Here’s What Is On The Agenda For This Year’s Bilderberg Meeting

Here’s What Is On The Agenda For This Year’s Bilderberg Meeting

Every year, the world’s richest and most powerful business executives, bankers, media heads and politicians sit down in some luxurious and heavily guarded venue, and discuss how to shape the world in a way that maximizes profits for all involved, while perpetuating a status quo that has been highly beneficial for a select few, even if it means the ongoing destruction of the middle class. We are talking, of course, about the annual, and always secretive, Bilderberg meeting.

And just like last year’s meeting in Dresden, the primary topic on the agenda of this year’s 65th Bilderberg Meeting which starts today and ends on Sunday, is one: Donald Trump.

Ironically, this year “the storm around Donald Trump” as the SCMP puts it, is not half way around the world, but just a few miles west of the White House, in a conference centre in Chantilly, Virginia, where the embattled president will be getting his end-of-term grades from the people whose opinion actually matters: some 130 participating “Bilderbergs”.



The secretive three-day summit of the political and economic elite kicks off Thursday in heavily guarded seclusion at the Westfields Marriot, a luxury hotel a short distance from the Oval Office.

As of Wednesday, the hotel was already on lockdown and an army of landscapers have been busy planting fir trees around the perimeter, to try protect “coy billionaires and bashful bank bosses” from prying lenses and/or projectiles.  Perched ominously at the top of the conference agenda this year are these words: “The Trump Administration: A progress report”.

So is the president going to be put in detention for tweeting in class? Held back a year? Or told to empty his locker and leave? If ever there’s a place where a president could hear the words “you’re fired!”, it’s Bilderberg.

Sarcasm aside, the White House was taking no chances, sending along some big hitters from Team Trump to defend their boss: national security adviser, HR McMaster; the commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross; and Trump’s new strategist, Chris Liddell (curiously, neither Gary Cohn nor Steven Mnuchin will be there although the controversial new Chairman of Goldman Sachs International, Jose Barroso will be present). Could Trump himself show up to receive his report card in person: we are confident he will tweet all about it… which is probably why he will never be invited.

Stil, none other than Henry Kissinger, the gravel-throated kingpin of Bilderberg, visited the White House a few weeks ago to discuss “Russia and other things”, and certainly, the Bilderberg conference would be the perfect opportunity for the most powerful man in the world to discuss important global issues with Trump.

Sarcasm aside, what are among the “Trump agenda” items to be discussed?  The publicly released list is as follows:

The Trump Administration: A progress report
Trans-Atlantic relations: options and scenarios
The Trans-Atlantic defence alliance: bullets, bytes and bucks
The direction of the EU
Can globalisation be slowed down?
Jobs, income and unrealised expectations
The war on information
Why is populism growing?
Russia in the international order
The Near East
Nuclear proliferation
China
Current events
The US president’s extraordinary chiding of NATO leaders in Brussels is sure to be first and foremost on the Bilderberg discussing panel. The Bilderbergers have summoned the head of Nato, Jens Stoltenberg, to give feedback. Stoltenberg will be leading the snappily titled session on “The Transatlantic defence alliance: bullets, bytes and bucks”. He’ll be joined by the Dutch minister of defence and a clutch of senior European politicians and party leaders, all hoping to reset the traumatised transatlantic relationship after Trump’s galumphing visit.

As the Guardian puts it, the guest list for this year’s conference is a veritable “covfefe” of big-hitters from geopolitics, from the head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, to the king of Holland, but perhaps the most significant name on the list is Cui Tiankai, China’s ambassador to the US.

According to the meeting’s agenda, “China” will also be discussed at a summit attended by Cui, the US commerce secretary, the US national security adviser, two US senators, the governor of Virginia, two former CIA chiefs and any number of giant US investors in China, including the heads of the financial services firms the Carlyle Group and KKR. And for good reason: as last night’s PMI numbers showed, the Chinese economy – the global growth dynamo – is finally contracting. If China goes, the rest of the world will follow.

Additionally, the boss of Google Eric Schmidt, who warned in January that Trump’s administration will do “evil things”, is expected to attend, too. The executive chairman of Alphabet, Google’s holding company, has just come back from a trip to Beijing, where he was overseeing Google AI’s latest game of Go against humans. He declared it “a pleasure to be back in China, a country that I admire a great deal”. It’s possible three days spent chatting to the Chinese ambassador could even be good for business.

Several journalists are participating in this year’s forum, including London Evening Standard editor George Osborne and Cansu Camlibel, the Washington bureau chief for Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper. But per convention, news outlets are not invited to cover the event.

“There is no desired outcome, no minutes are taken and no report is written,” the group stated. “Furthermore, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken, and no policy statements are issued.”

Ex-deputy secretary of state William Burns and former deputy assistant secretary of defence Elaine Bunn, both Obama-era officials, will also attend. Burns, the current president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has warned that Trump “risks hollowing out the ideas, initiative and institutions on which US leadership and international order rest.”

With one of the agenda items titled simply enough “can globalisation be slowed down?” it is no surprise that anti-globalisation protesters have already descended on the location of the meeting.

