The European Union and the United States: Lessons Learned from Shared Prosperity and Shared Crises

The Euro‐Atlantic economy has a very long history. What generations of
American economic policymakers learned was that all forms of
protectionism, whether they are tariffs, quotas, currency controls, or other
non‐tariff barriers were all prejudicial to American prosperity. Furthermore,
as the post‐World War I Dawes and Young Plans showed, and the post‐
World War II Marshall Plan demonstrated, Americans were prepared to
move capital in large doses to fragile post‐war European economies in
order to restart shared transatlantic prosperity. At the same time,
Americans exported their regulatory institutions and economic recovery
approaches to Europe, and elsewhere. American solutions were adopted by
Europeans, because Europe and the United States had become a single
economy – which is why American foreign policy has always fundamentally
supported European integration.