Mahathir Mohamad: Trump Is ‘Against the Whole World'

Bloomberg

10-07-2025

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July 10, 2025 at 7:00 PM EDT
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What should countries in the firing line of US trade policy make of the back and forth on tariffs? This week, President Donald Trump extended the 90-day pause on his 'Liberation Day' tariffs through Aug. 1, while also threatening additional levies on Brazil and on nations whose Iran stance he perceives as anti-American.
That means countries from South Africa to Japan are continuing to scramble on negotiations, with many feeling unjustly targeted even as they remain diplomatic in public. From the freedom of retirement, however, Malaysia's veteran former leader tells me exactly what he thinks of the Trump approach: 'It's going to damage America more than the rest of the world.'
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Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, who turned 100 this week, is regarded as Asia's elder statesman, and his decades in politics include a remarkable return to elected office in 2018. He has seen world powers rise and fall, and his drive to modernize Malaysia put the country at the forefront of globalization. While Mahathir is forthright about what he sees as Western double standards, he has also been accused of stoking division at home.
Recorded at the former prime minister's foundation near Kuala Lumpur, this conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Dr. Mahathir, your political life has spanned more than six decades, including a comeback to lead your country again at the age of 92. In contrast, Joe Biden, a younger man, was engulfed by debate about his fitness to lead. What are your conclusions on age and leadership?
Well, if you don't get any fatal disease, you should live quite a long time. But of course you have to have some discipline. You do not get fat, and you do some exercise and keep your brain busy. Thinking, talking, discussing, writing, reading. You must keep the brain active. Otherwise, the brain loses its capacity. I practice all those things.
1
Mahathir came into the room assigned for our interview without so much as a walking stick. He is of a slight build, only 170 centimeters (5 feet 7 inches) in height, and known for keeping his weight at 62 kilograms (137 lbs.) After we finished speaking, he stood out on the balcony, in heat and humidity, to pose for our photographer.
How do you feel about being 100? How conscious are you that you are, in many ways, the last of your generation?
It's a bit frightening. It means you are very near the time when you are, well, no more. And so as time passes, you feel you are coming to an end and that's not comfortable. But then, you have to accept that is inevitable. You have to go. But while you are still around, you should do something, not just lie in bed and wait for the time.
2
Mahathir was born in the same year as Margaret Thatcher, Bobby Kennedy and Malcolm X, and a year before Britain's late Queen Elizabeth II. In Asia, his most prominent contemporary was Lee Kuan Yew, founding father of neighboring Singapore, who died in 2015 at age 91.
You are certainly proving that in how active you continue to be, including in your public comments. In leadership though, are you saying that age should be no barrier? Because when you first left politics in 2003, at 78, you did think you were too old to run for office again.
Well I thought that age would affect my capability, but I find now that age is not necessarily incapacitating. If you are relatively healthy, you can function.
Joe Biden thought he was perfectly healthy, perfectly able.
Of course, some people age earlier. I believe in working as a way of keeping the mind and body active.
Donald Trump probably believes as you do on this. He hasn't let age stand in his way.
I think Donald Trump is relatively healthy. But his attitude is the problem. He has this idea of making America great again. And to do that he feels that he has to confront the rest of the world, and that is not a very good strategy.
Before we talk more about that, I want to go back to your early life. You were born in 1925 and you were about 16 when the Japanese occupation began during World War II. What do you remember of that time?
We were told that the Japanese were very cruel people and that they are prone to execute people. Naturally we were very frightened. However, the Japanese, when they came in, singled out people who were against them – mainly the Chinese who supported China's war against Japan.
But I was not Chinese, I'm a Malay, and the Japanese have no problem with Malay. A few Malays were also arrested and executed for things that they have done. Generally, the Japanese rule was not very desirable. But on the other hand, they were not unduly oppressive.
