Mike

By: AIF Staff

Davos, Switzerland – This morning, appearing from the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, former Speaker of the House and AIF President Paul Ryan talked with Bloomberg Survelliance’s Jonathan Ferro, Annmarie Hordern, and Liza Abramowicz about President Trump’s economic policies, the impact of Trump’s tariffs, and the investment landscape for 2026.

Video of Ryan’s interview is accessible here and excerpts of his responses follow.

On populist Republicans embracing Bernie Sanders-like economic policies:

“Our party is a big tent party. It has got a lot of different factions. The dominant faction right now is more of an economic populist faction. That’s President Trump’s faction. That’s MAGA. I’m a conservative. I’m in the minority of my own party, but that happens.

This is populism, but it’s populism tethered to whatever President Trump thinks is popular. It’s not tethered to certain core principles like liberty, freedom, free enterprise, private property rights, et cetera.

My wing of the party, which is the classical liberal, conservative wing or the free-market wing of the party, is in the minority, and we just have to make our case for why we believe what we believe and why we think people are better off at the end of the day.

The challenge is that it’s hard to defeat populism in soundbites and with emotion. And that’s what can often win the day for populism, but it doesn’t win the issue. Untethered populism doesn’t actually deliver the results.

At the end of the day, I think results are what matters and I think voters vote for results. If they’re going to vote for populism – a reactionary political viewpoint that speaks to their concerns and their grievances and their frustrations — that’s one thing. But if that populism doesn’t deliver policies that solve problems, then they’re going to look elsewhere. And hopefully, at that time, we can have a better discussion about what actually works and about the principles that built our country and that make our economy strong.

Our private property rights, our deep, liquid capital markets, our respect for the rule of law. That’s why America is America. That’s why we’ve done so well. And we have to defend those principles, even if those principles aren’t that popular.”

Ryan: Optimism tinged with uncertainty is prevailing attitude among CEOs 

“Teneo just did a survey of 750 CEOs and frankly, a lot of them are pretty optimistic about M&A. They are optimistic about economic growth, but where they are uncertain are tariffs. CEOs have to plan for resiliency. They’re basically building resilient systems because they don’t know what’s going to happen on tariffs….

That said, there’s good regulatory posture. We have good tax policy. There’s going to be a lot of M&A. So, I think we are driving the car with two feet. We have got one foot on the gas, one foot on the brake, and that’s what CEOs are trying to plan for. How do they respond? How do they seize the opportunities and plan for the uncertainties?…

We have the best economy in the world. We have the deepest and most liquid capital markets. We have better regulations than what we had in the last administration. We have good tax policy. But there’s a lot of uncertainty.

So, yes, it bothers me when I hear companies feel they need to diversify away from America because of the uncertainty. But if we get this uncertainty dealt with, if the uncertainty tamps down, then I think we’ll be back in business.”

By: AIF Staff

Washington, DC – Earlier this week, American Idea Foundation President and former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was a featured guest on Betting on America, a podcast produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The podcast, hosted by CSIS’ Navin Girishankar focuses on how partnerships between government and business are shaping the global tech race and positioning America for success.

As part of an in-depth conversation on the economic and public policy challenges facing the U.S.A. in the 21^st century, Speaker Ryan discussed geopolitical competition, artificial intelligence, and how America’s debt risks limiting economic growth.

The full podcast is accessible here and excerpts of Speaker Ryan’s responses follow.

Digital ecosystems & limited economic growth fosters distinct versions of populism:

“We went through the Great Recession, and we had pretty slow growth after that. Real income growth for the lower income quintiles was not good, people were slipping behind, and then we had a bunch of inflation on top of that, so clearly there was a good precondition for economic populism to begin with [in 21^st century America]. In Europe, it is a little bit different because they have economic stagnation in addition to big migration patterns.

The one thing that makes this time and this era so different is digital media, social media, the fact that you can monetize polarization, and the fact that we as citizens, as people, as individuals live our lives in our own algorithmically-derived cul-de-sacs, reinforcing our biases and positioning us mentally against others in our society and in our world. And that is fertile ground for populists.

