Students of the Cold War will understand what is happening to US-EU trade relationships. When the world was divided by the Iron Curtain, the great powers felt compelled on occasion to indulge in a bit of sabre-rattling, not for the purpose of provoking the opposition, but to reassure the domestic electorate that they were poised and ready for action.
For some months after the debacle in Seattle, the world's two biggest trading blocks have observed an informal truce in their ongoing battles over everything from bananas to beef. With the multilateral trading system teetering on the brink of destruction, Brussels and Washington decided to give the battered World Trade Organisation a breathing space to regroup and repair its credibility.
The US has obviously decided the truce is over. Two weeks ago it fired off a raft of complaints to the WTO about the practices of half a dozen of its trading partners. Several of them involve the implementation of existing WTO agreements by the developing world, an unresolved agenda issue from Seattle and a political hot potato.
Then this week, Congress inserted a clause in the US-Africa trade bill, authorising $308m of US sanctions on EU exports, imposed over the banana and beef disputes, to be rotated to penalise different EU goods.
Brussels immediately hit back, saying that so-called "carousel" retaliation would fan the fires of EU-US disputes.
Most of Washington's actions are for the benefit of the US electorate. With a controversial vote on granting normal trade relations with China next week and on maintaining WTO membership later this year, the Clinton administration needs to convince voters that it is going on the offensive and winning points for US firms in Geneva.
But the danger with sabre rattling is that the temperature can quickly heat up. The last thing the WTO needs is for the EU-US trade war to go nuclear.
Cisco jitters
Hardly a week goes by without America's Cisco Systems buying another company with its turbo-charged stock.
For a short period, before the dot.bubble began to deflate, this Paulo Alto-based networker, whose products form the backbone of the internet, was the world's biggest company by stock market value. But despite Cisco's paper coming back to somewhere around the earth's outer stratosphere (the stock is 25% of its end-March high), the acquisitions go on.
Just this week we had the $800m takeover of Sweden's Qeyton Systems. Yet the shares have weakened once again over the past fortnight, helping to rekindle nervousness amongst techno-investors the world over.
The fall was sparked by Barron's, the influential Wall Street tome, which questioned Cisco's accounting treatment of its acquisitions and then simply gawped at the rating attached to the stock.
Of course, Cisco is up there in a place where few companies have ever been because, quarter after quarter, the firm produces exponential revenue and earnings growth. Its chief executive, John Chambers, cheerfully predicts that turnover will grow by at least 30% every three months for perhaps the next five years - and every quarter the real performance beats even the boss's expectations.
Naturally, a portion of this growth has been driven by acquisitions. And whatever the quality of Cisco's internal procedures to Cisco-fy the businesses it buys, there is always the risk that it will purchase something that does not agree with its digestive system. Cisco has a driven corporate culture and has positioned itself at the hub of the web in terms of profitability. But it is hard to avoid thinking that this is one corporate creation of the new economy which should just calm down.
Togetherness
In the past it would have seemed most unusual if every time a major company tried to develop a new service or move into a new area it turned to its commercial peers and suggested a multi-partner joint venture. But in internet space, as established firms scramble to avoid being in the situation where an over-capitalised start-up steals their business, it is fast becoming the norm.
Last month saw BP Amoco bring together a collection of oil sector rivals and a couple of Wall St's bulge bracket firms to set up an online procurement exchange. Then came an international airlines' procurement venture, before Thursday's news of the deal between British Airways and 10 other European airlines to create an online travel agency selling tickets direct to the public.
The latest rumoured web tie-up takes in the catering side of Granada and its rival Compass, with the two firms co-operating to cut the cost of their supplies.
But maybe these two should forget the cozy e-stuff and just get on and merge.
