Summits, Guns, and Money
Cato Daily Podcast
Cato Institute
4.6 • 949 Ratings
🗓️ 14 August 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As President Trump pushes to unwind one proxy war—with Russia in Ukraine—he’s ramping up another in this hemisphere: ordering the Pentagon to ready battle plans against Latin American drug cartels. On our panel, Cato scholars weigh the odds of a Putin deal and the risk of replaying past drug war disasters.
Featuring Ryan Bourne, Ian Vásquez, Gene Healy, and Justin Logan
Links for Show Notes
Justin Logan, “Trump Shouldn’t Settle for European Spending Pledges,” Foreign Policy, July 25, 2025
Brandan P. Buck, “Invading Mexico Will Not Solve the Cartel Problem,” The American Conservative, December 17, 2024
Ian Vasquez, “Deregulation in Argentina: Milei Takes “Deep Chainsaw” to Bureaucracy and Red Tape,” Free Society (Spring 2025)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We're not used to being politically successful and popular. |
| 0:04.5 | This is why I like how things are going so far. |
| 0:08.3 | If the United States has 100% inflation for a couple of decades, we might get a libertarian president too. |
| 0:13.5 | It wasn't the worst, the better. |
| 0:16.0 | Milton Freeman, only a crisis real or perceived produces real change, but we're starting to see some real change. |
| 0:21.6 | Well, they got it. |
| 0:23.3 | Welcome to the Cato podcast. |
| 0:25.2 | I'm Ryan Bourne, Cato's R. Evan Scharf chair for the public understanding of economics. |
| 0:29.9 | I'm here with Cato's Senior VP for Policy, Gene Healy. |
| 0:33.1 | Hi. |
| 0:33.9 | And today we're joined by two colleagues. |
| 0:35.8 | Ian Vasquez is Cato's VP for All Things International, |
| 0:39.2 | but with a special focus on the status of nice things like global progress in human freedom. |
| 0:44.4 | Hi guys. And Justin Logan, our Director of Defense and Foreign Policy, |
| 0:48.9 | who in contrast specializes in all those regrettable, pesky things like war, arms trading and entangling alliances. |
| 0:55.6 | Good to be here. |
| 0:56.7 | Now August is typically a quiet time here in D.C., but this summer has seen some dramatic developments in U.S. foreign policy. |
| 1:03.3 | Unless something changes in the next 48 hours, President Trump is set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, |
| 1:10.3 | a week after Trump's self-imposed |
| 1:11.9 | deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire in its war on Ukraine. |
| 1:16.0 | Meanwhile, the Trump administration has recently raised the bounty on another authoritarian leader, |
| 1:20.6 | Venezuela's Nicolas Nicolas Maduro, to a massive $50 million as part of broader efforts to fight so-called narco-terrorism. So plenty to discuss, |
... |
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