Atlantic Council: Geoeconomic trends & business outlook 2025

Join us for Season 5 of the GFF podcast with a deep dive into geoeconomics in 2025. We'll explore trade, tariffs, politics, markets, and economic trends
in the EU, UK, U.S., and beyond, featuring insights from Charles Lichfield, Deputy Director of the Atlantic Council's GeoEconomics Center.

With nearly half of the world voting in recent national elections, what are the current geoeconomic trends? We will examine formal trading blocs, such as the EU, amid threats of trade wars and potential fragmentation. We will discuss U.S.-EU tariff relations as well as President Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," and its impact on global capital flows and currencies. Additionally, we will look into the energy needs of developing countries, highlighting funding challenges and recent statements by World Bank President Ajay Banga on nuclear project funding.

Transcript

Welcome to GFF Podcast Season 5

Speaker 1 0:03

Hello and welcome back to the GFF podcast. Yes, we are back. We are back. This is episode 39, season five, and this is a very special season because, coming up in the next GFF in 2026, it is, of course, the 30th anniversary of the GFF Summit and we are pulling out all the stops so we can deliver the people who are looking under the hood and behind the scenes at the currents that are driving global economic affairs, that are shaping the world of securities, lending and repo and also changing the way that markets are doing business.

Speaker 1 0:42

And joining us, our very special guest this week is Mr Charles Litchfield, who is the Deputy Director and the C Boyden Gray Senior Fellow from the Atlantic Council's Geoeconomic Centre and you'll remember Charles from our live GFF Summit show back in January.

Introduction to Charles Litchfield

Speaker 1 1:01

And Charles is joining us so we can do a catch up on the predictions we made back then. We can see where the world has gone since and, hopefully, project forwards and find out a little bit more about where we think the world is going. Charles, of course you will know from our previous show he worked as an analyst for some time at Eurasia Group's Europe team, leading the coverage on France and Germany, deputizing on Brexit, which must have been fun, I'm sure and monitoring an extensive variety of European security, trade, neighbourhood and energy policies. His analysis and commentary, of course, are well known and you've probably seen him on Bloomberg News, bbc, read him in the Financial Times, le Figaro, the Bild Zeitung, amongst others. Charles has a fabulous CV. He holds an MSc in Economics in the University of London and an MA in German and Russian from the University of Cambridge. In fact, charles, I'm going to say welcome to the show, and you sound an awful lot like the GFF version of James Bond.

Speaker 2 1:56

That's a very kind introduction.

Speaker 1 1:58

I don't think James Bond ever makes it to Luxembourg in the films that have been made so far but makes it to Luxembourg in the films that have been made so far, but maybe there'll be a surprise in the next one. No, the only ones I can think of uh set in Luxembourg, of course, would be the clearing daylights um, settle and let fail. Uh and uh. Of course, my own personal favorite die another intraday. Now, if you are our James Bond, then this episode, like all great Bond movies, it needs a cue, and that would be, of course, the man who? Who is supplying the central banks of the world with the latest technology to make sure they can complete their important missions? None other than my co-host, mr Christian Rossler. Christian, welcome back.

Speaker 3 2:37

Yes, andrew, it's a pleasure to be back and also to host this first episode of the Season 5 with Charles Lestrade, who obviously was our keynote speaker, as you already mentioned, at the GFF Summit live here in Luxembourg in January, and I think that, yeah, it's great to have him on the show.

Speaker 1 2:59

It is. It's good to have you back, charles, and the thing is so much has happened, I've got to say so much has happened that we shouldn't waste another minute with our usual hilarious banter about the world of monetary policy, transmission through central banks and macroeconomic policy, securities lending and such, and I think we need to dive straight in with I'm guessing you've had a pretty busy six months since we last chatted.

Speaker 2 3:28

Yes, andrew, it's been. It's been busy and perhaps even busier than I might have predicted. When I was lucky to come to Luxembourg in January, I remember making the point that President Trump was threatening tariffs against some key US partners very important trading partners for the US and while most people in the auditorium thought they wouldn't happen, I was trying to at least get them to accept that we couldn't know they wouldn't happen, and this was already seen as somewhat incendiary and worrisome. And yet now it has happened. So I know that we're now coming to the end of the 90-day reprieve, where trade partners have been subject to a 10% tariff, but no more, although there are sectoral tariffs as well. But even that in January would have been on the extreme end of what seemed possible. And yet now it's the middle of the road and perhaps things could get worse in as shortly as perhaps things can get worse as soon as 10 days from now.

