Why France's Election is So Important; Trump Says Mideast Peace Not Difficult; Interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson.
FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: This is GPS. The GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world, I'm Fareed Zakaria. We'll start today's show with the French election. Will populism win or will the center hold? Also, Trump's quest for Middle East peace. Will it work? All that and much more with a terrific panel. Also, from a major bust to a sustained but slow boom. The U.S. economy, former Fed chair Ben Bernanke gives me his take on where things stand and what the Trump effect really will be. Then, Donald Trump wants to make America great again. But Neil deGrasse Tyson is on a quest to make America smart again.</s>NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, ASTROPHYSICIST: Innovation in science and technology in this century are the engines of tomorrow's economy.</s>ZAKARIA: America's favorite scientist will reveal just the secrets of the universe to all of you. But first here's my take. There has been much focus on Donald Trump's erratic foreign policy. The outlandish positions, the many flip- flops, the outright mistakes. But far more damaging in the long run might be what some have termed the Trump effect. The impact of Donald Trump on the domestic politics of other countries. That effect appears to be powerful, negative, and enduring. It could undermine decades of American foreign policy successes. Look at Mexico. For generations this was a country defined by fiery anti-Americanism. Founded by a radical revolutionary movement, fuelled by anger against American imperialism and highhandedness, Mexico would rarely cooperate with Washington. Since the 1990s, that landscape has been almost reversed. Thanks to intelligent leadership in Mexico City and consistent bipartisan engagement by Washington, the U.S. and Mexico have become friendly neighbors, active trading partners and allies in national security. Mexico buys more U.S. goods than does China. And is, in fact, the second largest destination for U.S. exports after Canada. Sales to Mexico are up 455 percent since the passage of NAFTA. The country cooperates with the U.S. on border security, helping to interdict drug shipments and deporting tens of thousands of Central American migrants who aim to enter the U.S. illegally through Mexico. All of this could change easily. Over the last year as candidate Trump and now President Trump has attacked and demeaned Mexico and its people, the political landscape there has shifted. President Enrique Pena Nieto's already declining approval ratings have plummeted after he was seen as too conciliatory to Trump. It is now quite possible, in fact likely, that the next president of Mexico will be an anti-American socialist populist, similar to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was polling around 10 percent at the start of 2015. He is now over 30 percent. The frontrunner among the presidential candidates for next year's election. A victory for Lopez Obrador would be a disaster for Mexico but also for the United States. It would likely take Mexico back to its days of corrupt socialism and dysfunctional economics, all sustained by populism and nationalism. Now consider South Korea. Trump's demand that Seoul pay for the THAAD missile defense system threatening to overturn the existing agreement with Washington has fuelled the forces in South Korea that opposed that system in the first place, along with any aggressive military measures taken against North Korea. Trump has casually delivered a number of slights to one of America's closest allies. Accepting wholesale China's claim that Korea once belonged to it, and threatening to tear up the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement. South Korea is facing a snap election for its presidency. And the candidate who is benefiting most from Trump's antics is the left-wing Moon Jae-in. Anti-American has returned to South Korea in force, though not quite as strongly as in Mexico where Donald Trump's favorability has been recorded at 3 percent. In foreign policy great statesmen always keep in mind one crucial reality. Every country has its own domestic politics. Crude rhetoric, outlandish demands, poorly thought through policies, cheap shots, all place foreign leaders in a box. They cannot be perceived as surrendering to America. And certainly not to an America led by someone who is determined to show that for America to win others must lose. That's one big difference among many between doing a real estate deal and managing foreign policy. For more go to CNN.com/fareed and read my "Washington Post" column this week and let's get started.</s>BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm not planning to get involved in many elections now that I don't have to run for office again but the French election is very important to the future of France, and the values that we care so much about.