Securing a free and open world: A US-EU blueprint to counter China and Russia
Introduction
The Indo-Pacific region is now the fulcrum for economic and security concerns. However, American interests span the globe, and its adversaries China and Russia are seeking to thwart them across the Indo-Pacific and the Atlantic and in between. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s parting admonition in 1961 about a strong America echoes in the present: “The most influential and the most productive nation in the world” faced a formidable challenge—”global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method.”
A strong strategy to make America great points to making common cause with proven alliances to force multiply US resources in repulsing adversarial actions. In particular, the United States needs to fortify and connect its European and Asian alliances to better counter both China and the Russian Federation on both ends of the Europe-Asia landmass. The US-European alliance has prevailed over two world wars and the Cold War, and shared burden in Iraq and Afghanistan. History and foresight call for the United States to strengthen the transatlantic alliance as it directs greater attention to the Indo-Pacific region.
The transatlantic alliance, with all its oversights and shortcomings, has been a force for world peace and prosperity over the last seven decades—and it needs to cohere as China and Russia engage in a concerted effort to disrupt the rules governing international relations. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to challenge American interests from the Arctic to the Antarctic and has strengthened its ties with Russia, Iran, and North Korea to weaken both American and European interests and values across the globe. Consequently, it is in the interest of the United States and its European allies, even amid differences of opinion, to double down on their proven partnership to forge a coordinated response against shared adversaries.
The CCP’s push to dominate manufacturing at every level of the global value chain represents a serious and growing economic threat to American and European free market interests. The sheer scale of China’s excess capacities threatens to undermine manufacturing and economic progress in both Europe and the United States, causing deindustrialization-level trauma to our industries—“China shocks.” At the same time, China seeks to build a technological edge in key emerging technologies, ranging from new energy technologies and robotics to quantum computing and artificial intelligence (AI).
Militarily, China’s material support to Russia has enabled Moscow to sustain its land war in Europe. The growing Sino-Russian defense cooperation may also provide valuable lessons and support to Beijing should it initiate a military conflict in the Indo-Pacific region. Against this background, the United States and Europe need a new shared agenda to counter Chinese economic mercantilism and strengthen transatlantic defense production and military capabilities to maintain an edge over the China-Russia military nexus. Aligning on a shared strategy to combat Sino-Russian convergence will serve the interests of both the United States and the European Union (EU) and help to preserve transatlantic security and prosperity.
With the world’s two largest economies and the highest levels of integration, the United States and the EU enhance their economic strength when aligned. The transatlantic integrated investment landscape boasts a total annual value in excess of $8.7 trillion—with more than $4 trillion of US investment in Europe and more than $3.4 trillion of European investment in the United States. The combined technological and industrial base remains strong in both traditional manufacturing—despite emerging threats from China—and in the development of new technologies including AI. As the largest and most innovative economic grouping in the world, the transatlantic economies should be harnessed to the transatlantic allies’ collective advantage against the shared global adversaries and rivals determined to drive a wedge between them.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen—amid political turmoil in leading European capitals (with the exception of Rome)—appears both to comprehend the gravity of threats arrayed against transatlantic interests and to commit to stronger relations with the United States. Her views on China, Russia, and Israel are arguably more like-minded to traditional US views than any other European leader. In Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, she has an able emissary capable of forging a defining US-EU partnership, with significant respect garnered in Washington through her prior role as prime minister of Estonia. President-elect Trump and von der Leyen have a generational opportunity to cement the US-EU economic partnership on a par with that of NATO to constitute redoubtable twin pillars—economic and military—of a forward-looking transatlantic alliance.
This paper explores how the United States and EU can best meet this moment through enhanced strategic partnership. For a start, that partnership should focus on five reinforcing lines of effort representing a high convergence of national interests and comparative advantage. These include defense industrial production; energy security and transition; sectoral economic agreements; digital economy and advanced technology; and infrastructure and connectivity. Collectively, these five lines of effort will advance shared American and European interests in connecting free and open spaces around the globe—constricting the operational space of their adversaries to carry out their malign activities.
