Rebooting the Transatlantic Relationship

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Welcome to this very special – it’s wonderful to have you all here for this very, very special session. I’m Leslie Vinjamuri. I direct the US and Americas Programme here at Chatham House. I’m also Dean of our Queen Elizabeth II Academy. Tonight’s roundtable: Rebooting the Transatlantic Partnership, I think it’s difficult to understate the importance of the topic or the level of the contributors that we have this evening. So, it’s really a pleasure and it’s an honour.

We are on the record tonight. So, when you do have your opportunity to ask a question, I hope you will speak and be aware that you’re on the record, we will record, and we will share. Tonight’s event is co-hosted with the German Marshall Fund of the United States, which is very appropriate, given that we have the President of the German Marshall Fund of the United States speaking. It really is an honour, Karen, to see you here this evening at Chatham House.

The topic of tonight’s roundtable is based on a report that’s recently been released, the report of the Transatlantic Taskforce Project of the German Marshall Fund US and the Bundeskanzler-Helmut-Schmidt-Stiftung. It is co-chaired by Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger and Dr Karen Donfried and the Executive Director, Bruce Stokes, is also the Author of the report. He interviewed many of us, which was quite an honour. But it’s quite – it’s remarkable to have the three of you here. I know you launched it together, you’ve done a lot of separate conversations around the findings, around the topics, and we get to bring you back. And I should also say that at Chatham House, as you probably know, it’s our centenary year, and the transatlantic partnership is clearly very important to us and, so, it is a triple honour to have you here this evening.

I’m going to introduce the speakers very briefly, but I would encourage you, in your spare time, to take a look at their work, because they are all very distinguished and we could spend the panel just welcoming them. Our first speaker will be Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger. He is Chairman of the Munich Security Conference. He was previously the German Ambassador to the United Kingdom and, also, to the United States of America, so, what an honour.

We then have Dr Karen Donfried, I should say a long-time friend of mine. My very first job out of grad school, I, sort of, turned up to Karen’s office and I’ve been following her work ever since. Karen Donfried is President of the German Marshall Fund Unite – of the United States. She has worked there for a very long time, but previously, was at Congressional Research Service. She has spent many years in government service, most recently as Special Assistant to President Obama and Senior Director for European Affairs on the National Security Council. So, who better placed to talk about the transatlantic partnership?

Bruce Stokes, the most important title that Bruce Stokes has is that he’s an Associate Fellow on the US and Americas Programme at the Chatham House and he is also Non-Resident Fellow at the German Marshall Fund. We know Bruce, perhaps best, for his very long time work at the Pew Research Center, where he assessed public views about economic conditions, foreign policy and values and has made such a strong contribution over a very long time to our understanding of public opinion on these important dimensions.

So, with no further ado, let me turn it over to you, first, Ambassador, and then to Dr Donfried and then, last and definitely not least, to the report’s Author, Bruce Stokes. Over to you, Bruce – Ambassador.

Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger

Well, thank you very much, Leslie. It is such a pleasure and a privilege for me to be on this programme with my wonderful American friend, Karen Donfried and, of course, with Bruce Stokes, who deserves a lot of praise, because he actually put everything together that some of us came up with, in terms of ideas.

Now, why is this – why is it important to come up just a few days before the American election with ideas about the transatlantic relationship? Well, for two simple reasons: the world as we have known it, the transatlantic relationship, global order has been shaken by dramatic developments, in terms of power relationships, etc. Nothing, almost nothing is as it used to be, including the transatlantic relationship. And maybe more directly to the point here, the kind of relationship that I have experienced through my professional life of the last 35 or 40 years has been a transatlantic relationship, which was a relationship of trust, of mutual trust. And as we all know, for a variety of reasons, most of that trust has now fallen apart, is now being questioned by, not only by elites, but by the people on both sides of the Atlantic. This is why I think this effort which Karen came up with, which the Bundeskanzler-Helmut-Schmidt-Stiftung on the German side supported and the group of experts, which we were able to bring together, I think this is why this report deserves a lot of attention.

Very simply put, what we feel and we feel very, very strongly, is that even if it is true that the transatlantic relationship is currently at a low point, we know, from experience and our group has agreed on that, on all of the specific issue points, that we can resolve and respond to current and future challenges better if we have a transatlantic response to offer. Responding to challenges in a transatlantic manner is the way to go. That is, I think, our very simple recipe.

And I will now just spend two or three more minutes, if I may, on a couple of specific suggestions. We have divided up the work. I will dwell on security and on China, and Karen and Bruce will share the other important subjects that we have had a chance to discuss. On security, very briefly, we feel very strongly that we need to emphasise defence modernisation, not simply only focus always on the, you know, percentage of GDP. We need to get our act together on the European side, in terms of integrating defence procurement for example, and we should redevelop, I insist on redevelop, because we used to have that, we need to redevelop a joint approach to Russia and to the challenges that Russia presents.

One of our ideas, concrete ideas, is to propose an annual joint assessment of Russia, of Russia policies, by the NATO Secretary-General, together with the EU High Representative for Foreign Relations and Security Policy. So, that would be Stoltenberg and Borrell and I think that in this context, of course, we should not forget how important the resumption of a transatlantic arms control agenda would be. So, so much in just a couple of words on security.

Now, on China, let me insist that in terms of the long-term challenges to the transatlantic community, I can think of no single issue that is going to be more long-term and more intense and maybe even more challenging than China. European views on China have evolved recently, but we are still far from having an agreed strategy across the Atlantic on China. We don’t even have an agreed strategy on China within the European Union. In other words, we need to do our homework.

