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PODCAST

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast is a modern geopolitics podcast that wades deep into the machinery of our global systems. We explore not just what happened this week, but why it happened, and what it means for markets, money, and the people living through it. Geopolitics is the intersection of geography and politics. Each episode, geopolitical analyst Jacob Shapiro sits down with economists, strategists, scientists, journalists, and people on the ground to follow one story to its roots: the US-China

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All Episodes

50:58

The Black Sea Isn’t Quiet Anymore

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2026/01/19

Andrey Sizov, a Black Sea agricultural markets, joins the pod to talk about about why the Russia-Ukraine war has disrupted global grain trade far less than expected - and why that may be changing. Jacob and Sizov examine recent attacks on shipping, the fragile balance keeping Black Sea exports moving, and how escalation could ripple through wheat, corn, energy markets, and global food security. Of course, they also tie in Iran, China’s commodity buying, and what geopolitical risk really means for

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51:04

Fed Under Fire

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2026/01/16

Economist Mike Konczal joins the show to unpack the escalating pressure campaign against the Federal Reserve, new inflation data, and what all of this means for the U.S. economy. Jacob and Mike discuss whether Trump’s confrontation with Jerome Powell is genuinely dangerous, how tariffs and immigration policy are shaping prices and growth, and why the labor market looks weaker beneath the surface. Mike is more cautiously optimistic than we expected - but the downside risks remain real

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40:36

Measuring Risk

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2026/01/13

Shock, instability, climate stress, financial panic, political rupture: the question isn’t who avoids disruption, but who absorbs it and keeps moving. Jacob invites on Parag Khanna of AlphaGeo to wrestle with a harder metric than dominance or growth - resilience. What actually allows states, systems, and societies to adapt when the rules keep changing? Shapiro and Khanna explore the events driving this week's headlines (Venezuela, Iran, Greenland) and dive into the underlying systems that actually

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59:08

For My Friends, Everything; For My Enemies, The Law

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2026/01/09

Venezuela has become the flashpoint for a new era of American hard power - not just a regime change, but a raw assertion of dominance over the "backyard." Elohim Monard graces the pod with his presence once more as the U.S. treats a sovereign nation like a criminal organization to secure global oil markets, and the ideological fractures across Latin America deepen. Is this the beginning of a peaceful transition or the birth of ten years of chaos? This moment forces a reckoning: what happens when

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21:14

Bye Bye Maduro, You Gone Now

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2026/01/04

Jacob takes on the U.S. seizure of Nicolás Maduro and what it reveals about American power, imperial strategy, and hemispheric priorities. This was less about China or narco-trafficking and more of than a blunt assertion of control over resources and geography. Venezuela is a test case, possibly a rehearsal, for deeper U.S. intervention in the Western Hemisphere, especially Cuba, and a sign of Washington consolidating power closer to home as its global leverage erodes. --Timestamps:(00:00) -

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46:11

Money and Control

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2025/12/29

What if the money in your pocket wasn’t a tool for freedom, but a mechanism for control? Inflation, surveillance, and financial exclusion actively shape who can save, speak, or participate in the global economy. Alex Gladstein joins the show to examine money as a human-rights issue, exploring how new digital tools are being used in places where traditional financial systems fail or are weaponized. Alex reframes money as a human-rights issue - tracing how digital currencies are reshaping power at

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53:31

Right Wing Ascendant

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2025/12/22

Elohim Monard joins The Jacob Shapiro Podcast to discuss Latin America. A massive geopolitical integration in LatAm is quietly underway, fueled by a "Trumpian" rightward shift sweeping from the Southern Cone to the Rio Grande. As traditional alliances fracture, a new "practical ideology" is emerging to unite the hemisphere through hard-fist security tactics and aggressive economic pragmatism. But beneath this surface-level alignment lies a volatile paradox: a burgeoning "low-intensity war" targeting

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57:23

The Return of Imperial Strategy

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2025/12/13

Power gets loud when it’s insecure. Strategy becomes theater. And ideology sneaks in wearing policy jargon. The White House's newest U.S. National Security Strategy claims realism while quietly demanding dominance, preaching restraint while laying groundwork for escalation. Civilizational panic collides with imperial muscle, producing a document that wants everything, everywhere, all at once. Van Jackson, Professor of International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington, sits down with Jacob

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52:51

The Geography of a Missing Daughter

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2025/12/02

Book episode! What happens when a policy meant to shape a nation reaches into the most intimate corners of a family’s life? Journalist Barbara Demick'sDaughters of the Bamboo Grove becomes a prism for a China where babies vanish, families fracture, and two identical lives grow up worlds apart. One twin speaks Mandarin, the other English. One hides in a bamboo grove; the other lands in Texas. Demick joins The Jacob Shapiro Show to explore the lives shaped, and misshaped, by China's restrictive

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01:04:43

The Geopolitics of Personalized Money

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2025/11/25

As global finance strains under shifting power structures, author and fintech thinker Emmanuel Daniel, founder of TAB Global, argues that the real disruption isn’t technological - it’s personal. This episode explores finance as a geopolitical arena where identity, data, and sovereignty reshape who holds leverage. What happens when individuals, not institutions, become the organizing unit of the monetary system? And how does that rewire cross-border power, trust, and risk? A provocative look at the

