The Transatlantic Trade Investment and Partnership deal, otherwise known as TTIP, offers the EU and the US the opportunity to secure much needed economic growth and reinvigorate the transatlantic alliance. Robert Heslop writes that a comprehensive TTIP would ensure that the EU and US remain at the centre of the global economy, at a time when rising powers seek to challenge the current international order.
It is because of the opportunities stemming from TTIP the UK must not only remain in the EU but also play a leading role in securing a successful and comprehensive deal between the US and the EU. Instead of flirting with a Brexit the UK should be the key player in not only securing TTIP, but also in easing many of the fears European citizens have about the deal, which has so far been conducted in a shroud of secrecy and controversy.
The supporters of TTIP believe the completion of the deal would bring about great economic benefits for the UK and the rest of the EU. The UK government estimates that if TTIP were to be concluded, breaking down the last barriers of trade between the EU and the US, the UK economy could benefit as much as £10 billion and the overall EU economy could benefit £100 billion. At a time of record unemployment in the EU, fuelling euro-sceptic parties on the left and right, the mainstream politicians hope is that the economic benefits of TTIP will reduce the potency of these insurgency parties and restore citizen’s faith in the European project.
During the EU referendum debate, much discussion has and will continue to be focused on whether or not the UK could secure better trade deals acting alone. Indeed the Brexiteers are adamant that once the UK is free from the shackles of EU red tape and regulation, it will walk into the sunset conducting favourable trade deals with all nations.
The TTIP negotiations show just how wrong they are. The fact the EU is able to operate with such clout as a trade actor in the international system is because of the combined GDP and volume of 500m relatively wealthy citizens of the member states. The UK would be in a much weaker bargaining position acting alone. If the UK were to leave the EU, reaching a separate deal with the US would not happen easily, if at all. “I think it’s absolutely clear that Britain has a greater voice at the trade table being part of the EU, being part of a larger economic entity,” Michael Froman told Reuters, adding that EU membership gives Britain more leverage in negotiations. “We’re not particularly in the market for FTAs with individual countries. We’re building platforms … that other countries can join over time.” If Britain left the EU, Froman said, it would face the same tariffs and trade barriers as other countries outside the US free trade network. Those advocating for a Brexit based on the grounds the UK would be able to pursue a flexible mercantilist foreign policy must challenge the view put forward by Froman.
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Whilst securing economic growth is understandably the most pressing concern for the EU’s beleaguered leaders, and desperately sought after by unemployed Europeans, one must also look at the global ramifications if TTIP were to be secured. TTIP could become the economic equivalent of NATO. For if the EU and US economies were to become more integrated, better connected and more successful, we could witness the strengthening of the transatlantic alliance.
At a time when the US is concerned and indeed openly critical about European NATO member states unwillingness to contribute to the alliance, the TTIP deal could restore US confidence in the EU. Although the US is justifiably aggrieved at having to pay for Europe’s security, the EU has serious and justified misgivings about the US. The revelations in 2014 that the NSA had been spying on the EU mission in the UN and Washington, as well as targeting Germany, caused major uproar. US-EU relations reached a nadir not seen since the strife over the Iraq War in 2003.
TTIP offers the opportunity to restore a weakened transatlantic alliance. At a time of international instability caused by a revanchist Russia, the rise of radical Islam in the MENA, the perils of climate change and many other factors, it is in the partner’s interest to strengthen the transatlantic alliance. Finalising TTIP would signal to the world that the US and the EU are resolved to do just that. It is in the UK’s national interest for the U.S. and the EU to have a relationship that is cordial, respectful and above all strong enough to overcome the challenges I have just described. Because of this the UK must remain at the heart of the European Union using its influence in Brussels and Washington to forge this relationship.
The rise of the so-called BRICs is challenging the liberal social and economic order that the US and EU have forged and overwhelmingly benefitted from. The conclusion of TTIP, once the fears over the impact any deal could have on public service provisions are allayed, should cement the EU and US at the very heart of the global economy. This will tremendously benefit EU citizens and reinvigorate the transatlantic alliance. It would be reckless and illogical for the UK to leave the EU when this opportunity has presented itself.
This blog represents the views of the author and not those of BrexitVote, nor the LSE.
