The Trilateral Commission is a nongovernmentalinternational organization aimed at fostering closer cooperation between Japan, Western Europe and North America.[1] It was founded in July 1973, principally by American banker and philanthropist David Rockefeller, an internationalist[2] 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.[3] 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".[4]
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.[5] Most gatherings focus on discussing reports and debating strategy to meet the commission's aims.[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.[citation needed]
History
Founding
The Trilateral Commission was formed in 1973 by private citizens of Japan, North American nations (the U.S. and Canada), and Western European nations[3] 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.[6] 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."[7]
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.[14] Since its founding, the discussion group has produced an official journal, Trialogue.[citation needed]
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.[7]
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.[15]
Raymond Chrétien, strategic adviser at Fasken, former chair of the Montréal Council on Foreign Relations, former Associate Under Secretary of State of External Affairs, former Canadian Ambassador to the Congo, Belgium, Mexico, the United States, and France, nephew of Jean Chrétien[17]
Jeffrey Epstein, former hedge fund manager convicted of sex trafficking in 2008, described as "an enthusiastic member of the Trilateral Commission" in 2002[32][33][34][35]
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".[61] 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.[62]
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.[63][64]
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."[65]
Conspiracy theories involving the Trilateral Commission
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.[66]
Economist Anthony C. Sutton was critical of the Trilateral Commission's goals and methods, but also said the group could not be characterized as conspiratorial, but his criterion for a conspiracy is that membership be secretive and highly policed. He wrote: "The Trilateral Commission is not a conspiracy. Its membership list is completely public - it costs a postage stamp to get one.” However, in the same text he clarifies what is problematic about the Commission, arguing that it amounts to “a forum for discussion, a place where ideas can be kicked around, 'a rich man's club,' as someone commented, where people can be assessed, where discrete comment and criticism can be made away from a nosy press and a possibly unsympathetic public."[67]
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."[68]
1 2 David Stout (March 7, 1996), "George S. Franklin Jr., 82, Foreign Policy Expert" obit, The New York Times: "From 1945 to 1971, he worked for the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, serving as executive director from 1953 to 1971. He served on the group's board for another decade."
↑ The Globalist (Nov. 23, 2019), "Fiona Hill, Author at The Globalist", The Globalist: " . . . 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."
↑ (April 22, 2002), "UK bid to arrest Kissinger fails", CNN.com: "Kissinger's direction of the Vietnam War of the 1960s and 1970s amounted to a breach of British laws requiring people of all nationalities to observe the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war. It is the latest legal bid made against Kissinger."
↑ Klaus Schwab (Jan. 20, 2017), "A Conversation with Henry Kissinger on the World in 2017", World Economic Forum: ". . . I met Dr. Kissinger the first time exactly 50 years ago at Harvаrd. . . . I would like to thank you personally also for the 50-year-long mentorship, and all the advice you have given me."
↑ Noam., Chomsky (1999). Profit over people: neoliberalism and global order (Seven Stories Press 1sted.). New York: Seven Stories Press. ISBN1888363827. OCLC39505718.
↑ Kay, Jonathan. Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground. New York: Harpers, 2011. ISBN978-1-55468-630-8. pp. 200–201
↑ Anthony C. Sutton (1983). America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones. Liberty House Press Inc ISBN-13: 9780937765029
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