The Transatlantic Union: The Trap Within

On Feb. 12, 2013, in his annual State of the Union address, President Barack Obama unilaterally announced that negotiations for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union were underway.

The story he broke was confirmed hours later, with a joint declaration from the American president and the presidents of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, and the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso.

The idea of creating a Transatlantic Free Trade Area was born in 1992, as a side-note in negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement — obviously an expansion project that Washington wanted to take to the European Union.

At that time, the United States demanded the proposal’s postponement until the World Trade Organization was more stable, fearing that the two projects might inhibit one other rather than acting as a mutual source of strength.

This creation is just one facet of a much wider project, that includes the establishment of a genuinely supranational government, complete with its Transatlantic Economic Council, Transatlantic Political Council and Transatlantic Parliamentary Forum. These three bodies were all conceived under the radar, without the slightest publicity.

The design of these entities calls to mind an age-old plan to create one big capitalist bloc that would group together all states with Anglo-American influence. Vestiges of this project are seen in the secret clauses of the Marshall Plan and, above all, in Article 2 of the North Atlantic Treaty.

This is why the terms Transatlantic Union and “Economic NATO” are used interchangeably. Incidentally, it says a lot that the American body monitoring the project is the National Security Council and not the Department of Commerce.

One can imagine how the Transatlantic Union will work by studying how conflicts over access to personal information have been resolved. The Europeans have rigid privacy protection laws, whereas the Americans have no limits in this domain, so long as they are acting under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

After a number of exchanges on the subject, the Europeans ended up stepping aside as the American model was implemented, with one-way traffic at that: The Americans copied the data of the Europeans, who were not given access to American information.

In the field of economics, they will try to revoke customs rights and break down other barriers — that is to say, eliminate local European rules that stop importation of certain products. Washington hopes to sell its GM-foods, chlorine-treated birds and hormone-fed beef in Europe without resistance. What’s more, it also wants to use personal information about the users of Facebook, Google, etc. with impunity. Recently, Google confirmed that the FBI watches the web to detect potential terrorist activity.

In 2009-10, Barack Obama created a committee of economic advisors presided over by historian Christina Romer, a specialist on the Great Depression, who developed the theory that the only feasible solution to the United States’ current crisis consists of getting European capital to gravitate toward Wall Street.

It is for this reason that Washington forced the closure of the majority of foreign tax havens without links to Anglo-Saxon countries, which had a knock-on effect to the value of the euro. Its long-term strategy is thus reinforced by a mid-term tactic.

Capitalists in search of stability have encountered difficulties while transferring their money to the United States, a process that would be made easier with this “economic NATO.” Thus the United States could save its own economy by gaining European capital — or rather, by mutilating the European economy.

Beyond the inequality of the project, and the immediate deceit it represents, the most important point is that the interests of the United States and the European Union are, in reality, at odds.

The United States and Great Britain are naval powers, and transatlantic trade is a matter of historical interest for them. This was the objective set out in the Atlantic Charter.

Per contra, the Europeans have continental common interests with Russia, especially in terms of energy. Brussels is actively sabotaging those interests by staying at Washington’s beck and call, as though this were still the Cold War era.