The White House via Flickr
Transatlantic Cooperation in the Next U.S. Administration
Alice C. Hill
Council on Foreign Relations
Alice C. Hill is an expert on building resilience to catastrophic risks. She previously served as Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and Senior Director for Resilience Policy on the National Security Council staff where she led the development of national policy, including executive orders related to natural disasters, national security, and climate change. Prior to this, Hill served as senior counselor to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). At DHS, she led the formulation of the department’s first-ever climate adaptation plan and the development of strategic plans regarding catastrophic biological and chemical threats, including pandemics. Hill currently serves as the David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment at the Council on Foreign Relations and was a Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. She is the author of The Fight for Climate After COVID-19 and co-author of Building a Resilient Tomorrow. She currently serves on the boards of the Environmental Defense Fund and Munich Re Group’s U.S.-based companies. In 2020, Yale University and the Op-Ed Project awarded her the Public Voices Fellowship on the Climate Crisis. Earlier in her career, Hill was a supervising judge on both the Los Angeles Municipal and Superior Courts as well as a federal prosecutor and chief of the white-collar crime unit at the United States Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, California.
Jeff Rathke
President of AGI
Jeffrey Rathke is the President of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.
Prior to joining AICGS, Jeff was a senior fellow and deputy director of the Europe Program at CSIS, where his work focused on transatlantic relations and U.S. security and defense policy. Jeff joined CSIS in 2015 from the State Department, after a 24-year career as a Foreign Service Officer, dedicated primarily to U.S. relations with Europe. He was director of the State Department Press Office from 2014 to 2015, briefing the State Department press corps and managing the Department's engagement with U.S. print and electronic media. Jeff led the political section of the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur from 2011 to 2014. Prior to that, he was deputy chief of staff to the NATO Secretary General in Brussels. He also served in Berlin as minister-counselor for political affairs (2006–2009), his second tour of duty in Germany. His Washington assignments have included deputy director of the Office of European Security and Political Affairs and duty officer in the White House Situation Room and State Department Operations Center.
Mr. Rathke was a Weinberg Fellow at Princeton University (2003–2004), winning the Master’s in Public Policy Prize. He also served at U.S. Embassies in Dublin, Moscow, and Riga, which he helped open after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mr. Rathke has been awarded national honors by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as several State Department awards. He holds an M.P.P. degree from Princeton University and B.A. and B.S. degrees from Cornell University. He speaks German, Russian, and Latvian.
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Melissa K. Griffith
Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
Dr. Melissa K. Griffith is a Lecturer in Technology and National Security at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), affiliated faculty with the Alperovitch Institute at Johns Hopkins SAIS, and a Non-Resident Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity (CLTC). From cybersecurity to tech security, Griffith works at the intersection between technology, national security, and economic statecraft with a specialization in cybersecurity, semiconductors, and machine learning/artificial intelligence. Prior to joining Johns Hopkins SAIS, she was the Director of Emerging Technology and National Security and a Senior Program Associate with the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Science and Technology Innovation Program (STIP); a Pre-Doctoral Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC); a Visiting Scholar at George Washington University's Institute for International Science and Technology Policy (IISTP); a Visiting Research Fellow at the Research Institute on the Finnish Economy (ETLA) in Helsinki, Finland; and a Visiting Researcher at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Brussels, Belgium. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. in International Relations from Agnes Scott College. For additional information (including a comprehensive list of publications, prior positions and affiliations, presentations and public appearances, and teaching experience) please visit www.melissakgriffith.com.
She was a 2018-2019 participant in AGI’s project “A German-American Dialogue of the Next Generation: Global Responsibility, Joint Engagement,” sponsored by the Transatlantik-Programm der Bundesrepublik Deutschland aus Mitteln des European Recovery Program (ERP) des Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWi).
Peter S. Rashish
Vice President; Director, Geoeconomics Program
Peter S. Rashish, who counts over 30 years of experience counseling corporations, think tanks, foundations, and international organizations on transatlantic trade and economic strategy, is Vice President and Director of the Geoeconomics Program at AICGS. He also writes The Wider Atlantic blog.
Mr. Rashish has served as Vice President for Europe and Eurasia at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he spearheaded the Chamber’s advocacy ahead of the launch of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Previously, Mr. Rashish was a Senior Advisor for Europe at McLarty Associates, Executive Vice President of the European Institute, and a staff member and consultant at the International Energy Agency, the World Bank, UNCTAD, the Atlantic Council, the Bertelsmann Foundation, and the German Marshall Fund.
Mr. Rashish has testified before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade and the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia and has advised three U.S. presidential campaigns. He has been a featured speaker at the Munich Security Conference, the Aspen Ideas Festival, and the Salzburg Global Seminar and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Jean Monnet Institute in Paris and a Senior Advisor to the European Policy Centre in Brussels. His commentaries have been published in The New York Times, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and The National Interest, and he has appeared on PBS, CNBC, CNN, and NPR.
He earned a BA from Harvard College and an MPhil in international relations from Oxford University. He speaks French, German, Italian, and Spanish.
