Is Trans-Pacific Partnership a challenge for transatlantic relations? : a comparative analysis of TPP and TTIP in the context of the US global role

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) are possibly the largest free-trade areas in the world. Both initiatives, if ever realized (as TPP was, hopefully temporarily, abandoned by Donald Trump in January 2017), can also change the US position in the international system, reinforcing the United States as a crucial rule-setter, hence supporting the dominant American role in global IR despite its relatively decreasing power. Therefore both the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership may be analyzed as either multilateral institutions-on the basis of functional or neofunctional theories-or as tools of American foreign policy, where both neoliberal, and neorealist theories may be referenced (the latter theories will not be analyzed in this chapter, however). Keeping in mind the scope of the agreements analyzed, interregionalism theories will be applied.