Introduction

Second, there is the impressive record on transatlantic trade. According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR, 1998a), the EU and US trade about $300 billion in goods annually (in 1996, ECU 277 billion), accounting for about 20% of world trade in goods. About 20% of this trade was trade in high technological manufactures, an indication that a large part of the Transatlantic trade is intra-industry trade. European products compete with similar U.S. products on the Transatlantic market (Commission, 1998a). Furthermore, agricultural trade alone accounted for $15 billion in 1997.'