United States and outlined the “European Magna
Carta” in the wake of the Cold War. In 1993, Clinton
decided to enlarge NATO to include former Warsaw
Pact nations. By the end of the decade, NATO ex-
tended membership to Poland, Hungary, and the
Czech Republic. In the second half of the decade,
NATO’s primary focus was on the Balkans. In addi-
tion to U.S. forces, Canada sent twelve hundred
troops to Bosnia and thirteen hundred to Kosovo. In
1996, the United States, interested in the reelection
of Boris Yeltsin as president of Russia, sent American
political and media experts to help his campaign.
Elsewhere, the American philanthropist George
Soros donated hundreds of millions of dollars to fos-
ter institutions of democracy in Eastern Europe.
Although Madeleine Albright, secretary of state
under Clinton, called the United States an indis-
pensable power for Europe, the decade witnessed a
growing resentment of American power, including
the Americanization of much of European culture.
On some issues, such as social welfare and the death
penalty, Europeans had different values than Ameri-
cans. In the Kosovo War, the United States did not
cooperate with its European allies on many deci-
sions. Some Europeans objected to the patronizing
attitude of Washington and wished for more of a
partnership with the United States. The Clinton
administration wanted to change its European pol-
icy from one that had traditionally been based
on one bloc facing the other to a policy encouraging
an integrated Europe in politics, economics, and
society.
In the economic areas, the United States and the
European Commonwealth had serious disagree-
ments over the importing of American agricultural
produce to the Continent, engaging in tariff wars
and restrictions throughout the decade, despite
some economists’ fears of a threat to the dollar.
Washington welcomed and supported the introduc-
tion of the Euro in 1999 as a universal European cur-
rency. U.S. laws issued sanctions on some areas of
trade with countries like Cuba, Libya, and Iran, sanc-
tions that affected European companies, although
Clinton waived some of the restrictions. The Trans-
atlantic Declaration of November 1990 provided for
a series of biennial meetings to discuss a variety of
problems, from trade to the Balkan crisis.
Impact The post-Cold War changes in Eastern Eu-
rope redefined the basic relationship between
North America and Europe. American and Cana-
dian troops became involved in wars in the Balkans,
the role of NATO fundamentally altered, and new
political and economic strains occurred among the
traditional allies.Subsequent Events The attacks on the World
Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and the subse-
quent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan further changed
the relationship between North America and Eu-
rope as the various countries on the Continent
adopted different attitudes to American foreign
policy.Further Reading
Anania, Giovanni, Colin A. Carter, and Alex F.
McCalla, eds. Agricultural Trade Conflicts and
GATT: New Dimensions in U.S.-European Agricul-
tural Trade Relations.Boulder, Colo.: Westview
Press, 1994. A collection of articles from a 1993
conference on North American-European agri-
cultural trade relations.
Brzezinski, Zbigniew.Second Chance: Three Presidents
and the Crisis of American Superpower.New York: Ba-
sic Books, 2007. An assessment of the foreign pol-
icy of presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton,
and George W. Bush by President Jimmy Carter’s
national security adviser.
Fabbrini, Sergio, ed.The United States Contested: Amer-
ican Unilateralism and European Discontent.New
York: Routledge, 2006. Leading American and
European experts discuss the reasons for conflict
between the United States and Europe at the end
of the twentieth century and the beginning of the
twenty-first. The authors conclude that American
conservatism and nationalism grew while Euro-
pean nationalism waned.
Leslie, Peter.The Maastricht Model: A Canadian Per-
spective on the European Union.Kingston, Ont.: In-
stitute of Intergovernmental Relations, Queens
University, 1996. An examination of Canada’s re-
lationship to unified Europe.
Frederick B. Char ySee also Albright, Madeleine; Bosnia conflict;
Bush, George H. W.; Canada and the British Com-
monwealth; Clinton, Bill; Cold War, end of; Dayton
Accords; Foreign policy of Canada; Foreign policy of
the United States; Global warming debate; Gulf War;
Kosovo conflict; Russia and North America.The Nineties in America Europe and North America 317