Dear AmCham Members, Partners and friends,
I warmly welcome you to this 172nd issue of your AmCham.lu newsletter published on 20 March 2025!
These past weeks have seen much unsettling activity on both sides of the Atlantic.
On the U.S. side, the Democrats are strongly protesting on many fronts against the cost reduction activities of President Trump, Elon Musk and their team of DOGE investigators. At the same time, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and nine of his Senate Democratic colleagues have joined with the Republicans to approve a short-term finding bill solution to keep the government open while a longer-term budget bill is drafted for discussion and approval before September. After an airstrike, the United States killed the ISIS leader for Syria and Iraq, perhaps the last major terrorist leader in the region. And with very active engagement, progress continues to be made towards establishing a ceasefire in the Russian /Ukrainian war to stop the loss of life of both military and civilian personnel.
The other big news story is the back and forth regarding tariffs on the economic front. Because of this topic, I have attached a video clip with the Commerce Secretary of the United States who explains the U.S. rationale for the U.S. efforts to strengthen the American economy. This video provides very solid analysis of the U.S. reasons for what it is doing and trying to achieve. Please watch this carefully.
I am writing this Chairman’s report from Brussels where I am attending a meeting of the Chairman and Presidents of the Federation of American Chambers of Commerce in Europe. Individually and as a group we have gone on record as being opposed to tariffs and expressed our clear preference for trade problems to be resolved by discussion rather than a trade war.
Also, at this meeting we are publishing our AmCham EU annual study analysis of bilateral trade and investment between the U.S. and Europe. I am very proud that AmCham.lu is one of the five AmChams in Europe who join together to fund and publish this annual trade and investment report every year. Particularly for Luxembourg, free and open trade is extremely important. For that reason, AmCham.lu has joined this effort to ensure we have “skin in the game” in support of Luxembourg.
I am very pleased to note that bilateral trade between Luxembourg and the United States is robust and very well and fairly balanced. The United States is Luxembourg’s fourth largest trading partner and the only outside-of-Europe trading partner among its top ten economic trading partners. Every month, U.S. companies pay for 28,800 Luxembourg based employee salaries! Anyone who suggests the U.S. and Luxembourg are not very strong and essential economic partners, is very wrong!
At AmCham.lu we are non-partisan but very pro-business. We work every day —every day — to be a bridge; strongly supporting the ongoing, economically powerful partnership between the USA and Luxembourg; we also work very hard every day helping and supporting our members to meet and interact with the right people in Luxembourg and to be able to live and work with the best possible government and business environment conditions! We do this out of loyalty to both Luxembourg and the USA and to our members and friends to ensure their best possible working environment and best possible living circumstances for all of our citizens.
Our interview this week is with Minister Gloden who leads the Ministry for Home Affairs which is responsible for the Police who keep us safe, and relations with the communes where we live and work. We appreciate Minister Gloden and what he and his team are doing. We hope you will feel the same way after you read this interview!
Tomorrow, we will put on our first After-Work-Drinks (AWD) event! This is a new concept for us and is inspired by our desire to ensure we can provide you with high quality and informative networking events. Please see the details which follow. We are delighted we have had a very good response to this new idea of “lite” evening networking and plan to continue to do this most every month, along with occasional ABAL lunches. We look forward to you joining us! Likewise, any companies who might be interested to host one of these After-Work-Drinks events are most welcome and appreciated to contact myself, Paul@amcham.lu or Daniel@amcham.lu.
Our AWD event tomorrow will be hosted and take place at Elena Gromova’s fashion pop-up store and is already completely sold out! But the way things go, we may have last minute cancellations, so please ask to be put on the waiting list if you are interested (Daniel@amcham.lu). We will publish photos and an after-event summary next week.
As always, we hope you enjoy the recipe from Bibi Wintersdorf and her Kachen team, the AmCham Member Benefits Club news and our other content!
My most sincere respect and very best wishes,
Paul Schonenberg
Chairman and CEO
AmCham.lu