“The Paradox of Transatlantic Trade Cooperation: The New Transatlantic Marketplace and the Road Towards the Transatlantic Economic Partnership”

• Main Author: Kerremans, Bart.
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: 1999
• Subjects: EU-US; international trade; Canada; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://aei.pitt.edu/2309/; http://aei.pitt.edu/2309/1/002606_1.pdf

If there is one issue on which there exists consensus between the two sides of the North Atlantic it is that the European Union and the United States are linked to each other by extensive trade and investment relations and by common security interests. Indeed, each and any of the numerous statements on Transatlantic relations issued since the fall of the Berlin Wall has emphasized this. And there are many reasons to agree with this. First, there is NATO that binds the security policies of the U.S. and Canada together with those of an increasing number of European countries. Second, there is the impressive record on trade. As has been stated recently by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR, 1998a), the EU, and U.S. trade for about $300 billion in goods annually (in 1996, ECU 277 billion) which accounts for about 20% of world trade in goods. About 20% of this trade was trade in high technological manufactures, an indication that a large part of the Transatlantic trade is intra-industry trade. European products compete with similar U.S. products on the Transatlantic market (Commission, 1998a). Furthermore agricultural trade alone accounted for $15 billion in 1997.