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Well this agreement is important, in my view, because it is the most important US-European
initiative since the Marshall Plan. It is important to the economies of the United States
and Europe, at this juncture, because from the great recession of 2008 forward our economic
growth has not been good enough, and this is a deficit neutral way to increase economic
stimulus and to bring new participants into the market place for transatlantic trade and
investment. That is the immediate economic case, in addition there is a political and
a strategic component to this. This gives a purpose and a meaning to the transatlantic
relationship to compliment the long time partnership in NATO and on values across the board. Strategically
it gives Americans a sense that they actually have a link and connection and job opportunities
in Europe and Europeans the same with Americans. This will compliment and bolster the relationship
that we have in other fields.
The benefits of this agreement are more significant for small and medium sized enterprises. Big
business already has a very large share of the transatlantic trade and investment situation.
American companies invest in Europe to serve European markets, and European companies invest
in the Untied States to serve US markets. BMW has a plant in South Carolina manufacturing
cars for the American market, but what this will do is enable small entrepreneur in Dusseldorf
who has a good idea to sell, not only within European Union, but also in Oregon, California,
Texas, and other markets, just as easily as BMW can send its cars from South Carolina
to those markets. The internet makes all this possible. The internet and overnight package
delivery makes it possible for small manufacturers in both economies to serve customers on the
other side of the Atlantic
Both of us have high standards. The United States has very high standards of protection
of environment and health, and has had them for many years. In some areas US standards
are higher than European standards, in other areas European standards are higher. What
this will do is give us a direction and purpose to make our standards compatible, so that
we’ll be able to sell in each other’s market and benefit from the equally high standards.
There is no other market for the United States with as high standards as the European market,
and the same is true for Europe.
Back in the 90s we thought about doing a transatlantic free trade agreement, and one of the reasons
we did not do it is that we were afraid of disrupting the new WTO, World Trade Organization,
a multilateral system designed to govern world trade, and if the United States and the European
Union, it was thought, got together we might make it impossible for the WTO to do additional
rounds of global trade reducing activities. So we didn’t do it, and, in fact, the WTO
did not succeed anyway, and the so called Doha round was not very successful. And it
is actually only since the United States and the European Union announced these negotiations
that the WTO has been successful. In Bali, last winter, there was a quite significant,
not as big as we would have like, but a significant agreement in trade facilitation.