Public Domain via pxhere
Climate, Economic Security, and the Global Trading System
Speakers:
Keynote: Denis Redonnet, Deputy Director-General and Chief Trade Enforcement Officer, Directorate General for Trade and Economic Security, European Commission
Frances Burwell, Managing Director and Head of Research, McLarty Associates
Julia Friedlander, CEO, Atlantik-Brücke
Jacob Kirkegaard, Senior Fellow, Bruegel
Bryant Trick, former Assistant United States Trade Representative for Europe and the Middle East
Moderator:
Peter S. Rashish, Vice President and Director, Geoeconomics Program, AGI
Disruptions to the international economic order are leading the United States and the European Union to a long-term focus on efforts to prevent trade and investment relationships from becoming a source of geoeconomic vulnerability. In this era of increasing competition and fragmentation, there would be benefits for climate action if it were integrated into a broader economic security framework. Among the questions this webinar will examine are:
- How can the United States and the European Union spearhead a cooperative strategy on climate and economic security that can attract other like-minded countries?
- What role can the World Trade Organization play to advance a twin climate and economic security agenda, and would its rules need to be reformed to do so?
- Drawing on the Global Arrangement for Sustainable Steel and Aluminum (GASSA) and other efforts, what new regulations, agreements, or institutions may be needed to govern cooperative climate action in an era dominated by economic security?
Denis Redonnet is an economist by training and started his career as a corporate banker for a French bank in the city of London. Since 1995 he has been a career European Commission official, having held positions in the monetary, international economic affairs, and internal market directorate generals of the EU Executive. He served as advisor to EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy and a deputy chief of staff to EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson. Afterward, he headed the WTO division and then the Strategy division in the Directorate General for Trade in the European Commission. Between 2015 and 2020 he acted as Director for “WTO, Legal Affairs, and Trade in Goods” in DG Trade in the European Commission. Since 2020, he has served as the Deputy Director-General and Chief Trade Enforcement Officer in the Directorate General for Trade in the European Commission.
Frances G. Burwell is Managing Director and Head of Research at McLarty Associates, where she advises clients on the European Union and US-EU relations. From 2008-2016, she served as the Atlantic Council’s Vice President for European Union and Special Initiatives and Director of Transatlantic Programs and Studies. She previously led the Program on Transatlantic Relations and was also a leading initiator and organizer of the Wroclaw Global Forum in Poland, the Council’s flagship European conference. She is currently a Distinguished Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Future Europe Initiative and a member of the Advisory Board of Allied for Startups. Prior to her time at the Atlantic Council, she was the Executive Director of the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland and the founding Executive Director of Women in International Security (WIIS) at the Center for International and Security Studies.
Julia Friedlander has been CEO of Atlantik-Brücke since June 1, 2022. Previously, she was a C. Boyden Gray Senior Fellow and Director of the Economic Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. She is an expert on transatlantic economic relations, EU economic policy, and financial regulation and sanctions. She served as an advisor at the U.S. Treasury Department and the White House, among other positions and lived in Germany for two years on a DAAD scholarship.
Jacob Funk Kirkegaard is a Senior Fellow at Bruegel. He specializes in international economics, defense industrial policy, demographics, immigration, labour markets and foreign direct investment. His research also covers structural reform issues, European economies and services trade. He is also a Non-resident Senior Fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), and Head of European research with 22V Research in New York. Previously, he was a Senior Fellow with the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). He has also worked with the Danish Ministry of Defense, NATO, the United Nations in Iraq, and in the private financial sector.
Bryant Trick served as the Assistant United States Trade Representative (AUSTR) for Europe and the Middle East between 2023 and September 2026. Prior to this assignment, he served for 15 years at USTR as a Deputy Assistant United States Trade Representative (DAUSTR), as DAUSTR for Korea in the Office of Japan, Korea, and APEC Affairs, and as DAUSTR for Market Access in the Office of Small Business, Market Access, and Industrial Competitiveness. Prior to joining USTR, Bryant worked for almost 12 years as a Foreign Service officer with the Department of State and U.S. Embassies abroad, including as Deputy Director of the Office of Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein Affairs, senior trade policy officer at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, environment and science policy officer at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, and working on human rights, democracy, and rule of law issues in the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv.
This event is supported by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation.
