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Cato Weekly Podcast • December 16, 2025 

# The Global Freedom Slump 

Cato’s Ian Vásquez and the Fraser Institute’s Matt Mitchell walk through the [2025 edition of the Human Freedom Index](https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index/2025), documenting a worldwide decline in economic, civil, and personal freedoms that began before the pandemic and sharply accelerated after it. They explain how populism, authoritarian emergency powers, trade restrictions, and speech controls have left nine in ten people living in less free societies, and why the recovery remains uneven and fragile.

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). 

##### Featuring 

[![Ian Vásquez](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2021-01/Ian%20Vasquez.jpg?itok=yBS_mzpm)](/people/ian-vasquez) 

##### [Ian Vásquez](/people/ian-vasquez)

Vice President for International Studies, Cato Institute

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](https://x.com/vasquezian) [ 

](mailto:ivasquez@cato.org) 

![matthew-d-mitchell-cropped](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2024-02/matthew-d-mitchell-cropped.png?itok=eWZJ-w0p) 

##### Matthew D. Mitchell 

Author