Transatlantic defense industrial capacity and capabilities
A just and swift resolution of Russia’s war on Ukraine that leaves Europe and NATO more resilient, resolute, and strong represents the highest of transatlantic priorities. While NATO members deliberate collective military capabilities and readiness as well as their coordinated support of Ukraine, the EU has a critical complementary role to play during and after the cessation of hostilities. Through its power of the purse and its ability to mesh the civilian and military dimensions of European preparedness, the EU is poised to play a transformative role in buttressing NATO capacities and commitments with overlapping benefits to defense and civil sectors of the economy. Both NATO and EU leaders have made clear that the goal is now to spend more and spend better. Where appropriate, institutional investments by the United States and the United Kingdom can complement the European efforts outlined below.
To complement NATO strategic posture along four broad lines of effort, the European Commission can:
- Contribute to NATO demand outlays: First and foremost, the Commission can work with EU members of NATO to meet the $34 billion demand outlays represented in the recent NATO planning strategy. It may direct the commissioner for defense (a recently established role) to work with EU members of NATO for a coordinated approach to augment their present national defense investment commitments, which will be all the more important if plans proceed for NATO to raise the target from 2 percent of respective gross domestic product (GDP) to 3 percent or beyond in the near future. The commissioner is already mandated to produce a white paper within one hundred days to frame a new approach for the future of European defense, which will “identify investment needs to deliver full-spectrum European defence capabilities based on joint investments” to help member states to prepare for the “most extreme military contingencies.” The EU has a distinct comparative advantage in undertaking such continent-wide investments augmenting individual actions by NATO members.
- Establish European security corridors: While work on military mobility corridors is already underway, EU investments directed at infrastructure connectivity and cohesion in Eastern Europe should be augmented to meet the dual needs of force mobilization and economic integration. NATO’s forward deployment posture necessitates efficient road and rail networks along its eastern front to expeditiously mobilize and move military assets from Finland to Romania. It also requires multiple transport corridors to the NATO front from the nearest strategic ports to ensure resilience and redundancy. A road-rail-energy-digital corridor from Constanta-Odessa on the Black Sea to Gdansk on the Baltic Sea connecting Casneau, Bucharest, Lviv, and Warsaw may hold the highest transformative defense, economic, and political impacts. Similar corridors from Trieste on the Adriatic to Gdansk and Constanta, respectively, would further magnify the defense and economic dividends across Eastern Europe. Additionally, the Danube River Transport Corridor may be prioritized as one of the primary European economic and security thoroughfares supporting NATO’s most vulnerable southeastern front along the Black Sea.
- Commit to a transatlantic defense industrial base: The Ukraine conflict has unveiled the urgent need for transatlantic defense production to move into high gear to prepare for existing and probable future conflicts. The prospect of sustained higher defense spending in Europe provides the economic motivation needed to rebuild this industrial base. American and European defense industries are stepping up to the plate, but much more needs be done. Four areas of priority and pragmatism (not precluding others) stand out for immediate transatlantic joint investment and codevelopment:
- Munitions readiness and supply: Russia’s war in Ukraine has laid bare transatlantic munitions reserves to sustain or support an extended land war. This deficiency requires urgent remediation to not only ensure that future NATO needs are addressed but to contribute to projected needs in the Indo-Pacific theater as well. As US and EU leaders take initiatives to secure and expand ammunition production capacities on both sides of the Atlantic, they should seize opportunities to build in coinvestment and codevelopment, particularly for long-range precision artillery. The EU’s defense industrial ambitions, building off the Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP) to increase ammunition production and including the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP), should be quickly adopted and substantially expanded.
- Air shield and next-generation interceptors: The conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have highlighted the need for a cutting-edge air-defense shield to withstand sustained and overwhelming drone and missile attacks. Coinvestment and codevelopment in such air-defense mechanisms and next-gen interceptors to protect Europe should be among the highest priorities to strengthen.
- Undersea critical infrastructure security: Sabotage of natural gas pipelines and digital cables in the Baltic Sea and elsewhere have alerted transatlantic allies to the urgency of deploying a resilient security net to protect ever-important subsea infrastructure—particularly across the Atlantic, Mediterranean, North, Baltic, and Black seas. These challenges are mirrored in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly in the South China Sea. Unmanned submersibles will play a pronounced role in subsea infrastructure security and present a significant opportunity for transatlantic coordination and codevelopment.
