Kati Suominen
Kati Suominen focuses on US and global economic, trade, and financial policy.
In 2004-2010, Suominen served as International Trade Economist at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, where she advised senior economic policymakers in the Americas and around the world, managed the Bank’s global and Asia-Pacific trade and economic policy research, developed lending strategies for trade and competitiveness for countries across the Americas, and coordinated inter-institutional initiatives with other international institutions, such as the World Trade Organization and the Asian Development Bank. In 2006-09, she also served as advisor to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) senior officials meetings on ways to advance toward regional free trade.
Suominen has authored over 50 articles and published 8 books on trade and economics, and is currently authoring a monograph on American trade policy. Her latest book is Peerless and Periled: The Paradox of America’s Leadership in the World Economic Order (Stanford University Press, 2012). Her other recent volumes include Economics of Free Trade (Edward Elgar, 2012) with Gary Hufbauer of the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics, and Globalization at Risk: Challenges to Finance and Trade (Yale University Press, 2010), also with Hufbauer, which Foreign Affairs magazine named as one of the year’s best international affairs books. Her further co-authored and edited books include Sovereign Remedy? Trade Agreements in a Globalizing World (Oxford University Press, 2009), Regional Rules in the Global Trading System (Cambridge University Press, 2009), Bridging Trade Agreements in the Americas (IDB, 2009), Gatekeepers of Commerce: Rules of Origin and International Economic Integration (IDB, 2008), and Governing Regional Integration for Development (Ashgate, 2008).
Her articles have appeared in numerous books and such peer-reviewed journals as World Economy, Global Economy Journal, Journal of Globalization and Development, Economia of the Brookings Institution, World Trade Review, American Journal of Political Science, and Journal of East Asian Studies. She has also authored numerous articles in Foreign Policy, RealClear World, and Roubini.com, and the policy e-books of the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), is a frequent contributor to VoxEU.org, a leading forum on global economics, and has provided commentary in such media as Bloomberg, Financial Times, Washington Post, Politico, USA Today, Time, Global Journal, and US News and World Report.
She has spoken widely on global economic policy issues in 20 countries and at such venues as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, US Department of Commerce, US International Trade Commission, United Nations, Organization of American States, OECD, European Commission, Asia Society, APEC senior officials meetings, Korea-ASEAN Economic Ministerial, G20 preparatory meetings, and lectured at such universities as American, Columbia, George Washington, Georgetown, and Johns Hopkins/SAIS, UCLA, UC San Diego, Sciences Po, and University of Barcelona.
Suominen was named American Assembly’s Next Generation Fellow in 2010. Since January 2012, she has also served as the Founder and Managing Partner of U.S. Export Capital LLC, a mezzanine investment fund that is under formation and aimed at capitalizing America’s export-oriented middle market companies.
Suominen started her career working on Western Hemisphere affairs at the Inter-American Dialogue, premier Washington think-tank. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Washington International Trade Association, Women in International Trade, and Los Angeles Venture Association.
Education: Suominen holds MBA from Wharton School of Business (2009), PhD in Political Science and International Relations with a focus on political economy from the University of California, San Diego (2004), MA in International Relations from Boston University (1996), and BA in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (1995), where she held a full tennis scholarship and was a captain in an NCAA Division I team. Her PhD dissertation, which she has presented across three continents, focused on rules of origin in global trade.
Blog Contributions
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News Articles
The Ashgate Research Companion to International Trade PolicyAugust 23, 2012GMF Transatlantic Fellow Kati Suominen contributes her expertise in the new book The Ashgate Research Companion to International Trade Policy.
America the AbsentJuly 09, 2012Instead of powering the world economy, emerging markets remain hostage to the transatlantic economic morass. The missing ingredient? U.S. leadership.
Why the World Needs AmericaJune 14, 2012The global economic order – the post-war framework of global governance built on rules-based institutions and free and open markets – is largely America’s creation. It has been the midwife of growth and globalization that have produced prosperity around the world.
Is There Life for the G20 beyond the Global Financial Crisis?February 24, 2012To transform from a crisis-fighter to an effective forum of global economic governance, the G20 has to confront four major challenges: build on its comparative advantages, be realistic in what it can achieve, effectively integrate emerging economies in global governance, and clarify its own structure and composition.
GMF Fellow’s New Book Addresses History of Free TradeFebruary 01, 2012GMF Transatlantic Fellow Kati Suominen and Gary C. Hufbauer, Reginald Jones Senior Fellow of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, have edited a new book entitled The Economics of Free Trade, a collection of academic work on free trade over the past 500 years.
