This week's SCO summit in China projected a series of powerful images about the rise of China and the cleaving of the world into two power blocs. Putin, Xi, and Kim Jong Un watching the military parade at Tiananmen Square was a performance of a great power, as was Narendra Modi's public display of friendship with Xi and Putin. Donald Trump's treatment of US allies is turning away in-between countries and offering China a historic opportunity to step up to the plate. The world of the US is becoming a minority compared to the countries circling China's orbit. In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice turn to Canada's upcoming federal budget and Mark Carney's bad messaging, as the PM warned of austerity followed by investment. In an economy that is slowing, will Carney wrack up more debt? Will these be investments, or expenditures? And does our Prime Minister have a real plan to get Canada back to a fiscal balance?

Rudyard and Andrew start the show talking about this week's China summit with 20 leaders of non-Western countries, including India, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Narendra Modi's public display of friendship with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin is a searing indictment of the Trump administration and his disastrous tariff policies. Andrew argues that while countries in the global south might not be our allies, they are still willing to work with us. If we lose India, many other countries of consequence will follow. Rudyard and Andrew then turn to Canada's defense priorities in this geopolitical turmoil. We are caught in between a dictatorship across the Arctic Ocean and an emerging dictatorship to the south. Do we need to start arming ourselves and seek out other allies to protect from threats to the south and the west? And will Trump become more dangerous abroad to distract against increasing opposition to him at home?

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates.

Rudyard and Janice start the show with Trump's firing of CDC director Susan Monarez over disputes about vaccine policy, and the attempted dismissal of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook in his bid to take control of the central bank and lower interest rates. In the second half of the show Rudyard and Janice turn to the ongoing war in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin brazenly launched a major ballistic and drone attack in Kyiv killing almost two dozen people, only ten days after his summit in Anchorage with the US President. Is it time to call Trump's attempt at a deal a foreign policy failure? In the remaining moments of the show Rudyard and Janice turn to events in the Middle East where Israeli troops are entering Gaza City as the first phase of a planned occupation. Why are both sides so unwilling to accept a ceasefire deal? And why is Trump so focused on ending the war in Ukraine while ignoring the destruction in Gaza?

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