Chantarasak and Xandra Ellin
Executive producer: Bridget Harney
Sound engineer: Travis Evans
Senior news editor: China Collins
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.2 | If you're the person always being asked, what's happening in the news? |
| 0:10.9 | You could do with a podcast wingman. |
| 0:13.3 | Newscast is just that, a little voice in your ear, |
| 0:16.5 | giving you a deeper understanding of what's going on in the world. |
| 0:19.5 | We won't even mind if you try and take the |
| 0:21.2 | credit yourself. Listen to Newscast every day on BBC Sounds. Hello, it's Anthony. We've got something a |
| 0:28.6 | bit different for you this weekend because I've been on a different BBC pod talking about the US. |
| 0:34.6 | Our sister podcast, The Global Story. Where do Trump's foreign policy decisions |
| 0:39.9 | originate from? He's talked about past presidents and also the Monroe doctrine, or Donroo |
| 0:46.2 | doctrine, as Trump calls it. We explain it and how the president sees America. Just how big a |
| 0:52.9 | departure is this from traditional U.S. foreign policy. |
| 0:56.6 | Welcome to The Global Story on AmeriCAS. |
| 1:08.2 | For anyone who thought that America first means that the U.S. is opting out of foreign wars, regime change and democracy building, this has been a confusing couple of weeks. |
| 1:18.9 | First, there was the intervention in Venezuela, and then talk of acquiring Greenland. |
| 1:24.1 | It didn't seem much like isolationism. |
| 1:26.0 | And now, Donald Trump has strongly backed pro-democracy |
| 1:30.0 | demonstrators in Iran, where hundreds of fear dead as we record on Sunday afternoon. Donald Trump |
| 1:36.3 | says the US stands ready to help and that Iran is, quote, looking at freedom. Freedom is in caps. |
| 1:43.7 | None of this seems very isolationist either, |
| 1:46.2 | and it maybe even sounds a bit ideological. Now normally on this show we tell individual stories |
| 1:51.1 | from around the globe, but all this week we're going to be talking about the world as a whole. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.