CNAS Launches "A World Safe for Prosperity," an Initiative to Advance U.S. Economic Security in a Contested Global Environment

Washington, April 1, 2025 – Today, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) is launching A World Safe for Prosperity, a major new project designed to inform U.S. policymakers, private sector stakeholders, and international counterparts as the global economic order faces a period of generational change and disruption.    

In a time of escalating trade tensions and turbulent geopolitics, the United States must chart a path that strengthens its international economic leadership while mitigating national security risk. As first published in a recent Foreign Affairs article, CNAS experts Emily Kilcrease and Geoffrey Gertz have set out an ambitious vision for a new global economic order that reflects the emergence of economic security as a central organizing principle for governments. They propose a new form of economic security agreement to strengthen integration between the United States and close security partners while aligning on common approaches to China. This new initiative will further develop this concept, including how it could apply to near-term priorities such as the renegotiation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement trade pact. 

A World Safe for Prosperity also leverages the innovative economic wargaming capabilities of the CNAS Energy, Economics, and Security (EES) Program to develop analytic insights into how the new global economic order can be built, how it could impact the private sector, and what may go wrong along the way. The New York Times featured a recent economic game designed by the EES Program to examine how foreign governments may respond to the unprecedented number of new tariffs from the United States. The insights from the game emphasized that the United States has a clear but narrow path to create a prosperous democratic trading bloc, but only if it accepts trade-offs within its tariff strategy and is willing to constrain the future use of tariffs. Additional games examining other aspects of the tariffs-first approach to U.S. foreign policy are under development.

“Policymakers need more than just theory—they need real-world simulations, data-driven insights, and actionable strategies to navigate this turbulent geoeconomic landscape,” said Emily Kilcrease, senior fellow and director of the EES Program. “This initiative will provide practical insights to help America secure its economic future in partnership with its closest economic and security allies.” 

The initiative will leverage expert research, economic simulations, and convenings to develop pragmatic and principled approaches to advance U.S. economic security interests. Findings and recommendations will be included in upcoming commentaries and reports, as well as through “Derisky Business,” the economic security podcast from CNAS with new episodes every other Thursday. 

For more information about the initiative or media inquiries, please contact Alexa Whaley at  [email protected].