Skip navigation
Building a Broader Atlantic Community
Report

Building a Broader Atlantic Community



Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Eye Opening
  • Background

Recommendation

Though it receives much less attention than its Pacific counterpart, the Atlantic hemisphere is a critical nexus of globalization. The four continents surrounding the Atlantic Ocean constitute a region confronting challenges in energy production, climate change, trafficking, terrorism and cybersecurity, among others. This insightful explainer from analyst Daniel S. Hamilton uses a new 20-country cooperation agreement as a springboard to underline the importance of the Atlantic hemisphere in commerce, politics and society.

Summary

The Atlantic hemisphere highlights many aspects of globalization.

Twenty countries on the continents of North America, South America, Africa and Europe signed on to a September 2022 UN agreement to address issues common to their socioeconomic development. The pact’s principal objective is to foster greater communication and collaboration within the Atlantic hemisphere.

The Atlantic Ocean is the most traveled body of water in the world – moving trade, data and people – and it acts as an “inland sea” to most of the globe’s democracies. Commercial traffic in the region competes with and often exceeds that of the Pacific Ocean. The Atlantic economy has seen unprecedented growth in workers and consumers since 2000. It contributes as much as the Pacific does to globalization, but...

About the Author

Daniel S. Hamilton, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, is the president of the Transatlantic Leadership Network and its Atlantic Basin Initiative.