Robert Heslop is a writer at OneEurope, an ambassador for OneEurope UK, and a contributor at Vocal Europe. @R_Heslop92
Do I grasp the salient argument here – namely that the UK should stay in the EU because it will probably be good for the US & the EU?
Does Mr. Heslop seriously believe that such an argument will be hungrily absorbed by the British people?
Try something else Mr. Heslop.
Heslop says, “It is because of the opportunities stemming from TTIP the UK must not only remain in the EU but also play a leading role in securing a successful and comprehensive deal between the US and the EU.” So I think he says both, that it will be good for the US and that it will be good for the UK.
His concern is that the UK realize that they play the key role: given current US disenchantment with the EU only they, the UK, can play the role needed of reconciler, middleman, power broker — to realize the advantages for both the US and the UK.
The bulk of the population are completely unaware of TTIP. Of those that are, the vast majority are against it, so much so, that it is regularly brought up by those aware of it, as a reason to exit the EU, not to stay in it.
Opposition to the TTIP is coming from all across the UK political spectrum. UKIP are strongly opposed and even held a protest against it in the EU parliament. UKIP have described it as “corporatist”, and Nigel Farage himself has said he had had more correspondence from concerned constituents on it than on any other EU issue. Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and the trade union movement have utterly condemned TTIP. Andy Burnham has expressed concern about it. The Greens led the original opposition to it. Plaid and the SNP are now opposed. Tories such as Bill Cash and Zac Goldsmith have been highly critical. The BNP have spoken out against it.
The supporters of TTIP have been the small band of technocratic corporate liberals in the Blairite, Cleggite and Osbornite camps of their respected parties. The agenda of these politicians rather than being popular, has led to the rise of UKIP and the SNP, the election of Corbyn, and rising euroscepticism in the UK. TTIP if enacted will lead to more people flocking to the socialist left and the nationalist right, if the nation state is undermined by corporate power.
I don’t think the people you cite go as far as you do, in criticizing TTIP. It is a trade deal… most of those recently have been criticized, with dire predictions similar to those you list here, regardless of their contents… the WTO gets flogged by some folks mercilessly no matter what they do… The question critics like you must address is how would you manage trade in the absence of such treaties? Or are you simply against “trade” — many current critics are — the rejoinder to that position is an old economics saying, that, “Trade is war by peaceful means”, in the past the alternative to peaceful trade most often has been war. So I wish you’d flesh-out your position here with some reasons?
Also that final statement of yours I simply don’t understand: “TTIP if enacted will lead to more people flocking to the socialist left and the nationalist right, if the nation state is undermined by corporate power.” — please explain? Why would TTIP polarize the UK politically? And how does it, “undermine the nation-state by corporate power”?
I would be interested how the supposed benefits of TIPP are to be transferred to EU citizens or are we expected to work for longer hours and shorter holidays common in the USA. TIPP also increases CO2 productionand thus costs my grandchildren.
I don’t see anything in TTIP myself, Nigel, regarding USA hours & holidays being required of EU citizens. I suppose that might be indirect, like some sort of TTIP enforcement of disguised subsidies, for instance, although I don’t see what hours & holidays might have to do with that. Can you spot all that anywhere in TTIP, or direct me to others who have said it’s there, and said where? I’m looking at the following:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership#The_benefits_of_TTIP
— plus several of the many External Links listed there.
Your CO2 point I believe is one related to industrial development generally — that any of it will increase CO2 — and yes there has been a great deal of very direct discussion of that point. One of the most interesting and distressing controversies of both TTIP and TPP has pitted the Developing World bitterly against the Developed, pointing out that We The Developed created this problem in growing rich, and now are denying to the grandchildren of Them The Developing the same chance to escape from poverty… India and Ethiopia both make that point forcefully, and most of the world, most of it still Developing after all, support them.
It’s becoming a moot point, though, hopefully: we The Developed have been the world’s largest polluters in the past, certainly — nowadays it’s tropical jungles being burned off for agriculture in Developing Countries, mostly, plus new industrial development there — now though our Developed Country economies are switching from Manufacturing to Services, rapidly, Services will be 90% of our economies before long, and those don’t pollute or at least they pollute lots less than heavy industry and agriculture do — as for the Developing Countries left with the tasks we no longer want, however, we do have to work hard with them on conservation, and on new technologies and other approaches to reduce global pollution, yes.