* * *

Below is a full list of this year’s participants:

CHAIRMAN

Castries, Henri de (FRA), Former Chairman and CEO, AXA; President of Institut Montaigne
PARTICIPANTS

Achleitner, Paul M. (DEU), Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Deutsche Bank AG
Adonis, Andrew (GBR), Chair, National Infrastructure Commission
Agius, Marcus (GBR), Chairman, PA Consulting Group
Akyol, Mustafa (TUR), Senior Visiting Fellow, Freedom Project at Wellesley College
Alstadheim, Kjetil B. (NOR), Political Editor, Dagens Næringsliv
Altman, Roger C. (USA), Founder and Senior Chairman, Evercore
Arnaut, José Luis (PRT), Managing Partner, CMS Rui Pena & Arnaut
Barroso, José M. Durão (PRT), Chairman, Goldman Sachs International
Bäte, Oliver (DEU), CEO, Allianz SE
Baumann, Werner (DEU), Chairman, Bayer AG
Baverez, Nicolas (FRA), Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
Benko, René (AUT), Founder and Chairman of the Advisory Board, SIGNA Holding GmbH
Berner, Anne-Catherine (FIN), Minister of Transport and Communications
Botín, Ana P. (ESP), Executive Chairman, Banco Santander
Brandtzæg, Svein Richard (NOR), President and CEO, Norsk Hydro ASA
Brennan, John O. (USA), Senior Advisor, Kissinger Associates Inc.
Bsirske, Frank (DEU), Chairman, United Services Union
Buberl, Thomas (FRA), CEO, AXA
Bunn, M. Elaine (USA), Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
Burns, William J. (USA), President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Çakiroglu, Levent (TUR), CEO, Koç Holding A.S.
Çamlibel, Cansu (TUR), Washington DC Bureau Chief, Hürriyet Newspaper
Cebrián, Juan Luis (ESP), Executive Chairman, PRISA and El País
Clemet, Kristin (NOR), CEO, Civita
Cohen, David S. (USA), Former Deputy Director, CIA
Collison, Patrick (USA), CEO, Stripe
Cotton, Tom (USA), Senator
Cui, Tiankai (CHN), Ambassador to the United States
Döpfner, Mathias (DEU), CEO, Axel Springer SE
Elkann, John (ITA), Chairman, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles
Enders, Thomas (DEU), CEO, Airbus SE
Federspiel, Ulrik (DNK), Group Executive, Haldor Topsøe Holding A/S
Ferguson, Jr., Roger W. (USA), President and CEO, TIAA
Ferguson, Niall (USA), Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Gianotti, Fabiola (ITA), Director General, CERN
Gozi, Sandro (ITA), State Secretary for European Affairs
Graham, Lindsey (USA), Senator
Greenberg, Evan G. (USA), Chairman and CEO, Chubb Group
Griffin, Kenneth (USA), Founder and CEO, Citadel Investment Group, LLC
Gruber, Lilli (ITA), Editor-in-Chief and Anchor “Otto e mezzo”, La7 TV
Guindos, Luis de (ESP), Minister of Economy, Industry and Competiveness
Haines, Avril D. (USA), Former Deputy National Security Advisor
Halberstadt, Victor (NLD), Professor of Economics, Leiden University
Hamers, Ralph (NLD), Chairman, ING Group
Hedegaard, Connie (DNK), Chair, KR Foundation
Hennis-Plasschaert, Jeanine (NLD), Minister of Defence, The Netherlands
Hobson, Mellody (USA), President, Ariel Investments LLC
Hoffman, Reid (USA), Co-Founder, LinkedIn and Partner, Greylock
Houghton, Nicholas (GBR), Former Chief of Defence
Ischinger, Wolfgang (INT), Chairman, Munich Security Conference
Jacobs, Kenneth M. (USA), Chairman and CEO, Lazard
Johnson, James A. (USA), Chairman, Johnson Capital Partners
Jordan, Jr., Vernon E. (USA), Senior Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC
Karp, Alex (USA), CEO, Palantir Technologies
Kengeter, Carsten (DEU), CEO, Deutsche Börse AG
Kissinger, Henry A. (USA), Chairman, Kissinger Associates Inc.
Klatten, Susanne (DEU), Managing Director, SKion GmbH
Kleinfeld, Klaus (USA), Former Chairman and CEO, Arconic
Knot, Klaas H.W. (NLD), President, De Nederlandsche Bank
Koç, Ömer M. (TUR), Chairman, Koç Holding A.S.
Kotkin, Stephen (USA), Professor in History and International Affairs, Princeton University
Kravis, Henry R. (USA), Co-Chairman and Co-CEO, KKR
Kravis, Marie-Josée (USA), Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Kudelski, André (CHE), Chairman and CEO, Kudelski Group
Lagarde, Christine (INT), Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
Lenglet, François (FRA), Chief Economics Commentator, France 2
Leysen, Thomas (BEL), Chairman, KBC Group
Liddell, Christopher (USA), Assistant to the President and Director of Strategic Initiatives
Lööf, Annie (SWE), Party Leader, Centre Party
Mathews, Jessica T. (USA), Distinguished Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