Let me just highlight, again, two concrete suggestions. In order to refocus the transatlantic community on China in a strategic manner, we propose to create a Vice Presidential Level Transatlantic Working Gr0up on China, in other words, on the American side this would be the future Vice President, with – supported by appropriate senior staff from the US administration. On the European side, it might be a mix of officials from the European Union at the same level, in other words the President or one of the Vice Presidents of the European Commission, presumably along with Foreign Ministers or other senior officials from key member countries of the European Union. And let me insist that on the one point which I mentioned earlier, if we want this to be a successful venture, we on the European side, and I think, you know, whether the UK is now leaving the European Union or not, I would obviously only include the UK in this effort. EU membership yes or no, it doesn’t really matter. We need to agree on a European strategy on China and on that basis, enter this Transatlantic Working Group at the Vice Presidential level and highlight, and that is my last remark, the idea of reciprocity as the fundamental principle that we would demand in organising and managing the relationship with China in the short, the medium and the longer-term.

I would have many other issues to mention, not only on these two issues, but I know my time is over, so I hand over to my fellow – to my partners from the group. Thank you very much.

Dr Karen Donfried

Well, I’ll just jump in. That was a great – that was all great, and I just wanted to start out by saying how wonderful it is to be doing this with Chatham House, and Wolfgang, of course, has such deep ties to the UK from his tenure as Ambassador there. Bruce has a formal affiliation at Chatham House and, as Leslie mentioned, I have a long friendship with her, so it’s very special for all three of us. And like Wolfgang, I did want to say thank you to GMF’s partner in this project, which is the Bundeskanzler-Helmut-Schmidt-Stiftung. And when we conceived this idea, I thought the person, the ideal co-Chair for me, is Wolfgang Ischinger and I was so grateful that he was willing to invest the time and he was so generous, also, with his ideas. And as Wolfgang said, he and I could not have pulled this off without Bruce Stokes. Bruce not only managed the 14 amazing members of the taskforce, which ranged from Republican Congressman, Will Hurd, here in the US, to Cecilia Malmström, Former EU Commissioner for Trade, but Bruce did 150 interviews. Leslie was one of the folks he interviewed, but somehow, he managed to distil all of those insights into the report that I hope you will all read.

And as Wolfgang said, we want to just give you a flavour of those recommendations and so, I’m going to present a couple of recommendations from the sections on pandemics and on technology. So, the coronavirus pandemic definitely cast a shadow over our taskforce and not only because it meant we couldn’t meet in person, but we also felt that the unco-ordinated and at times competitive responses across the Atlantic around COVID-19 showcased our fraying transatlantic ties. As we reflected on that and as the pandemic progressed, we also thought it highlighted another reality, which is that transatlantic co-operation is essential to finding effective solutions to share challenges. And that was the spirit, as Wolfgang said, that animated the taskforce, and we crafted the recommendations in that spirit. So, whoever wins the US election, this relationship is still important to both sides of the Atlantic.

And on the pandemic piece, one of the ideas that we came up with is that we recommended Americans and Europeans create a transatlantic stockpile of medical equipment and medicines, so, in that way, we would better prepare for future pandemics. The US and Europe could regularly report on transatlantic production capacity, domestic demand, exports and imports of critical medical equipment and then that joint stockpile of medical equipment and supplies could allow us to better respond to what we know will be inevitable future public health emergencies and, also, enable us to sustain transatlantic supply chains.

Another recommendation we had with regard to pandemics was having the US and Europe jointly prepare for the next pandemic by developing a pandemic doctrine and strategy that defines what constitutes a pandemic, explains protocols for early containment and mitigation, and details how to manage the outbreak collectively if it does spread globally. So, really having us be in a much better position than we were earlier this year. Both of these recommendations would allow us to put in place mechanisms that would ensure that we would not fight a future pandemic alone and our thinking is that that transatlantic co-operation could then spur global co-operation.

In the conversations that we had around technology, we all agreed that the US and Europe have long been technological rivals, as well as partners, but we see the competitive dynamics as shifting here. China has become a major player in the global tech game. Neither the United States, nor Europe, have the resources to prevail against such competition on their own and we really saw that as a driver for transatlantic co-operation on tech. One of the recommendations that we put forward is a suggestion that we jointly support emerging technology research and development. The United States and Europe should provide greater financial and regulatory incentives for transatlantic science and technology partnerships, including precompetitive co-operation on R&D across the whole range of emerging technologies, whether that’s artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, 5G or robotics.

Another recommendation that we put forward in the report is that Europe and the United States jointly develop legal and ethical standards on emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, synthetic biology and other new technologies that promise important advances in health, energy and food production, but that also raise questions about consumer safety, ecological stability, privacy and weaponization. This co-operation should include a common approach to risk assessment and management. We also believe that such standard setting should include multiple stakeholders, whether that’s government regulators, private business and representatives of environmental, consumer, faith, civil and human rights groups.

I wanted to flag these two specific recommendations from what we have on technology, because the US is ahead of Europe when it comes to R&D and Europe is seen as the regulatory superpower. There is opportunity for us to co-operate in both areas. On research, let’s put our dollars and euros to better use by co-operating and on regulation, while Americans are sensitive about inhibiting innovation, there is now a broad recognition that the great – that we need greater regulation, and we need more guardrails. And that was certainly apparent, even this week, in terms of the lawsuit that we saw launched against Google. So, we do think that these are both areas where there’s opportunity for the US and Europe to gather to be a force for good in the world and with that, I will pass the baton to Bruce.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Over to you, Bruce.

