As transatlantic rivalry in regional economic integration focusses on making the Americas and the Asia Pacific region as US sphere of influence, and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean a zone of preference for the EU, rival regulatory rules and policies may pose a major challenge to transatlantic relations and to the further development of the multilateral trade order, as analysed by economists and political scientists from Europe, the Americas, Japan and Australia.
The economic crises in East Asia has reemphasizes the preement positions of the United States and the European Union in international economic relations. As the glabal econom's key players, both have a leading role in elaborating the regulatory framework of globalisation. This task can only be pursued jointly. But do the U.S. and the EU assume this common responsibility for the global economic order? In the 1990s, both actors have made regional economic integration a focus of their foreign economic policy – the U.S. with regard to APEC, to the NAFTA and the Free Trade Area of the Americas, the EU by extending its regional integration policy to Central and Eastern European as well as Mediterranean countries. To the extent that these policies are creating incompatible regulatory regimes, there is the danger of emerging rival regional zones of influence.
Economists and political experts from America, Europe, Japan and Australia analyse these policies from different regional and regulatory policy aspects and assess theie impact on the multilateral trade order as well as on transatlantic relations. Resulting from a project sponsored by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the volume thus offers a timely and comprehensive presentation of the highly sensitive intersection between regionalism, international regulatory policies and transatlantic economic rivalry.