Derisky Business
“Derisky Business” is a show that explores economic security issues within the broader national security and foreign policy landscape. Hosts Emily Kilcrease and Geoffrey Gertz dive into the weeds on issues like export controls, tariffs, and trade, linking these issues to broader debates on how to advance U.S. global economic leadership during times of geopolitical turbulence. Listen for new episodes bi-weekly, and check out other podcasts from the Center for a New American Security at cnas.org/connect/podcasts.
Get in touch with us at [email protected]
Episode Archive
Podcast
The Real Impact of SCOTUS's Tariff Hearing with Kathleen Claussen
Kathleen Claussen, Professor of Law at Georgetown University, joins Emily and Geoff to discuss the SCOTUS case on Trump's tariffs. They share their insights from the recent SC...
Podcast
What's an Economic Security Agreement and Why Does the U.S. Need Them? With Peter Harrell
Derisky Business is returning for season 2! After a brief hiatus in which obviously nothing (nothing!) notable happened in the world of trade and economic security, Emily and ...
Podcast
Selling H20 Chips to China Will Come at a Cost, with Liza Tobin
We interrupt our summer break to provide quick reactions to news this week that the Trump administration will begin allowing Nvidia and AMD to sell certain advanced semiconduc...
Podcast
Happy Summer from Derisky Business!
While Derisky Business goes on summer break, revisit your favorite episodes of the podcast and dive into the Summer Reading List, featuring book recommendations from previous ...
Podcast
Richard Nephew on the U.S. Military Strikes on Iran’s Nuclear Program
Richard Nephew, expert on sanctions and Iran’s nuclear program, joins Emily and Geoff to discuss the long history of U.S. policy towards Iran, the role of sanctions in constra...
Podcast
Tariffs & the Defense Industrial Base with Becca Wasser, Plus What’s New in the U.S.-China Trade War
Geoff and Emily debrief on the latest news in the U.S.-China trade talks. Becca Wasser, senior fellow and deputy director of the CNAS defense program, joins to talk about what...
Podcast
LIVE: Derisky Business at the CNAS 2025 National Security Conference
To celebrate the podcast's one year anniversary, Emily and Geoff break down some big picture questions on how the trade wars are unfolding and the future of the global economi...
Podcast
AI Diffusion with Paul Scharre
Paul Scharre, AI expert and CNAS Executive Vice President, joins Geoff and Emily to talk about Trump’s AI dealmaking in the Gulf, the rescission of the Biden-era AI diffusion ...
Podcast
How Do You Tariff a Movie and Liza Tobin on the Trade War with China
China expert Liza Tobin, managing director at Garnaut Global and new CNAS adjunct senior fellow, joins Emily Kilcrease and Geoffrey Gertz to discuss the ins and outs of the US...
Podcast
Trump's First 100 Days in Trade Policy
Emily and Geoff look back on the first 100 days of Trump’s trade policy, with a focus on how different parts of the U.S. political and economic system are reacting. They get i...
Podcast
What Just Happened in the Trade War + Getting Yippy with Richard Fontaine
While Geoff is on travel, CNAS CEO Richard Fontaine joins Emily to unpack the latest trade war developments, including why President Trump paused his reciprocal tariffs and wh...
Podcast
BONUS: How Europe Could React to Trump’s Tariffs
This week, there is a special episode from fellow CNAS podcast Brussels Sprouts, hosted by Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Jim Townsend of the Transatlantic Security Program. On th...
Podcast
Trump’s Liberation Day Tariffs + Gaming How a Trade War Ends
Emily and Geoff are recuperating from a busy Liberation Day of new tariff announcements. On this week’s episode, they break down what new tariffs the President announced, rais...
Podcast
What Tariffs to Expect When You’re Expecting Liberation Day
Emily and Geoff catch up on the Trump administration’s first big action on China tech competition, before digesting this week’s big tariff news (on autos) and looking ahead to...
Podcast
“Chokepoints” with Edward Fishman
Emily and Geoff are joined by Eddie Fishman to discuss his new best-selling book Chokepoints, on how America has weaponized the global economy. They share economic war stories...
Event
Virtual Event | Derisky Business LIVE on New Tariff Actions
Emily Kilcrease, Geoffrey Gertz, Peter Harrell
Mar 7, 2025
Podcast
Canada Reacts to Trump Tariffs with CBC’s Alexander Panetta
Alexander Panetta, Washington correspondent for CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, joins Geoff and Emily to discuss Canada’s reactions to the latest trade war salvos....
Podcast
America First Investment Policy + Europe's Trump Strategy with Agathe Demarais
Emily and Geoff catch up on the America First Investment Policy memo and other news from the last week, before sitting down with Agathe Demarais of the European Council on For...
Podcast
Bruce Andrews on the Geopolitics of Semiconductors
Emily and Geoff quickly debrief on the week’s tariff news, including new 25% levies on steel and aluminum imports, before chatting all things semiconductors with Bruce Andrews...
Podcast
O Canada! Making Sense of Last Weekend's Tariffs
Emily and Geoff digest this past weekend’s on-again, off-again 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, as well as the 10% tariffs on China (that at least for now are still here), an...
Podcast
Colombia Tariffs, Banning Chinese Drones, and Stacie Pettyjohn on Drone Warfare
Emily and Geoff play a quick round of Tariff Tarot to dissect Trump’s tariff threats on Colombia last weekend. Then they dig in to the bipartisan debate over banning various c...