Bruce Stokes

Thank you, Karen, and it’s a pleasure to be on the panel with Karen and Leslie, the two women to whom I report, and to be on the panel with Wolfgang, who, as Leslie said, was the Ambassador to the UK and, also, was the Ambassador to those breakaway colonies, who, unfortunately, Wolfgang couldn’t bring back into the Empire fold, but he, you know, he may have tried.

It’s my job to highlight some of the recommendations on two other areas. We have, as you all painfully know, been plunged into a deep joint recession that will be a long time in climbing out of. We recommend that the efforts that are made to rec – on recovery need to be co-ordinated better than they are currently. We did a certain amount of that in the wake of the financial crisis, but we soon lost the co-ordination. We need to do a better job this time in co-ordinating our spending. Both the Federal Reserve and the ECB have argued that there needs to be more fiscal stimulus and both European Parliament and the US Congress needs to heed that, we believe need to heed that warning and be willing to spend what needed – is needed to get us out of this recession to avoid an asynchronous business cycle. But at the same time, we need to begin to talk together about how we unwind the stimulus and how we unwind the government positions that we’ve taken in various companies, because we know, from past experience, that fights over subsidies and government ownership have been at the heart of many of the troubles we’ve had between ourselves in economic relations.

But we also organ – suggest greater co-operation on antitrust policy and competition policy. I think there’s some opportunities for that, in the years ahead, because we’re both showing some concern about the power of the big platform companies, but we need to be sure we co-ordinate those efforts. And we also argue that because our business landscapes are going to be littered with broken companies, we have to be sure we co-ordinate efforts to avoid monopolies and duopolies being created, as some of those companies are bought up by bigger fish and that we co-ordinate in screening foreign investment to make sure that we don’t lose some of the potential technological gems to foreign investors who come in and sweep up some of the broken companies on the landscape.

We recognise that governments, in the wake of this recession, are going to be desperately in need of revenue, so we urgently argue that Europe and the United States have to resolve their differences over digital taxation. That was supposed to be done through the OECD and the goal was to get it done by December. It’s now been kicked down the road a bit, to the middle of 2021, but we argue that this needs to be resolved quickly, because as the American bank robber, Willie Sutton, once said when asked why he robs banks, he says robs banks “‘Cause that’s where the money is.” And the digital economy is where the money is in the future and we need to come to some agreement on how we tax that, those revenues.

Finally, we strongly urge a revival of the World Trade Organization. It is broken as a dispute settlement mechanism and, also, as a negotiating forum. So, we have a series of recommendations in the report on what can be done together on that.

And finally, climate change is the existential crisis we both share. We acknowledge that the Trump administration has threatened to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord the day after the US election. If, in fact, the US does pull out, we recommend it re-join, but more importantly, whether that happens or not, if we don’t leave, or if we have to re-join if Joe Biden is elected President, the most important thing is we both needed to up our commitments under the Paris Agreement. They are insufficient to meet the goals of holding warming to less than 2°. We argue, whoever is President, we need to boost the subnational co-operation between cities and regions in Europe and the United States of trying to reduce carbon emissions. That’s been very successful today. We are – we acknowledge that we have national commitment on the US side and greater national commitment on the European side. It will be insufficient, but it is something that needs to be bolstered, as we go forward.

And finally, we argue that, as both European countries and the United States will be spending more on economic recovery, that we need to channel more of that spending into climate resilience, that there – the Europeans have said they will spend 20% of what they do on that, the US is far less committed to that, about 4%, but we strongly urge that if we’re going to spend a lot of money, we have to prepare for the climate needs of the future and that means taking this opportunity, where we’re going to need some fiscal stimulus, to invest in both adaptation and mitigation for climate change.

So, with that as a brief overview, I think we should open this up to a discussion.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Thank you, Bruce. Let – I’m going to start with the first question, but I’m going to very quickly come to the audience. So, please, I’m going to ask you to unmute and actually ask your questions. So, let me just give a brief comment and a question and then maybe I’ll take the first question from the audience and then come back to the panel.

A couple of things, first of all, it is a phenomenal set of recommendations and the nice thing about it is, it’s comprehensive, but it’s also very detailed and very concrete, in each of the six categories. So, it really is concrete, and it goes a layer – to a level of granularity that we frequently don’t see. And so, I think it’s incredibly important, comprehensive, it’s phenomenally aspirational, and I think sometimes, in our desire to deal with the current reality and we don’t know what’s coming next, the move towards pragmatism sometimes loses some of that aspiration. So, I appreciate it. Inevitably you must get a lot of people saying, “How in the world do you get co-operation on that, on regulation?” to take Karen’s part.

But I have a couple – I have, I guess, two specific questions. One is, as we know, the UK Government, at different points in time, has called for a D-10. Vice President Biden has called for convening a summit of democracies. So, the two countries that Ambassador Ischinger has spent time in, in a formal role, are both saying we need to look beyond the transatlantic community, actually, because we can’t solve these problems just from within. So, could you tell us a little bit about, you know, where does the rest of the world sit in all of this, Australia, Japan, South Korea, I mean, we know the countries? So, is it, you know, you start here and then you let people in, and does that really work today? So, that’s my first question, that’s a slightly tougher question.

But then, just on concrete things, and one of the things that I found really interesting, and there were so many interesting things, but one of the things that I went, “Wow, that’s really interesting,” a Vice Presidential level Commission on China, where did that come from? I mean, and, you know, when you, kind of, put it in terms of the personalities, Kamala Harris, Mike Pompeo, we don’t know if it would be Mike – I mean, sorry, not Mike – Mike Pence and Kamala Harris, I mean, it’s, you know, just when you think about operationalising that, never mind all the other players, but why a Vice Presidential, and would it work? I mean, we do have – at the end of the day, we’re going to have to move beyond aspiration, to, you know, real people in real positions, with a different understanding of values and interests, so, all sorts of things come to mind. And do you have ideas about how you – you know, is there a Part II to this, where you have working groups and you’re rolling them out?

