00:00There are so-called allies, but they don't treat us well.
00:04You write about this idea of a free trade alliance and democratic nations being part
00:09of that, including Canada and Mexico, but they were his first targets.
00:12We have to find out whether America first means America alone.
00:17Hello, I'm Jamie Heller.
00:22I'm editor-in-chief of Business Insider, and I'm here with Matthias Dapfner, who is CEO
00:28of Axel Springer, which is the owner of Business Insider, and therefore you are one of my bosses.
00:33Pleasure to be here.
00:34In addition to being a CEO, you're also an author of a book now republished as Dealing
00:40with Dictators, a CEO's Guide to Defending Democracy.
00:44The heart of the book is that democracy is crucially important and trade alliances between
00:50democratic nations can sustain democracies and keep autocracies in check.
00:55I needed a whole book to express that, but you have summarized it perfectly well.
00:59How are you feeling about things right now with President Trump in power a few weeks?
01:05Not exactly going out of his way to be friendly with his allies, even.
01:10I mean, I think the only thing that is predictable about Trump is his unpredictability.
01:16Of course, it looks at the moment very isolationist.
01:18He is a very transactional politician.
01:22I would not be surprised if, after threatening the Europeans with higher tariffs, we form
01:27an alliance that strengthens Europe and America and also achieves better results in dealing with China.
01:33You're hopeful that in the long run, your idea can still come to pass with him?
01:39Both is possible.
01:40I don't want to be naive.
01:41I mean, a lot of things look as if they would go into the exact opposite direction of what
01:45I think is reasonable.
01:47But we have seen in many cases that things turned around.
01:51China will be sooner or later the biggest economy in the world, and a non-democratic
01:56country as the dominating economy in the world will have a political impact.
02:03And so I think it is of overriding importance to change that.
02:08Trump took that tough stance to China, and now we have to find out whether America first
02:13means America alone, or whether the administration realizes that to achieve more symmetry in
02:20dealing with China and with other non-democracies, that you need partners.
02:24And here, the European Union is the first priority.
02:28If you sit at the negotiation table representing 800 million people, you're going to be more successful.
02:33One of the quotes from your book is,
02:35opportunistic economic and trade policies without share values have failed.
02:41He seems quite opportunistic in terms of what is best for America.
02:45You think this could still work overall?
02:47I think the overriding purpose is to strengthen the economies of rules-based societies, open
02:55societies, democracies, societies that respect the rule of law, that respect human rights.
03:01And if the biggest democracy in the world, the United States of America, is giving up
03:07all its principles and says, a fast deal, whatever it costs ethically, or whatever it
03:12costs with regard to our institutions, and I don't care about the rule of law, then I
03:16think we are in trouble.
03:18Tell us what's going on in Germany.
03:20Everything we're hearing is that the economy is in a terrible slump.
03:25Is politics a way out, or what do you see as the way forward for what was once a major
03:31economic power?
03:32There is recession, so the economy is in very bad shape.
03:35There is a lack of innovation, there is a big amount of unnecessary regulation.
03:40The German energy policy is particularly unreasonable.
03:44On top of that, we have made this mistake with regard to migration.
03:49Of course, we felt for good reasons victims of genocide have to be welcomed by Germany.
04:00The problem was that there was no criteria who is allowed.
04:04There were even initiatives that were embracing all forms of migration, regardless who and
04:12why and from where, and whether it's legal or not legal.
04:16It's now, in Germany, a moment where either we completely regroup and we really start
04:25afresh with a different mindset and with a determined reform policy, or the perspectives
04:32of Germany are very bad and it's not going to remain very long the third biggest economy
04:38in the world.
04:39Some people are saying right now that with a potential trade war between Europe and the
04:44U.S., which is exactly what you think shouldn't happen, China would end up getting the last
04:49laugh.
04:50I mean, Europe and America are successfully split because, I don't know, of failed diplomacy,
04:57failed trade negotiations.
04:59What's the alternative for Europe?
05:01Europe then has to lean towards China.
05:03That is already dependency.
05:05If China decouples from the German car industry, which they have partly done, the German car
05:10industry is suffering, the German labor market is suffering, it's catastrophic.
05:14If that can be continued, Europe becomes a colony of an authoritarian country like China
05:19where the Communist Party rules.
