The Politics Of Transatlantic Trade Negotiations

By focusing on the wider process of negotiations, this novel volume presents the first systematic analysis of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The authors include outstanding scholars and relevant practitioners from across disciplines and various academic institutions around Europe and North America, but also from outside of the transatlantic basin. While presenting a thorough examination of the process of TTIP negotiations, the volume is divided into four parts with each part examining a broader theme and offering three or four shorter exploratory chapters that are accessible to academics, students, policy-makers and a wider audience. The volume explores historical and theoretical aspects of TTIP (with chapters by Gamble, Keohane and Morse, Telò), the beginnings of the TTIP talks and the role of individual actors (Mayer, Novotná, Dür and Lechner, Strange), TTIP’s possible knock-on effects and consequences for third parties (Aggarwal and Evenett, Duchesne and Ouellet, Zhang, Ponjaert) as well as impact on multilateral institutions and regimes complexes (Mavroidis, Mortensen, Meunier and Morin, Pauwelyn). The authors highlight dynamics which underline the relationship between the United States and the European Union and argue that TTIP promises to have vast implications not just for economics but global governance and international system.

This book investigates the politics of transatlantic trade, specifically the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations. Using a novel approach, the authors analyze the rhetorical choices made by opponents and supporters of an agreement, and the logical behind their arguments. Opponents used emotive frames and strategically chosen issues to increase public opposition to the negotiations; supporters countered, but also accommodated, parts of opponents’ rhetoric in hopes of quelling discontent. The study also highlights the resulting changes to EU trade policy, thus contributing to the literatures on trade policy, politicization, and rhetorical analysis.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has stirred passions like no other trade negotiation in recent history. Its supporters maintain that TTIP will produce spectacular growth and job creation; claims that are wholeheartedly rejected by its critics, who regard TTIP as a direct assault on workers' rights, health and safety standards and public services. In this incisive analysis, Gabriel Siles-Brugge and Ferdi de Ville scrutinize the claims made by TTIP's cheerleaders and scaremongers to reveal a far more nuanced picture behind the headlines. TTIP will not provide an economic 'cure-all', nor will it destroy the European welfare state in one fell swoop. Thanks to unprecedented levels of protest and debate around TTIP, however, neoliberal trade negotiations are well and truly back in the spotlight. In this respect, TTIP could well prove to be a 'game-changer' - just not in the way imagined by its backers.

The rise of cross-regional trade agreements is a defining trend of the current international trade system as shown by the signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in 2015, the negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the USA and the EU as well as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) between countries in Asia and Oceania. These differ from previous agreements in their economic significance and large geographic scale, and the wide scope of trade-related issues. The current rise of nationalist and isolationist ideologies across Europe and the USA has raised questions on the future of cross-regional trade deals and made the need to understand their implications for economic and political governance ever more urgent. Two main forms of governance that are central to this volume are the democratic tensions over new generation trade deals on the one hand, and their geopolitical ramifications on the other, which have come into collision to herald the advent of a highly uncertain period of world politics. Many of the questions tackled in this volume, surrounding the democratic governance of trade agreements – whether long-held debates on the inclusion of workers’ voices, controversies on intrusive "behind the border" provisions undermining national sovereignty and local autonomy or new questions on digital rights – are crucial to understand the ebbing popular support for far-reaching trade agreements. This book will be a useful learning tool for students and scholars in a wide range of fields, including Globalisation, Global Governance, International Political Economy, International Trade and Investment and International Law, and should also be of interest to EU trade negotiators, international policymakers and business associations.

Now available online: The Transatlantic Colossus: Global Contributions to Broaden the Debate on the EU-US Free Trade Agreement (2014), a publication from the Berlin Forum on Global Politics (BFoGP) in collaboration with the Internet & Society Collaboratory and FutureChallenges.org of the Bertelsmann Stiftung. The free trade agreement (TAFTA | TTIP) currently being negotiated between the United States and the European Union has the potential to significantly impact the lives of people on both sides of the Atlantic and across the world. Because it is crucial to broaden the debate on this topic of global importance, the Berlin Forum on Global Politics decided to send out an international call for papers in order to collect a strong plurality of views on TAFTA | TTIP as part of the Collaboratory's Initiative on "Globalization and the Internet". The result is an open knowledge publication, freely accessible under its Creative Commons (BY) license, which includes 22 articles written by a multitude of well-informed global stakeholders, members of civil society, academia, think tanks, consumer and activist groups, and business organizations.

Trade has always been an intensely political activity. Its conduct determines the well-being of entire national communities, and expansion of trade since the Second World War has been one of the major engines of world economic growth. In this new, fully updated edition, leading experts from around the world provide a comprehensive overview of the politics of international trade in the twenty-first century. The book explains the changing political environment in which trade policy is shaped, the core political issues, the future trade agenda and the role of the key actors. Subjects covered include: transatlantic trade relations regional trading agreements in Asia, Europe, North America and Latin America how trade affects developing countries the politics of the World Trade Organization key policy areas such as agriculture, competition and intellectual property the role of firms and governments in international trade how trade impacts on human rights and the environment.

Alasdair Young analyzes the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations and explores why they have proved so difficult to conclude. He sheds light on the limits of transatlantic cooperation and teases out the implications for the UK in post-Brexit trade negotiations and for facing a more protectionist stance from the United States.