So, let me – I’m not going to let you answer that, ‘cause I really do want to bring the audience in. You can choose bits of that, if you like. Let me come first to Domenic Carratu. Dominic, if you unmute yourself and go ahead and state your question.

Domenic Carratu

Thank you, Leslie. Is it possible, realistically, to build a consensus just within the EU, yet alone between the EU as a block and the US? Maybe a working group of the US, the UK, France and Germany would be more practical or realistic. What do you think?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

And let me take just one more and, again, you can, sort of – don’t try to answer everything, we’ll let everybody choose one. Jed Schneider, and then we’ll come back to the panel [pause]. Jed Schneider, if you try unmuting [pause]. Okay, let’s come back and who would like to go first? Bruce, would you…

Bruce Stokes

Well, thinking about it…

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

…like…?

Bruce Stokes

…do you want to go first?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Okay.

Bruce Stokes

You have to unmute, unmute.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

And Bruce, we’re going to let you go ahead and take a – take…

Bruce Stokes

Okay, great, sure. Look, those are great questions. Yeah, in terms of the question about the China working group, it is really the only new structural recommendation we make. We toy with various other structural recommendations, should we have a – the – reinstitute the EU-US Summit, should we have a NATO EU-US Summit? But we thought this merited more attention, the China question, the need for co-operation, the – what struck us about the Borrell suggestion for the dialogue on China, which was then picked up by Pompeo, was we thought it would potentially lack the political clout to make it work. That’s why we wanted to elevate it to a political dialogue at some level and, also, bring in other parts of the government, where appropriate, the Defence Ministries, the Finance Ministries, the Commerce Ministries.

Now, one practical problem is who sits at the table on a giv – in a given discussion on the European side? It’s pretty evident who sits on the American side and frankly, that would have to be up to the Europeans to sort out, because you couldn’t have the Defence Ministers from 27 different countries sitting at the table when you’re talking about defence issues. And it could well be the problem that would trip up the whole effort, but we also thought that just to limit it to the Foreign Ministries talking to each other, and in that case just the External Action Service, which, as we all know, aspires to be more important than it is, would be, actually, a less successful operation.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Maybe I’ll come to you, Karen, on this question of can the EU even agree?

Dr Karen Donfried

I actually think there’s a real connection across all these three questions, right? Does – do – is a Vice Presidential Commission the right thing, should it be the US and Europe, or should it be a D-10? Should we include the other democracies and then, wait a minute, the EU can’t even decide among themselves? And we actually, at one point, got caught up on this, you know, do we need to be clear that, oh, this is US-EU co-operation, or this is US co-operation with Europe in the context of NATO, or this is the quad? And that’s why, throughout the report, you see US and Europe, because we thought the key thing is to get the ideas out there. And if there is a shared recognition on both sides of the Atlantic that we need to act on a particular policy area, let’s – then we’ll figure out how to organise it, right? So, I gave the example of on pandemics create a stockpile. Well, maybe you do that in a NATO context, ‘cause, guess what, NATO has stockpiles of weapons and we now know that a germ is as dangerous as a bullet, so maybe we need stockpiles of medical equipments. We’re not hung up on that. Let’s choose the format that is going to be most effective, and you’ll see in some places in the report we specifically do note that we should bring in other allies.

When we’re talking about China, we suggest bringing in Asian allies or the Australians, or you name it. So, this isn’t intended to be exclusive, but we do think you have to start with a core. And take an issue like China, you know, we could say, well, just forget about it, because there isn’t even agreement within the EU on China, so, how can you co-operate with Europe? Well, okay, then you read the PricewaterhouseCoopers report that says, “By 2030, AI is likely to add $15.7 trillion to global GDP and based on what we’re doing today, a disproportionate amount of that will accrue to China’s benefit.” So, US and Europe, if you guys want to be a player in that – players in that field, it is in your interest to work together. So, once we recognise the challenge, I think, then, you know, you figure out what’s the right mix of countries to actually be able to try to change whatever that existing dynamic is. Thanks.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Thank you. Ambassador Ischinger?

Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger

Well, let me simply insist on the fundamental need for a transatlantic dialogue. Now, as Bruce has already explained why, at the Vice Presidential level at – on the American side, because we thought that we need a, what we call a whole of government approach, not only, even though they are, of course, a key participant – would be key participants in such an effort, not only the Foreign Ministries, but we need, to some extent, finance, development, we need probably, also, the intelligence community to participate in these types of efforts, speaking of cyber activities, etc., etc.

So, I think the fundamental need for transatlantic co-ordination is huge and I would want to add that I think it is even very urgent, because I don’t see, at the moment, a really, a meeting of minds between what Americans believe, whether they are on the Republican side or on the Democratic side and what Europeans believe. Americans, in my view, tend to think about the relationship with China as a confrontational relationship, where, at the end of the day, in the longer-term, either China wins, or the United States wins. And if it turns out that China is about to win, then the United States, as the current superpower, would want to slow down the process of, you know, China winning. That is not at all what European elites hope will be their relationship with China. They still believe that there might be a chance for creating a level playing field. That is what the current German EU Presidency has desperately tried to put together now, because of the pandemic, this summit, which we had been planning for September, for the entire European Union to come together in Germany with the Chinese leadership to agree an investment agreement, as one pillar for a level playing field arrangement.

