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."

Right Goal, Wrong Way

"Is TTIP Dead? If It Is, Does It Matter?," Forbes, August 30, 2016, "Since 2013, the U.S. and the EU have been negotiating a trade deal, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP. Over the weekend, Sigmar Gabriel, the leader of Germany’s Social Democratic Party, which is part of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition, made waves by stating, during a question and answer session with citizens, that “In my opinion, the negotiations with the United States have de facto failed, even though nobody is really admitting it.”"

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."

Let Us Now Praise Useless Icons

Symbols Without Substance, CapX, March 3, 2016. "A few weeks ago, I met a group of Europeans who were touring the US on the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program. When the conversation turned to the proposed US-EU trade deal, most of the European delegation seemed to agree (sensibly) that its economic impact would be minor. But they supported it none the less, on the argument that it would be a valuable symbol. That meeting came back to me when I read Rob Halfon MP’s explanation of why he will be voting for Britain to remain in the EU. As he put it, repeatedly, “I am frightened”. For Halfon, the value of the EU is symbolic: it’s supposedly an “alliance of democracies.” The EU’s not doing anything to improve the West’s position. It’s not the kind of alliance that actually fights. It’s just a symbol."

They're Not Our Friends

The Top Ten U.S. Myths About the European Union, CapX, January 21, 2016. "If the US is to be an effective ally of the democratic nations of Europe, it must see the European Union (EU) as it really is. In the years after the Second World War, the US was right to encourage Western Europe to trade more freely and to cooperate for their own security, both to defend against the Soviet threat and to stabilize the region’s fragile post-war democracies. This policy lost its relevance after the end of the Cold War and the rapid democratization of much of Eastern Europe. At that point, the US had achieved what it wanted to achieve with its support for a united and free Europe."

What We Should Be Doing in Europe, 2016 edition

Top Five Priorities for U.S. Policy Toward Europe in 2016, with Dan Kochis, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4506, January 8, 2016. "U.S. policy toward Europe in 2015 failed to rise to the significant challenges that confront it. The U.S. is no closer to having a clear and comprehensive strategy to deal with Russia than it was a year ago; it continues to devalue key bilateral and multilateral relationships in Europe for the sake of supporting the European Union (EU); and it took no effective steps to support improved governance in increasingly autocratic Turkey or in the aspiring democracy of Georgia. The devastating Islamist attacks in Paris in December 2015 prove that terrorism is an increasingly serious threat in the heart of Europe, and, from Russia’s aggression in Ukraine to the refugee crisis stemming from Syria, the EU displayed its customary obsession with inward-looking bureaucratic processes and supranationalism. The U.S. should defend European security, sovereignty, and prosperity, not support supranational institutions that undermine all these values. Here are the top five policy priorities in the European region for the Administration and Congress in 2016."

Against An International Investment Court

The U.S. Should Reject the European Commission’s Proposed Investment Court, with James Roberts and Riddhi Dasgupta, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4485, November 13, 2015. "The proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the United States and the European Union, if negotiated successfully, will certainly contain a mechanism for resolving disputes related to the treaty. The current model for Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) panels is widely used, but also wrongly controversial, particularly in Europe. The European Commission (EC), the executive body of the European Union (EU), has proposed that the TTIP create a new Investment Court System (ICS) to resolve such disputes.[1] The U.S. should firmly resist this proposal, which departs radically from the well-functioning ISDS system."

Treating Energy As A Trade Commodity

The Economic and Geopolitical Benefits of Free Trade in Energy Resources, with Nicholas Loris, Luke Coffey, James Phillips, Dean Cheng, Ana Quintana, Lisa Curtis, and William Wilson, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3072, October 9, 2015. "America has an abundance of natural resources, including sufficient energy reserves to provide Americans with affordable and reliable energy well into the future. With its plentiful reserves of coal, natural gas, and oil, the United States is already a global leader in energy production and has the potential to be a major supplier to the rest of the world. As is the case for many other countries around the world, the United States benefits from free trade because of private property rights. Individuals, in large part, have owned and had the ability to produce America’s natural resources—which is a primary reason why the U.S. is a global energy leader. Individuals extract and sell the energy sources, and the market—not Washington, D.C.—should determine where it goes. Allowing U.S. energy exports would provide a huge boon to the American economy, creating jobs, expanding the economy, and strengthening relationships with global trading partners and important allies."

