Vanguardismo ambiental e protecionismo comercial na União Europeia e nos Estados Unidos da América

Due to the growing importance of environmental policies in the United States of America and the European Union, including the impact on international trade, the authors propose a comparative analysis of the rules and institutions that govern the environmental issue in these two actors. After considering the concept of power in terms of environment and trade, the authors identify the impact of EU and US environmental measures on the international trading system. Subsequently, the text analyzes the two policies separately, identifying institutions and environmental rules, highlighting changes arising from the set of environmental measures recently announced by both. The article concludes that, despite important differences, especially in the way the two environmental policies are built internally, both have important similarities in the intentional connection between foreign trade and the environment, a characteristic exemplified in the simultaneity of the proposed border carbon tax, whose effects are uncertain for the environment and predictable for traditional industrial sectors in both markets.