TTIP, though, has less to do with this: if we, Europe and the US, do more trade, going forward, it will be increasingly in services, at both ends, because that’s what we both will be doing, than it will be in polluting industries and agriculture. So your CO2 concern certainly is valid, but I think it’s a different problem.
The TTIP argument offered by Jack Kessler is a poor one.
The people of the UK do not want to deliver allegiance to the EU & that is that.
You may argue galore about a wonderful TTIP but the wonders claimed are unlikely ever to come about as the TTIP may well never materialise. The probability of failure to ratify the TTIP are great & major hurdles not least in that crucible of democracy, the US congress are already looking set to consign the TTIP to the Dodo room.
In any event Jack, the people [you know, those who go the polls in the “Leave the EU” referendum] have never heard of TTIP so the entirety of your offerings are moot!!!.
Sorry Jack.
Tony, most trade & other economics-agreements — GATT, Bretton-Woods, trade-treaties, the rest — fall on deaf-eared publics. The minutiae of MFN etc. take up vast volumes which remain unread, yes — outside though of Customs Houses, & the freight offices of any firm highly-dependent upon them, including nearly every-firm located in Britain or in any large US port-city, & including nowadays every-firm-period as _all_ trade now has globalized…
Notice Alibaba: that is The Future, for-better or for-worse — my wife now can buy the same little curtain-hangers which she purchased previously from the local hardware store, now online with a few keystrokes & her credit card, direct from the Chungking outfit which manufacturers same for some North American wholesale distributor, arrival via air freight within nearly the same time it takes her to arrange her weekly drive down to the store and back, and at half the retail price… don’t become a middleman…
So “the people who go to the polls” rely greatly upon trade-agreements, in fact — yes perhaps unknowingly, but they know it well when they get to the hardware store and discover empty shelves, or that prices have soared, or worse when they bring their purchase home and find that their nosy neighbor obtained theirs “online” faster and for far less. That is trade agreements… regulators meddling with the so-called “free” markets to keep things fair… absolutely-essential part of free-market-capitalism, see Stiglitz et al., despite right-wing misunderstandings of same & perennial political grandstanding.
TTIP will pass, as TPP already has, not because “the people want it” but because “the people want trade” — you are making a trade “protectionism” argument here, perhaps, very like the one you’ve been making elsewhere for “isolationism”, but neither one is in the interests of the British or other publics, and both historically only have produced wars, well-regulated trade being “war by peaceful means”…
The political point is that we have lawmakers — Congress, Parliament — precisely to act in the interests of their publics, of Us, on technical matters such as this. In the US we call this being a “democratic republic” — aka, in the British case, “representative democracy — we both realized, long ago, that pure-democracy à la tiny Swiss hand-raising villages does not work, primary reason being that voters are busy leading real-lives and do not have time to read, and memorize, small-print volumes listing 17,000+ lines of boring data — our legislators and their aides do that for us, as they do it for our criminal codes and so on, and we supervise them via elections.
So you are wrong and you are right, about TTIP here: yes normal people do not notice — but they certainly watch the outcomes carefully, every time they go online or to the store to make a purchase — without TTIP those prices will go haywire and mostly up, and voters do notice that. It’s why so much effort gets put into trade agreements, in spite of Neocon objections — without them “free” markets won’t be free, or fair. But nowadays most business-people know these matters well: it’s all “global” trade now, and it’s important.
It took 7 years to get TPP passed. I expect it may take longer for TTIP — Europe is an enormous and very complicated trading market — we’re just now beginning Year 3 of negotiations, so it’s early yet, and as always much room remains for changes, and many local requirements exceptions will be made, but sooner or later there will be some agreement — because otherwise, paraphrasing Robert Bolt’s Thomas More as I have here before, “no one will be able to stand in the winds which will blow then”. Trade needs to be regulated.
There is a long number of years in that Jack.
As Keynes said, “..in the long run we are all dead”.
As to invoking the alliance between Britain & the US that is a busted flush.
The US is only interested in building an alliance against China & everyone knows that.
Or as Charles de Gaulle said, “an alliance is like a pretty girl – it lasts as long as it lasts.”
