Growing European Backlash Over Spying Threatens Billions Of Dollars In US Trade

[Purveyor]

BRUSSELS - The backlash in Europe over U.S. spying is threatening an agreement that generates tens of billions of dollars in trans-Atlantic business every year — and negotiations on another pact worth many times more.

A growing number of European officials are calling for the suspension of the "Safe Harbor" data-sharing agreement, which is vital to more than 4,200 American companies doing business in Europe, including Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon.

Revelations of the extent of U.S. spying on its European allies is also threatening to undermine one of President Barack Obama's top trans-Atlantic goals: a sweeping free-trade agreement that would add an estimated $138 billion (100 billion euros) a year to each economy's gross domestic product.

Top EU officials say the trust needed for the negotiations has been shattered.

"For ambitious and complex negotiations to succeed, there needs to be trust among the negotiating partners," EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said Wednesday in a speech at Yale University.

At the very least, the Europeans are expected to demand that the U.S. significantly strengthen its privacy laws to give consumers much more control over how companies use their personal data — and extend those rights to European citizens, maybe even giving them the right to sue American companies in U.S. courts.

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http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/the-canadian-press/131030/growing-european-backlash-over-spying-threatens-billions-dol

[Pretzel_Warrior]

1. what's our trade balance with EU? Oh yeah. that's right. They need the U.S. market

that is a load of bullshit. We consistently run a trade deficit with EU countries.

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c0003.html

[Cali_Democrat]

2. That's what I was thinking

We import more from them than they import from us. Any new agreement would exacerbate that deficit.

So while it is true that certain US companies would be hurt of there is no agreement, many EU companies would be hurt as well.

It doesn't work one way.

[Katashi_itto]

3. Short term hurt. Long term gain to many of our rivials.

This is going to get real bad.

Takes twenty years to build a reputation. Five mins to wreck it. We just had our five minutes.

[Cali_Democrat]

4. Now free trade is a good thing?

LOL.

DU is too funny sometimes.

[Katashi_itto]

5. I was never for Free trade. The invisble hand of the Free market will be

at work here. Oh the irony

I simply have zero sympathy for the tech companies. They should have fought the spying when they had the chance.

[Cali_Democrat]

6. Exactly. I'll be happy is the EU-US "free trade" agreement falls through

If this surveillance issue speeds that along, so be it.

[FarCenter]

7. Even better if they dissolve NATO

Bring the US armed forces home. WW II is over. The Cold War is over.