- Daniel S. Hamilton,
- Natalia Gavrilița,
A widening divide threatens to crack the very foundation of the transatlantic relationship. This cleavage is not between the United States and Europe, it is between transatlantic liberals and illiberals. European and American partisans each identify more with their soulmates on the other side of the Atlantic than with their political opponents at home. U.S. president Donald Trump personifies this divide, but these divisions did not begin with him and will not end when he leaves office.
Where did these divisions come from? How have U.S. illiberals and liberals shaped European debates? How have they been influenced by European thinkers and practitioners? What should we understand about transatlantic illiberal-liberal divisions? How are they recasting transatlantic relations and the role of the U.S. and Europe in the world? How are they likely to shape future relations?
For the first event in our new series, the Robert Bosch Academy Lectures, we welcome Dan Hamilton to explore the origins and consequences of this divide.
Following his lecture, Natalia Gavrilița will join him for a one-on-one conversation to reflect on the evening's guiding question: What should we understand about transatlantic illiberal-liberal divisions?
Following the conversation, we invite you to a reception to continue the discussion.
About Robert Bosch Academy Lectures
Academy Lectures are a new event series from the Robert Bosch Academy that provides a space for those shaping public life to step back and sit with the questions shaping the future.
About the speakers
Daniel S. Hamilton is a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow, the President of the Transatlantic Leadership Network, and a Senior nonresident Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Previously, he was the founding director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University (SAIS). A former senior U.S. diplomat, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and was the first Robert Bosch Foundation Senior Diplomatic Fellow in the German Foreign Office.
Natalia Gavrilița served as Moldova’s Prime Minister from 2021-2023 and is a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow. She is the director of the think-tank Partnerships for New Economy and serves on the Supervisory Board of Moldova's National Bank and a number of advisory and expert councils, including the ECFR, the Academic Council of the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, and the European Center for Economic Security, Technology, and Resilience (ECESTR). As Prime Minister, she guided Moldova through crises spurred by the war in Ukraine and secured Moldova’s status as an EU candidate.
Grzegorz Nocko, Director of the Robert Bosch Academy, will provide opening remarks.