Hello and welcome to the G0 World Podcast.

This is normally where you'll find extended versions of my interviews from the public television show,

but today I'm bringing you something a little different.

I've just returned from Tokyo, Japan, where I delivered my annual State of the World address

to an audience of diplomats, business leaders, and opinion makers from around the world.

Each year, this speech is a chance to take stock of where things stand geopolitically, and today the picture is more uncertain than ever.

We're not just facing new conflicts and crises. We're facing a deeper transformation of the global

order, driven most significantly by the world's most powerful country stepping back.

The United States isn't losing influence because of weakness. It's walking away by choice.

That decision is reshaping alliances. it's weakening global institutions, and it's

leaving many of America's closest partners searching for a plan B. In the absence of global

leadership, the G-Zero world becomes more chaotic, more transactional, and less stable. So this speech

is my attempt to make sense of what that means for the year ahead and the road beyond. Let's get to it. I'm going to be able to be. Thank you very much.

A packed house today, a lot of friends in the audience, and a truly historic day to be hosting a G-Zero summit here in Tokyo

with the new government coming in.

There's plenty to talk about.

And yes, the reality of a G-Zero world that Japan is now not preparing for, but is in the middle of. For 20 years now, 20 years,

we have been warned about China's rise. We've been warned about America's decline. And we've

been warned about the inevitable collision between the two superpowers.

And I want to say in front of you today, that is absolutely not what's happening.

China's influence does continue to expand, that's true.

And America no longer commands the global stage the way it did at the end of

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