Anglo-American Gabfests

In UK Relations, Biden Administration Substitutes ‘Declarations’ for Action, Daily Signal, June 12, 2023. "British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak—the U.K.’s third prime minister in the past year—visited the White House on Thursday in his first official trip to the U.S. This is the fourth time that Sunak and President Joe Biden have seen each other in the past four months. But familiarity isn’t breeding much in this relationship."

Why the U.K. Is Ideally Placed to Negotiate an FTA with the U.S.

Why the U.K. Is an Ideal Free Trade Partner for the U.S., Heritage Foundation Issue Brief#6035, December 11, 2020. "The U.S. and U.K. are currently engaged in intensive negotiations for an ambitious free trade agreement. Such an agreement would build on the already vital trade and investment relationship, and security partnership, between the two nations. It would also offer wider advantages that would help the U.S. to build the positive free trade agenda it needs. The British public broadly supports pursuing free trade agreements outside the European Union, including an agreement with the U.S.; and the British government is moving vigorously to negotiate both continuity and new trade agreements as it exits the EU Customs Union. The U.S. should welcome the fact that the U.K. has entered the world economy as an independent trading nation, and take advantage of this reality by concluding an ambitious free trade agreement with the U.K. in 2021."

UK Must Break Out of EU Rule-Making Orbit

The U.S. and Britain Should Conclude an Ambitious Free Trade Agreement as Soon as Possible, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #6012, September 24, 2020. "Both the U.S. and the U.K. have much to gain from negotiating and ratifying a free trade agreement, and both nations have shown strong political support for such an agreement. The fundamental goal of the European Union, on the other hand, continues to be to lock the U.K. into its regulatory orbit, thereby nullifying in practice many of Brexit’s achievements and making it effectively impossible for the U.K. to maintain an independent trade policy. The U.K. has made it clear that it will not become an EU client state and has demonstrated its commitment to developing its own trade policies. The U.S. and the U.K. must not allow narrow protectionist lobbies to defeat the broader objectives on which both nations are agreed, and should consider announcing an interim agreement as soon as possible."

Avoiding TTIP Redux

Ten Principles for U.S. Trade Negotiations with the European Union, with Gabriella Beaumont-Smith, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3480, April 8, 2020. "Since the collapse of the negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in 2016, trade tensions between the U.S. and the European Union have increased. In July 2018, the U.S. and the EU agreed to negotiate a trade agreement, and in October 2018, the U.S. released its negotiating objectives for trade talks with the EU. These objectives are generic and based on a vision of “balanced” and managed trade that is excessively pessimistic about the value of free trade. Negotiating with the EU will not be easy: The EU’s support for regulatory harmonization and its proclivity for accompanying its free trade agreements with broad political declarations are both unacceptable. The U.S. and the EU should learn the lesson of TTIP, and prefer a narrow, principled agreement that increases market-based competition and which can be negotiated rapidly, to an effort to negotiate a wider agreement that fails and thereby only gives rise to further animosity."

Tariffs Are A Losing Battle

U.S. Fighting An Old Trade Tussle, Newsday, July 14, 2019. "President Donald Trump has threatened to impose more tariffs on European trade with the United States. This is not the first time he has made this threat, and it is not an idle one. It is, however, bad economics and bad policy. Worse, it is a distraction from a better trade agenda and the true trade threats from Europe."

U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee Testimony on US-EU Trade

Testimony in hearing on “Transatlantic Policy Impacts of the U.S. – EU Trade Conflict,” hearing in the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, Energy, and the Environment, June 26, 2019.

It's Woodrow Wilson's Fault

Cracking Down on Presidential Power, Newsday, July 22, 2018. "The power of the presidency has grown at the expense of Congress. President Donald Trump’s trade policy is the latest illustration of the fact that the chief executive in the United States is over-mighty. Unfortunately, the progressive left likes it that way."

A US-UK FTA, Closer Than Ever

New Trade Deals, Daily Signal, January 30, 2018. "The president’s call for new trade deals that are fair and reciprocal, and that protect American workers and American intellectual property, bode well for a ground-breaking free trade area agreement between the U.S. and Britain."

Spot the Radical

Who’s the Radical, Trump or Obama?, Newsday, January 14, 2018. "In assessments of President Donald Trump’s first year in office, a common theme among commentators has been that he falls outside the American political mainstream. In some ways, that’s true. But in most ways, he’s been traditional. It was his predecessor, Barack Obama, who was the radical."

TPP Matters More than Refugees

Furor Over Refugee Order Overshadows TPP, Newsday, February 11, 2017. "President Donald Trump’s “extreme vetting” order on refugees is his most controversial act in his three weeks in office. But his decision to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership was more important. Yet the first order stoked a panic, while the second received limited attention in comparison."