- A Free North: Arctic-Nordic-Baltic security capabilities and readiness: Increased China-Russia activities and coordination in the fast-changing Arctic region have raised concern from Alaska to Finland. A shared commitment to a Free North by allied Arctic, Nordic, and Baltic nations to develop the requisite capabilities—with particular attention to ice cutters, submarines, and air force assets, among others—is highly warranted and ripe for enhanced investment and development.
- Cosponsor future European troops preserving peace in Ukraine: It is possible that a resolution of the Russian war on Ukraine will require the presence of a European force to preserve the peace. Given the global commitments of the United States and increasing demands in the Indo-Pacific region, it is appropriate for Europe to muster the peacekeeping force along its eastern flank. NATO involvement and specifically US backup support will remain integral and indispensable in support of any such future European peacekeeping force. The EU may offer valuable financial and political support to such a European coalition of the willing. Improved NATO-EU collaboration will also be necessary to ensure properly aligned transatlantic support for Ukraine into the medium to long term.
Energy security and transition
Energy independence and resilience are imperative for transatlantic prosperity and security. Affordable access to energy is critical for economic competitiveness in the global marketplace, and energy security is a necessary condition for a credible transition to cleaner sources. Thanks to US innovation, North America has emerged as one of the world’s most important sources of oil and gas, enabling Europe to find alternatives to Russian energy after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A relapse of European reliance on cheap Russian energy following cessation of Russian hostilities in Ukraine would be grossly negligent and require preparatory actions to deter future follies. And with nuclear, geothermal, hydrogen, wind, and solar energy poised to play increasingly important roles in meeting energy demand in the years ahead, there is no reason for the United States and Europe to become dependent on countries like China and Russia for critical inputs. We think it is the interests of both the United States and the EU to strive for close coordination to buttress transatlantic energy resilience and security. They should aim for substantial market share and comparative advantages over shared adversaries in old and new energy sources and technologies.
We envision four reinforcing lines of effort in such a US-EU energy security and transition pact:
- Natural gas: Increased transatlantic coordination and investment is warranted to ensure greater American supply of natural gas to Europe at competitive and reasonable costs. This entails a US commitment of requisite supply to ensure European energy security and a corollary European commitment to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminals with appropriate repurposed and new pipeline networks to receive US natural gas imports.
- Nuclear energy: It would be imprudent to cede the nuclear energy industry to the purview of adversaries and rivals such as China and Russia. Transatlantic coordination and codevelopment of nuclear facilities and technologies should ensue, with particular attention to the development of small modular reactors (SMRs) and micro reactors. The United States and Europe enjoy a comparative edge over China and Russia in technology and market application for SMRs and micro reactors and can press their advantage. Smaller nuclear applications are being tested for a range of systems from space stations and data centers to container ships, among others.
- Renewables: The United States and Europe must regain ground lost to China in global markets and supply chains for renewable energy equipment and manufacturing. Solar and wind energy represent growing portions in local energy portfolios across the world. Representatives of the once-thriving European wind-energy sector, for instance, have warned that it is unlikely to survive in the face of unfair Chinese competition. The US renewable industry is in a similar bind.
- Future energy technology: The United States and Europe need to enhance their coordinated research and investment in developing future energy technology including fusion, hydrogen, and other areas where the US National Laboratories are engaged in pathbreaking research.
Sectoral economic agreements
Washington and Brussels increasingly face a shared set of economic challenges: revitalizing manufacturing in the face of predatory Chinese competition; protecting the integrity of technology and supply chains; and generating strong economic growth. A recent EU-commissioned report written by Mario Draghi highlighted the need for European strategic investments to address regulatory barriers to bolster its competitiveness.
As the global economy becomes more stratified along geopolitical lines, common sense and national interests will likely encourage the United States and Europe to coordinate their economic security measures for critical sectors of the world’s largest integrated economy. This engagement probably will involve a combination of derisking and targeted decoupling from economic systems that pose threats to transatlantic security and prosperity. As critical sectors such as semiconductors, steel and aluminum, critical minerals, and pharmaceuticals are of significant political and industry interest on both sides of the Atlantic, there is a need to come to a collective understanding.