Against an International Investment Court

The Proposed Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) Mechanism: U.S. Should Oppose EU Demand to Abandon It, with James Roberts and Riddhi Dasgupta, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4432, July 14, 2015. "One of the most important components of the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the United States and the European Union is the establishment of a mechanism for investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). An appropriately structured ISDS is an essential part of trade agreement enforcement and should be included in any comprehensive U.S. trade agreement with the EU. The EU’s proposal, backed by a vote of the European Parliament on July 8—that the TTIP should establish a permanent investment court, not an ISDS mechanism—is a bad solution in search of a non-existent problem. ISDS mechanisms work well to secure basic legal protections for a signatory state’s nationals abroad. The U.S. should firmly reject the EU’s proposal and insist that TTIP establish an ISDS."

Corporatism's Not Free Trade

Barack Obama is Right to Want Free Trade, But He Has the Wrong Reasons, Newsday, June 26, 2015. "No thanks to his fellow Democrats, President Barack Obama won a victory in Congress last week when Republicans voted to give him the authority to negotiate trade agreements in Asia and Europe. Too bad so much of the president's case for the agreements is based on his belief that the United States is in decline."

Against TTIP, Contra Mundum, Part II

TTIP: Small Upside, Big Downside, CapX, May 17, 2015. "One of the best things about the debate between believers in the free market over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the so-called US-EU free trade area, is that it cuts to the heart of a larger question: how do we advance freedom in practice? A lot of opponents of TTIP on the left (and some on the right) reject it either because they hate free trade and the free market, or because they are old-fashioned protectionists. That’s not true of any of the participants in this debate. We’re all free marketeers: we just disagree on how to get there."

Against TTIP, Contra Mundum

TTIP Benefits Crony Capitalists, Not Free Enterprise, CapX, April 9, 2015. "The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is often described as a free trade agreement between the U.S. and the European Union. If that were true, it would deserve the support of everyone who believes that economic freedom is vital for growth, and offers our best defense against the power of vested interests. But TTIP is both far more and far less than a free trade agreement. Indeed, it’s testimony to the fact that, between the U.S. and the EU, the free trade agenda, as we have conceived of it since 1945, is dead."

Senator Warren Is Wrong (Again) About Trade

Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) Mechanisms: An Important Feature of High-Quality Trade Agreements, with James Roberts and Riddhi Dasgupta, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4351, February 20, "There are many reasons to doubt that a trade agreement between the U.S. and the EU will deliver the economic gains or advance the broader geopolitical objectives claimed for it. Like any treaty, a trade agreement can be fairly assessed only when a full and final text has been negotiated and presented to the public. Yet the concerns raised in principle about creation of an ISDS mechanism are unfounded. Far from being dangerous or undesirable, an appropriately structured ISDS is an essential part of trade-agreement enforcement and should be included in any U.S. trade agreement with the EU."

A Big, Bad Idea

Closing Chapter of a Not So Special Relationship?, Yorkshire Post, January 16, 2015. "The White House announced Prime Minister David Cameron’s two-day visit to Washington in a statement issued last Saturday. It was a tellingly low-key announcement for an Anglo-American relationship that has mostly drifted in the past five years. The alliance, though, does have one big idea up its sleeve. Unfortunately, it’s a bad one."

Recommendations for US Policy Towards Europe

Top Five Policy Priorities for Europe in 2015, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4331, with Nile Gardiner and Luke Coffey, January 14, 2015. "It is time for the U.S. to renew its commitment to European security, to make NATO relevant again, and to promote economic freedom across the continent. Here are the top five foreign policy priorities in the European region for the Administration and Congress in 2015."

Renewing the US Commitment to the Anglo-American Relationship

David Cameron’s Visit to Washington: An Important Opportunity to Renew Anglo-American Leadership, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4330, with Nile Gardiner and Luke Coffey, January 13, 2015. "President Barack Obama will host British Prime Minister David Cameron at the White House on January 15–16. This will be Cameron’s last visit to the United States before the U.K.’s general election on May 7, 2015. Five issues should dominate the visit: (1) Russia’s aggression in Eastern Europe; (2) the crisis in Iran and the Levant; (3) the future of the U.K. inside the European Union (EU); (4) the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP); and (5) defending the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands at the upcoming Organization of American States (OAS) Summit."

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."

Recommendations on U.S. Policy Towards Europe

President Obama Goes to Europe: Top Five Policy Recommendations, with Nile Gardiner and Luke Coffey, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4234, June 4, 2014. "President Obama’s visit to Europe this week will be an important opportunity for the U.S. President to restate America’s commitment to the transatlantic partnership, strengthen the NATO alliance, and shore up European opposition to Russian aggression against Ukraine."