The transatlantic relationship
The US, Canada and Europe are long-time economic and security partners. In the wake of the economic depression and the destruction of two world wars, Western leaders on both sides of the Atlantic built international institutions to promote and deepen free trade and to navigate economic and diplomatic crises. Security alliances were designed to deter aggressors and reassure members that they need not arm themselves, thus preventing regional military competition from spiralling. In 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed by 12 countries in North America and Western Europe. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO’s membership would later expand to encompass countries in Eastern Europe. Transatlantic cooperation created global governance regimes in international trade, finance and development: for example, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (later the World Trade Organization, or WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF, traditionally headed by Europe) and the World Bank (headed by the US).3 Transatlantic partners were central in creating various human rights treaties and conventions, such as the Treaty on Genocide, the Committee Against Torture, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. To be sure, the US and its partners promoted liberal goals unevenly, sometimes setting them aside to pursue other national interests.4 Nevertheless, the transatlantic partners used these institutions to advance a broadly liberal agenda: to stabilize international politics by spreading support for free markets, democracy and human rights.
3 Ikenberry, J. (2012), Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; also Irwin, D., Mavroidis, P. and Sykes, A. (2008), The Genesis of the GATT, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
4 Porter, P. (2018), ‘A World Imagined: Nostalgia and Liberal Order’, CATO Institute, Policy Analysis No. 843, https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/world-imagined-nostalgia-liberal-order (accessed 2 May 2019).