Sectoral agreements offer rich opportunities for negotiations, usually providing many possible permutations and combinations to choose from, with scope for trade-offs across respective industrial priorities, and a means of aligning a wide range of tools to achieve targeted effects. They may constitute enhanced coordination across a mix of offensive and defensive measures to address China shocks and enhance collective economic security such as aligning industry standards, strengthening mutual access to one another’s procurement markets and subsidies, joint and coordinated investments and trade, coordinated application of tariffs, quotas, qualitative standards (cyber, data, labor rights, transparency), and other economic security tools (export controls, research security, secure supply chain rules). Additional complementarity is desirable in rules governing inbound and outbound investment screening in critical sectors as well as execution of broader export controls approaches.
Transatlantic coordination in the application of such tools in third-country markets is critical. Significant coordination on economic forensics on issues such as circumvention, transnational subsidies, and lengthening supply chains will be necessary as Chinese firms seek more creative ways to circumvent US and European efforts to protect their markets. From Central America to Southeast Asia, there is a real risk that poorly designed or coordinated transatlantic decoupling, derisking, and diversifying efforts may just result in more convoluted and veiled dependencies on China and its allies.
Any “defensive” agenda can be coupled with a positive offer to advance sectoral cooperation with other key partners, given that many of the production needs for a diversified and trustworthy supply chain will not be entirely located in the United States and Europe. This will require close alignment of development financing tools in areas such as digital infrastructure, as well as a wider use of sector-specific economic deals—such as those involving critical raw materials.
The United States and the EU have several options for the preferred forum in which to situate their sectoral agreements. It may be most expeditious to initiate them as bilateral arrangements that can later be expanded to include the Group of Seven and other member states of the Organization for Economic Co-ordination and Development (G7+).
Sectoral agreements hold high promise for advancing collective transatlantic interests and represent both a recognition of the inherent integrated nature of the transatlantic economies and an attempt to fortify critical sectors.
Digital economy and advanced technology standards
With AI and other technological advances poised to fundamentally transform business, government, education, and consumption, the United States and Europe both have a strategic interest in maintaining their individual and collective technical edge over their adversaries—while creating a joint regulatory environment that promotes Western technological development. The size of the transatlantic economy and the number of world-leading academic institutions and technology firms on both sides of the Atlantic are strategic advantages. Over the past several decades, the United States and Europe have been able to set rules and standards of economic interactions across the globe that prioritize transparency, accountability, individual liberty, and dignity. These transatlantic interests and values need to be equally and perhaps more urgently reflected in fast-evolving technologies like AI. The United States and Europe have an opportunity to coordinate to ensure they maintain a technical advantage over their adversaries and rivals and safeguard their ability to establish rules and standards for the future digital economy.
The ability to promote transatlantic interests and values in emerging digital technologies is fundamental to both US and European military defense capabilities, economic innovation, and global influence. Efforts must be intensified where progress is being made on transatlantic coordination in future technologies such as:
- Artificial intelligence: On January 27, 2023, the United States and the EU signed an administrative arrangement to collaborate on research using AI, computing, and privacy-related technologies. The AI convention signed in Washington, Brussels, London, and elsewhere sends a strong signal for future collaboration, though there is much ground to cover to align US and EU regulations on AI.
- Quantum computing: With recent breakthroughs in the United States and unconfirmed news of Chinese progress, it is in Europe’s interest to shift its low-key coordination with its transatlantic ally in this field into the high gear.
- Biotech: China holds a slight edge over the United States and Europe in this field due to its sustained commitment and its significant investment in the sector. Europe boasts more biotech foundries than the United States, which makes it in Washington’s interest to engage with due haste with Europe and to include Japan, India, Israel, and the UK in forging a committed coalition to coordinate on biotech research, development, and manufacturing.
In addition to promoting new technologies, Washington and Brussels need to work together to protect the integrity of key existing communications and internet-connected technologies. The US government has recently imposed limits on Chinese telecommunications equipment, internet-connected vehicles, and other products. Meanwhile, the European Commission is considering developing standards for trusted suppliers of information communications technology (ICT) products. There is both a need and an opportunity for the transatlantic allies to facilitate, promote, and protect against existing technologies that rapidly reshape the global economic landscape including:
- Space, cloud communications, and connectivity: American companies dominate global trusted cloud connectivity fueled by data centers connected by subsea fiber-optic cables. US-based Starlink and Blue Origin networks of low-orbit satellites are revolutionizing internet connectivity for areas once deemed remote. Cloud connectivity backed by satellite networks is ushering in a new era of global communications. The United States and Europe should coordinate in pressing their advantage against adversaries in global communication.