The Strengths and Weaknesses of TPP's ISDS

Straight Talk on the ISDS Provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, with James M. Roberts and Riddhi Dasgupta, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4564, May 17, 2016. "The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an investment and trade agreement signed last February between the U.S. and 11 other Pacific Rim nations, contains enforcement provisions, including an Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism, for resolving potential investment disputes related to the agreement. Today, the ISDS system is used widely around the globe to help protect the investor and to secure for the signatory nation the foreign investment it seeks. But ISDS has become controversial, both as part of the TPP and because it may be included in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) presently being negotiated between the U.S. and the European Union. The ISDS provisions are only one component of the TPP. The agreement must be assessed as a whole. The purpose of this Issue Brief is to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the ISDS provisions of the TPP, both as part of the agreement and as part of the broad agenda of American investment and trade diplomacy."

Front of the Line

Britain at the “Back of the Queue?” Why Obama Is Wrong About Trade and Brexit, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4552, "During an April 22 press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, President Barack Obama stated that, were Britain to leave the European Union, Britain would end up at the “back of the queue” for a trade deal with the United States. Observers wrongly understood this to mean that the U.S. would not negotiate with Britain until it had completed negotiations with all other trading partners. In fact, the President meant that negotiations with Britain could not, as a practical matter, be concluded for a number of years. The President is incorrect: Negotiations with Britain could be completed faster than other pending U.S. negotiations, because the kind of trade treaty the U.S. should seek to negotiate with Britain is different from the controversial, all-encompassing, large-bloc agreements the Administration has pursued in the Pacific and the Atlantic."

A Fair and Balanced Consideration of Barack Obama's Innumberable Miserable Failures

One Area Barack Obama Hasn’t Screwed Up, Newsday, January 31, 2016. "Conventional wisdom says that if you want to be an influential president, you should be a success. But in some ways, the influence of failures is greater. Because of that, one of the areas ripe for debate in the 2016 presidential race is trade. And for that, we have President Barack Obama to thank."

Promoting the Obvious: Free Trade Between the US and the UK

Freedom from the EU: Why Britain and the U.S. Should Pursue a U.S.-U.K. Free Trade Area, with Nile Gardiner, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief, September 26, 2014. "A referendum on British membership in the European Union is scheduled for 2017. EU supporters argue that exit from the EU would hurt Britain’s economy and, in particular, its ability to negotiate trading arrangements with the rest of the world—a responsibility currently exercised by the EU on behalf of all of its member states. But there is every reason to believe that Britain, the world’s sixth-largest economy, would be able to negotiate trade agreements independently. If Britain does decide to leave the EU, one of its central priorities should be to negotiate a modern free trade area (FTA), based on sovereignty and freedom, with the United States. This is a goal that the U.S., which should abandon its policy of supporting the EU at the expense of the sovereignty of its member nations, should also champion."

The Faulty Geopolitical Case Behind TTIP

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP): The Geopolitical Reality, with Nile Gardiner and Luke Coffey, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2953, September 17, 2014. "The United States and the European Union are negotiating a trade agreement—the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)—that is being hailed as the answer to the woes of the transatlantic relationship, as a solution to the EU’s economic difficulties, and as heralding the creation of a new institution that will reinvigorate the Western alliance. It is essential that both the geopolitical concerns that motivate support for a TTIP and the limits of a TTIP’s ability to improve U.S.–EU relations and address the rise of China be properly understood."

The Economic Case for and Against TTIP

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP): Economic Benefits and Potential Risks, with Luke Coffey and Bryan Riley, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2952, September 17, 2014. "The United States and the European Union are negotiating a trade agreement—the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)—that politicians and commentators on both sides of the Atlantic hail as the answer to the woes of the transatlantic relationship, as a solution to the EU’s economic difficulties, and as heralding the creation of a new institution that will reinvigorate the Western alliance. But no U.S.–EU agreement can do all that has been claimed of the TTIP, and there are reasons to believe that its benefits have been oversold. The U.S. should support all measures that would promote growth and employment by increasing economic freedom, but it should not accept any agreement that could increase government regulation in the name of promoting free trade and create a transnational regulatory body that could infringe on U.S. sovereignty."

Competence Matters

Obama’s Leadership is Devaluing the West, and We Will All Pay the Penalty, Yorkshire Post, October 3, 2011. "If governments want to succeed on big matters, they need to get the small ones right. So much of the everyday work of governing is tiring and dull, but it is important. Managing programs, proposing bills, and dealing with the legislature is the price of winning last time, and the stuff of victory next time. President Barack Obama is failing on the small stuff, and it is dragging his administration down in a big way."