Suominen’s Book Named One of Best Books of 2011 by Foreign AffairsJanuary 04, 2012Foreign Affairs magazine listed the new book by GMF Fellow Kati Suominen and Gary Clyde Hufbauer as one of the best books of 2011 on Economic, Social, and Environmental Subjects
Can Trade Save Obama?November 03, 2011Exports are the best thing going for America right now. So why is the President so timid?...
Emerging HangoverApril 20, 2011As the economic crisis fades in the rearview mirror, some analysts on Wall Street and in Washington expect the world economy to enter a prolonged global growth spurt powered by the emerging markets as a result of "industrialization and urbanization of emerging markets and global trade."
The Long Currency WarNovember 12, 2010At the end of the G-20 summit, where world leaders managed only to delay dealing with difficult challenges from global imbalances to trade protectionism, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak proclaimed a "temporary end" to the so-called currency wars that have reached a fever pitch over the last two months as countries have manipulated their exchange rates to gain an edge in world markets.
Lessons in regionalism: What can the WTO teach the IMF?November 03, 2010Will financial regionalism damagingly fragment the global financial architecture precisely at the time when sturdy system-wide management is needed? This column points to the world trading system’s engagement with regional trade agreements as a source of lessons for how to harmonise regional and global approaches to international finance.
Policies to Bridge Regional and Global Financial ArrangementsNovember 01, 2010The G20 placed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at the center of its efforts to tame the global financial crisis, tripling the Fund’s lending capacity and refurbishing its mission and instruments. However, as the world economy recovers, the Fund is facing difficult questions about its legitimacy and effectiveness.
The Return of GlobalizationOctober 21, 2010As the G-20 finance ministers gather in South Korea this weekend in advance of November's big meeting, they will surely notice that globalization is back -- almost. The trajectory of world trade over the last two years looks V-shaped: a drop of 12.2 percent in 2009 followed by a projected gain of 13.5 percent in 2010. Can they agree to cooperate before protectionist urges tear them apart?
Ensuring globalization after the great crisisOctober 13, 2010
Insuring Against Instability: United States and the future of the International Monetary FundOctober 06, 2010
The global crisis has led some to question the dollar’s place as the dominant currency. This column discusses three camps in the literature: those advocating a new synthetic global currency, those arguing that a new reserve currency will emerge, and those suggesting a return to sharing the role. It concludes that talk of the dollar’s death – or even its decline – are exaggerated.Did global imbalances cause the crisis?June 14, 2010
Did global imbalances cause the global crisis? This column summarises the variety of explanations of the relationship between imbalances and the crisis. While the debate continues, it suggests that, as a matter of prudence, policies to contain global imbalances may still be warranted even if they did not trigger the crisis.
Publications
Globalization at Risk: Challenges to Finance and TradeSeptember 23, 2010The financial crisis of 2008-09 has now placed at risk the liberal economic policies behind globalization. This book explores the future of globalization.
This time will be different? Addressing the unsound post-crisis drivers of global imbalancesJune 23, 2010G20 members should bolster their previously agreed ‘framework for strong, sustainable and balanced growth’ so that nations adhere to it in good times as well as bad. Washington’s goal must be fiscal policies that ensure US economic resilience and compel others to adjust; China needs to be both pressured and co-opted through institutions as well as recognize that cultivating new sources of growth is in its economic and political self-interest.
Absent revaluation, retaliation? Reactions to U.S. restrictions on Chinese exportsApril 01, 2010Should the United States take action over China’s exchange-rate policy? This paper argues "yes." But while China would be momentarily hurt by any tariffs, the longer-term sufferers would be U.S. companies, workers, and consumers. The United States should instead follow C. Fred Bergsten’s three-stage plan of engaging the IMF and WTO. The column adds that a long-run solution should be fleshed out within the G20.
A New Age of Protectionism? The Economic Crisis and Transatlantic Trade PolicyMarch 11, 2009The 2008 financial crisis has had far-reaching implications on global trade. The first casualty of the crisis was trade finance-the credit required to move 90 percent of traded goods across borders. Rates on trade finance loans shot up by three hundred percentage points in the fall of 2008, prompting the World Trade Organization (WTO) to convene a special meeting and the World Bank to create a trade finance fund. Once it hit the real economy, the crisis undercut the demand and supply of goods in global trade. It now promises to shrink global commerce by 2.8 percent in 2009, the first decline since 1982.