Speaker 1 4:37

Well, yes, july the 9th, that is Liberation Day D-Day I don't know quite what to call it this time around. What I am going to say, though and just so listeners know that and this is why this is such a great podcast, because we have the very best guests both Charles and Oliver Dacier from Simcorp made the same projection that the tariffs would come in and they would force people to the negotiating table and create a lot of political domestic pressure at home. That, would you know, force deals in their favor, especially addressing some fiscal policy issues like the dreaded we'll come to it later Section 899, back on the bond theme. There, that does sound like a secret service department somewhere, and actually you're both absolutely right, aren't you? Because if we get straight on with the tariffs and I suppose perhaps let's frame it a bit more broadly than that the relationship between the EU and the USA really is at the core of this sort of tariff issue.

Speaker 1 5:35

Six months ago, we spoke about that sort of Trumpian view of the EU. We know he's not really a fan. The relationship with EU leaders the issues to do with the trade surplus, oil and gas imports, of course, is a major issue, and the tariff situation is huge, especially for an export-led economy like the EU. Jd Vance, the vice president, has come over and not made any friends. Give us a whirlwind tour of what's happened to that relationship between the EU and the US in terms of trade and, more broadly, geoeconomics and politics.

Speaker 2 6:11

Happy to Well. To start more broadly, you're right to mention Vance. That was, I think, quite an early warning that things would be quite difficult and that this administration is not shy about hiding the fact it doesn't much like how the EU works and it has a view that freedom of speech has been curtailed in Europe. Now this, to the Europeans, sounds a little bit odd when the way the Trump administration has treated certain NGOs and their funding, which is meant to be protected by Congress and yet has been cut by the executive branch, they think it's a bit rich to be told that the EU is limiting free speech but it doesn't matter. This is what the Trump administration is happy to put out there and say that it believes.

Speaker 2 6:54

There are other ways in which we've seen just how difficult the relationship is between Europe and the US. Most people listening will remember the Signalgate episode, when part of a very secret conversation between the really the principles of this administration in preparing a strike to protect navigation in the Middle East against the Houthis. One of the main points they were making to each other and what they believed was a private chat is that the Europeans were, quote unquote, pathetic and unable to protect their own backyard and it was annoying to them then the US that they had to intervene. So I think no one is under any illusion about the fact. There's no love lost in the Trump administration for Europe as a whole and for the institution of the EU. That being said, some silver linings or bright spots. One is that the Trump administration has never really seriously tried to negotiate sweetheart deals with individual EU member states. You'll remember the foam boards of a liberation day, where every market that the US trades with, including extremely small islands where there are only penguins known to be living, the EU, was one of those partners. They did not go down into individual member states of the EU and, given these phone boards, broke all sorts of rules of international trade they might have, but they didn't do that, and I think this links to something else that is also another bright spot.

US-UK Special Relationship

Speaker 2 8:25

There are individual EU leaders that the Trump administration gets on quite well with, has respect for, and they have been a factor in convincing the Trump administration that no, you can't separate us. You can't do a special deal with, let's say, spain. You have to deal with us as a whole, and these are the things that we can do for you. We can do a deal. We can buy more liquefied natural gas. We can buy more arms. We can also do more to take care of our own defense, and you saw huge undertakings in the outcome of the NATO summit, which shows just how much the EU and EU member states are willing to say to the Trump administration on things that they will do that the Trump administration wants in order to protect the relationship, and the Trump administration is receptive to that. So they don't much like the EU and they like making fun of the Europeans, but it doesn't mean there's no discussion.

Speaker 1 9:15

I want to talk about the UK. There's an interesting pub quiz segue, obviously, when you mentioned there's some islands that only have penguins. The UK's overseas territories actually have the largest global population of penguins of any country in the world, so the UK actually has the most penguins, even though, bizarrely, obviously there are no penguins living in the UK. But talking about you know, getting on with some leaders better than others, there has been this astonishing emergence of Keir Starmer as a sort of you know bro with Donald Trump, and this is a really interesting development because politically you'd think they're very far apart and yet he seems to have a much better working relationship with the UK now than he did under Starmer's predecessor. So tell us a bit more about that.

Speaker 1 10:01

Is the UK now making the most of its role outside the EU as a sort of go-between or a bridge across the Atlantic, as Mrs Thatcher often sort of talked about the UK fulfilling that role politically? I have heard the phrase used that we've become sort of Alfred to America's Batman. I'm not sure how fair that is, because that would make Mrs Thatcher Catwoman and that's a very strange. I never thought I'd be saying that on air. But tell us I mean what about the UK-US relationship, and particularly Starmer and Trump. What's your view on that?