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01:01:06

Demand Shock

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2025/11/22

Tariffs promise protection but unleash deeper shocks - reshaping demand, distorting prices, and testing the resilience of an already-strained economic system. Rob Larity and Jacob unpack the widening gap between political narratives and material reality, probing how erratic policy, volatile markets, and institutional guardrails collide. They ask whether the U.S. is entering a new era of economic fragility, what signals truly matter beneath the noise, and how global outliers like Chile reveal the

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01:09:22

"What the West Should Learn from China"

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2025/11/20

China’s rise is often framed as a geopolitical contest, but Kaiser Y Kuo, host of the Sinica Podcast, pushes us to confront something deeper: what if China’s transformation exposes the West’s blind spots about modernity, power, and progress itself? Jacob and Kaiser wrestle with uncomfortable parallels between America’s Gilded Age and China’s present, the myths we cling to about innovation and identity, and the way global narratives harden into self-soothing fictions. It’s a challenge to rethink both

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01:02:41

“The Longevity Dividend, or, Why You Shouldn’t Bathe...

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2025/11/17

Aging quietly shapes everything - our economies, our politics, our families, and the horizon of what nations can become. Jacob and longevity expert Dylan Livingston, founder of the Alliance for Longevity Initiatives (A4LI), take a dive into the emerging science that treats aging not as fate, but as a solvable biological problem with staggering geopolitical consequences. The two explore how extending healthy human life could transform productivity, rebalance global power, upend healthcare economics,

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59:44

“ChatGPT is so mid”, or, Why AI Won’t Change the World

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2025/11/10

Technological revolutions rarely unfold the way we imagine. From the steam engine to AI, each wave reshapes who creates value - and who gets left behind. What if artificial intelligence isn’t a revolution at all, but a late-stage innovation like shipping containers - transforming efficiency without changing the underlying system? Jerry Neumann joins the Jacob Shapiro Podcast and questions whether openness still drives progress, whether innovation can survive without risk, and why the next great leap

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51:46

The Legality of Trump’s Tariffs and U.S. Trade Power

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2025/11/06

As the Supreme Court takes up one of the most consequential trade cases in decades, former Biden administration official and Yale-trained lawyer Peter Harrell joins Jacob L. for a real-time breakdown of what’s at stake. Together, they cut through the legal jargon to reveal how a 1977 emergency powers statute became the foundation for Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff regime—and why the Court’s decision could reshape U.S. trade, markets, and global power. A crash course in law, economics, and political

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51:55

The Shrimp Among Whales

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2025/11/03

South Korea stands at the crossroads of global power - caught between China, the United States, Japan, and its unpredictable neighbor to the north. Jacob Shapiro and Professor Jeffrey Robertson unpack how a nation long described as “the shrimp among whales” has learned to navigate the world’s toughest geopolitical waters. From shifting alliances and nuclear restraint to the economic promise of unification, this episode reveals how Korea’s pragmatism may shape the future of Asia.--Timestamps:(00:00)

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01:06:54

The Rightist International

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2025/10/31

When U.S. aircraft carriers appear off Venezuela’s coast, it’s not just saber-rattling - it’s a mirror held up to a century of empire. Jacob and LatAm analyst Elohim Monard dissect what’s really driving Washington’s renewed aggression in the Caribbean, from Trump and Rubio’s internal power struggle - to the shadow of China, the lure of oil, and the global rise of hard-line politics. Together, they trace the fault lines connecting Venezuela, Argentina, Peru, and the United States... and ask whether a

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01:00:34

Sovereignty vs. Swipe Fees

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2025/10/27

When a Brazilian payment system threatens U.S. credit-card profits, it exposes a deeper fracture in the global economy: sovereignty versus rent-seeking, innovation versus control. Jacob and Rob trace the fight over PIX from Brasília to Washington and beyond -into currency wars, trade tantrums, and the strange new politics of the Western Hemisphere. What does it mean when the world’s “rules-based order” starts punishing countries for building better systems?--Timestamps:(00:00) - Introduction and

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57:55

A Wild New Era of Japanese Politics

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2025/10/24

Japan rewired its politics: a power shift, a woman at the helm, and a minority government forced to bargain for every vote. What follows when high approval collides with hard math - aging demographics, weak yen, and defense budgets racing past old taboos? Analyst Tobias Harris, author of The Iconoclast and writer of Observing Japan, joins The Jacob Shapiro Podcast to unpack the country’s most surprising election in years - one that produced its first female prime minister and a government held

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01:00:24

Leverage on Leverage on Leverage

The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ·

2025/10/10

Gold prices are soaring, private equity is unraveling, and data centers have become the next speculative frontier. Beneath all of it lies a simple question: what happens when faith in liquidity, stability, and infinite growth begins to fray? From central banks hoarding bullion to insurers gambling on AI infrastructure, the same story unfolds—risk disguised as resilience. And somewhere between coffee tariffs and capital flows, you can glimpse the new shape of a global economy learning to live without

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361 results

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