</s>ZAKARIA: A rested looking Barack Obama there in a video released Thursday. This weekend, of course, the French go to the polls for the final round of voting in their presidential election. Obama went on the video to endorse centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron. Macron's only opponent, Marine Le Pen, is a member of the populist right-wing National Front Party. She has had photo-ops with Putin, demonizes Islam, and wants France to leave the European Union. There's lots of other news to talk about, as well, but let us start with the French election. Joining us in Paris is Natalie Nougayrede, the former managing editor of France's "Le Monde." She's now a columnist and a foreign affairs commentator for "The Guardian." Here in New York, Bret Stephens, joins us. He has a new job as op-ed columnist at the "New York Times." Congratulations, Bret. And Richard Haass is the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the author of a terrific and timely new book, "A World in Disarray." Natalie, tell me what does it say that you have Marine Le Pen's party, the National Front, which is polling in the 30s, it might actually end up even in the high 30s, this is a party with roots in fascism, with roots in anti-Semitism. Isn't that -- even if she doesn't win how disturbed should we be?</s>NATALIE NOUGAYREDE, FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR, THE GUARDIAN: Yes, it is very worrying. But the fact that she's reached this very level of politics she's managed to establish her party as an important player in today's France, and she's managed to spread its ideas way beyond the initial core circles that were, you know, at its base. She's basically turned it into a fairly mainstream party and she's tried to detoxify her party by moving it away from overtly or extremist racist statements towards statements that talk about globalization, the negative impact of globalization. The talk about the defense of lower and middle classes. And even the talk about the sense of secularism as she sees it in France. And that's a message that, of course, the way she reads it, targets Muslim minorities.</s>ZAKARIA: Richard Haass, when you listen to this, do you think that if Macron wins it is a -- it is the end of the kind of populist wave? Or is it a check on it? Because there's going to be elections in Germany and it does seem as though Emmanuel Macron will win or even a more pro-European social democrat will win?</s>RICHARD HAASS, PRESIDENT, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: It's not the end of the populist wave. It might mean it's cresting for now. What it really does is give governments in places like France and Germany an opportunity to get it right. And by get it right I mean such things as modernize the European Union. Maybe rebalance the relationship between Brussels and national capitals. It might not -- it might mean not having a one-size-fits-all European Union. But something with a little bit of tailoring. And then they've obviously got to get their domestic economy going, and particularly France. So it's an opportunity. It's almost a breathing space. But if after several years President Macron cannot deliver, and the French economy is drifting and millions of people are unemployed and you have continuing violence then I don't think we've seen the end of populism or nationalism in France. It's just that, it's a respite but I really hope that the French take advantage of it.</s>BRET STEPHENS, OP-ED COLUMNIST, NEW YORK TIMES: But I think we should also point out that assuming Macron wins, and my fingers are -- all my fingers are crossed there, that's also a revolution. France is going to elect or should elect an investment banker. This is --</s>ZAKARIA: He worked for the Rothschilds.</s>STEPHENS: Worked for the Rothschilds and who's speaking about the need to cut corporate tax rates, to reform the social pension system, to cut the size of government, something like 57 percent of French GDP last I checked goes to -- is government spending by far the most in the OECD. And so the fact that France is actually prepared to go for this kind of -- if not facts right then blare right treatment of the economy, shows some real maturity on the part of the French.</s>ZAKARIA: Natalie, let me ask you what this says about the very strange but very warm relationship between Le Pen and Putin. Because that -- how did that play? Do the French like the idea that pally with Vladimir Putin?</s>NOUGAYREDE: I don't think so. Putin is not a popular figure in France. His regime does not have a positive image at all in France. I think what Le Pen was trying to play on was the kind of image of a strongman -- try to benefit herself from that image of a strong leader. And to show that she did have some kind of international dimension to her. Not that many foreign leaders wanted to appear publicly with her during this campaign. She went to one African country and she went to Moscow. But remember, when she went to Trump Tower she did not get a meeting with Donald Trump during that campaign.</s>ZAKARIA: When we come back, much to talk about, Trump's foreign policy, but also, the dust-up Bret Stephens caused with his first column for the "Times" on climate change.