Episode 78: Transatlantic Trade Cooperation for the Future—A Conversation with Dan Mullaney

Jeffrey Rathke

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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jrathke@aicgs.org

L. Daniel Mullaney

Former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Europe and the Middle East

Dan Mullaney served as Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Europe and the Middle East at the Office of the United States Trade Representative since 2010. As head of USTR’s Europe and Middle East office, he was responsible for developing and implementing U.S. trade policy with Europe, including the European Union, Eurasia, including Russia, and the Middle East/North Africa.

Mr. Mullaney served from 2006 to 2010 as USTR’s Senior Trade Representative in the United States Mission to the European Union in Brussels, Belgium, representing the United States in all aspects of U.S. trade policy at the various institutions of the European Union and the broader Brussels trade policy community. Before becoming Senior Trade Representative in Brussels, Mr. Mullaney served for seven years in USTR’s Office of General Counsel, where he led various negotiations and acted as legal counsel for free trade and other agreements and represented the United States in dispute settlement proceedings at the World Trade Organization.

Prior to joining USTR in 1999, Mr. Mullaney was a partner in the law firm of Dorsey and Whitney, specializing in international trade law.

Mr. Mullaney is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio. He earned a B.A. degree from Amherst College in 1979, and a joint law/foreign service masters degree from Georgetown University in 1984. He is married and has two children.

Peter S. Rashish

Vice President; Director, Geoeconomics Program

Peter S. Rashish, who counts over 25 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, and has held positions as Executive Vice President of the European Institute, on the Paris-based staff of the International Energy Agency, and as a consultant to the World Bank, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Atlantic Council, the Bertelsmann Foundation, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

Mr. Rashish has testified on the euro zone and U.S.-European economic relations 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 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 M.Phil. in international relations from Oxford University. He speaks French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

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prashish@aicgs.org


Dan Mullaney, Former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Europe and the Middle East, is our guest for this episode of The Zeitgeist. Together with AGI President Jeff Rathke and Peter Rashish, AGI Vice President and Geoeconomics Program Director, they discuss the current trade policy agenda and the role of closer U.S.-EU cooperation in shaping a sustainable, future-oriented global trading system. Has recent experience with the covid-19 pandemic and increasing strategic competition fundamentally changed the U.S. and European approach to globalized trade? What role should the United States play in reforming the WTO and enabling the organization to better deal with issues such as non-market economic practices and climate policy? Is friendshoring about picking trade partners based on political and ideological preferences or incentivizing practices that are crucial to assembling resilient supply chains? Can the United States and the EU find a way to avoid trade frictions arising from their respective climate policies and reconcile them with existing WTO rules? How important is it for the United States to strengthen bilateral cooperation with EU member states, especially its largest economy Germany, to address common trade-related challenges?


Host

Jeff Rathke, President, AGI

Guest

Dan Mullaney, Former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Europe and the Middle East
Peter Rashish, AGI Vice President; Director, Geoeconomics Program

The views expressed are those of the author(s) alone. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the American-German Institute.