So, I think there is a tremendous need for transatlantic co-ordination and I think if the US were willing to consider such a Vice Presidential or other arrangement, I think the Europeans would find a way to deal with it. We could think of some rotating process where some members of the EU, together with a Commission, etc., etc., would work with the United States. So, I think that this is a problem that can be resolved.

Finally, on your initial question, Leslie, D-10, etc., the new frameworks, new formats for global co-operation beyond the classic transatlantic, NATO and EU-US relationship, what about Australia, etc., and other members of the Western community? I think that it’s very interesting to see that a number of countries, including Canada, Australia, Germany and others, have agreed to try to work together in this alliance of multilateralists. Others have proposed something that they’ve called D-10. I believe that, depending on who is going to be sitting in the White House, in the next four years, this will be a very interesting next step for the transatlantic community to figure out a way to go beyond the existing G7 framework, maybe something between G7 framework and the G20 framework, to include our Asian, you know, likeminded countries, in a collective effort, which I think the transatlantic community would desperately need, looking at the centrifugal forces that are tearing us apart in Europe and in the United States at the moment. Thank you.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Thank you. I would also note, on the proposal for China, it wasn’t on your slide, but I did see it in the report, that you call for a common strategy on human rights, a common transatlantic strategy towards China on human rights. I mean, the bar you set is incredibly high. Let’s turn to Trisha de Borchgrave and then to Richard O’Blath, if you state your questions. I’m not going to read them.

Trisha de Borchgrave

Hi, thank you so much. I think – I’m looking forward to reading the recommendations, ‘cause I think this is really a deep dive into what we can do in that kind of clever managing that has to start to happen now, and intellectually and cleverly engage with China in a way that is not, sort of, knee jerky. But I think at the heart of what I’m not quite sure about, although you’ve all, sort of, answered bits of it, is how do these – this alliance comes – the transatlantic relationship, how do they come together on business landscapes and security when we are – our existential threats are very different? Europe really does see Russia, although it’s very, very complex, as a real everyday threat, despite the Nord Stream and everything else, and sees China in a more pragmatic way. That’s not to discount human rights violations and all that, and that’s why I thought it was very interesting that perhaps the crossover is a common agreement on human rights. But how do you approach – how do these two continents, who do have a lot in common, how do they approach these two huge, huge other continents in a way that has a lot of commonality, when you have a very different view of what your existential threat is? China is an existential threat to America in a way that it isn’t to Europe. So, where do you find that commonality? Thank you.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

And let me come to Richard before you answer that. Maybe, Bruce, also, when you do answer that, you could confirm for us what the public attitudes across Europe are, compared to those of the US when it comes to China. Richard?

Richard O’Blath

Thank you, Leslie. This is aimed at Bruce, but I’d be very interested, also, in the Ambassador and Dr Donfried’s thoughts on this. Assuming there is a post-Trump world on November 4th, or December 4th, or whenever, can the Transatlantic Alliance take a leadership role in the energy transition, initially using its influence and maybe even funding to eliminate coal as a power fuel in the near future? And this is something that’s been talked about a lot, but it would require interaction of a major group, with China, India, Poland and Germany, who are the main users of coal around the world, or producers, and then, accelerate decarbonisation. And the reason for asking this is, is this a trigger to be able to make COP26, which is now a year away, another Paris, so another big step forward in trying to advance the energy transition? Thank you.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

I think, given the content of that question, I should also take Rowena Lee now, because it’s on a similar topic. Rowena, if you state your question.

Rowena Lee

Oh, I’m just hoping to ask about whether Russia and China should be in the same equation. Wonder if we are now in the same, or similar, situation as the 1960s, when the US is retreating from the global scene because of the heavy cost from the war and, so, democracy was under threat at that time. So, are we in that situation that the whole world should come together in solidarity against any ideology threats to freedom? And, also, I’m thinking that we’re thinking – we are talking about transatlantic reporting, but the focus is still on US, but US will be in chaos for some time, even after the presidential election, probably. In that case, for prolonged period of difficulties in US, should Europe be taking the lead on their own, instead? Thank you.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Thank you. I thought your question on – was on climate, but those are great questions. Let me go in reverse order. Ambassador, can I come to you first, since you were last, last time?

Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger

Well, I’ll be happy to try to respond, ‘cause I think it’s a very interesting question. What about the right ways for us to deal with the Russian challenge and the China challenge? Well, let me point out that we know, in the transatlantic community, how to deal with Russia. Russia has been the principal agenda item, you know, when NATO Ambassadors, or Ministers, or NATO summits happen. That’s been going on for, now, more than half a century and there is no reason why that should not continue to be the case. So, on Russia, we in – on the European side, consider Russia our principal security problem, including, you know, on such complex issues as nuclear security deterrents, etc. China is an entirely different issue. With Russia, or with the Former Soviet Union, neither the United States, nor Europe, has ever had intense strategic economic relationships with the Former Soviet Union or with Russia. For German companies, Russia is an interesting place to invest and do business, but it is minimal, compared to what’s going on in the transatlantic community and it is minimal, compared to what has developed with China.

