Quel che resta del partenariato strategico. Prospettive frustrate e tensioni riemergenti nei rapporti fra Unione Europea e Stati Uniti all’ombra della paralisi del TTIP

Transatlantic relations have long been serving as the ultimate ‘supply’ of strategic contents in the EU’s external action, if not the EU politics as such. The Strategic Partnership (SP) may be regarded as one of the latest expressions of this aspect of the EU-US connection. The instrument, aimed at boosting the EU’s actorness and attuning it to the current configuration of the international system, has largely been dismissed as ineffective and inconsistent when applied to bilateral relations with (emerging) powers – with the significant exception of its transatlantic realization, embodied in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Unlike others, this partnership hinged on some of the EU’s ‘strongest suits’, emphasizing its identity and agenda as a ‘market power’ – both in a ‘material’ and a ‘normative’ perspective. In doing so, the TTIP reaffirmed and further articulated the tenet of economic openness as a pivotal element of the international order endorsed by the two parties. That being so, the uncertain fate looming over the SP since the current US administration took office, far from being just another fiasco of the EU’s wishful foreign policy, may well be the harbinger of much more momentous changes in the transatlantic and international orders.