British Prime Minister David Cameron jetted in to the United States at the weekend to meet with President Obama, visit FBI headquarters and travel to Boston to see the terror bombing site. Americans are not impressed as there seems to be far more interest in Prince Harry’s visit to Colorado Springs for the Warrior Games.
Citizens on both sides of ‘the pond’ though should be concerned. It’s a serious proposal that would effectively bring a merger between the EU and NAFTA. Given that the EU started as the EEC (or ‘The Common Market’ as it was popularly known) and has become a governmental behemoth, the thought of NAFTA formally making a trade agreement with the EU beckons to a trans-Atlantic super-state a decade or two down the road.
True liberal disciples like Obama relish the thought and in David Cameron the President has a progressive soul-mate. The two definitely have differing ideas about how economies work but the personal affection between them is evident. Obama can be seen in many still pictures with a hand on the shoulder of Cameron or an admiring look, something he never afforded to former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Ostensibly there will be talks between the two about the situation in Syria with Cameron having just met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The P.M. was buoyed by the meeting but it seems hard to imagine that anything substantial can be achieved in the situation barring either Putin putting on the gloves (unlikely) or Obama sending in the Marines (even less likely).
But its trade that brings Cameron to the eastern seaboard. Writing in the Wall Street Journal he said “Trade is not a zero sum game where one nation's success is another's failure. Trade makes the cake bigger so everyone can benefit. Take the free trade area between Europe and the US on which we hope to launch negotiations when President Obama is in Northern Ireland for the G8 next month. This deal could add as much as £10bn to the British economy and £63bn to US GDP. But the rest of the world would benefit too, with gains that could generate 100bn euros worldwide.”
His comments on trade are accurate though the numbers may be speculative. When a Brit says ‘could add as much’ it infers the best case scenario which is speculative to begin with. Obama is not a believer in ‘the cake gets bigger’ theory but it’s not important to him. For the President, the concept of the world uniting is what counts and all that capitalist stuff can be regulated later.
Cameron also wrote on global tax-evasion saying “We must fight the scourge of tax evasion by promoting a new global standard for automatic information exchange between tax authorities. We must lift the veil of secrecy that too often lets corrupt corporations and officials in some countries run rings around the law.”
This is the P.M. seeing government as the solution to international problems by requiring multi-national transparency. The problem is that only the good guys will go along with the programme sensibly, while everybody else tries to take advantage of the system. It’s a bit like welfare fraud or the way the EU works.
Obama will happily embrace this but his objectives are different to Cameron’s. Again, the President sees an opportunity to increase regulation which accomplishes his goal of trans-national governance. Whereas Cameron sees a problem right in front of him and strategizes a solution, Obama sees a bigger picture in that a solution to one problem can be transcended into an all-encompassing oversight.
But America remains unaware this is transpiring and the British remain oblivious to the potential consequences. On CNN International Cameron’s visit to the US was a one liner 5 minutes into the 8am hour as part of a story on Syria. Nobody in America is watching CNN International but they are watching the Fox News Channel in increasing numbers.
So what do we get from ‘Fox and Friends’ in the 8am headlines – the Benghazi cover-up, IRS targets the tea-party, New Orleans shooting, some dance story, OJ wants out of prison, will the morning-after pill remain legal, and late-night TV talk show changes. In the news business some believe if you give the audience 7 stories they think they’ve heard it all. Some of these things are important, but other plans are flying under the radar, and the public thinks they are informed.
The White House schedule today says “The Prime Minister's visit will highlight the fundamental importance of the U.S.-UK relationship, through which together we address a broad range of shared global and regional security concerns,” and that will be the narrative – that problems are being addressed and solutions being found – except that in reality government is being created and problems are forming.
