Trade, Jobs, and Rules: How Transatlantic Commerce Affects Companies and Citizens

“Eliasson takes a unique approach to understanding US-European trade relations. Rather than focus on the academic side of transatlantic trade and economic relations, though there is some of that, he personalizes the material in ways the average consumer on either side of the Atlantic can understand by integrating goods, services, investment, and regulation that most people can relate to. In doing so, Eliasson makes the political and economic experiences more relatable for the lay reader. This book is very helpful in trying to understand the new directions of US-European trade relations in recent years.” (Dr. Terrence Guay, Penn State University)

This book tells the story of how transatlantic trade touches the lives of Americans and Europeans, using real-world examples and straightforward explanations of economic ideas and concepts. At a time when global trade is in upheaval, and most headlines focus on the United States and China, this book looks at how the largest economic relationship, that between the US and Europe, affects the lives of American and European citizens. The story is told without linguistic acrobatics or economic formulas, instead explaining the importance and relevance of transatlantic trade and investments through familiar goods and services, such as food, cars, airplanes, finance, and online shopping platforms. Small Pennsylvanian towns thrive thanks to European companies’ investments; millions of European jobs in tech, tourism, manufacturing, renewables, and other sectors are the result of American firms investing more in Europe than anywhere else in the world. It also incorporates jargon-free explanations of numerous economic ideas and arguments, such as tariffs, mutual recognition, trade deficits, and various types of services trade, into examples from transatlantic economic relations. After discussing the many ways in which the things we use daily are the result of transatlantic economic relations, the text also shows that lingering regulatory differences can limit consumer choice and increase prices. The story then shifts to the turbulent year of 2025, illustrating how trade wars, tariffs, and agreements addressing goods, services, and money crossing the Atlantic impact everyday citizens and consumers.

Johan Eliasson is Professor at East Stroudsburg University and Research Affiliate at the European Foreign Policy Observatory in Barcelona. He is the author of America’s Perceptions of Europe (2010), and Civil Society, Rhetoric of Resistance, and Transatlantic Trade (with Patricia Garcia-Duran, 2019).