It was launched with the best of intentions and highest of ambitions – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was embraced by President Obama and every European head of government as the world’s two largest economies fulfilling their destiny. UK Prime Minister David Cameron called it ‘the most important trade agreement of all time’. USTR Michael Froman pledged to finalise the agreement quickly: on ‘one tank of gas’. But indeed, the optimism soon waned as the parties became engaged in the usual effort to achieve tactical advantage. Longstanding irritants that had derailed previous attempts to creating a transatlantic market space resurfaced. New controversies like investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) emerged, but so did imaginary ones, like how TTIP might force the British healthcare system to privatise. The post-World War II commercial relationship between Europe and the US has a long history of achievement and of false starts. Joint efforts to jumpstart work on this new agenda like the New Transatlantic Agenda and Transatlantic Business Dialogue (1995), and the Transatlantic Economic Council (2007), did not produce meaningful results, leading to frustration and a deep scepticism on both sides that another European-US effort – like TTIP – could possibly succeed. Yet, as...
Written by Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, J. Bradford Jensen, J. Robert Vastine
Tags: E15Initiative, E15Initiative, Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs)