Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned in a new interview that America could be headed toward a crisis because of rising nationalist and protectionist forces.
Speaking on “CBS This Morning,” the former national security adviser said she was most worried about internal issues that the U.S. faces and appeared to take a veiled shot at the Trump administration with criticism of “populism,” “isolationism,” “protectionism,” and “nativisim,” all labels that have been applied to the Trump administration’s trade and immigration policies by its critics.
{mosads}”I’ve seen the return of what I’ve called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” Rice said, evoking the biblical figures. “Populism, I’ll say nativism, not nationalism, isolationism and protectionism.”
“We did that before. It was the period between World War I and World War II. It led to a Great Depression. It led to a war. And the system we put in place after World War II, of free markets and free trade and kind of global commons that we talk about here, that system worked awfully well. It’s under challenge now,” she added.
Rice also expressed alarm in the interview about internal divisions within the U.S., echoing warnings from other members of past administrations, including former President Obama, about polarization between the two major political parties.
“I’m also worried that we’re tearing ourselves apart, and that’s something we have to deal with,” Rice said.
Rice currently serves as the Denning Professor in Global Business and the Economy at Stanford University, a position she has held since 2010.
She has largely refrained from commenting on the Trump administration’s policies since 2017 but last year said in an interview that the administration’s departure from the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran would not be a disaster for the U.S. while adding that she would have preferred the U.S. remain in the agreement.