This panel will explore the EU-US Relations in the Trump era. Firstly, Andrew Gawthorpe will give a talk. This talk analyzes the motivations which underlay the Trump administration’s foreign policy towards Europe in his second term from three perspectives: security, economics, and cultural/racial. In doing so it examines how the notion of the United States as a liberal superpower no longer makes sense, and we must now understand U.S. foreign policy as profoundly influenced by illiberal tendencies.

Andrew Gawthorpe is an expert on U.S politics and foreign policy at Leiden University. A historian by training, his current work is interdisciplinary, drawing on the fields of international relations and American politics. He currently leads a Vidi-funded project on U.S. foreign policy and liberalism. He was formerly a research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and a civil servant in the UK Cabinet Office.

The second speaker is Dr. Giles Scott-Smith. This talk will focus on the “US-European Relations: The End of the Transatlantic Era.” The talk will take a historical view of US support for, scepticism of, and hostility to European integration. It will focus on current European efforts to develop its own defence capabilities.

Giles Scott-Smith is Professor of Transnational Relations and New Diplomatic History at Leiden University. His research and teaching covers transatlantic relations during the 20^th century, Cold War history, and public diplomacy. He is currently also the Dean of Leiden University College in the Hague and a founding editor of Diplomatica: A Journal of Diplomacy and Society.