McAuliffe, Terence (USA), Governor of Virginia
McKay, David I. (CAN), President and CEO, Royal Bank of Canada
McMaster, H.R. (USA), National Security Advisor
Micklethwait, John (INT), Editor-in-Chief, Bloomberg LP
Minton Beddoes, Zanny (INT), Editor-in-Chief, The Economist
Molinari, Maurizio (ITA), Editor-in-Chief, La Stampa
Monaco, Lisa (USA), Former Homeland Security Officer
Morneau, Bill (CAN), Minister of Finance
Mundie, Craig J. (USA), President, Mundie & Associates
Murtagh, Gene M. (IRL), CEO, Kingspan Group plc
Netherlands, H.M. the King of the (NLD)
Noonan, Peggy (USA), Author and Columnist, The Wall Street Journal
O’Leary, Michael (IRL), CEO, Ryanair D.A.C.
Osborne, George (GBR), Editor, London Evening Standard
Papahelas, Alexis (GRC), Executive Editor, Kathimerini Newspaper
Papalexopoulos, Dimitri (GRC), CEO, Titan Cement Co.
Petraeus, David H. (USA), Chairman, KKR Global Institute
Pind, Søren (DNK), Minister for Higher Education and Science
Puga, Benoît (FRA), Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor and Chancellor of the National Order of Merit
Rachman, Gideon (GBR), Chief Foreign Affairs Commentator, The Financial Times
Reisman, Heather M. (CAN), Chair and CEO, Indigo Books & Music Inc.
Rivera Díaz, Albert (ESP), President, Ciudadanos Party
Rosén, Johanna (SWE), Professor in Materials Physics, Linköping University
Ross, Wilbur L. (USA), Secretary of Commerce
Rubenstein, David M. (USA), Co-Founder and Co-CEO, The Carlyle Group
Rubin, Robert E. (USA), Co-Chair, Council on Foreign Relations and Former Treasury Secretary
Ruoff, Susanne (CHE), CEO, Swiss Post
Rutten, Gwendolyn (BEL), Chair, Open VLD
Sabia, Michael (CAN), CEO, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec
Sawers, John (GBR), Chairman and Partner, Macro Advisory Partners
Schadlow, Nadia (USA), Deputy Assistant to the President, National Security Council
Schmidt, Eric E. (USA), Executive Chairman, Alphabet Inc.
Schneider-Ammann, Johann N. (CHE), Federal Councillor, Swiss Confederation
Scholten, Rudolf (AUT), President, Bruno Kreisky Forum for International Dialogue
Severgnini, Beppe (ITA), Editor-in-Chief, 7-Corriere della Sera
Sikorski, Radoslaw (POL), Senior Fellow, Harvard University
Slat, Boyan (NLD), CEO and Founder, The Ocean Cleanup
Spahn, Jens (DEU), Parliamentary State Secretary and Federal Ministry of Finance
Stephenson, Randall L. (USA), Chairman and CEO, AT&T
Stern, Andrew (USA), President Emeritus, SEIU and Senior Fellow, Economic Security Project
Stoltenberg, Jens (INT), Secretary General, NATO
Summers, Lawrence H. (USA), Charles W. Eliot University Professor, Harvard University
Tertrais, Bruno (FRA), Deputy Director, Fondation pour la recherche stratégique
Thiel, Peter (USA), President, Thiel Capital
Topsøe, Jakob Haldor (DNK), Chairman, Haldor Topsøe Holding A/S
Ülgen, Sinan (TUR), Founding and Partner, Istanbul Economics
Vance, J.D. (USA), Author and Partner, Mithril
Wahlroos, Björn (FIN), Chairman, Sampo Group, Nordea Bank, UPM-Kymmene Corporation
Wallenberg, Marcus (SWE), Chairman, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB
Walter, Amy (USA), Editor, The Cook Political Report
Weston, Galen G. (CAN), CEO and Executive Chairman, Loblaw Companies Ltd and George Weston Companies
White, Sharon (GBR), Chief Executive, Ofcom
Wieseltier, Leon (USA), Isaiah Berlin Senior Fellow in Culture and Policy, The Brookings Institution
Wolf, Martin H. (INT), Chief Economics Commentator, Financial Times
Wolfensohn, James D. (USA), Chairman and CEO, Wolfensohn & Company
Wunsch, Pierre (BEL), Vice-Governor, National Bank of Belgium
Zeiler, Gerhard (AUT), President, Turner International
Zients, Jeffrey D. (USA), Former Director, National Economic Council
Zoellick, Robert B. (USA), Non-Executive Chairman, AllianceBernstein L.P.


Natrually, the secretive nature of the group has given birth to conspiracy theories. Some have claimed that the Bilderberg is a group of rich and powerful kingmakers seeking to impose a one world government. Whether that is true remains in the eye of the beholder, however one thing is clear: as the graph below shows, the members are connected to virtually every important and relevant organization, media outlet, company and political entity in the world.


Libertas aut Mors Semper Vigilans Fortis
Paratus et Fidelis
Joseph F Barber
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of FREEDOM OR ANARCHY Campaign of Conscience