3
Japan and China had been at war since 1937, but after Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japanese troops moved through large swaths of Southeast Asia. As schools closed, Mahathir's education was disrupted, and he ran a food stall to help his family make ends meet. After the war he won a scholarship to medical school in Singapore.
Except, as you acknowledge, if you were ethnic Chinese. The Kempeitai, the Japanese secret police, were targeting Chinese people. Those were atrocities, weren't they? We should not gloss over them.
Oh, I'm not forgetting the wrong things that they did. But the fact is that after the war they seem[ed] to change completely. We cannot hold their past against them. If you keep on thinking about the past, about the conflicts of the past, and you are affected by them, you cannot change to a better world.
It was also economically impossible, wasn't it, for a country like Malaysia to hold these things against Japan, because Japan was the dominant power in Asia. China was nowhere economically at that point.
Yes. We saw Japan as a good model of how a country that was devastated by war was able to recover in such a short period. And not only recover — at one time they were number two in the world. We thought that we should learn about it, we should copy, and we should be able to achieve what they achieved.
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Let's come to the present day then, and the reality since Trump returned to the White House — the atmosphere of trade tension and uncertainty. How would you say Malaysia and Southeast Asia have been affected?
You cannot help but be affected by Trump's policies. [In] his second term, he's against the whole world. To him, by raising the tariffs high, it will stop goods from being imported.
But this is not a very good strategy because if you raise the tariff on imported goods, the cost of those goods coming into your country will be very high. And if those goods are required for your industries, like components, like microchips, the cost of your product would be higher.
'To a certain extent, we can mitigate the effect of Trump's high tariffs by avoiding America.'
Are you speaking from your own experience? Because for many years Malaysia's economy was built around tariffs on goods coming in, and quotas. And Malaysia had to reorient that model to industrialize and become more of an export-facing economy. If you were speaking directly to Donald Trump, how would you put this message across?
I will tell him that he's wrong. His strategy is wrong. It's going to damage America more than the rest of the world. Of course, the rest of the world will suffer, but America will suffer more because [of] all those industries which were set up by Americans outside of America to take advantage of low costs. Those cannot come back to America in the short term. So for some time, America would still continue to import these products and with high tariffs.
And he might say to you, Look at the way all these countries, including Malaysia, are desperately negotiating with me to try and get the tariffs down. He might well take that as evidence that they are the ones who are going to be badly affected.
4
The Malaysian government has been trying to negotiate down down US tariffs, with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim saying they would be crippling for exports such as semiconductors, 60% of which go to the US.
Yes, if they are exporting [to] America. But the rest of the world is not imposing high tariffs. So we should increase our trade with the rest of the world. With China, for example. To a certain extent, we can mitigate the effect of Trump's high tariffs by avoiding America.
Does that have its own complexities? If you end up closer to China economically, do you also end up closer to China politically?
The fact is that China is a neighbor and has been a neighbor of Malaysia for the past almost 2,000 years. We have survived with China being a big power. But the attitude of China is different from Europeans. The Chinese may invade, but they do not colonize. The Portuguese, when they came here in 1509, two years later they conquered us. So we have lived with China all these years and we have to accept that China is a powerful nation. We can't go to war against China. We have to find some way of living with them.
A powerful nation where ultimate control is with the Chinese Communist Party, an authoritarian system which does destabilize its neighbors, which does make territorial claims, as Malaysia itself has experienced in the South China Sea.
China did not conquer Taiwan. They made use of Taiwan to get technology and investment. For China, the relationship was all right because it is useful to China.
5
In a compelling essay, Bloomberg's Daniel Ten Kate argued that US actions are creating a more comfortable world for China's Communist Party, and that Trump's threats to acquire Greenland provide President Xi Jinping 'with a less bloody model to assert control over Taiwan.'
I'm not sure the Taiwanese will see it that way.
They have always been very close to China in terms of investment, in terms of technology. The fact is that if China wanted to, they could have invaded Taiwan a long time ago.
