The Zeitgeist

Never before has China featured so prominently in discussions among political leaders in Europe, Germany, and the United States. There is a growing consensus in Germany that China represents a …

Divided Germany was a microcosm of the standoff between West and East, and the Berlin Wall was the iconic symbol of the Iron Curtain (listen to Episode 2 with Mary …

As the March 29 deadline for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union approaches, no one knows how it will ultimately turn out. But some lessons are apparent despite the …

Muslims have lived in Germany in significant numbers for decades; in 1961 the Federal Republic concluded an agreement with Turkey that would ultimately bring nearly a million Turkish workers to …

The U.S. economic relationship with Europe is the most intense and largest economic relationship on the planet.  Bigger than U.S.-China trade, or any other for that matter.

Earlier this week, French president Emmanuel Macron published his recommendations for the future of Europe.  It is a vision for re-founding European solidarity in the face of a more difficult and dangerous world.  The impetus is that 2019 will be a year of major changes in Europe:  a new European Parliament a new President of the European Council, a new European Commission, and a new leader of the European Central Bank.

The European Union is notoriously complex—how it operates, what authorities are exerted in Brussels by the European Commission versus what are the responsibilities of member states—and that complexity is an important part of the U.S. difficulty engaging with the European Union.  But there’s no way around it—it’s a market of over 500 million people, an economy about as big as that of the United States, and one of the major players on the international economic scene.

There’s a growing discussion in Europe, often overlooked in the U.S.  Some of the issues are the same on both sides of the Atlantic, including what are the challenges from China’s state-capitalist model for the global economy, especially when it comes to technology and the industries of the future.  There is also a debate happening about whether the European Union should shift more toward an industrial policy that promotes European champions on a global stage, and about whether more European integration is a good thing, and if so, whether that should be on the economy and competition, or in social and labor market policy.

In this episode of The Zeitgeist, Prof. Dr. Michael Hüther, Director of the German Economic Institute, joined AGI President Jeff Rathke and Senior Fellow Peter Rashish to talk about what Hüther calls the end of the second era of globalization and the challenges of shaping the third era of globalization, creating a European and an international framework that is politically sustainable and economically effective.

Host

Jeff Rathke, President, AGI

Guests

Michael Hüther, Director, German Economic Institute

Peter Rashish, Senior Fellow and Director of the Geoeconomics Program, AGI

Prof. Dr. Michael Hüther also joined AGI for a breakfast discussion on “Strategies for the European Union in the Third Age of Globalization,” part of the Geoeconomics Speaker Series supported by Allianz.

The Geoeconomics Speaker Series is supported by

China has represented opportunity—both geopolitical and economic—since its dramatic openings in the 1970s. There are, of course, the opportunities for China itself:  hundreds of millions of people have escaped poverty as a result of economic growth in the forty years since reforms began in 1979. American, German, and other Western companies benefited from these reforms as well, investing hundreds of billions of dollars in the Chinese economy.

There have also been other, more elusive, opportunities, including change in the Chinese political and economic systems: more open, a stronger rule of law, and a more constructive Chinese role in international affairs.  This was the hope that China would become a “responsible stakeholder” in the world and see its interest in preserving and expanding the open, liberal order.

Today, the Chinese state is reasserting its preeminent role and Beijing is pursuing an ambitious foreign policy and a strengthened military capacity such that the United States now describes China as a “near-peer competitor.”  It includes the massive Belt and Road Initiative, with pledges of $1 trillion in Chinese money for infrastructure and transportation investment to bring Chinese goods to the world.  Annual Chinese outward investment now exceeds foreign investment in China.

The changing Chinese economic and political role has been raising concerns in Europe (as in the U.S.) and European countries have been instituting stricter screening of Chinese investments in strategic sectors, while also fighting back against Chinese state subsidies and the continuing problems of intellectual property theft and technology transfer.  Against that backdrop, a new set of 54 recommendations by the Federation of German Industry, which represents 35 different German economic sectors, describes China as a “systemic competitor” and calls for German and European leaders to rise to this challenge through stronger measures at home and internationally.

In this episode of The Zeitgeist, Jeff Rathke and Peter Rashish talk with Stefan Mair, a member of the board of the Federation of German Industry, to discuss the evolving German view toward China, and what it means for cooperation at the European level and with the United States.

Host

Jeff Rathke, President, AGI

Guests

Stefan Mair, Member of the Executive Board, Federation of German Industries

Peter Rashish, Senior Fellow and Director of the Geoeconomics Program, AGI

BDI Report

Recent AGI publications on China

China’s BRI and Europe’s Response

Europe, China, and a Stable Indo-Pacific Order

If Not the Chinese Belt-and-Road, Then What? Navigating A Multitude of Visions for the Indo-Pacific and Beyond

Subscribe on iTunes, 

On December 1, President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met during the G-20 summit in Argentina and agreed, it seems, to put the economic disputes on ice.  No raising of U.S. tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent, in return for a Chinese commitment to buy an unspecified amount of U.S. products; an agreement to start talks on China’s intellectual property, technology transfer, and cyber policies.

How can Washington address the challenges from the Chinese state-capitalist system?  As Peter Rashish put it, a bilateral approach won’t be enough for the U.S. to induce Beijing to change. That will only happen if the White House works with the European Union, Japan, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and other like-minded countries to build an enduring common front.

In this episode of The Zeitgeist, Jeff Rathke and Peter Rashish talk with one of the foremost German experts on the transatlantic trade and economic relationship, Dr. Stormy-Annika Mildner of the Federation of German Industries.  They dive into the German and European views of the international trade issues that confront us, what the U.S. and European common interests are with regard to China, and what we can and should be doing together.

Host

Jeff Rathke, President, AGI

Guests

Stormy-Annika Mildner, Head of External Economic Policy, Federation of German Industries

Peter Rashish, Senior Fellow and Director of the Geoeconomics Program, AGI

Listen to Episode 1

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Support for this episode is provided in part by the Steven Muller New Initiatives Fund.

No relationship is without its difficulties and disagreements, not even between societies as close as the U.S. and Europe.  For almost as long as NATO has existed, Washington has wanted its European allies to contribute more to the common defense.

The European Union is playing a bigger role in fostering European defense investment and creating the capacity for the EU to take military action in crisis zones, such as the Mediterranean, Mali, or the Horn of Africa.  Some European leaders even call for a “European army,” as French president Emmanuel Macron did in November 2018.  President Trump saw that as an insult to the U.S. and to NATO.  German chancellor Angela Merkel, in contrast, in mid-November gave Macron’s idea an endorsement in principle, while acknowledging that it was far off.

In this episode of The Zeitgeist, AGI President Jeff Rathke talks with NATO expert and retired German Lieutenant General Heiner Brauss about the current dispute on NATO and its implications for the alliance and the transatlantic relationship. How far has NATO come on burdensharing?  What is the role of the European Union, how does NATO cooperate with the EU, and is there a danger that a growing European role would undermine NATO?

Host

Jeff Rathke, President, AGI

Guest

Heiner Brauss, former Assistant Secretary General for Defense Plans at NATO

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Support for this episode is provided in part by the Steven Muller New Initiatives Fund.

When the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989, it was a surprise to many. For an entire generation, the Berlin Wall was the most iconic physical manifestation of the Cold War: a flashpoint in the conflict between East and West, a scar across a city, a reminder of division of Germany after the Second World War.

In Episode 2 of The Zeitgeist, AGI President Jeff Rathke talks with Mary Sarotte, author of 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe and The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall, about the events that led the East German police to open the border that November night, about how Germans and Americans alike reacted to the news, and about the broader legacy of the Berlin Wall for today.

Read more on the Fall of the Berlin Wall from AGI.

Host

Jeff Rathke, President, AGI

Guest

Mary Sarotte is the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Distinguished Professorship of Historical Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Dr. Sarotte is also a faculty member of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs and a research associate at Harvard University’s Center for European Studies.

In the mid-1990s, AGI acquired a piece of the Berlin Wall now on display at JHU’s School of Advanced International Studies. It stands “in tribute to the success of the German-American partnership and as a reminder that freedom can never be taken for granted.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Trade is a top issue in the transatlantic relationship. Since he took office, President Trump has been focused on the U.S. trade deficit and economic competition with Europe, with China, and with most of rest of the world. He imposed tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, prompting a backlash from the European Union, which imposed its own retaliatory measures on U.S. imports. But this was not the end of it and Trump later threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on automobiles imported from Europe. Where do we stand now? How serious is the danger of trade war?  Trump and EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker seemed to reach a truce in their July 25 meeting at the White House. How durable will that truce be? How serious is the threat of a new escalation in this trade war? And what would be its consequences?

In this inaugural episode of The Zeitgeist, Jeff Rathke discusses transatlantic trade in the Trump era with Peter Rashish.

Download Issue Brief

Host

Jeff Rathke, President, AGI

Guest

Peter Rashish, Senior Fellow and Director of the Geoeconomics Program, AGI

Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Tune In, and Stitcher.

Support for this episode is provided in part by the Steven Muller New Initiatives Fund.