ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the impact of European integration on North American interests in political, security and economic terms, much more modest ambition is to examine post–Cold War era transatlantic economic relations in the final stages of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Uruguay Round. The European Community (EC) jurisdiction at the time is reserves only for the member states’ external trade policy, Canadian and US commitments to European security were linked to their respective, overwhelmingly economic, diplomacy with Brussels. The EC, increasingly intent on exercising its own diplomatic role, was receptive to Ottawa’s overtures on formalizing and intensifying bilateral ties. The tangled economic, political, military and social events in Europe in forced a cautious reassessment of the respective approaches of the United States and Canada towards Europe. The vital interests of Canada, the US, and Mexico are at stake since an economically viable, non–protectionist Europe will continue to be in their individual and collective interests.
