Yonit Levi, the veteran Israeli journalist and news anchor, spoke with Bridgewater CEO Nir Bar Dea this week and asked the head of the world’s largest hedge fund if Israel betting on the U.S. was a “mistake.” Bar Dea replied by sounding the alarm more generally on President Donald Trump’s economic policies and warned that Trump inadvertently told the global economy to stop investing in the U.S.

“Israel put all of its eggs—politically, diplomatically, militarily, financially—in the U.S. Was that a mistake?” Levi asked on her Unholy podcast, which she co-hosts with Jonathan Freedland.

“The world has put its entire eggs in the U.S., both economically and security-wise. This is what the entire world has done over the last several decades,” Bar Dea replied, adding:

Well, you know, the administration was focused on trade deficits and was imposing tariffs. Just remember, the mirror image of the trade deficit is the capital surplus. What I mean by that is that the trade deficit was compensated for by the fact that every economy in the world was sending their money back into U.S. assets—70 cents of every dollar that went into equities, went into U.S. equities. The reason that’s important is because that’s the thing that funded the U.S. That’s the thing that funded the S&P. That’s the thing that funded the AI revolution.

And one day, President Trump decided that no longer would the trade deficit work in the national interest of the United States. There’s a reason why he got elected for that reason. But at the same time, the rest of the world said, “Well, I’m not going to send my money to the U.S. if this is the way this is going to be. I’m going to spend my money here locally and rebuild my defense, rebuild my energy infrastructure.” The world woke up.

Just like you said Yonit, like Israel—and said, “Hey, we had a massive U.S. bet, we have to diversify away from the U.S.” And I agree with your point that Israel is on the far end, having one concentrated U.S. bet.

Watch the clip above.

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