- Electric vehicles and battery capacities: China enjoys early-mover advantage in electric car-battery technologies including the sourcing and processing of critical minerals. Coordinated US-Europe actions on market access and research and development are needed to not only protect transatlantic domestic markets but also prevent China from establishing dominance over the global EV market.
It is prudent for the United States and the EU to contextualize and subordinate their bilateral digital disagreements to their shared strategic objective of maintaining a collective technical edge over rivals and adversaries—not ceding any advantage to China or its allies. It is time to change the US-EU digital narrative from discord on digital regulations to shared rulemaking and standard setting for over-the-horizon technologies and digital governance. Through an updated and upgraded format of policy dialogue, US and EU policymakers can cement and advance Western leadership in the digital and tech spheres.
Infrastructure and connectivity
The United States and Europe have a generational opportunity to make common cause to promote and advance “free and open” spaces to serve the interests of the transatlantic community and nations around the globe. Throughout the twentieth century, the United States and Europe astounded the world through their accomplishments in connecting continents with awe-inspiring infrastructure. In the twenty-first century, when it comes to addressing the world’s seemingly insatiable demand for digital and physical connectivity, they appear to be playing catch up to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The G7’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure Investments (PGII), led by the United States, and Europe’s Global Gateway initiative have thus far lacked in strategic coherence or impact and should be strengthened as a matter of urgency.
The free and open vision articulated by the Quad nations (India, Japan, Australia, and the United States) offers support to preserve the freedom of the seas, respect for territorial integrity including sovereign states’ respective jurisdictions over internal waters, territorial seas, contiguous zones, and exclusive economic zones, as well as safeguarding maritime infrastructure (including shipping ports, undersea cables and pipelines, oil and gas drilling and production operations) and maritime industries including fisheries. Additionally, free and open nations foster transparent investment and commerce respecting the rule of law and national sovereignty. In this sense, the free and open vision is applicable across all “commons” including space, air, maritime surface and subsurface, land, and cyberspace.
Connecting free and open spaces offers an organizing framework and strategic drive to the American and European efforts to promote quality infrastructure. Free and open spaces support increased security, expand regional stability, and promote economic growth. In particular, the greater the expansion of free and open spaces as paths of connectivity across the Eurasian landmass, the fewer opportunities for the disruptive and destabilizing behavior of Russia, Iran, and China to take root.
Several economic corridors are reemerging from Europe in all directions, promoting transport, supply chains, economic engagement, energy, and digital connectivity. Each one holds intrinsic value, but if woven together, they can transform and propel the EU economy and its larger neighborhood while also reinvigorating historic Indo-European trade and commerce. These corridors also offer attractive opportunities for US institutional investors. If developed to their full potential, they hold the promise of transforming the global landscape in a more economically sound and sustainable manner than the BRI. Five of these corridors stand out among the others for US-EU coordinated investment and support:
- Free North: Changing weather patterns and increasing adversarial activities around the Arctic present an unprecedented opportunity for enhanced and expeditious coordination among the United States, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, and the Nordic and Baltic regions for improved connectivity, advancing economic commerce and security networks across the High North.
- Coordinated connectivity across the Baltic, Black, and Adriatic seas: From Estonia to Greece, thirteen Eastern European nations have come together to advance transport, energy, and digital infrastructure across the region via the Three Seas Initiative. Greater engagement by Ukraine and Italy would lend additional economic heft to the enterprise. There are strong economic and military imperatives to promote a modern infrastructure network across the region to both advance NATO readiness and mobilization capabilities and further integrate Ukraine into the European Union.
- Free and open Black Sea: It should be a transatlantic priority to enhance the capacity of the littoral states along the Black Sea to protect infrastructure, ensure freedom of commercial transit, counter adversarial actions to restrict access, and develop energy and maritime infrastructure. Additionally, the Danube River’s transport capabilities need to be optimally developed to ensure unfettered European water access to the Black Sea.