So, the interesting thing about our relationship with China is that both the United States and the members of the European Union have relationships with China that are very important for us business-wise. Our companies have enormous stakes in China and that is even more true for my own country, for Germany, than it is for the United States. In other words, we cannot deal with China, we cannot even think of dealing with China in the same way that we dealt for the last half century with Russia. China is a far more complex challenge. It is a business problem, and that’s where the idea of reciprocity comes in, it is a secure – increasingly, a security challenge, certainly for the United States, beginning to dawn on Europeans that it is a security – it is a human rights challenge and it is, of course, a growing future superpower. So, that is – that creates an entirely different framework, and this is why I don’t think that we can deal with China satisfactorily, either in the NATO context, or only in the EU context. We need a, kind of, a mix of all of the above and that is why one of the ways to address this was this idea of a very high level Transatlantic Commission or working group to start co-ordinating on these complex issues that are unprecedented, really, in terms of the dimension and of the long-term nature of this China problem for all of us.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

I guess one of – yeah, and just to insert a quick comment, one of the reasons that it seems so – the Vice Presidential Commission, kind of, you know, puzzling is because if it is a – is it a – if it is a President Biden, we don’t think of Kamala Harris as the person that’s going to be doing Chi – I’m sure she could, as she’s clearly a very intelligent, highly competent person, who learns on an ongoing way, but we don’t think of her as the person who’s going to be leading…

Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger

Well…

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

…important…

Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger

…Leslie, well, Leslie, let me remind all of us that, you know, in the so-called good old days, the United States and Russia had something that they called the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission, which, sort of, ran the business, oversaw and managed the business of the relationship between Russia and the United States, with all sorts of working groups, rather impressive number of groups, at various levels, on both sides. So, the point is not whether that particular person is the world’s greatest expert on China, the question is, where would you want to create it? I think it is a good idea not to create it only as a foreign policy issue, with Foreign Ministers, even though I am, of course, a believer in the overriding importance of Foreign Ministries and Ambassadors, etc. But the truth is we need defence, we need finance, we need economics, we need the development, we need technology and a number of other government departments in this effort. This is why it should be, on the American side, somehow in the White House, to be adequately co-ordinated. And on the European side, I think the key co-ordinating mechanism needs to be located, I guess, in the office of the President of the EU Commission, or somewhere very near that particular office.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Karen, shall I come to you next, Dr Donfried?

Dr Karen Donfried

Sure, and just a very quick comment. So, we, often, when we talk about the EU, we, in the taskforce, we’re very aware of keeping the UK engaged in all these conversations, as well. So, I just wanted to be explicit about that. Let me just jump in on the China point, briefly, because I think the context here is important. The US and every European country, we have had fundamentally different relationships with China. I would argue that for European countries it was predominantly an economic relationship and China was seen as a market for European exports. The US, for a very long time, has a multifaceted relationship with China. The economic relationship is critically important, but we also have a highly developed political relationship and a security relationship. The United States has treaty allies in Asia.

So, for a long time, the approach of the US in Europe to China has been different. And what strikes me is that over the past year and a half to two years, I think European views of China have changed more substantially than they have over the past two decades. Why is that? I mean, the economic relationship is still critically important to Europe, but whereas Europeans used to see it as about being them going to China, suddenly, they’ve realised China is going West and a very clear example of that is the Belt and Road Initiative and China is going West in a way that is including China buying up European strategic assets. So, I think European attitudes towards China are changing in important ways, as well.

And I might differ a little bit from Wolfgang on, sort of, the US view of China. Yes, I think there’s a broad bipartisan consensus that the underlying belief that if China liberalised economically, that would lead to a more politically liberal China. Okay, it’d be very hard to find someone who believes that today, in, sort of, decision-making circles in Washington on either side of the aisle, but I do think that if Joe Biden were to win, he would not pursue a confrontation only relationship with China. And we’ve heard Biden speak about the fact that if you’re talking about an issue like climate or a pandemic, you have to co-operate with China. So, I do still think there are some differences on either side of the aisle. But there’s an opportunity for, if not co-operation between the US and Europe on China, certainly co-ordination.

And the immediate case study we have is 5G and Huawei, where the Trump administration came out of the gate saying, “European allies, don’t go with Huawei for your 5G networks.” And the initial response from Europe was like, “And why are we going to do what you tell us to do?” But look where we are today and look how many European countries have, for their own reasons, because of their own interests, made a decision that they’re concerned enough about a potential backdoor in Huawei technology that would allow the Chinese Government access, that they’re not going with Huawei. And the US doesn’t have a horse in this race and we’re not – we don’t have a company that can produce this, right, it’s Nokia and Ericsson who are the main competitors to Huawei. So, I think that 5G example is a really interesting one that makes clear that there are opportunities for co-operation here. So, let me just stop with that, thanks.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

So, I’m not going to travel very far down this road, but I do think that a number of my colleagues at Chatham House would say that it’s not quite as straightforward as that in the UK, that there’s been a bit of American coercion on pushing the UK in that direction. But that’s another panel, we’re going to have that panel, we’ll have you come back for that and speak on it. Bruce, I’ll come to you, and then, I want to come to Thomas Cole for the final question and then come back to the panel for final statements.

Bruce Stokes

Well, Leslie, to your point, we’re never past, actually, twisting arms in Europe if we need to, let’s be honest. Just briefly on China, attitudes towards China in Europe and the United States, they are worse than they have ever been, public attitudes. The Pew data showed that Americans have never been this disapproving of China and that in most European countries the publics have never been this disapproving.

One potential opportunity for co-operation, I think, is around human rights, because Europeans have traditionally – those who disapproved of China have been most critical of China’s human rights record, more than they are fearful of China’s economy. We don’t have immediately recent data since Hong Kong on this, so, we don’t know if – how that’s changed, but, certainly, traditionally, Europeans have been more concerned about human – China’s human rights record and among Americans, seven in ten Democrats and eight in ten Republicans say that they would be – they want “more pressure on China on human rights, even if it hurts the economic relationship.” So, I think there is a potential there to begin to try to come up with some joint approach to China on human rights. We should be very cautious here. We both remind ourselves that in the wake of Tiananmen Square, in a year or so we were both back doing business with China. So, there are limits to what we’re willing to do on human rights, but the Chinese are giving us a lot of opportunities to do things and we should take advantage of that.