Podcast
America First Trade Policy and Trump's First 100 Days
Emily and Geoff dive in on the unfinished business Trump is inheriting and unpack what we learned from the America First Trade Policy executive memo. Plus we share a few thoug...
Podcast
Biden’s Big Bet to Control AI Diffusion with Paul Scharre
AI expert Paul Scharre, executive vice president and director of studies at the Center for a New American Security, joins Emily and Geoff to dig into the Biden Administration’...
Podcast
Commerce's Role in Economic Security with Deputy Secretary Don Graves
Deputy Secretary Don Graves joins Emily to talk about the national security mission of the Department of Commerce and to unveil Commerce’s national security strategy. Read th...
Podcast
Taking Trump’s Tariffs Threats Seriously
Join Emily and Geoff to catch up on a whole bunch of economic security news, including the ill fated Nippon Steel / U.S. Steel deal, new chips export controls, and TikTik’s ba...
Podcast
Trump’s Treasury and Commerce nominations + Nippon Steel’s bid for U.S. Steel
Emily and Geoff react to the nominations of Scott Bessent for U.S. Treasury Secretary and Howard Lutnick for U.S. Commerce Secretary and overall point man for trade and tariff...
Podcast
Trump 2.0's Economic Security Agenda
Emily and Geoff switch from obsessing over the election to obsessing over the transition. They dig into what a Trump 2.0 presidency will mean for tariffs, sanctions, export co...
Podcast
Careers in Economic Security with Michèle Flournoy and John Hughes
Emily and Geoff tackle some of the most common questions on starting and building a career in the field of economic security, with the help of Michèle Flournoy, former Under S...
Podcast
BONUS: Comparing China Sanctions Under Trump and Biden
Join Emily Kilcrease and researcher Eleanor Hume to discuss the latest edition of CNAS's Sanctions by the Numbers series, examining how the U.S.'s sanctions policy on China ha...
Podcast
U.S. Chip Controls and the Future of AI Compute
That escalated quickly! Emily and Geoff discuss why the U.S. aim to deny China access to the computing power necessary for frontier AI capabilities has led to an ever expandin...
Podcast
Europe’s Take on Economic Security with EU Ambassador to the U.S. Jovita Neliupšienė
Ambassador Jovita Neliupšienė, the European Union's Ambassador to the United States, joins Emily and Geoff for a wide-ranging conversation on Europe's growing role as a econom...
Podcast
How ASML Came to Dominate Chipmaking
NRC Media reporter Marc Hijink joined co-host Emily Kilcrease at a CNAS event to discuss his book, Focus: The ASML Way. For decades, ASML - the most valuable technology compan...
Podcast
Economic Security in Asia Part 2: The Pivot to Asia with Richard Fontaine
Richard Fontaine, CEO of the Center for a New American Security, joins Emily and Geoff to discuss his new book, co-authored with Robert Blackwill, Lost Decade: The US Pivot to...
Podcast
Economic Security in Asia Part 3: The View From Australia with Mike Green
On this international episode of Derisky Business, recorded at the United States Studies Center in Sydney, Australia, Dr. Mike Green joins the podcast to discuss how Australia...
Podcast
Geopolitical Doomscrolling
Geoff and Emily talk about the tensions between social media platforms and governments around the world, including Telegram’s troubles in France and X’s spats with Brazil and ...
Podcast
Economic Security in Asia Part 1: China's growing pains with Dan Rosen
Dan Rosen, leading expert on China's economy and head of the Rhodium Group's China practice, joins Emily and Geoff to talk about the recently concluded third plenum meetings i...
Podcast
What a Bunch of Malarkey!
Emily and Geoff discuss the U.S. presidential election and what that might mean for economic security policy. They get into trade policy, what both candidates would do to comp...
Podcast
How U.S.-China Competition Upended the International Economic Order and What the United States Can Do to Fix It
On June 26, CNAS hosted an event to discuss a new report, Disorderly Conduct: How U.S.-China Competition Upended the International Economic Order and What the United States Ca...
Podcast
How to regulate smart, not dumb, with Alan Estevez
This week, Under Secretary of Commerce Alan Estevez joins Derisky Business to talk tech competition with China, how Russia can still get western chips, and why all our cars mi...
Podcast
The Biden Administration's Economic Security Agenda with Daleep Singh
On this special live-recorded episode from the 2024 CNAS National Security Conference, Emily Kilcrease talks with Daleep Singh, Deputy National Security Advisor for Internatio...
Podcast
Everyone Loves Tariffs!
Welcome to Derisky Business! On this episode, we discuss the Biden administration’s recent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels, and other goods. Divi...
Read More
Reports
No Winners in This Game
Sanctioning China represents a challenge more complex than any other in the modern era of sanctions. The scale and interconnected nature of China’s economy means that the dama...
Reports
Sanctions by The Numbers: The Russian Energy Sector
Since 2014, the United States, the European Union (EU), and other like-minded nations have targeted the Russian energy sector with increasingly significant coercive economic m...
Video
China's Digital Currency and Authoritarianism
China is the first major economy to develop and implement a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Its CBDC has many names: Digital Currency/Electronic Payment (DCEP), the digi...
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