Trilateral Commission


The Trilateral Commission is a nongovernmental international organization aimed at fostering closer cooperation between Japan, Western Europe and North America. It was founded in July 1973, principally by the American banker and philanthropist David Rockefeller, an internationalist who sought to address the challenges posed by the growing economic and political interdependence between the U.S. and its allies in North America, Western Europe, and Japan. The leadership of the organization has since focused on returning to "our roots as a group of countries sharing common values and a commitment to the rule of law, open economies and societies, and democratic principles".
The Trilateral Commission is headed by an executive committee and three regional chairs representing Europe, North America, and the Asia-Pacific region, with headquarters in Paris, Washington, D.C., and Tokyo, respectively. Meetings are held annually at locations that rotate among the three regions; regional and national meetings are held throughout the year. Most gatherings focus on discussing reports and debating strategy to meet the commission's aims.
The Trilateral Commission represents influential commercial and political interests. As of 2021, there were roughly 400 members, including leading figures in politics, business, media, and academia. Each country within the three regions is assigned a quota of members reflecting its relative political and economic strength.

History

Founding

The Trilateral Commission was formed in 1973 by private citizens of Japan, North American nations, and Western European nations to foster substantive political and economic dialogue across the world. The idea of the commission was developed in the early 1970s, a time of considerable discord among the United States and its allies in Western Europe, Japan, and Canada.
To quote its founding declaration:
  • "Growing interdependence is a fact of life of the contemporary world. It transcends and influences national systems... While it is important to develop greater cooperation among all the countries of the world, Japan, Western Europe, and North America, in view of their great weight in the world economy and their massive relations with one another, bear a special responsibility for developing effective cooperation, both in their own interests and in those of the rest of the world."
  • "To be effective in meeting common problems, Japan, Western Europe, and North America will have to consult and cooperate more closely, on the basis of equality, to develop and carry out coordinated policies on matters affecting their common interests... refrain from unilateral actions incompatible with their interdependence and from actions detrimental to other regions... take advantage of existing international and regional organizations and further enhance their role."
  • "The Commission hopes to play a creative role as a channel of free exchange of opinions with other countries and regions. Further progress of the developing countries and greater improvement of East-West relations will be a major concern."
Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Rockefeller advisor who was a specialist on international affairs, left Columbia University to organize the group, along with:
Other founding members included Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker, both later heads of the Federal Reserve System.
The organization's records are stored at the Rockefeller Archive Center in North Tarrytown, NY.

Meetings

The Trilateral Commission initiated its biannual meetings in October 1973 in Tokyo, Japan. In May 1976 the first plenary meeting of all of the commission's regional groups took place in Kyoto, Japan. Since the ninth meeting in 1978, plenary meetings have taken place annually. Besides annual plenary meetings, regional meetings have also taken place in each of the Asia Pacific Group, the European Group and the North American Group. Since its founding, the discussion group has produced an official journal, Trialogue.

Membership

Membership is divided into numbers proportionate to each of the think tank's three regional areas. North America is represented by 120 members: 20 Canadian, 13 Mexican and 87 American. The European group has reached its limit of 170 members from almost every country on the continent; the ceilings for individual countries are 20 for Germany, 18 for France, Italy and the United Kingdom, 12 for Spain and 1–6 for the rest. At first Asia and Oceania were represented only by Japan, but in 2000 the Japanese group of 85 members became the Pacific Asia group, comprising 117 members: 75 Japanese, 11 South Koreans, seven Australian and New Zealand citizens, and 15 members from the ASEAN nations. The Pacific Asia group also included 9 members from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The commission now claims "more than 100" Pacific Asian members.
The Trilateral Commission's bylaws apparently deny membership to public officials. It draws its members from politics, business, and academia, and has three chairpersons, one from each region. The current chairs are former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Joseph S. Nye, Jr., former head of the European Central Bank Jean-Claude Trichet, and Yasuchika Hasegawa, chair of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company.

Leadership

As of September 2021
NamePosition
Jean-Claude TrichetEuropean Chairman
Meghan O'SullivanNorth American Chairman
Akihiko TanakaAsia Pacific Chairman
Alexandra PapalexopoulouEuropean Deputy Chairman
Herminio Blanco MendozaNorth American Deputy Chairman
Barry DeskerAsia Pacific Deputy Chairman
Carl BildtEuropean Deputy Chairman
Jeffrey SimpsonNorth American Deputy Chairman
Jin Roy RyuAsia Pacific Deputy Chairman
David Rockefeller Founder
Peter Sutherland Honorary European Chairman
Georges Berthoin European Honorary Chairman
Paul Volcker North American Honorary Chairman
Yasuchika HasegawaAsia Pacific Honorary Chairman
Paolo MagriEuropean Director
Richard FontaineNorth American Director
Hideko KatsumataAsia Pacific Director

Notable members