The French presidential election might be the last act in a three part play featuring Part I: the Brexit referendum and Part II: the US election. Forces acting against a globalized status quo seem to have played a big role in I and II. Regardless of the outcomes of Brexit and the US election, the French election held this past Sunday, and its final run off on May 7, will have major implications for the future of the Eurozone and world economy, and may add fuel to other fires across the Eurozone – Italy in particular. What do we need to know? What sorts of ripple effects will this economic and political uncertainty have in the US and for the Trump administration?

To answer these, I talked with Desmond Lachman, who joined AEI after serving as a managing director and chief emerging market economic strategist at Salomon Smith Barney. He previously served as deputy director in the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Policy Development and Review Department and was active in staff formulation of IMF policies. He has a PhD in economics from Cambridge University.