Trump v China: How Oil Is Defining Great Power Politics (Professor Helen Thompson)
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 15 January 2026
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro by the United States feels like confirmation that we are in a new era of global politics, but what has caused this shift and where does it leave Europe?
Amol speaks to Professor Helen Thompson, an expert on the history of globalisation and author of Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century, about how oil is fuelling competition between the US and China.
They explore how it’s reshaping global power politics, whether it's possible for Europe to decouple from the US and why high levels of national debt threaten to undermine Western economies.
And Helen, who is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge, explains why she thinks there is a case for potentially reversing the independence of central banks like the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England to give politicians more control.
(00:05:11) What is the Western Hemisphere? (00:07:45) The importance of Venezuela (00:11:05) How and why Washington is putting pressure on China (00:19:30) Why Trump is inspired by the US in the late 19th century (00:25:08) The rules based international order (00:29:00) Where does Europe fit into this new world? (00:30:52) Can Europe break away from the US? (00:33:30) Oil and the Western Economic Crisis (00:37:40) How is oil effecting power politics today? (00:40:40) What about renewable energy? (00:43:58) The coming debt emergency (00:46:30) Helen's RADICAL ideas (00:56:02) Amol's reflections
GET IN TOUCH * WhatsApp: 0330 123 9480 * Email: radical@bbc.co.uk Episodes of Radical with Amol Rajan are released every Thursday and you can also watch them on BBC iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002f1d0/radical-with-amol-rajan Amol Rajan is a presenter of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4. He is also the host of University Challenge on BBC One. Before that, Amol was media editor at the BBC and editor at The Independent.
Radical with Amol Rajan is a Today Podcast. It was made by Lewis Vickers with Anna Budd. Digital production was by Gabriel Purcell-Davis. Technical production was by Jonny Hall. The editor is Sam Bonham. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.7 | Before we get started, I need more of your radical questions, and I need them about the future of the music industry. |
| 0:13.0 | Maybe you work in music, maybe you listen to a lot of music, maybe you're concerned about whether creators are really benefiting from this great creator economy revolution. |
| 0:20.6 | And the reason I want |
| 0:21.9 | your questions is because we have got the boss of the Grammy Awards. He's the president of the |
| 0:27.3 | recording academy. He's called Panos Panay. And he's a hugely influential figure in the music |
| 0:33.4 | industry. And I want with him and with you to basically devise, if not a plan, certainly |
| 0:38.5 | get some radical ideas for how to save the music industry. There are lots, lots of people I know |
| 0:42.9 | who work in music who feel that despite creating great stuff, they're not being discovered |
| 0:47.5 | and they're not being paid. So how do we save the music industry for, well, for the benefit of |
| 0:52.5 | everyone? Panos Panay, boss of the Grammy Awards, president of the Recording Academy, he's going to answer your |
| 0:58.0 | questions very, very kindly. So send them to us on WhatsApp, 03330-94480, 03330-123-9480 for your voice |
| 1:09.1 | notes there, or you can email us on Rad radical at bbc.co.uk. |
| 1:14.4 | Now, on to this week's episode. |
| 1:24.0 | Hello, it's Amal here. |
| 1:25.6 | Welcome to radical conversations about the global trends changing our world and radical ideas for the future. |
| 1:32.0 | And boy, do we get into the global trends today and the way in which the world is changing. |
| 1:36.7 | Do you know what? A couple of Saturdays ago, I was presenting the Today program. |
| 1:40.7 | And as we were sort of getting ready to go on air, there were reports coming in on the wires, as I think we still call them, of explosions in Caracas. |
| 1:48.8 | And we didn't quite know what was going on. Was it a terror attack? Was it opposition to Nicholas Maduro? |
| 1:54.7 | Was it perhaps an American intervention? And then at 9 o'clock when I came off there, I got a text from Sean Farrington, who I was presenting |
| 2:02.0 | with that morning, who said, have you seen what Trump has just said? They've captured Maduro. |
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