ALI Convenes All Day Event: Meeting the Challenges of a New World Disorder

ALI convened its first day-long roundtable with leaders from around the country to talk about the top challenges to U.S. leadership, values, and democracy. Members of Congress, along with leaders from business, civil society, academia, and local government, had a candid and nuanced discussion on China; trade and industrial policy; democracy; climate change; and digital governance. Senator Kaine, together with Representatives Casten, Houlahan, Larsen, and Schneider shared their perspectives during the day’s discussions.

Participants recognized that strengthening our own domestic posture and shoring up relationships with our allies were two key pillars to addressing the challenges of a new world disorder, and that the U.S. can no longer ignore its own backyard, or risk losing Latin America to China.

On China, we need more pragmatism and nuance, as the U.S. is in uncharted territory, without a model for economic engagement with a strategic competitor that is also a national security threat. On trade and industrial policy, the ideas of worker-centric trade and the importance of supporting key industries have moved to center stage. The U.S. needs to both address issues of social safety net for workers while adapting trade agreements to address key issues of concern to labor and climate. We must onshore and friend shore key technologies, while we seek to negotiate new agreements that offer alternatives to China’s approach.

On climate change, participants wrestled with questions of subsidies in energy markets and how those should be integrated into our trade policy while maintaining collaboration with our allies. Participants praised the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as an overdue piece of legislation to equip the U.S. to expedite its move into green technologies. Participants emphasized the urgency of the moment for U.S. leadership in global technology policy, despite being behind in passing digital governance legislation at home.

Finally, we agreed on the critical importance of America’s leadership in shoring up global democracy as the underpinning to addressing the larger issues discussed during the day.

 For more information about joining conversations like these with the ALI community, please contact us at info@american-leadership.org.

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