The tectonic plates are shifting mid Atlantic, pulling the USA further apart from Europe, which wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. US political leaders aggrieved over the EU’s €13bn tax penalty for Apple are muttering about possible US retribution; and US corporate heads are saying there are wider ramifications from the “devastating blow” to the principle of legal certainty in Europe. Now France has called for a complete suspension of talks on the Transatlantic pact which was intended to unite Europe and North America in a vast free trade zone, accusing the US of blocking any workable compromise.
A commentator said: “The project is infinitely more than a trade deal. It is part of a strategic push to bind together the two halves of North Atlantic civilisation at a dangerous moment when the Western liberal order is under threat. The two sides are currently drifting towards divorce.”
The grass-roots, anti-globalisation activists have said that TTIP is a secret capitalist cabal which would allow the international conglomerates free rein and damage the interests of working people and national governments. [See post June 28 2016]
Intriguingly it has been said that Brexit was ‘the first primordial scream against this emerging world order’ and now the collapse of TTIP may be the second. Interesting times.
France never did sit comfortably with the USA and memories of their anti-Iraq stance and freedom-fries are still fresh. The USA 1776 Aquarius Moon is conjunct the France Pluto opposition Uranus square Mars in Scorpio – so emotionally a complete collision. The relationship chart has a few positives but those will be submerged by the hostility of a composite Mars inconjunct Pluto; and a tension-inducing, divergent-agenda Uranus Saturn conjunction. That latter is being stressed at the moment with tr Pluto opposition the composite Uranus till early December; and tr Uranus square Saturn early in 2017; with aggravation dragging on for years as tr Pluto moves on to oppose the Uranus/Saturn midpoint and then Saturn in 2019/2020.
The EU isn’t much better vis a vis the US with the EU do-or-die-determined Mars in Sagittarius square Pluto clashing with the US Uranus. That relationship chart has an emotional-shock tr Uranus conjunct the financial composite Venus exactly now, and again in 2017; with a dragging, discouraging tr Pluto sextile the composite Pluto Saturn now and in 2017; as well as a seriously disappointing, undermining tr Neptune opposition the composite Mars in 2017/2018.
So even a change of US President and indeed French and perhaps German leadership next year isn’t going to bridge the gulf.