The Future of Keeping China Out—Implications for the U.S. and Canada

As Washington reshapes its approach to economic competition with China, the effects reach well beyond U.S. borders. Canada, closely tied to the American economy yet increasingly focused on diversifying its own trade and investment relationships, faces difficult choices about how far to align with U.S. policy and where to chart its own course.

 

Join us on Monday, October 5, when Professor Peter Cowhey examines how U.S. policy decisions are shaping Canada's evolving strategy for foreign economic relations. He will explore what the current direction of American policy may mean for both countries, and what it could mean for the future of North American economic cooperation.

 

 

 

Peter Cowhey is Dean Emeritus and Qualcomm Professor of Communications and Technology Policy Emeritus at the School of Global Policy and Strategy. He is also the former director of the University of California’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) and has held several senior leadership positions at UC San Diego. He currently serves as a senior fellow at UC San Diego’s Cowhey Center on Global Transformation and at IGCC. His scholarship covers the international political economy of trade and investment issues, technology policy and the politics of American foreign policy decision-making.

 

 

 

Cowhey served as a senior government official for technology and trade issues in the Clinton and Obama administrations. In the Clinton administration, he led international policy for the Federal Communications Commission as it reset competition rules in the global telecommunications market to align with the emerging internet era, leading a sweeping World Trade Organization agreement in 1997. In the Obama administration, he served as senior counselor to the U.S. Trade Representative, with a special emphasis on forging new trade initiatives ranging from technology markets to global service industries and expanding trade opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises. He also served as the U.S. co-chair of the binational U.S.-China Joint Commission on Innovation Policy.

 

 

 

Cowhey is currently a member of the U.S. Pacific Economic Cooperation Council, the U.S. advisory group to APEC. He has also chaired bipartisan working groups on U.S. technology policy regarding China's growing capabilities and U.S. regulation of Chinese investment. In the nonprofit sector, he serves as vice chair of the board of the San Diego Natural History Museum and is chair emeritus of the boards of the California Council on Science and Technology and Grameen Foundation USA.