The 2026 Aspen Security Forum
July 14-17 | Aspen, CO
The 2026 Aspen Security Forum continued yesterday in Aspen! We are pleased to share some of the highlights from our second day below.
Tune in to today’s sessions by joining our livestream!
Day Two Highlights
Fireside Chat with Ambassador Jamieson Greer
Jamieson Greer
20th U.S. Trade Representative
Moderator
Anja Manuel
Executive Director, Aspen Strategy Group
“With manufacturing, it is this existential thing where we have lost an edge and we need to regain it. With services, we have an edge. We need to maintain it.”—Jamieson Greer
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer discussed the Trump administration’s trade policy, covering tariffs, export controls, the need to diversify away from China, the focus on renewing American manufacturing, the recent USMCA negotiations, and more.
Fireside Chat with John C. Phelan
John C. Phelan
79th Secretary of the Navy; Chairman, Rugger Management LLC
Moderator
Gordon Lubold
NBC
“We have one company that builds aircraft carriers. We have two companies that build submarines. We have one that builds destroyers…We need to act with much more urgency. Waiting for a war is a bad idea to get good at something, particularly when it comes to manufacturing.” —John C. Phelan
John C. Phelan reflected on his time as Secretary of the Navy, discussing the state of the U.S. industrial base, shipbuilding capacity, innovation in the defense sector, and more.
Fueling the Future: Energy Markets, the Nuclear Option, and Critical Minerals
Fatih Birol
Executive Director, International Energy Agency
Meghan O’Sullivan
Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Daniel Poneman
Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy; Co-Chair, Nuclear Energy and National Security Coalition
Moderator
Mohammed Sergie
Semafor
“If you extract [critical minerals], it is nothing if you don’t refine them. China today accounts for 75% of the global refining capacity of critical minerals….My number one golden rule is diversification. And here we have a concentration that we have never seen before in history.” —Fatih Birol
The recent shocks from the Strait of Hormuz closure has put energy security top of mind. The panelists discussed how the world has weathered this and how to prepare for future energy needs, warning that China’s grip on critical minerals refining represents a looming vulnerability far larger than Hormuz.
Continental Drift? Europe in Transition
Belén Martínez Carbonell
Secretary-General, European External Action Service, European Union
Theo Francken
Minister of Defence and Foreign Trade, Belgium
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya
National Leader of Belarus and Head of the United Transitional Cabinet, Belarus
David van Weel
Minister of Justice and Security, The Netherlands
Moderator
Peter Spiegel
The Washington Post
“Stability cannot be bought by making concessions with dictators. It never works. Dictators cannot be appeased. Dictators cannot be reeducated. Dictators can only be fought, and Ukraine showed it very clearly.” —Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya
The speakers assessed the strength of the transatlantic relationship, including Europe’s increased defense investments, the lessons to be learned from the war in Ukraine, and more.
The China Challenge
Nicholas Burns
Co-Chair, Aspen Strategy Group; Former U.S. Ambassador to China; Goodman Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations, Harvard Kennedy School
Tarun Chhabra
Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution; Head of National Security, Anthropic
Elizabeth Economy
Hargrove Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Robert Thomson
CEO, News Corp
Moderator
Demetri Sevastopulo
Financial Times
“[In the first Trump administration] and the Biden administration, the competition was across all dimensions: political, economic, security, technology. This administration has taken off the table the political dimension….But I think in the technology and the economic and the security space, there is still a pretty fierce competitive spirit.” —Elizabeth Economy
In this panel, the speakers explored the strategic competition between the U.S. and China, including U.S. support for Taiwan, the race for the lead in AI, the outcomes of the Trump-Xi meetings, and more.
Western HemispHERE
Dominique Dupuy
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Religious Affairs and Haitians Living Abroad of Haiti; Former Permanent Delegate of Haiti, UNESCO
Leopoldo López
Co-Founder, World Liberty Congress; Venezuelan Freedom Activist
Albert Ramchand Ramdin
Secretary General, Organization of American States
Moderator
Marc Caputo
Axios
“[In Venezuela], it is a much better scenario than what we had before January 3rd. There is a lot of work to be done, and there is a lot of inclusion that I hope we have, not just from the United States, but also from the region, because the success of Venezuela will also be the success of the region.”—Leopoldo López
This session examined the security of the Western Hemisphere, assessing sources of instability in the region and the path forward for Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and more.
“What the Hell Is Going On?” Live Podcast
Stephen J. Hadley
20th U.S. National Security Advisor; Founding Principal, Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC
Robert O’Brien
27th U.S. National Security Advisor; Chairman, American Global Strategies
Michèle Flournoy
Former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; Co-Founder and Managing Partner, WestExec Advisors
Marc Thiessen
Co-Host, What the Hell Is Going On; Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Columnist, The Washington Post
“The regime [in Iran] isn’t going to change…We have to cut off their supply of money. And cutting off the supply of money will cut off their ballistic missile program. It’ll cut off their support to Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis. And it’ll end their nuclear program.” —Robert O’Brien
In this live taping of the “What the Hell Is Going On?” podcast, the panelists covered topics from Iran and Ukraine to NATO and Venezuela, rating the strengths and weaknesses in U.S. foreign policy.
The Human Element of War: Military Service Across Generations
In Partnership with the Medal of Honor Museum
Colonel Jack Jacobs
Medal of Honor Recipient, National Medal of Honor Museum
Lieutenant Colonel Will Swenson
Medal of Honor Recipient, National Medal of Honor Museum
Joseph A. Dinkel
Strategic Advisor, Apandion
Moderator
Courtney Kube
NBC
“We recognize heroism as something that we do as a fighting force that helps propel us forward, and we develop this fighting capability and this fighting ethos in all of our service members from a very young age…We always like to make sure they understand that inside of each and every single one of our service members is the ability to do the same thing that we did.” —Lieutenant Colonel Will Swenson
Two of the sixty-five living Medal of Honor recipients joined this panel to reflect on their personal experiences, the value of service, and the meaning of heroism.
Duty Bound? Tackling Today’s Trade Challenges
Michael Froman
17th U.S. Trade Representative; President, Council on Foreign Relations
Robert Lighthizer
18th U.S. Trade Representative; Chairman, Department of War Defense Policy Board
Arrow Augerot
Head of International Policy, Americas, Amazon
Nicholas Redman
Chief Geopolitical Analyst, Dow Jones
Moderator
David Gura
Bloomberg
“The United States has two problems and they’re both existential. One is we have massive trade imbalances to the tune of probably a trillion, or I would say probably calculated at a trillion and a half even, dollars going out every year…And on the other hand we have an existential threat from a geopolitical adversary, which is China.” —Robert Lighthizer
In this conversation, the panelists discussed the trade offs of trade policy, USMCA negotiations, American innovation and leadership, China’s economic strategy, and more.
The New Security Imperative: Digital Resilience Through Integration
Nicholas Burns
Co-Chair, Aspen Strategy Group; Former U.S. Ambassador to China; Goodman Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations, Harvard Kennedy School
Lisa Monaco
President, Microsoft Global Affairs
Wolfgang Schmidt
Former Federal Minister and Head of the Chancellery, Germany
Kaupo Rosin
Director General, Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service
Moderator
Edward Luce
Financial Times
“You’ve got a rising set of questions amongst governments, amongst citizens about what this technology means for safety, for jobs, for opportunity. All of that, I think, is converging in…a very common theme: a looking inward, a little bit of a retreat to some isolation and the question of sovereignty.” —Lisa Monaco
In this discussion of digital security, the panelists covered the trend towards developing sovereign capabilities, digital trust, and the competition with China for the most cutting-edge technologies.
