Tremors in the transatlantic relationship during Donald Trump’s second presidential term: Taking stock and looking ahead

Ambassador (ret) Deborah A. McCarthy is a non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

She is an expert on U.S. foreign and national security policy. Most recently, she was the U.S. negotiator to the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on Cybercrime (2022-2025) leading U.S diplomatic efforts with allies and partners which successfully concluded a new global UN Cybercrime Convention. Just prior, she was a Fellow at Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative (2020-2022) focusing on cyber and technology and was the host and producer of the podcast series “The General and the Ambassador”.

In a long diplomatic career, she served as Ambassador to Lithuania (2013-2016), Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs, Deputy Chief of Mission in Athens, Greece, Special Coordinator for Venezuela, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Consul General in Montreal, Deputy Chief of Mission in Nicaragua and Economic Counselor in Paris. Other postings include Rome, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Amb. McCarthy is a member of the American College of National Security Leaders and the American Academy of Diplomacy. She is on the Advisory Board of the Masters Program of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and is a Senior Editor for the Harvard Social Impact Review.

Amb. McCarthy holds a M.S. in Foreign Service and a M.A. in Economics from Georgetown University and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Virginia.

Rachel Tausendfreund has been a senior research fellow at DGAP since September 2024. Before joining DGAP Tausendfreund was a senior fellow with the geostrategy team of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. From 2015 to 2022 she was also GMF’s editorial director, overseeing the organization’s research output and publication planning. She co-created GMF’s Out of Order podcast.

Tausendfreund researches and writes on US security, domestic, and foreign policy, German foreign policy, and transatlantic relations, as well as relations between the West and pivotal powers of the Global South. She is a regular commentator in German, US, and European media, including in outlets such as NBC News, Bloomberg, NPR, Der Spiegel, Tagesspiegel, and Deutsche Welle.

She was a visiting senior fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs from August to November 2022 and was editorial director at the European Council on Foreign Relations from 2014 to 2015. Tausendfreund is a proud Michigander and extended board member at WIIS (Women In International Security).

Ville Sinkkonen is Leading Researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Center on US Politics and Power. He also holds the Title of Docent in International Politics at the University of Turku. His research focuses on US foreign policy, great-power politics, the changing international order, normative power and the politics of trust in international relations.

Sinkkonen has published in various peer-reviewed academic journals, including the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, the Journal of Transatlantic Studies and the European Foreign Affairs Review. Sinkkonen has co-edited the volume Competing Visions for International Order: Challenges for a Shared Direction in an Age of Global Contestation(Palgrave, 2026) and is the author of A Comparative Appraisal of Normative Power: The European Union, the United States and the January 25th, 2011 Revolution in Egypt (Brill, 2015).

Sinkkonen holds an LL.D. (International Law) from the University of Turku, where he defended his doctoral dissertation Failing hegemony? Four essays on the global engagement of the United States of America in the 21st Century in December 2020.

Sinkkonen was the chairperson of the Finnish International Studies Association (FISA) from 2023 to 2025. He is a co-editor of the Nordic Review of International Studies (NRIS).