On Russia, what did strike me, in doing these 150 interviews, was how few original creative ideas there were about how we both deal with Russia, that I would press people and, you know, frankly, there was no consensus and there were not – there wasn’t much thought about – people just, kind of, threw up their hands. And I think this actually reflects the fact that Putin is running the show in these relations. We don’t – we need Moscow to bring something to the table before we can reboot the relat – our joint relationship with Russia and there’s no faith that Putin is willing to do that. That – so, that’s why we recommend that Europe and the United States come up with some common set of what they need from Moscow to actually try to reboot this relationship, to see if Moscow’s willing to produce those that come forward.

And finally, on the comment about non-fossil fuels, we do recommend that we decrease and then phase out all subsidies to coal and fossil fuels. That we pressure, jointly pressure the Japanese, the Chinese and the Koreans to stop funding coalmines in other countries and that we jointly support the development of new renewable energy technologies, going forward, as a – as part of our commitment to up our commitments under the Paris Agreement. Because I think you – we do have this unique opportunity, there will be a COP and even though it’ll be difficult to come to some joint approach and to get it through our various legislatures, we need to have – if the next COP is a failure, if it’s C0penhagen and not Paris, I think that our grandchildren will rue the day.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Yes, thank you. I’m going to come to the two final questions, actually, and then come back to each of you to choose what you answer and, also, to give us your final remarks. I know that you have additional commitments, partly ‘cause Karen, you’re only partway through your day and in Germany, I’m sure that there are many fine things to do, even in the pandemic. Thomas Cole and Matthew Lowe, Thomas, if you go first.

Thomas Cole

Hi, Thomas Cole, this is a question directed Ambassador Ischinger, but indeed, for all panellists. How concerned would you be for the future of the transatlantic relationship, if President Trump were to be re-elected? And on a sidenote, if he were re-elected, how concerned would you be for the future participation of the US in NATO? Thank you.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

And Matthew?

Matthew Lowe

Thank you, Leslie. Just looking at it from a slightly different angle, for many years, even with our differences, the American people and European people could connect around shared values, shared history, as well as an understanding of mutual threats. And I think we’re at an interesting point where the US focus on China, the European focus on Russia, the distrust of Europe under President Trump, that’s not just a Washington D.C. thing, but has certainly spread to pockets of the American people, and I’d say, on the flipside, that mistrust of America and perhaps Americans amongst some Europeans, presents a wider public diplomacy challenge. I’d be curious for your thoughts on how we bring two very different populations back together as part of these broader strategic goals.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

So, I’ll come to you, Bruce, and then to Karen and then to the Ambassador to answer those, and, also, I need…

Bruce Stokes

I’ll just…

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

…quite con…

Bruce Stokes

…address the last question, ‘cause it has a lot to do with public opinion. The – over the years at Pew, when we would ask questions about, “How do you feel about the US?” or, “How do you feel about the US President?”, we’d also ask, “How do you feel about Americans?” And faith in Americans was always higher in Europe than even in the Presidency or in the US as a whole. So, that attitude towards the American people was always quite strong. Now, we did ask, in 2006, 2005, I’m sorry, “Now that the American people have re-elected George Bush, how do you think about the American people?” And, actually, support for the American people went down in Europe. It’ll be interesting to see, if Donald Trump is re-elected and if that question is asked again, how it may affect Europeans’ attitudes towards the American people.

The – that other question about, kind of, America’s image and public diplomacy and I think is a crucial issue that we have to all wrestle with. The granular interactions of our people are fraying, for totally understandable reasons. We now live in a global world, a global community. If you think about the world and you’re young, you think about Asia, you think about Africa, you don’t necessarily only think about Europe. And – whereas, for my generation, if you thought about the world, which most Americans didn’t, Europe was what we thought about and you – that’s where you studied, that’s where you travelled, or whatever. And this – that’s changed, and it will never go back to being what it was, for travel reasons and connectivity reasons.

But we need to find a way to increase the granular familiarity with our – between our two peoples, especially in the younger generation. And I’ve had conversations, actually, with the European External Action Service about, as many of the Europeans know, the European University Exchange Programme, Erasmus, is what many people consider to be the most, single most successful thing the European Union has ever done, in terms of knitting together the society of Europe. Do we need a Transatlantic Erasmus Programme? Do we need a way in which – because there are more Americans studying in Europe than ever before, but it’s a smaller percentage of the Americans who actually study abroad. And while more Americans travel to Europe, it’s for one week, it’s for two weeks, it’s not the kind of granular interaction that I think you need, among allies, if you’re going to, kind of, root this relationship in the body politic. So – but that’s a challenge lying ahead.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Thank you, Bruce. Karen?

Dr Karen Donfried

So, I think in terms of public attitudes and how citizens can find their way back to a healthier transatlantic relationship, I do think it matters what we do together and if there are shared projects that we’re working on, that’s very powerful. And, you know, to pick up the 5G point, if the perception in the UK is well, it really isn’t in the U – in Britain’s interest to not go with Huawei, this is just hard knuckled US pressure, that’s unhealthy. So, I do think what we do together and how we decide on those policies is really important to that broader public opinion.