Speaker 2 10:34

So you're right, it's surprising that Donald Trump, the former real estate magnate who won on a clearly right-wing platform, should get on well personally with a former human rights lawyer elected on a left-wing platform, keir Starmer. This is surprising and yet it shows you just how much personal relationships are important to President Trump. I think Keir Starmer also just knows and has been briefed well on how to deal with President Trump. That was a very clever moment in his first Oval Office meeting with him, where he whipped out the invitation from the king and said this has never been done before. Never before has any leader been invited on a second state visit by His Majesty the King. And these things please Trump, he likes them, and that was something reasonably clever to do. Something reasonably clever to do.

Speaker 2 11:23

And on the idea of the UK serving as a bridge, this, I think, has been curtailed since the UK left the European Union.

Speaker 2 11:35

It can still play a very important role on defense, but it isn't really a bridge on trade, given that it's not a member of the EU.

Speaker 2 11:41

So whatever the UK negotiates and it's entitled to it as it is no longer a member of the EU so whatever the UK negotiates and it's entitled to it as it is no longer a member of the EU, it doesn't really serve as a blueprint for EU negotiations.

Speaker 2 11:50

We happen to know that the UK has been quite open with its EU partners on saying what it managed to do to get its deal. No one, and I think there was some fear in Whitehall so the heart of the British government that if they went first and did a deal there would be some criticism of the UK for doing a deal early and also for entrenching this 10%. So remember the UK is the closest partner of the US, especially in President Trump's mind, and even the UK got a 10% baseline tariff. London feared that if they went first and enshrined this 10%, they would be blamed. That isn't what's happened. People understand the UK needed to do this deal, needed some clarity, and I think the UK has been fairly nice in explaining some of the ins and outs of what happened to partners just for their own guidance and reflection. But it's not really a bridge on commerce as much as it is now on defense.

Section 899 and Global Capital Flows

Speaker 1 12:42

And, of course, before we leave, the UK section I hand over to Christian to talk about Trump's big, beautiful bill and what that's going to mean for global capital flows and bond markets and treasuries. One last thing section 899. Now you know, joking aside, this really is all about the issues over the taxation, isn't it, of US corporations and the challenges of domestic fiscal policy versus trade deals. We know Trump is not a fan of what's going on there. We also know, when it comes not just, obviously, to giants like Google and Apple and people like that, but when it comes to AI and the growing AI industry and, of course, the electric car industry as well, this could start to become problematic, not just for the UK, but similar relationships, similar fiscal issues in the EU as well. So I mean, tell us about that, because that's pretty material, I think to a lot of the people listening in terms of how that is going to affect securities markets and lending that is going to affect securities markets and lending.

Speaker 2 13:47

Yes, section 899 has been there for quite some time and it's grown as a concern only recently as people have spotted it and started to understand the far-reaching consequences it could have. I say could because it won't necessarily be kept and if it is kept, it just gives the US Treasury the authority to designate countries that it thinks are taxing US corporations unfairly and therefore it starts on a ladder up to 20 percent, but starting at 5 percent for a charge that could be imposed on investors from those countries taking some of their revenue out of the US. So, so abstractly, it sounds like quite a big deal. The US has thrived on being a market that people want to invest in, that people want to buy assets, be they stocks and all bonds, and having the assurance, through a fairly robust legal system, that they'll be able to get that revenue out when they. Please undermine it a little, but I argue that it joins many other things which over the past few months have undermined the US's prestigious role here the erratic behavior on trade, erratic comments to do with the dollar and who might be leading the Fed, the president getting involved in interest rate policy decisions, all of these things, I think, have undermined this US position, but it's starting from a very high base, so I don't think the US should be complacent about it.

Speaker 2 15:12

I am concerned, but we do need to acknowledge that the US starts from a very, very high base where it's probably the most attractive market. Specifically, on Section 899, I think some voices in Congress are conning on to the consequences that this might have for the attractiveness of the US and they're trying to water this dam. I think it could be part of the final package, but it won't necessarily. And if it is, then you have Treasury that is given essentially another stick against countries and negotiations to say, well, we could always use Section 899. It doesn't mean they'll trigger it immediately, but overall I think you've understood that my assessment is negative. I don't particularly like Section 899, and I hope it isn't in the final budget.

