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The Trump administration leaves a legacy of confusion over cybersecurity issues with few positives.
About the Expert
Expert Bio
Edward Alden is Bernard L. Schwartz senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), specializing in U.S. economic competitiveness, trade, and immigration policy. He is the author of the book Failure to Adjust: How Americans Got Left Behind in the Global Economy, which focuses on the federal government’s failure to respond effectively to competitive challenges on issues such as trade, currency, worker retraining, education, and infrastructure.
Alden recently served as the project director of a CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force, co-chaired by former Michigan Governor John Engler and former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, which produced the report The Work Ahead: Machines, Skills, and U.S. Leadership in the Twenty-First Century. In 2011, he was the project codirector of the Independent Task Force that produced U.S. Trade and Investment Policy. In 2009, he was the project director of the Independent Task Force that produced U.S. Immigration Policy.
Alden’s previous book, The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration, and Security Since 9/11, was a finalist for the Lukas Book Prize, for narrative nonfiction in 2009. The jury called Alden’s book “a masterful job of comprehensive reporting, fair-minded analysis, and structurally sound argumentation.”
Alden was previously the Washington bureau chief for the Financial Times, and prior to that was the newspaper’s Canada bureau chief, based in Toronto. He worked as a reporter at the Vancouver Sun and was the managing editor of the newsletter Inside U.S. Trade, widely recognized as a leading source of reporting on U.S. trade policies. Alden has won several national and international awards for his reporting. He has made numerous TV and radio appearances as an analyst on political and economic issues, including on the BBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, NPR, and PBS NewsHour. His work has been published in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Fortune, the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Toronto Globe and Mail, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.
Alden has a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of British Columbia and a master’s degree in international relations from the University of California, Berkeley. He pursued doctoral studies before returning to a journalism career. Alden is the winner of numerous academic awards, including a Mellon fellowship in the humanities and a MacArthur Foundation graduate fellowship.
Affiliations
- Borders, Trade, and Immigration Institute, University of Houston, external advisory board member
- Clayton Yeutter Institute of International Trade, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, advisory council member
- Foreign Policy, monthly columnist
- Journal on Migration and Human Security, editorial board
- Western Washington University, Ross distinguished visiting professor
Featured
A history of the last four decades of U.S. trade policies and a blueprint for how to keep the United States competitive in a globalized economy.
Meeting America's economic challenges will require bipartisan cooperation and the adoption of a Twenty-First Century New Deal for American workers.
In this book, CFR Senior Fellow Edward Alden examines the complicated interplay between the United States’ need for homeland security and economic openness in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Teaching notes by the author.
Current Projects
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Five CFR experts highlight trends worth tracking in the year ahead.
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Critics are panning the president’s new trade deal with Canada and Mexico as a minor update. They’re wrong—it’s a significant accomplishment.
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President Trump has struck a new NAFTA deal with Mexico, but with severe disagreements remaining between the U.S. and Canada, his approach to trade negotiations is about to get its biggest test yet.
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The Trump administration's decision to repeal Temporary Protected Status for thousands of Salvadorans presents them with a difficult choice, writes Edward Alden.
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CFR experts discuss the data worth tracking in the year ahead.
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