The future of Transatlantic economic relations : continuity amid discord

Abstract

From 2000 through 2004, transatlantic political disputes intensified over the establishment of an international criminal court, the status of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the US conduct of the war on terror, and the war in Iraq, among other matters. High-level officials in the United States (US) spoke of “punishing” France and “ignoring” Germany. Not only pundits, but business leaders feared that the acrimony over political and security matters could spread to the economic realm. Ad hoc boycotts were organized against French wines in the United States and US products in Europe. Disputes escalated over steel tariffs, agricultural subsidies, aircraft production subsidies, tax subsidies, consumer, food safety, and environmental laws and regulations. The various transatlantic dialogues among “civil society” groups, which had been established during the 1990s to spur public participation in the transatlantic sphere, lost momentum. Had the hopes of a “new world order” underpinned by the transatlantic alliance faded away? Would the economic side of the 1990’s “New Transatlantic Agenda” (“NTA”) wither from neglect?