There are two different kinds of populism running through the country right now. There’s the left-wing populism, which is coming from the progressives and the Democratic Party, and that is woke or “wokeism,” which is an orthodoxy that they’re trying to enforce. It is obviously popular in some corners, though it’s not broadly popular, but it’s going to last a long time because it is tethered to an ideology. [Populism on the left] is tethered to a collectivist, left-wing ideology.

The populism on the right side is less ideological, less rooted in principle, and more of a reactionary populism. It is really tied to the cult of personality around Donald Trump. The populism on the right is a little more situational and a little more temporary than it is on the left, because if you have a populism that’s not tethered to principles or to certain policies, it runs its course pretty fast.”

Sharing perspectives on President Milei’s governing philosophy in Argentina:

“I was very impressed with this guy. He reminds me of a lot of my old economics professors. I studied Austrian economics in school. [President Milei] was an Austrian economics professor. I’m a huge Hayek and Mises guy….. Milei has done a fantastic job of attaching very important, irreducible, primary principles with public policy solutions and has made them popular. He just won a resounding second election to put these reforms in place in Argentina.

Argentina used to be a very serious country with so much potential—and it still has all this potential— but it got ruined for an entire generation by the Peronistas and everybody else. And now, they’re trying to pick themselves up off the floor and Milei [is trying to execute on] populism rightfully understood and properly applied to core principles. So, [principled populism] can happen. It does happen.

The populism that’s running through America on the right and in Europe is much more of a big government, post-liberal, identity-politics populism that I think is dark. I don’t think it works, and it just doesn’t solve the problems that we’re seeking to solve for people in this country.”

Learning lessons on trade:

“I’m not afraid to call myself a free trader. I am. I think where the free-traders like me made mistakes along the way were — one, China entering the WTO. At the time it seemed like the smart, right move to give them liberalized economics in the hopes that they were going to pursue liberalized politics and political rights. That didn’t happen. Xi came in after Wu and we know what happened. We made a miscalculation there in hindsight.

And two, the other problem that we, free traders, made was we didn’t sufficiently enforce our trade agreements. When other countries cheated, we let it go and we needed to do a better job of that. We needed to make the WTO actually work to stop cheating. And so, those institutions lost their credibility because we didn’t do what we should have to enforce those trade agreements.

Having said all of that, that doesn’t mean you discard free trade, right?…

What has happened is we have mercantilists in government. The Democrats always had a protectionist, mercantilist angle because of unions, but now the establishment of the Republican Party, which is President Trump and MAGA, they’re very mercantilist. I think it produces a view of economics and of trade where it’s a zero-sum game, where there’s a winner and there’s a loser. I just don’t see things like that. I don’t think life is like that. I don’t think economics is like that and trade is not like that.

The reason people voluntarily trade with one another is because they both benefit from it. It’s win-win. It’s positive sum. And that win-win, positive sum game can make everyone better off. Specialization, customization, comparative advantage, all those things work….

So, I think we just have a choppy, bumpy road ahead of us on trade. I think the tariffs are a mistake. I think that trading with our allies and working with other democracies to write the rules of the 21st century global economy and to join forces to take on the tyrannies like China, Russia, and the rest, is a far better position to take than what we have right now.

We’re going to lose market share: 96% of the people in the world are in all the other countries. That means if we want to have a mature, growing economy, if we want to bring manufacturing jobs back, we can’t just make and sell stuff to ourselves. We have to sell it to the rest of the world and if we’re not getting trade agreements to open up those markets, we’re going to lose because all the other countries are getting trade agreements with one another.”

Despite DOGE’s missed opportunity, technology will help solve our fiscal challenges:

“I had high hopes for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). What disappointed me most about those guys was these were the PayPal guys and so, of all the people who could come in and help digitize government records and government payment rails, it was the PayPal guys.

I wanted to see the modernization and reorganization of government effort come through and instead, they went after USAID and other stuff. They didn’t deliver on what I thought was their unique talent set, which was to help fix a lot of these antiquated 20th century systems that still plague our federal government.

