A Political and Economic Dictionary of Western Europe, First Edition
United States of America (USA)
The United States of America (USA) is one of Western Europe’s closest allies. With the Marshall Plan the USA supported the economic reconstruction of Western Europe following the Second World War; it provided military support during and after the Cold War through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; and it supported the process of European integration. The USA is the European Union’s (EU) main trading partner (and vice versa) and principal economic competitor. The EU has a larger population and domestic market than the USA, but EU per caput gross domestic product (GDP) is lower and unemployment is higher.
GNP: US $9,780,800m. (2001); GNP per caput: $34,280 (2001); GNP at PPP: $9,781,000m. (2001); GNP per caput at PPP: $34,280 (2001); GDP: $10,065,265m. (2001); exports: $998,030m. (2001); imports: $1,356,320m. (2001); currency: US dollar; unemployment: 5.8% (2002).
The USA emerged in the second half of the 20th century as the world’s largest economy and military power. Its economic strength is founded on the technologically advanced manufacture of computers and electrical machinery, vehicles, military equipment and aircraft, chemical products and food and livestock. It is a liberal economy; there is little state intervention in or regulation of the market, and a residual, under-funded welfare state. As a consequence, growing national wealth has been unequally distributed, and this has been evident since the mid-1970s in a persistent growing gap between rich and poor in terms of income and labour-market positions.
Strong and stable economic performance in the mid-to-late 1990s stalled in 2001 around 11 September, but recovered gradually from 2002. In this period the budget shifted from large surpluses to a deficit that was equivalent to 4.2% of GDP. This can be accounted for by large tax cuts that reduced tax revenues, a growth in government spending on domestic policies, homeland security and military campaigns.
Area: 9,629,000sq km; capital: Washington, DC; population: 285m. (2001).
The USA was founded as a federal state by the Constitution drafted in 1787 and effective from 1789. There is a strong separation of power both at federal level and between the federal government and administrations of the 50 states. At federal level legislative powers are vested with the bicameral Congress, which consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate is composed of 100 senators who represent their state at federal level. Two members are elected from each state by popular vote to serve six-year terms and one-third of senators are renewed every two years. The House of Representatives is made up of 435 congressmen/women who are directly elected from districts within individual states by popular vote to serve two-year terms. Representation in the House of Representatives is apportioned by population, but each state has at least one representative. Both Houses are currently dominated by the Republican Party.
Executive power lies with the President of the USA who is both head of state and head of government. The President and his Vice-President are elected together for a four-year term by an electoral college made up of electors from the states. In the electoral college, a state has one vote per senator (always two) and per congressman/ woman (the number of which varies according to the size of a state’s population). There are 538 electors in the college, and a presidential candidate requires 270 votes for victory. At the most recent elections, held on 2 November 2004, the Republican George W.Bush was elected for a second term of office, obtaining 286 college votes (and 51% of the popular vote) compared to 252 (48%) for his Democrat challenger, John Kerry. Bush first became President in 2000 when he won 271 electoral college votes compared to 266 for Al Gore. However, Bush did not win the popular vote, gaining just 47.87% compared with Gore’s 48.38%. The winning electoral college votes came from Florida’s 25 votes; in that state Bush had won the popular vote by a narrow majority of 537 of 5,950,000 votes cast.
Under President George W.Bush the USA has sought to establish and strengthen its position as a superpower. Following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 the USA staged a series of pre-emptive military strikes on so-called ‘rogue states’ that were believed to have links with terrorists or to be developing weapons of mass destruction. US-led campaigns brought down the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001 and the regime of Saddam Hussain in Iraq in 2003. The growth of the USA in economic and military terms has divided Western Europe between those states that wish to strengthen the transatlantic relationship (the United Kingdom, Spain until 2004) and those that would prefer the EU to pursue a security agenda independent of the USA (France and Germany). The EU-US relationship is none the less fostered by regular (annual) presidential summits, and the New Transatlantic Agenda of 1995, which seeks to strengthen political and economic links and to promote a combined agenda in the global community.
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