NSC – Senior Director for International Economics and Competitiveness – Christina Segal-Knowles
White House

Christina Segal-Knowles

Senior Director for International Economics and Competitiveness

Serves on the White House National Security Council (NSC).

Christina Segal-Knowles is the Senior Director for International Economics and Competitiveness on the White House National Security Council.

Prior to joining the National Security Council, Segal-Knowles was the Executive Director for Financial Markets Infrastructure (FMI) at the Bank of England. From 2014 to 2017, she served in the Obama Administration as Director for International Economics and later Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Global Economics and Finance. She was also a Senior Visiting Fellow in the Institute for Global Affairs at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Past statements on development, diplomacy, and U.S. global leadership:

On Economic Security: “The United States and our regional partners, not just Japan, but across the region recognize that success in our cooperation depends not just on two-way investment flows…but also on how we sustain those investment flows and trade flows in a way that builds secure supply chains, harnesses clean energy and digital transformations, and broadly drives shared growth.” (source)

On Ukraine: “When we think about how does the National Security Council, how does the United States need to response, it’s not enough  just to concentrate on the security assistance, it’s not enough to just concentrate on the humanitarian assistance, we really need to think about how do you create the conditions for Ukraine’s economy to survive, and also how do you create the preconditions for Ukraine’s economy to thrive later?” (source)

On Climate Change: “The G20 is both about delivering on the very, very necessary work that we need to do to make sure that countries have the resources for their climate, for their climate transitions and to make sure that we’re also delivering on our policy ambitions and a transition that we’ve committed to including continuing net zero, and including living up to our commitments that are necessary for the 1.5 degrees.” (source)

On the G20: Speaking on the priorities of the G20 under India’s leadership, Segal-Knowles said, “We, as the United States, see the goals that India has set out for its G20, are very aligned with what we would like to see. A real focus on sustainable development, real focus on the achievement of the SDGs (sustainable development goals) and getting us back on track. A real focus on the intersection between development climate, debt, some of the issues that are facing emerging markets, and developing countries today I think is very, very welcome. It’s an agenda that we very much share.” (source)

On Global Economic Engagement: During her time as Special Assistant to the President for International Economics under the Obama Administration, Segal-Knowles remarked, “We believe that the TPP agreement has potential benefits for us economically in terms of opportunities for U.S. businesses, U.S. workers, U.S. jobs. We think it has a benefit in the foreign policy realm, it very much is a hallmark in part of our strategy of a rebalance towards Asia.” (source)