The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has launched a multiyear research effort dedicated to exploring how U.S. foreign policy needs to change to better advance the economic well-being of America’s middle class.

Carnegie has convened a high-level bipartisan task force to oversee the effort and make concrete recommendations in mid-2020. Those recommendations aim to help national security professionals, policy planners, congressional staff, and presidential campaign teams test their assumptions about how Americans perceive and experience the economic effects of U.S. foreign policy.

The task force’s recommendations drew on data recently gathered by its research team and university partners in Ohio, Colorado, and Nebraska, on perceived and measurable economic effects of U.S. foreign policy at the state and local levels. The findings from Ohio were published in December 2018, and the findings from Colorado were published in November 2019. Those from Nebraska were published in May 2020. The final report took stock of the data and reflected on the implications, including on ongoing debates related to international trade and investment policy, economic competition with China, defense spending, foreign aid, and global cooperation to combat climate change.