Stephen F. Szabo
Senior Fellow
Dr. Stephen F. Szabo is a Senior Fellow at AICGS, where he focuses on German foreign and security policies and the new German role in Europe and beyond. Until 2017, he was the Executive Director of the Transatlantic Academy, a Washington, DC, based forum for research and dialogue between scholars, policy experts, and authors from both sides of the Atlantic. Prior to joining the German Marshall Fund in 2007, Dr. Szabo was Interim Dean and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and taught European Studies at The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He served as Professor of National Security Affairs at the National War College, National Defense University (1982-1990). He received his PhD in Political Science from Georgetown University and has been a fellow with the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the American Academy in Berlin, as well as serving as Research Director at AICGS. In addition to SAIS, he has taught at the Hertie School of Governance, Georgetown University, George Washington University, and the University of Virginia. He has published widely on European and German politics and foreign policies, including. The Successor Generation: International Perspectives of Postwar Europeans, The Diplomacy of German Unification, Parting Ways: The Crisis in the German-American Relationship, and Germany, Russia and the Rise of Geo-Economics.
Yixiang Xu
China Fellow; Program Officer, Geoeconomics
Yixiang Xu is the China Fellow and Program Officer, Geoeconomics at AGI, leading the Institute’s work on U.S. and German relations with China. He has written extensively on Sino-EU and Sino-German relations, transatlantic cooperation on China policy, Sino-U.S. great power competition, China's Belt-and-Road Initiative and its implications for Germany and the U.S., Chinese engagement in Central and Eastern Europe, foreign investment screening, EU and U.S. strategies for global infrastructure investment, 5G supply chain and infrastructure security, and the future of Artificial Intelligence. His written contributions have been published by institutes including The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, The United States Institute of Peace, and The Asia Society's Center for U.S.-China Relations. He has spoken on China's role in transatlantic relations at various seminars and international conferences in China, Germany, and the U.S.
Mr. Xu received his MA in International Political Economy from The Josef Korbel School of International Studies at The University of Denver and his BA in Linguistics and Classics from The University of Pittsburgh. He is an alumnus of the Bucerius Summer School on Global Governance, the Global Bridges European-American Young Leaders Conference, and the Brussels Forum's Young Professionals Summit. Mr. Xu also studied in China, Germany, Israel, Italy, and the UK and speaks Mandarin Chinese, German, and Russian.
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The next U.S. president will be confronted with a plethora of global challenges: war in Europe, a disordered trading system, growing geopolitical competition and a more assertive China, disruptive new technologies, and the existential threat of climate change. Tackling these challenges requires cooperation with allies and partners, and as one of the world’s largest economies, a NATO ally, and a democratic partner, Germany remains indispensable to the United States in advancing our shared values and interests.
In 2020, this Institute published “Enduring Partnership,” which emphasized the durability of the German-American partnership despite the stresses it experienced during the Trump presidency and policy disagreements that arose well before under previous administrations. Although transatlantic engagement has been a pillar of the Biden administration’s foreign policy, the transatlantic relationship has continued to transform with the world around it.
We recognize that the differences between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump in many areas could not be greater. Those are not a matter of political style, but deep differences with regard to the rule of law, domestic economic policy, social policy, and much more that is beyond the scope of this report but which makes this one of the most consequential elections in memory. There remain nevertheless core U.S. interests that the next president will wish to advance once in the White House. In this report, AGI presents recommendations on pressing issues that the next administration will face, and how the United States can work with its closest partners such as Germany and Europe to achieve its goals. We seek in this report, wherever possible, to identify approaches and options that could be adapted to either election outcome, though we acknowledge where gaps appear unbridgeable and the courses of a Trump or a Harris administration would inevitably diverge. Regardless, our authors find crucial opportunities for the transatlantic partnership and the relationship with Germany.
The areas for cooperation are many:
- The transatlantic security alliance must not only raise its ambition, but more effectively coordinate. Jeff Rathke suggests how the United States and Europe can work together to maximize investments to ensure European security.
- Russia, not only through its war in Ukraine, has established itself as a threat to European security and Western democracy. Dr. Stephen Szabo highlights where Germany and the United States can promote peace in Ukraine and counter Russia’s growing hybrid threats.
- Peter Rashish points out that our economies are in a state of transformation, and it is time for states to rethink assumptions and reform institutions. A Trump or Harris administration would take different paths, but each can make choices to pursue solutions with allies.
- Our planet is warming and there is an urgent need for climate action. While a Harris administration would lead on international climate initiatives and a Trump administration would dial them back, Alice Hill identifies opportunities for transatlantic partnerships on climate no matter the outcome of the election.
- Artificial intelligence will be essential to future national competitiveness and security. Dr. Melissa Griffith shows the importance of developing secure, scalable, and sustainable computing to ensure a reliable AI infrastructure.
- The United States must maintain its advantage in critical and emerging technologies. Yixiang Xu explores how a transatlantic technology alliance can manage strategic competition with China and expand domestic reindustrialization.
This report primarily offers recommendations to the new American administration, but we also highlight ways that European partners may think about a new administration pulled in many different directions. It will be especially important for Germany to manage the fractiousness in its coalition politics and engage the new administration effectively before the federal elections in 2025.
For seventy-five years, Germany and the United States have been partners, rooted in their values and vision for a democratic and prosperous global order. We hope these recommendations help policymakers to continue to engage across the Atlantic to address the shared and evolving challenges of the twenty-first century.
This publication is supported by the AGI Foreign & Security Policy and Geoeconomics Programs.