I think if I had talked to you in a previous time, you would've been more forthright about disputes like the Spratly Islands, where Malaysia has had great difficulty with China. Today you seem to be taking a more benign view. Is that because of the reality that Southeast Asia has to make a choice, and China is the choice it's made?
6
The Spratly Islands, an archipelago in the South China Sea, have long been subject to competing claims from China, Malaysia and other countries in the region. They are largely uninhabited but are located in strategic shipping lanes and offer rich fishing grounds.
Well, China claims the South China Sea belongs to China. We don't accept their claim.
In fact, although they claim the South China Sea, they have not taken action to show that this is their territory. They have not stopped ships from passing through, or examined ships or imposed restrictions.
7
A number of countries — Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan — also claim parts of the South China Sea, and might take issue with that characterization. In one incident last year, ax-wielding Chinese sailors threatened Filipino sailors, with one losing his thumb when his small vessel was rammed. China has said that its actions were lawful.
China has military exercises and live-fire drills, which create a lot of alarm. These are not necessarily the actions of a good and peaceful neighbor.
Well, when you send warships to [the] South China Sea, what do you expect China to do?
American warships, you mean?
Yes. And when you purposely make a visit to Taiwan and tell Taiwan, You will be invaded by China.
You mean Nancy Pelosi's visit?
She went there for no good reason. She went there and immediately after that, tension rose. And when tension rose, then America says, Taiwan, you must re-arm. And they have to buy weapons from America. So tension has been increased by that visit.
8
This was in 2022, when Pelosi was speaker of the House of Representatives. Taiwan is not required to buy weapons from America, but does rely heavily on US arms sales.
More widely, we see not just tension but outright conflict in several parts of the world, whether Ukraine, Gaza, Israel or the United States' recent strikes on Iran. You've seen a lot in your time, including living through World War II. What do you think as you see that level of conflict in the world?
There will always be conflicts, but conflicts are not necessarily resolved through confrontation, through war. You can negotiate, you can even go to the World Court
9 and get a decision. Now the rest of the world seems to think that any conflict should be resolved by war. And [that] if there is confrontation, you should provoke countries into active action, as happened with Russia.
He's referring here to the International Court of Justice, the main judicial body of the United Nations. Malaysia has taken several disputes there.
You see Ukraine as a provocation, you mean?
Yes. There are many other countries which were allied to Russia, but were freed by Gorbachev. They joined NATO. Russia did not object, but Ukraine has a long border with Russia, and when Ukraine joins NATO it brings NATO right up to Russia. And naturally this is not something that Russia can accept.
10
This echoes Russia's narrative on NATO expansionism. Ukraine did express an interest in NATO membership in the early 2000s, but then opted for non-alignment. That was reversed after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Ukraine made a formal application to join NATO in 2022.
But as you've suggested, there are different ways to respond to things and annexing part of another country's territory, as Russia has done, crossing international borders to invade with tanks as it did three years ago — Ukraine would say this is a war for its survival. In the Middle East, Israel would say that it has acted in self defense against Hamas.
When a country is actively carrying out genocide, and says that genocide is a way to defend [itself], that is not acceptable.
11
'Armed conflict is not a synonym for genocide,' Israel's lawyer told the ICJ last year, denying allegations in the case brought by South Africa.
If that's how you see Israel's actions in Gaza, what do you think of the Arab countries, Muslim countries like the UAE and Bahrain, that have maintained their diplomatic relations with Israel?
We have to accept the fact that Muslim countries are not united. But all these things started when Palestinian land was seized to make Israel.
12
In November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly approved a plan to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.
Do you accept the idea of two states? Do you accept Israel's right to exist as well as advocating for Palestinian rights?
Yes, two states would be a good solution at this moment because there is no way for the Arabs to do away with Israel.
May we come to the present day in Malaysia, and what you hoped for by the year 2020 – a ' fully developed ' country. It was a goal that you set back in 1991, and it hasn't quite been achieved. What do you think are the reasons for that?