Nuclear Energy and Global Development

Speaker 3 15:55

More globally speaking, I mean after a year in which nearly half of the world's population voted in national elections and you know recent trends in political freedom, economic freedom, rule of law and prosperity across the world, with the escalation of the global challenges means the armed conflicts, etc. We've just been witnessing the 12 days war between Israel and Iran. In terms of developing countries that face growing energy needs, especially in industrial sectors like manufacturing and data centers, what is your view on how recently the World Bank's president, aj Bangar, said that the World Bank again would embrace nuclear energy as a legitimate and necessary tool for development, and must multilateral development banks again fund nuclear projects in developing markets?

Speaker 2 16:57

So there's a lot in that question, a lot to unpick. So before we get to the World Bank's new stance, important to say that with all the political polarization we're seeing, it is harder to come to multilateral solutions. There are perfectly good reasons for electorates to be angry and annoyed with the meager achievements of their political leadership so far. We see this in Europe, especially in Western Europe, where political polarization has changed the political systems and the political setup that we operate under. And it's harder to see a country like France, with a majoritarian system, making difficult decisions on spending with such a balkanized parliament. Not that they made the right decisions before, but now it's even more difficult. So that's the context we're operating under Difficult for countries to get their house in order domestically and difficult for them to sign up to multilateral solutions. And even if usually electorates seem to want their countries to remember, even if electorates usually want their countries to remember, even if electorates usually want their countries to partake in multilateral solutions, for instance on climate change, it's hard to bridge that gap when you have polarized political systems. On nuclear something that France supports, given we've mentioned in France but many countries have been on a journey where they've tried to exit it and are now considering coming back.

Speaker 2 18:30

I personally am not very surprised that nuclear is seen as a good solution. There is a huge demand for electricity electricity for power generation. It needs to be extremely stable, so not subject to the ups and downs, the peaks and troughs that some renewable sources impose, and it is carbon. It doesn't produce carbon. There are other risks to using it and I understand why other big European markets have tried to exit and are now reconsidering their strategy, but I'm not surprised that at the World Bank it's being re-imposed as one of the key solutions that's both carbon neutral and very good for the sort of baseload and capable of bearing the load that AI will impose.

Speaker 2 19:19

That being said, there is geopolitics to this. There are different technological solutions available the US, france on the western side, also South Korea available. The US, france on the western side, also South Korea, and then Russia and China have also built their own integrated systems which they're trying very hard to sell. So this is something that the World Bank won't necessarily have to navigate. They're just saying it's a good solution. But let's look at the detail of which packages smaller countries are buying. Are they buying from the West? Are they buying from Russia? Are they buying from China? And then there's all sorts of new solutions that haven't really been tried yet, smaller nuclear plants, these small modular reactors, which weren't produced as much as a big power station but can be built up faster and in more locations. That's something that I think we'll have to watch quite closely.

Speaker 3 20:07

Yeah, I think that, well, we all know that multilateral development banks take time to, you know, approve projects. So I think Ajay Banga has already said that he lowered the project time from, you know, two years to 12 months and he still thinks it's too long. I mean Western banks, including, not to name them, I mean Goldman Sachs, barclays. They announced that they would support nuclear energy, but then you have countries like Germany that put their veto in. What's your view on that?

Speaker 2 20:39

I mean, if countries like Germany don't want to move and a country like France says it's green energy, yes, Germany's opposition to nuclear has created some problems in the EU because some of the green funding models haven't been applicable to investing in nuclear. I think that will change. There needs to be a bargain between France and Germany of Germany's attachment to natural gas and France's attachment to nuclear. I think the way things are moving are slowly in France's direction, but watch this space.

Speaker 3 21:16

We are in a world where, you know, there's these trade wars going on, but there's also these blocks like the European Union, there's NAFTA, and now, if countries inside those blocks go into different directions, how is this all going to unfold? Going forward?

Speaker 2 21:40

Well, the EU so far has managed to maintain its unity, so it has one negotiating channel with the US. It will have one tariff that is applied in retaliation to the US if the US decides to impose tariffs on the EU, which has already happened and it may get worse. So the US is breaking apart what might have been called a sort of global trading system, where you were meant to have a somewhat predictable system of tariffs, although every country could apply its own tariff. But the system was meant to be that the US applied one tariff for one type of good to every market, with the exception of countries that it had free trade agreements with. That's the system that the WTO is meant to operate under. It's broken that completely because the US applies a tariff, now a reciprocal tariff calculated using a rather interesting formula, a reciprocal tariff against individual countries.