Not that there’s a free lunch here, but I think technology and markets can solve a lot of these [fiscal] problems and I think [technology and markets] will be part of the solution to preventing a debt crisis while still maintaining our very precious American social contract.”

Stablecoins & fighting for digital dollar dominance:

“I’m very excited about the stablecoin law that’s been passed. I think this is a huge boon for America, for America tech dominance, but most of all, it’s a boon for the dollar…

Thankfully, we’re never going to do a CBDC. I think it would be a big mistake for us to have our own central bank digital currency. A stablecoin is different. It maintains a two-tiered system. It is private providers providing a private currency…. It’s money that is tethered to the dollar. It can’t be surveilled. Your government can’t do something to you, right? And in basket case countries that have bad currencies, like in Latin America, it’s a way to have sound money.

I see the digital currency wars coming as the digital dollar, through the stablecoin producers, versus the digital RMB [of China]. It’s Team Freedom versus Team Tyranny, and I like where Team Freedom is….

Because we have Silicon Valley, because we have the dollar, because we have all this amazing blockchain technology, I think we’re winning this race. Again, we will stub our toes and lose this race if we ruin our bonds and ruin our dollar by having a debt crisis and not getting our fiscal house in order, but if we get that done, I think we’re going to win this thing.”

Winning the race with China:

“Here’s why our system is better and here’s why our system is going to beat the Chinese: We have the rule of law. We have private property rights. We have deep and liquid capital markets. Oh, and by the way, we have talented people in this country, and we bring talented people into our country….

If we have the best and the brightest, we have the rule of law, and we have private property rights and deep liquid capital markets, the innovation that’s going to come with freedom like that is going to beat the state central-planning any day. I just have confidence in that system.

So, I do agree with decoupling on a lot of stuff with China, not the entire economy— as that would be dumb and ridiculous and needlessly make us both poor—but on sensitive, national security adjacent technologies or critical things like medicines, you need to decouple and you need to have your export controls.”

Riding out the storm of polarization:

“We’re in a bit of a partisan doom loop right now. I’m  an old House of Representatives’ guy and when you’re re-drawing Congressional district boundaries in the middle of a decade, that’s about as partisan as it gets. So, I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

My thesis on this is the populism that we see on both sides: The NatCons with the blood and soil populism doesn’t work. It’s illiberal. It grabs onto identity politics. It’s big government. It’s ineffective. It grabs on to identity politics.

Both of these populisms are morally relativistic populisms. What really horrifies me as a traditional conservative the most is that, during my entire career if you asked me the biggest problem I thought we were facing as a country and that I fought against as a conservative, it wasn’t the debt or China. It was moral relativism and now I am seeing both political parties practicing and amplifying moral relativism. That’s very disheartening and it takes us down a really bad road.

And so, my hope and my thesis at the end of the day is these types of populism that are predicated upon moral relativism, predicated upon identity politics and polarization, they don’t solve problems. And the American people are going to get tired of being promised solutions and seeing nothing being delivered. They are going to get fatigued with no problems being solved and with hating each other….

I think there is going to be soon a hunger for problems being solved and people not being hated. It will be an anti-polarization and an inspiring, pro-growth, optimistic, inclusive brand of politics – actually, like Milei in Argentina, as an example – that is popular and predicated upon principles and bringing solutions to solve problems….. We just have to get there. We’re not there now. We’re not going to be there in a couple years, but I think we’re going to get there….

The funny thing about this is: We know what we need to do to fix these problems…. We collectively as a country, can fix our problems, and that’s the great thing about America. Most other countries need some other country to do something for them to get what they need. We don’t need that.

We can solve all of our problems as Americans inside of our own country, within our own political system. We have all that we need to do it. We just need to get better politics, and I think that realization will eventually dawn on us and we’ll get there.”

Ryan is a current Trustee of the Center for Strategic & International Studies.

By: AIF Staff

Janesville, WI – In honor of Janesville, Wisconsin’s 180th birthday, the Janesville Gazette has been highlighting one Rock County resident per decade who played an outsized role in shaping the city’s trajectory.