We were progressing very well. We had certain policies in place and the country was growing at a very high rate: 7%, 8% GDP growth every year. When I stepped down, I expected the same policies to be continued, but they decided to withdraw the policies and strategies that enabled Malaysia to grow very fast.
13
Mahathir is likely referring to when he first stepped down as prime minister in 2003, after 22 years in office. The Asian financial crisis of 1997 doesn't get a mention here, but it tipped Malaysia into recession after years of growth. At the time, Mahathir blamed currency speculators for the crisis, singling out George Soros and calling him a 'moron.'
I wonder though if you can take some responsibility for the fact that Malaysia hasn't fully lived up to what you hoped for? Take the idea of race-based affirmative action policies that privilege the ethnic Malay majority – your own community. Privileged access to education. Discounts on housing. Companies led by ethnic Malay citizens have certain access and greater privilege. Is that really the right thing to do in the 21st century, in a country that should be a meritocracy?
Yes. We learned from America. America was the first to introduce affirmative action. Here, we feel the disparity between Malays and Chinese is dangerous. It is going to lead to confrontation, maybe violence. And in fact, in 1969, there were race riots because the Malay generally were poor. After independence, the Chinese were rich and, even politically, the Malay dominance was eroded. Because of that, we feel that we should reduce the disparity between rich and poor within Malays and Chinese. That was why we adopted affirmative action.
But it creates distortions, doesn't it? It has led to a brain drain of talented ethnic Chinese and ethnic Indian citizens who don't feel there's a level playing field. And you yourself have said there will be a time to withdraw these policies. Of course, politically, they're very hard to withdraw, when parties need to win elections.
When you introduce any policy, there will be people who are not happy. Very few have left Malaysia. Even those who have migrated to other countries retain their Malaysian citizenship because they want to come back. This is the country that they have been brought up in, and they feel that, over time, things will resolve.
14
A World Bank study in 2011 said that at least 1 million Malaysians lived abroad, with the diaspora almost quadrupling over the prior three decades. Most were ethnic Chinese, and many were highly educated. Some 60% of skilled migrants surveyed cited social injustice as a significant reason for leaving.
Finally, in your own life, amongst those you've known, leaders across the world, who did you admire? You were a contemporary of Lee Kuan Yew, who made Singapore one of the wealthiest nations in the world. Did you envy that?
No.
15 I think my idol is Nelson Mandela. I knew him well. His level-headedness is something remarkable. I was one of the Asian leaders who met him after he was released. I was expecting him to be a very bitter man, or a broken man, because he spent 27 years in jail. He was not. He was talking about how he should cooperate. That is something that you don't find in many other leaders.
I might have touched a nerve here! Singapore was briefly part of the Federation of Malaysia before becoming independent in 1965. Lee Kuan Yew himself wasn't sure how successful Singapore could be as a small city-state. He and Mahathir had a difficult relationship: Jointly changing their countries' time zone was one of the few issues they easily agreed upon.
You said at the start of this conversation that you feel that the end is not far away, that you are prepared for that. How do you actually think about that prospect, when you've reached 100?
I have had almost 80 years of experience in politics in Malaysia, and during that 80 years I think many problems were resolved. Not fully, of course, but I think that my experience would be useful for future leaders of Malaysia. So I talk to them, I explain to them what needs to be done.
I don't think you've made life easy for your successors by continuing to speak as you do.
16
Mahathir has had a somewhat turbulent relationship with most of his successors — including the current prime minister — and has not shied away from publicly criticizing them.
Life is never easy for anyone, not for me either. I do what I think is the best. And I think in a way I have delivered. What others think is different of course, but I was given an opportunity to do something for this country. I have put [in] my best effort and, I think, to a certain extent I have achieved some goals.
Mishal Husain is Editor at Large for Bloomberg Weekend.
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