Keynes was correct about that, certainly… dunno about his deficit-spending, tho, seems he was politically-naive there…
As to the busted-flush, tho, no, I believe there’s not only life in our alliance still but that in fact it’s getting stronger. As Britain draws away from Europe it looks toward the US almost automatically, and vice versa — you’ve noted the capital flows yourself here, Tony, the UK is our largest foreign investor by many measures — also, higher education & research, too, finds increasing numbers of British personnel in senior positions here, & the same for US people there, those long have been mutual plums & even necessities for the respective professions, a foreign posting at Oxbridge / LSE or one at Berkeley / an Ivy, and that trend is increasing as well — ditto now culture, too, ask any dancer or rock group, there doesn’t need to be another Brit-invasion now, they all have homes here & ours all have homes there.
I do have London friends who “hate the US”, yes, but that’s political — said friends “hate” lots of things, one was an elderly Fabian who scolded me for stays at Brown’s Hotel, condemning it as capitalist, but she loved Americans as she’d often say. I don’t think there’s anyone in the US who don’t love Britain, tho… maybe it’s “only” the beer…
🙂
You are wrong about US sentiment on China, tho. That threat-assessment is mostly our Pentagon, politicking: huge military establishments require constant feeding, & the threat-board of our bunch has looked relatively-empty recently — their China-worries now are in-part sincere, altho many critics say in-error, that our new Terrorism strategic-world doesn’t require huge, it requires small / nimble / Special Ops tactical, that’s Rumsfeld et al. — but also the Pentagon’s China-worries are somewhat just personal-survival-budgetary, for Obama has sliced that, & Lefties in this Election Year noisily desire funds to go to other priorities. Threat-boards need a Big Target if they are to attract media & other attention, and the ill-defined & too-diffuse War On Terror never has provided that. You face the identical set of political-issues in Britain, now… another arena on which the UK & US profitably can compare notes & cooperate & share burdens, still…
So I would say the US is interested in China as a potential belligerent, yes, but not “only” that…
China also is one of our largest creditors, now, and investors, and it rapidly is becoming one of our largest customers… It’s where Apple sells most of its iPhones, already, yes still designed mostly in Cupertino and manufactured mostly in & near Shanghai, but nowadays sold too mostly in new Apple Stores & online, there.
And China even buys our rice, now! They literally paved-paradise: the famously-beautiful rice paddies of the Pearl and Yangtze river-basins… — as the Germans did with the Moldau, now-become a concreted sluice which floods disastrously — the Chinese traded-away their prime agriculture to their manufacturing-phase, now ending, those concreted river-basins are where they’ve been assembling the iPhones. So nowadays they buy their rice from California! Yes, we’ve become the big rice producer: full ships sail regularly from Sacramento & Long Beach to Kobe & Shanghai & Hong Kong. Rice for the bellies of China… Coals to Newcastle…
And you forget, I think, our US West, in your generalizing about US=>China antipathy: Chinese immigrants settled in large numbers here beginning nearly two centuries ago — there are Chinese-ancestry “native” families who have lived here for 10 generations, doubling my own family’s 5 that it took them to get here from Yorkshire — and they are numerous, California is now majority “non-anglo”, as we say out here, our West is a very different place from our East Coast, with which you perhaps are more familiar.
So, no, general US attitudes toward China & Asia are not what you say. To many of us China is sentimentally “home”, just as to some of us still England is. And to an increasingly-large number of us China & Asia are where we Americans work, invest, vacation — those are the foreign-languages we learn now & the people we marry, they are where our children & grandchildren are & are headed. So, no, we don’t want to blow it up, “only” or otherwise. The US has changed. Visit any California college campus or city and you’ll see.
And n.b. De Gaulle was French, not American.
Ah, de Gaulle was French was he? There was silly old me thinking he was American [sic].
The BRIC countries do not constitute an organised group of countries. They do not work together as a trade group or as any form of organisation.
They simply get together to hold a mutual admiration society PR stunt every time they find it apposite to do so.
The “B” in BRIC [Brazil] is in a mess economically & politically. The “R” in BRIC [Russia] is in a sanctioned mess economically. The “I” in BRIC [India] posts economic growth stats that are not accurate. The “C” in BRIC [China]is performing but modestly & also with unreliable growth stats.
BRIC is no more than a doodle on a piece of paper.