# S9 Ep42: The Safety Paradox

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/voxtalks-economics-504930/s9-ep42-the-safety-paradox
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/voxtalks-economics-504930/s9-ep42-the-safety-paradox.md
Podcast: [VoxTalks Economics](https://stenobird.com/podcast/voxtalks-economics-504930)
Published: 2026-07-22T10:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://audioboom.com/posts/8931029
Audio file: https://audioboom.com/posts/8931029.mp3?modified=1784707756&sid=4966228&source=rss
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/voxtalks-economics-504930/episodes/s9-ep42-the-safety-paradox
Duration seconds: 1200

## Resource

Recorded at the PSE-CEPR Policy Forum, Paris School of Economics, June 2026. In 1941 the United States banned oil exports to Japan, to punish aggression without fighting a war. Historians now argue the embargo did the opposite, and hastened Japan's entry into the war. Isabelle Méjean (Sciences Po, CEPR) calls this "The safety paradox". Trade between rivals makes war more expensive. Cut that trade to protect your interests, and you make conflict cheaper, for your rival as well as for you. In a new VoxTalk she talks to Tim Phillips about economic coercion, decoupling, and why Europe should treat its trade agreements as insurance. Méjean and her co-authors simulated the US decoupling from China. Raising tariffs by 20 percentage points, roughly what the first Trump administration did, raises the probability of war by 2%, she estimates. That sounds small until you consider what a war between the US and China would mean. The research behind this episode: Mayer, Thierry, Isabelle Méjean, and Mathias Thoenig. 2025. "The Fragmentation Paradox: De-risking Trade and Global Safety." CEPR Discussion Paper 20564 (gated). To cite this episode: Phillips, Tim, and Isabelle Méjean. 2026. "The Safety Paradox." VoxTalks Economics (podcast). About the guest Isabelle Méjean is Professor of Economics at Sciences Po and a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, where she directs the International Trade and Regional Economics programme and is a member of the Research Policy Network on Geoeconomics and Security. She is a scientific advisor at CEPII and a member of the French Conseil d'Analyse Économique, with research spanning international trade, firm-to-firm networks, and how shocks to individual firms move whole economies. In 2020 she was named Best Young Economist of Fra…

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