I also think that the kind of exchange programmes we’ve had over decades, that in some cases really have fallen off, matter. You know, you think about Erasmus, as Bruce mentioned, in a European context, I’ll give a plug for GMS Fellowship Programme, the Marshall Memorial Fellowship, where we brought – bring young professional Europeans to the US and send young professional Americans here. And it is really striking the profound impact those kinds of programmes have on the participants and I want to say that it’s also important in a European context. I’ve been struck that some of our European Fellows say, “Oh,” you know, “I’m French and I had never met a Serb or a Ukrainian until I travelled on the Marshall Memorial Fellowship.” So, I think that some of these people, the people exchanges, have suffered from austerity programmes across all of our governments and I think we underfund those programmes at our own peril. So, that’s what I would say on that, and I’ll just leave the Trump II question for Ambassador Ischinger.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Before we turn to the Ambassador, I think I’m duty bound to say, of course, that the Marshall Scholars is a tremendous gift from the British Government to American students who come and it remains – I’m a Marshall Commissioner, it remains very strong. And they’re here, even in the middle of the pandemic, they’re here and they’ve turned up and it really is a phenomenal gift from – it’s a thank you, as we know, but it…

Bruce Stokes

Before…

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

You are very important.

Bruce Stokes

…Wolfgang answers, I just want to reiterate something that Karen said. It’s that at the end of the day, the underlying motivation, or value, or un – you know, kind of, knock-on consequence of what we’re suggesting in this report is grounded in what Karen said, is that relationships stay together when you have things to do together. And what we are suggesting are a series of things to do together, not because the relationship is that important, but because we got to solve these problems and the only way to do that is to work together. But by doing that, we believe, firmly, that we can give the relationship a broader and deeper and newer purpose, which will then rebound, I think, to the benefit of the relationship in general. But it’s got to be about solving problems that both of our peoples now face.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Thank you, and Ambassador?

Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger

Thank you. Three very quick points. I would not have ever had the idea of going into international diplomacy, if I had not been on the receiving end of the privilege of being invited to spend a year as a high school kid in the United States and, later on, with a Fulbright Grant, spending another year or two at very important American universities. That has really given my professional life direction and I could not agree more with what Karen and Bruce have said, we need more of that, not less, more of that in the future. And, of course, the pandemic has created a huge unnecessary and unhelpful gap in these types of programmes for the moment, so, we need to try to catch up later.

Second point, the title of this report that we’ve been discussing for the last hour is Together or Alone? And our response to this question, Together or alone? is we can deal with these dramatic historic challenges, whether it’s Russia or China, or technology, or climate, or terrorism, or whatever, better if we try to do it together.

Third point, the last point, on the question that was raised a few minutes ago, what would, in my view, happen if Donald Trump gets himself re-elected in two weeks’ time? Well, I would say no reason to panic, no reason to panic. It is not true that the transatlantic relationship was a, kind of, paradise for the last 50 years and only through the four years of Donald Trump have we had difficult problems. We had difficult problems before, and I remember some of those. I remember 250,000 Germans demonstrating against new American nuclear weapons to be stationed in Germany in the early 1980s, etc., etc., etc. So, the idea that this is just a passing phenomenon and we would be re-entering paradise, is, of course, wrong. What I think we would want to do, and we should try to do on – we, on the European side, if President Trump were to get re-elected, we should remember that our relationship with the United States is not simply only a relationship with the White House, it is a relationship with, actually, the United States, which is not a central – one central government, there are 50 states. California, for example, if it were a member of the European Union, would be among the three or four most important, economically speaking, most important members of the European Union. And we can talk to the Governor of California all day long about climate change and carbon – reducing carbon emissions, etc.

So, my recommendation would – for Europe, would be engage, engage, engage with the Congress, with Senators, with the Governors, with members of the House of Representatives, with civil society, with the academic community and, most importantly, with the business community because European and American businesses are really joined at the hip. Germans alone have created almost a million jobs in the United States and American companies, large ones and old ones and new ones, have created almost exactly the same number of jobs, just in Germany alone. And if you add the American Presidents in the Netherlands, in Italy, in France, of course, in the UK, you find out that this is really the core of our relationship and this is a very, very strong core. So, I’m not desperate, I would – I think we can survive any kind of challenge, but we need to try to recreate some level of trust for our leadership, for our leaders to be able to work together and our taskforce report is our effort, our little effort to make that a little easier for our leaders, regardless of which ones are going to be elected in two weeks’ time. Thank you.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

You’re very humble to say your ‘little’ report, it’s quite a remarkable and quite an undertaking. I highly recommend that everybody take a very careful look at it, there’s a lot in there. I want to thank you all, not only for sharing your thoughts with us, but especially for doing the hard work of putting this together. I especially liked the last remark, “Engage, engage, engage,” and I would say even, or especially if the election goes in the direction that was suggested it could, it becomes all the more important, because it’s multi-layered, it’s multifaceted. And as with every relationship, as Bruce has said, you’ve got to have something to do and there’s going to be a lot to do, one way or the other, so – and certainly the other way.

Thank you so much from all of us at Chatham House. Thank you, Karen, it was so nice to see you, such an honour. Bruce, we’ll carry on our work together and Ambassador, thank you so much. So, thanks to all of you for turning up, as well, tonight, and we will see you again soon.

Bruce Stokes

Thanks again.

Dr Karen Donfried

Thank you so much to Chatham House and to you.

Bruce Stokes

Thanks a lot.

Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger

Thank you, hmmm, thank you.

Bruce Stokes

Bye, bye.

Dr Karen Donfried

Thank you, bye.

Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger

And thanks to Chatham House.