05:21Good luck for Europe.
05:22We will be then truly a theme park for Asian tourists, no value creation in Europe, really,
05:29and full dependency on China.
05:30That would be a different world order.
05:32Catastrophic.
05:33That may not happen.
05:34And if, again, America first means America alone, then I think it is not going to work.
05:39What did you think a couple of weeks ago when the China-developed AI chatbot DeepSeek hit
05:46the scene?
05:47What went through your mind?
05:49I was not totally surprised about it.
05:50Who is leading in artificial intelligence will lead economically and will lead in the
05:58long run politically.
06:00That is the big power question.
06:02China is great in copying and taking what they need and then developing further, faster,
06:09and with a different system of regulation.
06:12In China, the only criteria is what serves the well-being of the central Chinese state
06:19of the Communist Party.
06:21Long-term.
06:22Long-term, by the way.
06:23Very important.
06:24Long-term.
06:25They don't think in four-year terms next election.
06:26They don't care.
06:27Quarterly, anything like that.
06:28It doesn't exist.
06:29So they have decades, hundreds of years as a time horizon.
06:33So very long-term strategy and basically ruthlessly doing what serves this big project, which
06:40is, by the way, explicitly to be the dominant economy in the world.
06:44And given the fact that there are 1.4 billion people, they have data about their daily behavior,
06:49about personal views, health data, makes it very probable that China sooner or later is
06:55going to lead here.
06:56I think we should not overrate the DeepSeek phenomenon.
06:59And it was really quite interesting how the stock market reacted with one trillion basically
07:05losses in one day.
07:07Quite unique.
07:08It shows also the sensitivity and it shows that a little startup can basically shake
07:12up the entire capital markets world because it is a symbol for exactly that phenomenon.
07:18Oh, China could take the lead.
07:20When Trump and he had all the Silicon Valley folks at his inauguration and it was, let's
07:26go, we're taking AI, we're going for it, did you feel like great, good for democracy or
07:31whoa, bad for humanity?
07:33Potentially both.
07:34I really have these kind of mixed feelings here because in general, the approach to embrace
07:39the opportunities of AI is the right one.
07:42Naive regulation is very bad.
07:45Ideological regulation is harmful, but we need to define certain rules.
07:51If there are no rules, if everything goes, it's going to end catastrophically.
07:54And I'll just give you one example.
07:56It is about intellectual property.
07:58If in the world of AI, we do not find a solution for the protection of intellectual property
08:05through a new form of copyright, we will see horrible consequences.
08:11Intellectual goods are as valuable and should be as well protected as physical goods.
08:17Nobody would say you can just go into a car shop and steal a car.
08:21That's fine.
08:22That is catastrophic for journalism, of course, and that's why we have a very strong self-interest
08:27here that that is going to be solved.
08:29But it's also going to be catastrophic for music, for film, for the entire creative industry.
08:34The risks to intellectual property, I mean, that is your whole business as a media company.
08:39True.
08:40And you did a deal with OpenAI on behalf of Axel Springer Properties.
08:43I mean, do you feel like, how much does this keep you up at night?
08:48Do you feel like we're on the right track?
08:49You feel there's more to do?
08:50No, we are on the right track.
08:52And just to explain that deal in the shortest possible form, it was important to establish
08:56the principle that if somebody wants to use our content, our data, the company has to
09:02pay for that.
09:03There need to be a revenue stream.
09:05That was the decisive principle that can be either established by law or it can be established
09:09by deals.
09:11And since law takes too long, we thought we got to do it through a deal.
09:15That's just the first step.
09:17But I think in general, things are moving into the right direction.
09:20I'm really optimistic that AI can be a golden moment of journalism.
09:23We have to rethink journalism on many levels.
09:26My bet is very simple.
09:28If there is more and more unclarity, what is a fact?
09:31What is a rumor?
09:32What is an intentional manipulation or a deep fake?
09:36It helps to focus on investigative research and reporting and being there where nobody
09:42else is and seeing things that nobody else has seen.
09:44If we achieve to be the destination of trust, and there's a kind of guarantee that this
09:50brand gives that they have tried everything to inform as balanced, as correctly as possible,
09:58then I think we will be incredibly attractive.
10:01Thank you for your time.
10:02Great to speak with you.
10:03Thank you very much.
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