Trade used to be about efficiency. Now it’s increasingly about resilience, leverage and security.

In the mid-season finale, host Marwa Abdou sits down with two of the world’s leading trade policy voices: Wendy Cutler, Vice President at the Asia Society Policy Institute, and former Acting Deputy U.S. Trade Representative following nearly three decades at USTR, and Deborah Elms, Head of Trade Policy at the Hinrich Foundation, and Founder of the Asian Trade Centre in Singapore. Together, they unpack how the global trading system is being rewritten in real-time as countries increasingly reorganize trade around resilience, strategic alignment and economic security.

From China’s WTO accession to CUSMA, CPTPP, semiconductor chokepoints, industrial policy, friend-shoring and the rise of “mini trade deals,” this episode explores how trade became one of the defining geopolitical and economic stories of our time. Along the way, the conversation centres on a deeper question: If globalization was designed to reduce friction, what happens when the world starts optimizing for strategic insulation instead?

Because trade is increasingly no longer just about what crosses borders; it’s about who countries believe they can depend on when pressure arrives.

Links:
- Wendy Cutler, Senior Vice President, Asia Society Policy Institute
- Dr. Deborah Elms, Head of Trade Policy, Hinrich Foundation
- Dr. Deborah Elms, Founder and Executive Director, Asian Trade Centre
- Refreshing the CPTPP by Deborah Elms
- Four known unknowns for US trade policy by Deborah Elms

Additional Resources:
- World Trade Organization Global Trade Outlook and Statistics
- Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)
- Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)

For years, Canada has been described as a stable economy. Strong banks. Disciplined policy. Rising household wealth. But underneath that stability, something else has been doing much of the heavy lifting — households.

Canadian households now carry some of the highest debt burdens in the advanced world, with mortgage debt and housing wealth increasingly shaping not just personal finances, but the broader trajectory of the economy itself. What happens when growth becomes deeply tied to household balance sheets? And what does that mean for productivity, business investment, inequality, and long-term economic resilience?

In this episode, Marwa Abdou sits down with Stephen Poloz, Special Advisor at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, 9th Governor of the Bank of Canada, and author of The Next Age of Uncertainty (2022). Together, they unpack the deeper structural forces behind Canada’s household debt story, from post-financial crisis monetary policy and housing markets to productivity stagnation and the changing nature of financial stability itself.

This episode also explores why household debt is no longer just a question of financial risk but is increasingly a question about growth itself. Because when economies rely heavily on household leverage to sustain momentum, stability can begin to depend on households continually absorbing more pressure. And eventually, the question is not just whether the system can withstand shocks… but what the system stops being able to build.

Links:
- Stephen Poloz, Special Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP
- The Next Age of Uncertainty: How the World Can Adapt to a Riskier Future by Stephen Poloz
- Stephen S. Poloz, Bank of Canada
- -Stephen S Poloz BoC Speech 2018: Canada's economy and household debt - how big is the problem?

Additional Resources:

- The Hub: “At 103% of GDP, Canadian households have the most debt in the G7”
- OECD Housing Policy Toolkit
- Canadian Bankers Association: Household Borrowing in Canada
- Statistics Canada National Balance Sheet Accounts
- OECD Household Debt
- IMF Canada Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP)
- House of Debt: How They (and You) Caused the Great Recession, and How We Can Prevent It from Happening Again by Atif Mian & Amir Sufi

You earn it in one currency. You spend it in one place. It feels local. Personal. Contained.

But the system that determines how money actually behaves operates at a different level entirely.

In this episode, host Marwa Abdou sits down with Kenneth Rogoff, Maurits C. Boas Professor of Economics at Harvard University and author of Our Dollar, Your Problem, to unpack the architecture of U.S. dollar dominance and what it means for the global economy.

For decades, the U.S. dollar has functioned as the backbone of global finance. It anchors trade, shapes capital flows and influences borrowing costs far beyond U.S. borders. But that dominance is not static.

Drawing on decades of research, Rogoff explains why the dollar’s influence persists, how it is evolving and where underlying vulnerabilities are beginning to surface. From rising U.S. debt and shifting interest rate dynamics to the growing use of financial sanctions and the emergence of competing systems, this conversation explores the forces quietly reshaping the global monetary order.

This is not a story about the dollar disappearing. It’s a story about what happens when the system built around it begins to shift.

Links:
- Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University
- “Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider's View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead” - Yale University Press
- “The Curse of Cash” - Princeton University Press
- This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff
- "Exchange Arrangements Entering the 21st Century: Which Anchor Will Hold?" by Ethan Ilzetzki, Carmen M. Reinhart, and Kenneth S. Rogoff
- "Was It Real? The Exchange Rate-Interest Differential Relation over the Modern Floating-Rate Period" by Richard Meese and Kenneth Rogoff