Reports & Papers

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has for years held a prominent position in the global infrastructure investment space. In the absence of similarly far-reaching projects coordinated by other countries including the transatlantic partners, important questions about the BRI’s implications for Europe and America arise. Given U.S.-China competition pulling the EU in two directions and opposing approaches among member states vis-à-vis China amid a globally growing infrastructure investment gap, the need for a liberally motivated large-scale infrastructure investment approach is clear. This alternative model of advancing economic development goals stands in opposition to the BRI’s approach of creating economic dependence on China through massive recipient country debt thereby increasing Chinese geopolitical power. 

Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) convened a strategy group of experts and former government officials from the United States and Europe over the past year to discuss the crisis in the transatlantic relationship and to propose a strategy to revive and strengthen it.

This policy brief emphasizes that the European Green Deal's effectiveness in a post Covid-19 world will require the involvement of strategic partners, especially the US. In the context of a potential US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the consequential vacuum, it will be even more important to engage the US in implementing the GD. In light of divergence between the US and the EU during past climate negotiations (e.g. Kyoto, Copenhagen, and Paris), we suggest a gradual approach to US engagement with GD initiatives and objectives.