Incubator escapee wiki

Trilateral Commission

Article Discussion
Revision as of 20:11, 2 April 2025 by imported>Phatmatt12188 (→‎Founding: Fixed spacing)
(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Template:Short description Template:Infobox organization

The Trilateral Commission is a nongovernmental international organization aimed at fostering closer cooperation between Japan, Western Europe and North America.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It was founded in July 1973, principally by American banker and philanthropist David Rockefeller, an internationalist<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref name="about">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Most gatherings focus on discussing reports and debating strategy to meet the commission's aims.Template:Citation needed

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.Template:Citation needed

HistoryEdit

FoundingEdit

The Trilateral Commission was formed in 1973 by private citizens of Japan, North American nations (the U.S. and Canada), and Western European nations<ref name="about"/> 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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... [and] 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."<ref name=Trilateral_Commission_FAQ_2011>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Rockefeller advisor who was a specialist on international affairs (and later President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981), left Columbia University to organize the group, along with:<ref name="rockarch">“The Trilateral Commission (North America) Records“. Rockefeller Archives. rockarch.org Template:Webarchive</ref>

Other founding members included Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker, both later heads of the Federal Reserve System.Template:Citation needed

The organization's records are stored at the Rockefeller Archive Center in North Tarrytown, NY.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

MeetingsEdit

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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Since its founding, the discussion group has produced an official journal, Trialogue.Template:Citation needed

MembershipEdit

Template:Further 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 (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand). The Pacific Asia group also included 9 members from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The commission now claims "more than 100" Pacific Asian members.<ref name=Trilateral_Commission_FAQ_2011 />

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.<ref name="Trilateral Commission Membership"> {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

LeadershipEdit

As of September 2021<ref>Membership September 2021 Template:Webarchive. Trilateral Commission.</ref>

Name Position
Jean-Claude Trichet European Chairman
Meghan O'Sullivan North American Chairman
Akihiko Tanaka Asia Pacific Chairman
Alexandra Papalexopoulou European Deputy Chairman
Herminio Blanco Mendoza North American Deputy Chairman
Barry Desker Asia Pacific Deputy Chairman
Carl Bildt European Deputy Chairman
Jeffrey Simpson North American Deputy Chairman
Jin Roy Ryu Asia Pacific Deputy Chairman
David Rockefeller (deceased) Founder
Peter Sutherland (deceased) Honorary European Chairman
Georges Berthoin European Honorary Chairman
Paul Volcker (deceased) North American Honorary Chairman
Yasuchika Hasegawa Asia Pacific Honorary Chairman
Paolo Magri European Director
Richard Fontaine North American Director
Hideko Katsumata Asia Pacific Director

Notable membersEdit

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Tore Gjerstad & Gard Oterholm (2 Oct. 2020), "Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein met with Nobel Committee chair", Dagens Næringsliv Magasinet: "Not only did [Thorbjørn] Jagland meet Epstein, he hosted him at his lavish residence in Strasbourg, France. At the time, Jagland was the sitting chair of the committee, which awards the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize. Also present: a philanthropist [Gates] touted as a possible Prize recipient."</ref><ref>(2013), "Jeffrey Epstein, Education Activist, Applauds Bloomberg's Plan for New York City Charter Schools", CBS MoneyWatch: " . . . Bloomberg's funding will come through his foundation, the Young Men's Initiative, which is also funded by Georgе Soros Open Society Foundations. . . . Jeffrey Epstein also founded the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvаrd University in 2003 with a $30 million grant. He is a former member of the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, Rockefeller University, New York Academy of Science and sits on the board of the Mind, Brain and Behavior Committee at Harvard University."</ref>

Fiona Hill recently testified in front of the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment hearings of Donald J. Trump. . . . An expert on Russia, she was the last witness to be called and took Congress to school."</ref><ref name="Tricoms"/><ref>Zack Budryk (Nov. 21, 2019), "Hill says Soros conspiracy theories are 'new Protocols of the Elders of Zion'", The Hill</ref>

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

AssessmentsEdit

Social critic and academic Noam Chomsky has criticized the commission as undemocratic, pointing to its key publication The Crisis of Democracy, which describes the strong popular interest in politics during the 1970s as an "excess of democracy".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He has cited it as one of the most interesting and insightful books showing the modern democratic system not to really be a democracy at all, but controlled by elites who seek to keep the general public disengaged from genuine democratic participation by subtle and mostly non-violent methods and to redefine democracy itself in operative terms that enshrine their own interests as a tiny privileged minority. Chomsky adds that as it was an internal discussion, they felt free to "let their hair down" and to talk openly about the need for an increasingly active and defiant public to be reduced back to its proper state of apathy and obedience lest it continue to use democratic means to deprive them of their power.<ref>Template:CitationTemplate:Cbignore</ref>

Critics accuse the Commission of promoting a global consensus among the international ruling classes in order to manage international affairs in the interest of the financial and industrial elites under the Trilateral umbrella.<ref>Cold Warriors: The Trilateral Commission (Documentary). 1984.</ref><ref>“The Commission's Purpose, Structure, and Programs: In Its Own Words”. Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management. Boston: South End Press, 1980. Template:ISBN, Template:ISBN, Template:OCLC. pp. 83-89.</ref>

In his 1980 book With No Apologies, Republican Senator Barry Goldwater suggested that the discussion group was "a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power: political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical... [in] the creation of a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nation-states involved."<ref>Goldwater, Barry. With No Apologies. Co-authored with Stephen Shadegg. Berkley, 1980. Template:ISBN p. 299.</ref>

Conspiracy theories involving the Trilateral CommissionEdit

Some conspiracy theorists believe the organization to be a central plotter of a world government or synarchy. In his book Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground, Jonathan Kay wrote that Luke Rudkowski interrupted a lecture by former Trilateral Commission director Zbigniew Brzezinski in April 2007 and accused the organization and a few others of having orchestrated the 9/11 attacks to initiate a new world order.<ref name="Among the Truthers">Kay, Jonathan. Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground. New York: Harpers, 2011. Template:ISBN. pp. 200–201</ref>

Economist Anthony C. Sutton was critical of the Trilateral Commission's goals and methods, characterizing them as a "rich man's club." Yet he also wrote: "The Trilateral Commission is not a conspiracy. Its membership list is completely public - it costs a postage stamp to get one" and characterized the group as "completely above ground" in promoting their agenda. Furthermore, Sutton noted he had debated a high-ranking member of the group on a radio broadcast and concluded: "Conspirators just don't appear on radio talk shows to debate their objectives."<ref>Anthony C. Sutton (1983). America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones. Liberty House Press Inc ISBN-13: 9780937765029</ref>

Neo-conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer mockingly alluded to the conspiracy theories about the commission when he was asked in 2012 who makes up the "Republican establishment", saying, "Karl Rove is the president. We meet every month on the full moon... [at] the Masonic Temple. We have the ritual: Karl brings the incense, I bring the live lamb and the long knife, and we began... with a pledge of allegiance to the Trilateral Commission."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

PublicationsEdit

Books

See alsoEdit

Template:Portal Template:Div col

Template:Div col end

ReferencesEdit

Template:Reflist

External linksEdit

  • The Crisis of Democracy (1975). A Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission. New York University Press.

Further readingEdit

Articles

Books

External linksEdit

Template:Authority control

Retrieved from "https://zalansite.site/mediawiki/index.php?title=Trilateral_Commission&oldid=109673"