The world in flux and Trump’s role in a new equilibrium

The second Trump administration has so far brought a lot of things: market shocks, volatile trade policies, and turbulent foreign relationships. But beyond the chaos, renowned geopolitics expert Stephen Kotkin said Trump has an unwitting role to help the world rebalance and reach a “new equilibrium” in the global order.

Professor Kotkin, who is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, said the initiatives Trump set in motion signals that the US is retreating from the world, but it is not about the world’s largest economy giving up its position as the world leader.

“This is about a rebalancing of the costs and benefits, and it’s happening, and it’s a mess, and Trump’s version of it is going to maybe even fail to produce a new equilibrium, but it’s going to break the current equilibrium that needed to be broken.”

In this live recording from the Fiduciary Investors Symposium, hosted by Top1000funds.com in Singapore in March 2025, Professor Kotkin unpacks what’s next for the US and the world in conversation with Conexus Financial founder and managing director, Colin Tate.

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China in ‘very precarious’ position as debt strains investment-led growth model

China in ‘very precarious’ position as debt strains investment-led growth model

Michael Pettis, leading expert on China’s economy and financial markets, says investors should be concerned about the nation’s record total-debt-to-GDP ratio as it threatens to strangle the investment-led economic growth model it has maintained for decades. In the latest episode of the Top1000funds.com podcast, Pettis unpacks why China’s pivot to a consumption-led society will be painful.

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CalPERS: Leverage, liquidity, inflation

In this Fiduciary Investors series podcast Amanda White talks to Ben Meng, chief investment officer of CalPERS, the largest pension fund in the United States. Meng, who oversees an investment office of nearly 400 employees and manages investment portfolios of roughly $400 billion, talks about the fund’s plan to achieve its 7 per return target - including the use of leverage – the liquidity management of the fund and how it could deploy capital during the crisis, and the inflation.

Responsible capitalism: data challenge

In this Fiduciary Investors Series podcast Amanda White talks to chief executive of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, Janine Guillot, about stakeholder capitalism and the role investors can play in shifting the dial. We discuss the value SASB can play as a tool for decision making and how stakeholder issues can impact performance.

CPP Investments’ COVID journey

In this Fiduciary Investors Series podcast Amanda White talks with Geoffrey Rubin, chief investment strategist at CPP Investments, which manages the investments of Canada’s largest pension fund with about C$410 billion of assets. They discuss scenario planning, the benefits of total portfolio management, rebalancing and liquidity as well as the forward-looking view of the global

The end of risk management: What finance can learn from climate science

In this Fiduciary Investors Series podcast Amanda White talks to Professor Cameron Hepburn,  Professor of Environmental Economics and the director of the economics sustainability programme at the University of Oxford.

Coronavirus: Is this the end of globalisation?

A conversation with Stephen Kotkin, Professor in History and International Affairs, Princeton University.

Investor collaboration on sustainability

How can investors be a catalyst for change and have an active voice in a sustainable recovery? This episode explores the role of investors and how they can collaborate for effective collective action. It includes the work of one of the leaders in sustainable investing and the biggest pension fund in Europe, APG. It invites investors to have an active voice in a sustainable recovery.

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