Enter Trump
Julianne Smith
U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO
Ambassador Julianne Smith assumed her position as the U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO in November 2021. Prior to her current position, she served as a Senior Advisor to Secretary Blinken at the Department of State.
Previously, she served as the Director of the Asia and Geopolitics Programs at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
From 2014 – 2018, she served as the Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). From 2012-2013, she served as the Acting National Security Advisor and Deputy National Security Advisor to the Vice President of the United States. Before her post at the White House, she served for three years as the Principal Director for European and NATO Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon. In January 2012, she was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service.
Prior to her government service, Ambassador Smith held a variety of positions
at research institutions including the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the German Marshall Fund, the American Academy in Berlin, and the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in Berlin. She has written extensively on transatlantic relations and European security.
Ms. Smith is a recipient of the Richard von Weizsäcker Fellowship at the Bosch Academy in Berlin and the Fredin Memorial Scholarship for study at the Sorbonne in Paris. A native of Michigan, she received her B.A. from Xavier University and her M.A. from American University. She spent a year learning German at the University of Munich. In 2017, she received the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
I’ll admit it. I did not expect to be writing a piece with this title. Like so many on both sides of the Atlantic, I did not expect Donald Trump to win on November 8. But he did. So now committed Atlanticists need to get to work and start sketching out a common transatlantic agenda for the Trump administration. That will not be easy, especially since the term “transatlantic agenda for Trump” sometimes feels like an oxymoron. Can there be a transatlantic agenda for a US president who, during the election campaign, called into question the utility of the NATO alliance, expressed an admiration for President Vladimir Putin’s leadership style, promised to get rid of trade deals like TPP and TTIP, and said he would dismantle the Iran nuclear deal – one of the shining achievements of the transatlantic partners in recent years? Yes, but it probably will not resemble the one we would have pursued had the election gone the other way.
This article originally appeared in the Berlin Policy Journal on January 10, 2017. Continue reading here.
