Newsletter: Harris, Trump, Lindner, Scholz - A time of uncertainty / Forum symposium on the outcome of the US election on 19 November with Joe Kaeser, Simon Jäger, Isabella Weber, Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook

Dear friends and colleagues,

When we recently sent out first invitations to partners to our next Berlin Summit, we received a short reply from one of the recipients saying: “Ask me again when it is clear who has won the US elections”. The reply is somewhat odd but perhaps symptomatic of the mood of these weeks. What will happen in the world next spring seems to depend so much on whether Donald Trump is re-elected president in November – or whether Kamala Harris is elected president – that our brains, which are not so good at anticipating things anyway, find it difficult to imagine both in concrete terms at this stage.

This also applies to the question of whether the testing and implementation of a new economic policy paradigm à la Bidenomics will accelerate after the US election (with a President Harris), or whether the political business will be about damage limitation for the foreseeable future. In Germany, too, we are currently in a state of limbo – not knowing exactly what our government will do, whether it will still be there in its current form in a few weeks’ time or whether, according to the plan, a new Bundestag will only be elected in almost exactly one year’s time, on 28 September 2025.

As far as the US part of the uncertainty is concerned, we will try to offer a quick remedy after the elections on 5 November: with the symposium that we are planning for 19 November in Berlin – and the key question of what consequences the election of Trump or Harris will have. Isabella Weber and (likely) Adam Tooze will be joining us virtually from the US. For the main panel in Berlin, top Siemens manager Joe Kaeser, MIT economist Simon Jäger and US expert Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook have confirmed their participation. The keynote speech by German Economy Minister Robert Habeck, whose days will look very different depending on whether Trump or Harris wins, has not yet been fully confirmed.

The good thing is that our brains are highly adaptive, meaning that humans are very good at adapting to new situations and then reacting quickly. This helped in the past when danger arose (lion) – and will help in just under two months’ time to adapt to the world under the new US president-elect. It will also help our partners to better imagine what will be discussed at the second Berlin Summit in mid-June (more on this shortly). At least as far as the US part of the uncertainty is concerned. It’s quite possible that we in Germany won’t be that far along by then.

On the day of the symposium, 19 November, we will also toast to five years of the Forum New Economy – and on this occasion we will present the results of a survey in Germany on the extent to which the desire for new economic answers to replace the long-standing market-liberal model has increased over the past five years. Click here to register for the symposium and evening event.

In the meantime, thinking more fundamentally about a new economy and a new paradigm is the best thing to do anyway. To be well prepared and to react quickly when the uncertainty has passed.

Have a nice weekend,

Thomas Fricke

This text is from our bi-weekly newsletter series. To subscribe, click here.