Edward Luce

U.S. National Editor and Columnist, Financial Times

Economics

Politics

Geopolitics

Foreign Affairs

U.S. National Editor and Columnist for the Financial Times, Edward Luce is one of the paper’s most popular writers and “one of the finest journalists of our time.” A U.K. native, Oxford graduate, and former speechwriter for Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, he is highly regarded by policymakers, leaders, and political junkies.

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In his speeches, Luce brings an insider/outsider perspective to American politics, economics, and geopolitics. His cross-border perspective provides a global insight to the future of work and the major challenges facing the West, including the rise of populism and the decline of the middle class.

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Luce’s book, The Retreat of Western Liberalism, examines the weakening of western hegemony and the crisis of democratic liberalism. According to Luce, “What we do not yet know is whether the world’s democratic recession will turn into a global depression.” The New York Times called the book “insightful and harrowing.” An excerpt appeared in The Atlantic (The Changing of the Global Economic Guard). One of the Washington Post’s 50 notable works of nonfiction in 2017, The Retreat of Western Liberalism is an Amazon Top 100 book of the year and a Financial Times and Economist best book of the year.

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Luce’s previous book, Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent, was described as “a masterful portrait of America.” He also is the author of In Spite of the Gods, praised by The Economist as “likely to be the definitive book on India for some time to come.”

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At the FT, Luce has also served as Washington bureau chief, Capital Markets Editor, correspondent to the Philippines, and South Asia bureau chief. Articles and commentaries by Luce that have garnered a lot of attention in the past year have included: “The boy who escaped Trump country,” “Britain’s Voyage to Inglorious Isolation,” and “Donald Trump leaves Angela Merkel to stand up for liberal values.” With his FT colleague Rana Foroohar, he writes “Swamp Notes,” a twice-weekly newsletter on money and power in Trump’s America and the big themes driving politics, business, and markets.

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A Graduate of Oxford University in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, he received his post-graduate in journalism from City University, London. He is a frequent guest on PBS NewsHour, NPR, and C-SPAN.

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Topics

What the growth switch from China to India means for investors

China’s growth in 2022 is set to fall to five per cent officially (and much lower in practice). India will exceed 7 per cent. This is likely to be replicated for many years to come, which will make India the fastest growing large economy in the world. India will benefit from the growing decoupling of the US and Chinese economies. Apple is now making its iPhone 14 models in India, for example. Though India remains a tougher investment environment than China was over the last thirty years, its demand for capital and the youth of its population make it a far steadier long-term growth prospect than today’s increasingly autocratic China, which is ageing before it gets rich and entering the middle-income trap. The future is not entirely India’s – its legal system and politics remain wild cards. But it will look increasingly attractive relative to China’s surveillance capitalism and the increasingly arbitrary rule of Xi Jinping. Edward Luce’s book: In Spite of the Gods: The Rise of Modern India (updated 2011), was described as “the definitive book on the New India” by The Economist.

How energy will increasingly shape world great power politics

The rich countries have almost unanimously adopted net zero targets for carbon emissions for the mid-century or before. Some, such as Canada, have put an escalating price on carbon. Others, such as the US, have announced big investments in green energy. The EU and the UK will both phase out the internal combustion engine by 2035. As the west switches to renewable energy – accelerated by Europe’s severance of Russian fossil fuel supplies since the Ukraine invasion – energy friction between the west and the rest will intensify. Countries such as China, India, Brazil and sub-Saharan Africa, most of which have emitted a fraction the per capita carbon of their western counterparts, will increasingly band together for fossil fuel security. The west will increasingly treat such projects as “stranded assets” and will sooner or later impose border tariffs on carbon-intensive imports, which will lead to a breakdown of the WTO global trading order. Energy, not ideology, is the new geopolitical faultline. The Middle East will continue to be the world’s main geopolitical playground.

How Russia is rebooting western liberal democracy

The world’s “democratic recession” dates from Vladimir Putin’s accession to the Russian presidency at the start of this century. Since then dozens of countries have either ceased to be democracies or degenerated into illiberal democracies, such as Hungary and Turkey. It is ironic, therefore, that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this year has rekindled a new belief in democracy among western publics and a degree of unity the west has not seen in many years. Liberal democracy is still skating on thin ice: the populist threat from right and left has not disappeared. But democracies have stumbled on a newfound purpose and awareness. Edward Luce’s book, The Retreat of Western Liberalism (2017) was considered one of the best on democracy’s mounting challenges, including in the US. He is less pessimistic today partly because Putin has reminded the west of what for so long it took for granted.

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