Organizer: Council on Foreign Relations; ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute
Type/Location: Virtual
Description:
Soon after taking office in January 2025, the second Trump Administration began rolling out a series of significant tariff and other trade actions. What are the goals of the new administration’s trade policies, what are their likely effects on the global economy and trading system, and how should U.S. trading partners in Southeast Asia respond?
Mr Matthew Goodman and Dr Inu Manak from the Council on Foreign Relations will present their analysis and perspectives on the current US trade policy and economic engagement in Southeast Asia. A four-member panel will discuss the presentations and offer their insights.
About the Speakers:
Matthew P. Goodman is distinguished fellow and director of the Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He leads RealEcon: Reimagining American Economic Leadership, a CFR initiative that explores the U.S. role in the international economy. Prior to joining CFR, Mr Goodman was senior vice president for economics and Simon chair in political economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He has also served as director for international economics on the National Security Council staff, working on the G-20, APEC, and other presidential summits. Before joining the White House, he was senior adviser to the undersecretary for economic affairs at the U.S. Department of State. He has also worked at the Albright Stonebridge Group, Goldman Sachs, and served as U.S. Treasury attaché in Tokyo.
Dr. Inu Manak is a Fellow for Trade Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), focusing on U.S. trade policy and the law and politics of the World Trade Organization. In 2021, she published The Development Dimension: Special and Differential Treatment in Trade with James Bacchus. Dr Manak was previously Research Fellow at the Cato Institute’s Herbert A. Stiefel Centre for Trade Policy Studies and Junior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Trade and Economic Integration at the Graduate Institute in Geneva.
Mr. Stephen Olson is Visiting Senior Fellow for the Regional Economic Studies Programme at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. He is a recognised expert on international trade, economic, and business issues. Olson is currently a Visiting Lecturer and Non-Resident Fellow at the Clayton Yeutter Institute of International Trade and Finance. Olson is a member of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Futures Council (GFC) on Trade, and co-leads a joint workstream with the WEF GFC on Geopolitics. Olson is also an adjunct professor at the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government and lectures in Beijing at the Capital University of Economics and Business as part of a joint program.
Dr. Deborah Elms is Head of Trade Policy at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore. She serves on the board of the Trade and Investment Negotiation Adviser (TINA) at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia Pacific (UNESCAP). Prior to joining the Foundation, she was the Executive Director and Founder of the Asian Trade Centre (ATC). She was also President of the Asia Business Trade Association (ABTA) and the Board Director of the Asian Trade Centre Foundation (ATCF). She was also previously on the International Advisory Council for APCO (2021-2023), as a member of the International Technical Advisory Committee of the Global Trade Professionals Alliance and Chair of the Working Group on Trade Policy and Law. She was head of the Temasek Foundation Centre for Trade & Negotiations (TFCTN) and Senior Fellow of International Political Economy at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Prof. Henry Gao is Professor of Law at the Singapore Management University (SMU) and Senior Fellow at CIGI. With law degrees from three continents, he started his career as the first Chinese lawyer at the WTO Secretariat. He has been an advisor on trade issues for many national governments as well as the WTO, UN, World Bank, ADB, APEC, ASEAN and the World Economic Forum. Widely published on China and WTO and digital trade issues, he sits on the Advisory Board of the WTO Chairs Program and the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law, as well as the editorial boards of the Journal of International Economic Law and Journal of Financial Regulation.
Dr. Jayant Menon joined the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute in 2020 as Senior Fellow to continue his work on trade and development in the Asian region, following a long career at the ADB. His last post at the ADB was Lead Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist. He began as an academic in Australia, spending almost a decade at the Centre of Policy Studies at Monash University, one of the leading centres for computable general equilibrium modelling. He has also worked at the University of Melbourne, Victoria University, the American University in Washington, DC and the ADB Institute in Tokyo. He has served as a Board Director of CDRI, Cambodia, and on the Advisory Board of the University of Nottingham, Malaysia. He holds adjunct appointments with the Australian National University, University of Nottingham, UK and IDEAS, Malaysia. He has authored/edited 15 books, 40 chapters in books and 80 articles in peer-reviewed journals.
Registration Link:
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