Transatlantic Trade and Investment Event 2024
AmCham Luxembourg CEO Paul Schonenberg comments:
Rebuilding our collective economic strength and building a better world together as friends and partners:
Rebuilding our collective economic strength and building a better world together as friends and partners:
As Luxembourg (and indeed Europe, the USA and the free world!) move forward with renewed strength and vigor in the currently challenging world, the ongoing economic, political, military and cultural partnership which has existed between Europe and the USA will be the most critical component. Think about the facts:
- The majority of Americans move forward with genetic heritage, language and cultural traditions derived from ancestors who immigrated from Europe to America. On this basis, Americans and Europeans share common ancestry, heritage, traditions and beliefs. We are family who to a very large degree feel common bonds of experiences, thoughts and values. We have more in common with each other than we have with the rest of the world. All of this commonality serves as glue to hold us together, helps both sides to understand the other and creates ties that bind.
- The military alliance of NATO is the strongest military alliance on the planet with Canada and the USA on one side of the Atlantic Ocean and Europe on the other side. This alliance has kept the peace within Europe since the end of the second world war and has protected Europe from external aggression so its citizens have been able to live with prosperity. The USA pays for 80% of this defense and has more than proven itself as a major contributor to the defense and freedom of Europe. The USA has asked Europe to contribute more and this is a fair request which it appears Europe is taking corrective steps to arrange.
- In like manner, the strongest economic concentration of power on our planet is the historic economic partnership which exists jointly between Europe and the United States. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment alliance constitutes the largest and most important market on the planet embracing 16 million jobs, half of global personal consumption, almost 40% of Global Domestic production, and over 6 trillion Euro in commercial sales. The largest group of investors in the United States are European-based companies while the largest group of investors in Europe come from the United States of America.
The bottom line is that the USA and Europe are inextricably tied together in a way which helps each side be more economically, militarily and politically strong and successful than would be the case if each side tried to go it alone or to do so with other partners. Both sides profit from this, both at the level of the nation states and also at the level of individual people and families.
On both sides of the Atlantic, business federations, government and military establishments understand that our collective security and strength guarantee our freedom and way of life. In recent years, to further global prosperity both the USA and Europe have looked to expand trade and investment with China, India, Africa, south America and other countries. Yet, with the passing of each year we find that the biggest allocation of new investments has remained between Europe and the USA, averaging approximately 60% of all total new investments being allocated between these long term partners in both directions.
For over 20 years the Federation of AmChams in Europe have each year produced an annual analysis of this Transatlantic trade and investment relationship. AmCham Luxembourg, because we realize that Luxembourg is highly dependent of free and reciprocal international trade, is one of the five AmChams in Europe who fund this annual study.