As part of its “19 People for 19 Decades” feature, the Janesville Gazette selected Paul Ryan as its “Person of the Decade” for the 2010s, a period which saw him go from House Budget Committee Chairman to Vice Presidential nominee to Ways and Means Chair to Speaker of the House to President of the American Idea Foundation.  

The entire article is accessible here and excerpts of the Gazette’s feature, written by Tom Miller, follow.

“When Paul Ryan was selected by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney to be his vice-presidential running mate in the 2012 national election, Janesville, Wisconsin vaulted into national prominence.

Networks and newspapers sent crews to the city of 63,000 to chronicle Ryan’s rise from his election to Congress in 1999 to one of the leaders of the Republican Party.

While Ryan left national politics in 2020, his influence—both nationally and locally—has made him The Gazette’s Person of the Decade of the 2010s in the paper’s on-going observation of the 180th birthday of Janesville.”

***

“I grew up on Garfield Avenue in Janesville,” he said in a phone interview in November. “I went to Marshall (Middle School) and Craig. I never thought of any of this stuff.

“When I ran for Congress, I just wanted to be a policy guy working on economic policy,” Ryan said. “The things I’m most known for, running for vice president and being Speaker are things I didn’t seek. They came to me.”

***

During his 20 years as a congressman, Ryan often had to balance national interests with what was needed in his six-county district in Southern Wisconsin. Ryan said he always made clear the principles that he advocated, mainly balancing the national budget and supply-side economics….

His popularity was the result of his steady personality as he became a national figure. It was not uncommon for Janesville residents to see him at local grocery or hardware stores.

Ryan never had a problem with balancing his love for the people who voted him into Congress and what was right for the nation.

“Very rarely do you have a conflict between your district and the nation,” he said. “It really doesn’t work that way.”

Among the major Janesville projects Ryan championed was gaining funds for a runway extension at the Southern Wisconsin Regional Airport to help General Motors and firefighting equipment for the Janesville Fire Department, and $1.38 million to develop the Ice Age Trail. In 2012, Ryan supported a request for $3.8 million from the Department of Transportation for the 43,000-square foot bus transit center on Black Bridge Road.

***

One of the projects Ryan could not complete while in Washington was keeping the General Motors plant open. GM closed the assembly plant in April, 2009. The plant opened in 1919 and was the oldest operating GM at the time.

“Singles and doubles,” Ryan said. “We knew we weren’t going to replace this massive employer with another massive employer. We concluded that instead of going for a grand slam, let’s just go for a bunch of singles and doubles and make a more durable economy where the city’s economy is not dependent on one massive employer. That can be very volatile and risky.”

The plan has worked. “It’s thriving,” Ryan said of the local economy.

***

Ryan, who has always been a proponent of term limits, left the national politics in 2019. His three children were entering high school, and Ryan wanted to be there for them.

“I wanted to get out in time to be a real dad,” he said. “I did not want my children to have an absentee father their entire childhood….”

“I always knew I didn’t want to be a lifetime politician,” Ryan said. “I always knew there was going to be shelf life to my political career. I didn’t want to be in it for 40 years like a lot of people I knew. I did 20.

“I looked at my counterparts, who at the time were Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell who were like 40-year politicians. I just didn’t want my life to look like that….

***

The now 55-year-old has continued his public service locally with his American Idea Foundation that helps people in poverty. Among his other projects is teaching Economics and being on a poverty economics board at the University of Notre Dame, and serving on several board of directors, including SHINE Medical Technologies.

“My vocational stuff is my poverty work and my think tank work and teaching,” Ryan said. “On the business side of things, I am a partner in a private equity fund that Mitt Romney founded 20 years ago that invests in founder-owned businesses to help grow those businesses, which takes me around the country.”

“I go with what I call a ‘portfolio approach’” Ryan said of his present job status…. “My mind is always racing. I just want to set my life to work on the causes I believe in. Where I find it most interesting is helping founders grow their businesses. I find that super interesting.”

***

Ryan spends his winters near Washington D.C., but Janesville blood still runs through him.

“I represented my town in Congress for 20 years,” he said. “It was an absolute gift. It was the honor of my life to do it.”