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Of course the EU did not agree to it. The EU didn't exist at the time the transatlantic alliance was formed.
Partially as a result, the EU inherited the economic aspects of it and not the strategic, and as such paid less concern to the areas outside its perview (the military/geopoligical strategic considerations), which was less a bug and more of a feature for some of the EU's key leaders (Germany but especially France, who has approached the EU as a way to try and decrease American influence and increase French influence over the continent).
This would be an inept reading of the position previously provided, and a worse description of the strategic bargain previously described, unless you believe the European NATO contribution in the Cold War amounted to champaign.
And which are not an equivalent portion of the Eruopean market, and which further demonstrates that average tariff barriers are still a meaningless number, for the reasons demonstrated.
That sounds like the argument of someone who would like to preserve preferential tariffs, after attempting to quibble that they existed and/or their degree of relevance while existing in a status quo of substantial tariff walls.
This does not sound like a credible argument to an incoming administration who believes that preferential tariffs make trade deficits worse, and notes that you are making your argument from behind substantial tariff walls.
As it may well be, but both the American trade deficit and the American garrisons in Europe are non-trivial expenses and have been argued to be clustfucks in their own right.
The point that political arguments are overturned over time does not mean that they are not won or loss, merely that their victories are transitory. Take pride in your cultural accomplishments- the Europeans are shaping the Americans, rather than the other way around.
And thus you and Donald Trump have concurred that the baseline alternative to a negotiated agreement is preferable to both the status quo and any of your proposed alternatives, with no blackmail required.
I don’t think the EU-US tariffs are preferrential, and I’m in favour of free trade, so I think the tariff on american cars should be 0%. The discussion on whether the tariffs are truly equal in a cosmic sense is essentially : ‘Yes, I have this special tariff(or subvention) on Y, but what about your special tariff on X ?’ ad infinitam. You think the tariffs are preferrential because when you cut a pie in two and give it to brothers, they will each insist they got the smaller piece.
I've largely said what I wanted to say. I’ll recap our points of disagreement (You think / I don’t think):
trade deficits harm a country
deficit countries subsidize surplus countries
trade deficits are the result of unequal tariffs
Therefore the tariffs with europe and china are preferrential, unequal and unfair to the US
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