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

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.

I am a professor at East Stroudsburg University and a research affiliate at the European Foreign Policy Observatory in Barcelona. I have authored two books and two dozen articles and book chapters on various aspects of transatlantic relations and EU trade policy. The books include America’s Perceptions of Europe (2010, Palgrave MacMillan), which addresses lingering misperceptions about European society and governments, and Civil Society, Rhetoric of Resistance, and Transatlantic Trade (with Patricia Garcia-Duran, 2019, Palgrave Pivot), which analyzes contentious transatlantic trade negotiations. Outside the US, I have studied in Sweden, Ireland, and the UK; conducted research in Belgium, Spain, and Germany, and before entering academia, I worked for an international corporation in Sweden.