- The Central Asia-Caucasus-Europe corridor: New leadership and energy at the heart of Central Asia is reinvigorating the region and its ambitions to establish strong digital and physical connections through Caucasus with Europe and beyond. Central Asia presents a large and valuable source of energy and critical minerals for the transatlantic community.
- The India-Middle East-Europe economic corridor: At the 2023 G-20 Summit, the United States, the EU, Italy, Germany, France, India, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates agreed to raise Indo-Mediterranean trade to new heights. From the classic Greek and Roman era to the eighteencentury, India had driven Indo-Mediterranean commerce as one of the largest economies of the world. A rising, modern India and the rapidly transforming Gulf nations are once again driving the next chapter of Indo-Mediterranean trade, linking the Indo-Pacific to the Med-Atlantic.
A transatlantic coordinated initiative to link free and open spaces from the Arctic to the Indo-Pacific region would energize the European economy, expand investment and market opportunities for American industry, strengthen transatlantic security, and convey the image of a muscular transatlantic alliance and solidarity across the globe. The driving force needs to be private-sector capital and investment, in coordination with diplomatic and political engagement that eschews traditional foreign aid and development assistance in favor of more innovative, dynamic, and responsive public-private partnerships. This necessitates seamless coordination, interoperable procurement, and risk-mitigating procedures across American and European development finance institutions. On the American front, reauthorizing legislation for the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and the Export Import Bank of the United States in 2025 may facilitate greater flexibility in partnering with European counterparts.
A way forward
The partnership between Washington and Brussels, while more recent in nature, has the potential to advance both American and European interests. However, it lacks the resilience of institutional familiarity and solidarity that Washington has enjoyed with the leading capitals of Europe—forged in the twentieth century through World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.
The twenty-first century geopolitical landscape calls for a more robust, more ambitious Washington- Brussels alliance of fitting scope, buttressed by expeditious institutional coordination and trust in cooperation. Chinese predatory economic activities antithetical to transatlantic economic interests act as a strong catalyst, revealing the urgent need for closer economic coordination between the United States and the EU. Effective structural arrangements for greater coordination and understanding is urgently warranted to counter shared threats posed by China and Russia.
The experience of the US-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC), conceptualized during the first Trump administration and established during the Biden administration, is instructive in building more robust arrangements for coordination. American and European officials should consider broadening the coordination mechanisms to include more relevant agencies on both sides.
Optimally, the TTC should be elevated and expanded to become the US-EU Strategic Council with regular biannual leaders’ meetings accompanied by a “4+4” ministerial meeting including the US State, Defense, Treasury, and Commerce departments (plus the Office of the US Trade Representative, as appropriate) and their European Commission counterparts. Importantly, the major impetus of these meetings should be directed at closer coordination on world matters, in addition to smoothening bilateral matters. Under Trump, there may also be a greater opportunity to negotiate binding commitments, as he achieved with Japan during his first term.
The US Congress and the European Parliament may also similarly consider expanding the scope of their ongoing engagement, addressing pressing issues affecting collective national interests not just at the political level but across specialized committees including foreign affairs, technology, trade, finance, commerce, homeland security, and more. In the immediate future, the transatlantic community may consider establishing dedicated working groups to develop modalities for enhanced transatlantic coordination along the five lines of effort mentioned above.
The growing coordination and solidarity of the China-Russia nexus presents a necessary impetus for a reinvigorated, forward-looking transatlantic alliance with strong defense and economic pillars. The time is now for the United States and the EU to anchor the transatlantic alliance’s economic pillar—which spans energy, technology, infrastructure, and other core economic interests—to complement NATO on defense. The fortitude and resiliency of the future transatlantic alliance and its capacity to prevail over shared adversaries and rivals will depend, in no small measure, on the strength of the US-EU alliance.
This paper is informed by the US-EU Strategic Dialogue convened by the Atlantic Council in Brussels and Washington. The views represented are those of the authors, with special acknowledgment of the able assistance of Emma Nix, an assistant director at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.
About the authors
Kaush Arha is the president of the Free & Open Indo-Pacific Forum and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub and the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue.
Peter Harrell is a nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Jörn Fleck is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.
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Image: US President Donald Trump attends a bilateral meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen during the 50th World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 21, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst