GeoEconomics Center

At the intersection of economics, finance, and foreign policy, the GeoEconomics Center is a translation hub with the goal of helping shape a better global economic future.

Content

Report

Nov 28, 2017

Forging a New Era in US-South African Relations

By Anthony Carroll

As one of the African continent’s largest and most sophisticated economies, South Africa offers a myriad of opportunities for engagement with the United States on diplomatic, commercial, security, and social fronts. It is a self-sufficient, complex, and dynamic country in a struggling, complex, and dynamic region. Yet, the centrality of South Africa to the United […]

Africa
Corruption

Issue Brief

Sep 7, 2017

Capturing the African consumer market

By Aleksandra W. Gadzala

For America’s consumer goods companies, the latest shifts in African consumer trends hold much promise. Africa’s population is growing at an outstanding rate and spending by consumers and businesses on the continent is forecast to grow significantly over the next decade. However, US investors often oversimplify and misunderstand African markets, which remain highly segmented, fluid, […]

Africa
East Africa

Issue Brief

Sep 7, 2017

Capturing the African consumer market

By Aleksandra W. Gadzala

For America’s consumer goods companies, the latest shifts in African consumer trends hold much promise. Africa’s population is growing at an outstanding rate and spending by consumers and businesses on the continent is forecast to grow significantly over the next decade.

Africa
East Africa

Defense Industrialist

Jul 31, 2017

Maybe not so rare after all

By James Hasik

As the long term prognosis for the rare-earths business shows, the administration should move carefully in “strengthening supply chain resiliency.” On 21 July, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on “assessing and strengthening the manufacturing and defense industrial base and supply chain resiliency of the United States.” Within 270 days, the departments of defense, commerce, […]

China
Defense Industry

Defense Industrialist

Jun 15, 2017

Is imported aluminum a threat to American national security?

By James Hasik

Indeed, price is the point. Whether by Chinese mercantilism or Canadian hydropower, the price of raw aluminum in the US has dropped about 20 percent in the past four years, benefiting American producers of automobiles, aircraft, and those trendy-again beer cans. So how is that not good?

Defense Industry
Economy & Business

Defense Industrialist

Jun 7, 2017

What’s the real effect of America First on the arms trade?

By James Hasik

Volvo’s sale of Renault Trucks Defense won’t be a test of anything. The report in Defense News this week on how “Three bidders emerge in battle to buy Renault Trucks Defense” contains a prediction of just who won’t win that auction. For some time, Volvo has been aiming to sell RTD, and bids are now in from […]

Defense Industry
Economy & Business

Defense Industrialist

May 10, 2017

Is imported steel a threat to American national security?

By James Hasik

It hasn’t been, it isn’t now, and it probably won’t be in the future. Last month, President Donald Trump promulgated a memorandum on “Steel Imports and Threats to National Security,” directing Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to consider whether “steel is being imported into the United States in such quantities or under such circumstances as to […]

Defense Industry
Economy & Business

AfricaSource

Jan 9, 2017

Africa’s economic prospects in 2017: Ten countries to watch

By J. Peter Pham

The continued failure of commodity prices to recover significantly and the global slowdown of economic growth, especially in China and other emerging markets, made 2016 a tumultuous year for many African economies, indeed, “the worst year for average economic growth” in the region in over twenty years, according to a report from Ernst & Young. […]

Africa
Angola

Report

Dec 7, 2016

Eritrea’s economy: Ideology and opportunity

By Seth Kaplan

Eritrea is often in the news for all the wrong reasons: its high rates of migration to Europe (it has sent more refugees to Europe in recent years than any other African nation), its conflicts with neighboring Ethiopia and Djibouti, and controversy over its mandatory and indefinite national service conscription program. Human rights activists, in […]

Africa
East Africa

Defense Industrialist

Dec 6, 2016

Innovation before scale

By Steve Grundman, James Hasik

A better business model for transnational armaments cooperation The Royal United Services Institution has just published in RUSI Journal (vol. 161, no. 5, October–November 2016) the latest long essay of the Defense Industrialist project of the Atlantic Council. The abstract encapsulates our argument:     The traditional business model of transnational cooperation in armaments development and production is not […]

Defense Industry
Economy & Business

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