There are a number of important issues on the transatlantic agenda. And, yet the relevance of the partnership between the United States and Germany has been called into question in recent years. From defense spending and the proposed U.S. military drawdown, to transatlantic trade and investment, to relations with other countries such as China and Russia, the German-American relationship has been charged. With the German presidency of the European Council, what can we expect for the transatlantic relationship in the months and years to come?
Join us on Tuesday, August 11 at 11:00 am ET for an online discussion about the evolving German-American relationship with Congressman Rob Bishop (R-UT), Senior Member of House Committee on Armed Services, and Bundestag Member Dr. Tobias Lindner (Die Grüne), Spokesman for Security Policy, Chairman of the Defense Committee. The event will be moderated by Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, Executive Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project and Executive Director of The Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship at the Harvard Kennedy School and Co-Director of the ACG’s Eric M. Warburg Chapter in Boston.
This event is being held as part of WunderbarTogetherUSA 2020, a comprehensive and collaborative initiative funded by the Germany Federal Foreign Office and implemented together with the Goethe-Institut.
A public school teacher turned public servant, Rob Bishop represents Utah’s First Congressional District in the U.S. Congress. Congressman Bishop is a life-long resident of the First District, with the exception of two years he spent in Germany while serving a mission for the LDS Church. He was born and raised in Kaysville, Utah. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Utah with a degree in Political Science. He started teaching at Box Elder High School (BEHS) in Brigham City in 1974. From 1980 through 1985 he taught German and coached debate at Ben Lomond High School in Ogden, Utah, before returning to BEHS. Before retiring in December of 2002, he taught advanced placement courses in government and U.S. History, while serving as the Chair of the History Department at BEHS. Now in his ninth term in the House, Congressman Bishop serves as Ranking Member of the House Committee on Natural Resources and as a Senior Member of House Committee on Armed Services where he sits on the Readiness Subcommittee and the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee.
Since 2011, Dr. Tobias Lindner has served as Member of the Bundestag, representing Südpfalz. He currently serves as Spokesman for Security Policy, Chairman of the Defense Committee, Member of the Budget Committee, Deputy Chairman of the Audit Committee, Chairman of the Green Regional Group Rhineland-Pfalz. He joined the Green Party in 1998, later serving as Party chairman of Germersheim County and the City of Wörth am Rhein. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT).
Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook is a German and American national and the founding Executive Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), which examines the challenges to negotiation and statecraft in the 21st century. In January 2018, she was named Executive Director of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship. From 2011-2017, she served as the Executive Director of the India and South Asia Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at HKS, a program which ended formal activities in 2018. Her areas of expertise include EU-US relations – including trade and security policy – and digital public policy in urban and national contexts