Speaker 2 22:36

So as far as the US is concerned, we've completely departed from the WTO model and it isn't really conceivable that we'll come back. Imagine a Democratic candidate from the Democratic Party running in a few years. They're not going to run saying bring the US back into compliance with WTO. That's not a vote winner. And they may reduce some of the tariffs because I think people can see that they cause inflation. They won't remove all of them because that will make them vulnerable to the attack that they're not protecting US workers. So the US, for a long time, has completely left the WTO paradigm. But what's interesting is that even countries that are behaving in a way that isn't entirely WTO compliant Canada just put in place some measures to protect itself against cheap Chinese steel because it feels that more is going to flow into its market after the US has taken its measures Even countries like Canada that remain committed to the WTO but are still breaking a few rules they want to remain within the framework and feel that when it is possible, they will do things that are compliant and when it isn't, they will not.

Speaker 2 23:45

Generally, they will at least have a look at the rules and see this as the framework to apply first and then, failing that, do something else. And I think that's the sort of direction we're going in. So the WTO isn't dead, but it's in this sort of slow phase where it doesn't really have the ability to intervene and nonetheless, countries still sort of use its mechanisms when possible. I think that's the direction, with the exception of the US, which really has taken a completely different direction and how long it will get away with that is anyone's guess. It is a big market and it does have its own ability to manufacture, to produce, and it's also a market that people want to sell into. So they'll be willing to do bilateral deals with the US, even if these break certain WTO rules.

Speaker 2 24:30

It's worth it for the size of the US. But we also have to remember that it isn't always the US that's dictated what's happened over the past few weeks. You know it wasn't just the Chinese who were desperate for a negotiation, it was also the US that was pretty keen to start negotiating with the Chinese, because the Chinese had started to stop selling or sending some critical minerals the US needed, also as a means of pressure. So the US is not entirely in a position where it cannot be coerced. The US can also be brought to the negotiating table and we've seen it in the past few weeks.

Russia-Ukraine War's Economic Impact

Speaker 1 25:03

Okay, moving on, obviously, the other elephant in the room that we talked about was the relationship between the EU and Russia. Again, this does, of course, shows the interconnectedness of the world we're in. It touches on energy in a big way right away, not just the EU, but obviously the UK too, and also our relationship with Ukraine. So I mean that development doesn't seem to have moved nearly as far or to a swift conclusion, and it seems to be ongoing the war there, but also the sort of the strained relationship with Russia. What's your view from the Atlantic Council?

Speaker 2 25:42

I mean, we're now three and a half years into Russia's illegal war in Ukraine. I think it's pretty clear that the US will not be putting as much financial firepower war in Ukraine. I think it's pretty clear that the US will not be putting as much financial firepower into supporting Ukraine, and so it really befalls the EU and other European powers like the UK to help Ukraine financially, help it buy weapons, help it with macro financial assistance. As far as Russia is concerned, I'm not too. I'll start again. As far as Russia is concerned, I don't think there's going to be much movement. Every six months there is talk of the sanctions not being renewed because they're renewed on a six-month timeline. There's always talk about Hungary or Slovakia blocking it. I think the relationship between those two member states and the others is such that they know that if they were to do this, they would expose themselves to losing a lot of aid from the EU, all sorts of retaliations. It wouldn't even produce much of an effect because I think the rest of the EU would find a way to renew the sanctions as a 25. So they would all pass it through national legislation. I think the alignment is still such that Russia's war in Ukraine is perceived as an existential threat, with some exceptions, and therefore sanctions will be renewed in some way or another. The immobilized assets that are in Belgium will remain immobilized and I don't really see much change on sanctions.

Speaker 2 27:14

On the energy side, yes, they are trying to go a little bit further than they have so far and they've already come a long way. So it was Russia that cut off the natural gas being sent through pipelines. The use dependency on Russian liquefied natural gas is still there, although it's much smaller than the broader relationship that was there before, and in the latest package of sanctions they're trying to reduce that to zero for the next few years as well. So I don't really see a U-turn, although this is sometimes discussed when the sanctions renewal deadline comes up. If anything, I see small efforts to tighten the bolts a little bit on the sanctions regime thing. I see small efforts to tighten the bolts a little bit on the sanctions regime.

Speaker 2 27:53

The question, of course, is whether this is having any effect. There is evidence of an effect in Russia. You both have high inflation and high interest rates that are unable to control that high inflation. But I think sanctions policymakers both here in Washington and in Europe would agree that they're a little bit disappointed. They did really try very hard at the beginning.

