You've paid more tax than anybody
has ever paid in the history of the world ...
Which is admirable
and you advocate higher taxes
and yet a kind of tax phobia seems
to have gripped the world at the moment.
How do you reverse that
state of mind
that says taxes are bad?
In general, a lot of taxes are too low
in my view,
for example the estate tax,
you know I'm a huge fan of that
because it creates a certain
dynamism where you don't just get
an aristocratic type view.
You know, the person has died,
if they have a huge amount of money
which is amazing that, you know,
we allow people to have
gigantic amounts of money,
then the state should take
some of that and ...
But it's very unpopular.
Yeah, no, but ... of all
my tax misunderstandings,
the fact that people
aren't for an estate tax
is kind of mind-blowing to me.
I mean, even in China.
This is a communist country.
They are hesitating to put in
a vigorous estate tax.
Weirdly, this is the one area
where even though the US estate tax is way too low,
it's actually a higher estate tax
than most other countries.
Your report this year
on global goals
and what progress we're making
on poverty and disease.
What strikes you most
about this year's report?
Although the number of children
being born has levelled off,
the places where those children
are being born is more and more in poor countries.
It's more difficult
to make sure that kids
get the vaccines, they get the nutrition,
the education,
the things that will allow
this younger generation to contribute
and drive welfare and economic growth.
And amazingly, almost all of those
young children will be born in Africa.
What do we do to persuade
the rich world to stay engaged?
What works best?
Is it hope or is it fear?
The best way of motivating
people is if you can get them
to go, you know,
meet the people, see the problems.
Then you're engaged at
a human level.
You can point out that
the stability of Africa will make a huge  difference
for the entire world.
The idea of, could 0.7% of GDP
be devoted to helping those extremely poor people
– of which there are very large numbers –
and very small amounts of money
goes a long way.
But even maintaining
current levels, you know,
it's often challenged.
It's very much challenged in Britain.
Constantly under attack by
our conservative press,
saying, 'why are we spending
all this money abroad?'
And it is right at the bottom
of people's priorities
and quite hard for a government
to hold on to.
How do you persuade people
that this is money well spent
when they prefer to spend it at home?
If you're saving lives,
for very small amounts of money
and if you're really
uplifting countries
that over time will graduate
from receiving aid,
people should feel
very good about that.
The data about the impact
is pretty amazing.
I mean, you're a very influential man,
do you have a chance to speak
to President Trump
and perhaps to persuade him
that there is value in these things?
Now we need to work
with Trump himself
and the whole administration
on 'what is your vision for Africa'
and as a human being
who cares about other human beings,
as a country who doesn't want
to have to go fight foreign wars
or deal with pandemics
that are out of control.
Isn't it possible
that the US
which spends less than a third
of a per cent on foreign aid ...
Is President Trump persuadable?
Yes, I think, actually,
he does ...
one of the things
that you could say is, a plus or a minus,
is in very few areas does he
have a fixed ideology.
If there's something
where he feels he can look smart,
particularly if it's doing it
in a different way than it was done before,
and yes,
I think he's open-minded.
Improvement in the world is something
people should be excited about
and the fact that
when they read about Africa,
it's always, you know,
sort of the latest problem there
which there are huge
problems,
unless people get into their
framework that Africa has improved immensely
and that innovation
all over the world
can do a lot more
and that this generosity ...
there's no need to be cynical
about it, you know,
it's great people
doing their best.
So I wish people could
go and see more of the great work going on.
