ABSTRACT
The relationship between the United States and the ancestor of the European Union (EU), i.e. the ‘Common Market,’1 goes back to the ‘Kennedy Round’ of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations in the early 1960s. The first generation of US-EU relations constituted a narrow, albeit vibrant, set of bilateral ties during the first phases of European integration. A new dynamic is, however, materializing with China’s recent emergence and growing importance on the international scene. This is true for ‘bilateral’ ties as well as for the more settled, multifaceted relationship between the United States and the EU. While China has the attraction and freshness of a new partner in global political and economic relations, it cannot avoid intermittently serving as an irritant for the ‘old couple’ (Shambaugh, 2005a).