Speaker 2 28:10

It was worth a try, especially for the big sort of bazooka measures that were meant to cause meltdown in Russia's financial markets. It was worth a try, but it didn't. So now it's about the slow burning of making it impossible for the Russian economy to diversify away from oil and gas and therefore causing long-term pain to the Russian economy. I would say, though, that at this point, war is a big part of Russia's GDP, and it almost creates a deterrent from stopping the war. The salaries that soldiers receive, and also the compensation that families receive when a soldier dies all of this is a big component of GDP, especially in rural areas, and turning around from that wouldn't be impossible, and you'd still have a lot of military spending, because Russia needs to rebuild a lot of the capacity that's lost on the battlefield. But it's an important component to bear in mind that war has grown as a part of GDP, and there's almost a dependency on that in Russia now.

Crystal Ball: GFF Summit Predictions

Speaker 1 29:15

Okay, now we have to draw our threads to a close here. Charles, we could talk about this a lot longer. You have to come back on the show. But the GFF the 30th GFF is coming early next year and we love our crystal ball questions on the show. So I'm going to ask you to whip out your crystal ball there at the Atlantic Council and take a look forwards. What do you think are going to be the issues that are dominating the chats and the coffee breaks and the presentations at the next GFF summit in Luxembourg, I think?

Speaker 2 29:53

unfortunately, we'll still be talking about trade and tariffs. So, hopefully, come July 9th, there will be another extension for US-EU negotiations, but remember, we were supposed to have a deal by now. So there will be a certain amount of frustration in this announcement that you know, we still this is the US speaking we still haven't managed to sort things out with the EU. So, okay, we'll give you another extension, but we're not happy. So by January, hopefully some deal have been reached, but I'm not that confident. So we will probably be facing another looming deadline and the end of another extension window, which may, at that point, lead to tariffs.

Speaker 2 30:29

Now everyone talks about Trump always chickening out and therefore being able to trade, especially on equities, in a way that's very relaxed, although, as I said, I haven't quite seen this and seen this in how US treasuries have been treated they're much less popular than they were.

Speaker 2 30:46

But I think come January, we'll be unfortunately approaching the end of another window and therefore worried about the return of tariffs. And then I think one or two markets will have been made an example of, and then I think one or two markets will have been made an example of Trump will have decided to impose the full Liberation Day tariff on one or two, probably Asian markets, probably more manufacturing economies than Europe is now. But even so, one or two countries may be under more considerable stress because they're facing higher tariffs in the US. And then we'll have to look at how China behaves. I think China has realized that it really does have a lot of coercive power over the rest of us. It's enjoyed using this against the US, and so will it have deployed this again, especially on critical minerals. I think that's possible.

Speaker 1 31:31

Okay, so you're leaning towards Grinch rather than Santa for the next GFF, okay, fine. Well, listen, charles, I tell you what we will. Would you be so kind as to join us after the next GFF back on the podcast so we can talk about that and see? So far, all your predictions have come completely true. So I'm going to say I'm kind of you know, if I'm going to go down to the bookies, I'm putting my money on the Litchfield ticket. I recommend all our listeners do that. No, I'm not endorsing gambling, deutsche Börse. Please don't hear that. What I am going to say, though, is a huge virtual studio. Thank you from myself and from Christian to Charles Litchfield, who is the deputy director and the C Boyden Gray senior fellow of the Atlantic Council's Geoeconomic Center. Charles, thank you very much. Thank you, okay. So that's good. So all that remains, I guess, is for us to say a big goodbye and thank you from everyone here in the virtual studio, everyone here at Clearstream and, of course, from my co-host, mr Christian Rossler.

Speaker 3 32:35

Thank you, charles and Andrew, for the episode and looking forward to the live show coming out on Friday 4th of July.

Speaker 1 32:44

That's it. Yes, 4th of July, Independence Day, we will be firing out our very first GFF of Season 5. Thanks for coming back. We will look forward to seeing you in August. In the meantime, from me, Andrew Keith Walker, have a good month. Look forward to seeing you in August. In the meantime, from me, Andrew Keith Walker, have a good month. Have a safe month. See you next month. Bye-bye and don't forget. Season five of the GFF podcast is brought to you by Clearstream Banking, one of the main sponsors of the GFF Summit every year in Luxembourg, and features members of the Clearstream team and other special guests expressing their personal opinions, not the opinions of Clearstream as an organization. There is no representation made as to the accuracy or completeness of information in this podcast, and nor should it be taken as any legal, tax or other professional advice. We'll see you for the rest of Season 5. Thank you.