Conversation on Transatlanticism and Europe Blog

By Javier Zenil Peña This blog post was written for the course "Current Issues in Global and EU Affairs", which took place from February 12-April 30, 2018. The US presidential elections in 2016 had a pronounced impact in the transatlantic negotiations between the EU and the US.  As the new US president, Trump began new protectionism initiatives with the intention of prioritizing the interests of the American people. Consequently, trade negotiations such as the Transatlantic Trade Negotiations (TTIP) were halted as “US president-elect Trump campaigned furiously on a promise to scrap international trade deals, throwing the ambitious pact with the European Union into serious doubt.” (Euractiv 2016). With the uncertainty direction of the TTIP, one of the most ambitious transatlantic trade agreements, the Asian markets seemed to open their market to the EU.  Nevertheless, the EU and the US’ relations are not only important but these relations are essential for the internat...

By Alberto M. Burgos-Rivera This blog post was written for the course "Current Issues in Global and EU Affairs", which took place February 12-April 30, 2018. To many a political analyst, Trump’s tariff increase on both steel and aluminum imports, by 25 and 10 percent respectively, were to eventually come as part of President Donald Trump’s campaign promise. That promise came to take place in early March 2018. Riding on an economic nationalist platform, some of the arguments presented by President Trump were based on security concerns, arguing that domestic metal production was vital to the United States’ national security. On the other hand, President Trump argued that increased from states like China caused a worldwide decrease in steel prices, making American steel uncompetitive for the international market, hence, making the US dependent on foreign imports. Initially, the imposition of tariffs was to be applied to all countries. With President Trump’s announcement ...

By Genie Melamed This blog post was written for the course "Current Issues in Global and EU Affairs", which took place from February 12-April 30, 2018. In the past few years the issue of oil has been on the rise in the United States. Only a select few countries have oil, and many of those countries happen to be in the Middle East, where there has been a lot of conflict occurring in recent years. The United States has certain allied countries in the Middle East, and adversaries as well. This has caused quite an issue in the past few years due to the fact that oil comes from some of the adversarial countries. In 2012 the Barack Obama administration imposed oil sanctions on Iran due to Iran’s nuclear program. These sanctions were done in an effort to make Iran stop its nuclear program. In addition to these oil sanctions, there are also primary sanctions, which restrict US companies from doing business with Iran (Turak). The oil sanctions led to Iran’s oil exports decreas...